Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2)

by Rita Stradling

  I glanced over to see Pax and Glacier standing on the other side of the room, caught in intense, quiet conversation.

  “You don’t have to, you know?”

  “I do.”

  “They’ve each lived hundreds of years—”

  I stood up, crossed to the bed and crawled up between their bodied.

  “Wait, Dakota.” Glacier said as he crossed over to the bed. “We’ll—”

  “Follow the plan.” I grabbed one of the Regina’s hands and one of my grandfather’s and closed my eyes. Immediately, I dove my power into my grandfather. I quickly checked my grandfather’s soul, diving through his layers to his true soul. But I did not linger in his layers.

  For whatever reason, I wanted to return to the Regina’s soul. I was anxious to be with her true soul. When I found the first wisps of her soul, I immediately pulled them into me. Her outer layer was devoid of emotion, like a moonless night with no stars peaking through. And that was what pulling her soul into my body was like, drinking in the night.

  I let the coils pass through my chest, sending them streaming down into my other arm and out of my fingertips into the Regina’s hand. Instead of sinking into her hand, the wisps of soul streamed off her, dissipating into the air.

  “It’s not working,” I whispered, looking up to see Glacier, Pax and Harrison all standing at the edge of the bed.

  Both Harrison and Glacier’s stood stiffly, but Pax leaned against the headboard.

  “You have done this before?” Pax folded his hands over his fur coat.

  “Sort of.”

  “What is different now?”

  “Lorelei was ripping out sections of Cordelia’s true soul and I was pulling them away from Lorelei and stuffing them back into Cordelia.”

  “Are you ripping out large sections of true soul now?”

  I looked at my grandfather’s waxy features. “No.”

  “Repeat your success as closely as you can, then fine tune your method as you go.”

  “What if I damage her soul?”

  “Do you think she would prefer her soul remain undamaged within George’s body?”

  “She would not,” Harrison said.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Okay.” Instead of pulling, I dove into the midnight of her soul. Her soul was as vast as I remembered it, entrenched in thick outer crusts to her layers. Unlike her outer, impermanent emotional layer, her deeper emotions were as thick as swimming through chocolate. When I fell into her memory layer, images came flying at me, but I forced myself to ignore them and keep going.

  The moment I encountered her true soul again, tears formed at my eyes. Again, a deep well of love opened in me. I didn’t know how, but her true soul had traces of something I hadn’t felt in years. I wasn’t even sure what it was exactly, but it felt like home.

  And I didn’t want to damage it, I didn’t want to risk it. I dove in just a little more, feeling the tendrils of that beautiful emotion pass over me.

  I felt my lip tremble and I let out a small sob as I began uncoiling her soul into me. My whole body started to shake as the coils began to thread through my arm. When Cordelia’s soul passed through me, it had felt like electricity passing through me, but Imogen’s soul didn’t feel anything like that. Her soul passed up my arm, though my chest and through my other arm as smoothly as cords of silk. When the tendrils passed through my fingers, this time they slipped seamlessly into the Regina’s hand.

  The process was extremely slow, and even though I knew I could, I didn’t hurry myself. A quiet, selfish voice in my head considered keeping just a wisp for myself. As she passed through me, a steady stream of tears poured down my face.

  Gently, a cloth wiped at my cheeks, though I didn’t open my eyes to see who held the cloth.

  When her soul had almost entirely passed through me, her emotional memory layer started to pull along with her true soul. Instead of fighting it, I let the layer pull through as it wished. The memories flew by me at speed.

  A large keep… my home.

  Horrific fights between dragons’ rage. Lines of humans bare their necks.

  Always surrounded, yet alone. A small red dragon visits me time after time.

  Beatings, blood, a knife in the dark.

  A boat with three masts. A long sea journey.

  Then I saw it, saw him—flashes of Kaipo’s face.

  Amusement.

  Joy.

  Sunsets and dancing, stars reflecting in eyes, fingers intertwining with each other. My body fills with joy, laughter on my lips.

  Kaipo.

  The word echoes through my soul, again and again. Over and over.

  The joy extinguishes.

  Horror.

  Despair.

  Blood.

  Death.

  Betrayal.

  Anger.

  Longing.

  Misery.

  My emotions ice over, stretching on for what seems like eternity.

  Flashes of people and places, ever-changing. I remain the same. Always the same. Always only in night, darkness.

  Alone.

  Always surrounded by people...but always alone.

  The memories hurtle by so fast they blur together, but they are all filled with one feeling:

  Terror.

  I clutch at my chest, screaming. Screaming for days.

  I lie, unmoving, wasting away on a marble floor.

  “Leave me or die!” I scream as people flash by, intruding.

  A man leans over me, and the moment I see his familiar face rage fills my heart.

  “Be the Regina, daughter, or I will assign another.”

  On my throne, an endless precession of people moved past.

  On the battlefields, I step over corpses, my arm waves and orders deaths.

  Days of solitude, interrupted by a young teenage boy training in my keep. The first sparks of affection return to me. As he grows, the small red dragon visits again and again.

  As the memories finished, her deeper emotions streamed past, a tide going out. Then the final wisps of her soul rushed past me and settled into her.

  “Imogen?” I heard Harrison’s voice say.

  “George,” Pax said, a second later.

  The fingers around both the hands I held flexed.

  My arms shook as I stared down into the Regina’s face. As the last memory I had seen of Harrison chilled me to the bone. It wasn’t the sight of Harrison, but rather the dragon in human form that stood over him.

  The dragon in human form that the Regina felt nothing but hate for as he returned again and again to walk among her brothers.

  I had seen the dragon’s human form only once before, and only for a few seconds, but his features were burned into my memory forever. He had come into my father’s office. I’d remembered how unremarkable his pale face was, his tawny reddish hair was neat and combed back. He’d said to my father’s secretary Lena, “I have an appointment with you, Lena Hale.”

  I was only eleven clutching a paper cup of water as I turned to see the man reach across the desk for Lena.

  She’d hit him and a moment later, his mouth opened to roar. His body stretched and snapped outward, expanding rapidly into a pale red dragon not much bigger than a car.

  He’d ripped into my father when he’d come to save me and Lena, ferociously. He’d held my father in his teeth and shook him over and over until he threw him across the room.

  And in her memories, the Regina and her brothers called him father.

  The fingers around both the hands I held flexed.

  The Regina opened her green eyes. She blinked several times, before her gaze turned to her brother beside her.

  I tightened my grasp on her hand, and once again, dove into her soul. Slipping through her layers was so easy this time, as if her soul no longer resisted my power’s invasion. I pushed myself back into her emotional memory layer.

  Out loud I said, “Do you have a piece of my father’s soul in you?”

  A memory swam up, tak
ing over my mind, but it wasn’t a memory of my father but instead of hers.

  The dragon in human form stood over me as I sat in a throne in my Hearth Room.

  His figure was wreathed in fire as he turned to pace.

  I forced myself not to roll back my shoulders. “You are in high temper, Father.”

  “I am very angry at you.” His voice crackled like dead leaves, dry and reedy. He turned a glare on me. “Kaipo’s daughter is still alive.”

  I shook my head and looked away to disguise the pulse of unease that rolled through me. “She died in the attack, there was a funeral.”

  “That was the human girl, Imogen.” He snapped sharp teeth at me. “I tire of your games.”

  Rage hit me and my fangs slipped out in answer. “I do not play games; I win wars for you.” My voice had a whistling quality to it as I spoke.

  “Sheath your fangs when you speak to me!”

  With an effort, I pulled my fangs back into my jaw but I did not hide my glare.

  He answered with a darker glare. “She is alive and she is in a contract with the Wyvern High Rex’s son. The boy is already a threat to all of the Kingdoms! Imagine what their child would be!” He raised a foot and kicked my chair.

  I leapt to my feet as the chair tumbled back and hit the floor. Breathing in through my nose, I straightened my stance. My gown softly swished over the marble as I crossed to settle onto a couch before the hearth. Straightening my back, I turned to him. “Father, I concede that I did not kill Kaipo’s daughter, and I will not. Contracts between teenagers never last long and are easily broken. She is more likely to end up a member of any dracon family than with the wyverns. I intend to collect her for ours.”

  The dragon turned a heavy look on me. “You will kill her.”

  I shook my head. “There might never be another one like her.”

  “We can only hope. She is an abomination, as was her father.”

  Greif rocked through my chest, fresh and potent. “He was not…” my voice broke, “…an abomination.”

  “You are blind to it; you always have been. His aspect was not natural or right, and hers is the same. The scent of her aspect… the magic she did on me… it was wrong. It should not exist. And the Wyvern boy is the same, too powerful, his magic wrong. We cannot chance what could come from their union.”

  “No, Father. I will take her into my rule. With her in our family, we will have an advantage on the wyverns.”

  He pointed at me. “Letting her live is not worth the risk of her going to him or his father. You will kill her, beloved daughter. You will do as I say.”

  “I rule Oceania, not you, Father. This decision is mine to make.”

  He settled on the seat beside me, turning his gaze to meet mine. “I love you. You are my favorite child, but always remember that you rule at my whim.”

  I leaned a little toward him and whispered, “I am the one with power here, Father. I have ruled for hundreds of years. I have loyal subjects in every country in the world. Not one of my brothers would dare stand against me. You will find that unseating me from my true throne will be much more difficult than kicking over a chair.”

  “You underestimate my power and reach, daughter.”

  “I will never underestimate you again, Father.”

  “It was necessary, Imogen!”

  A sharp punch of misery hit my chest and I screamed, “It was not!”

  The image vanished as the Regina’s hand pulled away from mine suddenly. I opened my eyes to meet the Regina’s tired gaze.

  Her voice was barely a croaky whisper as she said, “That’s enough for now. I do not want to think on it anymore.” Her swollen eyelids blinked shut. She rolled away from me, her red hair fanned out over her pillow. After a few more seconds, her breath came out in light snores.

  I looked up to Harrison, who crouched over the side of the bed, tears dripping down his cheeks. His bright blue eyes looked up to burn into mine. “Thank you.”

  I nodded, slowly.

  “What did you ask her about your father?” he whispered.

  “They were… in love, when they were a lot younger. Well, when she was, he’s dead.”

  He nodded slowly.

  The hand I had almost forgotten I was still holding squeezed around my fingers. “There are quite a few people in my room.”

  Pax chuckled. “Not all of us are people, son.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  My eyes opened to the sight of flickering flames. I lifted my head, peeling my face away from the leather of the couch. I wiped my cheek, looking blearily around and seeing the silhouette of the High Rex standing before the hearth.

  He turned, looking over his shoulder at me.

  I did a sort-of sitting bow to him, though it was awkward.

  “You are supposed to stand and bow.”

  “Are you going to be offended if I don’t? Because I’ll do it, but my legs are stuck to the leather,” my voice came out croaky and hoarse.

  “I will forgive it, this once, but you will need to learn these formalities for when you come to live in my court.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” I peeled my legs slowly away from the couch. “Is my grandfather awake yet?”

  After he had woken just long enough to realize that he was sharing a bed with one of his most hated enemies, he’d passed out again. Neither of them had been able to be woken, and I had been too frustrated and exhausted to wait patiently by the bed.

  I knew that Pax was going to return the Regina and Harrison to their ship soon, whether or not the Regina woke. Harrison had said that there was a real possibility that they could return the Regina with no one realizing she had been gone, but the window was small.

  “George is still sleeping. Is my son still alive?” His gaze was heavy on mine.

  “Yes.” I covered the place where there was still a small line connecting us, and that tugging sensation.

  “Well, let us hope that George wakes soon.”

  “Is Pax here?”

  “He just left to return the Vrykolakas Rex’s son.”

  “Is the Vrykolakas dragon your enemy?”

  He grinned a sharp looking smile. “My strongest ally.”

  I stood from the couch to go stand beside the High Rex. “If I told you something, would you promise not to punish me?”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “That is a rather immature request. I may look like a child, my dear, but I am far from.”

  “All right, then.” I turned away.

  “Tell me,” he ordered.

  I looked back at him. “I want to, but I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to punish me for it.”

  He closed the distance between us. “Obey me.”

  I had a plummeting feeling in my chest as I looked up at him, as if this was now my future, to be looking up into his terrifying cold gaze.

  “Wyvern told me a while back that you didn’t steal children… or seduce teenagers.”

  “And I have no intention to do either.”

  “Don’t you think that trying to take me to your keep is dangerously close?”

  “Not in the slightest. You are far too young for my tastes and you have promised to come to me willingly. Simply having you in my possession will be a great advantage. If I did choose to seduce you, I could wait until you were more attractive.”

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, though I was feet from the fire.

  “None of this is your secret.”

  “Would you at least promise not to tell anyone?”

  He exhaled heavily out of his nose and looked away. “I have no plans to repeat any of your trivialities.”

  “A promise?”

  “You are as persistent as you are impertinent. Two qualities I hope time will remedy.” He looked up to the high ceiling. “I suppose I will agree not to repeat the specifics of your ‘secret,’ for the period of one month. After that point, only if it suits me.”

  I looked away resisting the urge to r
oll my eyes.

  “It’s weird how you look so much like Wyvern, but you guys are nothing alike.”

  “That is a very poor secret, and with all that suspense leading to it.” He shook his head.

  “That’s just an observation. The secret is… I’m pretty sure that the Vrykolakas Rex was behind the attack on both of our families.”

  “The Vrykolakas High Rex is about a thousand times your better. You are very foolish to lobby any accusation against him.” He glared at me. “I hope for your sake, you have evidence.”

  “I— there’s just a long chain of events that all add up to him,” I hesitated. “My aspect… I can read people’s emotions and also… I can watch people’s memories. When I transferred the Regina’s soul, I watched a memory of her speaking to her father.” I explained the memory in detail.

  “That proves absolutely nothing.”

  “It proves intent, but it’s not all I have. All of you High Rexes knew about the gemstones and what they did from the time the ancient Mabiians killed the dragons, right? And the Vrykolakas Rex has the ability to smell magic, so likely he took the time and effort to smell the gemstones since they’re the one magic that could kill dragons.”

  The High Rex’s eyelids narrowed ever so slightly.

  “So Regina Imogen is damaged by the gemstone and its magic transfers to her. I’m guessing that Vrykolakas knew then what it was… but I could be wrong. Anyway, he goes and kills everyone in the Albonian Rex’s family. I watched it in her memories, the Regina only went after one dracon and Vrykolakas killed the rest.”

  “If he believed they had the ability to curse, it would make sense that he would ensure their line could not produce more curse makers.”

  “But he can smell magic. He would have known right away that the Albonia Rex’s magic didn’t match what was happening to the Regina.”

  “It was also as punishment for what the Rex did to his daughter.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little excessive? I mean, has anyone ever wiped out an entire family like that before? And then, he even took the Draqui dragon prisoner.”