The Dragon Duke's Heir Contract novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: His Hands

It took Fenna and the keep's old bonesetter all night to dress his hands.

They smeared the black skin with a green salve that smelled of pine and wrapped each finger separately in linen.

Valerian sat in the armchair by the fire with his teeth set and said nothing.

Ysolene stayed on the footstool at his knee the whole time and held his wrist.

"He'll mend," said the bonesetter at last. "Dragon-kin always do. A month, and he'll have the use of them."

"A month?" said Valerian.

"Without fire. Without gripping anything. Without lifting a cup."

When the door closed behind them, he looked at his bandaged hands.

"I can't hold a pen."

"Good."

"I can't undo your buttons."

"That's also good," Ysolene said. "I'll undo my own."

He gave her a crooked look.

She got up and went to his desk in the corner.

She opened the drawer where she knew he kept it and took out the scroll, with its torn red ribbon.

She carried it to the hearth.

Valerian watched her.

She unrolled it on her knee, all four pages, with her own signature at the bottom and his beside it.

Below the line was the single sentence in his hand.

"Ysolene."

"I'm going to ask you something," she said. "And I'd like you to say yes before you think."

He waited.

She laid the contract open on the hearthstone, four pages, and put her thumb on the first.

She tore off the first three, one by one, and fed them to the fire.

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