Chapter 433 Who’s The Most Handsome Boy

DRAKENFELL — DRAKEN FORCES TRAINING FIELD

Tiberon Drakenfell walked the dragon field with Dex beside him.

Captain Halvek met them at the perimeter.

“Captain. Guinevere Ashford’s dragon. Where is it?”

“With Thor, Your Majesty. The dragon responds to him better than any of our handlers.”

Tiberon nodded once. “Show me.”

Halvek led them past the formation line, past the equipment racks, past two senior riders who saluted and received nothing in return because the king was walking and salutes were background noise.

They rounded the far end of the training yard.

A green-scaled juvenile dragon was lounging in the grass.

Thor Crushturn was giving him a belly rub.

“Who’s the most handsome boy on this field? You are. You are the most handsome boy. Don’t let anyone tell you different, Wrex. They’re jealous. Every single one of them. Jealous of your scales. Jealous of your eyes. Jealous of your whole vibe.”

Wrex’s tail thumped against the ground. The thumping was rhythmic, contented, the tail-equivalent of enthusiastic agreement.

“You and me and Styx? Top three. Unchanged. Undefeated. The rankings are locked, little man. Locked.”

Tiberon watched this for four seconds without speaking.

“Wrex?” he asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Halvek kept his voice neutral. “Thor named him. Short for Wreckage.”

“Of course it is.”

Tiberon studied the juvenile. The green scales. The size, still small, but the frame carrying the proportional markers of a dragon that would be considerably larger at maturity. The eyes, which were bright, alert, tracking Tiberon’s presence even while the belly rub continued, because the dragon was comfortable but not careless.

“Has he used more of his flame?”

Halvek shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. We have been running him on basic drills. Ground work, formation, coordination. But we can get him started on flame development if you want.”

Tiberon looked at Dex.

The look was an invitation. Not a test. Tiberon had been handing Dex operational questions with increasing frequency, and the handing was obvious.

Dex assessed the dragon. His eyes moved across the juvenile’s frame, his posture, his responsiveness to Thor’s handling, his alertness despite relaxation. The assessment took two seconds.

“We continue with flight drills first. Build trust before we build weapons. He lost his bonded. He needs a foundation before we push him.”

Tiberon nodded. The nod carried approval he would never verbalize, because verbalizing approval was for men who needed their sons to know they were proud, and Tiberon preferred his sons to figure it out from context.

“Make it happen, Captain,” Tiberon said.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

They moved toward the shelter at the field’s edge. Tiberon positioned himself against the wall. Dex leaned beside him. Halvek stood at the corner, clipboard restored to its operational position.

A voice cut across the field.

“Don’t look at me like that, Onyx.”

All three men went still.

Bellatrix’s voice carried across the training yard.

“I know, I know. If they have you do the triangle formation again, I will yell at them. I told them you were advanced. Don’t you worry.”

None of them moved. Tiberon had received Archibald’s report. She had, according to the report, clawed a dark mage unconscious on a forest road and resumed her journey without waiting for the rescue party. Why she was on the dragon field was beyond him.

Dex peered around the corner of the shelter.

His mother was walking across the training field carrying Onyx on her hip. The dragon was wearing a midnight black tuxedo with gold accents.

Beside her, walking at heel with the disciplined stride of a dragon who had been taught formation and had graduated to escort duty, was Avalon, also in formalwear.

Hale’s dragon was walking beside his mother.

Dex blinked three times in rapid succession, then stepped out from behind the shelter.

Bellatrix was already in motion. Two junior handlers had approached from the formation line, and Bellatrix was waving them off with the dismissive authority of a woman whose jurisdiction over the dragon training program was entirely self-appointed and universally obeyed.

“No. Absolutely not. He is not doing ground drills.”

“Luna Queen, the Colonel’s schedule has him on—”

“Revise the schedule. Onyx is past ground drills. Continuing them is a waste of his time and an insult to his intelligence, and I will not have it.”

The handlers retreated. They retreated because she was Bellatrix, and Bellatrix’s tone carried a finality that the Colonel’s schedule did not, and the handlers had learned that arguing with the queen about dragon training was an activity that produced no victories and considerable discomfort.

Dexmon pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Mom.”

She turned. Surprise crossed her face, brief and immediately suppressed, because Bellatrix Drakenfell did not do surprised in front of people and the suppression was reflexive.

“Dexmon. I did not realize you were here.”

“Why are two baby dragons dressed in tuxedos?”

She looked at him as if the question were beneath the conversation. “Because they look good, Dexmon.”

“Are you having a stroke?”

“No, but I am losing my mind and could use a goddamn drink.”

Dexmon’s hand froze on the bridge of his nose. He stared at her. The stare lasted two full seconds, because his mother had just made a joke, or what sounded like a joke, or what was adjacent enough to a joke that his brain could not categorize it as anything else, and the categorization failure was creating a processing delay he could not resolve.

“Since when do you like dragons?” he asked.

“These two are gifted, Dexmon. They are not standard dragons.” She did not look at him when she answered. She was setting Onyx down on the field, and the setting was gentle.

Onyx started wailing immediately. The wail was sustained, operatic, carrying the full emotional range of a dragon whose person was putting him down and whose person was supposed to be holding him and the putting down was a betrayal of the highest order.

Bellatrix patted his head. “I will be back. Don’t worry.”

She turned to the nearest handler, a man whose posture shifted from relaxed to rigid the instant her attention landed on him.

“No triangle formations. No perimeter sweeps. He has mastered those. He practices aerial readiness and flight drills. That is it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Luna Queen.”

“Good.” She tipped her chin toward Avalon, who was sitting beside the handler’s feet with the patient composure of a dragon waiting for instructions. “As soon as Avalon masters his current set, put him on flight drills as well. Onyx says he is still new, but he is close.”

The sentence “Onyx says” left her mouth with the casual authority of a woman who was reporting intelligence from a source she trusted, and the source was a baby dragon, and the baby dragon’s assessment of his companion’s readiness was apparently data she considered reliable enough to relay to military personnel.

Dexmon blinked. His mother had just named specific drill protocols, overridden a Colonel’s training schedule, issued operational directives to Draken Forces handlers, and cited a dragon’s opinion as supporting intelligence. And every person on this field was listening.

She turned, adjusted her dress, then marched back toward the castle path with her omega at her heels.

Dexmon watched her go. Then he turned to the handler, who was avoiding eye contact.

“When did she come get them?”

“This morning, Commander.”

“They are supposed to be training during the day.”

“Yes, Commander.” The handler’s eyes found a fascinating patch of dirt six inches to the left of Dex’s boots. “She said she would be taking them anyway when we informed her of that.”

Dex looked at the handler. Looked at the field. Looked at the shelter, where Tiberon and Halvek had not emerged, because Tiberon had apparently decided that observing from cover was preferable to engaging directly.

“No dragon leaves this facility without my authorization. We just broke Onyx out of her custody for this exact reason.”

“Understood, Commander. For the training directives she gave, do we—”

“She was right about the training. Keep that part.”

The words left his mouth before the irony could catch up.

The handler nodded and retreated to the formation line, where Onyx had stopped wailing and was watching Bellatrix’s retreating figure with gold eyes that were already counting the hours until she returned.

Dex looked at the sky.

He needed Gavriel to wake up. He needed Serena to come home. He needed one single person in his inner circle who was conscious, present, and not dressed in formalwear, because the Crown Prince of Drakenfell was having an out-of-body experience and the experience was showing no signs of ending.

Behind the shelter, Tiberon looked at Halvek. Halvek looked at Tiberon.

“She named the drills,” Halvek said, bewildered.

“She did,” Tiberon replied.