Dragons Realm (6 page)

Mina stud­ied the lan­tern and began to re­cite the vari­ous com­pon­ents in her head:
Burner. Wick. Col­lar. Chim­ney. Shade
—

And then Dante reached out to grasp her ankles, and she al­most jumped in place.
For the love of the Spirit Keep­ers
, what would have happened if she had kicked him?

She swal­lowed her anxi­ety and stood as still as she could as he re­peated the earlier pro­cess, only this time, per­form­ing the min­is­tra­tions on her legs. He slowly ran his hands up the backs of her calves, mas­sa­ging her muscles as he moved along, and then he ro­tated his thumbs over the backs of her knees and slid his palms along the out­side of her thighs.

Mina cringed when Dante’s seek­ing fin­gers came to rest at the crease of her roun­ded bot­tom, their pro­gress all at once im­peded by the soft, cir­cu­lar globes. His prox­im­ity to her
most in­tim­ate
re­gion
was far too close for com­fort. She had never felt more ex­posed—or hu­mi­li­ated—in her en­tire life. When at last she couldn’t stand an­other mo­ment, she slapped at his wrists. “Prince Dante!” Catch­ing her­self, she im­me­di­ately with­drew her hands and softened her voice. “I mean,
mi­lord
…what are you do­ing?”

Ig­nor­ing her dis­obedi­ence, Dante chuckled low in his throat, the tenor a raspy, mas­cu­line sound. “I am meas­ur­ing your heat, sweet Mina. I am check­ing for any block­ages that may have gone un­detec­ted at the Keep, try­ing to dis­cern how much of your es­sence I can take without do­ing you ir­re­par­able harm.”

How much of her es­sence he could take without do­ing her ir­re­par­able harm?

Oh
gods…

She trembled.

“I must say,” he ad­ded softly, “it is hard not to be­come…dis­trac­ted.” He purred low in his throat and then groaned. “By all that is sac­red, my Ahavi, you are more beau­ti­ful than I ima­gined.” He placed a soft kiss
on her der­ri­ere
, and then he rose to his feet in one smooth, agile mo­tion. He lightly trailed the backs of his fin­gers up, along her spine and across her trapezius muscles, and then he placed each hand on one of her shoulders and whispered in her ear. “Lean back against my chest, Ahavi, so you don’t grow faint.”

“Mi­lord, please…I…I’m not ready.”

“You will do as you are bid, sweet Mina.” Be­fore she could reply
or re­fuse him
, he tugged her back against him, swirled his tongue lightly over the area where the bend of her neck met her shoulder, and then swiftly made a seal over the moist circle with his mouth.

Mina felt the slow drag of fangs where his cool tongue and warm breath had just been, and she tensed, send­ing a si­lent prayer up to the Spirit Keep­ers for strength.

Shh
, Dante whispered
in her mind
. And then he re­leased his fangs and sank them deep into her flesh, tak­ing the barest sip of blood in his first primal pull.

Mina jol­ted from the pain, and then she whimpered from the help­less­ness, clutch­ing at his hands for sup­port. He held her more tightly against him, lock­ing her body to his in an iron hold, even as he con­tin­ued to feed from her
es­sence
, no longer tak­ing her blood. Al­though the pain began to sub­side, she still didn’t want this. She just wasn’t ready to
serve
him this soon.

But what choice did she have?

She was an Ahavi, a fe­male sworn to serve the dragon, to feed his fire at his be­hest; and moreover, she was Dante’s Sk­la­vos Ahavi, or she would be soon, the mo­ment the king de­creed it—and that meant Dante’s every wish was to be her com­mand. It was simply the way of the Realm.

It had
al­ways
been the way of the Realm.

And Mina thought she had been pre­pared for the in­ev­it­ab­il­ity of her duty, for this de­fense­less, sub­ser­vi­ent mo­ment, un­til she began to feel the warmth seep­ing out of her body, the very nuc­leus of her soul drain­ing from her flesh. Un­til the dragon con­tin­ued to feed his fire with her heat, and her life force began to dis­sip­ate.

In­ex­press­ible chills traveled along Mina’s spine as her body tem­per­at­ure dropped rap­idly and her en­ergy waned. Frosty sen­sa­tions, like fin­gers gloved in shards of ice, played along her skin—grasp­ing, prob­ing, tak­ing—even as her muscles grew weak and her skin turned blue. She shivered and moaned.

Yet and still, Dante fed.

When at last he with­drew his fangs, she felt as if she might col­lapse from ex­haus­tion, as if any mo­ment now, she would draw one last shal­low breath and just let go, pass on to the neth­er­world, drained from the core. She felt as if her body no longer con­tained the es­sence it needed to main­tain
life
, as if her soul was no longer sep­ar­ate from his.

As if Dante had taken it all.

The dragon had drained her com­pletely.

Dante sealed the punc­ture wounds with a rasp of his tongue, and then he began to blow a steady stream of fire over the raw, in­flamed skin. She knew it was
blue
fire
—or at least she hoped it was—be­cause that was the
heal­ing
color they were taught to ex­pect at the Keep, the only fire that came from a dragon which gave life in­stead of tak­ing it. Well
that
and sil­ver, which was used to be­stow im­mor­tal­ity.

As the mys­tical flames licked at her skin, caus­ing a dull, ra­di­at­ing pain to throb in her neck, she felt her body tem­per­at­ure be­gin to rise al­most as rap­idly as it had fallen. The strength in her muscles re­turned, and she be­came in­stantly re­an­im­ated. She was sud­denly in­fused with amaz­ing strength, ro­bust health, and re­newed vi­tal­ity; and some­how, she knew she was stronger than be­fore. Dante had sealed the wound with a power­ful, heal­ing fire.

And then he knelt be­hind her
again
.

Only this time, he picked up the towel; ran it along her smooth, del­ic­ate skin; and stood back up, reach­ing around to tuck the front into a loosely fol­ded knot, just above her breasts. He was care­ful not to touch her in­de­cently, or per­haps he just wasn’t in­clined to do so. Either way, he tucked in the towel and re­leased it. “You did well, Ahavi.” His voice was a silken purr in her ear, and she shivered at the un­fa­mil­iar vi­bra­tion of his ap­proval.

As tears of re­lief rolled down her cheek, she bowed her head in re­sponse. She felt
open
, ex­posed, and in­cred­ibly vul­ner­able, but not al­to­gether des­pond­ent. “Then you are pleased?” she asked, not at all sure why it mattered, other than the fact that she hoped to con­tinue liv­ing, even if this
was
to be her lot in life.

“Your es­sence, your heat, is like sun­shine on a cloudy day. It is so much easier when you sub­mit, is it not?” He placed a swel­ter­ing kiss on her bare shoulder. “I can­not help but won­der what
all of you
will feel like when the time comes.”

Mina couldn’t re­strain her re­ac­tion. She spun around to face him, un­wit­tingly tak­ing sev­eral steps back. “Please, mi­lord.” She held up both hands to keep him at bay and then im­me­di­ately thought bet­ter of it—Mina did not want to an­ger the dragon, but
god­dess have mercy
, there was only so much she could take in one day. And
this
, the idea of sub­mit­ting her body to Dante
com­pletely
, it was just too much to deal with, far too much to take in. Dante’s cer­tain own­er­ship, his proud
pos­ses­sion
, his pro­pri­et­ary ways were more than enough for Mina to con­tend with. “I don’t wish to defy you,” she said re­spect­fully, “but you are ter­ri­fy­ing me, mi­lord. And I can hardly bear it an­other mo­ment.” Her white-knuckled grip on the towel turned blue, and she glanced anxiously around the room, search­ing for a place to re­treat.

Or hide.

Dante swept his hand along the curve of her chin, traced her protest­ing lips with his fore­finger, and then ges­tured for her to be si­lent. “It will not al­ways be so, Mina. You will come to un­der­stand your role…and mine. You will learn to ac­cept them both.”

She raised her eye­brows and frowned. “And if I don’t?”

He shook his head in quiet dis­missal. “But you must.” In that mo­ment, he looked so fiercely pred­at­ory, so in­trins­ic­ally regal, so harshly mas­cu­line yet beau­ti­ful that Mina was caught off guard.

She tried not to think of his words…

What they meant for her fu­ture and her life.

In­stead, she eyed her night­gown, still ly­ing across the cov­er­let on the large, four-poster bed, and wished she could don it with her mind alone. She needed to re­treat some­place safe, to cover her body and pro­tect her heart. She needed to feel in con­trol, if only for a mo­ment.

As if he could hear her thoughts, Dante stretched out his hand to­ward the ob­ject of her de­sire, crooked the tips of his fin­gers, and ef­fort­lessly drew the night­gown into his open hand from across the room. He handed it to her with grace. “Yes­ter­day,” he said, cross­ing his arms over his chest and lean­ing back against the wall, as if they had been car­ry­ing on a cas­ual con­ver­sa­tion all along, “I traveled with my broth­ers to the vil­lage of War­lo­chia to ex­ecute two trait­ors who were plot­ting against the king.”

Mina’s eyes grew wide, and she watched him care­fully, even as she slipped the night­gown over her head
and
above the towel
, be­fore re­mov­ing the wool from un­der­neath.

“While I was there”—he pressed on as if the ex­e­cu­tions were noth­ing more than back­ground in­form­a­tion—“I met a young girl who gave me this.” He reached be­hind his back and re­trieved a fig­ur­ine.

Mina held up her hands in ques­tion. She stared at the ob­ject for a pro­trac­ted mo­ment, her fea­tures dis­tort­ing with con­fu­sion. “A doll? You met a young girl who gave you a
doll
?”

The corners of Dante’s mouth curved up­ward, and Mina thought it was the first time she had ever seen him smile.

Well, al­most smile.

Dante lowered his voice and snickered. “The child’s name was Raylea Louvet, and she made the
doll
for her sis­ter.”

Mina con­tin­ued to stare at the fig­ur­ine, try­ing to make sense of Dante’s words, and then all at once it hit her, and her hands flew up to her cheeks. “Raylea!
Raylea
made this
for me
?” Tears of joy spilled from her eyes, and she reached out to snatch the toy from his hands. She stud­ied it me­tic­u­lously, com­mit­ting every de­tail to memory, won­der­ing at the ex­quis­ite crafts­man­ship of her
baby sis­ter
. Okay, so the eyes were a bit crooked, it was pi­ti­fully un­der-stuffed, and the fea­tures were a bit lop­sided; still, it was the most beau­ti­ful thing Mina had ever seen, and she fought not to break down and sob.

Rub­bing the belly of the doll against her cheek, she looked up at Dante through tear-stained lashes and genu­inely smiled in re­turn. “Thank you. Oh,
thank you
.” She didn’t know what else to say.

Dante seemed some­what taken aback by her emo­tion: His brow fur­rowed; his ex­pres­sion grew un­read­able; and he cocked his head to the side. “You’re wel­come.” His voice was even and con­trolled.

Mina struggled to com­pose her­self as well. “It’s just…it’s just…I lost my sis­ter to the Realm six years ago, when I was taken to the Keep. She was only four years old, and she lost me, too. I haven’t seen her in so many years.”

Dante nod­ded then, look­ing curi­ously out of place, and she felt in­stantly em­bar­rassed, not be­cause she had thanked him and not be­cause she had smiled, but be­cause she had shared some­thing so per­sonal and
in­tim­ate
with a dragon.

He took a deep breath and slowly ex­haled. “We have all made many sac­ri­fices for the Realm, Mina. For you, it was your lovely sis­ter and your par­ents. For me, it was the free­dom of choice and my brother,
my twin
, who died by his own hand. Per­haps you can take com­fort in know­ing that you may at least see your loved one again.”

Mina in­haled sharply, sur­prised by his words. She dropped her arm to her side, let­ting the doll hang loosely in her hand. She knew of Des­mond’s sui­cide—of course she knew—they had all learned the Drago­nas’ his­tory at the Keep, but it had never oc­curred to her, at least not be­fore this mo­ment, that these weren’t just facts and his­tor­ies. They weren’t just de­tails to be mem­or­ized or les­sons to be learned: They were real-life events.

Ac­com­pan­ied by real loss and pain.

“Oh gods, Dante. I’m sorry. How in­sens­it­ive I must seem.” She un­wit­tingly took a step for­ward, reached up to touch his face, and cringed when he jerked away.

“Your com­pas­sion is not ne­ces­sary.”

She with­drew her hand as if she had been burned, feel­ing even worse than be­fore. “Apo­lo­gies. I…I…”

“I did not give you the doll to court you, Mina,” he ad­ded coolly.

She nod­ded then. “I see.”

“You are my Sk­la­vos Ahavi.
Mine
.” He reached out, took her hand in his, and placed it against his cheek. “I gave it to you be­cause a brave child asked me to, and I knew that it would bring you com­fort. That is all.”

She bristled, feel­ing ter­ribly con­fused. “So why would you want to bring me com­fort then,
mi­lord
?”

He tilted his head to the other side as if deeply con­sid­er­ing her words. “We are so of­ten com­pelled to do what we must to ful­fill our du­ties to the Realm. It is a small thing to make life easier for a loyal ser­vant.”

A loyal ser­vant
.

Dante’s words struck her like the tip of an ar­row pier­cing through her heart, al­though she had no idea why. “Of course,” she whispered. Turn­ing her gaze to her hand, which was still be­ing pressed to his cheek, she mur­mured, “May I re­move my hand,
mi­lord
?”

“You may,” he answered quietly, let­ting it go.

She did just that, and then she rubbed her palm against the skirt of her night­gown, as if she could some­how re­move the feel of his skin from her palm. Softly, she whispered, “If it is not my heart you wish to
court
, then what is it you de­sire?”