“So, it was an accident.”
“Right. Yes. Exactly.” He seems relieved that we cleared that up.
We’re quiet for a minute. I make a few grabs at some fish, but they get away. It doesn’t help that I can’t concentrate. There’s another question floating around in my thoughts, and I know I shouldn’t ask it, but how am I supposed to catch anything if I can’t focus properly? It’s probably better to just ask and get it over with.
“Do you sleep with a lot of girls, then?”
Amelrik almost slips again, but this time manages to catch himself. His shoulders stiffen. “Do I what?”
“It’s just that, you must sleep with a lot of girls for, um, wrapping yourself around me to be second nature or whatever.”
His face turns a little red. “I told you, it was an accident.”
“I know, that’s what I’m saying. I’ve never . . . I’ve never spent the night with anyone, and I didn’t accidentally do anything like that. It just seems like something you’d do if you were used to sleeping with another person, that’s all.” I shrug, kind of wishing I hadn’t said anything, but also really wanting to know the answer.
“That’s not—That’s none of your business.”
“So, a lot of girls is what I’m hearing.”
“Why would you assume it was a lot? Why not just one?”
“You got people to trust you. That was, like, your job or something. I assume that it, uh, included seducing people.”
A pained expression crosses his face. Then he scowls and turns away.
I think I’ve offended him again. But he can’t just say it’s none of my business and expect me to not assume things. I mean, he’s not giving me much to go on. And it’s not like he doesn’t know my history, which happens to be blank, but still. He knows I tried to get Torrin to marry me, which is pretty mortifying, to say the least.
Amelrik’s standing in the stream, poised to try and catch something, but halfheartedly, like he’s just going through the motions.
My stomach growls again, and I slip my hands into the water. I’m not convinced that this is going to work, but it beats standing here in awkward silence.
After a while, Amelrik gives up on pretending to fish and turns to face me. He looks like he has something to say. I figure he’s going to tell me again how his, er, love life?—sex life?—is really none of my business. But before he can say anything, a fish swims right into my hands, and I shriek with joy. I clasp my fingers around it, and even though it’s really slippery, I manage to keep my hold on it and pull it out of the water.
“I did it!” Excitement bubbles up in my chest. I caught one. And if I can catch one, I can catch another. We’re not going to starve to death. At least, not today, and not because of me.
I smile real big at Amelrik, happier than I’ve been in . . . I don’t even know how long.
He smiles back, looking just as excited as I am, all offenses and breaches of privacy forgotten, at least for the moment.
I’m sitting by Amelrik later, watching the fire. It’s dark out, and cold, and the heat from the flames feels really good. My stomach is full from all the fish we ate today. And while it’s still weird to be away from home, it doesn’t seem as scary as it did before. Even though we’re farther away from the barracks, and anything familiar, and, let’s face it, everything I’ve ever known.
Okay, so maybe it is still scary. But not as much.
At least we have the fire, now that we know no one’s looking for us. That’s one good thing about Torrin showing up, I guess. And there’s more space here than where we slept last night. Room to have a fire and to sleep on opposite sides of it. So there’s, like, no chance of waking up in Amelrik’s arms again.
Which is a huge relief. I’m not disappointed at all. Nooope.
Amelrik’s sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms folded on top of them. He glances over at me.
And catches me maybe kind of staring at him. I look away, hoping he didn’t notice.
“So,” he says. “About what you said earlier. About me, uh, seducing people. Not that it’s any of your business, because it’s not, but I want you to know I didn’t do that.”
A branch in the fire crackles, sending a stray spark into the air. “You tricked people, though, didn’t you? You made them think you were someone you weren’t, to earn their trust, all so you could hurt them.” Just like the dragon who killed my mother. I feel a rush of shame. Was I really thinking about waking up in his arms? That I’d be disappointed if it didn’t happen again? He’s no better than my mother’s killer.
“Okay, yeah. All right. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. But not . . . never like that.”
“Oh, so all the girls you slept with knew what you were?”
“That’s not—”
“Because there’s no way you would have told them the truth.” He couldn’t have. “And maybe you think it doesn’t count as seduction, but you still got them to trust you more than they should have. So you can say you didn’t do it, but—”
“I didn’t, okay? There weren’t any.”
“Weren’t any what?”
“There weren’t . . . I mean, I didn’t . . .” He clears his throat. “I’ve never, um, you know.”
“What?”
“Slept with anyone.”
“You know that ‘sleeping with someone’ is a euphemism for sex, right?” Because there’s no way that’s what he meant.
“Yeah, I do. And I haven’t.”
“Oh.” That’s definitely not something I thought we’d have in common. “You’ve really never done it with anyone? Like, ever?”
“I think I’d remember.”
“Right, but . . . Not even with other dragons?”
He clenches his jaw, a bitter expression crossing his face. “I didn’t tell you so you could ask stupid questions.”
“But you? A virgin? That’s just—Wait, is this some kind of dragon custom I don’t know about?”“No.”
“Are you betrothed?”
“No.”
“Are you—”
“This isn’t a guessing game for your amusement.”
“I’m just trying to figure it out.”
“Figure it out? There’s nothing to figure out. I shouldn’t have even told you. I just didn’t want you to think that about me.”
“But there has to be a reason. Did you take a vow of celibacy?”
“No. And what part of ‘this isn’t a game’ didn’t you understand?”
“Is there . . . Is there something wrong with—”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” He shouts the words, his voice breaking a little. He’s obviously mad, but there’s something else there, too. Sadness, and pain. Like I didn’t just piss him off—I actually hurt him.
A pang of guilt spreads through my chest.
He presses his forehead to his arms. And right now, it’s hard to see him as a spy who got people killed. I know what he is and what he’s done, and yet, how can the person who did those things be the same one who’s sitting next to me now? Looking so upset, so human?
The silence between us is really awkward. Maybe I should just call it quits and go to bed, before I accidentally say something even stupider and make this worse, but I don’t want to leave things like this. “So, what kinds of books do you like to read?”
He lifts his head, giving me a really incredulous look.
I keep going. “I just read this one series, about this princess who solves really gruesome murder mysteries.”
“I read that one, too.”
“You did?” I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect to have read any of the same books as him. “Which one’s your favorite?”
He answers right away, not having to think about it. “Book three.”
I laugh. In book three, a prince and his family come to the castle. He’s a possible suitor, and the king and queen really want Princess Genevieve to make a good impression. But then a string of murders takes place, and she has to solve them while keeping everyone from finding out what’s going on. It’s pretty hilarious.
I think that one might be my favorite, too, but I don’t want to sound like I’m copying him. “What about book five? When she meets Orlando?” Orlando’s a bandit who’s also been known to solve a mystery or two.
“It’s no book three, but it has its moments.”
“She’s marrying him in book seven.”
He snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“She is. Book six ends with him proposing.” Actually, it ends with both him and a prince—who she’s always kind of had a thing for—proposing.
“What about Liam?”
That’s the prince. “What about him? Too little too late, that’s what I say. He might be a more suitable match, but everyone knows Genevieve’s heart is with Orlando. Besides, Liam doesn’t solve mysteries. He’d just get in the way.”
“She’s a princess. She can’t marry an outlaw.”
“She can, too. They could solve mysteries on the road together.”
“Do you want the series to end? The whole point is that she’s a princess, and she has to deal with court drama and being part of high society and all that, while also solving murders. I don’t see how it can keep going if she leaves everything for him. But book seven comes out pretty soon, so I guess we’ll see.”