Dragons Realm (3 page)

She sighed in ex­as­per­a­tion and more than a little de­feat, and then she con­tin­ued to stand per­fectly still. “Please, just move your fin­gers down…a little…
please
.”

He grasped her tighter and moved them higher. “No.”

She trembled, but she didn’t fight him.

“That’s it, sweet Mina. Just breathe. And re­lax. And
listen
.”

Her chest rose and fell like a tur­bu­lent ocean tide, fluc­tu­at­ing with every breath.

“If Damian had chosen you, you would be dead right now.” His voice was an icy re­buke. “Do you un­der­stand what I am say­ing? He is not a pa­tient dragon. He is not a moral prince.”

Her ears perked up as she tried to pro­cess his words. “Is he crueler than you?”

Dante laughed, and it was a haunt­ing, wicked sound. “Damian would just as soon be­head you as wed you. What he would have already done to you in this field would take months to re­cover from, if, in­deed, you ever did.”

Mina cringed. “And Drake?”

“Drake is not Damian. He is as noble as our kind can be, but he has no heart for war, no mind for elab­or­ate strategy, no ima­gin­a­tion for the schemes of our en­emies. He can­not pro­tect you from the threats within this realm, and there are many.”

Mina shivered. “And you wish to
pro­tect
me?” she scoffed.

“I wish to pos­sess you—it is one and the same for a dragon.”

Mina shook her head, still strug­gling to re­main calm, to un­der­stand what he was try­ing to tell her: How could he pos­sibly make a dis­tinc­tion between him­self and his broth­ers? “You are all dragons.”

“Yes,” Dante agreed. “And that is why you must pro­ceed with cau­tion.” When she didn’t re­spond, he con­tin­ued: “When you run, sweet Mina, the
dragon
gives chase. When you tell him
no
, he im­poses
yes
. When you tell him he can­not have you, he
needs
to dom­in­ate you. He is not hu­man. He does not think or reason. He is mas­ter of this realm, and if you tell him he is not, he will show you oth­er­wise. Do you un­der­stand what I am say­ing?”

Mina sup­pressed a reser­voir of mount­ing fears and tried to simply con­cen­trate on Dante’s words. It wasn’t as if she had not heard them be­fore, dozens of times, while be­ing reared in the Keep: Dragons were pred­at­ory an­im­als, beasts of in­stinct. They ruled with ab­so­lute power; re­sor­ted to force whenever they were de­fied; and ex­ac­ted justice, swiftly and without mercy. They were power­ful bey­ond meas­ure, ruth­less without re­straint, and cun­ning without equal. She knew all of this, bet­ter than most. Still, she had not made the con­nec­tion when it came to a dragon lord and his Sk­la­vos Ahavi. Some­how, she had be­lieved they would pos­sess a gentler nature when it came to their fe­males, their breed mates, their fu­tures.

At least she had hoped…un­til now.

“So, when I ques­tion you, the beast re­sponds?”

“He rises to the sur­face
quickly,
dear Mina.”

“And when I tell him not to touch me—”

“He wishes only to force your sub­mis­sion.”

She swal­lowed a lump in her throat. “And when I run…”

“He will
al­ways
pur­sue you.”

“And if I fight him?”

“He could hurt you.”

“And you?”

“I am a dragon.”

“Never a man?”

“I am
try­ing
to be a man as well as a prince.” He spoke in a gut­tural snarl. “Only now. Only here. Only
for
you
.”

Mina fi­nally un­der­stood.

And once she did, she re­cog­nized Dante’s fe­ro­city for what it was, an in­ternal war between the prince and his beast. The hands that trembled, yet still re­mained
be­neath
her breasts; the voice that rose and fell with dom­in­ance, re­flect­ing tenu­ous con­trol; the al­pha creature that in­sisted upon her obed­i­ence—all were be­holden to the dragon. “For­give me, mi­lord,” she whispered.

“For what?” he said as his body stiffened.

“For my in­solence and de­fi­ance. For dis­pleas­ing you.”

“Do not toy with me, Mina.” His voice was laced with gla­cial warn­ing.

Mina heard him clearly, the words be­neath the words. “Is he close?” she asked, re­fer­ring to his beast, not know­ing if she really wanted the an­swer.

“So…
very
…close,” he said softly.

Mina forced her hands to her side, ig­nor­ing the prox­im­ity of Dante’s thumbs to her most in­tim­ate ana­tomy. She in­haled deeply and tried to con­cen­trate on some­thing—
any­thing
—that would bring her mind back to a peace­ful state: the color of freshly bloomed tulips in the spring, the sound of the Dra­conem River as it swept through the
com­mon­lands
val­ley; Raylea’s laughter, and the joy her little sis­ter had brought her, be­fore she had been taken to the Keep.

Dante’s muscles began to re­lax and his iron hold softened.

She leaned back into him, giv­ing way to the sub­mis­sion he craved, and he breathed an aud­ible sigh of re­lief.

When, at last, he let go, he spun her around to face him. “Kiss me, Mina.” It was as much a need as a test. The dragon was still angry, still search­ing for con­trol.

Mina stepped for­ward into his arms, rose up onto her toes, and pressed her lips lightly to his, fol­low­ing the swirl of his tongue as it gently swept the out­line of her lips. He growled—that
had
been him earlier—and then he backed away. “You are mine, Mina.” Des­pite his bur­geon­ing self-con­trol, he snarled.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Your Sk­la­vos Ahavi.”

“And when the au­tumn leaves turn, and the king gives you to me, I
will
take you in every way.”

She gulped. “Un­til then?” If her words had been any more hushed, they would have merely been thoughts.

“You will come at my com­mand. You will do as I please. And you will ac­cept my feed­ing as well as my touch.”

Mina didn’t reply, but she did hold his gaze.

At least that was some­thing.

“And you will stay clear of Damian as much as pos­sible,” he ad­ded. “He also has the right to com­mand you, so heed my warn­ing, Mina. If you dis­please him, he will kill you be­fore the Au­tumn Mat­ing. And no one will pun­ish him for the deed.”

Mina nod­ded, un­der­stand­ing, as grave as the real­ity might be. “And Pralina? Is she also a threat?”

He tilted his head, con­sid­er­ing her ques­tion. “She can be, but not like Damian.”

Mina bit her bot­tom lip. “Any­one else?”

“Oh,” Dante said, “
every­one
else: the war­locks in the east; the
shades
in the west; the an­cient Malo Clan of my father’s en­emies; the castle ser­vants, when they are jeal­ous or be­ing petty; the Lycani­ans across the sea; and Wavani, the witch. You were pro­tec­ted at the Keep, and now you are here at Castle Dragon. You are on your own for the next five months.”

Mina dropped her head in des­pair, even as she nod­ded with grow­ing aware­ness. “And that is why you wished to show me fruit and flowers…and places to
hide
.”

He looked off into the dis­tance, and his si­lence said it all.

“Is there no one I can trust?”

“Oh, there are al­ways ser­vants you can trust, but their loy­alty ebbs and flows; how­ever, there is one who will al­ways re­main faith­ful: Thomas the Squire, a nine-year-old boy who has been with us since he was orphaned at age two. His al­le­gi­ance is not
en­tirely
with my father.”

Mina didn’t dare ask what that meant. Surely, Dante Dragona was loyal to the king, without ques­tion or hes­it­a­tion, but then why did he speak so cryptic­ally about this squire? She curt­sied as she had been taught in the Keep. “Thank you,” she said, not know­ing what else to say.

He took a meas­ured step for­ward, but only halfway. “Come to me.” He crooked his pointer and middle fin­gers in a mi­cro­scopic ges­ture, much like he had done earlier.

Mina stepped slowly for­ward un­til her toes were touch­ing his. She looked into his eyes and held his pen­et­rat­ing gaze.

He stared at her so in­tently, it was al­most hyp­notic. And then he ran his fin­gers through her hair, traced her jawline with his thumb, and trailed the back of his hand lightly along her throat, across her col­lar­bone, and over her breasts, stop­ping to trace the out­line of each are­ola.

She shivered and gasped, but she didn’t protest. Her heart poun­ded in her chest, and she willed it to slow down.

“Don’t ever for­get what I am, Mina,” he said in a chilling voice. And then, much like he had done with Pralina, he straightened, shrugged his regal shoulders, and in­clined his head. He was all at once as calm, clear, and steady as a crys­tal pond.

He whistled for the horses, and the two mag­ni­fi­cent beasts pranced eagerly to their lord’s side. He ges­tured to­ward the white geld­ing and nod­ded, re­turn­ing to his ori­ginal in­tent. “Take your mount, Mina.”

As be­fore, his voice was a quiet com­mand.

Chapter Three

D
ante Dragona sat
back in the well-worn saddle, ad­just­ing his weight to flow ef­fort­lessly with the power­ful gait of his majestic horse. He was deep in thought, try­ing to pre­pare him­self for what was soon to come: the ex­e­cu­tion of two War­lo­chian traders at Dante’s hands. His royal broth­ers, Damian and Drake, fell into an easy pace be­side him, both of their mounts pran­cing ex­citedly be­neath their im­per­ial riders, as if sens­ing the drama to come.

He stared ahead at the wind­ing path, con­sid­er­ing the state of the Realm and the role he was soon to play as the prince of a tu­mul­tu­ous provid­ence, won­der­ing at the wis­dom of his father’s in­ev­it­able de­crees…

King De­mitri had already chosen a rul­ing ter­rit­ory for each of his three sons: Damian was to be given the west­ern moun­tain ter­rit­ory of Um­bras, home of the treach­er­ous shadow-walk­ers, be­ings who as­sumed solid form in the day yet sank into the shad­ows like ghosts at night; Drake was to take the south­ern re­gion, or the
com­mon­lands
, where the mor­tal hu­mans made their home, in­clud­ing the de­vi­ous Malo Clan; and, of course, Dante was to reign over the war­locks and witches, with their in­fernal gar­goyle pets, es­tab­lish­ing a War­lo­chian Court in the east.

As far as Dante was con­cerned, the king’s choices made sense.

Damian was the most ag­gress­ive of the three, the an­gri­est by far, and he would rule with an iron fist, sub­jug­ate his cit­izens by force…and with fear. He would rule as a tyr­ant, yet his power would be re­spec­ted. After all, the shadow-walk­ers—or
shades
, as they were of­ten re­ferred to—were nearly soul­less be­ings who lived pre­dom­in­antly to sat­isfy their car­nal natures, to prey on the souls of oth­ers. They revered power and treach­ery above all else.

Drake, on the other hand, had a much more reasoned mind. He was a shrewd and de­lib­er­ate thinker, and as the prince of the
com­mon­lands
, he would rule with wis­dom and de­lib­er­a­tion. His tal­ents were best suited to a hu­man pop­u­la­tion, and it could only be hoped that he would man­age the Malo Clan with wis­dom and fin­esse.

And Dante?

Well, he was as per­cept­ive as he was cun­ning, not to be taken lightly or trifled with. His keen aware­ness of en­ergy, as well as his pro­fi­ciency with ma­gic, would give him the greatest ad­vant­age when work­ing with a race of be­ings who were al­ways up to witch­craft.

He shif­ted in his saddle once more and took spe­cial no­tice of the vivid green leaves as they rustled in the tall linden trees which lined the wind­ing path of Forest Dragon, the trade route that snaked from the royal dis­trict to the three out­lining provinces, ul­ti­mately com­pris­ing the Realm. The forest was es­pe­cially beau­ti­ful in May, alive with bril­liant col­ors, teem­ing with wild­life, and burst­ing with in­fin­ite prom­ise—it seemed strangely at odds with the ever-in­creas­ing bur­dens that weighed upon Dante’s shoulders like a cloak plaited in stones.

He glanced side­ways at Damian and sighed: The male’s mouth was set in a harsh, im­plac­able line,
as al­ways
, and his dark brown eyes, framed by a faint one-inch scar on his right temple, were prac­tic­ally brim­ming with an­ti­cip­a­tion, alight with eager­ness for the up­com­ing kill.

Damian was a loose can­non to put it mildly, and keep­ing him in line, or, rather, bal­an­cing his im­puls­ive, reck­less be­ha­vior with the mount­ing needs of the Realm would be one of Dante’s greatest chal­lenges. As much as it saddened Dante to ad­mit it, Damian could not be trus­ted, neither with his sub­jects nor his court. He was simply too dan­ger­ous,
too broken
, too hard to con­tain. He was the second-born child of King De­mitri and Queen Kalani—well, that is, if one didn’t count Des­mond, Dante’s twin, who had taken his own life nearly ten years ago—and he had been con­ceived in bru­tal­ity, nursed in black ma­gic.

The story was as tra­gic as it was im­port­ant…

One hun­dred fifty sum­mers ago, at age nine­teen, Dante’s twin Des­mond had fallen deeply in love with a simple peas­ant girl from the
com­mon­lands
. Her name had been Evan­geline Stone, and with eyes the color of pol­ished blue glass, hair the tex­ture of fine-spun silk, Des­mond had been pre­pared to give up everything he held dear in or­der to make Evan­geline his bride. Need­less to say, the late Queen Kalani was not pleased in the least. Not only was Evan­geline
be­neath
Des­mond’s sta­tion, as far as the haughty queen was con­cerned, but by choos­ing her as a bride, it would mean that Des­mond could not—
would not
—choose a Sk­la­vos Ahavi as his con­sort when the time came.

And that meant he would not be guar­an­teed royal male off­spring.

Al­though Queen Kalani had been the first Sk­la­vos Ahavi in the his­tory of the Realm to be el­ev­ated from the ser­vitude of
con­sort
to the status of
queen
—in fact, King De­mitri had gif­ted her with im­mor­tal­ity in or­der to make it pos­sible—she had re­paid the king’s gift
and his af­fec­tion
with bit­ter be­trayal.

She had ordered Evan­geline’s ex­e­cu­tion, and she had kept the or­der a secret un­til it was, at last, vi­ciously car­ried out.

The loss of his
be­loved
had cata­pul­ted Des­mond into an in­con­sol­able state of grief, and the real­iz­a­tion that his mother had ordered Evan­geline’s murder had ul­ti­mately pushed him over the edge. Alas, on a warm sum­mer’s night, be­neath the softly hanging branches of a sy­ca­more tree, just bey­ond the castle’s outer walls, Des­mond Dragona, second-born twin of the first royal birth, had con­sumed a vial of witches’ tonic in his des­ol­a­tion, and when that hadn’t worked fast enough, he had hanged him­self in the tree, thus tak­ing his own royal life.

Dante bristled at the memory, and his horse grew un­easy be­neath him, as if shar­ing the pain­ful re­col­lec­tion with him. Dante did not care to think about that fate­ful day, about the fact that he had not been there to save his twin, or about the truth of his mother and father’s so-called mar­riage, who they had truly been and what they all had be­come after Des­mond’s tra­gic death. To this day, King De­mitri re­mained a heart­less, va­cant shell as a res­ult of the sui­cide.

Dante turned his at­ten­tion back to Damian and what the tra­gic story meant for the Realm…

When the king found out what had tran­spired, he had flown into a vir­u­lent rage, his beast emer­ging with un­res­trained fe­ro­city, his tem­per flar­ing into mer­ci­less wrath: As far as King De­mitri was con­cerned, his queen, a Sk­la­vos Ahavi—
noth­ing more than a glor­i­fied slave
—had been handed the keys to the king­dom only to com­mit un­speak­able treason. She had gone be­hind his back and given a royal or­der, one she was not en­titled to give, and in that per­il­ous act of sedi­tion, she had cost the king his son. To this day, Dante didn’t know if Evan­geline’s death had ever meant any­thing to his father, or if his rage had only been fueled by his wounded pride…by a dragon’s need for re­venge.

Either way, the res­ults were the same.

He had pun­ished Kalani with a bru­tal beat­ing, and he had forced her to con­ceive an­other son, the coup­ling be­ing an act of vi­ol­a­tion, not love.

While it had been too late to re­tract her coron­a­tion or re­verse her im­mor­tal­ity, too late to re­move her from the throne, the king had with­drawn his af­fec­tion and his re­spect, and the wound had never healed for either one of them. In re­tali­ation, Kalani had cursed the un­born child. She had prac­ticed dark ma­gic through­out the preg­nancy, in hopes of giv­ing birth to an ally who would one day avenge her; but in­stead, she had given birth to Damian, a child without a con­science.

A prince without a moral com­pass.

A dragon with a tain­ted soul.

Two years later, the king had forced Kalani to con­ceive once again, and Drake was the res­ult of the pair­ing. Not long after Drake’s birth, she had died in her sleep. Ac­cord­ing to the king, her im­mor­tal­ity had not com­pletely taken—her con­ver­sion had not been prop­erly sealed—and the preg­nancy had weakened her bey­ond re­cov­ery.

Dante winced at the pathetic story.

Im­mor­tal be­ings didn’t pass away in their sleep.

In fact, it took a grave act of vi­ol­ence to kill them.

Either way, Drake had been the last child the em­bittered couple had ever pro­duced.

“Dante…
Dante
!” Drake’s voice pierced the si­lence, jolt­ing Dante out of his trance. “Are you alert, brother?”

Dante shook his head, as if he could phys­ic­ally dis­lodge the memor­ies, be­fore turn­ing his at­ten­tion to Drake. Drake was an­other re­spons­ib­il­ity al­to­gether—rather than be­ing born too wicked, he may have been born too kind. While he could cer­tainly hold his own as a prince and a dragon, he was hardly a tac­ti­cian of war. His Court would re­quire con­stant mil­it­ary sup­port and in­ter­ven­tion, even if it was only com­prised of hu­mans, and the Malo Clan might prove to be his un­do­ing if he didn’t re­main on his toes. “Yes, I can hear you,” he called in re­sponse. “What is it?”

Drake in­clined his head in a nod, ges­tur­ing to­ward the up­com­ing vil­lage. “We are ap­proach­ing War­lo­chia…and the pris­on­ers.”

“You need to stay alert, brother,” Damian snarled, rein­ing in his horse. “This should be done swiftly and with au­thor­ity.”

“Do not coun­sel me on how to rule my fu­ture province,” Dante re­tor­ted, avoid­ing eye con­tact with the surly dragon. “I know what needs to be done.”

“Yay, in­deed you do,” Damian replied, tak­ing no of­fense at the banter.
Strength
, he un­der­stood.

Dante scanned the ap­proach­ing piazza be­fore them—the townspeople were gathered in fear­ful clusters; the pris­on­ers were already man­acled to a pair of wooden posts; and at the cen­ter of a wide semi­circle, the local sher­iff awaited the prince’s ap­proach.

Sum­mon­ing his dragon’s fire, Dante kicked his horse into a run and gal­loped into the cen­ter of the plaza with au­thor­ity.

*

The War­lo­chi­ans par­ted to make way for the char­ging horse and the dragon prince, who sat so proudly erect on the stal­lion’s back. No doubt, Dante looked like a knight of old, summoned to a field of battle, only this bat­tle­field was a vil­lage square, sur­roun­ded by tall, spindly trees; bounded by a smooth earthen floor; and dot­ted with dilap­id­ated old struc­tures: an outly­ing stable, vari­ous rick­ety benches, and an aged stone well.

Dante dis­moun­ted in one lithe leap, land­ing dir­ectly be­fore the pris­on­ers, his thick raven hair blow­ing softly in the wind. “Sher­iff,” he called, wait­ing for the ap­pro­pri­ate sub­ject to an­swer.

A short, stout mage, nearly fifty years old, shuffled over quickly, all the while rein­ing in his pet gar­goyle on a short leather leash.

Dante ig­nored the ob­nox­ious little or­na­ment, re­fus­ing to ac­know­ledge a three-foot-tall mon­ster as a sub­ject. “See to my horse and bring me the de­cree.”

The mage bowed low, his obeis­ant eyes re­flect­ing the fear that al­ways shone in the pres­ence of a dragon. “As you com­mand, my prince.” He turned to a nearby er­rand boy—the child ap­peared no more than eight years old—and ges­tured to­ward the stal­lion’s reins. “Feed and wa­ter your prince’s horse,” he com­manded, and then he turned back to Dante; re­trieved a rolled-up scroll from a purse strung over his tu­nic; and placed it gently in the palm of Dante’s hand.

Dante ex­amined the seal.

It was blood red, em­bossed in gold, and in the cen­ter of the stamp, there was the out­line of a dragon with a dia­mond-shaped eye. It was the un­mis­tak­able signet of King De­mitri Dragona, the tenth of his line, the im­per­i­ous ruler of Dragons Realm. He broke it and read the de­cree out loud in the com­mon tongue, his voice trav­el­ing across the War­lo­chian Square like rolling thun­der. “For the highest crime of treason against the realm, I, King De­mitri Dragona, re­gent of the royal court, hereby sen­tence the trait­ors, Wylan P. Jo­nas and Sir Henry Wood­son, to death by ex­e­cu­tion at the hand of their fu­ture sov­er­eign. The ex­e­cu­tion is to be meted out on the fourth day of May in the 175th year of the Drago­nas’ Reign, the sea­son of the dia­mond king.”

The crowd grew deathly quiet as Dante ap­proached the first of the two con­demned men. “Wylan P. Jo­nas?”

The war­lock raised his head, leveled a hate-filled glare at Dante, and spoke with heavy con­tempt in his raspy voice. “Yes, lord?”

“You have been found guilty by a court of your peers for the crime of treason: What say you?”

The pris­oner mustered his re­main­ing cour­age and spat at Dante’s feet, and the ef­fort cost him greatly, as his cracked, swollen lips im­me­di­ately began to bleed. “I say you can all go to hell.” His eyes flashed am­ber, glow­ing with rising malevol­ence, and his words trailed off with a hiss.

Dante re­mained un­fazed.

He neither re­acted to the ab­use nor ac­know­ledged the slight.

Rather, he stepped grace­fully to the side. “And Sir Henry Wood­son, you have also been found guilty of plot­ting against your realm and your king. Do you wish to speak on your own be­half?” He nar­rowed his eyes with sin­gu­lar pur­pose in an un­spoken warn­ing:
Think be­fore you speak
. “Do you wish to beg your prince for mercy be­fore you die?”

The second pris­oner looked up and trembled.

After a long, piteous mo­ment had passed, he shrank back against the post. “It is not in the nature of a war­lock to sub­mit to the rule of an­other mys­tical be­ing, mi­lord. I make no apo­lo­gies for de­fy­ing the Drago­nas or the king’s rule.” He gasped for air, and it was read­ily ap­par­ent that his lungs had already been dam­aged from a pre­vi­ous beat­ing. “How­ever, I am also not a fool. If his lord­ship would send me to my death with honor, without the pain or scourge of fire, then I would humbly re­quest that he do so.”

Dante took a meas­ured step back, re­gard­ing the second pris­oner from head to toe. Mercy was not the way of the dragon, and ruth­less­ness was all the War­lo­chi­ans un­der­stood.