by Zoe Chant
Guns were banned in Brandusa. The police carried batons and criminals carried knives, and swordfighting was the national martial art. Between Prince Lucas’s hands and the athletic grace with which he carried himself, Journey bet he was an excellent swordfighter.
Journey couldn’t stop looking at Prince Lucas, drinking in every detail and searching for more. First she thought it was because he was royalty. Then she thought it was because he was so stunningly gorgeous, with his extraordinary amber eyes and golden hair. Then she realized that it was because he seemed so sad.
Why would he be sad? Journey thought. He’s the crown prince. He’s gorgeous. He’s rich. He’s powerful. He’s about to marry an incredibly beautiful woman. What has he got to be sad about?
She didn’t even know why she thought he was sad. He didn’t look sad. He was smiling at the crowd. But there was something about him, maybe some tension in his shoulders or tightness around his mouth, which gave her that impression.
It made no sense, but she wanted to comfort him. She wanted to jump on to the platform, grab his hand and feel those strong fingers hold hers tight, and whisper, “Lucas, let’s get out of here! Ditch that princess and run away with me!”
And then she’d see his eyes light up and the sorrow fall away from him, and he’d sweep her into his arms and run away with her. And then he’d take her to some other castle that he just happened to have (well, he was a prince), and tell her he’d fallen in love with her at first sight, and then he’d lay her down on a huge luxurious bed, and make wild and sweet love to her. All night.
Journey shook her head in amusement at her own wild imagination. But she had to admit, she’d enjoyed her silly little daydream. It had made her warm around the heart and hot in some other places, making her realize that she’d been cold for years. She liked to look at guys, sure, but it had been a long time since she’d felt more than a little tingle of turn-on. But a single glance at Prince Lucas had practically made her catch fire inside.
“Welcome, people of Brandusa!” Prince Lucas called out. His voice easily carried across the room; he’d obviously had vocal training. Journey liked the sound of it. He hadn’t lost his accent in his five years abroad. She liked that, too. The Brandusan accent ranked with Irish for sexiness.
“Thank you, people of Brandusa, for welcoming me into your home,” said Princess Raluca. Her voice chimed like crystal, exactly like one might imagine of a princess.
“Please, enjoy the food and drink and dancing,” Prince Lucas went on. “Princess Raluca and I will mingle with you. We regret that we cannot dance and speak and drink with each one of you, but we shall do our best. We thank you for coming to celebrate our engagement and to witness the exchange of rings and vows at midnight. And now—”
Prince Lucas had been scanning the room, his gaze resting first on this person, then on that. As he said the word “now,” his eyes met Journey’s.
His polished speech broke off abruptly. His jaw dropped. And his amber eyes met hers with a force that made her jump. They seemed to brighten until they shone like molten gold. Prince Lucas stared at her with an intensity she couldn’t help reading as passion, as if he did want to grab her and carry her away. As if love at first sight was real, and he’d just fallen in love with her.
Then he broke off eye contact. Looking fixedly away from her, he went on smoothly, “— enjoy the ball!”
Journey fell back to reality with a thud. As if a Brandusan prince would ever fall for an American backpacker! And any man who’d ditch his fiancée for a stranger was a total jerk— Prince Cheater, not Prince Charming.
She’d fallen for Prince Charming Asshole once before. And if there was one vow she’d hold herself to, it was to never make that mistake again.
Chapter Three
Lucas
Lucas had been taught that dragons always knew their mates at first sight. When he’d asked, “But how do you know?” he’d always gotten the unhelpful reply, “You just do.” He’d imagined it as simple recognition, like the difference between seeing a stranger and seeing someone you know.
Oh, he’d imagined thinking. Oh, I know that person. That woman’s my mate.
Then, standing on the platform at his own engagement ball, he saw her.
Mine, his dragon hissed.
Every drop of blood in Lucas’s veins was replaced with liquid fire. He burned with passion, with desire, with a wild and desperate longing.
It was a feeling of recognition, but not like spotting a friend from across the room. It was the kind of recognition that altered your entire being, the kind that made you know in an instant that your life would never be the same, the kind that made you realize what you’d been missing all your days before.
It was like becoming a dragon for the very first time. He had wings. He could fly. He could breathe fire. It was at once revelatory and completely natural. How could he have lived all those years without ever tasting the freedom of the skies? From the first instant of his first flight, even though he’d lived thirteen years without ever flying before, he knew down to his bones that if the power to shift was ever taken from him, he would die of longing for the open sky.
Lucas saw the woman in the gown of twining roses, with her emerald eyes and ruby hair, and knew she was the only one for him. If she would be his mate, he would love and cherish and protect her, treasuring her above his hoard and above his life. If he lost her, his heart would shatter like glass.
And he didn’t even know her name.
He stood gaping like a fool, his speech forgotten. He could do nothing but stare at her delectable curves, her hair like embers, her sparkling eyes. Who was she? She didn’t look Brandusan, and surely she was too young to be a diplomat. A diplomat’s daughter?
A discreet cough from Raluca brought him back to his senses. He finished his speech on autopilot, then stepped down from the platform. Luckily, it was the custom to mingle with the crowd, so he didn’t have to make a special excuse to talk to his mate. He strode through the crowd, smiling and bowing and exchanging greetings and good-wishes, his heart as light as if borne aloft on dragon wings.
Then he stood before her. The crowd faded away. All he could see was her. She was even more beautiful up-close, with a charming spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her luscious breasts swelled up from her corset like living pearls. He took a deep breath, and caught a hint of her scent: dried roses and clean linen, and something warm and womanly beneath it. It made his head swim.
So this was his mate. He wanted to learn everything about her. He wanted to catch her up in his arms and feel the softness of her rosy lips.
He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been to have found her.
And he had no idea what to say.
“Welcome,” he finally managed. “I am Lucas.”
“I know,” she said with a smile. Her accent was unmistakably American. She gave him a surprisingly graceful curtsy; she must have spent some time in Brandusa. “I’m Journey Jacobson.”
“What a marvelous name. Did your parents give it to you or did you choose it for yourself?”
She cocked her head, sending her glinting curls tumbling over her shoulders. “You know, I always expect people to ask that, but they hardly ever do. Jacobson is my family name, but I chose Journey myself.”
“How did you come to choose it?”
“I grew up in a little town called Lummox, North Dakota. There was basically nothing there but canola fields and cows.”
“Canola?”
“It’s a plant,” Journey explained. “You squeeze oil out of the seed pods. It has yellow flowers and it’s pretty in the spring, but there’s only so long you can look at fields of yellow flowers. And that’s about all there is to do in Lummox: look at the canola, and tip cows.”
“Tip cows?” Lucas repeated, fascinated.
“They sleep standing up. If you push them hard, they fall over. Then they jump up and charge you, and you have to run. It’s kind of mean. I never did it myself.
But if your only alternative is watching the canola...”
Lucas couldn’t help laughing. “I can see why you wished to journey.”
She laughed with him. Her laughter wasn’t like Raluca’s, like crystal bells; it was full-throated and unselfconscious, and made him want to laugh too. “Oh, and also we had a library. A very tiny, dusty library, that no one ever went in but me and the librarian. It had three shelves full of ancient National Geographics. I read them over and over, and I decided that as soon as I was old enough, I’d get out of Lummox and see the world. But the thing was, a lot of people had dreams in Lummox. Had. Mostly, they’d given them up. So I decided to name myself for my dream, so I’d never forget it.”
Journey had begun her story in laughter, but when she got to the part about people giving up their dreams, he saw her eyes glisten with held-back tears. Who had she known who’d given up their dreams? Her parents, perhaps?
Lucas didn’t want to press her. How cruel he would be, to make her cry at a ball! Instead, he spoke the other thought that was in his heart. “How brave and clever of you to take your dream as your name. How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” She smiled, her sorrow fading. “Everyone thought I was crazy. You don’t change your first name in Lummox, North Dakota. You especially don’t change it to something that isn’t even a real name. I caught hell for it for the next five years. It took me an entire year to even get people to stop calling me Ashley.”
“How did you manage it?”
She shrugged. “I answered when they called me Journey, and I didn’t answer when they called me Ashley. For about six months, no one called me anything at all. Then they gave in.”
“You have a will of steel.”
That same sad look shadowed her face. “Maybe I did then.”
Lucas was puzzled. “Always, surely. You succeeded, did you not? Here you are, journeying far from... Lummox.”
Journey’s sorrow melted into amusement. “I love the way you say it. It’s like you can’t quite believe it’s a real town.”
“Oh, no,” Lucas assured her. “I believe in it. We have such towns in Brandusa. They contain nothing but fields of barley and herds of bored, mischief-making goats.”
Journey laughed again.
“We have a great deal in common,” Lucas said. As she had told him of Lummox, he’d been both caught up in her story and comparing it to his own. “I too felt stifled in the place of my birth.”
She glanced around the room incredulously, making Lucas see its magnificence with her eyes. “You did?”
“I did indeed,” he assured her. “But I’ve forgotten my manners. I will tell you my story, but first, may I offer you a drink? A gentleman should never let a lady stand thirsty.”
A fetching pink blush colored her cheeks. “I forgot my manners too. And after all the work Mrs. Florescu did teaching them to me! I didn’t do the proper introduction. And with a prince, too!” Curtsying again, she said, “I am honored to meet you, Prince Lucas.”
“Please, just call me Lucas,” he said immediately. She stared at him as if he had lost his wits. He probably had. He could think of nothing but that he had finally, finally found his mate. But she was still staring, so he offered the first explanation that came to mind. “We may be more casual on this special occasion.”
“Yes.” She stifled a sigh, then drew herself up into a more formal posture. “Of course.”
Fool, roared his dragon. The special occasion is your engagement to another woman!
Lucas opened his mouth to assure her that there would be no engagement. Then he closed it. Journey was American. She would know nothing of mates, or of the customs of either royalty or dragons. More importantly, she didn’t know him.
If he blurted out that he really was a dragon and he’d known at first sight that she was his true love, she’d think he was a lunatic.
If he took her outside and shifted to prove it, he’d terrify her.
If he told her he was going to refuse the engagement because he’d met her and that Raluca would be thrilled, she’d think he was lying to seduce her.
Lucas frowned, trying to think of the best option. Perhaps he should simply continue getting to know her for another hour or so, then take her to meet Raluca. He and Raluca could explain together that neither of them chose the engagement and they were not going to go through with it. Then he’d be free to court Journey. They could get to know each other as men and women normally did. Once he was certain that she wouldn’t think he was a madman or a monster, he would explain everything.
Journey didn’t seem to have noticed his long hesitation. She appeared to have become depressed at the mention of his engagement, which gave him a strange mixture of feelings. On the one hand, he wished he could tell her the truth immediately. On the other hand, he was glad that she clearly wished he wasn’t about to marry someone else.
Smoothly, Lucas said, “May I offer you the traditional drink of the royal family of Brandusa?”
Journey brightened a little at that. With an inner wince of recognition, he saw that she was trying to enjoy what she could in a situation she wished could be different. He knew all too much about that.
“Yes, please,” she said. “I love traditional things.”
“I can see. You wear our gown and shoes beautifully.” He turned to the bartender. “Two flutes of dragonfire.”
“Oooh...” Journey breathed. “That sounds exciting.”
The bartender reverently took the bottle from beneath the bar and poured out two flutes. The orange-red liquor roiled in the glasses like liquid flame, seething and sending up wisps of smoke before it settled.
“What’s it made of?” Journey asked.
“See if you can guess after you try it.” He offered her a glass, then took his. “There is a toast in three parts. You drink after each one. Match your sips to mine, so you finish on the third.”
She nodded eagerly, then inhaled the air over her glass. “It smells like... I know it, but I can’t put my finger on it...”
“Like fire?” Lucas asked. “Like hot metal?”
“Yes! I’ve never had a drink that smells like that.” She glanced into the glass. Lucas was secretly amused to see her visibly wonder if it would taste revolting, then resolve to be polite no matter what.
“The toast,” he reminded her, holding up his glass, and she raised hers to meet his. “We raise our glasses to the three treasures of the dragon. To honor.”
“To honor,” Journey echoed, and drank with him.
It was impossible to get used to the taste of dragonfire. The liquor tasted of fire, of peaches plucked on a summer day, of dreams and hopes and desire. It curled like flames over the tongue and slid down the throat like molten gold.
Lucas felt the fire of the liquor spread throughout his body. He had to alter his stance; he’d gotten so hard, his breeches were tight. Dragonfire wasn’t an aphrodisiac, exactly; it wouldn’t make you desire someone if you didn’t already. If you drank it with friends or family, it brought on a pleasant nostalgia for all the good times you’d shared. But if you drank it with a lover, the evening was likely to conclude with a wild night of passion.
Journey’s eyes widened as she swallowed. She took a deep breath, making her ivory breasts move within the corset. A very light sweat sprang up, giving her exposed skin a lovely glow. She looked Lucas boldly over from head to foot, her eyes lingering at the bulge in his breeches, then hastily jerked her gaze back to his face.
He raised his glass again. “To gold.”
“To gold,” Journey repeated, and they both drank again.
She licked a scarlet droplet from her lips. Lucas watched her tongue moisten her full lips, and imagined it flicking against his. Tasting and caressing its way down his body. Tracing the dragonmarks on his belly and chest. Then licking further down...
He forced his mind away from those images, and lifted his glass for the final toast. “To the open sky.”
No dragon could have spoken the
final toast with more longing than Journey as she repeated, “To the open sky.”
They drained their glasses. The dragonfire burned its way down his throat, sending tendrils of heat coiling around his limbs. Its flavor lingered on his lips, and its perfume surrounded him.
“I can still taste it,” whispered Journey.
She leaned in as she spoke, making him long to bend down and taste it on her lips. Lucas felt dizzy, as if he was floating in flames, and couldn’t tell if it was the dragonfire or being so close to Journey. She was barely a handspan away from him. He could feel the heat of her body. It was maddening that he couldn’t touch her.
Then he realized that there was a way that he could.
“Dance with me,” he said, and offered her his hand.
Her warm fingers closed over his. That simple contact was more arousing than caressing the naked bodies of any of his previous partners. He had to take a deep breath to steady himself before he stepped out with her on to the dance floor.
The orchestra was playing a slow waltz. Lucas put his palm on her back and began to lead her. Her skirts whispered against his legs and her breasts brushed against his chest. He could feel every breath she took. The perfume of the dragonfire still hung about them as they moved together as easily as if they’d been dance partners all their lives.
“What was that drink?” Journey asked. Her voice was soft, pitched to carry only to him. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
“Shall I tell you, or do you want a chance to guess?”
“Some kind of fruit brandy? Not pear... Not plum... Not cherry...” With a mischievous smile, she guessed, “The forbidden fruit?”
“Very good! Yes, it’s brandy distilled from forbidden fruits.” He’d tell her later that the aged brandy was then finished with a breath of actual dragonfire.
Journey’s eyebrows rose. “Come on, what is it really?”
“But that’s exactly...” Then Lucas realized the nature of her misunderstanding, and laughed. “It’s not the actual forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. It’s a native fruit that’s called after it because it’s so delicious and rare. It’s only ripe for about two weeks in the height of summer.”