Page 5 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 5

Of course, it wasn’t Nadia. Of course, I couldn’t just slip away from this bloody town, putting all the problems I’d had at my back and walk off into a new life. Of course, these three likely lads, no doubt hired due to their total lack of moral fibre, had returned once they got word all my pigs were gone. Of course, they saw a single woman as prey. It sometimes felt like not a thing had gone right since the day my father announced he was marrying the Lady Cecily, and today was going to be the worst in a long series of terrible days. I pulled the gutting knife out from where it was stuck, just inside the doorframe, and faced the three of them down.

“I won’t go down without a fight,” I promised them, gripping the knife tight.

“You’re just a little girl—” one of them snickered.

“Not so little,” another said, eyeing me then his friends warily. “She’s as tall as we are.”

“Three against one is pretty good odds though,” the last one said. “And she has to have been paid some of that dragon rider gold for all them pigs.”

“Were you?”

The leader eyed me all the more avariciously and I cursed his friend right then for bringing that up. The knife might’ve been enough to turn them away from the thought of raping me, but gold…? I’d learned all too well what people were prepared to do to get their hands on money and it wasn’t a lesson I wanted repeated today.

I could’ve tossed them the pouch and maybe it would’ve sent them on their way. I considered the idea, I really did, but if I gave them what they wanted it would be more than just tossing some curs some gold to make them go away. If I threw them the pouch, I’d be throwing my whole future away.

This gold was all I had now in this world. I’d lost my home, my family’s estate. Land that had been held by someone of my bloodline for hundreds of years and now an evil bitch and her devil spawn ruled it. All I knew how to do was run an estate, eventually become some nobleman’s wife or, conversely, to raise and care for swine. Not a very impressive skill set. But there was something I’d learned that was going to be useful right now. I knew how to catch and slaughter pigs. Old Bay had forced me to do just that with some of the smaller pigs. Ones that weren’t flourishing, ones whose succulent meat we’d feasted on afterwards. I’d hated it, floundering around in the mucky sty, slipping over in the mud, listening to the pig scream its discontent, right up until I’d managed to stab the knife into its fat throat. As I stood there in my doorway, I eyed the jugular of the leader of this pack of would-be thieves and rapists, knowing it was him I needed to take out to send the others scattering. I think he suspected the direction of my thoughts because his eyes narrowed in response.

Do or die , I thought then. I hadn’t wanted to consider that reality before, but I hadn’t dared to hope for anything better until Nadia had given me a chance. I did now. I hadn’t been able to fight my stepmother or Arabella when they cast me out, but I would fight this time. I squared my shoulders, kept my place in the doorway, cutting off any means for these thugs to surround me, and then lifted my chin in defiance. The leader snarled at that, marching over to the front gate and wrenching it open.

In the beginning, the terrain was with me. The cur’s boots slipped in the mud, his hands whipping out to grab at the pen fence to steady himself, something that drew a snort from me and his mates. That was a mistake. I’d known men like this, rich or poor. Any loss of face resulted in a brutal backlash, making the sniggerer reconsider ever mocking the target ever again. His dark eyes glared at me then at his fellows, his arms shaking as he drew himself back.

“Well, what’re you waiting for?” he snapped. “She’s just a girl with a gutting knife!”

Was it my femininity or my knife that spurred them on? I didn’t know, but at his words the other two lurched forward, following their leader into the fray.

My palm was slick with nervous sweat around the bone handle of the knife, because this wasn’t me pitting myself against a bloody pig. He was almost a full-grown man, tall and packing on almost as much muscle as an adult, and ready to deploy his strength against me. I felt like I was wound tight as a violin string, ready to vibrate as soon as I was plucked. The leader clumsily attempted to swipe at me, not even bothering to use a weapon. My hand shot out, my knife slicing through the air, zeroing in on him, forcing him to flail backwards, which was not a very smart manoeuvre in a pigsty. The man’s feet went out from under him the minute he lost his balance and as his arms windmilled around him, he took his comrades down with him, all three landing with a sodden thud in the shit-soaked mud.

“Urgh…” one groaned in disgust, flicking his once fine cotton sleeve, as if that would eradicate the thick covering of stinking mud. “I didn’t sign up to get covered in this muck!”

“You’ll be able to afford a couple of those tavern lasses to wash you clean if we get that gold,” the leader urged, trying to get to his feet and instead just thrashing around like a pig in shit.

He let out a little grunt of frustration as he failed to rise, his fellows both doing the same thing. I shoved the knife into my belt and grabbed the blackthorn walking stick, using it like I would with the pigs. I pressed the polished end into the leader’s chest, shoving him back down with all of my repressed fear and anger, stopping him from rising, then doing the same to the others. Any time they might get any traction, I shoved them back into the mud, a smile spreading on my face as the three of them struggled harder and harder, stirring up the mud and digging themselves deeper, until they were nothing more than a trio of mud men, coated from head to foot.

“Think this is funny, bitch?” the leader said, his hand snapping out and grabbing the stick. A faint roar from one of the dragons marked the moment when he stopped trying to get himself out of the mud and instead attacked me, attempting to drag me down into it.

I felt a moment of pure fear as I was jerked off my feet. My bare toes had initially given me better traction in the mud, but that was not enough, not now. My hands couldn’t go for my knife because they were thrust out as I landed face down on top of the three of them. And then they moved. Fast as the pigs could be, slipping through the mud to throw their bodies against mine. My arm was yanked back behind my back and twisted until I cried out, hands, too many hands roaming across my body, searching, searching for anything of value. Something was torn from me, pulled a ragged cry from my lips and a cheer from theirs.

“Got the gold!” one yelped in joy.

“Got the knife,” another one said with a much darker intent, and a hand in my hair pulled it back to set my blade against my neck.

This couldn’t be the way I died, it just couldn’t. My mind rebelled against the possibility, even as tears filled my eyes. I clawed at the mud, looking for stones, anything I might use against these bastards but finding nothing. I couldn’t seem to stop trying though, my hands reaching frantically for something, anything, to save me, but there was only mud and shit.

A fitting end, then.

“Please…” I’m not ashamed to say I begged, pleaded. “Please…”

“You’ll be moaning that once we get started on you,” the knife wielder said. “You two. Strip her while I keep her quiet. You never know, love, this might be over quickly.”

“Or not,” one of the others snickered.

“No…” I panted out as I felt hands tear at my father’s clothing. “No,” I groaned when I heard the seams rip. “No, no…” I begged as my bare skin of my back met mud, as they tore my shirt off, throwing what was left out into the mud, only to go back for more. But the last no I screamed out when a hand closed over my breast, squeezing the softness there hard, so hard my whole body rebelled. “NO!”

It appeared the dragons agreed with me, their roars combining with mine to create a protest that vibrated throughout the whole valley, but who was there to answer? Four dumb animals and one dumb girl. If we were the only ones there to save the day, I was damned.

But we weren’t.

“And what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The voice was harsh, sharp with command, a voice every single one of us was forced to acknowledge. The hands stopped, then pulled away, even the one in my hair loosened, before it tightened again.

“Don’t take a step closer,” the leader growled at the interloper, who stepped out from the trees. No, not just a man, a dragon rider. My eyes avidly took in his leather armour and the silver badges of office, even if I did so through a messy fall of muddy hair, the knife still pressed to my throat.

“I’ll do more than that, boyo,” the rider shot back in a manner that had the two unarmed men clambering back. “I’m Ged, rider of Cloud Raker, and just in case you’ve fucking forgotten, lad, I’m the law in this land.”

He clicked his fingers, a theatrical gesture, but done with purpose, wind buffeting all of us suddenly making us look up. The scarlet dragon, now a deep burgundy in the moonlight, appeared above the clearing. Even hovering far above us, we could feel each beat of his wings.

“Care to put any arguments of your ‘innocence’ to Cloudy?”

The dragon roared his response to that, the grip on my hair finally loosening, as the knife was dropped from limp fingers.

“No, I thought not,” Ged said, stepping closer. “Best get yourselves out of that pig pen real quick, lads. You’ll be facing charges of attempted sexual assault on this poor lad, with four dragon riders sitting in judgement.” Ged shook his head, slowly. “Never try raping someone within earshot of a dragon. They know. They always fucking know.”

“Not a lad,” one of the lads said hurriedly, scrambling to distance himself from the other men, offering up the information as if as a means to beg for leniency. “She was the lady of the house before Arabella and her mam took it from her. Hides up here in the pig pens she does.” He chuckled. “A fine lady forced to tend swine.”

“Lady Pippa Wentworth?” Ged said with a frown, peering at me with dark eyes that glittered in the night.

“At your service, Rider,” I ground out.