Dragons Realm (2 page)

And then, just like that, his coun­ten­ance softened.

He shrugged his shoulders and in­clined his head, cas­u­ally re­gard­ing all three girls without meet­ing their eyes. “Gov­erness…” His voice was laced with un­spoken com­mand.

“My prince?”

He ges­tured to­ward the Sk­la­vos Ahavi. “Name them.”

Pralina nod­ded far too en­thu­si­ast­ic­ally, and her tongue dar­ted out to lick her quiv­er­ing lips. “As you wish, mi­lord.” She poin­ted at Mina first. “My prince, Dante: This is Mina Louvet, from the south­ern province. She is renowned for her aptitude with for­eign lan­guages and her know­ledge of dis­tant cul­tures.” She turned her at­ten­tion to the shy beauty quak­ing in her boots. “Ta­tiana Ward is also from the
com­mon­lands
. Al­though she hails from a poor fam­ily, she is now well-edu­cated and shows great prom­ise in math­em­at­ics and com­merce. I be­lieve she is the most obed­i­ent of the three.” She cut her eyes at Mina as she spoke the pre­vi­ous phrase, and then she im­me­di­ately turned her at­ten­tion to Cas­sidy. “And Cas­sidy Bondev­ille is from a well-bred fam­ily, wealthy and re­spec­ted. She is eager to serve the Realm.”

Dante listened, but he kept his eyes aver­ted, his head cocked slightly to the side.

He didn’t look at any of them
.

He simply nod­ded after each in­tro­duc­tion, and then, without say­ing a word, he si­lently turned on his heels and strolled to the castle doors.

The dis­missal—
the ab­so­lute dis­reg­ard and own­er­ship
—was as glar­ing as his si­lence and far more fore­bod­ing.

Both gave Mina the chills.

She watched as he walked away, both si­lent and proud, without both­er­ing to look back or even dis­miss the gov­erness, and some­thing in­side of her re­coiled.

Mina didn’t know what she had ex­pec­ted, what she had hoped would hap­pen the first time she laid eyes on a dragon, but this wasn’t it: Per­haps she had ex­pec­ted an in­ter­rog­a­tion or a sharp, con­des­cend­ing diatribe, out­lining ex­actly what was ex­pec­ted of each girl, what would and would not be tol­er­ated. Per­haps she had ex­pec­ted the dragon to snarl when he spoke or to ra­di­ate cruelty with his eyes, to re­gard them with hos­til­ity or dis­dain, even vul­gar in­nu­endo—after all, they were
his
to do with as he pleased—but this, this cas­ual dis­reg­ard and quiet dis­missal, it was truly bey­ond the pale. After six long years of ser­vitude—liv­ing, work­ing, and train­ing in ut­ter des­ol­a­tion at the Keep—after nearly a dec­ade as noth­ing more than a ward of the king­dom, Mina had ex­pec­ted some­thing more.

Any­thing.

More
.

Some­how, Mina had at least ex­pec­ted to be ac­know­ledged as alive.

Just then, Dante turned around in the door­way, and his severe eyes met
hers
. It was as if he had heard her thoughts—was that even pos­sible?

“Mina…” His voice was hardly more than a whis­per. “There are two horses saddled in the court­yard, a black stal­lion and a white geld­ing. The stal­lion is my per­sonal steed; the geld­ing is now yours. Take your mount.” His voice was as en­chant­ing as the night sky and just as dark. He didn’t await a reply. He simply sauntered out the doors.

Mina’s stom­ach turned over in sud­den waves of nausea, and she locked her gaze on Ta­tiana’s—the girl’s face was pos­it­ively ashen—be­fore turn­ing her at­ten­tion to Pralina. “Gov­erness?”

Pralina scowled. “Go, girl.”

Mina winced. She looked down at her at­tire—she was wear­ing a calf-length, flow­ing tu­nic of em­er­ald green and opal white over a tight-fit­ting un­der­gar­ment that hugged her hips, thighs, and legs. “Should I not change first?”
Dearest god­dess of light
, what did Dante want with her? Had he truly over­heard her private thoughts? And if so, what then? Or had he ac­tu­ally over­heard her prior in­solence with Pralina be­fore he entered the room? Was he go­ing to take her into the woods and dis­pose of her?

Or worse?

“I…I don’t un­der­stand.”

Pralina took a men­acing step for­ward, her fri­gid body draw­ing so close to Mina’s that their noses al­most touched. “Which part of this is giv­ing you pause? Your
lord
has given you a com­mand.
Go
.”

Mina swal­lowed her ap­pre­hen­sion and nod­ded. This was what she had wanted, right? To be ac­know­ledged as alive? Sud­denly, the idea seemed ut­terly pre­pos­ter­ous: Dante Dragona, the first­born son of King De­mitri and Queen Kalani, was a dragon, a su­per­nat­ural be­ing with un­told power, no mat­ter how hu­man he seemed. The last thing Mina wanted was to be alone with him.

She clutched the leather pouch around her neck, an am­u­let given to her by her mother be­fore she was taken to the Keep: It con­tained a lock of her mother’s hair, a like­ness of her sis­ter, Raylea, drawn by her father on an aged piece of parch­ment, and the petals of a tulip, one Mina had grown as a child in the fam­ily’s humble garden; and it usu­ally gave her strength.

Usu­ally.

Today was al­to­gether dif­fer­ent.

“Of course,” she fi­nally mumbled, feel­ing more than a little bit queasy. Gath­er­ing her cour­age, she headed for the door.

Chapter Two

M
ina forced her­self
to place one foot in front of the other, to simply keep her eyes on the cobble­stone path be­fore her, as she stoic­ally made her way to­ward the white horse. A deep, gut­tural sound brought her up short—
was that ac­tu­ally a
growl?
—and her eyes shot to Dante. She took an un­wit­ting step back­ward. “Mi­lord?”

“You’re bleed­ing.” He licked his full lips be­fore wav­ing her for­ward with his hand. “Come to me.”

Mina’s heart began to race in her chest. She glanced down at her wounded arm and quickly covered it with the palm of her other hand. “It’s…it’s noth­ing.”

His voice dropped to a sul­try purr, dev­ast­at­ing in its in­tens­ity. “I said,
come to
me
.”

Mina gulped. She raised her chin, took a slow, deep breath, and tent­at­ively stepped for­ward.

“Closer.”

She took an­other step for­ward. And then, with a wave of im­pa­tience, Dante nar­rowed his eyes on her feet, his pu­pils flashed burnt or­ange or crim­son—it was too fast to tell—and she was sud­denly stand­ing be­fore him, their toes nearly touch­ing.
Blessed Nuri, Lord of Fire, the dragon had moved her body with his mind
. She quickly dis­missed the thought; it was more than she could grasp.

“What happened?” he asked, as he reached out to take her arm.

Mina fought not to pull it away and tuck it be­hind her back. “Noth­ing.”

He smiled faintly, but there was no joy in the ex­pres­sion. “Six years at the Keep and you still do not un­der­stand au­thor­ity?”

She as­sumed the ques­tion was rhet­or­ical, but she answered any­way. “No…I mean
yes
…mi­lord.” She watched him as he stud­ied the wounds on her arm.

“I’ll ask again:
What
happened
?”

“Pralina,” Mina whispered. When he glared at her an­grily, she ad­ded, “She snatched my arm and dug her nails into my flesh.”

“Why?”

“I…be­cause…in re­sponse to my in­solence.” She bit her bot­tom lip.

He nod­ded. “
Pralina
…” And then he began to caress the wound ab­sently with his thumb. He rubbed slow circles over the jagged in­cisions as he stud­ied them more closely, and then he pressed his own thumb­nail into the deep­est of the cuts.

“Ouch!” Mina flinched.

“Shh, be still,” he whispered, and then he did some­thing as strange as it was un­ex­pec­ted. He slowly bent his head, his mid­night hair fall­ing for­ward in a silken frame that shiel­ded his eyes, and lapped up the blood in three slow strokes of his tongue.

Mina gasped. She drew back her arm and stared at him in mor­bid fas­cin­a­tion. She looked down at her arm and shuddered—the wounds were all gone.

He ges­tured to­ward the horse. “Your mount, Mina.”

Mina took a cour­ageous step to­ward the beau­ti­ful white geld­ing and reached for the sloped leather horn, and then she froze.

She had thought she could do this.

Heck, she had been trained for six long years to do
just this
, but the real­ity of the Dragons—the real­ity of Dante—was far more fore­bod­ing than she had ex­pec­ted. Noth­ing she had been taught had pre­pared her for this first real-life en­counter, the over­whelm­ing pres­ence of the preter­nat­ural male stand­ing so close be­side her, the way he watched her with
those eyes
, the way he ap­praised her with barely con­cealed fe­ro­city in his gaze. And she wasn’t at all sure she could go through with it, that she wouldn’t end up be­ing ex­ecuted for dis­obedi­ence be­fore the en­counter was over.

She reached once more for the saddle horn, will­ing her body to com­ply with the prince’s com­mand. After all, what was the big deal? How hard was it to go for a ride on horse­back? She was as sure in the saddle as any­one—all the Sk­la­vos Ahavi were—they were trained to be so. Just the same, her hand trembled, and she could barely re­main steady on her feet. She re­leased the saddle horn and wiped her sweaty hand along the front of her tu­nic. “Where are you tak­ing me?” she asked, hop­ing to dis­tract him while she re­gained her com­pos­ure.

Dante meas­ured her thought­fully. He glanced at the horse, as­sessed her trem­bling hands, and then looked off into the dis­tance, as if giv­ing her a mo­ment to col­lect her wits. “I am go­ing to show you the castle grounds, the land around the set­tle­ment, and you are go­ing to com­mit it to memory.”

Mina nod­ded. That soun­ded in­no­cent enough. “Why?” she whispered. “I mean,
why me
?” She waited with bated breath.

Dante grew mo­tion­less, far too still, and he stood like that, like a gran­ite statue, for what seemed like an etern­ity be­fore reach­ing out to take her by the arm and spin her around to face him. “Look at me, Ahavi.”

Mina looked up into his bot­tom­less dark eyes and al­most faltered. His face was haunt­ing in its per­fec­tion yet ter­ri­fy­ing in its subtle bru­tal­ity. There was some­thing uniden­ti­fi­able lurk­ing just be­neath the sur­face of those eyes, some­thing an­cient, wise, and
deadly
. They held fire and ice; war and blood; pas­sion and pain in their depths.

Power bey­ond ima­gin­ing.

Mina tore her gaze from Dante’s and stud­ied his fea­tures in­stead: His cheeks were chiseled, as if in stone, the harsh, un­yield­ing angles just
shy
of cyn­ical and cruel. His nose was straight and noble, sculp­ted at the tip as if by the hands of an ar­tisan, and his brows were per­fectly arched, not too straight, not too thin…not too full. His chin was strong; his mouth was sul­try; and his skin was as smooth as the day he was born.
Do dragons age?
she wondered.
How long do they really live?
Le­gend had it that they were nearly im­mor­tal, and if that were the case, what would be­come of her, Ta­tiana, and Cas­sidy as they grew older?

Again, the thought was too un­set­tling to pon­der, so she dis­missed it.

For­cing her­self to meet his steely gaze, she asked, “Are you go­ing to an­swer me?” She wished her mouth would just stay
shut
.

Dante held her gaze, un­blink­ing, un­til she fi­nally turned away. And then, he raised his right hand to touch her nose with his in­dex fin­ger, a light tap on the tip of her flesh. “Don’t ever ques­tion me like that again, Mina.” His voice was cold and un­com­prom­ising. “You may ask ques­tions if you’re curi­ous, but don’t ever in­sist upon an an­swer.”

Mina’s eyes grew wide. Oh,
hell’s fire
, she knew bet­ter. What was hap­pen­ing to her? Her knees grew weak in fear of re­tali­ation. “For­give me,” she whispered, not so much be­cause she re­gret­ted break­ing the rules, but be­cause she un­der­stood all too well just who
and what
he was. She closed her eyes. “Apo­lo­gies, mi­lord.”

He clasped her by the chin and gently tilted her head up­ward. “Open your eyes.”

She obeyed, half ex­pect­ing him to strike her.

“Beau­ti­ful,” he whispered, slowly re­leas­ing his hold. “Now then: I am tak­ing you on a ride around the grounds so that you will know which areas are safe and which are for­bid­den. I will show you the best places to find fruit…and flowers…and the best places to hide should the fort­ress be at­tacked.”

Mina’s head was spin­ning, her thoughts swirl­ing around like rain in a nor’easter wind.
He wanted to show her where to find fruit…and flowers…and where to hide?
What was he? A lover or a sad­ist? She stood, mo­tion­less, wait­ing for him to con­tinue.

“As for
why you
?” He rubbed his chin thought­fully. “Be­cause you are the Sk­la­vos Ahavi I have chosen for my mate.”

Mina’s mouth dropped open. She tried to gather her thoughts, but her fear got the best of her.
Was he kid­ding?
What did he mean
he had chosen her as his mate
? It was way too soon! He hadn’t even looked at the other girls in the foyer. In fact, he knew noth­ing about her bey­ond Pralina’s ini­tial in­tro­duc­tion. And be­sides, the witch, Wavani, had to make the fi­nal re­com­mend­a­tions. “The choice is your father’s,” she blur­ted in a rush, “the king’s.” Oh great god­dess of mercy, she could not be wed to this fear­some creature.

Dante smiled lazily, his coun­ten­ance un­per­turbed. “Mm, per­haps that is true, but I am the king’s first­born. He will re­spect my wishes.”

Mina gasped. “But you just met me! You haven’t even spoken with Ta­tiana or Cas­sidy yet.”

Dante reached out to twirl a lock of her hair through his rugged fin­gers, and he sighed. “Your hair is like mine, as dark as the mid­night sky.” He ran his thumb along the side of her jaw. “Your eyes are the color of em­er­alds, as rare as they are ex­quis­ite.” He clasped his hands be­hind his back and stud­ied her from head to toe, without apo­logy. “You are beau­ti­ful,” he whispered, “and our sons will be strong.”

Mina gasped and took a step back, grasp­ing at straws. “But…but…” The words wouldn’t come.

He placed his open palm against her heart, his thumb set­tling far too close to her breast. “And you have fire in your soul, Mina Louvet. More than enough to feed a hungry dragon.”

Mina tried to re­mem­ber her place, to re­strain from re­mov­ing Dante’s hand from her chest—
she really did
—but the ter­ror was be­gin­ning to over­whelm her. Brush­ing his hand aside, she held both palms up to usher him back. “Please, my prince. Don’t touch me like that.” She felt her body be­gin to tremble, and she might have given vent to tears if she hadn’t been so deeply op­posed to giv­ing him the sat­is­fac­tion.

She waited quietly then…

To die.

Dante stared at her with a dis­ap­prov­ing gaze, but there was no hint of re­tri­bu­tion in his eyes. His brows didn’t fur­row, and his jaw didn’t stiffen. He didn’t grow scales or fangs. Only, his eyes, those glor­i­ous, dan­ger­ous eyes; they glowed with the re­flec­tion of flames in the cen­ters, a dragon’s fire barely re­strained. “Take your mount, Mina,” he growled, turn­ing away to gather his stal­lion’s reins.

Mina ex­haled in re­lief, stunned that she was still stand­ing.

Still breath­ing.

Loosely grabbing the reins, she reached for the horn on her saddle, set a foot in the stir­rup, and star­ted to hoist her­self up. Yet, and again, her trem­bling grew un­man­age­able. Curs­ing her­self for her weak­ness, she froze where she perched and simply tried to take in air, one breath in, one breath out. “
In­hale deeply, Mina, then re­lease it
,” she whispered be­neath her breath.

Dante was in­stantly be­hind her, his massive frame tower­ing above hers. He placed one hand on either side of her waist, pressed his chest blatantly against her back, and bent to her ear. “Re­lax, Ahavi. The beast can smell your fear.”

Mina looked up at her horse. He was be­gin­ning to snort and prance in place, and she knew her emo­tions had trans­ferred to the in­tu­it­ive an­imal. She shook her head to clear the cob­webs. “
Of course
. I don’t mean to frighten the horse. I’ll try—”

Dante res­ted his chin on the crown of her head. He nuzzled her hair and sighed, his body grow­ing no­tice­ably tense. “I wasn’t re­fer­ring to the horse.”

Mina dropped the reins. She quickly stepped to the side, eyed the pas­ture just bey­ond the court­yard, and then, without think­ing or reas­on­ing, she took off run­ning, her legs mov­ing faster than they had ever moved be­fore. Her arms pumped furi­ously and her lungs burned like fire as she glanced re­peatedly over her shoulder, await­ing the dragon’s pur­suit.

Dante stood by the horses and watched as she placed more and more dis­tance between them. He didn’t call out to her, and he didn’t shift into whatever form a dragon took. He simply watched her run as if she were put­ting on a show for his amuse­ment. Fi­nally, he said some­thing to the an­im­als and began to walk in her dir­ec­tion.

Mina picked up the pace, frantic to get away.

She scanned the sur­round­ing fields, search­ing for a place to hide, while Dante just kept walk­ing.

When, at last, she reached the edge of the woods, he made his move.

He jumped.

Or flew.

Whatever it was, she couldn’t be cer­tain, but it pro­pelled him for­ward at enorm­ous speed.

Dante Dragona was no longer a man, yet he wasn’t a dragon, either. He was simply a blur of mo­tion, an im­pres­sion of light, trav­el­ing faster than time or space should al­low, hurt­ling to­ward her with lethal pur­pose. “Stop!” The force of his voice brought her up short as surely as if he had bound her hands and feet in a pair or iron shackles.

Mina tugged against the in­vis­ible binds, the mys­tical power that held her in place like an un­seen hand. “Re­lease me,” she pleaded.

“Be still,” he barked.

Mina struggled migh­tily against…
against
…against what? She was des­per­ate to break free. “Please, Dante. I can’t do this. I don’t know how to do this.”

“To do what?” He en­circled her from be­hind, again. Only, this time, he clamped his power­ful arms around her waist and pulled her back against him, the tops of both hands brush­ing in­de­cently against the sides of her breasts. “Do what?” he re­peated. “This?” He tightened his hold.

“Yes,” Mina cried. “
Please
.”

“Please, what?” he re­peated.

She ceased her struggles. “Please, let go.”

He bit her on the neck, just between the junc­ture of her throat and her col­lar­bone, and his teeth felt much sharper than they looked. He held her like that, like a lion re­strain­ing a cub, un­til at last she froze be­neath him, and he let go. “You will not ques­tion me, Mina,” he growled. “You will not tell me when I may touch you and when I may not.”

Mina grim­aced. She tugged at his hands to no avail. “It’s
my
body, mi­lord.”

“No,” he whispered coldly. “It is not. It is mine.”

Mina could hardly be­lieve her ears. “But you haven’t even con­sidered Ta­tiana or Cas­sidy. All I’m ask­ing—”

“You will not ask this again,” he warned her. “Just breathe, Mina.
Re­lax
.”