Page 44 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 44

“Where the hell have you been?”

I stopped in the doorway of the room we had been sent to in the keep, the sound of the duke’s voice, the look of his thunderous expression only reinforcing a need to stay the hell away. But it was Glimmer’s hiss that seemed to alert him to the fact that Flynn hadn’t come there on his own. The man straightened up, and it was then I saw the family resemblance.

He was tall, slightly taller than his son, but he had the bulk of a man who’d spent a lifetime honing his body, whereas Flynn was still working towards that. But where his son’s eyes usually twinkled with amusement, the duke’s were flat and blue, like the sea on a winter’s day, and I shivered when he looked at me.

“This is the girl?” he snapped at Flynn.

“May I present the Lady Pippa Wentworth.” Flynn’s manners were on point, though marred by his mocking smile. “This is my father, Richard, Duke of Skane.”

“Your Grace,” I said, bowing deeply.

“She looks like a lad.” I stayed in position until he indicated I might rise. “Though that might work well for you, son.” Flynn settled against the wall, his armour creaking as he crossed his arms. The duke turned to me. “You’re a Wentworth, from the Aster line?” I nodded. The duke stroked his beard as he looked me up and down. “Your estate lies in my duchy.”

It did. I’d sent the duke several letters to alert him to what my stepmother was trying to do with my lands, but he had not responded. I hadn’t really expected him to. Deepacre was a small holding, far from his ducal seat, and my father had only met the duke once in his life. Father was sworn to send men and weapons if a war broke out and, as the duke’s vassal, tithed a percentage of the estate earnings, but that was the extent of our interactions.

“Yes, Your Grace,” I replied.

“So this is the… defective queen?” I bristled at the duke’s words, but as he approached me, I saw the doubt, the concern on his face. He stepped closer, peering at Glimmer who regarded him steadily, her head lifting. “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with her.”

Because there isn’t , she said inside my mind. Who is this man, to inspect me?

I didn’t get to answer either question as the duke turned to Flynn, not me.

“There isn’t, as far as I can see,” Flynn replied. “She was a little smaller than many dragons are when born, but not terribly so. She eats well, shows obvious signs of intelligence and has bonded to Pip.” He stared steadily at his father. “The queen’s decision to reject both Pippa and Glimmer is unprecedented.”

“But not unexpected.” The duke’s jaw firmed at that, those eyes flashing with suppressed anger now. “The bloody Harlstons have bonded the last three queen dragons and none of us could gainsay it, because who can predict the impulses of an animal?” Glimmer’s head tilted to one side, and she let out a small noise of discontent. “But this. Finally, when a Skanian was about to ascend the throne…”

Is that what I was? I knew about the four main duchies, Skane, Harlston, Tharfield and Cantlyn, but our distance from the main hubs of business meant they were little other than names to me. My loyalty and my love were with Deepacre, so to my mind, I would’ve been a Deepacre queen, if my dragon had been deemed acceptable. Almost as if the duke sensed this moment of disloyalty, his eyes flicked to me and he stared steadily.

“I’m told you’re to marry.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” I replied politely, even as it felt like an icy finger slid up my spine.

“That you’re to take a husband from one of the dragon riders’ number?”

I just nodded at that, my mouth beginning to go dry. I stared at the duke, at his son, the person I’d spent the day with, proposing that I enjoy a moment of freedom.

Because he knew it was all about to be stripped away.

I screamed questions at Flynn with my eyes, because I didn’t dare move my lips. The duke felt no such reticence.

“You have no father, no brothers, no uncles to guide you through this process?”

The duke’s tone was warming, so why did it leave me feeling cold? He stepped closer, bearing a paternal sort of smile, like the one that had given me such comfort when it was on my father’s face, and the memory of a truly loving father’s expression made me want to slap this pretence of one off the duke’s face. I clenched my hands into fists as I took a deep breath and then answered him.

“No, Your Grace, but I was led to believe I could follow the dictates of my own heart in this.”

He frowned then, all of the thunder I’d walked in on returning to his expression.

“Your heart?” The duke snorted as if I’d just babbled an unintelligible response like a small child learning to speak. “You are a political entity, Lady Pippa. You were the moment you were born to a nobleman. A good man, from all reports.”

Not that you would know , I thought.

“Your father must’ve prepared you for the realities of your life. You wouldn’t have grown up thinking you could’ve married the swineherd’s son.” Flynn winced at that, behind his father’s back. “You knew you had to marry a man of the same class and standing as your family, someone your father approved of, who would provide an advantageous match.”

“And now that he is dead, with no brothers or uncles to step up in his place to ensure I make a good match, you…?” My heart began to race as I stared up into the duke’s eyes, knowing my tone and my attitude were unspeakably rude, but somehow I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

Because where had he been when Cecily and Arabella ran riot over Father’s lands? Where was my protector as people threw clods of dirt at me in the street? I stood tall then, not caring about the size difference between us. Glimmer was a smaller dragon, but she was still a dragon. Perfect in every way, no matter what the queen might have to say about it, and I decided right now, I’d pretend I was too.

“Thank you, Flynn, for a lovely day.” I bowed to him, but by the twist of his lips, he knew exactly what I meant by that. “And of course to you, Your Grace, for offering to help guide my choice in husband. I was raised to expect a male family member to do just that, right up until my estates were stripped from me by my father’s unscrupulous second wife. Talk to Flynn. He’ll tell you how I spent my days, up until very recently, and why I feel perfectly qualified to make my own decisions about the man I tie myself to.”

I was committing social suicide right now. I could see it in the duke’s increasingly purple complexion, but damn them. Damn him.

I shot Flynn a dark look, because damn him most of all.

“A good man. One who cares for me and not the assets I bring to a marriage. An honest one.”

Flynn went pale at that, his eyes gleaming bright, bright blue and, as if to punctuate my statement, I heard the far off roar of a dragon.

“I bid you good day, Your Grace.”

I strode from the room, walking blindly. And I just kept on walking, not paying too much attention to where I was going or what was in front of me. I didn’t listen as a voice called out after me down the hall; I just kept striding until I couldn’t hear it anymore.

You are a queen , Glimmer told me. Past time you started to act like one.

And you as well? I shot back. What of you, Glimmer?

I do not need that pretender queen’s approval , she told me. I know what I am now.

Because I had a good head of steam up, I didn’t see him, feel him, until I walked right into a broad chest, hands landing heavily on my shoulders to stop me from going any further as Glimmer dug her claws into the shoulders of my uniform.

“Whoa there, lass. Are you well?”

I looked up, blinking for a second as it felt like a red haze faded from my eyes, then I moved belatedly to salute Brom.

His hand snapped out, stopping me from performing the necessary acknowledgement of his rank, his thumb rubbing against my wrist for a second before he pulled his hand away.

“You look like you’re in a fine mood. You must’ve spoken to the Duke of Skane.”

“You knew?”

There was much contained in those two words, and by the softening in his expression, he seemed to understand at least some of it.

“I know he’s a bloody pushy bastard at the best of times. Flynn took you out today for a reason. I’m sure he enjoyed being in your company, but at least part of it had to be an attempt to try and escape his father’s clutches. He underestimated how bloody-minded the duke is.”

“Not that.” I stared up into his hazel eyes, searching for the answers before he could give them. “ You knew.”

He tapped the papers he was holding against his other hand and then turned back towards the nearest open door, ushering me inside. I stepped into a much smaller office than Draven’s, but as I took a breath and looked around me, I knew it was his. The faint scent of manly musk, whiskey and tobacco hung in the air, and the wall behind the desk was lined with books. He shut the door behind us with a click, then settled down into his chair, gesturing for me to take the chair in front of his desk.

“The duke had a proposal,” Brom prompted.

“And you know what that was,” I said.

“Every noble son in the royal riders has received a bird or a letter of the same kind the minute you were sent down here, I’m willing to bet,” he said with a sigh, his fingers forming a steeple as they came to rest on his stomach. “I’m not sure what the queen was bloody thinking…” He smiled at that lapse in his usual control. “Not this, surely.”

He leaned forward then, staring at Glimmer who jumped down off my shoulder and came forward to regard him with the same interest, letting out a little hum as she did so.

“She’s perfect. The queen can rationalise her decision all she likes but…” He reached out and caressed my dragon’s eye ridge and her eyes fell closed, as he’d instinctively found the place she most liked to be scratched. “But anyone looking at her will only see that perfection.”

His eyes were filled with a kind of warmth that made me want to draw near; the complete opposite to the duke’s icy depths. But when he looked up at me, some of that warmth bled away, replaced instead by… what? Was it sadness? Pity?

“But that makes you and your dragon a target. The general thinks he can just marry you off, put you in a box that most women would accept, and that will be the end of the matter. You will be one of our number, perhaps not in a combat wing, but there are plenty of cadets who show little aptitude for the life of a soldier. The fact you are a woman and Glimmer is a queen will somehow be ignored.”

“But it won’t.” I took in one shaking breath, then another, leaping to my feet. “These sons of dukes and earls and lords, they’ll try to entrap me, use me to?—”

“Don’t say it.” Brom was somehow standing beside me, pressing a finger to my lips. “Don’t. Not even inside your head. I’m not sure, but Queen Raina might detect it. It’s treason to think it, discuss it…”

But as I felt the weight of his finger against my mouth, I stared at him and knew.

After the civil war was resolved and the first Nithian king ascended to the throne, Nevermere had experienced an interminably long period of peace. Dukes might grumble or baulk at the king’s dictates, but they couldn’t bring dragons to any argument, so they only got so far.

The king could.

But I had a queen dragon and had been given leave to take a husband. A noble husband, in theory. My mind raced, despite Brom’s orders, as I joined dots I should’ve connected the moment I was sent to the keep.

The king was married to a queen who commanded the only other female dragon in the kingdom, or so they thought. When she went into heat, every dragon here would rise to be the one to mate her, but only the king’s dragon would. Just as Draven’s would do to the real queen-in-waiting’s dragon, when it came his time.

But if the Duke of Skane or Cantlyn or wherever lured me to his side, he would have the exact same thing. A viable female dragon, assuming Glimmer reached maturity. A rider to keep her under their control. And for me? A noble husband to make sure my actions aligned with theirs.

I jerked away from Brom, noting that his hands reached for me before he pulled them back.

“So I’ll marry a common-born man,” I said, deciding my own fate in a sudden rush of words, even as Glimmer let out a little whistle. “Rank doesn’t matter here, and it certainly isn’t an issue for me.”

He nodded slowly, but those eyes, they betrayed what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

“But that won’t matter, because… Because…” My throat worked as the reality of it hit me, like an unexpected punch to the gut, and just as when Arabella used to catch me off guard, all the breath left my body.

Ged was the son of a tanner, so he could suit my purposes. As soon as I classified him that way, however, I blanched, feeling like all he was as a man was being reduced down to something that had little bearing on my thoughts about him.

But that’s how others would see him.

Harlston, Skane… I sucked in a breath, then another. Ged’s social standing would be irrelevant in this, because I was the daughter of a nobleman. A minor one, granted, but still with enough noble blood to satisfy the requirements of those seeking to plot against the crown.

“What do I do?” I asked Brom, my voice hoarse. “How do I…? Who can I…?”

My chest heaved, but it felt like my lungs wouldn’t fully inflate. His hands landed on my arms and he stared down at me, willing my rebellious mind to quieten.

“Breathe, Pippin. Just breathe. First things first, always.”

Glimmer let out a squawk, the only warning I got before she launched herself at me, her body pressing flat against mine when I caught her, her head coming to rest in the crook of my neck.

You are a queen, was all she would say to me, over and over.

Brom seemed to think this a fine way to deal with things, turning me around so he could cradle me in his arms, my body going limp as my back was pressed to his chest.

“We’ll find a way. I promise we will.”

Right then I saw the pub and the bawdy display on the stage, the woman writhing as all of the men sought to please her.

“Perhaps I need to take four husbands,” I said with a rueful snort. “One from each duchy, to appease and neutralise all of their ambitions.”

“You do that and civil war is sure to ensue,” Brom warned.

So why did his arms tighten around me, holding me even closer?