Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My footsteps thumped against the flagstones as I walked a pace behind the man who had chained and bound me so prettily. I supposed to anyone else this might have smelled a lot like freedom, but to me it stank of horse shit. Nevertheless, I’d made my bed and this was all there was to it.
Dragor strode along before me, the smugness which radiated from him making me want to gag.
I’d never been the type for pomp and pretention, though it was clear this man who called himself a prince revelled in such things.
I was a prize pig about to be put on display and the mere thought of it was rankling against my last nerve.
He was claiming the battle at Pomair as a victory, though I wasn’t so certain that was the truth of it.
The Void’s disappearance had certainly levelled things out but when the armies turned their backs on one another and fled the field it had seemed more like a mutual understanding of subjugation.
But the way Dragor told it, he had sent the Cascadians running in fear.
I supposed they had abandoned Stormfell, so in that sense he was right. But I very much doubted that would be the last we’d see of them.
“If you prove you can behave yourself among polite company then I will allow you to have more freedom within the castle,” Dragor said, tossing me scraps which I had no real choice but to snatch from his hands.
“And these?” I asked, raising my wrists to indicate the metal cuffs which adorned them. They’d been fashioned to look decorative but they were blocking my magic as solidly as any cuffs might.
“Perhaps, in time I will allow you to remove those among company too. But you might…slip and it wouldn’t do for you to reveal your Avanis heritage to the court, or anyone else for that matter. I will remove them once you return to your rooms for the night as agreed.”
I sneered at his back, the deal between us feeling claustrophobic already.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to dispel the memory of him riding me in my Dragon form but it was something I was going to have to get used to.
I reminded myself that it had been worth it if it meant my wing was healed by that Reaper he’d brought to me.
But even flying through the sky after so many years hadn’t been as liberating as it should have been with a parasite taking a ride.
The music reached out to capture us in its net as we approached the ballroom, the sound of hundreds of Fae revelling within making my hackles rise. I’d never been a particularly sociable creature even before my years of isolation and I had no inclination to become one now.
I kept my gaze over the heads of the crowd as we stepped into the opulent room, the foreign music washing over me too loudly, the embroidered dresses and suits appearing all too alien.
There was a refinement to these people which mine had certainly never claimed in my time.
I wasn’t certain if that had changed now but I doubted it somehow.
We were a wild people, bound to the earth and beholden to it too.
Our festivities had felt more primal than this show of wealth and power, our people losing themselves to the calls of the flesh and the wildness of nature.
Dragor led me through the crowd who clamoured to get a look at me, the same word echoing among them like they were stalagmites passing a note of music through a cavern.
Dragon, Dragon, Dragon.
The fascination over what I was wasn’t new to me. Even when I’d been born there hadn’t been others of my kind, the Dragons of old had been long gone and my existence had been hailed as a symbol from the stars themselves, hidden from most.
Dragor paraded me around the opulent hall, the watchful eyes of the three huge zodiac statues seeming to follow me wherever I walked. The Gemini twins were curious in their observations, Aquarius almost pausing in his eternal water pouring, Libra’s scales creaking on the cusp of judgement.
I missed the great effigies of my own element, the tremendous bull of Taurus, the bountiful beauty of Virgo, and the great sea goat Capricorn who I owed my own birth allegiance to.
I missed the flowers which coated the walls of every home I’d ever known in Avanis, the way the buildings were so full of life and magic that they seemed to breathe.
Here everything was cold, pale stone. Any decoration came in the form of tapestries and statues created to be impressive or recount tales of war.
Perhaps other parts of Stormfell were different but nothing in this place spoke of it being a home.
It was the commanding capital of a nation of warriors and little else.
I might have pitied its people if I wasn’t drowning in contempt for them already.
Dragor led me straight to the long table at the head of the room which had been laid out for the royals alone, a single chair set just to the side of it which he pointed out for me.
“It is a great honour to be seated so close to the Aquilas,” he warned me in a low voice. “See to it that you don’t prove yourself unworthy of the boon.”
I said nothing, snatching a glass of wine as a servant approached us with a tray filled with them. I drank it in one, the taste tart and not to my liking. “Do you have ale in this place?” I asked and the servant looked to Dragor who sighed but nodded his allowance of my request.
I kept my silence as I stood beside him and started work on the ale once it arrived, staring stoically though the throng of dancing bodies, the feasting not yet begun, though my stomach growled with hunger.
Dragor spoke with Fae he deemed important enough, introducing me to them, though I said nothing and barely even acknowledged them at all.
I didn’t care about the self-important Lords and Ladies, I certainly wasn’t interested in the women who enquired as to my eligibility, and I couldn’t care less about impressing his counsellors.
Dragor’s irritation with me only showed in the slight flaring of his nostrils.
He could say nothing. I had agreed only to behave myself.
There had been no requirement of small talk or even politeness.
Perhaps he was wishing he’d been more specific but I was of the impression that he should just be glad I wasn’t reducing this entire castle to cinders.
And then there was her.
My spine straightened, a growl rolling up the back of my throat and my muscles tensing.
Of course she was here. I should have expected nothing less but as I stared at her across a sea of dancing courtiers, all I could feel was fury.
Dragor stilled beside me, shooing away the Fae he’d been talking with and placing a hand on my forearm.
I snatched my arm away and he was only lucky I didn’t break his jaw for good measure.
“Keep your hands off of me,” I warned him and he straightened at the threat in my words, though clearly he thought better of biting back at me here and instead turned his focus to where mine remained.
Vesper hadn’t moved. She still stood on the far side of the dancefloor, a dress of deep navy coated in gold brocade clinging to her figure in a way that made me ache, the flared skirt skimming her knees, the bodice tight and strapless.
It shouldn’t have been legal for a woman to look so enticing while being so deceiving.
I snarled at her and she raised her chin.
Any other Fae would have known to run from me, my skin heating with my inner fire as the rage I felt towards her threatened to consume me whole. But of course she didn’t run. I didn’t think she even knew how to.
Vesper strode straight through the dancing bodies, magic flicking from her fingertips and forcing a path into place for her as she approached me, not a hint of regret or fear in her grey eyes. All bravado and bullshit, the same witch she’d been when we first met.
Dragor hissed an instruction at me not to hurt her but I only growled again.
Vesper didn’t slow even though every other Fae within my vicinity backed away, their instincts warning them of the danger which was building. She had to be able to feel my violent desires aimed at her but still she didn’t balk.
Her steps were confident and measured, her eyes locked on mine and a slow smile spread across her seductive lips as if this were nothing but a game we were playing.
She curtsied for her prince, dipping low, but never once looking away from me.
When she straightened, Dragor waved her aside and she moved to stand before me instead, his gaze following her with malicious intensity.
“Hello, Dragon. Come, dance with me,” she purred, her gifts creeping from her and skimming through the air towards me. She knew I could resist her, she knew her ploy wouldn’t work, yet still she tried.
The Fae surrounding us started calling out to her, offering themselves up in my place with frantic desperation, though she cast a wall of air around her to force them back.
“Oh for the love of Gemini!” a man groaned beside me before dropping to his knees and shoving his hand down the front of his britches to tug at his cock.
Two women on the other side of her gave up on trying to win the Succubus’s attention for themselves and pounced on one another instead, kissing passionately and tugging at the bodices of their dresses as though they intended to fuck right here on the dancefloor regardless of the audience.
Dragor hissed a warning at the two of us not to turn his ballroom into a brawl but he may as well have faded into dust for all the attention either of us paid him.