Queen of Dragons - Shana Abe

She caught his scent now too, night and wine and musky perspiration. A faint tinge of saffron. Ah. Of course the earl would find her. Of course he would.

He let out a breath, and with it—everything changed. His expression turned sharper, more wolfish; he shifted instantly from one kind of predator to another.

With the sudden impression of sinking into a hot, murky lake, Maricara began to understand the depth of her folly. They stared at each other with the heat and the tension aching between them, his musk and her surprise and the moonlight burning white fire across her shoulders.

The earl's gaze flicked up and down her body, just once, but it was beast bright, enough to sear her to the bone.

Zane's warning of so long ago had been in vain after all. Too late. Only a fool would have ventured here.

CHAPTER FIVE

It was interesting to note that in all his years of superior education and well-financed travel, in his time spent at Eton and Cambridge and London, all those carefully shaped lessons in society and etiquette both human and drakon, not once had anyone ever mentioned to Kimber what to do when confronted with a nude, unexpected princess in his music chamber.

Nude.. .and gorgeous. Undeniably gorgeous.

"I beg your pardon," Kim said, also in French. "Would you care to sit down?" Her eyes narrowed. "I would care to have you explain these."

He did not glance again at the rings she'd tossed between them; he didn't even follow the flash of her arm as she gestured at them. He didn't quite dare lower his gaze below her chin. Not again. Instead, he studied her face.

He knew her age, but she appeared younger than that; it might have been the moonlight smoothing her skin, or the long, shining fall of her hair that—thank heavens—managed to conceal most of her body. She looked familiar and yet not; a drakon and not; he was accustomed to females of flaxen locks, or ginger, or gilt. Only a very few of the tribe had such dark hair, and no one at all had eyes like that, strange and clear and haunting.

Alpha, whispered the dragon in him, still rising. Every nerve ending in his body felt it, the strength of her Gifts, her subtle, feminine perfume. She was Alpha, just like him. She'd been naught but smoke minutes past, and he could feel that as well, the force of her Turn—that smoldering, pleasurable sting of gunpowder. It flooded his senses; he felt nearly dizzy with it.

Even his sisters weren't so Gifted. Perhaps not even Rue.

Mother of God, once the council realized she was here—

"Your men are dead," the princess said, when he only stood there staring.

"Yes," Kimber said slowly. "I see."

"I did not kill them."

"I didn't say you did. Excuse me, please, I think perhaps I'll take a seat, if you won't."

He found the peach-blossom Hepplewhite chair, the one he always sat in because it was closest to the door. The stuffed satin felt cool against his back, stiff and uncomfortably real. He made a conscious effort to keep his hands on his thighs, his posture relaxed. Princess Maricara watched him without moving.

"You seem quite at ease with my news." Her head tilted; she studied him without expression. "You sent two men to me, Lord Kimber. I've come to tell you they died brutal deaths, deaths I would not tolerate for even the lowest of creatures."

"Three," Kim said. "What?"

"I sent three men to find you," he answered softly.

"Oh." That reached her, at least a little. Her brows knit; she lowered her chin and returned to the pianoforte, slipping easily back into shadow. "Why?"

"Why did I send them to you?"

"Yes."

He felt his lips curve, nothing close to humor. "We're family. Families should be intimate. It generates.trust."

"Dispatching spies to my home against my expressed wishes is hardly an act of trust, Lord Chasen."

"Ah, but we drakon are an altogether different sort of family. Don't you agree?"

She laid her hand flat atop the pianoforte, not answering. His vision was better adjusted now; he could see her very well even in the gloom, the line of her back beneath her hair, the slope of her buttocks. The rise and fall of her chest.

"The strong devour the weak," she murmured, and lifted her head. "That's what my husband used to tell me. Is that the sort of family you are, as well?"

"No. We're not wolves. We protect the weak."

"I am not weak. And I don't require your protection."

Now his smile came more wry. "Clearly not. You've evaded an entire contingent of my best guards. I rather think I might need protection from you."

She stared at her spread fingers against the wood, then shook her head. "You've no idea."

He let that settle between them, trying not to betray himself: not to breathe too deeply, or move too quickly. Not to follow his instincts and act to bind her here and now. Instead, Kimber said, "Tell me who was killed."

"I didn't discover their names. There were no documents on the bodies. They had nothing but the clothing on their backs, and those." She motioned again to the rings. "It was enough to lead me here."

"And where is your escort?" he asked, very mild. "Do they wait in the woods?"

She let out a sound, a small huff of air that could have been either amusement or offense. "Do you truly imagine I would tell you?"

"I'm not your enemy, Your Grace."

"No?"

"Nor were my men." "I told you—"

"You didn't kill them. I know. But as of this moment, I have only your word that they're even dead. Summon your escort here. Have them enter my home in peace, no weapons, and we'll discuss the matter further. No one need get hurt."

Her face turned to his. Against the pianoforte she was a sylph, a frozen ghost. She gave him a long, measuring look with eyes of frost that seemed to strip every secret from his soul.

"I've made a mistake," the princess said at last. "I see that."

Kimber gripped his hands to the arms of the chair. "Let me get you a room. And—perhaps some clothing—"

"No, thank you."

He could have stopped her. He was reasonably sure he could have. She was smaller than he, by nature less strong, even if she was a leader among her kind. But instead he remained as he was, holding her gaze, silently willing her to show him the proof of what he already knew, what the dragon in him recognized and roared through his blood.

She smelled of youth, and power, and heated woman. It was all he could do to remain in the chair.

"Maricara," he said. "If you go now, you know I'll simply have to fetch you back. Surely we could spend our time together in more productive ways than that."

It was a provocation, a deliberate one, and she rose to it with merely a disdainful lift of one finely arched brow.

"I didn't grant you leave to call me by my given name," she said, and Turned, flowing like water out the open window, dissolving at once into the night.

His fingers cracked the wood of both arms.

It was true. Lia's letter, the drakon of the Carpathians, all of it. True.

Kimber released the ruined chair, one finger at a time, then glanced back at the pair of rings on the floor, small gleams in the weakening light. He scooped them both into a palm.

Two of his men were dead, two at least. There was simply no other way they would have surrendered the rings. The signets were given to young men of the shire upon their completion of their first Turn, a mark of pride and maturity, of union with the tribe. In their own way they were considered sacred. Some men even used them as wedding rings; widows would wear them on chains.

The three drakon he had sent in search of Zaharen Yce, in search of the princess, were more than just trusted comrades, more than just friends. They were his kin. And they would have died with these rings still on their hands.

The irony of it was not lost upon him: that in their deaths, they had delivered him his bride.

A dim flare of gold encircled his finger, his own signet, masculine and heavy but exactly the same as the other two in his palm.

Kimber shut his eyes. He felt the warm weight of the metal in his hand, its muted song, and closed his fingers hard around it.

It was time to rouse the manor house.

That morning, in the short, shadowed hours that lingered just before sunrise, in the darkest depths of the sky—a nexus so deep even the stars had abandoned it—a black dragon flew, twisting, writhing, a streamer of frenzied grace.

And when the members of the tribe saw her, when they launched in pursuit, she vanished, black on black. They were left chasing only the dawn.

The windows to the council's quarters were normally kept sealed. The room faced north and was darker than most within the mansion; the candles in the chandelier burning above them managed to banish the shadows from the corners. But council meetings were formal affairs, with wigs, and cravats, and full coats. It was cursed hot.

The tradition of secrecy weighed heavy against Kim's craving for unstifled air. After forty interminable minutes of suffering, he abandoned his chair and opened every casement. None of the others protested. They were all tired of sweating.

Besides, very little of what would happen next would remain secret for long. The council knew of the princess, the village knew of her. Half the population of the shire had witnessed her flight early this morning. Everyone expected action.

It was difficult in the harsh light of noon to recall her in the night, to summon the image of her face and form. He remembered that she was beautiful; he remembered being unable to breathe with her beauty. But caught first in his memory were brighter, less typical impressions: how her skin glowed in the moonlight. How her hair divided around her shoulders. The smoky-sweet timbre of her voice. Her scent, a perfume of flowers and gunpowder and summer heat.

Kim slouched back in his chair, tapping his fingers idly against one thigh. He listened with half an ear to the meeting as he stared out the nearest window, immersed in his memories. The colors of the day were sun-washed, bleached pale.but what he saw was a slender dragon dyed midnight, with silver eyes and delicate wings, reaching for the infinity of the cosmos with a high and reckless abandon.

His people were so contained in flight. Even hunting, even soaring for joy, there was discipline in every motion, bridled deliberation. Watching Maricara fly had been like watching a kite cut loose from its tether. He'd never truly realized how controlled they all were, until he'd caught sight of her.

She flew utterly without fear. She flew with something almost like—desperation. He'd never seen anything so fascinating in his life.

Perhaps it had only been a taunt. He couldn't imagine why else she'd take to the skies after their meeting. She had to have known he'd have every man in the shire combing heaven and earth for her.

"...could not be more than twenty, thirty men," one of the council was saying. "Because where would they be? Obviously they're nowhere near Darkfrith. We would have felt so many. We would have felt even one if they were hiding so close to the shire."