by Tessa Dawn
She couldn’t help but remember that first day in the courtyard when the prince had ordered her to do the same; only this time, her arm wasn’t bleeding and his dragon wasn’t riding the edge—there was no hesitation or fear. Yes, she still felt intimidated by his presence, at the sheer breadth of power projected by his dragon, and her stomach still quivered with butterflies at the mere resonance of his voice; but she knew he wouldn’t harm her, not indiscriminately, and she would never provoke his beast.
She curtsied. “My prince.”
He smiled, truly smiled, and then he led her to a rise in the hill, still beneath the tree, and squatted down to remove a carefully placed bushel of branches concealing a lone gold cross behind them. The cross stood just above and beyond a flat bronzed placard, and Prince Dante burrowed his fingers into the grass. “This is my twin’s final resting place.”
Mina drew in a sharp intake of air. “Desmond’s?”
“Yes.”
The silence was palpable. She didn’t know what to say.
“What does it make you feel? Seeing it, that is?”
Mina looked away. “It makes me feel sorrow…and regret. It makes me feel compassion for you and anger toward your father.”
He stood up, turned around, and placed the palm of his hand over her heart in a surprisingly intimate gesture. “Don’t lie to me, Mina. What does this”—he swept his arm around the meadow, indicating their physical surroundings as well as the two of them standing beneath the tree, and nodded—“what does all of this make you feel? I need to know.”
Mina let out a slow, measured breath and consulted her heart.
Since the day she had first met the prince, they had been thrust into an elusive cat-and-mouse game, always testing and straining the balance of power between them. Dante had made it abundantly clear that he had to have her obedience—his dragon required the affirmation of dominance—yet she had tried to change him. And in the end, they had both fallen into their expected, prescribed roles anyway.
She bit her lip and wiped a sweaty palm against her skirt. Did she dare speak from the depths of her heart? Was that really what he wanted?
Truth be told, they were too similar to keep from clashing on occasion: They were both headstrong and proud; they were each defiant to a fault; and they were so determined to remain in control, if only of their stubborn free will, that neither one had ever truly revealed their hand, at least not entirely. And that’s how Mina knew Dante’s question ran much deeper than his words.
He wanted to know how she felt…about him.
“My prince,” she murmured, her voice growing all at once subdued. “I belong to the Realm…and to Prince Damian…just as your father decreed, so it is difficult for me to speak too freely.”
He placed two fingers beneath the curve of her chin and lifted it gently upward. When her gaze met his, his eyes were so intense—so dark and so full of curiosity and longing—that she couldn’t hold her tongue.
Reaching into a deep well for courage, she spoke softly. “As a child, before I was taken to the Keep, I could have answered you easily: I would have said I feel like crying because a great tragedy has happened in this place. I feel like reaching out to you because you suffered.” She braced her heart, refusing to allow any tears. “As a slave—as an Ahavi—the answer would be different: I feel like it is my duty to assist you, to somehow place things in order, and I wonder how I may serve you. What does he need?” She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing before she slowly ventured forward again with both eyes wide open. “But as a woman, as Mina Louvet…”
“Yes?” Dante encouraged. “As a woman?” He locked his gaze with hers, refusing to look away, and she almost staggered back, jarred by the power of the current that flowed between them: Oh hell, what was the point in pretending? “As a woman,” she pressed on, “I can’t help but wonder who Desmond was—what was he like as a boy? What were the two of you like, together, back then? I can’t help but wonder if you laughed, or played, or dreamed anything different than you dream today. And I think, perhaps, that your bond was so tight, so unbreakable, that it survived the passage of time and the transition of death—and I’m so very jealous.” He angled his head to the side, regarding her intently, and she frowned, feeling somehow ashamed. “I wonder if you loved him, and I ache inside because I know I would give all that I am to just once have you love me that deeply.”
Dante absently took a step back, visibly surprised by her answer. Although he had asked her to be honest, he obviously had not expected such a confession. He wet his lips in a rare gesture of discomfort, and then he parted his mouth to speak. When nothing came out, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Why, sweet Mina? What would be different?”
At his cold, indifferent question, she wished she could just disappear.
What was the point of this banter?
As if he understood her need to pull back, he took a generous step forward, toward Desmond’s grave, and glanced down at the cross. “My twin was a visionary,” he said softly. “He danced to his own drum. He walked to his own mysterious beat. And he answered to a higher calling, something only known to him, something buried within his soul. He opposed my father, my mother, and his duty to the Realm because he fell in love with a commoner, and despite all the repercussions, he could not be dissuaded from that path.” He knelt down to touch the placard, absently tracing the letters in Desmond’s name with his forefinger. “I used to dream, Mina, a long, long time ago.” He paused as if remembering. “I used to laugh, and feel, and want until my father reared it out of me…until the Realm demanded that I relinquish each and every reverie. Until I grew into a man and put away my childish longings.” He looked off into the distance, and Mina approached him slowly, tentatively, pressing her thighs against his back as she reached down to place a hand on his shoulder.
She didn’t utter a word.
She simply stood there, offering a sympathetic touch, and the contact brought his attention back to the present.
“I have a proposition for you, Ahavi. I would like to propose a trade. There is something I want you to consider, something I could simply require of you if I wished, but I would much rather seek your consent.”
Mina stiffened, trying to find something meaningful or affectionate in his words. It was true: Dante Dragona did not have much to give—he did not have much give in him—so his desire to seek her consent in any matter, however insignificant, was no small thing. At least there was that… “Yes, my prince?”
“As you already know,” he said, “I will be able to shift in thirty-one-years, and many things will change.” His expression grew distant, yet resolved. “I will take over the governance of this realm, whether by diplomacy or force, and I will require the support of those who are closest to me, those I know I can trust. I do want you beside me, Mina, and I do need your help…but until such time as I am at the head of this country, you must remain at Castle Umbras with Damian. There is truly no other way.” His dragon stirred, and his voice grew clipped, even as his nostrils noticeably flared. “I have made it implicitly clear that he is never, ever to touch you, not in that way, not if he desires to live.” Before she could respond or react, he pressed forward, as if the statement were a mere supposition of fact. “However, I also let him know that I understand—Damian is a sovereign prince of Dragons Realm, and his dragon has many hungers. He will not be stable if he doesn’t feed…all of them. There isn’t a female in this kingdom who would refuse his advances, nor a maiden who would choose to deny him. He doesn’t have to be alone. He may still find love or affection, albeit in the shadows, in secret, just like Desmond did. And I would look away—I will look away—and so will Prince Drake, once he understands.”
Dante seemed to be rambling.
Yet and still, he had brought up the subject, and now, she had a few questions of her own: “And Cassidy, my prince? Where does she fit into this picture?”
Prince Dante flashed a cautionary smile, his dragon asserting his
dominance. “Do you really wish to know, sweet Mina?”
“I do,” she said, refusing to back off. What was good for the goose was good for the gander, assuming the gander wasn’t a slave…
He sighed. “Cassidy is only too willing to fulfil her required duties, and I can’t fault her for that—she was raised, trained, and conditioned to bear children for the Realm, and it is my solemn obligation to take care of her. But…” He shook his head, showing the first real sign of compassion. “But I do not want her to rear—or carry—my sons. She is not moral, nor is she worthy.” He angled his head to look directly at Mina. “And I wouldn’t do that to you.” He glanced at her belly and then averted his eyes out of respect. “Still…at some point, if she does not become pregnant, the king will press the issue. And if I tell him I think she’s barren, he will simply replace her with another Sklavos Ahavi, although we both know such females are rare. Still, I cannot make you any promises; however, it may not be a problem.”
Mina raised her eyebrows, almost afraid to hope.
“I did not touch her before I left the castle for the battle of Dracos Cove, nor have I lain with her since, and she is growing restless, defensive, and desperate. She’s been sidling up to the king, and he is starting to respond with curious glances, not-so-innocent touches, and inappropriate innuendos. If she were to be given a vial of elixir at just the right time…if I were to leave her alone with my father…I believe he would sire her offspring, albeit unwittingly. From there, it would be a simple task to manipulate her memories, to convince her that the child was ours. I have already instructed my cook to put a few drops of the elixir in her morning tea at the start of each day.”
Mina gasped, stunned by the revelation. “And you would do that for me? For us?”
“I would,” Dante answered without preamble, “and that brings me to my original proposition.” He stood once more, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and bent to grasp both of her shoulders in his hands. “As for my side of the trade, I would offer you immortality, Mina Louvet. As soon as the child is born, as soon as it’s safe to transform you, I would make you immortal.”
Her jaw dropped open, but she didn’t speak.
She couldn’t.
Her head was still spinning in circles.
“If you would consent to be my lover, to come to me of your own free will, I would give you back the power of choice. You need only come to me when you choose to; you need only welcome me out of desire; and you need only surrender to my touch when you desire to share my fire.” He reached down to take her hands in his, raised them to his lips, and pressed a beguiling kiss into the center of her palms, each one in turn, his passionate sapphire gaze never leaving hers. “And in return, I will give you my fealty, as both your prince and your lover. I will be yours and yours, alone.”
Mina almost gasped. She nearly staggered where she stood. “W-w-why?” she murmured reflexively, stammering the word. “For what purpose? I mean, what would compel you to offer so much? Immortality, just to be your lover? Especially when you could just command it at any time?” She shook her head, knowing there had to be more to the story. After all, she had poured out her heart to him just minutes ago, and the prince had glossed right over it.
He hadn’t even responded.
He didn’t want her love. He didn’t want her heart. But he still wanted her body.
Why?
“What else would you ask of me, my prince? What else do you want in return?”
Dante cupped her face in his hands and stared into her eyes until it seemed like he might just drown in their depths, and then he buried his face in her hair and whispered huskily in her ear. “The gods know, until this very moment, I was prepared to ask you to be the mother of all my sons, to agree to fulfill the Omen. Yes, Mina, you are meant to be the mother of this realm, the one who helps me fulfill the prophecy, and I was prepared to ask you to do it for your people, to do it for justice, to do it for Dragons Realm, but…” He drew back, turned to glance at Desmond’s grave, and slowly exhaled. “But in truth, there is so much more that I want. Teach me to love, sweet Mina. Bring me back to life. Show me once again how to dream. Wait for me, my Ahavi, for thirty-one years. Live as you must, survive as you will, and one day, rule this realm beside me as my queen.”
Mina felt the air rush out of her body, and she was certain her heart would jump out of her chest. She drew back, wresting her body away from his, and struggled to catch her breath. “Dante, I…I…” She felt like she was hyperventilating. “I hardly know what to say.”
He stepped forward, brushed the pad of his thumb along her quivering bottom lip, and bent low to taste it. “Tell me you don’t love me,” he breathed into her mouth, “and I will never ask this of you again.”
She savored the hot, wild flavor of his kiss, reveling in the smoke that tinged his breath. After several heartbeats had passed, she murmured, “I cannot.”
“Cannot agree?” he asked.
“Cannot tell you I don’t love you.”
He nodded, and his smile illuminated his eyes. “A long time ago, I told you that I wanted you because your hair is like mine, as dark as the midnight sky.” He ran his thumb along the side of her jaw, just as he had done that first day in the courtyard. “Your eyes are the color of emeralds, as rare as they are exquisite.” He clasped his hands behind his back and studied her from head to toe, without apology; once again, repeating the familiar actions. “You are beautiful,” he whispered, “and our sons will be strong.” Only this time, he didn’t stop there. “What I didn’t say that day—what I couldn’t say that day—was here is a woman who could capture my heart. Here is a woman who is worthy of the same.” He took both of her hands in his and squeezed them, careful not to press too hard. “You understand duty and sacrifice, Mina—you are as brave as you are intelligent. You have the courage to lead, the strength to follow, and the wisdom to know the difference. You just need to live for a purpose. You have already proven that you can survive in a world full of warlocks, shades, and shifters; a world built by commoners, yet ruled by kings; and you have the tenacity to change it. You are a true daughter of this realm, just as I am its true son.” He drew her into his arms and held her close to his heart. “I will always live for my duty and my people. I will always put the welfare of the Realm first. And I will never betray my royal blood, the core of my father’s traditions, or the lineage that makes me a dragon. But I don’t believe I have to…not with you.” He regarded her sheepishly then, crooking his neck at an unnatural angle so he could clearly see her eyes, and the gesture was uncharacteristically boyish. “I will never be soft-hearted, sweet Mina, or gentle, or even tame. But I will be just and honest. I will be true and faithful. And I will be yours, my Ahavi, as much as I belong to the Realm.” His voice dropped into a deep, languorous cadence and practically hummed with conviction. “A dragon requires fire to reanimate, and a king requires a queen, not a slave, to temper his calloused heart. You have never been the latter, so choose now to be the former, even if it’s thirty years away. Teach me to love, sweet Mina. Raise my son—our sons—to be brave, to be strong, to defy what isn’t worthy of obeisance. Let me be your Keep, and come to me because you wish to learn, to live…and to love.”
Mina felt like she had fallen into a liquid pool of magic, of dark midnight-blue eyes, like she had been swept away by the current of a mystical fire, and she was softly, sweetly drowning beneath the swift, graceful undertow of the dragon’s heartfelt words—and she wanted to just let go. She was utterly and completely lost in Dante’s savage soul. Everything she had ever wanted was standing right in front of her, and she couldn’t help but wonder at the sacrifice it would take to pull it off, the cunning it would require to be this dragon’s queen, the obedience and the danger that would come with his possessive arms.
But it didn’t matter.
Not at all.
If anyone could do it, she could.
She was a Sklavos Ahavi, after all, a woman born to serve the Real
m.
“Yes, my prince,” she whispered sweetly, her tears falling freely. “Oh, yes, Prince Dante…yes.”
Chapter Thirty
The throne room
It was late when Prince Dante and Mina returned to Castle Dragon, and the king, the other Ahavi, and Dante’s brothers were waiting for them in the throne room. Since Dante had borrowed Mina under the guise of giving her several antiquated scrolls to update and transcribe into Warlochian for him, and since the majority of the scrolls were kept in a secure, hidden outbuilding, a mile or two away from the main castle library, no one seemed too concerned about where they’d been, except…perhaps…for Cassidy. In truth, the king could not have cared less if his eldest son had taken Mina Louvet out to the pasture to feed her to the wolves, just so long as he kept her alive long enough to birth Damian’s child, and if there had been some sort of improper dalliance between them—so what?—just as long as it did not create friction between the brothers or political unrest in the Realm.
Slaves were slaves, after all.
King Demitri scooted eagerly to the edge of his throne, the moment they entered the hall, and bellowed, “Well, it’s about time! Are the two of you done exploring the grounds?” He narrowed his eyes in boredom and impatience.
“Forgive me, Father,” Dante offered humbly, offering no further explanation.
The king turned his attention to Damian Dragona, who seemed utterly unfazed as Mina hurried to his side and curtsied apologetically. Demitri quickly harrumphed. “Very well.” He gestured with his hand to indicate the other members who were present. “We were just concluding our business for the evening, discussing the importance of going forward with the Autumn Mating, if only for the kingdom’s morale. I think it’s important that we maintain our sense of tradition and provide a formal presentation of the matrimonial selections and district appointments, give the people something to celebrate.” He sat back in his throne and shrugged. “The battle of Dracos Cove was so…anxiety-producing for some. They could use a pleasant distraction.” He said it with such emotionless triviality that it gave Dante chills—good lords, the male had slain thousands of enemies, yet he spoke of that day like it had merely been a walk in the gardens.