Mina slowly nodded.
It would have to do.
“Very well. I need you to help me get Tatiana back to my chambers, and then I need you to take me to the prince. To Dante.”
Thomas’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Oh, no, mistress. I cannot. You cannot. He’s in the throne room with his father.”
She thought she heard a clipped tone at the end of that sentence, almost as if he had spat the word father. “I realize that I can’t go in the throne room, but I need you to show me where it is. Perhaps there’s an antechamber or a nearby hall, somewhere I can wait for Dante?”
The boy wrinkled up his nose and looked off into the distance, thinking. “There’s a storage room, just beyond the back entrance, but again, I don’t think you understand: King Demitri would…” His voice trailed off.
Mina raised her eyebrow and waited. “Well? He’d what?”
He squared his jaw. “He’d kill you if he found you.”
Mina was waiting for the catch, the contingency, the explanation that she knew must be coming, but there wasn’t one: The king would kill her if he caught her approaching the throne room? Without asking questions first? She cringed. Somehow, she knew the boy was telling the truth. It was as if he had some personal experience with this side of the king. “I understand,” she whispered. “Just the same, my friend may be dying, and I need Dante’s help. Will you take me to this storage room or not?”
Thomas stared at Tatiana, who was now shivering uncontrollably on the floor, and slowly nodded his head. “Okay.”
Mina sighed with relief. “Thank you.” She appraised him from head to toe then—he had to be at least five-foot-seven, and although he was thin, he had wiry, adolescent muscles. He was probably far stronger than she was. “Can you help me get Tatiana up the stairs?”
He nodded immediately then. “Of course.”
He stepped forward, slid an arm around Tatiana’s waist, and began to lift her off the floor, even as she cringed in pain. As blood seeped through her nightgown, and her head lolled forward, Thomas the squire took the brunt of her weight on his slender shoulders and began to half drag, half carry her up the stairs, and Mina slowly followed.
“Oh, by the way,” Mina whispered, placing her hands on Tatiana’s back to steady her. “I’m Mina Louvet.”
Thomas glanced over his shoulder and angled his chin. “I know.”
Chapter Seven
“I am going to levy an additional property tax in the commonlands, nothing oppressive to the farmers or the merchants, just enough to increase the number of guards at the entrance to the state. And I would like to build several small, armed garrisons in Forest Dragon, posts that double as tollways between one province and the next, in order to try to address the illegal slave trade, which still remains out of hand. The tolls will provide added protection for the women and children being sought by the shadows, and if we can monitor who comes and goes across the borders, perhaps we can ferret out who is behind this costly, illegal activity.” King Demitri Dragona sat back on his red velvet throne and leaned to one side, bracing a muscular arm against a golden support. “Dante? Are you listening?”
Dante Dragona regarded his father—and his king—circumspectly from the bottom step of the platform, just beneath the royal dais. “Yes, Father,” he murmured. He straightened his back to demonstrate his attention, even as his eyes swept over his father’s purple-and-gold brocade robe and the golden crown, inlayed with enough jewels to build fifty garrisons in every province, resting snugly on the king’s head. He eyed the two fearsome Malo Clan guards, now perched at his father’s side, captain and lieutenant, and shivered. Each male stood at least seven feet tall and would die without hesitation for the same Dragona banner that had enslaved their ancestors nearly eight centuries past. They were a barbaric race of muscle-bound heathens who could fight like demons, endure immeasurable suffering like heroes, and die like love-stricken brides welcoming their long-lost husbands. All without crying out for mercy. And just why King Demitri insisted on having the barbaric sentries beside him, even for private family meetings, Dante couldn’t say. It was as if the king actually feared his own sons, when he had no reason to do so.
None at all.
“Very well,” King Demitri drawled lazily, “then look like it, son.” He turned his attention to Drake and sat straighter in his chair. “Now then, Prince Drake, have you calculated the figures I asked for, determined what percent of farmland holdings should be taxed as opposed to storefront leases and mortgages?”
Drake cleared his throat and began to speak, but his voice drifted off into the ether as Dante continued to consider the dynamics of his family and the current state of the Realm: Although he and his brothers had not always respected the king as a man or a father, while they may have even resented his cruel, sadistic treatment of them growing up, to say little of his heavy-handed conduct with his subjects, Dante could not deny that he respected the male deeply as a king.
As the supreme dragon of the Realm.
Sure, as a child, Dante had hoped—as all children do—that one day his father would recognize him in some indulgent, paternal way, that the tyrannical lessons and harsh beatings would somehow come to an end, and Dante would be welcomed into Demitri’s inner circle of trust as an equal. In truth, he had loved his father deeply, but time had a way of bringing things into much sharper focus—and boyhood fantasies had a way of evolving into adulthood realities. Childish hope gave way to mature acceptance; juvenile dreams gave way to reasoned objectivity; and over time, Dante had come to understand exactly who and what Demitri Dragona was…
And was not.
No, he was not a loving father.
And no, he was not a patient or kindly king.
But he was an ancient, primordial dragon, the eldest of their kind, and at 269 years old, he was the only dragon in the Realm who could fully shift into pure dragonian form, at will. As it stood, Dante would not reach the age of maturation for another thirty-one years; Damian still had fifty-one ahead of him; and Drake still had fifty-four. Consequently, King Demitri Dragona was the single force that held the Realm together and kept their enemies at bay. He was the only creature powerful enough to incinerate an entire village in one fell swoop, turn the ocean tides into a raging sea with the flutter of his wings, or bury a city block beneath a crumbling crater with the simple wag of his tail. In short, he was death on wings if he chose to be: fire, ash, and fury at will.
And he was all that stood between the four provinces and the hordes of conquering Lycanians, shifters who lived across the restless sea.
Dante shifted his weight from one foot to the other and drew in a deep breath as the truth of that statement sank in for the hundredth time: Demitri Dragona was the sovereign king of a land that could explode into chaos and violence at any moment, simply because it housed so many savage, brutal, and powerful inhabitants. If his laws were not obeyed, if the shadows or the warlocks were to rise to eventual power, if the sheer numbers of subjects were to unite and stage an organized uprising, then it was King Demitri Dragona who could reestablish order. And while each of his sons played a critical role in maintaining the Realm’s delicate balance—while each would rule his own district, sustain life, ensure prosperity, and maintain law and order—Demitri was the paste that held it all together.
The mere threat of his fury inspired obedience and awe.
The king cleared his throat in an unusually coarse fashion, and Dante’s eyes shot back to the throne. “Dante, did you hear a single word your brother just said?”
Dante cast a sideways glance at Drake, as if he could somehow intuit the crux of the conversation from his brother’s expression, and frowned. “I’m sorry, Father. I was—”
Just then, there was a loud bang from behind the eastern wall of the throne room, a sudden crash of crates or boxes, and the shuffle of small feet stumbling to regain their purchase.
A dragon’s hearing was highly acute.
“What the hell w
as that?” Damian snarled, even as the Malo Clan guards stood to instant attention.
“Indeed,” the king said, instantly forgetting his nit-picking with Dante. He flicked his wrist in the direction of the sound, indicating the private back entrance to the throne room, and both guards immediately headed in the direction of the clamor.
Dante, however, did not need to wait on the guards’ report.
He had fed from one of the Sklavos Ahavi.
He had tasted her blood and consumed her heat.
And now that he was aware of an intruder, he could smell her from here.
Mina Louvet.
*
Mina stared through the narrow peephole in the cramped, dusky storage room, eyeing the elaborate throne room with its extravagant, ornate furnishings and listening as Prince Drake explained in minute detail how he intended to apply the new tax in the commonlands, according to the king’s behest. While she couldn’t make out every word—she was far more concerned about how she was going to get Dante’s attention and tell him about Tatiana—any fool with eyes could read the royal dynamics between family members as they played out in the hall.
King Demitri was an intimidating figure to put it mildly. He looked like he could maim or kill with nothing more than a crook of his eyebrow, yet his actions appeared almost rote, as if he were a duty-bound king simply going through the motions, perhaps bothered by insomnia and engaging his sons in the middle of the night for lack of anything better to do.
As if the extremely late hour was irrelevant.
Prince Drake looked far more alert and awake, like he lived to please his father, like he lived to serve the Realm, and he was exceedingly focused on providing the king with clear, detailed information. Damian, on the other hand, was visibly irritated—perhaps at being summoned in the middle of the night?—and Mina’s stomach churned, even as bile rose in her throat, as she stared at the cocky son-of-a-goat, strutting like some sort of overblown peacock at the bottom of the dais. She shivered at the malice in Damian’s dark brown eyes. His deceptively handsome face barely concealed his disdain or his inner rage. Just the same, he gave his father a fair modicum of attention and respect, or at least the appearance of the same. In fact, if Mina hadn’t thought him incapable of the emotion, she would have speculated that Damian’s base motivation was not respect at all, but fear: The dragon prince was terrified of the powerful male on that throne, and he probably resented the hell out of having to supplicate himself to a clearly superior dragon.
She turned her attention to Dante, unable to stomach another moment of staring at Damian’s face, and her insides turned over again, this time, from an entirely different set of emotions: a mixture of fear and intimidation, curiosity and…intrigue?
She shook her head to dismiss the thought.
The king’s eldest son was being appropriately respectful to his father but perhaps a little too reserved. Under further scrutiny, it appeared as if he was tuning the entire discussion out, pretending to listen and pay attention, while biding his time to…exit the chamber? Go back to bed? Mina had no idea. She only knew that Dante looked like someone who had become bored with the whole monotonous process, oh, maybe about five decades ago.
She was just about to lean in closer, try to figure out where, when, and how she could get Dante’s attention the moment the meeting was over, without attracting the attention of the others, when a huge furry rat dove from the top of a dusty shelf right at the center of her chest. Despite her need for caution, she leapt backward, swatting at the vile creature to keep him from biting her on the chin, and the storage crate she was standing on turned over with a clang.
As it crashed into a smaller set of boxes, all lined up neatly beneath her on the floor, she scrambled to regain her footing, and the pile of containers rattled together, causing a ridiculous and loud ruckus. “Holy Spirit Keepers!” she yelped in a hushed whisper, shoving her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She had to get out of there, now! She would have to do something else for Tatiana, find a different way to help her friend. As it stood, she had just placed them both in increasing danger.
She spun on her heels, moving faster than she had ever moved before, reached frantically for the sooty brass handle on the storage closet door, and almost jumped out of her skin. Standing directly in front of her, like a mountain of muscle, bone, and grim determination, was one of the huge Malo Clan guards, a giant with a fearsome, angular goatee, and in her forward momentum, she slammed right into his chest.
Mina screamed.
She couldn’t help it.
And as she backpedaled to get away from the sentry, she tripped over the overturned crate, causing an even greater racket.
Mother of Mercy, could this get any worse?
She tried to duck around the enormous male, to dart out of the room, but the guard caught her effortlessly by one arm and scooped her up like she was nothing more than a sack of fresh produce. He hoisted her so high that her feet left the floor, and then he simply lowered his arm and dragged her behind him, causing the tips of her toes to sweep against the floor like the quills of a broom, leaving an obvious path in their wake.
Mina twisted and screamed to no avail, trying to break free.
She wrenched at his fingers, trying to uncurl them from her arm.
She even considered kneeing him in the groin or punching him in the gut, but her common sense finally kicked in, and she thought better of it—this male could crack her skull like a walnut if he chose to. He could slam her up against the nearest wall and crush her back. Hell, he could give up on her arm and drag her by the hair, nearly scalping her in the process.
The gruesome possibilities were endless, yet they all yielded the same result…
Mina could not get away from a massive Malo Clan guard, not in the best of circumstances, and besides, her presence was already known by the king.
She thought about what Thomas the squire had told her, and she cringed. She could only hope that her status as a Sklavos Ahavi would buy her some reprieve, that maybe, just maybe, Dante would have mercy on her and enough influence over his father for that mercy to matter.
She could only pray that the gods would intervene.
Because as it stood, both she and Tatiana were as good as dead.
Chapter Eight
Dante Dragona stiffened his spine and bit down on his tongue, leaving a deep indentation in the flesh. He was trying hard not to react to the sight of Mina Louvet, the Sklavos Ahavi he intended to claim at the Autumn Mating, being dragged into the royal hall by an angry Malo Clan guard.
Part of his reaction was territorial, a dragon’s instinctive dislike of any other male touching his female, but another part of his reaction was sheer irritation—he had just about had it up to here with the slave’s disobedience.
What the hell had she been thinking?
Didn’t she know that the king would never suffer her insolence?
Not for a microscopic second.
He bristled inside, feeling his inner dragon awaken in the form of rising heat. It was itching to command his outer, living flesh to wrench the girl from the sentry’s paws and thrash her himself.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Damian cackled, sauntering away from the dais toward the center of the floor, where the guard now stood with Mina. He strolled up to the Ahavi with blatant arrogance and gripped her harshly by the jaw. “Your suite of rooms is on the second floor of the castle,” he spat. He peered over his shoulder to make eye contact with Drake and snickered. “And I believe the rest of the castle is off limits after dark.” He locked eyes with his father, who was now leaning forward on the throne, watching the entire scene with increasing interest. “And the royal hall, my father’s throne room, is always off limits to the likes of you.” He removed his hand with an insolent flick of the wrist, causing her head to snap backward from the dismissive gesture.
Mina gulped, and Dante restrained a growl. He prayed that the impulsive girl would just this once hold
her impetuous tongue, at least with Damian. He crossed the floor in five long strides to join them. “What is the meaning of this, Mina?” He held her gaze in an iron stare, commanding her absolute attention.
She gulped again, and her knees rattled together as if they might just buckle beneath her. “I…I couldn’t sleep. The fire went out in my hearth, and it was so incredibly cold in my chambers, I thought I might catch my death.” She fidgeted nervously with her hands, apparently hearing the double connotation in her words. “I couldn’t get it restarted, so I decided to search for another blanket—and to see if I could find some fresh kindling.” She averted her eyes, clearly recognizing the fragility of her story.
Damian glowered at her. “You’re lying,” he snarled. “There are plenty of blankets in the upper wardrobes, and if an Ahavi requires more of anything, she need only yank on a chain at the end of a hall and call for a servant.” He narrowed his gaze in disapproval. “Apparently, the only chain you are yanking tonight is ours.”
Dante nodded. It was the truth, and there was nothing he could say at this juncture to mitigate the situation or substantiate the lie. It was pitiful, and Mina knew it.
Mina blinked, trying to think fast on her feet. Apparently she agreed with her captors—her story was pure, unadulterated rubbish. “Yes, yes, I know. That’s true, but as I said: I couldn’t sleep. Insomnia, I think.” She bit her lip, like she knew she was drowning, and then she took another breath and pushed on. “So I thought a stroll might do me good, perhaps even warm me up.” The last word was spoken with an inflection, more like a question than a statement, and Dante shut his eyes and dropped his head, slowly shaking it from side to side.
“Enough,” he said, resurrecting his gaze in order to glare at her. He was trying to say shut up in so many words—the silly girl had no idea just how close to death she was standing. Taking a deep breath, he raised his chin and asked, “So you sought out a storage closet on the main floor, just beyond the throne room?” The question was going to be asked, so he may as well be the one to ask it. Maybe then, he could direct her answers.