Or hide.
Dante swept his hand along the curve of her chin, traced her protesting lips with his forefinger, and then gestured for her to be silent. “It will not always be so, Mina. You will come to understand your role…and mine. You will learn to accept them both.”
She raised her eyebrows and frowned. “And if I don’t?”
He shook his head in quiet dismissal. “But you must.” In that moment, he looked so fiercely predatory, so intrinsically regal, so harshly masculine yet beautiful that Mina was caught off guard.
She tried not to think of his words…
What they meant for her future and her life.
Instead, she eyed her nightgown, still lying across the coverlet on the large, four-poster bed, and wished she could don it with her mind alone. She needed to retreat someplace safe, to cover her body and protect her heart. She needed to feel in control, if only for a moment.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Dante stretched out his hand toward the object of her desire, crooked the tips of his fingers, and effortlessly drew the nightgown into his open hand from across the room. He handed it to her with grace. “Yesterday,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall, as if they had been carrying on a casual conversation all along, “I traveled with my brothers to the village of Warlochia to execute two traitors who were plotting against the king.”
Mina’s eyes grew wide, and she watched him carefully, even as she slipped the nightgown over her head and above the towel, before removing the wool from underneath.
“While I was there”—he pressed on as if the executions were nothing more than background information—“I met a young girl who gave me this.” He reached behind his back and retrieved a figurine.
Mina held up her hands in question. She stared at the object for a protracted moment, her features distorting with confusion. “A doll? You met a young girl who gave you a doll?”
The corners of Dante’s mouth curved upward, and Mina thought it was the first time she had ever seen him smile.
Well, almost smile.
Dante lowered his voice and snickered. “The child’s name was Raylea Louvet, and she made the doll for her sister.”
Mina continued to stare at the figurine, trying to make sense of Dante’s words, and then all at once it hit her, and her hands flew up to her cheeks. “Raylea! Raylea made this for me?” Tears of joy spilled from her eyes, and she reached out to snatch the toy from his hands. She studied it meticulously, committing every detail to memory, wondering at the exquisite craftsmanship of her baby sister. Okay, so the eyes were a bit crooked, it was pitifully under-stuffed, and the features were a bit lopsided; still, it was the most beautiful thing Mina had ever seen, and she fought not to break down and sob.
Rubbing the belly of the doll against her cheek, she looked up at Dante through tear-stained lashes and genuinely smiled in return. “Thank you. Oh, thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say.
Dante seemed somewhat taken aback by her emotion: His brow furrowed; his expression grew unreadable; and he cocked his head to the side. “You’re welcome.” His voice was even and controlled.
Mina struggled to compose herself as well. “It’s just…it’s just…I lost my sister to the Realm six years ago, when I was taken to the Keep. She was only four years old, and she lost me, too. I haven’t seen her in so many years.”
Dante nodded then, looking curiously out of place, and she felt instantly embarrassed, not because she had thanked him and not because she had smiled, but because she had shared something so personal and intimate with a dragon.
He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “We have all made many sacrifices for the Realm, Mina. For you, it was your lovely sister and your parents. For me, it was the freedom of choice and my brother, my twin, who died by his own hand. Perhaps you can take comfort in knowing that you may at least see your loved one again.”
Mina inhaled sharply, surprised by his words. She dropped her arm to her side, letting the doll hang loosely in her hand. She knew of Desmond’s suicide—of course she knew—they had all learned the Dragonas’ history at the Keep, but it had never occurred to her, at least not before this moment, that these weren’t just facts and histories. They weren’t just details to be memorized or lessons to be learned: They were real-life events.
Accompanied by real loss and pain.
“Oh gods, Dante. I’m sorry. How insensitive I must seem.” She unwittingly took a step forward, reached up to touch his face, and cringed when he jerked away.
“Your compassion is not necessary.”
She withdrew her hand as if she had been burned, feeling even worse than before. “Apologies. I…I…”
“I did not give you the doll to court you, Mina,” he added coolly.
She nodded then. “I see.”
“You are my Sklavos Ahavi. Mine.” He reached out, took her hand in his, and placed it against his cheek. “I gave it to you because a brave child asked me to, and I knew that it would bring you comfort. That is all.”
She bristled, feeling terribly confused. “So why would you want to bring me comfort then, milord?”
He tilted his head to the other side as if deeply considering her words. “We are so often compelled to do what we must to fulfill our duties to the Realm. It is a small thing to make life easier for a loyal servant.”
A loyal servant.
Dante’s words struck her like the tip of an arrow piercing through her heart, although she had no idea why. “Of course,” she whispered. Turning her gaze to her hand, which was still being pressed to his cheek, she murmured, “May I remove my hand, milord?”
“You may,” he answered quietly, letting it go.
She did just that, and then she rubbed her palm against the skirt of her nightgown, as if she could somehow remove the feel of his skin from her palm. Softly, she whispered, “If it is not my heart you wish to court, then what is it you desire?”
He reached out to finger a lock of her hair, and a sardonic smile curved along his lips. “Your obedience, sweet Mina. Always—and only—your obedience.”
Mina blinked back a tear. “And when we come together…to create children…to create your sons, what then?” She couldn’t believe she had spoken the words aloud, but so be it: It wasn’t like her purpose was a secret, and she wanted to know now what she could expect down the road.
His eyes heated with desire, and his sapphire pupils reflected unspoken promises of dark languid nights filled with satin kisses and fiery caresses. “Then I will command your obedience and your pleasure.” He narrowed his gaze on her lips. “Of that, you may rest assured.”
Mina swallowed a flippant retort.
She had no doubt that Dante could please her body, dominate her will, and even possess her soul if he chose. After all, he was only a whisper shy of being a god; but still, what would her life be like without compassion, without companionship, without even the possibility of love? What would her life be like as the consort to a dragon, a being born of fire, who was fueled by feral passions yet devoid of tenderness and affection?
Glancing once again at the doll, still hanging at her side, she quickly dismissed the thought. Dante Dragona was indeed capable of tenderness—and kindness—and he would never know how much his little gift had meant to her, regardless of his reasons for doing it. “Whatever your purpose,” she whispered, “I thank you, milord.”
He inclined his head in a polite gesture of acknowledgment. “And I thank you for feeding the dragon, sweet Mina.” He stroked her cheek once more, then backed away. “I will come to you again, soon.”
With that, he simply vanished from the room, leaving her shivering, breathless, and perhaps just a little bit…hopeful.
Chapter Five
Rafael Bishop, the high mage of Warlochia, ducked under a low-hanging branch of a prickly ash tree, careful to avoid the dense, barbed undergrowth. He stared at the silent circle of warlocks before him, each male seated comfortably aro
und the fire, and gently cleared his throat. “The slave trade was especially profitable last month: We managed to sell three girls and four boys to the shadow-walkers in the west and ship several others across the restless sea. Losing Sir Henry will set us back a bit—he was instrumental in hiding some of our early captures until we could arrange for their transport—but I don’t anticipate more than two or three weeks before we’re back in business.”
“The fool got caught planning to raid Castle Dragon,” Micah Fiske said, spitting into the dirt in disgust. “He thought he could break into the treasury. How foolish can one warlock be?”
“Well,” Rafael said with derision, “he is dead, so perhaps we need not tread on his grave.”
Micah scowled. “A grisly death by fire. He was foolish to provoke the prince.”
“Again,” Rafael said, growing increasingly annoyed, “no need to spit on his grave.”
Micah crossed his arms over his bent knees, held his hands out to the fire, and rubbed them together for warmth. “By the way, we have a new girl, just like you asked for. Top grade: young, virginal, and pretty, not a single scar on her body. Caught her on Monday.”
Rafael cocked a curious eyebrow. “Do you? And how did the capture go?”
Micah shrugged. “Like any other, I suppose. We cornered the girl and her mother in the forest. They were traveling alone by horseback, so it took very little effort to drive them off the path. Zakor, my gargoyle, jumped out at the child’s mare from behind a tree, and the horse reared up in a panic. The kid was thrown from the saddle, and Zakor was able to snatch her by the arm before she hit the ground. He dragged her into the thicket, kicking and screaming all the way, I might add, and handed her over to me.” He sniffed with something akin to insolence or pride, as if capturing a ten-year-old girl was truly a great feat of prowess. “At that point, it was just a matter of binding her hands and feet, gagging her so she couldn’t scream, and then throwing her on the back of my horse.” He stared off into the distance as if reliving the memory in nostalgic detail. “Her mother fought like a crazed banshee, though. She screamed and cursed like a madwoman, trying to charge after her daughter.” He sniffed. “Hell, she must have given chase for a full five minutes because I swear my horse was winded by the time we lost her, but, ultimately, her mare was too old, not up for the task. We left her in the dust somewhere around Devil’s Bend.”
Rafael frowned, unimpressed by the dispensable details of the sordid tale. How hard was it to cleanly steal a little girl from her middle-aged mother? “And it didn’t occur to you that the mother might report the incident to the constable once she gets back to the commonlands? Did you not think to take care of the only surviving witness? That perhaps you should have seen to her disappearance as well?”
Micah glared at Rafael with unconcealed insolence, his thin lips turned down in a scowl. Apparently, he was growing weary of being challenged. “Two women riding alone through Forest Dragon on horseback? As far as I’m concerned, they had it coming: They could’ve encountered anything from bandits to a wild animal. By the time she gets back to the Commons District, it’ll be too late for the constable to do anything about it. Oh sure; the guard will take down a report. They may even send a missive to the Warlochian sheriff, since it happened inside his territory, but they aren’t going to marshal any troops or send out any search parties, not to retrieve one lone, insignificant girl. Raylea Louvet will be written off as a casualty of the Realm, just as so many other children are…every day.”
Rafael took a seat across from Micah, added another log to the fire, and used a forked, gangly branch to stoke it into a robust flame. “I suppose. But in the future, you need to take care of loose ends.” Unwilling to endure Micah Fiske a moment longer, he turned his attention to Robert Cross. The warlock was staring into the fire like his long-lost love was perched on an emblazoned log, the pupils of his witchy eyes dilated and dreamy. “And you, Sir Robert? Do you have a buyer for the child already?”
Robert blinked several times as if coming out of a trance, and then he coughed, scrubbed his filthy hands over his already dirty face, and hawked some phlegm from his throat. Spitting it into the fire, he smiled. “I do. A shadow by the name of Syrileus Cain.” His tone was unusually affable. “He lives by himself in a secluded cabin, far back in the Shadow Woods. I believe he is looking for a housekeeper and a cook—eventually, a wife, of course. The girl will do well, and he’s willing to pay a handsome price for an untouched virgin: fifteen coppers.”
Rafael nodded in appreciation. “Good. Good. The sooner we can turn the girl over to the shadow the better. We will need all his coppers to procure a new henchman, someone to replace Sir Henry Woodson, someone with a good-sized cellar in his barn and a helluva lot of loyalty in his greedy heart. The heavier the purse, the greater our chances of buying both.”
Micah tore a piece of chicken off the horizontal spit suspended above the fire, and began to chew the meat in earnest, smearing ash and grease all over his surly face. “It’s a damn shame she’s only ten and the shadow is willing to pay a premium for her virtue.” He spit out a gnawed piece of bone and smacked his lips together, spreading more grease around the corners of his mouth. “I’d love to take a turn with that little spitfire. She’s quite the wildcat, that girl.”
Rafael frowned and leveled a heated glare at his idiotic companion. “And that is why you will never be more than a gopher, Micah. You still do not understand the difference between business and pleasure, what it means to conduct an arm’s length transaction. You still find pleasure in the subjugation of little girls.” He rolled his eyes in disgust. Not that he was some paragon of virtue—far from it, really—but just the same, he at least liked to consider himself a man, someone who measured his feats of bravery against worthy adversaries.
Not helpless little girls.
Micah snorted, looking moderately annoyed. And then, without any warning, he threw his remaining chicken bone into the fire, bounded to his feet, and stormed toward Rafael, his warlock’s eyes flashing red with thinly banked madness. “You think you’re so damn superior,” he spat. He thumped his fists against his chest and visibly swelled up with pride. “Then do something about it, warlock! Because I’ve just about had it with all your sanctimonious bullshit.”
Rafael rose slowly…
Gracefully.
A sinister smile embellishing his tightly pursed lips.
He drew in a deep, measured breath of air, filling his lungs with the night’s dark pleasures, even as he reveled in the sudden aroma of sulfur, wafting to his nostrils. He held both hands, palms out to the fire, and began to gather its heat. As the flame turned blue and began to swirl around his thick, knotty fingers, he chuckled deep in his raspy throat. “Have you not seen enough death and destruction for one week, Micah? Do you really want to join the ranks of Sir Henry and Wylan Jonas? Because, trust me, it can be arranged.” He spun around to face him then, his dark cloak flapping behind him, carried on a sudden gust of cultic wind, and his body rose nearly four feet off the ground. As he hovered there, dangling in the air like a specter, his voice took on a gravelly tone, and his corneas flashed white with fire.
Micah took a cautious step back.
That’s right, Rafael thought, run, little rabbit. Go back to your hole and hide. Your magic is paltry and insignificant compared to mine.
Micah held both hands up in front of him in a gesture of supplication. “Hey, Rafael, forget about it. I was just spouting off.” He genuflected with a guarded wave and practically bowed his head. “You know I was just foolin’ around. I mean, who would wanna take on a high mage? Let’s sit down, have some more chicken.”
The high mage spat at Micah’s feet, and electric sparks rose from the spittle, dancing about the ground like little minions seeking Micah’s toes. “Are you sure, Mr. Fiske?”
Micah nodded copiously. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.” He lowered his eyes and snorted, searching for a way to swiftly change the subject. “By the way, did I tell
you? That girl we caught; she’s damn near royalty.”
Rafael raised his eyebrows, descended from the air, and planted his feet firmly on the ground. “What do you mean, she’s damn near royalty?”
Micah met Rafael’s eyes and forced himself to hold the mage’s gaze. “She’s the sister of one of those Ahavi wenches, one that actually got chosen for the mating. I think—”
Rafael held out his hand to silence him, suddenly consumed with rage. He closed his fingers into a tight fist, constricting the warlock’s heart in the process, and then tightened his grip on the male’s aorta from the other side of the fire. “Are you insane? Are you absolutely daft?”
Micah clutched at his chest and staggered backward. “What the hell did I do now?”
“What the hell did you do now?” He released Micah’s heart before the male fell down, dead, and could no longer answer his questions. “What the hell did you do now? You took the sister of a Sklavos Ahavi to be sold as a slave—to a shadow-walker! Did it not occur to you that word of her plight might get back to her sister?”
“So!” Micah shouted, his eyes wild with fear. “So what? The girl’s a peasant, a slave, and so is her royal sister, if you wanna tell the truth.” He gasped for air and rubbed his chest in slow, desperate circles. “Sure, the kid will be a maid and a cook for a while, but we all know why the shadow really wants her, to strap her to his bed and plant little shadow-walkers inside her someday. And that’s the same damn reason the prince has her sister.” He finally caught his breath, and his voice rose with conviction. “Oh, it might be some royal settee—or a feather-stuffed mattress—that the dragon straps her sister to, but the end result is the same. They’re chattel. What the heck is your problem, Rafael? Money is money, and the girl is pretty—she’s going to fetch a large coin. I got you fifteen coppers. ”