“Did you promise to marry her?” Attor knew it wouldn’t have been the first time his friend had used that line.
“Does it matter?” Myrddin laughed and gave the fruit a hard yank, snapping it forcefully from the limb it clung to. The noble tossed it at Attor, forcing him to drop the piece he held to catch it before it hit his face. “Women are like fruit on a tree, to be tasted, enjoyed, and then discarded for the next piece.” Myrddin kicked the half-eaten piece across the floor. “Hold one too long and it will be sure to rot in your hand.”
“There are many who find happiness with life mates,” Attor argued.
“Like your father joining fully to your mother, bowing to her like a besotted fool? I was young, but I still remember how he doted on her. There is your proof that a man cannot bow to a woman and still call himself a man. Women have the potential to be the ruination of men and kingdoms,” Myrddin countered. He sighed sadly and shook his head. “Life mating is for peasants who cannot afford many half wives. But you will be king someday, Attor. Someday soon, if your father continues to keep company with liquor bottles and too much food.” He sat and placed his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “To be ruled by a woman is to be ruled by weakness, and kingdoms are only as strong as their rulers. A king must stand alone, beholden to none. When you are king take half mates—many, beautiful half mates. If one dies, you can have sons with the others.”
Attor said nothing. This was not the first time Myrddin had tried to convince him of such things. He looked at the fruit in his hand. It was ripe, but it didn’t feel as firm as the piece he’d been enjoying before Myrddin had made him drop it. The kings before him had all had one mate and they’d been happy, or so the stories told.
“The king is drunk again, isn’t he?” Myrddin let go of Attor’s shoulder and leaned his elbows onto his knees.
Attor nodded. “I left when he started challenging the Azoomian noblemen to duels.”
Myrddin thought the king pathetic and had often admitted as much to the prince. Attor however just found his father a sad, broken buffoon.
“Enough depression. Let the king have his games. Your time will come soon enough and you can lead this kingdom to greatness. You can give your people the war your father promised us years ago. I’ll be by your side, leading your armies, while we defeat those stinking dragonshifting Draig and take the northern lands as ours. Yours will be a great kingdom, catshifters ruling over our slave dragons. Why should they get the mountains when my castle is stuck in the shadowed marshes?”
Attor didn’t really care for politics. In fact, they bored him. Wars were tedious and long. He had a palace. What did he want with more land? Then, again, if he was living in the stinking waters of the marshes near the Var-Draig border he might think differently.
“I know what you need,” Myrddin said, dropping his voice to a whisper. He reached into his tunic shirt and pulled out a tiny bottle. “I acquired some nef off a couple of marsh farmers.”
“You know they’re called that because they make their liquor stock out of marsh water, right?” Attor gave a small shiver of disgust.
“But not the nef,” Myrddin said. “And the marsh water is purified during the process. Some of it’s not bad if you need a quick drunk. But I didn’t bring it up to debate alcohol quality. Did you see that Syog beauty I was talking to? A couple of drops of this in her wine, and she’d be game for meeting us in the forest for a chase later. My universal translator is rough when it comes to Syog, but I’m pretty sure she wants light and dark meat.”
Myrddin reached to muss up Attor’s short blond hair. His friend’s eyes shifted with liquid gold. All Var liked the hunt.
Attor’s breathing deepened. Nef was illegal and very hard to get. It tamed the cat within them and created restraint in Var men. However, that wasn’t why the drug was forbidden. Restraint was fine. Natural restraint without the aid of drugs was better. But, give nef to a humanoid female and it had the opposite effect, making them wild with uncontrolled, indiscriminate passion. When taken together, it would make men’s pleasure last longer and women insatiable.
His nostrils flared as if he could already feel the ground beneath his paws. Syogs were not the brightest species, but they were athletic and strong. Unless they were scarred, which many of them were due to their brawling culture, as a whole they happened to be one of the most symmetrically appealing races in the known universes.
The woman Myrddin indicated was phenomenal to look at. Her hair was knotted to the top of her head, but would look marvelously long if she unbound it. She wore the short coat and pleated skirt of her people, and by the look of her naked legs, would be able to run hard and fast. Her dark eyes boldly met his in challenge and, as was the Syog way, she would not look away until he did first.
“What’s her name?” Attor asked.
“Does it matter?” Myrddin countered.
“She agrees to take the nef?” Attor swallowed in excitement. A run would do him good, especially if it ended in a hard coupling on the forest floor. “She wants us both?”
“It’s settled,” Myrddin said by way of an answer. “I’ll set it up. Meet me by the flaccid tree in the forest.”
* * *
Draig Territory, Var-Draig Borderlands
“Mede, I always wanted to ask you. Can you fly?”
Mede grimaced. Saben was clearly well into his cups even though the Order of the Dead Dragons’ celebration had only just started. Members of the order had gathered to witness her initiation. Well, that was only half true. They really came for the revelry that would ensue while she ran her trial.
“Well?” Saben insisted.
“No. That’s just an old story,” she said.
“But you’re female,” Saben insisted. “If you are captured tonight, I might not get the chance to ask you again.”
“I’m a woman?” Mede gasped in fake shock. She pretended to look down at her body. “That would explain why you proposed to me when we were children.”
“Ah, come on, now.” Saben leaned forward to whisper, which wasn’t really all that quiet—especially considering they were in an encampment of dragonshifters with incredibly sensitive hearing. “You can tell me the truth. You shift into the dragon of legend, don’t you? You can fly.” He leaned back, pointing a finger from his goblet-laden hand. “I see it on your face. You can fly.”
Mede had been asked this question almost as much as she’d been claimed as a future bride. So, yes, she’d had the dreams. She’d felt her body soaring over strange landscapes. She’d felt her arms as wide as wings. She’d felt the fire of her breath and the lava of her blood. Her body had burned so hot she could barely contain it and knew a human body would never survive with pure dragon blood in it. As far as she could tell, men never had such dreams. Her father seemed to think it was a residual memory from the days long past. Though she’d often caught him watching her when she shifted as a child, as if he’d expected her to take flight.
The dragon legend was from before her people came to Qurilixen, when female dragons were large and fierce and could not take human shape like the men. Their people had no remaining proof of such things, only the stories passed down from each generation, and the fierce creatures depicted boldly in all their artwork and pottery.
“Can you keep a secret?” Mede leaned in to him. Saben nodded. “I can’t fly, but you can.”
Saben’s brow furrowed in confusion. Mede shifted into dragon, slipped her hands beneath the pits of his arms and lifted him upward. In his drunken state and human form he didn’t catch what she was doing in time to stop his ascent several feet into the air. He stumbled as he landed on his feet. Then, grinning, he righted himself and held up his goblet. “Not a drop spilled!”
Those who had seen it cheered. Saben went to drink and tipped his head back. He frowned and turned the cup over. It had been empty the whole time. Cheering turned to laughter. Mede couldn’t help but chuckle as she went to wash her hands. She loved Saben like a brother, but he sw
eated like he’d been running around the forest.
“If you want to be one of us, Lady Medellyn, you know what you have to do.” Rolant approached and gave her an arrogant half-grin as his eyes lit with challenge.
Mede flung the moisture from her hands and turned to him. She’d known the man for years. They’d trained together as children, and he was to inherit control of the ore mines from his childless uncle. He’d even once claimed he was going to marry her—though that had been years ago. So far, his crystal had never glowed around her, so their relationship was pretty much cemented in friendship.
“The name is Mede,” Mede answered. “I don’t care if you are a prince, get it right or I’ll make you bow to me when I return with my prize.”
“You know the initiation rules,” Rolant warned, not for the first time. He lowered his voice so the handful of Draig warriors with them couldn’t hear. His green eyes shone with concern. “Seriously, Mede, once you cross the borders, we can’t come after you. If you get caught you’re on your own until your father comes to fetch you.”
She said nothing. Having her great warrior father come and rescue her from Var imprisonment would be beyond humiliating, almost as much as getting caught in the first place.
Cynan came close and leaned in. He was a beefy warrior with a fierce demeanor and the playfulness of a naughty child. “What are we whispering about?”
“My brother still wants to meet Mede but she refuses,” Rolant said, before turning his grin to Mede. “He’ll be king someday. You can’t avoid him forever. I think you two would—”
“Don’t make me rip your throat out of your neck,” Mede warned.
Cynan laughed. He, too, had tried to claim Mede as a child bride. In fact, she was pretty sure all the Dead Dragons had. To the others, he stated, “I don’t envy any man who’s unlucky enough to have to claim this dragon.”
The men laughed harder and began their good-natured taunting. Since they teased her about her warrior’s fierceness, Mede didn’t mind it so much.
“He’s a good man,” Rolant said when Cynan wandered off and could no longer eavesdrop—unless he really wanted to. Shifters had excellent hearing, so it was hard to keep secrets in a small encampment. However, they were honorable dragons and they would respect each other’s privacy with little effort. “You can’t keep ignoring invitations to the palace forever. You’re the only female, Mede. That’s—”
“I’ve never laid eyes on our future king and I don’t want to. I have a hard enough time when people with power over me are trying to control me. I don’t want to have to defy the orders of your parents, but I am not a pet to be put on display. I respect King Tared and Queen Lorna greatly, from a commoner’s distance, but I have no interest in life at court. As for meeting new men, you sound like my mother. She constantly tries to trick me into the presence of new males in hopes their crystals will twitch in my direction, so I’ll know before the ceremony who my future is. The men all take alien brides. Why would my fate be different? It’s possible that my crystal would have glowed for an offworlder, but I broke it and do not regret doing so. I still have no interest in knowing a husband. Give me a weapon, a good bottle of Qurilixian rum and—”
“Gods’ bones, woman,” he swore in aggravation. Mede knew he was struggling with the Draig need to protect their females. However, most of the females needed a man’s protection because they were humanoid. She was a shifter, and this was her chance to prove it once and for all. At least Rolant, and the others in the ancient Dead Dragons order, treated her more equally than most. “Are you sure you want to do this? No one expects you to prove yourself.”
“Why?” She stiffened. “Because I’m a woman?”
Rolant turned his eyes away. That was answer enough.
“I’m doing it. I have completed every grueling task demanded of me by the order. And when I get back, you will make me a full member of the Dead Dragons.” Mede reached to pull a lock of his light brown hair, forcing him to look at her. At her hard expression, he nodded. Mede let him go. “Good.”
Due to the three suns and a single moon revolving around the small planet at different angles, the land was always cast in light, except for once a year, when all suns set at the same time. The light had a green tint that would dim into a bluer hue, in what they considered the evening hours. However, near the border marshes, the trees were much thicker than they were by her mountain home and the green leaves soaked in the many suns’ rays becoming wide enough to wear as a hat. This created a false darkness in the shadowed marshes and nearby forest. Her eyes shifted as she looked into the trees, cutting through the shadows as if her gaze was made of light.
“Stay to the east, away from the shadowed marshes and black castle. Givre nests are bad this year. Keep moving. Sniff out a marsh farmer. One should be easy enough to detect. Most of them will be in a dead sleep by now. Stay quiet,” Rolant instructed.
Mede nodded.
“I vouched for you. Don’t disappoint me.” He handed her a knife. Loudly, he proclaimed, “You know what you have to do. Back here by dawn.”
The group of Draig all shifted fully and began growling in excitement, cheering her on. They would continue to celebrate as she went off alone.
Mede felt the anticipation of her task pumping in her veins, the danger of it, the thrill, the rush. Her shift came over her like a shiver. Dark brown flesh replaced her tanned skin, growing over her body like a shield beneath her loose pants and tunic shirt. A ridge pushed out from her forehead, shielding her nose and brow, and fangs extended from her mouth.
“Flying would be faster!” Saben yelled.
Lifting the knife in a taloned hand, she grinned. Her words were the gruff sound of the dragon as she declared, “Time to skin a cat!”
Mede darted into the forest, leaving the roars of the men behind her. She couldn’t fail. This was her one chance to prove she was worthy of being a dragon. No one would treat her like a mere woman again. And with luck, they’d let her out of the upcoming marriage ceremony.
Chapter Two
Mede sprinted through the unfamiliar forest. The danger of being on Var land thrilled her. The marsh air filled her lungs, as it tinged the forest with its nearby decay of plants and animals. If she was to cut to the west, she’d find herself in stagnant water. Her shifter hearing focused on her surroundings, sharply tuned to the environment. An animal slithered in the muddy soil before gliding on the water. Insects buzzed and hummed.
Dead leaves crunched beneath her feet. The noise drew her attention back to her course. The sound created a steady beat, punctuated by her even breath. Mede raced through shadows, leaping over logs, ducking under branches, dodging past hanging moss that clung to the overlarge leaves. Threads of light shone through the thick tree limbs to create tiny dancing spots.
The stretch of her muscles felt so good that she wanted to run forever. But tonight wasn’t about a run. It was about freedom—freedom from being special, freedom from the Breeding Festival happening in a couple of months’ time, freedom from destiny and fate and marriage. This was her chance to prove herself a peer of some of the most daring of Draig men.
Dead Dragons were an old brotherhood that started as a secret society. Members were protectors of the crown, trusted to perform any task set before them. They were called Dead Dragons because they were as good as dead, dubbed so for the chances they took. Often those chances were risks that, by all rights, should have killed them. Like most secrets, time and rumors spread and soon stories arose of their noble deeds. The secret society wasn’t so secret anymore, though admission into the fold was still challenging and rumors still circulated about their ancient rituals. In reality, since they weren’t at war, most of those mystical ceremonies boiled down to drinking and stupid dares.
Running alone through Var territory, the unfamiliar terrain, an unauthorized border crossing, all to take a trophy from an unknown catshifter? Yeah, she was pretty sure that counted as insanely dangerous.
Her mind echo
ed with the resounding beat of a primal rhythm, an old song played in campsites to while away the hours. It urged her on. Only when she’d run miles inland did she finally stop, leaping up in the air to land in a crouched position hidden by a shrub. She tilted her head, listening for a hint of prey. When she heard nothing, she ran another mile and stopped again. Mede repeated the process until finally she heard the soft, deep snore of a man.
She still clutched the curved knife in her hand. Tracking her prey to where he slept was easy. First, she caught the scent of strong liquor. Next, all she had to do was follow the glow of firelight coming through the forest. The encampment was small. The fire shone from beneath a large metal alcohol still that reeked of poor quality liquor. That’s where the smell came from. She covered her mouth. It was overwhelmingly pungent to her shifter senses.
Mede let her human form take over her body. The smell remained strong, but at least now she could breathe without her nose and throat burning quite so badly. Near the fire a Var man slept. It would have been easy to tell what kind of shifter he was, even without knowing she was in Var territory. He stunk of cat and old liquor sweat. It was almost with a sense of disappointment that she crept forward to claim her prize. This beast wasn’t a challenge. He was a drunkard passed out in the forest.
Mede stood over him, knife in hand, while glancing over her surroundings. This would never do. She needed him shifted.
Nudging him with the tip of her boot, she tried to wake him up. The Var man grumbled and slapped at her foot. She sighed. Why couldn’t she have found a warrior, someone worthy of a fight? With this sad piece of givre dung she wouldn’t even get a good scar to show off.
She nudged him again, much harder. “Come on, wake up.”
The Dragon's Queen (Dragon Lords) Page 2