Page 21 of Aria's Desire

That had her wondering how old Rellik was. She didn’t know, hadn’t ever asked. There was a lot she didn’t know about him, a lot she wanted to know but wouldn’t ask, too worried about sending mixed signals.

As if touching his thigh and staring at him as if I want to eat him aren’t mixed signals. Jesus.

She should’ve thought to ask him and Sin personal questions before they left the complex, should’ve thought to learn those small details a lover would know. As soon as they were alone, she decided she was going to do just that.

Would it make a difference? Would it make their fake mating more convincing? Maybe. But that wasn’t her motivation. She finally had a reason to discover the things she wanted to know about them, and she was going to take advantage of it.

As the soldiers spread out in a line at the base of the stairs, the two in the middle moved aside to let the Queen pass by.

To Rellik, Aria asked, though she knew the answer, “So, that’s the Queen?”

She could feel him staring at her profile, searching her face, as he murmured, “Yes.”

“Hmm. She looks younger than I anticipated.”

Not acknowledging Rellik’s scrutinizing look, Aria stood and stepped off of Sin’s back, dropping twenty feet to the cobbled ground. She landed with a soft thud, bending her knees slightly to absorb the impact, then straightened.

Rellik thumped down at her side a moment later, moving to stand just behind her shoulder, his chest pressed against her. She knew he was standing so close to sell him being her mate, and because it was how a male was expected to behave among his people, but it still made her stomach flutter.

That there’d be a hell of a lot more touches during their stay, from both him and Sin, was something she wasn’t letting herself think on too much.

Sin’s hot breath gusted over the top of her head, telling Aria he’d turned to face the approaching Queen. He wouldn’t shift to a man until they were sure of their welcome.

Sweeping her gaze over the gathered crowd, she took in their facial expressions, body language, and listened to the tone of their hushed murmurs.

Slowing her sweep, she stared at each person for a beat longer. There was something… off about them, something that had her examining them closer.

It took a second to click, but when it did, she almost smiled.

There were no children. And the men and women gathered, doing an admirable job of acting like normal subjects, weren’t. It was in the way they moved, in the assessing way they stared at her and her men.

They were soldiers. Armed soldiers.

Looking back at the Queen, she realized these people, and her in particular, may not be as inept as Aria had feared.

“They’re all soldiers,” she told Sin and Rellik, keeping her voice quiet enough that only they would hear.

Rellik, a pro at controlling his reactions, kept his response to a quiet but startled, “Hm?”

Sin, who was possibly even better at assessing threats than she was, dipped down just enough to lightly rub his scaled chin over the top of her head.

How she knew that meant he’d already figured that out, she had no idea, but she did.

Chapter 13

The female stopped less than two feet away, her yellow eyes bright with what looked like curiosity. “You are Queen Aria, I presume. I am Queen Ishtal. I welcome you to my Queendom,” she purred, her voice deeper, throatier, than Aria expected.

“I am. It’s nice to meet you.”

This close, Ishtal’s alienness was even more apparent. Her skin was almost pure white, she had bone plating over her cheeks and chin, and her long hair was silver. Not white, but actually silver like christmas tinsel. Regardless of her strangeness, Aria could see her smile was genuine and there didn’t appear to be any deceit in her large, uptilted, yellow eyes.

“We have prepared a feast to welcome you and rooms in which you may refresh yourself. If you will join me?” Her gaze flicked to Sin and lingered for a moment before she offered, “Would you like your… beast attended?”

Aria kept the frown off her face at Ishtal referring to Sin as a beast. She had no way of knowing he was a man or that the moniker was what his masters called him.

Maintaining her neutral expression, she reached back to brush her fingers over his scaled foreleg and responded, “No, thank you. He’ll be coming with me.”

Ishtal’s eyes widened ever so slightly, and the briefest expression of confusion flashed across her face, likely wondering how Aria planned to get a thirty-foot dragon inside the castle.

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