Queen of Dragons: Steamy Fantasy Erotic Romance (Dragon nights Book 1) (7 page)

“We have a
twenty-eight men here,” said Christian, ramming the end of his staff into the
ground for emphasis. “With surprise on our side we could easily take Castle
Brookmere. Sir Robert has hardly any guards left since King John took them to
fight in his war, and once we’ve hung him from the battlements the common
people will see that they have nothing to fear from the lords, and that we have
reawakened the dragons, they’ll flock to our banner, we’ll be able to march on
the Capital in a month.”

“Yes but we don’t
have the element of surprise,” said Harper. “Everyone knows we’re up here, even
King John, that’s why he sent Bates. Do you not think he’ll have reinforced the
castle’s watch? We’d never get in because they are on the lookout for us. As
you say we have twenty-eight men, we would all be slaughtered in front of the
closed portcullis.”

“So what do you
think we should do then Harper? Wait up here for another year getting even
thinner and colder? Wait until Vultonis learns to flame? Who knows how long
that will take, decades maybe. We have to strike now.” Said Christian,
glowering at his friend and clearly angry. Viviana had felt the force of
Christian’s passion and knew that when he wanted something, like he had wanted
her, there was nothing that would stop him, but if there was one man willing to
try it would be Harper. The two had argued all winter, and Viviana had stopped
them coming to blows at least three times. She found it very hard to believe in
them marching on the capital in they couldn’t even agree on how to get down
from the mountains, and she had a horrible vision of the two men’s severed
heads stuck on a pole on traitors’ gate.

“We need to wait
for the right moment,” said Harper. “Until something happens to bring the whole
countryside to the point of boiling over. We should wait until Sir Robert gets
drunk and flogs one of his serfs to death again, then when the people are at
the peak of outrage we can walk in and nudge them into a full-blown revolution,
take the towns first and worry about the nobles in their castles afterwards,
starve them out if needs be.” He sat back and folded his arms, as if trying to
emphasise how logical and well thought out his point of view was.

“We’ll be up here
waiting forever!” Shouted Christian. “And how do we even know when the people
are ready if we’re stuck up here in the bloody mountains, we need to take
Castle Brookmere this spring before the leaves are on the trees.”

Viviana picked up
her pole axe and walked back to the training circle, this debate could go on
for a very long time and she was sick of listening to Christian. She had
thought that things would change between them after their night together in the
snow-cave, but he had remained aloof and disdainful towards her. The morning
after their night together, waking up with him and walking into the crisp white
snow, she had expected some awkwardness given their new status as lovers, but
there was none, there was nothing at all. Her dreams were full of him, of him
taking her, filling her highborn body with his thick member, but in the light
of day he remained as cold towards her as before. Although she sometimes caught
him staring at her across the camp she was coming to realise that his attitude
towards her wasn’t going to soften. From some of the comments he had made
towards her over the hard months of training it seemed to Viviana that
Christian liked her even less than he had before he had been with her.

 Miranda had
no idea how long she’d been in the cell, with no light coming in and no sounds
passing through the walls it could have been days, weeks or hours, she had no
way of keeping track of time. She had shouted until her throat was sore, but
had grown scared of hearing her voice echo unanswered in deep unknown chambers.
She had started to see shapes on the inside of her blindfold, her
sensory-deprived brain striving to make its own stimulation. She tried to keep
herself happy by picturing the sunlit field and budding woods of the Vale in
spring time, imagining herself outside picking violets or lying by the swift
flowing stream, but every time she was about to lose herself in fantasy she
would hear the echoing drip of water in a faraway chamber, or the scuttle of tiny
claws across the stone and snap back to her current predicament with despair.
She was thirsty, cold and scared.

Just as she thought she was certain to go mad she
heard a noise, a noise that had not been produced by her own breathing or
heartbeat - footsteps, someone was coming at last. She heard the door slowly
open and then she could smell Captain Bates’ warm perfume - rose water and the
leather of his uniform - his reassuring presence flooded over her, the relief
was instantaneous, she had never been so
happy to smell another
person.

“Oh Captain,” She whimpered, turning her head
to where she thought the Captain stood. “What are they doing to me, why am I
down here?”

“Hush Mirianda.” He spoke in a whisper, but
after so long in near complete silence the sound was shockingly loud and close
to Miranda and she jerked in her chair. Captain Bates placed a well-manicured
finger under her chin and tilted her head back bringing a glass of cold water
to her lips. She gulped at the freezing liquid hungrily, and felt it spill down
her neck and over her breasts as she drained it. “It’s going to be alright.” He
said, and she felt him dabbing the water away from her chest. It had been so
long since anyone had touched her that Miranda felt a jolt of shock run through
her body at his gentle caress.

“Miranda” he said, leaning down from behind her
to kiss her neck. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh as his lips touched her, she
wished that her hands were free so that she could throw them around him, to
hold him tight and tell him to get her out of this horrible place. “I have a
confession to make,” he paused before continuing. “I think I love you. Is it
wrong of me to love a subversive?”

“But I’m not a subversive,” Miranda sobbed.
“And it’s not wrong, I love you. I do. You’re the most amazing man I have ever
met, I just want to be with you, I don’t care if I never leave the castle
again, just take me back to my chamber.” She was almost hysterical as she said
this, tripping over her words in her rush to get them out.

“Oh Miranda, we will be together. We will.” He
said kissing her neck and softly biting the delicate skin above her collar
bone. “I think I can get you out of here,” he said. “I just need you to do
something for me.”

“I will, I’ll do anything for you.” she cried,
almost hysterical, her tears soaking into the black silk bound around her head.
Captain Bates moved in front of her and leaned in close, he gently eased the
blindfold from her eyes, and in the warm flickering light of a burning torch
she saw his handsome face, with its piercing blue eyes just inches from hers.

“I need you to bring me Kit and his friends.”
He said.

Alexandra had not enjoyed her winter in the camp.
Having worked in the tavern nearly all her life she was used to serving hungry
men. But back in the Bull there had always been good humour and jokes to throw
around while she worked. Up here the rebels were so serious, and she was never
thanked for her hard work cooking for the men, she got the feeling that they
expected her to be grateful for allowing her to a part of their glorious
revolution, a revolution she secretly thought was doomed to fail. Since winter
had set in she had hardly been able to spend any time with Harper, the jealous
stares of the other men in the camp kept them apart, and even her care-free
brother had seemed distracted and preoccupied.      

She was carrying water down from spring that
serviced the raggedy group of huts they laughably called their headquarters
when she heard Kit’s excited shouts. He was staggering towards the encampment
carrying a pale bundle in his lanky arms.

“Alexandra, put on some hot water and get some blankets,
its Miranda she’s alive.” He called to her in great excitement, his words
tripping over themselves in his haste to get them out. Alexandra rushed out to
meet her brother and saw that the bundle he was carrying was a girl, he could
see Miranda’s famous red hair tumbling out to sway around her brothers thighs.
She seemed to be unconscious, and her head lolled in Kit’s arms with every step
he took.

“I found her crawling through the pass to find us,”
said Kit. “She’s very weak but before she passed out she told me that she’d
escaped from Castle Brookmere. I can’t believe she’s alive.” He beamed with
pleasure, he’d been preoccupied all winter with the fate of his sometime
girlfriend, telling the other men that he should have taken her with him, or
stayed an fought the men away from her.

“Bring her into the kitchen, its warmer in there,
lie her on the bench next to the hearth.” Alexandra told her brother wondering
how on earth Miranda Carter, never the brightest girl in the village, had
managed to escape from Castle Brookmere and the infamous Capitan Bates, someone
even Harper and Christian seemed afraid of.

Later when Christian and Harper had come to look
at the new arrival she opened her eyes and cried out, “don’t hit me again, I
don’t know anything.” Before breaking into tearful sobs. Kit rushed to her
side.

“Don’t worry Miranda,” he said, stroking her hair.
“It’s all right now, you are safe, and you’re with friends.” Miranda sat up
slowly and looked around the crowded room, at first it seemed that her eyes
could not take in anything she saw, and she stared blankly and the faces that
surrounded her, but then a glimmer of recognition crossed her face and she gave
a faint weak smile.

“Oh thank god.” She said. “I thought I was back
there again, back in the dungeons of Brookmere castle,” she hid her head in her
hands and her shoulders began to shake. “I thought I was going to die in there,
I thought I’d never get out. They tortured me for so long, they asked me so
many questions about all of you and I just didn’t know anything.” She burst
into heavy tears, evidently recalling the horrible crimes committed against her
tender body.

Christian stepped forward, “It’s all right now,”
he said. “Your safe with us, and we’re going to make the people who did this to
you pay, we’ll have them strung from the battlements before the equinox. Just
tell us how you got out” Miranda wiped at her eyes and stared up at Christian
with her lips trembling.

“I was in the dungeons when one of Matt Tindall’s
sons came down to force himself on me,” she said in a faint voice. “He untied
me so that he could position me like wanted me, then when I was on all fours in
front of him I pushed off the floor with my hands and I kicked my leg back. I
think I broke his knee, I heard it crunch and it bent the wrong way.” She
stopped and stared into the distance, reliving the painful memories.

 “He was screaming on the floor and I ran out
of the door. I headed away from all the burning torches and just ran into the
darkness of the deeper dungeons. I was lost for days down there and I was
certain that I was going to die, but then I saw a tiny bit of daylight at the
end of a tunnel, I clawed and clawed at the roof and I came out beyond the
marsh in the bottom of a little ravine.” As she spoke her words got quieter and
quieter, as if she was just too tired to carry on.

Christian gave Harper a meaningful look and bent
down so his face was just inches from hers, he put one of his large hands on
her shoulder and asked, “Miranda, do you think you could lead us back to that
tunnel?” She looked back at wide eyed and silently nodded her head.

Alexandra had heated a tub of water by the fire,
she tested the temperature with her hand.

“The water is ready Miranda, come on let’s get you
out of those dirty clothes,” She said. Miranda nodded at her silently, the poor
girl had hardly said a word all afternoon. She had seemed to be in shock and
was nothing like the flirtatious girl that Alexandra had known from her days at
the Bull Tavern. Alexandra watched as Miranda’s layers of rags fell to the
floor and she stepped towards the tub, her body was creamy white, her small
pert breasts topped with dark rose-pink nipples. She could see why her brother
had been so keen on the girl. Miranda slowly walked over to the tub and stepped
in, she lowered herself gently into the steaming water, sighing as it covered
her waist. Alexandra could almost see the tension washing away from the red
headed girl as she sunk into the tub.

“Would you like me to scrub your back for you”
asked Alexandra emptying a small bottle of lavender oil into the tub.

“Oh yes please Alex,” Miranda murmured. “That
would be divine.”

Alexandra crouched next to the tub and ran a cloth
over Miranda’s back. Her skin was beautiful, it was just starting to take on a
pinkish tinge from the heat of the water and the fire. Alexandra noticed that
there wasn’t a mark on it, strange for someone who had been held and tortured
in a dungeon for the past five months.

“Ohhh,” sighed Miranda. “This is so nice
Alexandra. Oh you wouldn’t believe how I’ve dreamed of a warm bath.” She hummed
with pleasure as Alexandra ran her hands over her smooth skin, delighting in
the human touch. She dropped her shoulders back into the steaming water pushing
her breasts into the air. “Why don’t you come in?” she said softly “there’s
enough space and it would be a shame to waste all this hot water just on me.”

Alexandra thought for a few seconds. There had not
been much room for luxury over the winter, and it probably was a waste to use
all that water on one person. “Alright then.” She said with a smile, easing off
her thick winter dress and letting it fall to the floor next to the fire.

“Come and sit in front of me,” said Miranda. “It’s
my turn to do your back.”  

Alexandra eased herself into the water, it was
delicious. She felt all the stress from the winter easing out of her as Miranda
began to gently rub her back. “Oh that’s good.” she whispered.

“Isn’t it?” Said Miranda leaning forward so that
Alexandra could feel the points of her breasts, slippery with the lavender oil,
graze her back. You know Alex I always wanted a body like yours” she said as
her hands slipped from the small of Alexandra’s back round her narrow waist and
onto her oiled breasts “even when we were growing up you were so curvaceous, so
womanly, I was mad with jealously the way the men in the village would look at
you.”

Alexandra breathed deeply taking in the soothing
aroma of the lavender oil as one of Miranda’s hands gently brushed her nipple,
the other hand slowly slid down over her soft stomach.

“What are you doing?” she said, it was slightly
disconcerting but it felt so nice to have Miranda’s delicate hands on her body.
She’d managed to be with Harper a few times over the winter, but those had been
impassioned rough meetings, and over quickly for fear of being discovered by
others. Being touched in this way felt completely different, like it was waking
up her whole body.

“Have you ever been with a woman” whispered
Miranda, easing apart Alexandra’s thighs.

“No” she gasped “and I shouldn’t be with you,
you’re still in shock. This isn’t right.”

“I’m fine, I need this” said Miranda.

Alexandra felt a strange excitement growing in, her
body wanted to go with the caresses, to surrender to Miranda’s skilful fingers,
but she knew that something was not right. Miranda claimed that she had been
held captive in the dungeon and used by Matt and his sons as a sexual
plaything, this was not the behaviour of a woman who had been through that sort
of ordeal.

“No, Miranda stop, tell me what really happened to
you.” She tried to keep her voice measured but found herself groaning under
Miranda’s caresses.

“I’ve told you all what happened.” Said Miranda
languidly.

It pained Alexandra to leave the luxury of the bath
tub, but she realised she had to go. She had her suspicions about Miranda’s
story and she needed to tell the others before they did anything rash in
reaction to it.

Viviana looked over the rough table to where
Christian and Harper sat. There had never been a discussion between them and
the other rebels about who was in charge in the camp, and if you’d asked any of
the outlaws they probably would have said that everyone was equal up here in
the stronghold of the mountains, but when it came to important decisions the
men automatically seemed to look to the three of them for guidance. Viviana
supposed they looked to Harper because of his size and presence, Christian for
his dark brooding passion, and her as relic of their days in the service of the
highborn.

“We stick with the plan,” said Christian, visibly
agitated and almost shaking with excitement. “This is by far the best
opportunity we will ever have to take the castle and start the uprising. She
can lead us straight to the secret entrance. This is what we’ve been waiting
for all winter, this is where it starts.”

“Yes it could be,” said Harper. “If she’s telling
the truth, it could just as easily be where it all ends.”

“Of course she’s telling the truth!” Shouted
Christian. “You saw the way she looked, and anyway we grew up with her; me,
Alexandra, Viviana and Kit, we’ve known here as long as we can remember. We are
people of the Vale, you’re an outsider you don’t understand.”

“I’m just saying,” said Harper. “Alexandra is
suspicious of her, and she’s of the Vale like you.”

“Alexandra is suspicious of her because they’ve
both been fighting over the same men for the last 6 years,” said Viviana drily.
“I believe her story. I’ve sat through more boring banquets at Sir Robert’s
castle that I care to remember. He always gets drunk and starts talking about
the hidden tunnel his grandfather put in case they were ever besieged. I really
think Miranda is telling the truth.”

Harper looked pained. “Alexandra told me that she
had seen Miranda naked.” He said. “And that she had not a mark on her, and that
she doesn’t think she’s behaving like someone who’s been locked in a dungeon
and abused for five months.” Harper blushed slightly. “She said Miranda tried
to seduce her? Is that the behaviour you’d expect from someone who’s just
escaped from being Matt Tindall’s personal sexual plaything?”

Christian stared at harper, his eyes narrow. “Have
you ever been locked in a dungeon?” He said. “Has Alexandra? How would you two
know the correct way to behave once you’ve been released?” He paused for
effect. “I’ve been there, it does strange things to your mind, you don’t come
out the same person you go in, you come out a bizarre reflection, and things
get twisted. You know through those years I spent in the Duke of Rawford’s
dungeons all I could think about was Amvale. About the fields at harvest time,
about the swimming pool in the woods, about going back to work in the gardens
at Loxley Hall. Then when I got free the thought of all those things repulsed
me. I asked myself where is the pleasure in a golden field if a man is not free
to enjoy it, if he must have his face pressed into its dirt pulling weeds or
risk a flogging. I came out loathing all the things I once loved because they
reminded me that they were not mine to enjoy.” He stared at harper, face
trembling with emotion.

“Unless you have suffered the terror and
loneliness of staring into your own mind and realising that all the things you
had loved were I lie you can’t possibly talk about how someone should act when
they are released from the dungeons.” He continued.

Viviana put her hand on Christians arm, but he
brushed it off. “How would you like to see her behaving? What is the correct
way to act on being released from a dungeon?” He screamed at Harper.

Harper was unmoved “That’s a very nice speech
Christian.” He said. “It doesn’t change the fact that this plan is dangerous
and foolhardy without the support of the wider population, but if you are
absolutely determined that this is the way we should do things then let’s go
over it one last time, make sure the plan is as tight as it can be.”

Viviana sprang to life, excited to explain the
plan she had come up with to Harper, hoping that doing so would further convince
Christian that she was committed to making the world anew. “You, me and
Christian will take twenty men with Miranda to find the tunnel.” Said Viviana
looking at Harper. “Kit takes the remaining five men and Alexandra and they
hide on the road between Brookmere Castle and Amvale.” She continued. “We’ll
enter the castle through the tunnel at dawn when all the men are sleeping. I’ve
stayed as Sir Roberts’s guest in the castle and I know my way to the visitors’
chambers, I’ll lead Christian to them and we’ll kill Captain Bates.”

She paused and with a knife scratched a crude map
on the wood of the table. “The garrison is here.” She stabbed the point into
the wood. “Harper you’ll position two men at the bottom of each watch tower,
and then take the rest and wait outside the door to the barracks. When the
first ray of sun hits the clock tower Christian and I will burst in and take
Bates, and Harper, you and your men will take the barracks. When the watch run
down from the towers to defend the garrison our men can cut their throats.” She
paused scanning the faces around the table making sure they had all grasped the
plan.