Although, to be fair, I’ve been getting along with them better lately. Other than the underlying tension between us when it comes to Harper’s attention, there’s been less… rage beneath our interactions and more… indifference? I’m not sure. But I haven’t had a dream about beating them in battle and flying a victory flag while I stand on their almost lifeless bodies lately.
Alaric lifts his glass, and I come over and refill both their glasses before setting the bottle down on the table between us, while he stares into the flames of the fire. “Let’s walk through this carefully. The path we’re on is essentially one where Ebron chooses our dragons as mates, we marry Harper and share her between us, and a peace agreement, that can’t possibly last, iscreated between us and the Hollowborns. The only thing we can do to disrupt this process is convince Harper to give up being a dragon rider, take Ebron for ourselves, and in doing so, our father will not accept the Hollowborn’s deal, and the war will grind on, endless as ever.”
“Correct,” I say.
His gaze flickers to us. “But there’s also the possibility, if a bit unlikely, that the prophecy is right. Harper could bring about peace between the two nations, and the fighting between our people could finally stop.”
“But then we have to just sit around and wait for them to betray us, like they always do,” Alaric says, shaking his head.
“And we have to somehow share Harper between us,” I say.
Gareth frowns. “If I have Harper, I don’t want to share her at all.”
In an instant, we all know he’s spoken something out loud that he shouldn’t have. “Youlikeher,” I accuse.
“No,” he denies, but there’s no passion in the word.
“You want her for yourself.”
He won’t look at me, but he says, “And you don’t?”
“I-I… we’re not talking about me.”
He smirks, and our gazes lock. “You couldn’t possibly be more obvious with the way you feel about her.”
I turn my angry gaze onto him. “You’re no better. Every time a man gets near her, you go nuts.”
He bristles. “I’m protective. She’s the only woman here.”
“How does youprotectingher from getting laid do anything to keep her safe?”
He glares.
Alaric draws himself up taller and leans toward us. “Maybe I do want her. Maybe I wouldn’t be opposed to some situation where it worked out that she was my wife.” I try to speak, but he pushes on. “Maybe she could be a dragon rider in spiritalone, and I could be the one to ride Ebron. Maybe if she gives permission, her dragon will welcome me as his rider.”
“Fuck no,” I say. “If someone is going to marry Harper and take her dragon, it’s going to be me.”
“I thought you didn’t want her,” he says angrily.
“I thought you didn’t want her,” I counter back.
I watch his jaw working. “If one of us is going to have her, because I sure as fuck am not sharing a woman with you, it should be me.”
“No, it should be me,” Gareth responds simply, rotating his glass, looking like he’s on the edge of starting a fist fight.
“Fuck!” I shout, slamming my drink down and rising. “Let’s stop this. None of us will have her. We will continue to make her life miserable, and she will leave.”
“And if she doesn’t? What if she simply chooses other dragon riders as her husbands? And our dragons lose Ebron, and we have to watch Harper with someone else?” Alaric challenges.
My dragon will not forgive me if I fuck this up for her.But that won’t even be the worst of it.
I begin to pace, energy coursing through me. I really wish he hadn’t said that. I really wish I wasn’t currently picturing Harper like a hog on a spit between two other dragon riders. “We won’t let that happen.”
Memories of her flash through my mind. Of her stroking my cock. Of her lying back and spreading her legs for me. And then the image shatters to her with another man, and I’m enraged.
“How will we have any control over it?” Alaric asks, and I know he’s taunting me. Trying to get a rise out of me.
“We’re still the princes of this great fucking nation. If we don’t want her with other men, she won’t be with other men. One dragon’s wants won’t change that.”
