Chapter 19
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KATALENA
“Am I free to return to my room?”
“The Heirs would speak to you,” Idroal said. They glided silently behind me, almost unnerving in the smoothness and ease with which they moved.
I crossed my arms, incredibly aware that I was dressed in only their clothing. “I’m not sure I wish to speak to them.”
“And why is that, Princess?” Sirrus strode into the room with no remorse on his face.
Idroal bowed and left without a word, abandoning me to the three dragons. Endre’s chest was still visible, showing me that scar, and… more.
I’d never been so close to an unclothed male. From a distance on the palace walls as the soldiers trained, but I was forbidden from getting too close. An errant part of my brain wondered what it would feel like to touch him, his body so different from my own. Now that I knew what he felt like with clothes on, pressed against me, I wanted to know what it was like without.
Pushing the thought away, I crossed my arms.
The second thing I noticed was that Endre looked pale. Dragging and sluggish. What had happened?
Sirrus stared at me, waiting for an answer. I didn’t have one. But discomfort burned under my skin, and I wanted to be anywhere but here. Where I really wanted to be was my workshop where I could crush ingredients until my chest didn’t feel tight and I could sink into the beautiful stillness of creating.
“You don’t think she deserved it?” He finally asked. “I assume not, since you tried to stop it.”
“Isn’t that worse than death for a dragon? Not to be able to fly?”
“Yes.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’ll admit I did not suspect the depth of her hatred. But I’m sure many dragons feel the same. Sending me to you dressed—” I huffed out a breath. “The punishment does not seem to fit the crime.”
“No?” Sirrus took a step toward me, and then another. Slow and intentional. Once more stalking me like prey, but I was not afraid. “And what do you think was her aim?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sending you to us, unsuspecting, hoping we would pounce on you like savages.” He was so close now, I could sense the heat coming off him, like the way he’d burned Soza was close to the surface. “She hoped we would violate you,” he whispered, stepping so there was barely air between us. “And not merely as a thinly veiled request to take your maidenhood, Lena. She was banking on the fact that we wouldn’t care to control ourselves our hold back with a human. She hoped your fragility would kill you, and wanted you to feel pain, shame, and horror as you died. Not only that, but she chose to turn on the most vulnerable, which lacks honor.”
“I’m not vulnerable.”
“Aren’t you?” Suddenly his hand was in the loose strands of my hair, gripping, tilting my face back to meet golden eyes shot through with that white-hot blue. “Any of us could kill you with half a thought.”
“Return my blade and we’ll see about that.”
He smiled, the edge to it making my stomach flip in both good and bad ways. “A blade won’t stop me, Princess. I’d melt it before you could take a step.
I moved, and he grabbed my wrist, heat flowing through it. So much heat, our connection glowed. Heat that should have burned and instead did something else entirely. “Let me go.”
“As you wish.”
He released me, staring at the place he’d touched me and watching the glow fade.
I looked at each of them, my traitorous eyes drinking in the fact that Endre had removed the ruined shirt and now stood with his chest bare, even as he moved slowly with what looked like exhaustion. It brought an entirely different kind of heat. The skin of his lower torso shifted colors into something paler and shimmering like moonstone. I tried desperately not to stare.
“Is this how the dragons rule, then? Not only with power, but with fear?”
“You’re far too intelligent for that to be a real question,” Endre said with a chuckle. “And despite your anger, you know what we did was necessary.”
“Do I?” I snapped. “They intended for something bad to happen, and it did not. Binding them to power so they cannot touch me, I understand. Sentencing them to a living death, I do not.”
“Perhaps you have more of a death wish than I thought,” Endre said. “If you can’t see why it was needed.”
I threw up my hands, striding to the fire and staring him down across the open flames. “They can never touch me. You made sure of it. But you’ve also ensured her hatred of me and all humans. It will not stop.”
“NO IT WON’T.” Endre blazed with anger, and he was in front of me so quickly I couldn’t breathe. “It will never stop. You think we don’t know that?”
A laugh filled with darkness that leaked from him and brought sorrow to me. “You are the one who does not understand, Katalena.” My name was a dart aimed straight to the chest. “Sparing one dragon’s wings will not stem the tide of hatred of your kind. It will only teach them they can continue to hate without consequence.” The last word fell from him like it was a weight. He backed me around the couches and against the wall. It all felt familiar, and so different now that I was faced with nothing but his skin.
My hands itched to touch him and fulfill my wish. I resisted.
“I don’t hate humans.” The words raised goosebumps on my skin. “Stars know I should because you took everything from us.” With his traitor’s scar so close, I heard what he didn’t say. From me.
“Nothing we do will stop dragons from hating your kind. So we do what we can, when we can, to help. Including making an example of those who would harm you for sport.”
I swallowed. We do what we can.
“My grandmother used to say that,” I whispered. “That we do what we can.”
“Then she was wise.”
My breath was shallow in my chest, making my voice thin. I sounded like the sighs I’d heard down alleys I never should have been near in Rensara. “You told me you weren’t a good male, but those you describe are the actions of one.”
“Would you like to test that theory?” He leaned so close, but still didn’t touch me. “Good actions don’t make a good male. And scenting you in my shirt has left me with one thread that’s ready to snap.”
Over his shoulder, Zovai was there, agreeing. “My scent wrapped around your legs?”
A single glance at Sirrus told me he felt the same, though I wore none of his clothing.
Endre blew out a shuddering breath and reached for me. His hands cupped my face, and he pulled me to him, our foreheads touching. I couldn’t stop the soft gasp from my lips or the way my body swayed toward him. Toward them.
“No matter my words, we are beyond resistance, Lena. Say the word and we will ruin you so thoroughly no human man will ever satisfy you. Not even a prince.”
“We?”
An arm snaked around my waist, stealing me away from Endre and the wall. Zovai had me in his arms, and I couldn’t think or breathe. I’d never been touched like this by anyone, let alone a male. It was full of promise and intent.
“Do humans not follow the old ways any longer?”
“I don’t—” my eyes fluttered shut, everything in me reveling in what it was like to be held. The simplicity and the wanting that led to the more I couldn’t imagine.
Zovai released me slowly, like he could sense the overwhelmed state of my mind. “Do males not share a female any longer? Or the reverse? It is common among dragonkind.”
“No,” I breathed. Never had I heard of such a thing. The scandal it would cause… stars, the scandals that had rocked the court because a woman took a lover after her husband died had occupied the court for weeks on end. This? Some of them would follow the courtier into death at the idea alone.
A knock at the door froze all of us. “Enter,” Sirrus said, never taking his eyes off me.
Idroal appeared. “My lords. Your response.”
Was that my fate? I didn’t know. Surely they had messages to do with more than just me.
The dragon at the door noted how close the four of us were, and no doubt noticed the flush on my cheeks. What would Idroal think if I fell into their beds despite the trap that had been so viciously laid for me?
“I am sorry our meal did not proceed as planned,” Sirrus said. His tone was far gentler now. “We shall make it up to you, and make sure food is sent to your room.”
A dismissal. Every moment I spent in their presence was a duality. Even this, a rejection and a relief. A way out and a disappointment. “Thank you.”
I didn’t dare look back at them as I left, though I felt their eyes on me until the doors shut. A large part of me hoped they would ask me to stay. Give in to their temptation.
They didn’t.
If that message was one telling them to end my life, I didn’t blame them.
The walk down the stairs was no less daunting, and perhaps more eyes were on me than when I ascended. What would it say that I wore their clothes? Did I care?
Varípounced on me as soon as I opened the door, climbing on my shoulders and shoving himself under my hair to curl behind my neck and purr. “That was… something,” I said, closing the door behind me.
Exhaustion rose like a creeping tide. I slipped into the bed without bothering to undress, Varí curling up beside me.
Food may have been delivered, but I did not know it. I was asleep seconds after I closed my eyes.