“Then kill me, you rotten bastard.” She was crying now, but still kept her chin up, her eyes locked on his. “Either kill me or let me go. I’m not going along with your crazy god-damned plan! Let me go!”
The King growled low in his throat, and she started to shiver, completely terrified. “Oh, you will,” he replied coldly, staring down at her. “You will comply, or you will not like what happens to you.”
“What are you going to do, roast and eat me? Go ahead!” She tried to stand up, but the weight of the dragon chains were too much for her and kept her on her knees. Tears leaked down her face, and she glared between him and his uncomfortable-looking son. “Go ahead and do it! I’d rather be dead than let you use my body like that! You’re disgusting! You’re a bunch of monsters! If you won’t set me free, then go ahead! Kill me now!”
“Father, this is cruel,” Grimald said softly.
The King’s scowl actually faltered a little bit. Finally, he sighed. “Girl, you understand very little. These are desperate measures. But, in the interest of fairness, I am willing to make you a deal. You give us what we want--an heir for my son, to legitimize his rule--and you may go free.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then the dungeon will be your new home, and you will never see the light of day, or breathe free air.” He stared at her unblinking as he spoke, and each word sounded as hard and final as a stone bouncing down the side of a precipice.
“Father, please,” Grimald broke in. “Taran will never forgive you if he learns of this deceit. Would you die with this on your conscience?”
“Silence!” shouted the king. His voice held absolute authority--but immediately after, he broke into a coughing fit. Every creature in the room looked over, and Grimald reached for his father’s shoulder as the man doubled, choking and gagging.
She saw the King’s face go gray, and sweat break out on his forehead; his face was twisted with pain. “The integrity...of this kingdom...of my people’s homeland...is everything. If...I can endure fathering my children on one of them...after all they have done to us...then the two of them can endure breeding once!”
Jenna felt a fraction of her rage fade away as she caught the desperation behind the King’s cold anger. But she still kept her chin up in defiance, even with tears coursing down her cheeks. “Just because I have no family doesn’t mean you can just keep me. Kidnapping is illegal!”
“Illegal? Girl, where do you think you are? My kingdom is far from the borders of your homeland. Even if you could escape, the land ends at the sea in all directions. Even if such things are illegal back home…” his lips twitched into a thin smile despite the flecks of blood on them.
“This is not America. This land has its own laws. And you have no connections back home who might notice your absence. Not one. My men checked carefully. You will not be missed...and you cannot escape.”
Jenna stared at him, her last hope dwindling. Then slowly, she felt herself crumble. Humiliated but unable to stop, she started to sob. She buried her face in her hands and wept. “Please...please let me go!”
The King made a disgusted noise. “Why does every human woman assume that males will capitulate to them the moment they pour water from their eyes? Pull yourself together, woman. It’s not the end of the bloody world. It won’t take but a year or two out of your life to do your job here, and then you can go do whatever you want with yourself.”
Grimald spoke up, his voice gentle and hesitant. “Miss...Taran isn’t cruel. He won’t hurt you.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?” she gulped and let out another sob.
“Well...point is, things could be a great deal worse….”
“Enough of this!” The King crouched down to stare Jenna in the eyes. “You will comply. We will see the two of you married, you will go to my son’s bedchamber and you will lie with him until you fall pregnant. You will carry to term, and should it live and be male, you will be set free. Otherwise you will try again until we have what we need.
And in the meantime, you are never to tell my idiot son that you were forced into the matter. He will refuse otherwise, and I’ll be forced to continue this ridiculous search for a proper mate for him. If that happens…” His eyes flashed again. “I’ll have you walled into your cell and fed through a slit for the next fifty years.”
3: Taran
The next few hours blurred past as Jenna sank deeper and deeper into despair. She was washed by two women (dragon or human, she couldn’t tell; they seemed as coldly indifferent to her plight as everyone else but Grimald) in scented water, dressed in a filmy white gown and veil, and bedecked with gold jewelry and multicolored flowers.
She was brought before an aged, gray-silver dragon with tattered wings, who trumpeted some sort of hymn and then chanted over her in a language that she didn’t understand. A ring, in the same dragon-wing design as the King’s crown, was shoved onto her finger.
The whole time, she stared at the marble-mosaic floor, tears slowly drying, but only because she was going completely numb. No way out, she thought dully as a pair of scaled acolytes slithered around her bearing massive, smoking censers. I’ll have to go through with it. A year, maybe more, of hell.
The one thing that comforted her, the one thing that gave her any resolve at all to survive, was that possibility of freedom at the end of it. I’m going to get through this. I’m going to come out the other side, no matter how I manage it, and then I’m going to go back home to my aunt and make good on my promise. She’s as good as dead. If I can’t get my revenge on this monster King and his subjects, I’ll take it out on her for getting me into this mess.
They were leading her down another hallway. The chains were gone, but the cream-colored dragon walked behind her, and nudged her (with surprising gentleness) when she hesitated. He had stayed quiet almost this entire time since returning with the key ring.
But he seemed to be watching her closely, and his strange, saurian eyes looked as troubled as Grimald’s. Finally, she came to what seemed to be the right door: an immense carved-wood affair, fancier and larger than those around it. The dragon laid his paw against the door and held it open for her. “You shall await him here,” he said, and she heard a sort of sad resignation in his voice.
She walked through, into a bedchamber out of a Medieval legend. A suit of scale-armor hung on a rack beside one of the multi-paned, ceiling-height windows; tall bookshelves full of every description of book lined the stone walls between hanging tapestries; a wardrobe that could have held a car crouched beside a dressing screen.
Beyond it lay the bed: massive, built with whole logs, wide and low, its canopy stretching up to dominate a quarter of the room. It was piled with furs and velvet blankets, and she tried to imagine the creature who might sleep their nights.
If he was anything like his father...no, no, she couldn’t think about that. She was already terrified, already fighting surges of grief and rage. She had to hide her loathing of the whole affair from this prince, or she would end up living in a bricked-up tomb.
She heard voices outside and froze, listening hard. One was the voice of the beast that had stood guard over her. The other sounded more human: deep, authoritative and a little cold.
“The girl is here, then?”
“Yes, Highness. She is...quite extraordinary. It is the King’s hope that you will like her.”
A derisive snort. “This has nothing to do with what I like or do not like, Ranald my friend. I’m to get a child on this human, and I have no say in the matter. I expect not to see her again once the deed is done.” He sounded so disgusted with the whole affair that Jenna felt an unexpected rush of shame.
Ranald left out a soft sigh.
The other paused. “Hmm? What is this, Ranald? Do you like her? Would you like to take my place in this bedchamber? It matters not to me. My father won’t even notice as long as someone fills up her belly with an egg.”
An egg? Oh Hell no. What was she, a duck? Fucking some strange
human against her will and having their kid was one thing, but ending up laying an egg? What kind of insane crap was this?
Another sigh. Ranald rumbled softly, a note of sadness in his voice. “You will see, Highness. She is...memorable. If I dared, I would….”
“You would, wouldn’t you?” The voice chuckled in a derisive tone that reminded her of the King. “I’d offer you seconds, but once the Mark is set, she cannot have another or we both die.”
Jenna froze. What?
“Yes, Highness, I know.” Ranald hesitated. “Then you will take her and then keep celibate for the rest of your life? It does not sound like a happy circumstance for any man, especially one of our nature.”
“It does not matter.” Bitterness overflowed the man’s voice. “After Andrea’s betrayal, I want nothing to do with women. I’d rather live with the frustration than return to the bed of a woman I wouldn’t touch were it not for my father’s requirements.”
“It is the kingdom’s requirement, Highness.”
“Bah. That old sadist is the one who makes the rules. Ever since the Plague took most of our females and left the rest sterile, we have had to breed with mortals. Other men among us, yourself included, can afford to love them, if you can find one worth loving.” His bitter tone indicated that he found that doubtful. “But for me, there is no love. There is only duty.”
Jenna’s heart sank, and she felt a trickle of sympathy for the owner of that voice. In his own way he was just as trapped as she. The difference, of course, that his duties ended with an orgasm or two. Hers…
An egg. I am to carry and birth an egg for them. And what comes out of that egg won’t be mine. Not a baby for me to love, but an heir to secure a dynasty. I probably won’t even get to hold him.
If she started crying again, she would smear her makeup, and he would know. She swallowed her tears and took several deep, steadying breaths. If he didn’t want any part of this, at least she could bet that the sex part would be over with as fast as he could manage.
I just hope that some day, when all of this is behind me, I can find a lover who can drown out these memories with his body and his love. Someone who isn’t going to take my virginity as part of a transaction that lines my aunt’s pockets. Someone who wants me with him, and will work hard to keep me. Someone capable of tenderness...not one of these monsters that sometimes pretend to be men.
“Well, I may as well get this over with. Guard the door, Ranald, if the old bastard checks to see that I’m actually fucking her I’ll flame him until his armor melts off.”
“I’ll...make certain there are no intrusions.” Now Ranald sounded positively miserable. Jenna wondered...who was he, and why did he seem so bothered by all of this? Did he pity her? And if so, why?
The door flew open, and in strode a man. She turned to look at him--and froze, her breath catching. Taran, the vicious King’s eldest son, looked as little like him as Grimald resembled him. He was just as tall and powerfully built, his dark purple silk shirt clinging to his muscular chest and his breeches straining over his thighs, but the rest of him was….
Beautiful. He’s beautiful. Grimald had been good-looking, but Taran looked like an artist had created him. His skin was very pale, almost colorless, contrasting sharply with the wavy jet black hair that flowed to his shoulders.
His eyes were a distinctive light green, large and hooded; his features were narrow and well-shaped, with a Cupid’s bow mouth held now in a grim line. He wore a sword at his hip that was likely for show; what would a man who could become a fire-breathing monster need with a length of sharpened steel? He tossed his head as he walked in, looked around...and then his eyes fell on her, and he stopped dead.
Jenna blinked back at him, astonished as his grimness slowly softened, and a gleam came to his eyes. She could feel the weight of his gaze like a hand sliding over her body. Jenna, who had endured pinch marks every night at her waitressing job but had never had a single man back home ask her out, didn’t know what to do with his open stare. He almost looked like he liked looking at her.
Her with her too-robust curves, her with the soft belly beneath the swell of her breasts and an ass sized too big for normal lingerie...Jenna, ignored by every human man she had ever run across, wilted a little in the face of his open fascination.
He hesitated a moment longer, then lifted his chin, seeming to force the grim expression back onto his face like a mask. “Well then. So you’re the one my father bought for me.”
He approached her, sneering slightly with disdain even as his gaze kept sweeping hungrily over her body. “Nothing to say for yourself? Good. I don’t particularly want to hear it. This whole arrangement goes against my grain, and I’d rather just get it over with.” He walked around her, just as his father had done, and reached out to touch her wavy hair, like a farmer testing grain-heads for ripeness.
He unclipped the jeweled combs holding her hair in place and pulled them free, letting her hair tumble down her back. She shivered, but held still and kept her mouth shut. He leaned down to speak in her ear. “I hope you’re not expecting romance. I don’t do that. Besides, you’re a stranger--and a glorified whore, to boot.”
She gritted her teeth behind her lips and started to shake. I’m not a whore. My aunt is selling me like one, your father is buying me like one, but I never asked for any of this. Stop saying that! I’m not a whore!
“Such a pretty face...you must have broken a lot of hearts back in whatever town they found you in.” He brushed her chin with his finger and she had to press her lips together to keep them from trembling. “I wonder if those smitten mortal boys knew you were the sort who will offer her body up for money. I doubt they would have bothered with you, had they known.”
She started shaking. Part of her wanted to knee him in the balls for his insulting manner; part of her wanted to beg for her freedom no matter what the consequence; part of her just wanted to run for one of those high windows and throw herself through it. I don’t want this. Stop touching me and saying these horrible things. You don’t know what’s really going on!
He paused, head tilting slightly as his green eyes fixed on her face. “You’re trembling,” he said in wonder...and with the tiniest touch of concern. “You are aware of what you are here for, correct? You know that you’ve been sold off as my wife?”
She nodded mutely, not trusting her voice to hide her pain. But she just couldn’t look at him any more. Somehow having him disgusted with her humiliated her worse than being reduced to an object by his father and her aunt.
He sighed. “Fine, then. I can’t imagine what kind of woman would sell herself off to be bred, but at least you’re pretty enough.” He took her wrist, leading her over to the bed, his manner businesslike and cold.
4: Escape
He did not kiss her. In fact, as he lifted her and settled her amid the furs and blankets, he ignored her mouth, and didn’t look her in the eyes. Instead, he simply reached down and smoothed his hands over her shoulders through the filmy silk. “Try to relax. You are fortunate; I’m not a brute like my father.” He was trying to avoid showing her the gleam still in his eyes; he was trying to pretend disinterest. But as he started to explore her body through the cloth, she felt his hands tremble a little bit, and heard his breath catch.
How strange; he wanted her. His eyes, though hooded and cut away from hers, shimmered with growing lust as he ran his hands over her. It confused her enough that a little of her fear trickled away.
Did dragon-men like their women big? The two who had helped her bathe had been built like particularly busty Amazons. And thinking back...even the King had looked at her with interest. Now, Taran, leaning down to unfasten the brooch that held the silk together at her throat, had a little shake in his breathing.
He set the brooch aside and smoothed the fabric back, exposing her lush, heavy breasts to the air. Her nipples tightened in the cool of the room, and his eyes lit up as he stared down at them. “...maybe this won’t be so terrible,” h
e speculated, before unbuttoning his own shirt.
He slipped the aubergine fabric off his shoulders, exposing a body even more heavily muscled than it had appeared when dressed. His smooth white skin gleamed over his powerful body, hairless and without flaw. As he crawled onto the bed with her, eyes fixed on her breasts, she realized that his breeches strained over his groin as well as his thighs now.
His hands, rough with callus, slid up over her breasts, cupping them and kneading them with surprising gentleness. A jolt went through her, which she couldn’t enjoy; the fact that neither of them wanted this, and that he held her in contempt for pretending she did, sucked all the pleasure out of what her nerves were telling her.
Even when his mouth closed over her nipple, she could hear herself whimpering, but stood outside her body, its trembling responses somehow just not reaching her mind. He tongued her breasts, nudged her back into the pillows, and clambered over her, his hands busy baring the rest of her skin. Her golden girdle clattered to the floor; he untied the silk sash beneath and tossed it aside, then opened the dress and looked down at her.
She squirmed a little, self-conscious on top of everything else, and he blinked at her, eyes searching her face. “Are you actually shy?” he asked, blackly amused--and then the amusement fled his expression as she blushed and nodded. “How can you be shy? You sold yourself off!”
She almost cried right then, her lips trembling as she stared up at him. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I wish I could tell you the truth, but your father will imprison me for the rest of my life if I say one word!
Taran blinked, and tilted his head slightly. “You are here of your free will, aren’t you?”
She barely held herself together then, her breath shaking in her throat. No! No, I’m not. Please don’t do this to me. I don’t want my first time to be like this! And they said you don’t want someone who is here against her will. Help me! But she couldn’t say a single thing aloud. She didn’t dare. She forced a tiny nod.
Romance: Bought by the Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Romance Standalone (Paranormal Romance) (Studly Shifters Book 2) Page 2