by Mary Auclair
It was crumpled, and stained from humidity, but the writing was still legible enough.
“With this, I can repay you double what Devan owes you.”
She turned the paper over to display the seal of the Draekon, unmistakable at the bottom. Ignio Marula straightened, his eyes latching onto the seal, greed twisting his mouth into a grimace.
He looked at her genetic compatibility letter, one second melting into the next until time held no meaning.
“You have yourself a deal.” Ignio Marula looked up from the paper and smiled. “Produce an heir for the Draekon Lord, and you can pay your brother’s debt.”
“You’re a fool if you think I’ll give you all that money,” Marielle said, knowing she had the advantage now. The fee she would get for her Mating Contract was more than anything a man like Ignio Marula would see in his entire lifetime. “You get double what Devan owes you, nothing more.”
“Triple.” Ignio pursed his lips in an ugly smirk.
“Fine.”
Ignio Marula nodded once, then turned around and headed for the door. Smoothly, like trained dogs, the Ferlin twins followed. At the door, Ignio paused. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He turned to look at Marielle, and she felt all heat desert her body. “I can’t leave without insurance. In case you change your mind once you meet your all powerful Draekon Lord.”
Marielle understood his intent, but it was too late. Ignio Marula jerked his head toward Devan.
She shot up in front of her brother, protective instincts surging through her body like fire.
“No! You don’t touch him!” she shouted, not caring to spare the thug’s feelings. She had the upper hand anyway—and they were not taking Devan.
Ignio Marula stared at her, his thin face like stone, unmoving, unfeeling. Then she understood. She had been wrong to think she held any sway over him—the lure of money only gave her a bit more time.
“You think you have the advantage over me, but you don’t.” Ignio Marula smiled again, and it churned her stomach. “I could kill you both right here and leave. I would still get something out of it—if only fear from all the others like you. But you… you are the one with something to lose. I will leave now and I will take Devan with me. There is nothing you can do to stop me. Betray me and I will make him pay for the insult you gave me today.”
Marielle watched helplessly as Ignio Marula slid his gut-wrenching stare to Devan, then turned and walked out of her house, quickly followed by the Ferlin twins.
Devan didn’t even try to fight them off as they dragged him away.
For a long time, Marielle stared at the door, swinging idly in the night wind. She had bought her brother some time.
Now all she had to do was risk her life in the arms of a Draekon Lord.
“What I don’t understand is, why now?”
Fedryc turned on his heels and walked back toward the sleeping figure of Nyra. The dragoness snored softly, a steady stream of smoke escaping her fiery red snout. He still couldn’t believe she’d accepted his father’s order so easily, but then again, Nyra wasn’t one to do as expected.
“It doesn’t matter why,” Henron answered behind him. “Lord Aymond summoned you to Aalstad for his Mating Ceremony, and to Aalstad you’ll go. There’s no point debating about it.”
“But why summon me for this, after all this time?” Fedryc couldn’t let go of the anger that had taken hold of him for the last two days, ever since he’d received the letter from his father, summoning him to his kingdom on Earth. “He hasn’t bothered with his son in thirty-five years.”
“I know,” Henron spoke again, but softer this time.
Fedryc extended his hand and flattened it over the dragoness’ large neck. Nyra’s scales were warm and smooth, and he ran his palm up her neck, all the way to the hollow behind her ear. As his fingers rubbed the sensitive spot, Nyra purred softly in her sleep and a wave of well-being traveled up from the dragon to his mind, quelling his anger, soothing the edges of that dark abyss of fire and fury he felt every time he thought about his father.
Henron waited, knowing without being told that the communion of mind with Nyra was what Fedryc needed.
“My father found a compatible mate.” Fedryc swallowed past a throat that felt suddenly coated in sand. “I didn’t even think he was looking.”
“He’s not necessarily looking.” Henron spoke softly, but his tone was anything but. “They test every woman on Earth, like they do on Dagmar. He’s simply been handed a positive result.”
“It doesn’t matter. The Mating Ceremony is in two days. Maybe he will finally have the son he always wanted.”
Henron looked down at the folded note in Fedryc’s hand, then back at him. Something dark and haunted passed across his orange eyes, but he nodded anyway. Henron understood more than anyone what it felt like to be left out, to be forgotten.
“Maybe he just wants to get to know you better,” Henron suggested without conviction. “Now that he might have another heir, he wants to spend time with you.”
“Knowing me is not on his agenda.” Fedryc pulled his hand away from Nyra’s scales. He couldn’t have those feeling traveling down the link to her. Aymond Haal didn’t deserve his anger, didn’t deserve his pain and surely didn’t deserve Nyra’s anguish. “There has to be something else.”
“Dragonshit.”
Fedryc turned to face his best friend. Eyes of the darkest orange shade looked up at him in a way no other man dared to. Henron knew that if there was one thing Fedryc didn’t talk about, it was Aymond Haal, High Lord of the kingdom of Aalstad on Dagmar’s most recent satellite world, Earth. His father held an important position, one of great honor and power. A position Fedryc would have to fulfill once his father stepped down.
“You heard the rumors, same as I did. Maybe he needs your help with that.”
The words fell between them and silence invaded the dragon’s cave. Yes, Fedryc had heard the rumors, same as everyone. Only they were not rumors. The Knat-Kanassis had returned, and with it, its share of horrors and senseless deaths.
“It’s no rumor,” Fedryc told his friend. “I knew Lord Emeril Fyr when we were children. His son’s dragonet was killed with Venemum Ardere under his own roof before it was sent to Lord Aldric Darragon as a warning.”
“How old was the boy?” Henron asked, his eyes grave with the knowledge that once the dragonet died, the Draekon child would surely follow. The link ran deep—so deep that as one Draekon child was born, so was a dragonet. If one left this life, the other one followed. Such was the price for the extraordinary strength and long life of the Draekon, but such was also their weakness.
“He was only five.” The air went out of his lungs and Fedryc had to inhale deeply. Just thinking about his old friend’s distress made him want to rage and reduce the fanatics to ashes for the sacrilege they committed. “His only son. The human woman who became his mate died giving birth to him. Now, he has nothing.”
“If it is the Knat-Kanassis, and your father needs you, it will be dangerous.” Henron shook his head, then looked straight at him. “You won’t be going alone. I’m coming with you.”
Fedryc stared at his oldest friend. Henron was Delradon through a cruel trick of fate, as the son of a Draekon mother and father. His older brother was Draekon, as was his younger sister, but when he was born, Henron was born alone, without a dragon. His parents sent him to the Emperor as a ward when he was five years old, and never looked back. When Fedryc was sent to the Emperor as well, Henron was the first—and only—friend he made. They bonded over the pain of their rejection and forged a friendship that ran as deep as any family bonds. They were brothers in everything but blood.
That was why he couldn’t do this to him.
“You can’t come to Earth.” Fedryc frowned, then put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You’re captain of the royal family’s guard. You’re not throwing away your life’s work for me.”
Henron locked gazes with him, his face settling in familiar
stubborn lines. “There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side, remember?” He chuckled, bringing back the memory of the words they’d used when the rigorous training in the Emperor’s court threatened to push them over the edge. “I’m not letting you face this alone. Plus, I’m quite tired of the princesses and their demands.”
Fedryc stared at his friend, that Delradon man who had been abandoned by his family for the crime of not being born the way they wanted him to be. Henron was right.
“There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side.”
Chapter 2
Marielle had been waiting for hours. Her patience was wearing thin, as were her nails, which she chewed until the skin around her fingertips was raw and bloody.
And still, she waited.
She kicked an oversized pillow all the way to the corner of the room. Boredom was beginning to eat her from the inside, melting her brain into a useless puddle of stale thoughts and worries.
What’s taking them so long?
She had been brought to Aalstad castle straight after speaking to a flustered Delradon attendant at the Delradon-Human liaison office, only minutes after handing over her genetic compatibility letter. Another few minutes later, Marielle had been bundled into a black hover vehicle and flown over the desert, all the way to the castle carved into the rock of the mountain where the High Lord and his court lived.
And she had been waiting ever since. Hours had come and gone as she waited for an audience with Lord Aymond Haal.
Marielle closed her eyes and summoned the vision of her two-room house, where she had lived with Devan since the year following their parents’ deaths. The tiny kitchen with the old wood stove, the round table where they ate their meals. The bedroom where she and Devan slept on two twin beds. Devan, bustling with ambition as he finished first in his class in the human school funded by rich Delradon charity.
That was where her heart was. That was what she was risking everything for. She was going to save him.
The only price was her soul, and she had already sold it.
Marielle hugged herself as she turned around for the hundredth time and walked back to the other side of the room. She hated everything in it. From the gold of the stone walls that kept the heat of the desert afternoon away, to the plush cushions of the sofas laid out in every corner for her to rest on, all the way to the glorious display of fresh fruits and cold drinks on the intricately carved wood table in the middle of the space. So far, she’d touched nothing of the Draekon possessions in a futile attempt at preserving her independence, but she knew it was just that. Futile. Her own body didn’t belong to her anymore. She was nothing more than a vessel for a little Draekon Lord.
Suddenly, her stomach flipped and contracted and she stopped, clutching her middle in pain. She had eaten nothing for the past day and a half, since Ignio Marula had invaded her house just before dinner. She was starving.
I’m going to be here for over a year, there’s no point in going hungry.
She eyed the gold and pink fruits lying on a sparkling crystal plate, and grabbed one. It was soft, like velvet in her hand, and when she smelled it, it reminded her of a soft spring breeze and sunshine. Without pausing, she bit into it, and groaned in pleasure as the juice trickled down her chin. It was sweet and flavorful, so good it made her eyes water. Whatever this was, it didn’t grow in the dry plains where she grew up.
A door creaked open and Marielle turned around to see a young servant girl step inside. After the door closed behind her, the servant girl lifted golden eyes to Marielle, her long blonde hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck exposing her pointy ears. A Delradon girl, then. She was very young, not more than twenty years of age, and very pretty in a kitten-like, fragile way.
“Good afternoon, Lady Marielle,” the girl said, casting her eyes down to the polished stone floor. “I see you enjoyed our peaches.”
“Is that what this is?” Marielle looked at the deep yellow flesh, and nodded. She’d heard of those, knew they were seldom sold at the human market in the capital, imported from the lush valleys where rich Delradon farmers grew such luxuries. Humans could never afford them. “It’s very good. I never tasted them before.”
“I was told they’re excellent.” The girl’s eyes slid to the fruit. “I never had a chance to taste one myself.”
Marielle frowned, then turned around and picked another peach from the plate before turning back to face the girl. “Here you go, then.” She extended her hand to the servant girl.
“Oh, no, Lady Marielle.” The girl stepped back, shaking her head vigorously. “Lady Isobel would never allow servants to eat her peaches. She sent them here for you.” The girl insisted on the last word.
“Who’s this Lady Isobel?” Marielle didn’t take the peach back but put her hand down.
“She’s Lord Aymond’s sister, and the Lady of the castle.” The girl swallowed, then looked around, like she was afraid to speak. “She sent me to get you. You are to be taken to the throne room to meet the High Lord.”
Marielle squinted at the servant girl. She had an inkling that whoever this Lady Isobel was, she wasn’t going to like her.
“I’m not going anywhere until you eat this peach.” Marielle cocked her head sideways and gave the girl a grin. “You can always tell Lady Isobel I made you do it. You know, humans can be so stubborn sometimes.”
The girl’s eyes widened and she bit her lower lip, then her gaze trailed to the peach in Marielle’s hand. Marielle took a step forward and extended her hand again. This time, the girl smiled and took the fruit, then bit into it with gusto.
A small chuckle escaped the girl’s mouth as juice escaped her lips, and Marielle joined her, biting into her own piece of fruit again. They both ate in silence, savoring the expensive treat while rolling their eyes in delight. When they were finally finished, they both wiped peach juice from their chins and giggled like schoolgirls.
“That was worth it!” the girl said, finally shedding some of her shyness. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted!”
“Definitely!” Marielle agreed, then stared at the beautiful, round features of the Delradon servant. She would need friends, allies in this castle if she was going to survive. “What is your name?”
“I’m Salma.” The girl smiled, her golden eyes shining with humor.
“It’s nice to meet you, Salma,” Marielle answered truthfully. “I could use a friend in this place.”
Salma stared at Marielle, her face suddenly serious, nothing of the giddy girl from a few seconds ago remaining. She looked at Marielle carefully, then nodded, once.
“I will be your friend, Lady Marielle.” Salma backed up to the door, then opened it, revealing two men dressed in the unmistakable red uniforms of the Haals’ personal guard. “You will need one in Aalstad,” she whispered. With one last look at Marielle, Salma slid out the door and left.
Soon, Marielle followed, the guards close at her back. The heavy burden of what her future held descended on her again as she walked the dark, cool hallways of the castle.
Marielle hugged herself close, her mind full of the knowledge that the dangers ahead were nothing compared to the dangers she would face once she gave birth to the Draekon baby.
Because she would not leave her baby behind to be raised by some kind of cold, remote tyrant to become just as cruel as Lord Aymond had always been to humans. No.
Marielle was going to escape once she got the money to pay Ignio Marula, and she was going to take the baby with her to some far corner of this Earth where no one would ever find them. Just her, Devan and the baby.
If I survive that long.
Finally, after many twists and turns, Salma and the guards stood outside a large, ornately carved double door. Marielle stared at it, a queasy feeling blossoming in her stomach, the taste of the peach turning sour on her tongue. In the center of each door was the sigil of House Haal, a single dragon blasting a ring of fire around him in the sky. All around the dragon, flames�
��like the beasts themselves—scorched the heavens.
A deep, long shiver traveled up her spine, and Marielle hugged herself tighter.
What was waiting for her on the other side of those hideous doors? Would Lord Aymond be kind and comforting, or would he be like the beast he seemed to hold so close to his heart?
Tears came to her eyes and she blinked them back, knowing the guards and Salma were behind her. She had made her choice, and now she had to face it. Her feelings didn’t matter anymore.
Marielle glanced over her shoulder and met Salma’s eyes. The Delradon girl smiled at her and gave her an encouraging nod. Gathering her courage into a tight little ball at the center of her chest, Marielle turned back and pushed the heavy doors open.
She stepped into the throne room. The door made a dull sound as the panels closed behind her, and she made her way inside. The dimensions of the space were dizzying, the ceiling high, the stone carved and adorned with wooden beams, making an ostentatious statement as to the power of those who owned those walls, that ceiling, the entire mountainside and the view as far as the eye could see—and farther.
Everything in this room was designed to make her understand that she, too, belonged to the man who owned this castle.
“Hello?” Marielle walked all the way to the steps leading to the throne. It was so high, all she could see was the bottom of the massive stone chair. “Is someone here?”
What is this? Some sick joke?
The silence in the room answered her question, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
She looked everywhere, but nobody was in the room. Then anger slowly filled her, from that place inside her that was empty and dark and that spilled out every time she was reminded that humans were third class citizens, and her life mattered only as much as the uterus in her belly.