you’d know that how? You never let me finish a sentence.”
His own smile fell at the innocent barb. “Are you saying I talk too much?”
“Well—”
“Because I don’t. I don’t talk too much.”
“All—”
“I have things to say, sure. But it’s not like I can’t shut up if I have to. Because I can.”
“O—”
“And do! When I have to.”
Shalin stared up at him once again, her mouth closed.
“Well?” he demanded. “Answer me.”
“You’re right. You don’t talk too—”
“Exactly! Now come on. You can even bring your book if you like and read at the table. This lot will never even notice.”
It was like watching wild animals feed with much snarling, growling, and food stealing. But to make it uniquely theirs, there was also much laughing, taunting, and yelling. Shalin said nothing because she really didn’t have to. With Ailean on one side of her having either a running argument or an animated conversation with his brothers—she didn’t know which—and his infamous twin cousins on the other side, yelling at different family members across the room, Shalin didn’t have to say a word. Instead, she devoured her delicious food, hand-fed the puppy comfortably ensconced in her lap and, much to her delight, read her book. That she would have never done at court. Ever. She’d have been forced to keep up some boring patter to entertain whatever noble sat beside her or she would have had to listen to Adienna softly mock everyone in the room.
Truth be told, Shalin hadn’t had a meal this lovely since she’d lived with her father. He’d always brought work or books with him to their evening meal of a freshly butchered cow or two. They’d eat, read, and barely speak and were both quite comfortable doing so.
The hour had grown late and she’d devoured half a cow’s worth of ribs before she finally lifted her gaze from her book.
“What you reading, then?” one of the twins asked.
“It’s a book on the Northland pirates. The ones who come down along the coast and raid the small towns there.”
“I heard about them. Oh, I’m Kyna by the way. This is Kennis.”
Kennis greeted Shalin with a grunt, since she had a mouthful of food. Shalin had never met the twins before, but like every other dragon in Dark Plains, she’d heard of them, the pair having cut a bloody swath through the enemy during the last battle against the North dragons. They were feared as much by their own people as by their enemies.
“So go on,” Kyna insisted, “tell us about the pirates.”
Shalin glanced at the book and shrugged. “Well, there was this one story that was kind of interesting about how one of the raids went horribly wrong.” Shalin leaned in a bit and proceeded to tell the cousins what she’d read, adding in some additional details about the town and the Northland pirates that she’d read in other books. Since the twins never looked bored the way most others did when she spoke for longer than a minute or two, she kept talking.
“He knew, then,” she said.
“Knew what?” Kyna all but demanded.
“He knew he either had to cut her throat or watch his men die.”
It was the silence Shalin noticed first. Neither Ailean nor Ailean’s kin were ever quiet. Yet for a brief moment she thought that only she and the twins remained. But when she glanced around, she gave a little start of surprise. They were all watching her. If she hadn’t known she had Ailean’s protection, she’d have feared for her very life, the way they all watched her.
Then, finally, from the back of the room someone snarled, “Well…go on, then!”
“Aye,” one of his many—many—aunts demanded. “Finish the story.”
A chorus of “ayes” followed and Shalin briefly debated making a run for it.
“You best finish,” Ailean murmured near her ear. “They’ll tear this castle down around us until they get what they want. Besides,” and the smile he gave her nearly had her melting in her chair, “I’m dying to hear the end as well.”
Realizing she really did have their undivided attention and that she didn’t much mind, Shalin continued. “But for the captain neither of those options worked for him. But if he was going to save them all, he’d have to move fast…”
The dinner ended and his family went off on their own, heading out to check Ailean’s territory or simply enjoy the quiet night before the storms came. Storms were blowing in from the east, but it was the rainy winter season in Kerezik, so no one was particularly surprised or worried.
Ailean silently watched Shalin head up the stairs to her room, the puppy in her arms.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Ailean turned away from the tantalizing sight of Shalin walking away to that of his twin cousins, Kyna and Kennis.
“Don’t think about what?”
“Now that is an innocent face, isn’t it, Kyna?”
“That it is, Kennis. That it is. You’d never think he has nefarious plans for Shalin the Innocent.”
Ailean rolled his eyes and laughed. “I do not have any plans for anyone.”
“Not sure I believe that, cousin. Who can resist a female with the moniker ‘the Innocent’?”
“Your lack of faith in me, Kyna, hurts.” He held his hand to his chest. “Deep inside.”
His cousins, two of the greatest Battle Dragons he’d ever known, laughed and each punched one of his arms. He gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the pain.
“They have a point, though, brother.”
Forcing himself not to rub where the twins had hit him, he focused on Bideven, who stood over him. “What are you talking about?”
“You with a fresh, untried female under your roof. I’m concerned.”
Ailean pushed away from the table he’d been leaning against and stood tall. “Concerned?”
“Aye, brother. Concerned. Shalin the Innocent is not like your other—”
“Whores?” Kyna added helpfully.
“Aye. She’s not.”
Ailean felt his rarely used anger growing. “I never said she was.”
“But I saw how you looked at her.”
“I have eyes. I was looking. It doesn’t mean that I’ll—”
“Take
