Page 53 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 53

Draven had gone as pale as milk, his teeth audibly grinding in response to my reply and I waited, needing to hear his fury unleashed, because then I’d have an excuse to respond with my own.

It didn’t come.

He just jerked himself away from the table, the serving woman darting in to remove plates as soon as he left. Ged slid down onto the opposite bench.

“You glued the prince’s door shut?” He fought to keep a smile from forming on his face, but couldn’t do it for long, treating me to that characteristic cheeky grin. “Gods above! He was shouting half the morning for someone to free him, but not many people go up to his level of the keep. Thankfully a maid who’s tasked with cleaning his room came by and alerted the general. All of the classes have been cancelled for the day and the cadets are all being confined to their rooms, but you…”

“You’re with me today,” Soren announced as he approached.

His expression was grim, but he nodded to both of us, waiting for a response, which he got from Ged.

“Well, I could take the cadet?—”

“If you think the rest of the sentence includes some scenario where you end up cosied up to Pippin for the rest of the day, you’d be mistaken,” Soren snapped. “I’m to take her up on Wraith and get her the hell away from here while the brass tries to work out what to do with this situation.”

“I’ll need to bring extra meat with me,” I said, rising to my feet. I didn’t care where he was taking me, just as long as it was away from here. “Glimmer’s starving and likely to need more in a few hours.”

“But she should be…” Ged blinked, wanting to contradict me and say that he fed my dragon last night.

But he couldn’t.

She took his memories when she took me , Glimmer told me, not needing to clarify who ‘she’ was. She has a dragonstone.

I’d need her to explain what that was later.

And she knows we have one, I replied.

I heard her sigh, but she continued chewing on her meat.

“And something for you too,” Soren observed. “We’ll go by the kitchens and grab some supplies, because both of you will work hard today.”

A hard day’s work at the beach, it appeared.

I’d been glad to escape the keep, not feeling like I could take a full breath until I did, but as Wraith circled down on a distant piece of coastline, fear tracked its fingers back up my spine.

He means us no harm , Glimmer said. She can’t use a dragon rider to hurt us. If she could, she’d use one to snatch the pendant off your neck and then have the two of us down the throat of her dragon moments later.

Your mother , I replied, and there was a small silence, because I think both of us knew there wasn’t much hope there.

My mother is the one dragon she can control, Glimmer observed. And, through her, all of dragonkind.

When she went into heat, all of the royal dragons would forget their riders, their alliances, their own concerns, as their instincts hit them with a force that would not be denied. Biology urged them to mate, propagate the species, make new dragons to keep the wheel spinning. As I pondered this grim reality, Wraith landed on the soft sand, the tide far out and I slid from his saddle, twisting round to catch Glimmer as she leapt down before I turned to Soren.

“Need to make sure there’s no audience around when you dole out my punishment?” I asked him as he pulled off his gloves.

He shook his head with a snort. “No, this was organised yesterday. The prince freed me up from my usual duties to do some endurance training with you.”

“Draven?” I frowned at that.

“He’s Prince Draven to you when you’re in the keep. You want to be scrupulous about using his title,” he told me before unbuttoning his jacket and tossing it over Wraith’s saddle. “The general will have his eye on you now. You can’t have carried out that prank. I saw you go to bed myself.”

“And I was there all night?” I asked, watching his face closely. “What time did I get back from dinner with Christian?”

“Christian? You ate with us,” he said with such surety. “Now, enough talking. The prince spoke to me about how to best prepare you for keep life, and we agree that swordplay is unlikely to be useful to you. Knife work, stealth?—”

“Sneaking up on my enemy, because I’ll never be strong enough to tackle them head on,” I finished for him with a kind of dread fascination. The conversation Draven and I had was embedded in the man’s head now, like it was gospel. Which led to the question, what did these stones do?

Memories , Glimmer replied, lifting her claws, then shaking them to get the sand off. Communication. Coercion.

And unlocking something in you, I replied. You went from a baby animal to…

To?

A queen.

She nodded at that, then looked up at Soren as he continued with his instruction.

“You may as well toss your leathers to one side and your boots too. You run well, but on soft sand?” His smile was all drill sergeant now, relishing the challenge he was about to set before me. “It takes a whole other kind of strength. I hope Ged didn’t have anything too grand planned for tonight, as you’ll be in a world of hurt.”

We both would be in a world of hurt, it seemed. Soren didn’t just stand and bark orders at me, forcing me to do what he wouldn’t do himself. No, we both tossed our leathers and boots aside and then he led me over to where the dunes swept upwards.

“Each time you reach the top before me,” he promised, “is one less set.”

“Me against you?” I looked up and down his powerful frame with a wary eye.

“On that battlefield, I might have the advantage, but here?” He inspected me much more slowly. “You are lighter. You won’t sink as deep into the sand and you’ve got speed. It’s also been some time since I’ve had to run laps. Ready?”

“What about Glimmer?” I asked.

I’ll sit in the sun and sleep , she informed me, moving to do just that.

“She’s running too. She needs to be strong, fit, lithe?—”

“Why?”

My question was abrupt, but I had an inkling of how he’d respond. His brows creased and his eyes flicked about as he struggled to find an answer, manufacturing one when it didn’t come.

“All of the royal dragons need to be strong and if she’s not to be a breeding queen, she’ll need to meet the same requirements as any cadet’s beast.”

That wasn’t it. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. I also didn’t understand why he was being pushed to do this. When it was all done and dusted, I’d marry Brom and live out my life as the queen had dictated. So why ensure I was strong and fit? I could carry a child. Surely that was all that mattered. But whatever was riding Soren was subtle. Doing this training with me was just an extension of what he always did. Every day he got up and pushed laggardly cadets through tough training exercises, so this session wasn’t so far outside his usual behaviour as to create a dissonance within him..

“Alright then,” I said, reconciling myself for what I assumed would be a long, hot, weary day. I dropped down into a sprinter’s starting position and Soren did the same, his white cotton shirt gleaming in the sun. Glimmer dug in by my side.

“Ready, set, go!”

My hands sliced like blades through the air, my legs pumped like pistons. Ploughing through the soft sand was harder, so much harder, than running in the training room. You got no bounce like you did from a firmer surface, where the momentum usually helps carry you through. Instead I was forced to use sheer bloody-minded will and muscle. Mine burned as I pushed them to perform duties they had never faced before.

Glimmer couldn’t keep up with us to start with, but then she opened her wings, catching the breeze and gliding along until she hit the ground, chirruping with delight at her success, only to run further and try again. But as we climbed the gentle slope, I pushed hard, throwing myself forward as Soren matched me stride for stride. I collapsed into giggles when I landed face down on the top of the dune.

“Well done,” he said, “That’s one less. Only 98 more to go.”

“You said this wasn’t a punishment,” I groaned after the fifteenth, or maybe the twentieth, sprint. I collapsed down onto the sand, unable to move because my body was on fire. “I’d rather cop a flogging.”

“Get up,” he said in a firm but not unkind voice. He thrust his hand out and I took it, then used my weight to jerk him off his feet. “Gods…!”

The only thing stopping him from squashing me flat was his lightning fast reflexes, so instead I ended up caged by his body and that’s when I wondered at the wisdom of my actions. He was close, so very close, and I’d not ever experienced that with him before. I could smell him and the ocean, his woody scent fusing with that of the sea, creating something salty that made my tongue flick out to moisten my lips. His attention was caught, and he watched the trail of my tongue like state secrets were written on the tip, right before he flipped himself away from me, landing flat on his back. While we both lay there gasping for breath Glimmer appeared, then peered down at the two of us.

Are we done with this incessant running? she asked huffily. If you face danger, I will snatch you up and fly you away from it, or scorch the evil doer with my breath.

And what do we do until you are big enough to fly me? I asked.

I’m hungry.

She turned tail and then approached Wraith, who’d been contentedly sun-baking at the top of the dune, the big dragon snuffling at her when she leapt up into the saddle and started nosing through his saddlebags.

“You need to get moving,” Soren informed me, all business again. “Your muscles will cool and seize up.”

“But that won’t matter because you’ll massage them with your liniment again.”

My reply was impertinent, but the meaning? It shifted in a place like this, so far from anyone else’s eyes.

“I have some in my bag,” he said. “For after you’ve finished your runs.”

He was insistent. Gently so, but refusing to be swayed, even when he so obviously wanted to be. That puzzled me. The smartest thing for the queen to have organised would’ve been to get me out here under the pretence of training me and then have Soren dispatch Glimmer and I with a couple of sharp slashes of his knife.

Wraith would never allow that , Glimmer informed me and there was something prideful in her tone.

I decided then to try and unpick whatever coercion had been pushed upon him, see if I could find out what lay beneath.

“If I was a lad who’d grown up soft, how would you train me?” I asked, staring up at him through my lashes.

“I’d start slow…” His voice was firm until he seemed to hear his own words. He frowned, then stared at me, before continuing. “No point in smashing a lad hard at the start. Muscles unused to that kind of load can be injured if you work them too hard.”

I glanced at the sand dunes and then back at him, as I was fairly sure I had hurt something in the process of trying to follow his orders, and he had the grace to look abashed.

“Let's…” I watched his mouth move, and I waited with bated breath as I watched his mind work, a small frown forming between his brows before he shook his head. “Let’s take this easier for the rest of the session,” he said, then hauled me to my feet. “I know you just want to lie there now?—”

It’d broken. Whatever it was that had been riding him, it’d fallen apart with a small push. Whoever had coerced him had made him do something that went counter to his nature and his innate sense of right and wrong had been too strong for the compulsion to succeed for long.

“But I need to cool down slowly,” I replied.

I groaned and followed him as he walked down the beach, already hobbling a little. Soren flushed when he noticed that and put his arm around my waist, helping support my weight.

This was part of the exercise regime I could get behind. The sea lapped at our feet, our bodies moving in sync as we walked through the shallows. I could feel a haze of contentment coming from Glimmer, who was resting on the sand. She was warm, her belly was full, and she liked curling up by the side of the other dragon. I understood why. There was something about being sheltered by a much bigger, stronger body that appealed to me, no matter what else I might feel. Which brought up a confusing tumble of emotions that swirled around inside me.

Christian had taken me out last night. Flynn’s father had proposed marriage on his son’s behalf. Brom had said he would wed me. Ged had brought me flowers. Yet right now, I wanted to lean into Soren’s bulk rather desperately, to see if he could induce the same feeling of safety that my dragon was enjoying. I felt like I was being tugged in a million different directions, and that was made worse by not feeling like I had a choice at all.

Which was perhaps the reason for what happened next.

Soren yanked me closer, making me wonder if he’d been reading my mind, then I realised what he was doing as he went stumbling back with me in tow, not fast enough to avoid the wave hitting us. Cold, cold water smacked into me like a slap, dousing me thoroughly, only Soren’s grip stopping me from being tugged back out by the tide. As he pulled me beyond the water’s reach, I spluttered, flicking water from my eyes before I looked down to determine how wet I was.

If I’d been wearing a woman’s dress, I would’ve had a corset under it, something to maintain my modesty, but I hadn’t been bothering with those for some time. It wasn’t as though I had a heaving bosom to strap down, rather I was blessed with a couple of beestings that didn’t warrant such attention.

But I was getting plenty of attention right now.

Soren laughed at my saturated state at first, until suddenly he stopped. A steady hum set up in my ears as his smile fell away, to be replaced by something much darker. Hunger. It took me a moment to reconcile that expression, as naked and pure as it was. He always kept everything locked tight away, but his feelings were patently obvious now. And I felt a reflection of the same hunger as I looked him over.

His white shirt was plastered across the massive chest I wanted to bury my face in, the dark sprinkle of his hair, the blue intricacies of his tattoos plain through the now see-through fabric. But the sea had revealed so much more. My eyes slid down as I saw a movement, as something lengthened and thickened within his pants. His manhood. I knew that now, having got those brief glimpses of Ged’s, but it wasn’t Ged I was thinking of right now. I moved closer, drawn as if by a string to a body that wanted, needed me.

“Pippin…”

His growl was low and throaty, as if from a cornered animal warning me away, and for some reason I liked that. It treated me as if I was dangerous, powerful. I felt the echo of that menace in my own reaction as I got closer, as I reached out and traced the line of his buttons down his chest, down the hard muscles of his abdomen.

“Pippin.”

His hand wrapped around my wrist when I got to his waistband and I felt like I was under some spell as I looked up, bold as brass, into his eyes. I licked the salt away from my lips, then leaned forward and presented them to him to taste.

And he wanted to. I could see that.

“Pippin, we can’t.”

“Why?” I asked again, feeling like I had been pushing him in increments ever since we’d arrived on this beach and this was just the final step. “Why can’t we, Soren?”