Kidnapped by the Dragon

by Rosko, Mandy

  But she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if it did work out. What if they did find love, and have children? What if she did become queen?

  The feeling of rising panic had her shaking the thoughts away, and looking around the bathroom for what she needed. In a way, she’d almost expected an attendant to be in the bathroom, ready to offer her what she needed, but they’d been alone since entering the apartments. It was actually kind of nice.

  She grabbed the mouthwash first, opening the cap and taking a full mouthful of what was inside. She swigged it around thoroughly, eager to get the horrible taste out of her mouth and to forget about what had happened in the first place.

  God, she was so embarrassed.

  She spit, and then just because she didn’t feel like she was done, she reached for the toothpaste tube.

  She brushed as well as she could with her finger before rinsing her mouth out under the tap, then she took stock of herself in the mirror.

  Her lipstick was gone, making her look even paler than she felt, but luckily all the stuff Flare had put onto her face to hide the burning seemed to be holding up, along with her mascara. Though, she supposed she had bigger things to worry about if someone from inside the palace had tried to hurt her.

  Fiona inhaled a deep breath, let it out, then did it again. She was going to be all right. She was going to be all right.

  She’d never known Charrling could be such a bitch in real life.

  “Stupid reporters,” she muttered.

  The mirror beeped at her, text appearing over the glass, and a woman’s voice called out to her through it. “Would you like to prepare an interview?”

  Fiona jumped back with a gasp. She nearly slipped with her heels still on but managed to catch herself.

  The text was still on the mirror, letting her know precisely where the voice had come from. “Uh, no thank you,” she said.

  “Confirmed.”

  There was a sudden knock outside the bathroom door. “You all right in there?”

  Fiona looked to the door, then to the mirror, and back again before she moved towards the door, opening it. Inferno stood there, tall and imposing.

  Fiona pointed back behind her. “Your mirror is alive.”

  Inferno glanced to the mirror, and then back at her with a soft smile. “No, don’t worry about that. She’s just programmed to respond to certain keywords.”

  “She?”

  “The Queen. I thought it was a funny joke when I had her installed.”

  Fiona wasn’t sure if she should smile along with him or not. It seemed more or less like this was kind of a creepy robot thing in the bathroom.

  “You might want to warn your guests before ‘The Queen’ scares them half to death,” she said.

  Inferno laughed. “Don’t worry, she’s not all that smart, and she’s not secretly watching us, or planning how she’s going to kill us.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “Queen, turn on my favorite radio station, please.”

  Something started to play at his request. It took Fiona a couple of seconds before she recognized the Guns N Roses song.

  “You’re a classic rock kind of guy?”

  “Seventies and some eighties,” Inferno said, smiling down at her before turning back to the mirror. “Queen, give me the weather, please.”

  The mirror changed, revealing a sunny landscape with some blue clouds, birds chirping as they flew by, and the temperature in large numbers.

  “She also has access to the palace camera system. Queen, show me the front yard.”

  The mirror changed and revealed the front yard, just as he commanded. There was a small crowd out there, and what looked to be an awful lot of people with cameras. Fiona squinted, then realized Blaze and Ember were down there, giving interviews.

  “Can we hear what they’re saying?”

  “If we want to. Do you want to?”

  Fiona watched the men and women in the mirror, and the way Blaze and Ember seemed to handle them, answering intense questions with pleasant smiles.

  “I don’t think I want to know what they’re asking about me.”

  Inferno nodded. “Fair enough. Mirror mode.”

  The mirror turned back into a regular mirror.

  “I’ll give you a tablet that will be able to see everything the mirror will show you. We have a whole system that was designed with top-level security. There’s no camera in it, so nothing can get hacked to watch you or me do anything, but we’ll be able to see what’s going on outside, and before you ask, I don’t keep cameras in the guest rooms, or anyone’s bathroom.”

  Fiona hadn’t even thought about that, but now that he mentioned it, she was glad he’d brought it up. “Thanks for clarifying.”

  Inferno touched her cheek. Fiona wasn’t sure what it was, but the touch shocked her back into that state of want and arousal that she hadn’t felt since throwing up.

  “Why am I feeling this again?”

  “Feeling what?”

  Fiona briefly pressed her lips together. “Like I’m about to go out of my damned mind when you touch me. It wasn’t like this a second ago. I nearly forgot about the heat thing.”

  Inferno smiled down at her. “Do you really think that if one mate were feeling sick, the other would still have an instinct to copulate?”

  “I guess not,” she said, still feeling out of control about the entire thing. “It’s still weird, though.”

  “It is, and I’m sorry for the way Charrling treated you.”

  Fiona shrugged, attempting to go for not looking like she cared so much about what that woman thought of her. “She’s pissed off at me because I’m stealing her daughter’s fiancée. I think I’d be pissed off, too.”

  “The only people I need to be gentle with in all of this is you and Tinder. Charrling has no right to be upset or to lash out at you. Tinder is the only one who can be upset, but I would certainly never allow her to lash out at you. Fortunately, that’s not her way.”

  Fiona could believe that. The other woman had left the room rather than stick around with her. “Thank you.”

  Inferno cocked his head to the side a little. “For what?”

  She looked up at him and then had to look away again quickly. “For being…I don’t know, really good about all of this.”

  Inferno nodded, though he glanced away as if he didn’t entirely agree with her assessment of the situation. “I’ll keep you hidden away, for now. The time will eventually come when you will have to face those men outside, but when that happens, I promise you, it will be on our terms.”

  “O-okay,” Fiona said, suddenly finding it hard to gather her words.

  The heat in Inferno’s voice put his namesake to shame.

  He nodded, but then something in his face changed. He went from smoldering to something darker, and without another word, he turned and walked out, leaving her alone, as if he was fleeing from something. A man like Inferno fleeing from anything seemed all kinds of wrong, but Fiona was too shocked to do anything except stand there, wondering what the hell happened.

  14

  Inferno needed to put some distance between himself and his mate. He felt awful for it, but despite his earlier words about the instinct to mate being gone, that hadn’t entirely been true. Instinct was instinct after all, and while the scent of sickness was enough to dull the urge, it was still there.

  Fiona would feel that numbing of her instincts more than Inferno simply because she was the one who had been ill, but that didn’t change the fact that he still wanted her.

  Badly.

  Right. Well, she was here in his rooms, they were alone, and the moment she felt better, the chances were good that she would be coming to him.

  He might not need to do anything at all.

  That was a shame. There was always something fun about the chase, though at the same time, Inferno was eager to see his mate when she was in the throes of passion, and throwing herself at his feet. He was a greedy man, but while
Fiona stayed in the bathroom, he figured he might as well do a little work.

  He stepped out the main door to his apartments and motioned to Eric. The guards were standing at attention on the opposite wall, hands held in front of them, sunglasses on, but Inferno could still tell they were alert, along with the other men on duty.

  “Have you heard anything from Ember’s men on that pot of green goo that was put on her face?”

  “Nothing much yet,” Eric said. “We sent the whole cart of beauty compounds for testing, and the lab knows to give me a call. If we find out anything, where it came from, how poisonous it was, and if it will cause any lasting damage, I’ll get the information to you right away.”

  Inferno nodded. “Good.”

  “Yes, however, if you are unavailable,” Eric’s head moved to the direction of the door, where Fiona waited for Inferno, “I will go to Ember or Blaze, whichever one of them is immediately available.”

  Inferno couldn’t help the light smirk that tugged at the corner of his mouth. Right, Eric knew what a newly mated couple had on their mind.

  The smirk melted away quickly. Inferno had to get serious. “I don’t want the press getting wind of the fact that Fiona seems to be in danger. If there is any question of why we have increased security, I want them to assume the added personnel in the palace is because of Fiona’s recent arrival, and because of the reporters that tried to gain access to the grounds this afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Inferno thought quickly. Even though Fiona was in his chambers right now, he didn’t cherish the thought of leaving her alone for too long. “Put a watch on Charrling and Tinder, and not the usual guards. Get someone in there who is usually on my staff. We likely won’t be able to catch her causing trouble, but an extra set of eyes and ears is always useful.”

  “I’ll see to it that it’s done,” Eric promised.

  What else could Inferno do? He was a dragon shifter, a prince, and an alpha. He wasn’t used to this feeling of helplessness. It was unnerving, to say the least. Having a mate, a human, something so utterly fragile, was going to be the death of him; he could tell already. But even fragile humans could build up their strengths. Fiona likely would not be getting into a battle with anyone in her life, but if he could prepare her for the chance that it might happen, he would be able to breathe easier.

  “Tomorrow Fiona is to start training in self-defense techniques. The shooting range, gym, and trainers should be ready for her.”

  Eric nodded, hardly missing a beat. “Yes, sire, they’re on call. Just say the word whenever you want to go down there.”

  Inferno nodded. “Another thing, make sure to set up a selection of sidearms and holsters appropriate for human female-sized hands. We’re not just going down there to play around. She’s going to keep the piece on her and needs to be able to wield it effectively when the time comes.”

  Eric nodded, blanching just a little. It was dangerous to have a novice walking around with a gun, but if Inferno had decided that it was more dangerous for Fiona to be unarmed, the guards would just have to be on extra alert. “I’ll get on that right away.”

  “See to it that you do.” Inferno needed to get back into his chambers and to his mate. He already felt as if he’d been out here long enough. He shut the door behind him, barely stopping himself from slamming it.

  Inferno clenched and unclenched his fists. He was irritated now. All that talk of threats had made him agitated. Red scales appeared spottily over his arms, hardening into their protective forms that would create a barrier around him that was almost akin to steel armor.

  He needed to calm himself. Fiona was here. She was alive and well, and just because everything was going to shit and he had no one’s face to launch his fist into did not mean he would not eventually get his revenge. He would have it soon enough, and his mate would be able to live in this palace, her birthright, in safety, just as she was meant to.

  “Fiona?”

  She called back to him right away, which was good; it allowed him to relax. “I’m right here,” she called.

  Still in the bathroom, though the door was open. He saw her staring at the mirror with a transfixed expression on her face. Inferno frowned, stepping beside her. “What is it?” He looked up at the mirror, noted what his mate was looking at, and his eyes popped wide open. “Oh.”

  Fiona lifted a hand, pointing. “Isn’t that your aunt?”

  “It is,” Inferno said, his emotions flicking through scandalized, furious, and then acceptance at the heated activity going on between Charrling and her head bodyguard, Joseph.

  Inferno couldn’t look away. He certainly had known that Joseph had been loyal to Charrling, but he had to wonder how they had both managed to keep this under the radar for so long.

  They weren’t fucking, Inferno could tell, and it wasn’t because they were both still fully clothed.

  There were ways around that, after all.

  “I just…I just wanted to see what she was doing. I was mad. I didn’t think I’d catch her doing…this.” Fiona still sounded very much in a daze as she stared at the screen. “Are they allowed to be doing that? I mean, they’re not going to get into trouble or anything, are they?”

  Inferno shook his head. He couldn’t help but smile at the question while he pushed the manual button that would set the glass back to mirror mode and remove the scene from their eyes. “She is an adult, and she can do whatever she wants. If anything, I’m rather pleased you would care whether or not she’d get in trouble for this, considering what happened between you two earlier.” It said a lot about the character of his mate, and he was happy with that. He was glad to know she was the sort of woman who would be worried for someone who had treated her ill.

  It was the makings of a good queen.

  Inferno was more curious about Charrling’s situation. How long had this been going on? How serious was it? Sure, Joseph was below her station, and she could be holding out for a better offer, but at her age, she shouldn’t be worrying about that kind of thing. She could marry Joseph and have a real life with him at her side, not just guarding her back.

  Fiona looked at the second bathroom entrance, the one that led to his bedroom. “What now?”

  “I hardly think that what we just saw set the mood,” Inferno said, half laughing. The sound of Fiona’s giggle warmed his whole body. “I think maybe we should have a sort of check-in, see how you’re doing. Are you feeling better?”

  She nodded. “It’s quiet in here, which makes it a little easier to calm down. And it’s nice too, nicer than most kidnapped people probably get.”

  Inferno looked down at her, raising a single brow.

  “What? It’s pretty fucked up.”

  “Do you feel like a prisoner?”

  Fiona pressed her lips together, briefly looking away from him, though her eyes went back to the mirror, and he supposed she was looking at the both of them standing there together instead of imagining what had just been on the screen. “No, but how do you think I feel? I’m not exactly a welcomed guest. I have none of my stuff from home. I’m supposed to be getting married to a stranger...”

  The lack of certainty didn’t sound so pleasing.

  Even less pleasing than that was this new clench he felt in his gut, the idea that bringing his mate here, and claiming her as his own, was possibly the worst thing he could have done for her.

  The side of her face that was still red was proof enough that she wasn’t ready for this sort of life. A woman who aspired to be a baker and own her own shop may not be what the world was looking for in royalty, but what mattered the most was what Fiona was looking for, wasn’t it?

  “I’ll make you a deal.”

  She looked at him.

  Inferno rubbed his jaw. “Stay with me for a little while longer. This isn’t an order. It’s a request. You can decline, and I’ll send you home right now, with guards. That part isn’t up for negotiation.”

  The tension in Fiona’s shoulders
was immediate, and it did nothing to ease the clenching in Inferno’s gut. He rarely got a feeling like that, and only when something bad was about to happen.

  “Is that even possible? To just let your mate go?”

  “Only when the situation is dire.”

  Fiona finally looked at him, and not through the mirror this time. “Is it dire?”

  Inferno wet his lips. He felt young again, vulnerable and aching for this woman to want him.

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to risk it either. I know you’re not comfortable here. I also know that someone did that to your skin.”

  The thought that someone had did this intentionally danced around in her head, but she wouldn’t let it sink it. It was almost too much to deal with. “I was told it would heal up just fine.”

  And it would because Inferno was going to get the best doctors and dermatologists to make sure she never so much as noticed a difference whenever she looked into a mirror.

  “It will,” Inferno nodded. “But, if I’ve asked too much of you, then you should be able to go back to the life you can thrive in.”

  She didn’t stop frowning at him. He could have been speaking another language for all it mattered. “What about you? I thought…I mean, I guess you could have children with someone else, but won’t your real heirs come from…well, me?”

  She was right, but he couldn’t tell her. He wouldn’t tell her that, after seeing her, after knowing she existed, if she decided to leave, he wouldn’t replace her. He would give the throne to Blaze and be done with it. Inferno wouldn’t be without his mate. He couldn’t. A dragon who lost his mate would live the rest of his days heartbroken and in mourning. He wouldn’t be fit to rule, and he’d never make a lasting relationship with someone else.

  He wouldn’t tell her this, though. He didn’t want her to make a decision based on what would happen to him. He wanted her to choose what was right for her.

  “All you need to know is that if you want out, I’ll still give you the bakery. You can have it in your name, or we’ll set you up somewhere under a new name, for your protection. I’ll see to it you’re cared for. And my people will still work to figure out who was responsible for the attack on you last night.”