Fiora leaned out a little further and squinted against the sun, wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a spyglass from his study. The man took his hands out of his pockets and shrugged out of his coat, draping it casually over one shoulder. Oh, God. Those shoulders looked even broader without the coat than with it. Fiora bit his lip. Did they already have a spy in the castle? He’d have sworn none of his servants would tell tales about him for love or money, but if the council wanted to place someone near Fiora who’d be able to addle him into giving up his secrets…well, this would be much more effective than a maiden. The maiden who could addle Fiora hadn’t been born yet and probably never would.
The group drew nearer, and now Fiora could make out their faces. The presumed sacrifice wasn’t the sort of aristocratic beauty Fiora had tended to dally with back home, but he had a certain homely appeal, with his straight dark brows and square jaw. And then one of the council said something to him, gesturing impatiently at the coat he’d removed, and the man smiled, a wide, wicked, disrespectful grin that did things to Fiora’s insides.
“Oh my,” Andrei said suddenly, making Fiora jump. Bloody bother, did Andrei suddenly have a fondness for improbably tall men with long, well-muscled legs? Or was he reading Fiora’s mind? Fiora turned to glare at him, but Andrei wasn’t rapt with lust. He was laughing silently, shaking his head and rubbing his temples as if overcome.
“Have you lost your wits?” Fiora hissed. “What?”
“My lord, I’ve seen him before. The sacrifice. I’m not sure what game they’re playing, but he’s not as described.”
“Well, of course he isn’t! He’s not a maiden, for one thing, unless looks are very deceiving!”
The group below drew nearer — near enough that they might notice anyone at the top of the tower, should they happen to look up. Andrei lowered his hand and crouched down behind the wall, beckoning Fiora to join him.
“You know, my lord, I was thinking about it just now, and the letter they sent never used the word maiden at all. Or, in fact, any feminine noun or pronoun of any kind. Did you notice that?”
Fiora frowned, recalling the letter as best he could. “All right,” he said slowly. “I don’t think it did either, now that you mention it. I simply assumed.” Andrei grimaced, acknowledging the same error. “That hardly matters, though, does it?”
“No, but the letter most definitely used the words innocent and pure. And like I said, my lord, I’ve seen him before.” He hesitated, and Fiora gestured at him impatiently. “Well. I’d stabled my horse at the Jolly Tankard while I was in town for the day. When I returned to retrieve her — suffice to say I got an eyeful when I looked into the wrong stall. Your sacrifice most assuredly doesn’t fit the council’s description. Unless it was his purity the stable hand was sucking, that is.”
“Oh,” Fiora gasped. “Oh. Really?” Tell me more. No, no, he was not going to ask for details, damn it all. If he needed fodder for his prurient imagination, he had plenty of books. Also, he had dignity. And it wasn’t as if he could do more than imagine it, given his circumstances. He lifted his chin and straightened his cravat. Dignity, by God. “Well, I hardly suppose it matters, does it? Since this is all a farce in the first place.”
Andrei nodded. “We knew they had an ulterior motive to begin with, so a lie like this is hardly shocking. On the other hand, if they’d really sent us a pure and innocent citizen of Ridley, we’d have some idea of their criteria for choosing that person. As it is, my lord, I’m forced to wonder — why him? He may be an accomplished thief, or perhaps have some other skill that would help him steal or spy. We need to be on our guard.”
“We were going to be on our guard anyway,” Fiora sighed. “This just means we can’t depend on putting things on high shelves to keep them out of our unwanted guest’s sight.”
Andrei narrowed his eyes. “This is hardly the time to be making jokes, my lord,” he said quellingly, and then added, under his breath, “…as if you could reach the high shelves in the first place.”
Fiora ignored that by main force, though he felt the tips of his ears burn. That bastard Andrei. Not everyone could be tall, and it wasn’t as if Andrei could turn into an enormous lethal beast with great sharp teeth, now, could he? Fiora’s dragon form was a perfectly respectable size, at least, thank you very much.
He peeked over the battlement in time to see the group from Ridley drawing to a halt on the circular carriage drive before the castle. They stood in a milling knot, clearly wondering what to do next.
“This appears to be our cue,” Fiora said, and shrugged out of his coat.
“I’ll go down to greet them and await your appearance, then,” Andrei replied, and moved off toward the stairs.
Fiora stripped quickly and then tipped his head up, basking in the sunshine for a moment. He loved the feel of sun on his skin, whether soft and human or scaly and draconic. If only he could walk in the sun with someone he loved…the sacrifice’s wicked smile and long, lean limbs flashed through his mind, and his eyes popped open again.
No. No, there was no hope for him, and certainly no joy to be found in spinning fantasies that could never be.
Instead, he called upon the magic within him and felt his body begin to waver and morph, transforming from the inside out.
At last he shook himself, stretching and flapping his wings and startling a small flock of birds out of their nests along the peaked roof of the stairwell. Their angry squawks followed him as he launched himself into the air with one push of his powerful hind legs. Up, up he shot, straight up, aiming for a puffy cloud that drifted along above the river.
He leveled out, spreading his wings to the fullest and savoring the heat of the sun, the cool of battering gusts of wind, the freshness of the scent of the river and forest below him drifting up. In this form his eyesight was much keener, and when he turned he could see the group before his castle as clearly as he had from the turret. Andrei stood with them now, with all the councilors ranged before him. The presumed sacrifice stood off to the side a little.
As Fiora circled and watched, the man looked up.
For a long, suspended moment, Fiora was certain their eyes had met. That impossibly warm energy of a sudden and intimate connection with another being zinged down his spine and made his tail tingle. What color were his eyes? Even with his dragon’s senses he couldn’t tell, but he imagined them to be a warm brown like that of his hair, filled with mischief and lust and a keen intelligence that would ferret out every one of Fiora’s secrets.
Fiora would protest, of course, but he would yield gracefully, in every possible way…his belly clenched, and he tossed his head to banish the vision.
But he did bank into a sharp descent, whipping his tail dramatically and letting out a well-formed puff of smoke.
He wasn’t showing off, of course. That would be absurd. If he happened to make a striking, even mesmerizing sight — well, that was just one of the side benefits of being a dragon. He could hardly help it.
As he approached the ground, one of the councilors looked up and gasped, eagerly pointing him out to the others. The councilors wavered, some looking as if they might break and run, while others held onto their stupid official hats to keep the flapping of his wings from blowing them off their heads. Andrei, for his part, turned to face the smooth section of lawn where he knew Fiora would choose to land, and awaited him in a posture of perfect calm and respect.