Page 90 of The Dragon Warlord
Ikara takes her leave and I offer Tristan more of our apple once I’ve had another bite. “What’s with her?”
“She thinks we’re gross.”
“The usual then. You ready to go home?”
It’s the end of a long day. We only really dropped by the Mess Hall to socialize for a bit, but we planned to have dinner on the Warlord’s private veranda.
“More than.” I lean into his big shoulder. Only briefly. Enough to soothe a bit of the constant ache. He favors me with the graze of his thumb over his bite on my neck.
We pretend like both things never happened.
“Oh, shite. I have that, uh, the appointment you made for me tonight.”
His muscles tighten. “And I can cancel it.”
“If that is your wish, Warlord.” I want the appointment, but I don’t want to upset him.
Analyzing me, he considers canceling it. “I’m a failure as your alpha. I’ll … I’ll be able to do it someday, I’m sure.”
Tristan has no issue with roasting my arse, not just for discipline, but for punishment too. He’ll even use an assortment of implements. But that’s as much as he can bring himself to do to me.
For dragons like me, punishment is a form of physical atonement and sometimes I need deep physical atonement. Since I’ve taken on more responsibility as his almost second, and the attacks have increased, my requirement for something like the dragon whip has increased too. The Warlord takes lashes for those we lose; I’ve wanted to share in some of that, but other times, it’s just the price I need to pay.
“I’m sure you will, Alpha. You’re not a failure as my alpha. I wouldn’t want anyone else.” Tristan has learned to be plenty strict with me when it’s between us. The bond demands it and so does the dragon part of him that’s grown and bloomed to life for a decade. In time, I’m sure he won’t take issue with some of the more extreme aspects of dragon life, which includes taking a whip to my back.
A growl rumbles in his chest. “All right. Let’s go eat together before I have to let you go do that, but we’re going to heal the marks away straight after. Sorry, but you’re not keeping those.”
“Don’t need to keep them, Warlord, and no desire to have anything written on my body that you didn’t put there.”
* * *
Two days later the dragon lord’s announcement comes. He’s taking Tristan back to his Elves in Mortouge. Looks like Ikara’s reading wasn’t complete nonsense after all. Tristan is a swirl of emotions. He’s got unfinished business there that’s weighed on his mind for a decade. It’s the thing he’s pined for as he missed his men with an ache in his heart so vivid that I often felt it too. Unfortunately for him, the dragon lord’s plan to have him build a life here worked. Now leaving has become as hard as staying.
He’s torn up about taking me from the only home I’ve ever known for thirteen hundred years and so he doesn’t say a thing about it. In part to make things easier for him and in part because I’ll never fucking survive being apart from him, I pack for both of us. I don’t have this kind of authority and I know it. It’s an indirect way of purposefully disobeying my alpha. Enough that when we have the conversation about it and he catches me in the act, I tell him that I’ll head directly to the academy for punishment.
He puts an end to that line of thinking, and he admits that while he is conflicted that I’d be coming with him and that there is no other way it could be. He likes that I’ve shown him what I wanted.
With that bit of awkwardness behind us, we put our efforts into getting the army ready for while he’s away.
* * *
Iget to see Tristan with his men. They get to see Tristan with me. I receive a lot of looks from them as they try to figure us out. Our relationship is not so simple as a thing you can label and have anyone understand.
We’ve lived and breathed each other for ten years. We’ve bled for each other. Killed for each other. Spent cold nights awake worried we’d never see each other again. We even move with each other, which might be the strangest part for others to comprehend, but it all comes from having an ancient magical bond that forces such close proximity.
We’re on our way back to Mortouge after another death-defying mission. Tristan figured out how to heal himself from dark wyvern venom after Father poisoned him with it again. I’m still not sure what the point of that was other than that Father likes to challenge Tristan to his wit’s end. Anyway, the dark wyverns were found and given to Father, after we closed the veil with some help from the Elven and Markaytian armies. Now, we can rest for a bit, knowing the attacks on The Tower will lessen and altogether stop in Mortouge.
I hope. I’m tired, which is saying a lot. I need some time to breathe.
A mixture of Markaytian and Elvish bubbles around the roaring campfire and I’m grateful for Tristan’s Elvish lessons so that I can converse with the Elves in their language even though they are—mostly—happy to speak Markaytian. All of Tristan’s people are here with us. Overnight, he’s become a father of two. Stepfather to little Denny, Bayaden’s son and the most adorable half-Dominithian boy with the green-toned complexion and tiny Elf ears. He’s only just over a year old, but their race evolved to speak fluently at a young age.
Corrik found them a child in the Underworld. Bonifant Kanes who was once a Markaytian child, but turned vampire hundreds of years ago and was taken from his family. I haven’t heard the full story on that one yet, but Corrik rescued him—I guess?—and while Tristan was outraged at first that his husband claimed a child without consulting with him, he forgave him quickly when he found out what Corrik gave up to get into the Underworld. Plus, it’s impossible not to fall for Bon. I adore the rascally creature even though he has designs on sucking out my blood.
In Elven culture, blended families are the standard. I’m told that both children will be accepted as kin among all of Tristan’s husbands. It’s similar to the way that all my father’s husbands are my parents too even though I’m closest with Simone.
Denny is currently fast asleep on the large should of the Markaytian Warlord, Tristan’s father, Arcade Kanes. He’s a mountain of a man and it’s hard to believe he’s human so it makes more sense that he’s not. He’s a dragon who has managed not to manifest his dragon, which takes an almost unheard of level of self-control.
I’d like to see him as a dragon. He’d be a grand dragon. I can also see why Father would be opposed to it. It would be hard to control a man like that even with a collar.
