by Stacy Reid
“Why do you fear?”
“My kingdom will punish me for breaking my father’s oath.” He heard the defiance in her voice, but he also felt a deep fear.
“Anyone who harms you will die.”
“No! I must be punished and when you feel my pain, I beg of you to not react to it. Nuria has also made a demand I cannot acquiesce to. I fear for my people. I fear how my decision will affect them.”
“Tell me.”
Iciness spread inside Drac, and his darkness luxuriated in the sheer savagery of the emotions that pulsed through him as he listened to his mate.
“Reveal my name and kingdom.”
“No.”
“You defy me?”
He felt her hesitation at the menace that pulsed from him.
“I will not reveal your name or kingdom.”
“If you are hurt because you fucking defied me, you will rue the day, Princess.” He lashed at her with rage in his voice.
Her voice hitched.
“Drac, please,” she whispered with a raw ache in her voice. “I must submit myself to the council. Promise me you will not harm my people.”
“If you are hurt, I will deliver death to all who participated. Do not let a touch mar your skin or pain be inflicted upon you, Princess. Reveal my fucking name!”
“They will take me as soon as I reveal my consort.”
“There is nowhere you can be taken that I cannot retrieve you. Reveal me.”
“Drac, is all well?” Gidon drawled from where he stood in their meeting room.
Drac barely contained a snarl and Gidon raised his brows.
Drac’s blades stepped forward in unison and flanked him. They were ten of the deadliest warriors he presided over and the most loyal.
“My mate needs me. I leave for Boreas," Drac stated and shiktred away. His blades followed without hesitation.
Boreas—High Council tribunal
“I refuse, my lords,” Saieke expressed for the third time.
“Very well, Princess.” The high chancellor Azul grimaced as he stroked his beard. “This tribunal has declared that you will be whipped with the aid of the wind until you reveal the name of your consort and his kingdom. King Ajali demands satisfaction and recompense and it will be given.”
Saieke expected this and tried to harden against the fear. She had known pain would have broken the barrier and Drac would have felt every lash. She could only hope he would honor her request not to harm her people. She could feel the Nurians’ rage and determination. If she were to name Drac now, they would move to take her immediately.
Within seconds, she would be stripped and mounted by King Ajali…after they poisoned her to ensure she was not with child, and then healed her with the elixir.
“I am coming for you.”
She froze. Drac was coming to Boreas? “Do not harm my people.”
“Then reveal my name.”
“The Nurians refuse to cancel the binding oath and will seek to return me to their kingdom as their king’s bride. Once I reveal your name, King Ajali will take me away. He will rape me, Drac. The king will need to ensure I cannot escape binding. I will fight…but I will not win. I prefer to be beaten instead of the king violating my body,” she whispered.
The rage that burned against her mind was so cold she shivered, causing her mother’s eyes to widen in alarm.
“If you reveal me, he would not dare to think to bed a Darkan’s mate.”
She did not think King Ajali would care if she was the mate of a Darkan.
“He will not care. And when he beds me forcefully, you will kill him. Everything Gidon is working for will vanish once Nuria turns with a vengeance to your realm.”
“You are ours to protect.”
She steadied herself as she moved into the center of the room. Manacles were slapped on her wrist, and her arms were stretched over her head and wrapped around a column. Her feet were drawn roughly apart, and manacles also clamped them to the ground.
The warrior who chained her could hardly meet her eyes, and she could feel the rage and pain from him on her behalf. She was shackled tightly and sweat beaded her upper lip.
Everything relied on her being stalwart. If only they knew the bloodshed she prevented from hiding her consort.
The cruel irony.
Izumi willed herself to remain impartial as a queen to see her daughter punished. She understood the rage that King Ajali felt at the blow that she dealt him. He would not rest until he had the name of the one who betrayed and dishonored him.
She could also sense the turbulence that churned from her daughter’s chakra. Izumi wished King Ajali could feel what Saieke felt and probably then he would relent. To detect the emotions of others through their chakra was a gift Saieke inherited from her, and no one else could feel the tangled mess of emotions in the chamber. From the Nurian king she felt great resolve and fury, and Izumi feared that his desire for this great land would be their downfall.
War and death hovered if Saieke did not bend, and Izumi feared she would not. She had never imagined that her only child would be so obstinate. Saieke now faced a vicious whipping and possible imprisonment when the King left with her, yet she refused to yield. Izumi did not know whether to admire or strangle her daughter.
The queen’s stomach clenched as she felt Saieke’s pained breathing as her arms were stretched high above her head in the manacles. This was more than a punishment. It was humiliation. To be whipped in the council chamber before the most influential aristocracy of their kingdom was horrifying.
Izumi gripped the edge of her chair. There was a tense silence in the room as they hoped that Saieke would change her mind before the whipping commenced.
“Princess, we give you another chance to reveal your lover,” Azul intoned.
It was met with silence.
“Do you understand you will be whipped until you submit?”
Silence.
Izumi clasped her king’s hand as the whip whistled through the air and sliced across Saieke’s back. Izumi gasped at the pain that leaked from her daughter. The wind whistled again and again against her back and on the tenth stroke, Saieke’s gasp turned to a scream of pain. Izumi lurched from her chair and stepped toward the balcony railing, gripping the edges.
“Stop this!” She ordered.
The wielder looked to their king who shook his head. She wanted to scream at him. This was their daughter.
With a grimace, the man flicked the whip again.
Saieke’s caftan had ripped in several places and dots of blood soaked through her clothing. Crack…crack…crack. The whip curled and descended for another assault. Izumi flinched in sheer shock as the hand that fell with the whip flew through the air. Gasps rushed through the room, and as one, the entire room surged to their feet on edge. The warrior crumpled and screamed. He held his severed stump as blood sprayed from him in an arch.
Izumi saw no one, but darkness coated her mind and she trembled at the malevolence that stepped into the room.
22
“Drac!”
Tears slid down her face.
“I am here.”
Manacles dropped as claws she could not see sliced them off her feet and hands. Saieke was moved with speed and deposited away from the blood. Her body vibrated, and her heart soared despite the pain that roiled through her body.
“Drac.”
She felt a feathery brush against her neck and whispers of emotions leaked from him to her.
“What is this?” A voice thundered.
She glanced up. Her mother gripped the railing, and her eyes were wide and shocked filled. Her mother could feel some of the malevolence that Drac brought with him.
Everyone was standing and searching the room, but he remained in the shadows. She felt the powers of the others that had arrived with him—ten distinct chakras that were ice-cold and deadly.
Pain lanced at her back, but she could feel the torment lessening.
“Your body is already he
aling.”
“What is the meaning of this?” the Nurian chancellor demanded.
Their warriors were tense, and the intent that leaked from them was almost intimidating. King Ajali launched himself gracefully over the balustrade and landed in front of her. In eerie unison, his unit of ten landed behind him, and the heat that washed from them made the air shimmer.
A high and mellifluous pitched sound suddenly wailed through the room. Screams of lyrical beauty and destructive harmony scraped and grated across the room, and the ceiling above her head contracted. Thousands of shards of stained glass exploded and rained down on them. Borean warriors rushed in and waved their hands in a canopy of movement that flung the glass away from them.
Before anyone could process what was happening, Saieke felt the cold press of twin blades enclosing her neck.
Everyone stilled.
Low and melodious laughter filled the chamber. The ground roiled, and power pulsated, and more than fifty Mevians dropped gracefully into the room from the ceiling.
Her parents launched themselves over the balcony.
“Tsk, tsk,” uttered a voice so beautiful, tears sprang to Saieke’s eyes.
“Anyone moves and the princess dies,” the voice echoed. There was a tinkle of laughter that made her shudder in dread. It was so beautiful it was unbearable.
“Drac,” she gasped.
“You will not be harmed, leika,” his voice came back in smooth assurance.
“Do not let them harm my people.”
The speaker of the voice came into full view. Saieke had never seen such a beautiful woman in all her existence. She had straight silver-white hair that ran like silk and stopped at her hips in a shimmer. Her intense green eyes spoke of power and age. She had silver tipped claws attached to her nails as weapons, and Saieke could smell the poison on them.
Her black caftan flowed around her and hid her figure. She was slight and moved as if she floated on air. “I am the Mevian emperor’s geikan.”
Kings’ teeth, geikans were assassins of the highest order. They possessed the most deadly and most unique abilities and executed the commands of their masters with deadly efficiency.
“Truth,” the Serangite uttered into the silence.
“I have come for the princess,” the assassin said with a smile as she appraised their battle readiness.
Saieke saw her king flinch and a councilor held his head as the pureness of her voice vibrated through the room.
“Truth.”
The sounds of swords being drawn resonated within the chamber as the warriors of Nuria unsheathed their blades. The air turned frosty as wind whipped through the room from the Boreans.
Another light and tinkling laugh grated from the assassin. She clicked her tongue and power roiled through the room, and sound waves vibrated in the air with menace. “If you attack, we will kill the princess.”
“Truth.”
Saieke gasped as blood trickled down her neck as the blades were moved infinitesimally.
"Speak about why you are here, geikan,” King Ajali ordered.
Flames licked and danced in his eyes, and the heat that he produced was stifling. All his warriors had their blades drawn and smoke curled from the feet of some as the intensity of the heat they generated scorched the ground.
“You will allow us to leave quietly with the princess. If you oppose us in any way, the princess’s head will roll at your feet before you can even blink. It is our emperor’s wish that if the princess is not bonded to him, she is not bonded at all.”
Saieke’s mother jerked.
“Truth,” the Serangite snapped.
“The princess is blood-oathed to King Ajali and is his bride,” The high chancellor of Nuria said. “To kidnap her is to incite war.”
“It is the purview of the king to declare a war of course," came back the melodious whisper. "It is our emperor's wish that he does so if he feels he has been wronged. Of course, we will have an Allegiance by then as the princess and our emperor will be wedded by tonight. And worry not, after I am through with her there will be a blood-oath with my emperor.”
“Truth.”
The Mevians did not want an Allegiance between Boreas and Nuria. The fact they were willing to kill her, indicated that their real aim was to prevent the Allegiance. Wedding her to their emperor simply gained them the bonus of land and elixir.
King Ajali reached the same conclusions. She saw the knowledge in his eyes. A cruel smile curved his lips.
“Are you declaring war between our kingdoms, geikan?’ He asked silkily.
There was another melodious laugh from her, and Saieke could see the flare of triumph in her eyes. Mevia had a population of more than two hundred million, and their warrior forces were twice the size of the King Ajali’s. They also had an alliance with Avindar, and they were the most powerful of the nations.
Saieke was befuddled as to why they would want to war with the Nurians, and why they were working with Darkans.
“If you kill the princess, I have no need to war with you, as she has no use to my kingdom anymore. If you take her and she is wedded to the emperor, it is the same. I can no longer form an Allegiance, so it would be up to Boreas to demand recompense,” King Ajali said.
Her mother glared at him, shock suffusing her features. It was a merciless statement, but it was fact. Saieke was useless to him dead, and if she was wedded to another emperor or king. Yet he was still alert, and she felt the intent in him to attack, and the green in his eyes was almost obliterated by the red flames of fire that danced in them.
“Ah…so you will not declare war then? Pity.”
She indicated her hand, and the Mevians flashed across the room and positioned themselves to cover her departure.
“Please do not do this,” her queen rasped. She stepped forward and was jerked to a stop as the blade sunk deeper and a spurt of blood flew from Saieke.
“Would you not prefer to know that she is the Empress of Mevia instead of dead?” the melodious voice trilled.
“Wrong,” a distorted voice said with soft menace.
Everyone froze.
“You will release the princess, and the life of your emperor will be spared this night." Missing the ruthlessness was impossible.
Knowledge leaped into the King Ajali’s eyes and a wry smile slanted his lips.
“Who speaks?” the geikan demanded with power roiling from her voice.
She was met with silence.
The body behind her tensed, and he looked to his commander. Tension and something darker whispered across the room. It trembled on the air and vibrated with menace. It was a snarl of rage from Drac.
“You will release my mate.” The sheer malevolence in the voice made Saieke tremble even though she knew to whom it belonged.
“Mate?” a low hum of laughter. “Are you declaring war with Mevia?” a voice meant to enthrall asked.
“Your hands on what’s mine, geikan. I will spare only your life, for you to deliver my message. Anyone who comes after my mate declares war with the Darkage,” he said and stepped out of her shadows to appear right in front of her.
Drac shifted the psychic hold on his beast. Fangs punched from his mouth and claws extended from his hands. His beast roared and inhaled the stench of fear that leaked out from some of those around him. It howled at the rush of pleasure at the dread suddenly permeating the room. Bloodthirstiness rushed out and coiled around him in a mimosa of churning blackness.
The assassin’s eyes flared in shock when he stepped from her shadow. Before she could react, he disappeared, and the Mevian who had the princess’s neck between his blades died before he could understand that the tide had shifted. His head slid soundlessly from his body and blood spurted into the air.
The princess disappeared.
Drac placed her in the queen’s shadow, his men tightly formed around her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He shifted his thoughts to deal with the assass
in. The Nurian king engaged her, and she spun and drew her sword to deflect his blade. She whistled, and destruction swept through the room. Men fell to their knees screaming in pain, and the beams and columns of the castle shuddered under the onslaught of her power.
Drac shiktred to her. He slashed her throat with his claws, and the sound ended as if it never was. She grabbed the wound and flashed away. His shadows caught her, and a strangled sound emitted from her throat when he pulled her to him. A menacing snarl ripped from his throat and silence descended.
“You will take this message to your emperor, geikan. Princess Saieke El Shyokara belongs to me and as such belongs to the Darkage. To harm her people is to harm her, and to harm her is to wage war with me. If war is proclaimed on Boreas, you proclaim war with the Darkage.”
There were several gasps which he ignored.
“Inform your emperor. The princess is the mate of Drac El Kyn, the house of Dragos of the Darkage. If he tries to take her again, he will know only death and despair. I will come in the dark when he least expects it, and I do not understand mercy.”
He flung her, and she flashed herself from column to column and disappeared through the open ceiling. Drac swung his gaze around the room and settled on the Nurian king. He saw coldness in the king’s eyes but absolutely no fear. Drac disappeared and stepped into the shadow of King Ajali.
Drac lifted the leash on his beast and a more profound and darker rage pulsed inside of him. He simply appeared in front of the king. His warriors roared collectively and then advanced.
Drac raised his brows when the king held up his fist and they all halted.
Swirls of flames suddenly extended from the king and surrounded him like chakra. The heat of it was brutal, yet there was no fear or rage from the fire king, only iciness.
Drac met his fiery gaze with bloodlust riding in his. "You will not know when death comes if you try to take my mate,” Drac growled. “She is mine! By the laws of the Darkage, you incite war with us if you do not relinquish your claim, Nurian,” he said with a slow sibilant hiss.
