by Alyse Zaftig
Phuong’s eyes flew open. Nobody was rich enough to bathe in water.
But she was somehow in a tub of water.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
She looked downwards. One of the men who had rescued her had a sponge between her thighs. He made a move to withdraw it, but he ended up touching her pleasure core.
She couldn’t even control her hips. They bucked upwards, warmth spreading throughout her body, which was very ready to betray her.
She blushed. She was totally naked, and in a bathtub.
Olivier turned his back. “The doctor said that you needed to be clean, even if you were in a coma.”
“I wasn’t in a coma…was I?”
“Yes, you were. You had a major shock to your system.”
She looked at him. She knew that he’d only meant to wash her, but that accidental touch had set her body on fire.
Olivier put the sponge down on the marble countertop.
“Now that you’re awake, you can wash yourself. I’ll just leave. There’s a dressing robe on this hook. We’ll talk once you are dressed.”
Phuong watched him walk out the door and close it behind him. She was confused about what was happening, but part of her wanted him to come back.
Then she remembered where she was. The twin dragons had rescued her, yes, but now she was in a castle.
There were worse things than taking a bath, though. It seemed like they wanted to take care of her.
Her hand made its way between her thighs to touch the part of her that Olivier had accidentally touched. The water moved with her hips. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on what could’ve happened if he weren’t a gentleman.
* * *
“I want you,” he whispered before taking her hard nipple into his mouth and making her cry out as her back arched.
Her breath was coming in hard pants now. His other hand was rubbing her clitoris in a steady circle with a good rhythm. She could feel the pressure building inside of her body, fire in her veins.
Then Olivier bit her neck and forced her into an intense orgasm. Her entire mind was filled with white fire. She could barely breathe.
* * *
Phuong opened her eyes. What a wild fantasy. She had no idea where that came from. With her orgasm done, she briskly washed her hands and body before getting out. She dried off with a fluffy towel and put on the dressing robe that they’d left for her. It was made out of silk and probably cost enough to feed a Yore family of five for two years, but she shouldn’t think about that right now.
When she got out of the bathroom, she saw a raven. It tilted its head at her. She clicked her tongue and tilted her head back. The raven got a little closer to her.
“And what is your name, little con chim?”
“Gregor,” a husky voice said behind her.
22
Staying
Phuong
Whirling around, Phuong saw that one of the twins was behind her. Maybe it was the one who bathed her, but she couldn’t be sure. The other twin, who looked just like him, was right behind him. How was she supposed to tell them apart?
Her body was humming with energy, her nipples growing hard as she thought about the accidental touch in the tub. She didn’t know which one of them had done it, but it had sparked her imagination.
For some reason, she felt drawn to them in a way that she’d never felt drawn to any man before.
“How are you feeling, Phuong?”
“How do you know my name?”
“We have a copy of your record.”
She folded her arms over her chest.
“How?”
The raven, Gregor, flew right over to Gahariet.
“Are you hungry?”
They didn’t want to answer her question.
“How did you find my record?”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s get breakfast.”
“You can’t keep me here. I don’t owe you any debts or anything. I’m grateful that you broke me out of that cage, but…”
“Don’t worry. We only want to see that you’re in good condition. Would you be so kind as to agree to spend the rest of the day with us to talk about…well…some things?”
When Olivier had bound them with blood, he hadn’t thought about talking. But Gahariet seemed more open.
“The rest of the day, and then I can go?”
“You can go now,” Gahariet said, “but we’d like to spend more time with you.”
“Just today, then.”
“Sounds good. Are you comfortable in your robe?”
She looked down. The cloth was thin, but it was comfortable.
“I’m just fine.”
“Then let us show you around the castle.”
Gahariet left the room. She trailed him uncertainly. She’d never been inside of a Drakan castle before.
There was a very musty smell, as if nobody ever dusted in here, although she knew that they had dozens of Yore servants. There were Drakan castles with hundreds of Yore servants.
If they had a castle, they were Thrones, the top level of prince-hood. The Drakans had several different degrees of prince-hood before you got diluted enough to be just a noble.
Each of the families had different sections of Vestra to rule. The planet was more than large enough for each Drakan prince to have his own area.
The Thrones especially had ancient and modern treasures tucked away in their stronghold. She had to admit, as they slowly made their way through the entire castle, that she wanted to look for the jewels, ancient coins, golden statues, and precious minerals that they had in their hoard.
But she didn’t get anywhere near them. Even though she was a guest in their home, it was hard to be in the same place as so much wealth and not take anything. Even one golden cup would be able to feed them for a year.
But now she could smell food. Her stomach grumbled. She put her hand over her lower stomach, totally embarrassed.
“We should’ve fed you. You’ve been asleep for a while. You should’ve said something.”
Olivier abruptly changed course. The smell of food grew stronger.
Suddenly, she was in heaven.
She could see food everywhere. There were at least a dozen people in the kitchen, maybe even more.
“You’ll have to wait until dinner for the fancy stuff, but we can have a simple meal right now.”
Olivier grabbed a loaf of fresh bread and a little bowl of butter from the cold storage.
“How about a little wine?”
“Isn’t it a little early in the day?” Phuong didn’t know much about drinking.
“Wine with every meal!” Olivier poured some wine into wine glasses.
They had simple, crusty bread with some divine garlic-flavored butter.
“What’s in this?”
“Garlic and cinnamon.”
Phuong choked. “What?”
“It’s not an intuitive combination, but it’s dynamite. Before the Draka came to Vestra, we didn’t understand how to use cinnamon in savory dishes. The Yore use it, and honestly, this butter is from one of our servants.”
Phuong felt the food sit in her stomach like a stone. She was eating the product of the Drakan overlords’ oppression of her people, the Yore.
Even their simple food was luxurious for someone like her. The whole kitchen was full of good things to eat. They had an easy and decadent life on the back of the conquered Yore.
Her face heated. She wished that she hadn’t agreed to stay with them for the day.
23
Sensitive
Phuong
She should’ve just run at the first chance that they’d given her. They couldn’t keep an eye on her every second of the day. Or maybe she should’ve just been firm about leaving.
But she had to admit that her senses were definitely heightened and on edge when she was around the Draka Thrones. She felt strangely compelled to stay, as if she belonged here.
“Why don’t you drink some of your win
e? It’s Intaran Spätburgunder.”
She drank a sip of the red wine. It helped calm her down.
“We wanted to talk to you about what the medical tests showed.”
“Medical tests?”
“We had to run some on you when we got you. You were unconscious. A healer ran a full battery of tests on you.”
“What did they say?”
“They said that you’re pure-blooded Yore, not a drop of Draka in you.”
“Yup, low-born Yore.” What was she doing in this castle? She crossed her arms around herself. She wasn’t the kind of girl who could just hang out with any Draka, let alone Thrones.
“No, you aren’t low-born at all.”
“What?”
“You’re not even a Yore merchant. Your blood is old, and you definitely didn’t fit into Heritage House, or they never would have implanted you with a suppression device.”
Phuong felt the scar at the base of her skull.
“Oh?”
Gahariet said, “Your magical influence is going to become more prominent. Your senses should feel sharper now. Your children are going to be extraordinary. Yore can give birth to more than one child at a time, just like Drakans can. But your child will be even more special with Olivier’s DNA in you.”
Phuong felt her cheeks turn completely red.
Olivier cough-laughed. “He didn’t mean it like that. He was talking about my blood.”
“Oh.” Phuong’s cheeks cooled a little. “Well, that would be impossible, anyway. We haven’t…I haven’t…we’ve never…” Her cheeks got hot again.
“We can fix that, if you like.”
“Oh…no…” Phuong got to her feet and ran out of the kitchen as fast as she could.
When she got to the corridor, she ran straight into a hard body. Somebody’s hands came to her elbows, steadying her on her feet.
Then she looked up, way up, at Olivier’s face.
“How did you?”
“We’re dragons,” he said gently. “We can turn into smoke.”
“Oh,” Phuong said, blinking. There wasn’t going to be a time when she’d be able to run away from people who could easily teleport.
“Are we really so bad?” Gahariet asked. “Why don’t you want to mate with us?” He was behind her. She felt his hard erection pressed gently against her backside.
A thrumming began in her lower parts. She could feel herself getting damp, her muscles relaxing just a hair.
“I don’t…I’ve never…”
“We would make it good for you,” Gahariet whispered in her ear. His hands were on the lower curve of her soft stomach, and then they were just a little lower.
Olivier got even closer and put his hand under her chin so that she was staring straight into his eyes, his mouth not even a breath away.
“Just say yes,” Olivier said. “Say yes, and you’ll experience something better than anything you’ve known before.”
Phuong was sandwiched between the two dragons, feeling one erection pressing into the soft curves of her bottom and the other one digging just a little bit into her stomach.
“Yes,” she said, surrendering. Maybe it was the sip of alcohol, but she felt pleasantly loose and warm.
Olivier’s mouth came crashing down on hers, like a dragon swooping down on its prey. His kiss tasted like wine, like pouring warm wine down her throat.
His hands went to the curves of her hips. Gahariet’s hands were cupping her breasts now, playing with them as his brother explored Phuong’s mouth.
Then Olivier’s hands were at the back of her head, and he touched her recent surgery’s scar. Shooting pain radiated from the base of her skull.
“Ouch,” she said, and the moment shattered like untempered glass. She stepped out from between them. She looked from Olivier to Gahariet, feeling naked and vulnerable in front of them. She could see the fire in their eyes, and she didn’t know how she should be feeling.
“My brother. I need to see him. He needs to know that I’m okay. I…I’m tired. I need to rest.” She walked in a daze deeper into the castle. How was she going to last a whole day in this castle with them?
24
Pool Game
Gahariet
Olivier took the pool cue in his hands and shot the cue ball as hard as he could.
But the pool table wasn’t meant to be abused by a Drakan at full strength. The ball went spinning out of control. The tip of the pool cue hit the blue fabric, ripping through it and ruining the table. It was a gift from an ambassador of a country that Gahariet couldn’t remember.
“Ugh,” he said, throwing his stick down on the ground.
He turned to Gahariet. “This may not have been the best way to let off steam.”
“We need to give her some time. She’s just overwhelmed, that’s all.”
“Maybe we made a mistake when we chose her.”
“You know that we didn’t. She’s ours.”
Gahariet knew that Olivier just needed to simmer down. All the time, he was the hotter burning flame, especially after their mother had passed.
But now he was burning hotter than before. Gahariet knew that it was hard for Olivier to open up emotionally, and he’d already started forming a romantic attachment to Phuong. To be rebuffed so early on was crushing.
His dragon mind couldn’t understand why their mate would push them away. Gahariet had a tighter grip on his dragon nature, and he knew that they just needed to give Phuong time to adjust.
His attraction to her — and Olivier’s attraction to her — was primal. She wasn’t a dragon, though, and she didn’t have a second mind inside of her.
Gahariet knew in his bones that she would be their queen. On some level, surely she knew about it. They just needed to let her accept that she would be by their side.
“I need to get outside.” With that, Olivier dissolved in smoke.
Gahariet just sighed. They would all process their new binding in their own ways.
25
Nightmare
Phuong
Phuong woke up when she heard a piercing scream. Distantly, she realized that she was the one who was screaming.
She saw that Gregor, their raven, was at the foot of her bed. The twins were coming through her door, materializing in human form. They rushed to her bed as if they knew her well enough to come into her bed at night.
How long had she slept? She’d only meant to take a short nap before going to find her brother at the end of the day.
She suddenly realized just how intimate this moment was. Both of them were in her bedroom. But sex wasn’t on their mind. Olivier was reaching for her hand and Gahariet was perched on the edge of the bed. They wanted to take care of her.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“My brother.”
“We’ll find him, don’t worry.”
“You can’t find him.”
“Fate will bring him here. Your blood has mixed with ours. Blood calls to blood.”
Phuong was silent for a moment. “I hope so.”
“Anything else happen?”
“I had a really bad nightmare.”
“Yeah?”
“In it, the auction master, Marc, told me that I belonged to him. He said that he’d get me back and keep me forever.”
Gahariet frowned at her. “He must have some of your blood.”
“What? Why would he need my blood? What are you talking about?”
“He must have gotten into your mind with some of your blood when they did that surgery. He can reach into your head. He’ll try other things if he still has more blood.”
Gahariet was looking at Olivier now.
“There were other…dreams?”
“What were they?”
Phuong felt cold in her bed. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“I saw a nation of ghosts, Yore ancestors. They told me to watch where I stepped.”
“Of course, they were talking about Marc,” Gahariet said.
“You’re a princess…our princess and a future queen. You’re definitely somebody.” Olivier reached for her and brought her close, tucking her head on his shoulder, careful not to touch the back of her head this time. His hand stroked her back in slow circles.
“We didn’t tell you yet, but you’re probably a Yore princess.”
“What!” Phuong pulled away from Olivier’s warm and wonderfully solid body. “What are you talking about?”
“We talked about the fact that you were 100% Yore before,” Gahariet said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Yeah.”
“Well, you might be a Yore princess,” Olivier revealed.
“Why would I be given away if I have royal blood?”
Phuong shook her head. It didn’t make any sense at all. She and her brother had scrabbled to stay alive. What king or queen would do that to their babies?
Phuong bit her lip. They were just spinning her a tale, dangling the idea that she could be a princess in her own right to convince her to stay with them and be their princess…the mother of their children.
She put her hand on her stomach. There was a part of her that would love to have their dragon children.
But they were just too wealthy. She wasn’t meant to be with a Throne, let alone two. They could buy anything and anyone that they wanted. Besides, she didn’t know what exactly they wanted.
“Just quiet your mind and listen to your heart. You know who you are, deep down. We will support you in any way that you need, because we’re bound, heart, mind, and soul, forever.”
“You’ll see it if you just open yourself to the possibilities.”
What did they know about optimism? They’d lived a charmed life. They always had enough money. They hadn’t had to escape from an orphanage and scratch out a living.