Page 22 of A Matter of Dragons

I was a damned fool. I bit my lower lip and tried to work through my options.

I should leave, of course. I should leave right now. Doshir thought I was a lady; I should act like a lady and get the hell out of this noble’s garden. If Doshir came poking around the Master and Mistress tomorrow looking for me, I could tell him I’d come to my senses, and he should know better than to try to seduce a lady.

Yes. I should leave. I spun around, turned my back on the spectacular view of Cairncliff, and raised my eyes to the Knife’s Edge mountains. To our mission.

And disappointment settled in my chest like a stone, turning my bones to lead. Kings curse it, this wasn’t fair. Eadberh found a lover in damned near every city we visited, every shitty little inn and two-horse town, while I sat in the pub alone and nursed a warm beer or pulled a pillow over my head to muffle the sounds of his late-night return to our room. I didn’t approach anyone, ever, in any town, and no one ever approached me.

But this? The one time I’d stumbled into a ridiculously gorgeous man who’d taken me out for drinks and then invited me here, to what had to be the best view in all of Cairncliff? Stars damn it! My fingers tightened into fists as I remembered Eadberh in our room in the inn, topless and blocking the door, begging me to find somewhere else to be. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the creak of a door opening.

“Fuck that,” I whispered.

No, Eadberh wasn’t going to have all the fun. Not tonight. I’d stumbled into someone who could kiss me with a sort of passion I could feel all the way to my toes, someone who hadn’t even bothered to glance at my scarred arm, and I wasn’t going to just run away. Maybe I could pretend to be a beautiful lady tonight, a lady who’d been swept off her feet by frost wine and laughter and a pair of smoldering, dark eyes.

And why not? Doshir didn’t know anything about me. He didn’t know my stellar application had been rejected by the King’s Army once a year for the past dozen years, or that the only bed I visited regularly belonged to His Highness King Donovan.

No, Doshir thought I was a fucking lady, all elegance and tact and long, flowing dresses. He’d led me here to seduce me, clearly, and right now that was exactly what I wanted. Kings above, when was the last time anyone had tried to seduce me, the maimed, orphan fighter girl who kept beating her head against the locked doors of the King’s Army?

I tossed my hair back over my shoulder and shook my head. The door creaked again, first the soft whisper of hinges and then the muted click of wood against wood. Had Doshir managed to steal a blanket from the house? The thought made my heart race; the man from the antiquities shop was breaking laws to seduce me.

Kings, that thought shouldn’t turn me on, but it did. It really, really did.

And that meant I didn’t have much time left to hide my daggers. I bit my lip. I could pull out the three daggers and stash them somewhere, behind a tree or under a rock or something. Or I could take off my entire dress, with all three daggers inside, and kick the whole mess behind a tree.

But then I’d have nothing to cover my arm. I rocked forward on my toes and glanced down the gravel path where Doshir had vanished. He’d already seen my arm, of course. I’d shown him on the steps of his shop, the disgustingly undeniable proof of our cover story. That was the first part of me he’d seen. Those hideous, twisted scarlet ridges and white gouges were probably burned into his memory.

A twig snapped. That had to be Doshir, returning with a blanket. I had to decide quickly, damn it. Take off my dress and show this gorgeous man my maimed arm? Or just stash the daggers? What would a beautiful, confident lady do?

“Shit,” I hissed under my breath.

I hitched up my skirts and yanked my first dagger out of its sheath. The second dagger was in my corset, and the third, the littlest, was hidden up my sleeve. Metal clinked against metal as I bent down and tucked all three of them beneath a fern’s lacy, delicate leaves. I scattered a few fallen leaves over the blades, then sprang to my feet.

Doshir’s feet crunched on the gravel path. I took a deep breath and smoothed down the front of my dress, trying to steady myself, as Doshir emerged from the forest with his arms full of something that looked soft and dark. I walked toward him, putting distance between me and the pile of leaves that hid my daggers, and smiled. Doshir returned my smile, his hungry eyes setting me on fire without even touching me.

My fingertips brushed the blanket in his arms. It felt like silk, but that was absurd. The noble who owned this house would have to be as rich as a dragon to afford that much silk.

“You found a blanket,” I whispered.

“I did,” he replied, his voice as low and soft as mine.

I opened my mouth, then hesitated. Now that I’d decided to stay, to hide my daggers and play the role of an actual noblewoman who’d been swept off her feet by a gorgeous stranger and a little too much wine, I was suddenly unsure of where to even begin.

I’d never been seduced as a lady before. Hells, I wasn’t sure I’d even been seduced before. I’d had my share of one-night stands with fellow soldiers, but seduction? That belonged to a different world, a world where ladies wore dresses and flirted with strangers and accepted invitations to sneak into dark gardens.

Doshir’s fingers grazed my cheek. I turned to meet his gaze. In the silvery moonlight his eyes were dark, liquid pools, almost black, and I suddenly found myself thinking of the Spirit Wood and the deep, cold spring where I’d dipped my arm as I’d whispered prayers for an impossible miracle. Had that been tonight? It seemed a lifetime ago.

Doshir leaned forward and brushed my lips with his, a touch so soft and sweet it hardly counted as a kiss. It was nothing like our earlier, frantic kisses, those passionate embraces that had felt almost like a struggle. No, this was gentle, a whisper of a kiss. He pulled back, and a moan slipped from my lips.

A moan? I almost slapped my hand over my mouth, but then Doshir was there again, kissing me like he wanted nothing more than the taste of my lips, the brush of my tongue against his. Heat coursed through my body, rippling in waves from my core, from the hot, hungry center of me.

The blanket that couldn’t possibly be silk fell to the ground, and Doshir’s arms wrapped around me, crushing me to his chest. My hips rocked forward of their own accord, pressing into Doshir, and oh, by the Kingdom, I felt the solid length of his cock against my velvet skirts. His hand dropped lower to cup the curve of my hips, and his kiss grew harder, deeper.

Oh, kings, yes! When he pulled away, panting, my skin sang out for his touch. My stupid dress was too huge, too tight, too many damn layers of fabric between our bodies. I reached for the hem of his shirt and tugged, slipping my fingers beneath the soft cotton to press into the warmth of his body.

He shivered when I touched him. I pressed my palms to the plane of his back, tracing the muscles, the curve of his spine. His hands sank into my skirt, then tugged at the lacing of my bodice.

I stiffened as a bolt of fear cut through the murky haze of desire. He was trying to untie my bodice. But of course he was, I thought, taking a huge, gulping breath of air. I had both my hands up his shirt and my hips gyrating against the length of his cock. Of course, he was trying to untie my bodice.

But— My arm. My scars played through my mind, hideous, twisted scarlet flesh and white gouges. There was nothing at all attractive about those damned scars, nothing sexy, nothing desirable. No. They needed to stay hidden.