Page 67 of Red Dragon
Agrevlari drew in a deep breath, but Vorik placed a hand on his scales and implored him, “Give it a rest, please. She’s not here for you.”
Wreylith was close enough now that they could see her golden eyes were focused on the wheelhouse. Vorik didn’t know when Syla had called the dragon—when the battle had first started and before he’d arrived?—but he had no doubt Wreylith had come because of her, not the pining Agrevlari. Indeed, when Wreylith, red scales gleaming in the morning sun, glanced at the green dragon, her eyes flared with inner light, as if to warn him to get his ass off the princess’s vessel, as she’d called it, before she lit him on fire.
Agrevlari must have interpreted her expression similarly, because his big inhalation turned into a sigh rather than another round of the screeching chorus. With his tail drooping a little, he sprang into the air. Vorik lifted a hand to wave to Syla, in case she was watching, as Agrevlari flew off to join Tonasketal.
Seconds after they departed, Wreylith landed on top of the wheelhouse. Yes, she’d come for Syla. No doubt.
Vorik watched to make sure Syla hadn’t inadvertently irked the red dragon, and wouldn’t be plucked up in her jaws, but Wreylith gazed down through the hole. Starting a conversation? This time, whatever telepathic words she shared were for Syla alone.
Oh, Agrevlari,Vorik said to his dragon, speaking silently so that Wise wouldn’t overhear.I’ve got to work on my timing.
You have experienced an interruption in mating again.
Yeah.
At least you were invited tostartthe mating process.
I’m not sure I was invited so much as accepted when I showed up and started the, uh, process,he said, using Agrevlari’s word.
Coitus.
We didn’t get that far, unfortunately.Something hiscertain body partwas unhappy about and would be for some time. Still, Vorik couldn’t begrudge the red dragon’s arrival. With Lesva’s threat fresh in his mind, he was glad Wreylith would be around Syla—even if it would have been better for General Jhiton’s ambitions if a powerful dragonweren’tseemingly allying herself with the last member of the royal family in the kingdom they were trying to take over.
I fear Wreylith would notacceptanything from me, should I attempt to start the mating process.
No, I think she’d rip your tail off.
I’ve heard she’s slain potential suitors in the past. Even ones she mated withbeforethe slaying.
That wouldn’t surprise me. If I were you, I’d wait for her to give a clear invitation.Vorik had no idea how that worked for dragons but envisioned Wreylith in a nest on a high rocky perch, flicking her tail in the dragon version of a come-hither wave.Or stick to females who haven’t the power to slay you afterward.
Vorik smiled, the next image to enter his mind of sweet Syla gazing at him through her spectacles.
But she was far from helpless, wasn’t she? Vorik thought of that unexplained body with nary a wound visible.
Hehadn’t killed the man, and the cousin awkwardly wielding a sword hadn’t run him through. The bodyguardmighthave clubbed him in the head with his mace, but, when Vorik had arrived, Fel had been so busy outside the wheelhouse, trying to keep assassins from gaining entrance, that Vorik didn’t know ifthat was likely. The memory of Devron explaining how Syla had used magic to cut off his airway and render him unconscious lurked in his mind. Was it possible that his sweet healer princess was far deadlier than he could have imagined?
Females without great power are not as stimulating,Agrevlari remarked as he and Tonasketal flew east, toward the mainland, to start the mission they should have departed on that morning.
You think so?
Iknowso.
Vorik looked thoughtfully back over his shoulder, past Wise and toward the whaling ship now floating alone in the ocean, the vessels that had attacked it all having fled. He decided it would be good if he and his lieutenant could reach the shielder components before Syla.
He didn’t worry about her using deadly magic on him, but he wanted to be her lover, not her enemy. It would be bad enough when she realized they were on the same mission. He didn’t want to have to fight her openly to do his duty.
After Syla tucked away the juggling balls that Vorik had left—did he truly think shecould master such a sport?—she stood under the hole in the wheelhouse ceiling, looking up at the nowredscales of a dragon’s belly. Outside, Captain Radmarik and what seemed like every crewman aboard stared, alternately through the doorway at Syla and up at the red dragon.
Wreylith had been watching Vorik and his man—or more likely the two dragons carrying them—depart, but she shifted so that her long neck could lower her substantial head into the wheelhouse. Syla wondered if Radmarik was furious that thesame hole had been made twice in less than a month by the same dragon. At the moment, his chunk of sugar cane drooped from the corner of his mouth as he observed whatever was about to unfold.
One of Wreylith’s horns clipped the side of the hole, knocking pieces of wood free. Her great head seemed to fill the entire wheelhouse, and Syla tried not to feel trapped with her back to the console. She also tried not to feel embarrassed that she was going to converse with a mighty dragon from the same position where she’d moments earlier been brought to ecstasy by Vorik. Well, not theexactsame position. Her cheeks heated as she remembered dropping back and throwing her legs wide for him, utterly unashamed about the crew outside, close enough to hear. No, notunashamed, precisely. Just… too distracted to remember or care that people had been nearby.
As Wreylith gazed at her with her golden eyes, reptilian slits for pupils, Syla tried to push the memories from her thoughts. Dragons, she reminded herself, could read minds.
“Greetings, Lady Wreylith.” Syla stepped around her head, glad the dragon’s maw wasn’t open to reveal her long, pointed fangs, and shut the door after holding up a wait-please finger toward Radmarik. “Thank you for coming. Dare I hope you’ve decided that you’re willing to carry me to collect the shielder components? I would be surprised if it was Agrevlari’s allure—hisscreechingallure—that drew you.”
Wreylith exhaled a warm breath that stirred Syla’s hair. Was that how dragons snorted?
