by Pearl Foxx
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
The Draqon’s Queen
The Shifters of Kladuu Book Four
Pearl Foxx
The Draqon’s Queen is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, place, or event is purely coincidental and not the intention of this collection.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the appropriate copyright holder listed below, unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal and international copyright law. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners identified herein.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Draqon’s Queen copyright © 2017 Pearl Foxx
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
About the Author
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Chapter One
Zayd
“I just don’t understand why this girl is so special. I mean, she must be special, right? To be the first human you have ever allowed at the hive?”
“I told you to drop it,” Zayd snapped, not sparing a look at his chatty Swarm Master as they hiked along the chilly windswept ridgeline toward home.
Since leaving the Vilkas’ mountain hideaway, Maxsym hadn’t stopped bitching about bringing Niva along. The man’s mouth never stopped moving. If they hadn’t grown up together and been best friends since they were sparklings, Zayd probably would have killed him by now.
Not that Maxsym didn’t have a good point. Why the hell was Zayd bringing the dark-skinned, green-eyed beauty with them? When she’d been in tears and begging him to let her return with them in the servant tunnels beneath the Vilkas’ mountain, he’d only cared about alleviating some of the heartbroken sadness he recognized in her. He would have done anything in that moment to rescue her, even though he had no idea what had her so devastated. For once, he wanted to feel like a hero.
He was paying for such a ridiculous sentiment now.
“I can’t drop it until you give me a damn answer.” Maxsym shot a smirk back toward the petite human who trailed far enough behind that she was out of earshot, but Zayd kept his focus forward. He didn’t need to look back. He sensed her deep in his gut. It made the scales along the top of his shoulders itch.
“It’s not that I have a problem helping some girl who clearly didn’t want to be with those mongrels,” Maxsym continued, stepping around a loose cluster of rocks ready to crumble off the cliff edge at any slight provocation. “I just don’t understand why you would bring her to the hive. It’s one thing to help someone, but it’s another thing to risk our entire community. We’ve never had a human at the hive before. There’s nothing about her that makes it seem like she’s worth the risk.”
This time, Zayd couldn’t stop the compulsory glance behind him. Just like he’d expected after stealing glances at her all morning, his breath caught at the sight of her on the trail behind them. She was gorgeous. Her long black hair hung halfway down her back, and she moved with a gentle sureness that made him want to reach out and touch her. Which was crazy. Surely his mind wasn’t working right if he was thinking about a human this way.
Her petite frame looked like it wouldn’t be able to make the journey to the mountain range where the Draqons lived, which was much higher and harsher than the Vilkas’ soft hollowed hill. But she hadn’t complained once. If anything, she was so capable he wondered if he could have given her a map and told her to head out without them. She well might have made it on her own, and she handled the perilous ridge pass with quiet confidence. Something he couldn’t even say about most Draqons.
“I mean if you’re hot for it, go ahead and fuck her.” Maxsym was still talking. “She’s definitely bedable. But it’s not like you don’t get any at home—”
Zayd stopped abruptly, causing Maxsym to stumble. “I’m going to tell you one last time. I don’t want to hear another word about it. She asked for help, and we gave her help. That’s it. The end. If I wanted your fucking opinion about it, I would’ve asked.”
As they argued, Niva approached, her boots crunching over loose rocks like sharp staccato beats in the thin mountain air. “Is everything okay?” she called in a breathy voice.
Zayd angled away from her and growled to Maxsym, “Let. It. Go.”
Yet Maxsym only shrugged, the smirk on his face still firmly in place like he didn’t have a worry in the world, but when Niva reached them, he didn’t say anything. With an arched brow and a sly expression that Zayd wanted to punch right off his face, Maxsym walked on ahead, leaving him alone with Niva.
She silently stood a few feet away, gazing at him in question. The breeze shifted and swirled across her back, enveloping him in her scent. She smelled just like morning fucking dew.
“You handle the pass well,” Zayd said just to break the silence. Anything to stop his treacherous thoughts, though he’d said the words like he was giving her an execution verdict. He hated compliments. Compliments made people complacent.
“I grew up on Earth. We had to walk everywhere.”
Her tone was flat, but he still caught the slightest rasp of sadness at the back of her throat, like she might have been crying when he and Maxsym had been lost in their endless argument. “How did you end up with the dogs—I mean Vilkas?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Flesh trade.”
He was growling before he realized it. “They stole you?”
“The man who took us is dead now. Gerrit and his Beta returned me to Earth, and I could have stayed.” Her gaze slid away from him and slipped out over the valley below them. Tendrils of fog wound through the lush woods, leaving only the green tops exposed. “But I didn’t. I thought Kladuu was my home.”
He cocked his head in a silent question.
“I
love the Vilka mountain, but it isn’t my home. Thank you for allowing me to come with you. It’s beautiful out here.”
He knew better than to trust any human’s words, but he couldn’t stop the feeling that he could believe her. The words fell like truth from her lips, and her eyes were open and earnest as she stared at his home. He only nodded.
“How much farther is it?”
“We’re almost halfway.”
She bit her lip, furrows appearing in the smooth dark skin along her brow. “And how are humans treated at your… hive?”
“They aren’t generally permitted.” At his words, her eyes widened, and he was struck by just how green they were, like the first snowlips that bloomed by the side of the mountain river.
“If humans aren’t allowed, will I be okay?” She aimed her eyes at the ground, and he wanted to kill the person or persons who had made her into this quiet, timid shell.
“If I say you’re welcome, you’re welcome. My people will not go against their hive leader.”
“You two coming? Or are you going to chat all day like a bunch of females?” Maxsym called from almost half a mile up the trail. He waved at them as if his voice hadn’t just rung out across the valley floor like a damn alarm.
Zayd resisted the urge to give the Swarm Master a rude hand gesture.
A flash of warmth spread up his arm, and when he glanced down, he found Niva’s hand resting on his forearm, just inches away from the start of his red and orange scales that curled up his arm and over his shoulder. He should have jerked his arm away. He didn’t.
“Thank you for bringing me. I mean it.”
She wouldn’t be thanking him once she realized just how much his people weren’t going to like her, but for now, he tucked her graciousness away like a treasure.
They caught back up with Maxsym, who promptly continued his barrage of commentary on everything from the autumn ice freezes to the smell of a nearby Skax roost, which they made certain to give a wide berth. Zayd wasn’t in the mood to fight the nasty, oversized birds today, especially with Niva near. As the sun crested high overhead, they arrived at the midway point to the hive’s mountain.
While the Vilkas lived in a hollowed mountain, the Draqons resided amongst the highest inhospitable mountains of Kladuu. The main area, where Zayd lived, was in a valley of sorts that provided protection from the outside world and could predominantly only be reached by air.
“We’re so close,” Maxsym whined. “We could just fly in.”
Zayd bit his tongue. He knew his Swarm Master was just baiting him for another argument. Maxsym knew the rules about unmated shifting. As unbound males, both of them were restricted from unnecessary shifting by culture and common sense. All Draqons were connected by a current that ran through them like electricity, meaning they sensed each other on a deep, primal level. It was called a hive mind, and they felt its humming power all the time, especially while shifted. Without a mate to center the current’s noise, a male could become unpredictable in his second form.
“I haven’t shifted in days.”
“If you spent less time tasting the nectar of every unmated female at the hive,” Zayd snapped, “maybe you would have found a mate by now. Then we wouldn’t have to have this argument every time we come home.”
His harsh tone hardly fazed Maxsym. “You shift whenever you damn well feel like it.”
Maxsym must have been craving a brawl if he had dared bring up Zayd’s mating past. The rumbling growl that sent his scales rustling down his arms was enough to shut Maxsym up.
Even Niva’s scent spiked with the slightest touch of fear, and she backed away from him as they walked.
Zayd had been mated; he knew what it felt like to have a rider on his back, and he held on so tightly to the memory of Sotu that even in flight he never lost the edge of fury that vibrated through his bones. His anger over his mate’s death kept him grounded, kept him in control. Nothing was as sobering as losing the person you loved more than life itself.
“If it would help,” Niva said softly, her voice carrying on the wind like a graceful flutter of wings, “I could ride one of you. I’m sure I could hold on.”
Maxsym’s scent instantly flared with lust at her offer, and even Zayd’s cock twitched at the thought of Niva on his back. But she didn’t understand what she was saying. She had no clue what riding a Draqon meant. The power of it. The intimacy.
“It’s dangerous for an unmated pair to fly together,” Zayd said through gritted teeth. Beside him, Maxsym coughed. “They can get their signals crossed and end up in a dangerous situation easily. We will take another way.”
If they ever made it, Zayd almost added. They’d spent more time talking than walking. He felt annoyance like a rash around his scales. He rolled out his shoulders and quickened his pace.
He continued the brutal pace for two more hours, during which Niva never complained. Though she drifted behind them a worrying distance when the trail became rockier and steeper, she forged on and eventually caught back up. He kept his eyes on the sky, watching for brave Skax who thought to nibble on her when she was too far behind, but the pass was silent, the sky above darkening as evening came.
Zayd set down a small bag and took out a gulch muffin, breaking it in half and giving a part to Niva. “We’re about two-thirds of the way there. The rest of the trip will have to be underground.”
Niva balked. “I thought you lived on top of the mountain.”
“We live between the tops of the highest mountains,” Zayd stated, not used to having to explain himself.
Maxsym shook his head and shoved him to the side, grabbing the small satchel and pulling out another gulch muffin and the container of water. “What Zayd isn’t telling you,” he said, glaring at his hive leader, “is that to get to the hive, we have to use the underground tunnels and stairs that will burn every muscle in our legs so badly we’ll feel it for the next three days. It’s totally unnecessary. It’s really not a big deal to have an unmated rider. I do it all the time.”
Zayd shot Maxsym his best death glare.
“Unless,” Maxsym continued, “he thinks it’s a big deal, and then I have to do whatever the fuck he says because that’s how things go.” He lit up the mountain with his best smile, and Zayd wanted to punch him in the face for aiming it at Niva.
But Niva laughed. And the sound was so pure and delightful that his skin felt too tight for his skull. Like the ringing of bells, her laugh spread down his neck and along his spine. His heart dropped to his stomach.
What the fuck?
“I know all about having to do whatever these Alpha sorts say,” she said to Maxsym, her laughter drifting away on the breeze but a soft smile gracing her lips.
Zayd blinked at her.
“He’s bossy,” Maxsym said, waving a hand at Zayd, “but he’s nothing like those overgrown dogs. And our mountain is far superior to the Vilkas’ mound of dirt.”
“I am excited about the idea of getting to be outside every now and then.” Niva sighed and sounded almost happy as she glanced around the ridge.
Zayd felt the hint of a smile slip pass his well-guarded walls before he could clamp down on it and stuff it in his heart to suffocate on later.
Maxsym said, “Then you’ll love the hive. Other than our individual sleeping quarters, everything is outside. Draqons don’t like to be confined underground either.”
“You live outside?” Niva’s eyes widened with wonder instead of sadness, and Zayd had the horrible feeling that he would do whatever it took to keep that wonder on her face instead of seeing her return to heartbreak. “Isn’t that cold?”
Before Maxsym could answer, Zayd spoke, drawing her attention completely to him and basking under it like it was the sun. “You’ll see.”
Chapter Two
Niva
Finally, the underground passageway ended, and Niva stepped out into the open air, shielding her eyes against the light.
She gasped.
Mist hung low
in the air, shrouding the dip between mountain peaks in a gauzy veil. Above, the sky shimmered dusty purple thanks to the setting sun, and snow-capped peaks glistened bright white. Beneath the ever-shifting breeze, the mist roiled like a tumultuous sea across the rocky white landscape.
Her skin prickled, but it wasn’t from the cold. If anything, the air felt balmy, moist and warm.
Zayd and Maxsym strolled forward into the mist, and Niva got another long look at Zayd’s back. The heavy swirls of black ink had captivated her throughout the entire trip. Once again, she followed the curving lines that made up the massive back tattoo in the shape of wings. The ink seemed to move subtly with the wind and as he changed speed. She was sure it was just from the movement of his muscles beneath his skin giving it the appearance of independent movement, but something about them made her want to reach out and see if they felt like feathers.
Lost in her thoughts, she’d fallen behind again. She hurried to catch up. During the last few moments, moisture-soaked air had crept up from the ground, distorting her vision until she could barely see the men’s outlines in front of her.
“What causes the mist?” she asked as she joined the men.
“The springs,” Zayd said in his usual laconic way. The sound of his voice sent a shiver through her body. She had no idea why he affected her that way, aside from his harsh exterior with his scarred face half hidden behind his silver-blond hair and his piercing black eyes.
Niva wanted to question him more, but before she could work up the courage to ask, the rock beneath her feet changed to wood. She paused atop a bridge, the men’s weight ahead of her causing the ropes holding up the structure to bounce. Gripping the rope beside her, she glanced down and gasped again.
