The Dragon and the Queen (The Raven and the Dove Book 3)

by Kaitlyn Davis

  Cassi retreated, shrinking back across the room. She was halfway through the wood when his voice stopped her.

  “Cassi.”

  It was hardly more than a mumble, but she froze.

  “Cassi.”

  The word was half air, softer than a whisper. Xander shifted in his sleep, his shoulders writhing as his legs twitched. His eyelids fluttered with movement, a sign he was deep within a dream. But what dream?

  She inched closer.

  A soft sigh escaped his lips.

  If curiosity was her downfall, let her be doomed. Before she could second-guess, Cassi pressed her spirit to his body and dove inside his mind. Instead of trying to tame the chaos, she let it envelop her, allowing Xander to lead so she might follow, down and down and down the vortex, until she settled in his dream.

  The room was silent aside from the crackle of fire. Book spines pressed into her back. A hand cupped her face, thumb gently caressing her cheek. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Slowly, Cassi opened her eyes, waiting for the trick—the knife to cut into her side, the fingers to stiffen around her throat, the anger, the pain.

  Nothing came.

  As she met his lavender gaze, time seemed to stop. Then Xander leaned forward, closing the distance between them, and kissed her.

  23

  Xander

  Xander pressed his lips to hers, not sure what she would think. Cassi was Lyana’s best friend. Lyana was missing. He was breaking every one of his rules, all sense of decorum. The only thing he knew was that if he spent one more moment in his library beside her but not touching her, he’d go mad. So he took his chance. He kissed her.

  Cassi fell still.

  He caught her gasp in his mouth as her face arched up to meet his. Then he pulled back, studying her molten eyes in the moonlight. Did she want this? Was this all right? His blood pounded in his ears, every one of his muscles straining not to pounce until he knew for certain.

  “Ca—”

  She grabbed him by the jacket and pulled. Their lips crashed together once more, frantic this time, as though all the walls had crumbled, leaving nothing but a raging river of desire to swallow them whole. Her kisses were hungry, almost feral, the she-cat in her spirit bringing out a wildness he didn’t know he possessed. When she moaned, he dug his fingers into her hair, something within him coming undone. His arm wrapped around her waist, drawing her closer. She arched into his chest. He leaned into her weight, pressing her back against the shelves as he grabbed her fingers and held their clasped fists above her head.

  Cassi was a fighter. She could have broken free at any moment, if she wanted to. But she didn’t. She slid her hand up his chest and around his neck, drawing him in until they molded together. A groan escaped his lips and he shifted his mouth to create a trail of kisses down her throat. She sighed, a sound that made the fire beneath his skin blaze. One of her legs moved up his thigh to hook around his waist as a frustrated growl purred through her.

  All at once, the shelves dissolved and they fell together, landing on the soft pillows of a bed. Cassi pushed his shoulders, rolling him over so she straddled his hips. His shirt disappeared. Xander inhaled sharply as her hands roved over his bare chest and down his abdomen, his every nerve aflame. He reached for the buttons on her jacket—and paused.

  He only had one hand.

  His right one was gone, which meant…

  Xander tore his mouth free of hers. “Cassi.”

  “Xander,” she sighed his name, her lips tracing the curve of his jaw as she writhed against him.

  “No, Cas—”

  Her mouth came upon his and he lost himself in the feel of her, in the heat rising between them, in the hands still trailing down his torso, skimming the edge of his belt. Then he remembered the knife at his throat, the brother he’d lost, the game she’d played.

  “Cassi, stop!”

  He pushed her back and rolled out from under her, breathing heavy as he fought the instincts screaming at him to just let go, to give in to this moment, to fall for the dream. Behind him, Cassi sighed. Unlike before, this one was full of dejection, not passion.

  “How did you know?” she asked simply.

  He swallowed, his throat tight, and then he balled his fingers into fists, all ten of them, both real and imagined. “My hand.”

  “What about it?”

  “I only have one.”

  The mattress dipped as she shifted on the bed, her gaze on his back as tangible as any touch, hot and burning. She didn’t speak. She just waited, the silence stretching between them, the air so thick he couldn’t breathe. He knew her. She was stubborn enough to wait all night if she must. So was he, but the words simmered on his tongue regardless.

  Closing his eyes, as though somehow it made him less vulnerable, he murmured, “In my dreams, I touch you with two hands.”

  There was no pity, no sympathy, no concern, all of which he’d feared. Instead, she simply ran her fingers over the edge of his wing, a shiver rippling across his feathers, and said, “You’ve only ever needed one.”

  He stood, the words too much to bear. They were everything he’d ever wanted to hear, spoken by the one person he knew he shouldn’t crave but did.

  “What are you doing here, Cassi? Or should I say Kasiandra?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Why? It’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Please, Xander. I didn’t— I mean, I— Just…please.”

  She sounded so tired, his body turned of its own accord. He’d never seen her so fragile, sitting in the center of an empty bed, her feet tucked beneath her, staring down at the hands clasped loosely on her lap. Her wings hung around her shoulders like a cape. For a moment, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was an act. But the truth was out. She had no more reason to lie, to pretend, at least not with him.

  “Are you all right?”

  She looked up, surprise softening her features.

  “Your body, I mean. That man, that king, he’s not hurting you, is he?”

  “No,” she whispered, releasing a long breath. “No, he’s not hurting me. He’s not helping me. He’s not doing anything with me, really, which would normally thrill me, except he’s the only person in the world who can fix me.”

  Xander nodded as though he understood, though he didn’t, not really. Even after his spending these past few weeks with Lyana, the magic was beyond him.

  “And you?” Cassi asked. “Are you well?”

  He was mated to the woman in love with his brother. He was lying to his people. He was fighting a war he couldn’t win. He was struggling at almost every second of the day not to scream. “As well as can be expected.”

  “That’s good.”

  He studied the floor, the conversation between them almost embarrassingly stilted when he considered all the nights they’d forgotten to sleep in the libraries of Rynthos, too absorbed in their discussions to notice time passing. Now it inched along, painfully slow.

  “I should leave,” she mumbled.

  The very thought made his chest tight. “No, wait.”

  A hopeful glint lit her eyes. His mouth went dry. He needed a reason, anything aside from the pathetic truth that despite her lies and her actions and her deception, he was happy to see her, and he didn’t want to be alone with his problems just yet. Only one option remained, but even that choice contained a revelation of its own, one he hadn’t fully deciphered.

  “There’s something I should tell you,” he said, the words coming slowly, part of him whispering, Just let her go, just let her go, but he couldn’t. “I haven’t told Lyana. I’m not sure why—maybe I didn’t think it was my secret to tell. But it might help her, and you, and all of us. You just need to promise me something first. Promise you won’t ask me why.”

  A knot formed in her brow. “Why, what?”

  “Just why.” He shrugged noncommittally. “Promise you won’t ask.”

  “I promise.”

  “The diary you stole in Rynthos? I have i
t. I kept it.”

  “Wh—” She stopped herself as her torso rose and her wings slid back, her curiosity obvious. After licking her lips, she amended, “When did you take it?”

  “The night you… The night I…” Xander swallowed, the pinprick of her blade suddenly sharp on his throat. Yet when he remembered that moment, he thought of the pleading in her eyes and the way the tension had left her body in surrender. She could have killed him, but she hadn’t, and that fact was stuck on his mind like honey that couldn’t be wiped clean, leaving a residue full of unresolved feelings. He cleared his throat. “That night, we searched your rooms and found the diary in your trunks. I knew you’d taken it from Rynthos, and I was going to ask you why, but, well, obviously other things happened first. I had it tucked in my jacket when the isle fell.”

  “And where is it now?”

  “Still tucked in my jacket.”

  A smile fluttered over her mouth, there then gone. “What are you planning to do with it?”

  “Whatever you were planning to do with it. I can’t read it and asking the owls for help deciphering the language isn’t exactly an option. Who did it belong to?”

  “I don’t know.” She shifted on the bed, uncurling her legs and crossing them instead, the concentrated expression on her face one he recognized. The vulnerable girl was gone, replaced by the strategist. “There’s a type of mage called a skryr who can pull memories out of objects. One still lives in Da’Kin. I was going to bring the diary to him, to see if there was any useful information he could pull.”

  “And you think there might be?”

  She nodded eagerly. “This might sound crazy, but when I touched the diary in Rynthos, it was like I could feel the threads of fate sewn within its pages. It’s important somehow. I’m sure.”

  “I believe you, which begs the question, how—”

  Xander broke off as his fingers touched the bare skin of his chest. He’d been reaching for the diary in his jacket, forgetting for a moment that they were in a dream…and that he was half-naked…and that Cassi was still perched far too alluringly in his bed.

  He swallowed.

  Amusement danced across her eyes like starlight on a river as her lips twisted into a rueful smile. She’d read every thought in his mind, which was great. Just great. In an instant, the scene around them transformed, the walls of his room at the palace blurring then sharpening to overflowing bookshelves. Cassi lounged in one of the leather chairs before the fireplace, eying him expectantly. The sound of her passionate sigh as he pressed her against those same shelves flashed across his mind, sending a flush to his cheeks. Xander hastily took the empty chair across from her, grateful for the space, and even more grateful she’d returned his shirt, as his skin was aflame.

  “Anyway, how do we—”

  “Get the diary to Da’Kin?” she interrupted. He nodded. “I was going to take it myself, after I…well…”

  It was her turn to squirm. A devious part of him he hadn’t realized existed reveled just a little in her discomfort. “After you killed me?”

  She tossed him a hard look.

  Xander offered the same look right back.

  “Fine, yes, after I killed you,” she huffed, then took a deep breath. “I was going to take it with me when I returned to my king. Obviously, that’s out of the question now.”

  “Maybe Lyana—”

  “She shouldn’t go anywhere near Malek. He’s… Well, if I’m honest, I think he’s becoming somewhat unhinged.”

  Based on what Xander had heard of the man, Malek had been unhinged for quite some time, but he kept that thought to himself. “Well, I could—”

  “No, we can’t risk you.”

  “I’m hardly—”

  “Enough, Xander. Enough thinking you’re dispensable, please. I can’t hear it anymore. You’re the King of the House of Whispers. Lyana needs you by her side. You ground her. You balance her. No one would believe her if you weren’t there repackaging her demands as requests and making peace when her mind is focused on war. Enough.”

  Her words were so similar to Queen Zara’s, they silenced him.

  “Besides,” Cassi continued in a softer tone, her gaze flicking to him before darting away. “I won’t risk you. And if Malek saw you, if he caught you, I don’t want to even think of the havoc it might cause.”

  His heart thudded painfully in his chest. Business. Stick to business. “So where does that leave us? No one else would dare fly beneath the mist.”

  “It leaves us at an impasse.” She frowned. “But give me time. I’ll come up with something.”

  “You always do.”

  She winced.

  He hadn’t meant the words as a jab, or maybe he had. He wasn’t sure anymore, not with her. Nothing between them was simple, not like before, when he could look at her and see the studious owl leaning over library books or the skilled warrior amused as she attacked him by surprise or the lonely woman kissing his neck in the dark. She’d been a study in contradictions, but it had been a puzzle he’d enjoyed piecing together. Now, when he looked at her, he saw her king as the man plunged a knife in his chest during the ambush she’d helped plan, or the fear in Lyana’s eyes as she’d ordered him to go, or worse still, his brother, alone somewhere, no wings at his back and a haunted expression on his face, a shell of the bird he’d once been. Things would never be easy or carefree between the two of them again.

  “Xander, I—” She sighed, her wings drooping to the floor. “Thank you for saving my life. The day when the isle fell? You and Lyana didn’t need to rescue my body, but you did. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”

  “I wasn’t going to just let you die, Cassi.”

  “You could have,” she whispered, her voice and person small. “You could have, and I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

  His chest swelled with all the things he wanted to say—that he’d missed her, that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, that just having the diary close, knowing it had touched her hands before his, gave him strength. But he couldn’t.

  He shrank away. “Good night, Cassi.”

  “Goodbye.”

  She vanished and his consciousness slipped away. By the time he woke, light seeped through the flaps in the tent, signaling morning. He had no idea how long Cassi had been gone, or whether maybe she was still there, lingering unseen. The thought both calmed and unnerved him.

  Scrubbing his palm through his hair, Xander rolled to his feet. The night was over and the time for dreaming gone. Now he needed to prepare for his next meeting with the queen.

  24

  Rafe

  “All right, I’m just going to say it.” Brighty’s voice trickled down from above, nearly lost to the wind. “Your wings are a pain in my ass.”

  Rafe looked up from where he was perched on the cliffs, struggling to keep a smile off his face as Brighty hugged a rope to her chest, limbs trembling from the cold. At least, that’s what she’d claim. But it couldn’t be easy to dangle over the edge of an isle floating thousands of feet in the air when one lacked the ability to fly.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, dropping his head back against the rocks as she continued to descend into his field of view.

  “What am I…” She shook her head, a sneer on her lips. “What are you doing here? Captain and I have been trying to talk to you ever since we landed in this frozen hellhole, and all you’ve done is sulk down here for hours.”

  “It’s…complicated,” he said, unable to explain the emotion stirring beneath his skin. Being back in his world as this thing, being back in the House of Peace again, Rafe didn’t know what to feel. The last time he’d been here had been the beginning of the end—meeting Lyana, participating in the trials, winning his brother a mate, then telling her goodbye. Every bit of him longed for those hours the two of them had spent in the cave reveling in their magic, yet every bit of him wished to forget, to go back to that fateful morning on the bridge and tell his brother no.

  Tha
t was a lie.

  He wouldn’t change anything. Even with these flaming wings on his back and the inferno simmering beneath his skin, a heat not even this frozen landscape could subdue, he wouldn’t change his past. The few bright sparks had been worth all the pain.

  “Rafe, get your head out of your ass.”

  He frowned at her.

  “There’s something important Captain and I need to tell you, and we’ve waited long enough. Trust me.”

  “What? What do you need to tell me?”

  Brighty pointedly eyed the rope cinched around her waist and the misty sea far, far below. Then she glared at him. “I’ll tell you when I’m back on solid ground… Well, relatively solid ground.” She wrinkled her nose. “Just, come on.”

  “Fine.”

  With a sigh, he fell forward and tumbled through the air. As his wings snapped open, they caught the wind, and with a few quick beats he raced past her.

  “Show off!” Brighty shouted, followed by some mumbled curses he couldn’t quite make out as the crew hauled her back up to the edge. By the time she’d clawed her way over the icy precipice, he was there waiting with his arms crossed. One glance, and she stomped toward the crystal dome to their left. Captain Rokaro stood on the other side of the translucent wall, watching them with a grim expression on her face.

  “Do you have any idea what this is about?” he asked his shipmates, a sense of impending dread making his chest tighten. They collectively looked at him, then at each other, then at their boots.

  “I’m freezing my bloody balls off out here,” Archer announced, hugging his arms, his teeth chattering. “I thought a world bathed in sunlight would be warmer. I’m going inside.”

  “Me too,” Jolt added.

  “Me three,” Pyro chimed in. Rafe glared at her accusingly as he took in the flames simmering around her palms. She was a creature of fire just like him, and there was no chance she was cold. “What?” She shrugged. “Cook’s making a stew.”

  “A word of advice,” Patch’s deep voice boomed in his ear as a meaty hand came down on his shoulder. “Whatever it is, Captain won’t drop it. Neither of them will. So I’d get it over with if I were you.”