Mate Of A Dragon Villain (Skeleton Key) (3 page)

Every inch was a struggle, and probably not good for Alger’s back. Amanda was hot and sweating, and she was forced to give up before making it to her hiding place. She was close enough, and there weren’t really any men above her at this point.

She had to stop anyway, because Alger stopped breathing. She hadn’t noticed it right away, but when she stopped to catch her breath, the fact that his chest was not rising and falling was very telling.

And scary. It was scaring her to death, and she spent two seconds staring at him, waiting for him to gasp in a breath, for his chest to rise, something!

She fell to her knees again, swiping her hair out of the way as she pressed her ear to his chest. Nothing.

Amanda pressed her fingers to his neck. Nothing there either.

She licked her finger and pressed it to the underside of his squished nose, nothing.

He was definitely not breathing and he was going to die.

Amanda went over a quick mental checklist of all the things she needed to do to get this done before she started. She tipped Alger’s head back, opening the airways, pressed her lips over his bloody mouth, and tried not to cringe when she blew air inside, hard enough to hopefully fill what had to be huge lungs.

His chest rose up. Amanda turned her attention to pressing against his heart.

She wasn’t sure if this made a difference because of his massive strength. She wasn’t sure if the way she tried to pump his heart did any good or not. She didn’t feel strong enough to get anything through his ribs, but she had to try.

She blew more air into his mouth, turned her attention back to his heart, and breathed for him again.

She did this until he coughed and sputtered on his own, and Amanda fell back, breathing hard and thanking God it actually worked.

Alger opened his eyes, slowly turning his head and looking at her.

Amanda was still gasping for breath, sweating, and probably looking about as gross as he was with the blood on her mouth. “Hi,” she said, and barely had enough air to say that.

An angry voice roared behind her. “
What’s this?
”

Amanda jumped. She spun around and looked behind her. It was…

Long black hair with highlights that looked almost blue. Dark navy wings—the leathery parts looked like sky blue that had been dipped in teal ink.

Almost like the ends of her hair. She’d dyed them that color for her first signing two months ago. The color had faded and she’d had a trim since then, but it was basically the same.

That was the hero of her most popular romance series. Taller and broader in the shoulders and chest than any other dragon, he didn’t just look like a king of the dragon people, he also gave off that aura, so much so that Amanda had to struggle against the urge to fall down at his feet, bow and scrape and beg for mercy.

Eldric Gladstone of Alzriandra. He was staring down at Amanda with a fire in his eyes. They weren’t red like Hargreave’s were, but they might as well have been in that moment.

“He was…I was…”

Eldric raised his sword high above his head. “Witch!”

Amanda shrieked and fell back, almost right on top of Alger. He grabbed her by the ankle, which didn’t help anything, but he held on tight when she tried to get away.

He must have said something because Eldric lowered the sword and stared down at his friend.

And they were the best of friends. Amanda knew this because she’d written it to be that way. Eldric cared for this man, and with the blood on Amanda’s mouth, he clearly thought she’d been up to no good.

But then he approached his friend, grabbed Amanda by the loose collar of her bathrobe, and pushed himself down to his knees. “Say that again, friend?”

Amanda struggled to breathe. Not because Eldric was choking her, but because she was so damned terrified she couldn’t make her body do the most basic of things. It was a miracle she hadn’t peed.

“She saved me. Don’t hurt her.”

Eldric turned his suspicious gaze to Amanda, and with the grip he had on her, they were pretty close.

“I saw you. Your mouth on him,” he said, his tone all kingly and accusing.

“I…he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing, I had to breathe for him. He was going to die.”

Eldric’s eyes widened, as if he didn’t understand the concept of CPR.

Amanda had written this world to be mostly medieval-ish, though there were some bits of technology she’d sprinkled in from time to time to make up for her lack of knowledge on absolutely everything medieval.

Eldric opened his mouth, but what he was about to say was cut off by a shout.

“
Eldric
!”

Amanda looked up as Eldric did. Hargreave’s black wings were spread out as he landed on his feet on the rock above them, his spear ready, and murder in his eyes.

Eldric’s hands were suddenly on Amanda’s throat, and her throat was feeling pretty thin and small in that moment. Her heart stopped for several unpleasant seconds as she realized the position she’d just found herself in.

“Back! Get back or I kill her!” Eldric shouted.

What?
What
? No way!

“Y-you’re the good guy! You can’t kill me!” Amanda said.

Eldric didn’t seem to hear her, and something sharp was suddenly pressing against the paper thin skin of her throat. At least, her skin felt paper thin in that moment compared to what she felt against it. Not a knife. No, it was Eldric’s hooked talons. His dragon claws.

And Hargreave’s expression changed. A fear that the villain of the story never should feel over anything made his features lose their strength, and he suddenly seemed a little unsure.

His men, dressed in their leather armor and holding their old, shoddy weapons, came to land behind their prince, either on the same rock or on ground level, growling, eyes glowing red like Hargreave’s. They seemed to be waiting for Hargreave to give them the signal to attack. If he did, Eldric might just rip out Amanda’s throat, and she was suddenly struck with the epiphany of how much she wanted to live.

“You caught this woman, I saw you,” Eldric said.

Hargreave’s face twisted once more with that same anger. “After you threw her from the sky!”

A silence. Amanda wished she could see Eldric’s face, that she could know what he was thinking in that moment. She had no idea what was going on.

“This battle is over. I have something you want. If you follow, or send one more attack to my lands…” Eldric’s grip on Amanda’s throat tightened. He didn’t need to say anymore. The pathetic noise of fright that whimpered out of Amanda’s mouth was enough.

Hargreave raised his hands to his men, briefly looking back at them. “No one moves,” he commanded, his voice loud, clear, and deep.

There was a murmur of confusion among the men. They looked amongst each other, then at their prince.

“I said
no one moves
!” Hargreave snapped, and he turned his attention back to Eldric. “I will kill you for this. I swear to the gods you will beg me to die for everything you’ve done.”

Eldric snorted. “I could say the same of you, but your fight has always been a waste of my time.”

Hargreave’s face turned red at the insult.

Amanda had no clue what was going on, but her instinct was to want to be with who looked safe in that moment. Right now, that was Hargreave. He was the villain of the story, the killer, the man who needed to die for there to be any peace, and she wanted to be with him instead of the hero, the man who was currently threatening to slit her throat into a wide deathly smile.

She stared at Hargreave, and maybe there was something in her eyes that called back to him, because he looked at her.

“I won’t keep you in their company for long, sweet. I’ll come for you.”

He sounded like he meant it, and Amanda felt relief.

Then she yelped as Eldric pulled her into his arms.

“Come onto my lands again, and she dies.”

Amanda thought it incredibly risky how he turned his back to his enemy, but then she saw why. Just as Hargreave’s men had landed behind him, so too did Eldric’s, dressed in finger chainmail and bright blue, their weapons finer, if ruined with blood. Two men were helping Alger to his feet, and Eldric spread his wings. He waited for Alger and his helpers to get in the air before he flew off with Amanda.

“Fight me, and I will drop you,” he warned.

“I believe you,” she replied, wishing that she didn’t as she was taken away from the battlefield.

What the fuck was happening with her morning?

T
he castle was not quite
as she’d thought it would be every time she wrote about it. It was close, but also very different. Imagining something, envisioning all the walls and tapestries and stone work, was nothing at all like how she saw them now, in real life.

There were smells in the castle. Amanda had never thought about writing in smells, not even when she’d penned the scenes where Jane came to stay at the castle for the first time.

It was a mixture of good smells and bad. Smells of cooked pork fat and other salted meats, followed by the smell of many bodies crammed close together after a long, sweaty, bloody battle in the sky. Amanda had been immediately locked into a small room with a window so tiny she couldn’t fit her arm through it.

There was a tiny bed, about the size of a pathetic-looking cot she’d once slept on at camp as a kid. There was no bathroom, only a pot in the corner, and she didn’t want to think about the possibility that it was a chamber pot. She wasn’t ready to face that reality just yet, even though she badly had to pee.

Really badly. It had been hours. She had no idea what was going on out there, and Amanda wanted out of here. She wanted to use the bathroom and she didn’t want to use a chamber pot. If this was real, then she knew for a fact there were bathrooms. They weren’t the modern things she was used to, but there was running hot water and toilets. Hot baths were important for her romance scenes, so those things had to be included.

She knocked on the heavy wooden door. She had to pound on it with her fist because it actually hurt her knuckles. “Hello? Is anyone out there?” Amanda practically danced on her feet, squeezing her legs together. “I have to use the bathroom! The water room! I need it!”

She pounded on the door again, but then started glancing back to the chamber pot, weighing the embarrassment of whether or not she should just get it over with and deal with the smell of urine or not.

She really didn’t want to do that. God, she didn’t want to do it, but if someone didn’t answer the door, she was going to do it. Her hands were already starting to move down to her leggings and Amanda was ready to tear them off and squat if—

The door opened. Fast enough that it caught on her toes. Amanda yelped and jumped back, falling hard on her ass. She stared up at a man she’d never seen before. He didn’t even look familiar to her in the same way Alger, Eldric, and Hargreave had.

Amanda decided that he must have been one of the many throwaway characters she’d used in her books, never describing them all that much since they weren’t exactly important. They were the warriors who fought, killed, died, or were left for dead so there would be a reason to continue the battle with Hargreave.

And this guy definitely looked like a warrior. He also looked annoyed.

“
What do you want
?”

His voice sounded half snorted through his nose, like he was really a monster instead of a man. Or part man, as the reptilian wings folded against his back and sharp scales on his shoulders seemed to prove.

Amanda nearly peed herself right then and there, but she forced herself to her feet.

“I…I need to pee.”

The warrior lifted a brow and glanced over her shoulder, looking meaningfully at the chamber pot she hadn’t used, proving it was really a chamber pot.

“I don’t want to use that.” Now she really was dancing around. “Please, I swear this isn’t some bad plot point to trick you or anything, I have to go!”

Maybe it was her dance that impressed him, or the way she grabbed at her crotch to stop the coming flow that wanted to break free, but the man guarding her door took pity on her and grabbed her by the arm.

“If you try anything, I swear to the gods I will cut that pretty face.”

Amanda nodded, but in that moment, she was more concerned about not peeing on herself than any threat.

There was a bathroom not too far down the stone hall. Most of the lights came from old fashioned torches, though there was a lamp inside the bathroom itself.

Water room. She had to get used to that, though she was happy to see the toilet. That was great.

“You have one minute,” said the guard, and Amanda noted, right before she could push down her leggings, that he wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t so much as shut the door, though as he stood in front of it, his wide shoulders acted as a decent barrier.

“Uh, you can step out now.”

“No. Do what you need to do or I take you back.”

He meant it. The way he crossed his arms seemed pretty final, and Amanda’s thighs were quivering as she felt her kidneys start to suffer.

No choice. She pushed down her leggings, lifted the hem of her housecoat, and sat.

The relief was too much for her to bother with caring overly much about having some big dragon warrior watching her.

When she nearly finished, she looked up at her guard, and noted the way he stared at something on the far wall. His cheeks looked a little bright, but that might’ve been the lighting.

Right. Now that he knew for a fact she wasn’t faking, he wouldn’t want to look at her any more than she’d want to look at him.

Amanda finished up. There was something that looked like it could be toilet paper beside her on a wicker stand, so she used it.

It was pretty gross and flaked off. Amanda needed to wash her hands in the sink when she finished, and she thanked God one more time for the running water. She just wished she written this world to have better toilet paper.

Her guard nodded. “Good, now come with me.”

“Do you know why I’m being locked up?”

Her guard said nothing, he just put his hand on her back and guided her away from the water room, back to her tiny cell.

“What happened with Alger? Is he alive? When will Eldric want to talk to me?”

Her guard glanced down at her. “He lives,” he said. “The king will speak to you when he’s ready and not one moment before.”

That didn’t sound good. How the hell was she supposed to explain how innocent she was when Eldric didn’t want to talk to her?

Others walked through the halls. Dragon men, warriors who wore chainmail and kept their swords loose at their hips, along with maids and young boys who occasionally pushed through these parts. Almost everyone had wings protruding out of the backs of their clothes. Some people didn’t have wings. They either had pointed elf ears and dark eyes, or nothing overly special about them at all.

Those were the humans.

“How much longer do I have to wait?” Amanda asked. In books, it was easier. She could write in a quick transition scene while mentioning that several long, boring hours had gone by. It wasn’t the same as being forced to sit in a room where her only form of entertainment was to count the thread in her scratchy blankets.

Blankets that itched like there were bugs in them.

And it took a long time before she got desperate enough to start doing that. Long, boring, long hours.

Despite her fear of being summoned, she was desperate for it just to get a change of pace. This was driving her up the wall.

“Don’t bang on the door anymore,” her guard snapped in that same gruff voice he’d used before, slamming the door shut behind him, so hard and loud Amanda was stunned he hadn’t left a huge crack in the thick wood.

Amanda was tired, but didn’t want to sit on that bed, or lie down on it, and her feet were starting to ache from standing and pacing so much. She was antsy in a way she wasn’t used to. She wanted to bang on the door again just to have someone to talk to, even if her guard would only yell at her to cut it out.

Stupid skeleton key and her stupid editor and deadlines making her have this stupid hallucination.
Wake up!
She needed to wake up!

Amanda paced the room five more times, concentrating on her new goal to returning to the real world, but that didn’t happen. She contemplated shrieking in a rage and throwing the small stool against the door, smashing it to pieces so she’d have something to take her anger out on, but she didn’t do it. The thing that stopped her was the tiny scratching noise that came from her window.

Amanda frowned and turned her head, no longer ignoring the noise like she’d been doing without intending to.

She jumped back at the sight of glowing red eyes staring at her, shrieked a little, and tripped over the chair she’d been planning on throwing at the door.

She fell down, hard. It was a small miracle she didn’t break her collarbone or any of the bones in her hand.

When she looked up again at the thin window, the eyes were gone.

Amanda panted for breath, her heart slamming up into her throat, and the door opened.

The big, dark-haired warrior pushed half his body into the room and looked around. He spotted her on the floor. “What the hell was that?”

Amanda couldn’t think, and for a split second, she had to remind herself how to speak, too.

“I, uh, tripped over the stool.”

She quickly righted herself, putting the stool back into its proper position and jumping up into a stand. “I’m okay.”

The guard stared at her, his brows drawn together in a frown. He slammed the door open and went to the window. He pulled something from his pocket that almost looked like one of those annoying selfie sticks she hated so much, but then she saw what it really was and what was on the end of it.

Not a phone, but a mirror. There was a mirror on the end of that stick and he was pointing it out the thin window to have himself a good look around.

Amanda froze. Her body seemed to be recalling the threat Eldric had made if he found out she was associated with his enemy, and she waited with held breath for the guard to turn back and look at her with those accusing eyes.

Amanda turned to the door. The guard had left it open. She could run, but there were a lot of people out there who would see her and stop her.

But it was probably a lot safer out there.

The guard grunted. Amanda jumped. He turned to look at her, his expression more annoyed than the last time, but he didn’t look like he was about to kill her.

Amanda’s spine went an extra level of straight as he walked by, all big and growly and mean, one large hand on the sword at his hip in a telling way.

“Keep quiet,” he said, then slammed the door again. This time, Amanda thought he really did leave behind a crack in the wood.

She blew out a hard breath. She wasn’t going to survive this.

Another light scratching noise, and a hiss. Amanda didn’t want to look, but she did.

Glowing red eyes. They were back.
He
was back. He stared at her, but he said nothing. Amanda said nothing either. She looked down at her feet. Her still bare feet that were cold on the stone floor.

“Come here!” Hargreave said, his voice low and hissing.

Amanda shook her head, biting her lips together. “You’re not real.”

“Woman, come here, now.”

Amanda glared at him. “I have a name.”

Hargreave adjusted himself. She didn’t know what he was hanging onto, but he seemed to be struggling to keep some of his balance where he was.

“Then by all means, come here and tell me what it is.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. She approached the window, but she remembered his spear, how long it was, and still made sure there was a good ten feet between them. “My name is Amanda.”

“
Amanda
,” he said, grinning brightly, as though even saying the name was a treat to be savored.

Amanda didn’t know why that made her feel so light and warm in her stomach.

Hargreave reached his arm through. About as much as he could, considering his bicep was wider than the narrow window itself.

Amanda nearly went to him. She forced her knees to lock into place before she could do it, but it felt wrong. Her body itched and the desire to go to him was strong. It was almost like fighting an instinct.

Not that she would let him know that. She looked at his outstretched hand, then at him, as if the gesture meant nothing. “What?”

Hargreave clenched his fist before stretching out his fingers again. “Let me touch you.”

Yes
.

Amanda shook her head. “No way.”

Hargreave growled, but he must have realized she was serious because he pulled back, a light scowl still on his face. “Did he hurt you?”

He was talking about Eldric. Amanda shook her head. “No.”

“Did he touch you?”

“Well, yeah, of course he had to.”

The red in Hargreave’s eyes brightened as his lips pulled back in a fierce scowl, revealing his white, pointed teeth.

Amanda realized her mistake. “Oh, you mean…no, not like that. I meant when he picked me up and carried me away.”

The scowl on Hargreave’s face didn’t diminish. Amanda could feel the anger and raw hate vibrating off this man. She’d never felt anything like that before, and she considered herself to be incredibly empathetic towards other people’s feelings.

“I’ll get you out of here. I swear it.”

Amanda’s heart skipped at the promise, but she shoved the feeling away, squashing it down before she could make something out of it that wasn’t there. “Why do you care? You’re the bad guy.”

Those red eyes widened, and that had been Amanda’s next mistake.

“I’m not trying to be mean about it, but you’ve done some pretty shitty things. You’ve killed people. Why would you care about me?”

“Is that why you won’t come near me?”

“Well, yeah, pretty much.”

Through the long but thin window frame, Amanda watched Hargreave’s lips turn thin. She heard the rustle of his wings before he pushed himself away from the window, as though jumping from the tall ledge.

“No!”

Amanda rushed to the window, staring out of it as she tried to find Hargreave’s body in the air.

Of course she wouldn’t be able to see him. He was smarter than that. He wouldn’t be flying towards the moon right above his enemy’s castle. He’d get shot down in an instant. There was no moon or stars out that night at all, which had probably made it easier for him to sneak onto enemy territory.

Whenever Amanda had been writing his character, the fact that he had black wings and dark skin had been helpful to his nightly raids.