She continued to talk while they walked along, and Ragnar couldn’t help but watch her human body move. Her dress was loose around her—and new. He had no idea where she’d gotten it from, considering the last gown he’d seen her in had been the dirty one she was wearing when he’d rescued her. He decided not to ask, since he didn’t want to know, and instead focused on the fact that although she made sure to get a new dress, she was still barefoot. He simply didn’t know why. Nor did he know why he was so fascinated by her feet…and those legs…and whatever else she had under that dress.
Yet before Ragnar could really bring himself to worry about his obsession with the royal’s lack of footwear, he stopped and replayed in his head what she’d just told him moments before until he was forced to ask for clarification. “You tore out your cousin’s eye?”
“I didn’t tear it out.” She licked the juice from her turkey leg off the fingers of her free hand. “I yanked it out with the tip of my tail.” When his mouth dropped open, she quickly explained, “It was self-defense.”
“Isn’t that the same excuse you used about the guard dog you ate?”
“Perhaps. But with Elestren, it really was self-defense. She hit me with a warhammer. In the head and arm. And let me tell you, she put some force behind it.”
“Why? What did you do?”
Now her mouth dropped open. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Keita—”
“I didn’t! For once. Unless she’s still holding that time I called her a fat-ass against me. But that was years ago.” They began walking again. “Anyway, she came at me again with that bloody hammer after she’d already broken my forearm and bashed my head in, and I panicked and used my tail…which apparently one is not supposed to do during training.”
“Training for what?”
“To fight. So the next time the likes of you and your father try to kidnap me—”
Ragnar again stopped walking, his hands curling into fists. “Don’t ever put me in the same category with my father,” he told her plain.
Eyes wide, she said, “I didn’t mean—”
“And I rescued you. And when you were safe in your territory, I let you go. With both your wings still in place. I can assure you that Olgeir the Wastrel would have done none of that.”
“All right.”
Ragnar knew he’d snapped at her, but he couldn’t help himself. Yet he felt like a right bastard when all she did in return was hold up what was left of the turkey leg and ask, “Do you want the rest?” He should apologize to her, but he wouldn’t. Not when she dared compare him to his father. “Well…since I paid for it.” He took the leg out of her hand and tore off what remained of the meat before sucking out the marrow. When he was done, he handed her what was left—about three inches of hollow bone.
She held it up, her gaze moving from it to him. Several times.
When she said nothing, he did. “Let’s get back. We’ve got many miles to go before we can stop for the night.” They began walking again, and Keita, after tossing aside that piece of bone, asked, “Tell me, Lord Ragnar—do you want me?”
“Like the air I breathe.”They both stopped walking again, the royal’s eyes wide as she looked up at him.
“But that’s why I have to stay away from you, isn’t it?” he asked.
Her shocked expression faded, and that smile—the one he was certain no one else but him saw—slid into place. “Only if you’re one of the clingy ones,” she admitted. “I do so hate clingy.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip, her gaze examining him from his head to his feet and back. She giggled. “And gods, I do so hope you’re not one of the clingy ones.”
Her smile now wide, she headed back to their traveling party. “Come along, warlord, we’ve got many miles to go before we can stop for the night.”
And for the first time in nearly a century, Ragnar felt completely out of his depth.
Chapter Nine
They made good time to where they’d rest for the night despite their brief break at the fair, and were up and moving before the two suns rose the next day. By mid-afternoon, they finally landed a league outside the Southland border city of Fenella at the request of the Eastland dragon. It was supposed to be a short break, one for food and water, but then Her Majesty was walking off with her Eastland companion—as human. In another new gown. Where is she getting these clothes from?
“Where’s your sister going?” Ragnar asked the Blue.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you think to ask?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you concerned?”
“No.”
Ragnar’s claws itched to wrap around the royal’s throat, but that would be a waste of a perfectly good tree-clearer. “Get us food.”
“All right!” the Blue said happily, and headed off to raid the herd of sheep they’d passed on their way here.
“Could he annoy you more?” Vigholf asked with a chuckle.
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“You’re too hard on him. He’s a pup. We were like that once. Well…
maybe not you, but I was. So was Meinhard. He’ll grow out of it.” Meinhard cracked his neck, the sound echoing around the glen. “You going after her then?”