Time to Explore
Idon’t know how long I sat there reading and rereading what was written, trying to make sense of it all. A king from four hundred years ago wrote me a letter, and things he had written about were already coming true or had happened.
Could it be possible that a dragon’s venom was that powerful to allow him to see all that was to come?
Did he see how everything was going to end?
Setting down the letter, I opened the journal, and it was filled with entries of King Cardon’s life from the point he had bonded with his dragon to the night before they were going to leave.
It was written in the same language we use now, but the letter was written in the old tongue.
Could it have been a precaution to ensure that if the wrong person saw it, they couldn’t read it? Why did I feel like the more I learned, the more questions I had instead of answers?
“Cassarah?” My head snapped up at Becka’s voice. “You all right? I’ve been calling for you.”
“Sorry, I just got distracted when I found some notes and other things left behind in the king’s desk.
There is even a closet full of clothes for both men and women as well.
Did you guys discover anything in the other rooms?
” I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell them all about this letter or what it might mean.
“Come look for yourself. It’s a little creepy,” Becka said as she waved for me to follow.
Frowning, I stood, wondering what could be so creepy.
Surely, there wasn’t anyone left in the place that had become petrified after so many years.
Becka led me to a room that seemed to have been used by a woman with all the soft pinks and the vast amounts of lace adorning everything.
There on the dressing table was a note she had clearly opened and laid out to read.
If her letter was anything like mine, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I picked it up.
To the future person who will reside in these rooms,
My name is Daina, and I am the eldest daughter of King Cardon, the third king of the mercenaries.
We are leaving tomorrow, and I’ve been instructed to leave a note for whoever might take over this room when the Dragon Queen comes.
Father only allowed us to take what we would need or couldn’t replace since our new lives in Norden would be much simpler than what I’ve grown up knowing.
They tell us the spell they will put over the castle makes it so that nothing will age, and it will be just as we left it.
I hope this is true because I just had a few new dresses made I will never get to wear.
I hope they fit you so they get to be used.
Know that I loved and treasured everything in this room, and I hope it serves you as well as it did me growing up.
PS—If you need a little spice in your life, I’ve hidden my favorite sordid romances under the mattress. They helped me through many tough times being unable to go to parties since I wasn’t in very good health last year.
Glancing up from the letter, I found Becka standing there with three books in her hands, grinning. “Did you think I wouldn’t go look after she told me where to find them?”
Laughing, I took the book she offered and shook my head at the title, Under the Moonlight: Poems and Sonnets to Stir the Heart. “Goodness, these are quite descriptive, aren’t they?” I shared, blushing at some of the things I was reading.
“Seems like you should keep them so you know what to expect when you take the next step with your men,” Becka teased.
I gaped at her, snapping the book shut. “Becka.”
“Oh please, everyone can see that they are stepping up their game to be the first one you take to bed. What man wouldn’t want to have that feather in their cap?
Soak it all in while it lasts… on second thought, you do have eight of them, so maybe not,” Becka mused out loud, tapping a finger on her chin.
“Do you think more than one of them would want to play at a time? Would you let them if they wanted to?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about, and I’m not sure I want to know just yet.” I huffed, tossing the book back to her.
“Now I wouldn’t be so hasty, Cassarah,” May interjected as she entered through a side door connected to the room she’d been looking at.
“I can speak from experience that having more than one lover in bed with you at a time is absolutely something you want to know all about. Nothing beats a man thrusting into you from both sides.”
They burst out laughing as they took in my stunned expression as detailed visuals flooded my mind of what that could even look like. “Wait, are you saying you let them enter in the back as well as the front? What purpose would that serve? Children can only be produced from the vagina.”
“Clearly, we have our work cut out for us if you think that sex is just for producing a child. When you find the right partner or partners, in your case, sex is something that can take your physical relationship to a whole new mind-blowing level of passion. I have zero feelings toward any of your men, but I would bet my life on the fact they will make you see stars if given the chance. Know that I am always around if you have questions or want help figuring out how to do something. There isn’t much I haven’t tried,” May informed me, adding a saucy wink.
“May, I want to be just like you when I grow up.” Becka sighed.
“Ah, ladies, there you are…” Gavin started to say until he caught sight of me with my cheeks blazing with my embarrassment. “Should I come back?”
Darting forward, I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room. “No need. They just finished telling me what they needed to.”
I could hear the echoes of their laughter as I continued to lead Gavin away from them and the topic we’d just been discussing. “Love, where are we going?” Gavin asked after a minute.
Stopping quickly, realizing I didn’t know, he bumped into me, and we both stumbled.
We ended up in a heap on the floor with me sprawled out on top of him, his face in the middle of my chest. It took him a moment to figure out where he was, and I didn’t know what to do, so my hands just seemed to flutter at my sides.
“You know there are plenty of bedrooms to use if you guys want to get frisky, right?” Paxton asked as he peered down at us.
“Help me up, will you,” Gavin asked, resting one hand on the floor and holding the other up to Paxton.
He just grinned at the hand for a moment. “Sorry, man, I’m not really into guys like that, but you might want to ask one of the others if you’re having a hard time getting it up.”
“That’s not what I meant at all, Pax, and you know it,” Gavin muttered as he awkwardly rolled off me to lay on his back beside me.
“You know, for a prince, you’re not very smooth with the ladies, are you?
I would have thought with a title and all, you’d been slipping them into your rooms since the day you sprung your first salute.
At this point, the Grim Reaper is beating us all, and I can’t say I’m thrilled with that outcome,” Paxton rambled as he dropped to sit on the floor between us.
“You guys seen the indoor garden they have up here? Talk about cool things you don’t really need but are impressive.
I think I picked out my room too. The king’s brother used it, and he had a thing for hidden compartments.
In his letter, he told me that he hid a bunch of cool stuff in the room, but I would have to find them using only two simple clues. ”
As Paxton rattled on about things, I sat up and shifted so I leaned against the wall trying to get my heart rate under control.
The feel of Gavin’s body and knowing that I caused the hard length I felt in his pants made my blood heat and rush through me.
A tension in my body that I hadn’t felt before until these men started to be more forward in their attention started to ache deep in my stomach.
Having just been talking about things with May and Becka didn’t help matters, either.
“What do you think, spitfire?” Paxton asked, snapping my attention back to them as they both sat there waiting for my answer.
“I think that you taking that room is fine. You’ll have to let me know what you find,” I answered, hoping that was what he’d been asking.
Paxton smiled at me and rested his head on his knee. “While I’m glad you’re interested in finding that out as much as I am, that isn’t what I wanted to know…”
“Don’t be an ass and just ask her again. Clearly, she got bored with you rambling about your room since that’s when she checked out,” Jade pointed out from where he leaned against the wall near me, watching our interaction.
“When did you show up?” I demanded, a little worried that someone could sneak up on me so easily.
“A little after Paxton, but unlike him, I didn’t need to inject myself into the moment to steal your attention away from Gavin,” he answered, offering me a hand which I took and let him pull me to my feet.
“He was asking if you wanted to stay the night here since it has everything we need, or if you wish to return to Marta’s home.
The sun is setting so if we are going to head back, now would be best.”
I mulled over the options, but even though we could sleep here, we didn’t have everything we needed.
“Let’s head back for tonight, then we can work with the villagers to gather what we need.
The stables need to be set up along with other supplies, such as food and firewood to heat the rooms. Living in a stone palace will be much colder than the wooden ones you’ve been living in.
Plus, I think it would be wise to let the viceroys know what happened here and see if we might be able to diminish the number of things we need to do for the coronation. ”
“Do you think they will really let you skip things?” Paxton asked, hopping to his feet.
“Seeing as I already have this on my head, I don’t think they can argue with the fact that I’m their queen,” I said, pointing to the crown on my head.
“True, and we all bear your mark now, so maybe they will let you do things at your own pace instead of the traditional way,” Gavin suggested.
“It was one of the things I was really dreading about my wedding. Who wants someone in the room with them to check and see if you were able to do what was needed to make a baby?”
“I was going to talk with them about that, anyway. There is no way I could even entertain the idea of having a child right now. It would put me in a position where I couldn’t help our people or fight in the battles that are to come.”
“Do you want them… kids, I mean?” Jade asked, his light green eyes watching me with curiosity.
“I wasn’t sure, but I think with the right people in my life and knowing I made the world a safer place once the Lost King is gone, will make me change my mind,” I answered softly, reaching out to take his hand.
“There are eight men who would make sure any child I had would be the safest child in all the kingdoms.”
“Damn right, we would,” Jade said under his breath. “Come on. Let’s find the others so we can make our way back.”
We returned to the village, and once we shared a small portion of what we found in the castle, the viceroys suggested we have dinner with them and Alsten.
This way, we could start dealing with matters of security and getting workers out there to help us turn the castle into a livable place once again.
“So you say that everything is just as it was?” Alsten questioned, sipping his glass of wine. “How can that possibly be? I’ve never heard of magic stopping time like that in only one place or for that long.”
“There is so much to go through that King Cardon left behind, I’m sure I’ll find some answers to a lot of our questions.
Really, this makes things so much easier for us, though.
It’s just a matter of restocking the castle than starting from scratch.
If we had to build all new furniture and things like that, it would be crazy,” I pointed out.
“You make a good point, but you mentioned when you first came back that you had bigger news to tell us,” Lawrence inquired.
As we traveled back down, I’d packed away the crown, not wanting to announce what happened before I talked it over with the viceroys, who, I might add, inducted Sal into their ranks.
He now worked and lived with them in their quest to preserve and uphold traditions.
I pulled the bag from the back of the chair and unwrapped the crown, holding it out for them to see.
“It would seem that in order to complete the release of the spell on the castle, it needed to crown me queen of its own accord. I have been blessed by the gods and the dragons as the new queen of the mercenaries. They also took care of marking me and my consorts as the power settled throughout the kingdom,” I explained, pulling at the collar of the shirt I was now wearing.
The guys showed theirs as well, proving that they matched with mine.
The viceroys stared at us with open wonder.
“Well, that certainly makes things far more interesting,” Mathew said, grinning at us.