The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) (3 page)

Dropping my hand as though I’d burned him, he took several steps back and shook his head. “No.”

I frowned. “Why not? I wish to see you as you truly are.”

He turned his head to the side. And for the first time I saw him for what he really was, a young child unsure of himself.

Getting to my feet, I was almost dizzy with relief that I didn’t hurt when I took a deep breath. I would be forever grateful and in Ragoth’s debt for what he’d done for me tonight.

When I’d set out tonight to come find him, I’d held out very little hope of him actually keeping to his word and being here. But he was quickly proving to me to be different from those in my life.

He stared at me with wide, almost terrified eyes when I drew to his side and gently draped my arm across his broad shoulders. Leaning into his ear, I whispered, “I think I should like you any way you come, dear Ragoth. But if we are to be friends, then please, let me see every side of you.”

It was important to me that he showed me this trust. No one in my life did. No one saw me as anything worth more than the value of the blood that flowed through my veins. Ragoth had given me a gift tonight, one I would always cherish.

He was my friend, and as such, I wanted to know him. Truly know him.

“If I show myself to you,” he whispered back, “then you have to promise me not to run.”

My heart sped. I knew that to look upon a dragon was a terrifying sight to behold. That for some, it’d even caused their hearts to stop beating from a powerful rush of fear.

“I promise.” I quickly nodded, terrified but also excited out of my mind with curiosity.

He lifted his chin. “Lena, I’m serious. You cannot run from me. I will not allow it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And if I do?”

His rosebud lips tilted up at the corner. “Then I should snatch you up and take you to my nest in Olympus, and there you will be my captive.”

I knew he was making a joke, but the words hit too close to home for me. I could only imagine my life in the hands of dragons. I already lived in my own personal brand of hell; I did not think I could survive anything more. Crossing my arms about myself, I took a step back, ready to turn on my heel and race back to the cottage.

“Lena?” He looked confused. “Did I offend you?”

“I’m...I’m sorry I asked. You should not have to do what you do not wish to do. I should go, I’m—”

“Stop!” He snatched at my hand as his voice shook with desperation. “I am sorry. I did not think about my words, I—”

Heart racing nearly out of my chest, I felt suddenly foolish and silly for my theatrics. He’d been teasing me, and I’d let my irrational feelings get in the way. Stepping into him, I embraced him. Giving him a fierce hug.

I’d meant for the hug to be an apology to him, but when he wrapped his arms back around me, and he leaned his head onto my chest, something broken and fissured inside of me trembled.

His was the first hug I’d ever received in my life.

Sniffing back the tears that suddenly clogged my throat, I stepped out of his arms a good ways and nodded. “I shall not run, boy. I vow it.”

With a smile that burned brighter than the noonday sun, he nodded. “I will show you who I truly am, and in return, you show me where you live.”

I knew we’d get back to this somehow. The boy had set himself up as my protector. I wasn’t sure why, and I knew that Zerelda would see me flogged if she learned I’d escaped yet again. But I wanted to see Ragoth’s true form almost more than I’d wanted anything else in my whole life.

“You may follow me home, but keep your distance, and do not speak once we leave these woods. My guard is a shifter with hearing keen as a fox.”

“And yet you escaped him.” He chuckled, voice full of questions and wonder. “How?”

I grinned. I would never tell; that secret was mine alone. I clutched at the leather thong around my neck.

“You’re dawdling, boy.”

“I am not. But if you truly wish me to change, then you should step back. Into that grove of trees over there.”

My eyes widened. “Are you really that big?”

The grove he’d pointed to was easily four hundred meters back. His grin was his only answer.

Saluting smartly, I turned on my bare heel and marched my way back. The woods were eerily silent tonight. It’d been this way the last time I’d come here. Boy he might be, but Ragoth was still a dragon, and it seemed all of wonderland knew it. I was probably a fool to be out and about with this child, but...

I cupped hands around my mouth and yelled, “Go ahead then, boy.”

Instantly his form shimmered, as though he’d been bathed in the purest of white light. I had to shield my eyes against the terrible brightness that brought stinging tears to them. When I could finally see again without the spots dancing in my vision, my jaw dropped.

The dragon was completely white, but his scales gleamed like mother of pearl in the moonlight. His head was massive and angular at the snout. There were sharp, triangular scales that ran down his neck almost like a horse’s mane would, running from largest at the crown of his head, to small and almost flat when it hit his middle. Fan-like protuberances poked out from where his ears should be.

The way they trembled and twitched, I could only assume he was listening to me. To my breathing, perhaps to see if I was scared. There wasn’t a single thought of fear in me at the moment; no, what I felt now was not fear at all. But wonder. I couldn’t seem to rip my gaze off him.

His body was massive. His belly corrugated almost like a snake’s and resting heavily upon the ground. Colossal front and back legs with talons as long as my arms, and veiny webbing between them, dug into the soil. If he wanted to, he could have ripped every tree up from the vicinity with nary a thought. A sensuous tail curled tight around him, the very tip of it looking as though it idly waved back at me.

But it was when I looked back up to his face that I recognized the boy. The glass-colored eyes gazed down on me.

The blue of his eyes against the white of his scales made them almost appear to burn like flame.

“My gods,” I whispered, not even realizing that I’d begun walking back toward him until I stood to within inches of his face.

If he wanted to, Ragoth could eat me. Snap me up and swallow me whole, and none would have been the wiser about my fate.

But instead he kept lowering his head until he bumped against my hand with his snout.

I smiled. “Do you want me to pet you?”

Yes.

Startled, I jumped back on my heels. Looking both ways, sure that someone spied on us, terrified by the fact that I’d heard that answer in my own head.

I felt the tremors of his laughter rumble beneath my feet.

The voice is mine, Lena. I can speak to you in this form. But only if you wish it. If I actually talk, my voice would cause the earth to tremble. As you seem to crave discretion at the moment, I figured it best to remain inconspicuous.

Pulse returning immediately back to normal, I couldn’t stop the grin that cut across my face. “This is amazing, Ragoth.”

Somehow it seemed wrong to call him a boy when in this form. This was no boy before me.

“Do you have no wings?” I asked curiously as I scratched at a soft spot behind his ear fan.

He purred warmly against my thigh.

I do. But mother has grounded me for eating one of my tutors.

I laughed heartily. Gloriously enraptured by my friend and unable to remember a time when I’d had more fun.

“Well, you devil of a beast, I should hope she did ground you for that. You really shouldn’t eat your tutors; it’s bad form.”

What could have only been his attempt at a smile passed over his face. But on a dragon, it was rather terrifying, and I had to admit to snatching my hand back.

His teeth were twice as long and sharp as they were while in human form, and his snake-like tongue flickered out at me. The beast had the nerve to snap at me. Not threateningly, no. I didn’t think Ragoth would ever harm me. But I smacked him on the nose for it anyway.

“Play nice, devil.”

A snuffling sort of sound dropped off his tongue. I assumed it to be dragon laughter and couldn’t help but join in.

But all too soon I became keenly aware of the passage of time. I’d drugged Hagar with only four hours’ worth of bane. If I stayed out too much longer, he might catch me sneaking in, and tonight would be the end of my adventures with the boy.

Curtseying deeply at the prince, I said, “And now it is time for me to return to the cottage.”

Close your eyes
, he warned me. I had just enough time to squeeze them shut before I sensed the overwhelming light of his transformation. But where I’d been standing back last time, I’d not felt the rush of power that now danced along my flesh.

A moment later, I felt small fingers slip through my own. “You can open them now, Lena.”

I did and smiled down at him, and we turned and walked hand in hand through the woods. After several long minutes he asked, “Did I frighten you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I thought you to be the most wonderful sight I’ve ever beheld, devil boy.”

I could see his chest puff up just a little. Ahead I saw the end of the line of trees that hid us. Soon we’d be out in the open, and I would be forced to drop his hand and not speak as I walked the rest of the way home.

“Ragoth?” I said his name, wanting to know my friend a little better.

He glanced up at me.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.” He beamed. “And you?”

“Thirteen. Very nearly fourteen.”

Sharp little teeth smiled back at me. “I always did like older women.”

Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous, devil. We are naught more than friends, and will never be more.”

He sniffed. “If you wish to believe that nonsense, then so be it. But I’ve marked you as mine tonight, Lena.”

“You did what!” I twirled on him, dropping his hand in an instant and planting my hands on my hips. “You are a child. And I very nearly a woman. You cannot mark me; I never gave my consent.”

“I am dragonborne.”

He said it as though that were answer enough. But I merely rolled my eyes. “I am already betrothed. To a king of this kingdom. He merely awaits my blushing.”

Visibly gnashing his teeth, curls of steam frothed from his nostrils. “You are mine. And thus it will always be.”

He was but a child. When he grew, he’d learn the truth of it. And whatever temporary fancy he held for me now would vanish someday. I patted his foolish little cheeks then leaned over and kissed one of them.

“There, devil boy, now I have given my consent,” I said it in jest, to make him laugh.

But instead of smiling as I’d expected him to, he seemed contemplative and deep in thought. “When is a maiden’s blushing in Kingdom?”

“On my seventeenth birthday,” I said, feeling the tears prick at the back of my eyes. I should be proud to be betrothed to a king, or at the very least grateful, but I was not. I wanted no part of that dubious honor, but my fate was sealed, and not even Ragoth had the power to break that binding.

Wanting to speak of other things, I turned and very slowly began to walk once more. I was in no haste to return to the cottage or to Zerelda’s tender mercies.

“How is it that you do not get caught sneaking out of Olympus, boy? Prince and all, should you not be surrounded by a bevy of guards? Hm?” I felt my eyes sparkle with laughter as I asked it.

He chuckled, running fingers through his dark, wavy hair and mussing it. Then with a single shoulder shrug said, “I put them to sleep with a bit of dragon’s blood.”

I lifted a brow. “You are not guarded by dragons?”

“Oh, I am.” He swatted his wrist. “My brother and I are constantly guarded.”

I pursed my lips. “Brother? How old is he, and is he devastatingly handsome?”

He glowered at me. “He is nineteen and a pig-headed fool. He is impossibly good, and I detest him.”

Hip-bumping him, because it seemed like the thing to do in that moment, we suddenly broke out in laughter. I couldn’t help but wonder just how much more beautiful that mysterious brother was; surely he must be twice as handsome as Ragoth, and already a man.

I imagined him to have eyes like his brother, skin and hair in much the same shade, but more mature. More adult features. My heart trembled violently. I knew if I ever met him, I’d probably fall completely in love with him.

But we were now at the edge of the forest, and in the distance I could just barely spy the golden wash of light glowing from my room. My laughter died on my tongue.

I did not wish to ever leave this magical place. Stopping, I looked at the boy and sighed.

“You say you will meet me here every night? Are you sure that you should not be sleeping, boy? I do not wish to alarm your parents.”

“Dragons sleep in the day. Not much really. Mostly just in the early afternoon. We are most alert at night. I should currently be with my Art tutor.”

My lips twitched. He had that effect on me; I always seemed to want to laugh when in his presence. “And do you not like the Arts?”

He snorted. “I do not care a fig when it comes to the difference between a Van Gogh and a Michelangelo; it all tastes the same to me.”

“Good gods, devil boy, you are ridiculous.”

He grinned then glanced off to the side. “Is that your home?”

I nodded, nibbling on the inside of my lip. Stomach sick and twisting up inside me, the moments I spent with him were so magical, that to return to the nightmare that was that cottage made me want to scream and rage and hurt something.

Pulling me into his arms, he gave me a tight squeeze, and I must admit, I melted into it. His hugs warmed me to my very core.

“I will watch over you tonight, Lena. Go, and be well.”

Zelena

T
he moon was full this night and hanging at its place in the sky that I knew the boy awaited me. I’d found him a treasure this morning while out foraging. I’d stumbled upon the find quite by accident—a set of four dragon stones.

A magenta-red stone with veins of deepest red cutting through it, that, if consumed by a fire dragon, helped increase the intensity of their flame. I rolled the marble-like stones through my fingers, heart speeding as I waited to hear Hagar’s first heavy snore of the night. I’d given him twice the normal dose of bane. In the three years since Ragoth and I had first met one another I’d never once been caught sneaking out.