by Delia Castel
“Matheson,” said Polaris, “Can you see in the dark?”
He shifted his eyes and stood. Polaris carried Marigold in his arms, bridal-style, gave him a nod of approval, and continued down to a spiral staircase. A sudden chill fell over Matheson, which worsened with every downward step. He furrowed his brow. “This doesn’t seem right.”
“I know,” muttered Polaris. “The hot springs beneath the capital should provide warmth, not cold.”
“This part of the building must be enchanted.”
“Undoubtedly.” He whispered to Marigold, “Tell Berrin to fake a seizure, so the wizards won’t hear us coming through.”
At the bottom of the stairs stood another solid barrier. Marigold jumped down from Polaris’ arms, giving them space to work on the stone walls. Berrin’s faux anguish, and the wizard’s shouts seeped in through the mortar. As soon as the first stone brick came loose, Polaris took one of the vials Marigold gave him and poured it through. Moments later, he heard two thuds and Berrin’s relieved breath.
Matheson’s heart soared. The plan to rescue Berrin was working! They hadn’t yet figured out how they would hide him when the authorities raided the house, but he supposed Polaris could deposit him at the King’s Regiment. Anything had to be better than bleeding to death from castration.
They both made fast progress on creating a hole. Matheson’s heart pumped. They only had a few minutes to spare until the dragons would awaken. If they could get Berrin out in the next five minutes, they’d be able to leave while the dragons were still groggy and wondering what had happened.
“Berrin,” he hissed. “Come to us at the wall.”
Seconds later, his brother’s hand stuck through the hole. “Here I am. The wizards pulled down their enchanted barrier.”
As Berrin was also scraping the mortar, they made quick work of forming a hole. Matheson’s mouth dried. This was it. His first heist with his brothers and mate. He grinned at Marigold, who was sobbing with joy and pulling Berrin through the hole. Today marked the first day of them making a massive achievement as a family.
“Mari!” Berrin scrambled to his feet and threw his arms around Marigold. Polaris wrapped them both in a tight embrace. “It’s so wonderful to touch you.”
A lump formed in Matheson’s throat. One day, he would feel comfortable joining them. He was patient, and he still had a lot of atoning to do, but he was confident that it would happen soon with Marigold’s help.
She wriggled out of their embrace and turned to Matheson. “Why didn’t you join in?”
“I—” White light flooded the vestibule, burning his night vision, causing him to flinch and squeeze his eyes shut. “What is this?”
Polaris’ snarl echoed through the hallway. “He’s taken Marigold!”
“What—” An even louder rumble stopped Matheson from finishing his sentence. He opened his eyes, only to find the ceiling falling down on them.
Chapter 16
The pounding of Marigolds head forced her awake. She tried to open her eyes, but a crust of sleep caked her lashes together. A wave of exhaustion swept over her senses and pulled her down into an unnatural slumber. Wisps of dragon fire swirled within her mind, trailing sapphire and salamander orange light behind her eyelids.
When she resurfaced, it was because her stomach heaved in several queasy spasms. Rancid, sour liquid the viscosity of mop-bucket dregs poured from her throat. She tried to bring her hands to her face, but it was impossible with arms like lead weights. She turned her head and retched the contents of her stomach. A shrill cry of alarm from someone on her side filled her eardrums, and she lost consciousness.
The next time she awoke, it was to the sensation of rough, wet linen sliding across her skin. She lay on her left side, curled up like a kitten. She coughed, and the hand tending to her snatched itself away. With a noisy retch, her stomach heaved again. The weight beside her on the bed leapt off, as though terrified of being splattered with her vomit.
Her stomach must have been empty, because nothing came out. Eventually, her abdominal muscles stopped contracting and relaxed. She rolled onto her back and groaned. “What happened?”
“Aah… Merry!” A familiar, and most unwelcome voice made her stomach flip-flop. “Welcome back to the land of the conscious.”
Marigold snapped her eyes open to find herself staring into the ceiling of a four-poster bed. Velvet curtains of the brightest scarlet formed a rich canopy, gathering at carved, mahogany posts. She turned her head to find the same curtains, embroidered with gold brocade, shielding her view of the other occupant of the room. They gaped open in places, giving Marigold glimpses of a room much finer than the one she’d been given in Martha’s brothel. Rich, plum-colored damask lined the walls upon which hung a huge, window-sized mirror, framed with sinuous, golden vines.
She gazed beyond the foot of the bed, hoping to spot a door or some other means of escape. The window was in sight, and through the gap in its elaborate, burgundy drawings, she noted it was dark outside. Several hours must have passed since she had been magically pulled from outside Berrin’s cell. But more disturbing than the passage of time was the sight beyond the window. Drifting down from the midnight blue sky were thick snowflakes.
Terror gripped her windpipe, causing her to choke. Her heart thrashed in her chest like a trapped dragon, and she struggled for breath. Blood drained from her face, leaving in its wake a piercing dread. The presence of snow could only mean one thing: she was in Boreas, and in some kind of house of ill repute.
Through clenched teeth, she asked, “Have I had any clients yet?”
“Clients?” Hertz replied, his voice pitched high by confusion. “Whatever for?”
“This is a brothel, isn’t it?”
“No, my dear girl! You are recuperating in the Governor’s suite of the Boreas House of Corrections.” He sauntered into viewing range. The dragon’s eyes gleamed brighter than lamplights, and he grinned down at her like a miser surveying his gold. Marigold’s heart jumped into her throat, and she cringed away from the sight.
His gray hair hung loose, its strands falling down to a velvet dressing gown of a red so deep, it reminded her of blackened blood. Its lapels and wrists were encrusted with tiny beads of dragon’s gold filigree that matched the ornament dangling from his left ear. He lowered himself to the bed, bringing with him the rich, sweet scent of burning poppies.
Marigold tried to move her limbs, tried to skitter away, but they remained too heavy to lift. She closed her eyes, breathing away the throbbing in her head. If she could gather as much information as she could, she would connect with one of her mates and pass it on, so they could avoid any traps. “What are your plans for me?”
“I had wanted to give you a few weeks to become acquainted with your new station in life, but I’m afraid we have run out of time.”
“The Assassin’s Guild?”
He stroked her cheek. “Yes, they are putting the most inordinate amount of pressure on me to repay my debt. I need to bring forward our mating, perform a little ritual, and repay them the interest plus all the penalties.”
Shuddering, she shot him a glare of warning. “And I suppose you’ll turn me into dragon meat when you have the money.”
“No.” He chuckled. “You are far more important to me than any other she-dragon.”
She closed her eyes and focussed on Berrin, but pain rang through her head like church bells. Wincing, she clenched her teeth.
Hertz lips brushed the side of her cheek. “I wouldn’t try to use any of your spirit-dragon abilities. The elixir causing your headache is dampening all higher mental faculties.”
Nausea splashed the back of her throat. “I’m not an air—”
“Let’s not play games, Merry. I have searched for you from the moment your mother escaped my clutches. At first I thought she had gone to Ambrosius, the land of her mother’s people, but that had been a fruitless endeavor.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “You could not imagine m
y frustration and despair!”
Marigold held her breath, not wanting to interrupt his revelation. If he knew her mother, maybe he would disclose the identity of her father! And if he revealed what he wanted with, she could use it against him.
“From the moment Lord Arctos brought me that bracelet, I felt like a new dragon. He actually boasted that he’d taken it from a street urchin and had the same young woman imprisoned for trying to retrieve her own property.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Diabolical! But then, so were my plans...”
Glee reflected in his quicksilver eyes, and his breath deepened.
She had to keep thinking about what Polaris had said about matings needing to be consensual to work. And Matheson’s warning that she would not be able to bond with any other dragon if they consummated the King’s Blessing gave her hope that Governor Hertz wouldn’t force her.
Despite this, needles of trepidation prickled her skin and made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. She held her silence about Lord Arctos and her mother’s bracelet, not wanting to distract him from revealing any vulnerabilities in his plan.
“I arranged for your transfer to Martha’s Menagerie.” He pressed his hand against his heart. “My plan was to become your regular client. A true gentleman amongst the loutish bears who would use you roughly. In time, you would come to see me as your benefactor and potential savior. A resourceful girl like you would then encourage me to whisk you to my mansion, and in a blaze of romance, gratitude, and the finest silks, you would become my mate.”
She choked on her own shock. No one could be this demented!
His lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. “But you had to club your first client over the head and run away.”
“Sorry for ruining your plans,” she spat.
“It matters not. I have you now, and you are mine to use as I wish.”
“My mates will find me.”
“Your mates are now lying dead under the rubble of the Tower of Torment. It was a tragic accident, and I will mourn the loss of my dear nephews.”
Her breath caught. “You’re lying!”
“Try connecting with them.” He smirked.
She closed her eyes and met a wall of pain, making her clutch at her temples.
“You see, Merry? You are all alone. Be grateful that I am willing to take on their responsibilities and provide you with a home.”
“It’s that elixir! It’s blocking my connection.” When he gave her a pitying smile, memories of the ceiling falling down on a magical barrier around her head returned to the forefront of her mind. She hadn’t had the chance to check on the brothers, but what if it hadn’t been just the ceiling that fell? A murderer like Governor Hertz was capable of anything, and he had been looking for a way to break her mating bonds. Collapsing a large, stone building on them seemed like the sort of thing he would do. Her chest ached at the thought of her mates lying crushed under rubble, and she sobbed. “Y-you lured them into a trap and had them killed, just as you did their parents.”
His face clouded. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“But you had everything to gain from their deaths.”
“True…” He raised a shoulder. “But that makes me an opportunist, not a murderer.”
She clenched her teeth. “And what about the building that fell on my mates? Are you going to tell me that wasn’t your doing?”
He hooked his fingers under the lapel of his dressing gown, revealing an expanse of pale flesh that made Marigold gag. “A dragon in love cannot help his actions. You were mated to at least one of them, so they all had to die.” He climbed on the bed, straddling her over the silken sheets. His robe gaped open beneath its belt, revealing a flaccid penis the size and shape of a woman’s thumb. “Now that you are trapped, outmaneuvered, and… unencumbered by my nephews, you and I will mate.”
“No.”
He sighed, sat back on his heels and placed his hands in his pocket. “I had an inkling you might be one of those impractical types of she-dragon. Perhaps you will change your mind when you see what other leverage I have against you.”
Marigold’s heart lurched. Holle!
If Hertz was so obsessed with her, he would have discovered the identity of her closest friend in the House of Corrections. Before she had the time to tell him that he was wasting his efforts, he lurched forward and slammed a handkerchief over her face. A sharp scent, not dissimilar to mulberry gin filled her nostrils, and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
The next time she awoke, it was to stare into the amber eyes of a dragon about the same size as Polaris. Moss-colored scales lined his face, which faded to the shade of clay at the underside of his chin and neck. She scrambled back from the male and surveyed her surroundings. The ground beneath her was warm, tamped earth, and the walls rock. Above them sat a massive grate, reminding her of—“This is the dragon pit!”
The dragon nodded.
“Can you change back?”
His foreleg pointed at a stone collar around his neck.
Marigold nodded. She knew about leccan, the stone used to prevent a dragon from transforming. This was the dragon imprisoned in the lower level of the House of Corrections. The guards used to threaten the inmates that they’d throw them to him if they misbehaved. According to them, he was a nobleman who had committed a crime so heinous, he needed to be locked up forever.
She pursed her lips. After having had an introduction to dragon society and its underlying corruption, she could guess that this dragon was being kept in the pit illegally. “Hold on. I’ll see if I can free you.”
He lowered himself, and she climbed on the spikes of his tail, over his spine and to the back of his neck. The collar was made of a material that shone like metal, but with the consistency of stone. Keeping it fastened to his neck were two, massive locks.
She nodded to herself and patted her hair. She found a hairpin and raised her brows. Governor Hertz had once boasted about thoroughly checking the women who resided in the House of Corrections. Why hadn’t he confiscated her hair accessories? She shook her head. The wretch probably had too much on his mind to worry about groping her in her sleep. She set to work, pulled out the hairpin, and twisted it into an L-shape.
“I’m going to see if I can pick these locks. If you can hold still, I’ll free you and we can talk.”
She dislodged a large amount of debris encrusted in the mechanism of the first lock, which gave her the impression that it had not been used for years. It took her several minutes of fumbling about, but she managed to pick them both and release the collar. Underneath it protruded a strange, metal spike. Marigold cringed. “Should I take this out, too?”
The dragon nodded.
She clenched her teeth, and eased it out, hoping the dragon wouldn’t flinch or buck her off his back. After a few seconds of gentle pulling, the spike popped out. “Ah, here we are!”
The dragon beneath her disappeared, and she fell into the arms of a male with wide, green eyes, framed by long, blonde hair that fell down his broad shoulders. A dusting of stubble grew on his face, giving him a ruggedly handsome look. Marigold’s eyes widened, and she kept her gaze fixed on his face and not his naked upper body.
“Thank you!” His voice was hoarse. “Will you please identify yourself? You have the face and ringlets of my mate, but your coloring is all wrong. Her shade of blonde is close to white, you see.”
“Your… mate?” A lump formed in her throat. She stared into the dragon’s eyes and found herself looking into her own. Even his hair was the same shade of golden blonde, except that it was straight instead of in ringlets. “P-princess Gilda was my mother.”
“Was?” His eyes filled with tears. He set her to her feet and bowed his head. “She warned me that the enchantment might take both our lives, but I thought that she might have survived, as I did.”
She wrung her hands, her stomach churning in sync with her pounding head. The last thing she wanted to tell this grieving dragon—her father—was that Gove
rnor Hertz had held Princess Gilda for some time before she escaped. “I’m not sure how she got there, but the nuns at the Priory Orphanage in Boreas told me that she died in childbirth. All I have of her is a bracelet.”
“It was an heirloom given to her by King Basileus.” He turned his gaze to her, his eyes shining. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, daughter.”
Her stomach fluttered at the thought of having a father, even one as young-looking as him, and she smiled. “My name is Marigold.”
“Marigold.” He smiled back, and the happiness radiating through his eyes made her heart melt. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince Aurelius of Chrysos.”
Prince Aurelius wanted to know everything about her life at the orphanage, and Marigold felt compelled to tell him everything. In the forefront of her mind, she knew that her presence here was to form a bond with her father.
Governor Hertz wanted to use his life as leverage for her to consent to mate with him, but she couldn’t help herself. She finally had a parent who was desperate to know her, and she wouldn’t distance herself from him just to thwart her enemy.
At the end of her life story, he said, “I believe your mates are still alive. You would have felt something otherwise.”
“But you didn’t know Princess Gilda had died.”
“The leccan collar around my neck broke off our connection. Hertz has imprisoned me here since the wedding, and I’ve lost track of time.”
“Wedding?”
He sighed and sat on a rock. “My stepmother was a mad she-dragon, obsessed with fairies. She found a ritual to open a portal to their realm and beguiled my father to hand her the throne, so that she could compel my brothers to marry her.”
Marigold sat next to him and held his large, warm hand. “Go on.”
“I tried to stop my brothers, saying she had murdered Father, but they wouldn’t listen.”