Dragons Realm (33 page)

Dante flung a sizz­ling bolt of light­ning at the war­lock’s throat, catch­ing him un­aware, and ral­lied in­side as it severed the war­lock’s vo­cal cords. “Si­lence!” he bel­lowed, pre­tend­ing to sup­port the king. Then he turned to his father and baited him. “My liege,” he snarled, sound­ing half crazed and wholly dis­gus­ted. “Is this what the Realm has be­come?” He struggled to stroll to­ward his father, re­leas­ing his wings to pro­pel him. “Do the
slaves
now com­mand the
kings
? Can this hag com­mand
you
to bow? Can a wo­man of lowly birth, a gif­ted seer or not, de­file my father’s throne room and or­der him about like a com­mon peas­ant? In front of his sons? In front of his un­born grand­chil­dren? In front of a War­lo­chian mage! One who just hap­pens to be the head of the il­legal slave trade and sleep­ing with your coun­selor—
enorm­ous
de­cep­tion, in­deed.”

Ra­fael Bishop shrank back in alarm, his mouth drop­ping open in shock, even as blood pooled from the corners of his mouth in re­sponse to his re­cent in­jury. He looked like he had just seen a ghost, and des­pite all of his con­sid­er­able power, his legs began to tremble.

Prince Dante flashed a wicked smile. “Ah, so then it is true?” He glanced askance at the king and shook his head in dis­gust. “I didn’t know for sure, not un­til now, Father. It was only a sus­pi­cion, but his re­ac­tion just con­firmed it.” The fool had just ab­solved Dante of any blame…the fact that he knew about the slave trade and kept the in­form­a­tion from his king. He spun on his heel to glare at Wavani. Her moon-shaped pu­pils had just turned a vin­dict­ive shade of green, and she was trem­bling with rage.

“You bas­tard!” she choked, strug­gling for breath. “You clever, un­holy bas­tard. I will see you—”

“I am your prince!” Dante thundered, drown­ing out her words. “How dare you.” He tried to hurl a si­len­cing spell in her dir­ec­tion, but she blocked it with her eyes.

“I know what you’re do­ing, you trait­or­ous fiend!” she hissed. “I saw it
all
in a seek­ing vis­ion.”

Dante’s stom­ach clenched in fear, and for the briefest mo­ment, he met Mina’s ter­ri­fied gaze. The fe­male’s eyes were as wide as sau­cers; she was trem­bling in her boots, and she looked like she might just pass out from ter­ror, but she didn’t speak a word.
She didn’t dare
. She ob­vi­ously un­der­stood that
all
their lives de­pended upon Dante Dragona and per­haps, his brother Damian.

Dante pushed through his fear and stepped for­ward with de­lib­er­ate ar­rog­ance, tak­ing three haughty strides to­ward the witch. He knew he was run­ning out of time. Even if they man­aged to get out of this alive, they might not come back from the sus­pi­cions the witch was plant­ing in King De­mitri’s head. Dante had to strike hard…and quick. “Trait­or­ous fiend?” he mocked. “
Trait­or­ous? Why?
Be­cause I don’t sup­port your lover’s un­law­ful en­ter­prise? Be­cause I don’t kow­tow to your vis­ions like a su­per­sti­tious little girl, like the wretch you are try­ing to make of my father?
Your king!
How dare you ac­cuse me of be­ing a traitor in the very castle I was born in, in the very hall that I revere.”

“You know—”

“I know what!”
He hurled his voice as thun­der, shak­ing the rafters and trail­ing the words with flames. “What is it that you wish to tell me, witch? Please, by all means, say it! What did you
see
in your vis­ion? What do you know about my un­born son?” He hoped to in­cite his father’s fear of dis­cov­ery—and his rage—by in­cit­ing his para­noia. “What about this mat­ing is so wrong?”

The king roared like the Keeper of the For­got­ten Realm him­self had just pos­sessed his body and clasped his hand even tighter over her throat.

And that’s when Damian chimed in. “
Dear lords
, Father: I’m al­most ashamed. Kill this in­solent bitch be­fore I have to do it my­self.”

This pushed King De­mitri over the edge. He tightened his fist into an iron grasp, crushed the witch’s throat, and then tossed her limp body to the ground and stomped on her head in or­der to an­ni­hil­ate her skull, be­fore send­ing her body up in flames.

And then he turned to glare at Damian, took two hu­mong­ous strides in the prince’s dir­ec­tion, and back­han­ded him across the room. “You are ashamed, son?
Of me!?
” He soun­ded ut­terly in­sane.

Mina and Ta­tiana gasped as Damian’s jawbone aud­ibly cracked, and two blood­stained teeth ri­co­cheted across the clean marble floors.

Dante and Drake winced and turned away.

Prince Damian stood up slowly, staggered like he was drunk, and rubbed his jaw in a lazy caress. He spit out an­other tooth and began to laugh in a deep, ex­uber­ant voice, his massive shoulders shak­ing from the mirth. “Not of you, Father,” he mumbled, slur­ring all three of his words. “Never of you.” He bowed low and groaned. “Your Majesty
—Father—
I was ashamed of my broth­ers, Prince Dante and Prince Drake, for for­cing you to do the dirty work in your own throne room. The witch was be­neath you. I meant no of­fense.” Con­sid­er­ing the cir­cum­stances, it was prob­ably the best lie he could come up with, es­pe­cially in light of the fact that he had just prod­ded the king to kill the witch him­self. He stood up straight, or at least as straight as he could, turned to­ward Ra­fael, who was still trem­bling in the corner, un­able to speak, and cocked an ar­rog­ant shoulder. “Shall I?” He in­clined his head with rev­er­ence. “The bas­tard dis­obeyed your laws. He is the head of the il­legal slave trade. Your will is my com­mand.”

The king took a tent­at­ive step back, vis­ibly re­laxed, and rubbed his fur­rowed brow. He seemed mo­ment­ar­ily con­fused, like he couldn’t re­mem­ber Damian’s ori­ginal words—
thank the gods
—and then he quickly found his voice. “Did you lose a lot of teeth?”

Damian re­spon­ded with more than a little swag­ger. “Enough.” He flashed a bloody, tooth­less grin, and the king joined in on the banter. “You’re lucky I didn’t break your neck.”

Damian nod­ded. “In­deed, Father;
my
apo­lo­gies
.”

The king nod­ded and turned to Dante. “Why
didn’t
you in­ter­vene?”

Dante bit down on his bot­tom lip, try­ing not to show his ir­rit­a­tion. “I was so…stunned…by the witch’s dis­respect that I couldn’t think clearly.
For­give
me
.”

The king nod­ded his head and har­rumphed. He was ob­vi­ously tired. “Very well.” Then he turned to glare at the quiv­er­ing war­lock. “The mage is your sub­ject, Dante. Whip him un­til he’s dead.”

Dante smiled at Damian, and the two ex­changed a know­ing glance.
Well played, Damian
. Dante pro­jec­ted the thought.
Well played.

And then he turned to wink at Mina, glanced over his shoulder at the twelve-feet-high chest, situ­ated in the throne-room’s corner, and smirked. “Damian, go pick out a lash.”

EPI­LOGUE

Ten years later

M
ina Louvet propped
her­self up in bed and held the sleep­ing in­fant close to her heart, glad to fi­nally see the high priest go. The labor and de­liv­ery had taken ten long hours; she had kept the baby awake for all the ne­ces­sary vis­it­a­tions and ini­ti­ations; and now, all she wanted to do was sleep for a while, along with her new­born son.

A ruckus out­side the bed­cham­ber door jol­ted her back to full at­ten­tion: It was her young­est two sons clam­or­ing for an­other vis­itor’s at­ten­tion. “Uncle Dante! Uncle Dante!” her middle son, Azor, squealed in de­light, his high-pitched voice teem­ing with ex­cite­ment.

“Azor!” She could tell by the sud­den dip in Prince Dante’s voice that he had just picked the five-year-old up. “I think you must have grown a whole inch taller since I last saw you.” The child chuckled with de­light, and Mina sighed.

Prince Dante’s re­la­tion­ship with his sons was price­less.

There was a deep bond of love and loy­alty between the dragon and the kids; how­ever, it still broke her heart to hear them call him
uncle
, to think of him as their father’s brother, know­ing how much he ad­ored them. Yet and still, he and Damian had done everything right. Des­pite Damian’s equal ad­mir­a­tion for the boys, he of­ten re­mained aloof. He took on a sterner, more in­struct­ive role, mak­ing sure the chil­dren had bound­ar­ies, se­cur­ity, and dis­cip­line, but he never com­pletely ex­posed his heart; whereas, Prince Dante played the strongest pa­ternal role. He not only offered dis­cip­line and in­struc­tion, but lots of phys­ical con­tact, rough-hous­ing, and af­fec­tion. He was de­term­ined to forge an un­break­able bond with both boys—he was in­tent on gain­ing their re­spect as well as their deep ad­mir­a­tion.

And he had all three.

In truth, the boys re­lated to Dante more as a father and Damian more as an uncle. They sought Dante’s ap­proval and at­ten­tion in everything they did, coun­ted the days and the hours un­til his next visit, ac­com­pan­ied him on horse­back rides and hunt­ing trips, and wrote let­ters to him when he was away—at least Ari did, while Azor in­cluded his draw­ings. In short, they hung on Dante’s every word. They loved and re­spec­ted him as a dragon. And they wanted to be ex­actly what he was when they grew up.

It took a lot of de­lib­er­ate con­trol and dis­cre­tion from both Dante and Damian to make sure these bound­ar­ies re­mained firm—that their sep­ar­ate roles were played
just so
on pur­pose—but the reason was clear: When the time was right, Dante would tell all three of his sons that he was their real father, and Damian would move into the role of their pro­tect­ive uncle. They wanted the re­la­tion­ships to be pre­dict­able and en­trenched already, so that the young princes would have less of a trans­ition to make when the day fi­nally came.

Titles would change.

Roles would not.

In the mean­time, Prince Dante had forged a solid bond with Cas­sidy’s only child as well. He had taken the boy un­der his wing, this time as a father, and reared him as his own. He had no in­ten­tion of ever telling Dario that he was ac­tu­ally a bas­tard—King De­mitri was his true despic­able father—but that didn’t change the proph­ecy:
Three chil­dren; three dec­ades; three lads with green eyes.
It simply strengthened Dante’s hold on the Realm.

And he would need that ad­ded strength when the time to usurp King De­mitri came, be­cause he simply re­fused to father more chil­dren with his con­ceited Ahavi…with Cas­sidy. As it stood, King De­mitri re­fused to touch the lonely fe­male from the War­lo­chian dis­trict, no mat­ter how much she flir­ted with the mon­arch. He had only wanted her body; he had never in­ten­ded to sire a son; and the close call in the throne room with Wavani the witch, now ten years past, had planted the fear of the gods into the mighty dragon. There were plenty of Blood Ahavi to slake the king’s every need; he was done with Cas­sidy Bondev­ille.

Mina shif­ted in bed, try­ing to find a more com­fort­able po­s­i­tion, and she re­placed her frown with a smile as she thought of the other Dragona chil­dren who would one day sup­port
King Dante
: Prince Drake’s wild band of five. She found her­self laugh­ing out loud at the thought of it. If Ta­tiana and Prince Drake had any more chil­dren, they would have to build a lar­ger castle. As things were, Mina was thor­oughly con­vinced they were try­ing to re­pop­u­late the Realm single-handedly, and her heart warmed at the thought of their pure, ever-deep­en­ing love. Ta­tiana had truly healed—mind, body, and soul—and she had fallen into her role as the Sk­la­vos Ahavi of the
com­mon­lands
with genu­ine alac­rity and grace. The dis­trict had grown wealth­ier un­der her ex­pert fin­an­cial as­sist­ance, and Prince Drake had even made in­roads with a hand­ful of Malo Clan rebels, al­though a trickle of the gi­ants was grow­ing in­creas­ingly rest­less.

The door to the bed­cham­ber opened, draw­ing Mina away from her thoughts, and Prince Dante entered si­lently, his pres­ence filling the room. His haunt­ingly beau­ti­ful eyes were alight and alert; his power­ful, dom­in­at­ing frame was regal and proud; and his barely con­cealed dragon was ra­di­at­ing heat—the vis­age stole her breath. He sidled to the edge of the bed, knelt on the floor, and reached out to stroke a strong but gentle hand over her fore­head. “How are you, sweet Mina?” he mur­mured. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

Mina smiled wanly. “I’m well, my prince.”

He nod­ded. “Are you sure?”

She took his hand in hers, squeezed it, and then quickly re­leased it. “I’m sure.”

He glanced ab­sently around the room. “Then the priest and Damian were with you the en­tire time?”

She glanced into the dis­tance, fix­ing her eyes on the fire­place man­tel and the elab­or­ate gold-and-cream tiles that rimmed its edges. “They were.” She hes­it­ated for a mo­ment. “Prince Damian never left my side.”

Dante closed his eyes in a rare, demon­strat­ive show of emo­tion. “Good,” he whispered ab­sently, and then he strengthened his voice. “
Good
.”

Mina’s heart con­stric­ted in her chest, but only for a mo­ment—they all un­der­stood their re­spect­ive roles. And then, the prince reached up, drew back the tip of the soft golden blanket that covered the new­born babe, and ran a fin­ger through his fine, downy hair. “My third son,” he said with awe.

Mina drew in a sharp in­take of breath, both of them un­der­stand­ing the sig­ni­fic­ance of the mo­ment.

Dante stud­ied the child like he was mem­or­iz­ing every de­tail of his fea­tures, and then, at last, he quirked a smile. “He is strong and hand­some.”

“Like his father,” Mina in­ter­jec­ted, and the prince nod­ded proudly.

And then he took the child from Mina’s arms, stood up, and glided to the other side of the room with the grace of a pan­ther, tak­ing an in­con­spicu­ous place be­side the fire in or­der to in­voke the ele­ment’s vi­tal­ity.

Mina slowly ex­haled and placed her hand over her heart, try­ing to calm its fe­ver­ish beat­ing, try­ing to garner strength. She could do this. She
would
do this. She had done it three times be­fore.

Ac­tu­ally
four…

Damian Dragona had already taken Asher, within an hour of his birth, and tendered the
Dragon’s Kiss
in front of the high priest, as was tra­di­tion and re­quired. Little did the priest know that the ini­ti­ation had been all for show—the child was not Prince Damian’s son, and so the kiss would not truly awaken Asher’s dragon. Dante would have to re­peat it again. And the little prince would have to en­dure the pain and the fear a second time.

Mina turned away, un­able to watch.

Her ma­ter­nal in­stincts simply wouldn’t al­low it.

Rather, she held her breath and waited as Dante pro­ceeded to re­lease his fangs and make a lib­eral ex­change of saliva, blood, and heat at the sleep­ing child’s throat.

The child came awake with a shriek, and then he began to wail for all he was worth, as Dante’s dragon snarled and purred in­ter­mit­tently through­out the crude, pos­sess­ive claim­ing. Little Prince Ari and little Prince Azor were at the door in an in­stant: knock­ing brusquely on the large wooden pan­els, yank­ing at the heavy knob, and peek­ing in­side with their deep em­er­ald-green eyes, curi­os­ity get­ting the best of them.

“What’s hap­pen­ing to my brother?” Prince Azor asked in a timid yet curi­ous voice.

“What’s Uncle Dante do­ing?” Prince Ari asked, sound­ing a bit more ma­ture.

Mina ex­ten­ded a wel­com­ing hand, ush­er­ing both chil­dren to the bed to join her, and then she cuddled the young­est of the two, rub­bing calm­ing circles along his small back. “He’s just say­ing hello,” she ex­plained. “He wanted to take a good look at him.”

“Oh,” Azor replied, his eyes still wide as sau­cers.

“I don’t see what makes Asher so spe­cial,” Ari said, and Mina couldn’t help but smile. The child was already jeal­ous of the new­born babe, vy­ing for Prince Dante’s at­ten­tion, and really, that was a very good thing. It meant that his bond with his
father
ran deep, and
Aure­lio
was simply re­act­ing like any nat­ural-born son would, want­ing to be his father’s fa­vor­ite. Little did the child know how deep his con­nec­tion to Prince Dante really went. As the first­born son of the fu­ture king, he would one day sit on the throne him­self.

An­other brusque knock re­ver­ber­ated on the out­side of the door, and this time Prince Dante strolled across the room to an­swer it—the ini­ti­ation was blessedly over. “Yes?” he growled in an im­pa­tient tone, his voice tinged with ir­rit­a­tion. “Who is it?”

A raspy male voice echoed in an­swer. “My prince, it is Emory Wil­loughby, Prince Damian’s her­ald. There is news from the royal province.”

“What is it?” Dante snarled.

The her­ald cleared his throat. “A rogue band of war­locks and a hand­ful of Malo Clan rebels tried to breach the castle’s gar­ris­ons last night, de­mand­ing an audi­ence with the king. Some­thing about want­ing im­me­di­ate royal ap­point­ments and re­par­a­tions. The king’s guard man­aged to hold them off, but they have be­come in­creas­ingly un­ruly—and their num­bers are grow­ing lar­ger. You and your brother, Prince Drake, have been summoned to Castle Dragon. As the rebels rep­res­ent your re­spect­ive sub­jects, His Majesty would like you to quell the up­ris­ing to­gether, to make a pub­lic ex­ample of their crimes.”

Prince Dante grunted, shak­ing his head with dis­gust. “Very well,” he said, speak­ing through the door. “Send word I am on my way.” He crossed the room in three long strides, placed the child back in Mina’s arms, and turned his at­ten­tion to the in­quis­it­ive princes. “I’ll see you when I can,” he said, dir­ect­ing the state­ment at the chil­dren out of pro­pri­ety, but mean­ing it for Mina.

Her heart sank in her chest, and she sud­denly felt mor­ose.
Lords
, how she longed to spend more time with him, to simply feel his gentle touch, to speak can­didly and in private. She longed to feel his power­ful arms en­fold her, if only for an hour,
just a frozen mo­ment in time
, but those pre­cious mo­ments were few and far between.

The door opened, and Dante spun around an­grily, ready to give the her­ald a piece of his mind, but Prince Damian entered, in­stead.

The chil­dren sat up straighter on the bed.

“Father,” Ari said, angling his chin a little higher to show his re­spect and ma­tur­ity.

Azor glanced back and forth between the two dragons and bit his bot­tom lip, look­ing in­ex­plic­ably nervous.

“How is every­one do­ing?” Prince Damian asked, cross­ing the room to join his fam­ily at the side of the bed. “Are you all right, Azor?” he asked, speak­ing quietly.

The boy nod­ded rap­idly.

“We’re well,” Mina replied, want­ing to set Prince Damian’s mind at ease.

Damian nod­ded, seem­ing to un­der­stand on a much deeper level, and then he turned to re­gard Prince Dante dir­ectly. “Did you have a chance—”

“Yes,” Dante in­ter­rup­ted. “It is done.”

“Good,” Prince Damian said firmly. Des­pite his subtle, regal cast and his ob­vi­ous air of con­fid­ence, Mina couldn’t help but no­tice that the prince looked elu­sively out of place, even as he stood in his own suite of rooms, situ­ated within his own sov­er­eign castle. And she would have felt sor­row for him, per­haps even pity, ex­cept for the fact that she knew a secret…

A secret even Prince Damian hardly un­der­stood.

Over the past ten years, Mina’s par­ents and her sis­ter had vis­ited Castle Um­bras quite fre­quently, and dur­ing that time, the young, ca­pri­cious Raylea had grown into a vi­brant, beau­ti­ful wo­man, a maiden with a power­ful, un­deni­able crush on the dan­ger­ously hand­some prince.

On Damian
.

Without even try­ing, his soul had won her over, and truth be told, she had prob­ably re­cog­nized his spirit. Des­pite her be­liev­ing him to be vile and wicked the first day she had met him in the War­lo­chian square, they had forged a strong friend­ship, a re­si­li­ent bond, and a mu­tual, ir­re­fut­able at­trac­tion. It was evid­ent in their un­wit­ting stolen glances; in their in­no­cent but af­fec­tion­ate ex­changes; and in the un­dis­guised long­ing that re­flec­ted in their eyes every time they locked gazes across a room.

Un­der­stand­ing Mina’s sta­tion and lov­ing her sis­ter dearly, Raylea would never have ac­ted on her feel­ings, and neither one of them had ever said or done any­thing im­proper. Yet and still, Mina knew the truth. The two of them were in love. And one day, al­beit un­known to Raylea, they would both be free to con­sum­mate their union, to act on their power­ful, un­abated feel­ings. Mina smiled, think­ing of the pos­sib­il­it­ies. She had no doubt that Mat­thias would make Raylea im­mor­tal, even know­ing they couldn’t have chil­dren, that the girl was not a Sk­la­vos Ahavi. Mina chuckled in­wardly: Some­how, she be­lieved the fu­ture king would over­look it.

Not want­ing to con­fuse the chil­dren, Dante bent over the bed and pressed a chaste, fa­milial kiss on Mina’s fore­head. “Con­grat­u­la­tions, Mis­tress Ahavi,” he said in a formal re­gister, and then he turned to shake Prince Damian’s hand. “I’ll re­turn when I can.”