Vengeance (The Blood Trail Chronicles Book 1)

by Tara Brown

  He was starved. Guilt hit me. His dragon mother had died in the fields. Did she feed him milk or flesh? I didn’t know how to keep him alive.

  In a moment of stupidity and bravery I ripped off my sweater and scooped him up. He weighed more than I would have guessed. My skinny arms tired quickly, but I ran and slid with years of experience.

  The crack of dawn was well over the hilltops as I entered the window. I slipped down the halls before anyone woke. I avoided the servants' areas. They would have been awake for hours, preparing our day.

  The heat inside the sweater was terrifying and exhilarating.

  In my fingers I carried legend and lore from ages no one I knew had seen. No one, including me, would ever fathom the importance of the creature I carried to my old playhouse in the woods behind the castle. Not for a long time anyway.

  The forest was still. It always was at first light. I slipped through unseen.

  We crossed the dark woods to the playhouse I had not played in for months. The old door creaked from the uneven frame. I placed him on the ground and unwrapped the sweater. He had made only slight noises during our trip to the playhouse, nothing disturbing. Suddenly, as he realized he was inside the dark little cottage, he cried. He opened his mouth and cried loudly. Wide-eyed and terrified of being discovered, I clamped his mouth shut. "Shhhhhhh."

  He whimpered. I pulled my still warm sweater from him and put it back on.

  I pulled my dagger from my boot where I always kept it, just like Maddox did.

  I turned and opened the door.

  It creaked.

  I winced.

  I would ask Maddox about fixing it. I just wouldn’t tell him about Artan. He was loaded with common sense. People such as that could never be trusted to possess a secret as foolish as keeping a dragon for a pet. I could already hear his warnings of the castle burning to the ground or Artan eating the servants.

  I slipped out into the woods and looked back at Artan as he gingerly took a step and followed me on unstable little toes. He was off balance like a newborn deer. He scurried, desperate to keep up with me. He clung to my leg with his little wings as we made our way through the woods.

  The skies above us darkened through the canopy of the trees. It was as if the dawn had changed its mind and let the dark of night take back the day. I stopped just as the first droplets of rain hit me through the trees.

  Before I even had the chance to find us shelter, the downpour soaked us.

  I looked down at my infant to check on him, but he was gone. I turned to cry out and search for him but as I took a step, a stabbing pain shot through my leg. I looked down at the tear in my pants where blood dripped from my leg.

  I reached down to find Artan still there. He had vanished but was still there. I couldn’t see him at all but I could touch him. I scooped him up into my arms and tried not to think how ridiculous I looked, carrying nothing about the rainy forest.

  I carried him to the river and waited for the toads to come out. He was quiet enough that a fat toad hopped to the river. I held my finger to my lips and shushed him again. I held the dagger and waited for the right moment. I tossed it and stuck the toad in the back. I jumped up and grabbed it, dropping it down in front of him, and pulled the blade out.

  The toad moved as if nudged and then his front arm went missing. Slowly his body was eaten, by nothing.

  The toad was only gone a minute, when suddenly he was shot all over the forest. I could hear Artan heaving and gagging.

  "So, no toads," I said. He crawled into my arms and whimpered.

  I carried him back through the pouring rain to the cottage. We entered the cottage and I could see him immediately.

  "The rain is like a camouflage for you, Artan." I wiped his little face. His green eyes cried out for food.

  I felt defeated. He hiccupped and a small flame snorted through his nostril. He twitched and shook his face. I laughed.

  He hiccupped again and snorted. A flame shot out and roasted the small toy doll on the floor. Burning cloth and smoke filled the cottage. I stamped it out. He bent and picked at it. He ate the ashy mess and sat on the floor staring at me, as if to ask for more. When I realized he didn’t get sick, I grinned at him.

  "You need your food cooked. You clever little dragon. I'll be right back." I opened the door and ran out into the woods. I ran to the henhouse and grabbed a chicken. I broke her neck as I hurried back through the woods. Maddox had taught me how. Her dead body twitched in my arms as I opened the door to discover a disaster. He had snorted fire everywhere. I grabbed him and pulled him from the flames as smoke filled the woods.

  Maddox’s voice rang in my head, telling me he told me so.

  Luckily, the rain put it out before it spread. I carried him and the chicken to the far side of the damp forest where I knew of a cave. He immediately tried to squirm and eat the chicken.

  "Artan, stop. You naughty little thing."

  I climbed through the dense bushy opening of the cave and lay the chicken on the floor of the cave with Artan next to it.

  He bent to eat it but I held him back.

  "Light it on fire, silly goose."

  He furrowed his green eyes at me, making me laugh.

  I heard his hiccup noise and the fire blasted at me. I leapt back. He looked at the chicken and blasted it. The feathers burnt, stinking up the whole cave.

  He gobbled like a crazed beast. The smell of the roasted chicken wasn’t quite what Cook usually made. I gagged and tried not to watch in the dim light.

  Chapter Three

  Eight years later

  "Slow down on the food, guzzle guts. No man wants to marry a girl who eats that much, nor that fast, Millia." Roland glared at me and spit my name with a vileness he was rarely without.

  I sneered. "If I wanted an opinion on my eating, I would ask a being of more intelligence, perhaps a horse or a sow. However, important you feel you are, dear brother, your opinion means nothing to me."

  Edward, my brother closest to me in age, laughed at our eldest brother. "Little sister has some fire in her hearth, apparently."

  Roland’s cheeks flushed. I had never really liked Roland, but I had grown to outright hate him in the past years. He was to take over the kingdom from our father, a fact he never let any of us forget. His arrogance was overwhelming, and it created an ugliness about him I was unable to stop myself from seeing at all times, even when he was trying to be kind.

  Roland held his meat knife up, pointing the blade at me menacingly. "Watch your tongue, or I shall have it removed."

  “You and what army?”

  “The army out front is under my command, not yours,” he boasted.

  “You forget I have spent this many years training with them, not you. They see me as a brother in arms and you as a simpering pup snuggled up to the bitch for protection.”

  His eyes narrowed and the truly evil side of him emerged. “You better watch yourself, little girl.”

  I laughed and piled more meat on my plate. "Or what? You'll make certain I end up cleaning the horse stalls when you're king? I already do that."

  He grinned. "No, dear sister. I will make certain you have the finest husband in all the lands." His sarcasm was noted.

  I lifted my meat knife threateningly as our father and mother walked into the room, unbeknownst to me. I pointed it back at Roland. "Don't expect either of you to live long if you threaten me with that, Brother."

  "Well, I can see we have come for dinner in the nick of time, my dear." Our father's laugh boomed through the huge dining hall. “Roland was about to be taught a lesson he might not have survived.”

  Neither my knife nor gaze wavered. I would slit Roland belly to tongue in half of a heartbeat if I had to.

  He gulped and lowered his knife. "Father, we were playing."

  I felt my father's gaze upon me, demanding me to look at him. I glanced up, relieved to see him grinning. "That is not a creature I would play with, Roland. We want you to live long enough to be king
. Even though she is only eighteen, I wager she could best you at anything you offer as a challenge."

  Roland chuckled, not seeing he was the butt of the joke. "Yes, Father. Creature is the right word."

  I smiled and lifted my heaping plate of food. "Good night. I will eat in my room." I let it seem as though he had won. The best way to escape the prying eyes of my family was to run off with my tail between my legs.

  But as usual, I had a mission as I hurried through the castle with the food in the sack I had stashed in the hallway. I raced through the courtyard and past the gardens, my feet hurrying for the woods.

  In the mist and fading light I stopped when I saw it—a red cloak. My heart skipped a beat as I waited for him to turn around.

  When he did, my face broke into a huge smile, and I ran to where he gathered apples for the horses. "Maddox."

  His handsome face made my already racing heart skip beats in an attempt to catch up to my careless emotions. He scorned me as he always did. "Princess, you shouldn’t be in the forest. It's dusk. Not safe for princesses."

  I rolled my eyes at his mockery. "If I see any of those kinds of princesses I will happily pass along the information."

  He laughed and took long strides toward me. I stepped back into a tree, awaiting the crashing of our bodies and lips. When he reached me, he stopped abruptly with his face hovering menacingly above mine. "I have told you we must stop meeting like this." His eyes were desperate. But as always, I ignored them. Instead, I lifted my lips to meet his.

  His warmth crashed over my face. I dropped the lamb sack and lifted my hands up into his hair, pulling his handsome face down on mine.

  My back scratched into the bark of the tree as he spread my legs and lifted my skirts. He made a growling noise as he lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him. His kisses were my favorite secret in the entire world, beyond Artan.

  We became part of the same red cloak, hidden. His hands were kneading and squeezing, my legs gripping, and our mouths ravishing. His breath became mine.

  "You taste like lamb," he whispered into my cheek as he pulled away. I tilted my head so he could kiss my throat.

  "Let's run away. Roland threatened me with marriage again. He's going to marry me off to some insufferable wanker, Max." I let my eyes do the pleading. “And then I will be banished for killing the heir to the throne and my own husband.”

  “Marriage?” He pulled back, frowning. His dark eyes stormed in conflict. He sighed and looked like the news crushed him. "My lady, I have already let this go too far. I have begged you to stop this. You know I cannot stop. You must be the strong one." His dark-blue eyes and shaggy brown hair offset his dark skin. Being outside with the horses all day made him sun-kissed and rugged, two features I was hard-pressed to find in a gentleman. His handsome face was my undoing from the moment I had met him. Even then, my heart raced as if it were our first meeting. I was six and he was ten, and in thirteen years my heart had never wavered in its choice of a love.

  I smirked. "I too find myself unable to resist your charms, sir."

  He blushed and gazed at me from under his dark lashes. "I cannot force myself to resist you."

  I grinned wickedly, pressing my lips into his. "Why should you? We love each other."

  He shook his head. "You must not love me. Not now, not ever. I am a stable hand and you are a princess, and we can never let this become more than it is. Stolen kisses in the forest and nothing more."

  My heart broke. It always did when he refused to run away with me, which he did daily. I threw myself mercilessly at him, regardless of his feelings on the matter, and every time he rejected me. Every time it hurt, but I refused to let that drown my hopes that we might be a couple one day.

  He looked at the sack on the forest floor. "Where are you going with the sack that smells of lamb?"

  I shook my head. "Wild dog I found. I just leave him table scraps. He's a pup."

  He arched a dark eyebrow. "You and the stray dogs. It's been years of this nonsense. I swear you look for them."

  There had been many times when I had wanted so badly to tell him about Artan, but I didn’t know how. I had a feeling I shouldn’t tell anyone. I imagined that if Artan could talk he would ask me to never tell a single thing to anyone. Instead, I grinned and said, "I have a soft spot for things that need love." He ignored the fact I was speaking of him. And regardless of his protests, we kissed more before he left, like he always did, and went back to work.

  I walked away from him that day and felt like every step was a mountain growing in between us. The reality of my age and marriage expectations had landed. There was never going to be a way for us. I fought the idea that I would be sold into a form of slavery as a wife and pretended none of it was real.

  The cave was still hidden well, but now Artan had trouble fitting into the opening. He had grown huge over the years—to the size of his mother at least.

  His green eyes glowed in the fading light as he sniffed and nuzzled against me. I dropped the sack of lamb stew. He knew how to hunt and feed, but he loved Cook's lamb. He ate quickly and we curled into a ball on the hay I had stolen for him, one bale at a time. We slept, like we always did, until it was dark. Then he would fly and I would climb, and we would meet on the roof where he was born. We would sit and watch the fields and the night that we owned in silence. We would stare at the stars, and I would tell him how it was going to be.

  I would finally convince Maddox to run away with me, and he and I would have a farm deep in the forest where no one would ever find us, or Artan. We both liked that story, though I always suspected he knew it was just that, a story.

  That night, however, when I climbed the castle roofs, I overheard something that changed everything.

  Sneaking past Roland's room, I heard him and my father talking.

  I was a sobbing mess when I made my way to the rooftop. Artan didn’t know what to make of me. He had never seen me cry before. I never cried, ever. He wrapped me in his huge burnt-orange wings and let me cry. I was half tempted to climb on his back and let him fly me away from there. He had offered it many times, but I had never taken him up on it. Flying was not something I ever wanted to try.

  Chapter Four

  Weeks later my grandmother looked at me from across the room, winking secretly. I raised my eyebrow in defiance. I would never have fun with the expectations placed on me against my will.

  I scanned the busy room, landing on the reddened face of the exacerbated man-child who would be mine till death did us part. I plotted his untimely demise long before I had ever met him. Meeting him had not improved his chances of surviving. If anything, they had worsened tremendously.

  He had wiped his nose on his sleeve at one point during our first assembly. My brother Edward had witnessed the catastrophe, turning quickly to snicker at the horror filling my face like an avalanche of hatred. My brother Michael, my middle brother, looked as horrified as I did. He mouthed RUN at me before anyone saw.

  I had nodded subtly. I adored Michael and Edward. Together we hated Roland. He always felt different to us, like he truly believed he was better than us.

  But there in the hall, the third day of our meeting, it became clear to me that I hated one person more than my brother. His name was Herrick and he was the insufferable weasel my brother had arranged for me, keeping his word to make me pay for my terrible hatred of him.

  The day had started out badly, what with the other men, my brothers, and Father, abandoning me to Mother, Herrick, and his disgusting mother. Grandmother was my only ally in it all. She was unfortunately making more of a joke of it though.

  Herrick's brown hair was lackluster and too short for his incredibly skinny face. His skin was as dull as his hair, obviously a dietary issue, with moles, large moles. He had one particular nightmare under his right eye. It actually lifted from the skin on his face like a wart. I wanted to scratch it off.

  His ears stuck out, and as if all those other things weren’t bad enough, his teeth we
re yellow. His face, although skinny, had jowls just like a turkey. Only his jowls were laden with razor burn from his obviously incompetent staff.

  “Princess Amillia, would you enjoy another turn about the garden perhaps?” His shaky voice amused me. He looked at his mother. I knew after seeing her controlling and overbearing ways, she had made him the man he was. Wetting the bed at night still, no doubt.

  I frowned at him. “No, Prince Herrick, I am going to go for a ride.”

  My mother shot me a glare from across the room. I met her hardened look and stared her down. I waited for her to try to see my point of view. She was expressing her feelings, very thoroughly, with the glower she shot at me. She never flinched or even made an attempt to try to see Herrick from where I sat. She only saw what my brother saw—an opportunity. His being for revenge and hers being lands and money.

  Defeated, I looked at Herrick and growled, “Would you like to join me for the ride?”

  He smiled, ignoring the fact the request was spoken through my bared teeth. “Yes, that would be lovely. I would enjoy a ride.” My brain whispered I could take him into the forest and Artan could eat him.

  He glanced at his mother again. She nodded subtly, making me sick. Had he actually asked her permission for the ride? I was to marry a man who requested permission from his mother to ride a horse as if he was still coddled by a wet nurse.

  In my opinion, that day had peaked in its ability to constantly turn out worse. But I knew nothing of how bad things could get.

  I turned and stormed from the castle to the grounds full of guests of my father. He had just come back from battle with my brothers, victorious, of course. A border dispute had turned into a small war. They would have a feast, an ideal time for me to meet the young man I would marry.

  When we got close to the stables I noted my father and brothers standing in the yard looking noble, surrounded by the other men of the court. My father watched me storm from the entry of the castle and across the grounds, looking lost in thought for a moment. He tried to smile at me but I huffed, desperate to outrun the nose-picking pup at my heels.