The Queen's Dance (Emerging Queens) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Margery came to with the sun on her face and the wind caressing her back. She didn’t open her eyes yet, feigning unconsciousness while she took stock of the situation. The weighted net still held her immobile on a sun-warmed platform. Whoever had kidnapped her this time knew their stuff. They wanted her alive.

“Remy,” she called out mentally. Then she realized Remy was either dead or recovering from being smashed into the ground from thirty thousand feet in the air. Pain racked her, and she stifled a sob. Why had she listened to her sister? Why hadn’t they taken his truck? Remy would still be alive if they’d just driven to Long Island.

“She’s awake,” a man’s voice said from a few yards away.

I am invisible.

“It’s a neat trick, but you can’t hide your mass under the net. So there is an invisible dragon shape where my Queen once was,” another voice said.

Margery opened her eyes and squinted up at her captors. She recognized Smythe from the files she’d read, but she didn’t recognize the two hard-faced mercenaries standing next to him. “You don’t think you’re going to get away with this, do you?” she said with more bravado than she felt.

“Your consort is dead. He fought well. He took out one of my men. It’s impressive for a lead balloon.”

Oh, Remy.
She wouldn’t let these bastards see her cry, but she couldn’t stop her lower lip from trembling or the hot pain in her heart that sent tears to her eyes.

“On the other hand, your protector is overseas singing love ballads to women who will line up to have his babies. He isn’t even thinking of you right now. And your guards are over five hours away, even if they knew where you were,” Smythe said while the mercenaries just glared at her.

“They’ll come looking for me.”
Eventually. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

“And they won’t find you. Viktor and Cesar will be taking you back to one of their lairs until Sebastian sees fit to give up a crate of the 187-5 pills. I’ve made a point of not knowing where these two studs are from or if those are even their real names.”

“How can you trust them, then?” She fought to keep her voice from shaking.

“We’ll be splitting the pills three ways. I assure you, they’ll do anything for a chance to have a harem of pregnant women.”

“But they might not be compatible. The women need to be tested first. And you don’t have to do this. Just petition the Order and they’ll test your mistresses.”

One of the mercenaries snorted. “I’ve been waiting years.”

“This drug will kill any woman who isn’t compatible and who doesn’t have proper medical care.” No response. She tried another tactic. “Besides, there are hundreds of Queens emerging. Wouldn’t you rather have a mate?”

“A mate?” Smythe snorted. “I’ve waited a thousand years. Served brutal Queens I would just as soon have seen dead. I want nothing to do with Queens.”

“What about you two?” Margery asked, trying not to flinch from the rabid dislike in their eyes.

“They’re not too fond of Queens, either. But perhaps you could sweeten their disposition if you bear them sons.”

“No.” Margery recoiled. She shifted back to human, and instead of trying to duck under the weighted net as it tightened to fit her new shape, she pulled out her cell phone.

“Why the hell does she still have that?” Smythe snarled.

“She didn’t have it when she was flying.” The two goons rushed toward her, pulling the net up and scrambling for her.

Margery triggered her social media accounts. “Smythe has kidnapped me. Send help.”

“Stop her. Get that away from her.”

She curled into a fetal position, glad to be free of the net but knowing she didn’t have a lot of time to get her message out. Scurrying back brought her a few more precious seconds to publish her messages.

“He wants to trade me for a carton of BabyDragon. I want him and his goons Viktor and Cesar stopped.”

“You’ll be dead long before we are,” Viktor said, grabbing her by her shoulders. She kicked out at him, but he dodged and threw her against the wall. Cesar smacked her phone out of her hand and crushed it under his foot.

Shifting, she took a running start to jump off the building, but Viktor in his full Celtic form slammed her to the ground like swatting a fly.

Oh, shit, that hurt.
Her head spun from the impact, and she thought he’d cracked one of her ribs.

“Take her and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Cesar threw the net over her again. She screamed as the electricity short-circuited her brain. The net collapsed around her, trapping her inside. In the haze of her pain, the sunlight parted, and she saw Casimiro flying in fast with Remy, in human form, on his back. She convulsed in laughter. The shit her mind came up with. At least she got to see Remy again, if only in her hallucinations. But when she blinked to clear the image, not only were they still there, they were in striking distance.

“What the hell are you laughing at, bitch?” Cesar said, kicking her in the ribs.

“Your death, motherfucker.” Remy leaped, shifting midair to slam into the Celtic.

Casimiro dived into Cesar.

She pulled with all her strength, but she couldn’t remove the damned weighted net that was wrapped around her. The sounds of battle assaulted her ears: growls, snapping, and flesh being rent with claws and teeth. The smell of blood gagged her.

“Watch out for Smythe,” she shouted as his dragon form blotted out the sun. But instead of joining the fray, he snagged her net in his claws and dragged her off the roof with him.

“Remy,” she screamed as he dived for them.

“Are you insane?” Smythe said as Remy clamped his mouth on his neck. The three of them plummeted toward the parking lot, where media vans and cars were screeching in to film the fiasco. The power of social media at work. She was on her way to starting another riot. Smythe’s wings flapped, but Remy was too heavy and they plunged for the ground.

So he dropped her.

Margery kicked and struggled, but she couldn’t get the net off. Remy released Smythe and snagged the net in his teeth, biting through it. Lightning arced around him as he flung it off her.

“Your turn to save me,” he said, shifting to human.

She caught him in her claws and winged up seconds before they smashed into the pavement.

“I am a lover, not a fighter,” Casimiro shouted from the rooftop down at them.

Easing them to the ground, Margery shifted and flung herself into Remy’s arms. “I love you. I thought you were dead. I wanted to die, too.”

“A little help here. I’m outnumbered,” Casimiro called out.

A team from the dragon embassy flew overhead.

“I’m not leaving you,” Remy said between kisses. “Not ever. I love you, my Queen.”

The cameras were rolling while they kissed.

“Isn’t anyone going to notice my bravery up here?” Casimiro called down. “Hello?”

Epilogue

When Margery kicked in the door of her old home, she scared the shit out of her stepfather. Literally. But Carla wasn’t there, and he hadn’t seen the “quote little whore unquote” in months. After Casimiro threw him into a wall, Remy had quiet words with him that evacuated the rest of his bowels.

It wasn’t until Reed’s strike team took down Smythe’s lair brick by brick that they found his harem. Carla was one of them. She hadn’t been lying. She was pregnant, and Smythe was the boyfriend Carla had told her about. He had dug into Margery’s past and courted her sister in case he ever needed to use her as leverage. Smythe had forced Carla to call her so he could set up his trap.

Remy pulled some strings, and soon Carla was on a plane to Nessie and Sebastian. They said they would make sure she survived, no matter what.

Smythe escaped.

But Margery made sure that he was the most hated dragon in the world. She wrote a firsthand account of her capture for all the worlds’ papers and then interviewed the women of his harem. He’d be found—it was just a matter of time and patience. The elder Queens gave Smythe a thumbs-down, which, like in Roman times, meant he was a dead man. The new Queens were being a little more proactive. Viola was trying to fine-tune her weave powers so she could track studs as well as Queens. After all, Smythe had taken off with her pension—not that she needed it, but she had slotted it for more yarn.

Margery dragged Remy to Maui for Christmas to visit Bella and her little girl, but really it was to escape the Vermont winter. The New Year brought Frieda’s son and Lisa’s son into the world. But it wasn’t an easy birth for either mother or hatchlings, and they remained under doctors’ care until they gained strength.

And Casimiro got great press on his new album featuring a love song about opposites finding out they’re soul mates. It went triple platinum.

Famous Queens

Before the events in
The Queen’s Wings
, there were only five female dragons left in the world. They are referred to as the elder Queens and held the following territories.

Cassandra—Ireland, Scotland, and Wales

Lerisse—France, Italy, India, and Africa

Esmeralda—North and South America

Choyo—Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Japan

Hui Zhong—Russia and China

After the events in
The Queen’s Wings
, hundreds of Queens who were suppressed from shifting into dragons at puberty were released.

Carolyn chose consort Reed (
The Queen’s Wings
). Temporary territory, Connecticut, USA.

Arianna chose consort Jack (
The Queen’s Wings
). Temporary territory, New York, USA.

Viola chose consort Sergei (
The Queen’s Flight
). Temporary territory, Greenland, with land rights in Vermont, USA.

Bianca chose consort Byron (
The Queen’s Mystery
). Temporary territory, Rhode Island, USA.

After the events in
The Queen’s Flight
, half the emerging Queens are missing and others are being hosted by the elder Queens or in Esmeralda’s territory until the Queens’ conclave at the top of Mount Everest. Here are the found Queens and their locations.

Dierdre chose consort Fontaine (
The Queen’s Plight
). Temporary territory, Washington, DC, and Virginia, USA.

Margery chose consort Remy, aka Champ (
The Queen’s Dance
). Temporary territory, Vermont, USA.

Mei Hua chose human protector Joachim (
The Queen’s Choice
), director of the Order of Dragon Slayers. Temporary territory, New Jersey, USA. Land rights in Italy via the Order.

Queens who are being housed in Cassandra’s keep in Ireland: Idira, Nalia, Marisol, Adanna, Eva, Zoe, Sofia, Rika, Xiaoling, Miriam.

After the events in
The Queen’s Dance
:

Nessie and twenty-five Queens who shifted midcurse—South Keeling Islands, Australia.

Bella chose consort Lane. Temporary territory, the island of Maui, Hawaii, USA.

The unattached studs:

Casimiro—A famous Latin singer, this dragon shaman can seduce human women through his magic. He is Margery’s protector, much to Remy’s disgust.

Niall—The Great Wyrm of Yale spends most of his time in his research and hasn’t a preference to play the Queen game—for himself, anyway. He’s very interested in seeing his sons, Reed, Byron, and Fontaine, happily settled.

Justice—White Celtic dragon, formerly protector of Queen Cassandra’s court. Mated to Amaranthe, who is unfortunately possessing Viola’s white horse’s head when she is in dragon form.

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Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my wonderful agent, Louise Fury, and the fabulous team at Entangled Publishing.

About the Author

USA Today
best-selling author
Jamie K. Schmidt
writes erotic contemporary love stories and paranormal romances. Her Club Inferno series from Random House’s Loveswept line has hit both the Amazon and Barnes & Noble top one hundred lists. She has two other series with Loveswept: Hawaii Heat, in which the first book,
Life’s a Beach
, is the perfect staycation to Maui, and
The Sentinels of Babylon
, about members of a vigilante motorcycle club and their old ladies. Her dragon paranormal romance series from Entangled Publishing has been called “fun and quirky” and “endearing.” Partnered with
New York Times
best-selling author and former porn actress Jenna Jameson, Jamie’s hardcover debut,
Spice
, continues Jenna’s Fate trilogy.

An avid knitter and jewelry maker, Jamie is never bored. She can often be found with a mug of tea on the computer flanked by her little dogs and fluffy white cat. You can follow her on twitter at @Jamiekswriter or on her author page on Facebook. When she’s not writing or crafting, Jamie loves playing games, everything from board games to strategy card games, console and online MMORPGs.

http://jamiekschmidt.weebly.com/

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