Kingdom of Villains, page 22
There was nothing left to do but speak the truth. I should have told her sooner, but I had hoped to find a way to make it seem anything other than what it was—insanity. “You know why, Fia.”
Her golden brows lowered, anger strengthening her voice. “You let me bond to you all the while you plan and plot ways to murder yourself?” She then turned to the door and opened it.
I closed it, and she spun to glower at me as I pushed her against the wood. “I have no intentions of leaving you, believe me, but you must understand that I can’t do this forever.”
“Do what?” she asked as if she couldn’t comprehend the problem.
As though she couldn’t see that I was the fucking problem. A plague upon my own people and our lands and my family.
“The guilt, the unpredictable nature of the slumbering asshole within me, the death tally that will only climb, and the fear.” The reactions of those who’d realized or heard never strayed far from my mind. “Everyone’s fucking fear. We need to ring a damned bell to let everyone know to take cover and hide from me, for star’s sake.”
Even worse were the bloodstained memories of those who’d been in the wrong place at the worst possible time, and now they were no longer.
“I’ve killed people, Fia. Undeserving people. My own people.” She blinked, a bead of water leaving her long lashes. I caught it with my thumb, rubbed it into her cheek, and kissed the damp skin. “I can’t live like this, and neither can they. If nothing changes, someone will undoubtedly take on the same mentality as Brolen, as others have with every dragon before me.”
My chest clenched when her lips trembled.
But I still said it. “They will kill me, Fia, and I can’t even hate them for it, for they absolutely should. So if I do so myself while trying to find a slice of freedom by stopping the change, then so be it.”
“And how long will this freedom last if you find some type of antidote that works and you somehow survive its wrath? Days?” she asked, strangled. “Months? A decade or two?”
No one knew. I was willing to try regardless.
“Exactly.” Fia’s nose scrunched adorably as she hissed, “I forbid you to try again.”
I almost laughed, but the vehemence in her eyes warned against it. “Fire-breather, I can’t—”
“Fine,” she said, turning and attempting to open the door once more.
I splayed my hand over it, and I did laugh when she growled and turned back. “Let me go.”
“Why? You’re upset, and I’d like to make sure you’re not before you walk away from me.”
“Just looking at you is upsetting me.” Her tits rose, loosening the towel’s hold, her heaving breaths threatening to expose them. Tempted to help them free, I thought better of it as she said, “I’ve saddled myself to a dragon with a true death wish.”
“Fia.” I released the door and took her hip and face, gently tugging her close until she gave me those huge eyes. “Beautiful, fire breathing, Fia.”
“Flattery won’t work, Prince. You’re ignorant and insane.”
Fuck, she was breathtaking. All the more detrimental when she was angry—when she was worked up over me.
“This is why you want the Blood Bound Book, isn’t it? Not to make sure others can’t kill you, but to try to kill the beast within you. To poison yourself some more.”
My lack of response said enough, and she laughed without a shred of humor. “By the fucking moon, Colvin, have you ever stopped for one rotting minute to think that maybe there is nothing wrong with you? With the dragon who didn’t harm me in these very woods?”
Remembering how afraid I’d been when she’d found me and it’d taken over helped me stand my ground even more. “It’s not that simple.”
“But it is. He is you, and you’re him, and you have me.”
My eyes widened. “I don’t think you quite understand what you’re saying.”
“No.” She stood toe-to-toe with me and stabbed a finger at my bare chest. “You’re just refusing to believe it when you know it’s true. When you change again, I’ll be there. You’ll be too preoccupied with me to eat anything.”
A different poison pooled within my stomach. I could barely comprehend that this was unfolding in this way. “I don’t want to endanger you on the off chance that might be true.”
“But it is true.” Her eyes narrowed. “You know it as well as I do.”
My jaw tensed, making each word rougher than I’d intended. “Regardless, I still need to find a way to stop myself. I won’t take advantage and continuously put you at risk.”
“You’re not taking advantage. I just said you have me.”
I wanted to believe that, but even after the promise we’d made in blood that outweighed any form of commitment, I still saw it and felt it in the energy clouding us both. Anger still lived inside her. A resentment she hadn’t yet released. “I have you, and I don’t. You haven’t forgiven me for robbing you of your life.”
Fia’s features slackened, her lashes bobbing as she blinked heavily. “That doesn’t mean I can’t,” she then fired back, and the force within her words stilled me. Her tone softened. “But that can’t happen if you keep letting your conscience get in the way. You didn’t before, so quit pissing me off by letting it now.”
She’d barely finished talking before I pounced, and she was in my arms.
Her own looped around my neck, her nails scoring into it, her other hand twisting in my hair as our mouths collided. I reached between us, felt her wet and waiting, and was welcomed with silken ease inside her magical body.
Fucking Fia was like being shown what true pleasure was—a paradise too exquisite for words and as necessary as breathing. She was sunlight and snowfall, the most bittersweet poison, and I lost more of myself with every taste she willingly gave me.
“You infuriate me,” Fia breathed out, nipping at my upper lip.
I chuckled, my mouth dipping lower and my hips rocking when I reached her neck. Her head tilted, and her pulse raced in invitation. “I’m under your skin, and I suspect I’ve lived there far longer than you’d care to admit.”
A whispering moan. “Just fuck me.”
My fingers sank deeper into her thighs, and I did.
I pounded her into the door like the monster I was, but I couldn’t stop. Not when she began to unravel in my arms. Her breathy cries increased as I feasted on her neck, drinking her down with relish while I made slow but slamming work of destroying her with my cock.
I wouldn’t let her leave, but when I finally did, it was the following evening to accompany her on a visit to the woods with the narlows.
“Do you truly hate being a dragon?”
It took me a minute to answer. Not because I didn’t want to, but because the horrors I’d committed had never allowed me to properly consider it. “I don’t hate it,” I admitted for what might have been the first time in my life. “Just certain parts.”
Understanding what parts, Fia nodded. “What does it feel like?”
“Well,” I started, unsure but willing to try. “I’m no longer me, yet I’ve never felt more like myself. A red sun stains everything, yet I’ve never seen and sensed things so clearly.” I stopped, intending to say no more, but the burning curiosity widening those big violet eyes had me conceding, “The bloodlust is overpowering, especially when I haven’t fed for a while, and it lingers when I return to this form, but it’s more…” I rubbed at the bristle over my jaw. “Then it’s more of a need to fuck and feed than kill.”
Fia blinked rapidly, her scent changing with her harsh exhale. “That explains a lot.”
The warming sweetness that arose from her skin and the growing heat in her core hardened me in an instant. “You make me feel that way all the time. Just the thought of you conjures a similar hunger.” That type of want was the slowest fall into true madness, the hoping and itching and silently pleading for just a touch of relief.
“A beast indeed,” Fia whispered, a smile thrown toward the leaves she kicked.
I brushed my fingers over hers and reluctantly let her be.
The late afternoon downpour we’d woken to had left its glowing mark upon every twig, wildflower, leaf, and tree. We slowed as Spodge stopped to scrape his claws across the mossy patches of a fallen tree. Tiny insects fell to his belly when he lifted them to his mouth.
“You explained Spodge’s name, but dare I ask how you settled on Herb?”
“A week after we arrived home, I made the mistake of thinking they were still too small to climb. I was wrong.” We walked on as Spodge grew bored with the critters and went in search of his brother. I laughed a little as I remembered the tiny creature sitting in a plume of mess in my study, sneezing and snorting. “He climbed onto the shelves to get to a particularly potent jar of herbs.”
Fia’s mouth spread into a breath-knocking smile. “Gnome flecks?”
I nodded. I kept some to aid in pain relief should I need it after a bad experiment, which she seemed to guess, for her smile slipped, and she looked back at the lumbering beasts ahead. “I was so mad and honestly a little concerned, but now, I can’t help but laugh. He was stumbling and sleepy for days.”
Fia’s laughter eased the weight that had arrived with the removal of her eyes, a dusty song I’d never tire of hearing.
“What did Olette think when you arrived home with the cubs?”
“That I was insane,” I said, recalling her annoyance. But it hadn’t lasted as long as I’d expected. “I’m actually surprised she’s never kicked them out to live in the woods.”
“They would stand less chance of survival after being hand-reared.”
“That wouldn’t typically stop her. I think she’s secretly fond of them.” Fia was quiet for some moments, and I saw her tense as the cliffs came into view. “They’ll be fine,” I promised, and she released a weighted breath when the narlows finally sensed the steep drop down into the crashing sea ahead.
“She’s not as cruel as everyone believes, is she?” Fia murmured, as if fearful of the queen herself hearing, though the castle was a few miles behind us. I gestured to a large boulder, and she watched me take a seat with a raised brow. “Not much room there.”
“Should it matter when I’ve touched every inch of your skin numerous times?”
The princess’s cheeks colored, but only a little. Relenting with a sigh, she took a seat. Her plum skirts draped over my leg as she surprised me by twisting to lay both of her legs on my thighs and her head against my shoulder.
“And just in case I haven’t made it clear.” I tightened my arm around her to pull her even closer. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever touched.”
Fia pinched my stomach, and I chuckled, snatching her fingers and bringing them to my lips. She traced them while I watched Spodge smack Herb with a branch.
Herb growled but continued to try to turn over a log to get to what lay beneath it in the damp soil.
I answered her earlier question. “Olette is as cruel as she needs to be, and she’s never cared what skin she must wear in order for people to understand that.” I linked my fingers through Fia’s, but she unwound them to gently study my hand. I let her be, content to have her touch me however she wanted. For that she even wanted to made my chest swell. “My mother, Cherith, did not have the heart for such things.”
“A fitting pair, then,” Fia said.
I smiled, the few memories I had of them before Cherith was taken roaming forward. “They were mates, though it wasn’t until Cherith rejected her first mate that she could truly bind herself to Olette in that way. But he wouldn’t let her move on.”
It shamed me that such a male was my father. I’d long wished he’d never taken his life after taking my mother’s so that I could ensure he died slowly myself. “So Cherith did the only thing she could.”
“She married Olette.”
I nodded. “There was always a hostile edge to Egorn. He didn’t carry the dragon gene. That came from Cherith’s grandfather. But Mother says his primitive nature, the aggression he could never quite control, was why Cherith never made permanent ties to him.”
“That would’ve been extremely hard.” I squeezed her, knowing she’d fought doing so herself, and she asked, “When did Cherith meet Olette?”
“They were close friends for most of their lives, but Olette’s father leads the wild hunt, so she was often never in one place too long. Not until Cherith fell pregnant with me, and I guess something clicked.”
“She grew worried?”
“Protective, being that Egorn became more hostile and unpredictable after impregnating her. He demanded he be placed on the throne. To have what he deemed his rightful position beside her. For years, Cherith was condemned by many of our people for not giving her mate the respect he thought he was due. Not accepting him and their bond was one thing, but to refuse to wed him when she carried his babe…”
Fia traced my knuckles. “It would seem knowing how to mind one’s own business is a trait that neither court possesses.”
“Indeed.” I smirked. “Most couldn’t and didn’t understand. But word continued to spread, and Olette soon returned. It’d been some years since she’d last visited Cherith, but it was instant.” I smiled then, watching Spodge join Herb in plucking worms from beneath the overturned log. “It was perhaps why Olette never settled down in one place and never stayed too long when she visited the castle. She knew long before my mother had the space and state of mind to realize it entirely herself.”
“They say Egorn killed her. I’m assuming that’s true?”
“It is,” I said. “He was gone for most of my early youth. I have one particular memory of him snarling down at me with cold near-black eyes while muttering hateful words.”
“What did he say?” There was no hesitancy. She wanted to know, so she asked.
And her boldness, that she seemed eager to know as much as possible, made it painless to repeat. “He said I would grow without a spine, nor a shred of real power, for it would be robbed of me in being raised by two females.”
Fia snorted. “Moon above, what a toad.”
“I was too young, too shocked, to say anything in return. The next time I saw him, it was with his axe in his chest inside the caves he’d taken my mother to.”
“He stole Cherith?”
I nodded. “From the city after she’d left a meeting with some nobles regarding their pointless quarrels over land in the far west. She was last seen being led by him into the woods. She hadn’t been able to materialize. She was found wearing iron bindings at the wrists and ankles, her heart pierced and her body next to his.”
Fia absorbed what I’d said with her fingers still twisting through mine. I swam to and from the memory of Olette’s screams, the howling cries that haunted the castle halls for months on end. Yet even in her grief, she’d made sure I wasn’t entirely alone in mine.
Jarron, her younger brother, had been called to the castle to watch over me, and he’d remained ever since.
“How old were you?” Fia asked.
“I’d not long reached six years. I missed her terribly, and I still do,” I confessed. “But now it’s with the confusing sense of missing someone I never had enough time to truly know, all the while feeling their absence within the marrow of my bones.”
She brought my fingers to her lips, kissing the tips of each one. Every soft caress was a tugging squeeze at both my heart and cock, and I exhaled a tight breath. Herb and Spodge hadn’t moved, now digging at the wet soil for something we couldn’t see.
“Olette never got her vengeance,” Fia said. “So she never misses an opportunity now.”
I frowned at that, not so sure I understood. “She has her reasons for all she does, and they’re fairly obvious to most.” I let those words linger there, awaiting them to land where they would.
“But having us marry won’t aid any plans she has for Callula unless Brolen is removed from existence.”
“Why do you think we want Callula?”
“Because…” She exhaled heavily and released my hand. “What else could you want? Things are never this simple.”
“And by things, do you mean this?” I tucked some of that wild hair behind her small arched ear and stole her hand back, encouraging her inquisitive eyes to mine. “That no one could want you merely because they want you? For they cannot be without you?”
“Everyone wants something more. Not one thing is ever enough.”
She looked back to the narlows, but I continued to stare at her profile—at her long golden lashes and the faded freckles dusting her cheekbones. I could tell her until I was breathless, but she wouldn’t hear me.
A creature like Fia had to learn the truth of most things by discovering them herself.
Colvin was exactly where I’d left him when we returned from taking the narlows on one of our evening walks.
“So I’ve been wondering.”
He smirked at the parchment. “Dangerous.”
Ignoring that, I jumped up onto his desk. “You can change whenever you want to?”
“Why do you ask?” His looping handwriting left a lot to be desired. I smiled down at the parchment, grateful it wasn’t one of his poison reports but a letter he was marking and seemingly proofreading. Whoever had written it, their handwriting was small, and I struggled to read it upside down. If I had to guess, I’d say it was Olette’s.
“You know why I’m asking.” I snatched his quill and stuck it between my teeth, then placed the letter behind me.
Colvin sat back and stretched his arms over his head, gifting me with a tantalizing glimpse of his defined hips and stomach when his cream tunic rose. It was unsullied, and I wasn’t sure why that bothered me, but it did. I tossed the quill, then loosened the black cravat at his neck.
He didn’t stop me. He placed his hands upon my thighs and watched me with a curl to his lips.
