“Don’t be silly! I’ve bathed in every puddle between Belmor Castle and here … where ever here is! I’m not queen, yet,” Gwyneth said.
Caelin and Faine both looked at Drake uneasily. Drake shrugged. “She is right and very likely she will have to make use of whatever ‘puddles’ we run across on the way back. We will guard her.”
Gwyneth thought that even that much was absurd when she’d had no protection beyond the three of them since she’d left Belmor—and it point of fact, she had never had better protection!
There was something about their discomfort over it that made her heart flutter just a little, as if in warning, except that she certainly didn’t feel any sort of threat. It disconcerted her when they’d walked down to the lake and she dropped the robe that she was still wearing from the temple ritual. All three men stared at her as if she’d suddenly conked them on the head with a rock, reddened, and then whipped around to show her their backs!
Hurt instantly poured through her. Anger purged it when it occurred to her that they’d had no trouble at all looking at her before. Pain wafted through her again when she remembered what Drake had told her about their suspicions that she’d been enchanted by Artimus as a lure, but then doubt began to wind it’s through it. Artimus no longer held any sway in this world, so she couldn’t still be a lure. If they still felt something then it must be real!
There was only one way to find out, she decided. “I don’t suppose there is any soap?”
All three of them turned to look at her. Their minds seemed to go blank the moment they did.
“What?” Faine asked vaguely.
Struggling to keep from smiling, she looked down at her reflection in the water. More for something to do than because she thought it might stir them, she scooped water in her hands and lifted it to her breasts. Caelin swallowed convulsively. As she watched, his gaze followed the cascade of water. Her own throat went dry. “I was just wondering if there was any soap?”
Drake’s face was completely slack, she saw, feeling a tickle of amusement but also a tightening of want low in her belly.
“Soap?” Faine repeated as if he’d never heard the word.
“Do we?” she asked, studying his face, feeling more heat curl in her as she saw the fire in his eyes.
“What?”
“Have soap?”
Faine blinked, slowly. “Soap? Yes! We have soap! I will fetch it!”
She wasn’t terribly comfortable in the role of seductress, but it was too important to her not to try simply because she felt awkward. Wading to the edge of the lake, she sat down as if she was merely waiting for Faine to bring the soap, and leaned back, using her arms as a prop. She flipped her feet in the water for a moment and then, just for mischief, spread her legs wide and brought them together again.
Drake swallowed so audibly she could hear the sound.
Caelin cleared his throat. She saw his hand go to his groin and then he snatched it away again when he realized he’d drawn her gaze by the movement.
They weren’t immune to her! They still wanted her!
But did that mean they cared for her as a woman, cared for her as Gwyneth?
Chapter Thirteen
On some levels, Gwyneth thought she must be insane to dread going back to Belmor Castle more than she’d dreaded being taken to the temple. She didn’t suppose she was facing death—unless it was by assassin—but she was miserable and afraid. When they’d taken her, she’d been afraid, but happier than she’d ever been.
It wasn’t entirely their fault that she was miserable. The fear—that was anxiety about the unknown and her ability to handle it, or not, but the unhappiness, that was their doing.
They behaved as if she’d suddenly become an entirely different person when she was no different than she’d always been! She almost thought she would’ve preferred it if they’d ignored her completely. It made her uncomfortable that they were always, now, asking if she was tired, hungry, needed to rest.
It was annoying, too. After the first few days, she was ready to scream at them like a fishwife.
She thought part of it, as embarrassing as it was to admit even to herself, was that she’d grown accustomed to having them as lovers—all of them. It had been hard to get used to coupling with at least one man every night, sometimes two and occasionally three. She’d been so sore and exhausted in the beginning that she was torn between delight to have them and an almost equal desire to whine or cry that she was too tired.
Now, none of them would touch her. She’d thought at first that, with the spell Artimus had placed on her broken, that they simply weren’t interested any longer, but the more she studied them, the more convinced she was that they were just as miserable about not coupling with her as she was.
How absurd was it that it was alright to treat her like a lusty wench before and now to behave as if she was some … virgin goddess they didn’t dare touch? They knew they’d fathered their babes on her!
It angered her that that seemed to unsettle them so much when they had been so determined to put them there to start with!
She decided after a week on the trail that she’d had enough. They’d all gathered around the campfire to eat and they were studiously ignoring her as usual and she was so randy for a bout of coupling that she felt like crying. “I don’t want to be the queen!” she said abruptly, getting up and stalking to the stream to bathe.
They followed her. She’d known they would—not that they would do anything! They would only stand around her with their backs to her as if they weren’t allowed to look when they’d touched everything!
“You were born to be queen,” Drake said when she’d undressed and flopped in the water sullenly, folding her arms instead of bathing. “I was born a dragon and you were born a queen.”
She glared at his back. “It isn’t the same thing!”
“Of course it is! It is a birthright—and a responsibility,” he added before she could inform him that she didn’t want it and she didn’t know why she had to take it, regardless. She might have been born to be a queen, but she’d been a kitchen maid! Her birthright certainly hadn’t interfered with her scrubbing floors and pots and peeling roots until it had felt as if her fingers would fall off!
“I don’t know how to be a queen,” she whined.
“You are as clever as anyone I have ever known. You will learn and you will have advisors to help you make the decisions that you will need to make,” Faine offered.
“What sort of advisors?” she asked, feeling a flicker of hopefulness.
“Men of the realm, the lords.”
“Will I have a husband?”
None of them spoke for so long that she’d begun to wonder if she was even allowed to marry. “You will be a queen,” Drake answered finally. “You may choose a husband, but very likely the lords will make suggestions and you’ll be expected to choose from among them—for political purposes. Or, you may choose a consort if one of the lords strikes your fancy or you would prefer not to share the power of the throne. He would not have equal station and therefore wouldn’t expect to become king. In fact, he wouldn’t be allowed to become king.”
Gwyneth mulled that over, but it didn’t actually take a great deal of thought. “Would I ask?”
Drake turned to look at her, confusion in his eyes. “Ask what?”
“If I chose a consort, how would I choose? Would I ask?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Your advisors will explain all these things,” he said a little tightly.
Gwyneth’s heart was beating so rapidly with anxiety that she felt breathless. It took all she could do to ask the question she wanted answered, but she couldn’t allow her fear of rejection to destroy any chance of happiness she might have. “I want the three of you to be my consorts and my advisors.”
All three of them whipped around to stare at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“You can’t have three!” Caelin said indignantly.
“Why not?”<
br />
“Because, gods damn it! It’s never been done! I am certain it is against the law, or something like that … and none of us would be acceptable to any of the lords as consorts!”
“They won’t be coupling with you!” she retorted angrily.
They gaped at her. Slowly, they began to turn red.
“I think that it’s perfectly reasonable to choose the fathers of my babes as my consorts!”
“They will never allow it!”
Gwyneth swallowed against the knot of emotion in her throat. “You did not say whether it was what you wanted or not.”
“It does not matter what we want,” Drake said gruffly.
“It does to me. I love you. I want you. I need you. I don’t know how I could do this without you. My children need their fathers.”
When none of them said anything, she looked away. “I suppose my advisors will supply someone to father them,” she said a little bitterly. “But how are they to learn to be brave and strong, honorable and honest without the men who sired them? What if the man chosen to guide them isn’t all of those things? Or even any of those things?”
“That is fighting dirty,” Drake said gruffly.
There were tears in Gwyneth’s eyes when she looked up at him, but she didn’t try to hide them. “Do you care nothing for me?”
Drake swallowed convulsively a couple of times. “I am a dragon …. I will love you till the end of my days.”
It took a few moments for that to sink in. When it did, Gwyneth bounded up and launched herself at him, clinging to him. “Then stay with me, please? Don’t leave me!”
He hugged her tightly. “We will have a fight on our hands, my love.”
“If it doesn’t please them, then they can find someone else to rule. I am a woman first.”
“Then we will see what we see,” Drake said, leaning down to kiss her.
When she pulled away, she looked at Caelin and Faine. “You cannot fault me for loving you all. You should not have made me love you if it was not something you could accept.”
Caelin seemed to wrestle with himself. “I would far rather have you all to myself, but I do not think I could bring myself to leave if you love me even half as much as I love you.”
Gwyneth flew to him and hugged him tightly. “You cannot possibly love me more than I love you!”
Faine looked at her uncomfortably. “I am bound by my heart to you and have been from the start, little princess, but I am certain I am not worthy of you.”
“You are not only worthy, dearest, but beloved,” Gwyneth said, kissing him as she had the others. “And you are very needed. You will teach my sons humility to balance out the conceit they will learn from Drake.”
Drake was looking at her indignantly when she turned to smile at him, but Faine and Caelin had both laughed.
“Now you can all show me how very much love me—because I am desperately horny! And I promised Caelin when he got better that I would smother him with kisses and I have been so looking forward to it!”
Faine was shocked. “Your Highness! It is unseemly! We should have the binding first!”
“Pooh! I am already pregnant! You cannot get me any more with child than I am now!”
* * * *
Drake’s words were proven prophetic. Gwyneth discovered she did indeed have a fight on her hands when she informed the hall of lords that she had chosen her consorts and meant to bind herself to them at her coronation. They were outraged and argumentative and she finally sent her consorts-to-be from the chambers when she began to fear that they would wipe out the hall of lords.
“I am the queen, yes?”
“Your majesty ….”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, your majesty … but it would profit the realm if you were to choose royalty from a house that could be an asset to your realm.”
“I will form allies—by my policies—not with my body! They fathered my children. I will wed the fathers of my children—and the realm could not be better served than to have a happy queen with three powerful magicals at her side. It is just as important to unite the people of the realm.”
“That is actually another problem that we need to discuss—you will have three heirs, if what we have been told is true. That is always a very dangerous thing.”
“Not with my sons!” Gwyneth said emphatically. “They will rule together—as equals.”
“It would be far better, since you are not at all far along, if we brought in a physician to … uh … remove the problem before it rises, so to speak.”
Gwyneth stared at the man in horror. “Over your dead body! If you cannot agree with me and you are all agreed that my decision makes me unfit to rule, I will gladly hand this mess over to you and you may sort it out! I have made my decision. I will live in exile before I will give one inch on this. Now, you are welcome to make your decision.”
* * * *
Queen Gwyneth was crowned on the 11th day of May as her father had been crowned before her and pledged her vows to her consorts before a great crowd of curious if not well-wishers. She found when they left the cathedral, however, that there were many well-wishers among them. The crowd hailed the new queen with enthusiasm that voiced their hopes that the reign of terror of King Gerald the Impaler had ended and a new era of peace, love, and prosperity would be theirs.
Gwyneth found her own peace and contentment with her consorts and the three beautiful sons they gave her—and the three beautiful daughters they gave her after that.
The End.
Also available through New Concepts Publishing by Kaitlyn O’Connor:
Cyberevolution I: The Awakening
Cyberevolution II: Total Recall
Cyberevolution III: Abiogenesis
Cyberevolution IV: Cyborg
Cyberevolution V: Illumination
Cyberevolution VI: Cyborg Nation
Cyberevolution VII: Rules of Engagement
Enslaved One: Genesis
Enslaved Two: Spawning, The
Enslaved Three: Gladiators, The
Adaptation
Below
Chaos Forged
Dark Solstice
Discovery: The Forgotten
Dragon Lord
Lords of Mayhem
Night Raven
Ninth Orb, The
Portal, The
Sleeping with the Enemy
When Dawn Breaks
When Night Falls
Also available from New Concepts Publishing:
TEARS OF THE DRAGON
by
Kaitlyn O’Connor
Chapter One
Lennie nudged his partner. “That’s her, comin’ down the steps.”
“Which one?” Tony peered through the gathering gloom.
Lennie glared at him. “The dame, ya moron.”
“My eyes ain’t so good after dark,” Tony said sulkily. “An’ anyway, she was behind the hulking giant there. I thought you was talkin’ ‘bout one of them dames over there by the sidewalk.”
“Them’s workin’ girls, numb nuts. Just get the damned trunk open,” Lennie growled, crawling out of the car as the petite redhead reached the sidewalk, bid the man who was with her good evening and turned in their direction.
She was a pretty little thing, Lennie thought as she came closer and he was able to make out her features … delicate … like one of them china dolls, but with curves in all the right places. It was a pure waste to whack a dame that looked that good. He didn’t like doing dames anyway. It offended him, almost as bad as having to whack a kid. He wondered what she’d done to tick his boss off.
Shrugging it off, he stepped away from the car when she came abreast of him. “S’cuse me, ma’am? I wonder if you could point me in the direction of 110th street?”
The woman paused, looked him over curiously. “This is 110th,” she said in surprise.
He looked around, saw no one was looking in their direction and grabbed her, covering her mouth with his hand as he haule
d her off her feet and moved to the trunk of the car, which was open and waiting, Tony nervously fingering the lid.
The woman, Lennie noticed, had gone limp in his arms the moment he’d grabbed her. He wasn’t falling for that one though. Dropping her into the trunk, he stuffed a gag in her mouth, tied it with quick efficiency, and trussed her like a Thanksgiving turkey. The whole job took less than five minutes, but Tony looked like he was going to pee on himself as he danced around the rear of the car.
“You need to take a leak, or what?” Lennie snarled as he slammed the trunk lid.
“I don’t like grabbin’ her right here in the street. No tellin’ who might’ve seen it. We shoulda waited, like I said, till she was close to an alley.”
Lennie gave him a look. “Get in the car, moron. She don’t walk by no alley. She catches a cab at the corner and hits for home. I been watchin’ her for a week.”
“What’er we gonna do now?” Tony asked nervously, once they were settled in the car again.
“We go to the docks. Where else?”
“What ya got in mind?”
“Somethin’ quiet. I figured we could tie a brick to her or somethin’ and pitch her over the side. Boss didn’t say to get rid of the body, but he likes things tidy, so I figure he’ll be happier if we don’t leave it layin’ around.”
“She sure is pretty,” Tony said wistfully.
“Yeah? And how would you know? You didn’t even know which dame I was talkin’ about.”
“Think we got time to get a little honey before we snuff her?”
Lennie gave him a look. “Hey! She’s a lady. Didn’t your mudder teach you no manners? You don’t get fresh with ladies.”
Tony gaped at him. “But … but … we’re gonna snuff the dame!”
“That’s different. It ain’t personal. We’re just doin’ our job here. An’ our job ain’t about rapin’ and pilagin’. It’s about makin’ the boss’s problems disappear. Besides, foolin’ around is dangerous.” He shook his head. “We off her. We tie an anchor to her and we ditch her.”
A Lamentation of Swans Page 17
