Page 39 of Dragon Fight

“Drink first and I’ll tell you,” he ordered.

“Tell me and I’ll drink the lot,” I said, then winced as my stomach grumbled in protest. He watched me clutch at it with a frown and then sighed.

“My mother wants to kill you, Pippin. She sent me to do it and I hoped by hanging around on your honeymoon I could persuade her I was working on that, but of course, she couldn’t entrust this task only to me.”

He shot me a look and I started drinking from the waterskin even as I felt my stomach lurch.

“She is nothing but thorough.”

I heard the other dragons all humming as he spoke, the five of them creeping stealthily closer, as if they weren’t massive apex predators.

“I interrogated the stable lad who put the devil’s burr in your saddle blanket. He wasn’t especially helpful. Just said that Ada had given him a task to do and a bag full of coins to complete it. I thought I had her pegged, sure she’d try something tonight once everyone was asleep. I was going to catch her in the act and then make clear the error of her ways.”

I sucked down more water and then he kept on talking. “She gave you some biscuits?” I nodded, remembering it all now. I felt simultaneously water-logged and empty, but my mind was clear.

“Kashian nut is a heavily controlled substance both for its value and its lethal qualities. The hill folks used to distil a concoction from it into something newlyweds would drink to ensure good fertility and the favour of the gods. But if not done correctly? The natural toxins in the nuts can be amplified with fire weed, leaching into the person’s body to kill them. Of course, our assassins’ guilds make good money from just such powders and tinctures. And who else would have easy access to this but my uncle and my mother?”

He stared at me, then nudged the waterskin, prompting me to drink again.

“Ada created a traditional wedding gift, but one she wanted only you to consume. You’d have gone to Brom tonight, to all of my riders, in a heightened mood, torn their clothes from their bodies and indulged in an orgy of sensation, but in the morning…”

Draven didn’t need to say it. We both knew. I’d have been dead, stiff and pale on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“And Glimmer?” I asked, not wanting to know, but I had to ask.

“I suspect Ada or one of her flunkies would’ve tried to kill the little queen while you were all rutting madly.” He glanced down at Glimmer, but despite his soft gaze, she hissed and snapped from where she was perched in my lap. “She’s the obstacle Mother has to eradicate if her plan to overthrow my father and take over the country is to succeed.”

I turned then and vomited up all the water he’d forced me to drink and somehow that seemed to be a most fitting response to everything that had happened today.

24

“They’ll be here soon,” Draven observed as each of his riders’ four dragons took to the air. “They’ll find out what happened and…” He shot me a sidelong look. “And I need you to cool their heads.”

“What do you expect me to do?” I said, trying to push myself up into a seated position, but my weight combined with Glimmer’s made that task seem too hard to manage right now. My arms and legs felt like limp noodles, and my feet slid across the grass when I tried to gain purchase. Draven reached out and his arms felt impossibly strong as he lifted me to my feet, walked me away from my vomit site and sat me down on a nearby log, ensuring Glimmer remained in my arms. His hands stayed on me, and he ran them down my arms as he crouched down to speak to me.

“I need you to keep your head because they will be losing theirs.” He stared intently at me “It’s what I’d be doing if the woman I loved was nearly murdered right beneath their noses.”

I searched his face, the tone in his voice making me look for something even though I wasn’t sure what. I hesitantly broached a question, not sure what I was really asking, as I looked into his eyes.

“And what wouldyoudo, if it was someone you actually cared about that was poisoned? How would you respond?”

Draven took some time to answer me, his eyes dropping down to spend an inordinate amount of time on my lips before he dragged them up again and the expression in them was fierce.

“I’d want to kill her, the fucking bitch that did this.” Draven’s voice shook with emotion. “I’d want to ride to the capital and use ‘Spire’s acid breath to melt the very stones of the castle to get me to her. I’d have my sword in my hand so I could I lop her fucking head off, then drive the point of it into her heart for good measure. That’s the only way I’d know that my love would be safe and no one could try and take what’s mine.”

I had often felt like the prince wore a mask around us, one of many that he affected. Sardonic sneering prince for me. Fellow rider with the men. Hard but fair taskmaster with the cadets. But now? This Draven was someone else altogether, a raw and savage beast, his teeth flashing in the darkness as he bit off every word. And his eyes burned brightest of blue in the darkness, as he leaned forward and—

“Draven!”

My men were everything the prince had said they would be. Brom’s sword was in his hand as he jumped off Obsidian’s back and he strode towards me with all of the wing at his back. Ged’s hands had become fists, Flynn was incandescent with rage; and Soren? He was no voice of reason now, he marched towards the prince just like the others did.

“What the hell did you do?” Brom’s sword arm snapped up and then he committed treason with no more thought than one might take a breath. The tip of his sword went under the prince’s neck and came to rest there.

“Brom, it wasn’t Draven. He saved me—” I started to say.

“Saved you? More like this was all part of his shitty little plan,” Flynn snapped.

“He did. Ada, she… And then I… He…”

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