by Mary Auclair
Endora walked behind Aldric, not sure she wanted to see what was happening to Myral but knowing she had to. Finally she reached him. He was standing, unmoving, in front of the two dragons. Dalgo was sitting on Myral’s front leg, his face set in an amazement so complete it was comical.
“What is it?” Endora asked as she came to Aldric’s side.
She didn’t have to wait for an answer, as her eyes were drawn to what lay inside Myral’s curved body. There, softly shining as if lit from within, was a four foot tall, oval egg, its surface a landscape of colors welding into each other like an opal.
An egg. A dragon egg.
Rhyl lifted his head and locked gazes with her. The emotion on the animal’s features were so strong, Endora felt her throat squeeze. There was amazement in those eyes, amazement and a stricken kind of tenderness, like it had caught him off guard, and now he was a prisoner of the new life that was brewing inside the opal colored shell.
“It’s beautiful.” Endora’s voice broke the reverent silence, and she stepped closer. Aldric caught her arm and she turned her face to him.
“No.” He shook his head, not taking his eyes away from the egg. “Myral won’t let you.”
Endora turned her eyes to Myral. The feline-green, intelligent stare of the dragoness met hers. There was no hostility in those eyes, only an all-consuming love that echoed inside Endora’s own heart. The love of a mother.
“She won’t hurt me.” Endora took a step, and Aldric’s hand opened to let her go.
Carefully, Endora approached Myral, then knelt in front of the egg, unsure whether she could touch it. Myral grumbled, the sound like the purring of a cat mixed with the distant roar of a summer thunderstorm, and nuzzled Endora gently, giving her permission to the unspoken question.
Endora lightly put her open palms on the surface of the egg, surprised to find it warm and soft, yet as hard as the stone it mimicked.
“You’re going to be a mother,” Endora said, looking at Myral.
“You’re both going to be,” Dalgo spoke for the first time. “A Draekon and a dragon, always born together.”
The words entered Endora’s mind but she blinked, their meaning slow to register. She turned away from the dragon to meet Aldric’s stricken face. His expression was a perfect mirror of the dragon’s, and when his eyes met Endora’s, he fell to his knees in front of her.
She was too shocked to speak.
“So soon.” Aldric blew out the last word, reaching for each side of Endora’s hips. “This changes everything.”
“What are you talking about?” Endora chuckled.
“This is the way of the Draekons.” Aldric’s gaze slid to her belly as his hands curved over the softness of her stomach. “One cannot be born without another.”
Comprehension drowned her mind as she followed Aldric’s stare. Of course, she should have known as soon as she saw the egg. She was pregnant.
“A baby.” The words left her mouth, already dreamy and remote. “It’s been barely a month since I came here.”
Rhyl purred, the sound low and joyful, expressing more than any words could. Aldric turned his head to the dragon, then looked back at Endora, his face lit up with the most dazzling smile she ever thought she’d see. He looked down, breaking their eye contact, and tenderly rested his cheek on her stomach, whispering words in Delradon which she was sure were utter nonsense.
Endora swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. A baby. She had left her house, left Tallie and Henriette behind, sold her body for this. She was fulfilling her contract. It shouldn’t be a surprise.
Then why does it feel like this?
Her head swirled and her belly quivered with anxiety. Memories of the last time she’d announced a pregnancy came in a flash, and she was powerless to stop them. How happiness had turned to ashes in her mouth that day.
“Are you happy?”
Aldric lifted his gaze to her. “Happy?” He chuckled, then shook his head in amazement.
“Are you not?” Fear exploded in a flurry of angry moths in her stomach. “I thought this is what you wanted.”
Aldric broke into laughter, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her above his head, then twirling her around like a child. After a few seconds, he stopped, his face suddenly sober. “My Gods, I’m so sorry.” He looked her over with serious eyes. “Did I hurt you?”
“Of course not!” She laughed quietly, allowing the warm, velvety feeling that was growing inside her. “I’m pregnant, not made of glass.”
Aldric nodded, but the carefree joy of a few seconds ago was gone. His face was drawn and serious as he turned to Dalgo. “Call up the best doctor at the Hylberia hospital. He is to take up residence at the castle until Endora gives birth. I want him to check on her every day. No excuses. No exceptions.”
“Isn’t that a bit too much?” Endora scoffed, then glanced between Dalgo and Aldric successively. “You can’t be serious. I’ve barely begun. I’m not even showing yet.”
Dalgo got to his feet, his face set in grim, dedicated lines. He wasn’t taking this lightly. “Where do you want Endora to stay during her confinement?”
“My mother’s old wing,” Aldric answered without hesitation. “Set up a room for the children and Henriette. They are all under confinement orders now.”
Dalgo nodded sharply then, much to her complete shock, took a knee in front of her. “My Lady Endora, I give thanks to you for your gift of life on my dragon half’s behalf. We give both our lives for you and your child and swear to protect you from all harm.”
Dalgo brought his fist over his heart, then got back to his feet and left the room after touching his forehead first to the egg, then to Myral’s muzzle.
Endora watched him go, uneasiness spreading rapidly in her mind. She knew this pregnancy was important to Aldric and the Darragon family. She had never dreamed that it would tie so many lives together. Now Dalgo, whose dragoness had just laid an egg, had his own life tied to her unborn child.
A long, slow shiver traveled down her spine. She had the sense that any control over the situation was rapidly slipping out of her hands—if it was ever within her grasp.
She turned to Aldric and frowned when she saw his face. Closed, focused. Controlled.
“What do you mean by confinement?”
“Any woman carrying a Draekon child must be confined during her pregnancy.” Aldric gently took her elbow and started to lead her away from the lair. “You will be assigned comfortable rooms, and anything you want is yours.”
“What do you mean by confined?” She dug her heels, refusing to go before he answered. When he winced, she knew she had the right intuition. “You mean to keep me locked up?”
“No, of course not.” Aldric smiled, but it wasn’t reaching his eyes. “A pregnancy is a delicate and dangerous time, even in the best of circumstances. But now… the Knat-Kanassis will do everything they can to prevent that baby from being born.”
A cold feeling slithered under her skin at those words. Yes, the Knat-Kanassis would hunt her mercilessly now. They’d succeeded in killing the heir to the Fyr house. They would do everything they could to kill Aldric’s heir before he was born.
“They will try to kill me.” Saying the words aloud made them more real, and Aldric’s hand stiffened on her arm. “But you can’t keep me and the children inside a few locked rooms for nine months.”
“We have no idea how long the threat is going to last.” Aldric shook his head. “What you can be sure of is that I will find the traitor in our house, and I will hunt him down and everyone like him until you and the children are safe. This I vow to you.”
Her eyes strayed to Myral, then to the opal-colored egg. “What about Myral? Won’t she need protection?”
The black dragoness growled and two columns of black smoke rose from her nostrils. Her green, feline eyes glowed with merciless, savage violence.
“No one would risk entering her lair except for you, me and Dalgo. A dragoness with an egg is not a foe even t
he Knat-Kanassis would dare to face. As for you, I will unleash the beast to protect you.”
There was fierceness in those words, and in the cruel, merciless curve of his mouth when he spoke. Yes, she thought. He would protect them to his last breath.
“I believe you.” Endora went up on the tips of her toes to reach him, then placed a light kiss on his mouth. “You will defeat those monsters.”
Aldric looked down at her, then kissed her again, long and tenderly. When he tugged at her elbow again, she walked in step with him, her heart filled in equal measure with wonder and dread.
It had been four weeks.
Four weeks since Endora had felt the sun on her face. Four weeks since the children had run outside in the courtyard. Four weeks of slow claustrophobia in the windowless rooms Aldric assigned to them.
Endora got to her feet but she soon regretted it, as nausea nearly broke her in half. She steadied herself on the heavy dresser, inhaling the stale air inside the room in long gulps. She longed for fresh, cold air more than she longed for anything during all these wretched, entombing days. The acid in her stomach churned and rumbled, and she bent over a large vessel, not fighting the retching that made her break out in tears. A long time after her meager breakfast lay in the bottom of the flat bowl, her stomach still cramped and twisted, and all she could think about was the strong mint and ginger tea Henriette used to make for her during the first semester of her pregnancy with Tallie. She would step outside and drink the scorching tea while inhaling the scent of the forest. She had been sick with Tallie in the first few months, but it had never been this bad.
How she wished she were that free.
The nausea was supposed to be a good thing, a sign that her body wasn’t rejecting the fetus but embracing the foreign genes, coercing her body into giving the child what he needed to grow strong and big. The doctor from Hylberia, the one with the long, too slender nose, looked up her skirts every day, scanning her body for signs of the toxicity that claimed half the human women who carried Draekon progeny. The toxicity that could take her life, like it took her mother’s all those years ago. At only six months of pregnancy, Irene Papineau fell into a deep coma, victim to the toxicity of the child she was carrying for the High Lord of a distant land. She had left Endora an orphan, and broken the hearts of her parents in the same process.
As the cramps finally stopped and she was able to stand straight, Endora rinsed her mouth clean with water, then passed a cold, damp cloth over her forehead. She cast a long look around the oversized bedroom with its large, plush bed and luxurious furniture, piles of heating crystals in each corner, maintaining a comfortable temperature even as the outside March weather hit an all-time low. It was a large room, beautiful and perfect in every way, just like all the others Aldric had assigned to her, Henriette and the children.
I want to go out. I need to breathe free air.
She wasn’t ungrateful. No. She understood the need for protection, but after an entire month, she was ready to gnaw the stone walls with her teeth.
Her hands closed over her stomach. There, still not showing any visible signs, grew a small wonder. A child, the second one to grow in the secret depths of her body, wreaking havoc as it fought for its life—like all life did. Her mind filled with warmth at the idea of the child who could come at the end of the summer. It was strange, the instant love of a mother. The child growing inside her did nothing to deserve it, yet she was willing and ready to risk her very life for him or her. She already did, just by sheltering it inside her womb.
I’m doing my best, my little dragon warrior, but I just want to breathe fresh air.
In the next room, bickering voices rose. The girls were arguing again. They argued more and more with each passing day, and Rasha was no better. The dragonet was prone to biting when angered, and even Henriette had received a painful reminder of his foul temper. A low hiss grew and Henriette’s voice lashed out, harsh and dry, completely unrecognizable from her usual softness.
They need this. Just this once. How bad can it be?
They needed to get out, somehow, somewhere; they needed to get out of the whispering in the hallways, away from the weight of all that rock over their heads.
Endora tried to straighten up but her knees refused to obey and her vision was blurred by tears. She was so angry, she could have screamed and punched something. Raged on and on. But against what? She’d succeeded. She’d obtained what she wanted, and more. Tallie was saved, Henriette was warm and fed. Their futures were secured. Yet there was a gaping hole in her chest. A hole dark and deep, sucking heat from the air around.
Endora looked down at the dragon scale bracelet that adorned her left wrist. It played with the low light, casting only the faintest shadows of colors before returning to a blinding white. Rhyl’s scale, offered with his link to her.
She fought the sudden impulse to scream and rage, rip the costly clothes and run outside the castle, back to her tidy little farmhouse.
It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like this since discovering Myral had laid an egg. No matter how comfortable she was, how pampered and sheltered her children were, she was living in a cage. A golden cage, with a loving, passionate and tender gaoler, but still a cage. She was a prisoner of her feelings for Aldric as much as she was a prisoner of his feelings for her. She couldn’t deny it, though: he had carved a space between her ribs. A place that only belonged to him, and he dug and molded it a bit more every time he touched her, held her close and whispered nonsense in her ear at night. Every time he kissed that tender spot at the curve of her throat, where her jugular beat a frenzied beat and her body abandoned itself in the pure ecstasy that was his touch.
She loved him. She knew it in the softness within her ribs, in the image behind her eyelids, in the hot, wet secret between her thighs. More than she had ever loved Wilmer. It was a consuming passion that haunted her days and filled her nights with fire.
She loved Aldric as much as she feared him.
The door opened and she turned to see a red-faced Tallie.
“Maman!” Tallie stomped in, her long hair in disarray. “Shari doesn’t want to share! It’s my turn.”
“That’s not fair.” Shari ran in behind Tallie, her small mouth trembling with anger. “Rasha took half my turn.”
Endora watched as Henriette made her way into the room. Frustration and fatigue were written in every wrinkle on the old woman’s face. Endora understood why. Henriette was born on the farm, she’d never spent that much time confined inside a few rooms, and even if she never complained, Endora could see her grandmother was at the end of her rope.
“Girls.” Both children turned guilt-ridden faces to Henriette. “Dora needs to rest. Now, we will find another game to play, or it’s going to be naptime for all of you.”
A flurry of protest erupted, shrill, juvenile voices speaking all at once, rebelling against the prospect of sleep. Endora watched Tallie as she argued with Shari. Almost nothing of the sickness remained on her features, and her small frame was filling out quickly from the rich food served in the castle. She was out of danger, according to the Delradon doctors.
“It’s decided.” Endora stood, and was relieved to feel her legs strong and steady. “We’re going into the gardens. Girls, put on your winter coats and boots.”
Shari and Tallie turned wide eyes her way, then spun on their heels and ran to their rooms, giggling and speaking too fast for her to understand. Endora smiled.
“How are you going to do that?” Henriette asked, but already her old hands were reaching for her shawl. “Lord Aldric forbade it.”
“He can forbid as much as he wants, he’ll have to tie me to the bed if he wants to keep me locked up for one more minute.” Endora did the same as Henriette and wrapped her best woolen shawl across her shoulders. “We’ll only go for an hour.”
Soon, the small troupe was ready and followed Endora to the door. She paused, then inhaled deeply, gathering her courage. Walfrey, who was back at her doo
r almost around the clock, was sure to throw a fit.
With what she hoped was a determined expression, Endora yanked the door wide open.
And stared directly at Aldric’s stricken, then rapidly angry frown.
Aldric paced the length of the living room, Endora sitting in the plush chair, her mouth in a tight line, her eyes stubborn and cast down. Anger coursed through his thoughts but he kept it under control. In their rooms, the children were playing quietly under Henriette’s watch, but he knew they were secretly listening. Listening and judging. Judging his strength as the leader of this family, and judging the severity of the threat they were under.
He had to make his position clear. No matter how angry Endora was going to be with him.
“What were you thinking?” he finally managed to say in a controlled, even voice. “I specifically forbade any venture out of those apartments.”
“Well, the children needed to get out.” A storm brewed in Endora’s dark eyes when she finally lifted them to him. “It’s been a month. We can’t stay hidden here forever.”
“A month is not forever,” Aldric bit back, stalking closer to her, glaring down at her upturned face. So beautiful, and so angry. A raging impulse to grab her wild mass of hair and kiss her red lips until she softened and bent to his will took him. He only managed to control himself because there was no way he could stop once he started, and the children were in the next room.
“It is when you’re locked up in a few rooms, with no windows.” Endora glared at him, her eyes glittering and her body tense with suppressed anger. “I can’t live like this anymore, and neither can the children.”
She wasn’t backing down. Aldric stared at her, suddenly unsure of how to make her understand. His authority was absolute, unchallengeable. He couldn’t allow her to disobey, put herself in danger, and with her the children under his care.