Chapter 14

CHAPTER14

The fire had died down, but the small cave was still cozy and warm. Especially with Opal in Tristan’s arms, and the blankets piled up on top of them.

His head was clear, too, and he didn’t even crave a drink.

Tristan smiled against the nape of Opal’s neck and gave it a small peck.

He cared for Opal.

He’d never felt like this about anyone before.

There really was only one thing it could mean, only Tristan was a coward who hadn’t known how to put that into words last night. But he could tell Opal today, with the light of the morning streaming through the waterfall curtain.

Tristan would show Opal.

He carefully got his hand underneath the waistband of Opal’s skirt and wrapped it around Opal’s cock. The texture of it was different from Tristan’s, and with a bit more clarity, he realized there were strange bumps on it. Maybe that was why Opal hadn’t wanted to show his cock to Tristan—he was embarrassed about the scars.

None of that mattered though, because Tristan would love this cock as much as he… as much as he cared for Opal, too.

He stroked it as he would his own cock, and Opal let out a soft sound of pleasure. Tristan nibbled the nape of Opal’s neck, then sucked harder, until he left another small bruise on Opal’s pale skin.

That looked lovely. Tristan felt a thrum of desire.

“Mm… Tristan…” Opal murmured, turning his head so his lips were tantalizingly close. They were such a lovely shade of pink, but they would look even better all reddened and bruised from Tristan’s kisses.

“Good morning,” Tristan whispered, tightening his grip on Opal’s cock.

Opal smiled, his eyes fluttering open, and he shifted to lie on his back.

Something smooth bumped against Tristan’s hand.

He frowned slightly. Opal’s balls, maybe? They might well be as hairless as the rest of Opal’s body. But when he tentatively reached out to touch what he’d accidentally found, he realized it was much bigger than that.

It was—impossibly—another cock.

Opal’s eyes widened, and he suddenly leaned in as if for a kiss, but Tristan recoiled. “Tristan—”

Tristan sat up and pushed the blankets away. Sure enough, there were two cocks tenting those skirts.

Tristan froze, his heart hammering in his chest, as he simply stared at Opal. “What the fuck?” he rasped out, horror grasping at him.

Opal scrambled back, pulling a blanket with him and trying futilely to hide his lap. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about them—about it.”

“That’s not nothing. Show me!” Tristan demanded.

Opal bit his lip, but after a few seconds, he pushed the blankets away and pulled his cock… his cocks out.

Humans didn’t have two cocks.

Humansdidn’t have two cocks, but dragons did.

No wonder Opal defended all the monsters of the realm.

Opal was one of them.

“Tristan…” Opal started, wearing a strained smile. “I can explain.”

Tristan stumbled to his feet, putting distance between them as he groped for his clothing—for the dagger strapped to his belt. “What the actual fuck, Opal?” he demanded, and he hated the way his breath hitched. Opal. Opal! How was it even possible? He couldn’t be a dragon. He was trying to help Tristan find the Drakmord. He’d paid Izar for the compass’s repair.

But Izar’s reactions made more sense now.

“You want me to fix this? Even though it leads to…”Izar had asked of Opal.

Opal had known.

Opal had gone with him anyway.

What had his intentions been? To slaughter Tristan at the end of the journey? He sure as fuck wouldn’t have let Tristan take up that sword and slaughter his own kin, no matter how much wrongdoing they were guilty of!

“Okay, so, yes, I’m a dragon,” Opal said, his laugh brittle. “But! That doesn’t have to come between us. There are so many loves that have to overcome obstacles far larger than this! And, you saw, Sarazi and Guinevere, they made it work!”

“They’re not real, Opal!” Tristan shouted, only to hear Feather’s dismayed whicker from where they’d left her. Gods, no wonder Feather hadn’t liked Opal. She’d probably been wondering when the fucking dragon was going to try to eat her. “What were you going to do? Wait for me to find the sword, then kill me with it and hide it again?”

“No!” Opal looked down and tucked his cocks away. “I swear, that wasn’t on my mind at all. I thought… well, if I couldn’t convince you to maybe not kill any dragons, maybe we could simply kill the one dragon responsible for your brother’s death. I would have helped you! And then your revenge would be complete, and you’d realize there was no point in continuing, and there, it’s a happily ever after!”

Opal stood up and took a lurching step toward Tristan, until Tristan held his dagger out threateningly.

“Don’t get any closer to me,” Tristan said. “Gods, I must be such a laughingstock.”

Izar had known. Izar had known, but he hadn’t told Tristan, and he had to have been so amused at Tristan’s expense. He shook his head, unsure if he wanted to kill the dragon that stood before him or run from it.

He toyed with the bracelet he wore.

He could call Izar here right now. They could fight Opal together, and Izar could have all of Opal’s body parts…

Why did the thought make him queasy?

He shouldn’t have fucking cared!

“I wasn’t laughing at you, Tristan. I think you’re noble, and kind, and brave.” Opal held up his hands, as if that would make Tristan feel safer. Opal was a fucking dragon, and he could… he could breathe fire. No wonder he had made so many things go up in flame so easily. “Not many people would put their lives on the line like you have. I don’t agree with your mission, sure, and if you tried to attack any of my family members, they would absolutely murder you, but…”

“But nothing!” Tristan said. He was so dizzy with shock and pain and loss. “The things I did for you…” He laughed wildly, and for a moment, he was tempted to plunge his dagger into his own chest. “Gods. You challenged everything I knew, and I thought… I thought I loved you. You know that? How much of a fool could I have possibly been?”

He grabbed his tunic and pulled it on, needing the cloth and his armor between himself and the dragon—for all that it wouldn’t help him at all if Opal decided to roast him alive.

“I love you too, Tristan,” Opal said in a plaintive tone.

“No!” Tristan roared, pointing the dagger at Opal before he could continue. “You don’t get to say that! You don’t get to pretend you care about me. How stupid could I possibly have been? All your siblings, all your strange stories, your fire magic, the fucking tongue-flicks… Fuck. Fuck, Opal! Fuck! I can’t believe you’d deceive me like this.”

“I didn’t lie to you!” Opal protested. “And I’ve been protecting you all this time! That demon in the swamp would have lured you to your death if I hadn’t been there, and that wyvern—”

“I was fine with the wyvern. I would’ve handled the swamp demon! I would’ve been fine through everything else, too! I’ve been handling myself without you for years!” Never mind how the swamp demon had had him thoroughly tricked, Tristan would have figured something out. He would’ve realized before it was too late.

Or maybe he’d have died before he’d ever known betrayal like this.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure the demon would have been quivering in fear after seeing your drunken gait! If I hadn’t kept you from drinking even more mead, you wouldn’t have been able to see straight thanks to the hangover—or maybe you’d have tried to attack it half-drunk, legs wobbly as you stumbled into its grasp?”

It felt like Opal had stabbed him in the gut, and for a moment, he was breathless with rage and pain. “My drinking habits are none of your fucking business!” Tristan snapped. “And don’t change the subject. How many people have you killed, dragon? No wonder you said everyone’s terrified of you. They have every reason to be.”

Opal’s expression broke, and for one dizzying moment, Tristan felt sorry for him. But he steeled himself and swallowed that pity down, because Opal was playing him—had been playing him since the very start.

Then Opal sniffed, and his brow furrowed in anger. “How many have you killed, Tristan? Three, when we met. How many others have died to your blade?”

“That’s different!” Tristan said hotly, and his fury only grew when Opal had the audacity to look angry at him. “I was defending people!”

“Did you tell yourself it was righteous, because they were brigands? In that case, I’ve only ever killed in the name of justice, too. The people who tried to burn down my favorite library. Are you going to tell me those arsonists deserved to live?” Opal clenched his fists like he was trying to suppress his anger.

How fucking dare he! Tristan was the one who had a right to be angry, not Opal—who had lied to him, who had betrayed him, who had been someone entirely different than he’d pretended to be. “The brigands were going to kill us both. What should I have done? Let them slay us? I couldn’t turn them over to the guard, which is what you should have done with those arsonists. I only kill when it’s necessary.”

“What do you think I do? Go around the countryside and pick off unsuspecting people?” Opal shouted back. “I only attack those who attack me first! That’s all dragons ever do! Some fucking idiot decides it’s a good idea to sneak into a dragon’s den and steal our treasures, and somehow it’s our fault?”

“My brother wasn’t an idiot!” Tristan yelled, unable to keep his voice down. The words echoed throughout the cave, but there was a moment of silence after he spoke. “He wasn’t,” he repeated, as though that would make it true.

Opal started laughing, which only made Tristan’s rage boil hotter. “Is that what happened? Your brother tried to get rich by stealing from a dragon? What did he think would happen? That the dragon wouldn’t notice? That the dragon didn’t have every item meticulously catalogued? That the dragon wouldn’t smell the human? What would you have done, if somebody snuck into your home to steal from you? Just let him go?”

“Stop it!” Tristan screamed so hard his throat ached. “Fucking stop it!” His cheeks were hot, and his emotions were frayed. He didn’t care that his pants were still off, that Opal was half-dressed or that Feather was panicking nearby. He snatched up his breeches. “Get the fuck out of here before you become the first dragon I slay,” he spat.

Evan hadn’t been stupid. The dragon hadn’t had to kill him.

Opal made a noise, and the air pressure changed. Tristan blinked, and when he looked again, Opal stood in front of him with horns on his head and shimmering white scales on the sides of his neck and face. His eyes were an unnatural, ever-shifting blue.

“You couldn’t slay me even if you tried,” Opal hissed back at him. “And you’re so lucky—” His breath hitched. “You’re so lucky that I love you. Because no other dragon would show you this mercy.”

“Because you’re all a bunch of bloodthirsty fuckers!” Tristan snapped. “You’re just monsters. I won’t be the only one hunting down your kind when I get that sword. Consider this your only warning, because while you might be able to kill one human… I will amass an army. Get the fuck out of Phassis. That warning is the only mercy I’m showing you.”

He yanked at the bracelet around his wrist, sending tiny beads scattering across the cave floor. Nothing happened. He’d half-expected Izar to just pop into existence, but that was ridiculous. All it did was… something he couldn’t identify. It did something, and he couldn’t even focus on what that was because Opal was breaking his fucking heart.

Opal stared at him, blinking hard, and a few tears rolled down his cheeks.

Tristan refused to be moved by them though.

“Fine. But all you’re doing is leading your friends to their slaughter.” Opal stalked toward the edge of the cave and stopped by the waterfall, and there was a desperate, terrible part of Tristan that wanted to call for him to return, to apologize, because Opal looked so impossibly beautiful right there by the waterfall where they’d shared so much. “I was here first, by the way. I’ve been living in Phassis for over two hundred years already, before it was even Phassis. My sister has been here for a hundred and fifty. My mother has had her den in Priyana for at least a thousand.”

Opal rubbed his eyes, and after one last final glance at Tristan, stepped out of the cave.

The roar of the water was suddenly loud and insistent, drowning out everything else.

And Opal was gone.

Tristan stumbled to the ground, and only then did he let himself cry—tears of rage, he told himself, and not of pain, of loss, of utter misery.

He really had loved Opal.

He screamed, wishing he had something to break, to destroy, to see crumbling into pieces.

He wished…

Despite Opal’s words, despite their accuracy and the way they’d cut through him like a knife, he wished he had enough to drink himself into oblivion.