Kiss of the Dragon

by Christina James

“Do not use that tone of voice on me, boy. I have managed very well up to this point without…this.” She waved her hand at the dark stain on the floor.

  “I would have thought that by now you would appreciate a quick end to a problem. Poison is such a slow way to rid oneself of an…obstacle. Do you not agree?” The sly evil smirk on his face bothered Heloise. She was not one to scare easily but his unspoken meaning left her uneasy. “We do not have the luxury of time to take care of the little sneak the way you have been taking care of the Duke. We needed to silence him quickly. The little bastard had his ear to the keyhole listening to every word of your scheme. You are fortunate that I opened the door before he got away. He would have gone straight to the Dragon and we would be in the dungeon,” he reminded her.

  “Yea,” she agreed reluctantly. “But you must know that I hate it when you are right,” she grumbled as she went back to mopping up the pool of blood. The vision in her mind of the way he had grabbed the small boy and dragged him into the room only to stab him mercilessly haunted her as she went through the motions of cleaning up the evidence. Heloise was a vicious, manipulative schemer, but she had never had to watch anyone murdered in her presence. It was unnerving to say the least. She would have to avoid such disturbing scenes in the future.

  * * * * *

  “GALEN!”

  The loud bellow had Bianca hesitating on the steep, twisting stairs as she descended from the healer’s rooms. Her own ailments were forgotten in that moment asthe outrage in the voice below her sent a cold wave of apprehension sluicing down her spine. She recognized the voice as belonging to Draco, but the trepidation that hung on that one word echoing up the stair had her dreading what was to come. He materialized on the steps just below her, in his arms the cause of his torment. He cradled the still body of young Theron against his chest.

  “Oh, God! What happened?!” Bianca’s anguish mirrored Draco’s as she stepped aside to let him pass, the child held protectively in his arms. She followed them, her own miserable state of health forgotten. By the time she caught up with Draco, he was already taking orders from Galen.

  “Lay the child on the table. Carefully now,” Galen commanded. He kept his voice even, attempting to still the anxiety of the large nobleman and distraught woman who followed him. The healer then proceeded to issue commands keeping them occupied with small tasks while he discerned the state of the boy who was covered in his own blood, barely breathing. Even as he worked, he questioned Lord Draco.

  “Who did this?”

  “It is not known. He was found behind the stables covered in a thin layer of refuse. One of the stable lads cleaning out the stalls happened across him.” Draco took a deep breath as he glanced at Bianca out of the corner of his eye. “He has been stabbed in the back several times.” His words were hard and grating. He would have liked to protect his lady from this horror but he was not in the frame of mind to be gentle. He could not hide his disgust for whoever had committed this inhumanity. He could not take his gaze from the deathly white face of his new page. The boy was an innocent and someone would pay for this. He vowed it!

  “Who would do such a thing, Draco?” Bianca’s trembling voice cut through his thoughts of revenge. She had stood at his side from the moment he placed Theron on the table and now she placed her small hand on his thick forearm, her violet gaze pinning him, looking for solace and assurance.

  “I do not know, but by God, when I find the villain who did this atrocious deed, he will wish that his father had never met his mother,” he grated through clenched teeth. Beneath her fingers, the thick muscles of his arm bulged as his hands fisted. The fury of the Black Dragon burned hot beneath his barely contained control.

  For the first time since Bianca met Draco, she began to understand how he had attained his dangerous reputation. As she stood at his side watching the hatred in his icy black eyes, a shiver of fear raced down her spine. It was not for her that she was concerned. She knew without a doubt that he would never harm her, even though his dark eyes glowed with a feral blaze as he tried to contain the immense power of his anger.

  “The boy still breathes, my lord.” Galen’s soft voice broke through the tension. “It is very shallow, but steady.” His hands moved over his small patient as he determined the extent of his injuries. Galen was diligent about his business. He worked to stanch the slow flow of blood from the wounds as he listened and prodded about the child’s chest.

  “Will he live, Galen?” Draco asked in a near whisper.

  “He will unless his wounds fester. Fortunately the knife did not hit anything vital.”

  After what seemed like hours, Galen finally made his diagnosis.

  “The worst cut is deep. The blade glanced off his young bones in several other places saving him from worse injury. No vital organs were damaged, but his cuts and bruises will take a long while to heal. As for his mind,” Galen shrugged his shoulders and a tear crept down his face as he gazed down at the small boy, “he will have to awake before we will know how this affected him.”

  The old healer shook his head in disgust. “Whoever did this has a very black heart. He meant for this boy to die. If by chance the villain finds out that Theron survives, another attempt could be made. I would suggest putting guards at the door and informing the duke that there is a murderer within the grounds of the castle.” He then glanced up, spearing them with his pale blue eyes. “But then we already know that, do we not?”

  With a nod and a look of dark determination in his eyes, Draco left the room. The man was on a mission, and nothing would stop him from achieving his objective.

  With a heart filled with trepidation, Bianca followed him. They made it on to the small landing outside the room before he stopped and turned to confront her with his soft-spoken request. “Stay with the child, Bianca. Keep watch over him while I look into this business. Come for me the moment his condition changes…one way or the other.” He brushed the back of his knuckles down over the soft curve of her cheek, a deep yearning momentarily flickering through his dark eyes.

  “I must go.”

  “Draco,” her voice pleaded as it echoed through the darkened corridor. When he glanced back, she whispered her enjoinder, “Be careful, my lov…my lord.”

  His curt nod was his only acknowledgment that he had heard her before he turned and disappeared down the stairs.

  Returning to the Galen’s surgery was the most difficult thing Bianca had ever had to do. The sight of Theron, lying so still on the table, was almost her undoing. Who could do such a thing, especially to an innocent child? It brought tears to her eyes, but she resolutely wiped them away. She would stand strong for Draco and do what she could to see that this boy he had taken into his protection would survive and flourish in the new life he had been gifted with.

  * * * * *

  Bianca slept in a chair next to the pallet on which Theron lay. His small hand was tucked safely within her own, as if with that small measure of contact she could keep him in this world. Galen had worked long and hard, doing everything in his power to heal the child. He had finally left for a while to see to his other patients. He left Bianca and Fate to watch over Theron. He would survive his injuries if fever or some other complication did not take his fragile life. So they had set up a schedule and Bianca was to take the first shift.

  That was where Heloise found her. The heart-wrenching depiction that she came upon when she entered the healer’s chambers did not even cause a twinge of regret or hint of guilt. The only emotion that flickered in those cold pale orbs was loathing.

  In her twisted mind, even as she seethed with jealously and hatred for her beautiful stepdaughter, the Duchess de Neige reasoned that if she had ever had a child of her own, she would have wanted a daughter, one as beautiful as Bianca. With such a daughter, she would have been the envy of every matron at court for having produced such a beauty.

  Her daughter would have drawn the attention of every nobleman in the kingdom even perhaps the king himself. Heloise sm
iled at the thought. Then as her delicious daydreams cleared from her mind, her eyes focused once again on the scene before her.

  Resentment for her husband’s daughter flared hot as she gazed upon the silky blue-black hair, the soft rose-red lips and the lush body that curved in all the right places to make any man’s mouth water with desire. She would do everything in her power to remove this obstacle from her path.

  After all, a woman of her age could not afford to lose the attention of her husband to another woman, even if that woman was her stepdaughter. Heloise had barely secured the Duke de Neige for her husband in the first place. It had taken much scheming and manipulation to achieve her goal of becoming a duchess. And now she meant to assure her station in this society, no matter what it took. And her first task was to rid herself of one useless stepdaughter by one means or another.

  It was with this cold determination in her mind and ice in her veins that she strolled across the room and stood over the two innocents as they slept.

  “Get up, Bianca. You should not be here. Leave the boy to Galen’s care.” She startled Bianca with her harsh voice. “Look at him. He is filthy. Come away at once I say. A noblewoman should not be touching such filth.”

  Bleary-eyed, Bianca slowly raised her head. The fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose as a chill of warning swept over her. She gently placed Theron’s hand at his side before rising from her chair, not for the reasons her stepmother had given. She needed to move this discussion outside the room, so that the child would not be disturbed in slumber. She moved past Heloise, walking to the door and down the stairs. In the corridor below, she stopped and turned to confront the woman.

  “What is it, stepmother?” she asked as she turned, only to have the older woman grab her arm in her claw-like hand to hold her within her reach.

  “There is no reason for you to be flippant. I will not tolerate your disrespect.” Her grip tightened to be very painful for Bianca but she refused to react to her stepmother’s viciousness. When Heloise understood that Bianca was not going to be threatened even with physical abuse, she released her hold and took a step back. “You have a suitor waiting in the great hall.”

  Her announcement was not what Bianca wanted to hear at the moment. She was tired and ill and she just wanted to get back to Theron to sit with him until he showed some improvement.

  “What time is it?” She glanced out the nearby window to determine the time of day or night. It was dark except for the bright moonlight that beamed through the opening, and a most inappropriate time for a suitor to be calling as far as she was concerned.

  “It is just past supper time. The prince was most disappointed that you could not attend the meal, but I promised him that you would make an appearance later. I suggest you do not disappoint him or me. He is the ruler of the principality of Kiev and a very prestigious match for you.”

  “I am in no mood to meet this prince or any other man right now. There is an injured child lying in that bed up there, perhaps dying. I am not about to go socializing when my help is needed here.”

  The look that her stepmother gave her was so cold that Bianca shivered. The woman’s face was unreadable and then she merely nodded. “Fine. If you do not want to make a good first impression, then you only hurt your position with the prince. Perhaps you can afford to waste your time mooning after some bastard who will do no more than sniff about your skirts. He will never marry you, you know. He will never settle down.”

  “It matters not, stepmother. I know that Draco has no intention of marrying me or any other woman.” But even as she said the words out loud, her heart cracked and bled just a little. Her time was running out and she had made a promise to her father.

  “Then he will have you in his bed and leave you soiled and worthless when he leaves here,” Heloise challenged her. She did not seem to be too offended by the prospect of her stepdaughter’s ruin. “Bed him then. Ruin yourself for a match of good standing. But in the end, you will end up with a gypsy for a husband and no social standing to speak of. But at least you will return to a place where you are actually wanted.”

  Heloise turned and walked away. She was gone as quickly as she had arrived leaving the sting of her assertion hanging in the air like an unpleasant smell that would not dissipate and from which Bianca could not flee. The words hurt more than she cared to admit. She had thought herself immune to Heloise’s poisonous barbs by now. But this time she had hit too close to home.

  Bringing her feelings for Draco into the open with her lethal insinuations of his withdrawal from her after the great lord used her, was the most toxic venom Heloise could have chosen. Within seconds, doubt began to rise in Bianca and a part of her died a slow, painful death. Could Heloise be right in this matter? She shook her head in attempt to dislodge the doubt before it took hold. She would trust in her knowledge of this man that she loved more than life.

  Bianca admonished herself for considering her stepmother’s hateful words, even for a moment. She glanced at the empty doorway and shivered once again. “At least she is gone now.” But it did not matter. Her upbringing would not let her disappoint her father by not welcoming visiting royalty. After all, she was the daughter of a duke. It was her duty to her father and to her heritage.

  So Bianca knew that she would indeed make an appearance in the hall to meet the Eastern prince. From experience, she knew that if she did not, Heloise would find another way to hurt her for disregarding her demand by going directly to her father and upsetting him with her complaints.

  But first, she had to be sure that no further danger would befall the child who lay so ill in Galen’s chambers. She would look in on Theron before making an appearance below stairs. Draco had placed guards at the healer’s door but she still needed the assurance that all was well while the boy recovered.

  * * * * *

  The Black Dragon of Normandy ordered a thorough search of the castle and its grounds for any suspicious characters who may have been lurking around in the bailey or the castle proper in that last few days. The duke had agreed to his help in the matter when he heard about the attack on one of Lord Draco’s pages. Every knight, workman, stable boy and servant who had been in the inner bailey just prior to the discovery of Theron’s brutalized body was asked to come forward and give an account of what they remembered while they were there. It was endless hours of questions and answers, only to acquire little or no useful information.

  Lord Draco had sent men out to scour the countryside for strangers, halting all travelers and questioning them, but to no avail. Weary from the long hours of work with no useful results, Draco gave up for the evening when the light had faded from the evening sky and he could do no more until the morrow.

  Having missed the evening meal and his belly rebelling at the abuse, Draco made his way to the kitchens looking for some sort of sustenance. The cook’s assistant was gracious enough to set him up with a tray loaded with cold fare and all the ale he wanted. He sat at a small table near the kitchen hearth and ate in silence.

  As he sat there, he went over what he had learned, which was not much. In fact, nothing had come from his search for the attacker of his new page. In the beginning, he had thought that perhaps the chimney sweep had returned to take revenge for losing his small slave. But he threw that notion out and looked for other possibilities.

  He found it hard to believe that such an incident could have happened in such a busy community as Castle Neige without someone taking notice. But so far, not a soul admitted to having seen anything. The only witness was the older stable boy who had found the child. And he had not been much help. What little information he had obtained from anyone who happened upon the scene after the outcry of murder was of little use. He hated to accept the fact that he had discovered nothing to help find the suspect. Not a soul in the castle had seen anything before the incident that he considered pertinent.

  He did not consider that there might be a concealed agenda to the occurrence. Grown men, knights, so
ldiers of the king’s army had been known to spill every detail of their life and more when being questioned by the infamous Black Dragon of Normandy. After his fierce investigation today, he doubted that the lesser knights and soldiers, servants and peasants of the estate could have been able to keep their tongues from wagging.

  “Ah, well, tomorrow.” With that resolute sigh, he took a deep swallow from his cup of ale. He would find the answers he sought before the sun set on the morrow, he vowed to himself. He sat the cup down and thanking the cook’s assistant for the fare, moved to the back stairs. He wanted to check on Theron’s condition and, perhaps, speak to his sweet Bianca. The memory of her mouth under his had his body responding eagerly to what lay ahead.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bianca stood before her wardrobe wearing only a thin silk dressing gown as she tried to select an acceptable gown to wear. She had given Leia the evening off since she had expected to spend much of the evening and night sitting with Theron in the sick room. Her maid had been most appreciative as she had recently found a new beau with whom she had been spending a great deal of time with lately.

  So this evening she would be dressing her hair and getting into her gown with no assistance. Fortunately, she felt much better since the potion Galen had given her earlier had finally taken effect, giving her some relief. Her headache had all but disappeared. Now at the thought of spending the rest of the evening in the company of a new suitor, particularly a royal suitor, she suspected that her headache would be returning about the time she made an appearance below stairs.

  With a sigh of resignation, she fingered the smooth fabric of a green satin gown that unfortunately reminded her of the frog prince. She chuckled at the memory of the round little man sitting in the middle of the lily pond with a toad atop his head. Perhaps she should pick a different gown. If by chance, the German nobleman was still in residence it might not be sensible to show up in the Great Hall in his favorite color. It might give him the wrong impression. She set the gown aside and fingered a deep blue velvet gown trimmed in black ribbons. It was her favorite, but she hesitated, wanting only one man to admire her when she wore it.