Page 183 of Ashborne Phoenix

“You need a break?” Gil asked in a low murmur, below the noise in the echoing dining hall. I shook my head, eyes still on Grace as she babbled and laughed, eyes sparkling, with Bren. “You want me to bring her back here?”

“No,” I said. “She’s a big girl. She can handle herself. I’ve seen her in action now. She’s better than me in a crisis.”

Gil snorted his disbelief of that. I tore my eyes off my mate and to him.

“I’m not shitting you,” I said.

“There’s no way Princess does a better job under pressure than you.”

“She does. The only way I handle it is to shut down. Stop feeling. Get shit done.”

Gil stared at me like I wasn’t making sense. “That’s exactly what we need to do when shit’s going down.”

“Yeah—but she does it without retreating,” I said, then turned back to watch her again. Swallowing as my eyes dropped to the swell of her ass in those leathers. I hadn’t seen her dressed like that since we arrived. She looked good enough to eat. “Look at her.”

“And earn your wrath?” Gil laughed. “No thanks.”

“I meant, look at her, Gil. She keeps her whole heart, right there on the surface. She doesn’t protect herself at all. But she still thinks and plans and does the right thing. She’s better than me on every level.”

He levered one brow high. “Every one?”

“Every single one.”

He gave that slow smile. “I’d bet my dragon she’s not better than you in a dark room without—”

I leaned in until we were eye to eye, dropping my voice below the level of the noise around us. “You finish that sentence and I will wait until the day you’ve forgotten you said it, and then I’ll find you in your sleep and remove your balls with a blade so sharp you don’t wake up until you’re a eunuch, and you have to explain to your dragon why you’re riding sidesaddle for the foreseeable future.”

Gil went still, then huffed and shook his head. “And you say I’m the creepy one?” he muttered. But even though he chuckled, I watched him with the warning in my eyes until my mate reached for me through the bond.

‘What’s happened? Why do you feel angry, and Gil looks like he swallowed a prickle-toad?’

I grinned and turned to catch her eye and wink. ‘Don’t worry. Our brother is an ass. So I just reminded him that sometimes an ass needs a smack.’

Grace’s cheeks reddened, which only made me smile more.

“Brother, I didn’t think it was possible, but… you’re scarier when you’re happy.”

I turned that smile on him and winked. “Brilliant turn of events, isn’t it?”

As It Should Be

~ GRACE (Several Months Later) ~

The Academy auditorium was an outdoor arena that circled a stage, with rising tiers of stone benches for all the Furyknights, along with a massive wall, strong enough for dragons to perch if they wished. Today it buzzed with raised voices, and the whistles and bugles of dragons—some perched on the round wall like a line of massive birds. Others milled around on the lawns below the academy buildings, flapping their wings, and calling to the others.

It felt like the whole Keep was in attendance today. I didn’t know.

I stood on the stage with my chin high, beaming, as Captain Olve, the Wing Commander for the Fang Wing, one of the three legions within the Furyknights, stood at the front of the stage and called for quiet.

He gave a few seconds for the hubbub to die down, before announcing the queen as she was ushered onto the stage by Captain Mont.

The gathered Furyknights leaped to their feet, bowing—including Bren, and the handful of other female Flameborne who’d been chosen in the past few months. But, there were other women here as well. Some who worked in the buildings, some with the dragons, some in the stables.

Anyone who wore leathers, bowed. That was the rule. And those in skirts curtseyed.

I had to blink away a happy tear as the queen swept across the stage, accepting the honors with a dignified bow of her head.

‘You look beautiful.’ Voski’s voice in my head warmed my belly. My now entirely pain-free belly. I scanned the audience, but couldn’t find him.