Dragons Realm (7 page)

He reached out to fin­ger a lock of her hair, and a sar­donic smile curved along his lips. “Your obed­i­ence, sweet Mina. Al­ways—
and only
—your obed­i­ence.”

Mina blinked back a tear. “And when we come to­gether…to cre­ate chil­dren…to cre­ate
your sons
, what then?” She couldn’t be­lieve she had spoken the words aloud, but so be it: It wasn’t like her
pur­pose
was a secret, and she wanted to know
now
what she could ex­pect down the road.

His eyes heated with de­sire, and his sap­phire pu­pils re­flec­ted un­spoken prom­ises of dark lan­guid nights filled with satin kisses and fiery caresses. “Then I will com­mand your obed­i­ence
and
your pleas­ure.” He nar­rowed his gaze on her lips. “Of that, you may rest as­sured.”

Mina swal­lowed a flip­pant re­tort.

She had no doubt that Dante could please her body, dom­in­ate her will, and even pos­sess her soul if he chose. After all, he was only a whis­per shy of be­ing a god; but still, what would her life be like without com­pas­sion, without com­pan­ion­ship, without even the
pos­sib­il­ity
of love? What would her life be like as the con­sort to a dragon, a be­ing born of fire, who was fueled by feral pas­sions yet devoid of ten­der­ness and af­fec­tion?

Glan­cing once again at the doll, still hanging at her side, she quickly dis­missed the thought. Dante Dragona was in­deed cap­able of ten­der­ness—
and kind­ness
—and he would never know how much his little gift had meant to her, re­gard­less of his reas­ons for do­ing it. “Whatever your pur­pose,” she whispered, “I thank you, mi­lord.”

He in­clined his head in a po­lite ges­ture of ac­know­ledg­ment. “And I thank you for feed­ing the dragon, sweet Mina.” He stroked her cheek once more, then backed away. “I will come to you again,
soon
.”

With that, he simply van­ished from the room, leav­ing her shiv­er­ing, breath­less, and per­haps just a little bit…hope­ful.

Chapter Five

R
afael Bishop, the
high mage of War­lo­chia, ducked un­der a low-hanging branch of a prickly ash tree, care­ful to avoid the dense, barbed un­der­growth. He stared at the si­lent circle of war­locks be­fore him, each male seated com­fort­ably around the fire, and gently cleared his throat. “The slave trade was es­pe­cially prof­it­able last month: We man­aged to sell three girls and four boys to the shadow-walk­ers in the west and ship sev­eral oth­ers across the rest­less sea. Los­ing Sir Henry will set us back a bit—he was in­stru­mental in hid­ing some of our early cap­tures un­til we could ar­range for their trans­port—but I don’t an­ti­cip­ate more than two or three weeks be­fore we’re back in busi­ness.”

“The fool got caught plan­ning to raid Castle Dragon,” Micah Fiske said, spit­ting into the dirt in dis­gust. “He thought he could break into the treas­ury. How fool­ish can one war­lock be?”

“Well,” Ra­fael said with de­ri­sion, “he is dead, so per­haps we need not tread on his grave.”

Micah scowled. “A grisly death by fire. He was fool­ish to pro­voke the prince.”

“Again,” Ra­fael said, grow­ing in­creas­ingly an­noyed, “no need to spit on his grave.”

Micah crossed his arms over his bent knees, held his hands out to the fire, and rubbed them to­gether for warmth. “By the way, we have a new girl, just like you asked for. Top grade: young, vir­ginal, and pretty, not a single scar on her body. Caught her on Monday.”

Ra­fael cocked a curi­ous eye­brow. “Do you? And how did the cap­ture go?”

Micah shrugged. “Like any other, I sup­pose. We cornered the girl and her mother in the forest. They were trav­el­ing alone by horse­back, so it took very little ef­fort to drive them off the path. Za­kor, my gar­goyle, jumped out at the child’s mare from be­hind a tree, and the horse reared up in a panic. The kid was thrown from the saddle, and Za­kor was able to snatch her by the arm be­fore she hit the ground. He dragged her into the thicket, kick­ing and scream­ing all the way, I might add, and handed her over to me.” He sniffed with some­thing akin to in­solence or pride, as if cap­tur­ing a ten-year-old girl was truly a great feat of prowess. “At that point, it was just a mat­ter of bind­ing her hands and feet, gag­ging her so she couldn’t scream, and then throw­ing her on the back of my horse.” He stared off into the dis­tance as if re­liv­ing the memory in nos­tal­gic de­tail. “Her mother fought like a crazed ban­shee, though. She screamed and cursed like a mad­wo­man, try­ing to charge after her daugh­ter.” He sniffed. “Hell, she must have given chase for a full five minutes be­cause I swear my horse was win­ded by the time we lost her, but, ul­ti­mately, her mare was too old, not up for the task. We left her in the dust some­where around Devil’s Bend.”

Ra­fael frowned, un­im­pressed by the dis­pens­able de­tails of the sor­did tale. How hard was it to
cleanly
steal a little girl from her middle-aged mother? “And it didn’t oc­cur to you that the mother might re­port the in­cid­ent to the con­stable once she gets back to the
com­mon­lands
? Did you not think to take care of the only sur­viv­ing wit­ness? That per­haps you should have seen to
her
dis­ap­pear­ance as well?”

Micah glared at Ra­fael with un­con­cealed in­solence, his thin lips turned down in a scowl. Ap­par­ently, he was grow­ing weary of be­ing chal­lenged. “Two wo­men rid­ing alone through Forest Dragon on horse­back? As far as I’m con­cerned, they had it com­ing: They could’ve en­countered any­thing from ban­dits to a wild an­imal. By the time she gets back to the Com­mons Dis­trict, it’ll be too late for the con­stable to do any­thing about it. Oh sure; the guard will take down a re­port. They may even send a missive to the War­lo­chian sher­iff, since it happened in­side his ter­rit­ory, but they aren’t go­ing to mar­shal any troops or send out any search parties, not to re­trieve one lone, in­sig­ni­fic­ant girl. Raylea Louvet will be writ­ten off as a cas­u­alty of the Realm, just as so many other chil­dren are…every day.”

Ra­fael took a seat across from Micah, ad­ded an­other log to the fire, and used a forked, gangly branch to stoke it into a ro­bust flame. “I sup­pose. But in the fu­ture, you need to take care of loose ends.” Un­will­ing to en­dure Micah Fiske a mo­ment longer, he turned his at­ten­tion to Robert Cross. The war­lock was star­ing into the fire like his long-lost love was perched on an em­blazoned log, the pu­pils of his witchy eyes dilated and dreamy. “And you, Sir Robert? Do you have a buyer for the child already?”

Robert blinked sev­eral times as if com­ing out of a trance, and then he coughed, scrubbed his filthy hands over his already dirty face, and hawked some phlegm from his throat. Spit­ting it into the fire, he smiled. “I do. A shadow by the name of Syr­ileus Cain.” His tone was un­usu­ally af­fable. “He lives by him­self in a se­cluded cabin, far back in the Shadow Woods. I be­lieve he is look­ing for a house­keeper and a cook—even­tu­ally, a wife, of course. The girl will do well, and he’s will­ing to pay a hand­some price for an un­touched vir­gin: fif­teen cop­pers.”

Ra­fael nod­ded in ap­pre­ci­ation. “Good.
Good
. The sooner we can turn the girl over to the shadow the bet­ter. We will need all his cop­pers to pro­cure a new hench­man, someone to re­place Sir Henry Wood­son, someone with a good-sized cel­lar in his barn and a hel­luva lot of loy­alty in his greedy heart. The heav­ier the purse, the greater our chances of buy­ing both.”

Micah tore a piece of chicken off the ho­ri­zontal spit sus­pen­ded above the fire, and began to chew the meat in earn­est, smear­ing ash and grease all over his surly face. “It’s a damn shame she’s only ten and the shadow is will­ing to pay a premium for her vir­tue.” He spit out a gnawed piece of bone and smacked his lips to­gether, spread­ing more grease around the corners of his mouth. “I’d love to take a turn with that little spit­fire. She’s quite the wild­cat, that girl.”

Ra­fael frowned and leveled a heated glare at his idi­otic com­pan­ion. “And that is why you will never be more than a gopher, Micah. You still do not un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence between busi­ness and pleas­ure, what it means to con­duct an arm’s length trans­ac­tion. You still find pleas­ure in the sub­jug­a­tion of little girls.” He rolled his eyes in dis­gust. Not that he was some par­agon of vir­tue—far from it, really—but just the same, he at least liked to con­sider him­self a man, someone who meas­ured his feats of bravery against worthy ad­versar­ies.

Not help­less little girls.

Micah snorted, look­ing mod­er­ately an­noyed. And then, without any warn­ing, he threw his re­main­ing chicken bone into the fire, bounded to his feet, and stormed to­ward Ra­fael, his war­lock’s eyes flash­ing red with thinly banked mad­ness. “You think you’re so damn su­per­ior,” he spat. He thumped his fists against his chest and vis­ibly swelled up with pride. “Then do some­thing about it, war­lock! Be­cause I’ve just about had it with all your sanc­ti­mo­ni­ous bull­shit.”

Ra­fael rose slowly…

Grace­fully.

A sin­is­ter smile em­bel­lish­ing his tightly pursed lips.

He drew in a deep, meas­ured breath of air, filling his lungs with the night’s dark pleas­ures, even as he reveled in the sud­den aroma of sul­fur, waft­ing to his nos­trils. He held both hands, palms out to the fire, and began to gather its heat. As the flame turned blue and began to swirl around his thick, knotty fin­gers, he chuckled deep in his raspy throat. “Have you not seen enough death and de­struc­tion for one week, Micah? Do you really want to join the ranks of Sir Henry and Wylan Jo­nas? Be­cause, trust me, it can be ar­ranged.” He spun around to face him then, his dark cloak flap­ping be­hind him, car­ried on a sud­den gust of cultic wind, and his body rose nearly four feet off the ground. As he hovered there, dangling in the air like a specter, his voice took on a grav­elly tone, and his corneas flashed white with fire.

Micah took a cau­tious step back.

That’s right
, Ra­fael thought,
run, little rab­bit. Go back to your hole and hide. Your ma­gic is paltry and in­sig­ni­fic­ant com­pared to
mine.

Micah held both hands up in front of him in a ges­ture of sup­plic­a­tion. “Hey, Ra­fael, for­get about it. I was just spout­ing off.” He gen­u­flec­ted with a guarded wave and prac­tic­ally bowed his head. “You know I was just foolin’ around. I mean, who would wanna take on a high mage? Let’s sit down, have some more chicken.”

The high mage spat at Micah’s feet, and elec­tric sparks rose from the spittle, dan­cing about the ground like little min­ions seek­ing Micah’s toes. “Are you sure, Mr. Fiske?”

Micah nod­ded co­pi­ously. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.” He lowered his eyes and snorted, search­ing for a way to swiftly change the sub­ject. “By the way, did I tell you? That girl we caught; she’s damn near roy­alty.”

Ra­fael raised his eye­brows, des­cen­ded from the air, and planted his feet firmly on the ground. “What do you mean,
she’s damn near
roy­alty
?”

Micah met Ra­fael’s eyes and forced him­self to hold the mage’s gaze. “She’s the sis­ter of one of those Ahavi wenches, one that ac­tu­ally got chosen for the mat­ing. I think—”

Ra­fael held out his hand to si­lence him, sud­denly con­sumed with rage. He closed his fin­gers into a tight fist, con­strict­ing the war­lock’s heart in the pro­cess, and then tightened his grip on the male’s aorta from the other side of the fire. “Are you in­sane? Are you ab­so­lutely daft?”

Micah clutched at his chest and staggered back­ward. “What the hell did I do now?”

“What the hell did you do now?” He re­leased Micah’s heart be­fore the male fell down, dead, and could no longer an­swer his ques­tions. “
What the hell did you do now
? You took the sis­ter of a Sk­la­vos Ahavi to be sold as a slave—to a shadow-walker! Did it not oc­cur to you that word of her plight might get back to her sis­ter?”

“So!” Micah shouted, his eyes wild with fear. “
So what?
The girl’s a peas­ant,
a slave
, and so is her royal sis­ter, if you wanna tell the truth.” He gasped for air and rubbed his chest in slow, des­per­ate circles. “Sure, the kid will be a maid and a cook for a while, but we all know why the shadow really wants her, to strap her to his bed and plant little shadow-walk­ers in­side her someday. And that’s the same damn reason the prince has her sis­ter.” He fi­nally caught his breath, and his voice rose with con­vic­tion. “Oh, it might be some royal settee—or a feather-stuffed mat­tress—that the dragon straps her sis­ter to, but the end res­ult is the same. They’re chat­tel. What the heck is your prob­lem, Ra­fael? Money is money, and the girl is pretty—she’s go­ing to fetch a large coin. I got you fif­teen cop­pers. ”

Ra­fael shook his head in dis­gust, try­ing des­per­ately to con­trol his tem­per. “I swear, one of these days…” His voice trailed off and he licked his lips. And then he turned to re­gard Robert, the male who had found a buyer, be­fore ad­dress­ing the worth­less idiot again. “You’re not wait­ing to un­load her. I want you to go with Micah, and I want the two of you to head out now.”

Micah looked off into the dis­tant forest and frowned. “Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Get the girl, and take her to Um­bras.
Now.
Sell her to this Syr­ileus Cain be­fore the week is over. Do you hear me?”

Micah popped his neck on his shoulders as if try­ing to re­lieve some stress. “Shit.” He leveled a cross­wise glance at Robert and winced in apo­logy. “Yeah, I hear you.”

Ra­fael raised his hand and seized the war­lock’s heart a second time, just to be­labor his point. As Micah doubled over in pain, Ra­fael hissed his next words with venom. “I am not play­ing around with you, Micah. Get rid of her.
Now
!”

Micah clenched his fists over his heart and nod­ded pro­fusely, sweat pour­ing from his tor­tured brow. His face was con­tor­ted in pain, and his cheeks were drenched in rivu­lets of an­guish and fear. “Okay. Okay. Let me go.” He huffed between words, and then he staggered back­ward, fell to the ground, and writhed in the dirt un­til Ra­fael re­leased him.

He would either obey, or he would die.

The time for talk­ing was over.

As Micah Fiske struggled to his knees, re­trieved his trav­el­ing sack from the hol­low of a nearby tree, and headed to­ward the make­shift cor­ral to un­tether his horse, Robert got up to join him. “I’ll see you in a couple days, Ra­fael,” the wiser war­lock muttered.

Ra­fael in­clined his head in re­sponse, and then he watched his co­horts scamper away.

He didn’t really per­ceive any danger.

After all, the girl would dis­ap­pear into the south­west­ern moun­tains of Um­bras, never to be seen again, just so long as Micah did as he was told.

Still, it had been so stu­pid and care­less.

What if Castle Dragon got wind of it?

What if his own wicked mis­tress, Wavani, the king’s witch, some­how sensed it and began to ques­tion her per­sonal in­volve­ment in the slave trade? As it stood, she was dif­fi­cult to con­tain, already.

Why barter for trouble when you didn’t have to?

The realm was full of young, vir­ginal girls, just ready to be sac­ri­ficed, vi­ol­ated, or sold, if not to the shades or other war­locks, then to the Lycanian shifters across the sea. There was no point in tempt­ing fate by tak­ing the sis­ter of a Sk­la­vos Ahavi. One never knew when some­thing un­ex­pec­ted might oc­cur, when un­in­ten­ded paths might cross.

All Ra­fael knew was that he was far wiser than Sir Henry Wood­son and far more care­ful than Micah Fiske. He had no in­ten­tions of draw­ing the at­ten­tion of a dragon prince to their little prof­it­able slave trade, nor did he in­tend to suf­fer any fools, not a mo­ment longer than he had to.

When Micah Fiske re­turned from selling the girl, Ra­fael would kill him.

He would cap­ture his soul, trap it in a bottle, and sell it to the shades as an ed­ible del­ic­acy on his next trip to Um­bras.

As he watched the war­locks take their mounts and head off in the dir­ec­tion of the cage that tem­por­ar­ily housed the girl, he snarled.