Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER FIVE

It was interesting to note that in all his years of superior education and well-financed travel, in his time spent at Eton and Cambridge and London, all those carefully shaped lessons in society and etiquette both human and drakon, not once had anyone ever mentioned to Kimber what to do when confronted with a nude, unexpected princess in his music chamber.

Nude.. .and gorgeous. Undeniably gorgeous.

"I beg your pardon," Kim said, also in French. "Would you care to sit down?" Her eyes narrowed. "I would care to have you explain these."

He did not glance again at the rings she'd tossed between them; he didn't even follow the flash of her arm as she gestured at them. He didn't quite dare lower his gaze below her chin. Not again. Instead, he studied her face.

He knew her age, but she appeared younger than that; it might have been the moonlight smoothing her skin, or the long, shining fall of her hair that—thank heavens—managed to conceal most of her body. She looked familiar and yet not; a drakon and not; he was accustomed to females of flaxen locks, or ginger, or gilt. Only a very few of the tribe had such dark hair, and no one at all had eyes like that, strange and clear and haunting.

Alpha, whispered the dragon in him, still rising. Every nerve ending in his body felt it, the strength of her Gifts, her subtle, feminine perfume. She was Alpha, just like him. She'd been naught but smoke minutes past, and he could feel that as well, the force of her Turn—that smoldering, pleasurable sting of gunpowder. It flooded his senses; he felt nearly dizzy with it.

Even his sisters weren't so Gifted. Perhaps not even Rue.

Mother of God, once the council realized she was here—

"Your men are dead," the princess said, when he only stood there staring.

"Yes," Kimber said slowly. "I see."

"I did not kill them."

"I didn't say you did. Excuse me, please, I think perhaps I'll take a seat, if you won't."

He found the peach-blossom Hepplewhite chair, the one he always sat in because it was closest to the door. The stuffed satin felt cool against his back, stiff and uncomfortably real. He made a conscious effort to keep his hands on his thighs, his posture relaxed. Princess Maricara watched him without moving.

"You seem quite at ease with my news." Her head tilted; she studied him without expression. "You sent two men to me, Lord Kimber. I've come to tell you they died brutal deaths, deaths I would not tolerate for even the lowest of creatures."

"Three," Kim said. "What?"

"I sent three men to find you," he answered softly.

"Oh." That reached her, at least a little. Her brows knit; she lowered her chin and returned to the pianoforte, slipping easily back into shadow. "Why?"

"Why did I send them to you?"

"Yes."

He felt his lips curve, nothing close to humor. "We're family. Families should be intimate. It generates.trust."

"Dispatching spies to my home against my expressed wishes is hardly an act of trust, Lord Chasen."

"Ah, but we drakon are an altogether different sort of family. Don't you agree?"

She laid her hand flat atop the pianoforte, not answering. His vision was better adjusted now; he could see her very well even in the gloom, the line of her back beneath her hair, the slope of her buttocks. The rise and fall of her chest.

"The strong devour the weak," she murmured, and lifted her head. "That's what my husband used to tell me. Is that the sort of family you are, as well?"

"No. We're not wolves. We protect the weak."

"I am not weak. And I don't require your protection."

Now his smile came more wry. "Clearly not. You've evaded an entire contingent of my best guards. I rather think I might need protection from you."

She stared at her spread fingers against the wood, then shook her head. "You've no idea."

He let that settle between them, trying not to betray himself: not to breathe too deeply, or move too quickly. Not to follow his instincts and act to bind her here and now. Instead, Kimber said, "Tell me who was killed."

"I didn't discover their names. There were no documents on the bodies. They had nothing but the clothing on their backs, and those." She motioned again to the rings. "It was enough to lead me here."

"And where is your escort?" he asked, very mild. "Do they wait in the woods?"

She let out a sound, a small huff of air that could have been either amusement or offense. "Do you truly imagine I would tell you?"

"I'm not your enemy, Your Grace."

"No?"

"Nor were my men." "I told you—"

"You didn't kill them. I know. But as of this moment, I have only your word that they're even dead. Summon your escort here. Have them enter my home in peace, no weapons, and we'll discuss the matter further. No one need get hurt."

Her face turned to his. Against the pianoforte she was a sylph, a frozen ghost. She gave him a long, measuring look with eyes of frost that seemed to strip every secret from his soul.

"I've made a mistake," the princess said at last. "I see that."

Kimber gripped his hands to the arms of the chair. "Let me get you a room. And—perhaps some clothing—"

"No, thank you."

He could have stopped her. He was reasonably sure he could have. She was smaller than he, by nature less strong, even if she was a leader among her kind. But instead he remained as he was, holding her gaze, silently willing her to show him the proof of what he already knew, what the dragon in him recognized and roared through his blood.

She smelled of youth, and power, and heated woman. It was all he could do to remain in the chair.

"Maricara," he said. "If you go now, you know I'll simply have to fetch you back. Surely we could spend our time together in more productive ways than that."

It was a provocation, a deliberate one, and she rose to it with merely a disdainful lift of one finely arched brow.

"I didn't grant you leave to call me by my given name," she said, and Turned, flowing like water out the open window, dissolving at once into the night.

His fingers cracked the wood of both arms.

It was true. Lia's letter, the drakon of the Carpathians, all of it. True.

Kimber released the ruined chair, one finger at a time, then glanced back at the pair of rings on the floor, small gleams in the weakening light. He scooped them both into a palm.

Two of his men were dead, two at least. There was simply no other way they would have surrendered the rings. The signets were given to young men of the shire upon their completion of their first Turn, a mark of pride and maturity, of union with the tribe. In their own way they were considered sacred. Some men even used them as wedding rings; widows would wear them on chains.

The three drakon he had sent in search of Zaharen Yce, in search of the princess, were more than just trusted comrades, more than just friends. They were his kin. And they would have died with these rings still on their hands.

The irony of it was not lost upon him: that in their deaths, they had delivered him his bride.

A dim flare of gold encircled his finger, his own signet, masculine and heavy but exactly the same as the other two in his palm.

Kimber shut his eyes. He felt the warm weight of the metal in his hand, its muted song, and closed his fingers hard around it.

It was time to rouse the manor house.

That morning, in the short, shadowed hours that lingered just before sunrise, in the darkest depths of the sky—a nexus so deep even the stars had abandoned it—a black dragon flew, twisting, writhing, a streamer of frenzied grace.

And when the members of the tribe saw her, when they launched in pursuit, she vanished, black on black. They were left chasing only the dawn.

The windows to the council's quarters were normally kept sealed. The room faced north and was darker than most within the mansion; the candles in the chandelier burning above them managed to banish the shadows from the corners. But council meetings were formal affairs, with wigs, and cravats, and full coats. It was cursed hot.

The tradition of secrecy weighed heavy against Kim's craving for unstifled air. After forty interminable minutes of suffering, he abandoned his chair and opened every casement. None of the others protested. They were all tired of sweating.

Besides, very little of what would happen next would remain secret for long. The council knew of the princess, the village knew of her. Half the population of the shire had witnessed her flight early this morning. Everyone expected action.

It was difficult in the harsh light of noon to recall her in the night, to summon the image of her face and form. He remembered that she was beautiful; he remembered being unable to breathe with her beauty. But caught first in his memory were brighter, less typical impressions: how her skin glowed in the moonlight. How her hair divided around her shoulders. The smoky-sweet timbre of her voice. Her scent, a perfume of flowers and gunpowder and summer heat.

Kim slouched back in his chair, tapping his fingers idly against one thigh. He listened with half an ear to the meeting as he stared out the nearest window, immersed in his memories. The colors of the day were sun-washed, bleached pale.but what he saw was a slender dragon dyed midnight, with silver eyes and delicate wings, reaching for the infinity of the cosmos with a high and reckless abandon.

His people were so contained in flight. Even hunting, even soaring for joy, there was discipline in every motion, bridled deliberation. Watching Maricara fly had been like watching a kite cut loose from its tether. He'd never truly realized how controlled they all were, until he'd caught sight of her.

She flew utterly without fear. She flew with something almost like—desperation. He'd never seen anything so fascinating in his life.

Perhaps it had only been a taunt. He couldn't imagine why else she'd take to the skies after their meeting. She had to have known he'd have every man in the shire combing heaven and earth for her.

"...could not be more than twenty, thirty men," one of the council was saying. "Because where would they be? Obviously they're nowhere near Darkfrith. We would have felt so many. We would have felt even one if they were hiding so close to the shire."

"We didn't feel her," challenged Rhys, setting off a swell of muttering. Kim dragged his attention back to the chamber. Accompanying the sweltering thick air were distinctly rising tempers.

The room was set up with four rectangular tables placed as a square in the center of the room. The scribe and all twelve members of the council sat facing each other, with Kim's chair—larger, slightly more ornate—placed off the side of the empty west corner, where he could view them all. His father's father, the first Marquess of Langford, had devised the arrangement to convey a very calculated message: This was not Arthur and his round table. The council members passed laws for the good of the tribe, and the Alpha would conform to those laws as long as it suited him to do so—but in the end, he remained sovereign, alone and apart.

Always apart.

As the second son of the marquess, Rhys had been born to his position on the council, and Kim was usually glad of it. Behind his brother's nonchalant veneer was an astute, practical man who more often than not could be counted on to rein in some of the more extreme suggestions of the others. But today that veneer was beginning to fray. His hair showed disheveled beneath his iron-gray wig, his cheeks dark with new beard. Like everyone else here, he'd been up since the middle of last night. Also like everyone else, he'd glimpsed the princess in flight.

It had been only moments; just a few short minutes of her silhouetted against the hollow sky, her remarkable eyes, her cunning flips and tight rolls. It was one thing to read in a letter that there existed another female who could Turn. It was quite another to see her in real life, to feel her: sensuality and black glittering splendor, a dragon unlike any other, supple and absolutely feminine.

Feminine.

Aye. And every male had noticed that, Kim knew.

What he'd said to Maricara last night was true. They were not wolves. They were not like any of the lower beasts, and not even like humans. They had their pack of sorts; the tribe was an intricately knit society of families who wed and bred and seldom looked beyond the boundaries of the shire for mates. It did happen on occasion—Kim's own maternal grandfather had been a Welshman, his legacy still visible in Rhys's dark hair, Audrey's chocolate eyes. But there were punishments for such transgressions, not the least of which was social banishment. His grandmother had died a widow, and alone. It was better to keep to their own.

The drakon chose mates for life. It was a plain fact among them. One male, one female, and from them new generations to sustain the shire. Courting and wooing followed a more human path, it was true, with a fair amount of leniency allowed to young sweethearts. There were lovers' games and tears and heartbreaks aplenty across the village—maidens who liked boys, boys who liked other maidens, an endless cycle of flirtation and investigation. God knew he'd spent enough time himself as a youth exploring all the best pockets of the woods.

Wedding vows put an end to all that. Once man and wife brushed lips in the cool marble sanctity of Darkfrith's chapel, their lives were bound. Fidelity was etched across their hearts, as bright and undeniable as gold upon the sun.

Young as she was, Maricara was a widow as well. There wasn't the slightest chance in hell she was going to remain that way long, no matter where she flew.

She'd been engaged to him since she was practically a child. It didn't matter that she had no idea; all that mattered was that Kimber knew, and the council, and all the members of the tribe. Alpha mated to Alpha. The fact that the princess possessed the Gifts she did catapulted her into that status, no matter her background.

Once, every single drakon grew into their abilities. Once, males and females alike would reach puberty and take flight. But the Gifts were inexplicably thinning from generation to generation. There hadn't been a female born who could Turn since—well, years.

And just like Kimber, Rhys Langford was directly related to the only other four who could.

Kim lowered his lashes and considered his brother. Rhys noticed; his gaze shot to Kimber, then back to the man opposite him. He leaned forward in his chair to clasp his hands loosely upon the table. There was a subtle edge to his voice Kim had not heard before.

"She managed to slip past you, Rufus, even on full patrol. She rendered moot all your impressive defenses and infiltrated Chasen Manor as easily as if it were a public coffeehouse. And for all that, the only person who even felt her intrusion was the Alpha."

"No," said another man at once. Anton Larousse. Good-looking. Unwed. He also sat forward, a scant indication of belligerence in the set of his jaw. "I felt her. But I was at the mill, miles away. I didn't know where she went."

"I felt her too," declared Claude Grady, also unwed. "I was on the patrol, and I knew something was wrong—"

Rhys snorted. "Bullocks. She got past all of you. I'd wager she and her men are holed up somewhere right under our noses."

"That's not possible," said Grady flatly.

"No," agreed a third man, John Chapman. Unlike the others, he was in his sixties, stout, very married. He dug a finger against the creased collar of his jabot, his neck flushed and moist. "Even in the woods, such a contingent of drakon would be noticeable. It's possible they're disguised as humans. They could be in one of the towns, Durham or Ripon, somewhere like that. Someplace fairly large, where they could more easily establish a base without a fuss. She's far more likely to slip by in a city than anywhere rural.

Country folk notice strangers."

"Especially those who don't speak English," said Kim. "I think John's got the right idea. We need to expand the search."

Rhys unclasped his hands. His voice kept its strange, hard note. "I'll take Durham. I'll need four others who don't mind..."

But Kimber was no longer listening. Between one breath and the next, he felt the change. It was that sudden, that complete. He was looking at his men, the pewter shadows of the room, the waxed reflection of the tables and the chandelier above them throwing crystal blades of light, and then he turned his head and saw the gentle, betraying billow of the pale blue velvet curtains of the far window. The almost invisible swathe of smoke that condensed into something more substantial: a woman's leg. A woman's hand, her fingers fanned against the blue, holding the material high against her chest.

Her face. Her eyes, lifting straight to his.

Kim held immobile, wondering if he was more tired than he even thought, if after hours without sleep he was finally imagining her standing there behind the drapery. But Maricara looked away from him to the rest of the room and released a little breath. A beat of suspended silence followed; small as it was, everyone had heard it.

"Princesse," he greeted her, and surged to his feet before anyone could wrench from their surprise to do something stupid. He sketched a short bow, continuing in French. "Welcome back."

"Lord Chasen." She offered him a nod, her cheek and chin cupped with blue velvet. "I thought I'd spare you the fetching, as you put it. But I see you're busy."

He had to think without thought; he had to convey what he wanted of his men without a single glance in their direction.

Don't move. Nobody bloody move a bloody damned muscle—

Kim gave an easy smile. "You've had us a bit tangled in knots, I fear. There was some concern for your welfare."

"How sorry I am to have worried you. But I've been quite safe, I assure you."

"Excellent. Happy to hear it." He risked a glimpse at the council then, their ominous faces, their shoulders taut with restraint; he smiled again at the princess. "And your guard?"

"Most content."

"We didn't spot them with you this morning. They allow you to fy without accompaniment?"

He hadn't really expected much of a response; she seemed as polished as porcelain. But at his words emotion flashed behind those clear gray eyes, alarm or consternation, swiftly erased.

Perhaps she'd thought she'd been unseen. It seemed unlikely—she had crisscrossed the sky nearly just above Chasen. But she'd been so quick, and disappeared so effectively. It was conceivable she'd thought she fooled them all.

"It was a lovely dawn," he said placidly.

"I fly as I please," Maricara said at last. "The guard allows me nothing. I am the princess."

From the corner of his eye Kim saw Larousse, damn him, begin to push back his chair, rise to his feet. Maricara switched her focus instantly to him.

"Your Grace," he said, also bowing. "You honor us. Please, won't you—"

But he obviously couldn't offer her a seat, not as she was. Kimber watched him comprehend it, that not only had she managed to show up without warning, that she was nude, that she had to be, and the lines of her figure were clearly visible even beneath the curtain's folds. The councilman's face slowly began to flush.

"I won't trouble you long," said Maricara. "No doubt you have all manner of pressing plans to consider. Spies to engage. Betrayals to enact. That sort of thing."

"Only on Sundays," Kim replied. "It's Tuesday. We're discussing stealing sweetmeats from small children today."

She didn't return his smile. The fingers of her right hand remained pressed lightly against the velvet.

She had to realize the danger surrounding her: that she was alone, and female, come to a room full of silent, eager beasts who certainly all felt her as strongly as he did in such close quarters. She had to have realized everything she chanced, and still she only stood there with an air of bored civility, as if she had arrived to take tea instead of facing down the living dark congress of the tribe.

Kim began to shrug out of his coat. He was glad to do it, glad to have an excuse to walk toward her, to put himself between her and the tables of other drakon men. With his back to the council he held out the coat, lapels open. Maricara gave him another long, assessing look with her mirror eyes—he felt exposed with it, like she was plucking the thoughts from his head—he hoped to God not—and Turned to smoke.

Damn.

Silently he willed all the men to calm; he still didn't dare to shift his gaze to warn them. He'd seen her do it before and yet again the sensation lit through him, as blatantly alluring as that bare leg had been or the image of her body beneath velvet. She could Turn. There was scarcely anything more desirable in a female. But she had gotten in twice; she had escaped twice. How difficult could it be for her to manage it a third time—

Yet all that happened was someone's chair tapped against the table, and the blue drapery sighed back into place.

The princess became a pillar of smoke before him, rising, filling the shell of his coral brocade coat all the way to the sleeves. Then she was woman, scent and power, just like last night, the back of her head nearly bumping his nose.

He released the heavy coat as if it burned. It fell to her shoulders, pinning her hair. She bent her neck and reached up to run a wrist beneath the trapped strands—in the daylight he could see the color wasn't black but the deepest brown he could imagine—before taking a step away.

He was taller than she, much larger. He'd never thought to be glad the council held to court dress, but the coat was old-fashioned, long-skirted. It reached almost to her knees.

"My thanks," Maricara said.

"My pleasure," he answered, and put another step between them. "Do join us." He motioned to his empty chair.

She traversed the chamber on silent feet. The skirted coat rose to her thighs when she sat down. Kim looked away, drew in a slow, silent breath, letting it burn before he released it.

Beneath the scattered prisms of the chandelier, Rhys was staring at her, his eyes masked and brooding. Everyone was staring at her, but Rhys.

Something cold began to uncoil through Kimber's gut. Something painful and unpleasant.

"I thought you'd wish to know the manner in which your men died," said Maricara, crossing her ankles beneath the chair. "I realized only this afternoon that we didn't discuss it."

"No. We didn't."

"They were ambushed. That's what I believe. Others found them and took out their hearts." No one gasped; no one stirred. Only Kimber said, "Pardon?" "Others. Human men. They stole their hearts."

He'd informed the council of what she'd told him the night before. He'd shown them the rings and let the speculation unwind. There was no proof of anything—until she'd shown up hours later, flying through the dark, there was no proof even that she had ever come—except for those rings. And the fact that three good men had dropped from the face of the earth.

"Don't you have hunters in this land?" the princess asked.

Rhys leaned forward again, intent. "What do you mean?"

"At home we call them sanf inimicus. I don't know a term for them in French. Hunters. Humans who hunt the drakon. "

"No," Kim said. "Not for generations."

"We do," she said simply.

He stared at her blankly, for the first time seeing not her beauty or her potential, but only a woman in a chair, calmly informing him of the unthinkable.

"If your men confessed before they died," continued Maricara in her attractive, melodic voice, "if they traveled with papers that mentioned you, or carried any hint of this place, the sanf now know of you too."

It wasn't possible. It should not be possible. These were not the Dark Ages. This was today, and England, and it had taken them centuries to get here, to embed themselves in Darkfrith's safety. No one would truly dare breach it.

They were normal here. They fit. This was their home.

Others come.

Kimber thought of the sprawling village unprotected, of the women who could not fly, and the dragon-children who played openly in the fields and dells. He thought of the thick woods and the manor house and all the careful, careful lies that had been created to sustain their lives in this idyllic place.

He thought of Hayden, and Jeffrey, and Luke. Of Zoe Lane's stark, pinched face. A great, static rage began within him, a storm of blinding white.

Maricara uncrossed her ankles and stood, forcing all the council to hastily scrape back their chairs. She smoothed a hand down the front of Kimber's coat. "By the by, is there anything to eat? I'm famished."