To Marry a Dragon

28. The Lovers' Stronghold

Ferrante was true to his word, flying high and fast over the Twisted Gulf, over the southern reaches of Oest, the green sea of Tumerian Forest and into Monterrey. Their necessary landings were infrequent and short, and he had never changed to the human form, driven by the obsession to bring her to his family's keep before the enchantment ran out.

When the gray towers of Castle Rastelli peeked over the scatter of cleared lands among the remaining patches of the forest, down the valley of a shining river, Elvira's head spun.

She loved Ferrante no matter what shape he took; she loved his devotion and forthright nature, but the brief glimpse of seeing him as a human, ah that was something else. The memory of his dark eyes stopping on her, then widening in pain, then glazing over as he fell fed the desire to stroke his cheeks and cover his curving eyelashes with kisses. It tormented her in the idleness of travel.

She caressed his gleaming scales and told him everything, sometimes at a risk of him dropping her into the Locked Sea in his anguish. In turn, she listened to his incredible story, not holding back the exclamations of wonder, but conversing wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

Her body shrunk into a dry sponge without comfort of his human body. How could she have existed for twenty-one years without wanting a man to touch her, but now the world held no joy unless Ferrante kissed her immediately?

The castle grew in size with every beat of black wings. But the crenellated towers and curtain walls were not the only thing to become more discernible. Wrapped around the tallest tower, rested another black dragon.

"Is that Arman?" Elvira guessed.

"Yes," Ferrante rumbled. "Guilia's dragon is scarlet with black dapples. What is he doing? This is madness!"

The latter remark bursted out when Arman lifted his head, flapped a wing in salute, then lowered his head again, returning to his doze. As if dragons curled around towers was the most natural thing in the world.

Ferrante flew at the curtain wall of the castle, next to a guard tower. His claws hooked between the crenelation with one taloned foot, while he used the other one to set her on the walkway.

The guards met Ferrante with shouts of surprise and cordial enough greetings. Arman must have taken to sunbathing on the walls long enough ago for them to take Ferrante's appearance in stride.

"Is the Lady Rastelli—" Ferrante started, but cut himself short, as a handsome lady glided out of the darkness of the guards' room, accompanied by two younger women. The trio was so close to Ferrante in appearance, that Elvira had no doubts they were his mother and his sisters. The heavily pregnant one had to be Madeleine, which made the other, who looked at her from under the suspicious brow, Guilia.

"Ferrante!" his mother exclaimed, "your visit is unexpected, but welcome."

Her headdress modestly wrapped her hair out of view, but Elvira guessed that it had more than a few strands of gray. Concern was also etched in the heavier folds around the nose and in the fiery eyes all her children had inherited.

"Mother, why is Arman sunbathing in the open?" Ferrante asked impatiently.

She scoffed. "Arman is showing himself to ward off any notion that His Majesty may conceive of extorting more gold from the Rastelli by blackmail. My darling, I gave birth to three dragons. I dare say until we have the next Empire, there is no ruler that would risk going against such force.

"Arman is tired of hiding his true form. He is more dragon than man, and there is nothing that could change that. And me... I've finally come round to his point of view when Madlaine was chased home by the pox-ridden bastard she married." She embraced her daughter's shoulders. "I will not accept my grandchildren slaughtered in the crib, dragon or human. It was your nephew they murdered, Ferrante, your blood."