Dragons Realm (13 page)

“I un­der­stand,” she croaked. “I swear. I do.” She shuffled onto her knees, rising higher in or­der to meet his gaze. She was shocked by her own des­per­ate cour­age, but she had to get through to the man—some­how, she had to get past the angry dragon, which she knew she had pro­voked. “Mi­lord,” she whispered, hop­ing he would fo­cus and hear her, “be­fore all the gods in the heav­ens, the lord of fire, bringer of rain, and the god­dess of mercy, spirit of light…I swear to you, I
am
sorry. I did not mean to pro­voke your wrath or to ques­tion your su­prem­acy. Never. Truly.
Never
.” She licked her lips in a nervous ges­ture and tried to steady her breath. “I just…oh, my prince, please…show mercy.” She swept her hand around the room, much like he had done earlier. “I don’t un­der­stand any of this. I don’t pre­tend to un­der­stand you.” She stared at Drake. “You sent your brother to heal Ta­tiana, so I know you have a heart…you have a soul. You have com­pas­sion.” She ges­tured to­ward the bloody, crumpled shirt, now tossed away in the corner of the room. “You took fif­teen lashes
for me
, to spare me from pain and de­grad­a­tion.
You saved my life
, and I don’t even know why, but you did it just the same.
My prince
,” she slowly shut her eyes, and this time, as she spoke, her tears fell freely, “not only am I sorry; I am grate­ful. I am
not
de­fy­ing you. I simply do not know how to please you…yet. But by all the gods, I swear to you, I will learn.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Not be­cause I have to, and not be­cause I fear you, but be­cause I want to. Be­cause I owe you.” She sank back down, set­tling her weight onto her legs, lower­ing her pos­ture be­fore him. “If you must pun­ish someone, pun­ish me. If you must teach a les­son, teach it to me. I am your will­ing ser­vant.” She held his gaze, and he took a meas­ured step back.

His eyes flashed sev­eral times, re­treat­ing from crim­son to ruby, from ruby to dark blue, and then he re­trac­ted his claws and re­fastened his trousers.

He glanced at Ta­tiana, who was shiv­er­ing on the bed, still ly­ing in wait and heav­ing with sobs. “Sit up,” he said evenly. “Stop cry­ing. I am not go­ing to hurt you.” He ran his hand through his hair in frus­tra­tion, and then turned back to Mina and frowned. “I don’t know how to teach you, Ahavi!” He sighed. “I don’t know why it is…you can’t learn.”

Just then, Prince Drake stirred on the floor. He struggled onto his hands and knees, slowly pushed up, and staggered to­ward the bed, where he clutched at a post for bal­ance. “Per­haps this Ahavi is like me, brother. Per­haps she is guided by reason.” He met Mina’s sur­prised gaze and nod­ded po­litely. “Per­haps,
just this once
, we might speak to our ser­vants as al­lies. Al­low them to ask ques­tions. Give them an­swers. Per­haps that is the les­son she awaits.” He turned to face Dante then. “The ques­tion is: Is it worth it…
to you
? To take this one op­por­tun­ity to teach her in a way she might learn.”

Dante stared at his brother like he had drool on his face, like he was truly con­foun­ded by the sug­ges­tion. Per­haps his dragon was just too strong, or per­haps some­thing in­side of him was just too im­plac­able to shift… Non­ethe­less, he con­sidered Prince Drake’s words care­fully.

Very care­fully.

After sev­eral minutes had passed, Drake cleared his throat. “What say you, brother?”

And all at once, Mina un­der­stood: Damian was a true prim­or­dial dragon, noth­ing but fire and in­stinct and force; whereas, Drake was a thinker, a peace­maker, much more aligned with his hu­man­ity. No won­der the king had chosen him for Castle Com­mons, to lead the hu­man province. And Dante? Well, he was a curi­ous mix­ture of both: a feral dragon, eas­ily pro­voked, yet a tempered soul, cap­able of reason. The ques­tion was one of bound­ar­ies, where to draw each line.

She waited, along with Ta­tiana, study­ing Dante’s face.

His ex­pres­sion re­mained in­scrut­able, yet the wheels were clearly turn­ing.

Fi­nally, he nod­ded his head. “Per­haps. Just this once.” He turned a steely gaze on Mina and then Ta­tiana, each fe­male in turn, and ad­ded, “But I swear on the soil of my twin brother’s grave, if a word of this…
can­did
con­ver­sa­tion
…ever leaves this room, if you so much as even think of act­ing or speak­ing as an equal, with im­pun­ity, again—”

“We will kill you both ourselves,” Drake sup­plied.

Chapter El­even

D
ante nod­ded, and
Mina shivered.

There was no ques­tion in her mind that they meant what they said. If the girls be­trayed them, they would kill them.

She took a seat on the bed be­side Ta­tiana, in­stinct­ively wrap­ping her arm around the frail Ahavi’s waist, and then she waited for one of the princes to speak, show­ing proper de­fer­ence by avert­ing her eyes.

Dante took a deep breath and leaned into the post, stretch­ing his back by arch­ing into his arms; whereas, Drake shuffled weakly to the end of the bed and sat down gingerly, fa­cing his brother. Al­though his frame was hunched over, his eyes were alert and vivid.

“How are you hold­ing up?” Dante asked Drake.

The prince shrugged, show­ing his fa­tigue. “I’m fine for a while longer.”

Dante shook his head. “Not good enough.” He turned to­ward Ta­tiana. “Ahavi, go call a blood slave, then re­turn. I’m sure Mina will share any­thing you miss.”

Ta­tiana nod­ded sev­eral times in ex­ag­ger­ated com­pli­ance. Even Mina knew bet­ter than to get in­volved. She waited si­lently with the mon­archs un­til the door closed softly be­hind her friend.

“Now then,” Dante said, get­ting straight to the point. “If it’s a mat­ter of ques­tions and an­swers, then ask. Speak freely. This is a one-time op­por­tun­ity.”

Mina gulped, but she hid her fear. She star­ted to speak, but stopped. She was still so rattled, still so afraid, she hardly knew where to be­gin…or if it was truly safe.

“Go ahead,” Drake in­sisted in a re­ceiv­ing voice. He angled his body ever so slightly to­ward the Ahavi.

Mina met his gaze with one of grat­it­ude, and then she took a quiet mo­ment to col­lect her thoughts. Fi­nally, when she had garnered the cour­age, she looked down at the cov­er­let and spoke evenly. “I know that what I did to­night was reck­less. It was stu­pid and dan­ger­ous, and I could’ve been killed.” She pushed past her hes­it­ancy. “But I was really des­per­ate to save Ta­tiana.” She raised her chin so that each male could see the con­vic­tion, the depth of emo­tion, in her eyes. “I don’t un­der­stand how…
why
…Damian gets away with it.”

“
Prince
Damian,” Dante cor­rec­ted her.

Drake held up his hand. “Go on.”

Mina swal­lowed a lump in her throat and looked ques­tion­ingly at Dante.

He nod­ded.

She wet her lips. “It is for­bid­den by your father, by King De­mitri’s very laws, for a prince to take an Ahavi be­fore the mat­ing, yet Prince Damian did just that—and he al­most killed an in­no­cent wo­man. I just don’t un­der­stand. Noth­ing is like what we were taught at the Keep. How are we to obey or make sense of our ob­lig­a­tions?” She bit her lip in anxi­ety, fear­ing she had gone too far.

Drake sighed. “Are you ask­ing whether or not we can reason with our father on Ta­tiana’s be­half? Whether or not we can op­pose our brother, or how to avoid Damian’s wrath?”

Mina blinked, sur­prised by his candor. “Um, all of it, I guess.”

Drake turned to Dante and nod­ded, ap­par­ently ur­ging him to an­swer.

“Mina,” Dante said pens­ively. He brought his fist to his mouth for a mo­ment as if deep in thought. “Do you know how many bones there are in a child’s body?”

She shook her head, a bit sur­prised by the ques­tion. “No.”

“Well over two hun­dred,” Dante said. “And do you know how I know this?”

Once again, she shook her head.

“Be­cause my father broke all of mine, but seven, and that was be­fore the age of six.” His eyes grew murky with re­col­lec­tion. “A dragon’s ana­tomy is a bit dif­fer­ent than a hu­man’s, but I think I was in­no­cent enough.”

Mina star­ted to re­coil, but she caught her re­ac­tion be­fore she could of­fend the prince with pity.
Don’t you dare
, she said in­wardly, re­mind­ing her­self to re­main im­pass­ive. The last thing this bru­tal dragon was look­ing for was sym­pathy from a wo­man. She clenched her teeth and de­clined her head in a nod of un­der­stand­ing, and then she waited for Dante to con­tinue.

“Do you know what a fourth-de­gree burn feels like, when even your bones are melt­ing?”

Mina closed—and then re­opened—her eyes. “You do?” she whispered.

He nod­ded, quite mat­ter-of-factly. “Pray that you never will, be­cause dragons heal from fire; hu­mans don’t.” He stood up straighter and looked off into the dis­tance. “Earlier, in the throne room, my
father
would have scorched you where you stood if I had not stepped in.” He leaned in closer. “And as for
King De­mitri,
he doesn’t give a sweet damn about your friend, Ta­tiana, or what Damian does in his free time as long as it doesn’t af­fect the Realm.”

Mina did cringe this time. It was everything she had feared. She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it, ter­ri­fied by her very thoughts.

“What were you go­ing to say?” Drake asked.

Mina quickly shook her head. “Noth­ing.”

“What?” Dante growled. He didn’t sound so much angry as in­sist­ent, as if this was her one chance to speak freely, and to him, it was an act of great be­ne­vol­ence. He was some­how de­term­ined to play it out.

She trembled as she spoke, voicing her ques­tion in a whis­per. “Has any­one ever op­posed him?”

Dante shut his eyes and the faintest of growls rumbled in his throat. It was as if the word
treason
floated through the room, and nobody had to name it.

Mina waited quietly, either to hear an an­swer or to be burned.

“My brother or my father?” Dante asked.

She was shocked that it wasn’t Drake pos­ing the ques­tion. “Either. Both.”

Dante took a deep breath, crooked his ear to­ward his shoulder, and popped his neck, as if to re­lieve some ten­sion. “My mother op­posed my father,” he said coolly. “That’s where Damian comes from.”

Mina pressed her hand to her stom­ach and swal­lowed rising bile. “And Damian?”

“Soon, Damian will rule over Um­bras, the shad­ow­lands, a re­gion team­ing with wicked­ness and vi­ol­ence, and he will need an iron fist. My father ap­pre­ci­ates his
guile
.”

The door to the room opened, and Ta­tiana tip­toed back in. “The Ahavi is in the hall. Should I—”

“Leave her out there,” Dante snarled im­pa­tiently. “In fact, tell her to wait at the end of the cor­ridor un­til we call her.” He turned to face Prince Drake. “Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he as­sured his brother. “She’s not that far away, and I would cer­tainly feed be­fore I pass out.” He re­garded Dante squarely. “And if I do, pass out, that is, I trust that you will bring her to me be­fore I die.”

Dante smirked. “Not funny.” He nod­ded at Ta­tiana. “Tell her to move to the end of the hall.”

Ta­tiana re­spon­ded with a proper curt­sey, and then she quickly opened the door, whispered some­thing to the wait­ing blood slave, and then quietly reentered the room, where she took an un­ob­trus­ive place by the fire, re­treat­ing into the back­ground with her head bowed low. It was clear to all con­cerned that she was listen­ing, but she had no in­ten­tions of join­ing in.

Drake cleared his throat. “I think we answered your ques­tion, about Damian and Father, but per­haps a few things re­main un­clear.” He bent for­ward, and his own voice be­came a whis­per. “King De­mitri is the old­est liv­ing dragon on this planet. He is more than a man, more than a king. He is nearly a god.”

Dante nar­rowed his gaze at Mina. “Do you un­der­stand what that means?”

Mina fur­rowed her brows. “Not really. Don’t…” Her voice trailed off as she mustered more cour­age. “Don’t you have the same powers he does? I mean, now that you’re grown?” She eyed him war­ily, hop­ing once again that she hadn’t gone too far.

“I do not,” he said simply. “My father is a full shifter.”

“That means,” Drake said, “that while we can grow scales, breathe fire, ma­nip­u­late the ele­ments, and ac­cess vari­ous powers, our father can be­come a
ser­pent
. He can shift into a fully formed dragon and fly. He can scorch the earth and everything in it. No one—
and noth­ing
—is his equal.”

All at once, Dante stared poin­tedly at Mina, his smooth dark brows rising in an arc. His ex­pres­sion hardened, and his eyes flashed with de­fi­ance as he squared his already angled jaw. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. “Let’s just cut through all the bull­shit, shall we?”

To his credit, Drake didn’t re­act.

Mina flinched a bit, but she didn’t re­spond.

“For the sake of ar­gu­ment,” Dante con­tin­ued, “let us say that some­thing
un­for­tu­nate
were to be­fall our brother or our father. Then what?” He ges­tured to­ward Ta­tiana, whose face was a mask of ter­ror and dis­be­lief. “Who would rule the Realm?” He leveled a heated gaze at Mina. “You, Ta­tiana, Prince Drake, and me? Would we take over Castle Dragon, Castle Com­mons, Castle Um­bras,
and
Castle War­lo­chia all by ourselves, and still main­tain law and or­der through­out the realm?”

Mina shrank back­ward on the bed. She shook her head briskly and ges­tured with her hands. “Mi­lord, I never sug­ges­ted…I
never
asked—”

“Quiet,” Drake whispered. “You need to un­der­stand.”

Dante pressed on, sound­ing curi­ously apathetic. “And when the Lycani­ans sail their wooden ships across the sea, then what? Who will stop them? Drake? Or me, by my­self? And what would you say to me then, sweet Mina, when the Lycanian shifters at­tack the Realm, set the king­dom on fire from the east to the west, murder your par­ents and rape your sis­ter, let all the people starve. What would you ask of us then?”

Mina re­coiled. “My prince—”

“Do you know what keeps the Lycanian shifters from in­vad­ing our land?” Drake cut in. “Do you know what holds them back, even as we speak?”

Mina shook her head.

“Fear of our father. Fear of the king’s wrath. Fear of the
dragon
that he would be­come.”

Mina grasped the cov­er­let in her hand and tightened her fist around the soft ma­ter­ial, fur­ther shrink­ing back on the bed.

“And let’s also say, for the sake of ar­gu­ment, that the Lycani­ans don’t in­vade our lands,” Dante chimed in, “that our realm re­mains un­mo­les­ted and in­tact—what shall we do with the shad­ows once Damian is gone? How shall we keep them in line, stop them from tak­ing hu­man wo­men to breed like cattle, pre­vent them from de­vour­ing hu­man souls out of mere glut­tony, keep them from de­fil­ing your race’s sons and daugh­ters for mere pleas­ure? What should we do with the war­locks when they turn their gar­goyles loose on their neigh­bors, like vul­tures on car­rion, in or­der to seek domin­ion, when they sit on the throne in all four realms and rule the land with witch­craft? What will you ask of me then, when the en­tire realm is con­trolled by black ma­gick, when the people are starving be­cause the cor­rupt mages turn bread into gold and wine into sil­ver? Will you be happy then be­cause
Ta­tiana
is safe?”

Mina brushed a tear from her eye. Why was Dante speak­ing to her like this, like she had asked him to murder his brother, or worse, to com­mit out­right sedi­tion and go after the king? Des­pite her dis­tress, she knew the an­swer: He had seen the ques­tions in her eyes. He had felt the de­sire in her soul. He knew—
he some­how knew
—that she be­lieved the Realm would never be just or fair, or even tol­er­able, with De­mitri and Damian on their re­spect­ive thrones. She was a dreamer, and he was a real­ist. And that’s why their very spir­its clashed.

As if he knew he had fi­nally got­ten through to her, Dante re­laxed his pos­ture. “Yes, Mina. Our en­emies fear all the Drago­nas, but for a reason. It takes an en­tire king­dom to hold them at bay, to keep
all those
you love safe and warm. You would chop the head off the snake be­cause it is evil, when the body would de­vour the Realm. You un­der­stand noth­ing of the polit­ics, dangers, or dy­nam­ics that mo­tiv­ate the mon­archy, the con­cerns that su­per­sede the value of any
one
life, how pre­cari­ous our hold is over this land you call home.”

The en­tire room grew quiet. Other than the crack­ling of the fire dan­cing in the hearth, not a single sound could be heard, not even the nat­ural ebb and flow of their col­lect­ive breath. Fi­nally, when the si­lence had swelled to a deaf­en­ing cres­cendo, Dante spoke stoic­ally. “While what happened to Ta­tiana is despic­able and tra­gic, per­haps even rep­re­hens­ible, it is an un­avoid­able evil as long as King De­mitri sits on the throne.”

“And un­less and un­til an­other dragon comes of age, he
must
sit on that throne,” Drake ad­ded. “As long as all of us are needed to main­tain or­der in this realm, it is im­port­ant—nay, it is
im­per­at­ive
—that the bal­ance of power re­mains as it is.”

Mina blinked back her tears and frus­tra­tion. “I un­der­stand,” she whispered.

Dante fur­rowed his brows. “Do you?”

She frowned. “
Yes
, I do.”

“Then just ask it, Mina. Ask it and be done.”

Mina shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean. I—”

She hal­ted.

She stopped protest­ing, and she stopped ly­ing.

She stopped pre­tend­ing, and she stopped hold­ing back. In­stead, she squared her shoulders to Dante and sighed. “And is there no one else with whom you could form an al­li­ance? No one who would rise to your cause? Help you main­tain law and or­der…without your father and brother?”

Dante ac­tu­ally faltered. He re­leased the post and took a meas­ured step back, his ex­pres­sion fall­ing into a hard line of chag­rin, and Mina un­der­stood. His Sk­la­vos Ahavi, the wo­man who would one day bear him chil­dren, had just com­mit­ted sedi­tion. She had openly and verbally ex­pressed a de­sire to over­throw the king, and he had given her per­mis­sion to go there.

Drake drew in a labored breath and shuddered.

“Who?” Dante’s voice was de­cept­ively calm. “The hu­mans?” He laughed then, and it was a hol­low, piteous sound. “Are you kid­ding me, Mina? Have you ever seen a hu­man in the clutches of a war­lock? I have. It wasn’t a pretty sight. And the shad­ows? Do you know what they would do with hu­man souls if they were al­lowed? They would de­vour them, ab­sorb them, suck the life-force right out of the men and place the souls of the chil­dren on their tables as desserts, even as they chained the wo­men to their beds and used them to re­pop­u­late the Realm.”