Page 17 of Connor and the Dragons

“Slightly. The dragon wants out, but I’m doing everything I can to fight it.”

“Did you try to toast the cheese?” Connor asked, staring at the tray.

“I mean, don’t YOU love melted cheese?” Oallian asked. “Everyone does.”

Connor crossed the room without any hurry at all. He took the water pitcher off the breakfast tray in passing, put out the collar with a precise splash, and then set his hand flat on the back of Oallian’s neck and left it there.

“Eyes on me. Breathe. In for four.” His voice had gone level and low, the sort of voice that assumes obedience so completely that obedience arrives to meet it. “You’re not in trouble. We’re going to sit here and settle into your human form. Vyranthos is going to stand the fuck down, because you’re mine now and I can’t have you accidentally setting this palace on fire.”

And the tail disappeared, leaving ripped trousers in its wake. The smoke thinned. Oallian’s shoulders dropped under Connor’s hand, and his eyes had gone soft and fixed on Connor’s face like the man was the last warm thing in the world. The urge to be touched the way Connor was touching Oallian came on strong and unexpected. It hit me sideways, and my magic leaked out of me until the floor was covered in frost.

I reminded myself that Connor was just pretending, just playing a game that kept Oallian under control, but no amount of reminders could make me want it less.

“I have an errand,” I said, clearing my throat. “You will keep him under control?”

Connor sighed, then nodded. “I will. Oh and Lord Frost?”

I turned back around, to catch him looking at the frost that was spreading across the floor.

“Are you okay?”

“Call me Kessrin,” I said, then clamped my mouth shut, trying not to notice the way Oallian’s eyes had lit up.

“Is that your name, Kessrin?” Connor asked.

“It is one of my names,” I said briskly. “And, as Oallian has so kindly put it, my formal name, Frostvael Shimmerlight, is, well, quite…”

“Obvious,” Oallian supplied, grinning big. “Oh, we are going to have so much fun!”

“Well then, Kess, I look forward to completing this mission with you.”

I ignored him, ignored the nickname, which my mother would have called a mortal offense, and rushed out of the room. I had locked both doors behind me and tucked both keys into my belt, procedure be damned, before I realized my boots had frosted over. I kicked off the ice, hoping it hadn’t cracked the leather, as these were my favorites. And I jogged down the stairs like I could run from the frost, which I couldn’t.

I found Delsy in her study with the map out where we’d marked Emberrick’s sightings, some crossed out now that we’d traced them back to Oallian and not his brother, which was her whole argument in miniature. Not one of her searchers could tell one fire dragon from the other.

Oallian had looked at that map exactly once, on his second day here, and put a finger on the third sighting and said it was a nesting site and it was the wrong shape for his brother. She had crossed it out that afternoon.

“You have a plan?” she asked.

I nodded. “We need to take Connor to Sky and Moerrven. He has the dragon under control, and the dragon is responding well to him.”

“But they have not bonded,” Delsy said.

“Pip says that danger and a shared mission will help them bond. And his control over the dragon is exquisite.” Perhaps that wasn’t the right word, too loaded, too sensual, but I couldn’t take it back now. “And if we can keep Connor happy, we can ask Connor for a favor in return.”

“If Liminia takes them,” she said, “the crown cannot know their association with us. You know the things we’ve given up for peace.” There was a slight crack in her voice that brought me back to that day, the day she’d had to make a choice between saving her country from ruin and chasing her missing husband.

“I understand.”

“And I need someone trusted there with them.” She pressed her hands flat on the map. “I cannot afford to lose you, but I cannot trust anyone else with a dragon.”

“Delsy,” I started.

“Do not argue. You have my authorization, but you will accompany them. And you will absolutely not get yourself killed or captured, because I do not know if I will survive without my best friend.”

“You’re sure?”

“You knew I would be. Otherwise, why would you be building two baskets?” She smiled, her eyebrows lifting. “Did you think I didn’t know about that.”