Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

This was London. She was sure it had to be although she never had a glimpse of it. She had been taken there in a carriage, pulled by horses that groaned and huffed every time she shifted against the squabs.

Her mouth had been gagged, her hands fixed at the small of her back with actual chains. Men had sat with her in the carriage, four men, their heartbeats fast and uneven. Three of them smelled like peasants, like raw onions and the fetor of unwashed bodies; they needed to bathe, and that was before the carriage even breached the outskirts of the city, when an entirely new layer of stink filled the air.

In all the hours of travel, those three never uttered a word. It was the fourth man who spoke to her, a whisper in her ear after they'd snatched her in the hut and jammed the hood over her head, and they'd pressed the blade of a knife into her throat until she'd felt the warmth of her own blood.

The man had knelt to where she lay in the dirt, put his lips to the hood, and murmured in French, "Do not resist. Do not speak."

And she had not. He was the one with the terrible music; he was the reason she lay here now in some unknown location—not a hut or even a cottage, because the scents were far more sophisticated than that. A place of narrow halls and many rooms.. .coals gone to ash and lukewarm brandy, faded opium and whale oil and cleaning chemicals laden with cologne. She had no shoes; as she'd walked to this chamber her feet met a series of carpets laid over a cool stone floor. She sensed no change in heat or light through the dyed hood, no resonance of glass against any slight sound; if this place had windows, they were probably bricked over.

London. Beyond the walls and corridors lifted the cries of street vendors hawking fish and sweet cherries and tea. More carriages rattled past, more than she could count, with dogs yelping and children begging, and the nearest clear conversation she could make out was between two men discussing trade winds and ivory and hemp. By slowing her breath and relaxing her hands she was able to focus enough to even hear the tiny, continuous slap of water striking rock walls and a shore, a great deal of water, and that had to be the Thames. She'd read of it in books, the mighty river of commerce, the merchant heart of England. Never, never once had she thought to be so desperate—

Never once had she thought to venture this close herself.

Her own heart was pumping far too fast. She obeyed the fourth man's commands; she could not speak if she wanted, and resistance truly seemed out of the question. At least right now.

Sanf inimicus. Fear and wrath settled into a queasy, cold knot in her stomach. If she had the chance to eat any of their hearts, she would.

Fourth Man had wrapped a blanket around her after the hood, fastened it with tin pins in some way so that it did not slip from her body. The material was coarse wool, cheap, like the other men. But it wasn't nearly as awful as the hood, which had gone damp with her breath and now adhered to her entire lower face, suffocating. It was black and tied under her chin. No doubt it was just the same as the one they had on Rhys.

Rhys. She'd been hauled from the shepherd's hut while he was still inside; she didn't know what happened to him. He was nowhere nearby now.

Perhaps they'd killed him. But she'd never smelled more than just a trickle of blood.

The sanf led her to this room, to what felt like a bed. Fourth Man helped her to sit upon its edge; the blanket rode up and began to separate along her lap. He tugged it back in place impatiently, tucking the folds of it hard beneath her legs.

There was metal on his hand, a ring. As his fingers grabbed the wool it must have turned against his knuckle, because she felt the brush of a diamond against her knee—not just any diamond.

This one burned her. It hurt—not terribly, because the stone was small—a deep angry prickle that set her nerve endings alight. A wave of intense dizziness rolled up to peak inside her head, black and blue fireflies exploding behind her closed lids.

It felt marvelous. It felt agonizing.

She knew that stone. And she knew now with complete, appalled certainty, who was leading those other three men of the sanf.

The Alpha went alone to the roof of Chasen. He went to the same place he had found her before, seated with her knees drawn up, her back against the majestic blue-water glass curve of the Adam dome. He knelt and placed his palm upon the layered slate at its base.

She was still there, traces of her. She rose up and surrounded him in soft welcome, phantom girl, sinking into his cells, linking, whole. His wife.

He did not shut his eyes. He lifted them to the edge of the shaped tiles, past the chimneys and carved limestone gutters, to the sight of the woods poking up, stiff-fingered, into the deep bowl of the sky.

Inhale. Exhale.

He knew her now. He knew who she was, and how she was. Fragility; wit; reckless valor. He knew the hue of her eyes by moonlight and by sun. He knew the softness of her skin, the shape of her breasts and belly. He knew how she felt inside, the vivid pleasure of her sex, and all these things united, became a key to the lock of the mystery of her vanishing.

He could find her. He could find her through the fires of Hell.

The diffusion of Maricara began to pulse, to become more than scent and memories, transforming into energy. Into color.

He'd experienced this before, only a very few times, times when the hunt for a runner had been so dire he'd lost the feeling of being human entirely. He was drakon now. All that, and only that; it was everything he needed. He knelt in a pool of gold and orange and violet that opened around him like a flower, slowly gathering streamers of light, the last living colors of the female he claimed as his mate. When he turned his head he saw her path with dragon eyes, a vanishing bright line headed south, glimmering and wavering like the aftermath of a sparkler on a dark Bonfire Night. He stared at it until his vision blurred, until he was absolutely certain.

Distant gunpowder rose on the wind. He felt her, small and rash and strong, and came to his feet.

The Alpha Turned into a dragon, pushing off the roof of his home, dislodging a flurry of slate that skipped and toppled and shattered into pieces against the earth below.

For the first time in a very, very long while, Maricara was aware that she was dreaming. It wasn't a nightmare, not yet; she wasn't flying toward anything in particular, or even away. In fact, she wasn't flying at all. She was walking through cool, shadowed hallways, places she'd never seen before, but at the same time she knew them, and knew them well. It wasn't her castle, it wasn't Chasen.

Voices whispered but she did not understand them; they drew her forward, deeper into that stonework maze of light and dark.

When she looked down, she saw her body garbed in a gown of cobalt, adorned with ribbons and gems and all manner of pretty human things. When she looked aside she saw her reflection in windows of chambers she did not enter: a dragon sleekly pacing, black-scaled, silver-star eyes.

She reached a convergence in the corridors and realized suddenly just where she was: at the priory in the English countryside. If she went left, she'd return to the ruins, to the warren of hallways and empty cloisters. If she went right, she'd enter the open-aired loggia, where, past the pillars, sun and comets and galaxies all glowed against a deep red sky.

A dragon flew against that strangely beautiful horizon. Lonely and distant, soaring, dipping. He was blue and scarlet and feral green eyes and he saw her, she knew. She walked up to the stone railing and pressed against one of the columns, watching him, how he danced and twisted and came no closer. Comets spilled from his wingtips. Galaxies spun in his wake.

He was leaving. He grew smaller, and turned his face away.

An unexpected anguish lanced her heart.

Wait. I love you.

She didn't know if those were his words or her own, but she knew that they were true. She lifted a hand to the creature in the sky, willing him closer, almost weeping for the lack of his touch.

I do love you, oh God, I do. Come back to me.

But he vanished without ever glancing at her again.

She awoke to the fact of tears on her cheeks and her hands and feet chained to the posts of the bed. The chains were short enough that she could scoot around only a very little. Mari pulled at them and felt the low, protesting moan of iron against iron, but nothing gave. When she yanked very hard the bed didn't even tremble. It had to be bolted somehow to the floor.

She stopped, sucking air past the gag, and began once more to assess her situation.

It was a prison of contradictions. The duvet was without question velvet, and a pile of furs folded at her feet felt like sable or mink. The air carried only those same odd scents of food spices and river water and bleach-based cleaners; she caught nothing of decay or effluent nearby. The worst smell still was the leftover stench of the peasants.

And the Thames. That smelled too.

But the bed would not move, and the chains would not give. She'd already rubbed her cheeks raw against the covers, trying to get the hood off. They must have used a cord of steel to secure it, closed hard around her neck.

Despite the voices in her dream, no one spoke in this place. They were more canny than that. She'd heard them walking about sometimes, crisscrossing the floors above, but that had been hours—hours?—ago. Now the rooms remained silent, so Maricara did the same, flat on her back on the very plush mattress, awaiting the return of the man with the tiny stinging diamond that burned her to the bone.

With Draumr.

She did not know what would come next: rape or death, her heart ripped out with her mouth still bound and eyes still covered.

If they didn't remove the hood before it was done, her very last sight in the world would have been of the wrong brother.

She tried to slow the panic in her blood. She thought fiercely of Kimber and saw that distant dragon instead, tilting away from her with wings of scarlet and gilt.

"We should kill them now," muttered the bearded Romanian. "We never thought to have two of them at once. Especially not her. "

He spat the last word with a great deal of disdain that was, Zane thought, meant to belay the fear Graytooth actually felt in the presence of Her Royal Grace the Princess Maricara. Had they still been anywhere near the building where she was being held, Zane had the notion Graytooth would fail to drip nearly so much scorn.

But the four of them were well over a mile away from the place they had secured her. Even so, they spoke in whispers, and everyone was careful not to use either Her Grace's or Lord Rhys's real names. One never knew who might be listening.

In point of fact, Graytooth was not the Romanian's real name either. His real name was Basarab, a convergence of syllables Zane found both slightly sinister and unnecessarily foreign to pronounce. Graytooth conveyed a certain elegance of imagery. It was also, not coincidentally, rather accurate.

England could claim a great many injustices in its treatment of the poor, but there was plenty of nutrition available for those with nerve enough to step up and snatch it. Yet in all these years of travel, he'd found that the diet of the Carpathian Mountains tended to consist of brown bread and cabbage and potatoes no matter where he went. No wonder these fellows looked so wan.

Zane was a man who enjoyed the more exquisite aspects of life. At this moment, that consisted of the cup of African coffee steaming fragrant in his left hand, and the lemon cream eclairs arranged neatly upon the plate near his right. He stretched out his legs and allowed himself the brief luxury of imagining that very first bite. The instant rush of sweetness on his tongue; the tart concurrence of lemon zest, silky filling and lightly fried dough—

It didn't seem so long ago he'd been one of the many starving urchins crowding London's streets, and sugar remained his weakness. He could walk away from platters of ham and beefsteak and marrow puddings; his body was one of his best weapons, and Zane kept it as fit as a wire. But sweets...

The eclairs were from a bakery set like a jewel in the exclusive heart of Mayfair, made by the very best French pastry cook the city had to offer. They had been delivered to this extremely innocuous and unremarkable safe house in Clerkenwell by means of a livery boy who'd accepted the five shillings Zane had tipped him and left without squeaking a word.

The boy was one of his own, of course, the son of one of his more prolific cracksmen. He'd never trust anything so important as this address to anyone he didn't control.

The fine fellows of the sanf inimicus had settled into the parlor of the house with hardly a grumble. They'd shunned the bitter strong coffee Zane favored and devoured the pastries until there were only two left.

They were both on Zane's plate.

He picked up his silver fork. With all three men watching him, he used the side of the fork to slice into the eclair, speared it, lifted it with deliberate slowness to his mouth, and closed his lips over the bite.

Magnifique.

He hardly ever ate cream. Too rich, too intoxicating. But he needed to consider carefully his next move and so made certain to chew as slowly as he could.

Not that these men would leave him in any case. He was the magos Englishman, the man who controlled dragon magic, and they had yet to unravel how he'd kept two of the most powerful of the drakon anyone knew in his thrall. But with their prey so obviously in hand, they might begin to wonder a tad about why Zane seemed so loath to make the kill.

He would, in their position.

The ring on his hand was solid gold, a significant weight, the diamond chips in its bed releasing constant slivers of pale blue brilliance. It was not a wedding ring; it had, in fact, taken the place of one, and it had been more difficult than he'd even imagined to remove that ring that had tied him to Lia, to wear this one in its place. This band never left his finger. He'd learned some time ago to sleep with his dirk clutched in that hand.

Not that he'd slept much lately. Bloody drakon.

"If we kill her right away," he murmured at last, "we lose a most valuable asset. She'll be mated by now. The English tribe will be searching for her; she's almost certainly the bride of their Alpha. They will be scattered, their defenses weakened. I've told you how formidable they are as a group, much stronger than the Zaharen you know. The longer we keep her alive, the greater our advantage."

Another difference between Zane and his new comrades was that of language. The very loose affiliation of the sanf inimicus relied upon a complicated patois of provincial French and Hungarian for both written and spoken communications. It was jumbled and confusing and one of their first requirements into the brotherhood. It had taken him nearly eight months to master it, and for him, that was significant.

Zane's French was fuent. So were his German, Italian, and Spanish. So was his Hungarian. And his Romanian.

No one else knew that, of course. He was ruddy good at keeping his mouth shut when he should. He would not make the mistake of underestimating any of them, not even Graytooth.

The sanf were exceedingly particular about whom they accepted into their realm, and their leader downright gave him chills. That was damned well saying something.

"It was a stroke of great fortune," he continued, sipping his coffee, "that she came to us as she did. No one knew she was so near, and we could not have asked for a better capture. Even if she wished to do so, she won't be able to pinpoint the location of the hut, or of Rhys Langford."

It was, in truth, about as much the opposite of good fortune as Zane could imagine. Rhys had been a planned capture, a deliberate calculation that flowed nicely into his hidden scheme of things. Maricara, however—

Trust the princess to scramble the works. She'd always had a way with surprises.

"I don't like it," said one of the other men. Clem, Zane had privately named this one, for the man who had once trained Zane in all the lovely dark arts of thievery—and subsequently did his best to murder him afterward. This Clem had the same guileless blue eyes and bluntness of features as the man from Zane's childhood. He could very easily imagine the bloke sticking a knife between his ribs in a moment of inattention, and Zane had enough scars as it was. Another reason to sleep with his dirk so close.

Clem never took those eyes from Zane's face. "They'll come for her whether she's dead or alive. She's a danger alive. Not so much dead."

"Do you truly imagine they can't tell if she's alive while on the hunt? That they cannot sense her heartbeat, or her breathing?"

"Then all the better—"

"No. We kill her now, they may steer off; there's nothing left to save. But they'll hazard a great deal if they know she's living. I can keep her tame enough until they come. They'll never Turn here in the city. You'll get your chance at them then, man to man. No more stealing about the countryside. No more hiding in taverns or barns. You'll deal a blow to their core like none other, the bride of the Alpha destroyed. When the rest of us arrive, imagine their faces as you show them the dragon hearts."

He could see how that appealed to them, these brawny, devious men. He could see it in the way they exchanged looks, in how they opened and clenched their fingers and shifted in their fine new English clothing.

"Think on it," he said mildly, and lifted his fork for another delicate, lemony bite.

"Good evening, Princess," said the voice. "I'm going to raise this hood enough to release your mouth. Do me the very great favor of not attempting to kill me as I work. I have a knife in my hand, and the edge is very sharp. So kindly hold still."

The thin, eldritch music punctuating his words ensured she did as told, stretched out on the bed, her hands curled into fists. The fresh air on her skin felt cool and wonderful; the diamond on his hand brushed her neck, and that felt like fire.

"It's time we talked," he said in a low rush of Romanian.

Mari licked her dry lips. "Speak English. I hate the sound of my language on your tongue."

Zane began to laugh. "Very well. I suppose I should have anticipated you'd learn English. You were a most precocious child."

"Lift the hood," she said, using her darkest voice. "Let me see your face."

"Alas, not that precocious, I must suppose. Persuasion, is it? One of my favorites. But your Gifts won't work on me, Maricara. You do realize that. And you realize why. Draumr's not quite what it used to be, but with enough of the pieces set together, it still does the trick of controlling unruly drakon, at least for a while. I'll tell you what, pet. I'll lift the hood. You will not Turn. Agreed?"

You will not Turn, echoed the remains of the diamond called Draumr, a spell sinking through her in rolling waves. You will not Turn...

"Yes," she managed, against that slow, dire ricochet of notes.

"Excellent."

The chamber was dim, with no visible outside light. It was done up in dusky, jeweled colors, the walls painted ocher, the furniture all gilded and flowered. Swags of cloth draped in billows from the ceiling down to the floor, tarnished gold and blood-red and purple wine; cheval-glass mirrors gleamed from every corner. An oddly sensible lamp burned atop a bureau, simple oil and brass, its flame so still it looked painted in place.

Above her, directly above, hung another mirror. The covers of the bed reflected deep velvet blue. There was a china doll chained to the bed, wrapped in a blanket. Her face and feet and hands poked out stark white.

"Do you like it?" Zane threw a glance to the mirror above them, amused. "A bit lurid for my tastes, frankly, but I purchased the entire lot from an old friend of mine and never got around to redecorating. Used to be what we'd call in the business une maison de joie—do you know the term, Princess? Yes, I see you do. Anyhow, no windows. Very handy."

He'd changed so little. His face was tanned and a bit more lined, perhaps. A little more drawn. But his hair was the same color, rich tawny brown, and still much too long; it made a braid that fell over his shoulder and across his chest like a bandoleer. His eyes still shone cunning amber.

"It smells," Mari said.

"I beg your pardon, it certainly does not. This is Threadneedle. It's a most respectable part of town, I assure you. Even the rats here are spanking clean."

"Oh. Then no doubt it's merely you."

"Now, that's just unkind. I'll have you know I bathe every day. Nearly every day. Imported soap, too, pressed by the hands of the fairest of South Seas virgins, every one of them infused with tinctures of ginger and hibiscus. Try finding that in Transylvania."

She looked up at her reflection, the breadth of Zane's shoulders, the top of his head. "You're using the stone, what's left of the stone, to control us. You're leading the sanf inimicus straight to us. Do you despise us so much?"

Zane's voice became a soft slur. "The men with me know nothing of the diamond. You will not tell them."

Draumr settled beneath and between his words, binding them in her brain. "Are we clear, Princess?" "Yes." She moistened her lips. "Where is Rhys?"

"Away from where you last saw him, and away from here. He's really not your concern, you know. If I were you, I'd be far more worried about my own skin."

"You didn't kill him?"

His brows lifted in mock affront. "Please. He reminds me far too much of his youngest sister." "What did you do with the girl? With Honor?"

Zane sat back a little, his smile fading. He looked down at his fingers, the dreadful gleam of little diamonds that stirred and murmured and slipped songs into her head. In the depths of the mirror, his braid rippled dark. "Honor," he said more quietly, "is safe. For now, she's safe. How much longer, I really couldn't say." His eyes lifted to hers. "She's with Lia."

Surprise kept her mouth closed. No doubt he read her expression anyway.

"You've seen her already, you know. You won't recall it, but you have. In Harrogate. That was a night, let me tell you. Between you and Chasen popping up like that, over a year's worth of plans were nearly demolished. But Lia found you first. She has her own pieces of Draumr she's been using to disguise herself from your kind. She told me she'd ensured you'd not remember your encounter."

"That was her?" She gave the chains a vicious tug. "Why would she hide from me—from her brother? Why not return to Darkfrith? Has she turned into a traitorous coward, like you?"

"My dear, such youthful venom! Tres charmante. One might say many things about Amalia Langford, but she's no coward. She can't go back to Darkfrith because she swore to me she wouldn't. Ever. I don't care what she or her parents say, I don't trust their council not to enact their alarmingly medieval notion of 'justice' on a female who runs away—especially one with the audacity to wed a human. It didn't go over very well with her, but she needed something from me, something important, and that was the only way I would agree."

"What did she need from you?"

"The protection of her family. Did you truly imagine I would be here for any other reason?" He offered her his crooked smile, a shadow of pain behind it. "Love sends us down peculiar paths be-times. Lia dreams the future, you know. She foresaw all this—the sanf, your travels to Darkfrith. Rhys, poor lovesick bastard. This girl, Honor, who apparently has a very interesting path of her own ahead of her—believe me, I'd rather be just about anywhere else in the world right now, Your Grace. But Amalia sent me here. So here I am."

She gaped at him. "You joined the sanf inimicus to help the drakon?"

"Ironic, wouldn't you say?"

"You're a spy!"

He looked pained. "What a loud voice you have."

"Why did you—"

"As much as I'd love to delve into all the details of my admittedly fascinating life, I'm afraid there's not that much time. The people with me speak only a rudimentary English, if that, but they learn quickly. I'd rather."

But he didn't finish the sentence; instead he sat back, his fine mouth tightening. From the shadows of the doorway stepped a new man, and then another, and another. Watching, alert. They were dressed better than she'd supposed they would be, not as peasants but as common Englishmen, with ordinary hats and coats and extraordinary, hungry faces. One was young and two were older, and all three stared at her spread-eagled on the bed as if she were that white-eyed ox tied to the tree. A creature moments from being devoured.

The bearded one said something in a language she'd never heard before; Zane responded from over his shoulder, brusque.

The Others inched closer.

Zane glanced back down at her. "They want to hurt you," he whispered, framed in velvet and gold. "You know that."

"Yes."

"I'll stop them as long as I can."

She felt her throat close and set her teeth against it. She made herself smile at him, made her voice flat, calm.

"Why don't you kill them instead?"

"Because, Princess," Zane said, "sometimes sacrifices have to be made. And as you've thoroughly mucked up my plans, this is the best I can manage at the moment. I'm sorry."

"That's quite all right. Kimber's here now, anyway." Mari looked him up and down through her lashes, holding her smile, then added softly, "You should run."