by Alexis Davie
Brooke just shook her head. She could understand why Alexandria had done what she did, but she wasn’t quite ready to admit it to the queen. For the first time since that long-ago day, Brooke found herself wondering who the real monsters were here.
Alexandria cleared her throat. The sad smile faded from her face and she was back to the matter at hand again.
“You have twelve hours to think about this, Brooke. Quick and painless or long and agonizing. It’s your call.” She raised her voice. “Guards!”
The door opened and the guards reappeared.
“Take her back to her cell.”
The guards wasted no time. They didn’t need to drag Brooke this time. All of the fight had gone out of her. Her whole life had been a lie. Her parents. Her uncle. They had orchestrated something that resulted in a baby being killed.
She was pushed back into the cell. Adonis jumped to his feet as she moved away from the door. Brooke stopped thinking, stopped trying to make sense of any of this. She stepped closer to Adonis and reached up, cupping his face in her hands. She pulled his face down to hers and pressed her lips against his.
13
Adonis was more than a little surprised when Brooke kissed him, but it felt right. Oh so fucking right. Fire flooded his body where hers was pressed against him. His cock sprung to life, hard and ready for her.
It was like they had been unleashed, like the kiss awoke something in them that both of them had been trying to deny. Clothes flew left and right, hands groped and lips touched.
Adonis felt like he was about to explode with pleasure as Brooke reached down and encircled his cock with her fist. She moved her hand up and down his length. It felt amazing, better than anything Adonis had ever felt in his life, but he couldn’t wait another moment. He had to be inside of Brooke. He knew it, his dragon knew it, and judging by the lust in Brooke’s eyes, she knew it too.
He turned her and she pressed her palms against the wall, bracing herself. Adonis ran his hands down the sides of Brooke’s body, making her moan in frustration. He knew that feeling all too well. He moved his finger through her wet slit, and he could wait no longer. He lined his cock up with her pussy and took hold of her hips, pulling her backwards onto him. He felt her opening for him as he plunged into her warm depths.
He could feel how wet she was, how ready. His dragon could smell the lust in her juices and it drove him wild. He began to move, pumping into Brooke. Her center was tight, gripping him like a glove. He moved one hand around to the front of her body and pushed his fingers between her lips, finding her clit and working it expertly, moving his fingers in time with his thrusts.
Brooke gasped and moaned, pushing herself back against him to meet each thrust. He upped the pressure on her clit and he felt her body clenching around his cock as her back arched and she shouted his name in a breathy voice. He kept moving, almost there himself now. He would have liked this to have been a long session, sensuous, a time to make Brooke’s body really sing. But he had wanted her so badly that he had been unable to hold back. The passion he felt when he looked at her had taken over him.
Adonis pushed into Brooke one more time and fire flooded his cock, his stomach. He came hard, his hands back on Brooke’s hips, holding her in place as his cock exploded inside of her.
He slipped out of her and she turned to face him. He closed the gap between them and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her, a long, tender kiss.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you,” he said when their kiss ended.
They began to gather their clothes and put them back on. Adonis would have liked to have stayed just as they were, but he was conscious of the fact that the guards could come back at any moment.
“Me too,” Brooke admitted. “Even when I thought you had betrayed me, I wanted you so badly.”
“What do you mean by that? I haven’t betrayed you,” Adonis said.
“I was awake when you were talking to your mother,” Brooke said. She finished getting dressed and sat down. She patted the ground beside her and Adonis joined her on the ground, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “I really thought you were betraying me. But then when the guards came for me the last time, they didn’t take me to torture me. They took me to your mother. She didn’t believe your act and it made me see that I shouldn’t have either.”
“What did she do to you?” Adonis demanded, worry in his voice.
“Nothing,” Brooke said quickly, rubbing her hand over Adonis’ thigh. He imagined it was his skin she could feel rather than denim. “She just gave me a choice—I can give my uncle up and die quickly, or I can choose not to tell her what she needs to know and I will die slowly and painfully. Either way, I die. I have twelve hours to live. Maybe eleven now.”
“Shit, Brooke,” Adonis said. “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something. It’s not too late.”
“It is too late,” Brooke said quietly. “But it’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it. It’s funny—for a long time, I thought dragons were monsters. But I had it all wrong. It’s us humans that are the monsters.”
“What?” Adonis said.
He hadn’t expected her to say that, and her revelation surprised him greatly.
“Your mother told me what happened back when I was a teenager. I’ve spent my whole life craving revenge for my parents’ deaths, but it turns out they were the traitors. They were the bad guys. I came here to kill your mother with only half of the story. So, yeah. I’m the monster here.”
Adonis stroked her hair.
“I don’t think that for one second,” he said. “The way I see it is this: your parents did some bad shit. My mom did some bad shit. But that doesn’t make a whole race of monsters. I told you earlier—I’m not my mother. And you’re not your parents either. Why should we suffer the consequences of their war? A war neither of us ever really wanted.”
14
Brooke thought about what Adonis had said earlier. Maybe she wasn’t a monster. Maybe neither of them were. Maybe, just maybe, they could have had something special. But none of it mattered now. She had less than an hour before she would be executed. Adonis had been keeping track of the hours passing by watching the shadow on the wall outside of the cell and he kept her updated at her request.
They had spent the night trying desperately to come up with an escape plan. They had tried to bend the bars enough for them to squeeze out, but they wouldn’t budge. They’d tried burrowing through the floor with their bare hands but all that did was make their fingers bleed. They had been through every conceivable scenario and they had nothing.
“I have a plan. It’s risky, which is why I’ve kept pushing it aside and trying to come up with something better, but I think we’re out of options,” Adonis said.
“Risky is better than certain death, right?” Brooke smiled.
Adonis nodded.
“When the guards come for you, tell them you want to make a deal with my mother. Tell them you will give up your uncle, but in return, you want to feel the sun on your face one last time. She won’t come down here personally, but she won’t risk turning down the deal and she’ll authorize it,” Adonis said. “She’ll send you outside with one guard. He won’t be a particularly good one because she always underestimates humans.”
“I don’t see how that will help,” Brooke interrupted him. “He’s still a dragon, even if he’s a weaker one. What chance do I stand in a fistfight with him?”
“I’m getting to that,” Adonis smiled. “Dragon tears don’t just have the power to heal. If ingested, they give the person dragon-like strength and instincts for a short while. I’ll give you a dragon tear. You can put it inside of your locket. Wait for the right moment when the guard is distracted, or create a distraction if you need to. Swallow the tear, overpower the guard, and run for it. You know how to hide in the woods. You just have to reach them and you’ll be safe.”
“But what about you?” Brooke asked.
Adonis shrugged.
“Don’t worry about me. My mother will calm down eventually and release me. And when she does, I’ll come and find you, Brooke. Wherever you are.”
“But what if she doesn’t calm down?” Brooke asked.
“She will,” Adonis said firmly. “Now, no more arguments. We don’t have any other plan and we don’t have much time.”
Brooke nodded. She didn’t like the end of this plan one little bit, but Adonis was right. It was all they had. Once she was out, she would find a way to free him. Whatever it took, she would do it.
Adonis squeezed out a tear and opened Brooke’s locket. He placed the tear inside and closed it. It was just in time. As the locket snapped shut, Brooke heard the sound of the guards approaching.
15
Brooke got to her feet as one of the guards began opening the cell door. Adonis watched her with admiration. Even now, she stood tall, her shoulders back and her head held high.
“Tell the queen I want to make a deal with her,” Brooke said.
“The queen doesn’t make deals,” the guard snapped.
“Oh, she’ll make this one,” Brooke said. “Tell her I’m willing to give her my uncle’s location. But in return, I want to feel the sun on my face one last time before she executes me.”
The guards exchanged glances. Adonis held his breath, waiting for them to decide what to do.
“Best ask her,” one of them said. “I mean, she wants this guy pretty bad.”
The other guard shrugged. He turned on his heel and disappeared. He came back within a couple of minutes and smiled at Brooke.
“You’re in luck. The queen has accepted your deal. You’ll have ten minutes outside and then you’ll be taken to the queen’s private chambers. She told me to tell you that if you try to wriggle out of keeping your end of the bargain, she’s going to skin you alive.”
Adonis saw Brooke’s expression falter for a half-second and then she was back under control.
“I won’t back out,” she said. “I’m ready for this.”
She met Adonis’ eye as she said it, and he knew the words weren’t really for the guard. They were for him. She was letting him know the plan was still on. He watched, helpless, as Brooke was escorted from the cell and the door was locked again.
“Hey,” he called. “Simeon. I need to ask you something.”
The guards exchanged glances again. Simeon sighed.
“Go on ahead. I won’t be far behind you,” he said.
Adonis bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. He would keep Simeon away long enough to make sure Brooke only had one guard to deal with. He waited at the cell door until Simeon was back in reach, and then quick as a flash, he punched him square in the nose through the bars. Simeon wasn’t expecting the hit and he took the full force of the blow. His head flew back, his eyes rolling back in his skull.
Adonis let himself smile as Simeon’s unconscious body fell to the floor. He sat back down on the floor of his cell. He knew his days were numbered now. Between knocking Simeon out and giving Brooke the tear, he was done for. He had known it even when he began piecing together the plan. His mother would never forgive him for this. But he didn’t care. Brooke would be safe and that was all that mattered to him.
16
Brooke crept silently through the woods. She still found it hard to believe she had pulled off Adonis’ plan and made it safely away from the guard. She had fled back to her hotel room. As tempting as it was to believe Adonis’ line about his mother forgiving him and freeing him, Brooke couldn’t help but wonder how long that would take. What if it took decades and she was an old woman by the time he was freed?
The sensible plan now would be to get on the first flight out of there, go home, and make a new plan with her Uncle Steve to storm the castle. It wasn’t what she had done, though. Instead, she had coated the blade of a knife with Antirrhinum now that her bow was gone, and waited for dark.
Then she had sneaked back to the castle via the woods. The whole place was quiet and it gave Brooke the creeps, but she guessed that all of the guards were otherwise engaged looking for her. It had been hours since her escape and they would be widening the search every hour or so. There wouldn’t be anyone left on the grounds, and she thought she could take the odd guard left in the castle with the element of surprise and her knife.
She was so fixated on the castle and how she was going to get in there that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind her until it was too late. She spun around, her knife raised. Esmerelda stood a couple of paces away, her hands up.
“I’m not here to hurt you. I saw you sneaking around. You came back for Adonis, didn’t you?” she said.
Brooke wasn’t ready to let her guard down and she kept the knife in her hand, but she lowered it slightly and nodded.
“Why should I believe you’re not here to take me to the queen?” Brooke asked.
“Because I want to help you,” Esmerelda said with a shrug. “I know Adonis doesn’t love me the way I want him to. In fact, I think he loves you that way. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand back and let him die.”
“Die?” Brooke said.
“Yes. The queen knows he helped you escape. His execution is set.”
“You could be lying,” Brooke said warily.
“I could be. But I’m not. Listen, lady, either accept my help or don’t. But Adonis is going to be executed at midnight, so unless you’ve got one hell of a plan, then I suggest you take all of the help you can get. And right now, that’s me.”
“Midnight?” Brooke exclaimed. “But it’s eleven thirty now. There isn’t enough time. I have to find Alexandria, wait until she’s distracted, and then kill her and take the key. I can’t do all of that in half an hour.”
“You’re right. You can’t. Which is why you need to decide quickly whether or not you trust me. And if you do, then we’ll use my plan.”
Brooke paused for a second, remembering the look on Esmerelda’s face when she saw Adonis in the cell. She really did love him, that much was true. And if she loved him even half as much as Brooke did, then she would be willing to help save his life, even if that meant losing him to Brooke.
“I’m in,” Brooke said.
“Good,” Esmerelda said. “You’re not going to like this plan one little bit, but it’s all we have.”
“I don’t have to like it. It just has to work,” Brooke said.
Esmerelda nodded.
“Exactly. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go to Alexandria’s chambers now and distract her. I’ll feed her some cock and bull story that you’ve been sighted somewhere in one of the villages liaising with a man. She’ll assume it’s the other hunter. I can keep her distracted long enough for you to do your bit. See that door?”
Esmerelda pointed and Brooke nodded.
“Go in there and down the stairs. There will be one guard at the bottom. You’ll have to kill him. You have the stomach for that, right?”
Brooke nodded again.
“Once he’s dead, follow the corridor around and let Adonis out of the cell. Go back the way you came and run for it.”
“Okay, that all makes sense except for one thing. How am I meant to let Adonis out without the key?” Brooke said.
“That’s the bit you’re not going to like. There’s only one way. You’ll have to melt the bars. Which means I’ll have to turn you into a dragon shifter.”
Brooke’s eyes widened. Her? A dragon? Could she do it?
It was a no-brainer. She would do anything for Adonis.
“Fine. How do you do that?” she asked.
Esmerelda smiled and shook her head.
“You really do love him, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes,” Brooke said.
“Give me your arm,” Esmerelda said. Brooke held her arm out and Esmerelda took hold of her wrist. “This is going to hurt.”
She bit down into Brooke’s arm before Brooke could even respond. White-hot pain flooded her body, wo
rse than any of the torture the guards had inflicted on her. For a horrible moment, Brooke thought Esmerelda had just been playing with her. She was torturing her just like the guards had. Even as she thought it, the pain began to recede, and Brooke’s jaw dropped open as the gaping bite mark on her arm began to heal before her eyes.
“Done. When you want to turn, just call the dragon forth. I know that sounds vague, but I don’t know how else to describe it. You’ll figure it out. It’s just instinct. Now, go!” Esmerelda urged.
Brooke nodded, too shocked to ask anything else.
“Oh, and Brooke?” Esmerelda called after her. Brooke paused and looked back. “Remember that knife is as deadly to you as it is to anyone else now. Be careful, okay?”
Esmerelda turned and ran before Brooke could even thank her for the reminder. She slipped through the door and down the stairs. She could feel something was different inside of herself. It was like all of her usually dulled animal instincts and all of her intuition were right there at the surface of her mind. Her senses were all heightened too. She was seeing colors she had never even known existed.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and listened. She marveled at the fact that she could hear the guard breathing on the other side of the door. She held her own breath, knowing he would be able to hear her too. She listened to the guard as he paced in a slow circle. She waited for the right moment. Right when the guard was beside the door, she flung it open and thrust out with her knife.
“What…” the guard uttered.
It was all he got out before he fell to the ground, dead. Brooke stepped over him and ran down the corridor.
17
Adonis stood up when he heard the guard’s muffled cry. It was cut off so quickly, he thought for a moment that he had imagined it. He heard footsteps running toward the cell and he braced himself. His execution time was fast approaching and he thought this must be it. His jaw dropped open when he saw Brooke running into his view. His surprise quickly turned to anger.