Theft of Dragons (Princes of Naverstrom) (15 page)

SEBINE STARED AT the handsome, drugged face of a boy her age who ambled towards her. He was bare-chested and wild, and her heart fluttered erratically for a moment, thinking some strange spell possessed her mind. A movement behind the boy—a beautiful girl with long, envious hair—caught Sebine's attention.

"Why are you leaving?" cried the girl, and her confused, disappointed face sought after him.

The boy ignored her call and his intense gaze locked Sebine in an uncomfortable embrace.

"I know you...you seem so familiar, why do I recognize your face?" His voice was gentle, pleading, and Sebine had to admit—not unpleasant to listen to.

She withdrew from him. "Perhaps you hallucinate from the smoke and the wine."

The boy sobered up in time to have the jilted girl grab his arm and stare up at him demandingly. "You seduced me with your poetic words... And I smoked jaheesh for the first time with you, and you just walk off like that?" She gave Sebine an angry, jealous glance. "To chase after some young slut?"

Sebine scoffed. "Call yourself a slut—with wine on your blouse and drug fuming from your ugly, pug nose."

The girl inhaled sharply and threw her hands up to her face. "I do
not
have a pug nose—"

"I bet your father says you have a cute, button nose just like a doll." Sebine gave the girl a wry smile. "And behind your back he tells people he never needed a dog, because he has a pug for a daughter."

The boy chuckled and looked back and forth between Sebine and the girl. "Did I start a cat fight?"

"You both are crazy," fumed the girl, and she turned and stormed away.

Sebine gave the boy a tired frown. "I think you've lost your chance with pug girl, and you never even had one with me to begin with. What's next, you'll chase after a poodle-faced girl?"

"No, I only—"

"Just stop. Let me guess, you'll say something sappy like you only have eyes for me...or from the moment you saw me you knew that I was the one."

The boy looked hurt, and swallowing, took a step towards Sebine. "I did feel like you were the one. And I feel like I know you. Why else do you think I came chasing after you?" He looked at his feet. "I couldn't help myself."

Sebine shook her head. "Sounds like a typical man. You couldn't help yourself, you couldn't control yourself, you don't know what came over you... Do you really believe your own excuses?"

Face reddening, the boy was about to speak but he stopped himself, and instead wiped the sweat from his brow and studied her face once again. "I know you...you're the King's daughter. I've seen you last year on a feast day. How is it you've come out here—unattended—to enjoy the Festival?"

"I..." Sebine found herself feeling guilty, and hoped it didn't show on her face. "I was just sick of staying inside the palace all the time. It's like I'm a prisoner in my own house, and the King has me followed everywhere I go."

"Including now?" The boy glanced around, eyes narrowed in suspicion. The music had grown softer now and the dancers mulled around in groups, talking and whispering and staring at the lapping flames of the bonfire.

Sebine felt herself blush. "No, not this time. I somehow snuck out of the palace."

"Somehow?" The boy grinned. "Not likely that a princess could sneak out unseen. Bit easier for me to do so, no one pays me much attention...but you, that's a different story. Especially if the King has someone following you all the time."

He actually winked at her...some nerve he had, especially knowing she was a princess and he a commoner. "I have my ways..." She tried to make her voice sound mysterious and powerful. "So how is it you saw me a year ago and haven't since then? I spend many hours outside the palace—at least in the day—roaming the streets and seeing the people."

"I've only just returned to the capitol today. Been up in the wild northlands for over a year." A warm smile spread over his face and he extended his hand to her. "My name is Tael."

"Princess Sebine," she returned, and despite her initial resistance accepted his hand. She felt a strange heat flow into her as she touched his skin. "Where are you from, originally? Your accent is neither that of Trikar, nor of the northlands."

"South near Cranth, along the Ferelian Sea. But these last several years I've travelled a great deal."

"And do you plan to return home to the south?"

A sadness briefly touched Tael's face, but he hid it with a wistful smile. "My home is gone, as are my parents...they are—" He stopped himself from saying more, as if the burden of saying the words were too heavy.

"I'm really sorry for your loss." She paused awhile, a little fearful at the intense sadness in his eyes. "How old were you when they died?"
 

"Six years ago...when I was only a boy of twelve." He shook his head, as if trying to expel the memory. "Tell me, Princess Sebine. Do you love the King?"

The question surprised her. Was it some kind of test? She studied his soft eyes and in a strange silence felt like she could trust him. "I neither love nor respect the King...I despise him. He holds me and my mother as if prisoners. He has me followed wherever I go. He's a fat, ugly pig of a man."

A grin crossed his handsome face. "We share this in common. The King is no friend to his people—and he is unpopular in the royal houses of Trikar."

Sebine chuckled at his confidence in speech and his knowledge of the nobility. Who was he really? His assuring voice continued.

"He recklessly makes enemies with those of other kingdoms, and risks the land with rumors of war." Tael leaned closer and whispered in her ear. "And he's made an unholy alliance with the vile Hakkadians—creatures tainted by the evil Princes of Naverstrom."
 

"What do you know of the Hakkadians?" Her voice held suspicion and concern.

"I know many things of them from my grandfather. I know their history as wandering nomads of the north and of the intense change that came over them when they discovered Naverstrom over two hundred years ago." Sober suddenly, he closed his mouth as if he'd said too much.
 

"Please go on...this is all new to me. I've never heard stories of the Hakkadians." This wasn't really a lie, as she'd only learned of the Hakkadians directly from them. However, she'd always wanted to hear of the creatures from another viewpoint. She continued after still seeing hesitation on his face. "I would really appreciate knowing more of them...you might even gain my friendship."

A wily grin formed on his face. "Friendship is not what's on my mind."

His unwavering, green eyes bore into hers, and she felt a trickle of sweat fall down to the small of her back. He was very handsome...and mysterious. And the cadence and gentleness of his voice entranced her. She did find him dangerously attractive and couldn't help but glance down at his toned chest and hard stomach, and her mouth somehow tasted salty at seeing the silkiness of his sweat-ladened skin. After she cleared her throat, she continued, though her voice was unpleasantly hoarse.

"Then perhaps I agree with you." On seeing his surprised expression she smiled and took his hand, amused at her forwardness. "This is the beginning of the Wintertide Festival, is it not? And where is my drink? Silly of you not to offer me a glass of wine."

She giggled to herself as Tael arched his back erect as if a soldier coming to attention. With a mission in his eyes he charged off towards the winemaker's shop, a hand retrieving a coin purse at his belt. Soon he returned, and delighted, she found he'd brought them two proper glasses of dark-red wine. She accepted the gift, curtsied to him, and swirled the wine around. Nose to glass, she inhaled the delicate scents of plums and blackberry and dark chocolate.
 

"I've discovered heaven..." She smiled with devilish eyes as she sipped the wine. "No wonder you tried to seduce the winemaker's daughter. You drank from his fine vintage and found yourself craving more than just a taste." She chuckled, surprised at her own suggestive words. "She's something of a legend in Trikar—for her beauty and unattainability. I applaud your adeptness in seducing her and I'm honestly flattered that you left her to talk to me.
 

"When I first saw you staring at me, there was something genuine...a pure hopeless foolishness in your eyes. And then the girl chased after you like a mesmerized sheep...hah...the vintner's princess, as they call her. How could you seriously resist her? She would have given herself to you tonight. I'm quite certain of it."

With a regained composure and a confident smile, he ran his fingers along her neck and sent shivers across her skin. His green eyes admired her face. "As wonderful as a night with her would have been, I'd never trade it for the chance to meet you. If I'd paused or turned back to her, you'd have disappeared."
 

She lifted the glass to her lips and relished in the sweet taste of the wine, contemplating his words. She let the liquid roll around in her still-parted mouth, the night air joining with the wine under her inhalation, igniting a hot, fragrant sensation that wafted up to her nostrils. As she drank more in a sudden, hungry rush, she felt a flush on her face and her mind fired with the feeling of his fingers on her neck. She found herself leaning in to him, the heat between their distance strong, the humid air around them a small cosmos, and simultaneously felt his long fingers on the bare skin of her back and his wine-flavored lips on hers.

Her mouth gifted the remaining wine to him and together their tongues danced around the liquid in a mad ecstasy. Fervent now, the pressure tight between their lips, he pulled her so close she could feel the warmth and humidity from his body seep into hers, and her body responded to the language of his, a secret language between them. She discarded the glass into the bonfire and let her hands meander along the moist skin of his back and shoulder, then down to his waist, where she answered his body's call, and pulled his hips into hers. An uncomfortable wetness formed between her thighs and instead of lilting from her vertiginous mind, she kissed him deeper, sucking the air from his mouth and enjoying the pressure of their passion.
 

She exhaled and separated, searching his eyes for evidence of lust without love, but felt relieved at finding both instead. Her palm wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead and she kissed his lips lightly to tell him she was feeling the same way. He leaned down and ran his lips along her neck, settling to whisper in her ear.

"I've dreamed of you often, a dream that repeats and has etched a place in my memory, before I've ever seen you." The movement of the air from his mouth sent maelstrom of tingling across her scalp. "Maybe at first it was a fever dream—as I was a boy of thirteen, I believe—but then it crystallized into what my grandfather calls clear dreams, where you know you are dreaming and are awake in a way more awake than waking life. I dreamed of you and the familiarity of your face is from those dreams, and when I saw you at the festival last year I recognized you and knew you were the one. You were real."

A small glistening appeared in the corners of his eyes at the intensity of the recollection and Sebine knew what he felt was genuine. She placed her hands on his cheeks and studied the wonder and entrancement beaming from his face.
 

"You're so sweet. You meant what you said before about me...when we first met? I can see in your eyes that you did." She couldn't stop herself from kissing him again, and thinking how she wanted to be with him all night and the next, and every night after that. What she felt was strange and powerful and sudden, as if a flood torrent sweeping down the rivers of her heart. But it also felt invigorating and peaceful, as if she had finally come home to a place of contentment and protection—this feeling of being in his embrace.

"What a wild and wonderful night this has become." Tael stared out over the festival and his eyes caught the ripple of explosions from fireworks igniting above. Sebine felt a vibration in her chest at the booming echo that came next. "I just arrived today in the city...from a long voyage south, and now I'm here!" His arms spread wide as if reaching out to embrace the sky. "And I met you—bless the fateful hand of the gods—I met you, tonight, on this beautiful night."

A horrible flash cleared Sebine's mind in an instant as she remembered Emitt Waylor's ridiculously precise timing in leaving the palace. "What time is it?" she blurted out, hating the panic in her voice that cause Tael to frown in surprise.

"Do you have to go so early?" He held her hand and his eyes pleaded for her to stay.

"It's complicated...and I can't risk being late or I'll get in the worst kind of trouble. I really have to go."

"Wait, before you go...how can I see you again?"

She smiled and kissed his lips again, smelling the scent of him that had already created a home in her memory. "Let's meet here, in front of the winemaker's shop, at the hour before the witching time. We'll enjoy wine and the festival, and you can tell me all that you know about the Hakkadians. Don't be late."

He embraced her and returned the kiss, and with his release a coldness in the air swirled around her skin. She gave him a small wave goodbye, and turned and darted through the crowd, quickening her step as she noticed the elevated position of the moon. Her mind stayed with the boy but her feet led her on, running towards the emptiness of the palace.

Chapter Fifteen