Page 2 of Dragon Fight

Gods above, if he used that passionate, possessive tone every damn day of our marriage, I’d consider myself a happy woman. I found I couldn’t look away from the warm hazel depths of his eyes; it was as though I could feel the warmth of his regard for me. He met my gaze head on for several moments, eventually turning to the others.

“To our wife,” Flynn added, the hectic light in his blue eyes dancing as he held up his glass in defiance. “You might have the piece of paper to legitimise your relationship, but every single one of us knows she’s as much ours as she is yours.” His focus shifted to me. “Perhaps even more so.”

“To Pippin,” Soren and Ged said, joining Brom in his toast. But as Brom’s hand slid across the tablecloth to take mine, his thumb rolling the too loose ring he’d given me around my finger, Ged spoke up.

“And you’ll need to be damned careful about making that obvious.” His attention shifted to the doors. We were the only ones in the room, but it was clear he knew to be cautious. “If you’re working class, there’s nothing you like more than snooping on your ‘betters’.” He turned to me, his eyes creasing. “I don’t know how we’ll do it. We have to find a way. We have to—”

A queen must have her mates, Glimmer said, even as she buried her muzzle in the bowl of meat.

And she was right. I couldn’t do it, slip away to my room with one of them, not without the others. It’d been bearable before, because what burned between us had been unacknowledged, buried deep under regulations and compliance. But now? This was my estate, my lands, and I wanted to insist that every person on it acknowledged and supported my relationships—or get the hell off it.

But then, even as I burned with justifiable anger, I remembered the woman on the stage. As was often the case with new regimes, Queen Gloriana’s downfall had marked a determined effort to discredit and devalue polyamorous relationships, somehow connecting what went on in her bedroom to her inadequacies as a ruler.

“We’ve all been on covert missions before,” Soren said. “This won’t be any different. The room beside yours, Pippin. It has an adjoining door to the bedroom next to it?”

“It was Mother’s old room, then my stepmother’s,” I replied with a nod. “If two of you are comfortable bunking down in there?”

“But we won’t be sleeping in there.” Flynn’s gaze sliding over me was like a physical caress, and I gasped as my body responded. “No more pining away in our single beds. Promise me that.”

I wanted to. I wanted to walk around the table and put myself on his lap, settle against his body and let him feed me delicious morsels even as his scent filled my nose. I wanted that closeness, that intimacy, with each of them, but I also had to consider other things. I looked at Brom, feeling a terrible yearning before I spoke.

“Brom? In theory, this isyourwedding night.”

“And perhaps we should be honouring that,” Soren told Flynn. “There’ll be plenty of time for… other things.”

“Like Pippin’s hot lips wrapped around your cock,” Flynn said in a low mutter. “Like her cunt—”

“She’s more than that and you know it.” Ged’s voice was sharp, but his hand grabbed mine and gripped it hard. “Flynn, you want to try and pretend it's just a physical thing, but it's far more.” He glanced at me then. “Least it is for me. Do I want to sleep with Pippin tucked up under my chin, her whole body pressed against mine?” Ged nodded sharply. “There was nothing more beautiful than watching the sun rise this morning, seeing it reveal you by increments until it felt like my bloody heart would burst.”

Silence fell over the table, the only sound coming from Glimmer and her bowl. Then Ged’s attention shifted to Brom.

“But you want to have that experience too, don’t ya, mate?”

Brom stiffened, glancing between the two of us before replying.

“Just give me tonight,” he said, asking them, asking me. “You know I’ll never use the gift I’ve been given—the legal recognition of our relationship—to keep you away from her. But tonight?” Ged let my hand go as Brom’s thumb brushed back and forth over my knuckles. “Just one night, that’s all I ask.”

“We can give the commander that, can’t we?” Soren asked. Ged nodded. But Flynn was not so composed. His jaw tightened, his eyes flashed before he gave us his grudging approval.

And so a tense dinner was had. Dishes were passed around the table, with little other conversation ensuing, but their silence didn’t fool me. My every movement was followed with hot eyes, as if the way I clasped my wine glass or knife and fork was inordinately interesting.

And I understood why, for I felt the same.

There was something greedy, possessive, in me as well, as I watched them work through their food and I took in the flex of Ged’s thick forearms, the messy fall of Flynn’s blond hair, Soren’s perfectly upright posture and the sweep of his broad shoulders. And then there was Brom. My wing commander—my husband. He was mine, mine, mine and yet I knew him the least.

I found myself pausing more than once to watch him eat, taking in his finely shaped fingers, the shift of his long dark hair over his shoulders, the way his full lips pursed as he sipped at his wine and then there were his eyes. They’d always been cool, responsible, reliable, filling me with a confidence I’d never felt, until now. He looked up from his plate and caught me staring again, and he smiled. I blinked, as his eyes heated and amusement coloured his entire expression. The knowledge behind his eyes had my focus shifting abruptly back to Cook’s fine food. My heart raced and I feared that the effect he had on me would show in the shake of my hands, so I gripped the utensils tighter.

Not all males fly fast and hard to catch their mate, Glimmer told me.The one who lags behind may fool his rivals and his queen that he has lost heart. Then, when the others have exhausted themselves flying in pursuit, he uses the reserves of strength he has kept back and swoops in to claim his queen.

Is that what’s happening?I asked.You seem to know a great deal about these things.

My role is to find my mates, weld them to my side and then bring forth the next generation of dragons.I fought back the urge to snort as the small dragon stood tall on the tabletop, speaking with such self-assurance.Which is why I will sleep amongst my mates tonight.

What?I frowned at that, imagining all sorts of scenarios, but she just sighed.

We are two halves of a whole, she told me.But part of you will always belong to your men, just as mine will be with my mates. And with that she flicked open her wings and gracefully glided down from the table to the stone floor.Bind your ‘husband’ tightly to you, because we will need each one of your men in the fight that’s coming, just as we will need their dragons.

I wanted to ask questions, to interrogate her as to what the hell she knew, but she folded her wings, then turned and trotted out of the room like a dog that had other places to be. No doubt she was off to do exactly what she’d said—find her own consorts, the male dragons that were resting out in one of my fields. I half-rose to my feet to follow her. Even though I knew she was going to become more and more independent, I wasn’t ready for it. As I stood up, the men all set their cutlery aside and rose too.

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