Page 11 of Deven and the Dragon
Andrei only leveled him with a look, and although Fiora sputtered and protested, he found himself going down the stairs, the cloak nearly tripping him more than once. He stopped short of clinging to the banisters and begging Andrei to let him stay upstairs. Barely.
The curse hung heavy in the back of his mind. Not that he knew Deven at all, but years before when he was able to have assignations in a moonlit garden — well, Deven would have been just the sort of man he’d want to have one with. Now, even if by some chance Deven felt the same about oddly blue-tinted dragons with flat asses, it was out of the question. He couldn’t, not to put too fine a point on it, get laid — and Deven was likely plotting to rob him, anyway.
By the time Andrei shoved him out the side door from the main drawing room and onto the long terrace overlooking the rose garden, Fiora’s mood had hit a nadir.
A low stone balustrade ran along the edge of the tiled space, perfect for leaning on and watching the moon rise over the flowers. Several sets of steps broke its line, leading down to winding pathways and tall hedges that divided beds overflowing with crimson and yellow and apricot roses, and even a few rare blue-tinted flowers. Hidden deeply in Fiora’s heart of hearts was the sad little wish that someday, one might be offered to him, perhaps with a silver-tongued comparison of its petals to his skin.
He’d have allowed his claws to be slowly removed with red-hot pliers before admitting it, of course.
No, he was doomed, and also terrifying. Fuck the roses.
Fiora swept down the nearest staircase, fluffing out his cloak a bit so that if Deven were watching he’d get the full swirling effect. Andrei had said he’d sent Deven out toward the rose garden, but hadn’t specified any part of it. Deven clearly wasn’t in this section — the roses only grew to Fiora’s shoulder-height, and Deven would have been instantly visible towering over them. Fiora set off somewhat at random. Not entirely. He wanted to be facing away from the moon as much as possible, so as to keep his face in shadow.
Gravel crunched beneath his boots, and a few small creatures rustled in the foliage. An owl hooted in the distance, sounding more pissed-off than mournful. A soft breeze off the river ran its cool fingers under Fiora’s hood and ruffled the long strands of his hair.
It was in every way a beautiful night. Fiora’s gloom deepened.
Around the corner of a bed of magnificent peachy roses, and almost certainly behind the hedge Fiora was approaching, he heard a second set of footsteps, a little heavier and slower than his own. Fiora’s heart thudded unevenly beneath his layers of heavy black, and his whole body prickled. He didn’t sweat — dragons never did. It was a small mercy, but it also meant no relief at all from the heat building up, like flames licking at the inside of his skin. He could let off a little puff of smoke and fire to relieve the pressure, but that always gave himsucha sore throat in his human form. Bother.
“Mr. Clifton?” Fiora pitched his voice low and smooth, as a creature of the night ought to do. “A melancholy evening, is it not? I hope you’re not afraid of the dark.”I very much hope you are, and that you tremble at the sight of my ominous figure, you too-handsome cretin.
A rich laugh rolled through the sweet-scented air. “In reverse order, no, and also no. So I suppose the order doesn’t matter, does it?”
He sounded as bloody chipper as those cardsharp kitchen maids on a sunny morning, and when Deven popped out from the other side of the hedge he was grinning very wide, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight.
Fiora drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height. He was at eye level with the middle of Deven’s chest, and it was hardly confidence-inducing. “I beg your pardon?”
Deven blinked at him. “The night. It isn’t melancholy. And no, I’m not afraid of the dark, but if I were, it’s not particularly dark out here and the castle’s fifty feet away. I can hear Mrs. Pittel shouting about the dishwater spilled on the floor, can’t you? Hardly a setting for night terrors.”
Fiora paused to listen. To his great, cringing, humiliated chagrin, he realized he could indeed faintly hear his cook berating someone or other for not knowing how to use a mop properly. The door from the scullery into the herb garden must have been propped open.
Bloody hell. No cloak, no matter how hooded and swirling, could overcome the ambiance of an angry cook with strong opinions about clean flagstones.
“I suppose not,” he muttered sulkily. “But it’s still dark.”
“Moon’s up,” Deven put in with the same unbearable, implacable cheer. “So not really.”
“It’s nighttime!” Fiora snapped, pushed to his limit. “That means it’s sodding well dark, doesn’t it? And you’re alone with a — a monster. Who breathesfire. Doesn’t that disturb you at all?”
Deven sidled a little closer, leaning down as if to see under Fiora’s hood, and Fiora’s anger faded away as if he’d been drugged. A new scent mingled with the roses’ heavy perfume. A little bit of the wine Deven must have had with his dinner, and a touch of something else — something rich and spicy and alluring that seemed to be coming from Deven’s skin. Fiora tried not to inhale too obviously, but he wanted more of it, and he found himself drifting nearer to Deven as if pulled on a string. His sense of smell was naturally more keen than a human’s, and he could catch pheromones that humans would never notice, but often enough he was overwhelmed by the burnt-metal tang of his own flames.
This scent, Deven’s scent, mingled with the smoke of dragonfire like an aged whiskey tinged with peaty earth. It felt like opening the door after a long journey and catching the familiarity of one’s own hearth and home.
“I can’t say I’m feeling terribly disturbed,” Deven said softly, with a half-smile Fiora couldn’t begin to interpret. Well, that made one of them who wasn’t disturbed. Bastard. “It’s a little strange to make your acquaintance when I can’t see your face, though. Are you — I don’t even know what to call you. Your Excellency?”
Fiora swallowed hard. Of course, it would be better to maintain as much formality as possible. “Lord Fiora will do.” Never mind.
“Lord Fiora.” Deven didn’t roll the consonants in Fiora’s name the way his own countrymen did, and somehow those three syllables became something foreign and exciting in Deven’s clipped accent. “Does it mean something? I mean, other than being a name.”
Oh, bother. With the moon shining down and gilding the tips of Deven’s brown waves of hair and lighting his smile, it was impossible to think clearly. “It means — it means —” Oh, fuck. “It means ‘born of darkness,’” Fiora said, in a burst of inspiration. It wasn’t as if Deven would know any different — he couldn’t read Fiora’s native language.
Deven grinned, a dimple appearing at one corner of his mouth. Under the cover of his hood, Fiora felt the corners of his own mouth pulling up in sympathy and ducked his head to ensure Deven couldn’t catch a glimpse.
“Your parents must have, um, they had quite the imagination? Or were you born in the middle of the night? Are they the sorts to take things very literally, and not imaginative at all? Because I’d think a name like that would be difficult to give to a newborn babe, wouldn’t it?”
Fiora’s parents were the sorts to spout fire over anyone who suggested that baby Fiora had been anything but the most adorable little teeny tiny dragon ever hatched, actually. His mother liked to reminisce about how he’d sucked on his tail when he was cutting his teeth — oh, God, he must never, ever allow Deven to meet his mother. Lucky for Fiora that she rarely strayed far from her mountain home hundreds of miles away.
Fiora’s choice of a new home was hardly a coincidence.
