Dragonsbane (Book 3) (56 page)

“Oh?”

“I’m worried about
my
honor.”

Her lips bent into a smirk. “What if I promise to be gentle?”

That wasn’t at all what he’d meant — a fact he had to remind himself of when he bent involuntarily for her lips. He was losing the battle with his heart. He knew he’d have to think quickly. “How else can I be sure you’ll stay?” he said, hoping desperately to knock her off her guard.

She frowned. “You know I’ll stay.”

“Do I? How do I know you won’t leave the second you’ve gotten what you want from me?”

Her lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl. “I hope for your sake that you’re only joking, whisperer.”

“Am I?”

“You know I love you.”

“Then you’ll have no problem proving it.” Kael leaned back, watching as the blaze in her eyes took on that dangerous edge — the one that thrilled and frightened him all at once. He knew then that he had her.

“Fine,” she growled. “I’ll marry you.”

He wasn’t going to let her off that easily. “I’m not sure I want to, now.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve hurt my feelings.”

He was certain her glare had never burned quite so fiercely. “I’m sorry,” she said through her teeth. “How can I make it up to you?”

He shrugged. “Well, I suppose since you’ve wounded me so severely, the only way I might trust you again is if
you
do the asking. Go on, Kyleigh,” he whispered, fighting desperately to hold back his grin, “ask me to marry you.”

A look of such absolute horror crossed her face that he nearly laughed outright. She snarled as his grin broke free and tried to shove him away, but he held her down. “Marry me,” she growled at last.

“I don’t think that was very sincere.”

“Fine. I’m going to
sincerely
pummel your arse if you don’t say you’ll marry me. How’s that?”

He
tsk
ed, reveling in how dangerously the fires glowed. “I’m afraid I’m not convinced.” It took every ounce of his will to get to his feet. When she tried to follow, he shoved her back onto the bed. “You can stay here for the night. I’ll sleep across the hall —”

“No,” she groaned.

He stopped in the doorway. “Yes. When you stop glowering and ask me gently, with
love
,” he added when she bared her teeth, “then I’ll consider marrying you. But until then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.”

*******

He tormented Kyleigh for days on end.

Every time she asked to marry him, he would refuse. It grew steadily more difficult to shrug and say he wasn’t convinced — especially when that burning edge in her eyes made him want to forget the whole thing and pull her into his arms. But no matter how she teased him, he was determined to wait.

Things weren’t quite ready, yet.

Declan, Nadine, and their horde of redheaded children sailed back to the plains. Thelred took them on his way to pick up another shipment of goods — along with a list Kael had given him for the wedding.

He had enough coin from his time among the merchants for a few heads of cattle. Brend sent a whole herd, along with his congratulations and a roughly scrawled note insisting they were a
wee weding presant.

“Where are we going to keep all these bloody beasts?” Thelred called down from his ship.

Kael wasn’t sure. He’d only wanted a few — and he doubted if even Kyleigh could eat a whole herd. “You’re always going on about how difficult it is to get red meat in the seas. Why don’t you sell them at the chancellor’s castle?”

Thelred nodded slowly. “Yeah, all right. It’s probably safe to go back by now.”

Kael had no idea what that meant, and he didn’t have time to find out.

The giants had sent along everything he asked for: all of the ingredients Bimply needed for her cakes and cookies, as well as a few baskets of chickens. There were also plenty things he
hadn’t
asked for — like a mountain of fresh-baked pies and several barrels of malt beer.

“Well, you ought to stop helping people,” Thelred grumped when he saw the surprise on Kael’s face. “They’d be much less inclined to give you things.”

With all of the items on his list delivered, Kael figured he could have everything ready by week’s end. He’d only have to survive Kyleigh a few more days. Little did he know just how daunting a task that would be.

She asked him to marry her again at dinner. When he refused, Aerilyn shrilled that he was being completely unreasonable. She held little Dante in one arm and slapped Kael angrily with the other. Lysander and Uncle Martin threw gravy-soaked biscuits at him, and Thelred — though he knew full well what Kael had planned — exploded a mixed berry tart across the back of his breeches as he ran out the door.

Kyleigh found him in the library a few minutes later. She was armed with a soaked rag for the stains — and a new marriage proposal.

“No,” he insisted.

She scrubbed absently at the gravy splotches across his chest. Her hand pressed down a little more firmly than necessary and moved in slow, agonizing circles. “Very well, if you’re certain …”

“I am,” he croaked.

“Then I won’t trouble you again tonight.”

Her kiss was every bit as firm and agonizing as her scrubbing. He likely would’ve given in, had it lasted another moment. But she released him just before his resolve could melt.

He cursed himself silently as he watched her stride out the door.

Sleep didn’t come to him that night. He stared at the pattern of the shadows across the ceiling and tried to forget the pressure of Kyleigh’s lips. But even though his mind was consumed with all he had to do, his fingers kept returning to where they’d touched.

The memory roared back to life at the slightest pressure. It burned so insistently beneath the surface that he knew he’d never get to sleep. So he decided to go for a walk.

The mansion was silent that night. Even the many bustling maids had finally disappeared into their chambers. And it was perhaps because the silence was so intense that the faintest of sounds caught his ear.

Someone was humming a song. The notes were low and drawn out, like the mumbling of a summer breeze through the rafters. Then they rose, sailing to a height that somehow matched the depth. Each note was a line in a story, a piece that fit perfectly into the next.

Kael followed it down the hall and into the dining room. The great glass window that overtook the far wall was alive with stars and smeared in thin, wispy swathes of cloud. Kyleigh stood before the window … her skin washed in moonlight, her hair loose and shining with the stars.

She’d obviously come from bed: she wore nothing but a tunic that covered her to the knees. The song she hummed drew Kael helplessly in. She turned from the window and he saw that she had little Dante wrapped in her arms.

His pink face rested gently against her chest, smooth with sleep. “They were having a difficult time getting him to calm. I thought a song might help,” she whispered, smiling down.

Kael’s throat had gone impossibly dry. Somehow he’d wandered in so closely beside her that his chest was pressed against her arm. Her hair smelled like flowers — the blooms that grew subtly and not too sweet. He could feel the impossible warmth in her skin. The softness in her eyes as she gazed at Dante was altogether frightening. Her voice still carried remnants of her song.

And he realized that he was in very real danger of losing his resolve.

Kyleigh must’ve realized it, as well. No sooner had he managed to take a step backwards than she grabbed his wrist. “I’ve got you now, you stubborn whisperer. Will you
finally
, at long last, say you’ll marry me?”

He couldn’t quite get his tongue to move, so he nodded instead.

“Tonight?”

“No.”

“Soon?”

Blast it all. He couldn’t wait a week — not when she looked at him that way. “Give me another day to settle everything, and I’ll marry you the next at sunrise.”

Chapter 51

The Sun Rises

Kael stood impatiently at one of his favorite spots in Gravy Bay: on the jutting ledge of a cliff that overlooked the sea. It wasn’t the mountains by any stretch, but it was the closest he could come to the moment when they’d finally admitted to loving each other. And from this point, they would be the first to greet the sunrise.

“There’s still time, you know,” Uncle Martin whispered. He slipped a flask from his coat pocket and held it at the ready. “A quick nip for courage never hurt anybody.”

Kael remembered his last experience with Gravy grog, and he had absolutely no intention of collapsing on his wedding day. “I think I’ll be able to manage on my own, thanks.”

“If he’s got enough courage to take on Titus, then I think he’ll have n
o trouble at all wedding a halfdragon. Besides, marriage leads to such wonderful things,” Lysander said. He bounced Dante in his arms as he spoke, grinning to either ear.

“Does it?” Jake muttered. He glowered over his spectacles at Elena — who kept her masked pulled up and her dark eyes fixed pointedly on the sea.

Beside them, Eveningwing fidgeted with the high, stiff collar of his tunic. They’d had to cut the sleeves short so the feathers that sprouted from his elbows wouldn’t get bent. Of all of them, he should’ve been the most comfortable. But he was still sweating.

“Why do humans dress up their skin for everything? And why are the dressings always so
itchy
?” he moaned.

Had Kael’s insides been able to make a face, he imagined they’d be wearing one similar to Eveningwing’s. His palms were so sweaty that he felt as if he had his hands sitting in bowls of water. The air was muggy, but for some reason his legs kept shaking with cold. His heart was either beating too fast to count, or had seized up somewhere in the middle of his chest.

The villagers made a line down the slope of the cliff, all of their faces pointed eagerly towards its bottom. Behind them, the pink sky bloomed orange as the fiery crest of the sun appeared. Kael nearly leapt out of his skin when someone cried:

“I see them! They’re coming!”

He’d told her she didn’t have to wear it. He knew she hated it, and he’d wanted her to be comfortable — even if it meant wearing her armor. But when he first caught sight of Kyleigh striding up the hill, he saw she hadn’t listened:

She was wearing his favorite emerald green dress.

Her raven hair was braided loosely over her shoulder. Little strands escaped their bonds and fell gently across her forehead, as they always did. White flowers had been woven along the path of the braid. She was smiling — laughing, even — as Aerilyn wept happy tears beside her.

The warmth of the sunrise did a remarkable thing to her eyes. When they lighted on him, he felt as if her gaze carried all the silent wonder of the dawn directly into the center of his chest.

“Is it too late for some of that grog?” he said weakly.

Lysander slapped Uncle Martin’s hand from his coat pocket. “No, none of that,” he said. Then he fixed Kael with a serious look. “Chin up, chest out. Smile and try to enjoy the moment — once it passes, you’ll never have it back.”

Kael knew he was right. He tried to remember everything — from the way Kyleigh smiled at him to her every graceful step. He couldn’t believe that she was walking towards him. He couldn’t believe that she’d chosen him.

Though he saw the unmistakable joy her smile, though his heart assured him with its every beat that her look was meant entirely and wholly for him, his mind still couldn’t grasp it — it was a sight every bit as stunning as the mountains, a shock too vast to comprehend.

Him, of all people. She’d chosen
him
.

At last, she stopped at his side. Aerilyn drifted away, moving to stand near Lysander. And the only thing left on earth was Kyleigh.

“Um … good morning,” he whispered, because he couldn’t think of a single blasted word to say.

Her smile brightened as she took his hands. “Good morning, Kael.”

There was silence all around them. Why had everything gone quiet? Kael pulled himself from the depths of her eyes and realized the whole village was waiting. So he cleared his throat.

His heart hammered so violently that it made the words sound a bit unsteady as they left his lips: “Will you sail with me through the storms, hold my hand in the gales? Will you stand by my side in battle? Will you take me as your love?”

“I suppose.”

Several of the villagers laughed.

Kael forgot his nerves. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t taking it seriously. “Say it right, or it won’t count.”

She raised a brow. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

His stomach twisted when she dipped a hand beneath her collar. When she drew it out, he saw there was a ring clasped in her fingers.

The band was made of a strange sort of gold — one so pale it was nearly white. As he studied the ring, he realized it’d been shaped to look like a twisting dragon. There were tiny, rounded scales carved into the band. Some of its braided lines were capped in deadly-looking spines. At its top was a dragon’s snarling head.

A black jewel sat inside the dragon’s mouth, shaped to look like a bolt of flame. Kael recognized it immediately. “Your onyx … you’ve carved it up.”

She nodded. “Asante did a marvelous job, didn’t he?”

“Asante?” He gaped at her as she slid the ring onto his finger. “You had this planned all along, didn’t you? You were going to marry me anyways.”

She laughed at his scowl. “This is how the shapechangers bond — we trade tokens.”

Kael’s face burned as he stared down at the ring. “Well, I wish you would’ve told me. I haven’t got anything for you.”

“Check your pocket,” she whispered.

He did. And he was rather surprised to find a second ring sitting at its bottom. This one was more delicately woven than the dragon. The white band was shaped to look like the symbol of the Wright, with the black jewel carved into a triangular pupil at its center.

“I promised Asante that I would keep the two heads of the jewel together, no matter what I made with them. So once you put that on,” she said, holding out her hand, “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

He couldn’t have put it on any faster.

As soon as they wore their rings, she took his hands in hers. “I will be your sword, and you will be my shield. We’ll face every battle side by side, and celebrate our every victory together.” Her lips hardly brushed his before she shoved him back. “Oh, and there’s one other thing I’ll promise you.”

He stood warily as she marched away. “What is it?”

“You’ll always have me to make sure things don’t go according to plan.” She grinned at him from over her shoulder as she reached the cliff’s edge. “I’ll meet you at Copperdock.”

And before he could stop her, she jumped.

He raced to the edge in time to get knocked backwards by a blast of her wings. She sloped down the cliff’s face and up, darting above the waves.

Kael watched in horror as the ragged remains of the emerald green dress fluttered into the sea. “I can’t believe you — I really liked that dress!” he yelled at her.

She replied with a roar that rattled his lungs. Then she swooped over their heads and took off, winging into the open seas and straight for Copperdock.

Aerilyn smacked him hard on the rump, jolting him from his shock. “What are you waiting for? Go after her!”

“I’ll lead the way!” Eveningwing said. Then he tore off his shirt and flapped straight out of his trousers.

Uncle Martin wacked Kael with
his cane; Lysander shoved him on. He stumbled down the line of villagers for a breath, carried only by the urging of their hands. Then he broke into a run.

Cheers filled the air on either side. Trees whipped out of the corners of his eyes and the slope shrank beneath the pounding of his legs. When Kael reached the docks, Thelred was glaring up at the sky.

“Where’s she going?”

“Copperdock,” Kael gasped.

“I can’t row there.”

“No, but we can sail there.” Kael leapt into one of the Bay’s fishing boats: a tiny, shallow-bottomed vessel that was more sail than deck. It was sturdy enough to get them to Copperdock, but small enough that two men could manage it
easily. “Come on!”

Thelred stood frozen on the docks. “I can’t sail that. Not with my leg —”

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t think you could do it,” Kael said testily.

At last, Thelred seemed to make up his mind. He freed their boat from the dock. Kael helped him over the lip and onto the deck. “Take the helm — I’ll manage the sails.”

“Aye,” Thelred grunted.

They took off with Eveningwing soaring happily at their head, sailing until the Bay and all of the villagers’ cheers faded behind them.

*******

They were a ways out when Shamus spotted their boat — but Kael could still hear him bellowing
Witchslayer
from the docks. The moment they landed, a horde of shipbuilders rushed to tether them to the shores. They practically lifted Kael out of the ship and onto solid ground.

“She’s waiting for you up at the castle. Go on, lad!” Shamus bellowed, grinning as he shoved him forward. “Best not to keep her waiting!”

It was nearly sunset, but the air was still hot from the afternoon. Sweat drenched Kael’s tunic by the time he reached the castle’s front gate. The door creaked open as he neared it. He leaned to thank the guardsman on the other side … but there wasn’t one.

He’d jogged a few paces away when a rather snide voice called from behind him: “Best of luck to you.”

Kael turned. He swore there wasn’t a soul near the gate, but it’d closed somehow. And its latch was done up tightly.

“Witchslayer,” the guard at the keep’s door said with a nod. “You go straight inside, now. Crumfeld will show you the way.”

“Thanks,” Kael panted.

He burst into the main hall, sighing in relief as the cool gloom cloaked his face. He glanced around for the man called
Crumfeld
but once again, there wasn’t a soul in sight. He took off down the nearest hall, cutting between the rays of orange light that filtered in through the holes in the roof — and very nearly flattened a young woman coming down the stairs.

“You’re all right, Master Kael. No harm done,” she insisted as he helped her retrieve the damp cloths she’d been carrying. She had a round face and a warm smile. Her hand was surprisingly strong as she gripped his arm. “Right up these stairs, Master Kael. You can’t miss it.”

He thanked her breathlessly as he charged his way up.

A small landing awaited him at the top of the stairs. There was a chamber on his right, one that had its door hanging slightly ajar. To his left was a window cut out to face the falling sun. He hardly noticed its dying blaze, or the way its golden light set fire to the pointed tops of the trees. For there, standing before the window, was Kyleigh.

Her hair hung free of all bonds, waving and shining in the light. She wore a plain white dress with a hem cut just above her knees. Her eyes — mercy, the sun would never again bother to shine if it saw how they blazed.

And when she smiled, he was reminded with a jolt that each coiling flame trapped within them burned entirely for him.

“It’s about time,” she murmured.

Kael couldn’t breathe. He was suddenly aware of how very drenched he was, of how the sea had crusted onto his skin and how his curls hung limply against his forehead. His wedding clothes were splattered with grit from the waves and mud from his sprint. Eveningwing had accidentally torn one of his sleeves when he’d dived down to wish him luck.

But none of that seemed to matter to Kyleigh.

Her thumb trailed across his jaw, her fingers gripped the back of his neck. She brought her lips to his in a kiss that sent his worries melting across his shoulders. He felt them wash down his back and pool somewhere in the mortar at his feet.

Kyleigh’s hand traveled slowly while she kissed him. It slid from his neck, across his torn sleeve and down his arm, trailing an agonizing, white-hot line behind it. Finally, her hand came to rest. Her fingers twined tightly through his and she pulled away, drowning him in the fires of her eyes.

“Come on, you,” she growled, smiling.

Then she led him through the chamber door … and to the start of another grand adventure.