Page 7 of The Dragon Queen

He hurts, she replied obstinately.Glacier hurts. Dimly I could hear the far deeper, far more resonant croon of dragons outside the palace walls.We all hurt.

We did, and we would for some time. I closed my eyes, leaning into that, feeling the slow leak of Flynn’s seed, but I made no move to clean myself up. Just here, just now, my lover needed me and I would be here for him.

“Gods, what a mess.”When he couldn’t cry anymore and a terrible stillness filled the gap, Flynn pulled back. He blinked, eyes red rimmed and sore looking, seeing the room as if for the first time. It wasn’t just the mess of fabric and pins, but us. “Let’s clean you up.”

A kerchief was produced from somewhere, but when he went to clean the mess between my legs, I stopped him with a hand to his wrist.

“Flynn—”

“Draven is going to bloody kill me.” A shaking hand raked hishair back from his brow. “I walked out of the war council to despoil his wing commander’s wife, his soon to be queen. I?—”

“Am hurting,” I told him, taking the square of fabric and cleaning myself up. “Understandably so.”

“We don’t have time to hurt.” Apparently we did, because that’s what I felt as I watched Flynn put the mask back on. “We’re preparing for war. The Harlstonians and the wild dragons and?—”

“Did we have time for pain when you held me as we stood beside my father’s grave?” I asked, remembering his attempt to console me just after the execution of my step-family. “Did you have time to hold a scared girl through her tears?”

“I felt completely out of my depth.” A shaky smile formed and disappeared in seconds. “We were supposed to be protecting the next queen-in-waiting, Draven’s intended, but then…” He let out a sigh. “You weren’t a queen, but someone in pain, and it felt like the least I could do was to try and console you, however inadequately.”

“I think that’s an instinct we all need to honour,” I replied, smiling back. “To console each other, however inadequately, through any pain, in whichever form the other person needs.”

“Just like that, huh?” When he moved closer, I felt like I could take a full breath again. His kiss, when pressed to my forehead, was a gentle one. “You’re going to absolve me from the sin of threatening Draven’s already shaky hold on the throne.”

“I’m going to acknowledge that you’re human,” I corrected. “One that’s been through a massive loss.”

“Gods above, Flynn! What the hell are you up to?”

The door slammed open and Soren and Ged came stumbling in. Ged’s eyes went wide, then a rakish smile made clear how he felt about this, right as Soren scowled.

“What does it bloody look like?” He wasn’t my Flynn, the secret one who sobbed like a boy, as he whirled around and snapped at the others. “If you’re very nice to Pippin, you might get your turn too.”

But we wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. I felt that sharp pang of disappointment, but forced myself to let my lover go. I pressed a kiss to the top of his cheekbone, sucking in his scent of soap and sweat and man, right before I pulled free and scrambled to put my uniformback on. I was hopping around, trying to work one boot back on again, before Ged handed me the other.

“Did everything Draven say go in one ear and out the other this morning?” Soren snapped. “Did you pay the slightest attention to any of your orders, or did you spend the entire time staring at Pippin’s tits?”

“They are glorious,” Ged said, pulling me closer once I was dressed again and then pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Was the fitting completely terrible?”

“If spending my time being plucked and pricked and pinned into a golden shroud, then yes, it was terrible,” I replied, resting my head against his chest. “This is not what I wanted.”

“No?” All the heat seemed to go out of Soren then, as he spun around and stalked closer. “If this isn’t what you want, we’ll get you and Glimmer clear of this place.” His words came out in a great tumble, making clear he’d thought long and hard about this. “There’s some of the smaller isles, right on the outer edge of Nevermere. The dragons could hide out easily there and?—”

“And Lance, Jenkins?” I named two of my fellow students who’d become victims of the dead queen. “Kay and Bernard?” Brom’s parents were trapped now in Harlstonian territory, either loyal to their rebel duke or about to face a sword point if they weren’t. “The entire keep?”

I knew Soren’s heart, just like I knew mine, those twin loyalties, one to me and one to his fellow riders, at war with each other. It was why women were never brought into the corps before this. We were a potential conflict of interest that the crown could not bear then.

Or now.

“None of this is what any of us wanted, but we need to see things through to the end,” I said in a low whisper, “and hope we come out on top when it does.”

Soren pressed a kiss to my lips, slow, sad, and sensual, but when he pulled back, he nodded.

“If that’s the plan, then we better get to the prince’s chambers. He wants to have words.”

Chapter 4

“One day.” I knew how much trouble we were in by the way Draven’s eyes glittered. They were like blue topaz, though twice as hard as those gemstones. “I asked all of you to assist me during the transition of power, in the preparations for the first civil war to break out in this country since my family took the throne, and what happened?”

He skewered Ged with his gaze.

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