Page 13 of Deven and the Dragon
He flung his arms out to the sides to form a barrier as Lord Fiora made one more attempt to slip by. Deven rather expected to be shoved, but instead Lord Fiora stopped dead, folding his arms over his chest in a posture…well, a lot sulkier than Deven might have expected from a dragon and an aristocrat.
“Fine,” Lord Fiora muttered. “But I’m not taking off the cloak. I’m not fit to be seen byyou. I should have made that clear from the start.”
“Cloak stays on then,” Deven said with a shrug, trying not to feel the sting of that remark. Of course Deven was miles below Lord Fiora in every possible way, but really? Not good enough to see his face? His feelings of guilt at his reason for being in the castle would fade quickly, if Lord Fiora kept that attitude up. “But you wanted to talk to me. So let’s talk.”
“I’m not really in the mood for talking anymore. I need to — to be alone in the darkness for a while.”
Really? Good God. “Are you going to go somewhere it’s actually dark, then?”
“Oh — for — what —yes,” Lord Fiora snarled, and spun on his heel. He practically ran back the way they’d come, his cloak flapping behind him.
Deven remained rooted to the spot, too stunned to even try to follow. Because when Lord Fiora had turned, he’d faced the moon for a split second, and Deven had caught a glimpse of the side of his face.
Which was not at all covered in boils. In fact, what little Deven had seen — the slant of a jaw, the corner of what appeared to be a generously soft pair of lips, and a sharp nose — was perfectly smooth, with no blemishes or beard or anything at all.
In fact, it was one of the prettiest parts of a face Deven had ever seen. He vowed then and there that he was going to see Lord Fiora without that bloody hood, if it was the last thing he ever did. Which, given Lord Fiora was a dragon, was a possibility.
Deven would deal with that problem when it arose. Seeing Lord Fiora’s face was part and parcel of getting to know the man better, which was Deven’s reason for being here at all. He’d need a plan, and planning wasn’t his forte.
He turned and sauntered through the rose garden, deep in thought.
The instant Fioraslammed the turret’s stairwell door behind him, he scrabbled furiously at the cloak, ripping it off in a tangled flurry of curses and torn fabric. He flung it to the floor and stomped on it for good measure.
Bloody fuckingbother, the evening had been a disaster, and the cloak was a disaster, andFiorawas a disaster. Everything was awful. Everything.
Except Deven, who was absolutely the opposite of awful, with his smiling eyes and smiling lips and being so bloody tall and broad-shouldered.
No, he was awful too, damn it.Boils. Fiora shuddered and covered his burning face with his hands. He’d accused Fiora of having boils, and had been totally indifferent to the idea. As if Fiora was so uninteresting that it didn’t even matter whether he was disgusting or not.
Boils. Or a cold in the head. And not a single trace of the respect, fear, and trepidation that were due to a dragon of Fiora’s wealth, mystery, and stature.
Figurative stature. By the way Deven had kept bending down to try to see Fiora’s face, clearly he’d noticed Fiora’s lack of literal stature.
And he thought Fiora had boils, which rather put paid to the mystery.
Fiora dragged his way up the stairs, leaving the cloak where it lay. One of the maids would no doubt find it in the morning and either toss it in the cast-offs or repair it, press it, and return it to Fiora’s wardrobe. If she did the latter, Fiora would need to burn the thing — he wouldn’t be able to wear it again, not after tonight’s humiliation.
Of course, because all the gods and witches of the world hated him, Andrei was waiting at the top, sitting quietly in Fiora’s study like a spider in its web.
“I want to be alone,” Fiora spat, going straight for the brandy decanter. “Go away.”
“What did you learn?” Andrei asked, his tone suggesting he already knew the answer, which was nothing. Unless he counted learning that Fiora was a disaster, which he probably wouldn’t.
Fiora poured a generous glass and knocked it back, gasping a little at the burn. His throat was absurdly sensitive for someone who breathed fire, and he rarely drank more than a small glass at a time in measured sips.
“Ridley’s council clearly sent Deven here to annoy me to death,” he muttered, and sloshed another measure of brandy into his glass. “They’re sadists. Now will you please, pleasego away?”
He drank, and then thumped the glass back to the sideboard. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took deep, heaving breaths, trying to keep the threatening tears at bay.
He couldn’t get close to anyone, not the way he wanted. He couldn’t fuck, and doing anything that usually led to fucking — flirting, smiling, lifting his hood to show his face, wandering around in rose gardens with handsome men — was just a tease he couldn’t bear. No one was going to fall in love with him. No human, anyway, because he was so very…unusual. How many times had he been laughed at, stared at, recoiled from, by humans he fancied? Boils could possibly even be overlooked, although the thought of big red lumps on his perfectly smooth skin made Fiora wince. (Yes, he was a trifle vain, but he knew he was only average-looking beneath his veneer of draconic oddity. He ought to be allowed to be vain of the good features hedidhave, oughtn’t he?) But looking like he did was far worse than being covered in spots. Spots were human.
Witness the way Deven had tried to tell him about his past struggles with bad skin, as if that could establish some common ground. No one would mind a few spots on Deven’s face, or even notice them, once he smiled. It was patronizing, that’s what it was. Deven had no idea what Fiora’s life had been like because of his differences.
Fiora poured another glass, the decanter clinking against the rim of it as his hand trembled. If his life had been reduced to this, drinking alone after being laughed at by some jumped-up stable hand he couldn’t even take to bed without someone dying, shouldn’t he be able to at least preserve an air of mystery? Be respected? Have his misery and his solitude treated as the noble afflictions they were, rather than ignored and trampled all over by Deven’s horrific, impervious cheer?
The brandy caught in his throat, and Fiora choked and coughed, a few drops flying and spattering the polished tray that held the glassware. They sparkled sadly in the light of the branch of candles set on the end of the sideboard.
Well, that was a metaphor for his life if ever there was one. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it resonated.
