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

“See, that it is how it is done, siren.”

What a strange little boy. My lips twitched. “Did you call me siren? I am no siren, Prince.”

He blinked, and I could swear I’d glimpsed the image of his beast for just a moment. Tossing his head back, he laughed. The sound was nice.

And young.

It was the first part of him that’d sounded like the youth I knew him to be.

He’d still not released my hand. Frowning, I wiggled my fingers out of his grasp. But it was an effort; the boy hadn’t wanted to let go.

Glowering at his now empty hand for a brief moment before shaking his head and looking back to me, he shrugged. “Your voice enchanted me, girl. When I first heard you, I thought to eat you.”

I lifted my brows. I should have been terrified by that admission, but I wasn’t. I found it decidedly odd that I was growing more fascinated by the moment. I’d thought myself far beyond surprises at my age.

“Did you? And what would I have tasted like?”

His nostrils flared, and I could read that my question had impressed him. Perhaps he’d meant to scare me off or test me in some way by saying what he had, but I found the little dear to be rather enchanting.

His bold yet gentle frankness so vastly different from the rough treatment I was used to from my wardens.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, the boy sniffed, and I knew he was tasting the essence of me on the breeze because of the way he’d licked his lips. 

“Your scent is that of the morning dew. And you may call me Ragoth.” He bowed again.

Smiling broadly, I tousled his hair.

And for a moment he looked absolutely startled that I should touch him so. I worried for the briefest of moments that I’d done wrong. He was a prince after all. Maybe he wasn’t used to this type of play, or—

His lips twitched, and he touched the tips of his hair as though with wonder as his face shifted in slow motion. The lips curled up at the edges. Furrows skated across his regal brow, and then...

Laughter.

Deep and rich and rolling through the night.

If Hagar, my guard, were out searching for me, no doubt he’d follow the trail of Ragoth’s laughter straight to me. But it seemed I’d dosed him with just enough wolfsbane to keep him dreaming through the night like the drunken ape that he was.

“I wish to see you tomorrow night, girl.”

“Call me Zelena.” I inclined my head.

He shook his. “I will call you what no other man does. To me, now and forevermore, you shall be known as Lena.”

My skin tingled at the proprietary manner of this strange boy. “I cannot escape tomorrow.”

His slitted eyes narrowed. “I shall come here, every night hence, at this hour. You come when you can.”

“Where are you from?” I asked him.

His accent was strange, not wonderlandian at all. There was an unusual sibilance to it that while not altogether unpleasing made me aware that he might not even be of Kingdom itself. His skin tone reminded me of the Easterners, but I’d never heard of a house of Drakon amongst the Djinn.

Perhaps of Earth? But earthlings possessed no magic, and I sensed his to be quite strong.

“Olympus. Are you human, Lena?”

He sniffed at me again.

Olympus. I knew of that world. Full of gods and goddesses and deep-rooted magic, much like wonderland in some ways, though not nearly as madcap.

“For now.” I nodded and his jaw clenched. I could tell I’d confused him, but I could not remain another second. It was far too dangerous for me to remain out this long.

If Zerelda caught me gone, I’d be lashed or worse. Twisting my lips, I took a step back. “Ragoth?”

A frown tugged at his lips, as he grew aware that I was about to leave. But he did not try to stop me. Instead he said, “Yes?”

“What kind of creature are you?”

When he grinned, I caught sight of a sharp set of teeth. “I am dragonborne.”

I shivered. Dragons were the most dangerous of all creatures. An ancient and menacing race of monster that no sensible person would ever knowingly entangle themselves with.

I was sure I would never come back to these woods alone again. Ragoth seemed sweet enough, but he was only a boy. What happened when he became a man?

I turned, ready to flee back into the night, when he called out, “Lena.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I waited as he reached into his pocket and extracted a golden apple.

The sight of it made me gasp. The thing gleamed like freshly poured metal and smelled of the sweetest of treats.

Without saying a word, he tossed it to me. I snatched it from midair, noting the bite that’d already been taken out of its side.

But I was too ravenous to care. With a nod of thanks, I turned and ran away, clutching my treasure tight to my chest.

Ragoth

I
came each night for two weeks straight, and she never came. I began to fear that Zelena had been little more than a mirage.

I’d grown so grumpy with my tutors about it that I’d snapped and eaten one of them when he’d slapped a ruler down on my hand for fidgeting. Mother had made me give penance for it.

She’d forbidden my use of wings for a month. If I pulled them from my back plate, she’d know it and strip me of my title.

I would die if I were no longer a prince. To be denied my skies was already punishment enough, but to believe that I should never see my Lena again made me want to raze a town.

Muttering beneath my breath, I paced the darkness of the foggy forest, hissing at a cat-shaped face that materialized before me.

“Who are you, boy?” the cat asked, the smoky vapors of its body merely hinting at a stomach and tail.

“Show yourself, devil feline.” I licked my lips; I’d not eaten my snack tonight. He would do.

Its laughter echoed drunkenly through the woods. “Child, do you think me fool?”

I glowered when it suddenly appeared just beside me, silvery eyes gleaming like molten metal.

“What do you want, cat?” I flicked at the wisps of fog, frowning at its insubstantial nature. How was I to eat something made of nothing but smoke?

“You roam my woods, tromping about like a cattywompis dilly willow, and I wish to know why.”

I hardly understood what the cat had just said, but I reckoned I’d figured out the gist of it.

I’d been here already over thirty minutes. The past few nights I’d stayed an hour, but I began to grow impatient that Zelena meant never to return to me and that all this waiting I’d done had been in vain. “I await my friend.”

“Ah, yes, the beautiful Zelena. Do you know there is prophecy about her?”

He floated along the base of the tree line like a strutting peacock in heat, rather proud of himself, though I wasn’t sure why.

I frowned. “What prophecy?”

A cheshire grin cut across the mirage’s face like a sickle. “Why not let the girl tell you?”

“What?” I snapped to attention when he vanished. “Cat! Cat!” I roared, ready to shift to my dragon form and burn the woods down if I must to get him to come back to me.

I was just about to do it too, when not a half second later I caught wind of her delectable scent. Days of not seeing her all coalesced into a powerful surge of giddy desire, and I forgot all about my plans to incinerate the woods. I ran from out of my spot, more excited to see her than I’d been to see anything else in all of my life.

“Lena!” I snapped, suddenly angry with her for making me wait so long. I was a prince; I waited for no one. How dare she make me...I frowned when I finally spied her walking up the trail.

Her steps were slow and almost painful to watch. Each one she took caused her to wince and moan so low that only someone like me with excellent hearing could have heard the pain-filled groan that seemed to pull from between her clenched teeth.

She looked far more haggard than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was no longer so golden and full; it now hung in limp snarls around her bony shoulders. Her sackcloth gown had grown another hole or two, one so large at her chest that it appeared as though someone had made a feeble attempt at patching it up, but the seams were popped at the corners and one pitiful tug would be enough to yank it free.

Fury twisted my stomach into knots. Why did she look like this? The closer she drew, the more I could see just how badly off she was. Her hair wasn’t just dirty and snarled, but also full of brambles and weeds. Her hauntingly blue eyes were bloodshot, as though she’d not slept in days, and there was a slight tremor to her form that’d not been there before.

Rushing to her side, I latched onto her elbow, making sure not to let my talons dig into her flesh. Her weight was so slight as to be almost comical, and the whites of her eyes now looked like they took up all of her face.

Lena dropped to her knees, looking up at me with shimmering tears. “I thought of you, boy.”

“Ragoth,” I whispered, rubbing my thumb across the softness of her hand.

“I am sorry I was not able to come sooner—”

I froze the moment I smelled the blood. With a growl that erupted from the depths of my belly, I shoved her forward almost too brusquely and tore at the pitiful fabric covering her back.

She cried out in agony, hanging her head on her chest and gasping violently. Her beautifully pale and luminescent blue skin was now marred by vivid, red angry slashes that crisscrossed every square inch of her bony back.

“Who has done this to you?” I tried to temper the heat of my rage but failed spectacularly.

Lena trembled as I traced the length of one particularly nasty cut that’d sliced straight through to the meat. I wanted to kill whoever had done this. Wanted to hurt it the way she now hurt.

Hiccupping, she attempted to gather together the pitiful edges of her garment, but I refused to let her. The wounds were ugly, seeping, and some of them even smelled of infection.

“I...I did wrong,” was all she said.

“Ssh. Ssh now.” I murmured to her the way my father had the day I’d fallen from the sky and broken a wing. I knew what to do to make this better. I’d never done it before, but I’d witnessed my father doing it.

Kneeling beside her, I took her face in my hands and waited until she looked at me. “I will fix you, Lena. I will make this better.”

She trembled and her fingers slipped through my own. “If you do, they will know, and I will—”

“No one will ever touch you like this again, do you hear me?”

Lena shook her head, and the tears rolling down her cheeks—they pierced my very soul.

“Ragoth, I fear what will happen if—”

I gently placed a finger across her lips, stilling her words. “You are my friend, human. I cannot bear to see you this way. Now close your eyes and rest, for all this shall soon be over.”

My heart swelled when she nodded her okay. She trusted me. Me, dragonborne. No human in their right mind should have shown me such faith to close their eyes and give me their back.

But I found I no longer wished to eat my Lena. For she was my treasure. And treasure was to be protected.

Moving around to the back of her, I tilted my head forward and did what few of my kind would ever do for another.

I gifted her with my tears.

~*~

Zelena

T
he first touch of a tear rolled down my back like the gentlest of sea swells. I gasped, going completely and utterly boneless beneath him. Immediately I felt the skin begin to stitch itself back together, felt the pain lessen until there was none at all.

For days I’d cried myself to sleep, my flesh heating with fever from the open sores Zerelda had gifted me with.

And all of it because of this strange boy.

She’d found my treasure. My golden apple. She’d accused me of theft, said I was nothing but a lying whore, and that if I hadn’t stolen it, I’d surely used my body as payment for it as I had no coin to my name.

I knew the moment I returned to the cottage I should have thrown it away, deep into the woods and forgotten all about it and the boy who’d given it to me, but the gift had meant too much to me. I’d hidden it beneath my mattress, too afraid even to eat from it.

But somehow she’d found it. And when I refused to give up Ragoth’s name, I’d been beaten for it.

I knew the moment I was healed, because he placed the flat of his palm to my back and it no longer hurt. And this time it was I who shed tears.

My eyes were closed when I sensed him slip around in front of me.

“Look at me, Lena,” he commanded.

I bit down on my tongue, almost too scared to look at him and see what he thought of me now. Ragoth was naught but a child, but already I could sense his warrior’s heart; he’d never have let another beat him like this.

And when I came into my powers, I would never allow another to ever hurt me like this again. But for now, I was weak, and I was powerless.

“Lena.” His voice shivered with raw power that prickled along my flesh.

Good gods, when he came into his manhood he’d be a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

I looked up at him. Jewel-colored slitted eyes looked down on me. But they weren’t full of disgust or even pity.

I should have run away from him if I’d seen either. Instead, he observed at me with a look I could hardly name or understand. But I felt it quicken through my very soul.

“Show me where you live.”

Nibbling on the corner of my lips, I shook my head. “I cannot, boy. If they were to discover I was out again, she would beat—”

“Never!” His nostrils flared, and my eyes widened as his face transformed for the very briefest of moments with the scales of a creature that should have terrified me but instead had my heart fluttering with something other than fear.

I hated humans. Hated every man and woman in all of creation. They were evil, wicked creatures that should be burned one and all. But Ragoth was a boy. To be sure, a powerful one, but a boy nonetheless and most decidedly
not
human. But oddly enough, I think that even should he have been human, I’d have liked him regardless.

He was kind to me when others were not.

“Boy,” I whispered, “show me who you really are.”