Page 119 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
“Why?”
“Because Kassein likes Alezya.”
She frowned.
That didn’t make sense. Was she missing something about their customs that prevented her from touching him? Was it because they weren’t married, perhaps? She hadn’t thought about it before, but maybe the Dragon Clan also refused two people to lay together if they weren’t married...
Alezya found herself stunned at how disappointed she was. Did she want him that badly? Although she knew it hurt? Or was she curious about how Kassein was with a woman...?
“Teach me,” he suddenly said.
“Teach?”
“You. Alezya’s words.”
Her language. He wanted to learn more of her language.
She had been reluctant to teach them, but now she was desperate to understand him, and for him to understand her. She needed them to be able to communicate if she wanted him to help with her plan. She wasn’t ready to tell him about Lumie yet. She had suffered through too much from the last man she trusted and all the horrible things she had heard everyone she once trusted say about her child. Her trust had been shattered, perhaps beyond repair, and believing in a complete stranger wasn’t easy.
The only thing about Kassein was that he kept exceeding her expectations, and he held none of the beliefs she had grown up with. None of the rules she knew applied to him, and she hoped that would be the same when he eventually met Lumie... because she had decided he was her baby’s best way out.
She still held some hope in her mother’s birth clan, but realistically, she hadn’t seen her mother in a long time, had no idea how far they were, and they were the obvious choice; her father probably would look for her there first. He had sent Alezya like a prize, but he would never have expected a warrior of the Dragon Clan to be willing to accept Lumie.
Her father was a man who didn’t have an ounce of Kassein’s kindness and would never believe that a man so powerful would accept a woman another had rejected and a baby that wasn’t his.
Alezya was ready to take that bet.
“I teach Kassein, Kassein teach me,” she said.
He nodded and sat with his legs crossed, facing her.
Unlike Alezya, he clearly didn’t need any blanket to cover his body, but he grabbed another of the fur blankets and wrapped it around her. She felt ridiculously bundled like this, but perhaps it was for the best if they were going to behave while within inches of each other...
So, despite all of her expectations, they spent the next few hours of the morning chatting, teaching each other the same words again and again.
Alezya had already learned quite a bit from Lorey, and while learning some more with Kassein this morning and teaching him her own language in return, she began to realize that the reason she could learn quickly was also that the Dragon Clan’s language was somewhat easier in unexpected ways.
They didn’t have different words to differentiate a female subject from a male one. Alezya referred to herself with the female version of “I” and used a different version of “you” if she spoke to a man or a woman in her language, but the Dragon Clan’s didn’t bother with that; it made no difference if a man or woman was speaking to a man or woman, the sentence was the same. It was the same thing when speaking about people who weren’t there; they had the same words for she and her and he and him, although they used names more often.
When she tried to ask if Kein was female or male, Kassein snorted and shook his head.
“Dragon. Not male or female. Only dragon.”
“Kiki too?”
“Kiki dragon too.”
They used names more often when referring to people, and Alezya realized they hadn’t been speaking to her by using their names over and over to make it easier for her to understand who they were talking about, but simply because it was their natural way of speaking.
The way they built their sentences also had the subject of the sentence at the beginning, while hers had it at the end. She could tell Kassein was struggling to keep up with the differences when using her language too.
He could remember the vocabulary, but building the sentences was a nightmare for him. He kept misgendering them and instead, reverted to using their names quickly because he was getting frustrated and confused.
It was a lot easier and funnier for Alezya than it was for him, yet Kassein was incredibly stubborn and doing his best either way. She could tell he was desperate to understand her, but they found more common ground using his language.
“That word you used before,” he said.
“What word?”
