by Bec McMaster
A rough laugh rumbles through his chest as he climbs his way up my body, his heavy weight driving me back into the steel column. “Mmm.” Keir licks the taste of me from his fingers, the heated amber of his eyes alight with a self-satisfied humor. “The sounds you make are… delicious.”
I want to bury my face in his throat. “You’re impossible.”
“Relentless,” he agrees, kissing my throat. “You nearly vanished in my hands. I had to pin you down.”
“I noticed that.”
“The pinning you down bit?” A rumbling laugh vibrates through his chest, sending a delicious shiver through me. “You liked it. Do you want me to pin you down, Mira? Do you want me to hold you down and fuck you? Hard?”
His words ignite another shiver within me.
I reach between us, finding the heated length of him. There’s too much fucking material between us. I want him. Now. I tear at his clothing, ignoring the roughened laugh that rumbles through his chest as I find him.
“So impatient, my love.”
Capturing my ass in his hands, he braces me against the pillar.
And then he drives inside me in one single thrust.
I throw my head back and scream as every inch of my body sheathes itself around him.
The golden fire in those eyes fills me. Hot possession stakes its claim on me. Keir’s lip curls, and then he’s looking around for the daybed in the folly.
Capturing me in his arms, he takes two steps and then we’re both falling, my thighs locking around his hips as he grinds against me. I can see the tension in his spine, the self-restraint—
“I’m not going to break,” I whisper.
“Good.” He slams inside me, piledriving me into the daybed.
Oh gods. Maybe I was a touch too cocky. It’s been a long time since I was this sexually active, and he was right…. He’s more than fae in all the ways that count.
There’s no mercy. This is more than a punishment. It’s a claiming, pure and simple, and I want to steal this moment from him. I want to remember every single second of this encounter.
I kiss him and undulate into every rough stroke. Maybe he senses the unspoken yearning that fills my heart, because he captures my face in his hands and kisses me so deeply and savagely, that a tear leaks from my eye.
Hauling my thigh up in a spill of skirts, he drives into me. “Look at me, Mira.”
I can’t help myself. I do.
“Look at me and know my truth.” There’s a tremor in his hands, as he levers himself off me with his elbows. “I have never known feelings such as this. It’s you. It’s always going to be you. And I’ve known it since the first time I kissed you.”
I grip his wrists, turning my face to press a kiss into his palms. I don’t know how we went from fucking to this sweet torture. Another hot tear slides down my cheek as he thrusts within me.
“Nor have I,” I whisper, because it’s the only truth I can give him.
18
It’s hours later, and I can barely move.
Keir helped me get dressed and then we stole back to our chambers in the lull of the storm before stripping each other down and tumbling into bed again. The ache between my thighs feels deliciously bruised in the best way.
Never a bad thing in this particular case, even if my heart is giving me trouble.
Or maybe it’s only giving me trouble because he’s kissing his way down my arms, as if he intends to pay homage to every single rune he marked me with. The second his mouth touches them, a shiver lights through me, like localized goose bumps.
It’s magic of some sort.
Maybe he wants to remind me of what I owe him.
Stop being so cynical. I close my eyes as his lips skate up my throat. Just enjoy the moment. Pretend… pretend he feels the same way.
“You missed one,” I whisper as he finally comes up for breath.
“No, I didn’t.” He breathes the words into my hair. “Three hundred and forty-three.”
My breath catches. I thought it was just me, but he must have been able to feel them too. For some reason, I feel vaguely naked and cold.
It’s a sense of cold so deep in my bones, it feels as though I’ve been warming myself by the fire for months, only to be shoved out into the blizzard.
Maybe that’s just prescience—a glimpse of tomorrow’s future when I play my hand.
“What’s wrong?” he whispers.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re such a liar.”
I allow myself a shiver. “I feel cold.”
Instantly, his arms are around me. “Then let me warm you.”
“Mmm.” I bury my face in his throat, my arms wrapped around him. He’s so warm it’s like snuggling with a bedwarmer. “When you were trying to convince me to be your bride, you should have led with this.”
“Would it have convinced you to accept my suit?”
I glance up coyly from beneath my lashes. There’s something teasing about his tone, as if we’re just playing make believe. But the look in his eyes is anything but.
“No,” I whisper. “I was there to do a job and steal the Dragon’s Heart. Instead, I failed.”
“Did you?” he muses, his voice rough with the dragon. Keir rolls onto his side, his amber eyes locked upon me. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I never do. He has the kind of eyes that can see straight through you, picking apart all your unspoken secrets, and yet his own are locked away and guarded.
“Can I ask you something?” I whisper, our faces mere inches apart.
A smile curls over his mouth. “Always.”
My focus shifts to his mouth. “Why do you want the cauldron so badly?”
I need to know.
Instantly, tension skates through him. It strips the past few hours away from us; once again we’re on different fields of the game board. “What do you mean?”
“You said you wanted me to find the horn, but you never told me exactly why you want to get your hands on the cauldron.” I’ve been distracted. It’s the only excuse I let such an important fact slip under my guard.
Keir pushes upright, the sheets falling into his lap. Shadows play over his face, and his hair falls forward, half obscuring his eyes. “You never asked.”
Grabbing the sheets, I haul them up around my breasts as I sit up too. Maybe it’s the timbre of his voice or the fact he didn’t directly answer me, but something tells me this conversation is not one I want to hold naked. Dragging a pillow behind me and propping it against the wall, I face him. “I’m asking now.”
Keir hauls a knee up to his chest, resting his arm on it. Ancient eyes examine me. “I don’t want to find it. I need to find it. Before someone else gets their hands on it.”
“It was washed into the sea,” I point out. “Maybe no one will find it.”
He doesn’t look convinced. “It will be found. It has its own part to play in the future.”
“Tell me,” I whisper.
He leans back against the window, his arms crossed over his massive chest. “I guess the story starts with Calliope.”
Calliope. I hug my knees to my chest. I don’t know what she has to do with—
His expression hardens. “Calliope told you she could trace her bloodlines all the way back to Queen Mab.”
“She said there was a treaty between the king of the dragons and Queen Mab, forged by a marriage between them.”
“There was. The fae feared us for our power. There was rumor of war. We could all sense it in the air and see it spun to life in our dreams. It was coming, whether we liked it or not.
“And so King Vorvane gave Mab his word there would be peace between our kinds. There was a child born of their union—”
“Princess Igrainne.”
“Half fae,” he whispers. “Half dragon. But it was the dragon side that was submerged within her. She held the power of the stars in her blood but she couldn’t touch it. And she wanted to.”
There’s something about the way h
e says her name. “You knew her.”
“I knew her.” He looks at me. “I was a dragon prince, and she was the daughter of my king. We were of an age, and it was expected….” He considers how best to use his words. “We were betrothed from the moment she was born. I was three years older, so we grew up together.”
There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know what he’s going to say, even before he says it. It feels like being a long-ago voyager, charting your map and knowing what lives in the seas ahead. Here lies dragons…. “You loved her.”
“Of course I loved her. She was beautiful and wild and headstrong. She was promised to me from the cradle, and yet, she yearned for adventure. She hungered for power, and I was not her path to power. When they spoke of her father, you could see the fury in her eyes. Her mother whispered poison in her ear every day of her life, and Igrainne wanted his crown. She played me like a fool.”
“We were mated, and there was… a child. Arianna.” His eyes grow distant. “She was the most beautiful child that was ever born. She had her mother’s pale hair and face, but her eyes, her eyes were like a dragon’s.”
There’s a lump in my throat. He’d had a child. A daughter. And he loved her.
I often think of what that would be like, to have a father who loved me.
A father who would protect me before anything else.
I can see it in Keir.
He’d have moved mountains for a child of his own. He’d have slain armies and set fire to the world if it tried to harm her.
“What happened?”
He jerks out of his reverie. “Igrainne killed her father and ate his heart. It woke his power within her—the power of a dragon queen. But it disturbed the others, for they felt she was her mother’s creature, and Mab could not be trusted.”
“And you?”
His mouth twists. “I knew Mab could not be trusted. I wasn’t even certain if Igrainne could be by this stage. Our mating was beginning to sour. I had suspicions…. And she could be spiteful, willful, and her fury at times was all encompassing. But what was I meant to do? My love for Igrainne grew strained, but Arianna…. She would curl her little finger around mine and I could not walk away.
“In those days there were seven kingdoms of dragonkind ruled over by the High King. I was the ruling prince of Tarronais, mated to the new High Queen. But the other princes wished to treat with me. They were concerned about Igrainne’s growing need for power. They urged me to take Arianna and run.” His lashes shield the pain in his eyes. “But Igrainne was her mother. And while I wondered if I could trust the woman she was becoming, I knew Arianna loved her. When Igrainne walked into the room, she was the whole and center of Arianna’s universe. I could no more steal her away from her mother than I could cut off her hand.”
He leans forward, clasping both hands together. “I let myself be blinded to the truth. Arianna became all I could see. By this stage, Igrainne and I had separate chambers. I knew she had other lovers. She’d forged an entire guard of powerful dragon males in their prime, and they catered to her whims. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt, but if that was the price I paid to be with Arianna, then I would pay it.”
All I can taste is ash in my mouth. If there’s one thing I know well, it’s blackmail.
What would you do for the safety of your soul?
What would you do for a child you love?
There’s a horrible suspicion in my chest. This Igrainne sounds as though she was cunning and manipulative, and I know her kind well. Keir would be a powerful ally, but he’s headstrong and willful himself. To bind such a prince to your side, you would need to do it with chains so strong they’d never shatter.
I swallow hard. Arianna. It’s always Arianna. “You don’t call her your daughter.”
Tension exists in the hard line of his shoulders, but there’s heat in his eyes when he looks up at me. And pain. “I said she had the eyes of a dragon. I did not say she had my eyes.”
Confirmation. It’s a knife through the heart. I wish I’d been wrong. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs. “There was a point at which I knew the truth. She’d been born nearly a month early, and our mating had not been consummated until the ceremony. And as I said, Igrainne had her loyal guard, particularly a captain, Theomides.” His mouth twists. “I would look at him sometimes, and I would see her. And… for all his faults, he loved Arianna too. I knew. I knew in my heart of hearts. I knew. But I was the one who rocked Arianna to sleep. I was the one who fed her goat’s milk when her mother preferred not to nurse. I was the one who sang her songs and laced my power through her, so she would know a dragon’s magic. She was my daughter as much as she was his.”
I go to my knees on the bed before him, taking his hands in mine.
There’s a knot in my throat, and it tastes of treachery.
I’ve told myself a thousand times that he knows better than to expect anything else from me. But this…. How do I steel my heart against this?
“And the cauldron?” I ask, for it’s a safer topic to speak of.
“As I said, I had my suspicions. Igrainne was growing in power. I could no longer blind myself to what was going on when servants came to me, desperate for mercy.” He clasps both hands between his thighs. “Some of them were vanishing. At first it was one or two. But soon it was nightly. And Igrainne would lock herself away in her tower with her squadron of guards every night.
“I hid myself within her tower and that night her guards brought one of the servants, kicking and screaming, into her solar. They bound him to a heavy marble slab in the center of the room and Igrainne entered with a knife. She intended to cut his heart out with a knife and eat it. It’s what she’d done to all of them.”
It’s the same thing Calliope intended to do to him.
“A dragon’s heart wields its power for only so long. Igrainne’s hunger grew, but without the ability to constantly renew her magic source, her power would eventually fade. And then Prince Theramon fell to her in battle, and she consumed his power. This time it was different. A dragon prince—a king in the making—is not a mere servant. She’d finally found a source that could renew her.
“The fae flocked to her banners. The echoes of war filled the skies. I could hear the stars screaming. Hear the prophecy they’d once proclaimed echoing through the air. War would come. The world would be torn apart. Both peoples would suffer. And the dragons would die.
“Igrainne blazed like a supernova. If one more of us fell, then she would be unstoppable. I asked the goddess how I could end this madness. And she gave her answer.” He sighs. “The age of dragons must come to an end. The power of the dragon kings must fade from this world. We were to give up our magic to a cauldron forged from the metal that came from the skies. And I was to kill her and end her line.”
Arianna. The heat drains from my face.
I know how this story ends now.
Keir gives me a merciless look. “And so I did. We gave up our magic so that if Igrainne took one of us, she would no longer be able to consume our power. We marched to war and I faced her across the field.” Another hint of anguish. “I slew her. I broke her armies. A queen faded on that field and a king arose, as is the way of my people. The prophecy came to pass. One would rule over all of us, and yet he would have nothing. The High King fated to destroy his people. It was me. It was always meant to be me.”
“And Arianna? What happened to her?”
“It was what I had promised the other kings. I would end Igrainne’s line.” His voice roughens. “I swore I would do it myself. I swore…. And I went to Igrainne’s keep, and I cut down all who stood before me until finally I was at the door to her chambers. And he was there. Theomides was there, Arianna in his arms and a sword held against me. There were tears in his eyes. And she looked at me, and her little face lit up, and she called me ‘Da.’”
And he couldn’t do it.
I slide a hand down his face. “You were never going to be able to do i
t. I know you, Keir. You are honorable and loyal.” And you love so fiercely. I close my eyes, unable to let him see the truth in my face.
“I told him to flee,” he grates out. “I told him to take Arianna and raise her far away from these lands. To never even breathe her name. To never tell her of her mother. To protect her and love her… for me. And that was the last time I saw her. I made a promise to my people, to the goddess—and I broke it.”
I ease out a breath. How hard must it have been for him to kill Calliope? Knowing she came of Arianna’s line.
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
Stillness creeps through me. “What?”
Keir’s look slays me. “Do you remember when Calliope came into the Court of Dreams and sought to kill me?”
The wall. Narcissa’s lifeless hands reaching out of them forever, desperate to be saved…. I close my eyes. “I’ve been trying to forget it.”
“Calliope was dragonborn, Mira. She could manipulate an Other World. She could manipulate my world and conjure monstrosities to life.” He rubs his knuckles against the sheet straining over his thigh. “Did you ever think her death came too easily?”
There’s a dull, throbbing beat in my chest. My heart, kicking like a mule. “What?”
Our eyes meet.
“She died with a single strike of my sword,” he murmurs. “Or did she? After all, the Court of Dreams is a place where one sees what I want them to see…. And Calliope has the same abilities I do. She could warp the dream.”
I shove up onto my knees. “She’s still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” All I can feel is stone around me, my body sinking into it like quicksand. “You killed her.”
Thick lashes paint over his eyes. “Sometimes I hear whispers through the court. A mocking laugh. A pair of claws trailing over the stone walls of my palace. I thought at first it was her spirit haunting the court, but there’s no sign of anything unnatural. And yet….”
