by Cara Bristol
A child? He terrified her.
Once again, she was struck by the inadequacy of her master’s in Draconian Relations. Her degree wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. She had no idea how to handle an angry king who could spit fireballs. The only thing she could do was trust K’ev’s ability to manage his father. He knew him a whole lot better than she did.
She wondered what the king had to say that he couldn’t say in front of her. He didn’t strike her as the sort of man to hold back. He’d made his disapproval more than plain. Where did you find this bimbo? K’ev had said his father would be forced to accept her as his mate. Maybe he couldn’t annul the relationship, but he could certainly make it awkward.
She eyed the sealed door. Were they discussing her, or what would happen with Earth? Both, probably. If she’d realized she could speak Dragonish, she could have kept her mouth shut and pretended she didn’t understand. She realized that except for the times when they’d addressed her directly, they’d been speaking Dragonish. She’d had no idea the mating and merger of their fyres would give her the ability to speak the language.
Surprised the hell out of the king, too. He didn’t smell that one coming.
She snorted then sobered. The king was not somebody to mess with. If the president had met him face-to-face, he might have thought twice about claiming Elementa. Could she fault the king’s skepticism that Earth would remove the colony?
Rhianna shifted her weight from one foot to the other and swung her arms. Time would prove it to him. She had to assume the removal would occur soon. She wished she’d been able to speak to the president himself and not that Jackson Biggs guy. She didn’t doubt the accuracy or veracity of his information, but…well, maybe she did a little. Maybe there was a smidge of doubt.
What if the withdrawal doesn’t occur as that Biggs guy said it would?
Through her friendship with Helena, she’d met several presidential aides. Biggs? Never heard of him. However, he had known about her. He’d answered her call in the middle of the night. If he worked closely with the president, then he would be in the loop and would know she’d been sent to Draco.
She glanced at the closed door and the stone-faced aide. A little over three hours had passed since she’d called Earth. As soon as they left here, she’d try to contact the president again—assuming K’ev’s convo with his father went well, and the king didn’t storm out and incinerate her.
She rubbed her sweaty palms down her sides. The chain belt had twisted around. Having an accessory did add a little pizzazz to the amazing-but-dull Draconian jumpsuit, designed for form and function rather than style. As she adjusted the belt so the dangle hung in the front, her fingers brushed over a hard lump.
What’s this? Rhianna unhooked the belt to find a gold object wedged inside a link. She popped it loose. It looked a lot like the earpiece K’ev’s dragon had swallowed.
Another comm unit? Maybe a backup? Was this why Helena had been so focused on Rhianna’s clothing when she’d contacted them from the ship? She’d wanted her to find this? Why not come right out and tell her she’d hidden a unit in the belt? Rhianna peeked at the aide. Stock-still, he stared straight ahead, not paying her any undue attention.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, she inserted the unit.
Crackle. Crackle.
“Rhianna?”
She jumped at the sound of her friend’s voice.
“I don’t have much time. Biggs will be here any minute.” Sounding frantic, Helena rushed through her words. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry for everything. They forced me to go along with the plan, but I should have been stronger. I should have told you. That earpiece you were given? Get rid of it! It’s a bomb! It’s going to be detonated when you meet with the royal court…”
“No!” Rhianna shouted.
The aide snapped his head in her direction.
No. No. No. The earpiece was inside K’ev!
“Since Biggs doesn’t know exactly when that will be, he’s going to trigger the bomb remotely once they receive confirmation you’ve arrived on Draco…”
Oh god. Oh god. Not only had she confirmed her arrival, she’d told them exactly when she’d be meeting with the king! The bomb could go off any second.
“K’ev!” She bolted for the closed chamber. “K’ev!” Oh god, what were they going to do? They didn’t have enough time to get it out of him.
The aide blocked the passage. “You can’t go in there!”
“Let me pass! The prince’s life is in danger.”
“The prince is fine.”
“The plan is to cut the head off the snake by assassinating the dragon king. Make a big show of force with a first strike to deter Draco from attacking Earth. They know it’s iffy, but they’re desperate, and Biggs figures if you fail to kill the king, your death can be blamed on the dragons, and maybe the galactic community will intervene…”
Rhianna tried to dash around the aide, but he grabbed her, shoved her away, and barred the path.
“I’m so sorry—I’m so sor—” The recording cut off.
“I am Princess Rhianna! I order you to let me pass.”
“I answer to the king.”
She balled up her fist and punched him in the eye.
His roar of outrage shook the pillars of the pavilion.
The door flew open.
“What’s going on here?” the king demanded.
K’ev shouldered past the aide and clasped her shoulders. “Rhianna—what’s wrong?”
“You swallowed a bomb! The earpiece is a bomb! It’s going to detonate.”
K’ev reeled as if she’d punched him. He shoved her away hard and streaked for open air.
Bones cracked as he shifted into dragon before reaching the pillars. Launching into the sky, he disappeared from sight.
“Arrest her!” the king roared to his guards. “If my son dies, I’ll make sure you die painfully,” he said.
A burst of light flooded the pavilion, and, a split second later, a horrific boom shook its pillars.
“K’ev!” Rhianna screamed. “K’ev? K’ev!” The explosion—oh god—no, he couldn’t be—it couldn’t be—
“K’ev!” She bolted. Don’t let it be, don’t let it be—
Demiforma guards seized her before she could get halfway out of the pavilion.
“Let me go!” She struck out. “I have to know if K’ev—if K’ev—” She started to sob.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Betrayal and pain burned as hot as the fireball in his gut as K’ev shifted and took to the sky. Beating his wings, he rose higher and higher.
Humans lied. He’d been a fool to trust Rhianna. She was one of them.
No! She is our mate. She is not a bad human.
Fire ignited, expanded, growing hotter and hotter, enveloping everything in his stomach, and coalesced into a churning mass of flame.
She was no different from the rest of her people. She’d plotted with her government to bring a bomb to Draco, allowed his alter-self to swallow it, and only warned them when she feared for her own life if it detonated.
Our mate would not do that.
His dragon roared, belching out the bomb with a fireball. It shot into the sky in a red arc—
Exploding in a shock wave of heat and flame. Bolts of fire zigzagged across the sky. Sparks fell, popping in mini explosions on the way down.
Beating his wings, K’ev circled the pavilion. Rhianna filled his mind, each memory, once sweet, now reeking of perfidy. Her smiles, her soft touches, her gasps of desires, her voice, her scent—every lie opened a gaping wound. He would have done anything to protect her, would have sacrificed his life for her. He’d almost sacrificed his life because of her. She’d tried to kill him. Scarring tears of blood ran from his eyes, the betrayal a wound that would never heal. He would have his vengeance. There would be justice.
She is innocent! We have smelled no deceit on her.
She’d lied. She was just better at it than the others. So
good, she’d deceived his alter-self and put him at war with his dragon. The duality of his nature had never been more apparent, the gap never greater. One had become two. Even the dragon had become splintered. Frantic to get back to Rhianna, but fearful of what K’ev might do, he kept flying circles over the pavilion. Normally, K’ev was the rational one, his alter-self the hot-blooded, hotheaded emotional creature. That, too, had reversed.
Playing on the dragon’s concern for Rhianna, he convinced him to land inside the great gallery.
Relief wafted off the king, but K’ev focused on Rhianna. Two guards had her immobilized while a third snapped manacles on her ankles, wrists, and neck.
Tossing his head, his dragon roared in outrage, and K’ev shifted into human form, the better to control him.
“K’ev! Oh my god, K’ev. You’re alive. Oh, thank god.” Even her tears lied, scenting the air with her warm, vanilla scent.
“Yes, I expelled the bomb in time. What a disappointment that must be.” He strode toward her. He motioned at the guards, and they stepped away.
“Disappoint—no! What are you talking about?” She stared at him. The heavy metal shackles clanked as she shook her head. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it? No. How can you even think that?”
“You attempted to pass yourself off as the president’s daughter, you carried a bomb, you allowed me to swallow it—” Had she finessed that, too? Worn it deliberately so the dragon might ingest it?
“I didn’t know it was a bomb! I thought it was a communication unit. When I found out, I tried to warn—”
“Only after you realized you would be killed.”
“No!” Tears rained down her face. “It’s not true. It’s not. I love you.”
He flinched as her lie hit him where it hurt the most. In his heart.
She’s not lying! She loves us. We love her. Don’t hurt our mate.
“I swear, I just found out.” Her eyes beseeched.
“How?” Her story ought to be a good one.
“I found another communication unit with a recorded message.”
“How convenient.”
“It’s the truth! Helena left me a message in her belt. I found it after you and your father went in the other chamber.” She gestured at the aide who held her belt, her Earth-made shoes, her jewelry, and the pouch with the respirator. She’d been stripped of everything except the Draconian jumpsuit.
“It’s right here.” The aide opened his palm to reveal a tiny device resembling the one the dragon had swallowed.
“Is that one going to explode, too?”
“No!” she cried, and then bit her lip. “I-I don’t think so.”
“Test it,” the king ordered, and motioned to a guard. “Immediately.”
“Also find out how she was able to get it onboard the spacecraft without its sensors detecting it,” K’ev added.
The guard took the device and rushed away, his haste no doubt bidden by a concern the device could blow up in his hand.
The king looked at K’ev. “Now you see the harm in mating with a human. She had you implanted with a bomb that would have killed you, me, and many others.
“I didn’t! I didn’t know.”
“Silence!” roared the king. “An attack against the Draconian royal court is an attack against all of Draco.” He turned to the aide. “Destroy the colony on Elementa, eliminate every single person, and turn every single structure to ash. Then send the seventh and ninth fleets to Earth to do the same—”
“Please, no!” Rhianna cried. “My family is there…all those people…they’re innocent! Please don’t!”
“At once, Your Majesty.” The aide bowed and hurried away.
The monarch motioned to the two guards. “Take her to the dungeon to await execution.”
His dragon roared and fought to shift. Save our mate. Save our mate.
K’ev fought with himself, as Rhianna’s terror washed over him. He should have relished her fear, but it sickened him, caused him to doubt, to hurt. The facts spoke for themselves. He couldn’t be swayed by her pleas and tear-drenched eyes, her misleading scent.
“I d-d-don’t even get a trial?”
“There is only a trial if a question of guilt exists.” The king’s nostrils flared, and he snapped a taloned hand. “Remove her from my sight.”
The guards grabbed her arms and marched her toward the exit. Ankles shackled, she stumbled, but they didn’t break pace, merely dragged her across the cold stone floor.
“Wait! She needs her respirator!” Cursing his concern, K’ev ran after them. “The dungeon smoke will be harmful to her. She won’t be able to breathe.” He tried not to be moved by her terror-filled eyes, the scent of despair, the tears streaming down her cheeks, abrasions already appearing on her soft skin from the rough metal shackles. “Where is her pouch?”
He couldn’t let them imprison her with nothing. She’d never survive down there. He shouldn’t care, but he did. His throat thickened. Being in human form was making him weak. She’d plotted with her people to kill him, and all he wanted to do was break the shackles off her, hold her, fly her away somewhere where she’d be safe, where he could figure what in the sacred fyre had happened. How he could have been so wrong about her? Had she ever had feelings for him?
“I believe His Majesty’s aide-de-camp has it,” a guard replied. “He took her belongings with him.”
“She won’t need it,” the king said. “She’ll be executed at starset.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Her throat felt raw from coughing. Smoke from the smoldering fires seared her lungs and stung her eyes. Sweat plastered her hair to her head and trickled down her temples and nape. Ducking her head, she stretched the collar of her jumpsuit over her nose, trying to breathe through the fabric and filter the smoke.
Draconians had stared accusingly as the guards marched her from the pavilion and through the streets of the royal compound to the tower. They didn’t know her, but they’d condemned her without a trial, just like the king, just like K’ev. Overhead, a single bugling dragon had flown, seeming to track their progress. She desperately wanted to believe K’ev had followed her, that a part of him still cared, but that was just a foolish, desperate hope.
He hated her. She’d seen it in his eyes, smelled it in his scent.
She twisted around to get one last glimpse before they forced her inside the prison. Flickering torches cast more shadow than light as they dragged her down seven flights of stairs to the edge of hell where fires burned and smoldered in pits. She’d expected a high-tech prison of intelligent design, but the guards shoved her into a primitive cell with stone walls blackened by eons of soot. When she brushed against the grated door, the metal seared her wrist. She sank onto a bench as hot as an August sidewalk. She’d always associated dungeons with cold and dampness. This one was like a foundry—in hell.
Her skin was raw where the metal rubbed when she moved. Physical pain couldn’t compare to the anguish that came from K’ev’s belief she’d betrayed him. She’d wondered why he’d shifted into human form. It was probably to prevent his dragon from torching her where she stood.
Her shackles clanging, Rhianna hugged herself and rocked on the bench in misery. He despises me. He thinks I’m guilty.
Maybe she should hate him for his lack of trust. After his vows of eternal togetherness, he believed the worst of her. Couldn’t he tell she wasn’t lying? She’d smelled his emotions—betrayal, pain—which was why she couldn’t hate him. The evidence, from a dragon’s perspective, appeared overwhelming. While she hadn’t known she carried a bomb—she’d been duped and used—she had brought it on board, had hidden it at first, and then never thought to mention it to him until later. Her people had plotted to assassinate him.
They’d nearly succeeded. K’ev, the king, the aide, the guards, her—everyone in the pavilion could have been blown up. If she’d found Helena’s message even ten seconds later, it would have been too late. What in the world had mad
e the administration think sending a suicide bomber would resolve anything? Even if the assassination attempt had succeeded, Draco would have retaliated. What kind of megalomaniac crazy person was the president? There had to have been signs of instability before this. Why hadn’t someone stopped him? His actions would cause the very outcome Earth had sought to avoid: a war that would wipe out every person from the face of the planet.
Everyone was going to die—the guilty and the innocent.
Rhianna thought of Helena. She offered a perfect example of why she couldn’t blame the dragons for assuming she was guilty—you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, and they could be one and the same. Helena had warned her, but she was far from blameless. Obviously she’d known of the president’s plan before they’d boarded the ship.
That’s why she told me I could back out as we were walking to the spacecraft. She was having an attack of conscience. But she still let me board, dropped the belt, and ran. Her only plan for warning me had been to chance I’d find the hidden comm unit.
A little too little, and almost too late.
Earth had proven over and over again they couldn’t be trusted. Her best friend had betrayed her.
However, K’ev had survived and, for that, she might one day forgive Helena.
One day? Rhianna choked on the irony. She doubted she had any days left. Given the swiftness of the king’s command to destroy Earth and the colony on Elementa, she had to assume her execution would occur soon. Would it be public? Would they drag her outside and immolate her in a public square?
K’ev, my fierce mate. Her heart seized with a pain so great she doubled over. Would she see him again before she died? So much for eternity. She choked. Tears streamed down her face to seep into her dry mouth. I love you, K’ev.
Footfalls sounded from the stairwell. Was it now? Would she be executed now? She darted her gaze around the tiny cell. She had nothing she could use as a weapon to defend herself. There wasn’t even a loose stone. She scooted back on the bench, pressing her back against the wall.