The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) (8 page)

I couldn’t even look away when he transformed back into his man form. Sea-glass-colored eyes were haunted as they stared back at me. His stomach slightly distended from what it normally was.

I hated Hagar.

The man had been a foul, lecherous fiend, who in all likelihood would have attempted to rape me were it not for the fact that Ragoth had still been here.

Mere yards separated us, but I couldn’t seem to make my feet move. It was as though someone had tied boulders around my ankles; I was fixed in place.

He swallowed hard as he ran his fingers through the ends of his jet-black hair. “Lena, you are hurt.”

I shook my head. Not even really hearing what he said, because I could only seem to focus on one thought. “You ate him.”

The trees shook, as though even they were now aware of the true danger that Ragoth posed even to them. Beside me was a field of flowers, whispering violently to one another. I could only hear snatches of conversation, but the one word I kept hearing over and over again with the heavy weight of fear behind it was, “dragonborne.”

In a matter of hours, all of wonderland would know about what’d happened here.

My trembling turned more violent. “Oh my goddess, you ate him. You ate him. You ate—”

Ragoth was beside me in an instant, wrapping his arms around me. And even though his touch was so familiar and comforting, my brain couldn’t stop from screaming at me that I needed to get away.

I tried to move, but his strength was absolute.

“I didn’t think, I didn’t...” he mumbled, shaking his head with wide, terrified eyes. “Lena, you can’t hate me. I did what I did to protect you. You can’t hate me.”

My brain told me to run away. But my heart wouldn’t let me move. I clutched at his shirt. “Zerelda will learn of this. She will beat me, Ragoth. She will—”

“No,” he snapped, and his slitted irises flared with veins of golden lightning. “She won’t.”

I slammed a palm against this chest. “You cannot hurt her!”

More terrified than I’d ever been in my life, even the beatings I’d taken from Zerelda were nothing to the terror I felt at Ragoth doing to her what he’d just done to Hagar.

His fingers were so gentle as they flitted against my cheek. “I hurt her, I hurt you. I would never, never hurt you. Never again.”

As he said it, he traced his thumb across my bottom lip, and my heart bled.

The skies suddenly opened above us, drenching us to the bone in rain. Like wonderland itself raged at the violence it’d witnessed tonight.

Trapping my fingers with his, he tugged me toward the path. “I will fix this.”

I balked, not wanting to go back to the cottage. Terrified of what Zerelda meant to do to me once she learned the truth. She’d blame me. I’d been the one to sneak out. I’d dosed Hagar for years with wolfsbane. Every sin would come out to the light. I was only two weeks away from my blooming, two weeks away from leaving her forever, placed into the care of a man I did not know. But anything had to be better than Zerelda, right?

And in one fell swoop, a passion I felt for a boy not of this world had ruined me.

“Lena,” he said calmly, “trust me.”

But I shook my head, because I’d seen his violence tonight. And what had me most scared wasn’t even the fact that he’d eaten Hagar; what scared me was that for that brief moment when it’d all felt like a dream, my only thought had been, “He is more magnificent than any creature in all the lands I’ve ever known before.”

I’d seen him eat someone. Kill someone. With the easy grace of one who’d done it many times before. Ragoth was a killer. A monster.

And yet, I wanted to cry at the thought of never seeing him again. And I knew that was exactly what would happen when I returned to my prison.

This was our last night. We could never have been together anyway; I’d been a fool to even entertain the notion. Not only was my soul bound to the King of Hearts, but Ragoth’s kiss had been a small death to me.

“Ragoth.” My voice cracked, full of so many words I could never speak freely.

He rubbed his cheek against my knuckles, and I flinched, petrified that I’d feel the fire consume me again, but it seemed only his kiss was toxic to me.

“You’re okay. I vow it on my dark soul. You’ll be okay, my Lena.”

My lashes fluttered, feeling the heavy weight of his resonate truth behind those words. Before me stood a man, a beast, a dragonborne. One of the most lethal beings in all the worlds, and yet still, I trusted him.

I did trust him.

Even as a small part of me feared him, I trusted him completely.

Somehow, he managed to drag me down the trail. By the time we arrived to the cottage, neither of us spoke, but I knew Zerelda was aware of what’d happened. Every window in the cottage blazed with light.

Her shadowy figure stood in the doorway, and even with a hundred yards separating us, I felt her gaze pierce through me like a fiery brand.

Walking up to the door, I tried to disengage my hand from his, but Ragoth wouldn’t allow it. I looked down at my feet, refusing to meet Zerelda’s murderous glare.

“Lena, go to your room, and leave us,” Ragoth ordered in my ear.

Sucking in a shocked breath, I looked up at him. But his jaw was set, and his eyes gleamed with unholy fire.

For all her flaws, Zerelda had always been wise enough to know when to keep her mouth shut. Ragoth was making no attempt to hide his power, and I felt the shiver of it prickle against my own flesh.

Worried out of my mind, and sick to my stomach, he finally dropped my hand and I was able to ease past Zerelda. Neither of them spoke until I was in my room.

I didn’t hear the words they said, but I could hear the angry rumbles.

I’d never be certain what it was that Ragoth told her that night, but for the next two weeks the hag never looked my way, and hardly engaged me in conversation. She no longer forced me to do chores or even snapped at me.

In fact, it was more like two ghosts going on about their business—one completely uninvolved with the other.

It was the night before my wedding, I clutched onto my stomach, sick at my soul. For years I’d known this day would come and that it was inevitable, that I could not stop the hands of fate.

Zerelda owned my soul. Literally. She would not release it to me ever. The night she’d bought me from the witches I’d become hers to deal with as she saw fit.

But what if I was wrong?

That tiny seed of hope whispered in my heart, louder and louder with each minute that ticked by. Mouth running dry, I wondered at why I’d never thought to question those words.

The only person who claimed that I did not own my soul was Zerelda. What if I did actually have my soul? What if she’d not taken it at all? Moving my hand to my chest, I pressed it tight against my breast, feeling the frantic beat of my heart.

Had the words all been a lie to get me to comply? And what did it mean to own one’s soul anyway?

Blinking, I turned to stare out the window.

The night was heavy and thick with purplish clouds. The trees along the pathway were skeletal and ominous looking.

I’d not seen my boy in too many days to count. I missed him desperately. I didn’t think I would. Not to this extent. Not to the point where sometimes breathing hurt. Where tears would sting my eyes at random throughout the day. Where just the thought of him made it difficult to swallow.

His kiss had nearly ruined me. I’d seen him at his most violent. And yet... and yet...he was all I thought about. Day in and day out, my thoughts grew more and more consumed by Ragoth.

I’d left things so badly between us. He’d asked me if I loved him and I’d not been able to answer, because the truth of it was, I loved him so much I thought I would die of it sometimes.

I wasn’t sure when it’d happened to me either. It’d all crept up so slowly. One day I’d stopped seeing the boy and had begun to see the man.

The very beating epicenter of my heart.

Did I have a soul?

Nibbling on the corner of my lip I pondered that question.

If I had a soul what did that mean? That my life was my own? That my will was my own? Maybe I could never kiss Ragoth, but I could hold his hand. I could gaze into his eyes and feel my heart complete and whole because he was with me.

All I knew was I’d never known affection, or kindness, or even love until him.

“I can’t live without it,” I whispered the confession to the breeze. “I don’t want to live without him.”

With a start, I jerked to a sitting position and ran my fingers through my hair. I’d stopped meeting with him, odds were he no longer waited for me in the grove.

Odds were he’d written me off, cut his looses and no longer even came to wonderland.

The thought had my eyes burning. Sniffing, I rubbed at them frantically. For years I’d been so afraid of stepping out of bounds, afraid of Zerelda’s wrath, afraid if I did wrong that she’d hurt my soul, scar it.

My fingers ran along the coarse fabric of my stiff sack gown. What did a soul feel like? And did it even feel?

I’d never thought to ask anyone that question, but perhaps having a soul felt like nothing at all. Perhaps it merely was, perhaps that feeling of emptiness inside of me had nothing at all to do with being soulless and everything to do with this house and these contemptible people.

“I don’t want to marry him. I don’t.”

A tear dripped off the tip of my nose; only then did I realize I’d been crying all along. In a daze I wiped the wetness from my cheeks and slipped my dirty feet into my hole riddled clogs.

I would regret this night for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least try. Hadn’t I told Ragoth, “I belong to me and me alone”?

Clenching my fists tight by my side, I nodded, and ignoring the swarming nest of nerves ripping and clawing through my belly I muttered Nyx’s incantation, and slipped out of my window for the final time.

I wasn’t coming back here. Ever again.

The moment my feet touched the grass, I ran. My sides ached from the exercise, and my lungs throbbed for air, but I couldn’t stop what I was doing.

I wasn’t even sure what it was I was doing. I’d thought none of this through. But the farther away I got from Zerelda the better I felt. And for the first time in days, I smiled.

The second I hit the tree line I screamed his name. “Ragoth! Ragoth! Please tell me you’re here, please boy, please!”

No answer, only the echoing laughter of beasts that romped and played through the night. Over and over I screamed out his name, so that even the flowers of the field joined in.

“Oh, boy!”

“Oh, dragon!”

“Come, come quick...”

Cupping hands around my mouth, I screamed even louder, aware that if Zerelda were still up she’d probably hear me now, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care.

Not anymore.

She was a liar. None of this was real. My life, my soul, mine to do with as I willed.

“Please, Ragoth. Please,” I moaned with a voice grown hoarse after several more minutes.

Soul sick, I had to confront the very real possibility that my beloved dragon was gone for good. Staring wildly at the trees surrounding me, I dropped to my knees and bending over, banged my fists into the ground, and cried.

It was over and a part of me felt dead inside. I’d not realized just how vital Ragoth had been to my sanity until now. How could I survive in a world without him in it? How could I do this?

I didn’t want to do it.

I didn’t...

“Lena.”

That softly spoken word said in that deep dragonish burr had me jumping to my feet like a wild, startled polecat.

I felt frenzied and discombobulated, and for a second I forgot how to speak.

“Lena?”

He said my name again, gently, looking at me as though he feared for my sanity. I must look a fright, but I didn’t care. I wiped at my face with my dirty sleeves and smiled tremulously.

“You’re so beautiful,” I finally whispered.

And he was, like he always was. So very, very beautiful. So perfect compared to my imperfect form. I felt so ugly, so ungainly beside him, but he came up to me, framed my face in his large, warm hands, and I trembled.

Because I knew that to him I was the prettiest thing ever. With Ragoth, I was beautiful.

He nuzzled my jaw. “I couldn’t leave you, Lena. I tried to walk away, but...” he gripped my hands in his, and when I looked at him, there were tears shining in his own eyes, “you own my soul, my heart, my everything. How can I leave you?”

“Then don’t.”

He shook his head, and I knew he didn’t understand my meaning. Grabbing his face with my hands, I looked deep into his sea glass eyes. Loving everything about him, ready to burst with the overwhelming joy of simply having him here.

“Run away with me. Take me far away from here forever.”

His jaw dropped. And then he was jerking me tight into his arms and I’d read so many questions scroll across his face. But it felt so good to be in his arms, to be held by him.

He trembled, and I knew I was not the only one affected. Dropping a kiss to my hair, he ran his fingers across the bony outline of my back, pressing and hugging me tight. So tight it was hard to breathe, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I died in his arms, so long as I never had to leave them ever again.

“You asked me if I loved you, boy, and the answer is yes. Always you. Only you. This world is not sane without you in it. I want nothing, no part of this kingdom, no part of that king, I would rather die a thousand deaths than to live one day without you.”

A heavy growl rumbled through his chest and I knew my words had pleased him.

“But, Lena, your soul—”

Leaning back, I pressed a finger to his lips, stilling the words, and shook my head. “Then I don’t want it. If she owns it, I don’t want it. I don’t need it. The only thing I need is you.”

“But my kiss, your nature, your morphling heritage, you said—”

No, I would not let him talk us out of this. I knew he wanted this too, I could feel the excitement course through him, the scent of it was palpable even to me.

“Everything I know about being a morphling I learned from her. What if she’s lied to me? What if none of this was real? What if she only told me these things to keep me docile and tame? What if this is nothing more than a plot? Ragoth, I can’t—”