Dragons Realm (20 page)

The third sol­dier snickered and cocked his head in Mina’s dir­ec­tion, as if she couldn’t read his roguish body lan­guage. “Screw the ten-year-old: What would you pay for a turn with that one?”

They all turned in uni­son to­ward Mina and looked her up and down, care­ful to avoid meet­ing her eyes, and then the first guard shivered as if he had sud­denly caught a chill. “Watch your tongue, shadow,” he said to the third guard, “be­fore the prince cuts it out.
That one
is off lim­its.”

The tooth­less idiot picked at his nose and then quickly changed the sub­ject. “So where can we find Sir Robert and
Ra­fael’s
…girls?”

“They’re camped on the far west­ern end of the cove, about a mile and a half in­land from the beach, on the other side of a dry rav­ine. All the trav­el­ing mer­chants and laborers are there.”

Mina stepped back into the shad­ows.

So…

Sir Robert Cross had sold a ten-year-old vir­gin about three weeks ago for fif­teen cop­pers?
Could it pos­sibly be her Raylea? She wanted to con­front the ab­hor­rent, despic­able guards, to de­mand that all three males drop to their knees, grovel in the dirt, and choke on their apo­lo­gies; and as Prince Damian’s Sk­la­vos Ahavi, she ac­tu­ally had the right to de­mand just that—though the prince would surely frown upon her slanted ab­use of power. Just the same, she needed to be wise. These males, as re­volt­ing as they were, were speak­ing of the il­legal slave trade, of
Ra­fael Bishop’s chat­tel
, and they had clearly named his dealer. If this Sir Robert Cross was the man to trade with, the one paid in ex­change for selling
Ra­fael’s
il­legal slaves, then one way or an­other, the bas­tard would know what be­came of Raylea, whose pos­ses­sion she ended up in.

Wait­ing for the sol­diers to pass, she spun on her heel and re­garded her maid­ser­vant squarely. “Ja­cine, how badly do you want to help your sis­ter?” It was a shame­less and selfish tac­tic, es­pe­cially in light of the fact that Mina didn’t even be­lieve in the mid­wives’ su­per­sti­tion; how­ever, it was clear that the ser­vant girl and her sis­ter, Anna, did. And if Mina was go­ing to risk Damian’s wrath by dis­obey­ing a fun­da­mental reg­u­la­tion, step­ping farther and farther out­side the lines of de­marc­a­tion, chan­cing the for­bid­den, then there had bet­ter be a worth­while ex­change in the end: a valu­able re­ward to off­set the in­valu­able cost.

A price she may very well pay in blood.

“Ex­cuse me, mis­tress?” Ja­cine answered, ap­pear­ing all at once con­fused. “I don’t un­der­stand—”

“You may bring your sis­ter to my cham­bers, and I
will
take her hand in mine—but there’s a price.”

The girl vis­ibly wil­ted as if Mina had just asked her to slay an im­per­ish­able mon­ster. She pressed the back of her thumb against her lower lip and bit down on her nail, ap­pear­ing to ab­sorb the state­ment. “But of course,” she fi­nally mumbled, and then she forced her spine to straighten. “I swear by all the gods of the eternal realms; if we can pay it, we will.”

“Not
we
,” Mina whispered.
“You.”
She ges­tured to­ward the maid’s shift and her skirt, and then nod­ded at her shoes. “I want you to switch clothes with me; give me your trav­el­ing pa­pers; and then bring me your sis­ter. I will hold her hand as you’ve asked, and then af­ter­ward, the two of you will re­main in my bed­cham­ber, sealed off from the rest of the tent. From that mo­ment on,
you
will pre­tend to be me, whilst your sis­ter will pre­tend to be your maid.
My maid
. Do you think you can do that?”

Ja­cine’s face turned a ghastly shade of green, even as her slate-gray eyes grew cloudy. “My lord would have my head.”

“Yes, he would,” Mina said truth­fully. “That is,
if
he caught you. If he caught me. But I will only be gone for five or six hours, and he will be fight­ing long into the night, likely un­til the early hours of dawn.” She stead­ied her re­solve and amp­li­fied her per­sist­ence. “I know it’s risky, and I’m ask­ing a lot—but that is the price.
That
, your secrecy, and the secrecy of your sis­ter. The three of us must take this de­cep­tion, this tem­por­ary ruse, to our graves.”

In this cal­lous and shame­ful mo­ment, Mina hated what she had be­come. Her palms were be­gin­ning to sweat, and her in­sides were turn­ing to jelly. This was not her way; this was not her char­ac­ter. And yet, what choice did she have? What power did she wield? She was as much a ser­vant and a pawn as Ja­cine or Anna, and her life was in just as much jeop­ardy, if not more.

There were all kinds of dangers lurk­ing in the dark between the tent of Um­bras and Sir Robert’s camp, not the least of which were her mas­ter’s loy­al­ists, Um­brasian rap­ists, and War­lo­chian thieves, the whole de­praved lot of them. Sud­denly, Prince Dante’s words made a whole lot of sense:
We have all made many sac­ri­fices for the Realm, Mina.

Truer words had never been spoken…

Yet she knew, deep down in her heart, that the sac­ri­fice she was mak­ing—the one she was ask­ing—was more for her­self than the Realm.

It was for Raylea.

It was for Mina’s con­science.

It was far more selfish than she cared to ad­mit.

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared im­pass­ively at the trem­bling girl, all the while feel­ing in­creas­ingly hor­rid with every second that passed. Just the same, she would not give in. The maid had asked Mina to dis­obey the prince on be­half of the child’s be­loved sis­ter, to take a cal­cu­lated risk on Anna’s be­half…

This wasn’t that dif­fer­ent.

The stakes were just much higher.

When it seemed as if the maid would never an­swer, Mina cleared her throat and tapped her foot on the floor—
gods help her, she felt like she had turned into Pralina
. “Well, Ja­cine? I’m wait­ing. What will it be?”

Chapter Eight­een

“
W
here is Drake?”
Dante barked, com­ing face-to-face with Damian for the first time since the fiasco in the throne room. He ad­jus­ted his preter­nat­ural vis­ion to see his brother’s fea­tures more clearly in the moon­light.

“So nice of you to show up,” Damian grunted. He met Dante’s seek­ing stare with a scowl of his own be­fore whirl­ing around to stand back-to-back with the prince, all the while rais­ing his sword and shield.

“Drake?” Dante re­peated, fall­ing eas­ily into step with his brother.

“He hasn’t made it to the beach yet,” Damian clipped. Since Drake had to travel
to and from
the south­ern­most dis­trict in Dragons Realm, he had a lot fur­ther to go.

“So it’s just you, me, and our sol­diers?” Dante asked.

Damian angled his chin to­ward the vari­ous sol­diers who were amass­ing nearby, ad­just­ing their ar­mor, draw­ing their swords, and nock­ing deadly ar­rows into tautly drawn bows. “In­deed. Two dragons and their faith­ful min­ions.” Damian turned his at­ten­tion to the ocean.

The first of five en­croach­ing Lycanian ships had anchored about fifty yards from shore, and the wild, su­per­nat­ural east­ern­ers were not wait­ing for their com­pan­ion ves­sels or the bulk of the re­main­ing fleet, which was still at sea, to at­tack. At least ten Lycani­ans leaped from the deck, vaul­ted into the air, and shape­shif­ted as they dove, trans­form­ing into every man­ner of pred­at­ory fowl: gi­ant hawks, enorm­ous eagles, and huge pre­his­toric rap­tors with razor-fine talons and sharply edged beaks. At the same time, an­other twelve war­ri­ors dove into the sea, shif­ted into sharks, stin­grays, and sea snakes, and dar­ted to­ward the beach. Yet an­other eight or so males, with caches full of weapons strapped to their backs, re­mained in hu­man form and jumped into the wa­ter be­fore hitch­ing a ride on a fin or a tail, shout­ing mor­tal war cries as they rap­idly ad­vanced.

Dante squared his shoulders, dropped down into a crouch, and rocked grace­fully onto his toes, ready to pounce. Only the gods knew what the pa­gans would shift into once their bel­lies, feet, or talons made con­tact with the sands. If there were thirty males on the first ves­sel, which could eas­ily carry ten to twenty more, then they needed to be ready to ward off up to 230 en­emies in this first brazen at­tack. As it was, Dante could only pray to Nuri, the lord of fire, that the bulk of the fleet would not reach har­bor be­fore dawn, and the other four en­croach­ing ves­sels would take their time an­chor­ing in the bay. While Dante and his brother could see clearly in the dark, the same could not be said for their brave and loyal sol­diers.

He could hear the heart­beats of the hu­mans, shad­ows, and war­locks thun­der­ing all around him: swell­ing, pound­ing, and beat­ing furi­ously in their chests. He could smell the ac­rid tang of the com­mon­ers’ fear and the Um­brasi­ans’ hun­ger, as well as the sul­furic taint of the War­lo­chi­ans’ ma­gic. All were as smoke, rising from a sod­den fire, bil­low­ing into the air.

“Air, wa­ter, or both?” Dante shouted to Damian, know­ing that the sol­diers would wisely wait to see what ap­peared on the beach: The arch­ers would step for­ward with a frontal as­sault on the in­vaders, while the oth­ers would form semi­cir­cu­lar clusters in de­fense of their princes, align­ing their shields as a wall. The war­locks would cast spells and wield ma­gic, tar­get­ing their en­emies, one by one, even as the shad­ows would fol­low on the war­locks’ heels, wait­ing to de­vour the weak and ab­sorb their dy­ing souls.

“Both!” Damian snarled, re­leas­ing an ear-shat­ter­ing roar.

It was all Dante needed to hear.

In the breadth of a second, he sprang to his feet and hurled twin bolts of light­ning from his fin­ger­tips at two massive birds of prey, char­ring them in the air. He then fo­cused his at­ten­tion on a gi­gantic rap­tor and an enorm­ous eagle, which were com­ing in low and fast, and seized their wings with telekin­esis, crush­ing the hol­low bones. As the wounded creatures plummeted to­ward the sea, he called his in­ner dragon and heaved a swel­ter­ing breath of fire, in­cin­er­at­ing them both as they plunged.

Damian arched his back and stiffened, send­ing a blaz­ing arc of flames into a nar­row chan­nel of the sea in an at­tempt to boil the wa­ter. Dante joined his cause, and to­gether, they burned an­other seven shifters be­fore the males could reach the shore.

“I hope you fed well, dear brother,” Damian snarled, us­ing the full power of his mind to sling a char­ging shifter back­ward, spiral­ing through the air, be­fore im­pal­ing him on the mast of the anchored ship. “Father is still eight and a half hours away.”

Dante formed an ima­gin­ary circle around the skull of a dis­tant in­vader, and then he began to ro­tate the palms of his hands in slow, de­lib­er­ate circles. He con­tin­ued to twist, turn, and tighten his fist un­til, at last, the en­emy’s head im­ploded, and the Lycanian’s corpse slumped to the ground. “Worry about your­self, Prince,” he scol­ded.

And then all hell broke loose.

Pred­at­ors dipped down from the sky and at­tacked the sol­diers en masse: They gouged out eyes with their talons and severed ar­ter­ies with their beaks, even as the arch­ers re­leased wild, pan­icked ar­rows in a fren­zied at­tempt to drive them back.

The bulk of the ar­rows missed their tar­gets.

Sharks leaped out of the wa­ter, shift­ing into gi­ant wolves and ma­raud­ing cats, even as snakes rose up on their tails and began to stalk for­ward as beasts. Dante and Damian donned their ar­mor, but it wasn’t a man­made shield. Rather, they with­drew into their in­ner dragons and coated their flesh with scales.

“Be­hind you!” Dante shouted, as a ser­pent the size of a small wind­mill coiled be­hind Damian and drew back to strike.

Dante didn’t have time to watch: A rap­tor swooped down from the sky, slashed him across the cheek with a talon, and then in­stantly shif­ted into a prim­it­ive beast, some sort of hy­brid between a lion and a bear.

Dante re­leased his solid form and lunged at his op­pon­ent, passing right through the shifter’s torso as if step­ping through a wall. He spun around be­hind him, so­lid­i­fied his hand, and plunged a clawed fist through the creature’s back, deftly ex­tract­ing its heart. He tossed the bloody or­gan to the side and turned to check on the oth­ers’ pro­gress.

The prince was still wrest­ling with the gi­ant ser­pent, one hand anchored about its up­per fangs, an­other clasped to its lower jaw, and he was about to tear the mouth in two. A pair of war­locks had turned a were­wolf into a dog, and they were rip­ping the snarling creature to shreds. The arch­ers had littered sev­eral Lycani­ans with ar­rows—three, who had re­mained in hu­man form—and the shadow-walk­ers were de­vour­ing their souls as they cried out in hor­ror from the pain. Still an­other sol­dier had im­paled a man-sized cat with his sword; the in­jury had only man­aged to an­ger the beast, and the fe­line was
this close
to shred­ding the sol­dier’s throat with its wicked canines.

Dante covered the dis­tance between him­self and the sol­dier in a flash.

He pounced on the werecat’s back and sank his own lethal fangs into its haunches. The cat spun around with a snarl, swiped at the un­wanted weight, and thrashed wildly, try­ing to toss the two-legged rider from its nape. The two clashed like a pair of oth­er­worldly demons, each one vy­ing for su­prem­acy, each one try­ing to ser­rate the other’s throat. Sand shot into the air; spittle dot­ted the sands; and blood soaked both fur and flesh, un­til at last, Dante re­leased his feral bite and scorched the beast with fire, melt­ing away its enorm­ous teeth just mo­ments be­fore they sank home.

Dante tossed the creature to the side and scrambled back to his feet just in the nick of time. The Lycani­ans had re­grouped. Sens­ing the fu­til­ity of the battle, they had with­drawn from their in­di­vidual at­tacks against the sol­diers and were pur­su­ing Prince Damian as one co­hes­ive unit, all ten of the re­main­ing shifters join­ing forces, as­cend­ing from land and des­cend­ing from air.

The hu­mans, war­locks, and
shades
rushed to Prince Damian’s de­fense. They sur­roun­ded the prince and the Lycani­ans with lances, swords, and clubs, strik­ing and spear­ing the en­emy as best they could, but the battle was mov­ing so swiftly—the su­per­nat­ural shifters were chan­ging shape and po­s­i­tion so rap­idly—that it was hard to track the fury of their move­ment with a na­ked, mor­tal eye, let alone in the dark of night.

Damian fell onto his back, and Dante knew it was up to him to in­ter­vene.

And quickly.

Not that Damian couldn’t hold his own in any po­s­i­tion; but hell, no one could ward off ten Lycani­ans at once—save, per­haps, their father De­mitri, in his full prim­or­dial form.

Just as Dante began to rush for­ward, to dive into the fray, the strangest thing began to hap­pen: For reas­ons he could scarcely ex­plain, he began to see everything in double im­ages. Dis­tant memor­ies flashed be­fore his eyes, ex­pos­ing pain­ful glimpses of the past, just as cur­rent events con­tin­ued to un­fold, re­veal­ing the per­il­ous battle be­fore him.

As a husky Lycanian shif­ted into a wolf and pounced on Damian’s chest, Dante saw a flash­back of Thomas the squire be­ing bludgeoned with a club—he saw Damian toss the bloody stump into the river, along with the in­no­cent boy, leav­ing a six-year-old Thomas to drown…

For­cing Dante to dive in and save him.

One of the
com­mon­lands
’ sol­diers speared the wolf with his lance, even as an­other two Lycani­ans, still in hu­man form, re­trieved sharp, jagged dag­gers from wet leather sheaths and lunged in the prince’s dir­ec­tion, but Dante couldn’t fol­low the tra­ject­ory of the blades. He could only see
Ta­tiana Ward
—broken, beaten, and ter­ri­fied—ly­ing on Mina’s bed, fol­low­ing Damian’s rape.

Right be­fore Drake had healed her.

Prince Damian flung the dag­gers away us­ing ba­sic telekin­esis, and then he flattened his back to the ground and tucked his knees to his chest in an ef­fort to keep the in­vaders from ad­van­cing. A cruel smile dis­tor­ted the fea­tures of one of the two Lycani­ans, and then it quickly morphed into an­other in­si­di­ous grin, far more fa­mil­iar, yet no less toxic—only, Dante saw Damian Dragona stand­ing in the throne room, choos­ing Mina’s lash. He saw the de­light in Damian’s eyes at the pro­spect of Mina’s whip­ping, and he saw the im­mense pleas­ure the prince had taken in choos­ing the most lethal im­ple­ment he could find.

Damian cried out in sur­prise.

Someone had just landed a blow, and Dante blinked sev­eral times, try­ing to bring the present scene into fo­cus. Yet all he could see was an­other place and time, an im­age of Damian seared into Dante’s memory: The mer­ci­less prince was stand­ing on Des­mond’s grave, spit­ting into the dirt and pro­claim­ing for all the world to hear that Des­mond had been “too weak to sur­vive.” If Dante hadn’t known bet­ter, he would have sworn Damian had
cel­eb­rated
Des­mond’s sui­cide.

Why hadn’t he no­ticed all of this
be­fore?

Or had
he?

Per­haps he had just bur­ied it, tucked it away like the myriad of shells be­neath his feet, hid­den in the moon­lit sands.

The
sands.

Dra­cos Cove!

The
beach!

The battle…

Dante sprang into ac­tion, de­term­ined to make his way to Damian’s side. What dif­fer­ence did it make if his brother was cruel, weak of spirit, or dead of heart?

He was still a dragon prince.

He was still King De­mitri’s son.

A child con­ceived in vi­ol­ence, car­ried in mad­ness, and born of rape—a soul­less creature, to be sure, but one whose know­ledge, skill, and lin­eage were very much needed in de­fense of the Realm.

The grin­ning Lycanian man­aged to land an­other blow, and Damian grunted.

Only Dante heard
Mina
scream…

He heard her plaint­ive wail in the throne room, just mo­ments after the king had pro­nounced her fate: “From this day forth, un­til death shall part them, I be­stow upon my second son, Damian Dragona, the Sk­la­vos Ahavi he has re­ques­ted, known as Mina Louvet.”

Why the hell had Damian re­ques­ted
Mina?

As the Lycani­ans con­tin­ued to land blow after blow, over­whelm­ing the be­lea­guered prince, Dante shook it off.

Why
didn’t mat­ter!

What was done was done.

He was just about to come to his brother’s aid when Damian re­gained his ad­vant­age. He drew back both fists, plunged them for­ward with preter­nat­ural speed, and broke through the breast­plates of the two at­tack­ing Lycani­ans, seiz­ing their still-beat­ing hearts from their chests and toss­ing them onto the sands.

Dante didn’t wait for the rest to ad­vance.

There were still seven Lycani­ans left.

He lunged for­ward, dove into the fray, and in a wild clash of fangs, fire, and claws, he fought like a de­mon pos­sessed on be­half of his wicked, un­re­deem­able brother. He fought on be­half of the Realm and all its in­no­cent, help­less in­hab­it­ants, and he re­fused to come up for air un­til Damian was no longer in danger, un­til
to­gether
they had dis­patched the re­main­ing seven bar­bar­i­ans.

Si­lence settled over the scene like dew on the morn­ing grass as Dante and Damian fi­nally rose—
as one
—to sur­vey the en­su­ing carnage and enu­mer­ate the dead. A trum­pet blas­ted, in­ter­rupt­ing their count, and Dante turned to see the third point of the dragons’ tri­angle, his brother, Drake Dragona, rid­ing to­ward them with his army be­hind them and his flag be­fore him.

He was just about to step for­ward and greet him, make some sort of snide re­mark about be­ing late to the party and rid­ing in like a girl, but there wasn’t any time: The re­main­ing four ships had just anchored in the har­bor, beat­ing the bulk of the fleet by at least eight hours, and just like be­fore, the Lycani­ans rushed to at­tack.