Page 43 of The Fire Dragon's Mate
“No, I’m not.” I threaded our fingers together. “I hope that my eldest brother, Stanton, might someday see the light. And that my sister, Kezia, should steal the crown from his head if he doesn’t,” I added with a grin.
Cighyss chuckled before dropping the letter into the box with the rest of the acknowledgments. There were now officially ten… Well, not kingdoms anymore, so… Countries would have to do. There were now officially ten countries of the world, and we were on speaking terms with nine of them.
“I’m glad that the truth has come out,” I continued more seriously. “I still maintain that none of you should’ve allowed the lies to go on for so long.”
“While I understand why,” Cighyss said, “you have to remember that these princes and sacrifices weren’t in on any of the planning that went into deceiving the population about me. It could be that even Stanton didn’t know the plan for Phineas or yourself. Only once someone else arrived from the same place did we begin to piece together what was said and done.”
I nodded, recalling my first conversation with Phineas where I’d told him those who’d left him behind had said he’d valiantly sacrificed himself so that theycould live. “We need to make sure all the countries have better communication with each other from now on.”
“That should be helped by the fact we have trade agreements with all of them.” He kissed my knuckles. “Most of them.”
I stood and walked around the table to straddle his thighs and sit down, facing him. “Is there any other business we two members of parliament need to discuss?”
“I don’t believe there is,” he said as he ran his hands up the back of my tunic.
“Anything we need to bring to the attention of the rest of parliament?”
“Only if you’ve changed your mind about public performances.”
I snorted. “I have not.”
“Then we are free to proceed with other activities.”
But before I could get my shirt off, out in the main portion of the mountain’s interior, our rambunctious pack of dogs started barking. Cighyss cringed and shot a glare at the doorway, and I had to laugh since his growls to quiet them weren’t working much anymore. One dog barking would’ve been enough to disturb everyone, and we had twenty.
“They’d be a little easier to live with,” I cajoled, “if a certain immensely powerful dragon were to reopen the entrances and let everyone go outside again.”
“Oh.” He gulped a bit. “Well, since we’ve received notice from everyone, I suppose…we…”
I thought I knew what worried him and cupped his ruggedly handsome face. “It doesn’t mean we won’t go out without a guard or two to watch over everyone. The livestock could graze, the dogs could roam, and all of us could stretch our legs from time to time with the proper precautions.”
He huffed a smokey breath but nodded. I eagerlyfollowed him out of the lair and down to where the main entrance had been before he’d sealed it shut all these months ago.
Cighyss shifted into his full dragon form, the fire of his transformation reigniting the logs in the fire pit beside him. He took a few deep breaths, and then exhaled a monstrous stream of flames at the wall. Like when he’d created the railing for the staircase and dug out a living space for Tennyson, the rock began to glow a deep orange-red and started sagging as it melted. Unworried by the heat, Cighyss dug his claws into the base of the wall and slowly lifted the molten rock upward. He blew on it when he had it where he wanted it, making parts cool somewhat, and shaped other spots until he had an archway big enough for him to pass through.
A cheer went up and the dogs started barking in earnest. Cighyss kept blowing on the rock to cool it, but I saw him roll his big golden eyes. When the rock was back to its glassy midnight color, he went through to the outside. The dogs immediately followed him.
“Go,” he said in that subterranean rumble of his, “explore the area and stop that infernal yapping.”
With their noses very much engaged, the whole pack scattered even as their children came running out after them. Parents and others followed, everyone exclaiming about the fresh air and return to normal.
I stayed by Cighyss’s side as he lounged near the entrance, easily able to look out over the land and see everything. There was a pleased little grin on his dark lips that I couldn’t resist kissing. Just at the corner and just a peck, it had him nudging me with his giant head and making a sound that was suspiciously like a purr.
“Not that this isn’t wonderful,” I whispered to him, “but might there be any way I could convince you to revisit the hot springs with me?”
The heat and proximity of his sudden transformation had me checking to make sure my clothes hadn’t caught fire. And then I was caught in his arms as he glided across the ground to where the pools steamed. He set me down and started pulling my shirt from my trousers.
“Hold on a moment.” I stilled his hands and peered around him to check whether anyone might be able to see us.
“None can see around my wings,” he reassured me, “and who would watch anyway? They know how you feel about that.”
“How do they know?”
He cocked his head at me. “Bromley asked if he could watch us? You said absolutely not, over your dead body, and possibly something about never in a million years?”
“Oh,” I said as I remembered that moment. Bromley did enjoy public performances, including when he was the one on display. “I suppose he told everyone then.”
“Why shouldn’t he? Saves them all the trouble of having to ask.” He tugged on my shirt a bit, like a reminder.
