Page 10 of The Forbidden Dragon King (Shadow Kings #1)

CHAPTER FIVE

Draca Military Camp

A urelius

Why did I say that to Freya? Why do I care that she didn’t wish me luck? Why the fuck would I give her the bracelet that I inherited from Father?

I am going to fucking die, when Uncle and the Shadow Court realize that I have given a courting gift to an enemy’s Omega.

A pet now bears my golden mark around her wrist like a beacon of my promise to claim her.

If I’m not killed, then it will make Freya a target of jealousy and hate amongst the pit of vipers who hiss their venom at the heart of my rotten kingdom.

When you live amongst the serpents, your fangs have to become sharper than the rest.

I’ve also learned, however, that you don’t always need to let out the monster inside yourself. You can find the best spies and assassins to be your monsters for you.

Except, tonight I’ll finally unleash my own darkness. I’m finishing a war of feathers and bones that Father started.

I fiddle with my golden ring.

Would he finally be proud of me? Is this what he wanted?

I growl as I throw the linen flap aside and storm out into the night.

The cold air hits my cheeks. The breeze tumbles my hair, fluttering the gleaming Golden Dragon banners that fly above my large tent.

The guards outside snap to attention. I ignore them.

My head is still too filled with a certain red-haired wolf shifter who smells of summer roses in full bloom.

Freya smells like my favorite place in the realms: Mother’s private rose garden.

It’s the only place where I am fully calm, relaxed, and at peace.

It’s the only place that nobody is allowed to visit but me.

Where Maximinus can’t find me.

I have spent the last week tending to Freya, breathing in her rose scent and pheromones, and feeling that same peace.

I’ve spent it wishing that this wasn’t so complicated and I wasn’t royal.

Why couldn’t this be like the stories, where I’ve simply saved an Omega, my fated mate? She’d wake up, smell my scent, and we’d bond.

I wouldn’t be forbidden to bond with anyone.

We wouldn’t be enemies.

Freya wouldn’t also belong to Lanlin Sin… who wouldn’t have murdered my brother.

Yet I am a King and not any other Alpha. I have a duty and responsibility to all the kingdoms and their people. My wants and needs aren’t my own.

Nor is my body or life.

I’ve spent a lifetime being trained, molded, and beaten to learn that lesson.

I ball my hands into fists behind my back.

I know these rules.

I fucking know them.

But why did Freya have to be so fucking challengin g?

I shake with the conflicting emotions of grief, joy, and a spark of something else that I never expected to experience.

The insolent fae loving thief is so much more than I dreamed she would be. In the candlelight, her hair looked like flames.

My eternal flame .

Vesta.

Goddess.

I grimace, as my cock hardens uncomfortably in my tight leather armor. I slam down hard on the conflicting emotions that are storming through me, shuttering my expression.

Feel nothing. Be nothing. Feel nothing…

“Are we adopting a kitten then, Relius?” A voice drawls from the darkness. “Can I play with him?”

Two figures peel away from the shadows. They are dressed in battle armor.

The guards don’t react. Of course they don’t because these eavesdroppers are the top two commanders in the army. They are also my best friends who spend most of their time lurking around my tent, pretending that they’re not protecting me.

They’ve been my secret bodyguards since I was a teenager.

I have four people who I trust in the entire kingdom, and these are two of them.

Imperial Legate War Varus, a ruby Alpha, and her silver Omega, Tribune Lucius Atticus.

I roll my eyes. “Only if you want to be scratched, Luc.”

Lucius is lean and small; his armor looks like it’s too heavy for him. He wears it, as if he’s dressing up in his older brother’s gear as a joke and will throw it off when he gets bored at any moment. He has silver eyes and honey curls that tumble to his cheekbones.

Lucius is the prettiest Omega in Bael. It was a scandal when he bonded with War, the older, roughest of the military career Alphas.

What the fuckers don’t know is that Lucius is just as dangerous a weapon at court for me, as War is on a battlefield.

He’s a genius.

“He does enjoy being scratched.” The larger woman tightens her arm around the smaller Omega, possessively. “But I don’t share.”

“Keep up.” I stride away from the tent through the bustling camp, which is busy with preparations for the campaign.

There is an excited anticipation in the air.

War manhandles Lucius (in a way that I know he loves), after me down the straight Main Street away from my tent, then through the meticulously planned camp and toward the central Forum. The camp is loud with the sound of marching feet and clanking armor.

Flaming torches on stands line the street.

Soldiers salute as they pass me in neat ranks. I narrow my eyes, inspecting them.

They must be perfect. Nothing must go wrong tonight.

This is the final campaign in the war.

The killing blow.

The fae will never see this ambush coming until it’s too late.

Above me in the starry sky, the largest and fiercest dragons who are most skilled at breathing fire, the Alpha ruby dragons, circle with their Omega riders.

The dragons trail like spilled blood across the milky moon.

“Eavesdropping on your king is treason, you know,” I say without looking around.

“Then execute me,” War replies, gruffly, “but after the battle, yeah? I have some faes to fucking destroy first. If you hurt my Omega, however, then I’ll bite off your wings, cock, and balls and use them as target practice.”

I smirk.

War is feared by both fae and vampires.

There are legends, songs, and cautionary tales written about her. She’s the winged nightmare that parents tell their children about.

She’s on my side, however, and the trick is to make sure that as many of the nightmares are devoted to you and not your enemies.

Finally, I glance over my shoulder. “I’m pretty certain that threatening your King is also treason.”

War is stony faced.

She’s a foot taller than the man who is currently nuzzling her neck, as if he’s sprawled on a bed and not being dragged through an army camp hours before a campaign.

War is muscled beneath gleaming armor, which is custom-made for her in ruby encrusted gold and leathers. Unlike Lucius, it looks like she was born in it.

A scar bisects War’s right eyebrow, and her hazel eyes are fierce.

She pushes her mass of wild ash blond hair out of her face. “Fuck off and die in a fire.”

I laugh.

Lucius pulls away from War with difficulty, sidling to link his arm with mine, as if we’re strolling through sweet smelling gardens at court. “Don’t be annoyed with us, Relius, the thing is that we had this most delightful talk with your uncle earlier.”

I stiffen. “Did you?”

There’s no way that it was delightful . I’m certain that it involved Maximinus putting the fear of the Shadow Gods into my friends about something.

But why?

What is Maximinus planning?

A cold ball of dread forms in my stomach. My hands are sweating.

“A private one.” Lucius tosses his hair like we’re talking about nothing important, one of his many Omega tricks, which makes him such a successful courtier.

“Which is why you’re telling me .”

“Exactly.”

My gaze softens.

Lucius isn’t from the Guild of Spies. Yet he’s my oldest and loyalist friend. He risks his life to pass on everything that he hears.

“It’s about a certain kitten that you want as a pet,” Lucius says, quietly.

War marches to stand at my shoulder. “He ordered me to kill him.”

I stop in the middle of the street, as the soldiers continue to flow with the heavy march of feet either side of me, and orders ring through the night air.

All I can hear, however, is the pulse throbbing in my ears .

“I can’t allow that,” I whisper.

War and Lucius flank me, until we’re standing in a circle. They’re shielding my words, hiding them as so much is hidden beneath the surface of the Draca Kingdom.

“Why?” War raises her scarred eyebrow. “The feathered scoundrel basically has been begging you to for years. Fuck, he’s been begging this kingdom to for decades.”

“Your eyes are doing that thing ,” Lucius warns, stroking his hand up and down my arm at the same time that he puts out soothing pheromones into the air. “The glowing golden thing, and I rather like my pretty curly head attached to my even prettier neck.”

“And so do I,” War growls. “Keep it the fuck together, Relius.”

I shudder. My muscles tremble. I bite the inside of my cheek, forcing back the wings that are itching to burst from my back.

Destroy , Hadrian’s Dagger whispers, sibilant and seductive, blood and beautiful shadowed death.

Let. Me. Out.

“No,” I say, louder than I mean to.

Several soldiers nearby stumble in shock, turning to look at me, as if I’m reprimanding them.

My cheeks flush.

The soldiers hurriedly march on, when War turns her death glare on them.

Then Lucius and War huddle closer around me .

Lucius eyes me carefully. “Better now? Your eyes look…?”

I take a deep breath, playing with my dragon ring to help take control of myself. “Am I myself again?”

“Sometimes it frightens me that you need to ask us that question,” Lucius replies. “But yes.”

My chest tightens. “I don’t want to frighten you.”

“You don’t.” Lucius’ eyes are deep with a compassion that I know is never reflected in my own. How can he look at a wicked beast like that? “I said that the question frightens me. You’re the one person beside my Alpha who has never made me feel anything but safe.”

War strokes one of Lucius’ curls behind his ear in a tender gesture, of which her legionnaires would never believe her capable. “You’re his hero, fucker. Can’t you tell?”

“He’s my King .” Lucius flushes. “And one who I don’t want to die because he’s trying to protect a fae.”