Page 52 of Blood of Dragons
“I’m always awake.”
“I know something troubles you.”
Months had passed since my conversation with Uncle Barron. Instead of planting an olive tree that could provide shade and sustenance for us both, it seemed to have driven him further away. He and his sons and cousins had all remained outside the royal grounds, keeping to themselves in their villas and the countryside. I wasn’t sure if I’d made things better…or worse. “Nothing that concerns you, baby.”
“Your troubles are my troubles.”
I brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep. You need your rest.”
I walked into the dimly lit bar and found Silas sitting at one of the tables, several tankards in front of him with a woman across his knee. Topless, she fed him grapes, and he ate each one that she popped into his mouth.
I pulled out the chair and took the seat across from him.
“Look who crawled out of his cave.” He turned his face away from the grape she tried to place on his tongue. “Get me another drink, sweetheart.” When she left his lap, he gave her a smack on the ass. “And call one of the girls over for my brother.”
“I’ll pass.”
Silas rolled his eyes. “Just the drink, then. My brother is boring.”
“Your brother is married.”
“Half of the guys in here are married.”
I got the waitress’s attention and ordered a drink. She brought it over, tits on display, but I just took the drink and ignored her.
“What brings you here?”
“The servants told me this is where I’d find you.”
“Yep,” he said. “This is where you can find me most nights.” He relaxed in the chair, arm over the back of the other armchair as he surveyed the rowdy bar, half-naked women walking around to serve the drunken men. “I call it paradise.”
Paradise looked very different to me. I pictured Vivian in the shade of an apple tree on a blanket, playing with our son, while her stomach was swollen with his sibling. This bar felt cheap and lonely—and it was a perfect reflection of my brother.
“So.” He took a drink from his tankard. “What did you want to discuss?”
I stared around the bar, trying to pull my thoughts together. “I feel a shadow creep up the back of my neck. It’s an unease I can’t explain or justify. A sense of doom without a cause.”
The subtle grin on his face slowly faded as he listened.
“It’s just a feeling, but it feels as real as a sword to the throat.”
“What’s provoked this, Talon?”
“It’s been a few months since I spoke to Uncle Barron.” I wasn’t sure why we even called him that because he was more of a distant cousin than a great-uncle. “He doesn’t show his face. His sons are absent from our lives. He and all his relations seemed to have disappeared.”
“Because he knows you’re onto him and backed off.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps that provoked him.”
“Provoked him to do what?”
“I don’t know, Silas. I just fear that he’s plotting something right under our noses. When he came to the royal grounds, we could see him in the flesh, witness his actions, but now that he’s avoiding us, I have no idea what he’s doing.”
“The farther away he is from us, the better,” Silas said. “The army respects Father’s rulership. The people respect Father as their king. Uncle Barron has no chance to poison them against our family. His only chance at the throne is to kill us all, pin the murder on someone else, and then take the crown for himself. And if he’s nowhere near us, then he can’t do that. I don’t want to dismiss your concerns as paranoia because I see it eating at you, but I think your distress is unnecessary.”
That was why I came down there, to hear Silas say these words to me, tell me that my concern was gravely misplaced. “I can’t discuss these things with Vivian.” I shared my life with her completely. There were very few secrets I kept from her.
“Why?”