Mina’s heart pounded furiously in her chest, both desperate and disbelieving. She ran to the bed and, without even thinking, dove across the mattress and planted her body between the dragon prince and his victim. “I’m sorry!” she said, nearly shouting. “My prince, please don’t take this out on Tatiana. I’m begging you.”
He turned to face her and held out both hands, his fingers curled inward as if he wanted to wrap them around her throat. “Why should I stop? Tell me!” His voice was ragged and cruel. “What the hell is it going to take for you to understand your place?”
“I understand,” she croaked. “I swear. I do.” She shuffled onto her knees, rising higher in order to meet his gaze. She was shocked by her own desperate courage, but she had to get through to the man—somehow, she had to get past the angry dragon, which she knew she had provoked. “Milord,” she whispered, hoping he would focus and hear her, “before all the gods in the heavens, the lord of fire, bringer of rain, and the goddess of mercy, spirit of light…I swear to you, I am sorry. I did not mean to provoke your wrath or to question your supremacy. Never. Truly. Never.” She licked her lips in a nervous gesture and tried to steady her breath. “I just…oh, my prince, please…show mercy.” She swept her hand around the room, much like he had done earlier. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t pretend to understand you.” She stared at Drake. “You sent your brother to heal Tatiana, so I know you have a heart…you have a soul. You have compassion.” She gestured toward the bloody, crumpled shirt, now tossed away in the corner of the room. “You took fifteen lashes for me, to spare me from pain and degradation. You saved my life, and I don’t even know why, but you did it just the same. My prince,” she slowly shut her eyes, and this time, as she spoke, her tears fell freely, “not only am I sorry; I am grateful. I am not defying you. I simply do not know how to please you…yet. But by all the gods, I swear to you, I will learn.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Not because I have to, and not because I fear you, but because I want to. Because I owe you.” She sank back down, settling her weight onto her legs, lowering her posture before him. “If you must punish someone, punish me. If you must teach a lesson, teach it to me. I am your willing servant.” She held his gaze, and he took a measured step back.
His eyes flashed several times, retreating from crimson to ruby, from ruby to dark blue, and then he retracted his claws and refastened his trousers.
He glanced at Tatiana, who was shivering on the bed, still lying in wait and heaving with sobs. “Sit up,” he said evenly. “Stop crying. I am not going to hurt you.” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, and then turned back to Mina and frowned. “I don’t know how to teach you, Ahavi!” He sighed. “I don’t know why it is…you can’t learn.”
Just then, Prince Drake stirred on the floor. He struggled onto his hands and knees, slowly pushed up, and staggered toward the bed, where he clutched at a post for balance. “Perhaps this Ahavi is like me, brother. Perhaps she is guided by reason.” He met Mina’s surprised gaze and nodded politely. “Perhaps, just this once, we might speak to our servants as allies. Allow them to ask questions. Give them answers. Perhaps that is the lesson she awaits.” He turned to face Dante then. “The question is: Is it worth it…to you? To take this one opportunity to teach her in a way she might learn.”
Dante stared at his brother like he had drool on his face, like he was truly confounded by the suggestion. Perhaps his dragon was just too strong, or perhaps something inside of him was just too implacable to shift… Nonetheless, he considered Prince Drake’s words carefully.
Very carefully.
After several minutes had passed, Drake cleared his throat. “What say you, brother?”
And all at once, Mina understood: Damian was a true primordial dragon, nothing but fire and instinct and force; whereas, Drake was a thinker, a peacemaker, much more aligned with his humanity. No wonder the king had chosen him for Castle Commons, to lead the human province. And Dante? Well, he was a curious mixture of both: a feral dragon, easily provoked, yet a tempered soul, capable of reason. The question was one of boundaries, where to draw each line.
She waited, along with Tatiana, studying Dante’s face.
His expression remained inscrutable, yet the wheels were clearly turning.
Finally, he nodded his head. “Perhaps. Just this once.” He turned a steely gaze on Mina and then Tatiana, each female in turn, and added, “But I swear on the soil of my twin brother’s grave, if a word of this…candid conversation…ever leaves this room, if you so much as even think of acting or speaking as an equal, with impunity, again—”
“We will kill you both ourselves,” Drake supplied.
Chapter Eleven
Dante nodded, and Mina shivered.
There was no question in her mind that they meant what they said. If the girls betrayed them, they would kill them.
She took a seat on the bed beside Tatiana, instinctively wrapping her arm around the frail Ahavi’s waist, and then she waited for one of the princes to speak, showing proper deference by averting her eyes.
Dante took a deep breath and leaned into the post, stretching his back by arching into his arms; whereas, Drake shuffled weakly to the end of the bed and sat down gingerly, facing his brother. Although his frame was hunched over, his eyes were alert and vivid.
“How are you holding up?” Dante asked Drake.
The prince shrugged, showing his fatigue. “I’m fine for a while longer.”
Dante shook his head. “Not good enough.” He turned toward Tatiana. “Ahavi, go call a blood slave, then return. I’m sure Mina will share anything you miss.”
Tatiana nodded several times in exaggerated compliance. Even Mina knew better than to get involved. She waited silently with the monarchs until the door closed softly behind her friend.
“Now then,” Dante said, getting straight to the point. “If it’s a matter of questions and answers, then ask. Speak freely. This is a one-time opportunity.”
Mina gulped, but she hid her fear. She started to speak, but stopped. She was still so rattled, still so afraid, she hardly knew where to begin…or if it was truly safe.
“Go ahead,” Drake insisted in a receiving voice. He angled his body ever so slightly toward the Ahavi.
Mina met his gaze with one of gratitude, and then she took a quiet moment to collect her thoughts. Finally, when she had garnered the courage, she looked down at the coverlet and spoke evenly. “I know that what I did tonight was reckless. It was stupid and dangerous, and I could’ve been killed.” She pushed past her hesitancy. “But I was really desperate to save Tatiana.” She raised her chin so that each male could see the conviction, the depth of emotion, in her eyes. “I don’t understand how…why…Damian gets away with it.”
“Prince Damian,” Dante corrected her.
Drake held up his hand. “Go on.”
Mina swallowed a lump in her throat and looked questioningly at Dante.
He nodded.
She wet her lips. “It is forbidden by your father, by King Demitri’s very laws, for a prince to take an Ahavi before the mating, yet Prince Damian did just that—and he almost killed an innocent woman. I just don’t understand. Nothing is like what we were taught at the Keep. How are we to obey or make sense of our obligations?” She bit her lip in anxiety, fearing she had gone too far.
Drake sighed. “Are you asking whether or not we can reason with our father on Tatiana’s behalf? Whether or not we can oppose our brother, or how to avoid Damian’s wrath?”
Mina blinked, surprised by his candor. “Um, all of it, I guess.”
Drake turned to Dante and nodded, apparently urging him to answer.
“Mina,” Dante said pensively. He brought his fist to his mouth for a moment as if deep in thought. “Do you know how many bones there are in a child’s body?”
She shook her head, a bit surprised by the question. “No.”
“Well over two hundred,” Dante said. “And do you know how I
know this?”
Once again, she shook her head.
“Because my father broke all of mine, but seven, and that was before the age of six.” His eyes grew murky with recollection. “A dragon’s anatomy is a bit different than a human’s, but I think I was innocent enough.”
Mina started to recoil, but she caught her reaction before she could offend the prince with pity. Don’t you dare, she said inwardly, reminding herself to remain impassive. The last thing this brutal dragon was looking for was sympathy from a woman. She clenched her teeth and declined her head in a nod of understanding, and then she waited for Dante to continue.
“Do you know what a fourth-degree burn feels like, when even your bones are melting?”
Mina closed—and then reopened—her eyes. “You do?” she whispered.
He nodded, quite matter-of-factly. “Pray that you never will, because dragons heal from fire; humans don’t.” He stood up straighter and looked off into the distance. “Earlier, in the throne room, my father would have scorched you where you stood if I had not stepped in.” He leaned in closer. “And as for King Demitri, he doesn’t give a sweet damn about your friend, Tatiana, or what Damian does in his free time as long as it doesn’t affect the Realm.”
Mina did cringe this time. It was everything she had feared. She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it, terrified by her very thoughts.
“What were you going to say?” Drake asked.
Mina quickly shook her head. “Nothing.”
“What?” Dante growled. He didn’t sound so much angry as insistent, as if this was her one chance to speak freely, and to him, it was an act of great benevolence. He was somehow determined to play it out.
She trembled as she spoke, voicing her question in a whisper. “Has anyone ever opposed him?”
Dante shut his eyes and the faintest of growls rumbled in his throat. It was as if the word treason floated through the room, and nobody had to name it.
Mina waited quietly, either to hear an answer or to be burned.
“My brother or my father?” Dante asked.
She was shocked that it wasn’t Drake posing the question. “Either. Both.”
Dante took a deep breath, crooked his ear toward his shoulder, and popped his neck, as if to relieve some tension. “My mother opposed my father,” he said coolly. “That’s where Damian comes from.”
Mina pressed her hand to her stomach and swallowed rising bile. “And Damian?”
“Soon, Damian will rule over Umbras, the shadowlands, a region teaming with wickedness and violence, and he will need an iron fist. My father appreciates his guile.”
The door to the room opened, and Tatiana tiptoed back in. “The Ahavi is in the hall. Should I—”
“Leave her out there,” Dante snarled impatiently. “In fact, tell her to wait at the end of the corridor until we call her.” He turned to face Prince Drake. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” he assured his brother. “She’s not that far away, and I would certainly feed before I pass out.” He regarded Dante squarely. “And if I do, pass out, that is, I trust that you will bring her to me before I die.”
Dante smirked. “Not funny.” He nodded at Tatiana. “Tell her to move to the end of the hall.”
Tatiana responded with a proper curtsey, and then she quickly opened the door, whispered something to the waiting blood slave, and then quietly reentered the room, where she took an unobtrusive place by the fire, retreating into the background with her head bowed low. It was clear to all concerned that she was listening, but she had no intentions of joining in.
Drake cleared his throat. “I think we answered your question, about Damian and Father, but perhaps a few things remain unclear.” He bent forward, and his own voice became a whisper. “King Demitri is the oldest living dragon on this planet. He is more than a man, more than a king. He is nearly a god.”
Dante narrowed his gaze at Mina. “Do you understand what that means?”
Mina furrowed her brows. “Not really. Don’t…” Her voice trailed off as she mustered more courage. “Don’t you have the same powers he does? I mean, now that you’re grown?” She eyed him warily, hoping once again that she hadn’t gone too far.
“I do not,” he said simply. “My father is a full shifter.”
“That means,” Drake said, “that while we can grow scales, breathe fire, manipulate the elements, and access various powers, our father can become a serpent. He can shift into a fully formed dragon and fly. He can scorch the earth and everything in it. No one—and nothing—is his equal.”
All at once, Dante stared pointedly at Mina, his smooth dark brows rising in an arc. His expression hardened, and his eyes flashed with defiance as he squared his already angled jaw. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. “Let’s just cut through all the bullshit, shall we?”
To his credit, Drake didn’t react.
Mina flinched a bit, but she didn’t respond.
“For the sake of argument,” Dante continued, “let us say that something unfortunate were to befall our brother or our father. Then what?” He gestured toward Tatiana, whose face was a mask of terror and disbelief. “Who would rule the Realm?” He leveled a heated gaze at Mina. “You, Tatiana, Prince Drake, and me? Would we take over Castle Dragon, Castle Commons, Castle Umbras, and Castle Warlochia all by ourselves, and still maintain law and order throughout the realm?”
Mina shrank backward on the bed. She shook her head briskly and gestured with her hands. “Milord, I never suggested…I never asked—”
“Quiet,” Drake whispered. “You need to understand.”
Dante pressed on, sounding curiously apathetic. “And when the Lycanians sail their wooden ships across the sea, then what? Who will stop them? Drake? Or me, by myself? And what would you say to me then, sweet Mina, when the Lycanian shifters attack the Realm, set the kingdom on fire from the east to the west, murder your parents and rape your sister, let all the people starve. What would you ask of us then?”
Mina recoiled. “My prince—”
“Do you know what keeps the Lycanian shifters from invading our land?” Drake cut in. “Do you know what holds them back, even as we speak?”
Mina shook her head.
“Fear of our father. Fear of the king’s wrath. Fear of the dragon that he would become.”
Mina grasped the coverlet in her hand and tightened her fist around the soft material, further shrinking back on the bed.
“And let’s also say, for the sake of argument, that the Lycanians don’t invade our lands,” Dante chimed in, “that our realm remains unmolested and intact—what shall we do with the shadows once Damian is gone? How shall we keep them in line, stop them from taking human women to breed like cattle, prevent them from devouring human souls out of mere gluttony, keep them from defiling your race’s sons and daughters for mere pleasure? What should we do with the warlocks when they turn their gargoyles loose on their neighbors, like vultures on carrion, in order to seek dominion, when they sit on the throne in all four realms and rule the land with witchcraft? What will you ask of me then, when the entire realm is controlled by black magick, when the people are starving because the corrupt mages turn bread into gold and wine into silver? Will you be happy then because Tatiana is safe?”
Mina brushed a tear from her eye. Why was Dante speaking to her like this, like she had asked him to murder his brother, or worse, to commit outright sedition and go after the king? Despite her distress, she knew the answer: He had seen the questions in her eyes. He had felt the desire in her soul. He knew—he somehow knew—that she believed the Realm would never be just or fair, or even tolerable, with Demitri and Damian on their respective thrones. She was a dreamer, and he was a realist. And that’s why their very spirits clashed.
As if he knew he had finally gotten through to her, Dante relaxed his posture. “Yes, Mina. Our enemies fear all the Dragonas, but for a reason. It takes an entire kingdom to hold them at bay, to keep all those you love safe and warm. You
would chop the head off the snake because it is evil, when the body would devour the Realm. You understand nothing of the politics, dangers, or dynamics that motivate the monarchy, the concerns that supersede the value of any one life, how precarious our hold is over this land you call home.”
The entire room grew quiet. Other than the crackling of the fire dancing in the hearth, not a single sound could be heard, not even the natural ebb and flow of their collective breath. Finally, when the silence had swelled to a deafening crescendo, Dante spoke stoically. “While what happened to Tatiana is despicable and tragic, perhaps even reprehensible, it is an unavoidable evil as long as King Demitri sits on the throne.”
“And unless and until another dragon comes of age, he must sit on that throne,” Drake added. “As long as all of us are needed to maintain order in this realm, it is important—nay, it is imperative—that the balance of power remains as it is.”
Mina blinked back her tears and frustration. “I understand,” she whispered.
Dante furrowed his brows. “Do you?”
She frowned. “Yes, I do.”
“Then just ask it, Mina. Ask it and be done.”
Mina shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean. I—”
She halted.
She stopped protesting, and she stopped lying.
She stopped pretending, and she stopped holding back. Instead, she squared her shoulders to Dante and sighed. “And is there no one else with whom you could form an alliance? No one who would rise to your cause? Help you maintain law and order…without your father and brother?”
Dante actually faltered. He released the post and took a measured step back, his expression falling into a hard line of chagrin, and Mina understood. His Sklavos Ahavi, the woman who would one day bear him children, had just committed sedition. She had openly and verbally expressed a desire to overthrow the king, and he had given her permission to go there.