Page 12 of The Fire Dragon's Mate
“Declan,” Phineas said like a warning.
“I swear it. None will ever know that there is more than a gods-damned dragon here.”
“Damned, am I?” Cighyss said as he walked by me to sling an arm around Phineas. “And here I thought I was quite blessed.”
Phineas chuckled, looped his arm about Cighyss’s waist, and right there in front of me, his wife, and three other women, he turned his head to kiss Cighyss’s cheek. Cighyss in turn cupped Phineas’s jaw in the palm of his hand and kissed my brother full on the mouth.
I looked to Gilda, expecting horror and disgust, but she was smiling like this display was something she was glad for. Like it was sweet of them.
Gulping back a sudden, strange burst of emotion, I looked away from them. Things were so very different here. I felt turned upside down, like being deep underwater and not knowing which way was up. This place could drown me.
“Oh, Declan,” Gilda said and clasped my hand. “Cighyss loves all of his princes equally.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m sure.”
“He’s not jealous,” Cighyss said as he left my brother’s side to crowd into me.
I let Gilda’s hand go so that I could put space between me and Cighyss. “Jealous?” I looked to Gilda as I realized what she’d meant. “I’m not jealous of them!”
“He’s scandalized.” Cighyss said it like it was a joke, a big grin on his face. “Gracious,” he said with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, “whatever shall we do about all this deviant behavior?”
Phineas chuckled, Gilda smiled, and I glared at the beast who mocked me.
“It would be less deviant if you weren’t naked,” I snapped at him. “Don’t you ever wear clothes?”
Because he was again without a stitch of cloth on his entire person, just those black scales pretending to be trousers.
He stopped feigning worry to curl his lip at me in distaste. “Until you’ve had your scales flip the wrong way over and over again due to them catching on cloth, you cannotknow the unbearable discomfort that wearing clothes is to me.”
Then he suddenly gave a yelp and flinched, spinning around to reveal a dark-skinned woman who burst into laughter. She’d had her hand out, like she might’ve touched him, and now used it to bat his hands away as he came at her like he meant to tickle her. Had she flipped one of his scales? Teased him like a sibling would’ve? They swatted at each other playfully, until he swung around, wiggled his backside at her, and returned to stand in front of me. She and the other two women with her laughed.
He was so…contradictory. Fierce, dangerous, playful, loving… I didn’t know what to think.
“Don’t think so hard,” he whispered. “Let your heart lead.”
I blinked at him. How could he think any of this was so easy as that? I’d spent my life being told to fear the dragon and hide who I truly was. Now, I was just supposed to give up on both? Let it all go and do whatever I wanted? That wasn’t easy!
When Cighyss swiped across my bottom lip with his thumb, I flinched back and balled a fist, ready to strike him. But he wasn’t intimidated in the least and instead lunged toward me, wrapping his arms around my waist. Before I could do more than squawk wordlessly, he jumped up and unfurled his wings. I clung to his shoulders, shocked and alarmed, feeling his wings pump hard and fast beside my hands as he flew us across the open area of the cave. In a scant moment, he landed on a ledge and released me.
I stumbled back only to have him grab my jerkin and tug me toward him. I regained my footing and realized we stood outside the large doorway of what I’d thought might be his lair. And I’d nearly fallen backwards over the edge.
Saying nothing about how reckless he was, I turned to scout for a way down to the main floor. For a moment, I thought there as a staircase, but it turned out to be a series of gouges intothe stone. There was, in fact, no way down except for the annoying beast behind me to fly me away at his discretion.
I sat on the ledge anyway and tried to gauge how far of a fall it might be if I dangled first.
“Don’t you dare,” he said behind me. “You’d break every bone in your body and have to swim in a vat of my cum to heal.”
Damn him. I scooted back and stood, turning in time to see him lift a candle to his lips and breathe out a fine stream of fire. Literal flames sprang from his mouth and lit the candle’s wick. I’d known he was supposed to be able to do that from the damages he’d allegedly caused, but to see it happen right in front of me…
“You should see what else I can do with my mouth.”
I groaned in disgust and turned away from him. I’d been about to express awe for his talent, but now I knew he’d have corrupted anything I might have said. Instead, I looked about the room where a dragon laid his head to rest.
The space was big enough to host a jousting tournament and draped in tapestries depicting maidens in elaborate gardens, a naked young man picking apples, and all manner of conflicts between knights and dragons. Cighyss probably thought of that last set as a joke. The back portion of the room was a giant pile of pillows and blankets that somewhat resembled a nest.
“Come sit,” Cighyss said, “and talk with me.”
Though it felt a bit like a trap, I sat on the floor beside a collection of candles. “Light these, please,” I asked, pointing at them.
