She shrugged. “What does your prig of a brother know about love anyway?”
Aphrodite swatted at my words as though swatting at a gnat.
My heart trembled. “Are you saying I can?”
Looking upon the goddess of love, it was hard not to find myself attracted to her. But my attraction to her was unlike what I felt around Lena. There was a heated passion that burned through me with the goddess in my room, a desire to strip her down and mate with her.
But even as I felt it, I knew it to be a result of her glamour. Of who she inherently was. Aphrodite was the epitome of female beauty and sexuality. You’d have to be dead not to want her.
Beyond the attraction though, there was nothing else. I did not wonder about her life, did not care to ask her how her day had gone or who she’d spent it with. I did not worry that someone had treated her ill.
I merely wished to slack my lust upon her.
With Lena, it was just the opposite. I wanted her body, but I wanted her soul too. I wanted every part of her.
“There is a season for all things. A season to love, a season to lose, and a season of rebirth. None can happen though, without that first step. And between you and me, she’s hawt!” She winked, and her laughter sparkled like golden threads through my room.
My lips twitched. I wasn’t exactly sure what she’d said, but I thought I understood the meaning. I bowed my head.
“Thank you, Goddess, I have much to consider.”
“Well”—she laid a hand on her hip and cocked her leg out to the side—“don’t take forever. The night is short and soon your chance will be gone. What you do tonight, decides the entire course of your future. So, my darling dragon, choose wisely.”
Then with a wink and a finger wave, she vanished in a plume of magenta-swirled smoke.
I’d be required to meet with my tutors in only a few minutes. Burying my impatience, I knew I would go to her. Knew what I would do.
If Aphrodite was behind me, then I could not lose.
Grinning, I planned it all out in my head. I would offer myself to the hag in the king’s stead, tell her of my not-so-insubstantial worth, and have Lena as my very own from now until eternity. This would work.
Of course my mother would try to kill me and eat Lena. Not to mention Alwyn’s displeasure, but as my English tutor would always say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, dragonborne.”
Humming the song Lena sometimes would when she walked up the path to meet me, under my breath, I ran a talon across my palm, bleeding myself. Thick, black blood flowed free. Grabbing a glass vial I kept hidden behind a stone in my wall, I tipped my hand over and filled it to the brim.
None of my tutors would wake for hours after the dose I gave them.
Chapter 5
Zelena
I flew as fast as my feet would carry me to our place. I’d stayed away, mainly because I was scared of the things I felt when I was with Ragoth. He was unlike any male I’d ever known before.
With one swipe of his fist he could end me, and yet he’d never shown me anything but kindness. I came tonight to tell him one thing.
We could no longer continue on as we were. I was two weeks away from my nuptials to the king. And it was becoming a struggle to remember that.
But I had to be fast about this. I’d given Hagar all I’d had left of the wolfsbane, which wasn’t much. He slept, but only very fitfully. Should he awaken and find me gone, I did not wish to even entertain the idea of it.
“Boy,” I whispered to the breeze the moment I stepped into the thicket of trees.
And my heart sank to my knees when he stepped into my line of vision.
This was no boy standing before me. Days away from his pledging, he bore every hallmark of a man.
The beautiful burnished hue of his skin practically gleamed like molten bronze in the ghostly moonlit night.
Wonderland’s woods were a maze of the fantastical, the bizarre and strange, and yet, when he was with me, it was like he leeched all the magic from the place. He was a glittering jewel that somehow managed to stand out even amongst the sea of madness.
Tree vines twisted in the gentle breeze above his head as he stepped boldly out into the path.
Tonight, just as he had every night since I’d known him, he came to me dressed as the prince he was. His clothing tailor-fitted to his muscular frame, making me keenly aware of our uneven status in life.
But all that was forgotten when he rushed to me, took my fingers in his hands, and squeezed them.
“Do you love me?” he asked me boldly.
My jaw dropped.
“Boy, I—”
“Ragoth Nur.” His voice was a guttural growl. “My name is Ragoth Nur. And I will ask you once more, do you love me?”
He moved deeper into my body, his scent—somehow always making me think of the deepest darkness of the cosmos—enveloped me. Made it hard for me to breathe properly, let alone think rationally.
I meant to drop his hands, but instead I found myself curling my fingers tighter around his.
“Do you love me?” I asked.
I knew the answer before he ever even uttered a word. I saw it in the flicker of his eyes. But then, I’d always known the truth of how he’d felt for me. And how I felt for him. Though we’d never uttered the words, our actions had always spoken loudly.
“With everything that beats inside of me.” He traced my cheek with his knuckles, and I trembled.
I knew he waited for my words, but I didn’t know how to say them. Couldn’t seem to remember how to wrap my lips around them. So I showed him.
Wrapping an arm around his neck, I leaned up and kissed him.
At first it was the pinnacle of everything. The sun, moon, and stars clung to his mouth, and I wanted more and more.
He growled, his chest vibrating against mine, and I was in heaven.
Until I wasn’t.
Until the sharp prick of pain that was at first just a mere nuisance soon turned into a rush of agony that consumed me.
Screaming, I shoved him away, feeling as though my face had been ripped off me.
“Lena.” His big beautiful sea-glass eyes sparkled with worry. He reached out to me, but I couldn’t stop my screaming.
Dropping to my knees, I stared in horror at the river of blood trailing through my fingers to the earthen floor beneath.
He grabbed my face, and in my panic I slapped at his hands. Trying to get away from the fire of his touch.
“Stop fighting me,” he thundered, and then tipping my face forward, he settled his cheek against my own and cried his healing tears over me.
The rush of sweet coolness had me going limp in his arms. I’d thought that torment would never end, and now it was over and I could breathe once more without the sting of pain behind it.
“Oh, Lena.” His voice cracked. “I thought we stood a chance, thought that you and I—”
It was the hardest thing I ever had to do to stand up and move away from him. Looking down at his bent head, I whispered, “We can no longer meet, Ragoth. The fates have other plans for us.”
I ran, ready to turn my back on him forever, forget about the boy who’d become a man and made my heart beat with both misery and joy, but a sight worse than death stopped me cold. I shook violently as Hagar’s monstrous shadow came barreling over the ridge.
“You!” he roared, and quicker than I could even blink, he struck me. I was so shocked that I stood there, letting him take me down to the dirt path without much of a struggle.
Hagar’s fetid breath was in my face as he said, “I’ve found ye now, git. Just wait till Zerelda learns of yer foul treachery.”
He licked his lips, exposing what few teeth remained, and those blackened at the gum line.
I struck at him with my fists.
“Get off me!” I grunted, trying in vain to wiggle out from beneath his absolute, unyielding weight.
He slapped me. So hard my ears rang, and I tasted blood on my tongue.
“
You lit’le whore, running off to meet wi’ a boy.” Something thick and hard bumped into my thigh.
I shuddered, my screams turning raw with fury.
He would not rape me; I would not allow this. I would kill him first.
But as I thought what I would do to him, suddenly his weight was thrust from me. Disoriented, I sat up to my knees, blinking back the sudden, shocking bright light of Ragoth’s dragon light.
Hagar gave a mighty shriek, rushing for my dragon with wildly flailing arms. But even a half ogre was no match for the King of Beasts.
Ragoth never even toyed with Hagar; he simply opened his mouth and swallowed him whole.
I stood frozen, my mind a swirl of absolute nothingness as I tried in vain to understand what it was I’d just witnessed.
Dragons ate meat. Humans—even half ogres—were meat. But I’d never seen Ragoth’s bestial nature on display before. I’d always known what he was, but seeing it for myself, I trembled.
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?
<
br /> 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.