The priestess narrowed her eyes, but nodded slightly.
“Speak your names to each other, and that exchange will seal your souls together for eternity.”
My voice choked in my throat. Eternity? I could barely look ahead a season without feeling the press of time.
“Muh...” I began, a huge act of will, only to have Donovan shake his head at me.
“Not aloud.” He didn’t precisely sneer, but impatience colored his tone. “Do you want everyone hearing us?”
Once again shame at my ignorance of his customs engulfed me. I had been told we’d exchange names at the end of the ceremony, but no one had tutored me to whisper as if my name was a disgrace.
My cheeks burned, and I wanted to claw at them with my fingernails, only I was tethered to this stranger who clearly expected me to know things I didn’t.
Donovan sighed. “Whisper your name in my ear.” He bent closer, presenting the side of his head to expose his ear. Up close he smelled of hot cinnamon, a scent I remembered from our childhood meeting. The memory stung me in a way it never had before.
Even though the feud had continued between the coven and the dragons, and I’d never seen Bunny again, I’d trusted that Donovan had done his best. Now I wondered if he’d callously dropped Bunny into a tree top to rot as he’d winged his way back to his mountain. Maybe he’d even laughed.
“You know my name.” I fought tears of angry humiliation as I spoke, causing my voice to crack. “And I know yours.”
“Say it anyway.” He held his head still, and I could see the bulge of his clenched jaw.
Why had I ever thought he’d meet me halfway in this? What had I done to myself?
“Marley,” I forced myself to say. “And I’m not ashamed of my own name. I’m only whispering because I don’t want to cause a scene.”
“You’ve already done that.” Donovan turned his face so his mouth was inches from mine. This close I could see the pores of his skin, and the beginnings of brown stubble across his chin. His eyes mesmerized me. So green and intense, as if they could see straight through my humiliation and into the core of me to the little girl who’d adored dragons.
His lips quirked. Was he smiling at me?
“Nobody should be ashamed of their name. That’s not why we whisper. Didn’t I tell you all those years ago that names hold power? Why, during this important ceremony between us, should you share it with strangers? Don’t you understand? We’re giving each other our names. It’s not a disgrace. It’s a gift.” He leaned close to my ear, his breath so warm it sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. “My name’s Donovan.”
He turned back to the priestess, who didn’t bother to conceal her disgust.
“Consider yourselves bound.” She gave us one scathing look, then stalked away from the altar.
The villagers burst into excited cheers. Smiles lit their faces.
Dragon folk muttered sullenly beneath their breaths. The witches gathered together in a tight circle, their backs to the rest of us.
“I’m hungry,” Donovan declared. “Let’s find some food.”
Constricted as it was, I doubted food would slide down my throat. Even if it would, my stomach would likely revolt.
Still, I allowed Donovan to lead me to a long, wooden table heaped with food. He reached for a huge turkey drumstick and surprised me by extending it in my direction.
“Wife before husband,” he said, but didn’t smile. Another dragon custom perhaps. Nevertheless, I took the drumstick. After a moment, I realized that he wouldn’t take one for himself until I began eating.
The fresh turkey meat all but slipped from the bone when I took a tentative bite. Donovan watched me chew and swallow before helping himself. He ripped off a huge mouthful, his white teeth flashing in the sun.
I wanted a drink of water in the worst way, but with my wrist bound to Donovan’s, I had only the one free hand.
Staring at the series of knots in the cord around our wrists, I said, “How are we ever to undo these? Can we use a knife?”
A half smile twisted Donovan’s lips. “We could, but that would be cheating. There’s a trick to it.”
“Will you show me?” I watched him take several more bites of his turkey leg before he answered me.
“The more you pull away from me, the tighter the knots become. If, however, you link your fingers with mine, we can rotate our wrists a few times, and the knots should fall apart.” His lips twitched again. “If the dragon who tied them managed to do it correctly. He was totally against our marriage, so I wouldn’t put it past him to have tied the knots wrong.”
I took a deep breath. “I suppose you were totally against our marriage as well, weren’t you?”
He sighed. “I had no desire to marry a witch, that’s true.”
I shrugged. “Witches don’t marry at all, so consider how I must feel.”
He tilted his head to regard me, as if he truly cared about my feelings. “I am sorry you were forced into this situation.”
Tension loosened in my tight chest. If he meant those words, and I couldn’t detect any insincerity, perhaps some of the dragon boy did still linger in the grown-up man.
“I’m sorry you were as well.” I set aside my drumstick. “Have we been bound long enough by dragon custom? Can we undo the knots?”
“Let’s see.” Donovan flexed his fingers, spreading them apart so I could slide mine between the spaces. Slowly, we closed our fingers together. “Now rotate your wrist to the left, and I’ll go right.”
I followed his directions and focused on our hands. After two rotations, the knots loosened.
“Stop,” Donovan ordered. “Now you go to the right, and I’ll go left.”
Biting my lip, I did as he instructed. The knots loosened more until, abruptly, they fell apart and the cord fell to the grass at my feet.
Stooping with lithe grace, Donovan snatched the cord and tucked it into his pocket.
I opened my mouth to ask him why he’d done that, but the dragon man who’d tied us together stepped close to Donovan. His red hair gleamed in the sunlight.
“Thank you for tying the knots correctly, Rabb.” Donovan nudged him with his shoulder, smiling. The red-haired man grinned back.
Emboldened by their obvious camaraderie and Donovan’s gentleness with me, I said, “Hello, Rabb, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Marley.”
Rabb’s face flushed two shades darker red than his hair. Donovan sucked in his breath, anger sparking from his eyes.
“Who the hell gave you permission to use my name, witch?” Rabb all but spat the words at me, his fists clenched. For a terrible moment I thought he might strike me, and, worse than that, Donovan would stand by and do nothing to protect me.
“You know that our names are sacred.” Donovan glared at me. “Why would you disgrace me like this? I’ve been trying very hard to make the best of this, but you continually make things more difficult than they have to be. Are you doing it on purpose? Because if you are, I suggest you stop now before we get to Zodiac Mountain where you’ll have no friends or family to hide behind.”
Shame engulfed me. I had known dragons were strangely protective of their names. What had made me blurt Rabb’s name the way I had? I couldn’t let my guard down and forget everything I knew about dragons.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing I sounded pathetic “I forgot.”
“She forgot,” Rabb sneered. “Bullshit.” He took a threatening step toward me, his blue eyes chilly as a winter lake. “Don’t forget again. The next time you call me by my name against my will, I’ll make you extremely sorry. And don’t you think you can tell me your name and that makes things even, because it doesn’t. I don’t want to know your name, witch, and you’ll never be a friend of mine. You hear me? You pathetic thief. You and your coven can all go to hell.”
He wheeled and stomped away. Horrible silence stretched between Donovan and me. I stared at my feet, afraid to look up at him.
“Maybe that wa
s my fault for using his name in front of you. I wasn’t thinking. He’s no doubt as pissed at me as he is you, and he’s my best friend.” Donovan took me none too gently by the elbow and steered me away from the food table as a group of hungry villagers approached.
“Sit here.” He gave me a gentle push onto a bench beneath a willow tree. The leaves danced in the summer breeze. “I want some wine. Red or white?”
The thought of drinking anything made me want to vomit. “Nothing, thank you.”
“Keep your head up. The last thing I want is to be married to a weepy, sulky woman. I need someone who can stand up for herself. So he yelled at you, so what? Be grateful that’s all he did. Believe it or not, he restrained himself.” Donovan scowled at me.
“Not making me feel any better,” I muttered.
“Then stop walking around like you have two left feet. Keep them on the ground and out of your mouth,” Donovan suggested.
“I’m expected to know all about dragon culture, but nobody apparently gives a damn about my culture,” I cried. “It’s normal to exchange names when you introduce yourself to somebody. I’ve done that for twenty-five years. Give me more than twenty-five seconds to change my whole way of life around.”
Donovan almost smiled. “Red or white?”
Mindful of my beautiful dress and possible spillage, I said, “White.”
Donovan strode off toward the wine table.
I leaned back against the willow trunk and tried to steady my uneven heartbeat by taking deep breaths. I was going to live in Donovan’s world. My way of life didn’t hold as much relevance as his did. I needed to focus on learning his rules and making them second nature. If I intended to stop the feuding between witches and dragons, I didn’t want to inadvertently fan the flames of hatred by not following their customs. Ignorance was no excuse.
“Hello.” A girl’s voice roused me from my self-castigation.
A dragon girl who appeared to be between thirteen and fifteen surveyed me solemnly. Her blonde hair was braided, and a stray cherry blossom clung to her bangs.
“Hello,” I said, stepping on my urge to smile at her. I’d let her make all the first moves.
“I’ve never seen a witch this close up,” the girl confided, hands behind her back as she stared at me. Her eyes shone extremely blue. “You can do magic. What’s that like? You don’t look any different than us, but I still know you aren’t a dragon somehow. Why is that?”
I decided to answer her second question. “I think it’s our eyes. Dragons have bright eyes. The color’s more vivid.”
“That might be it,” she agreed. “Our eyes let you know what color dragon we are. I’m blue. If you were a dragon, you’d be brown. But you’re not a dragon. Did you know that your children will be dragons and not witches? Dragon genes are dominant. Not that many dragons marry witches. And Tauria dragons never marry witches because we hate them.”
“Yet I’m married to a Tauria dragon,” I said, not sure whether to be unnerved or enchanted by her bluntness.
“The king forced you to marry him. He doesn’t love you, you know.”
“I know,” I said, unaccountably stung by those words even though I knew them to be true.
“How could he?” she asked.
I braced myself for her to tell me that was it was because I was a witch.
Instead, she said, “He barely knows you. You can’t love someone you don’t know.”
“Very wise,” I said.
“Unless it’s love at first sight,” the girl amended. “Although my mother tells me that doesn’t happen outside of books. Is that what your mother told you, too?”
I thought of my mother’s story about meeting Papa at a village dance, and how they’d kissed before they’d exchanged names.
“No, my mother didn’t tell me that. In fact, when she met my father—”
“Witch!” shouted a woman who looked like an older version of the girl. Bundling up her skirts, she ran toward us. The girl flinched, but stood her ground.
Panting, the woman swooped upon us. “How dare you talk to my daughter as if you had the right?”
I wanted to tell her the girl had talked to me first, but one look at the fear on the teen’s face, and I swallowed my words.
“I apologize. I didn’t know talking to her wasn’t allowed.”
The girl shot me a confused, but grateful, look.
“You only speak to my daughter when I give you permission!” the woman yelled. “And I don’t give you permission. Don’t even look at her again. The nerve of some witch talking to my daughter! Just because you married into our clan doesn’t give you the right to think you actually belong. Do you hear me?”
“I think the whole village hears you.” Donovan sat beside me on the bench and handed me a wooden goblet filled with white wine.
The woman’s face reddened with rage. “Good. I hope they can! Keep your so-called wife away from my daughter. Do you understand me?”
“How about you keep away from my wife? There’s nothing so-called about her. You witnessed the ceremony yourself.”
“Yes, I did.” The woman glared at us both. “If we’d stood up to the king like I advised, this travesty of a day would never have happened.”
“The clan voted to make me marry her,” Donovan said, his voice flat. “Just like they voted to make me flame that damned field. No one listened to either of us when we objected, and now both of us have to live with the consequences.”
The woman’s face softened. “Donovan, nobody will blame you if you don’t stand by this witch. Just ignore her. Pretend she doesn’t exist. Come and eat with us. Rabb’s got us a table. He’s saved you a place at it.”
“Me, but not my wife?” Donovan wanted to know.
The woman’s lip curled. “Of course not. My daughter is never going to break bread with a witch. And neither am I. Just leave her be and come with us.”
“Val,” Donovan said, “every villager and witch here is watching my every move, ready to run to the king. At the very least, I have to make a show of treating her fairly.”
Val smiled at him, then gloated at me. “Things are not going to be easy for you on Zodiac Mountain, witch.”
I wouldn’t allow them to see how Donovan’s words had wounded me. Jutting my chin, I said, “I never expected them to be. I know how dragons hold grudges.”
Val snorted. “Oh, witches don’t, I suppose?”
“This witch doesn’t,” I said.
“You might after we get through with you once you cross the clan threshold.” Val took hold of her daughter’s arm. “Come on, you’ve been contaminated enough by this witch. Stay away from her.” Still lecturing, Val dragged her daughter away.
Resisting the urge to distance myself from Donovan, who sat much too close for my comfort, I sipped my wine.
Donovan drank his, seemingly unaware of how near his thigh was to mine. Treacherous man, how was it fair he had to be so attractive?
“Go ahead. Eat with them.” I inched over on the bench, only to have him scoot after me.
“I just ate,” he reminded me. “And if you continue to move away from me, you’ll end up falling on the ground. People will laugh at you.”
“You mean dragons will laugh at me. Everyone else would rush over here to make sure I’m all right.”
“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “Dragons are the only ones who count right now, though.”
“I thought names were gifts and sacred. Why do you say each other’s names in front of me?” I glared at him truculently. “I’m never going to get it straight if you all go around saying each other’s names while I’m standing there listening.”
Donovan sighed. “If a dragon gives you permission to use their name, you may say it aloud. It’s as simple as that. You haven’t been given leave to say anyone’s name, so don’t speak them aloud even if you do happen to know them.”
“Not even yours?” I stared hard at the cherry tree opposite the bench. The pink flowers blurred through
tears I tried hard to blink back.
Donovan heaved another sigh, as if his patience were wearing thin. “I gave you mine, remember? Twice now.” He shifted on the bench so that our thighs touched. The heat between us confused and excited me. I didn’t want to be attracted to him, but I couldn’t help it.
“All the same, if you could refrain from using it in front of other dragons, it might go better for us.”
I ground my teeth together. “Because you’re ashamed to be married to a witch.”
“Because I want to avoid drama. A little discretion goes a long way with dragons. The less you say and the more you observe, the better you’ll get along.” Donovan reached up to pull a handful of leaves from the willow branch nearest him.
True, but galling.
“How much longer do we need to stay here and pretend we’re celebrating?” I asked.
“In that much of a hurry to get to Zodiac Mountain? You astonish me.” Donovan gave me a lazy grin.
“Facing the hatred and scorn I know will be heaped upon me is preferable to dreading it.” I clutched the wine goblet, wishing he would stop staring at me with those eyes of his.
“Relax,” he suggested. “No one can enter our chambers without permission. You can stay there, and you don’t have to see anyone.”
Horrified, I shifted on the bench to face him. “Inside? Forever?” Although I sat on a wooden bench beneath a willow tree while summer sunlight beamed down upon me, I could feel the rock walls of Donovan’s chambers closing in on me, threatening to crush me between them.
“Not ever seeing the sun or feeling the wind in my hair?” Terror clutched at my stomach. I bent over, trying not puke. “I don’t want to be a prisoner. Is that what I’m going to be? Nobody will ever hear from me again once I leave, will they? Not my mother or my papa or my sister and brothers. No one.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “And the feud won’t end either, will it? I’ve just thrown my life away for nothing.”
ZS- The Dragon, The Witch, and The Wedding - Taurus Page 4