“Well, the joke is on them, isn’t’ it?” He gave me an amused look. “Because here you are.”
“Yes, but you and I both know I can never let anyone know I’m a woman,” I told him, frowning. “If anyone ever found out, I’d be kicked out just like Elleena was. And who knows what would happen to L’eesha?”
The thought made me shiver—I couldn’t lose my dragon! I would rather die.
“You’re right,” Ryse admitted with a sigh. “But it’s too bad the Academy has become so hidebound and set in its ways. There was more to the Golden Queen riders than just directing the Wings in the Madling Wars, you know.”
“There was?” I flipped carefully through the old journal. “What else?”
“Well, supposedly there was healing in the hands of a Queen Rider. There’s even an account of her healing a Madling bite in there.” Ryse nodded at the journal in my hands.
“What? But no one can heal a Madling bite!” I protested. “All the texts agree—once you get bitten, you’ll go mad and eventually die—there’s no way around it. The only question is whether you’ll spread the madness to anyone else before you go.”
The thought of that made me feel cold all over. That was my secret fear—that my father really had been bitten by a Madling, as he had claimed, and had decided to do away with himself before he could infect Auren or me.
If that’s the case, then it’s your fault he died, whispered a little voice in my head that I tried desperately to silence.
“I’m not sure, but it sounded to me like she somehow channeled the power of her dragon to heal the bite.” Ryse sounded thoughtful. “It could be a lie, I guess, but why would she lie in her own journal?”
“And why did she hide it?” I said. “Do you think she wanted to leave a record behind to let people know what had happened? Where the Queens went?”
“Possibly.” He nodded. “The books I found it behind were in the farthest part of the library archives and hadn’t been moved in years. They were covered in dust.” He sighed. “What I was actually looking for was another dictionary. I’m so close to getting this prophesy translated.”
He pointed to the book written in the Root Tongue that had the pictures of the Golden Queens and the Madlings in the margins.
“So that’s what you think it is—a prophecy?” I asked, frowning.
“Possibly. Or a warning. I know it starts with a word that seems to translate to ‘Beware’ and then there’s a part about not forgetting the past lest it cloud the future or something like that.” He shook his head in frustration. “I wish I could figure it out. I feel like it’s important, somehow, but I don’t know why.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
I went over to where he was sitting at the desk and wrapped my arms around his neck. Ryse turned to face me, and I pulled his head against my breasts, with his face buried between them.
He sighed happily and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Mmm, you always know how to make me happy.”
I laughed.
“If this is all it takes, you’re pretty easy to please.”
Ryse looked up at me, his golden eyes full of affection.
“All it takes is you, little one. I’m so glad you’re a woman and not a man.”
That made me laugh again but I sobered after a moment.
“Would you have not loved me if I had turned out to be a man?”
“No, of course not.” He looked serious. “I fell in love with you before I was sure what you were. And I fell in love with you—not your body. But it would be kind of awkward to have sex with another man, since I really don’t find the male form attractive at all.”
“But would you?” I asked, nudging him with my breasts. I liked the way his scratchy jaw felt against my soft skin. “I mean, would you have sex with another man?”
“Only if that man was you,” he said firmly. “But it’s much nicer that you’re a woman—I love how curvy you are.” His hands roamed up and down my waist and hips. “And how good you taste…” And he pulled open my nightshirt to take one of my nipples into his mouth.
“Oh, Ryse!” I exclaimed breathlessly but didn’t try to stop him as he sucked my tight peak deep into his hot mouth.
He held my eyes with his as he sucked first one nipple and then the other and by the time he finally let the second peak slip from his lips, I was feeling extremely hot and wet between my legs.
