by Bonnie Vanak
Seeing Sabrina’s compound, he went into a nosedive and executed a perfect landing into the vast courtyard outside the castle. Unlike his clan’s compound, fortified with steel and cement, Clan Ciamoth clung to traditional dragon architecture, with a stone walled castle and four turrets soaring skyward.
He looked around the deserted courtyard, and then shifted into Skin. Alex conjured clothing of black trousers and jacket of the finest Italian silk, a white starched dress shirt, and a silver tie to indicate his clan’s colors. Polished black shoes upon his feet, he strode toward the castle’s front doors.
Two footman, resplendent in the brilliant crimson red dress uniforms, with gold epaulets on their shoulders, stood at full attention. Guards? They had no weapons, not even a dagger.
You wouldn’t be able to get past the guards at his palace. They were armed to the teeth, their very sharp dragon teeth.
Grief filled him again. Had Emma been at his compound, the assault never would have happened. But security here was soft as the slight paunch constantly riding over on his future father-in-law’s belt.
Alex nodded at the guards, who bowed their heads. “Prince Alexander d’Mateo de Drakon Tremaine requests to visit Princess Sabrina d’Tigre de Ciamoth Honore.
Sweet dragon’s blood, what a mouthful. Damn protocol. All this formality. They’d probably make him fill out paperwork agreeing to bed his bride in a very specific way according to their traditions. Ten thrusts only, missionary style, no tongues, no oral sex and certainly no dragon sex because one could not conceive an heir in dragon form.
Did Sabrina truly embrace all this pomp and circumstance?
And then he was inside the castle, and the majordomo announcing him as he stood at the doorway of the drawing room, and he had his answer.
The princess Sabrina, sitting on a gold and crimson settee, surrounded by nine of her attendants. A red and gold silk gown covered her slender body and her dark brown hair was bound in a golden snood. Red velvet slippers covered her delicate feet. A glow ignited her heart-shaped face.
Not because her future mate had arrived.
No, she was alight because of some game she played on her electronic tablet. She giggled like a schoolgirl.
Sabrina lifted her pretty head and gazed around with a dazed look.
“I won, I won!”
Her attendants burst into applause as if Sabrina had solved the puzzle of Rubik’s Cube in less than ten seconds. Only Derek, the bodyguard Alex insisted on hiring from his clan to protect Sabrina, looked unimpressed. Clad in black leather, a silver dagger hanging from his belt, he glanced at Alex. Something flickered in his gaze. Then he assumed his usual bored expression.
Interesting.
Alex fought the urge to run outside, shift and fly away to cleanse his brain. Congratulations Alex, you’re marrying a bimbo, the princess in a clan known for wisdom.
What irony.
Sabrina stood and curtsied, as did all her handmaidens.
“Prince Alexander, a pleasure,” she trilled.
“Call me Alex, Sabrina. We’re to be mated next week.” He sat opposite her on the red silk sofa, nearly swallowed in a cloud of gold and silk pillows.
She resumed her seat and stared. “I can’t do that. Not until we are mated. Formal first names until then.”
“Brie—”
“Sabrina.”
She enunciated the name with a crisp snap and folded her hands into her lap.
Beside her, Derek twitched his mouth in the ghost of a smile. Alex wanted to toss one of the silk pillows at him.
The glimmer of spunk surprised him as well. Until now she’d been docile, acquiescent, and clueless. Lights on, no one home, hello inside that pretty head?
Alex leaned forward. “Shall we get on with this?”
“We must wait for Mama and Papa. They’re due back shortly from visiting our people.”
“When?”
Sabrina fiddled with her tablet. “An hour, perhaps. We can’t pick out the wedding cake without them. There’s the tasting ceremony, and then the narrowing of choices and then the King must agree that the cake is the most delicious…
He lost it. Claws descending, he slashed at one of the fluffy silk pillows. Stuffing flew out like tiny starlings, and scattered a cloud of white over the settee.
“Who has a ceremony for picking out a damn wedding cake? Holy dragon’s breath, it’s a cake. Must you carry on with all this pomp? I have a meeting in an hour with my minister of security at my clan to hammer out a peace agreement with Clan Fury. I don’t have time to dally over frosting!”
Sabrina’s spine didn’t bend an inch. “It’s tradition.”
Then he noticed a defiant spark in her blue eyes. Could it be that Sabrina felt the same about this arranged match? He glanced at her attendants, who stared at the ruined pillow.
“Leave us alone, now. You too, Derek.”
He snapped his fingers. Sabrina started to protest but Alex growled and Derek hustled the women out of the drawing room.
When they were gone, Alex went to her, crouched down by her side. Very gently, he took her hand into his. He did not want to frighten her and regretted losing his temper, though she, unlike her handmaidens, didn’t look scared.
His damnable temper. Only Emma never hesitated to confront him about it.
“Sabrina, do you want to marry and mate with me?”
Her mouth moved, and then she compressed it. For a moment a spark ignited her gaze, like hope. Then she shook her head the tiniest bit.
Relief swept through him. He kissed her dainty hand, the first time he’d dared kiss any part of her since this match had been forged in fire by his father and hers.
“I don’t, either.”
“But we must.” She pulled her hand away. “Our marriage will set the example for inter-clan matings for all the dragon clans, and be the beginning of the end of the dragon clan feuds. The Wizards of the Brehon will see we are making real progress toward peace. We have duties, Alexander. We must set into motion the wheels of peace so our people can be happy.”
Sitting back on his haunches, he twisted the gold signet ring on his pinkie. His royal ring, indicating his status. “Sabrina, what about your personal happiness?”
Her carnation pink mouth wobbled the tiniest bit. “I am a princess of royal dragon blood, Alexander. My personal needs come last.”
Alex nodded, admiration for his bride filling him. “You are right, Sabrina.”
“Though I wish it could be otherwise,” she whispered. “I have seen the way you look at Emma… I wish someday, a man would gaze upon me like that.”
Guilt surged. “I am most sorry, Sabrina. I did not mean to hurt you.”
“You have never dishonored me, Alexander. You merely reflect in your eyes what you feel in your heart.”
He smiled at her. “When did you get so smart?”
Sabrina scanned the room with a furtive look. “Can you keep a secret?”
He nodded.
Slowly she lifted the electronic tablet off her lap and displayed a Kindle app. On the screen was an ebook about Nicola Tesla. Alex frowned.
“You were reading, not playing a game?”
“I used the music app to make them think I’m playing a game like Candy Crush. I’m reading about Tesla. He was a physicist, who helped develop the alternative current electrical system and he discovered the rotating magnetic field. I’m trying to find a way to use the magnetic field to empower those of my people who aren’t as strong, who need alternative forms of energy to tap into so they can fly stronger.”
“Sabrina, you naughty girl!” He laughed. “Brilliant!”
She offered a shy smile. “Call me Brie. Emma does.”
Troubled, he stopped laughing. “Why the secrecy? Quite obviously, you have a brain and a desire to help your clan. And yet you hide it?”
She sighed and flicked off the tablet. “My parents and my father’s cabinet are very traditional. Change comes very slowly to us. Women are e
xpected to mate and produce heirs, not think for themselves. When I am queen, I can implement change, but for now, I’m powerless, a pawn for their legacy. If they think I am silly and stupid, they leave me alone.”
Ashamed at his earlier assumptions, he sat on the gold and crimson Oriental carpet. “I understand. I have more freedom in my clan, but it is expected of me to practice my military maneuvers. And my other studies come last. How am I to champion peace if I must always be preparing for war?”
“We can make change, Alex. But not now. In the future. Tomorrow is ours to shape. That’s what Emma always says. She’s very intelligent.”
At the mention of his friend, he bristled. “If you believe this, why do you make her your lowly servant and treat her like she has no value?”
Sabrina bit her lip. “Emma is not my servant, but my friend. Unfortunately, I can do little about her social status. Emma’s mother is dead, so there is no dragon to vouch for her in court. She is a half-blood. I requested her as my attendant to save her from a lord who was abusing her. I give her mindless tasks to keep her busy, and that gives her plenty of down time to read.”
Alex’s gaze softened. “Thank you, Brie.”
“When you and I marry, and we rule over my clan, we can change this horrid caste system, Alexander. But until then, tradition stays.”
She glanced at her folded hands. “I loathe some of my clan’s traditions. They suppress females and devalue dragons who aren’t full-blooded. The only one who knows about my reading is Emma. She buys the books and downloads them on my tablet and that way if I get caught, she can claim the books are hers. I bought her a tablet just like mine.”
Suddenly an icy chill raced down his spine. Inside his mind he felt a surge of panic and terror.
Not his own. Someone else’s.
Alex whirled, craning his head upward to listen.
Nothing.
His cell phone rang. Alex glanced at the screen and his heart leapt. Emma. He answered the phone in a crisp voice so Sabrina wouldn’t suspect. “Tremaine here.”
A scream sounded in his ear. Scuffling sounds, tearing, wet sounds…
The line went dead.
But deep inside, he knew it was Emma, and she was in deep shit.
“Brie, I must go.” He stood and kissed her soft cheek. “I have to go. Em’s in trouble.”
A little frown puckered her forehead. “How do you know?”
“I feel it,” he said simply.
Huge brown eyes widened. Sabrina gasped. “Alex, do you know what this means?”
But he was already turning on his heels, racing out the door, past the startled guards who bowed their heads.
Alex raced to the center courtyard, hooking a right by the marble fountain of a dragon with one claw raised to the air. He headed for the helicopter and dragon landing pad used by dragons of other clans, for he required space to shift into his full form. He ran over the stepping stones, flanked by tall hedges, and entered the courtyard containing the LZ.
No space here. The entire courtyard was taken by an ugly iron cage. A cage meant to contain dragons.
Alex’s blood ran cold at the sight. Sabrina’s parents were traditionalists, but he had never entertained the thought their traditions ensconced the cruelest traditions for dragons—caging them. Though this cage was set in the sunshine so a prisoner would at least be in the open, and access the sun all dragons needed to maintain their powers.
A cloud of blue-gray smoke suddenly filled the air and wind rippled Alex’s hair and his silk suit. The smoke cleared, showing a silver dragon large as a tractor trailer, with wings tipped in cobalt blue hovering in the air.
Drust. The new Coldfire Wizard, guardian of all dragons, and their judge as well. Drust could destroy a dragon with a blink of one eyelid.
Spine straight, Alex bowed his head in respect to the silver dragon, who blew out a mouthful of cobalt blue fire, melting the cage in seconds.
“I detest those things,” the dragon rumbled in a deep voice, landing on the concrete.
“Hi, Pops.”
“Have you no respect for your great-grandfather?” the dragon spoke, showing a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. A talking dragon, no less. Alex was more impressed by that than Drust’s destroying the dragon prison.
“Sorry. Gotta shift. I’m in a hurry.”
“Don’t go after Emma.” Drust shifted to Skin, clad in a cobalt blue tunic, and leather pants, with doeskin boots on his feet. “It’s suicide and you’re too important.”
“So is she.” But Alex could not move. His feet remained glued to the courtyard.
“Pops!”
“This is the only way I can get you to stick around and listen to me. You’re too headstrong, Alex. You’re going to rule over Clan Ciamoth and eventually your clan and you need to learn discretion and patience.”
He had none, not where Em was concerned. “She’s in trouble.”
“I know.” Drust’s black-bearded face remained cold and impartial, but his ice blue gaze sympathetic. “But it’s not your place to rescue her.”
“Then who?” He waved a hand at the palace. “Her people don’t care!”
“Sabrina does.”
Alex blinked. “You know about her.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t marry and mate with Sabrina, Pops. I don’t love her.”
“I know, son. But you can’t go racing after Emma. There is a reason for what happens and you cannot interfere with her fate.”
“If it means she’s suffering, the hell I can’t!”
Drust rubbed a hand over his chest, as if scrubbing his long, elegant fingers against his blue velvet tunic. “Did you not learn anything in the Shadow Lands when Tristan advised you? First you went after the dragons you thought attacked Emma. You would have been killed had I not pulled you into the realm of the dead. And then Tristan told you to listen to your heart. You didn’t listen.”
“You’re my judge now, not Tristan.”
“And you’re not listening to me any more than Tristan.” Drust tilted his head, as if hearing something from afar. “Truly? Very well.”
“Truly what?”
The Coldfire Wizard glanced at him. “I was not talking to you. I was receiving guidance from Tristan. He is my mentor.”
“Tristan is your mentor? Poor you.”
“I am a new wizard. Even I require guidance.”
Drust’s gaze turned a brilliant silver-blue, as if his eyes were glowing coals. “Emma is being held prisoner at the Dark Wing brothel outside of Las Vegas near the town of Emerald. It is well guarded. She is being put up for auction to the highest OtherWorlder bidder in two hours.”
Alex felt all the blood drain from his head. “No.”
The Dark Wing was a well-known pleasure palace amongst OtherWorlders. Rumor had it they did very nasty things there to their prostitutes, and even held auctions to sell off sex slaves.
“It once was a place of pleasure, and has now turned evil.” Drust’s gaze flickered even brighter and his silver-blue aura pulsed with power.
“Shut it down. You’re a wizard.”
He shook his head and then stepped back. “It is not for me to close that den of vipers. I will store a sack of gold for you near the brothel. It will be buried beneath the black rock near the wooden electrical pole closest to the highway.”
Sharp talons grew from his fingers. Alex flexed his hands. “I won’t need gold to break her out. I’m a silver warrior dragon, Pops.”
The Coldfire Wizard looked amused. “One inflated with your own sense of arrogance, son. I know whose side you get that from.”
Then Drust sombered. “You are of my bloodline, Alexander. Take care. Do what you must, but beware the consequences. For if you do not curb that hot temper of yours, and your impulsiveness, you could lose her.”
His expression turned dark and his eyes glowed fiercely. “Forever.”
Chapter 3
The Dark Wing Gentlemen’s Club sat on a stretch of dirt ro
ad off Emerald Road, a two-lane highway leading out of Sin City. To Skins who might stumble upon the club, it looked like a rundown barn.
All glamor. The club was run by a notorious Fae, who used magick to disguise the club’s purpose from Skins, and even certain Others who might have disapproved.
He knew of this place only because Vincente, his best friend, wanted to have his bachelor party here. Alex sent Derek to check it out and his bodyguard returned with a full report of sinister tales.
Alex had been nagging his father to tell Tristan about the Dark Wing, to shut it down, but his father insisted it wasn’t “our affair” because the club was under control of a Fae, and therefore it came under the jurisdiction of Gideon, the Crimson Wizard and judge of Fae. Politics.
Maybe now that Drust was the judge of dragons, Drust could shut down the club. But Drust didn’t seem likely to take action soon. Not soon enough to save Em, anyway.
Blue-gray jagged mountains flanked the valley as he winged toward the dirt road leading to the brothel. The tawny landscape of arid desert was broken here and there by bright green patches of scrub and brush. He followed the highway to Emerald Road, and then winged a right, tracking Fulbright Street.
A small community of Skins lived here in the village of Emerald. He flew over the village market, where a wood sign hung out front reading SHERIFF.
Clusters of adobe homes with well-watered green lawns stretched out over a mile. He spied an elementary school with children in the playground and his blood boiled. Smoke poured out of his nostrils. How dare an Other operate a brothel so close to innocents?
But he knew the Skins were blissfully unaware of the evil beneath their noses. For their sake, he hoped so.
A warning tingle rushed down his spine as he passed the elementary school to reach a stretch of empty land just beyond the main road. Power lines passed nearby and he felt the crackle and hum of energy singing in the air.
Bastard Fae was pulling power off the Skins’ electrical grid.
Set back in the field, across the street from a two-story wood house with several pieces of rusting farm equipment in the yard, the brothel was hidden from view by several tall trees. But he could clearly see the black iron rooftop. Iron was painful to most Fae. Whoever ran this club must possess tremendous magick.