Chapter 9
Belle
Behind you.
Those two words were like honey and wine, like the crushing darkness of a moonless night.
My body tensed, and I spun to face the figure. My belly knotted, and I drew in a sharp breath at the beast of a man before me: the Dragon King.
The king’s face was half-hidden by an ebony mask.
Its pattern of scales rippled with an iridescent sheen in the golden torchlight, and the swooping ridges along his temples evoked the crest of his dragon.
His tousled hair had been kissed by the sun, and it framed his sharp jawline and the masked contours of his cheekbones in barely tamed disarray.
His immortal beauty wasn’t soft or subtle, but arresting and lethal.
There was only him.
I stepped back, but he mirrored my movement like a predator humoring its prey.
“Tell me, girl, do you often entertain danger, or am I a special indulgence?” His low, smoky voice curled around me, carrying a hint of amusement and the quiet authority of a male who was accustomed to being obeyed.
I would indulge him with nothing. Not fear, nor the traitorous thoughts that tormented my mind. I had to plunge my emotions into the depths of my heart for Marcel’s sake…and my own, for this man was deadly beyond any immortal I’d ever faced.
“Your Highness,” I said as I bowed my head and dropped into a curtsy, then rose to meet him with all the strength I possessed. “I’ve come to ask for your mercy.”
“Mercy?” He drew close, and my breath caught. “What gave you the impression that I have any mercy to give?”
Nothing.
Heat emanated from him in waves, and my once-cold skin was now scorching.
“Speak,” he ordered.
I hesitated, measuring my words. Bloodsuckers were as wicked as they were cruel, with minimal compassion for our kind.
To them, we were little more than livestock.
I’d spent enough time to know they despised cowardice as much as insolence.
If you showed them fear, you became nothing more than prey, and I was not prey.
As if meeting a wolf in the woods, I stood to my full height and kept my gaze locked on him. “Your dragon took two of my companions, my lord. I’ve come for them. Are they still alive?”
Something flashed in his eyes—surprise?
“For now. They will be executed at dawn.” His tone was emotionless. Unyielding. Would there be any way to reason with him?
“Please,” I choked out. “I’m begging you. Set them free.”
He circled, and then his footsteps paused behind me, his scent smoke and leather, almost familiar. I kept my gaze locked ahead, not daring to move, but when he inhaled slowly, something stirred deep in my chest—warm and sourceless, like a memory my body held that my mind couldn’t place.
“Your companions trespassed into my lands, violated my laws, and killed two of my beasts. They must pay the price.” His gravel voice was laced with fire, and I hated how it took my breath away.
“We were attacked—”
“You attacked them,” he growled, suddenly before me. The flecks of gold in his hazel eyes flared, and heat filled the room like a blast of dragon fire.
A cold sweat broke over me. Was it magic or simply my imagination?
“Your party butchered the first beast on the road. The second, you stalked through the woods before bringing it down. Any more lies you’d like to add to your plea? Or should I render my judgment now?”
How did he know all that? Could he speak with his dragon like my sister spoke to animals?
“Please,” I breathed, trying to settle my nerves in the face of his wrath. “We didn’t know that killing them was forbidden. Where we come from, the beasts hunt men, and it’s permitted to kill them.”
Though it was usually the beasts that did the killing.
“In my domain, the beasts obey me. They don’t attack unless provoked—or if I order it.” His rage flashed like lightning, then was gone just as quickly. The flames in his eyes were extinguished, leaving him wrapped in darkness as before, like dying embers.
“We didn’t know…”
“Then perhaps you should’ve acquainted yourself with the laws of my land before trespassing through it.” He turned and strode toward the throne, leaving my skin cold again.
Fates…it was as if he’d been crafted by the gods themselves.
The humans quickly moved aside as he took a seat, his legs spread wide with a casual arrogance, one elbow resting on the armrest while he drummed his fingers across the other.
He’d hastily dressed, and the top button of his shirt was open, offering a glimpse of the hard planes of his chest underneath.
I swallowed hard. What in the hells was I doing?
This man is a monster. A brute. And he kidnapped Marcel and Gregoire.
I drew in a slow breath. “The old man, Marcel—he has a family.”
“That means nothing to me.”
His gaze was cold and unrelenting, and a helpless outrage poured through me.
I knew his type. He couldn’t care less about the truth or justice.
Human lives were meaningless to him, as they were to nearly all bloodsuckers.
He was going to kill them, and Marcel’s children would be left fatherless at a moment they needed him most.
Just as I had been.
My throat tightened, tears stinging the backs of my eyes, and the words fell from my lips. “They didn’t do it. I killed the beasts.”
“You?” Doubt and a hint of amusement played at the corners of his mouth. “Do I look like a fool?”
He looked like an asshole. A very beautiful, dangerous asshole.
Of course he didn’t believe me. I was just a woman, easily dismissed. Capable of nothing. I should’ve been thankful, rejoicing that he’d dismissed me. I could retract my words, maybe even leave with my life.
But I couldn’t.
I knotted my fists, digging my nails into my palms. “I shot them both with my bow. Let my companions go. Take me instead.”
“Take you?” His lips curved in a slow, feral grin as if he were mulling over an intriguing thought.
Before I drew another breath, he was standing before me, the heat of his body chasing away the chill and the dark spice of his scent entangling my thoughts.
“Do you mean to tell me you’re offering yourself to the dragon? ”
His voice had grown sultry and low, and his gaze drank in every inch of me, as if I were offering something quite different indeed.
He drinks from a new woman every night.
I shuddered. During my time at Castle Silverthorn, I’d never let the bloodsuckers feed from me, never followed them to their beds. But if it would save Marcel…
My eyes stung. “I made a mistake. Please, let me redeem myself.”
He pinched a curl of my hair between his fingers. “What’s your name, brave and foolish girl?”
I could barely think. “Belle.”
“Belle.” There was something ruinous in the way my name curled around his tongue. He almost smiled. “Belle is a beautiful beginning, but I want to know the end as well.”
Shivers raced over my skin, and dread flooded my belly. “Marquette.”
“And where are you from, my wayward beauty?”
Traces of dark stubble peeked out from below his mask, dusting his strong jaw, and I hated the way the movement of his lips stole all rational thought from my mind.
“The Bloodvale.”
He stepped back, and I breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking the Fates for the reprieve from his proximity and heat. “Humans aren’t permitted beyond the borders of the Bloodvale. So why are you here, traveling in the company of royal guards?”
Looking for the root of the curse. Looking for you.
I swallowed the truth. “King Cassius has changed many things. Humans may freely pass.”
“Cassius.” Hate flashed across the king’s face and thundered in the sudden set of his shoulders. “King Cassius.”
Did he know him? “Yes.”
The violent emotion slid away, replaced by a suspicion that was far colder but just as fierce. “Then the prince has finally married. Who is your new queen? What is her house?”
My mouth grew dry, and I regretted every step I’d taken since leaving the Bloodvale.
I scrambled for lies to protect my sister, but if he wanted it, he could have the truth from Marcel or Gregoire, or any other merchant that came from our lands.
Undoubtedly, the king would hear of everything that happened soon enough, yet by bloodsucker standards, the truth was probably tantamount to treason—but I had to give it.
I kept my gaze ahead, not daring to meet his eyes. “Queen Ella has no house. She’s…human.”
The king laughed. A bitter, cruel laugh.
“Cassius would never marry a mortal. The”—he paused for a fraction of a second, and his jaw set—“the court would never allow it.”
He’d hesitated. My mind raced, searching for the significance of it. He was about to say something else. Did he know about the mages? About the control they’d held over the crown before my sister had overthrown them?
The king drew close—too close—bending to my ear, his breath kissing my neck as he spoke. “Do you know what I do to those who lie to me?”
Rip out their throats. Feed them to his dragon. The possibilities were endless.
My heartbeat roared in my ears. I was trapped in a truth with no way forward but to reveal as much as I dared.
“I’m not lying, Your Highness. The court has been overthrown. The mages controlling the Vale are dead, and their curse over the land is broken. Humans are free.”
“Impossible.” He stepped back, fists clenched. His eyes, no longer hazel, burned with a murderous light. “I would know if it were true.”
Heat rolled over my skin, and my aching legs trembled. It took everything not to fall to my knees before him. “It’s true. My companions will verify every word. We have a human queen with great power. I would not lie.”
“All women lie.” He spoke the words venomously, as if they were a vicious truth that had been etched into the bones of the earth by the makers and proven across the sands of time.
I bristled at his assumption. The bastard didn’t know me.
He turned and strode away, each step ringing on the stones like a headsman’s ax. “Take her and lock her in the crow’s roost, then offer her to the dragon with the others at dawn. Livestock are scarce these days.”
Rough hands clamped around me.
“No!” I thrashed and struggled against them, but the two guards pinned my arms back and thrust me forward on stumbling feet. When I looked up, the king was gone, and with him, any hope I had of saving Marcel or Gregoire.
They dragged me through the castle, stumbling in pain and protesting my innocence, but my words fell on deaf ears. Not one of these men would falter in their duty to their king, and the bloodstains on the cobbles screamed why.
My legs barely carried me forward, still trembling from the exertion of the run. The absence of the king’s heat made the chill of the castle starker, and my sweat-slicked skin turned to ice.
“Keep going!” one of the soldiers barked as we approached a blackened oak door banded with iron straps and studs and scarred with deep gouges. He yanked the door open and shoved me forward.
Fear lodged in my chest as they hauled me down a long set of stairs and through the castle dungeons.
The dank, rotten air burned my lungs, and I struggled against the men, but they were twice my size and stronger.
Lanterns lit the damp stone floor, and I craned my neck to search the cells on either side. “Marcel!”
Up ahead, boots scuffed the ground. “Belle?”
The hope in Marcel’s voice was like a lantern in the darkness. He leapt forward and threaded his arms through the rusted iron bars of a cell. Despair masked his face as soon as he saw me. “What are you doing here, child?”
I twisted, bucking against my captors. “I’m trying to get you out—”
The bastard behind me clutched my waist and yanked me away, shoving me forward through the corridor. I caught a glimpse of Gregoire in the adjacent cell, a forlorn expression cutting his face.
“Belle!” Marcel shouted behind us. “I’m sorry, Belle!”
The guard pushed me through a narrow door and marched me up a flight of spiral stairs.
Fear settled in my gut. “Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see.”
Whatever hope I’d had collapsed into nothing. At the top of the stairs was a large cell, its far wall open, nothing but an abrupt drop into the darkness. They shoved me through, and I stumbled onto my knees, my hands landing in a cold puddle of gods knew what.
The door to the cell clanked shut, and the lock clicked. “We’ll be back in the morning if you haven’t already jumped,” the guard said.
Jumped?
Their footsteps receded down the stairs, along with the light. “Fucking terrible waste to feed a maiden like that to a dragon.”
“At least the king could’ve let us have her first,” the other guard’s voice echoed from below.
“Fucking idiot. Do you want to join her in the dragon’s jaws? You know his laws.”
Laws. The word snagged in my mind like a thorn. The king stole women from neighboring towns, protected beasts, and fed captives to his dragon without a trial…and yet he’d execute his guards for touching a prisoner? Why would the monster even care?
It didn’t make sense. Nothing about the king made sense.
Heart pounding, I climbed to my feet and wiped my hands on my trousers. I edged closer to the opening, fear stealing my breath as a bitter wind buffeted my clothes, threatening to pull me over the edge into the night.
My prison was like a giant cage, half-open to the starlit sky and frigid night air. Dark patches stained the torchlit courtyard below, and claw marks were etched into the stones. Bones littered the ground, and in the center, a stone pillar rose, manacles dangling from its sides.
I jerked back from the edge and slumped down against the rough stones of the cell. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but there was no denying it now: the bastard actually fed people to his dragon.
And tomorrow at dawn, I’d be next.