The Passionate Queen Page 18

  Those statements could not be said of Midas, who every three seconds interrupted our talks by commenting on something or other that happened to him a long time ago that was either clever, witty, or heroic. Or so he thought.

  “Oh, did I happen to mention the time I stumbled upon a pile of basilisk—”

  “Jewels!” Jonas snapped, tearing a hunk of bread in half. “Yes. So you’ve said, about twenty times already.”

  Midas smiled. It wasn’t really a smile though, more of a lip pull that showed his teeth. I imagined if he were a dog, his fur would be ruffled and he’d be growling by now.

  Speaking of growling...

  I looked around for Ragoth; halfway through the picnic he’d gotten up and wandered off. And I hated to admit it bothered me, but it bothered me.

  I picked at the cheese wedge on my plate. I’d eaten very little. I wasn’t good at making idle chatter with many. I preferred to speak with one or two people at most; it was easier that way. Being forced to entertain three at once was making me feel emotionally drained and exhausted.

  All I wanted was to go back to the safety of my castle. But then I thought of being trapped in my room, and that wasn’t at all what I wanted either.

  The truth was I wanted to speak with Ragoth again. I wanted to catch up on our past. I knew about him.

  A little.

  I knew of his paramours, and the places he’d visited. Trips to Olympus and such, and there’d been rumor of his having fought off a Cyclops who’d come through the gardens with the intention of hieing off with Zeus’s royal fleece.

  “Do you agree, my queen?” Midas asked with a heavy drawl.

  “Wha—” I jerked, pulled from my thoughts as I realized I’d drifted off again. Icarus nodded back at me, his eyes gentle and making me feel a little less discombobulated. I had no idea what they’d been talking about. I clutched at my stomach, curling my fingers through the fabric. Forcing out a pinched smile, I nodded. “Yes...yes, I suppose.”

  Gods, what was I saying yes to?

  “See, I told you.” Midas shrugged indolently. “As I said, Jonas, gold is far superior than jewels.”

  Good gods, did the man never think of anything other than money?

  Ic snorted, tossing a broken shard of twig down by his booted foot.

  I looked back into the woods. Why hadn’t he returned already? Surely he’d been gone an hour, if not longer.

  Had he changed his mind about me? About us?

  The thought made what little food I had eaten turn sour in my stomach.

  “Would you like me to go get him for you?” Icarus leaned in, asking softly into my ear.

  I sighed, hating to be so transparent, and fluttered my fingers across my breeches. This was utterly ridiculous. I was surrounded by beautiful men, one of whom didn’t actually make me want to drive a rusty stake through my heart (like that fool Midas did), and I simply couldn’t focus.

  Giving him a wimpy smile, I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I just hope he doesn’t get lost.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine. He is a dragon after all.”

  “You have a point.”

  The warm glide of strong fingers upon the back of my hand caused me to glance down. Icarus was touching me. He hadn’t made much of a move on me before now.

  I lifted a brow in question. Points to him for not snatching his hand away as though he’d been caught doing something wicked.

  “Queen Zelena—”

  He did have a nice voice, deep and full of a throaty timbre. With the way the setting sun cast its golden rays around him, he made me think of something regal and heroic. The peculiar thing about him was that in no way did I find any part of him to be artifice.

  As impossible as it was to believe, and as jaded as I’d become, I really did suspect that Icarus was one of a rare few truly good men.

  I could be content with him.

  “—how do you and the dragonborne know each other? I suspect you met long before this tourney.”

  From the corner of my eye I could visibly see Midas perk to attention. Jonas, however, was lost in his own world; he’d called a rabbit mouse to him—a cute, furry, teeny tiny little thing with the most enormous ears—and was currently whispering sweet nothings in its ear.

  Jonas was pretty enough, but there simply wasn’t much up there. Which I suppose was exactly what I’d asked for; little had I known, though, just how taxing it was to deal with someone so vacant between the ears.

  I sighed. “Well, I suppose it’s impossible to deny our history at this point—”

  The next thing I knew I heard a piercing shriek erupt through the forest. The sound was very distinctly feminine and hurt so bad to hear that all I could do was clamp my hands to my ears and groan in despair.

  The men surrounding me however were not writhing in agony so much as in ecstasy. The stood to their feet, every last one of them with dazed, expressionless looks in their eyes as they marched in drone-like procession to the source of that sound.

  “Stop!” I screamed, heart pounding and pulse racing with anxiety and nerves as a sudden horrific image of something terrible happening to Ragoth pierced through me. “Don’t go that way! What are you doing?”

  A very large, very ancient tree with a massive base was suddenly cracked in two as a dragon’s body sliced through the center of it with sheer brute force. Ragoth’s aquamarine eyes were on me hot and heavy, and I could read the fear inside of them.

  I was now curled on my side, trying desperately to cram pine needles, the edges of my shirt, even dirt into my ears to stop the bleeding pain that rolled wave after wave after wave through me.

  He never said a word as he scooped me up in his massive claw and with a powerful beat of his wings took to the sky. The moment I could no longer hear that hideous song, the pain stopped and I could breathe again.

  I trembled as I clung to him, burying my face inside the cage of his fist.

  Projecting telepathically to me, he asked, Are you hurt?

  Swallowing hard, and with ears still buzzing painfully, I shook my head. “It’s getting better. What was that?”

  A siren, he snapped. I’m going to set you down in a safe spot, then I’ll fly back and get the rest of them out of there.

  Seconds later, Ragoth gently deposited me on the flat surface of a dormant troll mountain.

  “No, I’m coming with you. Those are my people, and I am their queen!” My nerves were strung tight, and the last thing in the world I wanted to do now was have Ragoth leave me again.

  No. He shook his massive head.

  And even through my fear, I was wonder struck by the sheer mass and deadly grace of his dragon form. Such a powerful, deadly creature, he could strike me dead if he so wished, but he’d never laid a hand against me. I should fear him, but I didn’t. I never had.

  The siren is of my world; I can guard myself against her powers. But you are without your powers.

  I curled my hand to my chest. How had he known that?

  The best thing, the only thing you can do now is stay here and stay safe. Zelena, stay safe. Do you hear me?

  The mental blast of his worry and fears had me sucking in a sharp breath.

  “I am their queen, Ragoth; I cannot just abandon them. Magic or no, I must—”

  The only thing in this world that could ever hurt me is losing you. I’ll not hear another word about this. You’re staying.

  “Ragoth, you can’t do that! You can’t simply leave me here, you can’t—”

  He never waited for me to finish. Banding his wings tight to his body, he turned and swooped away from me like a speeding bird of prey.

  My dragon was magnificent as he cut through the trees, gleaming like spun silver and glittering ice, before he disappeared beneath the canopy of trees.

  “You rotten beast!” Cupping my hands around my mouth, I shrieked it at him, but I knew he couldn’t hear me. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have returned.

  Furious, angry that a part of me even knew
he was right, because I could not have remained in that siren’s presence much longer, I turned and stared at the place he’d set me down.

  I was on the small plateau of a very large peak with sheer cliffs on either side so that there was no chance of me crawling down. I was stuck here until he returned.

  The bastard had made sure I could not follow him.

  I was angry; I wanted to punch him in the throat for his high handedness. But I was also terrified. My people were in grave danger, my dragon who I both adored and currently despised was also in peril, and here I sat, powerless to help any of them.

  There was nothing left for me to do but pray to the gods that none of them fell prey to the lethal beauty of one of Kingdom’s most deadly creatures.

  “Please come back to me, my dragon. Come back...”

  ~*~

  Ragoth

  I hated sirens.

  Gorgeous. Deadly. And with a voice that could crack one’s soul.

  She’d formed her mouth into an “o” shape; the high-pitched mournful wail even caused me to fidget this close to her.

  I slammed down into the ground, digging my claws through the soil, and snapped, “Stop now, filth.”

  The rest of the men were held thralled by her demonic enchantments. Teetering just on the water’s edge, their gazes vacant.

  The siren, who also happened to be part gorgon (as she had a writhing mass of metallic-blue snake hair that hissed and snapped their tiny baby fangs at me), smiled, finally ceasing her song.

  But unless she released the men from her thrall, she no longer needed to sing to keep them bespelled.

  “Dragonborne.” Her voice was a sibilant whisper that was both seductive and hypnotic. “How is it that you are here in Kingdom?”

  A pronged tongue quickly hissed from out of her bow-shaped lips. She was a thing of dark beauty.

  Nude from the waist up, with ethereal features that were both exotic and alien in quality, her skin was a shade of pearlescent green, and with each breath she took, the gills on her neck hissed and whooshed wetly open and shut.

  She had the skulls of monkeys dangling from thick braids on either side of her face. Her lambent obsidian tail flicked idly back and forth on the rock she sat on.

  She looked like a dark queen surrounded by a moat of thick, infinite gloom.

  I bristled, snapping my fangs at her. “Turn off your enchantments, witch.”

  Throaty laughter spilled from her lips, and the men raised their feet an inch above the water. If she pulled them under, there was nothing more I could do for them. Water was not my domain. But I had an ace up my sleeve, the only thing a siren like her dreaded more than death itself.

  A curl of steam hissed from my snout, as my intent became deadly clear. “Release. Them.”

  The fire in my belly coiled tightly, ready to be blasted loose. It’d been a while since I’d released my flames, and the need to do it now made my muscles quiver with suppressed desire.

  Jet-black irises widened, and she held out a hand as she shouted, “Keep away from my waters! They are mine by right.”

  She was correct. I was immune to the siren’s charms because of my inherently magical nature. One of the reasons why a dragon was so difficult to entrap was because we nullified the magical natures of most creatures, not the least of which was the siren’s call. But there was another way to be released from her charms. If a man or woman’s heart already belonged to another, they could pull themselves out of the fog of delirium.

  I looked at the three men. I’d bet my last gold coin neither Midas nor Jonas would be able to break off the spell.

  Icarus however...might.

  I shook my head, fluttering my wings in agitation. And I took a step closer, ready to let the flame go. “You vex me, woman.”

  Her wrists and tail fluttered in agitation. “But I am willing to make a trade.”

  These men were nothing to me. In fact, they were less than nothing. They were my rivals. I should let them go. Let the devil have them. Lena would never know.

  But there was a still small voice inside of me that knew this was wrong. Not by the standards of my people. Dragons survived and thrived because we did not involve ourselves in the fights of others. Our wars were fought for power and greed. Not to save the helpless. That was a battle that belonged to other more noble creatures.

  I thought of Lena. Of what she’d think of me when she saw me return without the men. She would know. I wouldn’t have to say anything, and she would know that I’d let them suffer their own fate.

  And I knew she’d never thank me if I did. I’d promised her that I had changed, and I’d meant it. I still meant it.

  Closing my eyes, I rumbled, “What is it that you want?”

  She gleamed prettily, exposing long rows of fangs. The siren was more akin to a sea serpent than a true mermaid.

  “A scale for each male.”

  My nostrils flared. A dragon scale was worth several thousand rubles on the black market, not only because of its indestructible nature, but because of the magical elements it inherently possessed. A scale could grow back, but it was excruciating to lose one.

  A low rumble vibrated through my throat pouch. I could eat her and end this now. But then the men would live on as half-living, half-dead things, devoid of all emotion and thought.

  The only way to counteract the effects of a siren or a gorgon was to return the victim to the very creature that’d bespelled them and get her to willingly release them.

  I glanced at Icarus. He stood to the very left of me, but unlike the other two who were still as stone, the bird fingers twitched.

  That flash of movement told me two things. He was at least marginally aware of what’d happened to him, and, worst of all...his heart was engaged.

  He might not be in love with Lena, but he cared.

  Damn him.

  “Let me try to free them first.”

  She smirked and licked her forked tongue along the cupid’s bow of her lush lips. “And if you can’t?”

  “Then I render payment.”

  Clapping her hands gleefully, she nodded. “Terms accepted. You may proceed, dragon.”

  The lack of animal chatter in the woods made sense now, and I didn’t doubt that part of the reason for why the unicorn had fled as she had could possibly have had something to do with this creature being here.

  Sirens were not known to dwell within such small bodies of water, which had me suspecting there was something more at work here. Aphrodite had urged me to come for Lena; this seemed like just the sort of “heroic” act she’d orchestrate to ensure a match.

  As irritated as that made me, it also gave me hope. If the goddess of love was still in my corner, then regardless of how Icarus felt, he stood very little chance of destroying a future for Lena and I.

  With that thought fixed firmly in place, I roared at the bird, spraying him with a jet of steam not quite hot enough to melt the flesh off his body. The sensory explosion of pain should be enough to snap him from his trance, if his heart was truly engaged elsewhere.

  Icarus roared, dropping to his knees, as he wrapped his now slightly mottled and singed wings around himself. Giant drops of sweat dotted his brow.

  “Dragon,” he grunted.

  And I grinned. I shouldn’t have liked that as much as I had. “Wake up, you fool.”

  Still breathing heavily, the bird glanced up, spotted the gorgon-siren, and quickly darted his gaze back to the ground, his neck stiff and rigid with the pain of burns and the monster’s enchantment.

  “What has been done to me?” he asked with stuttering breath.

  “You’ve been ensorcelled by a siren.”

  “And you burned me to wake me up?” he asked, glowering in my direction. “Somehow I doubt that was absolutely necessary.”

  I shrugged one massive shoulder. “No, it wasn’t. But it was fun,” I said unapologetically. “Can you walk?”

  Grunting, he slowly moved his arms, then his legs began twitching, a
nd soon after his wings ruffled. “I can move a little, but not well.”

  “Good enough. Get up and get behind me.”

  It took Icarus at least ten minutes to do so; his movements were slow and shuffled, each step read like agony through the lines scrawled tightly across his pinched features. I kept my eyes on the siren the entire time, defying her to intercede.

  But true to her word, she merely sat and watched with a ghost of a smile on her lovely face.

  “Seems to me,” she said slowly, “that you’ve quite changed, Ragoth Nur of the House of Drakon.”

  My nostrils flared. “You’ve heard of me.”

  A string of pearls suddenly manifested in her hands as she dragged them back and forth between her fingers. “The lone dragon with a reputation for debauchery and women. Oh yes, I’ve heard of you. Though I must confess, you’re nothing at all like I’d expected. I did not ever peg you as the noble sort.”

  “I’m not.” A small blast of flame hissed from my snout, and she glowered at me as I’d accidentally on purpose shot it in her direction.

  “I know the hearts of these other two.” She pointed to Midas and Jonas. “You’ll not be able to break my spell. So pay up.”

  “Pay up?” Icarus mumbled behind me.

  But I chose to ignore him.

  I shot curls of heated steam at both Midas and Jonas. Only after the legs of their pants began to singe did I realize they were firmly gripped by the siren’s spell. Clenching my jaw, I knew what I’d have to do.

  Though every inch of me balked at the idea. Midas and Jonas were pathetic excuses for a human. They weren’t worthy to lick the muddied soles of my boots, let alone vie for the hand of my Lena.

  “What are you doing?” Icarus stepped out from behind me, his expression serious and contemplative.

  With a long-suffering sigh of disgust, I turned to him. “I’m going to gift you two scales. Pull them when I say, and hand them to the siren.”

  “Why?”

  “Just shut up and do as I’ve asked,” I snapped, angry at him for no other reason than I did not want to give up even a tiny sliver of myself to the avarice of the sea creature.