Chapter 17
________
ENDRE
Lena stood there like the embodiment of fire incarnate. Her red hair shone along with her skin and the markings painted on her arms, beside the shimmer of a dress that hid absolutely nothing at all. Even her cheeks were tinged with red, another form of fire.
The wood of the table creaked under my hands. My entire being was focused on not launching myself across the table and pinning her to the floor.
I would fucking ruin her.
I would ruin her and savor every moment and make sure she did, too.
Rage followed desperate arousal. It clouded thick in the room. Because there was no possible way for Lena to have chosen that gown or understand what it meant.
“Why the fuck are you dressed like that?” Sirrus growled, taking the words out of my mouth.
Lena went pale. She rose from her curtsey and pressed her hands to her stomach. Not looking at us. The sweetness of her scent permeated the room, but not just that. Nerves and embarrassment and fear. Not emotions associated with the image in front of me.
“Erryn thought I might want something else to wear to dinner,” she murmured, eyes cast toward the ground. “She sent someone to help. It is… not what I’m used to. I apologize if I’m not abiding by the correct customs. I asked—” Her voice cut off, like she didn’t know what else to say. Then, quieter. “They said you would like it.”
I looked at my brothers and Idroal, who’d come to give us a message and hadn’t planned to stay. Now? We would have need of them.
My anger warred with my lust. Zovai stood nearby, spellbound and unable to move. I sensed the closeness of his dragon, and mine wasn’t far behind. Even Sirrus was shifting his weight like he struggled with control.
I stalked around the table toward her, stopping when she flinched. What I wanted was to take her and press her into the wall once more, but this time I would not stop. Taste all the creamy skin currently on display and take my time doing it. Fuck every other possible consequence.
“You said Erryn suggested this?”
“Erryn had nothing to do with it,” Idroal said. I turned and found their eyes unfocused. Then they locked on mine. “I heard, but I did not understand. This was not Erryn.”
“Who?” Zovai ground out.
“Soza and her cohort.”
Fire curled in my gut. Of course it was. I shook my head. Anger shook my limbs.
Emerald eyes flicked upward, meeting mine. The scent of her terror was bitter in my nose. “I’m sorry, my lord. What have I done?”
“You have done nothing.” Sirrus was dangerously close to breathing fire.
Idroal took a step toward Lena, and she eased toward them. Just as well. They were the safest one in this room for the fragile, stunning human. They inclined their head. “The clothes you have been given have meaning in our culture, Your Highness. You would have no reason to know. They are the clothes traditionally worn when the female approaches the male on the night of their mating. When worn outside of that, it is to offer oneself as a concubine, as the male should see fit.”
Lena gasped. Her arms came up to cover herself, and she looked down at the floor. More heat was in her cheeks, her scent shifting to one laced with the deepest shame. “I am so sorry. I did not know.”
I could not keep myself in check, finally crossing the distance and lifting her face too roughly. The green in her eyes was so clear up close. Like sunlight shifting through the broken glass of a bottle, or pouring down through the ancient trees around Doro Eche. But nothing in her eyes said she lied.
This human woman had begged me to ruin her. Fuck her so she would be viewed as worthless to the spineless rot of a man meant to marry her. But it had been an offer of desperation. This wasn’t her action. Though the trace of scent through her fear told me shame wasn’t the only thing she felt. Lena was drawn to us as we were to her. Wanted us. My dragon crowed with victory and satisfaction.
I couldn’t even think about the possibilities while such treachery and defiance existed in my city.
“Do not apologize or feel shame. You look like the heart of flame itself.”
Her eyes widened, and I heard her heartbeat speed up. She glanced at Zovai and Sirrus, who had closed the distance too, and stood on either side of me.
The sheen of sweat and golden glitter on her skin made me want to trace the line of her neck with my tongue. Katalena Isabel Arslan Savea was a living temptation, and my words held true. If I allowed myself—any of us—to know what she tasted like, to know what teaching her to feel pleasure was like, to break her in the way only we could, I would never let her go.
“You are a temptation we cannot afford,” I said, so softly it was barely spoken.
She swallowed, and I tracked the movement of those muscles. Followed the line of them elsewhere. “You said you weren’t good. That you would take?—”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t tempted,” I growled, and then smiled, allowing the monster inside me to show. “I said I cannot afford to be. If you had known and understood what you offered appearing like this, your clothes would have been shredded by the time you were fully in the room.” I dared to reach out and touch her once more, my thumb brushing along the line of her jaw. Lena’s shiver drove my blood south. “And I never said we wouldn’t give in to temptation.”
Sirrus and Zovai growled in agreement. I knew without looking at them that they confirmed the thought.
Lena stared at us with wide eyes and no fear. We were getting closer to breaking. It was only a matter of time. The real question was if I was ready to face the consequences.
Idroal broke the tension. “For my own sake, I would appreciate you waiting until after I depart, my lord.”
We were too far gone for laughter, but the brief distraction allowed me to step away and take a breath that wasn’t soaked in Lena’s scent. The tang of something darker that spoke of arousal and want and something beyond the sweetness of who she was.
“Stay with Idroal,” I commanded, stalking past her, the others at my shoulders.
“Wait,” she nearly tripped over the froth of shimmering material trying to reach us. Sirrus caught her. I saw the way his fingers flexed against her body, feeling the heat of her skin through the sheerness. She was everything we shouldn’t want, and yet what Zovai had seen in those moments had woven itself into me. Into Sirrus. This woman was something I didn’t understand, and my instincts drove me more than thought. To protect. To take. To claim in the most pleasurable and carnal way possible.
She looked at the three of us. “Don’t hurt them.” Little more than a breath. “Not because of me. Please.”
We turned and left, striding out the doors without response. It wasn’t a promise I could make, and a human could not understand the hierarchy of dragons. It would not be because of her that they were hurt, but their own actions hurting her.
I put my limited power on display, allowing my footsteps to echo through Skalisméra. Few dragons were on the stairs, but the ones that were quickly fled our presence.
What shall we do?Zovai asked, his own power glinting through his skin, scales nearly forming.
Make them look us in the eye and admit it.Sirrus said. Then decide.
I growled, barely able to agree when my hands ached to shift into claws and tear out the nearest throat. Lena’s scent was easy to trace down the stairs, back to the hoard of Ellemar. Idroal didn’t have to be here to say the older dragon had nothing to do with this. Despite the harshness of our life, Ellemar had no unkindness in her. Steel and strength? Yes. Fire? Yes. Vindictiveness? No.
Throwing my hand forward, power flung the door open. It slammed against the stone wall hard enough to crack the wood. We would repair it when we were more in control.
As I suspected. Ellemar wasn’t here. But Soza was. Soza and four other dragons lounging in the midst of the gorgeous hoard, laughing and drinking. Now staring at the three of us.
The scent of fear spiraled through the room. I snarled. If they were that afraid, they should have known better. Sirrus lifted his hand, catching Soza with a burst of his power. He was one of the few dragons whose magic could manifest physically and not merely invisibly influence the world. Bands of hardened air wrapped around her arms and neck, pinning her to the wall near the window.
“You have three breaths to explain yourself,” I said. “Before I shall force your change, rip your wings off, and drop you from the peak in your human form.”
“Endre,” she croaked through the wind at her throat, and the roar that came from me shook the mountain.
“Who are you that you call me by my name?” I glanced at Sirrus. “Silence her.”
Panic crossed her face, and she tried to speak again, but couldn’t. I whirled, but Zovai was already moving, leaning over another female dragon. We weren’t here enough to know the names of every dragon in the city. Many of them, yes. But not these females.
We knew Soza because she had been thrown at us in an attempt to get at least one of us to mate a century ago. It had not gone well, but she continued to try every time we were here. I should have seen this coming.
That thought only made black rage seep further over my vision.
“Who planned this?” Zovai asked softly. Almost as soft as Lena’s skin, what little I’d felt of it.
Sirrus turned to the room and crossed his arms, proving he did not need to look at Soza to restrain her. He stared them down. “When Erryn came here to ask for a favor, did you all discuss how to undermine us?”
A gasp. “We did not.” The woman Zovai towered over looked between the three of us, her eyes shifting back and forth between forms in her fear. “Undermine you.”
“And what do you call it when you send a human guest to us dressed like a whore?”
“A guest?” One of the dragons snorted. “I know you find her beautiful, but she was in the cells. We know she is not a guest, my lord. And she is a human. We only sought to make it easier for you, since this was always going to be the result.”
All three of our heads turned to her, and she had enough self-preservation to lower her eyes.
“Stand up.”
She did, her body shaking.
“You will not shift.” I soaked my voice in power and binding them to my words. Unlike what Sirrus had done to Lena, these were orders that couldn’t be broken, forged by the power of dragons. “None of you will shift unless an Heir or Elder permits it.”
To my left, a gasp. “For how long?”
“Until we fucking decide,” Zovai hissed, smoke accompanying the words.
The one who’d scoffed at Lena being a guest stood in front of me. Long dark hair that shone purple. She was beautiful, but I knew better. Because I knew Soza and the company she kept. “Look at me.” She did. “What is your name?”
Her eyes flashed with hurt that I didn’t know her. Good. “Yrre, my lord.”
With no warning, I reached out and grabbed her by the throat. “When did you last speak to the Elders, Yrre?”
Her pulse fluttered beneath my fingers, breathing labored. “I have never been granted such a privilege.”
“And when were you last consulted about the relations between humans and dragons?”
She swallowed, her hands moving to reach for my arm, and she stopped them. Barely. “Never, my lord.”
I tilted my head and looked at Zovai. He approached. “And have we ever confided in you, or any dragon in this room, about what we find attractive in a mate? Or even a whore?”
The dragon truly shook now, unable to withstand the primal dominance I unleashed, her whole being begging to drop to her knees. But I wouldn’t let her. “No, my lord.”
Zovai leaned forward, bracing his hands on his thighs. “Then why the fuck do you think you know us well enough to know what we want?”
“We heard?—”
“You heard what?” Sirrus snapped.
Yrre opened her mouth, and a band of wind clamped around it, keeping her in silence. “What could any of you possibly have heard that would give you the right to assume our desires?”
I smiled. “Perhaps, Sirrus, it was revenge. As you well know, Soza has come to our chambers many times as a similar offering and been turned away. After we rejected her as a mate. Isn’t that right?”
The dragon pinned against the wall glared at me with fire and hatred, and I just smiled and approached her. “I don’t think you have any idea what you’ve done. That’s the only reason I’m not going to kill you.”
“Thank you, my lord.” One of the other dragons said.
Zovai prowled around the three who could speak. “Tell the truth. Who planned this?”
“Yrre and Soza,” the third one finally spoke. “I agreed, my lord. I apologize. I did not see the error in presenting the human as she is worth.”
I whirled, and my brothers stared at her too. “Is that what you believe? That humans are nothing but dirt under our feet and good only for fucking?”
“They murdered?—”
“YOU SPEAK OF WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW.” Hot air swirled in the room, slamming against the walls and sending fabric spiraling. Sirrus’s magic shook the mountain to the foundation. “The three of you get out of our sight. You are stripped of everything. You shall move below the bastion.” They made sounds of protest, quickly silenced. “You will report for service with Erryn in the morning, and you remain forbidden from shifting.”
A spark of rebellion lingered. I growled low, allowing everything I felt to go into it. “If you value your life, you will accept your punishment with the grace your victim did. She begged us not to hurt you on her account, despite her humiliation. Now get. Out.”
They went running.
And then there were two.
We turned to Yrre, and I observed her. Her eyes were downcast, but I sensed no remorse. Soza was the same. Every time she’d tried to bed us, we knew. She was sent away by the enchantments surrounding our apartments, and we let her believe it was only that. Even when she tried to fly in from the outside. But we knew.
We hadn’t addressed it because it was of no consequence, but I was now glad we had kept it quiet, if only to see the unjustified anger in her gaze. “Did you think we didn’t know what you have been doing, Soza?”
Sirrus allowed her to speak. “My lord, please.”
“You could only have two motives. Either you wanted to see Princess Katalena rejected as you have been, repeatedly, to ease that place in your soul that is wounded by our indifference?—”
A choked laugh interrupted me, and Zovai crossed to the window, leaning against the wall and enjoying himself. “Though,” he added, “if that was your plan, surely you didn’t believe this would endear you to us?”
“Or,” I continued, “you hoped we would see her presentation and unleash ourselves on her when she would not understand why. And even if neither of those were your aim, presuming to know our minds and desires is not your place.”
“Princess?” Soza asked, skin pale.
“Princess Katalena Isabel Arslan Savea of the human kingdom Gleira,” Zovai supplied.
“If I had known…”
A needle of wind pointed at her throat, just waiting to end her life. “If you had known who she was, you wouldn’t have tried to humiliate and harm her?”
Without prompting, Sirrus floated an image into our minds, and I smiled. My dragon smiled too. That was perfect. “You are held to the same punishments as your friends,” I said. “And if you wish to see the sky again, you will follow us of your own free will. If we have to force you?”
I let the words hang in the air.
When we left the room, they scrambled to run behind.