Page 6 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

When Varidian laughed suddenly, I realised I’d said that aloud. He cut off the sound when he realised I was truly afraid.

How ridiculous. A gentry, afraid of a wyvern. Gentry were born on wyvern back, raised atop their fierce scales, and died between the spikes of a wyvern’s spine.

“He’s a teddy bear,” Varidian said, startling me with a soft stroke of his thumb over my knuckles. “I know Makrukh has a reputation, but he’s only so deadly against our enemies. Not my wife. Right, Mak?”

Makrukh tilted his head, surveying me. I thought I would be sick as his red eyes narrowed, but I managed to swallow the bile back into my stomach. He flicked a look in Varidian’s direction that made my husband scowl.

“Best behaviour,” he warned his wyvern, squeezing my hand before he let go. I was tempted to throw myself after him and grab his hand back. “I’ll find that spare coat and let you two get acquainted.”

I flashed my husband a wide-eyed stare, too afraid to wonder why I needed a jacket, and what he meant about the temperature. I didn’t put those things together for a long minute; I darted skittish glances at the wyvern watching me with a head twenty times the size of mine.

“I’m Ameirah,” I breathed, because a name was as good a place to start as any. I’d never been taught the correct procedures for meeting a wyvern; what I knew was cobbled together from a hundred different books. When he huffed, nostrils flaring, my mouth ran faster than my mind and I blurted, “I don’t have to ask your name, of course. Makrukh, the Knife of the Moon, the wyvern who saved Reaper’s Gate fromcollapse. You’re a legend. I love legends,” I finished lamely, all my bravery and panic exhausted in a single burst of speech.

Makrukh turned his huge head to give Varidian a long look as my husband returned with a hip-length leather coat buttoned over his resplendent wedding clothes. Another was draped over his arm, the cuffs and collar embellished with flames and serpents in a contrasting deep maroon. Black and maroon. My family colours, now. My stomach swooped.

“Shush,” Varidian huffed at his wyvern like the hulking beast really was a housecat. “Here, Ameirah.”

Oh, dear. A delicious ripple of warmth went through me at the sound of my name in his rich, rumbly voice. Parts of me clenched that really ought to have minded their own business.

“Thank you,” I said absently, pulling the leather coat over my takchita and marvelling at the softness of the leather. The Jaouhari family were hardly paupers, but there was a marked difference between the leather goods I owned and this piece. I resisted the urge to brush my cheek to its buttery softness—and froze when Varidian stepped into my space, pulling both sides of the coat closed and fastening the buttons.

“I’m capable of buttoning a coat, you know,” I said, both irritated and warmed all the way through by the gesture.

Makrukh huffed a laugh, perfuming the garden with iron and fire.

“Humour your husband,” Varidian said warmly. He brushed my jaw with a knuckle when he finished buttoning my coat, rendering me both mute and dumb by the touch.

Maybe this marriage would be more than a shield for me. I certainly wouldn’t hate more touches and caring gestures like this. My mind filled with a cacophony of images and fantasies, so many that I didn’t understand Varidian’s meaning for a moment.

“Do you need help mounting him in that dress?”

Did I need…

Helpmountinghim.

Mounting Makrukh, a living legend, a wyvern as tall as most houses.

My eyes were as wide as saucers. “You mean for me to—to ride your wyvern?”

“I know it’s bad etiquette and your wyvern will be affronted by you riding another mount, but since they flew ahead of you to the Red Star, I thought you’d fly with me.”

“They flew ahead of me?”

Varidian nodded absently, distracted by the rise of music from the gardens where we’d first met. Bawdy voices followed. “Since your wyvern isn't here, I guessed you’d sent them ahead of you. It was smart,” he added, fixing his attention back on me. “Is that a regular occurrence? Is my dear wife smart?”

His dear wife was on the verge of screaming and running away. But one look at the villa behind me and my resolve strengthened. There was a reason the Jaouhari sigil was a golden scorpion, and I had no desire to be stung ever again. Whatever happened, I would never come back here. I’d have a new home, and make a place for myself there, where no one would know the worst parts of me. Maybe no one would know I accidentally killed my little sister. Maybe no one would know I was a killer.

I didn’t answer Varidian’s question. I eyed Makrukh who watched us with an unsettling level of intelligence and said, “I believe Iwillneed help mounting.”

CHAPTER FOUR

AMEIRAH

My jaw had been clenched for so long that an ache pounded through my face, but if I relaxed, I would scream like a madwoman. Strava was long behind us, the desert spread beneath us, flowing as far as I could see, interrupted only by villages so golden they were difficult to spot and the odd crop of trees. I might have found it beautiful if the sheer distance from the ground didn’t make me want to scream at the top of my lungs.

Like he sensed how tightly I held myself and wanted to torment me, Makrukh swooped suddenly lower, tilting his massive, leathery wings at an angle. The scream I’d had trapped ripped free and the low rumble of noise moving through his body assured me he was laughing.

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