Wyvern's Prince (The Dragons of Incendium Book 2) (8 page)

The toad, to her surprise, laughed although it was a rueful sound. “It just might.”

“Why? Who are you really?”

The toad stretched up and Gemma realized it was offering its mouth to her. “One kiss and you can find out.”

She bent and touched a fingertip to his forehead, considering it. But the feel of his skin made her shudder and step back in disgust. She took refuge in a technicality because his disappointment was almost tangible. “If you were a frog, I might. But everyone knows that enchanted princes don’t become toads.”

“You don’t know Urbanus very well, do you?”

Gemma pivoted at the sound of a key in the lock to the corridor. The maid!

“Here’s your only chance to get out of here,” the toad muttered. “Do I have to explain it and can you figure it out all alone?”

“Oh, shut up or I’ll leave you behind,” Gemma had time to say before the door swung open and the maid entered the room. She seemed to be startled to find Gemma waiting for her, even though she carried a tray with a steaming bowl upon it.

“I trust you slept well, my lady?”

“I did, thank you,” Gemma said with a smile. She acted like a fool, the better to win the girl’s trust. “That smells delicious. Could you set breakfast on the balcony for me? I
love
the view of the trees! Look at the sunlight on my ring!”

* * *

Venero was impressed by Gemma. At the sound of the key in the lock, her manner changed completely. He could have been watching a different person than the woman he’d been arguing with just moments before.

He admired anyone who could play a role when necessary. He didn’t like deceit much, but sometimes a small deception served the greater good. If the maid under-estimated Gemma, they would have a better chance of escape.

But it was more than that: he’d seen Gemma nude and he couldn’t forget it. She was beautiful. Ideal, even. She had creamy breasts, which he thought to be the perfect size, and the way her nipples tightened in the cool morning breeze had been particularly distracting.

He’d wanted to touch her.

No, he’d wanted to caress her. He’d been sure he’d despise her, given her shape shifting abilities, but the reaction Gemma provoked in him was the very opposite. He wanted her in all the ways he couldn’t have her. And that was strange: he liked ornamental women as sexual partners, and skilled warriors as companions. He’d never met a woman who he admired in both ways. Arista, for example, had been a good companion and partner in battle, but he’d felt no sexual desire for her at all.

Of course, Arista hadn’t really been a woman, so maybe that explained everything.

Venero’s reaction to Gemma was so uncharacteristic that it confused him.

Maybe that was the result of his recent celibacy. Years as a toad had left him with many unsatisfied urges. Maybe any attractive woman would have provoked such a reaction in him. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he’d reward them both with a satisfying interlude after she helped him to earn his own freedom.

He hoped she got them out of here and soon.

Venero forced himself to listen and watch.

Gemma was all grace and solicitude, complimenting the maid so much that Venero thought she overdid it a bit. The girl blushed and beamed, though, more than happy to move a table for her gracious lady and get a cushion for the chair. She admired the ring at Gemma’s insistence, and smiled at the way the light flashed in the stone. She set out the meal, barely noticing how Gemma moved behind her.

Venero blinked as Gemma incapacitated the maid, her attack as quick as lightning and more effective than he expected. The maid was struck and she fell, but Gemma caught her. She was stripped naked, gagged and trussed helpless in the blink of an eye. She was unconscious but he guessed not injured.

He recognized the move from Arista. It was a trick of those trained on Cumae to stun a victim just long enough to see that individual bound, and it wasn’t easily done. It required a perfect balance of force and gentleness, as well as meticulous timing.

As he watched, Gemma touched the maid’s temple with a care completely at odds with the inflicting blow, a gesture Venero remembered well.

It had to be true, then, that Gemma had trained on Cumae. It was part of the story of the royal family of Incendium that the second daughter of the king had trained on Cumae and led a regiment of mercenaries on her return to her home planet, but Venero had always thought it was just propaganda. He hadn’t been able to believe that any princess would undertake that kind of physical challenge, much less succeed at it. Gemma’s moves proved that she had done it, and probably graduated at the top of her class.

He was impressed, so impressed that he almost forgot to watch Gemma dress.

Urbanus moaned a little more loudly then, recalling him to the situation. Venero hopped toward Gemma. “Hurry!”

The girl’s lashes fluttered as Gemma was putting on her boots. The maid blinked and frowned, then wriggled as Gemma pulled the lavish coverlet over her.

“I am sorry,” Gemma whispered. “It’s my only way out. Are you quite comfortable?”

The girl nodded, her amazement echoing Venero’s own. Gemma pulled her wedding band from her finger then and pushed it onto the girl’s smallest finger. Her hands were more plump than Gemma’s.

“Since you like it,” Gemma whispered. “Sell it if you like.”

The maid’s eyes widened and Venero knew she’d never imagined that she’d even touch such a ring, let alone possess it.

But Gemma didn’t look back. She seized the bucket from the water and the key from the door, then nudged her pet with her toe. As soon as she opened the door, the pavofel shot through the gap in a streak of vivid blue-green.

“Oh, my lady! The pavofel!” Gemma cried, mimicking the maid’s voice.

“Me! Me!” Venero cried, but Gemma was already scooping him off the floor with one hand. He felt her shudder of revulsion, then she dropped him into the pocket on the front of the maid’s plain dress. There was a handkerchief there and it wasn’t clean, which made Venero shudder with revulsion, then he jostled in the pocket as Gemma ran down the stairs.

At least she’d kept her promise. He found himself pleased with his companion.

“She wouldn’t know the word,” he felt obliged to point out.

“What word?” Gemma demanded in an undertone.

“Pavofel. We don’t have them here, and she isn’t a great reader.”

“Do you think he heard?”

There was no point in lying. Venero sighed. “Yes.”

Gemma swore with the vigor of a hardened mercenary, and Venero was astonished yet again by her. She then ran faster, galloping down the stairs with a wanton disregard for his comfort.

“Don’t drop me!” he insisted, knowing he’d be smashed by the fall. Gemma closed her hand around the opening of the pocket.

Venero was jostled and bounced in her pocket but wished he could see her running. She had to be as graceful as the cervus he’d hunted on Sylvawyld during his incarceration there. They were such beautiful creatures that he’d always regretted his need for food and had never eaten their meat since.

Venero felt the change in the air when Gemma reached the ground floor, because it was cooler there, then heard her throwing open the bolts on the kitchen door. He smelled the herbs in the garden as she took the most direct path to the gate, and felt the heat of the pavofel when she scooped it up into her arms.

The miserable creature reached a paw into the pocket of the dress, and Venero tucked himself as far away from those claws as he could.

“Control your pet!” he cried.

“Because I don’t have enough to do,” Gemma complained. Even so, she lifted the pavofel higher, much to his relief.

He could see a patch of morning sky through the opening at the top of the pocket, then the branches of the trees on the perimeter of the forest etched against it. The skirt spun and he had to hang on to the lip of the pocket as Gemma turned back to face the palace.

And at the height of the tower, Venero saw a male figure, silhouetted on a high balcony. Urbanus.

“Oh no,” Venero whispered.

“What’s he doing?”

The crown prince raised his hand, scattering something into the wind, and Venero swore himself when he saw the glitter of spelldust.

Chapter Three

“Run!” Venero bellowed, but Gemma didn’t need his encouragement. She had already spun to flee. She leaped over fallen branches and raced deeper into the forest, panting but never slowing down. He was amazed by her speed and her agility, and by her determination to outrun the spelldust.

But he heard Urbanus calling to the wind to aid him and Venero guessed that Gemma could hear it, too.

“What do I do?” she demanded.

“Keep it from touching your skin. Can you see it?”

“It glitters. What is it?”

“Spelldust.”

She groaned. “Trust my luck that I end up trapped on a planet filled with magic.” Her scorn was clear and intrigued Venero. “What does spelldust do?”

“It takes whatever it touches out of the time stream.”

“What?”

“It immobilizes things, freezing them in one moment, either for eternity or until released by the spell caster.”

“Anything?” Gemma sounded incredulous.

“Everything.”

Gemma swore again. She splashed into a stream, and Venero saw the first sparkle of the dust descending. It touched the tree tops and they glittered, then stilled. It was a sight that Venero always found both fascinating and horrifying. Immortality lost any allure it might have had the first time he saw spelldust in action.

“Quick!” he urged. “Under the water.”

Gemma didn’t hesitate to take his advice this time, which was an encouraging change. She dove into a pool of water so quickly that Venero barely had time to take a deep breath himself. The pavofel was furious and yowled in protest, at least until the water closed over them all—then it fought wildly.

Venero was glad to see someone else injured by the creature. He saw it make a trio of long scratches on Gemma’s arm, deep enough to draw blood. But Gemma remained calm, even as she wrestled the miserable feline. He had to admire that.

Venero would have been inclined to let it go, but Gemma hooked her ankle around a branch sunk to the bottom of the pool to keep herself below the surface, then blew into the pavofel’s nose. This scarcely made the creature any happier, but it wasn’t going to drown as Venero feared he might.

She solved problems without hesitation, and she didn’t surrender without a fight. He liked both of those traits.

He might have felt more admiration for her in that moment, but the fabric of the dress swirled upward in the water and wrapped around him like a shroud. Venero was caught and only had glimpses of the opening at the top of the pocket. He sputtered. He thrashed. He wanted to remind Gemma that toads were not aquatic creatures, but she was busy with that stupid pavofel. Venero could feel her wrestling with it.

He’d never wished for his DreamCasting abilities with greater vigor than in that moment, but he knew they were gone.

Enchanted into oblivion, just like Gemma’s shape shifting powers.

Venero choked. He struggled in a bid to get Gemma’s attention, hoping she might pull him free. The fabric caught at his legs as if it followed some instruction from Urbanus. He supposed that wasn’t out of the question. Frustration rose within him even as he fought for air. He was drowning, still enchanted as a toad, and his front leg hurt.

Venero wasn’t going to die this way, even if that might be his brother’s preference.

It was about more than his own fate, though. Gemma wasn’t nearly safe, and he felt a protectiveness toward her. She didn’t understand magic or Urbanus, and she’d need Venero’s help to survive—never mind escape.

Urbanus couldn’t destroy them both.

When Gemma got out of the river, she would be cold and wet. She would need shelter and heat before she could continue to seek her antidote. Celo’s hut would be the closest shelter, and even though Venero had promised to leave his youngest brother in solitude, he’d have to break that promise today.

For Gemma.

He gave a ferocious kick and heard the cloth tear. He silently thanked Urbanus for keeping his servants so poor that they had to wear their clothing to rags. He blew a stream of bubbles with the last bit of air in his lungs and lunged toward the surface in the same moment. He felt Gemma snatch after him, undoubtedly hoping to save him from the spelldust, and his heart swelled with more of that admiration. He evaded her grasp, probably only because she was fighting the pavofel. He swam without looking back, not wanting to see her fear for him.

As he anticipated, the spelldust was landing on the surface of the stream. It sparkled and glittered there in a hundred different colors, as if to entice them all to touch it.

Venero knew better. He spied a leaf floating on the river, its stem dangling beneath it in the water. Maybe his luck was turning. He managed to grip the stem and let the current sweep him away, down the river, down toward Celo’s hut. He pushed his head into the hollow beneath the leaf and took a gulping breath.