Dragons Realm (21 page)

CHAPTER NINE­TEEN

Five hours later

M
ina Louvet slipped
into the shad­ows be­neath the cover of a thick maple tree, care­ful to re­main con­cealed from the ra­di­ant moon­light above her. It had to be at least two or two thirty in the morn­ing; she was weak and ex­hausted, in des­per­ate need of sleep; and every muscle in her body ached to give up and go home.

But she had come too far to turn back now.

Hav­ing switched clothes with her maid­ser­vant, Ja­cine; hav­ing waited pa­tiently to meet Ja­cine’s sis­ter, Anna,
and
to
hold her des­per­ate hand
; hav­ing watched the vul­gar guards con­sume enough spir­its to be­come suf­fi­ciently in­ebri­ated, Mina had fi­nally donned a hooded cloak, presen­ted the maid’s trav­el­ing pa­pers to the main sen­try, and strolled right out of the tent un­der the guise of fetch­ing wa­ter for her mis­tress.

None had been the wiser.

Now, after walk­ing west­ward for an hour be­neath the be­ne­vol­ent cover of dark­ness; turn­ing in­land for an­other hour, tra­vers­ing much rock­ier and slower ter­rain; and fi­nally com­ing to the nar­row, dry rav­ine that marked the en­trance to the traders’ camp, she was ut­terly and com­pletely ex­hausted as she sur­veyed the site from the shad­ows and tried not to col­lapse.

She pressed her hand to her lower belly and took a deep, for­ti­fy­ing breath—she couldn’t give up that eas­ily. Raylea’s life might de­pend upon her per­sever­ance. For­tu­nately, she had man­aged to avoid all man­ner of haz­ards, pit­falls, and dan­ger­ous en­coun­ters thus far—
per­haps the gods were with her
—and by the dis­tant, echo­ing sounds of the battle tak­ing place on the beach, feral roars and snarls, clash­ing steel and iron, the cries of pred­at­ors—
birds of prey?
—screech­ing over­head, and the un­mis­tak­able glow of bright or­ange fire flick­er­ing like dis­tant candles in an omin­ous night sky, she knew the Realm’s sol­diers would re­main busy for some time. No one would be look­ing for a way­ward, wan­der­ing maid.

She also knew that the princes were lead­ing the fate­ful battle: Damian, whom she hated and feared with all her heart; Drake, whom she prayed would keep the com­mon­ers safe; and Dante, whom she simply re­fused to think about, at all.

Un­til now…

Reach­ing be­neath her cloak to fetch a small piece of dried ven­ison, she chewed it slowly and forced her­self to swal­low in spite of her queasy stom­ach. She needed the susten­ance. She needed to main­tain her strength. Chas­ing it with a hearty drink of wa­ter from a deer­skin canteen, she leaned back against the trunk of the tree and fi­nally al­lowed the for­bid­den thoughts to creep into her mind:

Dante Dragona
, the king’s eld­est son…

The one who had claimed her the first day she had ar­rived at Castle Dragon.

The one who had let her go without so much as a ser­i­ous protest.

As she shuffled to the side to avoid a knobby out­growth in the bark, she ab­sently placed her foot in an un­even divot and nearly twis­ted her ankle. “Dam­nit,” she grumbled be­neath her breath, look­ing down at the ground to se­cure her foot­ing. She was an­grier with Dante than she had let on.

Not that it was Dante’s fault.

Not that it was any­one’s fault, the way things had turned out.

But still…

Mina’s fu­ture was doomed.

Damian would surely break her—body, mind, and soul—if he didn’t out­right kill her be­fore the month was through; and if know­ing that wasn’t enough to un­settle her stom­ach, there was some­thing else dis­turb­ing her, too.

Some­thing that tore at her heart.

Some­thing that made her feel un­easy.

She could still see Dante stand­ing in her bed­cham­ber, present­ing her with a lop­sided doll. She could still en­vi­sion those haunt­ing eyes, the firm set of his jaw, and the way his broad shoulders en­hanced his dom­in­ant, im­plac­able frame. She could still hear his deep, throaty drawl echo­ing in her ears, that first day in the court­yard when she had asked him
why
—why had he re­ques­ted her com­pany. “Be­cause you are the Sk­la­vos Ahavi I have chosen for my mate…your hair is like mine, as dark as the mid­night sky.” He had swept his thumb along the side of her jaw. “Your eyes are the color of em­er­alds, as rare as they are ex­quis­ite.” He had clasped his hands be­hind his back and stud­ied her from head to toe, without apo­logy. “You are beau­ti­ful,” he had whispered, “and our sons will be strong.”

Mina shivered at the memory.

She had been so very afraid; yet now, look­ing back, there was a deep, aching chasm in the cen­ter of her chest.
Blessed Nuri, lord of fire, what had she been so afraid of?
Dante was the epi­tome of justice and be­ne­vol­ence when com­pared to his brother Damian, who had bru­tal­ized and tor­tured Ta­tiana without a mo­ment’s hes­it­a­tion. The male didn’t have a con­science—he didn’t have a soul.

She sighed.

Damian.

Hadn’t he already threatened to do the same thing to Mina in so many words?

A bit­ter tear es­caped her eye as she tried to wrap her mind around this vi­cious twist of fate, as she struggled to make sense of her in­ex­plic­able grief, her deep
sense
of loss, when it came to the real­ity of Damian and the
ab­sence of Dante
. For truth be told: Her sor­row went much deeper than her fear of Damian; it went much deeper than the sub­sti­tu­tion of one tyr­an­nical mas­ter for an­other. If Mina was be­ing hon­est—and at this point,
why not
?—then she had to ad­mit that, des­pite her best at­tempts to avoid it, des­pite rail­ing against it, she had some­how be­come
at­tached
to Dante Dragona.

On some subtle, hid­den level that she couldn’t ex­plain, she had come to look for­ward to those mid­night-blue eyes, to watch­ing the dark, haunted soul within gaze back at her with so much pas­sion—
so much hun­ger
—and she knew that, des­pite all his warn­ings, his end­less ad­mon­i­tions about ser­vice, duty, and ob­lig­a­tion, want­ing noth­ing more from her than her obed­i­ence, she had still hoped, if not be­lieved, that he would one day grow to love her.

Mina Louvet had fallen for the eld­est dragon son without even know­ing it.

And while it may not have been love—and it cer­tainly wasn’t mu­tual—the seeds of pos­sib­il­ity had been sown.

Trust had not fully blos­somed…
yet
.

Hon­esty was still emer­ging…
slowly
.

And their tenu­ous found­a­tion was still so deeply mired in the thorns of fear, in­equity, and ob­lig­a­tion that it rarely rose to the sur­face. Yet and still, Dante had some­how stolen her heart.

And now, all of that—whatever had been pos­sible between them—was as dead as the sol­diers and Lycani­ans who were fall­ing on the beach. Like the fleet of un­sus­pect­ing ves­sels still sail­ing this way, those who would meet the wrath of a dragon with the dawn, Mina’s hid­den hopes and dreams were as good as dead, soon to be burned to ash.

Two deep, husky voices jol­ted Mina out of her mus­ings, in­stantly bring­ing her ears to at­ten­tion, her thoughts to the cur­rent situ­ation—there were two males cross­ing the rav­ine, and they were headed her way, saun­ter­ing in the gen­eral dir­ec­tion of the maple tree.

Acutely aware of the im­min­ent danger, she quickly scur­ried be­hind the trunk, ducked down into a squat, and peeked around the base to watch the men ap­proach.
Blessed Spirit Keep­ers
, they must have come within seven paces of the tree be­fore stop­ping, check­ing their sur­round­ings to make sure they were alone, and then re­sum­ing their con­ver­sa­tion.

“Ten cop­pers for the slave,” a tall, skinny shadow said, his chapped, reedy lips drawn back in a smile, his nearly trans­lu­cent skin gleam­ing pale, due to the hour.

“Ex­actly ten,” the other male replied. This one was clearly a war­lock—his dim, witchy eyes gave him away, not to men­tion the long brown cloak fastened at his neck.

The shadow clapped the War­lo­chian on the back. “You’re a fair man, Sir Robert.”

Mina’s breath hitched in her throat.

Sir Robert Cross?

Then this was him?

She leaned for­ward to take a bet­ter look, care­ful not to rustle any leaves on the ground or jostle her canteen, pray­ing that the moon­light wouldn’t cast a shadow bey­ond the tree.

Sir Robert held out his filthy hand and waited pa­tiently as the shadow re­trieved a leather purse, coun­ted out ten cop­pers, and dropped them in his palm.

“When do I get the girl?” the shadow asked.

Mina’s ears perked up.

“You will have her soon enough,” the war­lock answered. “We do have to be a little bit…dis­creet.”

The shadow snarled, clearly dis­lik­ing the an­swer. “You wouldn’t cheat me, would you?” The war­lock’s eyes glowed red, and the shadow took a cau­tious step back, rais­ing one hand in sup­plic­a­tion. “No of­fense in­ten­ded.”

Sir Robert smiled then, his sor­cerer’s eyes dilat­ing with ar­ti­fi­cial mirth. “Do think be­fore you speak, Ro­han. I would hate to see a pleas­ant trans­ac­tion turned into some­thing less civ­il­ized.” He smirked, and it dis­tor­ted his already un­pleas­ant fea­tures. “Be­sides, you are this close to hav­ing a fresh young bed­mate to do with as you please. Why spoil that now?”

Mina’s stom­ach clenched in naus­eat­ing aware­ness:
Great Nuri, these men were foul.

The shadow gulped and ex­ten­ded his hand, in­stantly ap­peased. “Of course, of course,” he muttered, nod­ding his head like a dolt.

The two shook hands and turned to de­part, head­ing back to­ward the nar­row rav­ine, and Mina’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest.

No!

No, no, no, no!

Sir Robert Cross was right there!

Stand­ing dir­ectly in front of her.

She couldn’t let him van­ish.

She had to know what he knew; it might be Raylea’s only chance.

Turn­ing the vari­ous out­comes over in her head, Mina quickly as­sessed her op­tions: If she con­fron­ted the war­lock dir­ectly, it would be to her peril. For all in­tents and pur­poses, she was a trav­el­ing maid­ser­vant, a com­moner, alone in the forest—she would be­come Sir Robert’s next avail­able slave. If she stayed to the trees and bushes, tried to fol­low him and listen, she would only make it so far be­fore they ap­proached the hub of the camp, and she would never re­main un­detec­ted in the midst of so many trav­el­ers. If she tried to at­tack him and re­strain him—
well, yeah, that wasn’t go­ing to hap­pen
—she would die in some hor­rific man­ner, right there be­neath the maple tree. And if she some­how got de­tained, was not able to make it back to the beach be­fore dawn, Damian would dis­cover her hoax, and he would prob­ably have her head.

She didn’t know what she had ex­pec­ted when she had set out for the camp. Per­haps she had hoped to stumble across a group of cap­tives; to run into Raylea, her­self; or to meet up with a lesser foe or an ally, per­haps a sym­path­etic hu­man who would dis­creetly share in­form­a­tion or in­ter­vene with the slavers on Mina’s be­half—pre­tend to pur­chase a slave in or­der to gain in­form­a­tion.

None of that mattered now.

This was the fate she’d been handed, and she had to make a choice
right now
.

Re­cog­niz­ing that the only true weapon she really pos­sessed was her iden­tity—she was the Sk­la­vos Ahavi to one of three princes of the Realm, and Sir Robert Cross, as well as the shadow, cer­tainly feared Damian Dragona—she re­moved the hood from her head, stepped out from be­hind the tree, and took a con­fid­ent step for­ward, ig­nor­ing how she really felt. “Greet­ings from the province of Um­bras,” she said in per­fect War­lo­chian.

Robert Cross spun swiftly around, and it was im­me­di­ately evid­ent that he was a sor­cerer of tre­mend­ous power: His eyes flashed red, his cloak began to float be­hind his back, and his feet rose sev­eral inches off the ground. He was pre­pared to strike at the in­truder.

Mina held up a grace­ful hand, care­ful to keep her voice both steady and calm. “You would be wise to think be­fore you act, War­lo­chian. You don’t yet know who I am.”

The war­lock nar­rowed his malevol­ent gaze on Mina, even as the shadow began to slink back into the shade, blend­ing in with his sur­round­ings.
How in­cred­ibly creepy
, Mina thought.

“You look like my next twenty cop­pers,” Sir Robert snarled boldly.

Mina’s ex­pres­sion darkened with an­ger. “Well, then you’d bet­ter look again.” The War­lo­chian tongue flowed so smoothly from her lips that the mage tilted his head in sur­prise, leaned for­ward to angle his ear, and then fur­rowed his brows, as if he were try­ing to make out her ac­cent.

“A com­moner does not speak with such a flu­ent tongue.” Sir Robert floated back to the ground. “Who are you?”

Mina took three con­fid­ent strides for­ward. “I am the mis­tress of Um­bras, the Sk­la­vos Ahavi of your royal prince, Damian Dragona, and I un­der­stand that you have my sis­ter.”

This caught the war­lock off guard. His cocky de­meanor lessened and he smoothed his brow as if eras­ing all hints of emo­tion. “Yet you speak War­lo­chian?”

“I speak all your vile tongues,” Mina replied, without hes­it­a­tion. This time, she answered in Um­brasian be­fore re­peat­ing the phrase in War­lo­chian.

Ro­han hissed from the shad­ows in ac­know­ledg­ment, and Sir Robert nod­ded his head. “I see.” He crossed his arms over his chest and nar­rowed his already scru­tin­iz­ing gaze. “And my lord,
the prince of Um­bras
, has sent a
wo­man
to the traders’ camp to con­front a power­ful mage of his
brother’s
king­dom…alone? Hmm.” He pursed his lips and sneered. “What’s wrong with this pic­ture?”

Al­though she was a bit sur­prised to hear how fast news from the castle had spread, reach­ing the ma­jor play­ers in the Realm, Mina held her ground. So Sir Robert knew about the pro­vin­cial as­sign­ments already?
Good.
That meant he also knew about the Sk­la­vos Ahavi, who each fe­male had been given to. He knew Mina was telling the truth. “Doesn’t mat­ter,” she snapped. “Any­thing and everything could be wrong. I could be act­ing on my own. I could be a rebel or a re­cal­cit­rant mate—’tis really none of your busi­ness. But what is truth, and what does mat­ter, are these three simple facts: As the Sk­la­vos Ahavi to the prince of Um­bras, you are for­bid­den to touch me. In fact, you are not even sup­posed to look into my eyes.” She stiffened her spine and raised her voice. “And don’t fool your­self into think­ing no one’s watch­ing; you and I both know it would be a simple task for Wavani the witch to cast a see­ing spell in or­der to find out what happened to Prince Damian’s
con­sort
. Now then, the second fact that should con­cern you is this: The slave trade is il­legal, and your king does not sup­port it, which you already know. So I’m sure he would be quite eager to hear that Sir Robert Cross, a cit­izen of War­lo­chia, and Ro­han, a dis­loyal
shade
, ex­changed cop­pers in the forest for the pur­chase of a fif­teen-year-old girl, and at the battle of Dra­gos Cove, no less, when they were sup­posed to be serving the Realm. Hmm. I don’t be­lieve that is some­thing you would like me to re­peat, which brings me to my third and most sa­li­ent point: You took my sis­ter, and I want her back. We can either make a trade—my sis­ter for my si­lence—or we can split hairs over the de­tails and both get caught, in which case we all die at the hands of our be­loved prince. The choice is yours, and I don’t have a lot of time.” She tapped her foot on the ground to demon­strate her point.