by Rosko, Mandy
Fiona turned onto her back, stretching luxuriously, feeling it all the way in her toes before she sighed and turned into Inferno’s chest. His hand came up, fingers sliding against the flesh of her back, though his eyes were still closed.
“How are you feeling?”
She smiled against the warmth of his skin, snuggling closer.
She knew what he was talking about. His claws were back in now that the night was over. The scratches he’d left down her back had hurt at the time, but she’d been so into what he was doing that the pain had faded away quickly.
“I’m all right.”
Inferno opened his tired eyes, lifting himself up enough to take a look at what he’d left behind on her flesh.
He cursed.
Fiona tensed. “Is it bad?” She didn’t exactly feel it now. Not really. How bad could it be?
“Bad enough. I’ll get some ointment for you.”
He tried to pull out of bed. She grabbed him. “Don’t even think about it.” Fiona sat up. She could see herself in the mirror on the wall. She half turned. Even with the distance, it didn’t look bad. She doubted it would look too terrible up close either. Three red scratch marks. Fiona checked the sheets. There was some spotting there, but that was the extent of it. “This is fine.”
“It’s hardly fine. You’re bleeding.”
“Yeah, barely.”
“At least let me grab you something for—”
“No.” Fiona grabbed Inferno’s arm and yanked him back down when he tried getting up again. She knew she would never have the strength to force him to do anything, so he was only accommodating her wishes.
It was amusing that he still did it with a scowl on his face. “Fiona.”
She settled next to him, absorbing his warmth and letting herself get comfortable. “Don’t Fiona me. You can’t do what you did last night and not expect me to be in a good mood about it.”
His hand settled on her hip. “I suppose.”
Fiona smiled. “Just give me another hour. You can mother hen me then.”
Inferno sputtered, his hand jerking away. “Mother hen?”
Fiona tried not to laugh, but that was pretty much impossible.
Today was going to be a good day.
Until a heavy banging sounded on the door to Inferno’s room.
Inferno sighed, then cursed. “Goddammit.”
“Don’t answer it.” Even as she asked, Fiona knew it wasn’t that simple.
Even a prince had to answer his door.
Inferno got out of bed. He grabbed his pants, putting one foot at a time in them before heading to the sitting room. He shut the door behind him, hiding Fiona away from the main area where Inferno would be dealing with whoever was banging to get in.
Fiona grabbed the sheets, yanking them over her head and taking Inferno’s pillow. It was still warm, so she snuggled it. Not quite the same, but it would do until he came back.
Still, she could make out the voices of the people on the other end of the door when Inferno answered it. His brothers. Both of them. Blaze and Ember came with some fairly important news.
Joseph was confessing to the crime of trying to have Fiona assassinated.
She sat up straight just as Inferno made something crash in the other room.
23
Fiona couldn’t get herself dressed fast enough, and even then, throwing one of Inferno’s oversized bathrobes over her shoulders hardly counted. She rushed out of the bedroom she shared with the dragon prince just to watch him yell and scream in his brothers’ faces. Like a giant screaming at two other giants, his face bright with rage.
It took her a minute to see that he wasn’t screaming at them, but the way he barked his orders and commands was clearly doing something to that vein at the side of his neck.
“I want him interrogated now! I want him in front of me with his head in the stocks! I want every single damned thing he has to say—”
Inferno stopped suddenly, as though only just realizing that Fiona was standing there. He and his brothers looked at her, and for a horrible second, Fiona felt incredibly naked. She should have put on more than this bathrobe. It felt a little too much like wearing a tent in front of her mate and his brothers.
Inferno’s rage hardly left his face, even as he looked as though he was trying to rein it in. “Fiona, sweet, I think you should let me handle this.”
“I think the whole palace heard you screaming like that.”
He glowered at her. “The only person I wanted hearing it was Joseph.” He turned back to his brothers. “When do I see him?”
Ember made a half-hearted noise of uncertainty. “I don’t know.”
“I won’t torture him.” He seemed to think on that. “Much.”
Fiona felt that familiar worry rising within her. “You would torture him?”
Inferno waved his hand at her. “Only so far as he has already tortured you. I might dunk him into that cream and see how long it can sit on his skin before he begs for mercy.”
Fiona clenched her teeth. She couldn’t tell if he was joking. He had to be joking, right? Inferno was a prince and he did get to do pretty much whatever he wanted, but even royalty had to live by a set of rules.
At least, the royalty she was aware of.
Now that Fiona thought about it, she wasn’t sure if she was aware of anything to protect Inferno’s citizens from the possibility that he might become a tyrant.
But he wouldn’t. Would he? Even to a man who was guilty?
“Don’t hurt him.”
Fiona noted the sudden tension in Inferno’s shoulders. The way he slowly turned his head to look at her with those bewildered eyes was almost enough to make her take back her words. “Don’t hurt him? Him?”
Fiona’s legs itched to back up a step. She almost did it, almost giving into that look on his face and the tone in his voice.
She held herself firm, steeling her body and clenching her fists. “I don’t want to be with a man who tortures people.”
“This is different. It would hardly be torture. He would just be inconvenienced for a few hours.”
“A few hours being burned the way I was?”
“Just until he bleeds a little. It’s not as though I’m talking about pushing his nose inside out with my fists. His face will need to be in proper order when he stands trial.”
“If he’s going to stand trial then he doesn’t need you to do this to him.”
Inferno rolled his eyes, a growl leaving his throat as he turned away from her. “You know nothing of this.”
Fiona’s heart pounded. She wrung her hands together. She’d been so sure they were done with this. That they’d come to an agreement. Or at least were going to meet each other halfway. It seemed as though Inferno hadn’t listened to her at all.
“So you’re going to put him into a vat of that stuff used on me, and then beat him? What will that solve? He already confessed.” Even as Fiona could understand why he wanted to do that, the idea that he would was a little too… She couldn’t handle it. She didn’t want him to beat anyone, for any reason.
Inferno’s brothers looked at her, and then at Inferno. She couldn’t read the looks on their faces other than the extreme discomfort.
It seemed too barbaric, but she would never say that word out loud, knowing how much dragons, and shifters in general, tended to despise it.
“Please, just…don’t let this get to you.”
“Why not?”
The outburst did make her fall back a step this time. Fiona couldn’t help herself.
“Brother.” Ember stepped forward, gripping Inferno’s shoulder, but Inferno shrugged the other man off, turning his heated stare back to Fiona.
Inferno looked at her as though she’d gone insane. As though she was the one he didn’t understand in this situation. “Do you forget how I found you? Armed, black-clad men came into your home and tried to harm you. Kill you even, all because I looked at you in a way I shouldn’t have. One look was all it
took for them to know, and had I not been there, had I not been desperate enough to see you, you would be dead. I would never have had the chance to know you. And then your face. He attacked your beautiful face in my home! Under my nose!”
“It’s not permanent.”
“I do not care!”
His voice shook the walls. Fiona’s heart fluttered awkwardly. She couldn’t understand this feeling inside her or get control of it. The odd relief that bubbled up, as well as the anxiety that hit her at the same time.
Worse, she didn’t entirely know how to articulate why this was getting to her.
“I don’t want this to turn you into someone I don’t want to sleep next to at night.”
That was probably not the way she should have laid that out. Definitely not the best way to put that forward if the wide-eyed stare Inferno was giving her was anything to go by.
“Inferno—”
He raised his hand to her, as though waving her off, wanting nothing to do with her as he marched out the door. “I need to think.”
“Inferno!” She rushed after him. Ember and Blaze stepped in her way before she could make it out the door.
She glared at them, anxiety building within her as Inferno marched away from her. “Get out of my way.”
They didn’t mention to her how backwards it was for her to be ordering around a couple of princes. Blaze shook his head, looking to his brother for help, and Ember seemed entirely too patient for Fiona’s liking.
“If you go out in that, he will kill us.”
“Figuratively?”
Ember half rolled his eyes, as though reminding himself he needed to be careful with his words. He looked a little more like Inferno just then.
“Yes, but you know that. He must have had this talk with you by now.”
“He did, but he’s talking about torturing that guy. You can’t just let him do that.”
“He’s the future king. He can do whatever he wants,” Blaze said, though his voice was not unkind as he gave her that sharp little reminder.
“Can I go and see Joseph?”
“That’s probably not the best idea in the world right now,” Blaze replied.
Ember was clearly trying not to smile. “Yes, especially dressed like that. The press would have a field day with that one.”
“I don’t know why you pretend to care. If the press do anything you don’t like, you could just have them all tortured or killed.”
Both princes twisted their noses at her, as though she’d just said something horribly disgusting.
Blaze, usually so playful, seemed the most offended. “Is that what you think of us? We would never do that.”
“No, you wouldn’t, but you could.”
“We would not do that. Why do you want to insist so badly that we’re monsters?” Ember asked. His tone was the most patient, and it made raw guilt eat away at Fiona’s stomach.
“I don’t think you’re monsters and I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, it’s just…I don’t know. It seems wrong for anyone to have the power to do that to someone. To torture someone? One of your own subjects?”
“He’s an enemy of the crown and the kingdom for having anything to do with your injuries and the danger you’ve been put in.” Ember put his hand to her shoulder. “This is not a man you should be tying yourself in knots for.”
Fiona’s hands clenched. “I know.”
“Then why bother?” Blaze growled.
Ember glanced back at the man quickly, as though trying to tell him to shut the hell up, but Fiona heard it anyway.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on exactly why this was a problem for her.
The Blackclaw family had been ruling this kingdom since its inception. There had been a couple of kings who had gone off their rockers, a few royal murders that people liked to gossip and make conspiracy theories about, but for the last four generations of dragon rulers, almost three hundred years, everything had been peaceful within the borders. Content. No one seemed to mind and the only problems seemed to be the standard political affairs that happened from time to time.
Fiona almost never heard of an innocent man jailed or tortured after being falsely accused of a horrible crime, and no one minded the laws forbidding hateful speech against the royal family because no one hated the royal family enough to speak ill of them.
She’d never bothered herself with these thoughts before, and yet now…
She looked up at both men in front of her, neither of whom had done anything to warrant accusations.
Inferno had offered to give up everything for her, but these men would still become her brothers. Why enter into a family on such ugly terms? Why bother pulling them into her own doubts when she could hardly articulate them?
“I’m sorry. I was just…I guess I’m a little sensitive about these things.”
“But why?”
Ember elbowed his brother in the stomach, glaring at him before returning his attention to Fiona. “Apology accepted. It’s an ugly business, and we understand that there would be some hesitation when it comes to this matter. Right, Blaze?”
This time, there was an edge in Ember’s voice, and Blaze crossed his arms before reluctantly relenting. “Right. Apology accepted, Fiona.”
“Good.” Ember nodded, turning back to Fiona. His smile was kind, though Fiona still didn’t feel better.
She crossed her arms, suddenly cold. She could hardly bring herself to look at either man now that she’d badly embarrassed herself.
Maybe the thing that made it worse was how patient Ember was being about the whole thing. “I’ll bring Flare over here with Eric and a couple of the other guards. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Fiona nodded. “Will Inferno be long?” She almost wanted to ask them to plead with Inferno not to go too hard on Joseph, but after her little conversation with Inferno, her terrible, stupid, horrible defense of the man Inferno probably hated most in the entire world, she wasn’t up for pushing her luck.
“Hard to say, but if he takes too long, I’ll give him a gentle push that he will need to come back to you. Maybe he shouldn’t be getting his hands dirty with this when he has his mate to come back to.”
Fiona looked into Ember’s eyes, saw the understanding there, even if he didn’t want to give it, and she could have hugged him. “Thank you.”
Ember nodded. “Blaze. Stay with her for a moment. I’ll get our sister.”
“She’s got plenty of guards.”
“She doesn’t need the company of palace guards, fool. She needs family.”
Fiona’s heart fluttered a little at that. Family. She was already family to these people. The warmth within her struggled against the guilt for having questioned them, but she pushed it aside. The word family. An actual family. Even if some members if it didn’t want her or like her, like Charrling and Tinder, she had a family.
That word alone was enough to make her worries about Inferno’s revenge, and the power these people had over their subjects, melt away into nothingness. How could she focus on the bad when she knew she wasn’t truly alone, and never would be again for the rest of her life?
Of course, her mate was still away, questioning, and probably torturing, Joseph.
Until Inferno came back to her, it would be impossible to not think about that.
24
Flare came over with a soft, careful smile and a cloth bag with embroidered flowers under her arm. Eric stood behind her when the woman pulled Fiona into a soft hug.
“Are you okay?”
Fiona pulled back, noting the look on Flare’s face, as though she was waiting for something, some kind of outburst.
Right. Her brothers had told her what had happened. Made sense. They were family, after all. Fiona was going to be part of their family, but she had only just arrived. Flare was their baby sister.
“I’m okay. Still waiting to hear when Inferno’s coming back.”
Something within Flare noticeably eased up, as though
the tension had just deflated right out of her pores. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” Flare looked back over her shoulder, and Fiona saw a brief look pass between the two before Flare shut the door. When Flare saw Fiona’s curiosity, she turned away, her cheeks reddening at what could almost be a confession.
Fiona couldn’t help but smile. A secret romance between a dragon princess and one of the palace guards seemed a little more like the kind of drama Fiona wanted to be part of. Anything but this murderous B-style movie mystery she was stuck living through right now.
Flare looped her arm through Fiona’s, heading for the delicate couch in front of the fireplace. “I brought some snacks. We can watch a couple of movies. I brought some goodies. Baseketball. Super Troopers, Porkies—”
“Wait, what?” Fiona almost laughed at the titles listed. “You have movies like that here?”
Flare’s grin showed off the whites of her teeth. “We sure do.” She pulled them out of her bag, showing them off, along with a few other choices.
Fiona shook her head. “I’m stunned.”
“And so would the rest of the world be. There’s a reason we don’t have these on our iTunes accounts or watch them on Netflix. The world has to think we don’t have a sense of humor. So for stuff like this, DVDs are the way to go.”
Fiona nodded. “Can’t be hacked. No one can know you watch them.”
Flare winked. “You got it. And I figured we could use a good laugh right about now.”
“A laugh, and maybe some breakfast? What do we do, like call down to the kitchen or something?” Fiona made her way to the phone, but Flare beat her to it.
“You get dressed, I’ll order breakfast.”
Fiona looked down at the bathrobe and remembered her nakedness. “Right.”
Flare was right, Fiona felt a lot better after a quick shower, a change of clothes, breakfast (poison tested first, of course), and the first DVD completed. The only thing that would make it better would be if Inferno was there with them.
After a long silence, Flare finally spoke up. “How are you feeling?”
