Dragons Realm (27 page)

“Very well,” Thaon replied. “Your brother bed your wife, or your slave—whatever you call the poor girls now,
your Ahavi
—and he did it no more than fifty yards from where we’re stand­ing.” He aver­ted his eyes out of re­spect…or maybe pity? “I heard the whole thing, and I’m sorry to say, but she seemed all too will­ing.”

Damian’s heart stuttered in his chest. “What did you just say to me?” There was noth­ing ami­able or ar­rog­ant in his tone.

Thaon froze. “I…I just—”

“What—the—devil—did—you—just—say?”

“Prince Dante con­fron­ted two of my
com­rades
near that large maple tree”—he ges­tured in the gen­eral dir­ec­tion—“and then he took the Ahavi, Mina, who was already here, laid her on the ground, and coupled with her.” He poin­ted at a small rect­an­gu­lar clear­ing, in the midst of sev­eral ad­ja­cent trees, and in­dic­ated the leveled dirt and the ruffled grass. “I didn’t hear the en­tire con­ver­sa­tion—I was quite some dis­tance away—but the prince said some­thing about an elixir and bear­ing his off­spring. I just thought you should know.”

Damian’s vis­ion blurred, and his blood began to boil. He lunged at the shifter, grasped him by the throat, and lif­ted him sev­eral feet off the ground, call­ing his own prim­or­dial fire.

“Do not kill the mes­sen­ger!” Thaon roared like the cornered beast he was, already be­gin­ning to shift into his ab­ori­ginal form in re­sponse to the un­ex­pec­ted threat. His jaw elong­ated into the muzzle of a bear; his eyes took on the cast of a jackal’s; and his muscle-bound torso lit­er­ally trembled from the ef­fort it took to re­strain the trans­form­a­tion—he ob­vi­ously wanted to avoid a lethal con­front­a­tion. “Not after all we have done! Not after all we have achieved! We are so close, Prince Damian.
Think!
For the gods’ sakes, con­sider the fu­ture!”

Damian shook from his rage, but he let the shifter go and took a meas­ured step back, try­ing des­per­ately to clear his head. He struggled to reg­u­late his breath­ing—

Thaon was right
.

The true fault was not with the mes­sen­ger—it was with the scan­dal­ous Ahavi.

Yes
, Dante had be­trayed him as well, but that ele­ment he al­most un­der­stood.

Al­most.

Mina Louvet was a beau­ti­ful wo­man—stun­ning, really—and hadn’t Damian already sampled Ta­tiana Ward for the very same reason? Truth be told, he was mildly im­pressed with Dante’s au­da­city as well as his reck­less vir­il­ity.

Still, the du­pli­city could not go un­chal­lenged.

It could not re­main un­answered
.

“You are right, Thaon.” He nearly spat the words. “The sin is not yours.” He quirked his lips in a half smile, half snarl, and growled in spite of his reason. “I will rip that un­born child from her womb; I will break every bone in her trait­or­ous body; and then I will re­pair the dam­age, just so I can plant a true heir in her belly to re­place Dante’s bas­tard.” He drew back his shoulders and raised his jaw in de­fi­ance, dar­ing Thaon to ut­ter a single, sol­it­ary word.

The Lycanian re­turned to his hu­man form, and he didn’t move a muscle.

“If we are fin­ished…” Damian snarled.

Thaon in­clined his head. “We are.”

Damian nod­ded, and his voice grew eer­ily steady. “Then you know what to do. Travel south­w­est to Um­bras and take lodging in the Gil­ded Chalice Inn. They will ask no ques­tions of a stranger, but just to be safe, re­main out of sight. In seven days’ time, you will be es­cor­ted by my loy­al­ists back across the sea to Lycania, and once there, it will be up to you to over­throw your brother, to usurp King Ba­yard.”

Thaon flashed a wicked, bes­tial smile. “Alas, the task should be easy.”

Damian snorted, but he didn’t reply.

There were just no words.

There was only his Sk­la­vos Ahavi…and his ut­ter dis­gust…and his ven­geance.

Oh yes
,
there would be plenty of
ven­geance…

He turned on his heel and strode away, headed for the tent of Um­bras.

*

Be­neath the moon­light, Thomas the squire wriggled against the cold, dry ground, shift­ing anxiously against a jagged rock that was pok­ing him in the back. He shoved a pile of arid bramble off his chest, swept away the brittle leaves, and sat up in the ditch, turn­ing to re­gard Mat­thias with alarm. “Did you hear that? What Thaon told Prince Damian?”

“All of it,” Mat­thias grunted, his an­ger leach­ing through his words. “Enough to know that Damian is go­ing to kill her.”

Thomas nod­ded, his eyes wide with fright.

“I have to go, Thomas. Pre­pared or not, I know what I must do.”

Thomas spit out a mouth­ful of sandy grit and grim­aced at the bit­ter taste. “You’re not strong enough, Mat­thias. Not yet. Not by a long shot.”

“Am I not a dragon?”

Thomas sighed. “Not like Damian. Not like that. The prince will tear you in two. He will leave your body for the buz­zards, Mat­thias. You can­not take him on.
You can’t
win
.”

Mat­thias nar­rowed his deep blue eyes and stared at the ground, as if in all his des­per­a­tion, even he knew the squire’s words were true. “Then you had bet­ter get to the tent of War­lo­chia
quickly
, in time enough to re­lieve me. Find Prince Dante. Tell him what we over­heard. Even if the prince is not will­ing to pro­tect a slave—the brother is un­able to defy his own blood—surely, the
dragon
will fight to save his un­born son.”

Chapter Twenty-five

I
t was close
to 9:30 PM; the beach out­side the tent of Um­bras was dis­con­cert­ingly quiet—the sands of Dra­cos Cove were still filled with the dead and the dy­ing—and Mina Louvet was sit­ting on the edge of her bed,
of Damian’s bed
, wear­ing a cross-laced silk night­gown and comb­ing out her hair.

Why she even bothered to re­move the tangles, she couldn’t say.

She cer­tainly did not want to look beau­ti­ful for Prince Damian,
the evil hound
, and the gown had not been her choice—it had been packed by her maids. Yet and still, there was some­thing de­tached and sooth­ing about the mind­less, re­pet­it­ive mo­tion, some­thing calm­ing about the feel of the ivory teeth and the stiff boars’ hair bristles sweep­ing through her hair, some­thing that kept her from leap­ing off the bed, run­ning from the tent, and throw­ing her­self into the rest­less sea to drown.

At the mo­ment, drown­ing seemed like a much bet­ter op­tion than try­ing to make a life with Damian.

She sighed, pla­cing the comb on the bed­side table, and glanced for the hun­dredth time at the en­trance to the room: The evil prince should have been back by now. After all, the king had laid waste to the en­emy, and the fer­til­ity elixir Damian had poured down Mina’s throat only las­ted for thirty-six hours. She was already on hour num­ber thirty-three.

A wave of nausea un­du­lated through her stom­ach, un­doubtedly brought on by her nerves, and she al­most retched from the stress.
Dearest God­dess of Mercy
, as if be­ing there in the tent of Um­bras—as if be­ing Damian’s whore—was not enough to con­tend with, she now had to worry about con­sum­mat­ing their union within the next three hours. There was just no way around it. She had to “
get preg­nant
” to­night, and she had to con­vince Prince Damian that the child she con­ceived was
his
. The thought made her want to curl into a ball…and die.

As if summoned by her mount­ing anxi­ety, the heavy can­vas at the back of the tent flung open, and Damian Dragona stormed into the com­part­ment like a crazed, wild an­imal, char­ging into a ter­rit­orial fray. His nos­trils were flared, as if he were strug­gling to breathe; his dark brown eyes were ablaze with fury; and his mouth was lit­er­ally con­tor­ted in a sav­age, un­nat­ural scowl. The dragon wasn’t just angry—
he
was mur­der­ous
. “Get up!” Damian shouted, spittle fly­ing from his lips. “Get up! Come here!
And kneel!
”

Mina leaped from the bed and tried to run for the door. She had no idea what was go­ing on, and she really didn’t care. She only knew that she would rather be scorched from be­hind, burned to a crisp, than have her throat slit while she cowered be­fore Damian on her knees.
And for what of­fense, this time? Surely, he couldn’t know what she had
done.

The dragon moved with im­possible speed.

He covered the dis­tance between them in an in­stant, a mere blink of an eye, meet­ing her re­treat with a swift and bru­tal back­hand. She launched into the air like a gi­ant stone shot from a cata­pult be­fore land­ing squarely on her back, on the bed; and be­fore she could scramble to her feet, try to flee once again, Damian was on top of her, seiz­ing her by the throat, and squeez­ing the life right out of her.

“My prince!” She choked as she spoke, her voice ripe with fear.

He slowly licked his lips and angled his head to the side. “My du­ti­ful,
faith­ful
wife.”

Mina froze at his words, too ter­ri­fied to breathe, as the word he had used sank in.

Faith­ful
.

Oh
gods…

She didn’t want to hear his ex­plan­a­tion. She didn’t care to see death com­ing. She could only hope it would be quick.

Damian sensed her sur­render and re­laxed his hands, re­mov­ing them from her throat. He crawled off the bed, grabbed her by the ankles, and yanked her to the left, to face him. And then he simply stood there, hov­er­ing above her, tower­ing at his full, im­pos­ing height, while glar­ing into her eyes, scan­ning her body from head to toe, and sneer­ing at her middle. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he whispered icily.

Mina gulped and bit down on her tongue, ter­ri­fied of mak­ing a single sound. Dante had as­sured her that he had masked his scent, as well as the scent of the un­born child. He had sworn to her that he’d used some sort of ma­gic…

She had no idea what Damian knew
.

Per­haps he just sus­pec­ted some sort of be­trayal.

Per­haps it was some­thing else…

So she watched him like a hawk.

And
gods be mer­ci­ful
, whatever it was, he was go­ing to beat the sense out of her—it was writ­ten all over his piti­less face. She drew a deep breath for cour­age, and he smiled. “My prince?” She fi­nally found her voice.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back as if the en­tire world was his to com­mand. “I have yet to con­sum­mate our pair­ing; and yet, here you are, already with child. Tell me,
my
Ahavi:
How does that
work?
”

Mina closed her eyes and tried to ex­punge her mind of all sen­tient aware­ness, but it didn’t work.

Oh dear
an­cest­ors…

She was as good as dead.

But how did he know?

How could he pos­sibly…know?

Was he simply bait­ing her for a con­fes­sion?

What in the name of the gods was go­ing on?

There was no point in spec­u­lat­ing. There was no point in ar­guing or ex­plain­ing. And there was no point in fight­ing back.

She opened her eyes once more and glanced at the back en­trance to the tent, cal­cu­lat­ing the dis­tance between the edge of the bed and the par­tially open flap. There were only two op­tions that might yield
some
mercy, how­ever slight: She could either es­cape, which was highly un­likely, or she could bait Damian into killing her swiftly.

She would try the former first.

She rolled to the other side of the bed, dove from the cov­er­let, and hit the ground run­ning, pump­ing her arms at her sides to gain speed. Her bare feet kicked up sand as she scur­ried like a frightened rab­bit to­ward the wait­ing door. Her heart pumped in a furi­ous, un­stable rhythm, but just like be­fore, Damian moved like the wind.

One mo­ment, he was stand­ing on the other side of the bed, threat­en­ing her with
those eyes
; the next, he was simply stand­ing in front of her, block­ing her chosen path. His strong, mus­cu­lar arms flexed—once, then twice—be­fore he caught her by the shoulders, lif­ted her as if she were vir­tu­ally weight­less, and tossed her across the room, back onto the bed. He meas­ured a hate-filled glower in her dir­ec­tion, and just like that, she was pinned to the mat­tress, shackled by in­vis­ible bonds. He was do­ing it all with his eyes—
with his
in­tent
.

Mina whimpered like a pi­ti­able child, wrig­gling be­neath the in­vis­ible re­straints, pray­ing to an ab­sent sa­vior for par­don, for ab­so­lu­tion…for death.

Damian paid her no heed.

He sauntered across the room to the fire-pit, re­moved a golden-handled dag­ger from his waist­band, and placed the blade in the flames. While the bronze heated, he turned to re­gard her with con­tempt. “I will not kill you this night, my love.” He savored every word. “Oh, no; that would be too easy, and we simply don’t have time.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Be­sides, I do not blame my eld­est brother for mount­ing you. I’m ac­tu­ally rather proud of him for hav­ing the balls.” He glanced over his shoulder to in­spect the dag­ger, and Mina fol­lowed his gaze: The seven-inch blade was ser­rated on one side, and it had turned a deep coral red from the heat. Whether fueled en­tirely by the fire, or by his wicked in­ten­tions, Mina didn’t know. Damian licked his lips. “No, I rather in­tend to make love to you, my­self.” He chuckled at the sar­donic turn of phrase, and then he pressed his ear to his shoulder, lazily stretch­ing his neck. “But you do un­der­stand that I must first re­move that fetus.” His face con­tor­ted into a mask of hatred. “That ab­om­in­a­tion that lives in your womb.”

He reached into the fire with his right hand, as if he were simply dip­ping it into a bowl of wa­ter, and moaned at the ex­quis­ite sen­sa­tion of pain as he with­drew the now-mol­ten dag­ger from the flames. He held it up in the lan­tern light and grinned.

Mina screamed.

She bucked against the in­vis­ible chains, harder and harder, with every step Damian took to­ward the bed, and the mo­ment he re­leased her from the su­per­nat­ural bonds, she kicked out at him with a fury.

He caught her ankles in his left palm—first her right, and then her left—demon­strat­ing an un­canny level of dex­ter­ity, a com­plete mas­tery of speed and agil­ity, that truly boggled the mind.

Mina never even saw him move.

It was all just a blur.

He pinned her ankles to the bed with his knees and crawled above her, lift­ing her night­gown with a cal­loused left hand, bunch­ing it up at her waist as he creeped.

She gasped in hor­ror. “No!” she shouted, un­able to con­tain her panic.
“No, no, no, no!”
She bucked so hard she strained her back, and then she struck out at him with both clenched fists, swinging wildly at his jaw, his nose, his eyes—
any­thing
—just to di­vert him from his path.

Damian laughed like a hy­ena.

He was en­joy­ing her fear al­most as much as his own mach­in­a­tions. He
loved
see­ing her squirm. He ripped the night­gown, straight down the front, and tossed the scraps to the side, watch­ing as they floated to the ground like so much garbage. “Punch me again, and I’ll break your wrists,” he snarled. “I will crush them into dust be­neath my hands, and your pain will be even greater.” He stared at her bare, ex­posed breasts and groaned. “Think of it this way, my Ahavi: This is go­ing to be a grue­some, bloody, and en­tirely un­nat­ural pro­cess, but­cher­ing this thing from your womb”—he shrugged—“but once it’s over, it’s over. I can put you back to­gether, and we can get on with our own ex­quis­ite coup­ling. So why don’t you just con­cen­trate on that.” He bent low, drew a circle around her right are­ola with his tongue, and then drew back, flick­ing away the re­main­ing vestiges of the gown with the knife, care­ful to avoid sear­ing her skin with the heated blade.

For
now.

It was all so sad­istic.

When he trans­ferred the dag­ger to his left hand, re­heated the blade with his own dragon’s fire, and then reached for the lace on her un­der­gar­ment, she prac­tic­ally came un­done: Mina fought like a hell­hound re­leased from the depths of the abyss. She twis­ted and bucked; kicked out and screamed; pummeled the dragon with blow after wild, des­per­ate blow, ut­terly un­car­ing that she would fur­ther pro­voke his wrath.

She wanted his ire.

She needed his rage.

She
had
to in­cite him to kill—to take her life, swiftly and fi­nally, right here and now: Mina Louvet wanted to die, and it was up to her to make it hap­pen.

In a series of move­ments too rapid and ex­act to be countered, Damian snatched her by the throat, thrust her thighs apart with his knees, and braced her legs to the bed with his own, all the while, lower­ing the swel­ter­ing blade to her pel­vis.

Mina shrieked in ter­ror, and that’s when Mat­thias Gentry lunged to­ward the bed. He snatched Prince Damian from be­hind, wrapped his power­ful arms around the dragon’s chest, and wrenched him back­ward. At the same time, he re­leased a deadly pair of fangs and sank them deep into Damian’s neck.

Mina gasped at the sight of Mat­thias Gentry snarling like a ra­bid dog. She could hardly be­lieve her eyes as he wrenched his head to the right, and then the left, lit­er­ally froth­ing at the bit, tear­ing into the prince’s throat, bound and de­term­ined to evis­cer­ate his eso­phagus.

Damian dropped the dag­ger and scrabbled for his throat, tear­ing Mat­thias’s teeth from his flesh with care­less aban­don. He spun about in midair, an act of amaz­ing leger­ity, and landed lightly on his soles, like a cat ready to spring into battle. His skin began to harden with the sud­den ap­pear­ance of scales, su­per­nat­ural ar­mor, even as his chest ex­pan­ded in girth, his claws shot forth from his hands, and smoke waf­ted between his scorn­ful lips. “Who. The. Hell. Are. You?” he bel­lowed, glar­ing at Mat­thias as the rebel crouched low be­fore him, match­ing each of Damian’s preter­nat­ural feats with one of his own.

“I am your father’s son,” Mat­thias snarled. And with that, he lunged for­ward and thrust a fear­some, ser­rated hand to­ward Damian’s chest in an ef­fort to seize the prince’s heart.

Damian moved much too fast.

He sucked in his stom­ach, bowed his chest, and leaped back­ward, nar­rowly evad­ing the swipe, even as he grasped Mat­thias’s wrist and snapped the ra­dius like a twig.

Mat­thias winced in pain, stunned but de­term­ined. As if draw­ing on some an­cient, un­con­scious in­stinct, he sucked in a deep breath of air and re­leased it with a hiss, con­jur­ing a nar­row red-hot flame in the pro­cess and heav­ing it at Damian’s golden hair.

The dragon prince
dis­ap­peared.

He simply van­ished in thin air, and Mat­thias spun around like a wild beast, try­ing fe­ver­ishly to loc­ate his prey. A huge, wicked gash opened up on Mat­thias’s side, the ugly wound tak­ing the shape of a barbed, tri­an­gu­lar claw, as Damian re­appeared to Mat­thias’s left.

“My brother?” the evil prince mocked, and then he laughed like a cer­ti­fied lun­atic. “Well, I’ll be damned.” His ex­pres­sion turned all at once ser­i­ous; his glow­ing red eyes nar­rowed into two venom­ous slits; and he growled, deep in his bes­tial throat. He threw a right hook at Mat­thias’s jaw and jol­ted in sur­prise when Mat­thias caught it in the palm of his hand and shoved the fist for­ward, send­ing Damian fly­ing through the air, spin­ning into a sum­mer­sault, and crash­ing into Mina’s trav­el­ing chest.