Dragon Lord (7 page)

“I had thought so. Is her patch the same color as the hair on her head?” Jorell asked with keen interest.

Audric grinned, discarding his reluctance to discuss the intimate details with an effort. Mentally, he shrugged. It was in a good cause and it seemed obvious that, however tempted Simon was, he was determined to resist. It could not hurt to give him a little push. “Much lighter, more red and her nipples a shade of pink that begs tasting.”

Haig smacked his lips, chuckling lasciviously. “Then her little lips will be as pretty a pink and as enticing to taste.”

Elden, who had said nothing until that moment, looked Audric over speculatively. “I had thought the moment I set eyes upon her that I would welcome the opportunity to lick her all over. If you have no luck with her, will you take it badly if I try my hand?”

Audric stiffened, feeling the sense of possessiveness clench at his gut again, before he could think of a response, however, Simon turned from the window and released a hissing breath. “I will go down and work out,” he announced tightly, stalking from the room angrily.

When he had stormed out, slamming the door behind him, Audric looked at his companions. Almost as one, they moved to settle in the chairs and sofas arranged into a comfortable conversational grouping. “I do not think any of us should count upon collecting the woman’s favors. If you’ve need of a woman, you should look elsewhere. Whatever Simon has said to the contrary, he wants her and if he sets his mind to have her, she will fall into his hands like a ripe plum. I have not seen the woman yet who could resist his charm when he blinds her with it,” he said wryly.

The men exchanged varying expressions of disappointment, resignation, and irritation. “That is because he is the prince,” Rama agreed glumly, nodding.

“Comfort yourself with that thought if you like,” Audric retorted dryly. “But
she
does not know who he is, and it would mean nothing to her if she did. These Americans are not nearly as impressed with royalty as they are with their film stars! In any case, I saw the look on her face when she first saw him, if you did not. She is his if he wants her, whether any of us like it or not--whether
she
likes it or not. Even if we
wished
to challenge his right to have whatever he wants, and I would not consider it, none of us would have a chance with her.”

Haig grinned. “Aye, he was ever a silver tongued devil!”

Despite his mixed feelings over the situation, Audric chuckled. “His silver tongue is not likely to help him now--I doubt that he has much more facility with her tongue than I do, and I am nigh hopeless. I had not
thought
that I would come to regret not putting myself out to learn it. But
he
does not need it. The man has a … presence. There is something about him that draws women to him even when he does not
want
to draw them.”

He grinned more easily as the comment caused memories of more pleasant times to surface. “I have ‘rescued’ Simon more than once, for he has no more idea how he does it than I do, or of how to dissuade those he has no desire to entice. You have never seen such panic in a man’s eyes as I have in Simon’s. Not a flicker of fear on the battlefield and abject terror when some completely undesirable female crawls upon his lap and tries to seduce him into her bed--and they have done that, amazingly enough--for whatever it is that draws them to him also makes them brazen as bedamned.

“But when he wants them, he only has to
look
at them and they come to him as if they have been summoned. Even Evangeline, although she was wise enough to lead him a merry chase before she allowed him to ‘catch’ her, was his the moment she met his gaze.”

He shook his head. “There have been many times when I have wished that I had even half whatever it is about him that makes women go weak and hot all over the moment he looks at them … and almost as many times that I have been very grateful that I do not.”

Jorell burst out laughing. “Do you recall that toothless whore in Babayon? I swear I nigh snorted my ale through my nose at the look on his face when she crawled upon his lap and offered to suck his cock, pointing out she had no teeth to cause him any discomfort. I believe the little fellow crawled up into his belly to hide! He had the devil of a time coaxing it out again when he found a woman that
did
appeal! We had tried two more whorehouses before he had steadied his nerves enough to bed one!”

Haig snorted. “Little fellow? Your eyes are bad, or your ego inflated. I am loath to drag mine out when he is anywhere around for fear my ‘little fellow’ will be too ashamed to poke his head out.”

“I remember that! He
sneaked
out the back!” Elden said, laughing heartily at the memory. “No small feat for a fellow his size. I do not know how he managed it.”

Audric gave him a look. “He managed it because I offered myself on the altar of sacrifice,” he said dryly. “And coaxed her into my bed instead. The things I have done for my prince!”

Rama grinned. “Well? Did the lack of teeth improve the ride?”

“I did not ‘ride’. I offered to let her suck my cock instead. It was not half bad, actually. The woman could have sucked the etching off of a steel blade,” he admitted with an easy laugh. “I thought for several panicked moments that my head would cave in.”

Elden rubbed his cock uncomfortably. “I am thinking I might go to the mainland and look up my woman,” he muttered. “I have not had a good ride in a while.”

“Did she not toss you out on your ear the last time you went sniffing at her mons?” Haig asked with a grin.

Elden sent him a sullen look. “She did not! She was not happy to see me … at first, but these Earth women have very interesting customs. I reminded her that she had offered to be my ‘fuck buddy’ and she allowed me to persuade her. Simon can say what he pleases, but I
like
uncomplicated sex myself and I
like
Earth women! I do not mind paying for it when I must, mind you, but I have never particularly cared to be serviced by a whore when I
know
that they are only doing it for the money. These
humans
, which Simon is so set against, give passion if a man is willing and skilled enough to draw it. For myself, I will miss that when we go home and have only the choice of binding or paying for service and may or may not get passion either way.”

His comments dampened the good spirits of moments before. “We are dead men if we return to Schalome,” Haig said finally.

“Not if Simon is ready to lead us,” Audric said grimly. “He need only show himself and an army will spring up on every shore to crush that upstart Jaelen into dust!”

Rama frowned. “I do not doubt that for a moment, but he would not believe, before, that his brother was after the throne else we would not be here now. I love Simon as much as any of you, but I know him well, too. Regardless of what Jaelen has done, he is still Simon’s brother. Simon may
think
he wants to kill him for what he did to Evangeline, but I do not believe that Simon can bring himself to kill his brother and if he does not, then we will have it to do all over again. Given time, he would raise another army of mercenaries and enemies of Schalome, just as he did before, and the results would likely be the same--except that Jaelen will not make the same mistake twice. If he has to fight Simon for the throne again, he will make certain it is the last time. He will suffer no qualms about killing Simon, you may be sure. He would not have allowed Simon to live the last time except that he feared the people would revolt.

“They were enraged enough when he tossed Simon in that stinking hole for nigh two years and then dragged him through the streets and had him whipped like a common felon. I believe he thought that doing so would show them that Simon was merely a dracon--no god to be worshipped--but he miscalculated the depth of love the people feel for Simon. He will not do that again. I will not say it is a weakness, but there have been times when I have felt that Simon has too much heart and not nearly enough ruthlessness to be a sovereign.”

“He can be ruthless when he needs to be,” Audric ground out. “Never doubt that. But I think you may be right about his brother. I do not like to think what it might do to Simon if he was forced to kill his brother anyway--he has too much conscience. If he could have gotten to Jaelen that day, I think he would have torn him limb from limb with his bare hands, but afterwards ….” He shook his head. “I will take care of it myself when and if the time comes … and I will be sure that Simon has no inkling that it is an assassination. I do not want to test his ruthlessness myself.”

Haig studied him thoughtfully. “You think this woman is what we need?”

“I
thought
this woman was what we needed,” Audric responded. “Now I am not completely easy in my mind. We will have a hell of a mess on our hands if he becomes too attached to her.”

Jorell frowned. “Do you think there is any real danger of that? I will admit she looks like a tasty morsel--but no more than a mouthful--and she
is
human. He will not forget that. He can
not
forget that, or where his duty lies. For myself, I had begun to make plans for when he has lost interest in her and set her aside.”

Audric shook his head. “
He
is worried, and that makes me nervous.”

Rama shrugged. “Then we will set out to seduce her ourselves. He will be less vulnerable to her if he knows that she has shared herself with any or all of us.”

“Do not even
try
to make that sound like a sacrifice! You want her as much as I do or you would not have thought up that idiotic plan! That is not likely to make a straw’s worth of difference to Simon anyway,” Audric snapped. “Evangeline was no stranger to men when she came to him.”

They all looked taken aback.

“How do you know?” Haig demanded.

“Because
I
was her lover before him--and he knew it--and she was no virgin when I took her to my bed. You should not believe everything that he says. He is too fair minded to hold that against a woman when he has been such a cocksman himself, and too arrogant--and with good reason--to worry himself that his woman will stray if he chooses her. He was only spouting all that nonsense about whores to convince himself that she is not worth his time. If he believed that he would not be in the basement pounding out his rage on the bags.

“I will seduce Raina,” he added after a moment.

“And we are to back off only because you say so?” Rama ground out.

Audric narrowed his eyes at his long time friend. “You will back off because this is what is best for Simon--and what is best for Simon is best for Schalome. I only dangled Raina in front of him to remind him that he is a dracon, and he is alive. It will not serve us if he becomes so smitten that he loses all interest in returning home and reclaiming what is rightfully his, and we will be exiled forever.”

“So you will ‘sacrifice’ yourself? I do not see the difference.”

“You do. You just do not want to because you are ‘ripe’ for herself yourself. But the difference, if you must have it explained, is that Simon loves me. He is well aware that I loved Evangeline and he took her from me because he could not help himself … and he still hated himself for it. For a time
I
hated him for it, until I realized that no one can take what you did not have to start with. If she had truly loved me, she would not have looked at Simon. She could no more help falling in love with him than I could help falling in love with her.

“He will fight harder if he believes that I care for her. That will give him two very good reasons to keep his distance--self-preservation for the heart he has already had broken once, and a reluctance to hurt me again.

“Please the gods, that will be enough, because I must pretend to be smitten with her or he will not hesitate to strike when his blood reaches full boil--and I am not at all certain that I can pretend and protect my own heart at the same time. In fact, I am afraid I can not … and it
will
be a sacrifice for me either way.

“If we succeed and Simon turns his sights upon Schalome again, even if for no other reason than his need for a suitable mate, I will have to leave her.

“And if Simon can not contain his desire for her, then I am fairly certain that I will not be able to hold her to me anymore than I could hold on to Evangeline.

“The gods must hate me as much as they love Simon, else they would either have given me the same ‘gift’ with women that they did my half-brother, or they would not have given me the same taste in women,” he said tiredly.

Elden draped an arm over his friend’s shoulder, planting a sloppy wet kiss on his cheek, and then laughing uproariously when Audric glared at him and shoved him away. “I love you, Audric! I will save you from yourself by seducing Raina away from you before you can loose your heart to her!”

Audric gave him a look. “Such a sacrifice will not be necessary on my account!”

All of the men chuckled at that.

“I love you, too, brother!” Jorell announced with a grin. “I will gladly throw myself into the breach!”

Chapter Five

Simon was appalled to realize, once he had beat the edge off his fury, that every muscle in his body was screaming in protest and he was breathing as heavily as if he had sprinted five miles. He had worked out diligently for most of the years he had been in exile, all except the first anyway when he had been so weak and ill from prison and Jaelen’s attempts to break him, in the beginning because his companions would give him no peace if he didn’t, later mostly because it had become a habit--never once because it mattered to him that he keep in good fighting shape.

He was either getting old, or he had simply not pushed himself as he once did.

He frowned over that thought--both doubts.

He had not given any thought to his appearance or the years in so long he couldn’t remember the last time it had occurred to him to wonder if a woman might not find him appealing.

Not that he was wondering--or cared. It had only occurred to him to think of it because of Audric’s comment about the woman finding
him
appealing. He scrubbed a hand over the faint bristles along his jaw, wincing as the gesture reminded him, sharply, that he’d beat the bag barehanded until his knuckles were raw and bleeding.