I reluctantly make my way to the back of the ballroom, ignoring the hick hop jam currently playing—one of my favorites—and all wolves wondering if King Drákon has any need for such and such.
I might have asked those wolves why they didn’t just go up to Damianos and ask him themselves. But when I find him standing in the back of the room with his fellow dragons, I immediately see why he isn’t getting approached about jack. They’re all dressed formally, but with those glowing eyes and skyscraper heights, they look like a bunch of predators playing dress up. Real talk 100, if I was a male wolf looking to request something, I probably wouldn’t have the guts to step to Damianos either.
In fact, I take the last few steps to get to them way slower than the rest.
But slowing doesn’t help anything.
They all turn as one to look down at me from their towering heights as soon as I get within a few feet of them.
Then without speaking a word, a dragon in a sleek black kimono jacket steps aside to reveal a door I didn’t see before. It’s tall and red with a gold leaf dragon etched into its front.
The guy in the kimono jacket pushes the door open and the rest of the dragons fall into a sort of formation on either side of it before turning their glowing gazes back to me.
None of them say anything, but I totally get that they’re expecting me to go through. And this time Damianos does not offer me his arm.
Okay, then…
Mentally pulling up my big girl panties, I walk down the line of dragons. And I keep my chin up, even though I can feel the heat of their collective glowing stares.
However, I stop short as soon as I see what’s on the other side of that door.
A room as ostentatious as the one I just left. But instead of chandeliers, a long golden dragon fixture sparkling with lights hangs overhead. And instead of a grand staircase, there’s a raised dais, with not one, but two mammoth black thrones.
The cushions are made out of what looks like a brocaded velvet. The frame is gold baroque and intricately carved like the rest of the chairs in the house. But instead of random filigree, these carvings are of golden dragons, which makes the throne chairs look like they’re crawling with them.
Whoa… “Is that second throne for me?” I ask Damianos when he appears at my side. He must have followed right behind me.
“Who else would it be for?” he answers, taking my arm again. “You are, after all, our new queen.”
Normally this would be the part where I make some inappropriate joke. The cruder the better. Anything to knock a fancy situation off its pedestal.
But there’s something about this place. Damianos says our power is the only thing that matters, and this room is a total reflection of that. So ancient and authoritative I can’t bring myself to say something smart. Hallowed…the word drops into my mind, even though I couldn’t quite tell you what it means other than, “this place right here.”
I keep my mouth closed as Damianos escorts me to the two thrones, and by the time I turn around to sit, someone’s closed the door between us and the noisy ballroom. This throne room must be completely soundproof. As loud as that DJ was, I can’t hear even a hint of bass line through the walls.
The other dragons, I notice, have gathered before us in three neat rows. Almost like a pre-agreed upon military formation.
It strikes me as extremely formal until we sit down. That’s when they all immediately start hissing and screeching in their incomprehensible—at least to me—dragon language.
But Damianos ends all that screeching with a mere raise of his hand. “If you wish to put questions to your queen, you will speak English so that she may understand you,” he commands.
Confused face emoji, so all that hissing and screeching was questions? For me?
“You are not her voice in all things?” a dragon in African robes asks. He has the same accent as Damianos. Vaguely old worldly and technically unplaceable.
“She is willing to entertain your questions, while I am not,” Damianos answers.
My mate’s a total bad-ass, I note admiringly. But again, what questions?
I remember how Other Damianos confessed that he’d been upset to be fated to a wolf back when he first kidnapped me. Had this Damianos led me straight into a meeting with a bunch of dragon supremacists? Unwittingly. Or maybe on purpose?
I will free myself from these chains…and when I do, I will no longer be afraid of hurting you.
Could I have been wrong about all the progress we’d been making this past week? The prospect chills me to the bone.
And the chill only grows colder when the guy in African robes steps forward, and asks me, “Of course, we drakkon are well versed in your history. We are, after all, the ones who created you. But have you any idea of our history, New Queen?”
I cut my eyes to the side, then give it my best guess. “Well, you know my version’s a little hodge-podge. But if I have it right. It was something like, one of your scientists came here back in the ice age. Created us to be your hunting dogs. Got all PETA-attached to us and the humans, so he decided to blow up your planet. Basically, exiled you here. Kind of a dick move. But yay, we got to live.”
“That summary, while grammatically unfortunate, is more or less correct,” he concedes. “I wonder if you are also aware of the plot perpetrated by the king who came before this one. The one who gave us false hope of going through the matching portals to find a mate from time past. The one who manipulated our final battle with your species so that we were left not only with a reduced number but no hope of using the matching portal to find the mates he had promised us. I believe this Betrayer King is now mated to your twin sister. Is that correct?”
I clear my throat and fiddle with my sleeve. “Yeah, that’s true,” I admit. I’m not sure where this is going, but I’m pretty certain I won’t like where it ends up.
“So you are aware of the Betrayer King,” African Robes says with a solemn nod. He goes to stand beside a man wearing wide-sleeved red, black, and gold robes. It reminds me of one of those Chinese dramas where some poor woman gets blasted back into time to fall in love with a prince from one of China’s imperial dynasties.
“This worthy male is originally our mission’s Lead Engineer,” African Robes informs me. “Are you also aware that for the hundreds of years since your brother-in-law’s great betrayal, this male has spent innumerable hours at matching portals all over the world? He has toiled through human wars and plagues while waiting for technology to catch up. All so that he could finally find a way to fulfill the Betrayer King’s original promise that we should all be granted mates. Were you aware of that?”
“I heard you were all trying to see if you could time travel to get your fated mate on, but no I didn’t quite know how much work went into it.”
“Hmm, does that mean that you also weren’t aware that just when our Lead Field Engineer completed the phase of the project before the initial test runs would be required, your own mate shut the fating portal project down. Apparently, he did this because he had impregnated you.”
I glance at Damianos. “Wait, you did what?”
“The Alternative Timeline Damianos seems to have caused a lot of upset while I was imprisoned,” he answers, somehow still looking bored.
Oh… Like Clyde, it seems Other Damianos left a few things out when he told me he’d abandoned the project to go back in time and make it so that Mercury didn’t blow up. Something like a hundred of his fellow exiles who wouldn’t be getting mates because of that one decision.
And somehow I doubt these dragons will understand or appreciate our excuse: Hey, it wasn’t your real king who shut you down, but a version of him…from the future. Also, as upsetting as I’m sure having the project shut down was for all you dragons, my whole race becoming your hunting dogs while you guys go back to eating up all the humans is even more terrifying for me.
“No, I wasn’t aware of that,” I say out loud to African Robes in lieu of that truth. Then I taper off
. I mean, what else is there to say? Sorry your plan to save your planet and using Earth as a farm didn’t work out? Better luck next multi-millennia lifetime?
“We weren’t aware of the reason behind his decision,” African Robes informs me, crossing his massive arms over his chest. “Not until we arrived for what was only described to us as ‘a celebration’ and heard you introduced as our new queen. We also weren’t aware of the existence of a half-drakkon hatchling sired by our king until you ferried your progeny around the party.”
His voice is so dark and sinister, my wolf raises her head, sensing an imminent threat.
I grip the two gold dragon heads at the front of my throne chair’s armrests, my whole body shaking with Mama Wolf rage. “He has nothing to do with this,” I growl at the dragon interrogating me.
“On the contrary, that little hatchling has everything to do with this,” African robes answers, his voice becoming even harder. He slits his glowing blue eyes at me. “That hatchling is the reason our mating project was shut down. It is the reason I am standing in this room with one question and one question only for you.”
Okay, forget this civil shit. I come all the way out of my seat to inform him, “If you even think to hurt my son, I will fuck you up in every single way—”
At the same time, he yells at me, “Will you arrange introductions for us?”
We both stop. Look at each other.
“Why would you think any of us capable of hurting a hatchling?” he demands.
“What do you mean by introductions?” I ask.
One of the dragons wearing a tailcoat with a kilt steps forward and slams a fist on his chest to yell out, “We too would have partners to bear us drakkon sons!”
“And perhaps even drakki daughters!” another dragon shouts out.
“Yes, introductions to your kin must be arranged forthwith!” another dragon calls out. He’s wearing a colorful poncho with a golden headpiece that puts me in mind of an Incan king. Wait a minute, is he an Incan king?
“For example, the one called Koko and her sister, Sarah, the queen of Wyoming,” African Robes says. “According to your WolfNet, they are both without mates. Sarah is a bit thin, but the one called Koko appears to be strong and broad, the same as you. And perhaps you have other cousins or she-wolf friends with the same dimensions as you?”
I raise both my hands in the air. “Whoa face emoji, by introductions, do you mean you want me to hook you up with, like, all my cousins and friends?”
“Why do you sound so incredulous?” the possible Incan king demands. “Do you think we do not deserve mates and progeny, the same as our king?”
I jerk my head back, surprised by his insulted tone. “No, I’m just getting flooded with floating surprised face emojis, that’s all.”
“Why would you be surprised?” African Robes asks, with a truly befuddled shake of his head.
I glance at Damianos, then back to them. “Um…Damianos wasn’t crazy excited about getting with me in the first place. I figured all you dragons are a bit…I guess you’d called it speciest?” I answer. “I didn’t think you’d be so eager to mate a she-wolf. I mean weren’t we originally supposed to be your hunting dogs?”
A beat of shocked silence.
Then so many hisses and screeches go up, that Damianos calls out a bored-sounding reminder: “She cannot understand our language. You must compose yourself and answer her in English if you wish her to indulge questions as I never would.”
I turn to look back at him. “You don’t let them ask you questions?”
“Would you, given the interaction you’ve had with them this eve?” he retorts.
Before I can answer, the possible Incan king calls out in English, “Do you think after so many millennia we would care about such history?”
“We want nothing more than to fate our own mates!” one of the dragons in tailcoats shouts, his voice quavering with indignation.
“By the by, the twin daughters of your cousin Alisha? The Princesses of Colorado. There is not much about them on your WolfNet,” another dragon calls out from the back of the room. “Do you think they would be open to meeting with us?”
“I mean, maybe…” I answer. “I think most of my cousins would be intrigued by the prospect. Including Sarah, who’s skinny but strong, like you guessed. Though fair warning, Koko’s super cool, but Sarah can be a know-it-all and she’s a huge grammar nazi.”
“She speaks with perfect grammar?” African Robes says, his eyes widening with delight. “You must introduce her to me first! I am the Lead Researcher and the one most deserving of such treasure. Also, I only have a couple of centuries until I return to our Great Designer.”
Before I can answer him, more questions come flying at me. Would it be possible to meet my hatchling? Did I have a terrible time with the birth? Were there any problems with the egg?
When I tell them I ahem…laid Bazzi in under an hour and that there had been no egg to accidentally crack inside me, they all gasp and even more questions come zooming in. Did I think I could go into heat again and bear even more progeny for their king? How about twins? Would it be possible for your species to carry twins?
Luckily, I don’t have to come up with answers for that question. Damianos stands up beside me and raises his hand, abruptly cutting them off. “You would put questions to your queen with expectation of answer. Yet you have not completed the most important part of her coronation ceremony.”
African Robes bows his head. “Forgive us, King of Drakkon.”
Then he and everybody else begin to strip.
“Um, what’s going on?” I push into Damianos head as all the dragons get Ken Doll naked. “Is this some kind of weird ritual gangbang. Oh Fenrir Wolf, Please tell me it wasn’t you guys who created the orgies.”
“Of course, it was not us,” he answers, his voice sounding somewhat amused.
“Then why…?”
Before I can finish asking that question, all the dragons transform, and suddenly the Ken Dolls are replaced by a colorful array of huge beasts.
African Robes, as it turned out, is red. And he lets out several screeches, seeming to speak for him and his multi-colored friends.
Finally, Damianos bothers to translate. “They ask for forgiveness. It is impossible for them to speak in your species’ language when they are unshelled,” he pushes into my head. “They are swearing loyal oath to you and vowing their fealty and protection.”
Whoa. I’d thought they’d hated me, but on the contrary.
My eyes widen when all the beasts lower their heads, bowing in unison. Save for one.
A dragon comes forward from the back of the crowd. His skin is deep black, I notice. The product of so much mixing. Proof of a quantum leap.
He stops directly in front of our raised dais and extends both arms with his palm turned upwards. In each hand there’s a crown. One has dark horns and rows of sapphire fashioned to look exactly like the forehead crest I clocked when Damianos went beast back in North Dakota. The other is a silver halo with eight moons on top. The moons represent all phases from waxing to full and finally waning, and each moon has a spike sticking out of it, gold swirled with silver.
No, not silver, I guess, even though I cannot smell it in a room full of dragons. An alloy. Something that looks bad-ass but won’t hurt me.
“If you accept me as your king, place the drakkon crown upon my head,” Damianos pushes into my mind. And my heart beats even faster when he hunches over at the shoulders to bow his head.
Like I said, this place feels beyond powerful. As does this moment. With trembling hands I pick up the crown and place it on my dragon mate’s large head.
“Now you must bow to me.”
I do as he says, bowing my head like he did, and he takes the other crown and does the same for me.
It’s heavier than I was expecting. Real gold, not the much lighter nanite version. But it doesn’t burn when he settles it over the braids. And when I raise my head, I truly feel li
ke a dragon queen. There’s a new energy flowing through me, dark, ancient, and otherworldly. Just like my king.
“Do you accept your role as our queen?” Damianos ask out loud for all to hear. “Do you accept these drakkon as your subjects?”
I haven’t heard my uncle’s voice in a while. But now it once again rings in my head. “Remember, Ola, they’re all our subjects, even the ones we don’t like. We have to figure out what each and every one of them needs. Figure out how to help them. That’s what real kings and queens do.”
“Yes, I accept them as my subjects,” I answer Damianos without any hesitation at all.
Then I turn to face the group of dragons, addressing them just as I would my own subjects back in North Dakota. “I also pledge to do everything I can to find you fated mates of your own. I don’t want to rewrite our history, but I also don’t want this to be the end of the line for you guys. So whatever it takes, I’ll get as many of you as possible mated. Drakkon will live on and both our species will guide this planet into its quantum future!”
At my words, the dragons give a great roar. And on pure instinct, I throw my head back and howl right along with them. For the first time since we landed, it truly does feel like I belong in this over-the-top baroque fantasy.
“You honor me with this pledge.”
The words push into my head without any warning.
“What?” I ask.
I look up at Damianos, my heart rising into my throat. Other Him said I honored him all the time.
But this version of Damianos has never said it. Not even once. And I want to hear him say it again. “What did you just say to me?”
“Not I, but them,” Damianos answers, nodding toward the roaring dragons. “That is what they are all saying to you in our language—that you have honored them with your pledge.
I was on top of the world… but now my heart sinks as I follow the direction of his gaze back to the roaring dragons. You know, the ones who are less afraid to tell me how they really feel than my mate.
And suddenly there’s a new emotion radiating from my side of the mate bond.
Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet Book 2): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 2 Page 15