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No. Don’t drive yourself mad with fear yet. Meet him first.
I cried out, flinching back as the door suddenly swung inward. I hadn’t needed to use the knocker at all.
He was waiting for me.
My stomach dropped, and I clenched my teeth, trying not to vomit from the nerves of meeting the monster who was to be my husband for the first time.
I dragged my eyes up – up over two thick, muscled legs bound in tight black britches. Up, over a barrel-like chest pushing a crisp white shirt to its very limits. Up, over a smooth green neck to…
That’s not a Dragon Caste man’s face!
Dragon Caste men had snouts and fangs. They stood upright like humans, but they were covered in scales.
This man had no scales at all. And no snout.
A wide, stony jaw led up to the plains of broad cheekbones and dark brows above piercing eyes. The face may not have been Dragon Caste, but those eyes certainly were. All black, with gleaming reptilian pupils. I breathed in sharply when I saw the huge green wings extending above his shoulders and the heavy tail draped on the stone floor behind him. Two large, deadly tusks rose from the bottom of his mouth, their points coming to rest below his nose.
Half-Dragon Caste?
“I am Sigwulf. I have been expecting you,” said the man before me. The timbre of his voice was shockingly low. I practically felt the rumble of it, despite the fact I stood a few paces away from him. Thankfully, he spoke the common tongue. And even more thankfully, he didn’t have a Dragon Caste name. Human mouths could barely make half the sounds of the Dragon Caste language.
Sigwulf… That’s an Orcborne name…
So, he’s half-orc.
That would explain his lack of scales and green colouring. He was still gargantuan, at least two heads taller than me and broad as a valley ox, but he wasn’t anywhere near as large as a pure-blooded Dragon Caste man.
Well, that’s good, right? He’s big, but not as big as I’d anticipated.
“Hello,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “I’m Wynthea. I… I am very glad to meet you, my lord,” I stammered, doing an awkward human curtsy. Do Dragon Caste people even curtsy?!
The dark brows above his probing eyes rose. Not a lot. It was more of a twitch. Something told me Sigwulf wasn’t the sort of man to give much away. To wear his emotions easily across his features.
“I am not the lord.”
“Oh!” Disappointment deflated me. I’d been relieved that my future husband was a little smaller than I’d thought he might be. I obviously didn’t know him well yet, but he hadn’t tried to murder me the moment I’d landed on his doorstep, and I had hopes that civility between us could continue into our marriage.
I blinked rapidly, irritated by the tears that burned there. It had taken so much to walk up to this door. So much courage just to look him in the face and meet him for the first time.
And now I was going to have to do it all over again. With the dragon lord of the estate.
“When will I meet the lord?” I asked, clutching my fists around my bag’s handles and pressing them hard against my roiling stomach.
“Never, I imagine,” Sigwulf said slowly, as if he were confused by my question. “He’s dead.”
Now I was the one confused.
How can that be? Does that mean I’m a widow, now? But if we were never married…
Will I still be taken care of?
“I don’t understand,” I said, panic making my words clumsy and quick. “He sent for me. The Matchers Guild has delivered me here!”
“Ah. No.” Sigwulf shook his head, the thick tendons of his neck pulling with the motion. A long braid of shining black hair jostled against his shoulder. “No, it was I who contacted the Matchers Guild to request you,” he continued. “My uncle was the lord of this estate. When he died two months ago, he left me his castle. Lordships can only pass to Dragon Caste children, of which he had none. So, I am not the lord. But I am the new master of this castle.”
He sent for me. Which means he is to be my husband after all, then.
“Very well,” I said, some of the earlier relief creeping back into my nerve-wracked body. A tremor went through me.
