Dragons Realm (31 page)

The girl laughed amidst her tears. “I made her for you. All by my­self.”

Mina pulled her into an­other fierce hug. “I know you did. And thank you so much! I ab­so­lutely love it.” She ran her hands up and down Raylea’s arms and stared at her with con­cern. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Do you need a phys­i­cian?” She eyed her from head to toe be­fore turn­ing her around in or­der to check her back, her neck, and her shoulders. She was just about to start dis­creetly un­dress­ing her when Raylea slapped at her hands and smiled.

“I’m fine,” she in­sisted, link­ing Mina’s fin­gers in hers. “Well, I mean, it was aw­ful. It was scary. The shadow who bought me was hor­rible, but I don’t really re­mem­ber. Prince Dante said I can spend the rest of the week with you, and then he’s go­ing to have his own castle guards es­cort me home, back to Arns, to see Mama and Papa. But I can visit whenever I want.” She giggled with joy, and her dark brown eyes lit up like twin rus­set flames. “He saved me from the mon­ster.”

Mina’s bot­tom lip began to tremble, and she felt like a child her­self, wholly over­whelmed by her emo­tions and com­pletely un­able to speak. As Prince Dante stepped for­ward, os­tens­ibly to ex­plain what had happened—or to tell her what he ex­pec­ted her to do—she col­lapsed from the in­tens­ity of her grief,
her re­lief
, and her grat­it­ude, and she shrouded his boots with her hair.

He bent down to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I told you I would bring her home,” he mur­mured in a deep, son­or­ous tone.

Mina raised her head to re­gard him squarely be­neath tearstained lashes, and he offered his hand to help her up. She took it between both of her palms and pressed it to her cheek, angling her head with af­fec­tion. “My prince,” she whispered softly, wet­ting his skin with her tears. “Thank you.” Her en­tire body began to shake. “I have no words.”

She bowed her head in the purest ges­ture of rev­er­ence she had ever shown, want­ing to demon­strate her ap­pre­ci­ation, and then she brought her fore­head down to his feet—slowly, and with great ven­er­a­tion—and kissed the tips of his boots, each one in turn.

Oddly enough, she had never felt more like his equal.

“Thank you,”
she whispered again.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Castle Dragon ~ one month later

“
C
ome with me,”
Dante had said, of­fer­ing no ex­plan­a­tion, mak­ing no jus­ti­fic­a­tion, and just like her first day at Castle Dragon, Mina had fol­lowed him into the court­yard, moun­ted the same white geld­ing, and cantered quietly be­side him along the same fa­mil­iar path.

In the weeks that had fol­lowed Raylea’s res­cue, life in the Realm had moved for­ward very quickly: All three dragon princes had been summoned to meet with King De­metri; they had con­ferred about the battle, dis­cussed their roles go­ing for­ward, and briefed him on the state of their dis­tricts.

And each one of them had man­aged to pull it off.

As of yet, Prince Drake did not know about the
great de­cep­tion
, and Dante was wait­ing for the right mo­ment to tell him, for
ne­ces­sity
to war­rant the ad­mis­sion. He wanted to bring his young­est brother into the fold, and he be­lieved it was ne­ces­sary, that he could def­in­itely trust him; how­ever, he was hes­it­ant to place an­other in­no­cent soul in danger, es­pe­cially when they still had time.

Mean­while, Raylea had re­turned to the
com­mon­lands
, and Mina’s par­ents had been pos­it­ively elated to dis­cover that both of their daugh­ters were still safe and alive, that they had ac­tu­ally spent a week to­gether at Castle Um­bras, and that Mina would in­vite them
all
to visit soon, within the next couple of months.

They were, how­ever, griev­ing deeply, along with Cal­lum Gentry, over the news of Mat­thias’s death, the fact that he had been cap­tured at Castle Dragon and ex­ecuted by the king.

Damian and Dante had given the mat­ter a great deal of con­sid­er­a­tion—whether or not to in­form the black­smith that his son was still alive, at least his soul was—but in the end, Prince Damian had made the call. The danger was just too great. The secret was far too volat­ile. And there was al­ways time to re­tract the de­cision later, once things had settled down.

Mina’s heart ached at the thought of Mr. Gentry’s suf­fer­ing, but she un­der­stood the princes’ reas­on­ing: The fewer people who knew, the less chance there was of a leak. As it stood, Prince Dante was prac­tic­ally be­side him­self with con­cern over Wavani the witch. On one hand, he ab­so­lutely could not ex­ecute the king’s closest ad­visor and hope to get away with it—King De­mitri would leave no stone un­turned in the search for her killer—but on the other hand, all it would take was an un­easy feel­ing, a haphaz­ard toss of her runes, or a reason to con­sult her look­ing-glass, based on a passing sus­pi­cion, and the king would slay them all for their treason.

Wavani the witch and her lover were two per­il­ous loose ends that needed to be closed.

Mina shivered, not want­ing to ima­gine the worst…

Rather, she turned her at­ten­tion to bet­ter news: They had re­cently learned that Ta­tiana was also ex­pect­ing a child. She had be­come preg­nant the first night of the war, and Prince Drake could only be de­scribed as smit­ten at best. For all in­tents and pur­poses, the Ahavi seemed to be happy, whereas Damian and Mina had fallen into an awk­ward yet fa­mil­iar routine at Castle Um­bras, lend­ing each other sup­port, learn­ing as they went along, and mak­ing it up when they were clue­less.

Mina’s preg­nancy had be­gun to show. She was naus­eated in the morn­ings; the smell of food made her queasy, and she re­quired more sleep than ever be­fore—yet she really couldn’t com­plain. The king was sat­is­fied with his sons and their Ahavi, he had no reason to ques­tion his choices or ap­point­ments, and the Realm was mov­ing for­ward, day by day.

Life was re­sum­ing as it should.

Now, as Prince Dante reined his stal­lion to a halt be­neath the branches of an aged sy­ca­more tree, Mina fol­lowed his lead and dis­moun­ted. The af­ter­noon was pos­it­ively stun­ning: The sun was shin­ing in a clear blue sky; the birds were singing hap­pily in the trees; and there was a gentle sum­mer’s breeze rust­ling the leaves and lightly lick­ing their skin. It was truly a beau­ti­ful af­ter­noon.

Prince Dante tethered his horse to a fallen log, waited for Mina to do the same, and then ex­ten­ded his hand in her dir­ec­tion. “Come to me, Mina.”

She couldn’t help but re­mem­ber that first day in the court­yard when the prince had ordered her to do the same; only this time, her arm wasn’t bleed­ing and his dragon wasn’t rid­ing the edge—there was no hes­it­a­tion or fear. Yes, she still felt in­tim­id­ated by his pres­ence, at the sheer breadth of power pro­jec­ted by his dragon, and her stom­ach still quivered with but­ter­flies at the mere res­on­ance of his voice; but she knew he wouldn’t harm her, not in­dis­crim­in­ately, and she would never pro­voke his beast.

She curt­sied. “My prince.”

He smiled,
truly smiled
, and then he led her to a rise in the hill, still be­neath the tree, and squat­ted down to re­move a care­fully placed bushel of branches con­ceal­ing a lone gold cross be­hind them. The cross stood just above and bey­ond a flat bronzed plac­ard, and Prince Dante bur­rowed his fin­gers into the grass. “This is my twin’s fi­nal rest­ing place.”

Mina drew in a sharp in­take of air. “Des­mond’s?”

“Yes.”

The si­lence was palp­able. She didn’t know what to say.

“What does it make you feel? See­ing it, that is?”

Mina looked away. “It makes me feel sor­row…and re­gret. It makes me feel com­pas­sion for you and an­ger to­ward your father.”

He stood up, turned around, and placed the palm of his hand over her heart in a sur­pris­ingly in­tim­ate ges­ture. “Don’t lie to me, Mina. What does
this
”—he swept his arm around the meadow, in­dic­at­ing their phys­ical sur­round­ings as well as the two of them stand­ing be­neath the tree, and nod­ded—“what does
all of this
make you feel? I need to know.”

Mina let out a slow, meas­ured breath and con­sul­ted her heart.

Since the day she had first met the prince, they had been thrust into an elu­sive cat-and-mouse game, al­ways test­ing and strain­ing the bal­ance of power between them. Dante had made it abund­antly clear that he had to have her obed­i­ence—his dragon re­quired the af­firm­a­tion of dom­in­ance—yet she had tried to change him. And in the end, they had both fallen into their ex­pec­ted, pre­scribed roles any­way.

She bit her lip and wiped a sweaty palm against her skirt. Did she dare speak from the depths of her heart? Was that really what he wanted?

Truth be told, they were too sim­ilar to keep from clash­ing on oc­ca­sion: They were both head­strong and proud; they were each de­fi­ant to a fault; and they were so de­term­ined to re­main in con­trol, if only of their stub­born free will, that neither one had ever truly re­vealed their hand, at least not en­tirely. And that’s how Mina knew Dante’s ques­tion ran much deeper than his words.

He wanted to know how she felt…
about
him
.

“My prince,” she mur­mured, her voice grow­ing all at once sub­dued. “I be­long to the Realm…and to Prince Damian…just as your father de­creed, so it is dif­fi­cult for me to speak too freely.”

He placed two fin­gers be­neath the curve of her chin and lif­ted it gently up­ward. When her gaze met his, his eyes were so in­tense—so dark and so full of curi­os­ity and long­ing—that she couldn’t hold her tongue.

Reach­ing into a deep well for cour­age, she spoke softly. “As a child, be­fore I was taken to the Keep, I could have answered you eas­ily: I would have said I feel like cry­ing be­cause a great tragedy has happened in this place. I feel like reach­ing out to you be­cause you suffered.” She braced her heart, re­fus­ing to al­low any tears. “As a slave—as an Ahavi—the an­swer would be dif­fer­ent: I feel like it is my duty to as­sist you, to some­how place things in or­der, and I won­der how I may serve you. What does he need?” She closed her eyes and stead­ied her breath­ing be­fore she slowly ven­tured for­ward again with both eyes wide open. “But as a wo­man, as Mina Louvet…”

“Yes?” Dante en­cour­aged. “As a wo­man?” He locked his gaze with hers, re­fus­ing to look away, and she al­most staggered back, jarred by the power of the cur­rent that flowed between them:
Oh hell, what was the point in pre­tend­ing?
“As a wo­man,” she pressed on, “I can’t help but won­der who Des­mond was—what was he like as a boy? What were the two of you like,
to­gether
, back then? I can’t help but won­der if you laughed, or played, or dreamed any­thing dif­fer­ent than you dream today. And I think, per­haps, that your bond was so tight, so un­break­able, that it sur­vived the pas­sage of time and the trans­ition of death—and I’m so very jeal­ous.” He angled his head to the side, re­gard­ing her in­tently, and she frowned, feel­ing some­how ashamed. “I won­der if you loved him, and I ache in­side be­cause I know I would give all that I am to just once have you love me that deeply.”

Dante ab­sently took a step back, vis­ibly sur­prised by her an­swer. Al­though he had asked her to be hon­est, he ob­vi­ously had not ex­pec­ted such a con­fes­sion. He wet his lips in a rare ges­ture of dis­com­fort, and then he par­ted his mouth to speak. When noth­ing came out, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Why, sweet Mina? What would be dif­fer­ent?”

At his cold, in­dif­fer­ent ques­tion, she wished she could just dis­ap­pear.

What was the point of this banter?

As if he un­der­stood her need to pull back, he took a gen­er­ous step for­ward, to­ward Des­mond’s grave, and glanced down at the cross. “My twin was a vis­ion­ary,” he said softly. “He danced to his own drum. He walked to his own mys­ter­i­ous beat. And he answered to a higher call­ing, some­thing only known to him, some­thing bur­ied within his soul. He op­posed my father, my mother, and his duty to the Realm be­cause he fell in love with a com­moner, and des­pite all the re­per­cus­sions, he could not be dis­suaded from that path.” He knelt down to touch the plac­ard, ab­sently tra­cing the let­ters in Des­mond’s name with his fore­finger. “I used to dream, Mina, a long,
long
time ago.” He paused as if re­mem­ber­ing. “I used to laugh, and feel,
and want
un­til my father reared it out of me…un­til the Realm de­man­ded that I re­lin­quish each and every rev­erie. Un­til I grew into a man and put away my child­ish long­ings.” He looked off into the dis­tance, and Mina ap­proached him slowly, tent­at­ively, press­ing her thighs against his back as she reached down to place a hand on his shoulder.

She didn’t ut­ter a word.

She simply stood there, of­fer­ing a sym­path­etic touch, and the con­tact brought his at­ten­tion back to the present.

“I have a pro­pos­i­tion for you, Ahavi. I would like to pro­pose a trade. There is some­thing I want you to con­sider, some­thing I could simply re­quire of you if I wished, but I would much rather seek your con­sent.”

Mina stiffened, try­ing to find some­thing mean­ing­ful or af­fec­tion­ate in his words. It was true: Dante Dragona did not have much to give—he did not have much
give
in him—so his de­sire to seek her
con­sent
in any mat­ter, how­ever in­sig­ni­fic­ant, was no small thing. At least there was that… “Yes, my prince?”

“As you already know,” he said, “I will be able to shift in thirty-one-years, and many things will change.” His ex­pres­sion grew dis­tant, yet re­solved. “I will take over the gov­ernance of this realm, whether by dip­lomacy or force, and I will re­quire the sup­port of those who are closest to me, those I know I can trust. I do want you be­side me, Mina, and I do need your help…but un­til such time as I am at the head of this coun­try, you must re­main at Castle Um­bras with Damian. There is truly no other way.” His dragon stirred, and his voice grew clipped, even as his nos­trils no­tice­ably flared. “I have made it im­pli­citly clear that he is never,
ever
to touch you, not in
that
way, not if he de­sires to live.” Be­fore she could re­spond or re­act, he pressed for­ward, as if the state­ment were a mere sup­pos­i­tion of fact. “How­ever, I also let him know that I un­der­stand—Damian is a sov­er­eign prince of Dragons Realm, and his dragon has many hun­gers. He will not be stable if he doesn’t feed…all of them. There isn’t a fe­male in this king­dom who would re­fuse his ad­vances, nor a maiden who would choose to deny him. He doesn’t have to be alone. He may still find love or af­fec­tion, al­beit in the shad­ows, in secret, just like Des­mond did. And I would look away—
I will look away
—and so will Prince Drake, once he un­der­stands.”

Dante seemed to be ram­bling.

Yet and still,
he
had brought up the sub­ject, and now, she had a few ques­tions of her own: “And Cas­sidy,
my prince
? Where does she fit into this pic­ture?”

Prince Dante flashed a cau­tion­ary smile, his dragon as­sert­ing his dom­in­ance. “Do you really wish to know, sweet Mina?”

“I do,” she said, re­fus­ing to back off. What was good for the goose was good for the gander, as­sum­ing the gander wasn’t a slave…

He sighed. “Cas­sidy is only too will­ing to ful­fil her re­quired du­ties, and I can’t fault her for that—she was raised, trained, and
con­di­tioned
to bear chil­dren for the Realm, and it is my sol­emn ob­lig­a­tion to take care of her.
But
…” He shook his head, show­ing the first real sign of com­pas­sion. “But I do not want her to rear—or carry—my sons. She is not moral, nor is she worthy.” He angled his head to look dir­ectly at Mina. “And I wouldn’t do that to
you
.” He glanced at her belly and then aver­ted his eyes out of re­spect. “Still…at some point, if she does not be­come preg­nant, the king will press the is­sue. And if I tell him I think she’s bar­ren, he will simply re­place her with an­other Sk­la­vos Ahavi, al­though we both know such fe­males are rare. Still, I can­not make you any prom­ises;
how­ever
, it may not be a prob­lem.”

Mina raised her eye­brows, al­most afraid to hope.