“What could you possibly be pissed at me about already?” I managed to ask as the sleepy haze cleared from my brain. “Was I cursing your name in my sleep or something?”
Not out of the realm of possibilities.
I lacked my usual bite as the fatigue and exhaustion from our journey yesterday still lingered. It didn’t help that I kept waking throughout the night, swearing that I heard screams echoing in the distance. It was highly unnerving, but each time I’d waited to hear it while alert, the screams never came.
As the morning light had risen during my last waking, I’d chalked it up to delirium. My body was exhausted and hallucinations were following me from my dreams to the waking world.
It was the same reason I still remained curled up on my own side, facing him, too tired to move without sustenance to combat my fatigue.
I quickly quieted the tiny voice popping up in my mind trying to tell me that wasn’t the only reason why, and that the morning light streaming in from the glass balcony door reflecting off of his silver scales wasn’t fascinatingly beautiful.
He didn’t answer and I began to grow uncomfortable under the heavy weight of his silence. As I tucked the hair tickling my cheek behind my ear, I cleared my throat, trying to knock him out of whatever stupor he’d fallen into.
“Who did it, Siyana?”
His pointed question and use of my actual name caught me off guard as my brain scrambled to understand. My lips pursed as the wheels turned and I came up empty. “Who did what?”
The slitted reptilian eye of his narrowed as he inhaled sharply before letting it out. The deep timber of his voice rumbled as he clarified, “Who gave you the injury on your arm? It was clearly fresh, with how easily it opened under my grip.”
His question was so far out of the realm of possibilities rolling around in my head that I simply laid there in silent shock as his arm bunched up, lifting to push his free hand through the mess of his bed-head hair falling into his eyes. His bicep flexed and the light did nothing to help hide the veins running through his forearm that bulged with his movement.
“Did you fall back asleep with your eyes open, wench?” he prodded as his hand came to lay flat against the bed once more. “Or are you taking a sudden vow of silence?”
It occurred to me at that moment, that we were just lounging in a bed together with very little clothes on, as if he wasn’t a hulking brute who had conned my father into letting him steal me from my home and everything I held dear.
Apparently, I was pushing his patience with my non-answer, and he let out a sigh before pushing to sit up and look toward the balcony. With the movement, his abdomen scrunched, showing off each individually cut groove of muscle.
“Fine, don’t tell me, it doesn’t matter,” he muttered in annoyance before moving on, “today we will begin training you to learn how to defend yourself properly. Your attempt to hurt me yesterday was pathetic, and there are too many threats to your life lying in wait here.”
My eyes narrowed and I murmured, “Bet you wouldn’t be saying that if you didn’t have the unfair advantage of magic, dragon boy.”
His head turned ever so slowly until he looked at me and blinked twice. His voice was a low rumble as he asked, “Did you just call me ‘boy?’”
Of course that’s what his fragile ego fixated on. He may be part dragon, but he was full-blooded egotistical like any human man.
“I’ve yet to see any behavior that lends me any reason to think you a man,” I answered with ease before closing my eyes and snuggling into the pillow. “Besides, I’m not well enough to do any training. I need to eat and sleep more to recover my strength.”
A shriek clawed its way out of my throat as the warm furs were yanked off of me. A moment later, I found my body turned to lay on my back as a heavy weight settled itself above me. I knew it was him from the heat radiating into me despite our skin not even touching. I contemplated not opening my eyes to avoidhim, but that felt even more weird than just looking at him up close.
Cracking my lids open, I found his face mere inches away. Up close, I could see a multitude of different colors of blue in his dragon eye, mesmerizing me as my inspection trailed to the scar running through the hard scale around it, before he blinked and sent me back to reality.
His voice rumbled, “This ismycastle, you aremywife, and that means you live bymyrules. Tell me you understand, wench.”
I swallowed hard and took a deep breath, letting my chest expand until it brushed against his briefly. His cold demeanor withered with the small contact, but as I spoke, his icy walls slid firmly back into place. “You may be my husband, but you will never own my mind. It is mine alone, and no amount of years here beneath your overbearing and belittling rules as king will change that.”
My voice was soft and even, showing how little I feared him. If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have shifted and come back for me as I found myself buried amongst the drifts of snow last night. He’d told me I’d never be worthy of riding a dragon, but him carrying me in his clawed foot felt awfully close.
What was he going to do if I continued to speak back to him? Eat me? Unlikely.
Despite the rumors of his cruelty and seeing a small ounce of it for myself, I was beginning to wonder if his bark was bigger than his bite.
My cheeks heated with warmth as he leaned in until his lips brushed against the shell of my ear, sending a shiver through my spine. “You seem too comfortable around me now, dear wife, seeing as your mental barrier just came down. Did you mean eating you in this form, or in my dragon form? Unclear.”
He could read my mind?
Sheer panic flooded my nervous system as my eyes widened with the implication. I didn’t think, reacting instinctively as I pushed against his chest in an attempt to get him off of me and away, as if space could prevent him from hearing me.
He was an immovable mountain, chuckling as he pulled back and traced his eyes over my face and down to where his thin tunic covered my chest.
