Chapter 36

Corliss glared at Meron as they sat cross-legged across from each other. She tried not to allow her eyes to drop to the bruise that started blooming across his left cheekbone or the blood that still oozed from his split lip. His healing magic hadn't taken hold yet to fix it. Good.

Ruvyn circled them, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't going to let them out of his sight anytime soon after their fight just a few minutes before. Luckily, Gaven had been gone for a few days for training and hadn't witnessed the stunt the both of them tried to pull, which ended disastrously.

"You both are complete idiots," Ruvyn scolded. "Do you know what could have happened if Odanth and Ollyn didn't stop in time? You could have collided mid-air and injured not only yourselves but your dragons as well."

"She started it," Meron blamed, hands curling into fists on his legs.

Corliss rolled her eyes and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Oh, sure I did, you big idiot. You were the one who had Ollyn basically cut Odanth off. We're supposed to be working with them in flying together, not against one another!"

"We've only been flight training for a week. There's no way Odanth would have known to..."

"That doesn't matter! Why would I have him nose dive at you when it would have...?"

"Gods, you're infuriating."

"Same to you."

"That's enough!" At Ruvyn's shout, both Corliss and Meron snapped their mouths shut. "I don't care who's at fault because you both are in the way I saw it. Your dragons are doing wonderful, but you two...you two need a hell of a lot of work if you're to be in this together. I don't care about the conflicts you two seemingly have with each other. How could you even have any when you've literally known each other for just a few months?"

Neither one of them said a word.

Ruvyn sighed as he ran his fingers through his dark hair, looking back out toward the main corridor of the caves. It wasn't hard to tell he was looking for Gaven, who was pretty much the only one who could settle the tension between Corliss and Meron, but he had yet to appear. He'd had his own duties in helping train the new riders and was due back after being gone for three days. Three days where Ruvyn had been the one to work with Corliss, Meron, and the dragons.

Three days where he already wanted to strangle them and take the dragons for himself. Too bad he'd have to get through Corliss to strangle Meron since she wanted to get to him first.

They'd been in Eld for all of a month and yet the tensions between them were at an all time high. Corliss had a sneaking suspicion that it was pure jealousy on Meron's part. Not just because of her bloodrite bond with Odanth anymore either. She knew he was watching her, envying her already great reputation with the other riders and even her custom made flying leathers. Now, she was just waiting on her saddle to be finished, but even that was going to take another few days.

And while Odanth and Ollyn were growing and thriving around the other dragons, Corliss and Meron were more and more on edge with each other and fought tooth and nail with words, fists, and swords during training. Neither one of them ever got too bad of a hit on the other, through there were some bruises, black eyes, and split lips that healed within a few hours. When that happened, they were usually forcibly taken to Ruvyn for punishment. Fights between riders weren't tolerated and they were the worst two.

Now, Corliss continued glaring at the male across from her, eyes casting down to his split lip and the dried blood just below it. She could feel the bruises blossoming along her ribs and the twinge of the two broken ones as her magic started slowly healing them.

Ruvyn glanced between them again before sitting down against the wall by the door, one knee up as he rested his arm on it. "We're not leaving this room until you two work out whatever is going on between you."

Corliss snorted out a laugh, wincing at the pull at her side. "Then we're all going to be old and decrepit because that's never going to happen."

Meron clapped slowly, the sound echoing around them. "Oh, look, the first thing I'm going to agree with her on since we got here."

"And probably the only time we will."

"Nope, because I agree with you on that, too."

"Can you two just have a normal conversation?" Ruvyn groaned, swiping his hand over his face. "Mother above, it's nonstop with you, isn't it? I didn't think I'd have to become a couple's counselor when I took this position and yet here we are."

Another snort from her. "Well, use those skills on yourself and Gaven because I'm tired of both of you sulking around and not talking."

Her hopefully soon-to-be brother-in-law narrowed his eyes dangerously at her, so much so she thought she felt fire licking along the exposed skin of her arms. "You have no place in saying anything about that."

Oh, but did she hush? Of course, she didn't. "I do when it involves my brother who would do anything for me and my sister just as we would for him. Plus, he tells us everything."

"Yep. You're going to pay for that in the morning when I wake you up at four and let Meron sleep in if he wants."

Meron let out a snort.

Corliss pouted, shifting forward to hit him. But when she moved, her breath caught from the sharp pain in her side...and she tried not to notice how Meron's brows pulled together with concern as he lunged for her.

"You all right?" he asked her then as he reached forward before he could stop himself. "Tell me where it hurts."

She gnashed her teeth together, swatting his hands away. Not in anger, but mostly in discomfort. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You took a pretty hard fall, so let the healers look at you..."

"I'm fine."

"Lis..."

"Shut up, Commander."

There was no use, but Ruvyn wasn't going to let them off easy. He didn't move, didn't let them either, just waited until they finally, finally started to crack the tension between them.

Corliss was staring at Meron right in those golden-brown eyes, the warmth of them completely surrounding her after his cold exterior started chipping away. With every passing second, she knew her magic was finishing up the healing process, but it was another spark of someone else's helped coax it along, doing what it could.

"You don't have to help me, you know," she said quietly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees without even the slightest twinge of pain.

Meron shrugged one shoulder. "It's my fault you had such a hard fall, so why not help you when you won't let a healer look at you?"

"That's mostly because Ruvyn doesn't seem like he's going to let us go until we actually talk without fighting."

"We fight more than anything these days, don't we?"

"We do."

"You said we were friends. This isn't what friends do to each other, Meron."

Her voice cracked at the statement, a truth that revealed itself. It hurt her to always have him around and yet always being at each other's throat. She wanted to go back to the Corliss and Meron they had been that night in her apartment, the two of them just getting to know each other.

Corliss wringed her hands in her lap, staring down at them. "Why? Why are we so at odds when we've literally only known each other for a few months? Sure, you were annoying as hell and thought way to highly of yourself when I first met you, but you changed the night we had dinner. Before the egg hatched, that is. We were actually talking and having a good time with cooking and conversation, even though you tried to burn my apartment building down..."

A dramatic sigh from him. "Still not letting me live it down."

"Never," she smiled. Her first smile in what felt like weeks. "That's the Meron I thought I could actually become friends with, the one I wish was still here, even though Gaven would hate having the two of us actually getting along."

"And then came the dragons."

She nodded, tucking her hair behind both ears. A movement Meron watched every second of. "I fell like you still resent me for my bond with Odanth, even though you try to tell me otherwise. I'm not the only one who sees it. Your parents and mine do anytime we're with them. Your mother especially."

Meron rolled his eyes. "She absolutely loves you."

"Of course, she does. How could she not?"

"Now who's thinking highly of themselves?"

"Can't do that when it's true."

"Lady Lis."

"Commander."

He chuckled, shifting forward so he was sitting closer. "You're right, though, just like you always are."

"Right about what this time?"

"Me being jealous of you."

"And I will never understand why you're jealous of me when you've accomplished so much to make a name for yourself. I was born into it, but you got where you are by working for so long..."

"Exactly. You were handed it and still seem to get handed everything while us little people have to work for decades just to make a name for ourselves."

Corliss blinked, her words lost before Meron continued.

"Being the son of Tergaron's leader never brought me the respect and recognition being the future Lady of Eld has you. Growing up, I had to prove to the others in the village that I could make a name for myself without my mother's title helping me along. That's why I went to Ayveri for university as soon as I could, where I met my best friend who pushed and encouraged me to do even more. It's why I joined the army, working my way up the ranks to Commander so I could go back home to prove that I could make a name for myself on my own. And when I was bonded with the dragon egg...gods, I've been waiting my whole life for it."

Meron laughed then, though it came out a little harsh.

"And then there you were, the female I'd heard about basically from the day you were born, being a daughter of Lady Sienna and Lord Geir. Then there was when Alberich found Bridget and I had to hear about you more then. The stories Bridget used to tell about you and still does...gods, I knew you were a female I wanted to meet one day. And when I made the rank of Commander, I knew we'd have a professional relationship in the future. Then...then I finally got to meet the female who'd basically haunted me for all these years, and she was the one I..."

He cut himself off, eyes cast down as a flush crept up his neck and stained his cheeks.

Before Corliss could even speak, before she could ask him to finish his sentence or even tease the life out of him for it, shouts sounded from the cavernous main room of the caves, pulling Ruvyn from his half-slumber at the sound of one name.

Gaven.

Almost as soon as both he and Corliss heard it, they were bolting up from where they sat with Meron close behind, only for the three of them to skid to a stop as soon as they saw the group entering the caves.

Several of the novice riders where bruised and bloodied, typical for those first few weeks of flight training with their dragons. But the one person they didn't expect to see in worse off shape was Gaven, who was being hauled inside and toward the infirmary between two males.

"Gaven!" Corliss yelled as soon as she saw him.

With one eye swollen shut and his other so bloodshot that she didn't know if he could see through it or not, he could barely lift his head at the sound of her voice. Blood had already managed to dry along his jaw from where he'd obviously bitten through his bottom lip, the gash only just beginning to heal. Not only that, but bright red slashed along his white tunic and his left leg was bent at the knee, broken and impossible for him to put weight on it.

"I'm fine," Gaven managed to gasp as the two males helping him turned him toward the infirmary. "Just a little training accident..."

"A little training accident?" Ruvyn raged, stalking toward him. "This is not a little fucking training accident! What the hell happened?"

Gaven couldn't answer, gasping and groaning in pain when one male went to fast, shifted wrong, and hit his broken leg.

And Ruvyn...oh, Ruvyn. The male surged forward, growling through clenched teeth as he shoved the male away and then the other, only to then put his arm around Gaven to help.

"You don't have to be such an ass," Gaven grumbled, putting every bit of his weight on Ruvyn, who didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

Meron still went to help him on his other side, though, the four of them continuing down the dimly lit tunnel toward the entrance of the infirmary.

"And you still haven't answered my question. What the hell happened?"

"Like I said. Training accident. I was on one of the younger dragons without a saddle since she still wasn't used to it and..."

"And there's your first mistake. On a dragon without a saddle...are you insane? Maybe on Cordova, sure, but one just beginning to train?"

"You've done it before, you idiot."

"I'm the lead trainer, so of course I have! And you...you're..."

"An idiot just like you?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

With all the bickering back and forth, Corliss knew her brother would be just fine, even though he still looked like hell. While he and Ruvyn were still going at it, Meron glancing back at her over his shoulder as he helped them along. Even in the dim lighting, she could see his golden-brown eyes glittering with amusement at the two males at his side.

Ruvyn took the lead as soon as they were within the infirmary's well lit space. Gaven groaned as he tried to put even a little bit of weight on his leg but ended up practically falling on the cot he'd been lead to. Two of the healers, Eld-born with training in Asturia, were immediately stripping him down just to his undershorts so they could see the extent of his injury. Usually, a broken leg would have started healing by then, even on a sorcerer, and yet Gaven's...

One look and they knew why it hadn't. Bone had broken through the skin just below his knee, blood still oozing from the gash. Corliss's stomach rolled at the sight.

"Shit, Gav," Ruvyn breathed, staring wide-eyed at his leg.

He panted through his nose, eyes darting back and forth as he looked at the ceiling. "How bad is it?"

Ruvyn paled. "You...your bone..."

"So, not as bad as having you practically shun me these past months, huh?"

"Gav, you've got a bone sticking out os your leg."

"Again, not as bad."

One of the healers winced as she shook her head just as Gaven and Ruvyn looked at her. "With the bone exposed, it isn't allowing you to heal. We're...we're going to have to put it back into place, then hope your magic will start the process with a little bit of help from ours."

Corliss could practically see Ruvyn gulping at the mental image.

Gaven let out a pained laugh, his one good eye shining. "Is this what it takes to get you to talk to me again?"

Ruvyn narrowed his eyes and glared at him. "Shut up, you bloody bastard."

"Quite literally, right?"

"Shut up or I'll break your other leg."

"No, you won't."

"I hate you."

"And I love you."

Ruvyn dropped down to sit on the cot beside his, then moved it closer as the healers moved to his left side. They were going to use the distraction to prepare, though Gaven and Ruvyn seemed to know what they were doing also. Their eyes were still locked, though. Unwavering.

Almost immediately, Ruvyn reached for his hand, taking it in both of his, before bringing it up to press a kiss to his knuckles. "I've loved you since we were boys, so I don't know why you think that would change."

"The almost silence between us since that night..."

"Is over," Ruvyn finished for him. "I'm sorry for what happened after you came back. I was hurt and upset and didn't want to hear anything you had to say. But we're not wasting any more time, you hear me?"

Gaven's good eye was streaming then, his bloodied smile bright as Ruvyn leaned in to kiss him...before the healers took advantage of the distraction.