The Dragon King’s Foundling (The Dragons of Serai #19)

Chapter One

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. The crisp morning air in my lungs brought me fully awake, and as I opened my eyes, I stretched my wings. And immediately dropped them.

With a sigh, I looked over my shoulder at the brace on my left wing. My bruises and cuts were healed, but bones took longer. I knew I had to be patient. It had only been a week since Bara had beaten me and broken my wing.

I lifted my chin and found a better way to phrase it, speaking the words aloud like a spell, “It's only been a week since I killed him.”

Memories of what Bara had done to me while I was enslaved by his silken magic made me tremble, but I kept my chin lifted and my stare on the sky.

The man who had helped to free me was gone, sailed off with his Dragon mate to another shore.

I would never forget Katai Gral and all he had done for me.

Or his astounding power. Katai was a human and a small one at that, but I had watched him take down Bara—a Hulfrin who should have easily won against any human.

Watching Katai execute elegant moves that turned his slender body into a deadly weapon had given me courage and hope.

If he could defend himself, so could I. That's what prompted me to take the dagger from the belt of one of Katai's soldiers and stab Bara over and over until he was dead.

Remembering Bara's death was the only way I could sleep at night.

Katai Gral was the only man who made me feel safe—the only man I trusted.

I asked to stay with him, but he was leaving Tabaa, going home to Rushao with his mate.

I would have asked to join him, but I knew it was too much.

He didn't deserve the burden of me. He had freed me, and that was more than enough.

I had a home I could have gone to, but I was too ashamed.

I couldn't go back to the Hanhepi Forest feeling like filth.

I don't know what I would have done; maybe I would have stayed at Bara's home.

But Katai saved me again. Before he left Tabaa, he took me to the royal palace and placed me under the care of his friend, the Dragon King.

There was no safer place for me in all Tabaa, and I was grateful to Katai for bringing me to King Raventar.

He was known for being an honorable and benevolent ruler.

But I didn't trust him. I couldn't trust anyone.

Not after what I had survived. Only Katai had proven himself.

He had found me when I was lost. He had seen what no one else could see, looked past the magic to find the truth.

Katai Gral had exposed Bara's heinous crimes and his enslavement of me.

He had saved me and many others like me.

“If only I could go home,” I whispered to the brightening sky.

During my years of captivity, I had only one comfort—my music. It was the one thing I kept hidden from Bara, the one thing he didn't take from me or control. When I was alone, I sang to myself, and I remembered freedom. I remembered the home he took me from.

Full of longing for the place that felt too pure for me now, I lifted my eyes to the sky and my voice in song.

I intended to sing something sweet that would comfort me, but what poured from my lips was a song of exile, sung by those who were lost or banished.

It was my song now. And it bound me here, to this Dragon city.

My voice rose and fell in the melancholy melody:

“The wind knows the way home.

It is lost to me.

My name still lives there,

but my breath does not follow.

My shame stains the sky.

This sunset is mine alone.

So let the wind pass me by.

It is clean. I am not.

Goodbye, Runnavia, my birthplace.

Goodbye, my home sky, my—”

A knock came, startling me from my song.

I spun to look at the heavy, carved door set in ancient stone the color of sand.

The distance between me and it seemed vast, filled with luxurious furniture and beautiful things like tents in a desert.

Bara had been wealthy, and his home showcased it, but in a terrible way.

Bones were everywhere. The Hulfrin man had been fascinated by bones and the magic within them.

Skeletal remains had adorned every room in that house of horrors and below, in his basement laboratory, bones had fed voracious insects—the source of his wicked power.

While I'd been Bara's captive, I had seen things I only now understood.

King Raventar had cleared Bara's home of evil, destroying all the terrible experiments and burying the corpses.

Those poor people would never be identified, most having been shipped here from Rushao.

But at least they were at rest now and had their justice.

The only thing the Dragon King kept of Bara's experiments were his books.

They contained notes about his experiments and records of sales.

The sales were especially important since they gave the names of Bara's clients, and many of those clients had purchased silk slave ribbons to enslave people, as I had been.

Katai advised the King that it might help me recover if I assisted in freeing any remaining captives.

So, not only did I get to go with the King when he hunted down Bara's clients, but I was also allowed to read Bara's books on his experiments.

Katai was right. Helping the Dragon King apprehend Bara's clients and free their captives did help me, and so did the notebooks. I couldn't move past what Bara had done to me without knowing everything he had done. But it wasn't a fast recovery. Like my wing, my soul would take some time to heal.

I crossed the stone floor, my feet cushioned by hand-woven rugs.

To my right was a massive round bed, made in the Lelurra style, with a raised rim around it to corral the herd of pillows I required.

It sat on a pedestal, giving it the height my people enjoyed, and had steps circling it so I could climb over the cushioned rim.

No one else in the castle had a bed like mine.

It had been made especially for me, commissioned by the Dragon King.

I never asked for it. His Majesty had simply known that it would bring me great comfort.

He was like that—knowing what I needed, sometimes before I did.

Every morning, a knock came around this time. The first few mornings, I had answered the door warily. Now, I knew who would be waiting outside.

Pausing at a mirror along the way, I frowned at the dark hollows beneath my eyes.

My bruises had faded, but my face still bore the evidence of my pain.

I swallowed roughly and moved on. I couldn't stand looking at my reflection for very long these days.

I used to take pride in my appearance, sitting before my mirror to brush my hair, line my eyes in kohl, or try on jewelry.

I spent hours bathing in milk and honey, buffing my nails, and adorning my wings with sparkling powders.

Now, I saw my beauty for what it was—a threat.

All the time I'd spent on enhancing my appearance had been wasted.

No, it was worse than wasted. They had aided in my downfall.

My androgynous face, willowy body, and long, violet hair—a rare color highly valued among my people—had been my ruin.

Because of the way I looked, Bara became obsessed with me.

For weeks, he tried to seduce me with his wealth, wit, and body.

He offered me jewels, told stories of the life he could give me in Ahanu, and swore his love for me.

Every day, he came to the forest looking for me.

When I refused his advances, again and again, he seemed to accept it.

But then he returned with two ribbons and struck me unconscious.

When I woke, he was wearing one of the ribbons, stained with my blood, and I wore the other.

The magic in the silk enslaved me, and he used it to make me his unwilling consort.

Heat flamed my cheeks as those memories bombarded me again.

I knew it wasn't my fault. I hadn't done anything willingly.

I had no reason to feel ashamed. I knew all of that.

But knowledge didn't stop the humiliation from rising.

Mental wounds are unreasonable. They don't listen when you try to convince them of the truth. They don't care about truth, only pain.

The things Bara had made me do to him and those he had done to me made a mockery of love.

They were barbaric, demeaning, and always about his dominance.

With that magical ribbon binding me to him, he didn't have to dominate me.

I did whatever he said. But Bara liked to throw my helplessness in my face.

I didn't want him, didn't love him, and no matter how submissive I behaved or how much pleasure I gave him, he couldn't forgive my rejection.

I was punished for refusing him even as I obeyed his every command.

He was a monster—vile, depraved, and merciless.

And it was my pretty face that drew him to me.

I hesitated before the door, wanting to turn away and hide under the heavy covers on my bed. But then the image of the Dragon King's face came to me. As I did every morning since coming to the castle, I felt the need to see King Raventar and prove to myself that he was real.

I yanked the door open.

With the sudden action, I caught the King with his stare lowered, his brow pulled down in thought, and his firm lips pressed together.

It gave me the briefest moment to look upon him freely.

I soaked in his brutal beauty, the very sight of him a balm to my mental wounds.

I don't know why he eased me. I should have feared the breadth of his shoulders and the desire I saw in his eyes.

After what I'd been through with Bara, the thought of lying with another man should have terrified me.

I knew that with anyone else, I'd feel only revulsion at the sight of a hardening shaft tightening a pair of pants.

Not with him. King Raventar always tried to hide his body's reaction to me, and maybe that was what calmed me.

There was something about this man. Peace radiated from him.

Kindness. He was massive, just enormous, towering over me with muscles slabbed upon muscles.

But with his every movement, he conveyed only concern and respect.

I never felt threatened by him. And that gave me the courage to appreciate his handsome face, strong body, and stunning eyes.

Oh, those eyes. Not quite blue and not quite green—turquoise, like the precious stones Tabaa was known for, or our coastal waters.

I'd never seen the sea, but I imagined that the water would be nearly as translucent as the King's eyes—a better match than opaque stones.

His Majesty's sun-warmed skin, tinged with gold and cinnabar, brought out the vibrant shade to make his eyes appear as if they glowed even when they didn't.

The Dragon King lifted his gaze, and the beauty of those turquoise eyes made me inhale deeply, as if I could take him into me through my breath alone. This happened every morning. He knocked, I answered, and we stared at each other for a few intense seconds until he spoke and broke the spell.

“Good morning, Eliel,” the Dragon King said, his voice as calming as the rest of him. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” I couldn't stop myself from lowering my gaze to his lips. “I'm starving.”

Did I trust him? Absolutely not. Did I crave him? Absolutely.