“You didn’t make it to class. I was worried that your defeat might have pushed you to do something extreme,” he said, but I could tell he was teasing me.
I sat back down against the tree and shook out the blanket. “Losing to you is commonplace here. If everyone tried to end their life because you won at something, no one would be standing.”
He laughed and it shocked me so much that I froze with the blanket midway to my shoulders and stared at him. I had never heard him laugh before. It was an excellent laugh.
“I didn’t know you had such a good sense of humor,” he told me.
“There’s a lot that you don’t know about me.”
“Why are you out here?” he asked.
I looked down at my blanket and then back up at him. “Sleeping.”
He sat down against the tree he was leaning on and asked, “Bad dreams?”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything else. I did not want to discuss what happened in them, especially not with him.
“I never knew that you were so good at archery,” he commented.
I settled the blanket around my shoulders and said, “You don’t seem to notice much.”
He smiled and I wished that I could see him smile more often. It was breathtaking.
“I notice more than you think. For example I noticed that you were driving your carriage part of the way here today.”
I gasped and stared at him in disbelief. “I did no such thing. A lady would never…”
“You don’t need to play lady for me, Serra. Like I said, I notice more than you think I do,” he said and interrupted my lie.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I begged.
“Who would believe me?” he asked with a laugh.
“It’s nice to hear you laugh,” I whispered, “and see you smile. You’re always so solemn here.”
“This isn’t exactly my favorite place,” he commented, but the shock on his face at my words was priceless.
“What is your favorite place?” I asked curiously.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I can’t tell you everything about myself. Then I would no longer be a mystery that you want to unravel.”
Oh, I wanted to unravel him, but not how he thought.
“Are you going to stay here until I go back?” I asked nervously.
“It seems like a good spot to nap,” he said without opening his eyes, “And if something tries to eat you, I can protect you.”
I snorted and he cracked an eye open.
“What?” he asked.
“If something tried to eat me, it would most likely eat you as well.”
“It would try. Plus, I would never let it eat you first.”
“Well, you do seem pretty grisly so it might give me enough time to escape while it chewed on you.”
He dropped his head and the frown and furrowed brows were incredibly sexy. I laughed and the frown disappeared. “You’re not a very nice lady.”
“You said I didn’t have to be a lady with you,” I reminded him.
He looked at me in silence a moment and asked, “How long have you been having nightmares?”
“A week or so,” I admitted despite wondering why I was being so honest with him.
“Have you been sleeping at all?” he asked.
“Please, don’t tell anyone,” I pleaded, “I don’t want Mother to use her sleeping potions on me. I feel like a zombie when she makes me take them.”
“Your secrets are safe with me.”
And despite hardly knowing him, I trusted him.
“What are you nightmares about?”
“My…betrothed,” I admitted quietly.
“Who are you betrothed to?”
My entire body seized up as his face popped up in my head. Barnaby, the Marquess, was the ugliest man I had seen. He had no manners and despite going to a school similar to Brevard, he was very uneducated.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” I whispered around the lump in my throat.
“Has he hurt you?” he asked me in a dangerously quiet tone.
I shook my head. “I’ve only met him twice.”
“I’m sorry that I brought it up,” he whispered.
I took a deep breath and forced the feelings down into the box I kept them in. “It is fine. I need to get used to answering that question without falling apart at some point.”
“Serra,” he whispered, “Do…”
“Serra!” Tanya yelled, “It’s time for lunch.”
I stood, folded my blanket back into my bag, and looked at Hadyn. Why was he talking to me? Why was he suddenly friendly? “Thank you for your concern about my safety,” I said quietly, “I’ll see you in the next class.”
I spun around and jogged away from him. That was the weirdest interaction I had had all year. I broke through the trees at the side of the library and Tanya spun around in shock. “Where were you?”
“Taking a nap,” I admitted.
Hadyn walked out from the same spot as me and I clenched my jaw as Tanya’s eyes widened. “A nap, huh?”
I grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the food hall. “He came out there to check on me.”
“Hadyn did? Hadyn? The one who never talks to anyone came out into the forest while you were sleeping to check on you?” she acted like I was lying yet she had seen him walk out after me.
I nodded. “I know it’s a bit strange.”
“What did he say?” she asked.
For some reason I did not want to tell her. I wanted to keep our conversation a secret. “He just said he was worried because I didn’t make it to class and that I shouldn’t be alone in the trees.”
“Wow.”
“I know it is weird, right?” I asked.
We took a seat at one of the empty tables and a servant brought out plates of food for us.
“What else?” she asked.
“That was it,” I lied.
She did not look like she believed me, but she left it alone and we ate in silence. As we were eating, I realized something… If he had seen me driving the carriage, then he had been in the slums. Why was he in the slums? He lived on the other side of the town.
I glanced up and found him staring at me while drinking from his goblet. Who was he really?
We did not talk the rest of the day and as I lay down that night, I slept peacefully with only dreams of Hadyn.
CHAPTER TWO
The night’s rest helped, but my backlog of sleep was too great so I still felt exhausted. I snuck out of Ms. Emers class and fell asleep in the trees again. My dreamless sleep was uninterrupted and I felt almost normal when I awoke. I stretched my arms up over my head and squealed happily.
“That was the cutest thing I have ever seen you do,” Hadyn said from in front of me.
I opened my eyes and stared at him in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
“Protecting you,” he answered.
“I don’t need protecting,” I said despite the voice in the back of my head saying we enjoyed him protecting us.
“There are wild animals out here,” he reminded me.
“Perhaps it would be better that way,” I whispered to myself.
“What?” he asked and stalked over to me. “Don’t say something like that again.”
I stood up, furious with him. “Don’t you dare try to order me around!”
“What could be so terrible in your life that you would say something like that?” he asked, enraged. His eyes were shining so bright that I thought they might burn me if he kept staring at me like that. “What could a Lady like you know about a hard life?”
I was privileged and I knew that, but there were some things that the lower classes had that I would never enjoy. Like love. I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to tell him exactly what I was worried about, but I figured he would be like every other Elite and remind me that as a woman it was my duty to bear children.
I walked away from him without a word. I did not need to be chastised by him.
I got that enough from Mother.
“Serra, wait,” he called and jogged to catch up to me. “I’m sorry, I…”
“There are things that you will never understand,” I spat at him, “There are things beyond my control and that I would gladly give up my title and privilege to avoid. I cannot though. I can’t control it and it is not fair of you or anyone else to try to make me feel bad about wishing that I could.”
He blinked at me in surprise and did not talk.
“Just leave me alone, Hadyn. I have accepted my fate and I will not be cowardly enough to take my life. That does not mean that I can’t wish it was different.”
I walked away from the stunned jerk and had one of the school’s carriages take me home, feigning sickness. If that idiot did not stop following me when I left, people at school would start to talk and rumors would spread. I could not have that. Rumors spread outside of the school faster than a plague in a monastery.
I needed to find a new place to nap tomorrow.
My sleep was fitful that night and the maids looked deeply concerned when they helped me get ready the next morning. I did not drive the carriage or talk to anyone, not even Tanya as I went through the school day. I caught Hadyn looking at me a few times, but since I did not go for a nap that day, he did not have time to talk to me alone.
I had another sleepless night and another silent day before the maids ratted me out to Mother. She forced the potion on me and the next day I was in full zombie mode. The teachers did not call on me and as I shuffled to and from classes, Tanya stayed at my side. She had seen me like this a few times before so she understood.
I was walking out of the food hall when I heard Hadyn whispering to someone. “Why is she acting like this today?”
“It’s the side effects to the sleeping potion her Mother makes,” Tanya replied.
They were talking about me, but my brain would not react other than to note it and keep moving. I walked right by them, but could not even lift my eyes from the ground to see more than their legs.
“Ready for another fun class?” Tanya asked me in a chipper voice as she joined me.
“Hm,” I replied and trudged forward.
I was finally snapping out of the stupor on the carriage ride back home. I climbed up onto the driver’s seat next to Gustaf, but did not take the reins. The cold wind felt good against my skin and helped clear my head a bit more.
“Feeling more like yourself?” he asked softly.
I nodded. “I hate those potions.”
“You were looking mighty dreary,” he commented.
He was right.
I refused to take her potion again under the guise of feeling better and escaped to the lake behind my house. It was a good three miles from the main house, which meant that Mother could not see me and the servants rarely wandered out this far, so I could be alone.
I dreamed of Hadyn that night and when I saw him at school the next day, I quickly looked away. I needed to avoid him. No matter how much I wished to talk to him or dream of being with an Elite as attractive as him, it would not happen.
I had gotten enough sleep to stay awake in all of the classes and despite not looking at Hadyn once all day, I could feel him looking at me. On the other hand, I could have been incredibly over confident in thinking that a man as handsome as he was could be interested in me.
The next day I arrived early and sat against a lovely oak tree near the building of the first class of the day to wait for others to arrive.
“Good morning, Lady Serra,” Hadyn greeted me as he entered Brevard.
I dipped my head since I was sitting and could not curtsy. “Lord Hadyn.”
He leaned against the wall of the building and folded his arms across his chest. He had large arm muscles that did funny things to my stomach and heart as I looked at them.
“It looks like you were able to avoid the zombie potion,” he commented.
“For today,” I agreed. However, sleep had eluded me again last night.
“Would you go on a walk with me?” he asked.
A walk alone with Hadyn? Well, it was only polite to accept a Lord’s offer. “Certainly milord.” I started to push against the tree to stand up, but he took my hand and pulled me to a standing position. “Thank you.”
He placed my hand on the inside of his arm and walked deeper into the school. He was taller than I thought he would be, my head barely came to his shoulder.
“You are an interesting woman,” he told me.
“Oh? Why is that?” I asked.
“You are the first Lady I have spoken to who was not happy with her fate.”
“Have you spoken to many Ladies?” I asked.
“A few.”
“Perhaps most are not honest with you since it is looked down upon for a woman to not know her place,” I suggested bitterly.
“And what place is that?” he asked softly.
We were at the edge of the field where he had defeated me in archery and without the targets the field looked empty and beautiful with small purple wildflowers sporadically growing throughout it. “As a broodmare,” I responded in a whisper.
His body stiffened, but he did not respond for a long time. “A Lady runs the house,” he said, “There is more than just…”
“No, we are broodmares. A Lady who cannot bear heirs is less and will be outcast from the other Ladies. She is flawed. We do not choose our husbands. We do not get to choose who shares our bed. We are sold to the highest bidder by our parents and forced to perform, whether we wish to or not. We are slaves given shiny trinkets as payment. We are hardly better than whores. At least a whore can turn a man away if he is too vile.”
“What would you do if you were not a Lady?” he asked me after a long silence.
“Travel the world,” I said dreamily. “Learn new languages. Fall in love.”
“And you would never bear children?”
“Of course I would, but with a man I loved.” I had said too much. I was a fool. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I should not have said those things.”
I tried to pull away from him, but he held me firm. “Don’t apologize for being honest with me. Ever.”
“We should head back,” I whispered and looked up to find him smiling at me.
“You are fascinating, Serra.”
“Thank you,” I whispered since I was not sure what else to say.
We walked back to the front of the school and Tanya waited for me beside my bag. “I got worried that you sleep walked and got lost,” she told me and glanced at Hadyn before looking at me with lifted brows.
“We arrived early so we went for a walk,” I told her.
“How nice,” she commented and linked arms with me. “Details later.”
“None to give,” I lied and grabbed my bag. I entered the room and Hadyn never took his eyes off me. What could he think of me? The things I said to him were how I truly felt, but I was not supposed to admit them aloud.
I fell asleep in Ms. Emers’ class, but Tanya covered for me and pretended to be me while lying that the lump on my desk was her bag.
At the end of the day as we walked to the carriages I said, “I owe you, my friend.”
She hugged me and said, “Keep talking to Hadyn and give me the details and I will call it a draw.”
I laughed at her and climbed into the carriage where my smile disappeared. I did not want to tell her about him. I felt like our interactions were private, personal. Mother locked herself in a room with several others with the Gift of magic, which meant I must stay away. I had no Gift and that depressed me very much.
“What’s your name?” I asked the maid who was helping me out of my corset. She had been here over a week and I planned to tell my Mother to keep her.
“Margery.”
“I’ve appointed you my handmaiden, Margery.”
“Thank you, milady.”
“Can you draw me a bath, Margery?”
“At once, milady.”
She hurried to
the bathing chambers while I stared at myself in the floor to ceiling mirror in my room. The mirror had been a gift from Father and had tiny vines etched into the edges of the glass.
My ribs were beginning to show and my eyes looked sunken in. I needed to eat more, but eating required more energy than I liked to waste. Tanya promised to ask her healer for a sleeping potion to give to me in hopes that it would not turn me into a zombie like Mother’s did. I drank the potion to lessen my dark eyes and went to the bath chambers where Margery helped me into the hot tub. She scrubbed my hair diligently and then I scrubbed my body.
What was Hadyn up to? He did not talk to anyone else at Brevard that I saw. He had only spoken to Tanya that once to ask about my zombie impersonation. He knew I was betrothed so surely he wasn’t trying to win my favor to take my hand.
I arrived to school early again and Hadyn was already there. He took my hand, set it on his arm without a word, and then started walking. I would not have denied him anyway, but it was rude not to ask if I wanted to walk with him.
“What troubles you so early, milord?” I asked him quietly.
The birds were waking in the trees and squirrels rushed to gather the last food for winter.
“The things you said last time we spoke have been stuck in my mind,” he admitted.
“I am sorry. They should never have been spoken. I…”
“Do you believe what you said about your place, applies the same to a Princess or a Queen?” he asked.
This was dangerous territory. “I would never speak ill of our Princess or Queen,” I replied cautiously.
“Please speak honestly with me. I have told no one what you said and I will tell no one your answer now.”
I stared into his eyes and despite worrying my head would be detached from my body by the end of the week, I wanted to believe him. “No. I think the Queen does many things for us and although she does bear heirs for the King, it is not her main obligation. The Princess as well, if we had one currently. They are required to take care of so many things and attend functions and listen to the people. They are the ones who discuss the people’s worries with the King and try to find balance. They are two who every Lady wishes to be.”
Lady Serra and the Draconian Page 2
