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He ignores me and marches over to the area where I laid out my supplies from Thelise: undergarments, clothing, the packet of contraceptive herbs, and a few other items. There’s even a tiny flask, which I’m sure must hold some kind of powerful liquor.
After putting me down, he seizes the hem of my shift dress in his clawed fingers and drags it up, over my head, in one fluid motion. As he picks up the blanket, I squeal, “I just folded that!” but he pays no attention and uses it to clumsily blot the water from my body.
“Lift your arms,” he orders, and when I do, he studiously dries my sides, then my breasts.
I’m already warm, already heated to incandescence by the commanding way he picked me up, then by the careful intentionality of his movements. If he keeps drying me off with that earnest expression on his face, I’m going to end up fucking him right here, right now. And we can’t do that, because I’ve prepared an excellent meal and I’ll be damned if I let it burn.
He starts to move the blanket down to my lower belly, but I seize it from him and step back. “I’ll do that. You change your pants and then take the stew off the stove. Carefully. Don’t spill a drop.”
Moments later we’re sitting on opposite sides of the big stone bowl, me in the pink dress and him in a simple ivory shirt and black pants. He looks so fucking handsome I can hardly stay focused on the food.
We don’t have spoons, of course, but I fetch a couple of clamshells from Kyreagan’s collection. I demonstrate how to scoop the stew into the half-shell, how to blow on it to cool the broth, and how to tip the contents into my mouth. The prince copies everything I do, carefully. He’s fucking adorable.
“Well?” I watch him, eager for his reaction. “What do you think?”
He blinks, chews a bit more, then swallows. “How did you work this magic?”
“It’s not magic. It’s science. Different compounds and substances reacting together because of an outside force—in this case, the energy from heat.”
“So… magic.”
I giggle and scoop more stew with my shell. “Fine. Magic.”
We eat in companionable silence, and I only have to remind him once to chew with his lips closed. By the time our shells are scraping the bottom of the bowl, I’m pleasantly full and feeling drowsy.
“That may have been the best stew I ever made.” I sigh with satisfaction. “I’m glad Jessiva gave me that claw. Without it I couldn’t have chopped everything so efficiently. I suppose I could have found a bit of rock to use as a knife, but it wouldn’t have worked as well. I wonder if she kept one for herself, too, or if she has something else—”
“Something else?” Kyreagan frowns. “What do you mean?”
“She must have some other kind of weapon for herself, if she—” Oh fuck… I should not have said that.
“If she, what?” Kyreagan holds my gaze, unrelenting. “Why would she need a weapon?”
I squirm. “You know why.”
He’s too smart not to understand. “She gave you that to kill me, and you think she has another weapon ready at hand, so she can kill my brother.”
A clap of thunder echoes his words and reverberates through the mountain, shaking the very walls of the cave. Wind screams past the opening with a hollow wail, like a desolate soul being flayed in the night.
“I think she might be planning to try it, yes.” My voice is barely audible, even to me, yet somehow he hears it.
“And you didn’t think to mention that my brother, the last living member of my family, is in danger?” He’s growling now, pure ravenous fury in his voice. Never have I seen such murderous intent in his eyes until this moment.
“I warned Varex,” I falter. “I told him to watch his back around her.”
“Like me, he will shift into human form,” Kyreagan snarls, getting to his feet. “He will be vulnerable, defenseless, without his spikes and scales. He will be alone with a woman who wants to kill him. He could be lying dead at this very moment. If he is, it’s your fault.”
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “There was so much going on, and I had to think about myself, too. You rejected me, and I didn’t know which dragon to choose, where to go…”
“Is this why you chose me, after all?” he cuts in. “Perhaps you weren’t simply teasing me earlier. Perhaps you do want to kill me. How do you plan to leave this cave after the storm, if I’m dead? You’ll have no wings to carry you to the ground. Maybe you and the other women have allies among the clan. Are there more traitors, plotting death and the ruin of our species right under my nose?”
“I can’t speak for the other women.” I scramble to my feet and back away from him. “But I have no such allies. When I was in the enclosure with the other prisoners, there was some talk of getting a few dragons on our side—”
“And this is the first I’m hearing of it,” he snarls. “Just as you failed to warn me about the danger to Varex.”
Oddly, his human anger frightens me more than his fury in dragon form. And yet I’m angry, too. Incensed, actually.
“How dare you?” I say through trembling lips. “How dare you act as if I’m your loyal informant, your partner, an ally whose duty it is to report suspicious or treacherous activity? I’m not your mate. I’m your fucking prisoner, as you reminded me just this morning.”
