Chapter Fifteen
True
I want to strangle the youngster who was charged with guarding the princess as she grew.
He is too young to have been given that job, and he’s too impulsive to have the one he does now.
He brushes a hand across her shoulder as he leaves her side, and my anger rises.
I can smell her arousal, her wet sex, but it’s the longing on her face as he walks away that just about kills me.
From the way Pax is hanging his head, I know he can sense my disappointment. I’m glad. He can’t just go around taking any woman he wants—especially not Princess Vynessa. Not if he wants to keep his head attached to his shoulders.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, grabbing his shoulder the moment the door closes behind him.
He shakes me off with a glower. “Vynessa loves me,” he says. “There’s no one she trusts more, no one who can make her feel better than I can. I’d think you would want that.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I growl, stepping forward and staring him down. “We can’t have her.”
“We?” he asks, latching onto my slip of the tongue. “Since when do you want her?”
“I don’t,” I tell him. “We—as in our class, not me personally. We are not royalty. We are guards. Our job is to protect her, not breed her.”
“Who says we can’t do both?”
I grab him by the throat and pin him to the wall. “You can’t do both,” I snarl. “You’re not fit for a queen.”
Pax jerks in my grasp, but I don’t release him. “Don’t tell me what I’m worthy of. Shouldn’t she be with the person she loves?”
“Captain,” I prompt. “Shouldn’t she be with the person she loves, Captain. The sooner you start using our titles, the easier life at court will be for you, sergeant.”
“Yes, Captain,” Pax snaps, at last pulling himself free.
I catch a defiant glint in his eye that doesn’t settle well with me. “I don’t make the rules,” I say, tempering my voice. “I don’t decide what you’re worthy of. But Princess Vynessa is worthy of only the best. Don’t you agree?”
Pax sighs and slumps against the wall. “She’s worthy of happiness.”
“She will be our queen soon,” I remind him. “And you will have to stand guard beside her for the rest of your life, including when she takes a husband. Won’t that be harder if you let her fall for you now?”
“Don’t forget, I’ve been guarding her for my whole life already,” Pax says.
“And it gets harder every day now that she’s matured, doesn’t it?” I ask.
He can’t deny that. It’s simple biology.
I drop my voice, though I know the girls inside can’t hear us through the stone door.
“Won’t it be harder to do your job, to keep your focus and not be distracted if you let feelings get involved?
The queen will make sure she’s married off before she goes.
How will you stand by and watch Vynessa take a mate, not to mention the royals from other clans who will come to breed her, knowing you can never touch her again? ”
Pax swallows so hard I can hear it. “She just got here,” he says in disbelief.
“The queen won’t wait longer than is absolutely necessary.
The Sun King attacks anew each turn of the moon.
She’ll require Vynessa to produce fertilized eggs to be hidden throughout the kingdom to ensure their bloodline continues.
If the Sun King takes her for his own before she can do that…
If he controls Vynessa, he controls all kingdoms. There will be no council of kings, no queen, no other dragons but sun dragons.
There will be one king and his enslaved queen, and we will all live and die at his whim. ”
“She just found out she’s a dragon,” Pax argues. “She’s not going to adjust to the idea easily.”
“She’ll have to,” I say, frowning at the empty hallway, the long stretches of marble. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
“She may not have a choice about being queen,” Pax says. “But until she takes the throne, some choices are still hers to make.”
“Not this one,” I say, shaking my head.
“My job is to please the princess,” he says. “And that’s what I’m going to do. In whatever ways I can.”
“Before you do anything treasonous, think also of how it will affect her future. Not just yours.”
“I’ll do anything to make my princess happy,” he says. “The same as you would, if you were in my position.”
Damn it. He’s wrong. I would never let a moment of weakness overcome me. I would never put her life at risk for one selfish moment of carnal pleasure, even if I had such desires for her, which I don’t.
The boy is young, stupid, and in love, and I’m not going to let him get them both killed for his stupidity. Even if, were I in his position, I would want nothing but to do the same.