Chapter Twenty-Three
True
I stare down Vynessa as she defends Master Sinetar.
The pompous windbag may believe that he outranks me, that his blood is purer than mine, but even he must know how weak he is.
Sinetar knows every dragon in the kingdom is searching for Vynessa, but he gave in to his desires for her.
He let his craving for her body make him reckless.
I would never do such a thing. Not now, not ever.
“Sinetar. Return to the palace. I will protect the princess from here,” I bite out, my fury barely suppressed. “You’re probably already missed at court. We need to follow the plan.”
The royal tutor’s eyes narrow, but he smiles. “Missed?” he asks, tilting his head towards Vynessa while cocking an eyebrow at me. “I disappeared with Vynessa hours ago. Your plan is useless now. If I return, they’ll torture her location from me.”
For a moment I consider. Could I send the man to his death? Does part of me even want him dead?
As much as the insolent worm needs to be taken down a hundred pegs, I don’t. He’s a thorn in my side, but Vynessa has real, genuine feelings for him, and right now, she trusts him.
“You are needed at court,” I say. “You are still in the queen’s employ. We will continue as planned. You may tell them that I relieved you of duty, and you occupied yourself with a lady at court.”
I reach for Vynessa, and she doesn’t move away. Instead, she takes my hand and squeezes my fingers. “Are you sure he’ll be safe?”
“Yes. His reputation as a lay-about fuck-boy will protect him better than I ever could.”
Vynessa drops my hand, but Sinetar doesn’t look offended by my words.
Instead, he pulls his arms from Vynessa and rubs a hand over his face.
It’s by far the most real gesture I’ve ever seen from the man, a glimpse of something more than the playboy tutor who takes pride in defiling every student in his charge, teaching them the ways of the court and the ways of the flesh in equal measure.
Finally he sighs. “You’re right. I can probably even find a woman to corroborate the story. Kimbra will, especially if I bend her over first.”
Vynessa flinches. It’s infinitesimal, but I see it. She doesn’t say anything, though, and when Sinetar wraps his arms around her, she turns and kisses him deeply.
I can’t watch, and yet, I can’t look away. My job is to protect her, no matter what it does to me. There will be worse nights—outside her room when she’s with her king, inside it for her mating ceremonies.
I’m not part of this, as I was in her chambers that day. This is not arousing. It’s painful.
“You’re going to be okay?” she asks Sinetar, cupping his cheek in her palm.
The edge of concern in her voice knifes into my heart, slicing it further.
“You’re in good hands,” Sinetar says. “True’s been in the queen’s guard for hundreds of years. He wouldn’t lay a finger on you.”
She frowns. “I know that. I lived with him.”
Sinetar’s eyes flick to me and then back to the princess’s face. “Right. Forgot about that. Then you certainly know he’d never lay a finger on you.”
The insinuation is not lost on me.
Princess Vynessa does not miss the inflection in Sinetar’s voice, either. Pink sweeps over her cheeks, and she glances at me from under her lashes. With her copper hair flowing in waves over her shoulders and the sun shining on her face, she’s more beautiful than ever.
“Go and do whatever you have to do so they don’t suspect you,” she says, her voice strained.
Sinetar drops into a crouch then springs into dragon form, shooting towards the palace like a torpedo.
Damn, he’s fast. I have to give him that.
“Are we wearing magic armor?” she asks, squinting after her tutor. “It turns into scales on us when we’re dragons, then back into clothes when we’re human?”
“It’s made of dragon skin,” I say as I gesture toward the forest. “We start at a jog, but I want us running in less than ten minutes.”
Probably for the first time ever, Vynessa obeys me without question.
As we run at an achingly slow pace, I explain, “Your own dragon skin reacts to your armor by melding with it. If you were injured by normal means, it would act as a skin graft, healing and closing your wound.” Even as my attention is on her, I scan the forest, searching every shadow for danger.
Flying would be a hundred times faster, but the danger is exponentially more.
There’s no hiding her dragon form. I watched her take off with Sinetar, and I know her colors do not lend themselves to camouflage.
“That’s a little…grisly,” she says, her breaths coming heavy already. She’s in shape for a human, but even my human form gets winded eventually. The human body is so much less efficient than our animal form.
“Not at all.”
“The fact that I’m wearing a suit made of skin?” she asks, sounding revolted by the very idea.
“The skin of our kind,” I say, then give her a small smile. “Don’t worry. No dragons were harmed in its making.”
“Explains why there’s so little material,” she says, looking down at her top. The armor barely covers her breasts, sculpting around the nipples and leaving the rest exposed with small strips of leather.
“The mold of your top has everything to do with who procured the armor for you and nothing to do with the availability of dragon skin.”
“The bastard,” she swears, but she’s smiling fondly at the thought of Sinetar doing her this disservice.
I nod without responding, my eyes on the forest. If I look at her, I won’t be able to stop myself from wanting to touch her.
It’s getting harder to be around her, not easier.
The thought of the queen forcing Vynessa to marry a prince from the Sun Court makes me want to commit treason.
Once she’s in their kingdom, the Sun King will surely snatch her from his son, make her his pet.
He will use her for his own personal brood mare, ensuring he fertilizes all nine of her royal eggs, so that over the next few centuries, the other clans’ royal lineage dies out, leaving only Sun Dragons carrying enough royal blood to rule.
I glance sideways at her. She has no idea the implications, the importance of every moment, the danger she is truly in—and the enormity of the weight on her shoulders. I must be strong for her. I can’t leave her without a Captain of the Guard.
A movement in the trees catches my attention, and I throw an arm up, sweeping Vynessa into an embrace.
“Whoa—what are you doing?” she yelps, looking up at me with wide eyes.
“Shh.” I hush her as I pull her to my chest and cover her completely in my armor. Without a word, I scoop her up and race for the edge of the trees, towards the movement instead of away. Whoever—whatever—is watching us won’t be looking for us to run towards them.
I crouch low, pulling Vynessa with me.
“What are we hiding from?” she asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I say. “We must be quiet.”
She wraps herself around me as I kneel on the forest floor, the frozen ground stiff and unyielding under my armor.
Our every breath echoes too loudly in the clearing.
The trees creak and sway. Now that we’re still, the air plunges in temperature, and Vynessa’s teeth start to chatter.
I pull her closer, cradling the future queen to my chest like a baby.
She turns and scans the forest. “Won’t they find us if we just sit here?”
“We’re invisible,” I say. “Just keep still.”
The princess gapes at me, but after a second, she curls closer, her head on my chest, her hands wrapped around my shoulders and neck.
I swallow hard, pushing down the longing that threatens to overtake me when our eyes meet.
It’s only hormones, my dragon reacting to the pheromones she puts off when in heat, that say she’s ready for mating.
She nestles deeper into my arms as I keep my powers up, shielding us from view. Her hair smells faintly of burnt sugar and vanilla. Her skin is like silk under my fingers. I rub my thumb in a circle over her side, and she looks up at me.
Slowly, she leans up, hesitating long enough for me to pull away.
But I don’t. She lifts her face, pushing up a bit and shifting her position until her mouth is close to mine.
Her lips brush over mine, and I draw a breath, inhaling her scent.
For this one moment, I give in. No one can see us, even if they’re watching.
It’s just me and her, and so, I steal the moment she gives me.
My arms tighten around her, pulling her body tighter to mine. This is the one moment I’ll allow, while we’re protected by invisibility. The one time I’ll allow myself even a taste of what I can never have, a taste of her.
I slide my hand behind her neck, feeling the rapid flutter of her pulse in the side of her throat as our lips push and pull.
I’ve protected her for a thousand years, guarding her egg, thinking the dragon inside could never live up to the potential that I spent a millennia guarding.
It had been a relief letting her go, living at court, taking Pax’s reports as he grew up at her side while I watched her from a distance.
I was at the cusp of finishing my thousand-year mission. I just needed to guard her through the years of her studies, and then I could retire while she reigned as the new queen.
Damn burnt hotcakes. Damn smiles and teasing words.
Damn those shirts that showed her breasts loose beneath.
Damn soft touches, silky hair, velvet skin.
Damn her for always breaking through the walls I put between us.
And damn, damn, damn the sweet scent of her sex gushing with arousal as it swells, ready for a dragon mate to relieve her of her need.
Too soon, she draws back, slowly separating her mouth from mine.
I’m so hard my head is spinning, my groin aching, my dragon roaring inside me, clamoring to get out, to lay her on the ground, spread her thighs, and gorge ourselves on the sweet nectar of her heat before burying our cock inside her while she screams with relief.
To fill her with our seed until she swells round, her belly glowing like a moon from all the seed inside.
“I thought…” she whispers, her eyes pooling with uncertainty. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
I snap back to reality in a flash. I can’t want her. What am I even doing? We’re out in the open. One taste of her and I lose all sense of reality. I harden myself to this moment that had to come, and now it has come too soon.
“I don’t want you,” I say gently. “I cannot, Your Highness.”
I feel her stiffen in my arms, but I force myself to keep going,
“My duty is to protect my queen. I am sworn to guard you to the death, and that is what I will do. What comes before then—I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. You are the future queen, and I’m simply your Captain of the Guard. That is what we are, Vynessa. All that we can ever be.”
The words tear at my throat, but the tears that shine in her eyes shred what’s left of my heart. If I have to hurt her to keep her safe, it’s a price I must pay. I should never have let us get this close. I should never have let my heart get involved.
It’s too late now. Maybe it was always too late. My loyalty, my respect, my love, they are all hers. Not because she is my queen and I must give them, but because I willingly give them. I am hers, and I will always be hers.
There’s a loud crunch, and then figures file out of the clearing, ten massive soldiers, and I know every one of them.
Princess Shynia’s royal guard, plus four.
They part ways for Shynia, who comes to stand before us in a pair of tight-fitting, soft leather pants and a sleeveless top.
Her blonde hair is wound into a snaking coil atop her head, and she clutches a gleaming knife in each hand.
“Sister,” she calls, as her gaze sweeps through the clearing. “Where are you? Your precious guard is lying to you. Mother arrested both of your guards when they tried to kidnap you. True got away.”
Vynessa’s mouth opens, and I manage to clap a hand over her lips before she gasps.
Sinetar is wiser than I give him credit for.
Clearly, he neglected to tell Vynessa that the queen had Paxton in chains.
It’s probably the only reason Vynessa agreed to flee the palace.
The queen’s guard took Paxton and me completely unawares.
Only my powers of invisibility allowed me to escape.
Shynia must smell the queen’s heat, though, because her eyes dart around the area we huddle in, even though she can’t see us.
Her hands flex on her blades. This would be the perfect opportunity to rid the queendom of us both—the princess in the way of everything Shynia wants and the guard who slipped the queen’s control and went rogue.
“Oh, True,” Shynia trills. “If you don’t return the princess to the palace, the halfling will be killed and skinned before sunset.
His sea leather will be crafted into armor and gifted to the Sun King so he can spend all the time he needs under the sea, slaughtering what remains of the Sea Kingdom. ”
“No!” Vynessa explodes, shooting out of my arms.
One moment she’s a human body of flesh and blood against mine, and the next, she’s a vessel of liquid light, spraying bolts of sizzling lightning in all directions.
My hairs stand on end, and heat scorches my armor, electricity dancing over my skin.
Her power shoots forward, forking toward the guards and Shynia.
The ice princess whips her weapons up like shields, and the bolts electrify the steel. Several of the guards aren’t so quick. The bolts shoot them in the chest, sending two of the dragons crashing into the trees.
Shynia’s blades glow white and then blue, and for one horrifying moment, I think she’ll redirect the lightning. Instead, she throws them to the ground with a shriek of pain.
“There you are, sister,” Shynia says, her mouth curling into a triumphant smile, as if she happened upon just what she was looking for.
As if her palms aren’t smoking, her flesh charred.
“The queen sent me to find you. She requests your presence at the palace. She’s throwing a banquet to celebrate your impending nuptials. ”