Eros

At Last, You Die - 90

Vanessa woke alone in the bed. The blanket slipped off her nude chest as she sat up, surveying Aurum's royal chambers in the darkness. Julian wasn't there, but the glass doors to the balcony were open.

She got up, and padded barefoot towards them, blinking the sleep from her eyes. He sat in one of the sofas outside, a glass of wine in his hand, overlooking the tall-towered city of Aurum.

"Hey," Vanessa said, voice a little hoarse from her recent waking. He didn't answer, but looked to her as she took the seat beside him.

"Always with the wine, aren't you?" She felt that the little smirk she managed did little to mask her concern. Julian gazed through her, silent still.

She shifted closer, touching his thigh with her hand, eyes unshifting from his, a soft whisper on her lips. "Tell me what's on your mind."

"Many things."

"Tell me about them."

He peered at her for another moment in silence.

"Do you care about me?"

Vanessa snorted. "Can't you tell?"

Julian stare remained at her, blank from emotion. "A king can never tell. When it is so self-serving to care, you learn only to tell the good liars from the bad ones."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Vanessa arched a slender, red eyebrow.

"That is what's odd to me." He answered, his ember eyes reflecting the moonlight, mesmerized to hers. "It doesn't feel like you are."

Vanessa raised her hand from his thigh to soothe along his cheek, teasing with a smile. "Is that what keeps you awake at night?"

"Just a passing thought, there's no need to flatter yourself."

She pouted and him, and he kissed her, his lips curling to smile against hers. It was hard to break away, her hand pushing against his chest.

"Nu-uh." Vanessa breathed into his lips, holding him from getting closer. "First tell me what's bothering you."

Julian sighed at her, like an adult tired from a child's pestering. "I was just considering whether it's better to battle the Conqueror with or without Raul."

"I want to know where this Raul had come from. If a magus this old and this powerful was Veramorian, we would've known of him. Somebody would have known of him."

"You know him, only by another name." Amusement curved the corner of Julian's mouth.

"What name?"

"The Dragon of Nashair."

Vanessa's mouth opened in surprise. "The Dragon of Nashair was the Conqueror's right hand in the making of the Nasharian Empire. How the hell did he come to serve you?"

"The Conqueror sent him to Veramor after my coop. He brought the Empire's demands, and I refused him. He tried to kill me, and I scarred his face for life. But I spared him. I saw what he wanted was not the Conqueror's peace, but my war. So I offered him a place beside me. To once again, conquer Aros."

"So you are worried his loyalties might switch again?"

"He yearns to best the Conqueror, but above all, he's a survivor. His loyalty is as fragile as his life."

"The Dragon of Nashair is fragile now?" She jabbed at him. He shook his head, a rare chuckle escaping him.

"I can smash him when I wish to. That makes him fragile."

"I think that by that standard, everyone is fragile."

"They are." He said, and Vanessa remembered her fear she felt the first time she saw him. And her fascination.