Chapter Twenty-Two
Sinetar
Vynessa gapes at me, the morning light igniting her red hair. I didn’t want to tell her. I thought I could get her far away from here before revealing the queen’s betrayal, but I found myself incapable of keeping it from her.
“No,” she says, slowly shaking her head and backing away. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Unfortunately, it does,” I say, and my bitterness must show in my tone because her brow furrows.
“How did this happen?” she cries.
I blow out a breath. “I’ll explain everything, but we need to get going. True is waiting for us in the forest. This is his plan.”
A flicker of movement in the trees catches my eye, but when I turn, there’s nothing but sparkling snow. Since his dragon form is white as snow, and I know a thing or two about camouflage myself, I’m not worried about him not showing. My only concern is that little ginger-haired creep, Bradley.
I should have killed him. I knew I’d regret the mercy, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill another dragon, even one as suspect as him. Dragon lives are sacred, and spilling our own blood is an act of war.
“Anything else I should know right now?” Vynessa asks as we step under the cover of the pine boughs. Frosty needles crunch under our boots. There’s only a thin layer of snow in this area of the woods, likely because of the southern exposure to the sun, but the ground is crisp with ice.
“You could choose to shift to human form without your skins,” I say, trying to ease her mood with a grin.
She’s not buying it. “So I’d come back naked.”
“To be fair, you’re nearly there on your top half already,” I say, gesturing to the top that covers her delicious golden nipples and not much more. My mouth waters at the thought of tasting them, sucking them until she whimpered for me to do the same to her cunt.
“Your weapons are now part of you,” I say, adjusting my cock inside my own leathers. “It will cause physical and mental anguish to be separated from them. Just as you’ve never seen myself, True, or Paxton without ours since we’ve returned to court.”
“What about out in the human world?”
“That was very uncomfortable for us,” I admit.
“Especially True. I have great powers of disguise, so I was able to have mine about me, though you didn’t see them.
Paxton’s powers include transformation, so he was able to have his about him in another form, likely a pocketblade or another small trinket he’s carried with him since childhood. ”
She nods thoughtfully. “He always carried one.”
“It’s both part of your magic and, when you’re in dragon form, part of your body.
They form your dragon weapons as well—teeth, talons, horns or scales for some dragons.
The weapons choose you. That’s why we put you in the dark to choose.
That way, you can’t be influenced by what they look like, and they can’t be influenced by your desires.
They are very receptive to their dragon masters, so any slight preference you have for or against one can ruin your relationship with your destined weapon. ”
“You couldn’t have told me this before shoving me into a dark room? I thought you were trying to kill me.”
“It’s a strengthening ceremony called Atgeir.
It also forces your first change. You should have started changing long ago, but from what I understand, the queen put measures in place to prevent that.
As soon as we arrived here, I petitioned for you to go through Atgeir. The queen kept putting me off.”
Vynessa glances over her shoulder toward the cliff, probably trying to see the palace up there, but from here all there is to see is the sheer rockface of Dauor Kliff—death cliff.
“You went against the queen for me?” she asks. “What is she going to do to you?”
Vynessa’s golden eyes meet mine, panic written there. Pride swells in my chest. Now to prove myself worthy of her gratitude…
“She won’t find out.” I break from her gaze.
“How do you know?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
“We need to go,” I say, increasing my speed. “True wants us to get as far as possible on foot so the incoming dragons overhead don’t see us flying the other way. We’ll stay under the tree cover. He’s going to catch up to us.”
“What about Pax?”
I swallow before letting the lie roll off my tongue. “He’ll be ahead too, a little further on, scouting to make sure we’re in the clear.”
“Perfect,” she says with a solemn nod.
Guilt gnaws at me like a hatchling sharpening its teeth, but if I tell her the truth, she’ll turn straight back around. I haven’t known Vynessa for long, but I already know how loyal she is. And protecting her is more important than anything else right now, even honesty.
“We need to pick up our pace.”
We break into a jog, hopping over fallen trees and batting low-hanging boughs away. Frigid air wants to crowd in on us, but I push it back, warming the bouncing molecules around us without thinking. The air is so thick with the scent of pine I can hardly taste any other scents on the wind.
Every moment is another stretch of time I’ll be missed at court.
I hope for all our sakes that they think Vynessa is in a lesson with me in a more remote area of the palace—and that True finds us soon.
It’s possible the queen’s soldiers caught him.
If they did, protecting the princess falls entirely on my shoulder.
In truth, I’m not up to the task alone—no one is. One dragon is no match for the queen’s army.
We keep running, and I set the pace to a little faster clip every few minutes.
It’s nothing for me, but Vynessa’s breaths grow labored after an hour or so, even when I send more oxygen her way to revive her.
Finally, she slows to a stop, grabbing her knees and huffing out white clouds of condensation. “I need a break.”
“We don’t have the time to spare.” My legs bounce with the need to keep moving.
She looks up at me, her expression so troubled that I know there will be no going forward from here without giving her the details.
“Why would the queen hide me from the Sun King for my entire life, just to give me over to him?”
I lean against a pine, knowing I will need support for the conversation ahead. “I can only guess. The queen left me and your guards very much in the dark on this one.”
“Really?” she asks, giving me a withering look. “That’s all I’m going to get?”
I clear my throat. “Perhaps she guessed that we have shifted our loyalty to you already, even though she has not passed. That’s not unusual. People are excited for change, for something new, someone strong to command their loyalty and respect. Our queen is dying. She’s weak,” I finish flatly.
“But if I go to the Sun King, then I won’t be your queen anyway.”
“I believe she brought you here as a bargaining chip, never intending for you to be our queen. She will name Shynia her successor and give her purest blooded daughter to the Sun King to establish a peace between the Sun Court and the Frost Court.”
Vynessa scoffs, clearly believing that’s an empty promise.
I close my eyes. “You have to understand, Vynessa, the queen lost all but two of her children. The Sun King killed them. Even if you were able to mate with all eight remaining dragon courts, that cycle would begin again. If you lay all your eggs for the Sun King, he’ll protect them, and they’ll all live.
They’ll be free to thrive as dragons, as it was in the old days.
They’ll grow up with their clans, not be hidden away and disguised as humans or fae or wolves. ”
“But isn’t the point of mating with nine dragons so that each dragon race continues, and the royal bloodline gives an heir to each court?”
“Yes,” I say with a grimace. “But that isn’t always possible. Wars between clans, diseases, the dangers posed by Wild Hunters and others who wish for our extinction have made it increasingly difficult over the centuries.”
“Hence the moon dragons becoming extinct.”
I nod. “Yes. Even our queen’s nine eggs were most likely fertilized by only five or six different dragon clans.
The Sun King prevented travel to the other kingdoms, and it was dangerous to sneak dragons to our court for a mating ceremony.
We couldn’t trust several clans not to make an assassination attempt.
The queen has been hidden away here for a century. ”
“And that same evil king will control me and all my children. We’ll be his slaves.”
“Yes.” I grip the leather hilt of the scimitar that always hangs from my belt.
It’s true, but in the queen’s mind, it’s a choice between enslavement or extinction.
I understand her decision. It’s as cold hearted and practical as she’s had to become.
The Sun Kingdom will be the strongest of any, as the King desires.
But at least the others will live on with a promise that he will protect the weaker clans.
Even her decision to send me to the DLSA’s training facility makes a sick sort of sense now.
I’m not a bodyguard like True and Paxton.
She could have let the school’s very competent professors teach Vynessa and sent another soldier to protect her instead of a tutor.
But the Queen must know the reputation I’ve earned at the palace for the speed and ease with which I seduce women.
She wanted me to provide a distraction, and I’ve done exactly that.
The queen didn’t want Vynessa properly trained. She wanted the princess safeguarded until the Her Majesty could broker an advantageous deal with the Sun King. The pureblood princess as a mate in exchange for the protection of the other clans.
Vynessa turns and stands before me. “Those dragons we saw coming in. That’s the Sun King’s army?”
“Yes. That will be his soldiers and court and Arun, his oldest son. From what I understand, the entire dragon court will soon make a pilgrimage here to watch your first mating ceremony.”
She steps back. “So he’s going to immediately impregnate me and bind me to him?”
“If he finds you.”
I grit my teeth at the thought. I want to be the one to breed her, to be the first to plow the unturned earth of her body, to break her in and spill my sacred seed into her hungry womb, where no dragon has implanted before.
Yesss, my dragon whispers. Mine.
Despite the thousands I have bedded before, it would be a first for me too.
I’ve never allowed my cock to grow in that way, to let go completely and let myself spike a woman.
It would kill a human, and probably several other supernatural races.
And with a dragon… Well, with what nameless, faceless stranger would I desire that type of intimacy?
Vynessa’s golden eyes meet mine, and I wonder what would happen if she and I made a child right here and now, in this clearing. We’re damp with sweat, and I can smell her cinnamon sweetness, the maddening pull of her heat beckoning me to enter her and breed her full of my line.
The Sun King would kill me if he ever found me, that’s what would happen. Vynessa and my child would never be safe. That’s what has stopped me from answering the irresistible urge to complete her first mating cycle all along.
Her hand rises to cup my cheek, soft skin on rough bristles. “What are you giving up to help me, Sinetar?”
I haven’t had a moment to consider. Vynessa needed me, and I acted.
When I curl my hand around hers, though, I know I made the right decision, come what may.
I’ve been miserable for so long, thinking happiness was lurking in the next warm hole, but it never was.
Right now, even though I find myself in the worst circumstances I’ve ever been in, life feels like it could be good.
It could be wonderful. I could run with Vynessa, hide away with her and our children, fertilize every single one of her nine eggs so that she’d be useless to the king. We would have each other and our family.
“What if you go back now?” she asks. “Make some sort of excuse, like I ran away, and you were hunting me down.”
“You really think I’m that selfish? I would never leave you alone in the forest—”
She cuts off my words by grabbing my shoulders and slamming her lips to mine.
I’ve had many women, dragons, humans, fae, elven, witches, even demons. I’ve fucked five women who lined up in a row, begging for my cock, one after another. I’ve given orgasms that knocked women unconscious.
Nothing compares to a simple kiss from this woman.
Vynessa’s lips are soft and demanding on mine, begging me to come closer and take more.
I do. I devour the spicy, sweet taste of her mouth.
I lift her off her feet, spin around, and pin her to the pine tree, slamming my hard cock to her hot center.
She moans, and I nearly come undone. Her legs wrap around my hips, and she grinds greedily against me.
Her hands tear at my dragon tunic, the leathers that let me shift without coming back naked.
Right now, I don’t care. I want them off, want nothing between us.
I want our naked bodies writhing together in primal ecstasy.
We break off our kiss, gasping for air, and I peel the shirt off and toss it aside. Her golden eyes rake over my toned body before meeting mine.
Fuck the court. I would leave it all behind for one night in her arms, her bed, the stranglehold of her tight, swollen, weeping virgin cunt in heat.
I open my mouth to tell her we can run forever when sharp pain sears at the back of my neck.
I barely disengage my hold on Vynessa before I’m flying backward.
My body hurtles through the clearing, and I slam into another tree.
I’m on my feet on instinct, crouched before a snowy dragon staring down at me with white-hot fury.
True.
“Piece of demonling dung,” I growl even as my hackles lower. “I thought we were under attack, but it’s just a guard in a fit of jealousy.”
He hisses, snowflakes drifting up from his nostrils.
Standing to my full height, I brush pine needles from my arms. “If you would excuse us for a moment, Vynessa and I were about to fuck. But then, maybe you’d like to stay and watch me defile our fair princess.”
True shifts into human form, hulking in front of me, his face so red with rage that I’m surprised he’s not breathing fire. “You were supposed get her out of here, not fuck her less than ten miles from the palace.”
I give him a haughty grin. “You knew who you were sending her with.”
“Stop!” The command comes from Vynessa, and True actually freezes.
Vynessa rushes to slide between us, her back to me.
I wrap a hand around her waist and stare over her shoulder in a smug posture, but True’s eyes are only for the princess.
“I made Sinetar stop running,” Vynessa says. “We ran for ten miles, and I asked him to take a break and explain to me what the hell is going on. I kissed him, not the other way around, True.”
Leaning down, I kiss the side of her neck, tasting the salty sweet of her skin, and fuck if she doesn’t shiver. True’s expression grows murderous.
Good.
Let the sanctimonious bastard see what he’s missing by being so disciplined.