Dragons Realm

by Tessa Dawn

  His left arm was fractured in three visible places. His right leg was propped against a chair—on the other side of the room. And his intestines were spilling out of his stomach, the fluids, guts, and tissue oozing onto the bloody floor in a gory pile of mush.

  Mina cried out in anguish; bitter tears of sorrow streamed from her eyes; and her heart broke with regret. Matthias was moaning in agony, and the torture was not over yet…

  Damian bent over his torn, ruined torso, thumped Matthias on the chest, and carved a deep, circular gash into his flesh, over his heart. “Not yet, baby dragon.” He spat the words with derision. “You don’t get to leave us…quite yet.” He turned to Mina and brandished his bloodstained claws in a clear and implicit threat. “This is the same male who approached you in the gardens, the same male who I had thrown into the dungeons, the same male that my father should have eaten! So I will ask you more specifically this time: What is his name? And what do you know of his lineage?”

  Mina shivered, unable to find her voice, and Damian swelled up with rage.

  “Answer me, witch! Or so help me gods…” He booted a heavy clay pot across the room, hurling it into the armoire, and the collision shattered the huge wooden bureau, breaking it into a thousand useless pieces. “I am no longer playing games with you, Mina! This bastard is a dragon.” He paused to catch his breath and lower his voice. “Taking Dante’s unborn child from your womb is one matter, but you, continuing to defy me, will not be tolerated an instant longer.” He ground his teeth together in fury. “I swear to you on my mother’s grave, if you do not answer me now—truthfully—you will pray for death, but it will not come. You will curse the day your mother gave you life, and I will make your entire clan pay dearly. Yes, Mina, I will wipe your family from the face of this earth. Now answer me!”

  Mina dug her nails into the sides of her arms, trying to gain control of her fear. She struggled to think, so she could answer, to simply think, clearly enough to speak. “His name is Matthias Gentry. He was…is…he’s the son of Callum Gentry and…and…and—”

  She couldn’t think of the woman’s name!

  Who was she?

  His birth mother?

  The one…the girl…at the castle!

  What was the name of the slave?

  “The son of Callum and whom!” Damian roared.

  Mina bit her lip until she drew her own blood and tried even harder to concentrate. “Callum and Penelope Fairfax,” she finally exhaled, breathing the words in a rush. Her palms grew sweaty, and her stomach roiled from panic. Dear gods, she was going to vomit. No! she told herself, vehemently. Not right now. It will only push him over the edge.

  She pressed her hands, flat and hard, against her belly and cast her eyes to the ground. She had no doubt, whatsoever, that Damian Dragona could invent a lifetime of torture beyond anything she could imagine, beyond anything she could bear. Her tongue snaked out to wet her bottom lip, and she trembled. “Your father…my king…he had an Ahavi…um, a mistress…he…he…he kept her in the castle…at the castle. The priest didn’t think she was Sklavos, but Wavani did…and she had to have been because…the serum…well, the king—”

  “Shut up, Mina.”

  Mina gulped.

  “I get the picture.” He ran a tense hand through his hair and began to pace around the room, and then he stopped abruptly and flicked his wrist toward Matthias. “Who was this boy to you, and how long have you known him?”

  Mina clutched her hair in her fists and tugged at the roots, as if she could somehow pull the information from her head or make her thoughts flow more freely with the gesture. “We grew up together in the southern district of Arns. He was my friend.” She choked on the last two words, trying desperately to avoid the meaning behind them—she couldn’t bear to think of Matthias Gentry as a child, of the two of them growing up as neighbors on nearby farms. She couldn’t bear to listen, not for another tortured second, to his wretched, tormented moans: He was choking on his own blood, writhing in unspeakable pain, dying on the floor less than ten feet away from her, but his dragon’s-blood would not allow him to perish. And she was helpless to come to his aid. “Please,” she finally whispered, knowing she took her life in her hands. “Just kill him.” She blinked several times, trying to steady her resolve, drawing courage from her childhood companion’s unbearable suffering. “Please, Prince Damian…I’m begging you, milord…have mercy, and put him out of his misery.”

  A spark of satisfaction glittered in Damian’s eyes, and his feral-red irises receded to dark brown. He relaxed his jaw, just a tad, as if he might consider her request. “How long have you known that he was a dragon, that he was my half-brother?”

  Mina cleared her throat. The fact that Damian had used the word was rather than is was not lost on her. Matthias was as good as dead. The only question, now, was whether or not Damian would prolong his unspeakable suffering. “I’ve known since early this morning, perhaps fifteen or sixteen hours, my prince,” she said softly.

  “Does Dante know?”

  Mina was surprised by the question. “No. Not that I know of.”

  Damian nodded. “Does my father know?”

  Mina shook her head. “Not that I know of, my prince.”

  Damian furrowed his brow. “I see. Who else knows?”

  Mina began to weep openly. Oh gods, this was impossible. “No one,” she lied.

  Damian grunted, knowingly. He walked over to Matthias, raised a bare foot, and stomped down on his pelvis, crushing the sacrum beneath his heel. As Matthias howled in pain, Damian turned back to Mina. “Who else knows?”

  Mina would have gladly gone to her grave keeping Thomas the squire’s secret, but the truth of the matter was this: It wasn’t a secret that could be kept. Damian Dragona could extract the information from her mind at any time he chose. He was only asking her to force her obedience. He was only going through the motions because he wanted to watch her squirm. And maybe, just maybe—lord of the Eternal Realm, be merciful—he was actually considering putting Matthias out of his despair. “The squire knows.”

  Damian smirked. “Which one?”

  “Thomas.”

  He let out a hollow chuckle. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” And then he frowned. “Lie back on the bed, Mina.”

  Mina recoiled. “Excuse me?”

  He held up his right hand, displayed all five deadly claws, and hardened his tone. “We don’t need the dagger. Lie back on the bed. Be as still as you can while I remove that child, and I will heal you straightaway when I am through.” He glanced at Matthias, still writhing on the floor. “And I will even send my brother to the afterlife as your reward.” He stepped forward and frowned. “But resist me, and you will both be eager to sell your souls to the Keeper of the Forgotten Realm in exchange for a mere hint of the temporary suffering I offer you now—such will be the depth of your suffering.”

  Mina felt her soul recede in her temporal body.

  It was as if time suddenly stood still; sights and sounds intensified; and she could feel her own heart rising, falling, and beating in her chest. The entire moment was surreal, the haze of dreams and the sludge of nightmares, and she knew she had no choice: She belonged to a devil, perhaps the Keeper of the Forgotten Realm himself, and one way or another, he would have his revenge. He would take his due.

  Fixing her eyes on a distant point across the room, Mina lay back on the bed. Before Damian could insist or instruct her, she moved her left ankle to one side of the mattress, her right ankle to the other, and grasped the coverlet in two clenched fists. Ignoring the helpless tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes, she drew a deep, ragged breath and waited, refusing to think of the child.

  Damian approached the bed languidly. He sauntered to the edge of the mattress, his gaze fixed on hers, and crawled like the animal he was; until, at last, he knelt between her legs and lowered his wicked hand.

  She held her breath, shivering, but she refused to whimper or beg. She could only pray tha
t he would get it over with quickly—perhaps he would use his preternatural speed. Either way, she would simply hold her breath and stare into the corner.

  “Look at me,” he commanded, and her heart sank in her chest.

  The bastard.

  By all that was holy, she would kill him one day if it was the last thing she ever did.

  She never got the chance.

  The evil prince’s head jerked on his neck, toppled onto his shoulders, and then tumbled onto the bed, no longer attached to his body.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Dante Dragona shimmered into view, lowered his sword, and placed it back in its scabbard. He didn’t even bother to wash off the blood.

  His brother’s blood.

  He had just committed the worst betrayal—and treason— imaginable.

  As anguish, guilt, and relief washed over him in turns, each one taking a stranglehold on his breaking dragon’s heart, he fought to keep them at bay.

  To do what he must.

  “Aguilon,” he said in an ice-cold tone. “Is your spell ready?”

  One of only seven members of the Warlock’s Council on Supreme Magic and Mystical Practices, a sorcerer whose skill was surpassed only by that of the high mage of Warlochia, stepped forward at his prince’s behest and bowed his head in deference. “Yes, milord.” His face was a mask of stunned disbelief, but he stripped all emotion from his voice.

  Dante nodded. He waved his hand in an imperial gesture and turned his attention back to the bed. “Mina, get up and get dressed.” He didn’t express any feelings as the Sklavos Ahavi, the female who was carrying his offspring, scrambled from the bed, wrapped her naked torso in a sheet, and dug through the broken pieces of the armoire, trying to find a dress. “Thomas…” He spoke now to the squire, who had been waiting in the wings, hovering in the shadows, throughout the entire brutal scene.

  The squire stepped forward warily. “My prince?”

  “Is the soul-eater here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring him in.”

  Thomas scurried to the rear of the tent, pulled back the flap, and stepped to the side as a tall, intimidating male ducked beneath the folds and entered the room. He was clearly a shade, and by the deeply etched lines in his brow and the pale silver cast of his hair, there was no question that he was an elder, an ancient, capable of stunning and powerful feats. “Your name?” Dante inquired, noticing how washed out the male looked at night.

  “My prince,” the shadow replied, “I am called Elzeron Griswold. I am a resident of the lower province of Umbras, your ever-faithful steward, and it is my honor to serve you this night.”

  Dante knew that the latter half of the statement was bullshit—shadows were arrogant, independent, and defiant down to their vile, carnivorous souls—but they weren’t stupid, and they preferred to live as long as they could. The shade would do as he was bid. “We don’t have much time,” Dante said dispassionately, pointing at Matthias’s body, still stunned by the revelation. “He is a dragon, so his soul will not leave his body or return to his ancestors until his flesh has been burned, but it will only remain viable for a time.” He turned toward the bed and with calloused indifference sauntered over to Damian’s body, hefted his torso in one hand, his head in the other, and carried both, like two sacks of grain, to the floor.

  He dropped his brother’s remains beside Matthias, and then he positioned Damian’s head on his shoulders and sealed the two sections of the corpse back together using a powerful stream of blue fire, all the while, fighting mightily not to stagger…or vomit.

  Not in front of his subjects.

  Not in front of Mina Louvet.

  What was done was done, and what was yet to come was absolutely necessary: a form of eternal retribution, an act of unforgivable sedition, but a required deed just the same. It was a solemn and inevitable duty.

  This was for the Realm.

  Damian had plotted with the dragons’ mortal enemies—the Lycanians—behind their father’s back. He had sent faithful and loyal subjects to their needless, gruesome deaths in an orchestrated battle with the shifters, and he hadn’t even considered what would have happened to the Realm had his nefarious plan somehow failed—had the Lycans breached the beach and made their way to the villages.

  And for what?

  All to win favor with Thaon Percy, a jealous narcissist who wanted his brother’s throne?

  All to elevate his own station so he might one day overthrow the king?

  Damian had maimed and raped and murdered one too many innocent souls. And the life that grew in Mina’s womb was the final straw, the ultimate catalyst that had tipped the scales of justice.

  Still, Dante Dragona had not acted out of vengeance or spite—or even unbridled emotion—he had acted out of wisdom, strategy, and duty.

  He had acted out of necessity.

  He turned to regard the suffering male, still groaning in misery on the floor, and knelt down beside him, wanting to see who he truly was, needing to sense his life force—this stranger who shared his blood. “Dear gods,” he mumbled beneath his breath. The human—no, the dragon—was beyond disfigured and torn. He was virtually eviscerated, nearly beyond repair.

  And it didn’t matter anyway—that was not why Dante had come.

  The prince bent to his ear. “Brother, be strong. Know that your suffering will soon be over, and then all will be as it should.” In a rare and tender act of empathy—or contrition—he pressed a soft, familial kiss against the young man’s forehead, and then he steadied his resolve. Turning to regard the shadow-walker, he spoke in a clear and imperious tone: “Soul-eater: As I extinguish this young one’s life, once and for all, you must devour his soul. Inhale it. Ingest it. But do not absorb it. It is not yours to keep.” He rotated at the waist and gestured toward Damian’s corpse. “Rather, you will place it into the prince’s body immediately, expelling each and every vital particle into this carcass, until the skeleton is reanimated and the heart is alive and beating.” He glared at the warlock next, making it abundantly clear that his words were an irrefutable command. “And you will use your considerable magic to conjure a resurrection spell—you will bring the prince of Umbras back to life.” He didn’t bother to tell them that he would either have to scrub their memories so completely that they went through the rest of their lives as simpletons, barely able to function, or he would have to kill them.

  They could not be allowed to carry this secret.

  It would be far, far too dangerous.

  Before the warlock or the shade could reply, Mina Louvet rushed to Dante’s side, wresting his attention from his morbid thoughts. She placed a trembling but gentle hand on his shoulder, and her fingers quivered in alarm. “My prince,” she whispered, her voice tinged with unadulterated awe. “You mean to resurrect Damian?”

  Dante shook his head. “No, Ahavi. Not Damian. I mean to resurrect Matthias…in Damian’s body.”

  The scale of the deception was simply inconceivable.

  Mina blanched. She let go of his shoulder, dropped down beside him, and extended her hand, as if to stroke his jaw, stopping just short of actually touching him. She earnestly beseeched his gaze. “Forgive me,” she whispered, her voice thick with humility and respect, “but why not heal Matthias, exactly as he is? Can you not save his immortal body? He is a dragon, after all.”

  Dante’s lips turned down in a frown. “Oh, Mina—we are still beholden to the Realm. Always beholden to the Realm. We are still my father’s subjects. We cannot destroy his middle son and expect to walk away unscathed.” He narrowed his eyes in an all-pervading glance, and met her desperate passion with his own. “And you must know that I do not do this for you. I would not betray my lineage and my obligations to the Realm for my own selfish gain.” He reached out to brush the backs of his fingers against her quaking belly. “Not even for the life of my child.” He closed his eyes, if only for a moment, and it felt as if the weight of the entire world was resting on his shoulders. When he
reopened them, he was even more certain than before. “I do this because Damian’s heart is irretrievably black, because his soul is tainted and he can no longer lead our people with the wisdom of a prince. I do this because his many decades of training and his superior acumen—as both a dragon and a prince—are far too valuable, far too honed, far too irreplaceable to simply abandon…to surrender in death. The Realm needs Damian’s courage and his dragon’s strength. It needs his keen intelligence and his innumerable skills, as much as it ever has; but it can no longer sustain his insolence, his selfishness, or his corruption. I do this because we need Damian’s supremacy, tempered by Matthias’s soul. We need my brother’s power, his sovereign ability to rule, and my half-brother’s integrity, his transcendent ability to reason. And we need it all in a body that my father will recognize as his own beloved pedigree: the child he has raised for nearly one hundred fifty years.”

  As if she understood that any argument would be futile, Mina looked away. She gathered her courage and placed her hands in her lap. “Whose memories will he have?”

  Dante smiled then, albeit faintly, encouraged by the brilliance of his plan. “He will have both. His consciousness will belong to Matthias, for that is the origin of his soul. He will see through Matthias’s eyes and think as Matthias thinks—for all intents and purposes, he will be Matthias Gentry, but he will wear Damian’s skin, he will bear Damian’s name, and he will know all that Damian knows in terms of memories and skill. He will speak Warlochian, Umbrasian, and the common tongue, and he will wield both sword and dragon like a maestro. True, it will be an enormous adjustment for a human from the commonlands—a dragon from the commonlands—yet there will be no learning curve in terms of Damian’s knowledge and military prowess. Matthias will know what Damian knows. He will know how to please and appease our father.”