After My Husband Abandoned Me, I Rule All Dragons novel · Chapter 18 of 32

Chapter 18: Surrender

"Then I'll go down and get the elder back," I said, and stood up.

Wystan caught my hand.

"He's already told them. They sent a rider to tell him so an hour ago. Bettris walks home when I walk down."

"Take it back."

"I can't. It's the clan's word now, given under a white flag. A king who takes that back isn't one."

"I don't care what you are."

"I know," he said. "That's why I love you."

I stopped pulling.

He'd never said it before.

He looked like he hadn't meant to say it now.

"You were going to go down again tomorrow night," he said. "And the night after. With a bent nail and a groom. Until they had you in the cage next to her."

I didn't answer.

He was right, and he knew it.

"She's twenty," he said. "She held this Hold fourteen months while I ate the King's sheep. I'm not letting her hang for me."

"And what do I do?"

"You keep the school. You keep the young ones alive. You keep the Wing boys from killing the clan." He almost smiled. "That's three jobs. I've only ever managed one."

I sat down on the floor between his knees again.

I put my face against his good leg.

He stroked my hair for a long time.

The fire cracked.

"How long till dawn?" I said.

"Four hours. Maybe five."

I got up on my knees.

I took his face in my hands, careful of the bandage on his shoulder.

"Then don't waste them talking," I said.

I pulled my dress over my head and dropped it on the floor.

He watched me the whole time, and I let him watch.

"That's the second time you've undressed me with your eyes tonight," I said.

"Third. I counted the first one twice."

I laughed, and the laugh caught in my chest and nearly turned into something else.

I wouldn't let it.

I knelt over him, one knee on either side of his hips, and pushed him back against the furs with my palm flat on his chest.

"Don't move your left arm," I said.

"I wasn't going to."

"You will. You always do."

I bent down and kissed him.

Not slow.

I kissed him like I was trying to put everything I couldn't say into his mouth.

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