The Dragon’s Treasure (12 page)

“What makes him so ill?” Zorin continued.

She fidgeted slightly under his intense gaze. “It’s late. You shouldn’t be here.”

“That would be true if anyone would actually know or care that I was here. Your husband—” he obviously didn’t miss the way she shuddered at the mention of Faolan. “Ah. I knew I smelled you in the training room after that little scuffle.”

“Little scuffle?” she gasped. “He murdered someone!”

“Izzy?” Caden called.

She opened the door and quickly went to his side, getting down on her knees next to him. However, she was surprised that Zorin followed her.

“I wanted to say something.”

She nodded. “Forget about it,” she replied, her voice a breathy whisper.

“No. I understand why he did it. I really do.”

Isabelle shook her head and dragged trembling hands over her face. “Murder is not acceptable. You know this.”

“In Nuer it isn’t. We have guards and jails and courts there. But here it’s different,” Caden replied. “Here Kylin is right, there is only power and strength. They’re like wild animals. It’s exciting, Izzy.”

She stared at him. “It is not exciting, Caden!” she said, incredulous.

“I’m going back to sleep. You think about it, Izzy,” Caden said with a yawn.

“Think about what? My husband is a murderer. You aren’t in the least bit afraid?”

He shook his head. “He’s willing to kill to protect you. That makes him good in my book.”

Behind her, Zorin made a noise of agreement. She shot him a glare and, after rolling his eyes, he left them.

She humphed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well I don’t agree.”

Caden shrugged and burrowed into his blankets until just the top of his hair was showing.

Isabelle sighed and rose to her feet. Sshe let herself out, intending to wander the halls for a while as her thoughts cleared.

After an hour of wandering, she came back to their rooms. She slipped quietly inside, her mind still dazed until she saw Faolan leaning against the side of the wide opening, staring up into the sky. He turned slightly toward her, gave her a brief nod and then turned away.

He had bathed and changed his clothes. She hoped that he had burned what he had been wearing, but knew it wasn’t her place to ask. As she stared at him, seeing the lost look in his eyes, she knew Caden and Kylin had been right. Her husband was not the monster she had wanted to believe him to be.

She came to stand behind him, gently brushing her fingers against the back of his shoulder. He shuddered under her light touch, pulling away.

“I’m sorry, just dealing with something right now,” he said in explanation.

She nodded. He felt grief and remorse for what he had done. It was clearly evident on his beautiful features. He was not dancing in joy at having taken a life. He was no happier about it than she was happy about knowing he had done it. In fact, she was sure that he felt worse than she did. Suddenly she wanted to laugh or at the very least giggle. Instead she merely nodded and pressed her forehead to his shoulder in a sign of silent support before moving away to give him his space.

The next day Thadius had told her it was time to meet with Lysander. She and Faolan had not spoken since she had returned to their rooms the day before. He had continued to be withdrawn and she had no intention of pushing him to speak to her. Instead she had vowed never to bring up the incident to him. Perhaps Caden did know more than she gave him credit for. She had gone without question to the hall where Thadius told her to wait for Lysander. It had only been a few minutes before she knew something had been watching her.

Isabelle turned slowly at the sound of something large landing just behind her. She took a few deep breaths and faced him, her eyes instantly falling to the stone floor under the dragon’s intense gaze. “Thank you for meeting with me, sir,” she said softly, her voice forcibly controlled as she struggled to put respect for the beast into every word.

“Thadius requested it,” Lysander replied gruffly. His massive head came toward her, his wide nostrils flaring as he looked her over. “Get on with it,” he snapped impatiently. “It’s almost sunset.”

Isabelle’s curiosity was piqued and all of the words she had been prepared to say to him went out the window. “Oh?” she asked. “Does something happen at sundown?”

“We hunt,” he replied simply. Then, seeming to consider her for a moment, he asked, “How much do you know of your husband’s nightly exploits?”

Isabelle blinked rapidly, her eyes narrowing at him. She didn’t like being caught off guard by this dumb beast. “What of it?” she asked quickly.

“You should look outside your window at night sometime. You might just be in for a shock,” he replied smugly, his armor plated lips curling wickedly as he teased her.

Isabelle flushed angrily. “Nothing he does could shock me.” She thought she sounded confident at least. She said nothing of the day before and refused to think on it.

“Oh? Then you’ve seen him in his natural form, have you?” the dragon quipped.

“Well…no…” she replied. “But he can’t be much scarier than you.”

A second after the words had left her lips, Isabelle realized what she had said. Her hand came up to her mouth and she gasped loudly.

“I…I…” she stammered. She could already feel her cheeks turning a deep red.

The dragon king across from her merely chuckled though. “Thadius did say that you had nerve.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing right now, sir,” she replied meekly.

“You’ve got spirit and here, you’ll need it. Now, why did you want to meet with me?”

She took a deep breath. She had almost forgotten why she had asked Thadius to call him in the first place. “I wanted to apologize for what I said.”

“Is that all?” Lysander asked.

Isabelle gulped nervously. Thadius had told her to keep all apologies to dragons simple and above all not to beg. But had she forgotten anything? She pressed her lips together and nodded quickly, hoping that it wouldn’t further offend him.

His large green head tilted to the side, his eyes closing. After a moment he nodded and turned to look at her. “You are the first human to ever apologize to one of my clan. And this is the first time I have ever said this to a human. You are forgiven.”

She opened her mouth to thank him, but he already nimbly spun around and launched himself into the sky. The strong beating of his wings blew cool air around her. And for the first time since her father had told her stories of the dragons when she was just a small child sitting in front of the fire with him, she wasn’t afraid of them. He was beautiful as he dove and turned in the silent sky. She knew he was powerful and quite dangerous. But he was also regal and respectable. Isabelle knelt down on the cold stone floor until she could no longer see his dark silhouette against the fading light.

A few hours later Isabelle lay sprawled on the crumpled sheets, her nude body still damp from the bath. She sighed softly and turned on her side, reveling in the feeling of the warm air lapping against her skin. After visiting Caden, she had rested, had some tea and then taken a bath. He didn’t look any better, but at least he didn’t look any worse. She really had very little to do in the mountains and she still wanted to help in some small way. To suddenly have no responsibilities or chores was a hard transition for a girl who had done almost everything for herself and Caden while they were in Nuer. If this was how marriage life was supposed to be she wasn’t sure how she thought about it yet.

She did imagine though that getting to go outside once in a while would help her outlook on things. She missed the smell of grass and the sound of birds singing, things she had taken for granted before coming to the mountains where the only things that seemed to be alive were the dragons that she would occasionally see far off in the distance. She rolled onto her back and stretched lazily. Absently she wondered when Faolan might be coming back, though she doubted it would be anytime soon. She hadn’t seen him since early that morning and he had said he wouldn’t be back until late. He had seemed calmer, though he had barely spoken to her at all and had come back sometime during the night while she was asleep. That, it seemed, was becoming a habit for him.

She had a lot of thinking to do, she realized. And with Thadius’s marital words of wisdom fresh in her mind, she knew what she had to do. Kylin had also hinted that just being passive about this marriage would not be enough to cure Caden. Somehow she also had to enjoy being here, being married, or at least as much as any two strangers could enjoy being married. She humphed loudly and resolved to figure it out later. Judging by the sun’s height, she figured she could have at least a few hours nap before Faolan would be back. She closed her eyes and, not bothering to throw even a sheet over her, fell into a light sleep.

Although his steps were quiet as usual, she still woke up as she heard Faolan walking around the room. He had his back to her as he drank an amber colored liquid from a glass.

“Hello, Faolan,” she called to him. She reached for the sheet to cover herself up, but decided against it. She was feeling bolder, braver. She wanted to try something.

“Isabelle.”

His voice sounded almost foreign to her, causing her to pause. It was thick and rich, almost like— “You’re drinking!” she gasped, a large grin coming across her face. “How positively indecent of you.” Her voice was teasing and light. She was going to scold him, but as he turned toward her, his dark eyes catching hers, the words died on her lips.

“And what if I am?” he asked, taking a step closer to her.

His eyes were heavy, almost hungry. He looked more like a man than she had ever seen him. His gaze was almost predatory as he looked at her naked body. Isabelle gulped nervously. She was scared, she could admit that to herself. But there was also something else there, something that she didn’t quite know how to describe as it coiled and tightened in her gut.

“Faolan?” she whispered.

His eyes snapped back to hers and he took a step away, blushing deeply. “Yes?”

“Why are you drinking?”

He stared at the almost empty glass and shrugged indifferently. “Am I not allowed to?”

Isabelle quickly shook her head no. In the span of a minute, he had gone back to being the warm, gentle man she knew and was starting to care for.

“It’s not that. I…just haven’t seen you do that before. Is something wrong?”

He shook his head no quickly.

She knew him well enough by now though to know better. “What is it?” she asked gently, coming closer to him.

“Zorin,” he spat, causing her to cringe.

She had thought that man would have left by now.

“He was visiting today, probably out of boredom if nothing else,” he said, answering her unspoken thought. “He said some things. I let them bother me more than I should have. Nothing more.”

“What did he say?”

He looked at her seriously and put the glass down. He leaned tiredly against the wall across from her. “Apparently I’m taking too long to get you pregnant.”

Isabelle blinked rapidly, not quite sure if she had heard him correctly. “He said what?” she asked, her mouth hanging open.

His dark eyebrows quirked upward and he smiled teasingly. “You need me to repeat such stupidity?”

Isabelle humphed loudly. “He’s such an ass.”

Faolan laughed loudly and took a few steps closer to her. “That, my dear, is an understatement.”

She smiled at him and blushed. “You’ve never called me that before,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“Dear. You’ve never said anything like that to me.”

He nodded and took another step closer to her. “Would you like me to?”

She smiled at him.

“Alright, I’ll try to make it a habit,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He quickly flashed her a smile. “Now, mind explaining to me why you’re still naked.”

She turned a dark red and looked away. “Um…I…Well…It was hot.”

He chuckled lightly. “It was hot? That’s the best you can use your wonderful human mind to come up with?”

“Well it was!” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him. “Does it bother you?”

He looked away from her quickly. “I’m a man, Isabelle. Seeing you doesn’t bother me, but it does complicate things.”

“How so?”

“Are you really so naive that you would believe your body does nothing for me? That there aren’t plenty of things I’d rather be doing with you right now than talking?” he asked quickly, his cheeks turning a dark red.

“So do them,” she replied much more confidently than she felt.

He stared at her openly. “You’ve gone insane. This heat has gotten to you somehow and it has made you lose your mind.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes at him. “Look, it can’t be easy to do this with me either. But I was thinking today that something’s got to change. Neither one of us is exactly happy in this and I’m getting tired of passively lying under you and I doubt you feel that wonderful afterwards either, right?”

He could only gape at her. She smiled widely at him, feeling at once both powerful and scared as she felt like she was finally making some decisions.

“So let’s try something else. We don’t love each other, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy some things, right?”

He nodded dumbly.

“Do I have to take your hand and bring you into bed myself or will you come on your own?” she teased him.

Faster than she had ever seen anyone move, he was lying next to her. Somewhere in between standing across the room from her and lying beside her, he had also managed to get his clothes off as well.

“You’re fast,” she breathed.

“Draconian,” he reminded her. She looked away and he smiled at her. “You don’t seem very sure about this,” he teased her gently. “Where is all that bravery now?”

“Hiding,” she squeaked.

He chuckled and nodded, getting comfortable on what she realized had somehow become his side of the bed.

“I…want you to do something for me,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

She met his eyes and held them as she bit her bottom lip. “Don’t move.”