12 Naughty Days of Christmas 2018

by Isabella Kole

  Long talons dug deep into the frozen earth beside each of her shoulders and around her waist, trapping her. Fangs descended inches from her face as green eyes settled on her. The dragon’s ash-smelling breath covered her face, hot and dry. Then again that hiss that slithered to the very pit of Janelle’s soul. Abject terror filled her and she opened her mouth but her voice was gone, her mind wiped clean of thoughts.

  “Myral, settle down.” That voice, that unmistakable voice, deep and masculine, came from somewhere beyond the dragon. “I don’t want you to hurt her.”

  The dragon’s pupils retracted to fine lines in the green of its irises and it leaned in closer, close enough that its snout brushed the top of her lips. Its nostrils flared as the cinnamon and ash smell of the dragon reached her own nose. The beast closed its eyes and inhaled deeply, creating enough draft to make Janelle’s black hair escape from its pins.

  Someone landed in the snow a little to her side but Janelle didn’t dare look away from the dragon. Then the beast opened its eyes again to display pupils so fine they were like hairline fractures in all that green. Those eyes focused on her with a renewed intensity as the dragon stared at her. If she didn’t know any better, Janelle would think the beast was surprised. Stunned, even.

  “She’s no danger, Myral.” Captain Dalgo’s voice came from just beside her.

  With one long last look at her, the dragon turned its large head to the Draekon. Janelle’s eyes followed the beast’s and she stared breathlessly as Captain Dalgo looked down at her.

  He wasn’t wearing his mask anymore. His cheekbones were high and sharp to complement the square shape of his jaw. His silver eyes were set on her with all the warmth of a winter storm as his hard, cruel lips lifted in a humorless smile.

  “We meet again, my mysterious beauty.” Captain Dalgo stepped closer and laid his hand on the dragon’s cheek. As his skin made contact with the beast, his features slackened and his mouth hung slightly open in a picture-perfect expression of surprise, then incredulity, shortly followed by what Janelle could only interpret as cold, cold resolve.

  She wasn’t out of the shit, then. In fact, she had an inkling this was only the beginning.

  “Myral will let you go now.” There was a warning in his tone, clear as the silver in his eyes. “I suggest you don’t try to make a run for it. She will take it as a challenge to her power, and Myral can be quite the hothead when she’s challenged.”

  “I’m not going to challenge anyone.” Janelle was stunned that she was still strong enough to speak. “There’s no point in it.”

  “I’m glad to see you have more sense in you than I first thought.”

  Shame and anger suddenly mixed in Janelle’s blood and she pursed her lips so she didn’t say anything she would regret. Or anything she would regret more than she already did.

  The dragon – no, what did the Draekon say? The dragoness – turned her head back to her and locked gazes with Janelle once more. The large paw lifted from her body and Janelle was suddenly free.

  The Draekon’s silver eyes raked over her. Glancing down, she saw her dress was ripped at the shoulder, exposing most of her breast, and that her gown was shredded to ribbons high on her thigh.

  She was more naked than clothed and an entirely new fire burned her cheeks.

  The wind blew over her exposed flesh and a violent shiver wracked Janelle’s body. All of a sudden, the cold was biting into her flesh once more. Her shame was forgotten – all she could think about was the cold.

  “You are freezing.” Captain Dalgo’s voice came close, too close, as she was lifted into the air and pulled against the man’s hard heat. It burned through his silk shirt, slipping into her numbed flesh as her skin lapped up the warmth like a starved animal.

  But even as heat radiated from the Draekon, Janelle’s exhausted body lost its fight. Darkness invaded her vision and her head lolled back.

  “She’s lost too much heat.” Captain Dalgo’s voice was oddly concerned, layered with panic. “You need to bring her back to the lair, and fast.”

  As darkness closed around her mind, all Janelle could think was that she was screwed.

  Darrick was going to kill her if the Draekon didn’t.

  Chapter 4

  She had no business being alive.

  Janelle’s mind floated out of its cloud of dreams, where cold was replaced by a blazing inferno of misery and her cells screamed for mercy. But mercy burned hot and her dreams had turned to nightmares.

  She struggled against the consuming darkness until her eyelids fluttered open. But even when her eyes were open, all she could see was an endless sea of black, glistening like diamonds. She lay on a soft mattress under the biggest, fluffiest blanket she’d ever seen. The bed was large, large enough to host four or five people, and its metal frame towered high above her. A bed fit for a beast. Or a beast of a man – she didn’t know if there was a difference.

  Where am I?

  “Hush. Don’t strain yourself, my mysterious beauty.”

  A hand brushed the hair away from her face, caressing and tender. Janelle blinked, then turned her head and found herself staring at the two silver eyes that had haunted her feverish dreams. That face that had given her a lifeline to sanity as she drifted on the cold blackness between life and death.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “You are Captain Dalgo, head of security of the entire kingdom of Katanie. Everyone knows who you are.”

  She knew who he was, and he knew what she was. She was a thief and he had caught her. She should be upset, but all she felt was a strange kind of relief. Her career as a criminal was finally at an end. Too bad her life was going to follow.

  Darrick could get stuffed; she didn’t care anymore. Even if by some miracle she got out of this alive, she wasn’t going back to him. No more stealing, no more cheating. She was done.

  “So, you know who I am.” His voice was smooth and deep, nothing like the cruel Draekon Captain of the Guard she knew him to be. “But don’t call me Captain, not when we’re alone. Call me Dalgo.”

  Not when we’re alone? What kind of talk is that?

  Janelle’s head swam and her vision was blurry, but she forced herself to focus on the glistening walls and ceiling. It was beautiful, that sparkling surface, reflecting the low light of the glowing orbs. And that warmth was imbuing the air with comfort, the smell of ash faint and good, like a campfire.

  “You saved me.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement. A statement that didn’t take into account that strange request that she call him by his first name. “Why?”

  His fine, elegant brows lifted and his silver stare deepened. A cloud passed over his expression. “Because you were falling to your death.” His voice wasn’t smooth anymore, it was layered with anger. “Because you stole something that was under my protection. And, most of all, because you ran away from me at the Christmas ball.”

  His silver eyes shone brightly and his mouth curved. The memory of that kiss came to Janelle’s mind and suddenly, she wasn’t cold anymore. She was hot, so hot.

  But she didn’t want to be. She couldn’t think about what those eyes did to her, about what that mouth had done. Everything it could still do.

  “Where have you brought me?” She tried to look away, tried to look at the glistening black diamond room, but she couldn’t. She was a prisoner of Dalgo’s gaze.

  “This is part of the dragon’s lair.” Dalgo broke eye contact and made a wide gesture to indicate the spacious room. “And it’s also my personal quarters.”

  The dragon’s lair? A deep, long shiver of fear traveled down Janelle’s body, erasing the heat of the moment before. How could she have been so naïve? Dalgo hadn’t saved her, he was merely making sure she was healthy enough to be executed.

  “Why have you brought me here?” She tried to push herself up to a sitting position but she was too weak. As she struggled, the blanket slid down her body and what she saw before harshly collapsing back down on the mattres
s left her mouth hanging open.

  Her silver gown was gone. Instead, she was clothed in a man’s shirt that barely reached the tops of her thighs.

  “Who changed my clothes?” Janelle knew the answer to that but the question slipped from her lips anyway. “How dare you!”

  “You’ve been asleep for a long time.” He looked down at her, concern twisting his sculpted features. “You can’t get up just yet. The doctors were very specific.”

  As the Draekon’s eyes slid down to her exposed thighs, her cheeks burned and her heart beat fast and hard. Her hands grabbed the top of the blanket and she brought it up to her chin.

  “What you can do is tell me your name.” His brows furrowed when she stared at him, her mouth stubbornly closed. “You won’t get any leniency by staying mute.”

  Janelle bit the inside of her cheek. He was right, but still, it felt like giving out too much, too easily.

  “My name is Janelle.” She spoke low, biting each word like it tasted bitter on her tongue. “I won’t tell you any more than that.”

  His face changed at the harshness in her tone. His lips took an angular, cruel turn and his brows furrowed further to give him a stern, severe expression. Gone was the caring man who had nurtured her back to health.

  “You had severe frostbite all over your hands and feet.” Captain Dalgo’s voice was cold and harsh. “You are lucky Myral got your scent so fast.”

  “Lucky me,” Janelle scoffed, then immediately regretted it as the Draekon’s silver eyes reduced to slits and his mouth twitched. “I’m so lucky you nearly got me crushed at the bottom of a canyon.”

  “You don’t seem to know when you should rein in your tongue.” His voice was as cutting as a blade, and his eyes matched. “Maybe I should teach you a lesson or two in being polite.”

  This time, she managed to sit up and cast a wider look around. She was in the dragon’s lair, a prisoner under the Draekon’s thumb.

  A prisoner with no hope of escape.

  She swallowed as she met Dalgo’s stare dead on. Her hand went instinctively to the search for the pouch inside the folds of her dress but it was gone, just like the dress. He had found what she’d stolen and taken it from her. There was no getting out of this situation, no pretending.

  “Whoever set you up for this ridiculous mission didn’t care for your safety.” Dalgo followed her hands and his eyes glinted dangerously. “Stealing from the Draekarra of the High Lord is punishable by death. Stealing her Draekar bracelet is liable to get you burned by dragon fire.”

  This is it then. Dread descended on Janelle like a cloud of ashes and hope deserted her mind.

  “Is that why you saved me? You didn’t want to burn a dead woman?” Janelle fought the tears of despair that threatened to spill from her eyelids. “You needn’t have bothered. I wasn’t going to die of frostbite.”

  “No, you were just going to lose seven fingers and all your toes.” Dalgo’s voice rose slightly. “An hour more – heck, thirty minutes more – and no doctor could have helped you. You’d have been butchered.”

  “What difference does it make? I’m going to die.”

  Dalgo’s stare stayed on her then his eyes slid over her form under the thick blanket. Heat burned her cheeks as his eyes lingered on the faint outline of her breast, then the soft curve of her stomach and down lower all the way to her legs.

  “I still have to order your punishment.” His eyes locked with hers. There was no softness there, no mercy to be expected. “Only, I haven’t decided what it will be yet.”

  Janelle stared at him, this man who had the power to end her life with a single word. This man who had saved her when he could have just watched her die at the bottom of an abyss. This man who had kissed her like no one before.

  “How did you know it was me? How did you know what I did?” When he didn’t answer, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. You can do whatever you want to me.”

  Something shimmered in the Draekon’s silver eyes. Something dark and deep and dangerous. “Is that right?” His voice was soft and deadly, like chocolate-covered steel, enticing as it sliced through her. “I can do whatever I want to you?”

  Janelle stayed mute as silence wrapped itself around them, full of dark promises and darker threats.

  “You said everyone knows who I am. But no one knows who you are.” Now his voice was lower. Softer. Deadlier. “But you will tell me. You will tell me who you are. And you will tell me who you are working for. You will tell me everything. Or you will regret defying me.”

  Terror slipped inside Janelle’s body, invaded each of her cells as Dalgo leaned in. Something stirred inside her belly, that tiny core of defiance that had held her up all these years. That tiny spark that kept her alive despite countless times when she shouldn’t have been.

  She didn’t care about Darrick but she cared about the others. All those like her who were orphans and had nothing apart from each other. They would lose everything if she gave Darrick up.

  “No.” Janelle lifted her chin and exhaled. “I won’t give up my family.”

  His hard mouth curved down and cruelty brimmed in those silver eyes. “I won’t repeat myself. Tell me who was behind the theft of Lady Endora’s Draekar bracelet, or I won’t be able to save you.”

  The remnants of Janelle’s hope shattered as she locked gazes with the Draekon. Dalgo wasn’t playing with her.

  He wasn’t just a predator, he was her executioner.

  “No.” She shook her head even as tears trailed down her cheeks. “I can’t.”

  “Then you give me no choice… but I will give you one.” He leaned in closer, so close that when he spoke, his breath tickled her lips. “Stay in this castle as my prisoner, or face Lord Aldric’s justice.”

  Chapter 5

  Janelle blinked, then she blinked again.

  Did I hear that right? He didn’t just say that!

  “What do you mean, stay as your prisoner?” Her voice wasn’t confident anymore, no trace of her well-rehearsed bravado remained. Hope was a tenacious little beast and now that it was awakened, it wanted to live.

  She wanted to live, plain and simple.

  “You want me to stay here as your personal prisoner?” This wasn’t just strange. This was lunacy. Anger came to life inside her mind, and that tiny spark of defiance flickered anew. “You want me here… what? At your disposal?”

  She cast a glance at the glistening black walls, then locked gazes with Dalgo. His expression was closed off but his silver eyes glistened with something she didn’t understand. Something raw and full of need.

  Something that soothed the sharp edges of her burgeoning anger and made her belly quiver anew.

  “Yes.” Dalgo’s voice was smooth and confident, but there was no mistaking the way he was looking at her. He was studying her features intensely, looking for the slightest reaction. She tried to hide her feelings, but even her years of training didn’t prepare her for what he said next. “Your body will be mine. You will submit to all I want from you.”

  Janelle tried to swallow but it was no use. Nothing could go down her closed throat. Her belly lit up like a hurricane was going through it and heat spread between her legs. Had the Captain of the Guards of Katanie just made her an indecent proposal?

  “But why me?” She knew what he wanted. She wasn’t innocent enough not to understand what the look in those eyes meant, what that hard mouth said. He wanted her at his mercy, completely. But why her? He could have any high-born lady of the kingdom at his disposal. All he needed to do was ask, and they would be lining up for his bed.

  “Have you been tested for genetic compatibility?”

  The question blindsided her. This was thousands of light years away from what she’d expected.

  “No.” She shook her head slightly. “Never.”

  “You are definitely old enough. It’s against the law to refuse the testing.” Dalgo’s silver eyes remained on her, his intense focus more like an investigation than a s
exual proposal. He was all business while her heart was doing somersaults thinking about the implications of his offer. “How come you didn’t?”

  She knew why she was never tested. Because by the time she was of age, she had been hiding with the outlaws for a decade. Painful memories flooded her mind but Janelle pushed them down. The past was the past.

  “I just wasn’t.” She pursed her lips when Dalgo’s mouth curved down at her refusal to tell him the truth. But the truth was too painful, and she’d already lost whatever power over her own existence she used to have. “What importance could that have, anyway?”

  Those silver eyes stayed on her like he was waiting for something. Like he was hoping she would say more. But there was nothing more to say. She was never tested and even if she had been, the chances of compatibility with any of the Draekons were dismal, one in a thousand or less. The chances of her being compatible with this particular Draekon were even less. Less than dismal. It was impossible – or almost.

  “That’s for me to know.” Dalgo finally leaned away from her, giving her back her personal space. His face was an ode to masculine strength, devoid of emotion and pure in its harsh beauty. “All you need to know is that I want you and that you will never be harmed as long as you are with me.”

  “For how long?”

  “That, too, is for me to know.”

  The air became thin and Janelle found she had to breathe deeper, faster to fight the lightheadedness that threatened to overcome her. She’d never had any control over her own existence, so why was she upset now?

  Because now, for the first time in her life, she wanted something. She wanted this man who looked at her with eyes made of liquid metal and a mouth that could wipe away reality, even for just a few moments. It made her see everything she’d never had. All she would never have.

  “And the cost is my freedom.” She knew she sounded bitter. That she had no business arguing, that she should just grab this chance to survive like the miracle it was. “I won’t know for how long, or why. I just have to accept to be at your mercy until you release me.”