Page 10 of In the Embrace of Dragons

I hate to admit it, but everything I know is self-taught, and that doesn’t add up to much.

Ragnakor tilts his head. “Well, if you want to learn more, I could... train you.”

My heart speeds up. I could train out in the open? Learn from someone skilled? It’s not even a question in my mind how to answer.

“Oh, yes,” I say, sitting up straight. “I’d love that.”

When Ragnakor nods in understanding, I’m buoyed. Maybe there will be some positives in this transition after all. The captain of the guard seems friendly enough, unlike Vizarios. Perhaps we can become friends.

That would be nice, I think.

Ragnakor and I sit in companionable silence for some time after that, until finally, the day’s long ride catches up to me.

“Well, goodnight,” I tell him, rising to my feet. “I look forward to arriving in Selvumrrest so I can learn from you.”

His mouth curves up, though it’s not quite a smile. “I look forward to it, as well.”

I bid the other soldiers goodnight and return to my tent alone.

RAGNAKOR

As each of my guards has gone off to bed, I’ve sat in front of the fire, drinking firewine from a skin. That flighty, buttery feeling in my belly returned this evening. Very curious, this human woman, who hunts herself rabbits. Under different circumstances, I think her personality and King Vizarios’s might mesh together rather well. She understands her limitations and admitted them to me with a commitment to improving. She is clearly independent. Surely she will challenge him, for better or for worse.

Probably for the worse, given how he’s decided to enter this marriage.

I consider as I continue drinking just how many things, in hindsight, I should have never said nor done. I made mistake after mistake, and it was selfish of me to make them. With the princess in front of me now, I must do everything possible to make her future easier.

Finally, I drain the wineskin and leave it sitting on a log. I’m too big for merely one to make much of a difference tomy state of mind, but it’s enough to make my dick a little hard, thinking of some of themistakesI’ve made.

Would I really change it? The dutiful guard in me wants to believe I would, that if I knew how this would turn out, I’d do what’s right by my new queen. But the animal part of me, the part that longs and hungers, will never regret it.

The following day,after we stop midday to eat, I make my way past Syzari to the front of our entourage, where the princess is riding. She gives me a funny look when I urge my horse into position beside her.

“Ragnakor?” she says, testing out my name. “Am I saying that right?”

“You are.”

She looks pleased. “Good. Hello. What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

“I thought I would try to get to know you better,” I say. “As I’ll be guarding you as well as King Vizarios in the future.”

She cocks her head. “You won’t assign me my own guard?”

“Why would I need to?”

“Well... I mean...” The princess, for the first time, looks flustered. “I don’t have to, you know”—she leans in closer—“sleep in the same room as him, right?”

I understand now. It is a very practical, if not tragic, question for her to ask.

“No, no one will demand you sleep in the same place.”

She lets out a sigh of relief, and it is the personification of my worst fears. Nissia already knows well how the king feels about her, and it’s reciprocated.

“You can’t be in two places at once,” she says pointedly.

“I will post a different guard outside your door,” I allow. “But I will be at your side at all times when you are with the king.”

An almost imperceptible flash of regret crosses her face, and then it’s gone like a shadow.