The Queen's Dance (Emerging Queens)

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  Nessie nodded. “Before that, Lane—along with a team of mercenaries I’m afraid you’ve run into a few times, Margery—stole a container of pills from Sebastian’s lab on Mykonos while it was on route to me.”

  “You have no proof of that,” Lane said, pushing back from the table. “I’m not going to be a scapegoat for another stud’s errors.”

  “Sit down,” Mei Hua ordered. Two Dragon Slayers approached, apparently to enforce the Queen’s command.

  “So what if he did steal those pills?” Bella said. “I can make amends for it. How much?”

  “Ten women’s lives,” Margery said quietly.

  “More,” Nessie corrected.

  “They knew the risks,” Lane said. “It was their choice. I never forced them to take it.”

  “Had they been tested, they would have known that their outcome was a horrible death for them and the hatchlings.” Nessie dabbed her mouth with a napkin.

  “Where is Rathin now?” Remy gritted out between his teeth.

  “I don’t know,” Lane said. “I didn’t know there were ways of testing. All those pills we wasted.” He held his head in his hands.

  Margery tensed. “All those human lives you wasted!” she shouted. This was unbelievable. How couldn’t he see that his greed killed innocent women?

  “Rathin has one of my people. One of Margery’s people,” Remy corrected. “Lisa’s pregnant. What’s going to happen to her if we can’t find her?”

  “If she’s a match, there’s a possibility she can deliver a healthy hatchling through a C-section.” Sebastian tapped his chopsticks on the table in thought. He didn’t sound so sure of himself.

  Margery kept her hands busy gripping her napkin, otherwise she would have gone for Lane’s throat. “They’re trying to do that with another of Rathin’s women.”

  “He’s been a busy naga,” Nessie said. “Unfortunately, without a doctor who knows what the drug will do to both mother and child, they could all still die.”

  So much for a nice, quiet dinner conversation. “We need to find Rathin,” Margery said. “Bella, can’t you order Lane to tell us where he’s hiding?”

  “I told you I don’t know.” Lane gripped Bella’s hand. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Bella bit her lip and looked at all the concerned faces around the table. It was obvious she didn’t know what to believe.

  “How did you contact him?” Remy asked. “Or do we need to go through Smythe?”

  Lane shook his head in a panic. “Don’t call Smythe. Whatever you do. He holds a grudge. You’ll never find the rest of the pills, and we’ll all spend the rest of our short lives looking over our shoulders while he cleans house.”

  “Or I’ll end him before he strikes,” Remy hissed, the last word draconic and so vicious Mei Hua flinched back.

  Lane cleared his throat. “Rathin isn’t as much of a psychopath as Smythe. He gave me a special number to call. But I don’t even know if it will still work.”

  “Call him. Have him meet you on Lake Champlain tomorrow night.” Remy was just as outraged as she was. She was glad they were on the same page.

  Lane shook his head. “He’ll never do it. It’s too risky.”

  “Tell him you stole another shipment from us.” Nessie folded her hands. “It’s the least you can do.”

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” Lane said.

  “Of course not, baby.” Bella hugged him.

  Margery didn’t think Lane was asking Bella. Nessie didn’t look like she had made up her mind yet.

  “Did you send Margery the Smooshie doll with the bomb in it?” Remy asked in a quiet voice that sent shivers up Margery’s spine. She wondered if there was going to be bloodshed next. The Order of the Dragon Slayers were closing in on them, trying to be as inconspicuous as deadly warriors with deadly intent could be. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  Lane’s mouth dropped open. “No. I would never harm a Queen. Never.” He looked to Bella, who gave him a relieved smile.

  Some of the tension left the room.

  “Did Rathin?”

  “No,” Nessie said. “I sent the doll.”

  The dinner party froze as if time stood still.

  Remy went stock still and turned to his mother with a glacial politeness that was almost as alarming as his temper. “Why did you attempt to kill my Queen?”

  Margery put a hand on his knee to try and soothe him.

  “I didn’t know she was your Queen. And I wasn’t trying to kill her. It was supposed to blow up Rathin.” She shrugged. “And if it scared Margery away from writing about the pills, so much the better.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Margery said. “Smythe, Rathin, and Lane are going to pay for their actions.”

  “How?” Nessie said. “Are you going to execute them? You can do that now without posting our dirty laundry for humans to read.”

  “Please don’t kill my Lane,” Bella begged.

  “I’m not killing anyone,” Margery soothed. “But they committed a crime and have to be punished.”

  “You are not the aggrieved party,” Nessie said. “You can call for punishment all you want, but in the end it’s up to the Queen they wronged.”

  “But Cassandra is dead—she’s the one they stole the pills from.”

  “Cassandra was my partner. I have control of the 187-5 pills now. I will continue to handpick serving studs so they can petition their human mistresses to Sebastian, and we will operate as before. No more women will die. Our testing is 100 percent accurate. If a woman is not a viable host, she doesn’t get the drug,” Nessie assured Margery. “However, I cannot let thieves go unpunished. Lane betrayed a trust.”

  “No,” Bella sobbed.

  Margery’s heart twisted. Even though Lane thoughtlessly used and killed women, she could see how much Bella loved him. She didn’t want to add to the body count. Killing Lane wouldn’t bring those women back.

  “What about prison?” Margery said. “Or service. He can work off his debt in your court.”

  “I do not trust him in my court,” Nessie said. “I have remained hidden all these years so I can protect the curse-shifted Queens. I can’t continue to do that with a thief in our camp. I am a scientist and will continue my research until the Queens’ conclave. Then I’ll petition for Cassandra’s lands and come back into society.”

  This was almost too much to take in at one time. Margery’s head was spinning. “What do you mean, the curse-shifted Queens?”

  “I was one,” Mei Hua broke in. “My dragon was too powerful for the curse to stop completely. The Order gave me a choice. They could end the shift and I would remain human, or they would help me through the transition. It was a terrible ordeal. Magic against magic, and my body was a battlefield. In the end, I emerged as a Queen. But I was stolen by Esmeralda’s studs, and my wings were broken so I couldn’t escape.”

  “I’m so sorry we failed you, my dear,” Nessie said. “You would have been safe with us. We took in the shifted Queens and live in a very remote island cluster along with other Queens who do not wish to be bothered with politics and breeding.”

  Joachim raised his eyebrows at that revelation. Remy did a double take and looked at his mother as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  “You mean there were more than five Queens prior to the curse being broken?” Lane asked. “And you kept them from us?” He barely remembered in time to keep the outrage out of his tone and his eyes downcast.

  “Protecting them from voracious studs and Queens who would abuse them like they did Mei Hua is one of the reasons I have hidden myself all these years.” Nessie glared at him.

  “You could have trusted me,” Remy said, his voice gritty.

  “With my life, yes. But not with the Queens’ lives.” Nessie turned away from her son. “So I’m sorry, Bella, but your stud will have to die.”

  “But we have sanctuary here,” Lane said.

  Joachim glanced at Mei Hua, wh
o shook her head. “You have twenty-four hours to leave this place. The Order withdraws their protection.”

  “What will happen to me?” Bella cried. “And my baby?”

  “You have three other studs in your harem,” Nessie soothed. “They will take care of you.”

  “Margery, help me.” Bella turned to her, eyes filled with tears. Margery tried to fight it, but it was her sister Carla all over again.

  “Margery, take me with you,” Carla had cried from the porch, struggling to get out of Mom’s grasp.

  But she couldn’t take her sister with her then. Couldn’t save her. Maybe if she had, Carla would’ve grown up more like her and less like their mother.

  “If Lane gives us Rathin, would you accept that as a fair punishment for stealing from you?”

  Nessie tilted her head as she considered it. “It could save the human woman’s life he has with him. So if he betrays his partners, I will not demand his execution. I will leave it to the embassy to decide his fate. Provided we obtain any pregnant humans.”

  Lane nodded, still sweating and tense.

  “But you will still need to leave my presence,” Mei Hua said.

  “That’s okay. That’s fine. Isn’t it, Lane?” Bella asked.

  He didn’t look too happy about that. “Smythe and Rathin will kill me for this.”

  “Not if I kill them first,” Nessie said with an evil smile.

  “No more bombs,” Remy muttered under his breath.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Remy’s head was still spinning after dinner as Lane made arrangements under the careful watch of Joachim to meet Rathin on the Nessie tomorrow night. While that was going on, Mei Hua spoke with Reed and explained everything, which was fine with Remy, because he couldn’t seem to put two thoughts together.

  “Why don’t you go talk to your mother,” Margery said, kissing him on the cheek. “I’m going to talk with Bella.”

  He couldn’t force himself to get up from the table to approach his mother, who addressed the small court she’d brought with her. However, after Margery left, his mother came back and sat by him again. “She’s not who I would have chosen for you.”

  “I don’t care.” He forced his shoulders to relax. “I love her.”

  “I see that. Anyone with eyes sees that. I don’t want you hurt when she finds another stud to fly off into the sunset.”

  “Too late for that.” Remy swallowed more tea. It tasted like ashes in his mouth.

  “I would have told you where I was, but I was so afraid for the newly shifted Queens. I couldn’t risk you being followed or me being tracked. All it would take is one tabloid and we’d have media crawling all over us.”

  “We could have handled it.”

  “No, a bhobain, we couldn’t have. I have twenty-five Queens on my island.”

  Twenty-five? Nidhogg’s balls. “How long were you going to keep them hidden? The dragon race could have gone extinct.”

  “It didn’t.”

  “How could you keep those Queens from the rest of the dragon world?”

  Nessie sighed. “Some were mere girls, too young to deal with the demands of being an endangered species. Some just don’t like studs.”

  “Well, I don’t blame them. But we’re not all bad.”

  “Remy, you’re not understanding. They prefer Queens as mates.”

  The teacup rattled as he just managed to keep it from hitting the table. “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh. You daft fool. Never thought of that, did you?”

  Remy couldn’t even shake his head.

  “Of course not, because you’re a man. If you studs can find happiness together, why can’t Queens?”

  “The curse…” he began.

  “Is broken. You’re up to your armpits in Queens. Leave mine alone. We’ll make enough of a splash at the conclave. All I ask is that you keep our secrets as the Order of the Dragon Slayers have and until then not try to find me.”

  “I promise, Mother.”

  “Good.” She kissed the top of his head. “I’ve missed you, boy. It took everything in me not to answer when you called. There hasn’t been a day gone by when I haven’t thought of you. I’m proud of the dragon you’ve become.”

  Remy’s throat tightened, and he nodded.

  “Another thing?”

  Remy wasn’t sure he could take another thing.

  “You need to kill Lane.”

  “If he double-crosses us, I don’t think I’ll get a chance.”

  “Kill him even if he gives you Rathin and his human mistress.”

  Remy wasn’t opposed to killing the greasy scumbag, but he didn’t like underhanded politics. “I can’t. Margery negotiated for his life. He’s the embassy’s problem once we get Rathin.”

  “He knows about my island, and he has to die. As your mother and a Queen, I am not giving you a choice. If you think she’ll give you a problem, don’t tell her.”

  “I’m her consort. I don’t want to keep secrets from her.”

  Nessie laughed. “Do you think your father told me everything?” She put her hand on his arm. “Lane’s a bad one. You know that. He’ll try to use the information he got in this summit to further his own ends. I can’t have the risk.”

  “Why can’t you get one of the Dragon Slayers to do it?”

  “Because they don’t execute studs for theft.” She pursed her lips. “Just do as you’re told and we’ll be together soon. I just need you to be patient and don’t let that Queen get you killed.”

  “Margery?” Margery wasn’t the one who wanted him to execute studs.

  “Dragons aren’t going to like her writing about our business. If she shows the studs in a bad light, no one is going to want to be in her court. Keep her close to water or find her another protector.”

  If the elder Queens maintained a court after beating and torturing studs for thousands of years, Margery shouldn’t be getting this much heat for her poison pen. “She’s got another protector. Casimiro.” That asshole.

  “I loved his last album.”

  “Mo-ther,” he drawled out.

  Nessie kissed his cheek. “You’re better looking.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Ma.” Even if you want me to betray my Queen. He hugged her. She was his mother, after all, and he had missed her.

  “Oh, my sweet son. I have to go before I decide to take you away from your beloved territory.”

  “Good-bye.”

  He watched his mother and Sebastian leave the palace. She would be safe from wandering studs because she was escorted by the Order until she reached the ocean, and then she’d be unstoppable. Remy was pretty sure his father would be able to reach her if she called for help. Still, a part of him worried and would worry until he heard from her again.

  Margery assured Bella that she could visit her in Vermont whenever she wanted. Lane wouldn’t be a threat to anyone—he was too spooked to open his mouth. And even if Remy didn’t kill him, the scumbag didn’t have long to live, anyway. If Smythe didn’t get to him first, Bella’s other three studs were eager for the chance to be promoted to consort.

  “Where will you go?” Remy asked, because it was good to keep your enemies close—just in case.

  “I’ve talked to the dragon embassy. They’re setting us up in Maui. I’ve got to start practicing my hula.” Bella hugged Margery. “If you ever want to get away from snowy Vermont, you’re always welcome in my territory.”

  Bella and Lane left a short time later, and Remy wondered if the offer would still be open if he drowned Lane off Black Rock.

  Margery watched them fly off with a wistful look that ripped him deep. They would never wing over Rome together and soar into the sunset side by side. Even as far as they’d come, the simple fact that he couldn’t fly would always be a wedge between them. Defeat sagged his shoulders.

  Mei Hua let them take the jet so Margery wouldn’t have to carry him in her claws all the way to Vermont. It rankled, but at least he got to hold his Queen for
hours uninterrupted. He would have liked to continue their airline antics, but the dinner conversation and the upcoming events weighed heavily on both of them.

  During the layover, she contacted her editor, who promised her the front page of the New York Times.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked her as they prepared for the final flight home. He’d spent the layover getting his ass chewed out by Reed when he outlined the plan they had for setting up Rathin while keeping Nessie’s name out of the explanation. Reed wasn’t sure they could trust Lane, but Remy figured it was a win-win situation. If Lane screwed them over, Reed would obliterate him. And Remy would be off the hook. If Lane betrayed Rathin and the naga showed up, they’d find Lisa.

  Reed had also taken the time to lecture him on how dangerous it would be for Margery to publish her article. There would be no going back; she’d be in the mainstream press. Hell, she would be the mainstream press. It would be open season on her if any of the elder Queens decided to retaliate for her pulling the plug on BabyDragon. Or if Smythe slipped out of their hands. At the moment, Reed’s intelligence said Smythe had hunkered down in his office building and was fortifying his defenses, but the bastard had a long reach. They weren’t out of the woods yet.

  “This is a dream come true,” she said. “Ever since I was a little girl. Next will be Time, then Newsweek. Then all over the world.”

  “I’m just saying that you’re no longer that person.” He smoothed his hand over her hair.

  “No, Remy, I still am that person. I will always be writing about things no one else does. My next story is going to be about the Queens.”

  Fear gripped him. He couldn’t stop her. Deep down, he didn’t want to stop her, because this was part of who she was, but he couldn’t have her betray secrets. He’d never be able to protect her if she crossed that line. “Leave my mother out of it. No one can know she’s alive right now.” That was all he needed was to go toe-to-toe with his own mother.

  “Why?”

  “Trust me on this. Please.”

  “There are other stories to tell, but I’d like to tell hers someday,” Margery said.

  He shook his head. “Some Queens value their privacy.”