Dragons Realm (12 page)

Chapter Ten

T
he trip down
the up­per hall seemed never-end­ing. It felt like an etern­ity be­fore Mina and Dante roun­ded the corner, passed the first set of private suites, and then fi­nally ar­rived at Mina’s re­mote cham­bers. In real­ity, the en­tire jour­ney had prob­ably taken less than two minutes.

Halt­ing be­fore the large wooden door, Mina pressed her shoulder fur­ther into Dante’s up­per body to steady his weight—and hers—and then she yanked at the handle, gave it a quick, down­ward turn, and kicked the panel open with her foot. “Hold on, my prince, we’re al­most there.”

Thank the Spirit Keep­ers, the door swung right
open.

The mo­ment they stumbled across the threshold, Dante pushed away from Mina and fell for­ward onto the floor—it was al­most as if his pride could not with­stand an­other mo­ment un­der her com­pas­sion­ate sup­port.

Mina dropped down to her knees to check him, and that’s when she saw the ter­ri­fy­ing sight on the bed: Ta­tiana was ly­ing on her back, her head and neck ex­ten­ded in an aw­ful, un­com­fort­able arc, and Drake Dragona was perched per­il­ously above her, like a creature on all fours, his feral mouth gap­ing open. Blue fire shot forth from his throat, cours­ing in a preter­nat­ural stream of in­can­des­cent waves, and tunneled its way into Ta­tiana’s mouth. And all the while, she was help­less to stop him.

Mina nar­rowed her gaze and fought back a re­ac­tion. Cry­ing out wouldn’t help. In­ter­fer­ing wouldn’t be wise. And be­sides, for all in­tents and pur­poses, it looked like Ta­tiana was
heal­ing
, knit­ting back to­gether from the in­side out. Her skin was re­gain­ing its nat­ural color; her wounds were clos­ing, even as Mina watched; and her bruises were slowly trans­form­ing from a deep purplish blue to a light pasty gray.

Mina gawked in sur­prise and won­der, and then she im­me­di­ately turned back to Dante. “My prince?” she uttered re­morse­fully. “Tell me what to do. How can I help you? What do you need?”

In a flash, Drake was no longer on the bed, but stand­ing per­il­ously above Mina, hov­er­ing over the scene, and his feral eyes were ablaze with an­ger. “What have you done to my brother?”

Mina stiffened. “Noth­ing!” She shook her head back and forth rap­idly, prac­tic­ally strain­ing her neck in the pro­cess. “I swear, I’ve done noth­ing. He…he some­how…he took the lashes for me.”

Drake drew back in sur­prise and then stared down at his brother. Dante was writh­ing on the floor, shiv­er­ing and moan­ing from the pain. Drake knelt down and ripped the now-bloody shirt from his shoulders and gasped at the mul­tiple pro­trud­ing welts, at all the deep, gap­ing cuts, the raw, fresh ab­ra­sions, and the cris­scrossed le­sions that had torn Dante’s royal flesh. The dragon prince looked like a piece of freshly ground meat. “Great Nuri, Lord of Fire,” Drake snarled. He glared at Mina, but only for a second, and then he sidled up be­hind her like he was about to do some­thing in­de­cent.

Mina held her breath and tried to crawl for­ward out of his reach. “My lord?”

He wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her back against him, even as she con­tin­ued to stare at Dante. He bent his head to her shoulder and thrust her neck to the side with un­ne­ces­sary strength; and then, without warn­ing or pre­amble, he sank his fangs deep into her throat, drew what felt like far too much blood from her vein, and began to con­sume her es­sence like a dragon, starved.

Drake fed un­til he was sa­ti­ated, and then he sealed the wound with blue fire and pushed her away. “Get back,” he growled. Once again, he bent over Dante’s battered body, this time turn­ing him over, ever so gently, onto his back and strad­dling him on all fours. “Brother, let me heal you.”

Dante groaned, and his head fell back in an un­nat­ural arc, much like Ta­tiana’s had been just mo­ments ago. It was an in­dir­ect ges­ture of con­sent, and Drake re­spon­ded im­me­di­ately. He opened his mouth, lowered it to Dante’s, and began to chan­nel the same heal­ing blue flames deep into Dante’s throat.

Mina sat on her knees and watched as Dante’s shoulders slowly re­laxed, his writh­ing ceased, and his wounds began to heal. She stared in both won­der and fas­cin­a­tion as his bleed­ing slowed, his breath­ing began to deepen, and his face, at last, grew tran­quil. When he was fi­nally healed, he met Drake’s eyes with a cold, empty stare of his own. “I’m fine.”

Drake in­haled brusquely, re­trac­ted the fire, and then meas­ured each of Dante’s fea­tures, one at a time, as if gauging the truth for him­self, be­fore he slowly crawled off him. He sat quietly be­side him, braced his arms on his knees, and then hung his head for­ward in fa­tigue. The male was ex­hausted, de­pleted, ut­terly spent.

Dante sat up slowly and growled. He glanced around the room, tak­ing his first true meas­ure of the situ­ation, his keen eyes miss­ing noth­ing. He stared at Ta­tiana, still ly­ing dazedly on the bed; shif­ted his gaze to Mina, glar­ing at her in re­proach; and then turned his at­ten­tion to Drake and sighed. “I’ll go fetch Cas­sidy,” he said.

Mina sat erect, her mind at full at­ten­tion. “Does he need to feed again?” she asked, test­ing her voice for strength. She quickly sidled up be­side him and angled her head, of­fer­ing Prince Drake her throat. While she still didn’t feel com­pletely well—far from it, really—it was the least she could do. Dante had saved her life. Drake had saved Ta­tiana’s, and she owed them both im­meas­ur­ably. Not to men­tion, Cas­sidy Bondev­ille could not be trus­ted. Not in the least. The power-hungry wench would try to use the situ­ation to her ad­vant­age in any way she could, and if that meant spill­ing the beans to Prince Damian in or­der to gain his fa­vor, or telling him everything she knew, she wouldn’t hes­it­ate to do so. It was bet­ter to leave Cas­sidy out of the equa­tion.

Dante waved his hand and shook his head. “He can’t take from you again, Mina. Not this soon. Not that much. It would kill you.”

Drake rolled his head on his shoulders and groaned. “I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not,” Dante snarled, stand­ing up slowly and pa­cing the room. He bent over to pick up his bloody tu­nic, crumpled it in his fist, and tossed it into the corner, be­hind a high-backed chair. Then he ges­tured with his chin to­ward the bed. “Is she okay now?”

Mina hur­ried to the bed to check on her friend. “Tati? Can you hear me?” She gently helped her sit up. “Is that bet­ter?”

Ta­tiana moaned and rubbed her eyes. “What happened?”

Mina smiled. Her friend’s voice was faint but fa­mil­iar, a sooth­ing balm to Mina’s soul. She was go­ing to be all right. “Prince Drake healed you. You’re go­ing to be okay.” She ran her hands up and down Ta­tiana’s arms, test­ing for weak­ness or re­ac­tions. She turned her friend’s head from side to side, ig­nor­ing the mat­ted, blood­stained curls, and she ran the pad of her thumb be­neath a soft, arched brow, mar­veling at the sud­den per­fec­tion, the nor­mal, healthy eye­lid, and the ut­ter lack of swell­ing. “You look a thou­sand times bet­ter,” she mur­mured, pulling her into a tender hug. “Oh, Ta­tiana. I was so scared.”

“Save it for later,” Dante growled, his harsh voice bring­ing Mina up short.

She re­leased Ta­tiana and spun around on the bed to face him. “My prince, thank you for all that you’ve done.”

Ta­tiana cowered against the head­board, clearly ter­ri­fied of all things
male
.

Dante ap­proached the bed rest­lessly, his cruel mouth curved into a frown. “Don’t you
ever
pull some shit like that again,” he snarled.

Mina re­coiled. “Dante,
my prince,
I—”

He held up his hand to si­lence her. “What the hell were you think­ing?”

She gulped. “I…I was
think­ing
that Ta­tiana might die.”

The fair, au­burn-haired Ahavi clutched at the bed­cover, drew it up to her neck, and cowered be­neath it. She peeked back and forth between Dante and Mina and shivered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in a barely aud­ible voice.

Dante shook his head, warn­ing her to stay out of it.

“I’m sorry, too,” Mina offered. “But it couldn’t be helped.”

Dante bristled at her last words, the muscles in his shoulders grow­ing vis­ibly taut as he clutched one of the four bed­posts in his fist. “You really just might be too stu­pid to live,” he said, and then he im­me­di­ately turned his at­ten­tion to Ta­tiana. “Get off the bed, and go get Cas­sidy.”

Ta­tiana blanched. Her hands shook un­con­trol­lably as she forced her­self to turn the cov­er­let loose. She nod­ded in obed­i­ence, even as she glanced at Mina with wide, frightened eyes. “Yes, my prince.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, shuffled for a mo­ment, in or­der to test her strength, and then hur­ried to­ward the door.

“Wait!” Mina called after her. “Cas­sidy can­not be trus­ted.” She re­garded Dante with fer­vent eyes, try­ing to ig­nore his last com­ment—per­haps she de­served it, con­sid­er­ing all that had happened. “She’s an op­por­tun­ist, Dante. She’s power-hungry and cor­rupt. She wouldn’t blink at be­tray­ing any one of us just to fur­ther her own ends.”

Dante tightened his grip around the post and drew a deep, reg­u­lat­ing breath.

Mina shuffled back­ward on the bed and hung her head in obeis­ance.

He let go of the post, roun­ded the bed, and loomed over her in a threat­en­ing pose. “We’re on a first-name basis now?”

Mina felt faint. “Please,” she whispered, “I’m just try­ing—”

He moved so quickly she never saw him stir. He yanked her up by the swell of her arm, dragged her from the bed, as if she weighed no more than the pil­lows, and then spun her around to face his brother, who was still sit­ting idly on the floor. “Look at him,” he growled. And then he ad­dressed his next ques­tion to Drake. “How much time do you have be­fore you grow ill, brother?
Dan­ger­ously
ill
?”

Drake lif­ted his chin with no little ef­fort. “I’m fine right now, Dante. Maybe thirty minutes, an hour at the most.”

Dante nod­ded. He re­leased his hold on Mina and angled his body to­ward Ta­tiana—his bare chest looked like sculp­ted iron, re­flec­ted in the fire­light. “At the end of the hall, be­neath the ser­vants’ bells, there is a square panel. Open it and tug on the braided chain in­side.” He fixed his gaze on Mina and scowled. “It will call one of the fe­male cour­tes­ans,
the Blood Ahavi
. One of them can feed my brother.”

Ta­tiana’s ex­pres­sion re­gistered her dis­gust, and be­fore she could think bet­ter of it, she uttered, “You mean the sex slaves are real?” Her shoulders lit­er­ally curled for­ward, and she looked like she might cry.

Of course
they’re real
, Mina thought,
there were a lot more than three Ahavi trained at the Keep.
The Sk­la­vos Ahavi just happened to be the only Ahavi cap­able, and deemed worthy, of pro­du­cing off­spring. She sighed.
Poor Ta­tiana.
Not only had Damian used her so bru­tally, but he had done so while know­ing that he had his choice of nu­mer­ous fe­males just a chain’s tug away, wait­ing to ful­fill his every need.

Dante shrugged. “My father keeps his fa­vor­ites at the castle.” He frowned, al­though his eyes re­flec­ted little sym­pathy. “Nor­mally, the Blood Ahavi are kept sep­ar­ate and hid­den from the chosen”—he swept his hand in a wide arc, in­dic­at­ing the room they were stand­ing in—“but un­der the cir­cum­stances, I think we are all bey­ond keep­ing secrets.”

Mina also felt like weep­ing, yet she had no idea why. Once again, Dante had suc­ceeded at both shock­ing her senses and wound­ing her pride. Would she never learn to just shut down her feel­ings, to name her­self as what she was—
a slave
—and ap­par­ently, one of many? She nod­ded at Ta­tiana, sig­ni­fy­ing her con­sent, and then she im­me­di­ately cowered, throw­ing both arms in the air, in an ef­fort to shield her head as Dante raised his angry fist.

For whatever reason, he did not strike her. He just stood there, hov­er­ing above her, glower­ing an­grily with those venom­ous eyes. “You would give
my
slave
your
con­sent?” His voice was thick with con­tempt.

Mina fought to re­gain her com­pos­ure, to try to make sense of the situ­ation. By all the gods, what had she done now? “No.
No.
I just”—she poin­ted ab­sently at Ta­tiana—“we’re friends. It was just an in­stinct. I was just agree­ing.” She stared at his fist and tried not to cower.

Dante lowered his arm, stormed to the door, and scooped Ta­tiana up by the waist. The fe­male shrieked in protest as he car­ried her across the room and tossed her on the bed.

Mina watched in hor­ror. “Dante,
no
! Please!”

He ro­tated his neck on his shoulders, like someone who was
this close
to snap­ping, and then he re­leased his fangs. When he next spoke, his eyes were like mol­ten lava, and his voice was dark with malevol­ent in­tent. “Shall I undo what Drake has done?” He cocked his head to the side. “Name your poison, Mina.” He licked his feral lips. “Fire?” He splayed his fin­gers, widely apart, slowly re­leas­ing ten jagged claws. “Shall I un­dress her with these?” And then he reached down and un­fastened the threads on his trousers with the tip of a nail. “Or shall I keep her clothes on and just make you watch?” He growled deep in his throat, sound­ing more like a beast than a man. “Which shall it be, sweet Mina? Which method of cor­rec­tion do you prefer?”

Mina’s heart poun­ded furi­ously in her chest, both des­per­ate and dis­be­liev­ing. She ran to the bed and, without even think­ing, dove across the mat­tress and planted her body between the dragon prince and his vic­tim. “I’m sorry!” she said, nearly shout­ing. “My prince,
please
don’t take this out on Ta­tiana. I’m beg­ging you.”

He turned to face her and held out both hands, his fin­gers curled in­ward as if he wanted to wrap them around her throat. “Why should I stop?
Tell me
!” His voice was ragged and cruel. “What the hell is it go­ing to take for you to un­der­stand your place?”