Page 21 of The Wrath of Ashes
“I’m not sure.” Asha glanced about and Jeron smiled sweetly.
“After a nap and dinner, you think you might like to lay before the fire and bask in the warmth with a little fire rum to help you relax?” Jeron prodded him and Asha nodded. “And would you mind if Sir were to join you for some pleasant conversation? Dinner may be fraught with family wanting to meet you.”
Asha nodded again. “Th-that sounds lovely.”
“Wonderful.” Jeron clapped. “Now shoo. Go get yourself presentable for your mate.” Jeron made a shooing gesture at the door, and Rath’s hesitant footsteps petered away, taking a strange prickle in the air that Asha hadn’t noticed, with it.
“I don’t want to make him mad.” Asha gasped as Jeron plucked at his chest hair a bit. “Hey! I only just grew those!”
“And you’re only just going to lose them! Look how soft and pretty you are. I’ll have them sugared off in no time flat and you’ll be so smooth.”
“Sugared?” Asha’s eyes went wide, and Jeron grinned wickedly.
“Oh yes. It’s boiled sugar, and we lay it on you warm and rip it off with cloth to pull all the hair away!”
Asha clenched at the thought, but Jeron seemed very insistent and he’d been very nice… “While you do the sugar thing… Can you tell me what this Ashen mark thing is?”
Jeron’s grin turned wicked. “Absolutely. Come. Let’s finish you up and ready you for a nap.”
Chapter Nine
Mezerath
He’d never in his life had trouble picking an outfit before. True, his courtly blue and gold regalia made an impression, but his usual fare of linen pants and a black tunic worn ragged from years of wear was too…unworthy, for lack of a better word. Asha deserved better. Rath so dearly loved his tunics, the delicate silver and gold embroidery on them, a comfort only his mother could bring at a time like this. Perhaps if his parents woke in the spring for the solstice, as some sleepers did, they could meet Asha.
“Your Majesty. Dinner will be served soon.” His chambermaid swept through the guest bedroom, tsking at the clothes laying about, what he’d pilfered from his quarters before Jeron ran him off.Traitor.Rath knew where the boy’s loyalties lie.Right where they should be.Hopefully, he and Asha would get along.
She bustled by and rifled through his clothes before pulling out a tunic he’d overlooked. She brushed dust off of the dark-gray surface and held it up. It lacked the pretty embroidery on the sleeves and neckline that Rath so enjoyed, but it had a crest at the chest of it, a mixture of applique and embroidery that he’d not worn in some time, the crest of their nation. He tossed his clothes to the bed and Nina, his chambermaid, bustled around him with a twisted frown. “You’re as messy as your father, really.”
“I apologize dearly, miss.” Rath offered her his best smile, and she beamed.
“I’ve not seen you so lost since your parents went to sleep.” She gave him a one-armed hug as he shrugged into the new shirt and plucked the threads of it into place, relishinghow it complemented his broad chest. It would give his mate something to look at, to tempt and lure him in. He strode to a mirror and turned this way and that to look at himself before Nina came after him with a comb like he was a child again. He fought her minimally and succumbed to her ministrations.
“I don’t know what to do to impress my mate. He has been poisoned against what he is.”
Nina pinched his chin and grinned, tucking his stray hairs around his horns. “Be yourself. And remember, he’s not a bedservant. If it didn’t keep your beast at bay, I’d have never wanted you to have one. He’s your friend first, remember that.” She patted his cheek and swatted his rear with a shirt as she slipped by. “Now, shape up and go spend time with your brothers in the dining hall. Envi is driving everyone nuts trying to get more details on your boy.”
“Draenvir can keep wondering and meet him at dinner like the rest of them.”
“You say that, but Envi’s the best of all of you at magic and if the boy’s been sheltered, he’ll want all the help he can get. Can you imagine that power he has to be holding for you?” Nina hung a few items of clothing up before circling Rath and straightening his chain and clothes before handing him a pair of comfortable leather shoes, something a scant more sturdy and warm than a slipper. He tucked them on and gave her a one-armed hug.
“I agree. It frustrates me that he’ll have more time with my mate than I.”
“Ahh, so you’re going to exercise a little patience, then?” Nina chuckled. “Never was your strong suit.”
Rath grumbled and slipped free of the guest bedroom. He had to keep telling himself that time would come, that Asha would come to him.
Rath strode into the banquet hall and spied his brothers milling around. Envi had his face shoved into a book as perusual, and Ghreid, his youngest brother, sat tallying through some trade ministry documents, brow furrowed. Those creases would become permanent if he didn’t ease up soon.
“Anyone seen Slathar about?” Rath and he had been born from the same clutch, and though they were as near to twins as a dragon could get, he didn’t have the same drive as Rath did, preferring to create.
“Probably in his studio, again? He was wondering around covered in paint this morning.” Ghreid waved his dip pen about before seeing to some figures or another. “Speaking of missing brothers. Where’ve you been?”
“He found his mate and went to go fetch him, which is why I bothered to be here at all,” Envi said, rolling his eyes.
Ghreid sat bolt upright, fumbling his pen. Rath darted forward to catch it, spilling ink over his hand and pants in the process, saving his figures. He swore and sighed heavily. “You found him? What’s he like? Dragon or Ashen? Don’t tell me. He’s Ashen, right?”
Rath shuffled anxiously and twisted, uncertain of what to do with the splatters of ink and the dark spill over his hand. “Damn it all to the pits! I was trying to look presentable!”
