A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (16 page)

He rose to his feet, pulled her
from her chair, and glared down at her.

"Your big mouth is going to
get you into trouble one day," he said.

She smirked. "Am I in
trouble now, oh lord princeling?"

He wanted to think of some
clever retort, but he was too busy tearing off her clothes; they
always came off so easily in his hands. She stood naked before him,
smirking, no taller than his shoulders and slim as a twig, and yet
she heated his blood to a boil.

He grabbed her shoulders. He
pulled her to his bed. Her eyes closed, and he took her until
finally the smirk left her face.

When he was done with her, again
he wanted to kick her out of his bed, out of his tent, out of his
camp. Stars damn it, he was Prince of Requiem, and no woman deserved
sharing his bed. Yet again, as always, he only lay on his back, and
she lay in his arms, her head upon his chest, and he stroked that
short, brown, boyish hair of hers. She mumbled something sleepy, and
he kissed her forehead, and his heart felt more confused than all the
rules to all the games in the world.

What
is it about you, Erry Docker?
he thought, looking down at her as she slept, her cheek against his
heart.

She
should be nothing to him. She
was
nothing. She was only flesh, that was all. Only a body to warm his
bed and feed his hunger. She meant nothing to him, nothing! She was
no better than any whore from the Bad Cats back in the capital.

Leresy took her twice a day,
morning and night, and sometimes a third time at noon, thrusting into
her, using her to vent all his rage, all his grief, all his pain.
And she never made a sound. She did not moan, or yelp, or cry. She
never wept. She never demanded love or affection or money or
power—any of those things all the women in Leresy's life had
demanded. She simply let him use her as he would, a doll, a toy,
that was all… and then slept in his arms, her head upon his chest.

And he used her. Not for his
physical needs—those had lost all flavor—but to drown the pain that
forever clawed his chest. To forget the capital. To forget Nairi.
And so he took her again and again, and every time he did, he could
forget a little more.

"Stupid, sweaty codpiece
dragons," she mumbled, and he stroked her hair, and she fell
silent, her sleepy breath tickling his chest.

"Stupid, sweaty, seaside
urchins," he answered softly, his arms wrapped around her.

Slowly, night by night, Leresy
came to realize that more than he craved her sex, he craved to hold
her. More than he wanted to enter her, to grab her, to claim her
body, he craved to stroke her hair, hear her mumble, and feel her
breath against him.

You
came to my camp muddy and scruffy and screaming like an enraged
beast,
he thought, holding her close. But in his arms now, she was a frail
doll, delicate and pure and so fragile she seemed made of porcelain.

And slowly, he came to feel
ashamed of how he'd scorned her that first day.

"Erry Docker," he
whispered. "You stupid, stupid girl."

In the morning, he walked
through their forest camp. Campfires crackled around him. Men lay
snoring, cursing, or squabbling over their last sausages and eggs.
Some men had risen early and were banging swords together, eyes grim,
still soldiers even here in the forest. Many had drawn black dogs on
their shields, and some had sewn black dogs on their sleeves; Erry's
mutt had become something of a mascot. As Leresy ambled through the
camp, surveying his men, a smile tingled the corner of his lips.

"Good morning, you bastard
prince of lechers!" one man shouted out.

Leresy gave him a mock salute.
"Go shag a dog, you son of a whore."

The man roared with laughter,
grabbed a skin of ale, and drank deeply. The brew dribbled down his
bare chest. Few men here were better dressed. Armor lay strewn
across the camp, dulled and muddy. Men roamed about shirtless,
barefoot, and scruffy. Most had not shaved for days.

Leresy looked down at his own
raiment. A year ago, it would have disgusted him. He wore nothing
but the garb of a forester: tan breeches, a rough black tunic, and a
green cloak. Yet he did not miss his fine embroidery or filigreed
plates of steel.

Those
were trifles of the capital,
he thought, grabbed a turkey leg from a wandering drunkard, and bit
into the meat. He chewed lustfully.
Here
we are true men of mud, steel, and sweat. The capital can burn to
the ground.

Tears stung his eyes, but Leresy
furiously blinked them away and gnawed his meat with more fervor.

"Quite a camp of
disciplined soldiers you've got here," Erry said, walking at his
side. Her dog trailed behind her, sniffing at campfires and catching
scraps the men tossed his way.

"They are hardened men,"
Leresy said. "True men, not bastards like my father, and not
soft boys like that so-called King Relesar. They will build me a
kingdom."

As they walked through the camp,
many men paused from eating, drinking, or fighting and gaped at Erry.
Drool thick with crumbs dribbled down some men's chins. Erry was
perhaps as scrawny and short-haired as a boy, but she was the only
female in camp, and these men had seen no other woman in many days.

Sooner
or later, I'll have to keep her guarded and chained in my tent,
Leresy thought,
or
I'll have to share her with the camp.

The meat tasted foul in his
mouth, and he tossed the turkey leg aside, grabbed a jug of wine from
a man, and drank to cleanse his mouth. Thinking of Erry naked and
writhing beneath these muddy, scruffy men disgusted him.

Why?
he
wondered. He had shared his women with these men before. He had
dragged many of his whores from the Bad Cats to his barracks,
allowing his troops to share in the flesh.

He looked at Erry. She was
still walking beside him, one hand on her dog's back, the other
clasping a bread roll. She was chewing vigorously—stars, the damn
girl never closed her mouth when chewing—and mumbling something
about how this camp needed some good fish to cook.

They
want her too,
Leresy thought as the men crawled toward her.
They
will try to take her from me.

He gripped his sword's hilt. It
was the simple, unadorned weapon of a common soldier. Fleeing the
capital, Leresy had left his true sword behind—a priceless artifact
with a filigreed blade, a platinum hilt shaped like a dragonclaw, and
a scabbard glittering with more jewels than most treasure chests.
That weapon probably still lay in the Bad Cats, but his new sword,
grabbed from a Lecher who'd fallen to fever, could still kill.

"Bloody bollocks, Leresy!"
said one man, a drunken fool with flushed cheeks, a week-old beard,
and red eyes. He tottered forward, clutching a tankard. "When
are you going to share your woman with us?" He waved his drink
around. "I haven't tasted me a woman since I left the capital."

Stumbling forward, he reached
toward Erry's backside.

With a growl, Leresy drew his
sword, swung it down, and severed the man's hand.

Erry yelped and jumped. The man
screamed. Across the camp, men stumbled back and cursed.

Leresy
stood shaking.
Damn
him! Damn the man!
His sword wavered in his hand. Blood pounded in his ears. He could
barely see through his rage.

The maimed man stumbled back,
clutching his stump, and tripped over a root. He crashed to the
forest floor and writhed. Leresy stepped above him and raised his
sword, prepared to finish the job.

"This
one is mine!" he shouted. He looked around the camp at the men
who watched. His eyes burned, and spittle flew from his mouth as he
shouted. "You hear that, sons of dogs? Any one of you touches
my woman, I'll slice
you
into a woman and give you to the camp!"

He swung his sword down.

"Leresy, no!" Erry
cried and slammed into him.

His sword drove into the dirt,
missing the wounded man by an inch.

Leresy slapped her.

He slapped her so hard Erry
stumbled back and clutched her cheek. Her eyes widened, and her dog
barked madly, and the world spun around Leresy.

Damn
it, I didn't mean to—

"I'm sorry," he
whispered and reached out to her. "Erry, please, I'm only
trying to protect you, I…"

She glared at him, still
clutching her cheek, and shook her head wordlessly. She grabbed her
dog's collar and ran back to their tent.

Leresy stood, his bloody sword
still in his hand. He felt everyone staring at him. Nobody said a
word.

Stars
damn it,
he thought.
Stars damn these men and stars damn Erry.

He
lifted the fallen tankard and drank what ale remained inside. He
tossed the empty vessel down.

"I'll let this one live!"
he announced. "See my mercy. Any one of you other dogs lays a
hand on what's mine, I'll cut that one too."

A few of the men were grumbling.
A few clutched swords. Their eyes darkened and Leresy swallowed,
suddenly afraid. There were a thousand of them, and each one was
older and stronger.

Without
my embroidery and armor, am I still a prince here, or only a man for
them to slay?

He
gritted his teeth, refusing to show fear. His father had to deal
with a rebellion among his people; Leresy wouldn't allow the same
misfortune to strike him.

"You shall have women!"
he shouted, raising his sword high. "Have I not given you women
before? You will have ten thousand more! We travel south to Terra
Incognita, to the great unknown grasslands east of Tiranor. There
are dusky women there of legendary beauty. They run topless through
fields, clad in only skirts of grass, and they crave northern men to
pleasure. We will rule them!"

This assuaged the men. A few
began to cheer, and soon the rest joined in.

"We will be lords of our
new kingdom!" Leresy shouted. "I've given you food, drink,
and gold. Stay with me, and soon we will live as kings!"

They howled their approval,
waving food and drink and fists, and Leresy took a shuddering breath.

Oh
stars,
he thought,
please
let there be women in that forsaken land we seek. If we find nothing
but empty grasslands, they'll have my head… and Erry's body.

He
was about to return to his tent, speak with Erry, and try to make
amends when wings thudded overhead.

The foliage rustled and bent,
and Leresy cursed. His heart thudded, and for a moment, he was sure
the Legions had found them. Before he could flee, a lone brown
dragon crashed down through the canopy, landed in front of Leresy,
and shifted into human form.

Leresy glared at the man and
spat. "Damn it, Yorne. I thought you were my damn father. I
told you—we don't fly in daylight, not until we leave Requiem."

Yorne spat too, expelling a
great glob Leresy thought could drown a rodent. The man had served
in the Legions for twenty years; he'd worn six red stars upon his
armbands before Leresy had ordered the Lechers remove their old
insignia. The son of a lowborn fisherman, Yorne had never gone to
Castra Academia, but he had served the Legions long enough, and he'd
slain enough men, to fight alongside generals and send troops to die.
Tattoos of dragons coiled across his ropy arms, and his shaggy hair
could not fully hide a scar that snaked across his head. He was a
tall man, the tallest among the Lechers, but gaunt and weathered as a
strip of dry meat.

"Your father's busy dealing
with bigger problems," Yorne said. He cleaned his teeth with
his tongue. "Big news stirring across the empire. The
Resistance has taken Cadport."

Leresy snorted. "Cadport?
It's a damn backwater. I visited once and couldn't tell their fort
apart from their latrines. Who cares?"

Yorne raised his eyebrows and
thrust out his bottom lip. "Aye, a backwater to us, but fifty
thousand folk live there. It's the largest town on the southern
coast. Lots of dragons, if the Resistance has them shifting and
flying against the capital."

Leresy
stomped toward a campfire, grabbed a roasting sausage, and bit into
it. The skin
cracked
and juices filled Leresy's mouth.

"Let them fly," he
said. "Let them burn down the damn capital. I care not. Let
all of Requiem burn! We are the Lechers. The unknown lands beyond
the sea will be our kingdom. Let the Legions and the Resistance kill
each other until none are left."

Yorne nodded, eyebrows still
firmly raised, and scratched his chin. "More like the
Resistance is going to be slaughtered, seems. Your sister's
mustering an army in the ruins of Castra Luna. Whole brigades gather
there, and more troops arrive every day. The emperor himself will
arrive with the Axehand. They'll invade Cadport by winter, they say,
and stamp out the Resist—"

"I care not!" Leresy
said. "Damn it, Yorne, I don't give a damn about Requiem
politics. We travel overseas, and—"

He bit down on his words.

He understood.

His heart leaped.

Oh
bloody shite.

His
sister. His father. The two people he hated most—traveling south
into battle. There would be cannons firing, dragons flying, blood
and chaos and death.

It
will be my chance,
he thought and clenched his fists.
My
sweet vengeance.

His thoughts returned to his
last night in the capital. Shari had dragged him by the hair from
his fort, tossed him at his father's feet, and seen him banished.
She had stolen his fortress, leaving him nothing but a wretch.

But
now, sister, now you fly to war.
And
when you crash against the Resistance, a host of bloodthirsty
barbarians, beware… beware of the shadow at your back.