The Dragon King (21 page)

Aaron

I’d broken Sophia’s trust when I tried to demand an apology. The bitch of it was, she’d have gladly apologized if I’d waited until we returned to the human world, but the implications of my demanding it in Faerie had pushed her to mistrust me.

And truthfully? She was right. I’d wrongly assumed she had no other options and would have no choice but to accept my offer. She’d been so far past drained, I still wasn’t sure how she’d managed one last teleport.

But she had, and I’d royally fucked up.

I was giving her as much space as I dared, because her father was still quite actively trying to get her back. Isaac had kept Raul’s people from getting her once, and twice I’d barely managed to keep the Eagles from her. It bothered me she wasn’t more concerned about these narrow escapes, but she’d agreed to learn to use a gun and had been practicing regularly at the Drake Security range.

I’d also given her a stun gun, as I figured there was a better chance of her using non-lethal force against people she knew.

When she told me she’d talked to Jonathan, I noted her excitement and tried not to show my dismay. This wasn’t about my being jealous, it was about my understanding she would trust him more than me. He’d been there for her, day in and day out, for years. He’d provided touch when she had none.

And I’d had her trust and blown it.

I also had a lot of problems to deal with at work. A CIA operative had been taken by ISIS, and the State Department had contracted us to try to get him back. It was too touchy of a situation for official troop involvement, but we were well known for getting in and out when no one else would even consider trying.

“You’re being quiet. Is everything okay?” Sophia asked.

I pulled her into my arms. “Yes, I was just thinking logistics. I’d like to bring Jonathan into the office and let him have access to my resources. I’ll come to the club with you this evening, meet him, and then we can all go back to my office together. I have some rooms downstairs where my men and I can sleep when we don’t have time to go home. I’ll set him up in one of them so he’ll have a place to live, put him with my computer guy so he’ll have access to whatever we know, get him one of our phones, and let him know if he needs weapons or other equipment to come to me and I’ll see that he gets what he needs.”

“You have so many guest bedrooms, can’t he stay here? That way I wouldn’t need to go to Abbott’s during the day, or The Billiard Club at night when you have to deal with things when it’s daylight on the other side of the planet.”

It killed me to agree to it, but I knew she was right. “Of course he can. I’ll have the housekeeper get a room ready for him, but we’ll still make a stop by my office and show him around, let him know he only has to ask for what he needs.”

She sighed. “I’m trying to keep up with the things you’ve done so I can pay you back once I have funds of my own. I’m really sorry you’re having to do so much for me.”

“Dammit Soph! Enough! I love you and I don’t mind taking care of you!”

She just shook her head and changed the conversation. She was through arguing about it, and I couldn’t engage her long enough to convince her. My heart broke at the pain I felt coming off her. She’d effectively masked her scent, but I could feel the pain in her heart and every protective instinct in me surfaced, but I didn’t know how to protect her when it was
me
who’d hurt her. After years of not having anyone in her life who loved her unconditionally, and a lifetime of being raised by people who were paid to turn her into the perfect arm-candy and never her own person, the trust she’d given me had been so fragile, and I’d tossed it away in a moment of anger.

“Jonathan’s been with my father almost non-stop,” she said, her voice strong as she ignored my outburst, “so he’ll likely be able to tell us a good bit about his plans. I trust him, but I’d rather not give him too much about us just yet, so I want to spend forty-eight hours with him before we tell him our plans or let him see your office. I also want extra protection around me at first, until I’m comfortable with his loyalty.”

I looked at her a few minutes, impressed with her practicality, though it broke my heart she had to take these precautions with the person in her day-to-day life she’d most trusted. “Okay, Sophia. I respect your instincts. We’ll play it your way.”

She nodded and walked to the kitchen. I followed and watched her get a glass from the cabinet, walk to the refrigerator, and fill it from the dispenser. When she arrived, Sophia had no idea how to work the refrigerator, or how dishes got washed. Now, she got her own glass of water as if it were nothing.

“Randall called earlier and told me he needed to talk to me, said he’d be at the club tonight. Any idea what he has in the works?” she asked.

“There are rumors the Wolf Alpha over Maryland, D.C., and both Virginias is considering throwing his weight behind you. Personally, I think he’s looking for an invite into Faerie and I’m not sure how trustworthy he’d be if you let him in.”

I could have given her more advice, and probably would’ve if it’d been anyone else, but I wanted to see what she came up with.

Her throat worked as she took a long drink of water, and she stayed quiet as she refilled her glass, not speaking until she set it on the counter. “I could accept his offer, tell him the Winter Queen has probably let all the Wolves in she’s prepared to allow at one time, that I might be able to wrangle one more invitation for him, but it’s doubtful I could for anyone else.”

I smiled, happy with her solution. It’s probably what I’d have done. “Impressive, and I’ve loved watching you get comfortable with your powers, with your title of Queen. So smart, but also caring and protective.” I paused and realized I hadn’t talked with her since she’d met with Mabel and Titania in secret yesterday. I’d worked all night and was just now getting home. “Speaking of the Winter Queen, what did she think of your suggestion of how you could have both of your Faerie Godmothers at your party?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “The ballroom will be set up like springtime, and Titania will reign in there. Mabel is going to arrange for a nice snowfall beforehand, and will keep the snow on the ground from melting even though we’ll bring the temperature up into the sixties the evening of the ball so it won’t be too cold. I’ll have fires and heaters around outside, and Mabel will reign both outside and in the back portico. The true beauty of it is I only have to worry about decorating my throne room and the other public areas, and each Queen will be responsible for their sections.”

She sobered and added, “I’ve done everything I can to inspire loyalty from my father’s old guard, but I don’t entirely trust them. Mabel and Titania will bring their people, and I’ve spoken to Nathan and the Hawks about providing an extra layer of security at the ball. Is there anything else I should do?”

I knew what it took for her to ask the final question. She hadn’t given up on us and was trying, but I’d completely changed the way she saw our relationship with my reckless demand, and I was going to have to figure out a way to fix the damage I’d done.

But not now, so I answered her question, hoping to show I didn’t mind giving advice while reminding her how important she is to me. “You won’t leave my sight at the ball, and if you’re comfortable with Jonathan at that point then we’ll have him on you as well. Everything else you’ve done helps, but you and I both know this will be the ideal time for your father to try something.”

Sophia nodded and walked towards the bedroom. “I’m going to get a nap, as it doesn’t look like I’ll be going to sleep until the early morning hours.”

I followed her and climbed into bed naked. She put a nightgown on and joined me, but stayed on her side of the bed.

I pulled her to me, kissed her senseless, got rid of the nightgown, and made love to her.

She responded to me in bed, didn’t push me away, but she also didn’t give me all of her, anymore.

I gave her orgasms until she was exhausted, and finally came with her when I knew she was tired enough to let me hold her in her sleep. Too often, these days, once she was asleep she pushed me away, and it broke my heart.

As I lay with my arms around her, holding her against me and listening to her breathe, I considered what I could say or do to regain her trust.

Sophia

I awoke in Aaron’s arms, once again conflicted about what I was doing here. Part of me felt as if I were using him, only living in his house because it was the easiest and safest option, but I knew if I truly didn’t love him, I’d deal with the more difficult option and leave.

I was stuck, because I loved him with all my heart, even though I no longer wanted to. I’d spent a lifetime being jerked around by people who had power over me, and Aaron had shown he was no better than them and wouldn’t hesitate to jerk me around as well, when he thought he could get away with it.

Sometimes, when he held me and made love to me, it felt as if my heart were being ripped from my chest and I wanted to cry. I loved him so much, but I wasn’t sure how this was going to work. I wasn’t sure I could stay with someone who’d take advantage when I showed weakness, no matter how much my heart might break with even the
thought
of leaving him.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he told me, his breath warm on my ear. “Something about me you need to understand.”

I hadn’t realized he’d been awake but I tried not to show surprise. Instead, I snuggled into him and kept quiet so he could talk.

“I may have been thousands of years old, but I was still at the partying stage of life when my family was killed. I don’t want to go into details, but the gist is that the wizards and knights of the day declared war on my kind and managed to do a combination spell and poisoning, hitting us all on the same night so we couldn’t warn each other. I was off on an adventure, one of us was in what is known as Hong Kong today, and the other is a perpetual hermit and lived on a deserted island. It took us a long time to find him. My grandmother got a little less of a dose than the others and managed to hold on for five days, until I returned. Talking proved to be too much for her, though, and she died in my arms before she could tell me everything she thought I needed to know.”

I was quiet while he brought his voice back under control, and within a few seconds he continued his story.

“We’re hard to kill. Spells won’t do it, and neither will poisons, but the wizards found a combination that worked, and on the night the farmers were to put out the members of their herd they wouldn’t mind us eating, the wizards and knights managed to put the spell and poison into every one of the animals being sacrificed to us.”

“Why did the farmers…” I’d heard stories, of course, about how the dragons had once terrorized the peasants.

“Most dragons were actual dragons back then. The shapeshifters were accepted amongst them, but the humans didn’t know about us. The dragons worked out a deal with the farmers, so they left out stock we could eat one day a week. It cycled through the villages, so each area was only required to do so about once every six months. When the practice first started it was a relief to the farmers, as they no longer had to keep their best milk cow in the barn every night, or the cow they were about to take to slaughter, or an animal their children considered a pet. However, hundreds of years later the humans forgot why the tradition started, and they began to resent it.”

“And the shapeshifters shifted into dragon form and partook of the fun?”

He nodded. “Not every week, but when it fell on a festival we often did, and this happened at the spring equinox.”

He held me a little tighter. “What you need to know about me is later, but I wanted you to understand I was still acting as a child, still living with my parents because dragons stay with their family unit, and still two steps away from holding the crown. My grandfather was King, my father was preparing to accept it from him in a few years, and my life was mostly parties and screwing around until I needed to accept true responsibility.”

I nodded, and I heard his throat working as if he were trying to swallow his grief so he could make his vocal cords work. “When I lost my family, I joined a group of mercenaries and let them train me to kill as a human. A few decades later I joined one of the more vicious armies of the ages, and a few millennia later I was the equivalent of a general in the Roman army. It took me four hundred years to get into a position to kill most of the wizards and be sure the secret of how to kill Dragons was lost forever.”

A longer pause this time, but I waited in silence for him to continue.

“When Mabel took her throne she was a party girl and was known for her cruelty. I went to a celebration at her castle a few months into her reign and watched her nearly take a heron shapeshifter apart and then make sure he had what he needed to put himself back together again. A human would’ve died two minutes into the torture, and most shapeshifters would’ve died less than an hour into it, the strongest perhaps two hours in. However, she was skilled and kept him alive for nearly four hours, hurting him the whole time. When she finished with him, she shifted him into a heron, fed him energy, turned him back into a man, and made him grovel at her feet to thank her for the pain.” He rubbed my back and I could smell his arousal and distress. He wasn’t hiding it from me. “I was intrigued, turned on, and hooked. She saw me watching and invited me to her chambers later. Our agreement was she never do anything demeaning to me in public, but could have her way with me behind closed doors.”

He sighed, kissed the top of my head. “I’d been royal and in control all my life. My family’s death was out of my control, but I had their money and was still a very respected member of human society. There were rumors, of course, because they disappeared on the night the dragons were killed, but I explained they’d heard I was in trouble and had come looking for me. I told people they’d decided to stay at the summer house a while, and had tasked me with returning home and handling business.”

“The summer house?” I asked.

He nodded. “In what’s known as Scotland, today. The point is that I’d begun to resent having to be in control all the time, and when I was with Mabel I didn’t do anything without her permission. She put a device on me so I couldn’t get an erection without her consent, and she wouldn’t even let me use the restroom without begging her, first. You saw the plug she used in my bottom — I wore a more brutal version of one nearly all the time when I was with her. I wasn’t allowed on furniture unless she invited me onto it.” He pulled me close again and I could smell how nervous he was, how much he didn’t want to share this with me. “I didn’t live with her, but when I visited her I gave up all autonomy and was basically nothing more than a sex slave, someone she could do with as she pleased. In public, she treated me as a respected boyfriend, but no one knew I had a device on my cock to keep me from getting erect, one on my balls she could engage to hurt me at any time, and something crammed up my ass. Sometimes there were things on my nipples, too.”

He took a breath, stroked my back, my bare arm. “We had an agreement though, one she’d signed in blood. I knew she’d never publicly humiliate me, and I knew she’d never harm me past what could be healed in a four hour period. It was degradation and pain, but it was safe. I put myself into the position; I
chose
to be there. At no other time in my life have I allowed anyone to place a hand on me with power — not even girlfriends — without threat of them losing the hand. Even Queen Titania would never dare grab me and use her power without letting me know what she was about to do.”

He whispered his next words, almost as if he were afraid to say them. “I’m always in control of my life and my safety, Sophia. Always. I’ve never had someone grab me and teleport me like that. It terrified me, and all I could think of was I needed to do something to be sure it didn’t happen again. I didn’t strike out, didn’t hurt you physically, but I needed to be sure…” He held me close again, his fear and nervousness a palpable thing. “I fucked up, Soph. I fucked up and I don’t know how to make it right with you. I don’t want to keep score, I want us to be lovers in as normal of a relationship as we can manage while holding four crowns between us.
Please
, Soph. Please forgive me?”

He was honest, I could give him the same. “My father took advantage of the fact he held power over me. He kept me imprisoned in his house for twenty-five years. I was allowed out in Faerie occasionally, but never out in the human world. You
know
what my life was like.” I took a breath and gave him what I hoped wasn’t the crippling blow to whatever we were trying to create between us. “I can’t... No. I
won’t
live with someone else who takes advantage of my weaknesses in order to control me. Your actions that night made me think you’re made of the same stuff he is, and I vowed to myself to never show weakness around you again.”

He froze. I wasn’t sure he even breathed for the next twenty seconds. He finally said, “You made a vow to yourself in Faerie?”

I nodded and he went even stiffer, if that was possible. Finally, he relaxed his arms and stroked my back again. I smelled grief on him and my heart broke a little. “The Summerlands will hold you to it when you’re there. Do you intend to keep your vow in the human world, as well?”

“With a few very small exceptions, I have so far.” I pulled my head back and looked up at him. “You’ve been in thousands of relationships. This is my first. There’s a weakness I just admitted, though I realize it’s something you already knew. The point is, I have no clue what I’m doing. I love being in your arms, but the thought of letting you know how you can hurt me again makes me want to walk out the door and not look back.” I hesitated a few seconds and decided to keep up with the honesty. “I’ve considered how I’d survive if I left you. I won’t tell you my plans, but I will say there’s a way to ensure income and my safety, as well as a place to live worthy of the Swan Queen.” I buried my head in his chest. “But I’m still here, in spite of the way you treated me that night because the thought of living my life without you makes me want to throw myself from the mountain and not shift into something that can fly.”

“I love you too, Sophia.”

“That’s what this is? Love?”

“Yes, and having experienced transient love versus true love more times than I care to remember, I recognize this as the kind that lasts.” He took a stuttering breath. “And I fucked up our trust, which is one of the worst things one can do when gifted with true love.” He sat us up and the pained look in his eyes made my heart hurt. “I’ll make a vow to you in Faerie, if it’ll fix this between us. I’ll vow to never again take advantage of your weakness, unless you’re in danger and I must do so to save you.”

Tears filled my eyes and slipped onto my cheeks. I had no idea why I was crying, but I shook my head and told him, “I think making the offer to do it is enough. The Summerlands creep me out and I don’t want them to have any more control over us than they already do.” I shuddered and said, “The land always listening, always aware,
bothers
me. I mean, I know Earth is alive and sentient, but it’s a watcher. The same with the trees, though they occasionally get involved by tripping someone with their roots, or messing something up by creating a wind out of nowhere, but…The Summerlands is actively involved in what happens and it’s just
creepy
.”

He touched my chin, lifted it until our gazes collided. “So, we’re good?” he asked.

I nodded. “I can’t promise to tell you my biggest weaknesses right away. It might take me a while to work up to it, but I’ll ask advice again, and let you know my problems if I think you can offer helpful suggestions.”

He shook his head. “I need your promise on this, Soph. I’ve been constantly checking your energy levels and smelling for problems, wishing I hadn’t taught you how to alter your scent. I need to know you’ll tell me so I can stop monitoring for it. It’s driving me crazy. I’m so sorry I broke our trust.”

I was pretty sure he wasn’t as sorry as I was, but I didn’t argue with him. “I gave you the only promise I can give you, Aaron. I’ll trust you with the small stuff and work my way up.”

“Then we need to make a trip to Faerie so I can make the vow. I
need
you to trust me again.”

I shook my head. “No. You’ll give me space to trust you again in my own time.” I saw his face go hard and I added, “This isn’t negotiable, Aaron. You want me to trust you? You’ll do as I ask and not drag me to Faerie because you’re stronger and I’m weaker and you can bully me around however you want.”

He pulled me into his arms again as he said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I told him as I hugged him back, and then sighed as I reminded him, “I have a meeting with Randall in just over an hour, and it’ll take thirty minutes to drive it this time of night. I need to jump in the shower and get ready.”