Mate Of A Dragon Villain (Skeleton Key)

by Mandy Rosko

  Amanda took in a deep breath through her nose, presumably to have enough power in her lungs to start shaming him, but then she did something Hargreave didn’t expect.

  She stepped forward, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him back to the couch. “You’re not going to Lassie me or some shit, so cut it out. Sit down.”

  Hargreave sat, but he also frowned. “I don’t understand. What is a Lassie?”

  Amanda smiled, though her eyes still held the annoyance from before. “It’s an old dog show, just trust me, you were trying to do it to me, but I’m too smart for that. You’re not getting rid of me and you’re not going back alone.” She took him by the chin with a forceful grip when Hargreave attempted to look away from her. “No, you’re going to look at me, especially when you try to dump me. I’m your mate. You’ve been saying nothing else since I fell into your world, and I know it’s not bullshit because I feel it.”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “I can handle it,” Amanda insisted, and Hargreave had to admit, the strength and determination in her eyes was a sight to behold. It was lovely. “I’m not planning on going out into death fights of whatever. I know my limits, but you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m letting you walk out of my life after everything that just happened.”

  Now Hargreave was starting to get annoyed. “I would not be walking easily. You’re a lunatic if you think I would leave your side with ease.”

  “Then don’t do it,” Amanda said harshly. Her expression softened. “I’ve been writing romance for the longest time now, ever since I was a teenager, and if I wasn’t writing it, I was sneaking my grandma’s books and reading them under the covers with flashlights every night. I have never been in love before. Not once. I’ve liked people, I’ve thought I was in love before, but then you came along, and you…I don’t know what it is, but just the way you treat me, the way you keep insisting we belong together, but not in a creepy, stalking kind of way. I don’t know, but I’m not going to let you walk away feeling sorry for yourself, and I won’t let myself stay here wondering what could’ve happened if I’d gone with you. Fine. I get it. You need to go back, but you’re sure as hell not leaving me behind.”

  “Don’t you have family? People here who would miss you? Wonder where you went?”

  That seemed to make her pause. Amanda blinked, as if she honestly hadn’t thought of it before. “I…I know they’d be happy for me if they knew I was going to be with someone who cared about me as much as you do.”

  Amanda looked into his eyes in that moment, and Hargreave was honestly stuck in them. Those grey-blue depths that were so much like a storm in the making, he couldn’t look away from them. They were beautiful, the loveliest eyes he’d ever seen.

  That they were filled with honesty and conviction only increased his adoration for them.

  “You will stay?”

  Amanda nodded, both her hands now squeezing his. “Yes.”

  A choking sensation overcame Hargreave in that moment. He had never felt such a sweet, aching pain in his chest or throat before. “I promise I will care for you. I will keep you safe.” He released the skeleton key so he could grip her hands back. “Eldric will never have you in his clutches again.”

  A slight frown furrowed Amanda’s slender brows. She reached out for her books, which were still on her little table. She examined the covers, read the backs, then flipped through the pages. She stopped in some places, her eyes seeming to skim the words before she continued with the other books.

  Hargreave didn’t understand, and he picked up on the tension inside her. “What is it?”

  Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know how it was that I started seeing your world, or visualizing it, dreaming about it, whatever it was that was happening, but I was still seeing it. I saw enough details to get most of it right when I was writing it.”

  Hargreave reached for one of the books Amanda returned to the table. “What are you thinking?”

  She bit her lips together, shaking her head. “You’re not going to like this, but maybe Eldric isn’t the evil guy you think he is. No, really, hear me out,” she said quickly when Hargreave shook his head.

  He got to his feet. The anger inside him needed to be dispersed, but there was nothing he could do but pace the small area of her sitting room. “He had me locked in his dungeons for years.”

  “I know.”

  “He could have freed me when his father died; he left me to rot!”

  “I know.”

  “He killed my parents and destroyed my home.”

  “I know,” Amanda said again, her voice soft, as though begging him to understand. “But, and just try to follow with me for a few minutes, what if that wasn’t all him?”

  Hargreave sucked in a deep breath. He looked down at his mate, hands on his hips, and tried to keep his temper, reminding himself that none of this was her fault or her doing.

  “Very well,” he said through clenched teeth. “Why, may I ask, do you believe Eldric to be innocent when I know him to not be?”

  Amanda shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable. “Well, you did say that when he came to see you, he was with his father. His father was the king then. No one can really say no to a king, and when his father died—I’m not saying this excuses anything, but an explanation for why he didn’t release you was because he forgot about you when he was mourning.”

  Hargreave snorted. He didn’t know which was more insulting. The idea that his rival had left him to be tortured and raped in that miserable hole on purpose, or had forgotten him in it, like a child who misplaced a toy.

  “It’s not even just all that,” Amanda said quickly. “When I was planning out the books, or thought I was planning them out, I was going to write you to be redeemable. I don’t know how redeemable, but I was going to do it because every time I wrote you in my books, I always thought there had to be more to it. You weren’t just some evil caricature.”

  Hargreave winced. “It pains me to think you ever believed such a thing.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, but really I thought the story was pulling me in another direction. It was really you that was pulling me in another direction. Again, I don’t know how this was working, but clearly, I was getting some sort of visions of you and the world you live in. Something was drawing me to write about all this, and every time I thought about ending the series, I wanted to do it with a twist. You know, a secret villain who had been under Eldric’s nose all the time.”

  Hargreave now thought he knew where his mate was going with this. “You believe someone else to be pulling Eldric’s strings?” He looked down at the books again.

  Hargreave’s woman had the gift of sight, though it only seemed to apply to Hargreave’s world, and not her own.

  Amanda nodded. “I would put pretty much everything on Udolf. You know him, right?”

  Hargreave hated the sound of the man’s very name. “The old bastard who was constantly at Edward’s ear. Yes. I know of him. I have seen him a time or two while spying on Eldric’s camps.”

  “Right, well, he’s the guy I would have written in to do it. I can see him twisting things around, getting Edward to attack your home, and keeping Eldric blind to everything that had been going on when Edward died. He’s like Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings or something, the creepy adviser whispering poison into his king’s ear.”

  Hargreave did as he promised his woman. He listened, and then he made an attempt to absorb everything Amanda told him. He looked down at the skeleton key still in his hand. He sighed. “I do not know how much this would absolve Eldric of the crimes he has committed against me, but I will look into it.”

  Amanda grinned, getting to her feet. “If I’m right, the fighting can stop. All the revenge battles, you don’t have to do them anymore.”

  Hargreave smiled wryly at her. “I adore your naivety, but I do not think it will be that simple. Wars like ours do not end overnight, or without a river of blood.”

  “No.�
� Amanda took him by the hands. The determination in her eyes was apparent. Hargreave could not look away. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but Eldric isn’t a bad guy. I never wrote him as the villain for a reason.”

  “No, you wrote me as the villain.”

  Color bloomed across her cheeks at his words. She briefly looked away from him. “Only because I wasn’t looking beneath the surface.” Their eyes met again, and Hargreave didn’t think a day would ever exist when he was not captivated by her. “If I’d taken the time to pay more attention, to realize that not everything I was dreaming up was in my head, I would’ve known you weren’t the bad guy either. I’m an idiot for not realizing it before.”

  Hargreave slid his hand through her hair. “You should not insult my mate. I do not approve of it.”

  Amanda smiled, taking his wrist and holding it tightly. “Do you believe me, though?”

  Hargreave nodded. How could he not?

  Amanda’s chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. She stepped forward, her arms coming around Hargreave’s chest, her body warm as she held on tight.

  He held her tightly back. “You will be the death of me.”

  He would protect her. He would have to. He would lay down his life if he had to. She couldn’t know that, but it no longer mattered.

  “I am a villain.”

  Amanda shook her head immediately. “No, you’re not.”

  “I am,” Hargreave said, smiling down at her, kissing her on her sweet mouth. “Because a better man would have been able to resist you. I cannot. So I will do the selfish and villainous thing, and bring you back into a war torn land.”

  “That’s fine. It won’t be war torn for much longer anyway.”

  Hargreave listened to her, to the determination and surety in her voice, and he almost believed it. “I hope you are right.”

  Chapter 16

  Amanda packed up everything she thought would be useful for their trip back. She took some spare clothes, since she didn’t want to be wearing those dresses all the time, as nice as they were. She definitely packed her books. She hadn’t finished the series, and she never would, but if she kept the books, she might be able to scan the pages for something that could help her. Some clue or detail about the world she’d thought she had created to help her figure out how to end this.

  As a writer, she often didn’t see plot points until well into the story. Now she had to go looking for those twists and turns she hadn’t been aware were there, as well as figure out what was real, and what she had made up to make the story seem more exciting.

  Amanda realized part way through packing up her stuff that she wouldn’t be coming back. At least, she was ninety percent sure she wouldn’t be coming back.

  When she’d fallen through that hole in her closet, the skeleton key had vanished, appearing underwater in Hargreave’s hidden treasure room. There was no telling where it would end up next time, if it would appear again at all.

  Part of her thought she might be able to come back, but there was another part that knew she wouldn’t. That she would never see a TV ever again, find out how Game of Thrones ended, speak with her parents or siblings, none of it. It would all be done and gone.

  And that was all right. It hurt, but she was at peace with it.

  Amanda stuffed some empty journals and sketchbooks into her bag, along with a few other essentials she couldn’t do without. Her eyebrow pluckers, photos of her family, and the little stuffed Coca Cola polar bear she had that said “Canada” on it.

  She couldn’t forget where she came from, after all.

  Hargreave stood in the doorway, watching her. “Are you certain about this?”

  Amanda briefly thought of taking her iPad, but no. There was no way to charge it and it would just make her miss technology. Might as well rip that Band-Aid off as fast as possible.

  “I’m sure,” she said, looking at Hargreave. The villain of her books was the love of her life. “How do you feel about the idea of me still writing when I’m living with you?”

  He grinned at her. “You can pen whatever you wish. I would ask that you make me the hero of your tales the next time, however.”

  “Deal.” Amanda hoisted the gym bag over her shoulder. She’d already written a note to her parents and left it on the coffee table, under a paperweight so it wouldn’t get blown away or something. In it, she told them she loved them, asked them not to worry about her, that she was going to be fine and was with someone she loved. It also gave them permission to get into her bank accounts. They could have what she’d saved. Maybe it would help them retire earlier. That thought eased her guilt a little bit, but whatever guilt she felt vanished entirely when Hargreave reached out and took her by the hand.

  A light, giddy feeling swelled inside her as they walked into her office, to the closet with the keyhole that would fit the bulky, glass skeleton key.

  Hargreave put it into the lock.

  Amanda’s heart pounded.

  “Are you frightened?”

  “More worried it’s going to drop us from three thousand feet, or put us under water somewhere.”

  Hargreave gripped her hand tightly. “I have you. I will let nothing happen to you.”

  Amanda looked up at him, feeling some of her anxiety easing.

  She nodded, and Hargreave hesitated a moment before turning the key and opening the door.

  Amanda braced herself for the feeling of falling, for the sensation of being sucked into a hole and wind blowing in her face. None of that happened. Gravity stayed the same when the other side of the door was revealed to her.

  The key worked. It definitely wasn’t her closet in there.

  Stone walls and blue carpeting. It was warm, and the lights were electric with wires snaking along the walls.

  This was not the modern world, but it wasn’t Hargreave’s castle either.

  It was Eldric’s castle.

  “Shit. Maybe we should try again.”

  Hargreave looked at her, then at the empty hall before him. Voices sounded in the distance. There were people here. Someone would eventually come down this way and see them.

  “No. I won’t risk it.” He stepped forward.

  Amanda grabbed him by the arm. “Are you serious?”

  “I am,” Hargreave said, looking back at what awaited him. “I won’t risk the next time the key opens a door for us that it leads to some wreck beneath the ocean. I can handle that, you cannot. Come.” He took her by the hand and dragged her forward.

  Amanda dragged her feet only a little. “Are you sure?” she whispered as they entered the hall. The change in temperature was obvious as they exited her air conditioned apartment.

  Hargreave nodded. “Quite certain. Eldric would not harm a lady, should we be caught anyway. You said as much yourself that he is an honorable man.”

  Hargreave really sounded like he was hesitant to admit to that much. Understandable, since it was Eldric’s father who had killed Hargreave’s mother. She was still happy he was making an attempt to believe her, but Amanda still wished he wouldn’t take this kind of risk to do it.

  It was too late anyway. The second they were out of reach of the door, it slammed shut behind them. Loudly.

  Amanda and Hargreave spun around. The white door to Amanda’s closet was gone, replaced with something wooden with thick iron hinges.

  She and Hargreave looked to the door, then at each other.

  “The hall leads to this door. It must be someone’s chamber.”

  Amanda nodded. Only important people got rooms all to themselves in a world like this. It made her all the more grateful that Eldric had given her a room to herself when she’d first arrived at the castle.

  Amanda got a feeling she knew whose room it would be without even thinking about it, but her suspicion was confirmed when an angry voice called out from the other side, demanding to know what the racket was, and the door yanked open and Udolf revealed himself.

  He stopped abruptly at the sight of Amanda and Har
greave, his eyes big behind those tiny glasses.

  He and Hargreave seemed to snap out of it at the same time. Udolf tried to slam the door shut again, but Hargreave was younger, faster, and stronger as he pushed through it, grabbing Udolf by the mouth before the man could scream for help.

  Oh shit. This was going sideways. Amanda rushed into the room behind them, quickly shutting the door before a guard could walk by and see what was going on.

  It didn’t seem to matter anyway. Hargreave pushed Udolf into one of his lush chairs next to the fireplace, eyes blazing red. When he spoke, Amanda could see the flames in his mouth.

  A sight like that made her wonder why she wasn’t a little more hesitant to kiss the man, but then she wasn’t thinking about that. She was only thinking about how much she didn’t want this to end in blood.

  Hargreave wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d come into Amanda’s world with, but he did still have his claws. Udolf gasped for breath when those claws were put to his throat. “One sound, anything that will draw attention to us, and I will kill you. Understand me?”

  Udolf nodded.

  Amanda’s heart raced, but at least when Udolf nodded, she was able to relax a little bit. She wouldn’t be seeing a man killed, not yet, at least.

  Hargreave looked back at Amanda. “Are you sure he had something to do with it? Though he was Edward’s advisor.” Hargreave turned his angry stare back to Udolf. “It would not shock me.”

  Amanda stepped forward quickly before he could dig those claws into Udolf’s throat.

  He looked at her, his eyes calm, though his voice trembled. “It’s good to see you healthy, my lady.”

  “Yeah, perfect.”

  Udolf frowned slightly, his gaze moving up and down Hargreave, his shirt, jeans, and shoes. “What are you wearing?”

  “Never mind that,” Amanda said. She put her bag down on the floor and unzipped it, yanking out her books. She looked to Hargreave just then, remembering the skeleton key. “Do you still have the key?”

  His red eyes widened slightly, as though only just remembering it. “It was still in the lock.”