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A burst of warmth touched Iris’ lips.
Her eyes flew wide open.
She sat bolt upright, looking around for the fairy. There were Char and Rath, already awake and rolling up their bedrolls under the dusky sky, and there were the smoldering ashes from last night’s fire…
“Good morning!” Rath called to her.
“Good morning.” She was slow to climb out of her bedroll, still looking in all directions for a tiny golden orb. The sun was but a thin orange line peeking over the eastern horizon, so spotting the fairy’s light should have been easy.
“Is something wrong?” Char asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Well… Maybe.”
“So, that’s a yes,” Rath said.
She scanned the area again, and then she shrugged. “I could have sworn—there you are!”
The fairy had smoothed out her bedroll and was rolling it into a tight cylinder. She squatted next to it and smiled.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
Once it had secured the bedroll, the fairy flitted up to hover in front of her face, and then it darted in to touch her lips before it zipped away. She giggled and stood, gesturing toward the soft golden glow shining brighter than the first rays of sunlight.
“We have a stowaway.”
Char came to her side and frowned at the happy little creature. “Are you sure there’s only one?”
“No, but we can’t do much about it either way, can we?”
She smiled up at him and realized he had a bad case of bedhead. It was cute how his shaggy black hair stuck up and out all over the place. She wondered why she'd never noticed it before. They had shared a bed a few times now, after all.
Maybe she had been too distracted by all the kissing.
She swallowed and averted her eyes, her cheeks turning the same shade of pink as the emerging sunrise. “What’s for breakfast?”
“The same as dinner,” Rath said. “And we’re eating on the move. I’d like to put as much distance as possible between us and those soldiers.” He handed her a biscuit and a strip of dried meat, and a smirk spread across his lips. “Why are you blushing?”
“Why did we set up camp so close to them?” she countered. There was no way she would admit she’d been thinking about kissing Char. About waking up with him. After sleeping with him.
Her cheeks felt like they were on fire.
“The sky was clear last night,” Char explained. “No cloud cover, so landing without being seen was tricky. We had to take the first opportunity we got.” He brushed her hair back behind her ear, and although she refused to look at him, she heard the smirk in his voice. “Why are you blushing, Iris?”
“The person who should be blushing is you.” Rath smacked Char’s sore shoulder and then danced out of his reach. “I get you were concerned about Iris being unconscious, but you didn’t have to fall to pieces like that.”
Char rubbed his shoulder. “I did not fall to pieces. And could you please stop hitting this shoulder? It’s already bruised.”
Rath snorted. “Sure. When you stop being an idiot. Catch.” He tossed a pack at Char and shouldered the other, and then he began to walk, his face set toward the northeast. “We should have moved somewhere safer,” he continued his explanation for Iris. “Loverboy here could have just carried you and let you wake up on your own. But he was too busy freaking out about you not responding to him.”
“She always wakes up quickly,” Char retorted. “She did even the first time, when she nearly froze to death. But she didn’t this time. I had good reason to worry.”
“I’m sorry,” she interjected. “That’s because I was practicing my magic. I wasn’t in my body at the time.”
They both looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“You say that like it’s normal,” Rath said.
She shrugged. “Well, it’s getting more normal for me. I just thought I shouldn’t waste the flight sleeping if I could work on my magic. But that’s why it took me longer to respond. I came back right away once I heard you calling for me.”
Two sets of sharp eyes studied her, blue and green, both boring into her with an intensity that made her uncomfortable. She looked back at the sunrise, but she still felt their gazes. Though the sun had almost cleared the horizon, she could still see the bobbing light of the fairy up ahead without trouble.
“So, how does it feel? Being outside of your body like that?” Char asked.
“Feel?” She bit her lip, thinking. “I don’t really feel anything. I guess it felt cool and refreshing when I was escaping an extraction session, but that’s all.”
“You don’t feel anything when you use magic?” Rath asked, incredulous.
She shook her head. “When Micah extracted magic from me, I felt it, and when I took the magic back from him, I felt it. But I feel nothing when I use it. Do you two feel something?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s the first thing we’re taught in flight class. ‘Force the ice through your veins.’ It makes no sense until you feel it, and then you know exactly what that dull teacher was talking about the whole time.”
They ate their meager breakfast as they walked, dead grass crunching under their feet, the sky blueing above their heads. Patches of turned-up dusty, dry dirt marked places livestock had churned up, desperate for sustenance. There were no livestock here anymore. The herders must have moved them elsewhere, hoping to find grass.
“How far are we from the capital?” Iris asked.
“Three days, I think,” Rath replied. “Sooner if we take a more direct route, but I want to avoid roads and towns as much as possible.”
“We should come up with a cover story in case we meet anybody, though,” Char pointed out.
“Easy enough. We’re two brothers fleeing the war with—what terminology would you like us to use for her, Char?”
Iris knew Rath was smirking, but she wouldn’t look at him. Her cheeks were warming again.
“Humans don’t use the term ‘girlfriend’ much, so I guess ‘lover.’”
‘Girlfriend’? ‘Lover’?
Well, he had proposed, in a vague, roundabout way. The terms fit. But they’d skipped the early stages of a relationship, and Iris had a hard time wrapping her head around it all.
“Humans also don’t have names like ‘Char’ and ‘Rath,’” she said, wanting to move past that issue.
“What about ‘Rina?’ Is that human enough?” Rath teased.
She wouldn’t take the bait. “That will work for me. For you two, I think… Charles and Roger.”
“Charlie and Rog for short. I can deal with that.”
It was nice weather for a journey. Clear sky, no wind, and the sun’s rays were chasing away the lingering chill of night. The fairy flitted ahead of them, bobbing up and down, moving from side to side, always keeping within their northeastern trajectory.
The temperature was lower than it should have been for summer, though, and that nagged at the back of Iris’ mind. She didn’t understand what the amulet and the crystal had to do with it all, but she knew they were connected.
“You two are usually so informal, but you call your parents ‘Mother’ and ‘Father.’ Why is that?” she asked to divert her thoughts.
Char smirked at his brother. “That would be Rath’s fault.”
Rath laughed. “Yep. Our parents recognized I was a hellion at an early age, and Father decided I needed a little extra incentive to show them proper respect.”
“He said something disrespectful to Mother,” Char explained.
“Oh?” Iris smiled, picturing a younger but no less troublesome Rath. “What was it?”
Rath shrugged. “I don’t remember, and it doesn’t really matter, anyway. Father decided no son of his would disrespect his wife, so I had to start calling her ‘Mother.’”
“And she decided it was only fair we show Father the same respect,” Char added.
“But it wasn’t just the words. He started drilling us on how to treat her. Opening the door for her, pulling out her chair, all that chivalry stuff. ‘She deserved to be treated like a queen,’ he said.”
“Is that where kissing her on the cheek comes from?”
“Sort of,” Char replied, a small smile tugging at his lips. “He also said she needed to be kissed as often as possible to keep her smiling.”
Iris smiled, too. “Well, I’d say he did a good job. You two are very respectful sons.”
“Yeah, and all that chivalry stuff goes over great with the ladies, too.” Rath flashed Iris a confident grin. “Of course, it also helps that we’re ruggedly handsome and have winsomely charming personalities.”
“And you’re so humble,” Iris observed.
“But you can’t deny it’s true. We have no trouble picking up girls at parties.”
Char shoved Rath’s shoulder. “And you have no trouble getting a drink thrown in your face.”
Rath shoved Char back. “That is a rare occurrence. I have been told I make a girl feel like she’s a princess.”
“Yeah, kissing two different girls at the same party really helps with that impression.”
Rath shrugged. “Okay, so I’ve made a few mistakes. At least I don’t change dance partners like I’m changing my clothes.”
Char cleared his throat and averted his green eyes. Iris saw the back of his neck reddening, which she’d noticed happened when he got embarrassed.
“You should have seen him at that party before he left to bust you out of the magic school,” Rath continued. “I swear he danced with every girl at the party at least once.”
“It had to seem like a normal night. That was our cover when Kelnor came asking about Iris the next morning.”
“Yeah, sure, you really looked like you were suffering out there.” Rath smirked. “Almost as bad as you were suffering the next night.”
Now Iris was the one looking away, cheeks burning. If Father John had seen her dancing with Char like that, he would have had a heart attack.
“You’re embarrassing Iris,” Char scolded his brother.
“We’ll see how embarrassed she is next weekend at Misa’s party.”
Iris’ stomach did a full backflip. Wear that tight little dress again? Dance like that again? And the kissing, too—she couldn’t count how many times they’d kissed that night. In public. With tongue.
“Who says I’m going to that party?” she retorted, her tone more vehement than she meant it to be.
Rath laughed. “You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”
“I was drunk.”
“And in love.”
“Knock it off,” Char interjected.
“You know, after we get rid of that amulet, the door will open to a lot more dress options,” Rath mused. “Got an idea what you’d like to see her in, Char?”
Char smacked Rath on the shoulder. “I said, knock it off.”
“Okay, okay.” Rath rubbed his shoulder. “What, are you sour because you didn’t get a good morning kiss? I can go on ahead if you’re too embarrassed to do it in front of me.” He danced away from Char’s next punch. “Point proven. I’ll give you two a few minutes.”
Char glared at Rath’s retreating back, his fists clenched at his sides. “Sorry,” he muttered to Iris. “We don’t have to go to the party.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s… Um…” She bit her lip and glanced up at Char. “He’s right. I had fun, but it all felt so inappropriate, too. At least, for what I grew up with. Maybe it isn’t for dragons.”
“If you’re not comfortable with it, then we won’t go.”
She remembered moving to the music with him, how his hands had felt on her hips, how his lips had brushed against her ear when he’d murmured something only she could hear. How his lips had felt pressed to her lips, her neck, her cheek, her shoulder. She had to admit she'd liked all his attention.
She forced herself to look up at him, to meet those green eyes that saw right through her. “But I liked dancing with you.”
The slight widening of his eyes told her she’d surprised him, but he was quick to recover. He grinned and looped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “I really liked dancing with you, too.”
Her brown eyes flicked down to his lips and back up to the darkening green. The look in his eyes filled her stomach with butterflies. “If you’re going to kiss me, you’d better do it before Rath comes back to check on us.”
He caught her chin in his hand, and she closed her eyes. His lips brushed against hers and then were gone.
She opened her eyes. “Is that all?”
He swiped his thumb across her bottom lip, and it parted from her upper lip. He smirked. “For now.”
She pressed her lips together in a pout. “Don’t tease me like that.”
“Like you never tease me,” he said, laughing as he stepped back and took her hand. “C’mon.”
"Wait." She pulled her hand free and stood on tiptoe to fix his hair. "Your hair is all over the place this morning."
"Is it, now?"
She felt his breath on her face, and when she dropped her eyes from his hair, his face was close to hers. Very close. Almost close enough to kiss.
Her cheeks warmed.
He smirked and snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her flush with him. "You're pushy sometimes, you know that?"
She licked her lips. "I know what I want."
And that kiss was exactly what she wanted.7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIAOWldqPJc
