"I don't know how much more I can take, Yuri."
A long, regret-filled sigh echoed in the stillness. The mattress dipped beneath Yuri's weight as he took a seat beside her. "Times are dark for all of us, dear sister. But you must be strong. This will all be over soon."
Although she heard her brother's words, tried to take them to heart, a tremor of helplessness and resentment vibrated deep inside her. "By the Goddess, I'm the Queen of this horde. I should be able to eradicate Lotharus with no more than a flick of my wrist. Yet we play this game of cloak-and-dagger and, at times, I feel I'm losing."
As he had when she was young, Yuri wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to his chest in a comforting embrace. Catija fell against him willingly. Slow and gentle, his fingers brushed her hair. The tender act calmed her nerves, a palpable dichotomy to the panic and fear pounding in her chest.
"Yuri, he cannot find that crystal first. Alexia must possess it. I keep trying to push her, to goad her into getting her hands on that stone, but it's not working. I am at the end of my reign and care not what they do to me. But I don't want them to kill her."
"And I don't want them to kill you," he said, kissing the top of her head.
Catija opened her mouth to tell him she'd almost prefer death, but stopped herself. The words would do nothing except hurt him, and she'd done enough of that to last them both a lifetime. Instead, she stared straight ahead and struggled to concentrate on her next move. However, a dense fog swirled in her mind these days, making it hard to think and almost impossible to concentrate. Her vision blurred as she tried to focus on the next move Lotharus had planned, until Catija saw nothing but clouded fears for her daughter. But beneath the tide of worry, an undercurrent of pride flowed fast and strong.
"At least Alexia is not fooled by him," she said, mindlessly rubbing the velvety fabric of Yuri's lapel between her fingers.
"She is very intelligent," he murmured, a smile in his voice. "Like her mother."
"No," Catija replied. "She's smarter than I. Not once has Alexia been taken in by him, believed his lies." She shook her head, annoyed at her stupidity and weakness.
Admittedly, Catija had been reckless and brutal in her youth, spurred on by a wicked family and more than her fair share of demented lovers. Although she'd been too drunk on power, too blind to see it then, she knew now how foolish she'd been. Instead of laying the foundation for those who would follow her, she had spent her early days as ruler gorging on vices, flaunting her cruelty like a preening peacock and placating various men with what seemed like harmless ranks of power beneath her.
Catija could no longer remember many things. Yet she recalled the day she had realized her life was a finite thing. A predetermined cycle with, not only an end, but a specific day her life as she'd been living it would end.
On her daughter, Alexia's, ascension day.
She realized on that day that she would not be passing the proverbial torch or even a slim version of a legacy on to her child, but likely her demise. She may as well have clothed her in a burial shroud.
"Goddess, I hate what I've done. Hate the way I have to treat her. The way she looks at me. But if Lotharus ever suspected her, if she ever found out, he would..."
"Shh," Yuri murmured, his long fingers continuing their lazy glides through her hair. "That is not going to happen."
Disbelieving, Catija shook her head. "Between hurting Alexia and Lotharus's draughts, it's killing me." Catija licked her lips, tasting the horrid truth upon them.
"Yuri, I..." She swallowed. "I think he's killing me. Slowly."
The hand in her hair stilled, his entire body tensing at her admission. Before Catija could blink, Yuri shifted to kneel before her. His hands gripped her upper arms, forcing her to look at him.
"Sister..."
"No, please. Just listen," she interrupted, knowing she didn't have the strength to argue. "The ascension is only days away. If something happens to me before then, you must promise you'll take care of Alexia."
Yuri sighed, pausing for only a heartbeat before he clasped her face, framing it in his grip. Dark and glistening, his eyes bored into hers. "With everything I am, I swear. I will keep her safe. I will look out for her as I always have you, no matter what happens."
At his fiercely whispered vow, a smile parted her lips.
"I believe you, brother."
And why wouldn't she? Yuri had already proved he'd do anything to help her. Already made the greatest sacrifice she could ever think of. Once more, Yuri took a seat next to her. Again, he let his fingers continue their lazy path through her hair. However, Catija could not relax this time. Instead, the prick of conscience's needle stabbed the center of her heart. The unspeakable truth of what she'd forced him to do those years ago bled out before her.
"I have so many wrongs to right, Yuri. I do not think I can ever fix them all."
Catija tilted her chin to look at him. His jaw set in a firm line, his pensive gaze focused somewhere straight ahead, every handsome feature of his face was taut with unspoken emotion.
"Especially not the unspeakable wrong I caused you."
Yuri blinked, his stern facade cracking at her words. "You're rectifying that now," he replied, dropping his focus to the ground.
"Yes. But is it too little, too late?"
His gaze snapped to hers, warmth and compassion glowing behind his dark eyes. "No, Cat. It's never too late to make amends."
Catija nodded and rested her head back on his shoulders, allowing herself one more moment in her big brother's arms. One more second of letting the pressure, the fear, the uncertainty fade away before she had to once again put on the persona she'd been destined to wear since birth.
The music in the background began to fade. A sense of panic flared to life inside Catija. Her heart beat faster and a cloak of dread tightened around her. She gripped his shirt, clutching him tight as if he might disappear if she let go.
"You kept your promise. You kept them safe. All of them." Although she spoke plainly, she couldn't disguise the question in her voice, didn't mask it from him.
He offered a rueful smile that didn't quite reach his raven-hued eyes. And again part of her wondered how much her tasks had cost him.
"Yes, my Queen," he answered.
The music abruptly ended. Loud cracks and pops took its place as the needle repeatedly scratched across the golden surface at the center of the playing disc. Catija jumped at the sound. Blinking, she shook her tired and groggy head, as if she'd woken from an impenetrable slumber. For a moment, an overwhelming sense of loss ripped through her. Catija glanced to her left and then right, looking for Yuri, even though she knew she sat alone in her bedchamber.
Always alone.
Exhausted, she pushed off the bed, her legs shaky as she stepped to the trunk. Gingerly, she lifted the needle off the disc and set it in its cradle. The crackling noises stopped and once again a cold stillness blanketed her chamber. Catija reached down, her fingers grazing over the smooth top of the disc.
Play this when you feel lost or alone and know I will always be with you.
A wet tear slipped over her cheekbone and down her face. She hated how bone-weary and drained she'd become. Hated how she had no idea if Yuri actually visited her when she played his disc, or if she had gone mad and her addled brain fabricated their meetings. But most of all, she hated herself. Hated how the sins of her past came back to haunt her and, worse, affected those she most cherished and loved.
"Don't worry, brother," she said, wiping away the tear with the back of her hand. "I, too, shall keep my promise."
HE KNEW.
Those two words repeated in a disturbing cadence with each breath Alexia drew since she had left Lothar us's chamber. That dragon knew what Lotharus did to her. She'd seen it in those sapphire eyes of his, heard it in the veiled threat that fell from his mouth.
But how?
The answer to that question kept her up well past dawn. Had her changing into her combat gear when sh
e should have been slipping into her nightclothes. Now it had her sneaking below to the dungeons long after everyone else in her compound had gone to bed for the day.
Although some part of her recognized it was illogical and absurd to head below at this hour, she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't sleep, couldn't think, at least not of anything other than the fact that the dragon knew something that she'd never told anyone. Not even her mother.
As she rounded the corner and began her descent into the bowels of the horde, her heart sped up. Ignoring it, she reached around to the small of her back, unsheathing her silver dagger. Although she hoped he'd tell her of his own volition, Alexia was prepared to do anything necessary to get an answer.
At least, that was what she told herself.
Sucking in a breath, she stepped through the threshold of the dungeon and glanced around. The chamber was quiet and pitch-black. Iron shutters blocked the windows and every torch and fire pit had been extinguished, leaving no spot of warmth, no flicker of light. Only the pungent odor of decaying flesh confirmed her location.
"Isn't it early for you to be awake, little vampire?"
She gasped at his voice, low and deep. In the quiet room, it vibrated through her, nearly knocking her off balance. By the sound of it, he sat in the far corner by the wall and not locked in a cell, where she'd assumed he'd be. Lotharus must have had confidence he'd wounded him badly enough to keep him from escaping. Alexia recalled the pure strength in him, the resolve in his eyes, and suddenly wasn't so certain.
She stepped forward. The loud sound of her boots on the stone reverberated through the empty room. Her pulse thumped with each step.
Finally, her vision began to discern shapes in the darkness, aided by the tiniest shaft of sunlight seeping in from a timeworn crack in a side wall. First his outline, then his broad shoulders, his hair and his eyes slowly sharpened into focus. He sat on the ground, his shackled arm resting on his bent knees. Alexia folded her arms across her chest, keeping the dagger in front of her forearm where he could see it. The moment she knew he had, she notched up her chin and summoned the courage to ask what she'd came down here to find out.
"You know what he's done to me." It came out more as a statement than a question. She noticed his eyes widen before they narrowed. "How?" she asked.
"Why should I tell you?"
"Because I want to know."
"Then set me free."
The question took her aback, as she'd fought for his freedom only hours ago. "No," she managed to answer, amazed at the icy composure in her voice.
"But that's what I want."
Alexia felt a smile tug her lips, but she contained it. Her fingertips tapped on the weapon's handle. As she'd hoped, the movement drew his gaze and he nodded to the blade.
"Are you going to use that?"
She took a deep breath and tried to remain convincingly hostile. "Only if you don't tell me what I came down here to hear."
At her words, he tipped his chin back, resting his head on the wall behind him. "I can tell you, but you won't believe me."
"Try me."
He set his gaze on hers, his blue eyes piercing the darkness like a beacon. "I saw it."
CHAPTER SEVEN
"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE," Alexia said with an exhale.
What he'd said could not be true. She didn't believe it for a moment. But when his gaze leveled on hers again, what she thought didn't matter. He believed it. There was no doubt in his cerulean eyes.
"I told you that you wouldn't believe me," he replied, again resting his head back against the wall.
Alexia took in the masculine outline of his face, his jaw, the Adam's apple protruding from his bowed neck. She licked her lips. Her gaze slid lower, to the wounds on his bare torso. The injuries appeared raw and aching and she had to look away. Not for the first time, the idea of torture seemed to leave a bad taste in the back of her throat.
Alexia turned, bracing her back on the wall beside him. The cool stones bit the flesh of her back and shoulders. Slumping down, she came to a squat and leaned her head on the dungeon wall, fingering the dagger in her hands.
Use it. Lotharus's voice whispered the order in her mind. She slammed the weapon on the ground beside her, holding it beneath her palm. Lotharus was not here calling the shots. Not today, not right now. This was her chance to do things her way. After all, the dragon didn't have to know she had no intention of using the blade on him. That in reality, she feared that returning him to his kin was her only hope of bringing peace to their clans. That she wanted to keep him alive for the next two days so she could set him free.
Two days.
"So, do you like torture? Is that why you won't answer me?" she asked in the firmest voice she could muster.
"Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing."
His voice rolled through her in a velvety wave and she fought the urge to sigh. "Does it seem that way?"
He turned to face her, a dark brow arched like a bird's wing over his amazing eyes. "You did seem quite comfortable with a flogger, Alexia."
Heat fired inside her at the sound of that rich, deep voice saying her name. "Well," she managed to say, "you dragons seem comfortable with your talons tearing through my kin's flesh."
"Touche," he said with a laugh. She almost mimicked him. But then her mind finally caught up with her body and registered that he had used her name. He knew her name. Yet she did not know his.
"Tell me, dragon. What do they call you?"
At her question, he tossed strands of midnight-black hair from his face, revealing a lopsided smile that looked completely out of place in the dismal surroundings.
"Declan." He lifted his chin an inch, his face sobering. "Declan Black."
Black.
Her eyes widened. Lotharus was right. "That means you are..."
"The new King, yes."
Goddess. Why would he risk telling her? His parents were not just murdered. They had been brutally beaten and tortured for days until they had both died from it.
"I won't tell anyone," she said with a whisper, wishing there was some way she could take away the knowledge from Lotharus and her mother.
When he didn't answer, she looked over at him. Although it was hard to make out every nuance of Declan's facial expression in the dark, if she read him right, he seemed as astonished by her words as she was to have said them. His brow tightened, then relaxed ever so slightly and his face softened. "Thank you."
He said the words as if he'd take any compassion she would bestow on him. This made her wonder. Was he lonely, like her? Did he have friends, family, a wife or a child back home, waiting for him, missing him? She remembered that female he'd been with last night before they caged him. Was she longing for him and he for her?
For the first time Alexia felt wave after wave of remorse, guilt, sadness. Each one lapped as the other ebbed so she never had a moment's peace. It smothered her. Goddess, what was she doing down here?
"I have to go," she said, shifting her feet beneath her to stand.
"Alexia, wait." His hand covered hers. Fingers, long and smooth, slid up her arm before closing around it. She closed her eyes, savoring the tenderness for a split second before she swiveled back around to face him. "What?"
"I know you think me crazy, and I know you have no reason to believe anything I say. But I swear to you, I saw what he did to you."
Alexia's breath hitched to think what he said was true. She tried to pull away, to get away. But his grip on her hand didn't budge. If anything, it tightened.
"I can't explain it," he continued. "But I saw what he did to you with my own eyes."
"Stop," she asked before her throat constricted. She swallowed hard. The knot of embarrassment, guilt and shame was so thick in her throat she nearly choked on it.
Somewhere in her mind, it registered he was rubbing his thumb atop her hand in small, tight circles. She didn't remember when he'd started caressing her, and although she didn't want to admit it, the small
gesture soothed her.
Releasing a groan, she slumped back down on the floor beside him, cradling her head in her hands. He didn't move, or speak. If not for the sound of his deep, even breaths she wouldn't have known he sat directly beside her.
"He should be dead for what he did to me," she finally said. "Would be if anyone knew about it."
Again, the silence stretched on between them.
"I won't tell anyone."
Alexia couldn't help but smile as he mimicked her promise to him. With a resigning sigh, she laid her head on her crossed arms and looked over at him. "So, why do they call you Declan?"
He glanced over at her, surprise evident in his eyes. Then they softened slightly, the blue of them becoming sharper with his small grin. "You mean instead of the traditional dragon lord names?"
She nodded.
"My father was named after one of our human ancestors from the fourth century and my mother insisted they keep the tradition." He shrugged, his lower lip bowing down. Her eyes lingered on its smooth, full outline, her body tingled remembering how delicious it had felt pressed against hers. "Since I was not dragon born, they did not have a hard time passing it through council. My sister, however, was not so lucky to escape the dragon custom."
Alexia heard everything, but her mind snatched on one fact and held. "So, you are not dragon born, yet you are a dragon lord?"
"Aye."
"Even though you're only a half-breed?"
Anger flickered behind his eyes and she instantly regretted her choice of words. "I'm sorry... I didn't--" she said before taking a deep breath and releasing it. "It's just that you're so strong."
The corner of his lips curved. "The Black line is like that. If you think I'm strong, you should have met my father."
A sad laugh forced out of him before his face visibly hardened, pain and loss etching his handsome features.
"I never did, you know. Meet your parents," she heard herself saying. "Lotharus and my mother kept them a secret from me. They were gone before I even knew they were here."
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