Love in the Time of Dragons

Chapter Three

“Where is she?” The roar reached me, even hidden from view as I was in the farthest corner of the stable, behind the broken wagon that Dew, the smith, was supposed to have mended months ago.

The doors to the stable slammed shut with a force that I felt in the timbers behind my back. The horses inside with me protested with startled snorts and whinnies. Hastily, I set down the two kittens I had been nuzzling for comfort, returning them to their anxious mother before dusting off my knees and picking my way through the gloom of the stable. The man’s voice was deep, and he spoke in French, not the English of the serfs, but there was an accent to his voice that I had never heard.

“Where are you hiding her?”

Anger was rich in that voice, anger and something else, something I couldn’t define. I patted Abelard, my mother’s gelding, and slipped beside him to peek out through a rotten bit of wood next to his manger, watching as the warrior-mage stomped across the bailey, my father and mother trailing behind him.

“We are not hiding anyone, my lord,” Papa said, his tone apologetic.

My mouth dropped open in surprise. Papa never apologized to anyone! He was a famous mage, one of so much renown that other mages travelled for months just to consult with him. And yet here he was, following the warrior around, bleating like a sheep that had lost its dam.

“Kostya saw her,” the warrior snarled, spinning around to glare at Papa, the tall guards moving in a semicircle behind him. “Do you call us liars?” “No, my lord, never that!” Papa wrung his hands, my mother next him looking pale and frightened. “If you will just come back inside the hall, I will explain to you—” “Explain what? That you are holding a dragon prisoner, a female dragon of tender years?” “She is not a prisoner—” Papa started to say, but I stopped listening for a moment. A dragon? Here? I had heard tales of such beings, but had never seen one. Margaret told me they did not really exist, that it was just a bit of foolishness spoken by men who had too much wine, but once I had overheard my mother talking to her maid about a female dragon she had befriended in her youth. Perhaps Mama had hidden her here all these years. Who could it be? Leah, the nurse who tended both Margaret and me? One of my mother’s serving women? The flatulent Lady Susan?

“I just wager you it’s her,” I told Abelard. “She is very dragonlike.” “Bring her forth!” the warrior demanded, and I pushed Abelard’s head aside in order to get a better view of the bailey, watching with bated breath to see the dragon.

“My lord, there are circumstances that you are not aware of. Ysolde has no knowledge of her ancestry. We have sheltered her as best we could, indeed, raised her as our own daughter—” My skin crawled. My blood curdled. My brain exploded inside my head. I stared at Papa, my papa, the papa I had known for my entire life, unable to believe my ears.

“—she has been protected from those who would ill use her, as sworn by my lady wife to the dragon who bore her here.” “Me?” I said, touching my throat when my voice came out no more than a feeble squeak. “I’m a dragon?” “That is none of my concern,” the warrior said now, his voice thick with menace. “She is a dragon, and evidently of age. She belongs with her own kind, not with humans.” My own kind? Scaly, long-tailed, fire-breathing monsters? A sob of denial caught in my throat, the noise almost inaudible, and yet as I stood there reeling from the verbal blows my father — the man I thought of as my father — dealt me, the warrior spun around, the gaze of his black eyes so piercing, I could swear he could see straight through the wood of the stable.

Run, my mind told me as the man started forward toward the stable doors, and I knew at that moment that he was one of them. He was a monster the like of which I’d never seen. My brain didn’t wait for me to absorb that knowledge. Flee, it urged. Flee!

I didn’t stop to question the wisdom of that command. I spun on my heels, racing down the narrow aisle of the stable to the far corner, where a small window had been cut in order to pass hay through from the fields. I wasn’t fast enough, however, not if the roar of fury that followed me was anything to go by.

“Stop!” the warrior bellowed as I leaped through the window, not even pausing as I hit the ground hard before I was off again, racing around the pens holding the animals to be slaughtered, dashing between the small huts housing craftsmen and their families, dodging chickens, dogs, and occasionally serfs as I raced for the postern gate along the west curtain.

“Lady Ysolde,” John, the man on guard at the gate, called in surprise as I rounded a cart loaded with wool destined for the market, not even slowing down as I flung myself past him and through the postern gate. “Are you off to the village — hey, now! Who are you, and what right do you have to be chasing Lady Ysol — oof!” I didn’t stop to see how John fared, although I sent up a small prayer that he hadn’t been hurt by the warrior. I ran along the rocky outcropping that led down into the village, the moat not coming around to this face of the castle since it would be impossible for anyone to scale the cliffs that hugged the west and south sides. Behind me I heard the noise of pursuit, but I had always been fast on my feet, and I dug deep for speed as I leaped down the last of the rocks and headed for the trees beyond the village. They marked the edge of the thick forest where I had spent many an hour, wandering pathways known to only a few. If I could just make it there, then I could hide from the warrior… and then what?

I didn’t stop to answer that question. I just knew that I needed to be by myself, to absorb the strangeness that had suddenly gripped me. And I couldn’t do that with the intense, black-haired dragon storming around me.

He was still behind me as I skirted a newly plowed field, ignoring the calls of greeting from the serfs as I raced by, intent on my goal, greeting the dappled shade of the outer fringes of the forest with relief. I’d made it, no doubt due to the extra weight the warrior wore in the form of his armor. I risked a quick look behind me as I sped around an ancient birch tree. The warrior was about thirty feet behind me, but just beyond him, his guards approached on horseback, leading his horse.

“By the rood!” I swore to myself as I leaped over a downed tree trunk, heading for the densest part of the forest.

The sounds of pursuit were muted in the calm of the forest. Birdsong rose high above me as the swallows dipped and spun in the sunlight, making elegant arcs in the air. Patches of sunlight shone here, and I slowed down, trying to control my breathing, picking through the muffled noises of the animals of the forest as they went about their business. Somewhere near, a badger was snuffling along the ground, disturbing earth and fallen leaves. A woodpecker drilled a few yards away, while farther afield, foliage rustled and snapped as a large animal, probably a stag or hind, grazed. In the distance, the jangling of horses’ harnesses was audible. I smiled to myself at that, pleased that the growth was too thick for the warrior’s men to ride through.

I was just looking around for a suitable tree that I could climb and hide myself in when a man’s voice sounded, uncomfortably near. “Where are you, chérie? You do not need to be afraid of me. I will not hurt you.” I snorted to myself, trying to pinpoint the origin of the voice. Usually I had very good hearing, but the denseness of the trees and sounds of the forest combined to muffle the warrior’s voice, making it hard to judge where he was.

“We want only to help you,” he continued. I moved around the tree, clutching the rough trunk as I peered into the depths in the direction I thought the voice came from. A branch moved, but before I had time to react, a wren popped out and gave me a curious look.

“Are you frightened, chérie?” I strained my ears, but it was impossible to pinpoint a direction. Which is the only reason I called out, “No.” Laughter edged his voice. “Then why do you run from me?” “Why are you chasing me?” I asked boldly, moving to the cover of another tree, peering intently around it for any signs of the man.

“We only just learned of your existence from the mortals.” The scorn he put in the last words irritated me. “Those mortals are my family!” I yelled.

“No, chérie. We are your family. We want to bring you home, where you will be taken care of and taught.” I didn’t think much of that statement.

“I know you have no knowledge of us,” the man continued. Was his voice fainter? Had he been misled into moving away from me? “But we will correct that. We will teach you what it is to be a dragon.” His voice was softer. I smiled to myself as I hugged the tree. “I don’t wish to be a dragon, warrior. I wish simply to be myself.” Another man’s voice called in the distance. I smiled again and turned around, intent on making my way out of the forest while the intense dragon and his guard stumbled around it searching for me.

The warrior was leaning on the tree behind me, watching me with a half smile that made my blood freeze. “That is all we wish for you, too — that you be yourself.” “How did you do that?” I asked, momentarily too intrigued to be incensed by his trick.

He shrugged and strolled toward me, all long-legged grace and power. “There are many things you will learn.” He stopped before me, reaching out to touch my face. I slapped his hand. He laughed. “You have fire. You will learn well.” “And you are impertinent. What makes you think I’m who you think I am?” “You need proof?” he asked, his eyebrows raised, but there was still amusement in his onyx eyes.

“That I’m a gigantic scaly beast who breathes fire? Yes, I think I’m going to need proof,” I said.

“There is a way,” he said, taking my arm, and with a quick jerk, he ripped the laces from the wrists of my tunic. He bent over my wrist as if he were going to bite it, paused, and looked up at me, an odd expression on his face. “How old are you, chérie?” “My name is Ysolde,” I said, trying to pull my arm free. His fingers tightened around it. “Ysolde de Bouchier, and I am not your chérie.” “How old are you?” he repeated, a stubborn glint in his eyes.

“I have seen seventeen summers, not that it is any concern of yours,” I said primly.

He grimaced, then shrugged, and instead of biting my hand, he pulled me up against his chest, his arms around me in an unbreakable vise. “This is the test, chérie.” His mouth was on mine before I could do more than slap my hands on his chest. I was no stranger to being kissed — Mark, the brewer’s son, was always happy to hide behind the ale barrels with me and kiss me as long as I liked — but this was not a kiss as I knew it. Where Mark’s kisses had been interesting and vaguely pleasurable, this was a kiss of an entirely different variety. The warrior’s mouth was hot on mine, hotter than I had ever experienced, hot and sweet and spicy all at the same time, as if he’d been eating spiced plums. His hands moved down my back, holding my hips, pulling me closer to his body, his tongue teasing the seam of my lips even as his fingers dug into my hips.

With a frustrated snarl, he suddenly pushed me away. I stood shocked to my toes by the kiss, watching with astonishment as he doubled over, sliding his mail hauberk off over his head. He stood back up, pulling off the padding armor, then the leather jerkin beneath it, his eyes glittering like sunlight sparkling off rocks in a stream.

“Now,” he said.

“Now?” I asked, not understanding, taking a step back.

He made a noise in his chest that sounded like a growl, his arms around me again as he pressed me up against the tree trunk.

“Now I will prove to you what you are,” he said just before his mouth descended again, his body holding me against the tree. Gone was the mail that stood between us; now I was smashed up against his body, aware of the difference between his hard lines and my softer curves. But it was his mouth that captured and held my attention as his tongue swept along my lips again, urging me to open them. I did so, goose bumps prickling down my arms as his tongue swept inside, touching my own, tasting me even as his hands pulled my hips tighter against his, his fingers cupping my bottom in a way that was shockingly intimate and wildly thrilling at the same time.

His tongue twined around mine, and I gave up all thoughts of fighting, tasting him as he tasted me, reveling in the groan of pleasure he gave when I mimicked his action and let my tongue dance into his mouth.

Heat blasted me then, heat of such intensity I swore I was going to go up in flames, the fire of it pouring into me and setting my soul alight. Impossibly, the kiss deepened, the warrior pulling me upward along the tree trunk until my feet dangled a good foot off the ground, my mouth at the same height as his. I wrapped my arms around his back and gave myself up to the heat, to the pleasure he was stirring with just the touch of his mouth. The heat was in me and around me and through me, and with every second it filled me, my heart sang. I was consumed by it, burning just as bright as the biggest bonfire, my soul soaring with the sensation. I didn’t want it to stop, never wanted to stop kissing this strange, handsome man.

“That, chérie, is the test,” he said, his face tight with some emotion as he let me slide down his body.

I blinked at him a couple of times, trying to regain my wits. “Test?” I asked stupidly, my mind clearly too dazzled by that kiss to do anything but parrot what was said to me.

“Only a dragon or a mate can take dragon fire and live,” he said, his lips almost touching mine. His eyes were as deep and shiny as the bit of onyx hung in a pearl necklace that my mother sometimes wore.

“Who are you?” I asked, searching his face, memorizing it in order to tuck away the memory of that kiss.

A slow smile curled his lips. “I am the wyvern of the black dragons, Ysolde de Bouchier. I am Baltic.” Baltic. The name resonated within my head like a bell, repeating and echoing until I thought it would deafen me.

Baltic. The word spun around in my brain as I was swept up in a hurricane of thoughts, confused and tangled beyond hope.

Baltic…

“Sullivan?”

My eyes shot open at the voice. I was disoriented, my brain feeling muzzy again, but as my eyes focused on the worried face peering down at me, joy leaped within me.

“How come you’re out here in the dark by yourself? Are you OK?” Brom asked as I pushed myself up from the ground, where I’d evidently fallen asleep. Immediately I wrapped him in my arms in a bear hug to beat all bear hugs. “Geez, Sullivan, there are people watching.” I finished kissing his adorable face, giving him another hug just to reassure myself that he was really there. “I’m fine. Did you have any trouble at the airport?” “Nope. Gabriel said there might be some problems, but he bribed a few people, and it ended up being OK after all.” I looked over Brom’s head to where Gabriel and May stood, leaning against each other with that ease of longtime lovers. “Trouble with his passport?” “Not that,” Brom said before Gabriel could answer, squirming out of my hold. “With my mummies!” “Your… you didn’t bring those horrible things, did you?” He shot me a look that was oddly adult in its scorn. “It’s my work, Sullivan. You didn’t think I was going to leave it behind so Gareth or Ruth could take it when I wasn’t there? The customs dudes didn’t want to let me bring them, but Gabriel gave them some money to look the other way. He says I can use a room in the basement as my lab. It’s got a table and sink already, and he said he’ll get me a big tub to soak the bodies in.” “How very generous of Gabriel,” I said, trying not to grimace at the thought of Brom’s current scholarly pursuits.

May laughed. “It actually sounds very interesting, if a little gruesome. Brom says he only works on animals that have died naturally, because he feels too much empathy to kill one for research purposes.” “For which I am truly grateful,” I said, ruffling his mousey brown hair.

“That’s not all. Gabriel says you get to give me some sort of a tattoo of the silver-dragon sept. He says most members of the sept have them on their backs, but I thought it would be cool to have it on my arm, so I can show it off.” “No tattoo!” I said firmly. “You’re far too young for that. And I wouldn’t know how to give you one even if you weren’t.” “It’s not really a tattoo,” May said quickly. “It’s more of a brand. It’s done with dragon fire.” I stared at her for a few seconds. “Is that supposed to make it better?” Gabriel laughed and pulled his shirt off, turning around. “All members of the silver sept bear the emblem marking them as such on their backs.” High on his shoulder blade was a mark that looked like a hand with a crescent moon on the palm.

“May has one too, although she wouldn’t show me hers,” Brom said, giving her a disgusted look.

“I don’t take my shirt off in public quite as easily as Gabriel does,” she told him.

“I don’t care what it is,” I said. “You’re not having it. You’re not a member of the silver dragons.” “Gabriel says I am because you’re one of them.” “Well, I’m not.” A thought occurred to me. “And I can prove it. You said all the silver dragons have that mark — well, I don’t.” They all looked at me as if they wanted me to take my shirt off.

“She’s right,” Brom said after a moment of silence. “I’ve never seen anything like that on her back.” “You see?” I tried to keep the triumph in my voice to a minimum. “I wish you’d mentioned this emblem or tattoo or whatever it is before — it could have cleared things up instantly. I don’t have any such marks on me.” “Well… except for that one on your hip,” Brom said.

“That is a scar, not a tribal marking,” I told him.

“Scar?” Gabriel asked, his gaze dropping to my midsection. “What sort of a scar?” “Just the remnants of an old injury, nothing more,” I said quickly.

“It’s shaped kind of like this,” my son said, holding his hands up, fingers spread, thumbs touching.

“Oh, it is not. It’s just a simple scar!” “Is it a figure resembling a bird?” Gabriel asked him.

“Of course it’s not! And no, before you ask, I’m not going to — Brom!” The child I had labored to bring into the world — even if I couldn’t remember the event — grabbed the bottom of my broomstick skirt and lifted it, squinting at my exposed hip. “I suppose it looks kind of like a bird.” “You are in serious trouble, buster,” I told him, trying to wrestle my skirt out of his grasp.

Gabriel started around the back of me, but stopped at a pointed look from May, who gave me a little smile, and said, “I’m sorry, Yso — Tully,” as she bent her head to look at the mark that rode high on my hip. I’d never thought much of it, assuming that I must have had a painful fall sometime in my past.

I realized now that Kaawa had been right — something had made me not worry about the fact that I couldn’t remember my past.

“I have to say, the part that I can see looks like a… well, like a phoenix,” May said, examining the scar. “It disappears into your underwear, but it looks like those are outstretched wings.” “I think everyone has seen enough,” I said, giving Brom one of my scariest mom looks.

He didn’t even flinch, the rat.

“We could see this better if you took your underwear off,” he pointed out.

“You did not just say that,” I said through clenched teeth.

Confusion flashed across his face. “Yeah, I did. See, that part of it is underneath your underwear—” I slapped his hand where he was about to yank down the side of my undies. “That is quite enough!” “I’m sorry, Tully,” May said, straightening up. “This isn’t a scar. It’s not a brand, though, either. I don’t quite know what it is — it’s like it’s an anti-tattoo.” “Mayling,” Gabriel said, clearly asking her permission to look at the silly scar.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You do not need to be looking at strange women’s hips.” “I’m a healer! I’ve seen women’s bodies,” he protested.

“Ysolde isn’t injured!”

“You wouldn’t recognize a sept emblem as I would.” “I think I would. I’ve seen enough of them now.” “You are far from an expert—” he started to say, but I had finally had enough.

“Oh, this is ridiculous.” I jerked the material of my skirt out of Brom’s hand and spun around, pulling the top side of my underwear down a few inches. “You want to see? Fine, you can see. Why don’t we get Kaawa and your big friend in to see as well? Perhaps announce it on the street and bring in a few strangers!” Gabriel ignored my little hissy fit as he stared at my hip for a few moments before his gaze rose to mine. His grey eyes were somber and considering. “I believe I have been mistaken.” “A voice of sanity at last!” I said, readjusting my underwear and letting the skirt fall back into place. “Thank you! It’s nice to know there’s someone who recognizes a scar when he sees one.” He shook his head. “That is no scar, Ysolde.” “Tully. My name is Tully.”

“Your name is Ysolde,” he said firmly, his eyes glittering strangely in the night. I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued. “I was wrong about you being a silver dragon. You do not bear our emblem. You do, however, bear that of the black dragons.” I closed my mouth and, taking Brom’s hand, turned on my heel, walking back into the house and up the stairs to the room where I’d woken up.

Brom watched me for a few minutes before saying, “May says I can sleep in the room next to this one ’cause she figures you’ll want me close by. I told her you didn’t think I was such a baby.” “That was very thoughtful of May. I do indeed want you close by. I’ve missed you terribly.” He grimaced. “I hope you’re not going to go all mom on me in front of everyone. I like them. I like Gabriel and May. They’re nice, huh? Did you know May can go invisible?” I shook my head, my brain numbed by the events of the day. What was happening to me? Was I losing my grip on reality, or was something more profound, infinitely more frightening, controlling my life?

“She said she’s made up of shadows, but I think she was just teasing me, because she feels just like a normal person. But she showed me in the car coming here how she can disappear. She said you have to be born that way to do it, that she’s something with a long name, and that’s why she can become invisible.” A word nudged its way to the front of my mind. “Doppelganger.” “Yeah, that’s it.” He plopped himself down on the bed next to me. “Gabriel says if Gareth had been a mortal human, I could have been a wyvern, and one day challenged him for the job.” “Gareth is human,” I said, feeling as if a thousand ants were marching up and down my body.

“Sullivan,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Have you seen those pictures of him and Ruth and you in old-time clothes? He’s got to be at least a hundred years old. Maybe more.” “Pictures? What pictures?” I roused from my stupor in order to look at him.

“The ones in Ruth’s room.”

I dug through what remained of my memory. “I don’t remember seeing any pictures in her room.” “In a box in the locked drawer in her bureau,” he said, looking around the room with casual curiosity.

“How do you know what’s in a locked drawer?” I asked, then realized just how stupid a question that was. “I don’t care if your father gave you a lock-picking kit for Christmas — you are not going to be a cat burglar when you grow up, and you are not to hone your skills on your aunt’s locked bureau.” “She has pictures of you, too,” he said with blithe disregard to my chastisement.

“I highly doubt that. Ruth and I aren’t the very best of friends.” “Yeah, I know, but she has pictures of you and Gareth and her, and you’re all wearing clothes like out of that movie you made me watch.” I racked my brain, or what was left of it. “What movie?” “The one you like to watch so much. You know, the one with the girls in long dresses and they walk around and talk a lot.” “Pride and Prejudice?” He nodded. “Yeah, you were wearing stuff like that.” “They didn’t have cameras during the Regency period,” I told him, distracted by the thought of pictures. Brom wouldn’t lie, but he might have misinterpreted what he had seen.

“Whatever. I think I’ll go move my stuff down to the room in the basement Gabriel said I could have.” I eyed him, his round face as dear to me as life itself. Thank god whatever was happening to me hadn’t stripped me of memory of him altogether. “You will go to bed. It’s well past your bedtime.” “I’m nine, Sullivan, not a baby,” he said with exaggerated forbearance.

“Go to bed,” I repeated.

He sighed and got to his feet, pausing at the door to send me a martyred look before saying, “Gabriel says he won’t kick us out because we’re not silver dragons anymore. He said you were born into the silver sept, and that they’d honor that, even though you were married to a black dragon. Did you know Gareth when you were married to the dragon?” I closed my eyes and bowed my head, wanting to cry, wanting to scream, wanting to tell Brom that I had only been married once in my life, to his father. “Time for bed,” was all I said, however, before escorting him to his room. I made sure that he was settled before disgusting him with not one, but three hugs, and two smooches to the head, which he tolerated, but only just barely. Clearly Brom was moving into that stage of life where motherly affection was a thing to be borne with much martyrdom.

“Sleep well. If you need anything, come and get me,” I told him as I left the room.

“I’m glad you’re OK,” he said before the door closed. “Penny said you would be, but I was kind of worried. I didn’t know you had May and Gabriel to look after you. You know what I think? I think you’re lucky they found you.” My heart swelled at the fact that he had been concerned. “Lucky?” “Yeah. What if it had been one of the other dragons who found you? Someone not from your own group? What would have happened then?” What indeed. “Go to sleep,” I said, blowing him a kiss.

Silence filled my little room when I returned to it, but all it did was heighten the desperate confusion of my mind.