I scanned the room for a small table set into a corner—someplace where they could hide me— but found nothing. Perhaps I would be made to stand?
Rabb and his family moved away from us as fast as they could, as did all the dragon folk. Many of them gasped when they saw me, and more than one face reddened with outrage.
Donovan and I stood separated out, and the hatred directed at me nearly crippled me. I wanted to edge closer to Donovan, but I didn’t dare in case he’d resent it.
Every particle of me wanted to turn tail and flee, but I held my ground.
“She’s not welcome,” said a man with a heavy dark beard and piercing gray eyes. Rumbles of agreement from the crowd.
“I was told to bring her,” Donovan declared, his lips pulled back in a feral snarl.
“By who?” the bearded man demanded.
“By Balthasar and the entire council,” said the red-haired priestess who’d married us as she stepped from behind a group of dragon folk.
“Mortal spouses never attend this ritual,” complained a shrill female voice from the back of the room. “Why should she?”
“Because she is a witch, and she can partake of the magic tuber,” said the priestess. “It’s that simple. I don’t like it much, but I agree it is her right. Besides, she’ll be sick unto death if she stops eating it. You know once you’ve taken it more than six times, you must continue to ingest it or the aging process begins again, only painfully accelerated. You wouldn’t want to condemn her to death, would you? Much as we despise her, we are not murderers, are we?”
Much shuffling of feet and resigned muttering ensued.
My heart raced. I knew I wasn’t supposed to speak at all, but nobody knew I’d never eaten the tuber, so I didn’t have to participate tonight. I’d always been determined never to taste it; tonight especially should be no different.
“Donovan, I should leave.” I plucked at his sleeve, too agitated to remember not to use his name.
Hisses spread sibilantly around the room. Outrage that I’d dared speak, or that I’d used his name.
The black look Donovan directed at me sent waves of fear through me.
“I asked you politely not to be a fool tonight. Or a martyr. You’re not going to commit suicide because you can’t take the heat. You’re not taking that way out ever.” Donovan shrugged his shoulder to dislodge my hand on his arm. I let go.
“I’ve never eaten the tuber before,” I whispered. “So I don’t have to start tonight. In fact, I won’t. I refuse. I’m not a martyr any more than I’m a thief or a liar.”
More gasps and murmurs from the crowd.
Donovan turned to stare at me incredulously. “What did you just say?”
I wished there weren’t a hundred people milling around, hanging on my every word, but there were.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve thought the dragons had the right of it,” I said, struggling to keep my voice from trembling. “You know that better than anyone. At least I thought you did. I didn’t have a say in the decision to grow the tubers, eat them, or continue to eat them after the dragons demanded we stop. But I do have a say on whether or not I, personally, eat them. So I never have.” I lifted my chin. “And I never will.”
“But then you’ll age and die in less than a century.” Donovan stared at me as if I’d betrayed him, rather than freed him from an unwanted marriage that would last his lifetime.
I shrugged. “So be it.”
“But that’s not what the king intended,” said Donovan.
“He’s never commanded me to eat the tuber. Why should he?” I wanted to wipe my sweaty palms on my skirts, but somehow managed not to. “My own mother can’t get me to eat them. Or my grandmother, and she leads our coven. I’m perfectly prepared to get old and die like my father and my half-brothers will. Witches aged and died before Eleanora dug up that box; what’s one more to follow in their footsteps?”
Donovan continued to stare at me. “You’ve seriously never eaten the tubers?”
“You’ll have ask my coven if my word’s not good enough for you,” I said through stiff lips. I gathered up my skirts. “Or better yet wait to see if I sicken and die. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to leave.”
Without waiting for an answer, I swept out of the room.
Chapter 9
Two hours later Donovan returned to our chambers. Still in my best gown, I sat before the fire waiting to be chastised, wishing I knew what to do to please him so I would stop feeling so small and worthless.
I’d worried my lower lip between my teeth until I tasted blood, which I hastily tried to swallow when I heard Donovan at the door.
“I’m sorry,” I said before he had a chance to speak first. “I know I wasn’t supposed to talk at all, and I definitely shouldn’t have called you by name in front of everyone. I have no excuses, but I thought speaking up then would have been better than refusing to eat the tubers once the ritual started.”
Donovan took a seat beside me and held his hands out toward the warmth of fire. It didn’t feel like summer inside Zodiac Mountain. Back home, Mother, Renata, and I would be sitting out on the back porch sipping cool drinks and talking about things that didn’t really matter all that much, but still somehow managed to make me feel like I belonged somewhere. I’d taken all that for granted, and now I’d lost it forever. I couldn’t ever imagine sitting out beneath the stars with dragons who wanted me to be there with them, let alone would talk to me of inconsequential things.
Somehow the thought of sitting alone in my cottage by my field made me want to cry, even though at least there I could feel the summer breeze against my face.
“You had to give up your whole life and all your familiar everyday rituals to marry me,” Donovan said.
I peered suspiciously at him. Could he read my mind or was my expression that revealing?
“You have to put up with me breaking all your rules and not fitting in. Seems like you got the rougher end of the bargain.”
“But at least I feel like I belong here, and you don’t, do you?” Donovan shifted on the couch so he could look me full in the face.
“How could I? It’s only been two days. I’m sorry I’m so melodramatic.” I sighed and fixed my attention on the leaping flames.
“Please stop saying you’re sorry. You don’t have to apologize for everything you do.”
“But everything I do is wrong somehow. No matter how many times you tell me the rules, I still seem to break them.”
“I know one thing,” he said. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I assumed you’d eaten tubers. I never actually asked if you had before I called you a thief and a liar. I’m ashamed of myself, Marley.”
A wistful pang tugged at me when he spoke my name.
“I had the chance to tell you, but I was too angry,” I said. “Tonight’s fiasco could have been avoided if I’d spoken up when I should have instead of letting anger rule me.”
“Nobody likes being called a liar and a thief. You had every right to be angry.” Donovan studied the flames now, as if they held a secret he was determined to ferret out.
I shrugged again. What could I say to that? I bit my lower lip, wincing at the tenderness.
“Please eat the tubers,” Donovan whispered, in a voice so choked I could barely make out the words. “I don’t want you to die hundreds of years before me. I know I’m a selfish bastard to ask you to go against your principles, but I can’t bear to watch you get old and die if you don’t have to.”
“But you would have asked my whole coven to do that,” I said. “Why am I any different?”
Donovan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I told you dragons don’t like to share. That’s not one of our better qualities. Even I know that. There’s no reason for you to suffer because you live with a bunch of blind, stubborn, stupid people who should know better. Who actually do know better, and, worse still, refuse to acknowledge it.”
“Is everyone mad at you for my outb
urst tonight? Did you get lectured?” I crumpled my skirt between my nervous fingers.
“Just like at our wedding, you stopped conversation cold and made people think about how awful they treat you,” he said. “It’s like you hold up a mirror and show us our ugly reflections. We hate that. A lot.”
“You’re not ugly.” I wanted to put my hand on his arm, but I dared not reach out. He might not be in dragon form, but he hadn’t invited my touch. “You’ve always been more than fair to me.”
“How?” He turned to look at me, incredulity spreading across his face. “So far I’ve been a condescending, narcissistic, petulant asshole. Where’s fairness fit in there?”
“When you bend over backwards to make me feel like this is my home.” I blinked back tears. “Going so far as to listen to me screaming at you about being surrounded by stone and then spending an entire day plowing a field with your claws for me just so I could have a place where I felt at ease. And then I ruined it all by taking advantage of the situation and using your passion to fuel my magic.
“I can’t think of anything I’ve done for you. Ever. Except be a burden. If I knew what you wanted, I’d give it to you, but I don’t know. And however hard you try to clue me in, I never get it, do I?”
Donovan bowed his head, and a lock of hair fell over his eyes, obscuring his face.
“I had all the noblest intentions when I volunteered to marry you.” My voice wobbled as a single tear slid down my cheek, which I wiped away as quickly as I could so he wouldn’t see it. “I was going to come here and learn dragon ways and do my best to mend the broken fences between our people. Instead, I spend most of my time sulking in a dark room, feeling self-righteously angry.
“I’m ashamed of myself, Don—” I bit off the end of his name. “You see? I know you hate it when I use your name, and I still do it because I don’t think before I act.”
“I don’t hate it when you use my name. I told you to call me by name.”
“When we’re alone and nobody else can hear,” I whispered. “And I know you ask me to do that because you’re trying to protect me, but it still feels like I’m not good enough to say it in front of other people. And anyway, the more I use it when we’re alone, the more likely I’ll be to use it in public. Like I did tonight.”
“I didn’t care,” he said. “Nobody cared. They all know you know my name. We exchanged them during the ceremony. I thought if you got into the habit of not using names, even mine, you wouldn’t get people angry at you. Instead, I’ve made you feel self-conscious and awful. And who gives a damn if you slip up and call someone by name when they haven’t told you that you could? Villagers do it all the time to us, and we manage to be gracious about it, even if it irritates us. But, oh no, if a witch makes that mistake, we’re all over her, filled with righteous indignation. That’s not fair.”
He shoved the hair out of his eyes and stared at me, mouth tight. “I’m never going to lecture you again about names. And if you call someone by their name and they get angry, I’m going to tell them to piss off.”
“I’ll never learn your ways if you do that. You can’t stick up for me. I need to fight my own battles and learn my own lessons. It’s rude to call a dragon by name if they haven’t personally told you that you could. Dragons don’t like to be touched without invitation. You can’t talk to their children unless you’re given permission. These are all rules I need to follow.”
“But they’re the exact opposite of how witches behave,” he protested.
“So what?”
“So, our rules make you feel bad because if someone in your culture won’t let you use their name, or yells at you for touching them without permission, they do it to make you feel bad.”
“Isn’t that the intention of dragons as well?” I asked. “Maybe not with villagers, but surely with witches, the intent is to make them feel as horrible as they possibly can?”
“It’s never been my intention,” Donovan said. “But you still feel bad when I ask you not to call me by name, and I know you sometimes want to touch me, but you don’t because you’re afraid I’ll shrink away.”
“That’s on me, not you,” I said. “I know you’re just trying to protect me from the others. You aren’t being mean, Don—”
“Say it,” he growled. “‘You aren’t being mean, Donovan’. I want you to feel comfortable saying my name, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks anymore. I only care what you think.”
“I can’t think,” I confessed, tears leaking from my eyes despite my best efforts. “I’ve been thinking so hard my head hurts, but nothing’s worked out. Nothing’s clear. I don’t know what to do, and I feel lost and so very alone, and it’s not fair to be crying in front of you and making you feel like hell. It’s not fair!”
When he took me in his arms, I beat at his chest to make him release me, even though I desperately wanted him to hold me.
He pulled me tight against him so I couldn’t hit him anymore, and stroked my hair, which had fallen out of its careful up-do because I couldn’t fix hair any better than I could fix dragon and witch broken fences.
“Shh,” he crooned as he rocked me. “Nothing’s fair, I know, little witch. Everything’s a huge, complicated knot right now, I know.”
I buried my face in his neck and sobbed.
“I don’t know how to fix it any more than you do,” he whispered in my ear. “So don’t go blaming everything on yourself. I think what we need most of all is time. We can’t fix twenty years of hate and misunderstanding in two days, can we? Even with the best of intentions.”
“I still should be trying harder,” I choked. “Not making things worse.”
“You’re not making anything worse,” he told me. “Please don’t cry, Marley; you’re breaking my heart. My stubborn, opinionated, prideful heart. I can’t stand it.”
“My heart’s breaking, too.” I gulped back tears, but more took their place. “And, oh, Donovan, it hurts so much.”
He buried his face in my hair and rocked me, but it was a long time before I could stop crying.
Chapter 10
The Great Oak stood in the center of four roads that led north, south, east, and west. Those roads further branched out a few miles later, and all led to the main villages of the twelve kingdoms of our realm.
Tauria, Gemina, and Saggitaria dragons all had neck ridges. The nine other dragon clans did not. Aquaria dragons were varying shades of blue. Capricornia dragons had serpentine necks and long forked tongues.
Awed, I noted all of them as Donovan glided for a landing in a field adjacent to the spreading limbs of the Great Oak.
Far below, Renata waved frantically as she recognized me or, perhaps more likely, Donovan’s distinctive green hide. I waved back, a thrill of expectation sweeping over me.
Two whole days to spend with the coven and my village family! I could hardly contain my excitement.
“I wish you could stay with us,” I told Donovan as he swooped low enough that I could make out the plaid weave of Mother’s skirt.
“Me, too,” Donovan rumbled. “But I have guard duty this weekend. Maybe another time, if your family would welcome me.”
“They’d better,” I declared, “or they won’t have me visiting either.”
“Marley,” Donovan said with a dragon-sized sigh. “Don’t go dictating terms. Give them a chance to warm up to me. Your mission this weekend is to spread the rumor that you actually enjoy living on Zodiac Mountain.”
I couldn’t repress a giggle.
“I enjoy living with you,” I said, and he rumbled with surprised happiness. After only a few flights, I was beginning to be able to interpret dragon noises. At least Donovan’s at any rate.
“And I enjoy living with you,” Donovan told me as we touched down to earth. He gave a particularly sexy growl. “Especially at night.”
“I keep telling you it’s a good thing we have thick stone walls between our bedroom and Rabb and Val’s. You make a lot of noise, Donovan.�
�
Dragon laughter burst from his massive snout and reverberated through his body.
“I shall miss you, little witch,” he said as I climbed down after I threw my satchel to Papa who stood below, beaming from ear to ear.
“It’s only two days.” I pressed my lips to his shoulder as I slid down to Papa’s waiting arms. Donovan swiveled his head to look at me, and the affection in his huge, green eyes was unmistakable.
Papa gave him a considering look before focusing on me and nearly crushing me to death in a tight bear hug.
Donovan leaped back into the air and joined the multitude of colorful dragons decorating the sky. I tried to smother a pang of loss, but couldn’t help the sudden tightness of my throat.
“You look well, Marley.” Papa held me at arms-length so he could drink in my appearance. My heart raced as I looked into his beloved face.
“Papa, it’s been one week since you last saw me. You make it sound like it’s been forever.”
“Has it felt that way to you?” he asked, with such keen perception I averted my gaze. “Are the dragons treating you nicely?”
“One of them is anyway. The only one who really counts.” I lifted my head to stare up at the sky. Donovan was a tiny blur, winging his way to the king’s castle where he’d guard the ramparts for the next forty-eight hours. I still thought he’d have had time to shift and say hello to my family despite his protestations to the contrary.
A small ember of resentment smoldered inside me. I’d endured hostility from an entire clan of dragons for a week, yet he couldn’t face my parents and sister for two minutes.
Oblivious to my internal musings, Papa said, “But not all of them?”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and led me toward the Great Oak, where Mother and Renata waited impatiently. For reasons I reluctantly understood, they wanted to keep as far away from dragons as possible. Everyone was a coward but me, it seemed.
“Oh, Papa!” I leaned my head against his shoulder as we walked. “It’s barely been a week. Old prejudices die hard.”
ZS- The Dragon, The Witch, and The Wedding - Taurus Page 10