Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Aurum Baths, Draca Kingdom
Freya
I launch myself out of the bath, spraying water onto the marble floor.
Aurelius’ glowing eyes bore into mine like twin, dying suns.
His dominant pheromones roll through the bathroom in smoky plumes. I hate how much I have missed them.
I hate how much the bite mark on my neck tingles at the memory of his teeth.
I hate how I remember the feel of his knot driving me to the best orgasms of my life in my wild, primal heat, after his shadows pinned me in place, ruthlessly and relentlessly, fucking both my holes at once.
I hate that I trusted Aurelius to press his sheathed cursed dagger inside me because both Daire and I wanted to prove to him that the Golden Dragon prophecy wasn’t real.
That he would never hurt us.
Well, Daire and I are idiots.
Because Aurelius is hurting us now more than anyone else has.
Is this how the prophecy will be fulfilled?
Golden fated mates, an Omega and her Alpha Kings, destined to bleed…
Aurelius stalks through the rose scented steam toward me.
His expression is tight.
Aurelius is dressed immaculately in a golden tunic and tan breeches. A crimson cape is draped around his broad, tanned shoulders.
Amber sunlight from the high windows catches on his pale eyelashes and falls across his golden waves of hair, making him flame like the sun.
His hair tumbles under his elegant, golden crown, which is a single dragon with its wings outstretched, and around his sharp cheekbones to his strong jaw.
Every time that we are apart, I forget just how much taller he is than me.
How much taller than Daire…almost everyone.
Power…blood…shadowed death.
Let. Me. Out.
I shudder at the dark seductive whisper from Hadrian’s cursed dagger, which is sheathed at Aurelius’ waist.
My skin goosebumps.
I grit my teeth.
I stare at the glittering scales of the scabbard. The hilt is heavy, antique gold. It is molded into a snarling dragon’s head, trailing shadows like the sun’s rays behind it.
Yet I won’t be tempted a second time by the resurrected Emperor Hadrian who hides inside Aurelius. He didn’t come out to help me in the basilica.
Did he want to?
Is he as trapped as I am? Chained by Maximinus’ sorcerer ancestors, before they turned his own dagger on him and burned him to ash? Or is he simply a side to Aurelius who is back in charge right now?
“You’ve completed the purification ritual.” Aurelius’ voice is smoky but cold.
“I don’t need to be purified.” I shake my hair like a dog.
I enjoy the way that the water droplets whip across Aurelius’ cheeks, and he can’t help flinching.
“Of course not, Little Spark.” He wipes his hand across his face, muttering, “Etiquette training may be helpful.”
I glance at Aurelius’ bruised wrists and realize that he has been freed from the enchanted chains.
I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.
I’m desperate to bury my hands in Aurelius’ tumble of golden hair and stroke over his glorious horns. But his eyes are emotionless.
Does he still love me?
Did he ever?
At least, does he love me as much as he hates Lanlin?
Is love as strong an emotion as hate for dragons? For kings?
My hands ball into fists. “Freya.”
He tilts his head. “Are we back to introducing ourselves?”
“Only my friends are allowed to call me Spark.”
Aurelius’ expression crumples. His devastation screams through our bond — a howling pain that floors me — before he slams it shut.
He ducks his head, attempting to hide his reaction.
“I would say that was fair. Except, I was bound in enchanted chains. Beaten. Forced to hold an executioner’s blade in my hand, which wept with thousands of fucking ghosts who had all lost their heads at Hadrian’s hands.
Faced with doing the worst thing any Alpha can…
executing their own fated mates and dragon riders. ”
I boldly meet his gaze. “Daire told me that you would do this. Are you playing the white knight?”
When Aurelius raises his head, his piercing eyes appear to be able to look into my soul; my breath hitches.
“I’m the wicked dragon and not the knight.
I’ve never pretended to be anything else.
I warned you what I was. I came up with a third option, however, one that didn’t mean sacrificing you to the gods or executing you. ”
“A third option that means offering me as a bride to a ruthless monster. An option that feeds him Daire’s blood.”
“An option that gives us the best chance for peace, while making me emperor.” Aurelius prowls forward, gripping me by the elbows. Sparks ignite from his horns. “The truce buys time. Also, it will lead to Lan’s destruction.”
Is that Hadrian talking or Aurelius?
“Do you know how obsessed you sound?” I wrench back from him. “The question is when you thought of this plan.”
The silence is answer enough.
My guts twist. “These other two kings may be your enemies, but they’re my Golden fated mates. My Alphas. I trust that you worked out the only way to save our lives but trust me that I won’t hurt one of my pack.”
Aurelius’ lips curl back. “Lan will never be pack. The betrayer is my brother’s murderer.
I watched Lan feeding on Tarq, before my brother died in my arms. My hands were soaked in Tarq’s blood.
I was thrust into a kingship that I wasn’t ready for and didn’t want because my best and only friend assassinated my brother. How can that be forgiven?”
“The vampires slaughtered my entire family,” I burst out.
I am shaking. “They massacred everyone in the Orm Court but me. I spent my life feeling like I should have died too. I was more at home amongst the barrows with the dead, than in a court where I was treated as the orphan worthless Omega bitch, who reminded everyone of a horror filled grief that they wanted to forget. But I still don’t blame this new Vampire King for the actions of his parents.
This war isn’t his, just like it’s not yours. You both didn’t start it.”
“Then I’m finishing it.”
“And Tarquin…” I want to tell Aurelius everything that I have learned about the brother who he reveres.
Tarquin wasn’t the perfect brother. He committed genocide in the First Fae war. He wasn’t a good military commander to his own troops like Aurelius is. Imperial Legate War has made that clear.
Daire has also told me that Tarquin betrayed Lanlin’s mom, when she was their ally, which led to her ambush and death.
If Lanlin killed Tarquin, then I should buy him a fucking drink.
As long as it’s not my blood.
I try to keep that thought off my face.
“Yes…?” Aurelius says, dangerously softly.
His eyes begin to swirl.
I tilt up my chin. “Your brother was Lanlin’s enemy. Your two kingdoms were at war. If Daire had killed him, would you hate Daire this much?”
“What gave you the impression that I don’t?”
My chest tightens. “Daire cares about you, asshole. You share a bond. He’s your dragon rider. I know that you’ve been secretly protecting him from the start. You don’t need to wear this mask with me any longer. I see beneath it.”
Aurelius looks startled, before awkwardly holding his hands behind his back.
His cheeks pink.
I wrap my arms around myself, shivering.
I wish that Daire was here. Now that we have bonded, it feels wrong that the three of us aren’t discussing this together.
Where did Maximinus take Daire? What is he going to do to my soulmate?
Drawing in panicked breaths, I rest my hand protectively over the delicate snowflake on my wrist.
Agony.
It burns through the bond. It feels like poison is bubbling in my veins, turning me to ash from the inside.
It’s horrifying.
What in the name of the Shadow Gods is being done to Daire by Maximinus?
I gag, bending over. I fall to my hands and knees, groaning. My eyes scrunch closed with pain.
My stomach cramps, before I vomit.
Spark, Spark, Spark.
Sweat dampens the back of my neck.
Confused, I wipe my hand other my mouth, wracked with tremors.
Spark…
Someone is calling me urgently.
Then they are wrapping me in a soft towel, and I am being scooped into their arms.
I look up through dazed eyes at Aurelius, as the pain begins to settle. I rest my head on his chest.
Aurelius is holding me tightly, striding across the gold threaded marble floors of the baths toward the back wall.
His jaw is clenched.
Sunlight dances across his cruelly sensual lips. I know that they can kiss softly or savagely bite.
Is it wrong that I still crave both sides of him? The kiss and the bite?
Aurelius and Hadrian?
I nuzzle closer to Aurelius, as he lowers himself into a velvet padded alcove, which is frescoed with silver, ruby, and pearl dragons in flight. I take deep breaths of his tunic, which smells of his reassuring smoky, leather scent.
He washes calming pheromones over me.
“Feeling better?” Aurelius settles me on his lap, briskly drying my shoulders, before moving to run the top of the towel over my damp hair. “You shouldn’t stand around wet like this. You’ll catch a cold.”
“Strangely,” I reply, “I was distracted. And you called me Spark.”
His hands still. “Should I be calling you Queen Freya, while you’re hurling over my floors?”
I blush. “How about Your Majesty?”
That feels good.
We are finally both members of royalty.
I am not his servant.
His pet.
To my surprise, Aurelius leans closer. “As long as you call me Aurelius again, then I will adore calling you my Queen, Your Majesty.”
My breath hitches.
He means it.
I search his gaze. “Not for long. Won’t I be Lanlin’s Queen?”
Aurelius plays with Daire’s pinion feather, pushing it more firmly behind my ear, tidying it into place.
“War is stationed outside with her personal unit. It should at least ensure that we have this time without the risk of being spied on. We may manage half an hour at best, while my uncle is distracted…”
“You mean torturing Daire.”
“Semantics.” Aurelius arches his brow. “So, Your Majesty, this may be our last chance to be alone…to touch…to anything...before you’re taken from me.”