by Mina Carter
He dropped like a stone to lie in a crumbled heap at her feet.
Adra poked at his heaped form with a foot, and then stepped over him to approach the dais.
“I trust that was sufficient, Your Majesty?” she asked, performing a small bow. Before she could straighten up, though, there was a tremendous roar behind her.
The entire hall watched in horror as Kalos’ dragon erupted from his fallen human form. He wasn’t a black, but a dark blue-green with scales reminiscent of an oil slick. Makdorian blue. Cadie’s breath caught as the dragon thundered toward Adra, murder in its red eyes. They were supposed to be extinct, along with the other berserk lines.
A woman screamed, Sawyer and Calan throwing themselves toward Cadeyra to protect her as Kalos launched himself. They needn’t have bothered. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, Adra shifted. Her massive dragon form exploded from the tiny, slender human figure to blot out the light from the windows above. Her wings snapped out wide, filling the hall as she roared in challenge. The sound was loud enough to split eardrums and rattle every pane of glass for blocks.
Kalos hit her in mid-air, wrapping his heavily armored body around her slender, more serpentine one, massive jaws punching out as he bit into every surface he could reach. The snap and screech of teeth on hardened scales made Cadie wince internally but she kept her expression level.
Adra, however, barely seemed to notice the bites. Reaching around, she latched on to the wing joint where it emerged from his shoulder and hauled him off her. Shaking her huge, wedge-shaped head, she shook Kalos like a dog shook its prey, and threw him at the opposite wall. He hit the pillar hard, the stone cracking under the weight of his body.
Before he could slide down it, Adra was on him. Launching herself through the air with strong beats of her wings, she hit him in the center of his chest with all four of her taloned feet, rising above him with her mouth open as her throat glowed with her fire…
Cadie surged to her feet.
“ENOUGH!” she commanded, giving voice to her dragon. Even in the midst of her battle rage, the female black obeyed. She didn’t lose eye contact with her prey, but no fire emerged from her open mouth.
Cadeyra turned to look at Henrick, who looked shell-shocked.
“She was holding back,” he murmured. “All the time, she was holding back. If your female is capable of that, what are the rest like?”
Cadie spread her hand, inviting him to look to the assembled blacks, their expressions as grim and forbidding as her own.
“Most pray they never find out.”
He shouldn’t have kissed her. Really shouldn’t have kissed her.
Sawyer warred with himself in his head as he escorted Cadie to her suite after the ball had ended. After that little display in the throne room, even though Adra had won, he wasn’t taking any chances. Even if Cadeyra was more in danger from him than anyone else.
“You’re very quiet,” she commented quietly as they reached the top of the staircase to the south wing of the palace. Her suite was on the top floor… the entire top floor.
“Thinking about our guest,” he said carefully. “I don’t trust him.”
He shouldn’t have kissed her.
All it had done was ripped away the bandage he’d slapped over his heart, leaving him open and raw to the world. To her.
She snorted, a tiny, inelegant little laugh totally unlike the one she used in public. No, this was a true laugh… from the real woman behind the legend of the White Queen.
“Yeah… you think I trust him either? That’s why we’re in this mess, pretending to be engaged.”
His heart almost stopped at her words. He closed his eyes as they walked along the corridor toward her bedchambers.
“Mess? Is that what you think we have here?”
Drawing to a stop, he looked down at her. Her face was turned up, the moonlight from the large windows of the corridor playing over her face. Something lurked in the backs of her large, golden eyes, but before he could pin it down, it was gone.
“No…” Her voice was soft, a breathy admission as she leaned into him. “I don’t know what we have here.”
Slowly, so as not to startle her or frighten her off, he slid a hand around her waist and pulled her into him. Her back arched a little as she settled against his broad chest, her small hands spreading out over the front of his jacket.
Instantly, he wished the fabric gone, wished… needed to feel the touch of her soft hands against his skin. A shiver worked its way down his spine.
“Neither do I,” he admitted, pleasure the like of which he’d never known filling him at the feel of her in his arms. It was sublime, easing the loneliness in his soul. “But I don’t want it to end.”
She shook her head, the curls that had escaped her elaborate updo dancing over shoulders bared by her ball gown. He reached out to capture one, wrapping it around his finger. The silence stretched out between them… her eyes searching his as he bent his head.
This time he kept control of himself, and the kiss was light and gentle…a mere whisper of skin against skin as he kissed her softly. She was a delight to the senses, his mate, and for a moment he could pretend this was all real, that she wasn’t a queen and he could claim her for real. The memory of her soft skin under his questing fingers when he had her pressed up against the wall tormented him. She hadn’t argued about him never letting her go, his dragon reminded him, pleasure at the closeness of their mate placating the big beast.
With reluctance, he pulled away. Soft little kisses—lingering caresses of his lips against hers—softened the separation, but he wasn’t quite ready to let her go yet, resting his head against hers.
“Neither do I,” she whispered softly, reaching up to brush her fingertips against his stubbled jaw. He nearly lost the ability to think straight.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he rumbled in a low voice, even though all he wanted to do was take her up on the offer, kiss her until she couldn’t think of anything else and get her to agree to be his mate.
But if he clouded her reason, didn’t allow her to think about the ramifications of such a decision, he was being an asshole. Worse… he could trick her into making a decision that would not only affect the two of them but their race as a whole. The reason they were pretending to be engaged in the first place wasn’t lost on him. She couldn’t marry for love… any marriage for a monarch was far more complex than deciding who sat next to whom at the wedding reception.
“I do…” she protested, clutching at his collar as she closed her eyes. “I want to stay here, with you. Forget all about the court, about everyone else. About bloody Henrick.”
He smiled, but the expression was bittersweet. Her words confirmed this between them had an expiry date. Determinedly, he locked away the agony at the thought that one day she would marry, and he would have to see her in some other man’s arms. Right now, she was in his. It would be enough. It would have to be enough.
“Just for a few minutes,” he murmured, smiling as she settled against his chest with a soft sigh. She was so tiny, her head tucked easily under his chin. So tiny and delicate in human form, which made the strength and magnificence of her dragon form all the more surprising. Scaled, she was easily as big as he was. Magically, she was much more powerful.
“Thank you,” she breathed, her hand smoothing over the fabric of his jacket. Sawyer closed his own eyes, the better to savor the moment of closeness before he had to let her go.
Because he had to let her go.
He would let her go because it was best for her.
Even if it killed him in the process.
Chapter 5
Cadeyra’s perfume clung to his jacket long after he’d ushered her into her rooms and nodded to Adra, on duty outside her door. For the moment, he was relieved of overnight guard duties… in some ways the dragon court was as concerned with protocol and appearances as a regency ballroom. There would be no impropriety, no scandal to attach to the qu
een’s name… not as long as he drew breath anyway.
So he walked back to his quarters on the level below, jacket carefully slung over his shoulder. He wouldn’t wash it. Not now. Instead, he would pack it carefully away for when— Instantly, he blanked that thought before it could complete. He had to live in the here and now, or he’d go mad.
Turning the corner, he started down the long corridor toward his rooms at the end. This level, the one just below the queen’s suites, was reserved for the blacks. Some lived here full time. Others only stayed when they were on duty at court. He had an apartment in the city. He needed a place to escape to when the pressures of being near to Cadeyra and not being able to claim her got to him. Because grabbing the queen and hauling her off to his “lair” would not only get him roasted but probably raised from the dead just so they could hang, draw and quarter him.
The corridor was in darkness. Not a problem, blacks saw excellently in the dark, but halfway along the corridor all the hackles rose on the back of his neck. He continued walking, giving no indication that he’d noticed anything out of the ordinary. All the while, his eyes scanned the darkness around him. He couldn’t see anything, even with his enhanced vision, but something lurked in the shadows. And if it was skulking around in secret, he’d lay bets it wasn’t friendly.
The attack came as he neared his door. The shadows on the walls either side of him writhed and solidified into serpentine shapes. He ducked, hitting the floor in a press-up as they struck, hinged jaws snapping together where his head had been a moment before.
He hissed, recognition flowing through him as his attackers drew back into the shadows in the blink of an eye. Basilisks. How the hell had they gotten into the palace? It was warded against such lower level paranormal pests, which meant someone had to have brought them inside in something shielded.
Swearing under his breath, he rolled to his back to avoid another strike. A gout of flame from his part-shifted throat kept one from sinking fangs into his shoulder. It hissed as it pulled back, his fire reflected in its black-on-black eyes. Fucking things were as murderous as sin and twice as deadly. Their venom would put even a big black like him on his back for a week… would kill a weaker dragon.
His blood ran cold. If they got to Cadie in her human form… their venom was fast-acting. It could overwhelm her tiny human body and kill her before she could shift and save herself. Rage burst through him with the force of demonfire, galvanizing his reactions as the one on his left struck again. He threw himself to the side as it punched its fangs into the carpet where his head had been.
Before it could draw back, he lashed out. Talons burst from the ends of his fingers. He caught it at the back of its neck, cutting the head clean off to tumble to the floor. The body writhed and thrashed, spraying him and the walls and floor with black blood. There was no time to stop it ruining the furnishings, though, as he spotted the other one slithering away down the corridor.
“Oi!” he bellowed, surging to his feet and setting off after it at a sprint. A figure appeared at the other end of the corridor, and recognizing Calan, Sawyer yelled out.
“Watch out! Basilisk!”
There was no need for a second warning. Calan roared, sending a gout of flame that blocked the snake’s escape. It slithered sideways, trying to reach one of the air vents by the baseboard.
Sawyer was ready for it, though, launching himself through the air full length. His talons pinned it to the floor just behind the back of its head. It writhed and hissed, trying to strike at the two dragons as black blood pooled beneath it. Finally, its struggles ceased until it lay on the carpet, twitching slightly. In death, its magical ability deserted it, leaving just the body of a large snake.
“There hasn’t been a basilisk reported in this country for nearly fifty years… and we have two working together?” Calan hunkered down and extended a claw to turn the body over. No one wanted to touch a basilisk with their bare hands, not even when they had magic of their own. He looked up and pierced Sawyer with a direct gaze. “And why would they send them after you? Not like they’d be able to kill you before you shifted.”
“I don’t think they were after me. I…” Sawyer sat back, leaning against the wall and ran a hand over his buzzcut hair. “I escorted Cadeyra back to her rooms. I must have had her scent on me.”
Calan’s eyebrow winged up. He knew the situation between the two of them, the real one. Knew that Cadie was Sawyer’s mate and also that she hadn’t recognized him as hers. Not yet, his dragon added hopefully. Sawyer bit back his sigh. After three years, he didn’t hold out much hope that she would ever be struck with the mate bond.
Something of his feelings must have shown on his face. Calan disappeared the snake with a motion of his hands—the brief surge of magic granted by his royal blood rather than the color of his scales—and held his hand out.
“Hang in there, brother. D’Amnayel dragons are… difficult, shall we say?” he said as he pulled Sawyer upright. He was packed with corded muscle so it was testament to the duke’s own strength that he could do it without any strain showing on his face. “They have their heads in the clouds and on the throne too much to pay attention to little things like mates. Our grandfather only realized grandmother was his mate when they were both well into old age.”
Sawyer blinked, surprised but pleased by the revelation.
“Thank you,” he said, honest emotion in his voice. As Cadeyra’s cousin, Calan could have made things really difficult for him. “It means a lot… you know…”
Calan smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re her mate. Why wouldn’t I want the best for my cousin? She has a heavy burden on her shoulders. She deserves a mate who will put her first… above everything.”
Sawyer winced at the reminder of who, and what, Cadeyra was. The queen.
“But… I’m just a commoner. No noble blood in me whatsoever. I’m no—”
“If the words ‘not good enough’ are about to come out of your mouth, I might just finish what these assholes started,” Calan growled, nodding toward the black blood left behind by the basilisks. “You’re a black. More than that, you’re not an asshole. Just being born noble doesn’t protect against that… does it? Our guest is a perfect example.”
He had a point. Sawyer nodded and glanced again at the marks on the walls and carpet. “Back to the case in point. Do we think our esteemed visitors had something to do with this?”
Calan’s expression dropped grim. “Given she has no heir at the moment, it’s highly likely. Not that our princeling would be able to claim the throne directly, but if Cadie dies without an heir and with no other whites… it would force a conclave to decide the next monarch. Then we’re all fucked.”
Her life seemed to be a never-ending procession of balls and meaningless social functions. Cadeyra sat on her throne at one end of the ballroom and watched the court members as they danced on the floor in front of her. The women wore a glittering array of sumptuous gowns and jewels, which contrasted with the stark lines of the formalwear worn by the men.
She should have been paying attention to them all, noticing little things like Lord Asworth’s daughter, a recent debutante who had struggled with her confidence, had blossomed into an outgoing young woman leading her partner enthusiastically around the floor… or that Perratt Kerrister, who had lost his wife just this last year was looking a little low and needed someone to check on him. Instead, Calan’s new mate, Saskia, had taken it upon herself to check on Perratt and Adra was in conversation with Lord Asworth as they both watched his daughter with fond smiles… leaving Cadie to sneak surreptitious glances to a certain tall, broad-shouldered figure on the other side of the hall.
Despite the fact she’d had a chair set out for him just by her throne, opposite an identical one set out for Henrick, he’d still opted for his usual spot propping a wall up on the other side of the throne room. Still, it meant she could watch him at her leisure, admiring the way his jacket fit across his broad chest and shoul
ders, and the way his dress pants clung to powerful thighs.
He’d kissed her again last night.
Shivers rolled through her at the memory, and she had to fight to keep her expression pleasantly neutral. She was a red-blooded woman, after all, under the crown and all the duties that ate away all her time, and he was as sexy as sin.
They were engaged… at least for now, and he was willing. She’d felt evidence of that pressed against her when he’d had his hands under her skirts. Heat burst through her veins. Biting her lip, she reached for her champagne glass. Anything to cool the inferno rolling through her.
Perhaps tonight should be the night, she mused, watching him over the rim of the glass. As though he sensed her attention on him, he looked up and their gazes locked. Even with the room and all its occupants between them, she saw the moment his breathing hitched, watched as carnal heat filled his eyes.
He started toward her, intent written in every line of his body. The expression on his face thrilled her, and in that moment, there was no pretense. She was the love-struck woman waiting for her fiancé to come and claim her… for a dance… for more… right at that moment she’d give him anything he wanted.
Before he took more than three steps, though, the windows behind him exploded inward. Fire and flying glass filled the air as people screamed. A woman by the door fell, her back ripped and scarlet as blood pooled beneath her still form.
“PROTECT THE QUEEN!” Sawyer roared, whirling to face the threat. The air rippled around his body a second before wings ripped from his back, his dragon bursting free. He let loose a column of flame as thick, oily shadows tried to push themselves through the windows. Cadie’s eyes widened. They almost looked like shadow-golems… dangerous dark magic constructs. But why hadn’t the palace alarms gone off?
