Page 33 of Dragon Fight

“She indicated we were engaged in a ménage à trois,” Brom finished for me much more succinctly. “And that Draven was at the centre of it, not Ada.”

“Yes.”

I said the word with my heart full of hope, though for what, I wasn’t certain. It wasn’t for him to confirm any of what she’d said, that was for sure.

“Damn her…” he muttered, slamming his hand down on the stone wall above my head and frowning. “This was a conversation I knew I needed to have with you, Pippin, but not yet, not now.” He scraped his wet hair back from his face with an irritated huff, shaking his head. “But of course she had to come blundering…”

Brom dropped his gaze back to mine. As I looked up at him, I could see his focus sharpen as he turned from focusing on the situation to really seeing me.

“And how are you feeling in all of this, Pippin? What a bloody disaster of a visit this has been! An accident yesterday, Glimmer half drowned today.” I winced. “My parents’ relationship issues laid bare and now bloody Ada sticking her nose in where it's not needed, digging up old relics from the past.”

“Is it… in the past?” I asked, holding my breath, not wanting to hear the answer but knowing I needed to ask.

“Gods, lass, do you think I’d have made any overtures towards you if my heart was still held by someone else? Especially after having watched my father destroy my mother without meaning to, every day they are together.”

He stared at me earnestly and all of the same impulses that had allowed me to trust him before came rushing back and I let my breath out in a shuddering release

“We need to talk about this, at length. I want to answer any question you have and then more.” His hand smoothed up my spine and cupped the back of my head. “You’re my wife and I…” He stopped himself, shaking his head and then stared down at the stone tiles beneath our feet. “I need some time to talk this out with you, when you’re ready.”

“But not now.”

I smiled wryly, even though I wasn’t feeling ready at all. I didn’t know what I wanted to be honest. I’d been brought up to expect any husband I took would have a romantic and sexual history. Gods, there had even been conversations in drawing rooms presided over by Cicely (before I was demoted to swineherd) about what to do if your husband took a mistress, or married you with one in tow. But, unfortunately, none of the strategies had discussed how to manage the situation if the other woman was a man and the Crown Prince.

“Yes, now, if you wish it. We’ll jump on Obsidian’s back and take off for a few hours and I can tell you everything I should’ve.”

“But your mother—”

“Damn my mother. Damn all of them. I don’t come home often and this is why. The past is raked over for little reason other than malice, from what I can tell, as if to remind me of what I was, not who I am now. The party will go on without us.”

“The guests of honour?!”

He answered me in a much more physical way, holding me close and burying his face in my neck, pressing hard, desperate kisses to my skin until it came alight, just as his body did. I could feel him pressing hard into my hip before finally he pulled away.

“Perhaps not, but… Will you be alright tonight? If you don’t think you will be, we can excuse ourselves; claim Glimmer needs watching if needs be.”

But she didn’t. She’d caught all of my thoughts and emotions, as she always did, but she did not seem at all perturbed by any of these revelations.

He is a good mate, was all she had to say about the issue.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Pippin…”

He lifted my chin to stare into my eyes, raising one eyebrow as if to challenge my response.

“Well, Iwillbe. Promise me we’ll talk afterwards.”

“Of course, love.” And there was my Brom, earnest, warm, trustworthy, no matter who he’d been in the past. “Whenever you’re ready.”

After we got out of the shower and dried off, Brom helped me put on my dress uniform, flicking minute spots of lint off my shoulders before stepping back and nodding with a smile.

“I’m glad I married you when I did. You’re the most beautiful woman in the whole keep. Someone else would have swept in and taken you away from me if I hadn’t.”

But as we walked together down the stairs, arm in arm, I couldn’t help the little voice of doubt that made me wonder how much of our bond was formed from real affection and how much was pure duty.

21

"Here’s the happy couple!” Kay announced as everyone in the expansive parlour turned around to take us in. “I told you they’d be down soon.”

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