Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 94: Jealous Much? [R18]

[WARNING: ADULT CONTENT]

Just as Delphi and Feifei were exiting the dining room, Lili walked back in, holding hands with Cormac, who looked very happy with himself.

Delphi raised her eyebrows in question at the girl, and Lili’s eyes slid away from hers shiftily.

"Tch," Delphi scoffed, rolling her eyes at the young woman, as she and Feifei headed for the silo’s exit ladder.

"She’s made her bed, she’ll have to roll about uncomfortably in it," Delphi said to Feifei once they were out of earshot. "She better not come complaining to me about him again. Crazy girl."

They had decided to use the botanic gardens for their outdoor training. It was fully fenced, making it easier to patrol. They had repaired the gates and plugged a few holes in the fence-line, but everything was infinitely easier with the dogs and the dragons holding the perimeter for them, freeing all of them up from constant guard duties.

This morning was archery. Delphi and Alton were the trainers, being the acknowledged best archers in their teams.

"Look at the dragons splooting," Delphi nudged Alton, who had arrived first and set up the targets.

The dragons that weren’t on guard duty, were lazing in the sun on a gravel path, lying flat with their heads on the ground and their back legs straight out behind them, front legs to their sides. They looked like they had been flattened by a tank.

He laughed at the strange sight. Not something he ever thought he’d see from the famous war dragons in his lifetime.

"We’ll be scraping them out of their sploots and putting them through their paces this morning. Phweep!" he whistled to Maback, who raised his head and looked about. "Get over here Maback," Alton called him. "Call your dragons, ladies and gents."

Maback stood up and trotted over, while the rest of the soldiers whistled for their beasts. Alton and Delphi mounted up to demonstrate the morning’s training activity.

Winter had found a set of saddles for working horses, with a huge horn on the pommel, which was useful when fighting, and a very high cantle at the back, which held the rider in when the dragon stood upright. She had increased the length of the straps so they could be used around the dragons’ bigger girth.

There was a row of spikes along the lizards’ backs that she had discovered could be bent over underneath a saddle blanket before the saddle went on, to no ill effect to the dragon.

Using a thick leather stockman’s breastplate which had a five-point yoke, the saddle would stay on when the creatures rose onto their hindlegs. Ingeniously, she had added the seat of an abseiling harness, so you could clip yourself in if needed, leaving you more freedom for fighting when the beasts were in an upright standing position.

Alton took off first on Maback, to demonstrate the morning’s practise. His dragon ran quickly past a series of targets, and the general shot off arrow after arrow, hitting the bullseye on every one. The team clapped and cheered enthusiastically.

Delphi followed quickly behind him on Miro. She landed ’Robin Hood’ shots, hitting each of Alton’s arrows, her arrows nestling into his, and quivering there, forming an extra-long double arrow.

"Oh ho," laughed Niko, giving her a loud, slow, slightly mocking clap, while her girls all cheered loudly for her.

Alton turned Maback around and rode back through the target run, adding a third arrow to the stacked end of each of the first two.

"Hah, incredible work General," applauded Han appreciatively, along with everyone else.

"Alright team. Enough of the fancy tricks. You’re all up now, let’s go," clapped Alton.

The riders queued up and started to ride past the targets, loosing their arrows as they went. The next standouts were Feifei and Magnus, who were both excellent archers.

"Nice work, Feifei," called Delphi. "Take Ruby and Winter to the last target and do some work on their arrow drawing and handling."

"Magnus. Good job too. Wolf, go and work with Magnus on your accuracy. I’m worried you’re going to shoot one of the dogs at this rate."

Everyone laughed and Wolf flushed red. He was more of a swordsman. His big paws weren’t suited to the finesse needed for archery. Though he had plenty of strength for drawing the arrow, where it landed was a bit ’hit and miss’, so to speak.

"Everyone else keep doing the ride-bys," called General Meyer.

The two Generals dismounted and stood under the shade of a nearby conifer, watching the team go through their paces.

"They’re going to be a force to be reckoned with," nodded Delphi with approval.

"Mm," said Alton noncommittally.

She looked over at him with surprise. He was watching the proceedings intently, and apparently ignoring her. She thought back to breakfast and realised he hadn’t sat with her and Feifei either, he had been sitting with Niko and Han.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him.

He looked at her coolly. "What do you think Delphine?"

What was with this ’Delphine’ thing? Did he think he was her mother? Her mother was the only person who used to use her full name when she was in trouble. Whatever happened to him crooning ’Delphine’ into her ear? It hadn’t taken him more than a week to start to use her name like she’d been a naughty child...

"I have no idea, Prince Alton," she said formally. "Pray enlighten me. What crime have I committed today?"

"It was yesterday," he said stonily. "And you know full well what your crime is. Don’t play cute with me, Ms Chastain." He turned back to face the dragon riders, his jaw clenched with suppressed anger.

’Ms Chastain’ now? It was really descending. Surely this wasn’t because she tried to pull Niko’s shorts up, was it?

"I really hope this adolescent silent treatment of yours is not because I tried to cover up your lieutenant’s penis," her eyes flashed dangerously, which was completely lost on Alton, who didn’t look at her.

He grabbed her wrist and dragged her deep into the dense mess of a creeping conifer that had taken over the area.

He stared angrily into her eyes. "Don’t mention those words again. I don’t want to hear you say ’Niko’s nuts’ or ’lieutenant’s penis’, Delphi! It’s not appropriate."

She looked helplessly at him.

"I’m not sure what you wanted me to do in that situation. I didn’t want to keep looking at the man’s genitalia, and he wasn’t showing any signs of putting it away himself. It seemed the sensible thing to cover him up," she said reasonably, trying to keep her cool.

"Oh so you think it’s acceptable for you to drag another man’s boxer shorts over his cock do you Delphi? Why don’t you just grab it and give him a hand job on your way through?" Alton seethed with anger.