Page 19 of The Forbidden Dragon King (Shadow Kings #1)
“I’ve never been the Alpha damsel before. This is fun.” Daire sprawls onto his back, watching me. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to find the door.”
“There isn’t one. It’s sealed by magic.”
“Fuck.” I slump against the bars.
What am I going to do?
“I wouldn’t run anyway.” Daire cards his fingers through his curls.
“I made a deal with that bloody tyrant Aurelius to save the lives of my remaining army. I had to make sure that they were kept alive and allowed to work as free mercenaries, rather than pets. My soldiers are like brothers and sisters to me. I would have taken any deal for them.”
My heart sinks.
I clasp the bars hard enough for my knuckles to turn white.
I can’t run now either. My plan is fucked. I will be killed if I return to Fang Kingdom. I was meant to be finding refuge in the Unseelie Kingdom. But Aurelius conquered them.
Now, Daire is here, real and not dreamed.
We’re pets and equals, rather than king and subject.
Daire is hurting and alone. Except, as two parts of the same soul, we’ve found each other in the midst of an enemy camp.
What will Aurelius do to us both, when he sees the snowflake bond mark?
My throat is dry.
Yet my soul is bound to Daire’s willingly. I have been abandoned enough times by other people. I won’t do it to him, no matter if it means facing the terrifying Shadow Dragon capital together.
“What deal?” I ask.
“To serve Aurelius.” Daire looks up at me with a sly grin.
I tilt my head.
I came here to make a deal, what if I just change the terms…?
“That deal,” I smirk, “how about if you also serve me? ”
Daire’s grin widens, becoming seductive.
He pushes himself onto his knees in front of me; it’s the least submissive thing that I have seen. “Deal accepted. And I would serve between your pretty thighs, love, any time. I don’t need a deal for that. I would serve you right now if you were in this cage.”
I blush.
I never dreamed that I would see an ex-fae king on his knees before me, offering to tongue me.
Daire winks, before pushing himself to his feet with a wince. “We’re in this together from now on, my Omega. Perhaps, I can protect you after all. I’ll die trying.”
“We’ll live to protect each other,” I correct him.
All of a sudden, he moves lightning fast to face me on the other side of the bars, close enough to the iron that my breath stutters in fear. He likes to take the same risks that I do.
We’re perfectly matched.
“Friends,” he says, “soulmates, and conspirators.”
I quirk my brow. “Conspirators?”
“We’ll be two pets looking out for each other on the journey back to Bael and then the bloody humiliating parade. Once in the Shadow Court, we can pass on the whispers and secrets that we hear. Even if the idiots separate us, we can look after each other’s arses.”
“Aurelius will hate that.”
Daire smiles with a flash of canines. “I love the plan even more.”
“You hate him, huh?”
“I didn’t,” Daire replies, softly. “I was desperate to but I can feel that fate connects us. I admire his courage. I wished that he would notice…respect… see me. What the bloody hell am I saying? None of that matters. He doesn’t. I’m a bloody joke to him.”
“Is it more than what I felt in the memories? More than him defeating you in war?”
It’s hard.
I feel something for Aurelius.
I can’t help it, when I can still smell his smoke and leather scent on my dress. It has meant comfort for days in my nest.
A nest that he built for me.
No one has treated me as well as Aurelius has: The way that he not only accepts but enjoys how much I challenge him.
The spark, every time that we’re in a room together.
How I can make him give that genuine smile.
Yet I don’t trust him.
Daire’s expression darkens; he looks wild and primal.
“These Dracarians would degrade us and call us animals: The Kitten and the Wolf. Let them. I’ll wear my new name with pride.
They can feel our claws and fangs.” He turns away, stalking to the shadows at the back of the cage.
His shoulders hunch, and I can only see the wall of his feathered wings.
“ More ?” He whispers. “There needs to be more than all of that as a reason to hate him?”
In the silence, I can feel the swirl of his rage and sorrow through the bond.
Startled, I rattle the bars. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean?— ”
“His family murdered my family, friends, my entire Court . Do you have any idea what that would feel like?”
“Yes,” I reply, sharply, “I do. The vampires killed mine.”
“You’re the orphan survivor of the Orm Massacre?
” He asks, surprised. “Then you should understand. What if you had one chance to take revenge for your family, but another king stole that from you? It wasn’t Aurelius who betrayed and then razed the Winter Court in front of my eyes when I was still a kid.
It was Maximinus, along with King Tarquin. ”
I startle. “Aurelius’ brother? But he’s…”
“Good? Venerated? Aye, I hear the stories. They’re lies.”
I remember Aurelius kneeling in front of his brother’s shrine.
I don’t know what to believe.
“What happened?” I ask, tentatively.
Daire’s wings tremble, but his back straightens.
He still doesn’t look around, as if he can’t face me and talk about this.
Has he ever been able to talk about this before?
“Maximinus is a sorcerer. He was born with powers unlike any within the Draca Kingdom,” Daire says so quietly that I have to strain to hear him.
“One of his strongest innate powers is to control and manipulate metals. It’s what makes him hold such power in the Shadow Court over everyone, even King Aurelius.
It’s also how he poisoned the fae lands with iron, slowly weakening the magic of the land and the Winter Court.
People grew ill with an incurable pandemic, as if cursed iron had entered their bloodstream.
From being young, all I remember is unnatural illness, weeping, and death.
When Tarquin betrayed our alliance and led his oh so bloody glorious campaign against our court, everybody was too weak to defend themselves.
There was no First Fae War. It was a decimation.
A genocide. They didn’t intend to leave anyone alive.
I fought but I was only a kid, and I saw my da, followed by my ma, then… everybody…burned to bloody ash.”
A tear trails down my cheek and then another. “How did you escape?”
“Did I? The Winter Court was melted like snow, until nothing was left in the morning light, and it often feels like I vanished with it.” He hesitates.
“Ma screamed at me to save the kids and babes . It was the last thing she ever said to me. So, I did. I led them out of a secret tunnel, and somehow, we managed to survive together, meeting up over the years with other survivors. Then I trained them up into soldiers. Bandits , shifters call us. I marched onto my first battlefield, however, when I was thirteen and killed hundreds in the name of trying to win peace back for those kids.”
“But it didn’t work.”
“Nay, it only brought on a decade of bloody war. And now, loss, conquest, and…” Daire gestures at the bars. “Aurelius doesn’t believe — or won’t — anything bad about the brother who raised and protected him.”
My brow furrows. “What did he need protecting from?”
“ Who . And that’s not my tale to tell. If you see me kneeling and obeying my enemies, however, please don’t despise me .
I’m your Alpha. It doesn’t make me less of one to save the lives of those kids, who I once rescued from the Winter Court and are now captured soldiers here in the camp.
I’d kneel in front of Aurelius a thousand times for their sake or yours.
Being a king should never be about possessing power because power is a gift.
So, giving it up for the sake of my people isn’t shameful. ”
He twirls around to face me.
I expect his cheeks to be as wet as mine are but am shocked that not only are they dry but his eyes are like frozen lakes.
“Aurelius thinks that he has won, just like his brother did.” Daire’s lips twist into a deadly smile.
“Dragons only care about conquering lands and possessing people like they are treasure. Maximinus wants to own and break us. Aurelius believes that he can use us like pawns in this game of Shadow Kingdoms. Isn’t it time that kids of death and suffering like us win?
How about instead of being used as pawns, we secretly manipulate and control the board instead? ”