“Izzy—” Caden gasped at her, horrified.
“Let my brother breathe a little and leave your attitude outside of this palace,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “It’s not welcome around us. And if you can’t do that, then neither are you.”
The man didn’t miss the threat in her voice and was wise enough to take a few steps back.
“Class is going to be short today, Caden. Come along and you can show me these horses you are learning how to ride,” she said as she took his hand in hers and pulled him from the room. Behind them the tutor stared dumbfounded after them.
“I expect an apology from you tomorrow morning or you’ll be finding another child to terrorize,” Isabelle called over her shoulder. “Show me everything you love about this place,” she said into Caden’s bright face. He nodded and smiled up at her.
“I didn’t like him much anyway,” Caden said.
Isabelle nodded. She hadn’t either. “But we’ll have to find you another tutor.”
Caden shrugged, unconcerned.
“How do you say horse in Angelus?” she asked him, quizzing him.
Caden led her outside through a small door. “Tulin.”
“How about I want to wear the dress over there?”
Caden bit his lip as he thought. “I think its…Es lontin weslas carras noncel.” He sighed. “I’m not sure though. I don’t like the language. It’s hard and no one even speaks it anymore. And it makes my tongue feel funny since the words are so different.”
“You’re doing well though,” she told him. “Don’t be discouraged just because one tutor was hard on you.” She ran her fingers through his soft hair with her free hand.
“Over here is where the scholars take me to read outside on nice days,” Caden said as he pulled her to a nearby bench shaded with large willow trees. Isabelle’s breaths suddenly became weak, short gasps. She slowed his pace and leaned against one of the nearby trees.
“Do you need to rest?” Caden asked, turning toward her with wide eyes full of worry.
Isabelle smiled and smoothed the hair back from his face. “I’m alright, darling. But a rest would be nice. I’m sure it’s just the excitement of the past few days. I’ve been through a lot recently. We both have.”
Caden nodded and pulled her toward a small group of stone outbuildings. As they approached, Isabelle could smell the horses, leather and hay. Obediently she followed Caden as he slipped inside the smallest of the barns. It held no more than four horses and only one horse, a deep bay gelding, was there. Caden greeted the horse easily, the horse reaching his large elegant head over the stall door to receive a pat on his cheek and a light rub between his ears.
“Are you sure we should be in here?” Isabelle asked him as she eyed the gelding warily.
“Of course. I come in here all the time. This is Zorin’s private stable,” he informed her with a wide smile.
Just as she was about to suggest that they leave, and right away at that, the wide double doors at the end of the barn were pulled open. Bright sunlight washed in revealing Zorin and the bright chestnut stallion at his side. His loose tunic hung low around his hips, disguising the muscles underneath, but making his long legs and the muscles there much more apparent.
“Zorin,” Isabelle greeted him, warily putting herself between him and Caden. Just in case he was upset at them for invading his personal stable.
He stopped short at the sound of her voice and his eyes narrowed sharply. “Isabelle. And Caden, too. In my stable. While he should be in his lessons.” His voice sounded tired and a bit suspicious of them.
“We’ll be leaving now then. Caden was just showing me around,” Isabelle said, quickly grabbing Caden’s small hand and backing away towards the doors behind them.
“The man was mean. Izzy took care of him. How was he today?” Caden asked, unaware of the tension between them.
Zorin noticeably relaxed and patted the stallion’s gleaming red neck. “He is handling much better. Barely any stiffness I’d say. In fact, I was just coming in to get him ready for a ride him in the arena. Would you like to watch?”
Caden eagerly nodded and moved around his sister. “Yes! Can I, Izzy?”
She nodded uncertainly, but she knew that she couldn’t resist Caden when he was excited about something. She simply loved him too much.
“What happened to the horse?” she asked Caden as they watched Zorin tie the stallion to a low wooden bar in the barn.
Zorin handed Caden a brush and they began to groom the already gleaming stallion. “He stumbled during a run, came up lame and had to be rested for the last month,” Zorin answered without looking at her. “Today’s the first day that he’s been well enough to ride.”
She eyed the large stallion as it seemed to dance under Zorin’s careful eye while he brushed it. “How often do you ride?”
“Daily.”
Caden pulled gently on her sleeve, pulling her attention back to him. “He’s very good. Queen Amalthea says that he’s a natural at it.”
“Is that so?” she asked him without taking her eyes from Zorin’s back as he ran a comb through the horse’s long mane. “And how often have you seen him ride?”
“I’m his riding instructor. For an hour every morning and afternoon we ride together,” Zorin answered for him. “Caden’s picking it up quickly. His hands are steady and he has a gentle touch.”
Her brother beamed at the compliments and moved towards the horse.
“Now tell me how the man was mean?” Zorin asked her.
Isabelle bristled. “He was too forceful. I didn’t like him.”
“He called me stupid,” Caden popped up helpfully as he brushed the dirt from the horse’s flank with a soft brush.
Zorin’s eyes darkened. Beside him the horse seemed to notice his shift in mood and danced lightly. A soothing word from Caden though had the large animal calm again. “Did he now? Well, we will have to see about that. I assume that you threatened him sufficiently?” Zorin asked her.
“I told him he wouldn’t be welcome back in the palace with that attitude,” she told him with a nod.
Zorin smiled at her. “You’re too soft. I’d have threatened him with his spine shoved down his throat.”
Isabelle gasped at him. “Caden’s a child! You can’t talk like that around a child,” she chided him.
Zorin rolled his eyes at her and turned back to the horse.
“Where are your wings?” Isabelle asked him, curious.
“He hides them,” Caden told her. “Queen Amalthea says that he’s ashamed of them.”
Zorin growled. “My mother talks too much.”
Isabelle approached him quietly until she was able to brush her fingertips against his lower back. She felt him freeze under her, but she persisted anyway, sliding her fingers over the fine cloth of his tunic up his back to the hard planes of his shoulders. Her fingers brushed against the soft down of his feathers, but she still couldn’t see them.
“You really do hide them,” she whispered.
He nodded. “But not because I’m ashamed.” His voice was just as soft, just as cautious.
She pressed her body against his, wrapping an arm loosely around his waist just above his hips. “Then why?”
“I don’t stay in Feeorin all the time. I like to be out in the world. But out there my wings mark me as different. I still stand out of course, the tales of my deeds have reached even the poorest towns and they have always been very graphic and quite specific about what I look like, but I’m not stared at. About two centuries ago I got tired of the women openly weeping and the men bowing before me. Good men and women. They thought they were worshiping an angel, something to be revered and cherished. I didn’t deserve any of it. I’m a murderer with far too much power for my own good and I should never be cherished like that.”
Isabelle blinked back the tears that touched her eyes and placed her lips between his shoulders in a gentle kiss.
“You’re wrong,” she murmured to him.
“Or perhaps you’ve been deceived by yet another man,” he told her, covering her small hand with his own, warming it.
“Not this time,” she told him before remembering that Caden was still in the small barn and probably watching them. She stepped away from him, letting her hand drop from his waist.
“Get the gelding saddled,” he told Caden, stepping away from her.
She was effectively dismissed.
Caden eyed them both curiously, but quickly did as he was told, grabbing a fine leather halter and slipping it over the gelding’s head before leading him from the stall and tying him up near Zorin’s stallion. The gelding was old and gentle, the perfect horse for someone with Caden’s limited experience and while Zorin continued having to reassure his prancing horse, the gelding merely stood relaxed with his head drooping to his knees as he munched on the pile of hay at his feet.
Isabelle sat down in a nearby bench to watch them, Zorin’s fluid movements being mimicked by Caden’s gentle but inexperienced fumblings. The gelding didn’t seem to mind, he was as patient with her brother as Zorin was and the quiet encouragement the man gave him brought a soft smile to her lips as Isabelle relaxed into the hard wood of the bench below her.
“Feeling better, Izzy?” Caden asked her as he finished tightening the soft leather saddle on his horse. He gave the horse a gentle pat on his neck and picked up the matching bridle.
“You were ill?” Zorin asked as he stepped away from his own horse.
Isabelle blushed under their combined attentions. “Just a little,” she admitted. “I felt slightly breathless on the way out here. Nothing to worry about. Probably just the stress of the last few days.”
Zorin looked her over closely, his eyes narrowing on her pale cheeks and the glassy sheen to her eyes. “Perhaps. But I want you resting this afternoon anyway. Caden will be fine with me.”
“But I—” she began to protest, but at Zorin’s worried look she dropped her head and nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Zorin nodded. “Good. You know your way back?”
Isabelle nodded, kissed Caden’s cheek and with one last look to Zorin she made her way back to her bedchamber to rest.
Chapter Three
Zorin landed easily on a rocky outcrop just outside of the largest room in the Draconian mountain palace. He stretched his black wings, delighting in the light breeze as it ruffled his feathers before he folded them neatly against his back. A quick thought and his wings vanished, though their weight on his shoulders was a comforting reminder of just who and what he was. He thought back to what Isabelle had said and quickly shook his head. Silly woman didn’t know what she was talking about. Still though… He frowned and shook out his wings as they became visible again. He was not ashamed.
“Zorin?” Faolan asked as he stepped out from the shadows, dressed simply in a pair of loose pants and a tunic. He seemed curious and just a bit tired with small circles under his eyes and his usually neat hair was rumpled. Zorin knew better as his nostrils flared and took in the bright glaze to Faolan’s eyes.
He shook off what he knew though and took a step towards the other man. That Faolan had recently bedded his wife was none of his business. But Zorin was a bastard and needed to know more. “I have to be quick,” he said, forcing an air of impatience that he didn’t feel. “I have to get back in time to help my mother with her latest party.”
“Oh?” Faolan asked, leaning nonchalantly against the stone wall.
Zorin shrugged, turning away from him as he scanned the red mountains surrounding them. “My mother is throwing a party to try to find a husband for Isabelle now that you’re done with her and she’s going to be queen.” He let out a put upon sigh. “It’s really nothing that important.”
Zorin glanced back at the other man to see him more beast than man as he growled low in his throat. As Zorin kept watching, the man’s tan arms turned black as shiny scales began to cover his skin. “Problem?” he taunted.
Faolan violently shook himself, clearing his mind as he settled back into his human skin. Zorin grinned at him. Faolan shot him a murderous look which only made him laugh harder. There was a soft noise behind them as Celeste, dressed in only a sheet, walked into the bright sunlight and settled against Faolan’s stiff, unrelenting side. Zorin gave her a cruel smile which she uneasily returned as she wrapped herself around Faolan.
“Darling,” she cooed. “Come back to bed.”
Faolan shook her off. “We’re having a meeting. Leave us.”
She pouted and pressed herself closer to his side. “A meeting? Sounds like fun. What about?”
Zorin slowly prowled towards her. “We were discussing Princess Isabelle Falcone’s upcoming marriage to one of the Phaedran Empire’s young bachelors. Perhaps you’d like an invitation to their wedding?” Zorin taunted them both. He knew that he was being cruel to Faolan, but he deserved it. And he couldn’t tell what Isabelle had ever felt for this selfish man that was so confused by his affection for her that he stood fuming now at the thought of her with another man as his wife wrapped herself around him.
Celeste scoffed at him. “That lowly human? Why would I want to even breathe the same air as her?”
Zorin ignored Faolan’s low growl as he moved away from her. “You wouldn’t breathe her air even though she had your husband in bed first?” he taunted her. He tilted his head to the side, considering her. “Or do you just enjoy sloppy human seconds?”
Celeste’s beautiful face twisted with hatred and rage. She spat at his boots. “That whore tricked my Faolan into bedding her! He would never soil himself with her kind by choice!” she shrieked.
There was a flash of black scales as raw power hit Zorin like a tidal wave. Both he and Celeste turned toward Faolan as his body shifted and grew into his natural form. Zorin winced, knowing how much pain forcing a shift that fast would cause. Celeste smiled at him and licked her lips as she stared at him as he shook off the last of his shift and leveled his large head at her. She knelt submissively in front of him even as he pounced on her, pinning her to the hard stone beneath his massive body. Instead of being afraid like any normal person, she instead writhed against him, her need and pleasure evident in her glowing face.
Zorin looked away, embarrassed.
Faolan growled at her, pressing further against her as she stretched beneath him. He opened his mouth wide, his long teeth pressing against the smooth skin of her cheek. Unafraid, she merely laughed at him and ran her fingers delicately over the tight scales of his jaw. He turned away, disgusted with both her and himself. With an agonizing slowness and intense pain Zorin was sure that he deserved, Faolan forced himself to shift back. Mostly man, but still feral he stumbled away from her. Celeste followed after him, concern marring her beautiful features, but a sharp growl from Faolan had her pausing mid-step.
“Get away from me,” he hissed at her.
Celeste whined a little, but at his fierce gaze she stepped away from him. With a flounce, she turned her back on him.
“She disgusts me,” Faolan said loud enough that Celeste heard him. She gasped and looked hurt, but Faolan didn’t apologize and Celeste didn’t come back.
Zorin shrugged. Faolan’s marital problems, while entertaining to watch, were hardly his concern. Still, he felt the need to offer some opinion. “She wants power. Isn’t that their way?”
Faolan huffed something that sounded to the affirmative.
“So your power calls to her and she reacts to it.”
Faolan shot him a glare. “It’s not right. She’s a beautiful horrible thing that I can’t believe I still allow to live here.”
Zorin rolled his eyes. “I remember you taking her into your arms while Isabelle was still here. And I know she’s been in your bed. So don’t play martyr to me, little boy.”
Faolan stopped and blinked at him. “I have needs that a wife will fill,” he replied.
Zorin nodded. “A wife would fill them. And judging by Celeste’s lithe body and rounded curves she fills them well.” Faolan glared at him. “But she is not the gentle Isabelle. This wife is more your kind, your equal. Isabelle—”
Faolan cut him off with a raised hand and a sharp look. “Isabelle was human, but she was not weak.”
Zorin tilted his head, considering him carefully. “No, I suppose she’s not. She lived here for over a year. And she put up with you and your father. Not many women would have. Certainly not human ones.”
“My father wishes to speak with you,” Faolan told him before turning away.
Zorin raised a perfectly arched black brow. “My weekly meetings have always been with the Draconian king of the Kasak Mountains. Are you not him?”
He paused, a shudder going through him as old memories seemingly wound tightly around him. “We will meet later. For now, go visit him.”
“What does he wish to talk about?”
Faolan shook his head. “I don’t know. Just please, go see him. You and I will speak later. For now I must be with my son, Sebastian.”
Zorin nodded and bowed his head slightly. “Of course. I will see you shortly.”Faolan nodded and left, leaving Zorin alone on the cliff to follow or not as he wished. Zorin watched the dark clouds roll across the evening sky for a few moments before silently going after him. A short walk later found him deep inside the mountain where Thadius lay resting in the hot springs.
Zorin approached carefully once he saw that the man was in his natural form, the long black shape of his dragon body, so much bigger than Faolan’s, stretched lazily over the hot stones and deep pools of the large cavern.
“You wished to see me?” Zorin called to him, not stepping closer. He wasn’t afraid of the Draconian. His magic was so much stronger than theirs, but he had size and speed. It would be a close match if Thadius ever decided to take him on. So he stayed where he was.
You’ve spoken with my son?
Dragon Flight Page 3