“So… you stay… and marry them.” He’s watching me carefully, like one change to my expression will change everything.
“I think there’s a way for me to stay without marrying them.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
He sighs and runs his hand through his hair, messing up the perfect strands. “Harper, you’re my best friend. You know I’d do anything for you. Anything at all. You don’t even have to ask. But I won’t lie to you. I asked around after we parted. I learned more about the whole dragons ending up with their dragon rider thing. Every time in history that there’s been a female dragon rider, which has admittedly not been that much, the riders have ended up together. It seems that it’s not just something that happens because of the dragons, but because of the riders themselves. So, I have to ask, are you feeling connected to the princes at all? Or are they trying to force you into a situation that you don’t want?”
For a second, I’m shocked he asked around. He’s out of his element here, among a bunch of nobility, riders who don’t like anyone outside of each other. But then I remember who this is. It’s Arthur. He could make friends with an angry boar. What’smore, he’s loyal as fuck. If he was worried about me, he’d crawl through broken glass to make sure I was okay.
“I wouldn’t say I don’t feel any connection to them,” I admit.
His gaze is steady. Unjudgmental.
“But this isn’t what I wanted. It’s not what I planned. Those three are broken humans, broken and left with jagged pieces that just keep cutting me. And I’m not in the business of fixing broken people.”
“That’s fair,” he says gently. “And you have no desire to see what those broken pieces look like when they’re put together?”
I open my mouth, then close it. I’d never stopped to think what the three men would be like if they weren’t such a mess. Is such a thing even possible?
It was. “But that would only work if they wanted to change. And I don’t think they do.”
He shrugged, giving a small smile. “Well, maybe don’t count them out completely. If your dragon pulled them to you, maybe there’s something there.”
I sigh. “Okay.” Then I fix his hair.
“Does it look okay?” he asks, nervous once more.
“You look perfect.”
I take his arm again. We walk through the courtyard that connects the academy to the castle and up the steps. Two guards open the doors at our approach, and I help guide Arthur to the ballroom, where the doors are thrown open for us once more.
Together, we take a deep breath as the massive room opens up in front of us. It’s darker than the past party, but in a purposeful way. Light shines down on the dance floor, and on the king in his throne, but there are pockets of shadows all around the outside of the dance floor, and even near the banquet of foods and drinks spread out on one side of the room. Women in beautiful gowns are spun around the dance floor by men in equally handsome suits. Lords and ladies linger around theoutside of the room and servants with trays bring even more food and drink around.
“What first?” I ask Arhur, focusing on him once more.
“Food and liquor. Definitely food and liquor.”
We exchange a grin and hurry to the first tray with champagne glasses on it. We each snag one, and then drink them both in one gulp, before placing the glasses back on another tray. There’s some kind of lobster in a cloud of dough that we both take from a tray. Arthur’s eyes light up in delight as he tastes some, and he turns around to grab two more before the servant can get too far away.
I laugh, and we continue eating our way through every possible thing offered in the ball room. I see dragon riders scattered all around the room, staring at me in that way that makes me uncomfortable, but every time I feel like running the hell out of the room, Arthur is there, getting me excited all over about some new thing.
“What are these?” he asks, spraying food from his mouth as he eats.
I laugh. “Shrimp and bacon, I think.”
“Oh my gods,” he groans, shoving more into his mouth. “This issogood.”
“That looks like steak in some kind of butter sauce,” I say, pointing to another tray.
He grabs my hand and races over to it, handing me two, before snagging two for himself. I’m not that hungry, but I can always eat, so I try to keep up with his appetite. It’s probably another twenty minutes before we realize we’ve tried everything in the room. Arthur scans every tray like a predator looking for prey, before finally seeming to relax.
“Well, I guess we can slow down now. Let things settle before we have more.”
Grinning, I say, “So what do you want to do now?”
“Dance?” he asks.
