Page 62 of Red Dragon
Fel hadn’t lowered his mace and was making it clear thathewould keep another stormer from entering. Likely by braining him. Judging by the occasional growls that wafted from him, like a dog protecting the bone it was working on, Fel still wanted to brain Vorik too.
Maybe that was the correct way to feel toward him, and Syla was being foolish for granting him any degree of trust.
“Whatareyour orders?” She wondered if he would answer.
Vorik looked from her to those in the wheelhouse watching. “May I have a private moment alone with you?”
“No,” Fel stated.
Sensing Vorik would admit more if they were alone, Syla opened her mouth to ask the others to leave but noticed the green belly through the hole again. “Won’t privacy be hard to achieve with a dragon on the roof above a giant hole?”
“Agrevlari can read my thoughts, so our interlude wouldn’t have been entirely private regardless.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Especially if…” Syla thought of the night they’d spent in the cave and hoped the dragon, kept a mile away by the barrier at the time, hadn’t been reading Vorik’s thoughts then.
“I succeed in expressing my relief at finding you alive and unharmed?” he finished for her.
“Yes.”
Nobody had moved, so Syla waved for Teyla, Fel, and the stormer whose name she didn’t know to leave the wheelhouse. Teyla hesitated but did so, giving curious backward looks to Vorik as she did. When Vorik nodded at his man, the stormer walked out, but he also sent a few curious looks over his shoulderon the way. Further, his gaze lingered on the body near Syla before he departed.
She told herself that they couldn’t possibly know how the man had died. Just because he wasn’t bloody didn’t meant mean anything. Sergeant Fel might have broken his neck.
Thoughts of neck-breaking likely on his mind now, Fel hung his mace on his belt but folded his muscled arms over his chest as if to say he wouldn’t go anywhere.
Syla made a shooing motion toward the doorway. “You can stand right outside, if you wish, Sergeant.”
Vorik’s eyebrow twitched, but he didn’t object.
“I’m going to ask our rider guest a few questions,” she added, hoping that might sway Fel. “I think he’ll be more likely to open up without you glowering at him.”
“Interrogations aren’t done by pressing your chest up against a man,” Fel stated, but he grabbed one of the bodies to haul outside.
“I rather think she could get a lot of information out of me by maneuvering so,” Vorik said.
Fel growled at him. And glowered.
“Is there something that’s irritating your throat, Sergeant?” Vorik asked. “Your vocalizations sound strained. Perhaps you should see a healer and acquire an herbal tea.”
“I want to club him with my mace,” Fel told Syla.
“A lot of people do, but go outside anyway, please. And close the door.”
Fel scowled but pulled the second and last of the bodies out with him as he left the wheelhouse. Maybe he didn’t think Syla should be surrounded by death. After all she’d endured, she ought to be used to it, but she would be glad not to have the frozen eyes of the deceased staring accusingly at her while she spoke with Vorik.
Fel made a point of standing immediately beside the doorway, his shoulder visible. Without releasing Syla, Vorik unsheathed his sword and used the tip to push the door shut. Save for a porthole in it, the walls to either side were solid, giving them a modicum of privacy, at least from the direction of the deck.
“That’s better,” Vorik said cheerfully.
“I agree.”
He returned his sword to its scabbard, then dropped it and his pack to the deck before sliding both arms around Syla and kissing her. Though she hadn’t expected it, her arms lifted to wrap around his shoulders of their own accord, and she melted into his touch.
Passion filled his kiss, but there was more than that. Relief? Vorik must have been able to see the battle unfolding as his dragon flew in, the boarding party arriving and men breaching the wheelhouse. Maybe he’d worried he would be too late.
The implication that he cared touched Syla, and she struggled to remember that she wanted to ask him a few questions—to learn what his orders were. What had brought him here? She highly doubted he’d simply been in the area.
But as his lips stroked hers, and his hands started roaming, they woke up her numb body. His strong fingers slid over her shoulders, stirring sensations as they trailed down her arms, shifted to her waist, and finally cupped her backside. Pleasure replaced her distress, pleasure anddesire.
