The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) (12 page)

I should have run. I should have used the pitiful dregs of magic left to me to vanish. But I did neither. I stood as still as a statue as he unfurled his clawed foot and snatched me up.

And before I knew it I was hundreds of feet up in the sky and panicking as I clung to him for all I was worth. Praying the foolish devil would not drop me.

I’d not seen him in ages. In fact, the last time I had, the situation had been less than ideal. Times had changed and so had we.

Unsure of this situation, myself, or him, I felt...not fear, but anger. And a prickling of something deeper, something that if I let the emotion in, I knew I would drown in it.

So I shut it all off, the emotions that could sometimes paralyze me, and thought not on our past, but on this moment only.

“What are you doing!” I snapped at him, knowing full well he could hear me even above the din of the wind rushing through his ears.

But he only continued to fly, not answering me. After a minute, the sensation that I would smack to the forest floor below began to ease, and I was able to slowly peek between his claws, gasping in awe at how beautiful everything was up here and remembering the one and only fateful trip I’d taken once before. Everything had been so different then.

Wonderland spread out before me like a bejeweled feast for the eyes. Up here, the colors of the leaves were richer, the haunted and twisted forests seemed not quite so macabre, and the creatures inhabiting it little more than tiny moving dots.

Once I realized he clearly had no intention of letting me die, I slowly eased my hold on his claw and sat, dangling my legs between the cracks and kicking them back and forth in the balmy breeze.

It should feel much colder up here, but I was sure his heat was shielding me from the effects of being so high. Soon we were out of wonderland and soaring along the seren seas coastline.

Here the world looked far more mundane and “normal” than in wonderland. But there was beauty in this part of Kingdom too. The waters shimmered a pearlescent green, and multiple rainbows arched across the sparkling sea.

Calypso was clearly still a happy woman. The thought brought a pang to my chest, it was an emotion I quickly squelched.

Finally, after who knew how long, I felt us descending, heading toward the highest peak of Goblin Mountain. Normally, I’d never venture this far north into Kingdom, even with my powers. Goblins were terrifying and territorial creatures, but I was with a brawny dragonborne. No one would dare to bother us.

And for just a moment, I remembered what it felt like to feel safe and protected from the wilds of this world. For so long I’d been alone, with only my wiles, charms, and magic to protect me.

His claws opened, and I was freed from my cave. Only then did it dawn on me that he’d taken me out of wonderland. A place he’d known before I could never dare to leave without threat of serious harm to my person. I did not know Ragoth well anymore, but I had to wonder if he’d been checking in on me the same way I’d been checking in on him.

Once, he’d have died at the thought of bringing me harm. Surely, somewhere deep inside that caring dragon still existed?

My pulse sped.

Stepping out, I dusted at my now very wrinkled dress and waited for his transformation.

I knew he had things to say and would not wish to say them in dragon form. But before he turned, I soaked him in. I’d forgotten how beautiful his true form was. The pearly white of his scales, the veiny blue phosphorescence of veins that cut through his wings. And the slitted blue-green eyes that reminded me of the waters to the right of us.

A moment later he was cast in white flame. I had to toss an arm across my eyes to shield them from the intense light. But I knew the moment he’d changed when I heard his inhalation.

That’s when the fury took me.

Stepping up to him, I opened my eyes, and without so much as a hint of warning, I slapped him so hard across his cheek the mountain range echoed with the sound of it.

His jeweled eyes widened in shock as a scarlet bloom blossomed upon his dark-skinned cheek. And for just a minute I froze, because Ragoth was more beautiful than I could ever have imagined him being.

His hair had grown long and shaggy, hanging down to his shoulders. His jaw was covered in bristles, hinting at the beginnings of a beard. But his skin gleamed like rich mahogany. He’d also grown well into his body. He was tall, muscular, and made my skin tingle with a sensation I’d only ever experienced once before.

True desire.

I swallowed hard, feeling suddenly and stiflingly hot. Angered by my reaction to him, I snapped.

“How...how dare you steal me! I should flay you for your—”

“Shut up,” he growled in a voice twice as deep as I remembered it being, and with a hungry sounding groan, he grabbed me by my shoulders and dragged me into his chest, claiming my lips for his own.

Terrified that I would feel them light in flame as they had last time, I beat at his chest, but that lasted less than a second when it soon dawned on me that all I felt was hunger for more.

Desperate for more and yet still very angry at him, I clawed at his head as I swiped my tongue along the seam of his lips.

“Bloody hell, woman,” he snarled, nipping at my bottom lip and making me whimper in response.

Our tongues mated. Slipping and sliding along each other’s, the kiss wet and demanding and brutally unyielding as his sharp teeth would pierce through my tongue, making me taste blood that I wasn’t entirely certain was just my own.

There was a violence to this kiss that wasn’t natural, I was sure of it. But I also knew I could not be the first one to end this. I needed this. Needed the taste of him. The feel of him. I’d been dead. For so long devoid of any and all emotion, shutting myself off to the world.

But now... Now I felt
alive
.

I gasped when his hands shoved my bodice down, ripping the fabric and corset, exposing my breasts and nipples to the breeze. I keened when his thumbs rubbed frantically across the tight buds. Lightning whipped through my veins, stirred in my blood, made my skin feel like it sparked and snapped like dancing flame.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I tried to remind myself that I should not be doing this. I was a queen, I had responsibilities, I needed to—

“Lena.” His voice cracked when he finally pulled away. His face flushed, his chest heaving, looking as dazed and disheveled as I felt.

I couldn’t quite seem to catch my breath either. When I glanced down, I noticed the only clothing I wore on my torso wasn’t clothes at all, but his hands on my breasts.

The sight of his dark, dark hands covering my pale globes snapped me out of the haze I’d been in. I growled, but this time when I tried to slap him again, he grabbed my wrist and said, “Don’t even think about it, woman.”

“How dare you! How could you—” I slammed my palms against his heavy-as-steel chest, shoving him back not even a smidge. Which only made me angrier.

When had the beast gotten to be such a...a man?

“The king has died; I claim you by right!” He thrust his face into mine, his visage angry but his eyes still gleaming hungrily.

I was not ashamed to admit to myself that having the penetrating stare of a fully pledged dragonborne bearing down on me had my pulse quivering. He could rip me limb from limb if he wanted to. Even with my powers, I was not physically much of a match against him.

Once, I’d have been certain he would not hurt me. But I didn’t know Ragoth at all anymore. All I knew was this: he’d snatched me up from a funeral procession, ripped my clothes off my chest, and had groped me.

“You stupid, selfish, unfeeling boy!”

A rumbling growl vibrated through his barrel chest. “Call me a boy again, Lena, and I will—”

“What?” I notched my chin, giving him a glacial, frosty stare, very much aware that he’d still not taken his hands off my breasts. I hated to admit that I enjoyed his touch. “You will do what to me exactly? Eat me? Roast me? Take me up to the heavens and drop me? What exactly will you do?”

Over the years I’d perfected one art form very well, and that was my ability to come across as cruel, unfeeling, and unflinchingly cold. He heard it now and shook his head with a confused expression on his face.

“What is this?” he grumped. “I saved you. I—”

“You’ve done no such thing.” I sniffed, gathering up the tattered edges of my gown and tying them around me as best I could. He’d made me burn under his touch, made me want and feel things I’d not felt since that day I’d tried to run away with him. The day I’d felt the highest of highs only to come crashing down to the very depths of despair soon after. But I was a woman now. A queen, and what he’d done had been wholly unacceptable. “I am burying my husband. Take me back, Ragoth. Now.”

His nostrils flared, and I could imagine there was steam rolling through his lungs. He quivered with anger.

I merely twitched a brow.

“I kissed you. You kissed me back.” He pounded his chest.

“Yes. And?” I crossed my arms, tapping my slippered foot. “Did you think you could come out here and have relations with me? Is that it?”

I laughed.

He glowered. Shoving twin fingers through his thick hair, he visibly swallowed. As though swallowing words he wasn’t quite sure he should speak into life.

And for just a second I wanted him to deny it. I wanted the hero of my young heart to be the pure, wonderful creature I remembered him being. The white knight who’d done anything and everything for me. The boy-man who’d treated me like his greatest treasure, who’d cherished me, and had made me feel and know love.

But when he shook his head and laughed, leering at my body with heat and lust still twinkling in his sea-glass eyes, I knew that that boy and this man were no longer one and the same.

He’d changed. Just as I had.

And that thought felt like a knife twisting through my soul.

Wiping his mouth with his fingers, he shrugged. “I’ve heard the rumors of you, queen of hearts. ‘Off with his head,’” he sneered. “Tell me, love, how many heads have rolled for your avarice? How many men have you used to get where you’re at?”

I gasped, and this time, I used my magic and not my hand to slap him. Slamming a wall of it against him so violently that he rocked back on his heels and was in very real danger of losing his footing.

A slide of rocks tumbled down the cliff face.

“How dare you? You know nothing of me.”

He rubbed at his chest, his palm open and mechanically moving up and down. Eyes narrowing, he sneered, “I know you let him into your body. I know you let others in there too. I know you—”

“You left me!” I screamed, saying words I’d had no thought of saying. “You left me with him!”

He shook his head, as though denying it, but pain I hadn’t known still existed came pouring out of me—a flood of it that threatened to drown me.

“You left me and I wanted to die. You have no idea...no idea how awful...”

Realizing I was about to confess all to him, I sucked in a breath and turned my face to the side. Fighting back the tears for all I was worth. I would not let him see me cry.

I knew why he’d left. I knew we couldn’t be together, but as irrational as it was, a part of me blamed him for leaving me as he had. And the worst of it was, I hadn’t realized that until now.

“Lena, I—” Devastation scrawled a path through every corner of his face and I couldn’t bear to look at him any longer.

Without finishing that thought, he roared, I knew immediately to shut my eyes as the tear-inducing flames of his transformation enveloped him. In seconds I was once again snatched up by his large claws and trapped within them.

“You...you beast!” I screeched at him. But he was unrelenting in his anger, and again without speaking, he flew us back toward wonderland.

I could hate him. Hate him easily. Despise the man he’d become. The drunkard and the wastrel I knew he now was. He’d not been the only one to keep up on the goings on. In rare moments of deepest melancholy I’d call a looking glass to me and watch him. But when I’d seen one nymph after another after another take and taste of his body, I’d stopped peeking. Stopped spying on him. I’d released him to his avarice, and I’d given into my own.

Yes, I’d slept around, and no, it was none of his business.

The king and I had had an understanding. We hated each other, so why not seek comfort where comfort could be sought? I’d used the men, but willingly. Never without consent, and always with the understanding that it was little more than meeting the needs of the flesh.

Ragoth returned me to where he’d snatched me up from in the first place; he didn’t transform back to human or speak another word to me. But he did stare at me, as though he could see through the mask, see straight into my very soul, and in that moment, I hated him for making me feel so horribly vulnerable.

And then, just like that, he’d gone. Flown off and faded into the distance.

The paid mourners and most of the citizenry had left by this point. We’d been gone maybe an hour, but without me here, there’d clearly been no reason to remain. The only ones who had stayed behind were my loyal Druscella and a few members of my staff.

The king’s casket sat inside the grave, adorned with the finest of wealth and jewels from all parts of Kingdom. But it struck me then, in a bizarre sort of way, that for all his wealth and power, at the end of the day he was merely a corpse in a hole with no one left to mourn him.

Not even I, his wife.

I hugged my arms to my chest, ignoring the fact that I basically wore a shredded gown barely hanging on. No one was around to see me like this, and those who were would never breathe a word.

And not out of loyalty to me, not really. I was a realist. They didn’t speak, because they understood reprisals would be swift and brutal. Or so it would once have been.

I feared I no longer really knew myself.

I hadn’t seen Druscella move in toward me until suddenly I was draped in a fur coat of crimson chinchilla. Nodding my thanks at the only person in this world I considered a friend anymore, I murmured, “Where have they all gone?”