by Mina Carter
Regardless of his familial feelings for her though, he wasn’t about to throw himself under the bus.
“Hell no,” he growled, his eyes flaring with his dragon. It wanted to pick an insipid society female whose only conversation was hair, makeup or designer handbags even less than he did. Instead, it was more interested in tracking the Blaise group and trying to tempt the little mouse’s dragon out to play.
“What?” Cadeyra turned, surprise written on her small, heart-shaped face. For a moment Calan wished he were Sawyer, the biggest amongst the blacks and the only one who could silence their headstrong queen with a glance. A retired general, he had both the military experience and an air of command that ensured even Cadeyra listened to him.
“I. Will. Not. Pick. A. Mate. At. The. Ball.” Calan ground out, his teeth gritted. “You want an heir, cousin mine, you’re gonna need to birth one yourself.”
2
They hadn’t stopped talking about the duke since the queen’s fitting. A week later, Saskia was ready to explode. She’d heard everything she could ever want to know about Calan, Duke of Vacossin, and several things she didn’t. He was, apparently, the most sought-after bachelor in dragon high society, and Goranka’s knowledge of him and his activities rivaled that of any in-depth Secret Service surveillance. From who he trained with as one of the fabled Council of Twelve, the mighty black dragons who protected them all from rogue dragons, to who he’d danced with at Duke Harrington’s ball last week. She wouldn’t be surprised to discover her stepmother even knew the guy’s inside leg measurement, so complete was her stalker-level knowledge.
Even worse, both the Blaise girls were convinced the duke had only eyes for them. As far as Saskia had seen, though, he’d paid no attention to either of them. Instead, he’d been more interested in stealing gloves from her and speaking to the queen.
Keeping her thoughts to herself, she bent her head over her work, slender fingers setting delicate stitches into the silk as her stepsisters twirled around the room in their completed gowns.
“He no doubt noticed my elegant grace,” Alexandria declared, twirling like a fairy princess in the middle of the room. Her gown was blue to match her eyes, with a tight bodice and full floor-length skirts. It would have been elegant and classy, but she’d had Saskia lower the neckline. Her breasts all but spilled over the top, and the mesh panels at the sides left nothing to the imagination.
“Ha! Grace?” Floriana snorted, hip bumping her sister out of the way so she could look in the floor-length mirror on the wall. “You’re like a damn fairy elephant. No, he was struck by my figure.” She paused to pose in the mirror, leaning forward to pout. It was supposed to be a seductive expression, but it looked more like she’d been hit in the face by a bus. Like Alexandria’s, her pink gown had started life as the epitome of class until she’d insisted on the split seam naval neckline, and the crystals encrusting what was left of the bodice. She looked like a cross between a circus performer and a glitter ball.
Saskia dropped her gaze and tried not to flinch at what she’d had to do to her designs. The alterations both had requested had taken beautiful gowns and made them cheap. Now they looked more like a couple of wannabe reality stars than ladies about to attend a royal ball.
The queen’s was already done, packed up and delivered this morning, which had left Saskia just her family’s gowns to do today. Just three, not four. Saskia wasn’t going, not that she’d expected to anyway. Her stepsisters had taken great pleasure in pointing out the invite was for “the Blaise family.” Saskia wasn’t a Blaise, she was an Evans, and therefore, not included.
She bit back a small sigh as she set the last stitches in Goranka’s gown. She would have liked to go to the ball… No, make that she would have loved to go to the ball. To see all the noble women there, the queen and her ladies in waiting, in glorious gowns from designers around the world… It was her idea of heaven. Not so much the dancing and the small talk, and everything else, but to watch as they danced. If she concentrated hard enough, she could just remember the sweep of her mother’s skirts against the floor as she came to kiss Saskia good night before heading out with her father.
She closed her eyes for a second, pulling the cherished memory from the depths of her mind. The warmth of her bed, the merry crackle of the fire in the grate, the smell of her mother’s perfume as she leaned over, and the soft brush of her curled hair against Saskia’s cheek as she kissed her good night.
“Owwwwh! What the fuck?”
Floriana’s irate squeak pulled Saskia out of the memory and her eyes snapped open. Her stepsister stood in front of the mirror, a look of abject horror and pain on her face as she held her hand dramatically to her side.
“My darling, what’s the matter?” Instantly, Goranka was on her feet and hurried to her daughter.
“Something stabbed me!” Floriana’s voice rose in volume, a high-pitched warble as she twisted and turned, finally pulling something small from the depths of her bodice.
Saskia almost groaned as the light caught it, and she realized what it was. A pin. She dropped her gaze, searching out the pinwheel on her lap. It was the same one she always used, each pin carefully accounted for in and out. She’d long ago learned that her stepmother would not buy her replacements if she lost any of her dressmaking supplies. Only two pins were missing from the wheel, both tacked in the fabric on her lap. It wasn’t, couldn’t be, one of hers.
As she looked up, though, the protest died on her lips at the triumph that glittered in Floriana’s eyes. It was a setup. Floriana had always hated her, probably far more than even her sister did, and that was saying something.
Floriana pointed at her. “She left it in there deliberately!”
“Well? Did you?” Goranka demanded as she turned toward Saskia, her eyes starting to glow with her dragon.
Saskia surged to her feet, her scissors and tape clattering to the floor, and shook her head as the three women advanced.
“No… no, I didn’t. I still have all of mine, I swear!” she whispered, Goranka’s gown still in her hands as she backed away.
“Look…” She grabbed the small container and held it out. “They’re all here.”
“Two missing!” Floriana screeched, wincing as she held her side. “There are two missing… she’s left another one in here!”
“No… they’re here—” Saskia started to lift the gown to show them but it was too late.
“STUPID GIRL!” Goranka bellowed, smoke billowing from her nostrils, and lashed out.
The vicious slap caught Saskia on the side of the head, making her stagger back. Before she could say anything, they were on her, slapping and kicking… pulling her hair. Desperately she tried to cover her head and face but they were too fast, their dragon-enhanced strength ensuring that each blow was hard and bruising.
“Perhaps…this…will…teach…you…to…be…more…careful,” Goranka muttered between slaps as Saskia cowered in front of her tormentors. Tears sprang to her eyes but she knew better than to let them fall or to cry out. That would only make things worse.
The beating didn’t last long. A minute or so later, Floriana whirled away, smoothing her hands down over her slim hips as she looked down on Saskia with contempt. One eye already swelling, she tried not to meet their eyes. She hunched her shoulders as she tried to pretend she wasn’t there. Blood dripped from her lip to the floor and Alexandria pulled her skirts back with a gasp, as though Saskia was bleeding just to get it on her gown and ruin it.
“Better get that cleaned up, girl!” she hissed and stormed away. “Mother, I need to touch up my hair!”
“Well, do hurry up,” Goranka trilled, a note of irritation in her voice. “The limo picks us up in an hour and I know how long it takes you to get it looking perfect.”
The two sisters swept from the room, Floriana moving easily now even though less than five minutes ago she’d been dying of a mortal wound. Goranka leaned down and scooped up the gown that had been dropped in the scuff
le. All pretense of civility fled from the older she-dragon’s face.
“Think yourself lucky this wasn’t damaged or I’d cast you out. Now, get on with the Carlson order while we’re out. I want it done before you finish for the night. And don’t forget the cleaning. If the place isn’t perfect when I get back, there will be hell to pay. Understand?” She sneered as she looked down at Saskia, sharp eyes noting every patch and darn in Saskia’s dress and the holes in her shoes. “Why I bother with such a pathetic creature as you, I don’t know. It would have been better if you’d died with your father.”
Without waiting for an answer, Goranka swept out of the room with the scarlet gown over her arm. Finally Saskia allowed herself to sink to the carpeted floor. Her fingers reached for her necklace again, twisting gently around the thin gold like a caress.
A single tear rolled down her cheek. Her stepmother had no idea how many nights she’d wished the same thing; that she’d been in the accident that had killed her father.
Anything rather than being left at the mercy of people who didn’t love her.
“Saskia… Saskia, darling…”
The soft voice brought Saskia out of her exhausted doze. Tears still stained her cheeks where she’d cried herself out after Goranka and her daughters had left. She sat up, looking around in confusion. She’d thought she was alone in here. She should be alone in here. Her stepmother refused to hire any help—not with Saskia around to do the chores.
“W-who’s there?”
She brushed the tears from her face with the back of her hand. For a second her dragon’s temper flared, a split second of anger at herself for being such a freaking walkover. She was the daughter of Johnathon and Rosalina Evans, two dragons with blood so pure they could trace their lineage back millennia. Her father had been a blue, almost verging on sapphire, while her mom had been—
Despondent, she slumped down on the worn carpet again. Therein lay the problem. It didn’t matter what her parents had been. They were both dead and their lineage had died with them. Because she wasn’t a dragon… Not really.
Reaching up, she almost touched the necklace next to her mom’s, but pulled away at the last moment. She was born a weredragon, but she might as well not have been. Her dragon was unstable, but thankfully weak. She’d only ever shifted once, when she was fourteen, and had nearly burned down the entire house. Thanks to suffering with migraines for years, her memory of the incident was patchy and incomplete.
All she could remember was pain and fear, both her own and someone else’s… that of her newly awoken dragon. After she’d spewed fire everywhere, she’d passed out. When she’d finally come to, days later, her stepmother had called a warlock in and she had a spelled collar on. Since then her dragon had been dormant, locked in sleep by magic. No danger to anyone.
She closed her eyes again, thoughts of the ball rolling through her mind. Her imagination ran amok. It would be held in the main ballroom of the palace, a place she’d never been, but that didn’t matter. Ballrooms were just rooms like any other. They had four walls, a floor and a ceiling. Mentally, she sketched them in, adding columns and then drapes at the floor to ceiling windows that fluttered gently in the evening breeze.
People filled her imaginary ballroom—men in evening attire and women in elegant gowns, not the cheap trashy outfits like her stepsisters. Chandeliers overhead cast delicate light on the dancers as they moved, catching and glinting off jewels wound in the hair of the female guests and around their necks. A small smile curved her lips as she watched the dancers, entranced. She’d even started to sway with the music when she realized she could hear it.
Startled, she opened her eyes to see the dancers and ballroom all around her. But they weren’t real and solid. Instead, they were like ghosts, the furniture on the other side of the room visible through them. As she watched, a couple twirled and danced away, disappearing through the wall into the next room.
“Wouldn’t you like to be there?” The voice was just as ghostly as the dancers, but Saskia still heard it, turning on her heel to find a woman standing behind her.
Petite and slender, she was dressed in a deep purple gown similar to the others in the “room.” With hair as dark as Saskia’s drawn into an elegant updo with amethysts wound through the curls, she looked like she’d stepped right from the pages of a regency novel. Unlike the other dancers, though, she looked right at Saskia.
“You can see me?” Saskia asked in surprise. None of the others had even glanced at her twice, at least two almost running into her. She’d moved out of the way quickly, not wanting to find out whether they’d dance right through her. Invisible, even to ghosts… Sounded about right.
The woman’s eyes flared, the little flash of violet proving she was a dragon shifter. “Of course I can. I’ve always watched over you.”
“Watched over me? Like a guardian angel? Or a fairy godmother?” An eerie sense of familiarity pulled at Saskia, but she was quite sure she’d never seen the woman before in her life. She was so beautiful. Saskia would have been sure to remember her.
“You could call it that, yes.” The woman nodded, a slight smile curving her lips. At the corners there was a hint of fang, further confirming her status as a shifter, probably a pure-blood one who didn’t have any issues shifting. The sharp thought came out of nowhere, from that place deep within where she kept her temper locked down.
“Well, not being funny, but so far you’re doing a shit job of it,” Saskia sniffed. So what if she pissed off a supernatural creature? She didn’t really care anymore. What could a ghost do to her that hadn’t been done already?
Her fairy godmother looked uncomfortable. “I know. I’m sorry, but I’m not supposed to interfere…”
“But?” Saskia’s eyebrow winged up. There had to be a but. Otherwise she wouldn’t have shown herself.
The dragon drew herself upright, her eyes flashing again. “But you need to go to this ball. You shouldn’t miss it.”
Saskia’s breath caught at the possibility, but just as quickly her mood crashed. “Why? I mean… I have too much to do here. If I don’t get the order done…” She motioned toward the pile of work on the chair by the small fireplace, wincing at the thought of Goranka’s reaction if it wasn’t complete by the time she returned.
“Oh!” The woman’s twinkling laugh filled the room, light and melodic. “That we can sort.”
The dancers and ballroom around them faded, leaving just the two of them in the tatty workroom. With the loss of the other figures, the dragon woman—dragon godmother?—seemed more solid.
With a smile she motioned toward the pile of unfinished garments. Magic shimmered in the air for a second and then, as Saskia watched, the corner of one sleeve edged up. It was followed by the rest of the dress, then the one under it, and under that until they all danced in the air.
“Oh my god…” Saskia gasped, looking between the clothes and the woman…ghost, whatever she was… at her side. Another wave of her hand and the dresses shimmied, golden lines drawing themselves along the edges and creating seams as they went. “How are you doing that?”
“Magic, my dear. All it takes is a little tweak here and there.” Behind her, the finished dresses folded themselves and dropped into a neat little pile back on the chair. Her “godmother” turned toward Saskia, a speculative gleam in her eyes. “Right. Let’s get you sorted, shall we? Because one thing’s for sure. You can’t go to the ball dressed like that.”
3
He fucking hated these things.
Calan growled to himself and drained his glass, well aware that his thunderous expression ensured that the other guests at the ball gave him a wide berth. So they should. He wasn’t in the mood for either company or the simpering, airheaded females his cousin had been throwing at him all evening. And if they weren’t under foot, they were gathered in clutches, blocking the walkways around the edges of the dance floor and waiting for an unwary male to stumble into them. When they did, the groups snapped shut like
some sort of communal Venus fly trap, and the guy was doomed.
As if the women weren’t enough, the males were just as bad. Already he’d been accosted three times tonight. Two had been ambitious minor lords looking for his support with some bill or other they planned to put before his cousin… like his patronage would make any difference. Cadeyra very much made her own mind up, and woe betide the male who thought otherwise. He snorted to himself, studying the bottom of his empty glass.
Now if one of them was looking for support to develop a self-filling glass? That he could get behind, especially for events like this. A high and steady blood-alcohol level was the only thing keeping him sane, but it meant he needed to carry on drinking. His dragon was being an asshole and purged the alcohol all too quickly, which meant he lost the happy fuzz that was the only thing stopping him from ripping the head off the next idiot who approached him. Especially if, like Lord Dungallan, they wanted to ask him to consider sponsoring one of their younglings onto the Council of Twelve.
“He’s a really, really dark green. Almost black. Isn’t that enough?”
Calan sighed and took another drink. He’d lost count of the times he’d had to explain that nearly black was not black. Every single member of the council was a born black, as were the younglings they took on to train.
Some would be lucky and complete their training, eventually replacing their mentors on the council due to retirement. Most wouldn’t be so lucky and would only gain a seat when their master died. Since blacks tended to be long-lived and bloody hard to kill, no matter how much the feral dragons that plagued the outskirts of their society tried, such openings were few and far between. In fact, deaths during training were more frequent. Trying to explain to ambitious fathers that the training required for blacks was brutal and could indeed result in their offspring’s demise was often met with a blank look and, “Yeah, but it’s not that bad though, is it? They’re not like… in actual danger, are they?”
