Dragon Lord (35 page)

She felt the color drain from her face as she met his gaze. Resolutely, she turned her attention back to Audric. He hadn’t noticed Simon, she realized.

And he didn’t remember. He was frowning and she could see he was searching his mind for what she was referring to.

Trying not to feel slighted by the fact that he seemed to have forgotten, she smiled faintly and got up. Leaning over him, she kissed him lightly on the lips. “Well, when you remember, if you still want to, the answer is, yes. You have to get well first, though.”

She didn’t look at Simon as she left. Her heart threatened to beat its way out of chest as she passed him, but thankfully he didn’t try to detain her. She felt so weak and breathless by the time she’d returned to her room, she had to drag herself onto the bed. Her chest felt tight, making it hard to breathe.

She hadn’t even gotten the chance to grieve for the loss of Simon, not really. It was hard facing him when she still hurt so much, but it had been brought home to her as nothing before that there was never going to be anything between her and Simon. It didn’t matter how much she wanted it. It didn’t matter how desperately she loved him.

If he had just been a wealthy businessman, it was still doubtful that he’d chose to ally himself to a woman like her, but it
was
possible if he cared enough. If he’d even just been some political figure, she might have a chance … assuming he was willing to risk not getting re-elected, or being overthrown because she wasn’t suitable wife material for anybody like that, especially when she had a record for prostitution, however undeserved it was.

She didn’t know all that much about royalty, but she had some education, enough to know kings married princesses. She’d heard about one or two that hadn’t married another royal person, but that was on Earth, not here, and anyway they hadn’t really married beneath them. They’d just married very high born aristocrats with money.

And he didn’t care about her. He didn’t love her. If he had, he wouldn’t have sent her away to start with. He was all bossy and possessive about the baby--the baby he hadn’t wanted and certainly hadn’t wanted
her
to have, but that was because the baby was at least half-royal.

Well, he could just put all that out of his head! It was
her
baby! She was the one carrying it around. She was the one that was going have to do all the work of bringing it into the world. All he’d done was have fun fucking her.

Alright, so she’d had fun fucking him, too, but that was beside the point. She’d hoped to get pregnant, wanted his baby because she loved him so much. She was just going to have to remind him that it was hers and he hadn’t wanted it. He could find him a damned princess and make a
special
, perfect little prince in he wanted one!

Audric loved her and she loved him. If she’d ever been in any doubt about that, and she hadn’t been, realizing he might die was enough to convince her. It wasn’t the same way that she loved Simon, but it was still love, and he wasn’t Simon. Nobody ever loved two different people the same way, because they were different people, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t just as good, or just as real.

She was never going to get over loving Simon. She knew if she lived to be a hundred, she’d still love him and it would still hurt every time she thought about him--which was going to be every time she looked at their baby.

But life went on. A person had to live and there was only one ride on the merry-go-round per person. She could be happy with Audric and she thought she could make Audric happy. She was going to try, really hard, if he wanted to try.

Chapter Twenty One

Simon watched Raina hungrily as she hurried away from him, resisting the urge to go after her. She wouldn’t look at him, though, and he was afraid he knew why.

Anger flickered through him even though he’d known she would be as horrified as all the other humans to discover he wasn’t one of them. He had thought it wouldn’t matter to her, and mayhap it wouldn’t have if she had not seen his dragon form. She could not stick her head in the sand and ignore
that
as she’d ignored all the rest, though.

He did not regret it. Even if he had known that she would run screaming from him and he would have to chase her down to save her, he would have done it. Even if her knowing meant she would never look at him the same as she once had, he could bear that far easier than he could bear the thought of having her snatched away from him by death.

He supposed, in a way, she
was
running screaming from him. She was just hiding it inside.

Swallowing a little sickly, he turned away and studied Audric, feeling angry and resentful at the way Raina had fussed over him and at the same time deeply relieved to see that Audric was recovering. He moved into the room after a few moments, struggling with his jealousy. Dragging the chair to a more comfortable distance for himself, he settled in it and dropped his hand to his brother’s.

Audric opened his eyes, stared at him for a long moment and then his eyes lit, a smile curling his lips. “You did it, Simon! I heard the victory shouts!”

“
We
did it,” Simon said, squeezing Audric’s hand before he released it. He settled back in the chair tiredly, exhausted by the endeavor, weary beyond belief--and more miserable than he had ever been in his life because Raina would not even look at him and he ached to hold her--just to hold her to reassure himself that she was safe. It would be a long time, if ever, before he recovered from the fear that had gripped him when he thought he would not get to her in time. He was going to have nightmares over it--waking nightmares. He felt ill with fear and rage every time the images rose into his mind. “The healers tell me you are too mean to die and hell has spat you back,” he said teasingly.

Audric made a sound that was half laugh half pained cough. “Do not make me laugh. It hurts.”

Silence fell between them. “I owe you a debt of gratitude that I can never repay,” Simon said finally, “for protecting Raina and my child.”

Audric reddened. “You owe me nothing.”

Simon shrugged. “I know you did it as much for her sake, or perhaps more, than mine, but that does not alter the fact that you nigh gave your life for theirs, and it does not lessen my gratitude.”

“I am not at all certain that I could have managed it
without
Raina,” Audric said wryly. “There were four. If I had been fresh, I would have been more confident, but we had all been fighting for days as you well know. I will not lie. I was so tired and sore by then I do not think my chances were that good at taking them all. But I had called out before I discovered that Haig was the spy we were all hunting so determinedly and there was no hope for it then.

“Luckily for both of us, Raina had demanded that I give her my
catatrope
and show her how to use it. Also luckily, she has no sense of honor and a great deal of determination,” he added, chuckling and then wincing at the pain. When he’d caught his breath, he continued, “she killed one right off. I scolded her, told her it was very dishonorable to shoot a man armed only with a sword, but she informed me that she did not care if it was honorable or not and she managed to wound all of them before the
catatrope
ran out of ammunition. If they had not been wounded, the end might not have been so good.

“My beast took care of one, who was trying to get to her, which left me only two and I was still out of breath from fighting the two. I dispatched Haig when she hit him in the head with the empty
catatrope
and distracted him. The other--I was not sure that I had finished him, but I suppose I must have.”

Simon smiled grimly. “No doubt you did, but Raina was making certain of it when we arrived. I took your sword from her before she could injure herself.”

Audric looked at Simon apologetically. “I told her to be sure. I was afraid that he might get up and harm her and I was in no condition to do more. I did not think that she would try to lift my sword. It is nigh as long as she is tall.”

Simon studied him, a half smile playing about his lips. “We have not given proper credit to our little Raina,” he said, bemused. “She does amazingly well at taking care of herself.”

Audric held his stomach, groaning in pain and chuckling at the same time. “Did you see that guard’s face when she punched him in his balls?”

Simon stared at him blankly a moment, searching his memory and finally began to laugh. “I saw. I was just in no state at that moment to really register what she did.”

He got up after a moment. “I will leave you to rest. Raina has ordered you to get well quickly. I will add my command to that. Keep that in mind.”

“Simon?”

Simon paused.

“How did you do it when no one has been able to in generations? How did you even discover how to do it?”

Simon studied him for a long moment and finally closed the door and moved back to the side of the bed. “I must swear you to secrecy.”

Audric frowned. “You know that you can trust me.”

“I do. It is only for that reason that I will tell you--we can all do it, Audric. We never lost the ability. It was taken from us--or rather bartered. As you know, we were a fairly barbaric race in those days--though mayhap you do not know that we had fought amongst ourselves until we were almost to the point of making ourselves extinct. I think that is why the Macedons stepped in--to keep us from self-destruction--this is what they have told me, at any rate. But they knew it was our beast side that needed to be tamed--because when we are in dragon form, it is hard to think as a man at all, hard to reason. I had not realized myself until I morphed, but we are creatures of instinct then, and our instincts have always been to fight others of our kind for our territory, or mates.

“The offer was to allow us to live so long as we lived as land dwellers, and to wipe us out themselves if we did not because we were a threat, not only to ourselves, but to the others who share our world.

“They did not trust us, though, regardless of the treaty, and the technology they shared with us to compensate us for what we lost. It is in everything that we consume--inhibitors, drugs that keep us from morphing, keep us even from the urge to do so.

“I might never have discovered it except for Raina--likely would not have.”

Audric looked confused. “How did Raina help you discover it when she did not even know what we are?”

Simon chuckled. “By driving me insane with lust and jealousy, Audric. Rage is what gave me the ability to shape change, the complete loss of control of my emotions. Do you not recall the night she enraged poor Tedra until she nigh breathed fire? That was when I began to suspect. I almost transformed thrice in that time when Raina came to us. The first time it was no more than an awareness of the beast side, a stirring that I realized, when I could think, was not
me
, not the me I knew, at any rate. The other two times, I
almost
morphed. I began to change, but then I was so stunned by it I just stopped partially through the change and resumed my man form.

“I did not know how to do it, how to call it. Even though none of us had had the drugs in years, none of us, including me, had ever been taught the way.

“When I saw what they meant to do with Raina, I lost control and began to change. If I had not been so focused on getting to her, I am not certain that I could have made a full change, though I had planned to try all along.
That
is why I have neither eaten nor drank anything of this world since we returned, why I carry the food and drink only from the ship … from Earth. And that is also why I had to go to the Macedons. I had to be sure that they would not attack us if I broke the treaty.”

He patted Audric’s cheek jarringly at the expression on his face. “Now, you know all and you can rest.”

He paused at the door again as he started to leave, struggling with the urge to ask Audric what Raina had meant when she’d been speaking to him. He knew that it was private, and he had no right to ask. Her behavior had alarmed him, though, not just given rise to his jealousy and, although he had thought that he’d mastered the itch to know, his uneasiness and the sense of threat he had barely acknowledged increased the longer he thought about it. He
needed
to know. He turned to look at Audric.

“What did Raina mean when she said her answer was yes? What did you ask her before you left her?”

Guilt was in every line of Audric’s face and in his eyes as he stared at Simon with a mixture of reluctance and resentment. “I asked her if she would take me back if I returned to her after we had done what needed to be done here.”

For several moments, Simon lost all the color in his face. When it returned, it returned with a vengeance. “And she said yes,” he muttered, but it wasn’t a question. His hands fisted. For a moment, Audric saw a glimpse of his dragon, rippling menacingly behind his eyes. With obvious effort, he tamped the urge to release it and left the room.

Simon paused just beyond Audric’s room, fighting the urge to go instantly to Raina and inform her that she would not be going anywhere with Audric. She was carrying
his
child! She was
his
, damn her to hell!

She was going to be the death of him, or she was going to drive him insane! He did not trust himself to speak to her at the moment, however. He could feel the stirring of his dragon beast. If she defied him ….

And he
knew
she would. He could trust that she would snap her fingers beneath his nose and tell him to go to hell.

If she had any sense of self-preservation ….

He dragged in a deep, calming breath, and then another, and a third.

She was fond of Audric--too fond--but he loved Audric himself. He could understand that she had been out of her mind with worry that he would die. He could understand how powerful her relief must be, the sense of gratefulness of knowing that she would not lose him.

That was what the root of this was, he told himself--fondness, relief, gratitude. She could not, truly, be considering leaving him to go to Audric carrying
his
child! The child had bound her to him--should have. Whatever anger she still carried against him, despite what he had done, she had to forgive him. She had to see that she belonged with him.