The Queen's Flight (Emerging Queens)

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “I’m devastated about the ’Busa.” Viola looked down at her shoes. That had been a sick bike. And it was totally ruined because of her.

  Sergei shrugged. “Better the bike than me.”

  “Is that going to be expensed, too?”

  “Damn right it is.” He winked.

  “You can rent a car down the road,” the shopkeeper pointed out.

  “How far away are we from the safe house?” she asked.

  The shopkeepers traded nervous glances. That apparently wasn’t as amusing as the concept of her being a dragon.

  “The purpose of the safe house means that not everyone knows about it. I’ll go get a car. Stay here and, for the love of Nidhogg, call Carolyn so she knows I’ve found you.”

  “My cell phone is dead.”

  He tossed her his.

  “I don’t know her number.” Viola stared at it. It had a lot of bells and whistles.

  “Scroll through the contacts.” He twirled his finger.

  “I can give you money for the car,” she stood up to reach into her pocket.

  “Expense account, remember?”

  Avarice filled her. “Can you expense other things?” She looked at the shelves of yarns, sorted by color in every hue she could imagine.

  “Like what?” He narrowed his eyes at her.

  She spun around, her arms indicating the entire store.

  Sergei slapped his credit card on the counter. “Two bags. I’m getting something little and fast, not an SUV. Got it?” He pointed a finger at her.

  “Wait,” she said, biting her lip, even as she was gathering hanks of cashmere in her arms. “Who’s paying the expense account?”

  “You are. Or your benefactors.”

  “But I don’t have a job or benefactors.”

  “Sister, once I get you to the safe house you can have anything you want. Except for Madagascar and Australia.” He snorted.

  “What?” she asked, but he was already out the door. Viola looked away from the yarn long enough to admire the tight fit of his jeans.

  …

  Viola kissed her new friends good-bye, and put the two overflowing shopping bags of yarn into the backseat of a Ford Fusion. They promised to guard her Harley until someone from the dragon embassy came and collected it. Giddy from her new purchases, she slid into the passenger seat. She buckled up, plugged her cell phone into the car charger, and continued knitting.

  “Happy?” Sergei asked in a tone that suggested he couldn’t care less.

  “Thank you for coming and getting me, and thanks for the yarn.”

  “I’m not paying for it.”

  “I didn’t ask you to. If you hate me so much, why didn’t they send Carolyn to pick me up?”

  “Queens don’t go anywhere unescorted, and she and Reed are in Mexico talking to Queen Esmeralda.”

  “Wow,” Viola breathed. “I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico.”

  “I wouldn’t get my heart set on travelling until you’ve established your Protector and consort.” Sergei accelerated and passed every car on the road.

  “Can it be the same person?” Viola angled her head back to see if they were being followed.

  “In your case, I’d go for two. The more people you have protecting you, the better.”

  “Protecting me from what?” Viola sat back and tightened her seatbelt.

  “From little incidents like last night. What happened anyway?” Sergei’s voice was gruff.

  Her cell phone rang, playing Fun’s “Some Nights.”

  “I should get that.” She groaned when she recognized the number. “Oh shit.”

  “What?” Sergei said.

  Viola held up a finger. With Sergei’s dragon hearing, he’d be able to hear both sides of the conversation. “Hi Mark, long time no talk.”

  “Viola, don’t be like that,” her ex-husband said in that calm, rational voice that always made her want to throw things at his head. “I called because I’m worried about you. I saw you on the eight o’clock news.”

  Was she wearing pants? Oh God, please let her not have been flashing her vajayjay on prime time.

  “I called your mother, but she told me she no longer had a daughter and hung up on me. What did you do now?” he asked. She could almost see his lips twisting in derision.

  Viola’s heart thumped in pain. “What do you want, Mark?”

  “I can’t believe that you’re one of the new dragon Queens,” he said with such false cheer that Viola’s teeth ached.

  “What makes you say that?” she hedged.

  “Why else would dragon thugs be forcing you into a car?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Viola glossed over the incident. “It was a big misunderstanding.”

  “I wanted to let you know that if you needed a place to stay, Barbie and I would love to have you.” He sounded sincere, and if she didn’t know what a social-climbing boor he was, she might have fallen for it.

  “Her name seriously isn’t Barbie, is it?” Sergei asked.

  Viola nodded and rolled her eyes.

  “Who’s that?” Mark snapped.

  “Let me guess, money’s a little tight and you think you can cash in to the tabloids for selling dragon pictures. I hear they’re paying a grand a pop.”

  “How did you know that?” Sergei asked.

  “Everyone knows that,” she said, covering the microphone.

  “That’s an outrageous assumption,” Mark said.

  “What? That you’d use me for money and then leave when you got what you wanted? Ooh, let me see. Can’t think of a time that happened before.”

  He started to sputter, and she hung up on him.

  “Bitch,” she said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Not you. Him. Although, I guarantee he said it, too.”

  Her phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Sergei said, reaching for it.

  “It’s not him. He doesn’t like confrontation. Oh, it’s old-home week,” Viola said when she saw the number. She should let this one go to voice mail.

  “What?” Sergei noticed her discomfort.

  Might as well get this out of the way, too. Viola blew out a breath. “Hi, Turk.”

  “Oh honestly, now you’re fucking with me,” Sergei said.

  Viola shook her head.

  “Hey sweetcakes,” Turk’s voice used to cause her to shiver with reaction because he sounded so dangerous.

  “Sweetcakes?” Sergei said.

  Now, there was a dangerous man worth shivering over.

  “I missed you, Mama,” Turk continued, not realizing she wasn’t thrilled to hear from him.

  She cleared her throat. “Hi.” It was a little embarrassing to talk to her exes with Sergei in the car.

  “You’ve got to be kidding?” Sergei said incredulously and reached for the phone.

  Viola curled back into the passenger side and shielded it next to the window. No way. This was her moment to get a little revenge for the jerk who’d conned her out of a bike. He hadn’t returned any of her calls when she was in the weak, post-break-up place. Now he wanted to talk?

  “Where are you?” Turk said.

  “Why?”

  “I thought we’d go for a ride.”

  “I’d like that.” Viola flinched at the rumbling sound that was coming from Sergei’s chest. Was he growling? “Wouldn’t Ruby get upset?”

  “Man, that ho is so drugged up half the time she doesn’t even know where she is. So where do I meet you?”

  “I’m a little busy right now.”

  “I get it. You’re going to play hard to get. Pay me back for shacking up with Ruby.”

  “I am hard to get,” Viola said with a little steel in her voice.

  “It’s cool. I like it. You give me a call when you think I’ve suffered enough. We’ve got some time to make up. I got a new tattoo.”

  “Yeah?” He had great ink. Too bad he was such a jerk.

  “It’s of you.”

  “Me?�
� Sergei was frowning at her, so she wiped a stupid grin away.

  “A dragon on my forearm.”

  Viola’s ego deflated. She’d been hoping for her name or a picture of the instrument her mother named her after. “What makes you think I’m a dragon?”

  “Saw you on the internet, girlfriend. You’re a Queen and I’m going to be your King.”

  “That’s it,” Sergei reached out and pried the phone out of her hand. “That’s disrespectful.”

  “You give that back to me,” Viola shrieked and flailed about trying to get it.

  “Look, Turkey…”

  “Turk. Who the fuck is this?”

  “I’m the fuck that will end you if you come near Viola again, you little shit.”

  “Big words, man. Are you so tough in person?”

  “I hope you find out someday.” Sergei hung up and tossed the phone back in her lap.

  “I was handling that,” Viola said, pouting at the phone.

  “I meant what I said.”

  “I know.” She put the phone to her ear.

  “If you’re calling him back…” He snarled.

  “Relax.” Viola sighed. “I have a voicemail. I’m checking it.” She punched in her security code.

  “Hi, Viola. This is um… This is your father. I wanted to… I’m in Ireland. I can arrange for you to take a plane. I’d like to meet you. I mean, I met you. But you were a little baby. Here’s my number. Call me.”

  This time, Sergei snatched the phone and flung it out the window.

  “Okay,” Viola said, looking at him in shock. “I get that you have super powerful hearing and can’t help eavesdropping in on a private message. But why did you do that? That was my phone.”

  “I’ll buy you another one.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “One that every loser looking for a free lunch doesn’t have the number to.”

  “But that was my father.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve never heard his voice before in your life. It could have just been a guy that said it was him.”

  Viola blinked. That hadn’t occurred to her.

  “You need to wise up before you’re taken advantage of again.”

  “Can we stop for a latté?” Viola rubbed her temples. “I’m going to fall asleep. I had a rough night last night, and today isn’t shaping up to be any better.”

  He pulled off at the next rest stop and got them both large coffees.

  “So what happened after we got separated last night?” he asked.

  Viola bit back a yawn and gave him the Reader’s Digest condensed version.

  “Those men were from a group called Cult of Humanity,” Sergei said.

  “Sounds like something my mother would belong to. She’s probably on their mailing list. What’s their deal?”

  “About a thousand years ago, this group stole a female hatchling and sacrificed her to power a spell to stop all female dragons from emerging. A few slipped through the spell, but all in all, there hadn’t been a female born or shifted until Lerisse’s spell shattered the Cult’s spell. A few long-dead Queens emerged from the weave, but most of the Queens are women like you who’d been blocked from shifting at puberty. My guess is the Cult wants a new Queen to sacrifice for a new spell, so the emerging Queens might as well have a target on their backs.” He frowned.

  “Are Reed and Jack going to be able to protect all the new Queens?”

  “No,” Sergei said. “But they do have a staff and some powerful allies.”

  Her fingers were shaking when she set empty cup into the cup holder. “Is there anything good to being a Queen? So far I’ve been kidnapped, shot, and kicked out of my house. Well, the last one wasn’t so bad.”

  “You get to rule a territory—of dragons, not humans.”

  “So where is my territory going to be?”

  “Not my decision. All Queens will report to the Conclave next year and the five current land holders—the original Queens—will assign who gets what. Don’t worry, wherever you get assigned, humans will worship you.”

  Viola would believe that when she saw it. “Except for the ones who want to sacrifice me.”

  “Few and far between.” Sergei put a reassuring hand on her leg.

  Viola almost banged her head on the roof at the electrical jolt that zinged through her. He must have felt it, too, because he snatched his hand away.

  “Doesn’t seem like that to me,” she said, missing the warmth of his touch.

  “Did those two back at the yarn store give you a good deal?” he asked.

  “Yes, but it was because I bought a lot of yarn, not because I’m a dragon. I don’t think they believed me.” She crossed her arms.

  “Well, when the press comes to interview you, talk up their shop. You’ll make them millionaires. That’s why the sycophants will start coming out of the woodwork. You’ll be given things for free, mostly clothes so the designer can say you wear his or her outfits. And not only the humans. Every stud for the past one thousand years dreams of having a nest of eggs and a family. With only five women breeding, it’s been almost impossible to schedule in the time it takes to impregnate one—especially with a thousand other dragons in front of you. If you need anything? Ask. You’ll get it, gratis.” Sergei snapped his fingers.

  “Free yarn?” Viola’s mouth was suddenly full of saliva. “Maybe I can open a yarn store of my very own.”

  “Would you be able to sell any?”

  “Good point.” Viola took a deep sip of his coffee.

  He snatched it back.

  Well, so much for getting everything she wanted. “So let’s say I survive the Cult. How do I go about picking a Protector? I’m not going to take a consort. I’ve got shitty taste in men.”

  Sergei shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You might want to choose one anyway. Otherwise the choice will be made for you. Your main duty is to help procreate the dragon race. Our numbers have thinned in the past thousand years.”

  “I’m going to be a Mommy?” Viola put her hand on her stomach, not sure how she felt about that aside from overwhelmed.

  She’d pretty much given up the settling down with anyone after her disastrous relationships. Now, it seemed she was going to be pregnant without having to worry about getting a husband first. Her mother would shit a brick sideways—or would if Viola wasn’t dead to her already.

  “I am going to be able to ease into the relationship, right? I’m not real good with sleeping with someone I just met. I usually have to give them a motorcycle or put them through medical school before I really get screwed.” Viola watched his reaction out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t like that. She was touched. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone got mad on her behalf.

  He cupped her cheek, and she leaned into the touch. “You can say no to anyone you want. There will be a wide range of willing candidates to choose from.”

  She licked her dry lips, and shivered when his eyes narrowed on his gesture.

  Leaning in closer, Sergei stopped inches from her lips. “They’ll be lining up for you.”

  Viola pressed her mouth to his. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t the hot flash of sensuality in his kiss. Wet, hot. Viola could taste the sugar of the coffee on his tongue. Her arms wrapped around his neck. He wasted no time slipping his hand up her shirt. She bit his lip when his fingers brushed her nipples over her bra.

  He growled and her hand dropped to his lap where his hardness was straining against his leather pants.

  “This is about to go nuclear,” he ground out.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  Sergei pushed her away. Gently.

  “I figured you could jump the line. Or me.” There was that devil—or in her case, the goat on her shoulder talking.

  “You deserve someone who’ll be better in court. I’m not the type of guy who plays well with others. You’ll be better off with another stud.” Without looking at her, he put the car into gear and took off on
the highway.

  How could he appear so unaffected, when her nipples were about to cut a hole in her sweater?

  “Unless it’s someone like Smythe,” Viola said, repressing a shudder. Thinking about that fiasco killed all the sexy thoughts. “Then it’s good-bye freedom and hello violence.”

  “He wouldn’t have raped you.”

  “You don’t think he would have gotten sick of me whining and thrashing about and just done the deed?”

  Sergei glared at the road for such a long time she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Despite the coffee, her eyes were starting to close and she yawned behind her hand.

  “No,” he finally said, his voice jerking her awake. “He knew what it was like to be forced and not to have a choice in your bed partner. Cassandra, the Queen your father left your mother for, likes to choose studs based on how unwilling they are to share her bed because of the novelty of it.”

  Viola gasped. “Couldn’t he have said no?”

  “Not to a Queen. Deny a Queen at your own peril. Death is the simplest punishment. Torture and humiliation is the preferred one. Exile, if she is feeling gracious that day or if you had served well in the past.”

  “If there were only five Queens and thousands of male dragons, why didn’t the male dragons revolt?” Viola couldn’t imagine why they would put up with that. They had the power and the numbers.

  “Harming a Queen is usually a death sentence from the other studs. If we lost even one Queen, we’d be facing our own extinction.” Sergei’s bitterness was palpable and Viola could feel his frustration.

  “So the emerging Queens are going to topple their power.” The realization came to Viola slowly, and it brought a chill of fear. Because they had more to lose, the old Queens were far more dangerous than the Cult.

  Sergei nodded.

  “There are a lot of bitter male dragons out there, aren’t there?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Some would want revenge, wouldn’t they?” Viola prodded when he didn’t answer.

  “Possibly.”

  “Great. With my luck, I’ll find every stud with a chip on their shoulder looking to even the score.”

  “Keep thinking those positive thoughts,” Sergei said.