Dragons Realm (17 page)

“What choice do they have?” Mina said.

Cas­sidy frowned. “Makes that womb of yours—
of ours
—a bit more pre­cious, does it not?”

Mina pressed her hand to her stom­ach and fought not to puke, and that’s when she saw the hu­man male at the end of the line, dressed in pris­oner’s rags. His legs were hobbled and bleed­ing. His wrists and his ankles were chained, and his eyes were haunt­ingly fa­mil­iar:

Mat­thias
Gentry
.

Her child­hood friend.

The boy she was sup­posed to marry be­fore the en­tire world had flipped on its axis.

“Oh gods,” Mina blur­ted as her vis­ion swam. She stared up at the dais, try­ing to lock eyes with Dante. He had to do some­thing. About all of it. The feed­ing, the soon-to-be slaughter, the in­ev­it­able war. She knew her thoughts were jumbled, that none of it made sense; after all, what could Dante pos­sibly do to stop it, any of it?

Yet and still, everything in­side of her was cry­ing out against the in­justice…

And that’s when the bu­gler soun­ded his horn once more, and the king com­manded the court’s at­ten­tion. “Si­lence!” he bel­lowed into the clam­or­ing hall. “We are not done with our most im­port­ant busi­ness.” And just like that, he had dis­missed the pres­ence of the slaves, the mean­ing of their sac­ri­fice, and the visual re­minder of what was to come.

The king ushered his scribe for­ward, and the young man hur­ried up the dais with the tray con­tain­ing the vi­als, the quill, and the scrolls. De­mitri reached for the first of the two cyl­in­ders and un­furled the parch­ment. Without pre­amble, he began to read. “On this, the twenty-fifth day of May, in the 175th year of the Drago­nas’ Reign, the sea­son of the dia­mond king, I De­mitri Dragona, one and the same, hereby set forth into law for all per­petu­ity the fol­low­ing de­crees: First, to my eld­est son, Dante Dragona, I be­queath the province of War­lo­chia, the castle, the court, and all the lands therein, and I place him at the head of the War­lo­chian army to lead his sub­jects in battle as he sees fit. Ef­fect­ive today, this de­cree shall su­per­sede the au­tumn coron­a­tion. Second, to my next-eld­est son, Damian Dragona, I be­queath the province of Um­bras, the castle, the court, and all the lands therein, and I place him at the head of the Um­brasian army to lead his sub­jects in battle as he sees fit. Ef­fect­ive today, this de­cree su­per­sedes the au­tumn coron­a­tion.”

The king con­tin­ued to read the pro­clam­a­tion, be­queath­ing the
com­mon­lands
to Drake, his young­est son, and also pla­cing him at the head of the cor­res­pond­ing army. It was clear to Mina that he wanted each of his sons to have ab­so­lute sov­er­eignty for the up­com­ing battle, and he was will­ing to cir­cum­vent the au­tumn ce­re­mony in or­der to make that hap­pen. So what did that mean for them, the Sk­la­vos Ahavi?

As if the king had read her mind, De­mitri Dragona stepped for­ward to the very edge of the dais, his long bro­cade robe flow­ing down the top two steps as he scanned the crowd and briefly locked gazes…
with Mina
. Turn­ing back to the gen­eral audi­ence, and ig­nor­ing the doomed slaves be­fore him, he raised his im­per­ial chin and ges­tured lav­ishly with his right hand. “I will not send my sons to war, where they may die at the hands of per­il­ous shifters, without first be­stow­ing upon them their birth­right
and
their se­lec­ted mates, the chosen Sk­la­vos Ahavi. Both their castles and their fe­males are now theirs to claim, and they may take them to the port of Dra­cos Cove as they see fit. Should the Bringer of Rain choose to claim one—or any—of my chil­dren, may He first bless them with a dragon son.” He nod­ded at the scribe, who glanced down at the vi­als on the vel­vet-lined tray, and Mina knew—
oh gods, she knew
—they were in­deed the fer­til­ity sac­ra­ment.

The scribe opened the second scroll, which was ap­par­ently un­marked, raised a quill, and dipped it in ink, wait­ing for the king’s fi­nal pro­clam­a­tion. King De­mitri then turned to face his sons and nod­ded at Drake. “From this day forth, un­til death shall part them, I be­stow upon my young­est son, Drake Dragona, the Sk­la­vos Ahavi known as Ta­tiana Ward. May she faith­fully serve her lord, Castle Com­mons, and the Realm, and may the gods bless them with many sons.”

Ta­tiana swayed on her feet with re­lief, and Mina had to reach out to steady her—her own heart was beat­ing like a clay tam­bour in her chest.
Gods of the un­der­world
, the princes had not had a chance to pe­ti­tion their father for their chosen mates…

Or had they?

Wavani, the king’s witch, had yet to make a re­com­mend­a­tion.

Or had
she?

Maybe that was good.

Mina held her breath and waited as the scribe fin­ished pen­ning the first mat­ri­mo­nial pro­clam­a­tion, and the king turned his at­ten­tion to Dante. “From this day forth, un­til death shall part them, I be­stow upon my eld­est son, Dante Dragona, the Sk­la­vos Ahavi known as Cas­sidy Bondev­ille. May she faith­fully serve her lord, Castle War­lo­chia, and the Realm, and may the gods bless them with many sons.”

Mina’s face flushed with heat, even as her arms and her legs began to tremble.

Wait…

What had she just
heard?

Dante and Cas­sidy?

No, that couldn’t be right.

That wasn’t
right.

Time seemed to stand still, and everything around her spun in be­fuddled circles as the king con­tin­ued to speak: “From this day forth, un­til death shall part them, I be­stow upon my second son, Damian Dragona, the Sk­la­vos Ahavi he has re­ques­ted, known as Mina Louvet. May she faith­fully serve her lord, Castle Um­bras, and the Realm, and may the gods bless them with many sons.”

Mina’s jaw dropped open, but she couldn’t form an ar­tic­u­late sound. She stared up at the dais, her gaze des­per­ately seek­ing Dante’s. Was he try­ing to say some­thing to his father? Was he ask­ing for a private word?

Yes—
yes
—of course he was, and surely the king would hear him out.

There was a short ex­change between the two Drago­nas, and then King De­mitri held up his hand, cut­ting Dante off, ab­ruptly. The mon­arch flicked his wrist in sharp dis­missal, and that was…that was…what?

The end of it?

No! It couldn’t be the end of it.

“Noooooo!” Mina’s soul was scream­ing. “Dante, please…help me.”

Noth­ing was real.

“Be quiet!” A sharp slap.
Cas­sidy’s hand? On the side of Mina’s
cheek?

“Mina.
Mina!
Can you hear me?” Ta­tiana bra­cing Mina by the shoulders?

“We’re wanted on the dais!”

Cas­sidy, again?

For the life of her, Mina could not make sense of all the ran­dom words and sen­sa­tions, the pain in her face, the pres­sure on her arms, the words…
the words
…the faraway words.

And Dante?

What just
happened?

At someone’s in­sist­ence Mina took a tent­at­ive step for­ward to­ward the dais, and then, the next thing she knew, she was ly­ing on the floor, co­cooned in dark­ness.

Chapter Fif­teen

D
ante Dragona was
seeth­ing in­side, still stunned by the re­cent pro­clam­a­tions, but he couldn’t pro­cess it now. He couldn’t feel any of it. There just wasn’t time. The War­lo­chian army—
his army
—was march­ing from the east to­ward the north­ern shore, to­ward the port of Dra­cos, and he wanted to catch up with them be­fore they got to the sea. While the war­locks and their gar­goyle pets might be for­mid­able foes, far more dan­ger­ous than their hu­man coun­ter­parts, they were still no match for preter­nat­ural shifters, for the Lycani­ans hordes. They would need a dragon by their side, even if Dante couldn’t fully shift.

He stormed down the up­per hall of Castle Dragon, gath­er­ing the last of his im­port­ant be­long­ings: his heavy lance, his great sword, and a series of stra­tegic maps. As he roun­ded the hall to des­cend the grand stair­case, he glanced over his shoulder to­ward Mina’s bed­cham­ber and stiffened. Gods, he could still see her beau­ti­ful face, the glazed-over tears in her em­er­ald eyes, the shock that widened her pu­pils, and the trem­bling in her bot­tom lip as fear took a firm and in­ex­or­able hold on her heart. He could still hear that piteous scream:
“Noooooo! Dante please…help me.”
He cringed at the memory. She had cried out in such des­pair—
in front of the en­tire castle court
. She had re­coiled at the mere thought of be­ing mated to Damian, and her strong, ten­a­cious mind had lit­er­ally shut down rather than em­brace the real­ity of her fate.

Damian would beat her bloody for the pub­lic in­sult.

A deep, primal snarl rose in Dante’s throat, and he clenched his fists at his sides. His father had gone too far—per­haps for all the right reas­ons, per­haps not—but it just didn’t make any sense. Why had King De­mitri done it? Why had he chosen Mina for Damian, and Cas­sidy for Dante; and why had he been so closed off to opin­ions? Yes, there were much more im­port­ant mat­ters to at­tend to, things that couldn’t wait, but the king had made the call. He had chosen to con­duct a lesser rite of the Au­tumn Mat­ing,
now
. The least he could’ve done is hear his sons’ opin­ions.

All
his sons’ opin­ions.

“Dante.
Dante
!” Cas­sidy Bondev­ille came pran­cing down the hall, hur­ry­ing in his dir­ec­tion, her thick blond hair brush­ing the tops of her shoulders and sway­ing like a pen­du­lum in re­sponse to her eager mo­tion. “Ah, I’m so glad I caught you, my love.”

He planted his feet and squared his shoulders. “My prince,” he snarled.

“Ex­cuse me?” she drawled in that in­furi­at­ing, sugar-sweet voice.

“
My prince
,” he said coolly. “Don’t ever call me your love. That is not what we are.”

The Ahavi blanched, clearly taken aback by his blunt words. She opened her mouth to protest, but ap­par­ently thought bet­ter of it. “Oh, yes, of course. For­give me.” She curt­sied…per­fectly.

“I don’t have time for this, Ahavi. What do you want?”

“Cas­sidy,” she said softly, smil­ing. “You may call me Cas­sidy.”

Dante bristled from head to toe. He took a men­acing step in her dir­ec­tion, al­low­ing his dragon to heat the pu­pils of his eyes, and then he leaned for­ward. “Think care­fully be­fore you
tell me
what to do. What. Do. You. Want?”

Cas­sidy took one wary look at his glow­ing eyes and stole a cau­tious step back. “I…I simply wanted to see you off, and I had hoped”—she bit her bot­tom lip like a petu­lant child and tried to bat her bright blue eyes—“I was still hop­ing you might take me with you to the cove.”

Dante was fin­ished with the con­ver­sa­tion.

He had not lived 169 years as an im­mor­tal dragon to ex­plain him­self to a fool­ish hu­man who wore a ball gown to a war con­fer­ence, Sk­la­vos Ahavi or not. Ever since that in­sig­ni­fic­ant, re­gret­ful night when he had passed her in the hall—the one and only time he had fed from her be­cause he was on his way to spar with Drake and didn’t care to bother Mina—Cas­sidy had ac­ted like she had some clandes­tine claim on him, like he had some car­nal in­terest in her. She had ac­ted brazenly and wan­tonly every time she saw him, as if
she
were the mon­arch and
he
was hers to com­mand…

As if every fe­male in Castle Dragon—
nay, all of the Realm
—was not his to take at will.

He knew he couldn’t stand her then, and he couldn’t stand her now. As for the fact that she was his mated fe­male, well, he would sort that out later.

Much
later.

Per­haps when it was time to pro­cre­ate.

He turned on his heel and began to des­cend the stair­case, dis­miss­ing her with a side­long glance.

She ran after him.

“Dante.
My prince
.” She caught up to his side and reached out to take his arm.

He spun around and snatched her by the throat, mov­ing so quickly she never saw it com­ing. He was hardly aware of what he was do­ing—his dragon was tee­ter­ing on the edge. “Is this what you want,
Cas­sidy
?” he snarled, dig­ging his claws into her del­ic­ate skin un­til the tips scored her flesh and her neck trickled with blood. He re­leased his fangs and hissed. “If I bite you, you
won’t
en­joy it.”

She was no longer his Ahavi.

She was his prey.

“My prince,” she whimpered plaint­ively, her eyes wide with fright. “For­give me if I’ve dis­pleased you.”

He snorted and fought to re­lease his angry grip. “The sands of port Draco are no place for a wo­man.” He softened his sav­age tone on pur­pose, call­ing back the beast. The scent of her fear was heady; her heart was pound­ing in her chest; and her blood was swirl­ing like a siren’s song in her veins, just call­ing…call­ing…call­ing…

Take me.

Drain me.

End me.

In an ef­fort not to harm her—
not here, not now
—he re­trac­ted his claws, grasped her by both arms, and tossed her to the top of the land­ing, away from his beast and his rage.

She froze, un­cer­tain, as if she had no idea what to do next: Should she run, try once more to ap­pease him, or beg for his mercy? And Dante knew—
oh, great dragons of old, he knew
—if she moved even an inch, he’d strike.

“My prince?” she whispered cau­tiously.

He cocked his head to the side, pressed his fin­ger to his lips, and growled deep in his throat. “Shh. Don’t speak.” She scooted back­ward on her rear, and he held up his hand to stop her. “Don’t move.”

She froze.

“Good girl,” he fi­nally whispered, and then he took a deep, steady­ing breath. He would un­leash his dragon soon enough—on his for­mid­able en­emies, the Lycani­ans. There was no need to at­tack one piteous, mis­guided, self-im­port­ant wo­man. “Cas­sidy,” he said evenly, find­ing his voice as a man.

She sniffed. “Yes?” At last, she was com­pletely sub­missive and without guile.

“Your place is not at Dra­cos Cove, and it is not by my side. Never by my side. Don’t ever test me like that again. You may be mine, but I am not yours. Do you un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence?”

As she slowly nod­ded her head, he wondered at the cruelty of his words: Set­ting bound­ar­ies was one thing—and this fe­male needed it,
badly
—but there was some­thing else in­cit­ing him, some­thing just be­neath the sur­face, some­thing lar­ger than one wo­man’s care­less be­ha­vior. Some­thing—
no, someone
—with hair the color of a raven’s wing and eyes the shade of pier­cing em­er­alds. Someone whose de­fi­ance once in­furi­ated him; whose stub­born, im­plac­able will needed to be broken; someone who hovered on the verge of in­san­ity and the edge of
walk­ing tragedy
be­cause she didn’t know how to con­strain her heart, to live in the eye of the storm with her gaze fixed on her duty, or to see her­self—and her role—as simply one or many threads in a much lar­ger tapestry…someone he could neither love nor let go.

His dragon wanted to roar with de­fi­ance: to hunt, maim, and des­troy.

Damian might claim her. He might take her, use her, and des­troy her. But he would never have her.

He would never own
Mina’s
soul.

She had already given it to Dante.

That first day in the court­yard…the night he had given her Raylea’s doll…

And yet again today, not less than an hour earlier, when she had cried out
Dante’s
name in the throne room be­fore all of Castle Dragon, be­fore Damian and the king.

Yes…

Whether she knew it or not, Mina had ceded her soul to Dante Dragona, des­pite all of her stub­born will…

Des­pite all of his per­il­ous warn­ings to do the op­pos­ite.

She had led with her heart, yiel­ded to her emo­tions, and now she was pay­ing the ul­ti­mate price.

In­deed, she had al­ways been a walk­ing tragedy.

*

“Get up!”

A cold splash of wa­ter to the face, fol­lowed by a boot to the ribs, sent Mina jack-knif­ing off the floor and scram­bling into a seated po­s­i­tion.

What?

Where?

Oh
gods…

“Get the hell up!” Damian shouted. He soun­ded in­sane.

Mina arched her back to ap­pear even taller. “I’m up,” she panted, shield­ing her waist with her hands.
“I’m up.”
She glanced anxiously around the room, try­ing to re­gain her bear­ings.
Where was she? What had happened?

“Well, it’s about time,” Prince Damian snarled.

What the heck?

Why was she here…in her room…and with Damian of all—

Oh
gods…

They were
mated.

The king had made the de­cree in the Great Hall.

“Prince Damian,” she whispered, des­per­ate to sub­due his an­ger, hop­ing to make re­par­a­tions. “I…I…for­give me. I don’t know what to say. How may I serve you? What can I do?”

“I should kill you,” he drawled nas­tily, and then just like that, his voice grew chillingly calm: “Right here. Right now. I should take your life. But I don’t have the time.”

She looked up into his dark, omin­ous eyes as he lorded over her with that massive six-foot-four frame and shivered. There was noth­ing be­hind those pu­pils, no soul in their depths, no spark of em­pathy, just two empty orbs: deep brown, hol­low, and de­monic.

He meant what he said.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to Port Draco?” she asked, al­most wish­ing he would just get on with it—his fury—and her death.

He grinned like a pro­ver­bial cat, toy­ing with its prey. “I should. Yes, I should.” He looked around the room and turned his nose up in dis­gust. “My brother, Prince Drake, is on his way to Castle Com­mons to meet up with his cav­alry and head to the cove with Ta­tiana. I be­lieve Dante is leav­ing Cas­sidy here, but he’s prob­ably already on the road.” He ges­tured regally, and then held up his hands. “But me? I’m stand­ing in the bed­cham­ber of a
slave
, try­ing to awaken the poor swoon­ing wench so we can get on with the busi­ness at hand—
the im­min­ent
in­va­sion
of our lands
.”

Mina sucked in air and tried to avoid dir­ect eye con­tact.

“A slave,” he con­tin­ued, still speak­ing in that falsely tran­quil, ut­terly pet­ri­fy­ing voice, “one who howled my brother’s name in front of all Castle Dragon’s courtiers. A
slave
who fain­ted at the mere thought of be­ing mated to me. A
slave
who begged
Prince Dante
to save her.”

Mina shut her eyes.
God­dess of mercy; just get it over with.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. What else could she say?

“You’re sorry?” he re­peated, the echo com­ing out as a hiss.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”

When he didn’t re­spond, she peeked at him through barely raised lids. He was ter­ri­fy­ing in his pla­cid fury: On one hand, he was ob­vi­ously rid­ing a razor’s edge, demon­strably un­stable, yet his voice re­mained
so calm
—so en­tirely con­trolled—when every pore of his be­ing ra­di­ated mad­ness. “If I thought you could still ride a horse, I would break every bone in your body,” he purred.

Mina winced, but she didn’t reply. When he took a sud­den step to­ward her, she flinched like he had struck her and curled into a ball.

He laughed, a hu­mor­less sound, and then he reached into the pocket of his breeches and with­drew a small vial—the fer­til­ity elixir from the vel­vet-lined tray—and snorted. “The high priest ad­min­istered this to Ta­tiana and Cas­sidy, but I guess we’ll just have to do it our own way.”

This couldn’t be hap­pen­ing.

This just wasn’t hap­pen­ing.

In a series of long, supple strides, he stepped over to the man­tel and smashed the tip of the bottle against the heavy, broad stone, send­ing tiny shards of glass scat­ter­ing in all dir­ec­tions, and then he strode back to­ward Mina, squat­ted down in front of her, and grasped her harshly by the hair, yank­ing her head back­ward. For­cing her mouth open with his fin­gers, he barked, “Drink this!” And then he poured it into her mouth.

The con­coc­tion was bit­ter, and she had to force her throat to swal­low.

When the con­tents were all gone, he tossed the flask into the fire and strode to the door. “The house ser­vants will pack our trunks and other ne­ces­sit­ies. As for you: one minute; three items; pack, so we can be on our way.”

Mina jumped to her feet, roun­ded the corner of the bed, and grabbed her woolen satchel from atop a nearby chest. She snatched a heavy cloak for warmth, tucked Raylea’s doll into the bot­tom of the bag, and, for reas­ons she couldn’t com­pre­hend, grabbed an ivory-and-bone hair comb off the dress­ing table and stuffed it in her pocket. She tried to slink by him as she rushed through the door, but she wasn’t that lucky. His heavy, mus­cu­lar arm came around her, en­circ­ling her from be­hind, and without warn­ing or ini­ti­ation he tugged her firmly against his chest, bit her in the throat, and began to si­phon her es­sence, tak­ing her warmth and her blood in a furi­ous, con­tinu­ous gulp. When he had fi­nally had enough—and frost began to form on her skin—he with­drew his pain­ful fangs and blew a thin stream of blue fire over the bite to seal the wound. “Do you speak Lycanian?” he asked, com­pletely out of the blue, spin­ning her around to face him.