“Both.” She shot to her feet, the book still in her hands. “I have to go.”
He stood and towered over her as no human could. “Don’t go, Shalin. Spend the night with me.”
She should be insulted. He’d just left another female’s bed and now, still naked and wet from the woman’s bath, he’d asked Shalin to warm his bed. But this was Ailean the Whore. He wasn’t doing anything out of character. She actually felt kind of proud he’d asked her at all. Although she knew that to be pathetic. And she’d never admit it out loud.
Shalin focused on the book in her hands. “That’s very kind of you, but…but I…I—”
Big fingers lightly gripped her chin and tilted her face up to his.
“Gods, Shalin. You do so tempt me.”
She nearly melted at his words. Melted right into a big puddle at his feet.
“Ailean, I—”
Shalin stopped talking when she realized guards stood behind him.
“There you are,” one of them said, slapping his hand down on Ailean’s shoulder.
Ailean gave a short snort. “And such a good job finding me, since I’ve been standing here for the last twenty minutes.”
With a snarl, the guard motioned to the others and large steel manacles were locked onto Ailean’s wrists.
“Don’t look so, Shalin.” Ailean grinned. “I have every intention of coming back for you.”
Shalin opened her mouth to say something, but no words would come out. He’d rendered her completely speechless. But since he really didn’t let her get a word in edgewise, this wasn’t exactly an incredible feat. Holding the book close to her chest and pulling the hood of her acolyte robe down over her face, she nodded, turned, and fled.
The city guards handed Ailean the pair of leggings he’d left behind. Ailean pulled them on, the steel manacles on his wrists clanking against the chains as he did so, while the guards asked him questions about his intentions toward the lady. He’d had none except for what they’d done the evening before. But when they demanded to know if he was aware he’d bedded a virgin, Ailean had laughed outright.
At that point, they led him downstairs to the great front doors of the school. As he walked out into the bright morning, he saw Shalin standing on the front steps talking to an aged human male who wore the robes of a master.
Although she nodded and made noises as if she paid attention, Ailean knew Shalin was fully aware of his presence.
“Shalin.”
Shalin stopped talking to her teacher and, with a nod, faced Ailean. “Yes?”
He glanced at the guards who grudgingly allowed him to step closer.
“I am sorry.”
Shalin frowned. “Sorry? Sorry about—what are you doing?”
“Doing what I’ve been dying to do since I saw you in the royal archives.”
Before she could even think to ask what that might have been, Ailean’s manacled hands gripped the front of her robe and yanked her close, forcing her to rise on her toes. She gasped and then his mouth was on hers. Startled, she automatically slammed her fists on his shoulders and, if he were actually human, she might have crushed him where he stood. But with a Battle Dragon it was like hitting a mountain. His head tipped to the side and she felt his tongue slip between her lips and into her mouth. She drew her tongue back but his only followed until it had the poor thing cornered. Then it stroked and stroked and Shalin’s human body heated, everything beginning to ache, demanding the dragon finish what he’d just started.
But as she reached for him, Ailean abruptly pulled away. He stared down at her, his eyes wide in shock.
“I never thought…” Ailean shook his head, looking confused. Finally, he said, “I promise, Shalin, I will be back for you.”
Not sure she understood, she asked, “Back for me?”
“It might be a bit, though.” He took several steps back, holding up the chains and manacles that had been clamped to his wrists, only now he held them in his hands. “And, uh…sorry. Think of it as retribution for that bloody ax.”
Ailean dropped the chains and gave her a wicked smile and wink seconds before he took off running.
Watching him bolt down the street, that big grin on his handsome face and the town guards right behind him, Shalin could do nothing more than laugh. Even as the school masters took her back inside the school to calm her “hysteria” after her brutal “assault,” she continued to laugh and laugh as she never had before.
2
“Wake up, brother.”
Ailean felt the bed lift when his brother’s big foot kicked it. His big, cold, lonely bed.
It had been nearly a full moon since he’d had a female in his bed. The father of the woman whose name he could no longer remember still searched for him, so Ailean had taken up residence in his home. A castle buried in a valley between the Taaffe Mountains of Kerezik. He knew he could find a female—many females—to share his bed, but he didn’t want that. He wanted to go back and get Shalin. He knew from that kiss alone the name “Innocent” had been wrongly given. Until things calmed down a bit, however, he’d have to wait to go back to Kyffin. But not much longer. He didn’t think he could wait much longer.
“Go away, Arranz,” he grumbled, turning his face away to bury it deeper into his pillow.
“You did this,” his brother replied in that calm way he had that barely hid a veneer of ruthlessness Ailean appreciated during a time of war. “You need to fix it.”
“I did what?”
“Shalin the Innocent.”
Realizing his brother wouldn’t leave, Ailean rolled to his back but still did not leave his bed. “What about her?”
“You’ve caused her much trouble, brother. And you have little time left to go and protect her.”
“What are you talking about?” No one believed she’d helped him, did they? He would have taken her with him that day if he thought for a second she’d be in any danger. “Are you telling me the city guards are planning to punish her for what happened?”
His brother, a silver dragon nearly three decades his senior, dropped into a chair across from him. “City guards? This has nothing to do with them. It’s your princess I speak of.”
Cringing at the mere mention of her, Ailean snapped, “That viper is not my anything.”
“Someone told her you two have been together. You were seen kissing the little gold outside that human school she attends. The princess seems to think you love Shalin.”
“Love her?” With a laugh, Ailean shook his head. “I
