by Mina Carter
“Please,” she begged, pulling on the arm Goranka held in an iron grip. “Don’t do this… don’t give me to him. He’s… he’s not right.”
“Give you to him?” Goranka laughed harshly. “I’m not going to give you to him.”
“Oh, scales, thank you,” Saskia breathed, relief flooding her entire body. But it was a moment too soon as a second later, Goranka hauled her eye to eye and smiled.
“No, I’m going to sell you to him. And a pretty penny you’ll fetch as well, considering he’s wanted to buy you for years.”
6
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. The Blaise-Evans place?”
Calan blinked and growled in surprise as Sawyer turned the car into a driveway he recognized. Of course, he didn’t recognize it for its current occupants, but its former ones. Johnathon Evans and his lovely wife, Rosa, had been firm friends of his father when Calan had been a boy. He’d spent many happy hours here, running through the gardens as his father spoke with the couple. Of course, that had been years before Rosa’s untimely death in childbirth, and Johnathon going on to marry that awful Blaise woman, Goranka.
Scales, he hadn’t thought of Johnathon for years. For a moment, he spared a thought for his and Rosa’s daughter. As far as Calan had heard, she’d survived the birth but the rumors said she’d had mental problems and been committed to some hospital somewhere. Guilt laid heavily on his soul. He should really track the girl down and make sure she was cared for since her father was no longer around to ensure she was.
Still… “I’m sure my lady won’t be here. She was far too genteel, shall we say, to have any association with these… creatures.”
Sawyer just shrugged. “It’s the only noble house left and you did say no stone left unturned. Might as well make sure.”
The hint of a smile at the corner of Sawyer’s lips gave him away and Calan growled. “Asshole. You’re hoping it’s one of them, aren’t you?”
The big man chuckled, a grin spreading over his lips. “Fuck yeah. You said you’d take the girl to mate as soon as you found her. I’m waiting for you to end up leg-shackled to one of these creatures so I can take the piss out of you for the next fifty years.”
“I always knew you were an asshole,” Calan groused, eyeing his companion speculatively as he drew the car to a stop in front of the house. “So, here’s one. How about you tell me what’s going on with Cadeyra?”
Sawyer went still, his hand on the key in the ignition as he rolled his eyes to look at Calan. “Nothing is going on.”
“Ha! Maybe not yet, but you’d like there to be, wouldn’t you?”
The other male didn’t answer, but his eyes flared briefly in warning. A warning that Calan totally ignored. Yes, Sawyer was a big son of a bitch with a hell of a reputation from both the army and his time on the council. But Calan was no slouch himself, and he needed to make sure the guy knew he wouldn’t tolerate his cousin being messed about.
“Maybe.” To his credit, Sawyer didn’t try and deny it. After the way Calan had caught him looking at her, there really was no denying it. Instead he shrugged. “But it’ll be up to her in the end, won’t it?”
“Is she your mate?” Calan demanded, intrigued. For most shifters the mate-scent was instant and instinctive, but dragons ran that little bit differently. Sometimes, like for Joey Kenton and his little mate, the scent was immediate and overwhelming, but at others, a couple could have known each other for years before it showed up to match them. For the royal family, it was even more elusive. Many a D’Amnayel had gone through life never finding their true mates.
He shivered, his big hand tightening around the delicate silver slipper in his hand. That was something he didn’t want to think about. Not ever. His princess was his mate. She had to be. Of course, he hadn’t been able to tell for sure, not with her dragon buried so far down he could only get glimpses of the creature in her scent, but she was his. He, and his dragon, just knew it.
“For me? Yes. Whether I’m it for her remains to be seen.”
That was the other thing about the mate-bond. Occasionally, and it was very occasional, it would reveal itself to just one partner but not the other. Usually it did reveal itself to the other within a few months, but he had heard a few horror stories where the other half of the bond never realized the match.
“How long?”
Sawyer’s expression was set, but just for a moment. There was a chink in his armor and Calan saw right down to his soul. Saw the loneliness and steadfast determination there.
“Three years.”
“Oh crap, I’m sorry.” The words were out of Calan’s mouth before he’d even thought about them. That right there was every dragon’s nightmare. To love someone with every ounce of your soul and never have them suspect or feel the same way.
Sawyer shrugged again and yanked the keys out of the ignition. “It is what it is. You can understand now why I fight to be her personal guard.”
Calan nodded. Sawyer put his name down so much for that detail he’d wondered if the male ever slept. But then, sleep would be near impossible without his mate to soothe him.
“You’re a better man than I am. I’d have already stormed the castle to make her mine.”
Sawyer barked a laugh as they got out of the car and headed up to the front door. “Have you met your cousin? If I did that and she wasn’t amenable, she’d not only tear me a new one, you’d find pieces of me all over the damn continent.”
“True, true.” Calan nodded and then sighed as he knocked on the door. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
Ten minutes later, it became apparent that not only was his princess not in the Blaise-Evans house, but that the three harpies in the house were insistent that she was. Or rather, that the woman he was looking for was in fact the younger of the Blaise sisters.
“See! It fits!” the girl announced, stretching out her foot to display the delicate slipper. “And I even have the other one. Mother?”
On command, Goranka Blaise produced the matching slipper, holding it out with a triumphant smile on her face.
“We are aware that some elements at court can’t seem to look past our… business past,” she said demurely, as though the whole court were prejudiced against them merely for having a father who was in business rather than coming from old money like the rest of them. “It affected poor Floriana so much that we decided to use an enchantment spell to conceal her identity… so she could enjoy the ball. You understand? We didn’t expect at all that she’d catch Your Grace’s eye.”
Calan looked from one to the other, his expression set as he considered their story. Sawyer was keeping out of it, standing by the door, his expression shuttered and his hands clasped loosely in front of him. Far from the amusement Calan had expected to see in his eyes when his prediction—that Calan would end up shackled to one of the Blaise girls—came true, he seemed pissed off.
“You do know that using enchantment spells in the court is forbidden?” he asked, biting back his disgust. To use non-dragon magic was… wrong. But it would explain why he hadn’t been able to get a good read on his princess or sense her dragon properly.
He eyed the girl again. She was the same height but far more buxom in build. Her curves didn’t bother him, he loved women in all their shapes and sizes, but after having his princess in his arms, he yearned for her petite slenderness again. Even if she had been just an illusion.
His gaze fastened on the shoe the mother held. It was dirty and one of the jeweled straps was gone. A small patch of darkness by the heel made him frown and he held out his hand in silent demand. Goranka shimmied forward and put the slipper in his hand.
“These were the first things I saw. You were on the steps leading down into the ballroom, your skirts lifted and one tiny, little foot extended to walk down,” he said quietly, kneeling as if to put the slipper on the girl’s other, bare foot. Before he did, he lifted it up and took a breath. The scent of blood from the dried stain on the heel filled his nostrils
and his dragon roared.
This was the shoe his princess had been wearing when she’d escaped from the court. And the scent on it was different to that of the girl standing in front of him. She wasn’t his princess. Relief filled him and he closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them again, he looked up and caught the girl’s gaze. When he spoke, his voice was cold and hard. “But that wasn’t you, was it?”
“Yes, yes… of course it was,” she protested, her mother and sister joining in, but he saw the sudden flash of fear in her eyes and surged to his feet.
It wasn’t her. He knew it wasn’t and she knew it wasn’t.
“SILENCE!” he roared, letting his dragon out to play in his voice. Anger vibrated over his skin and the hint of his scales appearing just beneath shocked them all into silence. He looked at them and finally figured out what had been bothering him since he’d set foot in the room. “There were four of you before, when you met with my cousin. Where is the mouse?”
Goranka’s mouth set in a thin, disapproving line. “There are just the three of us. Search the house if you wish, but you will only find me and my daughters here.”
Something about her easy capitulation didn’t sit right with him and he surged forward, taking three quick steps to loom over her. The air around him thickened with his anger, the potential of his change, the change of one of the feared black dragons, radiating heat from his skin.
“But there were four of you. Now I will only ask this once more… Where. Is. The. Mouse?”
He didn’t even know her name, but Calan was sure the quiet little creature who had been with them before was her. Was his princess. He’d not really gotten a good look at her then, but her height and build were right… and the flash of defiance when he’d refused to give the gloves back. And… the slippers.
His eyes widened as he realized where he’d seen the slippers and purple gown his princess had worn. They’d been amongst the things his cousin had rejected in favor of scarlets and golds.
“She was here. Now TELL ME!” he bellowed, smoke billowing from his nostrils as his dragon began to call fire.
The girl on his left, the one he’d found with Heath, squeaked. “She’s not here, honestly. She… uhm, left?”
He turned his head, spearing her with a dark gaze. “Left when? And why?”
“She just did,” Goranka snapped. “Ungrateful bitch. I don’t know why I kept her on when her father died. I should have just sent her to the damn orphanage.”
Calan hadn’t thought his anger could get any deeper, but the woman’s words proved him wrong. He rolled his gaze back to her as Sawyer took a step further into the room, their words echoing each other’s. “Her father? She’s Johnathon Evans’ daughter?”
The scales dropped from Calan’s eyes as Goranka nodded. His princess was a lilac, as Rosalina Evans had been and coloring, especially the rarer, light coloring ran in families.
“Much good it did her,” Goranka hissed. “Her dragon was unstable, retarded. She only shifted once, when we weren’t here, and almost burned the fucking place down. I had to get a warlock in to lock the damn creature in so it didn’t do more damage.”
“You did what?” This time it wasn’t Calan who spoke, his voice thick with anger, but Sawyer. “You used magic on an emerging dragoness? Not only that, you left a child on the verge of the shift ALONE? With no one to guide her through it?” His expression twisted with anger and disgust. “What kind of fucking animals are you? She would have been terrified!”
Calan couldn’t speak, his heart twisting painfully at the thought of his princess going through her first shift alone, without the love and support of family. She wouldn’t have known what was happening to her or what to do without an alpha there to support her. No wonder there had been damage. It was a surprise there wasn’t more.
“Where is she now?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft and gentle.
He didn’t bother looking at the mother, but directed his question to the girl who had cracked before. Of them all, she seemed the only one with the conscience. Or perhaps she had seen the writing on the wall and was the quickest to cover her ass. Either way, as long as he found his princess, he didn’t care.
“Mother sold her. To a guy named Mr. Smith. I can get his address for you if you like,” she said, raising her voice to be heard as both her sibling and her mother started to yell. Goranka made a move toward her daughter, fury on her face and her claws outstretched as though to bury them in the girl’s throat, but Sawyer’s snarl stopped her dead.
“Oh, I think not, madam,” he snapped, his steely tones reminding them that they stood in the presence of two blacks, dragons responsible for ensuring the rules of their kind were upheld.
“You’re done hurting people. Selling your own kind into slavery…” he tsked and shook his head. “Let’s just say it’ll be a long time before you breathe free air again.” He looked at Calan. “Take the girl and find your woman. I’ll deal with these two.”
Calan nodded, gratitude filling him at Sawyer’s take charge attitude. If he had to deal with these two, who knew what horrors his princess would have to suffer before he got to her. Had already suffered. No, he wouldn’t allow himself to think like that.
“Come on,” he jerked his head, indicating the Blaise girl—Floriana or something like that—should follow him. “Perhaps if you’re useful, you can stay out of the same cell as these two.”
7
The chain around her neck was heavier and thicker than the one her stepmother had made her wear. And she could feel the magic on it, the spells so strong they scraped against the soft skin of her throat, chafing and bruising it. Saskia shivered in the corner of the limo and tried to occupy as small a space as possible. If she could, she’d have willed herself out of existence. Maybe then, the man sitting next to her would forget all about her.
“Are you cold, my dear?”
Her efforts to go unnoticed failed as Mr. Smith turned his head to look at her, and she was forced to suppress another shiver. He creeped her the hell out, always had. With his thin, almost cadaverous frame and long, spindly hands, he reminded her of a spider, a dead one somehow brought back to life to prey upon the living.
“No… no, I’m fine.” Living with her stepmoth… no, Goranka, she corrected herself. She couldn’t give the woman any familial association, not after she’d sold Saskia into slavery… Living with Goranka had taught her always to answer. Silence could be seen as sullen obstinance, and obstinance needed to be beaten out of her. She’d give this man no cause to lay a hand on her if she could.
“Ahh, I see.” He nodded, his rich, chocolate eyes the only spark of color about him. She’d noticed that before, when he’d come to the workshop to collect his orders, and it seemed unfair. Such lovely, rich, normal eyes, they almost made you want to trust him. After all, his expressions seemed so caring and nice… until she’d realized that monsters, real monsters, weren’t in fairytales… they lived within normal people. Friends, family… especially family.
“It’s no problem if you are. Your new master will be very happy to… warm you up.”
She didn’t reply to that, looking out of the window. Within thirty seconds of buying her, Smith had made it very clear that she had been purchased for one of his clients, one who was already on his way to pick her up. One that liked the young and defenseless… Apparently she was a little older than he usually favored but because she was a dragon, albeit a damaged one caged by the spells around her neck, she’d been worth more.
“He’s been looking for a dragon, and when I told him you were untouched…” Smith grinned broadly. “He couldn’t transfer money quick enough.”
She arched an eyebrow, doing her best to look cool and unruffled even though she was terrified and screaming inside. “Who said I was a virgin? Goranka?” she snorted a laugh. “Do me a favor. The woman couldn’t find her ass with both hands and a map.”
She didn’t know where the bravado and words were coming from but she didn’t care.
She’d say anything to get out of here. Calan, her heart whispered with a painful lurch. Where was he now and what was he doing? Did he even remember their embrace last night, or would she be as quickly forgotten by him as by her “family”?
Smith just laughed, the sound deep and cruel in the confines of the car. “I don’t need anyone to tell me, my dear. I can smell it on you.” He leaned over, making her shrink away, and stroked a skinny finger down her cheek. She shuddered. His skin was cold and clammy to the touch. “You’re as innocent as the driven snow, but so ripe. So ready to bloom. But—” He didn’t move, watching her with a sick darkness in his eyes that made her feel ill. “If you aren’t, the boys and I can have some fun with you before your new owner arrives, now can’t we?”
“She was right. I’m a virgin.” The words tumbled out in a rush as she tried to press herself closer to the metal and plastic of the door. Anything to stop him touching her.
Smith sat back with a chuckle. “Thought so. Ahh, here we are.”
The car drew to a stop and she looked out of the window. They were in front of a dull, tall building with grimy windows in the middle of a row of identical, dirty houses. Earlier in the journey she’d tried to keep track of the turns they’d taken but quickly had become lost. Then she’d realized it really didn’t matter, it wasn’t like if, on the off chance she could escape, she’d even want to find her way back home. It wasn’t her home anymore, Goranka had taken that from her, like she’d taken everything else.
“Out, out, out!” Smith snapped in irritation, pushing her out of the vehicle ahead of him. For a moment he didn’t have a grip on her and she looked around. Perhaps she could run, get away from him? As soon as the thought formed, the chain around her neck tightened and cut off her air. It forced her to her knees, and she tugged at it, trying to get her fingers beneath the links.
“Ahh, we’ll have none of that, my dear.” Smith leaned over her, hand hard on the back of her neck as he yanked her to her feet. Tears of relief and frustration formed in the back of her eyes as the links loosened. “There’s no escape,” he hissed in her ear, marching her into the house. “Not for you.”