Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet Book 1): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 1

by Theodora Taylor

  “More than suffer,” I answer. “She’d never forgive him if she knew he knew I’d been kidnapped, and he hadn’t lifted a finger to help me.”

  “That is exactly his fear if our union doesn’t result in a live birth, with both you and the baby intact.” Damianos nods as if we’re in perfect agreement.

  But I shake my head back at him. Because he’s totally not getting it. “Fensa will still be pissed. Just like me. It doesn’t matter if I live through the birth. It’s not like I’m going to suddenly decide, ‘Oh, it’s totally okay that you kidnapped me and forced me into proximity heat.’”

  A long silence. Then he says, “No, my queen, I do not expect you to suddenly decide to forgive me for my many wrongs. But it is my fervent hope that by the time our hatchling is born your flame turns yellow for me and that it will lead you to forgive me for what I have done.”

  “What do you mean about my flame turning yellow?” I ask, so, so confused.

  “The Betrayer King’s flame burns a pure yellow when he talks of his mate. He told me her flame began to burn this color for him too before they parted after years together in the Ice Age. I believe the emotion is referred to as ‘love’ in your human language.”

  Love…I choke on the notion. “Wait, you want me to fall in love with you before the baby is born and tell my sister no harm, no foul about you kidnapping me the next time I see her?”

  “Yet another clever summation of my dialogue,” he answers, his admiration evident as he smiles. “But enough talk of the future, your flame tells me you are hungry. I will wait for you in your room so as not to offend you with my admiring gaze when you rise from the bath.”

  With that, he stands up and leaves the room.

  Leaving me behind, stunned and flabbergasted.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Stunned and flabbergasted. That’s pretty much the way I stay in the hours that follow.

  Damianos Drákon is ruthless, arrogant, the kind of asshole who would have the guy he hypnotized into becoming your boyfriend collar you and then threaten to kill himself.

  But he’s waiting like a lap dog when I come out of the bathroom, this time wrapped in a big fluffy towel he left behind.

  I don’t know whether to say, “Hello again” or “What the hell?”

  I settle for eyeing him mistrustfully as I edge past him to the closet.

  But I can feel his gaze on me as I slip a new nightgown over my head. Glowing and hot.

  “What do you wish to do today, Reverence?” he asks behind me.

  “Go home and sleep in my own bed,” I shoot back, shutting the closet door. “Resume my duties as the queen of North Dakota, like I was supposed to before you kidnapped me.

  In an instant, he closes the space between us. “We are each other’s homes now.” His voice is calm and gentle inside my head like he’s explaining simple facts to a six-year-old. “You are my queen, and my bed is yours should ever you have wish to share it.”

  God, it’s hard to think straight with his voice inside my head, dark and rich as chocolate syrup. Total temptation.

  For a moment, I can’t help but imagine the picture he’s trying to paint. Us…not prisoner and captor, but the kind of couple that would let a bath turn into other things….

  Exasperated face emoji…what am I doing? Why would I even let my mind stray down that road?

  This is a trick. It has to be, I remind myself before answering out loud, “Okay, fine. I guess we could binge something. Does this place have a TV?”

  It does. After a lunch, consisting of a simple turkey sandwich for me, and a pile of lunchmeat for him, Damianos takes me into the living room and asks the house to watch TV. A pre-biochip era flat screen emerges from the wall in front of the couch, one so old, it doesn’t even project holos.

  But I grew up with this kind of set, so after a few minutes or so of watching a superhero movie from the 2010s, I get used to the flat way entertainments used to look…if not the dragon shifter sitting at the opposite end of the couch.

  What the hell is he up to? I wonder, frowning. But Escape is still Plan A, B, and C. Maybe if I act like I’m buying his nice dragon act, I can make an opportunity to get the hell out of here.

  Uncle Kyle had wielded friendliness like a weapon, while Uncle Clyde had done the necessary, dirty work behind the scenes. They’d both warned me that I would have to figure out how to fulfill both roles since I’d opted not to take on a beta. Real Talk 100, I’d been more worried about the friendly part than the behind-the-scenes ass-kicking. But now, here was my chance to see if I could be half the diplomat Uncle Kyle was.

  “So what do you usually watch back in Greece?” I make myself ask Damianos during the obligatory breather scene when the superhero and her love interest talk and actually get to know each other while on their way to another fight.

  “I do not watch such entertainments,” he answers, immediately shifting his eyes to me as if I were way more interesting than anything happening on screen. “After spending my early millennia here in the part of Zone 4 that would eventually come to be known as Greece, I much prefer live entertainments. But I even stopped attending those after a certain point. Most of the music produced after the baroque period is complete and utter trash. European music especially was perfect before Mozart came along with his juvenile, overly flamboyant compositions.”

  I narrow my eyes, and not just because no one else I know would dare to hate on Mozart, but also because I think I might have heard a compliment buried deep inside of there. “So music…that’s the one thing you like about humans?”

  Damianos sniffs. “Music is the sole place humans excel. Drakkon do not have such a concept, so yes, I suppose it was somewhat fascinating to watch the upright primates go from singing their unintelligible throat songs with only rude hand carved instruments as accompaniment to composing symphonies.”

  The superhero on screen is headed toward the World War II trenches now. We’re almost to my favorite part where she fucks a bunch of Nazis all the way up.

  But I stay turned toward Damianos, strangely fascinated for reasons that have nothing to do with my Uncle Kyle impression. No, I hadn’t missed all that disdain for humans in his voice. But it was hard not to appreciate his short and concise summary of music from the Ice Age until “Mozart came along.”

  “Okay, you loved music pre-Mozart but hate the modern stuff. So what do you do for fun then?” I ask, honestly curious.

  He shrugs one huge shoulder. “In truth, not much these days. I do not wish to have your inferior technology attached to my brain stem, which means nearly all manner of interactive entertainments are inaccessible to me. It’s unfortunate that live entertainment can no longer be easily curated, as it was before the Middle Ages. During the peak of the Roman empire, I had a stable of gladiators acquired from all over the world who fought exclusively for my entertainment. I had merely to wonder who would win in a weaponless fight between a Berber and a former centurion, and that night I could watch it unfold over dinner. The answer, if you’re wondering, was the Berber.”

  “Okay, I was totally wondering,” I admit, leaning even further in. “I would’ve loved to have watched that fight.”

  “It was quite the spectacle. The guests at my party talked about the surprise upset for years afterward. You see the Berber was quite small, but he figured out how to use this to his advantage…”

  And that’s how I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon, ignoring the superhero movies playing in the background, and listening to stories from my captor's Roman Empire days.

  His actually-lived history was more than a little fascinating and probably why I didn’t notice who was missing until Damianos stands up and says, “Stay here while I heat up our dinner. I am afraid we must make do with leftovers until I can make alternative arrangements with a food delivery service.”

  “Where’s Colby?” I call after him, realizing for the first time that I haven’t seen him all day.

  Damianos answers, �
�I imagine Colby is back in England now. I released him from his generational service.” Then he disappears through the sliding door.

  Forget staying put, I follow him into the kitchen. “Wait, you released him? Just like that? But I thought you had no problems being a modern-day slave owner.”

  “All the Colbys have been paid. Quite handsomely I might add,” Damianos answers as he scrolls through the current items list on the fridge’s digital display window. “And no, I did not have any problems at all with acquiring his life for my beckoning. But that was then. This is now.”

  I shake my head, unable to believe that he actually gave his manservant his walking papers. “What happened between then and now?”

  He stops scrolling and turns his intense glowing gaze on me, magnetizing me with just a look. “You. You happened. And you changed everything.”

  I don’t believe him. I shouldn’t believe him. It’s obvious that this is a trick. So obvious.

  Still, he’s looking at me in that way again. Like he adores me more than anyone else on Earth.

  But why? I don’t understand how he transformed from an arrogant asshole to an adoring companion overnight.

  The answer is he didn’t, I tell myself over a dinner of overcooked lamb chunks and mashed potatoes. I’ve got to stay on guard and I’ve really got to figure how to escape my now weirdly pleasant imprisonment.

  For those reasons and those reasons only, I continue playing along. The conversation flows over dinner and though we do end up back in the living room to finish watching the rest of the movies in superhero’s personal series, the television never gets turned back on. We talk and talk until Damianos informs me it’s time to go to bed if I wish to be well-rested.

  He walks me to my bedroom door like we’re kids in one of those pre-biochip movies from back when teens still dated in person instead of via avatars.

  Then he dips his head low, his lips hovering directly above mine.

  Is he going to kiss me again? I’m still a prisoner, looking for a way out. But my heart beats silly and stupid with the question.

  “Would you like to sleep in this room alone or come to my bed as we discussed earlier?”

  “You made an offer, there was no discussion involved,” I remind him. “And I…I never agreed to that.” My response is meant to be a declaration, but the words come out as little more than a weak stutter. It’s hard to keep my voice as firm as I want it to be with my wolf dancing in my stomach.

  “No, you didn’t agree to share my bed,” he answers, both his expression and voice sad. But instead of arguing, he takes a step back and says, “Good night, Reverence.”

  That’s it? I feel disappointed and like a fool at the same damn time. “Okay, um, good night,” I answer before escaping into the room.

  But of course, I don’t fall asleep after I climb into bed. As soon as I deem it late enough, I creep to the door, hoping to God and the Fenrir wolf that Damianos forgot to lock it again, like the one time I managed to get all the way downstairs.

  You see, I gathered an important piece of intel over dinner. The kitchen…it has three doors: a sliding one that leads out to the living room, and two regular ones with old-fashioned knobs. One of the regular doors is full wood and looks like it leads to the basement, but the other one has a window and I could see it definitely leads to the outside.

  Taking a deep breath, I press my palm to the door.

  To my utter surprise, it totally opens.

  But then, to my utter disappointment, I find Damianos curled up on the floor outside my room.

  Damn hermetically sealed suite! If this had been a regular house, I would have known he was right on the other side of the door. But maybe he was sleeping so soundly I could just creep over his huge body.

  “Is there any way I might serve you, Reverence? Do you require water or more food?” the dragon king’s voice appears inside my head, completely cutting off that idea.

  With an irritated huff, I palm the door closed again, not bothering to answer.

  The next time I find myself in the kitchen, it’s because Damianos has escorted me down there after administering my morning bath.

  “How about you let me handle breakfast,” I offer, not wanting to sit through another rubbery meal of overcooked whatever Colby left in the fridge.

  A weird thing happens when we’re done eating, though. I feel a tremendous surge of hunger.

  Which is crazy since I’d made myself four eggs, and that’s more than I usually eat for breakfast. But then I realize the ravenous feeling isn’t coming not from inside of me but over my mate bond.

  “Are you still hungry?” I ask Damianos.

  “Forgive me, Reverence, but we drakkon require much more sustenance than wolves. I will as the humans say, raid the refrigerator to see what else I might eat.

  “No, I can make more,” I answer, standing up. For reasons I don’t care to fully examine right now, I do not like the idea of Damianos starving. “How much did Colby use to cook for you?”

  “The last Colby would have food delivered toward the beginning of the week. I believe he ordered a carton of eggs for each day until the next delivery and a package of bacon.”

  Well, that explained why there were so many cartons of eggs and at least ten packages of bacon wrapped in brown paper in the fridge.

  “You want some toast, too?” I ask, closing the door with one of the cartons and brown-paper packages tucked under one arm.

  “Drakkon are carnivorous. We do not require breads, grains, or plants.”

  A chill runs down my back at the word carnivorous. And it’s not one of fear. Why does everything he says remind me of sex? Which I shouldn’t be wanting to have right now. Especially with him.

  I concentrate on figuring out how to scramble a whole carton of eggs at the same time.

  “You honor me with this feast,” Damianos declares when I set down a plate piled high with eggs and bacon.

  “I’m sure this is nothing in comparison to what Colby would have made,” I answer.

  “Yes, all of the Colbys train for a time under master chefs. However, this meal was made by your reverent hand, and therefore it automatically qualifies as the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  My cheeks warm. It’s embarrassing how pleased his declaration makes me feel, even though cooking a simple breakfast like this really wasn’t any kind of big deal. I guess my great-grandfather Leroy was right though.

  “Remember, Twins, the best way to a man’s heart is through food,” he’d once told us when our overworked mom walked in with a bucket of KFC for the fourth night in a row. This had been back before our dads had returned to share the parenting and kingdom burden with our mother, who was not only a video game business CEO but also holding down the Queen of Michigan title at the same time.

  “And notice your mama don’t have a man,” Leroy had added, just in case the meaning of his callous dig hadn’t come across clear.

  My mother had merely glared at him and suggested the retired king do something other than make her life harder. But now a new idea occurs to me…

  “I could make meals for us from now on if you want me to. But I’ll need you to do a grocery store run.”

  “I cannot do as you have asked,” he immediately answers. “But please do not worry, a new delivery will be made every week.”

  My heart sinks.

  Well, that’s the end of that nub of a plan.

  A few days later while we’re eating breakfast, and I’m still no closer to figuring out how to execute Plan Escape, the house informs us that the delivery person from the local grocery store is here.

  I still, and Damianos regards me across the table, his golden gaze slitting.

  “I do not believe you would wish for me to harm the man making the delivery or for me to god speak his mind,” he says. “But that is exactly what will happen if you attempt to follow me and seek his assistance.”

  With that threat, he leaves to answer the door.

  My heart be
ats loudly in my ears as I consider the kitchen door. It’s so close and there’s just enough time to make a run for it. If I made it to the Yellow Mountain village, I might be back on my throne in New Wolfsburg by the time the night is through.

  Or…

  The memory of Kirk slicing his own neck flashes across my mind. No, I can’t make a run for it…if I try to escape while the delivery person is here, who knows how Damianos will punish me if he catches me?

  A few days of him being nice to me doesn’t erase the very real possibilities of what he’ll do if I make him mad again. I force myself to stay seated and I even manage a smile when Damianos comes back with a huge box, which we unpack together.

  “Do you prefer steak then?” he asks after I pull out a large package of rib eyes. “I can feel your great excitement over our mate bond.”

  “Yes, I love steak,” I answer. This is how I find out for sure he can’t read my mind. Because if he knew why I was really so excited about the steak, he would throw the rib eyes straight into the trash.

  But instead of chucking them, Damianos says, “If it pleases you, Reverence, let’s have it for breakfast tomorrow. Do you know of this dish, steak and eggs? Colby used to make it often.”

  “It does please me, and I totally know how to make steak and eggs,” I answer with my brightest smile. “Thanks!”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mom forced our local K-12 wolf school to incorporate meditation into the curriculum after she took over as Queen of Michigan. Neither of my dads saw much use for it, and I hadn’t either. For twelve years, I’d squirmed on a mat for the first half-hour of school, wondering why we had to do this useless shit.

  But after figuring out my new escape plan, I was making all the mental apologies to Mom. If not for being able to focus my mind by rote, there’s no way I would have been able to keep it calm enough not to broadcast over our mate bond that I was totally up to something.

  I make it through lunch and dinner that day and even watch the first few episodes of a World War II documentary series while sitting beside Damianos on the couch. The truth is, I’ve never loved long multi-part documentaries. Give me a collection of short vids about how to actually do something any day. My dads say that’s my Grandma Chloe’s influence. She was one of the original vloggers back in her day and enjoyed making the same kind of tutorials I loved to watch.