Dragons Realm (30 page)

“The fire will grow no lar­ger,” Prince Dante said, ob­vi­ously sens­ing her pres­ence, since his back was still to the door. “Nor will it grow any hot­ter.” He straightened his lapel. “His death will be slow and pain­ful. His eyes will melt; his hear­ing will fal­ter; and his skin will peel away from his bones.” He turned around slowly then, and met her gaze with one of com­pas­sion, the color of his fear­some, deep red eyes re­ced­ing back to blue. “It is not enough…for what you’ve en­dured…but at least it is some­thing.”

Raylea re­coiled at his words, un­sure of what to say or do. On one hand, she had never been so re­lieved or grate­ful in all her life. On the other, she had never been more ter­ri­fied or dis­turbed. Fall­ing into the fa­mil­iar obed­i­ence she had prac­ticed over the past three and a half weeks, she bowed her head and aver­ted her gaze. “Thank you, my prince.” Des­pite her­self, large salty tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, and that’s when the prince ap­proached her.

He strolled to the open door, squat­ted down in front of her, and slowly—oh so gently—drew Raylea into his arms. They were the strongest arms she had ever felt. “You are safe now, little one,” he mur­mured. “The night­mare is over.”

As if all her an­guish, fear, and hope­less­ness had been bottled be­hind a dam—a thick, in­vis­ible bar­rier erec­ted to in­sure her sur­vival—the dam broke loose, the floodgates opened, and Raylea wept like the child she was, cling­ing to Dante’s shoulders for dear life in an ef­fort to keep her soul from be­ing swept away in the cur­rent.

Time stood still as she sobbed; un­til fi­nally, there were no tears left to cry. Dante pressed a soft but firm kiss against her temple, and the kiss felt
funny
. Her mind felt
hazy
. And then, all at once, it was like a bur­den the size of a boulder had been lif­ted from her chest: She still held the memor­ies, the know­ledge of her cap­tiv­ity in the shadow-walker’s cabin, but the deeper un­der­stand­ing was no longer there. She couldn’t re­mem­ber the pain. She couldn’t feel all the an­guish and fear. She couldn’t con­nect to the hor­ror that had been her very ex­ist­ence for what felt like as long as she could re­mem­ber.

It was as if it had simply been erased.

Raylea was star­ing at a scar that had healed over a hideous wound. She knew what had happened, what ex­is­ted un­der­neath, but it was no longer open or fes­ter­ing.

And there was some­thing else miss­ing.

Some­thing else that seemed like only a blur: Dante’s words…

Earlier.

In the cabin.

Some­thing he had said about Mina—or a wo­man he knew in the Realm—someone was car­ry­ing someone’s child…or had re­cently given birth?

She reached for it, but she couldn’t find it.

And truly, it didn’t mat­ter.

The eld­est prince of Dragons Realm had saved her from a mon­ster.

There was noth­ing else—
noth­ing else
—she could pos­sibly need to know.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Two days later

M
ina sat across
from Mat­thias—
from Damian
—in the front par­lor of Castle Um­bras, try­ing not to stare. She had been with him for a total of eight hours now, and still, the bizarre com­bin­a­tion of Damian’s all-power­ful pres­ence im­bued with Mat­thias’s gentle soul was jar­ring. Every now and then, Damian’s dark brown, al­mond-shaped eyes would soften, trans­ition from harsh, bru­tal orbs to stun­ning, thought­ful globes, and she would glimpse a hint of her child­hood friend’s soul. But then they would harden again, and she would have to catch her breath.

Mat­thias’s man­ner­isms were pre­val­ent, dom­in­at­ing the six-foot-four strap­ping torso: the way the
prince
ges­tic­u­lated with his hands when he spoke, the way he tilted his head ever so slightly to the side when he con­tem­plated a ques­tion, and the way he softly fur­rowed his brow when meas­ur­ing his words. Yet Damian’s voice bel­lowed out of that au­thor­it­arian throat. Damian’s golden hair, the color of wheat in the sum­mer, still hung to the prince’s shoulders, fastened by
Damian’s
fa­mil­iar thong. And a barely no­tice­able scar, etched into Damian’s right temple, still wrinkled when he frowned, mak­ing Mina ques­tion whom she was speak­ing with.

She wrung her hands in her lap and cleared her throat, set­ting aside her un­eas­i­ness.

This
was
Mat­thias, after all, and it wouldn’t do either of them any good for Mina to openly dis­play her grief and re­gret, to vis­ibly demon­strate her nos­tal­gia for the care­free, blond-haired, blue-eyed boy she had grown up with.

That man—that body—was gone.

That phys­ical pres­ence had died, and it was enough that Mat­thias had to come to grips with the change.

The least Mina could do was sup­port him.

“So how are you feel­ing today?” she asked, search­ing for an in­noc­u­ous ques­tion, one that wouldn’t pro­voke a deep dis­cus­sion.

“My prince,” Mat­thias said.

“Par­don me?”

Mat­thias sighed. “How are you feel­ing today,
my prince
.” Mina grim­aced, and Mat­thias in­tens­i­fied his rep­rim­and. “You are still think­ing of me as someone who is cas­u­ally fa­mil­iar, someone from your past, even if you aren’t speak­ing that name. You have to stop.”

Mina gulped.

Was he read­ing her mind?

That ef­fort­lessly?

“I am,” he answered bluntly. “Damian was…
Damian is
…a mas­ter at such things.”

“
You
are
,” Mina cor­rec­ted.

Mat­thias nod­ded. “Touché.” And then they shared a mo­ment of com­pan­ion­able si­lence as Mina thought about the grav­ity of the prince’s in­struct­ive words.

Ever since that fate­ful day when Prince Dante had butchered his brother within the royal tent of Um­bras, on the shores of Dra­cos Cove, he had made it abund­antly clear that everything had changed.
Everything
. “From this day for­ward, you are not to speak the name
Mat­thias
, ever again. You are not to
think
the name Mat­thias, if you can help it. You
all
need to train your minds—as well as your mouths—to think only of Damian, to speak only of your prince. Should one of you ever slip up and make a mis­take in the pres­ence of the king, the con­sequences could be lethal. While my father is not as ad­ept at mind-read­ing as some, he is not to be trifled with. It is a mat­ter of habit, a mat­ter of in­ner dis­cip­line, and a mat­ter of prac­tice through re­pe­ti­tion. I will try to buy you as much time away from Castle Dragon as I can, but you must do the work. And you must be di­li­gent. No ex­cep­tions. No ex­cuses.”

Mina fi­nally broke the si­lence. “Apo­lo­gies,
my prince
. I am not very good at this…yet.”

Damian
sighed. “Be­lieve me, I un­der­stand. The one who is no more has only had seven days to come to terms with the fact that his iden­tity is gone. He has had seven days to grieve for the loss of his fam­ily, his fiancée, and his father, know­ing they will be no­ti­fied of his death. He has had one week to ac­cept the fact that he will not marry Melissa Wal­cott or fol­low in his father’s foot­steps as a black­smith’s ap­pren­tice…that he will live a very,
very
long time, rul­ing a province of shad­ows…rul­ing with an iron fist.” His dark brown eyes met hers, and he softened his gaze on pur­pose. “That as far as the out­side world is con­cerned, you are his mate—
his Sk­la­vos Ahavi
—and the child that grows in­side you is his off­spring.” He paused. “
My
off­spring. At least for now. At least un­til my eld­est brother comes of age, which is still thirty-one years away. So, yes, Mis­tress Mina, I un­der­stand this is a dif­fi­cult trans­ition.”

She offered him a sheep­ish grin. “At least the ver­tigo and the fa­tigue have stopped. Yours, I mean.”

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders in an awk­ward ges­ture, mak­ing his own stab at lev­ity. “And at least my hair is still blond—
sort of—
and I can still wear it tied back in a thong. Strange, right?”

Mina tried to laugh, but it was a weak at­tempt at best. She was still reel­ing at the thought of re­main­ing mated to Prince Damian—of pre­tend­ing that Dante’s child was Damian’s—of re­main­ing at the dragon’s side, ac­com­pa­ny­ing and serving him from Castle Um­bras, un­til such day as Dante came of age and could shift into a full-blown dragon. Even then, the fu­ture was un­cer­tain at best: Prince Dante be­lieved that re­veal­ing his po­ten­tial al­li­ance with the Lycani­ans at just the right time, as well as out­lining his au­thor­ity through­out the Realm, sup­por­ted by
both
his broth­ers and
all
their sons, would be in­flu­en­tial enough to force the hand of the king when the day fi­nally came, to make him step aside once and for all. And if not, then he trus­ted some mys­ter­i­ous omen—
im­pli­citly—
al­though he hadn’t told her what it was.

Dante be­lieved that, in fifty-four more years, when both Damian and Drake came of age as well, the shift of power would be in­ev­it­able.

King De­mitri could not op­pose them all.

He could not take on three fully ma­ture dragons.

Still, he was hes­it­ant to over­throw his father, to usurp the tra­di­tional king by force. He was hop­ing that the mon­arch would come to see reason and bend, that the po­ten­tial prosper­ity of the Realm, and the power of his ob­vi­ous suc­cessors—his sons—would ul­ti­mately sway King De­mitri’s opin­ion and con­vince him to re­lin­quish his reign. Mina had no doubt that Dante would use lethal force if he had to—
tra­di­tions, lin­eage, and loy­alty be damned
—he would chal­lenge his father, dragon to dragon, if King De­mitri forced his hand. He had demon­strated his re­solve as well as his ca­pa­city to be ruth­less with Prince Damian.

She swal­lowed her trep­id­a­tion.

And mean­while, Prince Dante would live at Castle War­lo­chia—he would rule the war­locks and his royal province—with
Cas­sidy
at his side.

The know­ledge made her sick.

Damian’s harsh, un­for­giv­ing mouth quirked up in an­other faintly fa­mil­iar smile. “I’m sorry; I don’t yet know how to turn it off, the mind read­ing.” He bran­dished an apo­lo­getic hand. “But I don’t think you need to worry about that, not so much.”

From what Matt—what
Damian
—had told her earlier, the tele­pathy was really a prob­lem: While all dragons pos­sessed the abil­ity to read minds, it wasn’t an auto­matic or nat­ural oc­cur­rence. It took a lot of de­lib­er­a­tion and men­tal clar­ity. In other words, it didn’t just hap­pen. How­ever, some­thing sym­bi­otic had taken place when the two per­son­al­it­ies had merged. Some­how, the com­bin­a­tion of Damian’s highly de­veloped abil­ity and
the other one’s
deep in­tu­it­ive nature had led to an open tele­pathic chan­nel that
the new prince
could not shut down.

Mina crooked her eye­brows in curi­os­ity. “Well…are you go­ing to tell me why I needn’t worry?” There was no point in pre­tend­ing she hadn’t been think­ing what she had.

The prince nod­ded sym­path­et­ic­ally and chuckled.

“In the short time we spent trav­el­ing to the inn, I was able to garner a few im­pres­sions.” He ro­tated his hand, palm fa­cing for­ward, be­fore she could jump to the wrong con­clu­sions. “
No
, I was not able to read Prince Dante’s mind. His bar­ri­ers are far too strong for that—as, I as­sume, are my own—
but
there were sev­eral subtle im­pres­sions that lingered.” He winked. “Dante is
fiercely
pro­tect­ive of that child—and of you—and he didn’t give Cas­sidy a second thought on the day they were mated. He didn’t care about the fer­til­ity elixir—
at all
. He was too keenly fo­cused on the war.” He leaned for­ward, glanced up­ward, and then cast his eyes to the side, as if prob­ing for a deeper ex­plan­a­tion. “His wheels are al­ways turn­ing, and he views you and that child,
not Cas­sidy
, as his own. She is more like a piece of fur­niture.” He paused to take a slow, deep breath, and then he met her gaze dir­ectly. “I don’t think he will fol­low his father’s plan—
our father’s plan
—go­ing for­ward. I be­lieve he will forge his own. Just as Prince Dam—
just as I
—can read minds without even try­ing, Prince Dante has an ex­tremely nat­ural com­mand of ma­gic. I wouldn’t be sur­prised if he plays with Cas­sidy’s mind or ma­nip­u­lates her memor­ies. He could make her be­lieve any­thing…or noth­ing…at will.” He shrugged and in­clined his head in a flip­pant—
al­most ar­rog­ant?
—nod. “I’m just say­ing I wouldn’t worry about it, not too much. Don’t for­get: I’ve known him for one hun­dred forty-nine years, and I’ve had…in­tim­ate deal­ings…with Cas­sidy already. A wo­man like that will be about as sig­ni­fic­ant as a flea on a don­key’s ass to Prince Dante. She isn’t worth your thoughts be­cause she won’t com­mand his.”

Mina’s mouth dropped open in sur­prise.

Try­ing to dis­cern who was who when Prince Damian was speak­ing was like listen­ing to twin robins sing. The notes were ut­terly in­ter­change­able, yet they were dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent at the same time. It was truly amaz­ing how Damian’s many years of dom­in­ance and priv­ilege, as well his formal edu­ca­tion and train­ing, flowed out in his cocky self-as­sur­ance, in his novel choice of words—
a flea on a don­key’s ass?
—while
the other one’s
care­ful in­sights and honed in­tu­ition dove­tailed seam­lessly through­out the ex­am­in­a­tion in his ca­dence and his thoughts. It was mind-numb­ing to wit­ness the in­teg­ra­tion, and Mina real­ized, per­haps for the first time, that she was truly meet­ing a unique and brand-new per­son.

Yet, when she con­cen­trated on the mean­ing be­hind the words, she was still twis­ted up in knots. She didn’t know how she felt about any of it. The thought of Prince Dante with Cas­sidy still turned her stom­ach, yet the thought of car­ry­ing on some secret af­fair with the prince of War­lo­chia—if, in fact, Dante was even con­sid­er­ing the lat­ter—made her weak at the knees with ter­ror. The thought of liv­ing at Castle Um­bras with…Damian…in light of how well she knew his pre­dom­in­ant soul gave her a sense of peace and be­long­ing, yet the thought of in­ter­act­ing with this new per­son­al­ity, obey­ing this prince and even feed­ing his dragon, made her want to dis­ap­pear. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, keep­ing up the ruse, but she could not have or­ches­trated a bet­ter twist of fate if she had tried: Com­pared to the fu­ture she had been fa­cing just over one week ago, this was a thou­sand times more amen­able.

At least
this
prince of Um­bras would never beat her or rape her.

And she could def­in­itely love “their” child.

She
would
love their child.

Her head began to hurt as she wondered how it would all play out. Would Prince Dante ex­pect her to give him more sons?
Surely he did not ex­pect her to couple with Prince Damian!
Her head hurt even worse, and she quickly dis­missed the thoughts.

Just then, the large multi-paneled doors of the rus­tic castle foyer swung open, and Prince Dante strolled con­fid­ently into the room, his gor­geous onyx hair flow­ing like a war­lock’s cloak to his shoulders; his regal sap­phire eyes flash­ing with au­thor­ity and an­imal mag­net­ism; his lethal, oth­er­worldly pres­ence per­meat­ing the en­tire room. She stood, out of habit, ready to bow her head and curt­sey—
per­haps he would even need to feed his dragon
—and then her heart skipped sev­eral beats, her palms began to sweat, and she staggered where she stood.

Oh, dearest god­dess of mercy!

She ran to­ward the doors.

“Raylea!”

She was ut­terly frantic to get to the young bright-eyed child who had just entered the foyer be­hind him, and when the two sis­ters met in the cen­ter of the hall, they em­braced like the gods had com­manded their union.

“Sis­ter.”
Raylea wept.

“Raylea!” Mina replied, and then she star­ted to blub­ber, spew­ing what felt like a dozen non­sensical words per second. “I got your doll! The one you made for me with the pretty but­ton eyes and the patch­work dress. The prince told me how brave and cour­ageous you were, go­ing to War­lo­chia—
Oh my gods, I can’t be­lieve you did that!
—but I wasn’t sur­prised at all, that you found a way to get the doll to me. Oh, and you have to know: I’ve kept her close to me, right next to my heart, every day since I got her. And I’ve kept you there, too! I love you both so much; I’ve missed you so dearly!” She swiped at her eyes. “But I have her—and she’s so lovely!” Mina laughed at her silly, il­lo­gical speech, even as she ran her hands through Raylea’s hair, cupped her cheeks in her palms, and kissed her little fore­head…at least ten times.