Page 71 of Dragon Cursed
She looked at Poppy first.
And her face — her tiny, human face wrinkled with age— did the thing faces did when love had been waiting a long time for the door to open.She beamed.
"Oh, child."Her voice was soft."Oh, my girl."
"Auntie."
Poppy was crying.He hadn’t seen her start.
She moved up the last step and the old woman opened her free arm.Poppy went into it gently, careful of the stick and fragile bones.
Alsander remained on the step below to give them the moment.The old woman held her grand-niece against her shoulder for a long, quiet count, her hand on Poppy's back patted — slow and steady — the way a mother comforts her child.
"There, dear.There.I knew you'd come eventually.I’ve been waiting.Oh, my girl."
"I'm sorry it's been so long."
"You're here now."
"I brought —" Poppy pulled back a little.Wiped her cheeks.Turned."Auntie, this is —"
Niamh had already looked at him.
She had looked at him over Poppy's shoulder the way an old woman with very sharp blue eyes looked at a stranger on her step.She had taken him in: the height of him.The breadth of his shoulders.The green of his postal jacket.The peaked cap.The boots that didn’t quite match the rest.The line of his jaw.The way he was standing protectively close to his mate but not so close as to loom over her aunt.
Niamh's gaze passed over him from cap to boot.
It returned to his face with a smile.
"Well," she said."Well, well."
A pause.
"Poppy, my love."
"Yes, Auntie?"
"I must say, I never thought I'd live to see aDraquoniron my doorstep wearing a postman’s uniform."
There was a beat of silence.
Every muscle in Alsander’s body went rigid with tension.His dragon senses sharpened, homed in on the tiny human creature standing in front of him.He breathed very carefully.Slowly."What."It wasn’t really a question.They both knew it wasn’t a question.He’d heard her words perfectly.
Niamh’s smile widened, but it didn’t immediately soften her sharp blue eyes.For a brief moment, her gaze turned cool and analytical—the look of a woman who had been waiting a very long time for a particular guest, and was finally seeing him arrive.
"Oh, do come in."Her voice was warm."You're letting the heat out."
"You know what I am."
"Of course, I know what you are, dear."
She tilted her head.
"I am eighty-three years old.I have been a member of this line my entire life.Did you think we didn’t know about you?"
"TheDraquonirlaws —"
"The Draquonir laws." Niamh's mouth twitched."Oh, you dragons.Thousands of years of telling yourselvesno mortal shall know your secrets, and meanwhile every keeper-line has a journal entry about the lot of you going back as far as we do."
