Kidnapped by the Dragon

by Rosko, Mandy

  “A strong grip you have, but my, what happened to your face? I apologize, that is a rude question. You have a birthmark, yes? You shouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m sure Inferno will offer the best physicians to take care of that for you.”

  “Uh, no, it’s not a birthmark,” Fiona said. Was it a thing that royals were so blunt about everything? Fiona hoped that was what this was, but more and more, she was starting to sense a lot of resentment directed her way. Which was the exact thing she’d feared this whole time. “I had a reaction to a face cream earlier today, but Flare came to my rescue. She put some stuff on my face and now it’s not as easy to notice.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” said Charrling with a dazzling smile, the sort of thing that would almost make Fiona think she’d read the signals wrong before the woman opened her mouth again. “It must have looked dreadful before Flare was able to tend to it.”

  Okay, this woman was a bitch.

  Fiona kept her breathing steady. If she inhaled a heavy sigh, this woman was going to notice. She had a lot of practice dealing with bitching customers. She knew how to handle them when they were being pricks for no reason, and when they were angry and bitching over something small and stupid. She knew how to hold her cool and pretend as if there was nothing wrong with any of this.

  “Flare did an amazing job. I’m glad to have made her as a friend.”

  The ice in Princess Charrling’s eyes seemed to get just a little colder. “Indeed.”

  “It’s very good to meet you.”

  The small voice caught Fiona off guard. She glanced to the side of the princess, and for the first time was able to give the other woman in the dining room her attention.

  Princess Tinder glanced away quickly, her cheeks darkening with color. She was like a smaller, younger version of her mother. Only she wasn’t giving off the hateful vibe. And a lot of pity swelled up inside Fiona’s chest for the woman. Her mother might be a bitch, but Tinder wasn’t a horrible person, as far as Fiona knew. She didn’t deserve to have this happen to her.

  Fiona didn’t know if Tinder was even in love with Inferno, but she lived in the public eye. Being cast aside for another woman had to be an embarrassment, at the very least.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, your highness,” Fiona said.

  Tinder didn’t look back at her; she just softly shook her head. “I’m not a princess.”

  She wasn’t? Fuck. That’s right, a king’s sister was a princess, but his nieces didn’t get that title. What did Fiona call someone who was related to royalty but not actually a royal?

  “Oh, well, sometimes the papers call you a princess,” Fiona said, trying to be helpful.

  Tinder pressed her lips tightly together, her brows furrowing before she pushed herself to her feet with a small uttered apology and walked swiftly to the door.

  Inferno appeared in the doorway just as Tinder made it to him. She barely stopped herself from bumping into his chest.

  Inferno blinked down at her, a soft smile pulling at his lips. “You decided to come?”

  Tinder’s hands clenched into fists. Fiona couldn’t see her face, but Tinder lowered her head. She fidgeted in place a moment before stepping past Inferno and leaving the dining room.

  Inferno looked back at the direction his cousin, his expression troubled. He turned his gaze to the people in the dining room, as though wondering what had happened. When his gaze landed on Fiona, he seemed to forget all about Tinder, and he rushed towards her, holding his hands out and placing his palms on her nearly bare shoulders, a smile on his face.

  “You’re…you look beautiful. I’m glad you felt well enough to come.”

  She quickly forgot about the fact that he hadn’t left her a choice in the matter when that rush of desire and warmth flooded into her. It almost felt as if someone had just turned a tap of hot water on full blast over her body with no intention of turning it off. He had a glow about him. The sight of him, even the sound of his voice, relieved her, took so much of the pressure off her shoulders that she’d felt.

  She was glad he was here. She hadn’t exactly been in any danger, but she felt safer. She felt blanketed in his strength. “Of course I’m here, where you needed me to be,” she said softly. God, she needed to get a grip. She had to look away from his eyes. She was getting sucked into them.

  Fiona became aware that Inferno was gently easing her behind him. He stared down at his aunt with a pleasant expression on his face, but his eyes were just as cold as Princess Charrling’s had been a moment ago. “What happened?”

  Charrling lifted her teacup to her lips. “My daughter is heartbroken. Of course she wouldn’t wish to be here.”

  “Are we late?” Fiona looked back. Blaze and Ember had appeared and were standing next to their sister.

  “Just in time,” Flare murmured, not taking her gaze from Inferno, who was staring intently at Charrling. He growled, and his lips pulled back enough to show the whites of his teeth and long fangs that were growing larger.

  Fiona’s eyes widened when she realized his color was changing, but not because he was angry. There were also red scales forming around his jaw.

  “Fiona is my mate now, do you understand that?” Inferno said through his teeth.

  Oh God, his eyes were glowing now.

  Flare attempted to intervene. “Inferno—”

  He ignored his sister. “I asked if you understood that. You will answer me immediately.”

  Fiona’s throat dried up. It was an event in and of itself to see Inferno this angry, this growly, this...dangerous looking. The way he seemed eager to protect her, even from a spiteful relative, was kind of a turn on. It was stupid, but it made her feel almost special to him.

  The moment was interrupted when another set of double doors opened on the opposite side of the dining room, and several men walked in pushing metal trollies. They wore black suits with vests, white-collared shirts, and black ties, but the white aprons gave them away as the wait staff.

  Blaze helped Fiona to her seat, and Ember guided Inferno to his, then the siblings took their places at the table. If the wait staff sensed any tension in the room, they ignored it as they swiftly surrounded the table and lifted lids off of their steaming dishes, revealing foods that Fiona would never have dreamed she’d see at a casual family dinner.

  Charrling never so much as glanced up at her nephew. Fiona could tell that, even though Inferno was the one who was going to be king, she thought herself to be his superior. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, nephew. Of course she is your mate if she is Istavan blood.”

  “She is,” Inferno said with a snap of his teeth. “Do I have a reason to be concerned that she will have an allergic reaction to the food presented here?”

  This time, Charrling’s eyes flashed dangerously up at them. “I am certain I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I would appreciate the change in tone.”

  Inferno growled at her. Fiona saw that in addition to more scales, Inferno had also started to sprout horns from his jawline and parts of his face.

  Ember leaned over, placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder, and whispered something into his ear. Whatever it was, it seemed to calm Inferno as he glanced down at Fiona. The scales, and even the few small horns retracted back into his skin.

  Fiona hadn’t even considered that what happened to her face might have been anything other than an allergy or skin sensitivity. But Inferno thought this woman had done that?

  Holy shit. That was terrifying as all hell.

  “I’ll have questions for you later, Aunt,” Inferno said in what was clearly a threat.

  “I understand, though it would be best if we could clear this up after photographs.”

  “Pictures?”

  The word came from her and Inferno’s mouths at the same time. They briefly looked at each other before Inferno glared back at his aunt. “We will be taking no photographs today.”

  “But you must,” Charrling announced, glan
cing up at her nephew as if he’d lost his mind. “Though I suppose it is a shame Tinder won’t be here to give her support for your new mating, I am certain the public will not hold that against a happy couple.”

  Fiona wanted to laugh at that. “Lady, do you even use Facebook or Twitter?” People were going to rip them to shreds. Fiona’s stomach sank. The public adored Tinder.

  Oh no.

  She sat through a whole presentation today to understand the intricacies of dragon mating. The general public wasn’t going to understand what it meant that Inferno had found his natural mate. How the situation nullified his agreement with Tinder. They were going to look at it like a tragedy, and at Tinder like a victim. Inferno wouldn’t be the focus of online hate. He was the future king of dragons, well-liked, and good-looking as all hell.

  Fiona would be seen as the homewrecker. The villain in this story. Millions of people were going to start combing through her recipe videos, her blog, profiles, for anything and everything they could use to make their judgments about her.

  The thought made her sick.

  Fiona barely realized that Charrling was glaring at her. Probably for the rude way she’d just spoken to her, but she could hardly bring herself to care at that moment, not when she was about to puke.

  “The press will, of course, need to see who their future king is choosing to be their queen. This is a matter of convention, not something done to be spiteful, no matter what you might think.”

  “And, what? Inferno and I don’t get any say in when this happens?”

  “They should be arriving soon,” Charrling said, glancing back to one of the waiters. “Well? I would like the filet of salmon, please.”

  Fiona couldn’t take anymore. She yanked herself away from the table and ran to the nearest flower vase. She grabbed onto it and threw up what little she had in her stomach.

  13

  Inferno watched his mate be ill in one of the flower vases, horrified that this could happen at all. He’d once puked in a decorative vase, but that had been when he was only twelve years old, his parents had still been alive, and he’d gotten food poisoning.

  It had been just moments before when Inferno had walked into the dining room, taken one look at his beautiful mate, and felt like the world was set right. So much of the tension in his shoulders had vanished at her light, even with Tinder storming off.

  Now he looked from Flare, moving quickly to help Fiona pull back her long hair so it wouldn’t be tangled in the flowers, back to his aunt.

  Charrling sipped at her tea between delicate bites of her salmon. She wrinkled her nose when Fiona groaned, though she said nothing of the noises in the room or the smell. She pushed her plate away with a sigh. “I am finished. One cannot expect to have an appetite after a scene like that.”

  “You caused that!”

  Inferno’s voice boomed in the dining room, echoing off the far walls, and Charrling finally looked at him, as if she was only now ready to take his anger seriously.

  “Inferno?” Flare asked uncertainly.

  Inferno hardly spared his sister a glance, though when he did, he noted the way Fiona was also looking at him. Her flaming red hair and that yellow dress gave her flesh a deathly pale look to it. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like knowing that his mate had been so hurt, and right in front of him, too, by someone in his own family.

  Inferno growled, reminding himself that this woman sitting before him was his aunt, the woman who used to spoil him as a child, who was the sister of his dead father, and whom he loved.

  Though her behavior was severely testing that love at the moment.

  Inferno turned to his brothers. “The both of you, go and stall the reporters. I am not here, and neither is Fiona. There will be no pictures, and there will be no story.” Ember could be diplomatic, and Blaze was hot-headed and scrappy enough to get what he wanted in most cases.

  “Got it,” Blaze said, spinning on his heel and running out of the room before anything else needed to be said.

  Ember simply nodded, his gaze flicking down to their aunt before he met and held Inferno’s eyes. They didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. Ember turned and walked out, slower and more deliberate than the way Blaze had.

  Blaze might attempt to fuck with the press. Unless he happened to think any of their women were good to look at. Ember would balance out that act and see to it they left the property, and that none of them tried to sneak back on.

  “Can I assume that the photographers who attempted to sneak onto the grounds were brought here by you as well?”

  Charrling glared at him. “No. You cannot. Joseph,” she signaled to her guard, “you may escort me back to my rooms now, please.”

  “We have more to discuss, Charrling,” Inferno said as she walked by.

  His aunt tensed at the door, her anger clear and wafting from her, but she said nothing to him. She continued on her way out.

  What was happening to his home? When did he lose so much control? Had he ever had control at all? Perhaps he was only now seeing the pests burrowing in the foundation.

  “I’m sorry.” Fiona was a few feet away from him, her head turned down, a hand over her mouth, as pale as he’d ever seen someone.

  Yet she was still lovely, still his, and now Inferno knew that he didn’t have to only protect her from whatever forces had been at work to harm her in her apartment. He was going to have to protect her from the other royals in this house who did not want her here. He would have to protect her from the jealous nobles, and the harsh words of the press and society at large.

  Inferno walked over to his mate, nodding to his sister. “Thank you for tending to her.”

  Flare, usually a little too upbeat and energetic for her own good, at that moment seemed a little more subdued and cautious.

  “Yeah, don’t worry about it,” she said, turning her attention back to Fiona. “I think all the events from today have added up. Fiona should get some rest and take some time to let everything sink in.”

  Fiona barely let herself glance up at Inferno. He briefly glanced up to the vase that had been soiled, noting a few of the maids standing at the servant’s doors, waiting to swoop in and take the offending item away. He nodded to them to enter. They did, and they moved quickly. This did not seem to please Fiona, who grew paler as she watched one of the maids lift the vase and take it out of the room while another sprayed the surface it had been sitting on and wiped it down. It was as though knowing others would be cleaning up after her caused her more humiliation than it helped. Inferno couldn’t understand why that was.

  “They will take it away, and you should think nothing of it. I will settle things with my aunt and my cousin.”

  That didn’t seem to make her feel better. She hid her face in her hands now, as if his words made the problem worse.

  “I’ll take her back to her room,” Flare offered. “Come on, Fiona.”

  “No.” Inferno reached out, unthinkingly swooping his arm around Fiona’s waist before his little sister could make off with her. Eric and Fiona’s guards, as well as his own, quickly gathered, ready to follow them. “She’s staying with me tonight, in my apartments. It will be safest there.” He didn’t add that it would also give him the most peace of mind.

  * * *

  She was going to Inferno’s rooms.

  And the main thing that was on her mind was that she hoped he would let her use some mouthwash in his bathroom right away. She kept her face diverted away from him the whole walk, hoping to avoid disgusting him.

  Inferno had been angry with his aunt, and she knew he wasn’t mad at her, but some of that anger was still with him as he took large and fast strides down the halls, and she hurried to keep up with him. She was kind of glad for the speed. She didn’t want to risk that one of the reporters Blaze and Ember had gone after would get around.

  “Can I use your bathroom?”

  “You don’t need to ask,” Inferno said, pointing. “It’s down there, the door to the left i
n my office. It connects to my bedroom.”

  Fiona ignored the heat in her face, walking across the apartment. They entered in an extended living room, complete with bookcases lining most of one wall, a flat screen television bolted above the fireplace, and a couple of couches facing each other across from a coffee table, with some reading chairs in the back corner.

  It was larger than her apartment back home.

  She passed by the office he indicated, and took a moment to observe the regal and professional atmosphere of it; more bookcases along the walls, made of dark mahogany, and packed with thick hardcovers of what looked like law books or encyclopedias, hefty tomes that important politicians would need for reference while ruling their people and negotiating with other world leaders.

  She let herself into Inferno’s private bathroom, which lit up when she entered. She sucked in a breath, not ready for the luxurious spa-like accommodations.

  Everything was gleaming marble, and clean. The bathroom smelled vaguely of his aftershave, the only personal scent she’d been able to pick up since walking into his rooms. The sitting area and his office both held aromas of wood and leather, but in here she could smell Inferno, intense with a hint of musk.

  His countertop had two sinks in it, and she realized that this apartment wasn’t designed for a bachelor. They were made for the royal couple. Was this the heir’s apartment, or the kings? It was undoubtedly ornate enough to be either. In any case, there was no hint of anything of Tinder’s in there. Had she not lived here with him, or had they cleaned out her things that quickly? A wave of jealousy, and embarrassment, rushed over her at the thought.

  It didn’t matter. She was going to be his wife soon. She had feelings for him, and she knew he felt something for her too. She just had to be brave enough to face him and to follow the feelings down the road enough to see where it went. At the very least, if things didn’t work out, he had promised that he would give her a bakery, so it wouldn’t all be a loss.