Page 46 of Ale Storm

“I do not… yet have… permission,” he said against her mouth, but his lips kept returning to hers as he drew her tightly against him, her body molding into his. “From your father.” The last word turned into another growl, and he deepened the kiss.

“Let’s not… talk about him… now.” Or ever, Rylana added silently, rubbing his shoulders, wanting him to enjoy the touch of a human woman. Wanting him to enjoy her.

And she knew from his physical responses and his groan that he did.

In the distance, the pillar started gonging again. At first, Rylana ignored it. Jildarin was here in his human form, so it had to be mistaken. It took a moment for her to realize that the pillar was announcing another threat.

Jildarin growled again, this time with annoyance, and broke their kiss to look up. A golden dragon flew out from behind the trees and over the lake.

Rylana tensed, afraid Jildarin would push her aside and pretend they hadn’t been doing anything—admittedly, that might be her response if a family member showed up. But he kept his arms wrapped around her and stared defiantly up at his sister.

As if indifferent, Killaynia flapped her wings and flew toward the southern end of the lake. Maybe she craved another eel. She glanced back, however, her cool eyes toward the dock, and Rylana didn’t doubt that she’d taken note of their intimate position.

A dog barked in the kennel, and Rylana sighed and scooted out of Jildarin’s lap. Any moment, her father would probably appear at the top of the path, looking down at them.

Jildarin rose and offered her a hand up. “I must return to start the dinner service.”

“I know.” She didn’t try to keep him from leaving. She thought about asking for a ride across the lake, but all the dragons thought it terribly inappropriate that he sometimes carried an inferior human on his back. Even if Killaynia was more reasonable than the rest of their kind, Rylana and Jildarin probably shouldn’t flaunt their relationship. Besides, she had abandoned Sylin to the castle and possibly lectures or tirades from Father. Rylana needed to check on her.

Before departing, Jildarin clasped her hands and looked earnestly into her eyes. “Soon, I will gain your father’s blessing, and then…”

Then he would take her into the boathouse or his lair or anywhere private, and they would spring together for sex hotter than the fiery inferno of a dragon’s breath?

“Then I will ask you on a date.” Jildarin nodded firmly.

Rylana smiled. “I look forward to that.”

It was Sylin, not her father, who appeared at the top of the path as Jildarin shifted into a dragon. Prompting the pillar to protest anew, he sprang off the dock and flew across the lake.

Lamenting that their kiss hadn’t led to a boathouse interlude that very hour, Rylana climbed slowly up the path, mentally composing herself.

“How long have you been up here?” Rylana hoped Sylin hadn’t witnessed her and Jildarin and their active lips.

“Not long. Your father put me to work carrying gold bars to his wagon. I pointed out that it seemed like a task for family, not an elven stranger. He handed me another bar while muttering that he didn’t want to find his daughter holed up in the boathouse with a man again.” Sylin’s eyebrows arched.

Rylana’s cheeks warmed. “I can’t believe he remembers that. It’s not as if I had secret rendezvous down there all the time in my youth.”

“Just some of the time?”

“Twice. With the same person. And father approved of that person and wanted me to marry him, so he shouldn’t have been that bothered by it.”

“You’re talking about the villain who cursed the city and tried to blackmail the gnomish mayor?”

“He wasn’t a villain back then. If you’re done letting my father manipulate you into performing free labor for him, we can head back to the city.”

Sylin held up a silver coin.

“He tipped me after we’d accomplished the task.” Sylin, who’d never shared how much she charged for assassinations but was never without coin, looked a little bemused. “I felt like one of your waitstaff. The greedy goblin, perhaps.”

“Rolf would have finagled a lot more than a single silver coin out of a wealthy patron.”

“Here’s a tip for you.” Sylin removed a couple of folded pieces of paper from a pocket. “I found another book on dwarves, one talking about artifacts, and guess what was mentioned in Chapter One?”

“A horn of Ago-what’s-it?” Rylana opened a thin sheet of paper to a drawing that looked like it had been traced from a book page. Even more precisely than the one the two dwarves had been carrying, it replicated the mammoth-hunting and feasting carvings on the artifact hanging around her neck.

“The Horn of Agomoral, yes. There were some details that said it was carved near the beginning of the Ironhammer Kingdom era, nearly two thousand years ago, and was passed down from king or queen to heir for centuries until it was lost. It always belonged to the royal family.”

“Great.”