Page 30 of Bleeding for the Prince
“From my dealings with Robin, he’s besotted with Simon. I don’t think he’d let anyone come between them, Hollywood heartthrob or not. But I guess they’re still getting to know each other.”
“Theirs is a bit of an odd situation. They were introduced and married quickly, I mean, we were friends for years before we got our heads out of our arses and got together.” He leant in and stole a kiss. “But the Dorian thing got me thinking.”
“Oh no, that sounds like trouble.”
He smacked Gwil’s thigh. “Fucker. Listen, Simon said he’d been trying to track Dorian’s movements, but he seemed to be untraceable, and he suspected it was to do with his dragon nature.”
“I didn’t know dragons were untraceable.”
“There’s not much I do know about dragons… and add in that Howard Squire could be a wyvern, and I think we should do some digging.”
Gwil cocked his head to one side. “I imagine rummaging around the library of the Jyndarin Society would be an added benefit of dinner.”
Gwil knew him so well. “You know me and books.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to think we should have gotten a bigger place to house your research habit.” He waved at the stack of leather-bound volumes in the corner. “They’re starting to multiply.”
“You know that’s not how it works. Books don’t have baby books. Do we need to have a conversation about the birds and the bees?”
“Here I was, thinking we were talking about dragons.”
He could swing for Gwil some days. “You’re such an arsehole. I was trying to be serious and solve the case we’re working on.”
“You think there be dragons?”
A rumble from the fireplace cut off his comment. Gwil jumped to his feet. “The last time that happened, Copperpipe appeared.”
Hyax’s mother had mentioned the incident and Copperpipe’s unique way of dealing with people. He’d not met Copperpipe, only seen him at a distance, and that was more than enough.
A small black box popped into existence on the coffee table. It was around the same size and appearance as something he’d seen human engagement rings come in. Gwil picked it upbefore Hyax could chastise him for handling unknown objects appearing out of thin air.
“Hello, Fang Face,” came a voice from the box and Hyax assumed from the familiarity and that Gwil hadn’t dropped the box that it was Copperpipe. “I am still working on our little project, but I found these in a duct under the warehouse in Dante’s. They are scales, there were more but I kept them ’cos gold is gold.”
“I’ve never seen a message sent that way,” Hyax said, his opinion on the little potato shifted somewhat. “I thought he was a goblin; goblins can’t do that.”
“I don’t really know what he is, but we had to deactivate the goblin wards at Dante’s to get him in. He did say he wasn’t exactly a goblin, but he’s enough of one to trigger protection spells against them.”
Hyax had been grateful Gwil hadn’t called for him to meet him during his meal with Copperpipe, the description had been enough to turn his stomach. “I guess it doesn’t matter what he is as long as he’s useful.”
Gwil opened the box and, sitting on a little mound of velvet where usually a ring would be, were three vaguely circular pieces of gold, a bit like the one they found in Dante’s. Gwil held one up. “These are flimsy—I’d have thought dragon scales would have been thicker and tougher.”
Hyax shrugged. “Same here. It’s like the one you found in the cookware department. They look like sweet wrappers.”
“Maybe that’s what happens to them when they drop off? Oh, do you think we could ask Robin to ask Dorian?”
Hyax winced. “I don’t want to be asking favours of Dorian. Not with Simon’s current issues. But you did say Howard Squire was a wyvern, perhaps we could ask him?”
“Aren’t wyverns just a dragon with less legs?”
Hyax wouldn’t say that to a wyvern’s face. “Probably best not to put it in those terms. You’d think if he were a wyvern, he’d have made a dragon connection already.”
Gwil was staring at the scale. “Solivatus said he was at least part wyvern, that doesn’t mean he is.”
Hyax had never heard Gwil speak in such a way about his sire, while Gwil knew Solivatus would bend a narrative to fit his own needs, he’d never suggested he was outright lying. “Why would he say Howard was a wyvern if he isn’t?”
“That’s not what I meant. Howard said he had a lot of important backers, and wyverns and dragons are well-known for being good with money, maybe he’s not a wyvern, maybe Howard’s been spreading rumours he is one for business purposes.”
There were days when Gwil’s leaps of logic left him standing, and this was one of them. “That’s an interesting hypothesis.”
