Page 103 of House of Ashes
“Princess Serafina.” Maristela held out a hand to me, standing at Rhylan’s side. “Prince Rhylan. I’m so glad you could come.”
My heart was pounding from the near-miss as I dismounted from Rhylan, but I smiled at her like nothing was wrong. “Thank you, Princess Maristela. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support in this.”
Up close, Maristela was even more stunningly lovely than she was the first time I’d glimpsed her. The light played on her deep blue scales, burnishing her skin. Like me, she wore a riding dress with soft leather boots, though hers was of a soft, diaphanous lavender material. In the confines of the eyrie, we didn’t need to worry about the brutal temperatures outside.
But her loveliness was mostly the glow she gave off, the sense of self-assuredness. The last time I’d seen her, we’d been peers in the Training Grounds. Rivals, even. Both of us unsure, guided by mothers with harsh hands.
In the time between then and now, I had lost much of my self-assuredness… and she had only gained more, compounded by the security of a loving mate bond.
“Can we dispense with the titles?” she asked bluntly. “There’s really no time. My mother is…well, she’s happy to see us all burn, even if it means she comes out on top of a pile of ashes.”
“Absolutely,” I said fervently. I had no desire to fall back on what the Training Grounds had beaten into us: the royal bloodlines must address each other by title in formal situations. We’d be “princess”-ing each other all night if this continued. “You said Elinor was here?”
Maristela’s polite smile grew a touch crooked. “She’s here, but I don’t want to misrepresent the situation. Doric’s House is still firmly backing your claim, but the Lady of my House is, ah, threatening drastic action if Elinor goes along with it.”
“I thought Elinor joined the Lunar Tides after the bonding.” I unbuckled the harness from Rhylan as I spoke, and if I let my hands linger, well…they were cold, and Rhylan was a massive, walking furnace.
“She did,” Maristela said, politely averting her eyes as Rhylan began his shift back to male form. “And my mother is on the verge of declaring her anathema to her ancestral House if she doesn’t convince Doric to leave your Court.”
Ah. So it was worse than we thought…and all I could do was hope that Elinor wouldn’t bow to Chantrelle’s heavy-handed posturing.
It was possible for Chantrelle to remove her from their House records, of course. To declare that Elinor had never existed so completely that there wouldn’t be a record of her ever having been born at all.
But Elinor had a mate-bond. She lived in Lunar Tides territory, and even if Chantrelle struck her name from the Shadowed Stars’ history, she would always have a home, and someone who loved her…
But even with a home, the loss of an ancestral House was a pain no dragonblood wanted to feel. I sent a prayer to the gods that Chantrelle’s threat was a bluff, that Elinor would stand strong, that the Lunar Tides would remain in our Court.
They had made a fine deal of it for themselves: as the heads of the Court, any problems the Lunar Tides had were now our problems, and we would be obligated to aid them in whatever way we could. For them, having two wealthy royal Houses to lean on was worth any potential fallout, and we needed the numbers of their dragonbloods badly.
But for the Shadowed Stars, an ancient royal House…Chantrelle could abstain and drastically tip the scales out of balance.
The only consolation was that she could hurt Yura as badly as she could hurt us by doing so.
But Chantrelle’s greed also worked in our favor: Doric knew Rhylan well enough to know that we would not hesitate to supply him with gold, if need be. Not even Elinor’s potential banishment signified against the promise of cold, hard treasure.
Rhylan pulled his clothes out of the saddlebags, a white shirt and dark pants that were easily tugged on and smoothed out. I had done the same as Maristela, moving to avert my eyes, but…I didn’t have to do that. We were ‘mated’.
In fact, I shouldn’t do it. It would be terribly abnormal for a draga to be shy of her naked mate.
And with that came the horrible realization that this small, more intimate meeting was a thousand times more dangerous for us than the First Claim had been. That had been a performance, a show, all of us focused on the scales of power.
In this setting, we were expected to behave as any normal mated couple…and I could hardly look at him without blushing.
I swallowed hard and turned to Rhylan, partially to hide my expression of utter panic from Maristela, and partially to smooth the shirt over his chest, to give the small affectionate touches that should come naturally to any mated pair.
“Still cold?” he asked, his low voice husky as he took my hands. The warmth soaking into my frozen fingers was an immediate relief, making it so much easier to melt against him.
“A little, but I’ll survive,” I said dryly. His heart pounded under my cheek, and sped up as he wrapped an arm around me, running his fingers through my hair.
I pretended I needed to stretch, giving myself room to breathe, to ignore the fact that my own heart had started a race to match his.
“Don’t worry.” He tipped me a wink. “I’ve got all night to warm you up.”
I turned, cheeks flaming, and found Elinor and Doric had silently joined us. Elinor had heard him; she rolled pale blue eyes at the ceiling. “Rhylan, we all know you’ve been waiting years for this moment, but Chantrelle wants to see you both as soon as possible. I’ve done my best to talk her around, but she’s recently become very fond of threatening me with excommunication and I’m not sure what else I can do.”
“Am I decent?” I asked my pretend mate, smoothing my dress and trying to tame my hair with my hands. I was no beauty after the flight, but I was hoping not to arrive looking like I’d been dragged backwards through every hedge in Akalla.
“Yes, unfortunately for me.”