He would not.
He could not…
His honor would not abide it.
His heart would not allow it.
But Cassidy Bondeville, on the other hand: the wretched, materialistic, power-hungry wench who had taken full advantage of her position as mistress of Warlochia; the Sklavos Ahavi who had helped herself to the Warlochian treasury more times than Dante could count; the haughty female who had tried to seduce half the castle’s garrison, even knowing such a betrayal of the prince would require Dante to put the soldiers to death; the wretch who had tried to convince Thomas the squire, Dante’s loyal and faithful regent, to lavish favors on the wealthiest witches in Warlochia so that they might grant her favors in return…
If she spoke one more word of derision to her prince, Dante would tear out her throat.
He spun around like a nimble tiger and paced in her direction. “One more venomous word, Miss Bondeville. Speak one more audacious, insolent word to your prince. Threaten Mina or my sons again. I urge you—go ahead.”
Cassidy shrank into the shadow of the throne, cast as the mocking sunlight streamed through an arched rear window, and dropped to her knees before him, her eyes still teeming with hatred. Her opulent gown, strewn with Mercian lace and Lycanian beadwork, spread out and pooled all around her like a lake of pale green silk, drawing sharp, sardonic contrast to her lowly position in the Realm. To her nonexistent position in Dante’s heart. “Forgive me, my prince.” She virtually spat the words, spittle flying from her painted-red lips to dot the regal gown.
Dante snarled. “How much did you hear?”
Cassidy smirked. “I heard it all…my prince.”
Dante reined in his beast, lest he drain her until she was nothing but a frozen block of ice. “And what do you intend to do?” He narrowed his gaze into two tiny slits. “Remember, I can read your mind, so do not try to deceive me.”
She raised her chin and drew back her shoulders. “I haven’t decided yet. Perhaps I will go to King Demitri myself; perhaps I will visit your beloved Mina. Perhaps I will invite my nephews from Castle Umbras for tea. A very special tea. You do realize I have many witches at my beck and call.” She placed her forefinger on her rosy bottom lip. “Hmm. What to do? What to do?”
Dante felt the base of his spine stiffen, and a long, spiked tail shot out of the lower vertebrae. He hurled it across the distance between them, wrapped it around Cassidy’s waist, and hefted her ten feet off the floor. Then he flung her across the throne room and pounced, landing atop her on all fours, his fangs gnashing against his lower teeth.
He was just about to strike her jugular when she slapped him, the full force of her open hand stunning his taut left cheek. “Go ahead!” she shouted. “Kill me! Drain me! Rip out my throat!” Her eyes flooded with angry tears, and she groaned from the pain of being hurled across the room. “Do you really think I care if I die?”
Dante’s beast paused, panting for breath.
He angled his head to the side and studied her carefully, the infinitesimal part of him that was still sentient staying the dragon’s wrath.
“Look at me,” Cassidy choked on a sob. “Look at my face, my hair, and my body. I am forty-nine summers old, and every season of my life now shows.” Her bottom lip began to tremble. “While Tatiana remains youthful and vibrant, while Mina is as fair as a queen, I grow into an old, useless hag.” She shoved at his chest, and the dragon allowed the thrust, retreating a mere couple of inches. “I know that you despise me, my prince. I know that you always have. Do you think it never occurred to me that there was a reason for all your frequent trips to Castle Umbras, all the nights and weekends you stayed away? Do you think I never noticed how you looked at Mina, or wondered why I—a Sklavos Ahavi, born to give birth to dragon sons—could never conceive a child after Dario?”
Dante withdrew from her chest, and the female sat up, swiping her tears with her forearm. “By all the gods, did I not try to please you? Tell me, Prince Dante, when did I directly defy you? When did I refuse to feed your dragon? When did I do anything but lavish love, attention, and kindness on our son…on Dario?” She waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Yes, he was sired by someone else—a mistake I came to regret a thousand times over—but I was lonely, I was desperate, and I was so very jealous of Mina. And as long as I am confessing my sins, then I may as well admit: I have also spent your money. I have lavished myself with the gifts you didn’t give me, and I have even sought comfort in other men’s arms, although all denied me out of fealty to you.”
She shook her head, looking lost and forlorn. “Prince Dante, I have lived in this castle for thirty-one years as nothing more than a cast-aside pet. I wasn’t even good enough to be your slave; you hardly used me as your whore. Can you even conceive of my loneliness? And now my worthlessness and my shame shall be revealed to all the Realm. Do you really think I care if I die? What have I ever had to live for?”
Prince Dante rocked back on his heels and squatted before her, his fangs, his claws, and his tail receding. He looked deep into her eyes, and for the first time since he’d known her, they were completely absent of guile. Yes, she was still superficial, worried about her reputation, thinking of her life—and her role within the Realm—in the context of her own personal suffering, when they had all suffered greatly throughout the years. They were all servants of Dragons Realm, beholden to someone other than themselves, beholden to a greater purpose.
Yet and still, her pain was apparent.
It was raw, it was vulnerable, and it was real.
“Cassidy…” He breathed her name without anger; then he reached out to stroke the underside of her jaw. “Did it never occur to you that I knew of each and every treachery? That I watched you steal from the castle treasury, that I watched you try to cater to the district’s witches, and that I knew you tried to seduce my men? Did it never occur to you that I turned a blind eye on all of it for a reason?” He withdrew his hand and sighed. “My Ahavi, the king was ignorant and cruel when he gave you to me—he knew it would cause us both great suffering. Perhaps that is why he lay with you that once, because he knew I would never truly want you, even as he pretended that all was as it should be with his sons and their appointments.”
Dante stared at her pale green gown, made note of her trembling hands, and appraised the deep lines of age that framed her eyes and crisscrossed her forehead. “My Ahavi, Prince Dario should have been taught by a dozen different governesses in his youth before he began his training as a ruler, as a dragon, but you were allowed to teach him, instead. You sat with him for over half his lessons. You sit with him weekly, still, and he allows it. I allow it.” He swept his hand through his hair and released a weary, ragged sigh. “You are a good mother to our son—you always were. And that was the role I gave you. It was not a role of little significance.”
Cassidy gulped, and she studied Dante’s seeking gaze in earnest. Perhaps it was the first time she had been allowed to do so. And then her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Tell me something, my prince.” She quickly held up one hand in apology. “I know it is not my place to question you—believe me, I have learned that lesson well—but allow me this one indulgence.”
Dante lowered his lids and slowly nodded.
Her nose twitching, her eyes cast to the side, Cassidy spoke in a weak and tremulous voice. “You say you never truly wanted me…but those rare nights, those hours within your chambers when you called me to your bed and you pretended to couple with me…” Her voice betrayed her shame. “When you used your magic to deceive me…was there never a single moment, a single heartbeat, a single desire…did you never feel anything at all beyond duty? Beyond deception?” A hint of desperate hope crossed her features. “When I awoke in the mornings, and your arms were around me…”
Prince Dante glanced away, and Cassidy closed her eyes.
“I see.” As if a dam of anguish had suddenly broken, her shoulders shook, and she sobbed. “Tell me why. Why couldn’t you truly care
for me, just a little?” She fisted the silk of her gown. “I never expected you to love me, nor is that the role of a Sklavos Ahavi, but what was it about me that so repulsed you? Why couldn’t you want me, even once?”
Dante reached for her chin. “Look at me, Ahavi.”
She reluctantly opened her eyes.
“My heart was Mina’s from the moment I first saw her, though I didn’t understand it then, and my duty was solely—and always—to the Realm. You and I were forged from different steel, but we had a prince to raise, and I believe we did that well. Cassidy, I wish, for your sake, that life had been different, but this doesn’t have to be the end. You already know I am going to remove your memories of this day, of this conversation, and replace them with something else. You will believe all that you believed a day ago. But before I do so, I want you to know that I am not going to slay you, not unless you force my hand. And as plans unfold—as you begin to relearn all you are about to forget—I hope this warning will remain in your soul: Should you ever try to harm Mina, or any of the children she and I had together, I will put you in your grave.”
The dark, silken promise lingered in the air, hovering like an earth-bound wraith in a shallow tomb, before he modulated his voice, forcing a more reasoned tone. “However, it is my prayer that when the time comes, you will make a wiser choice. Should the Lord of Fire make me king of the Realm, you will return to the commonlands where you were born. You will be given a home with land, and every comfort you have become accustomed to. I will take care of you until the day you die, and none will dare spurn you. Whether Dario finds it in his heart to forgive me or not, you will always be his mother. I will not deny you that role.” He glanced out one of the arched stone windows, noticing that the sun had reached its zenith in the sky. “Is there anything else you would like to ask before I remove your awareness?”
Cassidy blinked several times, staring intently at Dante’s features. Her gaze swept over the hard planes and angles of his cheeks, his chin, and his nose, and then they settled on the thick sculpted center of his lips. She reached out with a tentative hand and fingered a lock of his midnight-black hair, something he would never have allowed her to do in the past, and she slowly inhaled his scent. “Would you…” Her voice trailed off on a whisper. “Never mind.”
But Dante heard her thoughts: Would you kiss me just this once…like you mean it?
He brushed his thumb over her lower lip and cupped her jaw in his hands. “Thank you for loving Dario,” he said softly. And then he bent to her mouth and kissed her with compassion, removing her memories before he pulled away.
Chapter Twelve
The Wild Witches Tavern ~ Later that night
Prince Dario Dragona slammed his fist against the bar and glared at the tavern’s homely Warlochian server. “If this tankard runs dry one more time,” he slurred his words, “if I have to ask you to refill this ale again, I will scorch you where you stand. Is that understood?”
Blasted demons of the Forgotten Realm, didn’t the fool know that Dario was an immortal dragon? Hell, he was the blooded son of the most powerful king to ever defend the Realm, Demitri Dragona—and his superior biology, his advanced metabolism would kick out the alcohol almost as rapidly as he could consume it unless he swallowed the vile-tasting brew like water: fast, furious, and as if he were hell-bent on slaking an unquenchable thirst.
Which he was.
“Forgive me, my prince,” the disheveled warlock simpered, his face growing five shades of pale.
Dario snarled just to make his point, then threw back a fresh mug of ale and reached for another. “Bring me some whiskey, too,” he commanded. He could trade between the two until he was so loaded he didn’t know which way was up.
This time yesterday, he was the son of the prince of Warlochia; he had three cousins in Umbras; and he was second in line, behind Dante Dragona, for the throne of Castle Dragon. Now, twenty-four hours later, he was a bastard, sixth child of that sadistic animal, Demitri, if he counted Matthias Gentry and the uncle who’d committed suicide; his mother was a slut; and even if Prince Dante continued to claim him, he was third in succession behind Dante and Aurelio. He smiled—he had done that math well. And then he studied a wart on the server’s nose.
“My father is my brother,” he garbled. “And you should get that thing removed.” He palmed a dagger attached to his belt, and withdrew it from its sheath, pitching the blade into the top of the wooden counter. “I’ll do it for five gourds of whiskey.”
The server blanched, and he began to tremble. “My lord, please—don’t go tellin’ me things like that.” He eyed the tavern door with a nervous glance. “You’re half gone, and your tongue is loose. Allow me to fetch a more respectable mage, someone who can escort you back to the castle.” He surveyed the empty tavern and shivered. “Should you be travelin’ without your garrison?”
Dario laughed, and the sound was lewd, loud, and derisive.
He spun around on the bar stool, bent forward to fix his gaze on an empty table, and sent a sweltering blaze of fire across the tavern, scorching the fixture to ash. “I think I’m safe enough,” he muttered. And then he spun back around to face the Warlochian. “But you’re right, my tongue is loose.” He leaned so far forward their noses nearly touched and snarled, “I may have to kill you.”
The server gasped and jumped back.
And then he wet his pants, filling the small dank room with an acrid odor.
Dario grimaced, offended by the stench.
He reached for his dagger and palmed the hilt.
And that’s when the server dipped beneath the bar, fetched a full gourd of whiskey, and speedily removed the topper. He leaned toward Prince Dario, his hands shaking so violently he appeared to be afflicted, and raised the gourd in the air. “Open wide, milord. Allow me to ease your suffering.”
Dario opened his mouth to curse him, to protest, or to welcome his intervention—he wasn’t sure which one—and the warlock began to pour the fermented beverage down his throat in earnest.
Dario swallowed just as swiftly.
And as the whiskey burned, it soothed.
As his awareness waned, his burdened lifted.
“More,” he snarled, the moment the gourd was empty, and the server immediately obliged him.
Prince Dario Dragona, son of everyone—son of no one—lost count around the eighth or ninth gourd, and then the Spirit Keepers blessed him with oblivion, and his head hit the counter.
It was almost midnight when Kristof Nocturne, member of the Warlock’s Council on Supreme Magic and Mystical Practices, stepped in front of his wispy, ever-more-skeletal companion, Eliaz Griswold, eager to open the tavern door, usher the shadow inside, and ply him with as much ale as the male could drink. After all, Eliaz had a purse filled with three decades’ worth of coppers, and he was looking to buy an accomplice. Kristof smiled—come hell or high water, he would have that bounty. He would be everything Eliaz Griswold desired.
The dim lantern light of the Wild Witches Tavern offered a welcoming allure, compared to the night, and without glancing to the left or right, Kristof led Eliaz to a familiar table toward the back of the pub. He was just about to plant his rear-end onto a hard, unforgiving bench when he noticed something awry: The table that normally sat next to his usual roost was missing, the tavern reeked of smoke, and there were smoldering ashes all over the floor.
What the hell was going on?
He turned to regard the server, Godfrey—the Warlochian usually worked the bar on Wednesdays—and that’s when he saw the thick, silken mop of golden, honey-hued hair strewn across the wooden block in waves. That’s when he saw the perfectly tailored trousers, the lavishly embellished tunic, and the deep sapphire cloak, emblazoned with the signet from Castle Warlochia: a bloodred seal, embossed in gold, with a sapphire-eyed dragon in the center of the stamp. He saw an exquisite bejeweled dagger rising out of the counter, and nearly a dozen empty gourds scattered about the dragon’s head.
If
luck be a lady of the night, then Kristof Nocturne had just gotten shagged.
“Kristof? Kristof Nocturne?” The server, Godfrey, called, placing the back of his thumb against his forehead and making a tent with his hand in order to see across the tavern in the dim lantern light. “If that be you, Kristof, I could use your help. The prince here, he—”
“Silence!” Kristof bellowed, his long, woolen cloak billowing behind him as his feet rose off the floor. He raised his arm, extended his hand, and splayed all five fingers, wide. Then he slowly closed his fist, stealing Godfrey’s tongue, and freezing the male in place with sorcery.
They had no time for an interloper.
He grasped a startled Eliaz Griswold by the arm, surprising him even further, and lowered his voice to a silken purr. “How quickly can you ride that mare back to your cottage and return with that stoneware jug, the one containing the soul?”
Eliaz yanked his arm away and took a cautious step back. “We are only here to talk, my eager warlock. I have not yet decided my chosen path.”
Kristof grabbed him again, more forcefully this time, spinning him around to face the bar. “Do you know who that is! Do you know what you are seeing?”
Eliaz narrowed his gaze on the drunkard at the bar.
“That’s the sovereign prince of Castle Warlochia’s only son, Prince Dario Dragona, and the dragon is drunk as a skunk. He’s unconscious,” Kristof explained, lest Eliaz remain too daft to comprehend… He dug his nails into the shadowmancer’s skin, piercing him through his tunic. “An opportunity like this will never come again. Eliaz, we have found a host for Prince Damian’s soul: a body capable of seeking—and carrying out—your delicious revenge. But you must be decisive, and you must act quickly. You must get to your cottage and retrieve the jug!” He glanced around the tavern and laughed, glorying in the fact that the inn was empty. “We are alone, and judging by those gourds, the prince may be passed out for hours—but we cannot take that chance. Go, Eliaz! And bring back that purse full of coppers. We will perform the necromancy tonight.” He didn’t add that he would prepare the prince’s body—and kill the server, Godfrey—while Eliaz was gone.