Page 52 of The Longing

“Warden,” Fenrother rasps.

“Fenrother,” the centaur responds with a brief, almost imperceivable dip of his head. “Your presence here is…unusual.”

“You mean I used to come here for food and I am no longer allowed,” Fenrother says starkly.

“In your Wyrm form, yes.” The centaur inclines his head and studies Fenrother, almost with the same interest as Fenrother studied me. “But then you are rarely in your present form, here or in the Night Lands.”

At the mention of this place, Fenrother lifts his lips, exposing his fangs. “I thought you were remaining there, per your orders,” he rasps.

“My orders changed. I did not desert my post.” The centaur growls.

“Neither did I. My work was completed.” Fenrother glares at him.

The centaur does not wilt. Instead he huffs out a hot, horsey breath. Which is when he spots me.

“Your work was completed?” He cranes his neck around Fenrother to get a better look in my direction.

Fenrother growls out loud, causing any inhabitants of the market to make a very swift exit from our local area.

“Do not,” he says, his voice low and menacing, “look at my mate.”

“You have a mate?” The centaur brays, his front feet stamping, sparks flying from his hooves. “You?”

Fenrother extends his wings further, knocking into one of the stalls. The stall-holder exclaims, and as if he’s remembered where he is, Fenrother shrinks them back, a little.

“I have a mate.”

The centaur leans to one side in order to get a better view of me.

“Hello, mate of Fenrother. I am Warden,” he says, dipping one of his front legs to execute a stately bow.

“Alice.” I push under Fenrother’s wing, and he instantly clamps an arm over my chest, pulling me up against his hard body, tensed to the point of vibration.

“Alice is mine,” he says, his words still a growl.

“She is,” Warden replies. “I am sure she will knock off your rough edges. Protect her well, Lambton Wyrm.”

He spins on the spot, his huge withers only just missing various stalls, and trots away.

“Friend?” I ask Fenrother.

“I have no friends. We fought in the Night Lands.”

“And he thinks you deserted?”

“He is wrong.”

Fenrother stares after Warden for a while until the centaur disappears.

“He lost a mate,” Fenrother says. “I heard him talk of her. It’s probably the one reason he didn’t attempt to separate my head from my body.”

“Could he have done that?” My heart is seized by something with hooks and claws, buried deep and painful.

A fear, for my monster.

“No,” Fenrother says. “No creature can kill me.”

ALICE

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