Talon exhaled, nodding. “Listen, we tell nobody about this,” he said. “But I really should get to bed. I’m sharing a room with Zane, and I don’t want him getting suspicious.” Emmeric raised his brow, feeling talked out. “Not like that, you jerk. They only had two rooms, and he intimidates the twins. Plus, he had a decidedly female barmaid up there not an hour ago.”
Talon left after another long, tight hug. Once he was gone, Emmeric downed the rest of his drink.
Zane
Zane was dozing when he heard thesnickof the door closing. He shot up, grabbing the dagger he’d kept under his pillow, only to find the intruder was Talon.Right. He wasn’t used to sharing a room. Talon stared at him with a brow raised, and his blue eyes flicked down. Only briefly, but Zane caught it. And that was when he realized he was still naked.
“Sorry,” Zane said, trying to cover himself.
Talon waved him off. “Don’t worry about me. I just didn’t realize you sleep in the nude.”
“I don’t usually…” said Zane, finding his breeches and scrambling to put them on. Scanning the floor, his traitorous shirt was nowhere to be found.
“I also didn’t realize you were this…fit. I took you for more of a bookworm.”
Zane couldn’t tell if he was insulting him. “I lead you on raids, do I not?” he asked sharply.
“You do,” Talon placated. “But, this”—he gestured at Zane’s body—“is more than your mandatory training lessons.”
Zane shrugged. “I do more in my chambers when I don’t want to run into anybody. And if people find me bookish, I’m fine with that.”
“Nothing wrong with books,” Talon agreed. The redhead began tying up his hair into a bun and undressing for bed. Zane averted his gaze. Talon chuckled. “You may not sleep nude, but I do. I’ll leave my undershorts on though. For you.” Zane turned back, catching him winking mischievously. Zane couldn’t help but notice Talon was also…what word did he use? Fit. There was an intricate blue tattoo taking up his entire left arm—it appeared to be a dragon. Its head started at his shoulder and the body snaked its way down and around his arm, finally ending with its tail on his hand. The dragon’s mouth was open in a roar. Talon sat on the bed with a smirk.
“Oh, by the way,” Talon said, “one of your personal guards, Emmeric, missed the wagon after the raid. Guess the blast knocked him out, but he’s here, on his way home. I just ran into him in the hallway. I figure he can join up?” Try as he might, Zane could not place Emmeric. “You have no idea who that is, do you?” Talon asked, grinning.
Embarrassed, Zane shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, again. “I didn’t remember any of your names until today. I feel like an ass.”
“You’re not an ass,” Talon said brightly. And it was Zane’s turn to raise his eyebrow. “You, a crown prince, have apologized to me, a lowly guard, twice in only a handful of minutes. That’s not something an ass would do.” Until Talon had spoken the words out loud, Zane hadn’t realized how much he’d needed somebody to see him as a person. Not as what he represented, not as an extension of his father… It felt amazing.
Talon lay back in his bed, blowing out the candle near him. Zane did the same. He thought it was the end of their conversation, but Talon quietly said, “Zane?”
“Yeah?” And, oh, he could get used to people calling him by only his first name.
“Are you lonely?” Talon asked, softly.
“What?” Zane jerked his head towards the shadowy figure laying on the bed not five feet from him—nobody had ever asked him this before. Nobody had cared enough.
“Are youlonely?” he repeated.
Zane thought on it for a second. “I prefer being by myself.”
“Sure, but that’s not what I asked. Do you have someone you can talk to? Someone you trust implicitly?”
He used to. And look where that got him. But instead of voicing that aloud, he said, “No.”
There was a long pause. Zane felt like he was holding his breath, waiting for Talon to respond. He didn’t know what he wanted him to say, or if he wanted to him to say anything at all. So quietly he could barely hear him, Talon said, “You can talk to me.”
Zane fell asleep with those five comforting words circling in his head.
Chapter 14
Iyana
Iyana and Altair made it out of the Aula Pass the day after the ‘hot springs incident,’ as Iyana was calling it. Never out loud, though. Altair would tease her mercilessly. The rest of their journey through the mountains was uneventful, although they could hear the wolves baying in the distance. Altair said the wolves should no longer pose a threat to them after he’d proven to be too much of a hassle for a meal. Legend said the wolves in the Forgotten Mountains were once shifters who had stayed in their animal form too long, eventually becoming more animal than human, and mating with natural wolves. That’s why there was a glint of anthropomorphic intelligence in their eyes. The myth made Iyana shiver despite the warming temperatures as they descended the mountains. She asked if the story was true, and Altair shrugged, saying she’d need to ask a shifter.
As soon as Iyana’s feet reached ground not covered in snow, she wanted to remove her boots, but the pass quickly became shale, and she didn’t want to be picking rocks out of the bottom of her feet. They didn’t talk much while walking down the mountain. Honestly, she was too focused on not slipping and falling off a cliff to strike up a conversation. Altair didn’t either. It allowed Iyana, though, to completely overthink their interaction the night before, finally reaching the conclusion that there was absolutely no way he wanted her. A human. He was simply using her body’s physical response to help her connect with her magic, that was all. It was as good of an explanation she could think of.
However, once they reached flat land again, they were walking side-by-side in an uncomfortable silence—tension rippling between them. Iyana had ripped her shoesoff and delighted in the novel sensation of her toes in the grass, to which Altair had given an exasperated shake of his head. She didn’t know how to bring up the ‘incident’ or if sheshouldmention it. How would that conversation go?Hey, so, what was up with last night? We gonna do that again, or what?She would hate to be rejected, and then be forced to live with that rejection hanging over her head for the rest of the trip. Apparently, it was four days on foot to the closest town that Altair had deemed as safe, and then another three days from there to Athusia.
