Dragonborn (The Jade Lee Romantic Fantasies, Book 1) (28 page)

Except, it was no longer hidden. They had found him. Her older brothers. Or was she a he? By the name of Rashad. She did not know, and so she ignored it, settling into her hatred and pain like a frog on a toadstool.

Then she coughed. She did not intend to. In fact, she held it in as long as she could. But her clothes were wet where she sat on gritty sand, and her tears made her face slimy. Eventually she could not stop it; she coughed. That loud, rasping hack started in her stomach, making her sick. It built there, foul-tasting like bile, swelling within her until it had to escape, had to break free. And it did, violently, shaking her whole body as more coughs clawed through her throat, choking off her breath and making her spasm as she tried to contain them. In the end she lay shaking and gasping and even wetter and more miserable than before because she had fallen onto her side. Now her shirt clung to her tiny stick arms, giving her no warmth and no comfort.

And worse, they were coming. She heard them, just as they had heard her. They scrambled through the rocks and pushed into her fortress as if it were nothing more than driftwood stacked together among the craggy out-croppings that were once caves—which it was.

"Here he is! Hey, Wormy! He's here! Whatcha doing, Wormy?"

"He's hiding in the dirt like all worms."

"Hey, look, his pants are wet!"

"Wormy, Wormy!"

The taunts continued relentlessly, echoing in her head and her weakened body. For these were from her brothers, no less, the very ones who were supposed to protect her. But that, of course, was why they hated her so much. Not quite the oldest, she was still older than these two younger brothers. But they were bigger and stronger. They had never had this fire in their lungs or the worms they said ate her from the inside out. While they wanted to run and play with ease among the caves, his illness dragged them down and made them wait. When they were younger, his older brother carried him in a special chair, hauling him with grunts and groans along the sandy beach. But then his younger brothers grew larger, and they all had to take turns, pushing him off on the loser of their games.

It felt strange, being this boy in her dream, for Natiya was part of two minds—both the boy in pain and another mind that was not her own. The dragon's? she wondered. Was she learning what the dragons shared with each other? She didn't know and had no time to understand. She was remembering things. She knew how the boy had hidden his brother's toys in his chair, stolen their treasures and kept them for his own. She knew, too, that all the taunts, all the ugliness, stemmed from boredom in this isolated stretch of sand and rock, and the constant struggle for attention from indifferent parents too absorbed in their work to care much about their progeny.

The dream could have ended here, rushing forward through cycles showing the way most siblings end their struggles. With maturity and time, most brothers cease pestering each other and spend more time hounding girls. Bit by bit, they find comfort in each other's struggles, strength in solidarity, and distraction in sex.

It should have ended this way, except for one thing: the treasure, the secret that brought him to his isolated fort to study, the means of his eventual revenge. A Copper dragon egg that he pressed deep into his belly and incubated there where no one outside of his family could see. That was the reason his brothers called him Wormy, that was the cause of the jealousy that now made them torment him. Because from the moment he pressed it deep into his belly, he'd known he would kill them all. He would have his revenge, and so he told them. He would make them pay for not playing with him, for not taking him places they went, for not loving and adoring him with the warmth they themselves all longed for.

Natiya wanted the dream to end there. She prayed for release from its grip, shaking with impotent anger at the wet ground and the cruelty of children. She wanted it to end, but would have remained there reliving each moment of humiliation rather than experience what was coming: the moment the family died. Not just the brothers—each and every one of them—but the indifferent father and too-tired mother as well.

The dream continued, scrolling through her mind no matter how much she fought. The egg hatched and the dragon-beast controlled Rashad's thoughts in a chaotic riot of pain and sexuality and rejection and fury. The hatchling was hungry. It needed food immediately, and the hunger clawed through Rashad's mind like a living thing.

Then the Copper saw something—someone—to eat, and simply did it. Rashad watched in horror and some satisfaction as his older brother fought and died. It was right, he decided; his older brother had tormented him. His older brother deserved to die to feed his Copper dragon's belly—his
own
belly. It was all twisted in his mind and he could not think clearly; but he knew that the larger boy had been the leader, the taunter, the one who had failed to protect his younger, weaker, sicker brother.

Sick no longer. Weak no longer. Rashad had a full belly and a satisfied smirk.

The others—parents and younger brother—died in the ensuing fight. Running to the cave, they had been horrified by the dead body, the blood and food smeared over his mouth—his dragon's mouth—their mouths. And so they had run, offering themselves up as further meals. It was right, Rashad decided, right and honorable that they should die in this manner, giving their lives to strengthen the greatest among them—himself. And also for his sister, who had a hatchling of her own.

Besides, they would have died in the next fight anyway. The local dragonlord had felt the births: Dag Branth knew that two new dragons challenged his reign. So he arrived quickly on a black dragon bent with age and weakening. Sister and brother rose up together, easily defeating their enemy. And in the celebration afterwards, while parents and brothers still filled their bellies, there had been little left to do—nothing except grow, find strength in food and sex with one another while they prepared for the bloody war to come.

They were successful. They fought and murdered and ate as they defeated one dragonlord after another. No one had seen it done this way before: two dragons cooperating, two dragonlords working in concert. And bit by bit, the land fell to their control.

But there was price for this cherished and holy merging between man and dragon. One that Rashad never expected. After a time—Natiya couldn't tell how long—the Copper began to assert himself.
Enough
, it said.
Finish it.
Rashad hadn't understood, but the Copper began to insist. It became willful and angry. The emperor's dreams became haunted by those words:
Finish it. Finish it now.
Their bond became a war fought during sleep and in those rare moments when they touched forehead to forehead.

What price? Natiya demanded of her dream. What does that mean? Then she woke to a scream: a long agonizing wail that was unending. And that was not her own.

She shot to her feet, poised to run even before she came fully awake. But where? The scream abated only to be replaced by another sound, more wretched and horrific than the first: sobbing. Deep, heart-wrenching, terrible sobs, interspersed with words that she could not understand.

A guard stumbled into her room, his eyes wide with fear, his breath stuttering with frightened pants. His gaze slipped through the bathing chamber to Dag Racho's bedroom, somewhere on the other side of a secret passageway. Natiya moved past the pool, looking for the door, dimly aware that she wore only her thin sleeping gown. Then she stumbled to a stop, not seeing the passage while the Emperor's keening cries continued on the other side of the wall.

She turned to the guard, completely at a loss. She saw him hesitate before making his decision. Apparently, it was to help her, because in two quick steps he was beside the wall, pressing one hand into a decoration that seemed to be more than simple art. She noted his hand position and memorized his movements, even as most of her thoughts remained on the man on the other side of the wall.

As she watched, a narrow hallway appeared behind a tall natsting fern. She moved as quickly as her bulk allowed, pushing through the short, dark hall before abruptly arriving in the Emperor's bedroom. He lay on his couch, apparently having fallen asleep despite the piles of documents that littered the floor beside him. He writhed on the couch, half sobbing and half screaming in pain, and she could not tell if he was awake or still caught within the memories their dragons shared.

That was what her mind finally grasped, now that the last of her "dream" had faded: What she had experienced, what she had "dreamed" was in fact Dag Racho's memories—or rather young Rashad's memories—of his childhood before his Copper dragon matured, before he became Emperor of all he surveyed. He had been a sickly child, tormented by his siblings. And somehow, some way, he had abused his dragon bond.

Natiya was not sure what to do. It had been many years since she had allowed anyone to act motherly toward her. Longer still since she had even pretended to such compassion within herself. But the man was in pain, his sobs softer now but no less devastating.

While she stood in indecision beside him, he abruptly turned, looking at her with eyes haunted by memories too heinous to speak out loud. "It's not true," he gasped, reaching out and grabbing her leg. "They lie. All lies," he whispered. Then he closed his eyes, curling in on himself as if trying to stifle the life that had once lived inside him.

Responding instinctively, Natiya dropped to her knees before him, pushing aside the documents that blocked her way. She reached out, stroking the hair off his sweat-soaked brow, wondering what to do now. It was all true, she knew; he was the one who lied.

"What does the Copper want? What have we promised our dragons?"

He didn't answer except to appear more wretched. "No, no, no," he repeated in an unending litany, and she heard an echo of the sad little boy he had once been. A child struggling from a disability, caught in a family starved for true nurturing in a time defined by brutal and selfish dragonlords. Rashad had earned her pity, and it was he that she stroked.

"Come to bed, my lord," she coaxed, trying to lift him off his couch. He was too heavy, of course. Nevertheless, he moved himself as he shook his head.

"I can't. The dreams. I can't."

"The dreams are ended for tonight," she said, sending a stern order to her own dragon egg to that very effect. "They will not talk more tonight."

"Promise?" he asked, his voice small and childish. Indeed, he seemed the boy again, his legs wobbly and his eyes pleading for... what? Not the truth, for his screams told her he had already run from that. Not for female attention either, for there was nothing sexual in his touch.

"Stay with me," he begged. "Don't leave me alone. Not alone." Then he buried his face in her chest and began to cry.

"I will stay," she promised. And she did. She pulled him to his bed and laid him down. Then she settled in beside him, curling her arm around his shoulders. And for the first time since she had known him, he did not touch her belly or the egg there. Instead, he curled his arms against his chest, his hands against his mouth while his head rested beside her breast.

"I hate being alone," he murmured. Then he fell fast asleep.

Chapter 13

Natiya woke to a murky gray morning and a guard shifting nervously from one foot to the other beside the bed. She frowned at him, trying to orient herself, wondering why her fingers felt numb. Then she remembered a long night of holding Dag Racho while trying to sort through fragments of his memories. He still lay curled on her shoulder, his strange perfume clouding the air. Kiril's scent had been clean and masculine, as straightforward to her as Racho's was twisted. As if everything in the Emperor's life was contradictory, pain inextricably linked with pleasure, failure seeded inside his success.

She sighed, knowing that she made no sense this early in the morning.

"What is it?" she finally asked, keeping her voice low and muted so as not to wake the Emperor.

"Your poet," the guard mouthed. Then he jerked his head toward her bedroom, and Natiya understood. She nodded, waiting as the heavy man clumped out of the room through the secret passage back to her bedroom.

When she was sure the Emperor still slept, Natiya carefully shifted his weight off her shoulder and onto his pillow. Then she slowly slipped away to stand beside the bed, looking down at the powerful man resting there. As she watched, he sighed in his sleep, clutching her pillow, then wrapping himself around it. He looked like a boy aching for his mother or like a man missing his lover—she wasn't sure which, and frankly, given what she'd seen, the parallels disturbed her. Worse, she knew if she stayed with him, she would become both to this enigmatic man: his mother, soothing his fears, and his lover, because he wanted to father an army. Could she do that? Could she give her heart and her body to this man, accept the power that came with him, shape the policies of a nation, remake the world as they chose?