Page 51 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 51

“You might think that the noble Lance can help you through this, but he can’t.”

We were in the training room now and I was ready to admit defeat before we’d even started. My body felt heavy with good food, wine, and the overwhelming confusion of today. It felt like every hour had brought a new blow and now Draven wanted to deal out some more.

“Can’t we just—?” I started to say.

“No.” He grabbed several wooden daggers off the rack then tossed two to me. “You think my wing will be your personal guard. You think it will always be strapping Ged or dour Soren that will step in between you and any threat you might face.”

“No, I?—”

“Could Soren stop me from running you hard this morning?” he asked as he advanced upon me, twirling another set of practice blades in his hands. “Could he stop me from attacking you on the practice floor?”

I wanted, needed to say yes, but I couldn’t.

“Unless you’re the fucking king, there’s always someone out there faster, stronger, and more powerful, and they can and will use that against you.”

And well did I know that.

“The only one you can truly rely on is yourself.”

That was an awfully bleak way of looking at things, particularly for a prince, but as he spoke the words, I remembered those boys, dragging me down into the pig’s mud, tearing at my clothes. He nodded at the change of my expression.

“And you already know that, don’t you? They might have rescued you before, removed those odious little bitches from your estate but…” He shoved the blades into his belt and then picked up a sword, advancing upon me. “At any point, someone can decide to take it all from you.”

He held his sword out with the point aimed at me. Even though it was made from blunt wood, it still sent a flicker of fear burning through me.

“Someone with greater reach, greater strength than you. All that keeps the riders from taking what they want, here in the keep, is their dragons. But what of the world outside?” The blade didn’t waver for a second, but his eyes felt like they sliced straight into me. “What of the men in Wyrmpeak? Of…?”

Watching the great Prince Draven falter, his throat working, his focus beginning to shift as he struggled to find the words, that was a pleasure I hadn’t thought to experience, yet here I was.

“You can train with Lance every night for the next year and you’ll improve. You’ll also fan the flames of the very real infatuation he’s currently nursing,” he said finally.

“What?”

“But it won’t protect you.”

“And why the hell would you care about that?” I felt as if the wine was being burned off in my blood as I spoke, shifting restlessly across the training ground floor. “You were insufferably rude at first, then made clear what a burden I was.”

“Not a burden,” he snapped. “A responsibility.”

“One I never asked you to shoulder! I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask for Glimmer. She quite literally fell into my lap.” He watched me pace like an animal in a cage. “I think I understand you, being forced to marry whoever bonds with the ‘right’ queen dragon.”

I blinked, reconsidering Christian now, wondering how I’d feel if we’d been forced to marry. Would we have been able to build something between us? And if we couldn’t have, then what would have happened?

“But you’re not being forced to marry me. You don’t have to have anything to do with me. I’m just a cadet now. I’m nothing,” I said finally.

“Gods, how I wish that were true.”

He muttered the retort, making clear it was only for his ears, not mine and I frowned as I tried to make sense of it. Instead, I jumped at the sound of the sword being tossed aside and then he raised his knives. I saw the way he held them, tried to replicate his grip and then stepped forward, because no matter what, if he could teach me how to lay a blow on him without attacking from behind, I’d take it.

“You won’t win in a knife fight either,” he told me, then moved to correct my grip.

“So what is this then? Some special torture only rejected queens-in-waiting are forced to endure?”

I dropped the blades then, because I realised I didn’t have to obey him. He might be my prince and I might owe him my allegiance, but that didn’t have to include slavish obedience. Class was well and truly over, and I wasn’t shaming him in front of the other cadets. I could walk out of here and?—

“Pick the blades up.” His voice was taut as a stretched wire and twice as tough. “Pick them up!”

“Why should I?” I snapped, crossing my arms.

“You need this?—”

“Why?” I asked again, my eyes narrowing. Because this insistence, it went beyond the customary concern of a gentleman for a lady.

“Because you… You’ll need…” Draven was disconcerted again, an unexpected boon for me, but it made me watch him all the more closely now. “You’ll just need to trust me on this. Things are changing and you, everyone, will need to be prepared for every eventuality if they’re to survive it.”

Right then I cursed myself for not racing upstairs and retrieving Glimmer. Not only would the weight of her body in my arms have gone some way to settling me, but… I could have used her to invade Draven’s mind, see deep within those labyrinthine recesses and find out exactly what he was playing at.

But I hadn’t had the chance to seize that opportunity before Draven had dragged me off for training.

“And why the hell should I trust you when you’ve not done one thing to deserve that honour?” Venom felt like it poured out of my mouth, burning holes into the floor, into him.

“ They do.” His voice was hoarse and raspy. “The men you want, who want to make you theirs. Each one of them would obey a request from me without question, and that loyalty goes far beyond rank. You know that’s true.”

I nodded slowly.

“And I’m not going to show you anything that will require strength, so pick up your knives and take off your boots.”

“What?”

“I’m going to teach you how to attack a man from the back in a way almost guaranteed to bring him down.”

“Why the hell didn’t you start with that?” I asked, dropping down to unlace my boots.

Weight on the balls of your feet , I told myself as I stared at the prince’s back. Then roll your weight forward slowly with your feet, avoiding striking the ground with your heel.

We’d practised this wholly unnatural way of walking for some time, but I found it a much easier skill to master than sword play. My feet moved one after the other, in a line rather than the usual wider stride most people used and I found I did move faster and more quietly. I slunk across the floor, wincing when I heard a floorboard creak.

“You need to get to know the surface of a room well before you plan a strike,” he told me, but didn’t turn around, something that gave me permission to move forward. “If you have a choice, choose a stone floor, though discard your shoes if you do, no matter what propriety has to say about it.”

I got closer and closer, my breath coming in slow and shallow, so as not to alert him, particularly when I raised the knife up to?—

He twisted at the very last moment, his hand shooting out to wrap around my wrist and stop me from stabbing down. Those blue eyes sparkled then as he smiled, really smiled, rather than the usual smirk or sneer that I tended to receive from him. It felt like time stood still, his thumb brushing across the inside of my wrist once before he seemed to come back to himself, letting me go.

“Well done. You picked that up quite quickly. Somehow, I had a feeling you would. Now, let’s try that again.”

I did, over and over, quickly ascertaining where the creaks and loose floorboards were. I forced the prince to work, not quite able to get the drop on him, yet getting closer each time. On my next approach, I could somehow feel it in my bones that this would be the one. My hands gripped the knife hilts tighter as I forced the rest of my body to go loose. Soft as a breeze and less audible, I blew across the floor in a flurry of steps, thinking that changing speed might help.

And it did.

My feet felt like they barely even touched the floor as I scurried closer, a mouse in a lion’s den.

But even a mouse can roar sometimes.

I raised my knife, noting that Draven hadn’t even turned towards me yet, and I caught the musical sound of his sigh, right before my knife struck down.

“Ow!”

I stabbed it harder than I should’ve, expecting him to detect me, that he’d feel the sudden breeze as I raised my arm, but instead he belatedly wheeled around, rubbing at the red mark on his neck. His eyes flashed with anger at first, an instinctive reaction, but then he grinned, the most unguarded expression I’d ever seen on his face.

“Clever girl!” He dashed forward and swept me up into the air. It felt like his hands burned through my shirt as he lifted me with all the effort one might a doll. But what goes up, must come down. Draven set me back on my feet almost apologetically. Which was the point when he should have stepped back and continued the lesson.

He didn’t.

He was standing close, way too close and only getting closer, those blue eyes burning into mine and that’s when I had to wonder.

Was this the real prince or was the icy prick the actual heir to the throne? Was the man breathing hard through his nose, despite not really working hard, the real Draven, or was it the bastard that was always snorting in disgust. I needed to know, somehow that beat inside me, because my impulses were raging out of control and all of the good sense I usually possessed had been shoved away.

His too.

He stepped in then, taking my hand in his and holding it against his chest, his eyes dropping down to my lips inexorably, even as he jerked them back up again.

“Pippin…”

I’d never heard him use my pet name before and I decided right then that I wanted him to, over and over. “Pippin… Pippin…”

I’d never allowed myself to imagine this, the two of us together, leaning closer as if drawn forcibly into the other’s orbit, not even when he was my intended. So I’d never anticipated him bending at the waist, his mouth coming closer?—

“My prince.”

The man entering the training space cleared his throat, getting our attention, then addressed Draven when he had it, both he and the knight beside him looking somewhat sheepish.

“The queen has requested your presence, Your Highness.”

“She…” I watched Draven’s expression change as whoever the man he’d been a moment before was packed up like a set of clothing, then shoved deep in the suitcase of his soul. “Of course. I will be along presently.”

“ And the Lady Pippa,” the knight continued, nodding to me. “She requested to see both of you.”

My heart sank then, falling all the way down through the floor.