The Dragon’s Daughter and the Winter Mage by Jeffe Kennedy
~ 13 ~
“So, the lofts are designed to allow air circulation in order to prevent mold.” Sensing that Gendra wasn’t listening, Isyn stopped blathering on. He didn’t blame her for losing interest in his decidedly pedantic recitation of how to manage their imperiled community. The details would put anyone to sleep. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could die at any moment—from another attack or from his aging heart simply giving up the fight—and that would leave Gendra responsible for all of this. The folk simply didn’t think in terms of long-term planning.
Also, he could admit to himself that he was doing everything in his power not to think about that near kiss. Briar Rose in the flesh was so lovely, so caring—and so very tempting. Having someone to talk to, who understood him was a kind of rapture he hadn’t known to value when he had it. As a younger, far more arrogant man, he’d have scoffed if someone suggested that he needed something like compassion to thrive. Having Gendra sympathize with his emotional pain… Well, he’d never admit it to anyone, but it felt like sunlight warming the frozen hollows of his heart, and he wanted nothing more than to taste her soft lips, to drink from her, to drown in her.
Which he would not do.
Bad enough that she was trapped here with him, unable to shapeshift—he’d seen the sorrow and horror in her face as she contemplated a life stuck in one skin—unable to go home. He wouldn’t compound her situation by taking even more from her, no matter how much he longed to do so. Very carefully curling his fingers into his palms, to remind himself not to touch her, he glanced over his shoulder to see where she’d gotten to.
“Gendra!” he gasped, seeing the alpaca’s blunt teeth snap close to her creamy cheek. “No—” He lunged to put himself between them.
Gendra and the alpaca turned as one to blink at his extraordinary actions, their expressions oddly similar with their lustrous, long-lashed eyes. Then the normally irascible alpaca actually leaned its cheek against hers, for all the world looking like an affectionate lover.
Apparently his Briar Rose’s faerie princess magic worked on everyone, man and beast alike. Lowering, to find himself jealous of an alpaca.
“Are you all right, Isyn?” Gendra asked, concern deepening the indigo of her eyes. “Does your leg pain you or do you need to—”
“I’m fine,” he bit out, cutting off her kind words. He didn’t want kindness from her. Better for her to spurn him so he could fight this debilitating longing for her. “I was trying to stop you from getting foolishly injured.”
She and the alpaca gave a long, slow blink, considering that—and she turned to study the alpaca at the same moment that it cocked its head to look at her. It was uncanny. “I won’t get hurt,” Gendra assured him, scratching a spot between the alpaca’s ears that had the beast lowering its lids in obvious pleasure. “The Tala love animals.”
“Then I’m delighted to provide alpacas for you to make friends with.”
“Thank you.” Gendra patted the alpaca affectionately and came to him. “Why are you so angry?”
He opened his mouth to deny it, then realized he was. Boilingly angry. And sexually frustrated. A man his age shouldn’t feel such need, but it was as if all the passion he hadn’t spent in all those long, lonely years was rising up, a volcanic and molten need threatening to erupt and destroy everything—her trust most of all.
“Isyn?” She laid a hand on his forearm, over his shirt, but it might as well have been bare skin the way her touch scalded him.
He jerked away. “Don’t touch me.”
Her eyes flared with hurt, and she yanked her hand back, too. “I apologize.”
He ground his teeth. “And don’t apologize.”
Her lips firmed, jaw tightening as she lifted it, the sternness in her gaze reminding him with pointed vividness that she was the daughter of an elite soldier and a woman who’d attained dragon form against all odds. If Gendra could spit fire at him, Isyn had no doubt she would have at that moment.
He almost wished she would. Then he could die on the spot and be done with both this painful existence and the even more excruciating hope she’d brought into it.
“Perhaps you will tell me, Your Highness, exactly what you would like me to do,” she invited silkily.
A flurry of inappropriate replies flooded his brain and tongue. But for his thin thread of control, he’d have her naked and on her back in the dirt, with him thrusting into her as she screamed his name and the folk and alpacas looked on with placid interest. Well, a thread of control and the fact that he couldn’t do it regardless. His broken thigh bone wouldn’t allow it. Who knew? After all this time, he might not be able to sustain an erection. Or, given how hard he was at his lurid thoughts, he’d spend embarrassingly quickly. And why was he analyzing the possible humiliating scenarios that would never happen? What was wrong with him?
You’ve lost your mind is what’s wrong. You’re no longer fit for human company.
Snapping his fingers, he summoned the always-lurking Jasperina. “Take our guest back to my chambers. Arrange for her to have a hot bath and food.” To Gendra, he added, “I have other things to do besides play tour guide.” And he strode off before she could reply. That is, he hobbled stiffly off, which just figured that he couldn’t even have a tantrum effectively.
The worst partwas, he couldn’t exactly avoid his enchanting guest. Not when she was ensconced in the only rooms that fit a person their size. He’d call it an oversight that, in all the passing years of making improvements to their living conditions, it had never occurred to him to build a second set of human-sized rooms, but it reflected how absolutely he’d given up hope of anyone of his own kind arriving as he had.
So, he ended up slinking back—more clumsily even than usual, as being on his leg for so long was making it ache enough that he wanted to simply cut the cursed thing off and be done with it—unsure of what kind of face to put on his earlier boorish behavior.
Maybe she’d be asleep, though that would be simply another in a long list of his foolish hopes, as she’d eventually wake up and she’d still be in the only room—and bed—that fit either of them. He also highly doubted that she’d be the sort to pretend nothing had happened. She seemed more like the kind of person to calmly call him on his erratic behavior—and then compassionately interrogate him as to the roots of it. Still, if she was asleep, that would give him at least a bit more time.
She wasn’t asleep. When he eased into the room, she was seated on a footstool by the fire, wearing only her silky slip, the light silhouetting her long, gently curved figure. With her head bent, she had the chestnut waterfall of her hair fanned to the flames, her eyes closed in soft pleasure as she ran a comb through the gleaming waves. Hearing him, she opened her deep indigo eyes and smiled at him, a sweet curve of closed lips.
And he finished falling in love with her.
He knew it because his heart dropped into place, and everything came into focus. It wasn’t that she was the only woman of his kind he’d encountered in fifty years of loneliness, and likely the only one he ever would. And it wasn’t madness driving him. People could argue for those points and draw those most logical conclusions, but he knew the truth.
Gendra was the one he’d hoped to find. The woman he’d traveled to the Isles of Remus to discover, because a seer had told him he’d find the love of his life there.
And he had found her. Gendra. Dragon born.
The seer hadn’t mentioned the part about him finding her too late.
Had he been a younger man, he’d have followed his impulse and strode to her, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her with all the passion in him. But his aged and injured self wasn’t striding anywhere, and if he tried anything like that they’d only end up in a pile on the floor, and not in a sexy way. So, beyond awkward, he hovered in the doorway.
“Did you get everything taken care of?” she asked.
For a moment, he had no idea what she meant. Then he recalled his feeble excuse from earlier and grimaced at himself. “I didn’t have anything to do,” he confessed, shifting to take his weight off the aching leg.
“Ah.” She nodded understandingly. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come back.”
“It’s the one thing you can be sure of,” he replied wryly. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
“There is that.” She pointed her comb at his empty chair. “Why don’t you sit and rest your leg.” Not a question, though she framed it as such. “I can see it’s hurting you, so don’t bother to deny it.”
“You could have sat in the chair,” he grumbled, but decided falling over would hurt his pride more than admitting weakness. Leaning heavily on his staff, he scrape-clomped over to the chair and sat in it with a groan of relief that he couldn’t have suppressed if ten alpacas were laughing at him.
“I could have,” she agreed easily, and said nothing more.
“You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me.” The clear irritation in his voice made that patently untrue, but she only gazed at him, blue eyes deep and calm enough to swim in, like a violet sea at sunset.
“Thank you for arranging for the hot bath,” she replied, as if fitting an answer to a question he hadn’t asked. “It felt really good to get warm and clean. The water is still reasonably hot, and I think I asked them to heat up more. The gesturing method only goes so far.”
Despite himself, he laughed a little, ruefully, remembering his long months of getting by with only gestures and many, many errors of understanding. “At least you have me to translate for you until I can teach you the language so you can be self-sufficient.”
She combed her hair thoughtfully. “You go back and forth, you know, between talking like we’ll be rescued and then like you’ll be dead and I’ll carry on caring for the folk in your place.”
That was an accurate summarization of his thoughts. “It’s likely I’m not entirely sane,” he explained.
She cocked her head, considering. “I doubt that’s it.”
Jasperina tromped in then, giving Gendra a suspicious glare, leading a parade of several more folk with buckets of hot water. Launching into the expected tirade, Jasperina expressed her disapproval of heating water, Gendra, and bathing in general, all equally villainous in her estimation. The fur-covered folk had never quite understood his reluctance to be licked clean the way they groomed each other. He’d heated and carried the water himself until this injury. After all, who would care but him? Now he realized he likely looked and smelled quite vile.
He didn’t bother to argue with Jasperina, simply telling her to leave the buckets, that he’d handle the rest. Sniffing in disdain, she left. “Looks like you got your point across successfully,” he noted to the curiously watching Gendra.
“Jasperina disapproves?”
She was certainly perceptive. “I don’t bathe often, so she doubted your authority and judgment.”
“The tub is plenty big enough to take your bulk.”
“Yes.” He looked at the carefully notched and fitted assembly of wooden lathes that he’d painstakingly soaked and warped to make a curved tub, then oiled with fats to make waterproof, as if he hadn’t seen it before. It had taken him months to build and had been absolutely worth the effort. “I used to soak in it much more often, but that was mostly before Jasperina’s time.” At her questioning look, he added, “The folk are not that long-lived. Fifteen years is pretty typical, and she’s young.”
Gendra’s pretty mouth twisted in sympathy. “So, on top of everything, you’ve also watched many friends and companions die over the years.”
It was true, though he hadn’t thought about that either in a while.
“I thought it would be good for you to soak at least that leg,” she said into the strained silence. “Though it wouldn’t hurt to soak all of you. The improved circulation is needed for healing. Afterward, I can take a look at you, see what I can do.”
Oh, that was not going to happen. He could just see himself stretched out on the bed, barely draped, his cock straining like a lecherous old man’s while sweet Gendra valiantly tried to ignore it. “That won’t be necessary,” he informed her brusquely.
“Isyn,” she replied with measured patience. “Your body is out of alignment. I’ll venture that half your pain or more is from you twisting your hips and back to take weight off your broken leg and protect it from further injury.”
“So you’re suddenly an expert in healing, too?” He’d gone past brusque into churlish and yet couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“I’m no expert, but I know some things, particularly about warriors recovering from injury. We aren’t aware of it consciously, but we contort our bodies to protect the wound, going to great lengths to fend off any more pain—which can result in all sorts of other problems.”
That made too much sense. “Sounds only natural,” he grumbled.
“It is natural. That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. Fortunately I know quite a few massage techniques that should help with the pain and put your body back into alignment, so it will heal better on its own. My uncle Harlan taught me some Dasnarian techniques for such things.”
He paused. “Your ‘Uncle Harlan’ is Prince Harlan, I assume. High Queen Ursula’s husband.” Her faint blush gave the answer away. “Exalted company, indeed,” he muttered, not at all sure why that pissed him off even more.
She stood, the firelight silhouetting her long, lovely body—including the tempting triangle at the apex of her slim thighs. Fortunately, as he was incapable of tearing his riveted gaze away, she moved away from the fire to replace his comb among his few things. Then she turned, folding her arms, which unfortunately drew his gaze to the thin material drawn tight over her breasts and the shadows of her darker nipples. He was actually sweating.
“Isyn,” she said, again using that extra-patient tone. “You saved my life, so I’d like to do at least this much for you in return. It’s ridiculous to be stubborn when you could use my help.”
“I did manage to survive all these years before you arrived,” he bit out, forcing himself to stare at the fire instead of her glowing beauty.
Then she was before him, crouching down, her hands resting lightly on his knees. “Look, I’m sorry. I apologize for what happened out on the rocks earlier. It was wrong and invasive of me to ask to touch you. I’m so sorry that I made you uncomfortable. I’m awkward that way, but I promise I won’t do that again.” As if suddenly realizing she had her hands on him, she snatched them away. “I mean, I promise to try. The Tala are physical people. More so than I ever realized before this… experience,” she finished, her voice rough, her eyes lustrous now with… tears? “Maybe it was being in orca form for so long, but I find myself needing—” She broke off, knotting her hands together and staring at them. “I would leave you alone, Isyn, I truly would, but I have nowhere to go. And I feel so terribly alone. I thought I was lonely before this, but I had no idea what—” Her breath caught on a sob.
Oh, Briar Rose.Before he could stop himself, he’d threaded his hands into her glorious hair, momentarily distracted by the sheer silken texture, the sensual weight of it before tipping her face up to his. “Don’t cry, my rose,” he murmured, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. “I can’t bear it. My own pain is nothing, but yours might break me.”
Her tears spilled over, wetting his hands, and she gazed up at him with perfect trust and utter loveliness. “I don’t mean to be a burden, I truly don’t. I just need…” She trailed off on a whisper, closing her eyes against some pain. “I don’t know what.”
He knew, though. Needed. Craved. Wanted. Of course she did. He knew exactly how she felt because he did, too. At last he had company in his exile, and at least she had him. He wouldn’t let his perverse desire for her contaminate what could be a good thing between them. People needed human contact. He could be like a father to her. Or grandfather. Probably even great—no, stop thinking about that.
Leashing himself with ruthless control, he bent to kiss her forehead, then each damp cheek. She softened under the caresses, lifting her hands to lightly grasp his wrists, lips parting as her breath shuddered out, calming under his touch much as the irascible alpaca had gentled to hers. Tala love animals. Tala are a physical people. She was so extraordinary, so magical, that he hadn’t thought of her in terms of needing comfort. “I’m sorry I was cruel,” he murmured to her.
She nodded slightly, eyes still closed, tears welling out from under the fan of dark lashes like lace against the delicate, shadowed skin under her eyes. She’d been through multiple ordeals and had yet to recover. Moved by the tears, unbearably guilty that he’d caused them, he brushed kisses over her fragile eyelids, tasting salt. She sighed, a flutter of breath, her fingers clasping his wrists, moving in a light reply. “Thank you.” Opening her eyes, she gazed at him, the ocean at dusk. “But you weren’t cruel. I can be pushy, I know.”
All of these little crumbs of information she dropped. He found himself wanting to follow each trail, to gobble up everything there was to know about her until he’d traveled every path to her heart and memorized them all. He still cupped her face in his hands, the strong bones and smooth skin, expression alight with her personality. Lips parted as she searched his face in turn.
He should let her go. They were much too close. This had already raced past grandfatherly to…
Something broke inside. All of it snapped. The leashed control. The sane assessment. All rationality.
With a groan of bone-deep longing, he closed the distance between them and tasted her lips. Sweet and hot, with salt from her tears. She gasped against his mouth, stiffening in surprise, and he tried to pull back. But she tightened her grip on his wrists, holding him in place as she rose up to meet the kiss, returning it with a febrile passion that vanquished the last chains of sober thought.
As her lips parted, drinking him in, he submerged in her delicious warmth. She glowed around him, shifting with light and shadow. Her inherent shapeshifter magic, he realized, enveloping his mage senses with an overwhelming array of sensory delight. Kissing her reminded him of those sharp delights of youth, the exquisite blue of an autumn sky against scarlet-gold leaves. That first plunge into cool water on a hot day. The scent of flowers bending heavy petaled heads in the summer heat, bees buzzing sweet as honey on the tongue. The strum of music on a quiet evening, making his heart swell with yearning, wishing for someone to be there, not knowing who it could be, but feeling as if he summoned her across time and distance. And now she was in his arms, long, lithe, pressed against him and thrumming with the same desire. His.
Lifting her into his arms, he stood to carry her to the bed—
And promptly fell over, Gendra shrieking as they tumbled together onto the throw rug.
Her startled squeal turned to laughter before she gulped it down and gently disentangled herself from him and the rug. “Oh, Isyn—I shouldn’t laugh. I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”
She bent over him, running her hands down his splinted leg. “I don’t think you jostled it too badly, but how does it feel?”
Like a hot brand searing him from ankle to neck, which was nothing compared to the fierce burn of utter humiliation. What had he been thinking? Obviously, you weren’t.
Setting his jaw and gritting his teeth, he focused on the low ceiling, cursing his foolishness up one side and down the other. “Just once,” he muttered under his breath so she couldn’t hear, “I’d love it if the first thing she asks me isn’t about my deteriorating health.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked sharply, looming into his field of vision. Her cloak of hair spilled down around them both, the fire glowing through it and lighting it up like embers catching flame.
“I said it hurts but I think I’m fine,” he answered testily, staring past her.
She grasped his jaw in one hand, with that surprisingly strong grip, and made him look at her. “You said that just once you’d love it if I didn’t ask you about your deteriorating health before anything else.” Cocking her head meaningfully, she tapped her temple with her other hand. “Shapeshifters have exceptionally keen senses, including hearing. I bet you didn’t know that.”
He hadn’t known that, but felt he should have. “Can I get up?” he asked, pointedly staring at the ceiling.
“Sure,” she answered easily. “As soon as you explain what you meant by that.”
“I’d think it would be obvious.”
She released his jaw but moved that hand firmly to the center of his chest, making it clear she’d hold him down, if necessary. “It’s funny,” she said conversationally, shifting to a more comfortable seated position. “All these years away from court, and yet you can still pull out this coldly arrogant royal tone that’s meant to put me in my place.”
He glanced at her—a mistake, as she looked more alluring than ever, her lips full from his kisses, cheeks flushed and eyes alight. She didn’t look disgusted or mortally offended. She looked… His obviously addled brain didn’t know how to interpret it. “Clearly it doesn’t work on you.”
She considered that, drawing up one knee and leaning her elbow against it, her cheek in her palm. With the hand on his chest, poised to stop him should he make any attempt to escape, she traced idle circles. “You like to tease me about keeping exalted company,” she finally replied, “but it’s true. Prince Harlan isn’t really my uncle, but I did grow up running around Castle Ordnung thinking of him that way, and High Queen Ursula as my aunt. Astar and Stella are two of my best friends, and I’ve been witness to him pulling the crown prince attitude many times. Lena—well, she hardly puts on royal airs ever, nor does Stella—but they both can. Their parents may be kings and queens and scary sorceresses, but they’re also family.” Her indigo gaze drilled into his. “You don’t scare me, Isyn.”
With a sigh, he lifted a hand and laid it over hers, only in part in an attempt to stop her slow caresses. “I don’t want to scare you. But I am trying to hold you at arm’s length.” He laughed at himself without humor. “Recent events notwithstanding.”
She nodded, but with her head still leaning against her hand, it came across kind of sideways, indefinite. “And I threw myself at you. Again. Almost immediately after promising I wouldn’t.”
He frowned at her. “That’s not how I remember it happening. I took advantage of you. After promising you and myself that I wouldn’t touch you that way.”
She sat up straighter. “Because you think of me as a friend.”
He squeezed the hand he held. “I want to be friends. I hope we can be friends.”
“But only as a friend,” she clarified, stressing the word. “Not as… anything else.”
“Yes, only as a friend.” He’d tried to make it sound reassuring, but she frowned, distressed still.
“But, just now, you kissed me like maybe you’re attracted to me,” she ventured, sounding hesitant.
Maybe attracted to her.He’d laugh at how little that weak wording did to encompass the enormity of his yearning for her, except it hurt too much. He made himself let go of her hand. “I apologize for that. It was an accident.”
“No,” she replied, slowly and firmly. “When you tried to pick me up and fell, that was an accident.”
He winced. “Don’t remind me.”
“You forgot yourself in the heat of the moment.” She shrugged that off as irrelevant, going back to tracing circles with her nimble fingers. “But you didn’t—oops—slip and fall into passionately kissing me for a very long time.”
At his age, he couldn’t possibly be blushing, but his face felt hot, and he couldn’t quite meet her eye. “I warned you that it’s likely I’m not entirely sane.”
“That’s an excuse.”
Her even reply shamed him. “No, you’re right. That was an unforgivable attempt to escape responsibility. I lost control of myself. I want to promise it won’t happen again, but I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t trust me.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “It was a really good kiss.”
Huffing out a breath, he stared hard at the ceiling, acutely aware of her hand searing hot on his chest, tracing those maddening circles, giving him salacious fantasies of other ways she might touch him. It had been a really good kiss. Epic, really. Unlike anything he’d experienced before. After that single—albeit extended—taste, he already felt as if he was starving for another. He couldn’t seem to think about anything else.
“You know, it’s interesting,” she mused. “I kissed your brother.”
