Dragon Lord (3 page)

When they’d brought Evangeline out, he’d felt sick, certain they’d brought her to watch, fearful that he’d shame himself when he died. He’d been so focused on that that it had taken him a while to figure out what they were doing.

Disbelief, he thought, had gripped all of them as they watched the executioners bury Evangeline in the sand up to her neck, and comprehension was slow in coming. For a long while, he had simply stared at her, the men around him, the men standing on the beach, watching the slow, inevitable approach of the tide. Even when it had finally clicked in his mind what they were about, he hadn’t been able to believe it.

It was just Jaelen’s sick way of tormenting them to the bitter end, he was certain.

And it was.

What it was not, was a show merely to torment them.

He should have known that when he saw how excited Jaelen was, but there was no reason to kill Evangeline. It served no purpose. Killing them served a purpose. Killing Simon would have served a purpose, because
he
was the rightful emperor.
He
should have ascended to the throne upon his father’s death--not Jaelen, the treacherous, backstabbing little worm.

There were times when he was not certain which part of that nightmare sickened him the most, watching Evangeline die, or watching Simon slowly fall apart; remembering the terror in Evangeline’s eyes, or remembering the terror in Simon’s; watching her slowly swallowed up beneath the sea, or Simon, tearing and clawing at the chains that bound him like a raving madman, sobbing and begging like a child for them to kill him instead.

Audric’s stomach lurched sickeningly with the memory.

He’d loved her, too, fallen in love with her long before she had caught Simon’s eye and captured
his
heart. No one could be around her for any length of time and
not
love her. He had understood that, understood that Simon could no more help loving her than he could and, moreover, that she had never been meant for him. She had been Simon’s long before he had finally noticed, or acknowledged, the woman his father had chosen for his bride.

For the most part, the same could’ve been said of Simon, that it was impossible not to love the man himself completely aside from his title. His men and his subjects had loved him, worshipped him as a god, as flawed and imperfect as he was as a man. In fact, it had almost seemed as if his flaws were as integral a part of why he was so beloved as his perfections, as if everyone had been drawn closer, felt that they
could
love him and not merely hold him in the awe and respect his birth entitled him to.

It was their love that had destroyed him, just as it was his love for Evangeline that had destroyed her. If he’d been hated, or if his people had even been indifferent, his enemies could’ve simply disposed of him, given him the death that was all he’d wanted when they were through with him. As it was, Jaelen had deduced fairly quickly that killing him would only make him a martyr for rebellion, would bring the entire realm into revolt. So instead, he’d broken Simon, crushed the life from him, and left the shell to appease the people, held him ransom for their behavior by sending him into exile.

As long as they knew he was alive, that he would pay in blood for any attempt at revolt, the people endured--ever hopeful, as he was, that one day Simon would return and destroy the usurper.

Which was why, as much as he loved Simon himself, he’d been willing to risk being accused of treachery by bringing the woman into the house.

It had seemed safe enough. He’d checked her out thoroughly before he’d allowed the interview. She had no one. If she had to go missing, no one would be looking for her.

It seemed unlikely, too, that Simon would realize what he was up to. Physically, she looked nothing at all like Evangeline, which was hardly surprising since she was human. Still, there was something about her that had instantly arrested his attention, something in her wide green eyes and delicate features that had snared him once he’d managed to drag his attention from her body.

Clad in snug fitting jeans and a body hugging top, every lush mound and curve was blatantly evident. He hadn’t needed to see what was beneath the clothes to know that body was a siren call to any lustful male, human or draconian, and his mind had already been churning with possibilities even before he’d examined the face that went with it.

Viewed dispassionately, he supposed she was more ‘interesting’ than beautiful, but he doubted very much that many men realized she wasn’t.
He
wouldn’t have if not for the fact that his lustful thoughts had abruptly shifted to possessiveness and from there, naturally enough, to what sort of opposition the others might present … which had brought Simon to mind.

That
had brought her into clearer perspective, impelled him to take a step back and try to view her with more objectivity.

She wasn’t beautiful, but she had a way of looking at a man that blinded him to her slight imperfections--a strange mixture of boldness and shyness, of frankness and mysteriousness, of appreciation and wariness--that aroused every hunting instinct. From the moment he’d first met her gaze he’d been drowning in conflict. He wasn’t sure which instinct was most dominant--the primal and purely male need to conquer and dominate or the urge to protect, but neither could be ignored and he knew, if he felt it so powerfully, Simon would not be able to resist those urges either.

The last time he’d tried to divert Simon with a woman, though, the results had been disastrous. She’d been too blatantly sexual, too obvious a plant to tempt his appetite because he’d been stupid enough to choose a woman that bore too striking a physical resemblance to Evangeline--not that she’d really looked like Evangeline. Tall and elegant and shapely enough to tempt most any man, her hair had been long and black like Evangeline’s, her complexion like fine porcelain.

But, unlike Evangeline, the woman had been all too aware of her appeal. She had been too focused on her appearance, too aware of her sexuality. Every move she made had seemed calculated. Every toss of her midnight hair, every faux shy glance and timid ‘come hither’ smile had been as blatant an enticement as if she’d stripped naked and waved her tits and ass in their faces.

She’d pierced Simon’s self-absorption, all right. He’d taken one look at her and shut himself into his rooms for weeks, staring at the wall and refusing to eat more than a morsel of food as he had in the first months after Evangeline’s death until they’d thought he would starve himself to death.

He let out a disgruntled sigh as Simon turned at last and headed back to the house, disgusted that he’d succeeded in getting no more of a rise out of Simon than that brief flicker of surprise and interest.

If Simon didn’t want the woman, he was going to have her himself, he decided--assuming he could grab her before the others managed to.

They
had noticed. Simon might be dead to the world around him and everything in it, but the rest of them had blood in their veins, and a woman like Raina caused that blood to heat and centralize in the groin effortlessly. She didn’t even have to
look
interested. The sway of that delectable ass of hers, the bounce and sway of her pert breasts was enough to make a man instantly forget where he’d been going and follow her off hopefully, sniffing for just the hint of her womanly scent.

Despite his abstraction, as the others fell into formation beside him, he noticed Haig was trying to catch his attention. Frowning, he glanced at the man questioningly. Haig lifted his right wrist and tapped the face of the watch he wore.

Perplexed and more than a little irritated, Audric sent him a dismissive look and returned his attention to Simon. He didn’t know why Haig was so attached to the damned time piece. It wasn’t as if time meant a hell of a lot to any of them.

It jelled in his mind after a moment, though, and his head snapped toward Haig again. Haig nodded significantly and nudged a chin in Simon’s direction.

Maybe, Audric thought, the petite brunette had managed more than a little crack in the ice? He’d been too deep in thought himself to realize Simon had stayed far longer than he usually did, and he hadn’t been wearing that white faced look of someone who’d been stabbed in the chest, now that he thought about it.

He’d looked … thoroughly pissed off, but Audric could deal with Simon’s temper.

He was still unconvinced that his ruse had had any notable effect until they stepped into the foyer again and Simon hesitated, briefly, before ascending the stairs, as if he was aware the woman was peering at him from the dining room.

* * * *

Having successfully, he thought, dismissed the turmoil that had chased him from the house, Simon braced himself as he trained his gaze on the restless swells of the sea and focused his mind inward, summoning Evie to him. Instead,
her
image filled his mind. Wide, startled eyes the color of the changing sea--green and gold and blue, and dark and mysterious--surrounded by a thick fringe of curling black lashes. The long bridge of a straight nose that ended above a short upper lip, lips that were too narrow, too thin, too determined--not soft and yielding and feminine--and beneath that a small, jutting knob of a chin that bordered on belligerent, high cheekbones that created faint hollows in her cheeks, an oval face.

It wasn’t a beautiful face at all.

And worse, it belonged to a human.

He didn’t know why it had stuck in his mind’s eye so solidly that it had thwarted his attempt to recall Evie’s face, but he felt something stir to life inside of him that he hadn’t felt in a long time--anger--resentment--pain, real pain, not just the distant ache of it that never went away completely.

He turned to stare at his head guardsman, his bastard half-brother, Audric, speculatively. Audric returned the look unflinchingly, but he thought he saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Guilt?

Returning his gaze to the sea, he struggled to banish the image that had supplanted his beautiful Evie, called her to him with a mental command that bordered on desperation. They weren’t going to take that away from him, too!

As tortuous as all his memories were of her, as much as they aroused a deep, unquenchable hunger inside of him, he had to have them to keep from going completely insane. The memories were all that anchored him anymore to the world he had to live in. He endured the last of them because he had to. He couldn’t summon the others without remembering those horrible, gut wrenching last moments of her life but it was a price he was willing to pay to remember the rest.

So he watched her die--every time he became so empty he couldn’t stand the emptiness anymore and sought her out. Over and over again, he felt the helpless rage well up inside of him until he was choking on it, felt the bite of the chains he had fought against with every ounce of strength he could summon. He felt the suffocating terror that seemed to go on forever and ever as the water advanced in rolling waves, covering her and then washing out to sea again, leaving her choking and coughing and fighting for breath until
he
couldn’t breathe, until at last it consumed her completely and all he could see was her wide, terrified, beseeching gaze as her midnight hair floated and swirled around her and her eyes slowly dimmed as her soul left her.

The regret came next, regret that he’d failed her, that she’d died for loving him, but mostly for loving her. If he hadn’t loved her quite so much, mayhap they would’ve allowed her to live and taken him instead.

If he hadn’t loved her so much, mayhap he would have seen what was coming. Instead, he had been so wrapped up in her,
willfully
closing himself off from the world he’d never truly wanted, submerging himself in his joy of her and ignoring all the warnings of treachery until it had been too late to save either her or himself by the time he’d become aware of the danger hanging over them.

Arrogance. More even than his preoccupation with Evangeline, it had been his arrogance that had destroyed them.

Because it had not occurred to him, even once, that his younger brother coveted the crown, that he was gathering to strike the moment their father died and take the throne that should never have been his--that was to go to Simon and his heirs forever.

He
was the crown prince, had been born to rule. He’d known from birth that he would one day, that it wasn’t a matter of choice for him. Everything had been destined, his entire life laid out for him before he’d even had the chance to live it--even Evangeline had been chosen for him and that had rankled. Of all the things about his life that chafed him, that had angered him the most. Gods he had been furious when he had found out his father had arranged that binding without even consulting him!

He had been so spoiled, so accustomed to always having everything his way that he’d refused to have anything to do with her, ignored even his curiosity to see what she was like. The day he
had
to bind with her, he’d thought--the day he was shackled to the woman his
father
had chosen would be soon enough to deal with her.

He should have had more faith in his father. Whatever else he was, his father had loved him. He should have known his father would choose carefully for him, would’ve picked a woman he could care for, not just whatever female was most politically advantageous.

It had pricked at his manhood, though, made him feel more of a child than a man, and that had enraged him so much that he’d
behaved
more like a spoiled, willful child than a man.

Until he saw her.

He’d been caught instantly by her gracefulness, by her beauty of form, the body that had seemed designed expressly for the purpose of depriving a man of his wits, but from the moment he’d pushed back her veil and seen her face for the first time, looked deeply into her wide, beautiful eyes, he’d felt as if he was drowning and soaring into the heavens at the same time.

Love, as unfamiliar as he was with it, it had still claimed him the moment he met her gaze. He had not recognized it for what it was, at first. It had taken him a while to sort through the myriad of powerful emotions and identify it, but it had been there from the first, awaiting only a drop of encouragement to grow wildly out of control.