A Husband with Teeth

"First, you need my name," he said.

"I know who you are."

"You know what they call me. My name is Ronan Blackthorn."

The distinction seemed absurdly important to him. I clung to it because it was easier than thinking about the pain circling my neck.

"Elara Ashford."

"I heard."

He brought my bleeding hand against the inside of his wrist. Beneath his thumb, his pulse beat slow and hard.

"The oath gives you sanctuary, my name, and the standing of a wife among my people. It does not give me your obedience or your bed. It cannot make either of us love the other. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"The human court will call you a traitor."

"They have already called me a vessel. I can bear the change."

His fingers tightened once around mine.

The priest began another prayer. Ronan threw the stolen sword into the stair above his feet, stopping both prayer and descent.

"Speak to me," he said.

He gave me the oath in the old language. I understood each word before I repeated it.

"I come without compulsion. I offer my name beside yours. I accept your shelter, and I offer mine. Before fire, before sky, I choose you."

He answered with the same words, substituting his name for mine.

Warmth spread beneath his thumb. A fine gold line appeared around my wrist, broke into three small scales, and vanished into my skin.

The necklace cracked.

I dragged in a breath. Ruby fragments struck the floor, and every carved letter in the prison shone white.

Ronan folded over me as the chains burst apart.

Stone struck his back. I heard him grunt. The altar above us tilted, its lilies spilling into the stairwell.

"Can you run?"

"Probably."

"We will both enjoy finding out."

He pulled me through the side of the broken circle. Behind the iron hangings stood a maintenance door I had not noticed. He kicked it open and pushed me into a passage smelling of candle grease.

"Why did you never use this?" I gasped.

"I was attached to the floor."

We ran.

My veil caught on a nail. I tore it free and left half of it hanging. Bells began above us. At the passage's end, Ronan paused long enough to wrench open a narrow door into the sacristy.

Two guards waited there.

He shoved me behind him. The first man swung. Ronan caught his sword arm and drove him against a cabinet. The second dropped his weapon after one look at the black scales moving along Ronan's fingers.

"Sensible," my new husband said.

He took the man's cloak and a key ring.

I stared at the scales. They receded before he looked back at me.

"Frightened?"

"Yes."

"Keep being frightened while you move."

Outside, rain struck my face. We had emerged into the courtyard behind the cathedral. A stable stood across it, its doors mercifully open.

Ronan stopped beneath the arch. His face had gone gray.

"You can't fly," I said.

His expression sharpened.

"At present, I find walking sufficiently ambitious."

I slipped beneath his arm before he could object. He was too heavy for me to support, but I could give him something to lean against.

We reached the stable together.

The groom took one look at our blood and my ruined dress, then ran out the back.

"I hope that wasn't our horse expert," I said.

"Can you ride?"

"Very badly."

"A wedding full of discoveries."

He chose a broad brown mare, saddled her with hands that had begun to shake, and lifted me onto her back. The motion drew a terrible breath out of him.

When he climbed up behind me, I felt wetness against my spine.

The cathedral gates were closing. He drove the mare toward the smaller delivery arch instead. I ducked against her neck as we passed beneath the descending iron bars.

Behind us, someone shouted my name.

I did not turn.

We left the city by a laundry road that followed the river. Ronan knew the turnoffs, which frightened me almost as much as the chase. I wondered how long he had spent planning an escape he could never begin.

By dusk, the bells were gone. We rode through birch woods until the mare stumbled. Ronan drew her to a halt beneath a ruined tollhouse.

He dismounted and caught my waist when I slid down.

For a moment his hands stayed there. I was very aware of the width of them and the heat seeping through my soaked bodice.

Then he turned away and sank onto a broken bench.

Blood covered his palm.

"Take off your shirt," I said.

He lifted his head. "You are settling into marriage quickly."

"I should like my first husband to last until morning."

"First?"

"You are bleeding on your only shirt. Please do something useful with your hands."

He looked at me for a long moment, then unfastened it.

I had imagined a dragon's human body might be an imitation. Nothing about the man before me looked borrowed. His shoulders were broad, his stomach hard beneath the blood, his skin scored by injuries in different stages of healing.

At the center of his chest lay a narrow wound with blackened edges. Faint red light pulsed inside it.

I looked away long enough to tear a strip from my skirt.

"That dress cost more than the horse," he observed.

"The horse has contributed more to my happiness."

His laugh startled us both.

I folded the silk against the wound. He caught my wrist before I touched it.

"Not there. Beside it."

"Tell me if I hurt you."

"That would be a long conversation."

I pressed beside the wound and waited. Eventually, he released my wrist.

The silence changed while I worked. He watched my face. I watched my hands, trying not to think about how close we were or how little I understood about what I had chosen.

"Why did you agree?" I asked.

"You had the key."

"You could have left me when the collar broke."

"I gave my word."

It was a simple answer. I wanted it to be enough.

When I finished, he took the remaining silk and bandaged my palm. His knots were neat and surprisingly gentle.

Only then did my teeth begin to chatter.

He wrapped the stolen cloak around me and moved to the doorway, giving me the bench. I tried to sleep sitting upright. Every time I closed my eyes, Cedric adjusted the necklace again.

"I loved him," I said into the dark.

Ronan did not offer me the mercy of pretending not to hear.

"I know."

"That seems very stupid now."

"It seems badly repaid."

I pulled the cloak to my mouth and cried without making much noise.

He stayed in the doorway until dawn.

We rode north for two more days, taking paths too narrow for wagons. He bought bread with a clasp from his ruined shirt and traded the mare for a fresh horse at a mill. I learned to sleep against him in the saddle without admitting I was doing it.

On the third evening, black mountains rose above the trees. A fortress stood between two cliffs, its windows lit gold against the gathering snow.

A horn sounded.

Riders came down the road. At their head rode a woman with silver-threaded dark hair and a scar through one eyebrow.

She saw Ronan and dismounted so quickly her horse shied.

"My king."

Relief broke her voice. The other riders knelt.

Then she saw me.

Her gaze moved from my torn royal wedding dress to the bloodied hand resting over Ronan's.

She drew her sword.

"Step away from him."