The Dragon Prince's Consort

Fifteen

"Eyah, lunch with your dad, huh?" Fang sat on a padded bench, combing scented oils into her long hair and twisting parts of it into a simple braid.She fastened a few of them behind her ears with gold pins and inspected them in the mirror of the antique vanity Valen had asked to be brought up from storage. "What do you think he wants?"

Valen finished tying the belt of his fresh robes – green and black, with gold thread outlining a design of overlapping squares – and wondered himself.It had only been two days, how much did Matias expect him to have done? "I'm not sure, but if he's calling us this soon he probably has something important to tell us that can't be delivered by courier." Or he's making sure I'm doing what I promised.

"Is this going to be okay?" Fang gestured to her hair and robes. She'd picked Yena's dark wine-red robe with a black underskirt and she'd left her hair down for the most part, in an effort to look more like a Lady Courtesan with the lengths to match her station. She looked wonderful, truth be told, but if he thought about last night and how she'd kissed him, how she'd pushed into his hands and run her fingers through his hair and told him she'd take him seriously, his cock would get hard and he'd get distracted. Definitely not what I need to be thinking about right now.

"Yes, that's fine.It's just lunch, if anything we're overdressed. Which honestly is better, I think." Valen combed his hair with his claws, remembering how Fang's hands felt on his face and ears. She touched me, she kissed me until I couldn't breathe and let me ride her until I couldn't think. He huffed when he realized where his mind was taking him.

"Valen," he turned at the sound of his name in her voice, and Fang put her hand on his arm. "It's going to be okay. Whatever your dad wants, he thinks you can do it."

Valen shook his hair back. "Would that I had your confidence."

"You've got more than you think," Fang said cryptically. Valen sent her a quizzical look, but she busied herself with draping a shimmery black silk shawl around her shoulders and wouldn't meet his eyes. "Ready?"

"As much as I'm going to be." The last time he'd spoken to Matias had been when he'd exposed Tias's incredibly stupid prank, and while the repercussions on Valen's end hadn't been a total disaster he knew by the set of his father's ears that the Dragon Emperor had not been happy with any of it. The Empire had an image to uphold, thousands of years of tradition and prosperity, a rapidly-growing territory and along history of military and economic achievements that set them apart from both the mostly peaceable Dreen and the raucous, upstart Federation of planets occupied by humans. At the moment the Empire had no issue with its neighbors, but Valen was uncomfortably aware of the thin ice upon which he now walked. Valen gathered a short stack of documents and his tablet, tucking them into an inner pocket in his robes.

In Matias's office,the low table before the black marble fireplace groaned under the weight of tray upon tray of cold meats, breads, cheeses, pastries,dips and fruit. A crystal carafe of hot tea sat directly before the flames, filling the air with the scent of herbs. Matias's comfortable work chair sat across from the couch where Fang and Valen were to sit, and to Valen's annoyance Tias also sat across from them on a hard bench with a plate of nibbles in his hand. "I've instructed your brother," Matias informed Valen, "that he's not to say a single word during this appointment, only observe how adults conduct business. Until I can trust him otherwise, I thought it would be agood test of his self-control to have him sit in on these sessions and absorb before he has my permission to contribute."

Valen saw his brother's ears twitch. Serves you well.

Matias directed his attention to Fang, "Lady Lienfang, your appearance has significantly improved since we last met – I was not aware that Kitsara shops carried robes in human sizes."