To The Princess Bound (26 page)

Dragomir chuckled and leaned back against the bed, crossing his dark, native arms over his muscular native chest.  “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Victory felt her face redden.  “I would
never
demean myself so, if not in the name of keeping up the illusion.”

He watched her for some time.  “Do you trust me?” Dragomir asked finally, scanning her face.

Victory’s mouth fell open.  Of course she didn’t trust him.  “I’ll pay you well, once I’ve been instated as the next Adjudicator.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said.

“Trust has nothing to do with it,” she babbled.  “You will be well-rewarded for your services.”

“You put that collar around your neck,” Dragomir said, his blue eyes flashing, “And you’re putting yourself at my mercy.” 

“You’re not that stupid,” Victory growled.  “I’ll have my Praetorian.

“It’s a fact,” Dragomir said.  “Your Praetorian will also be chained, and I’ll have an entire village at my back, should I need it.  How does that make you feel?”

“And
I’ll
have my brother’s entire armada,” Victory babbled.  “You wouldn’t
dare
.”

“Put a collar around your neck and hand me the leash,” Dragomir said.  He smiled sweetly.  “Then I guess we’ll see.”

“My brother would check in on me eventually,” Victory snapped.  “And when he did, you would be a dead man.”

“Unless I decided to take you somewhere else.”

Victory froze, the idea not having occurred to her. 
Oh gods,
her panicked mind thought. 
He could make me disappear again.

“Unchain my ankles,” Dragomir said.  When Victory simply stared at him, he grinned.  “You want an exchange?  The trade begins now.”  He shoved a shackled foot at her, arms crossed, waiting.

“My brother’s already made his plans,” Victory snarled.  “If I’d known you were going to be ridiculous, I would have told him to set me up with the quarry.”

“How is this ridiculous?” Dragomir demanded, shaking his foot, making the chain rattle.  “I’m going to have you at my mercy—for
months
, it sounds like—and you seem to expect me to treat you no differently than I would a house guest.  Would it kill you to return the favor as a show of good faith?”

Victory felt her heart beginning to pound.  He was right.  All the money and influence that she brought to the table meant nothing if he decided to take advantage of the situation.

And I’ve given him every reason to hate me,
Victory thought, remembering chaining him to the bed, remembering the jeers of the dining hall as he ate his slops.

Dragomir jiggled his foot again.  “Well?”

I can’t do this,
Victory thought, looking at the man’s shackles, feeling the key resting between her breasts.  Then, a disgusted part of her said,
Then why would you expect him to do differently?

Slowly, reluctantly, Victory inched forward across the floor, until she was within reach of his shackles.  At the way her throat seized at his nearness, however, she hesitated.  “I think I’m going to need another cleansing first,” she said, as her nerves started to betray her.  “The fear is coming back.”

“Unshackle me,” Dragomir said.  He made no move to reach for her and work his energy through her body, only waited.

Victory gave him a shocked look.  He hadn’t refused until now.

“Someday, Princess, I intend for you to discover that, despite your every belief otherwise, I’m not going to hurt you.”  He shook his foot.  “So unshackle me.  I won’t have you drugged as I prove it to you.”

For some time, she could only stare at him. 

Dragomir dropped his foot with an irritated look.  “Then don’t bother taking us to my village.”

He’s serious,
she realized, in horror.

Victory’s hands were trembling as she reached into her shirt and retrieved the key.  One by one, she unlocked the titanium bands, her heart jumping at each metallic click.

When she was finished, Dragomir’s hand snatched out and he grabbed her wrist.  Victory gasped and froze, peering at the dark hand encircling her pale skin, every muscle caught in growing horror.

Uncoiling like a big cat, Dragomir moved forward over her, forcing her to the floor as his big body came to rest above her.

“So,” Dragomir said, lowering his weight atop her, pinning her to the carpet.  “Do you trust me?”

Victory was so terrified she couldn’t scream.  She started panting, hyperventilating as her mind began to shut off.

She felt something grab her mind, force it back into full awareness.

“I’m not letting you go anywhere this time,” Dragomir said.  His blue eyes were intense as he looked down at her, his face only inches from hers.  “I want you to really think about it.  Do you trust me?”

Feeling all the tiny places where his great body melded into hers, Victory squeezed her eyes shut and tried once more to separate her awareness from her physical body, but something was holding it tightly in place.  Realizing she was trapped, she started to panic.  She opened her mouth to scream.

“Didn’t think so,” Dragomir said with a sigh.  He raised his weight off of her and picked up the shackles from the floor.  These, along with the ones from his wrists that she had looped over the hook in the headboard, he carried to the window.  He yanked it open and, with a heavy grunt, hurled the shackles out into space.

“I can get others,” Victory blurted.

Dragomir closed the window and turned to her.  “You can,” he agreed, his legs spread wide, his arms crossed across his big chest, “But from now on, considering your plans, Princess, I think you should really start taking to heart the Golden Rule.”

“Is that a
threat?
” she squeaked.

He shrugged.  “It’s a fact.  You want my help.  I may or may not be inclined to give it.”

The cruise was scheduled to depart tomorrow morning, and Victory was cursing herself for waiting this long to determine that Dragomir was going to be uncooperative.

“From what you told me,” Dragomir said, as she stared at the floor in frustration, “We are getting on a ship tomorrow morning, where your father intends for you to die.  There may or may not be an assassin onboard, and if there is, I would like to have my hands and legs free so I can kick him in the face the moment I see him.”

Victory blinked and looked up at him.  “What?”

“I can tell a sociopath or a psychopath at a hundred yards,” Dragomir said.  “Like that guy in the hallway, right before you had your breakdown.  He had an
au
like I’ve never seen before.  If I hadn’t been trying to calm you down, I’d have tried to get you to sic your Praetorian on him.  That one has done very many bad things with his life, and the world would be a better place if he took a dive off of your Vanishing Spire.”

Victory’s jaw fell open.  Until now, she had thought that maybe she had just been seeing things, a figment of her panicked mind.  “You
saw
him?”

Dragomir gave her a curious look.  “Saw who?”

“The blue-eyed man with the scar on his lip,” Victory cried.  “Can you recognize him again, if he were wearing a different guise?”

Dragomir snorted.  “I could see that one coming a mile away.”

“He’s an assassin,” Victory babbled.  “He sabotaged my ship, on its way to the Imperial Academy.  He took my virginity and handed me over to the rebels.

Dragomir’s face hardened in a scowl.  “You recognized him and said nothing?”

“My Praetorian know,” Victory said.  “They’ve been looking for him, but it’s like he’s a specter.  Everyone has seen him, but no one knows where he works or sleeps.”

“Then,” Dragomir said, “If I see him again, I have your permission to end his miserable existence?”

Victory gave a bitter laugh.  “Only if I get to watch you do it.”

Dragomir grinned and tugged the chain hanging between them.  “Unfortunately, I don’t really see how you could miss it.”

Whip’s Close Call

Dragomir slept on the bed that night.  He was actually surprised that she offered, though it left him chuckling inside. 
Remember the Golden Rule,
he thought, grinning at the ceiling. 
You sly dog.

The princess, quite adamantly, had taken up residence on the floor—along with half the blankets and most of the pillows.  Dragomir let it pass.  Someday, she would trust him.  Whether that day came sooner or later, it didn’t really matter in the cosmic scheme of things.  He
wished
it was sooner, rather than later, but whenever it happened, it would come in time.

Probably sooner than she would like,
he thought, thinking of the days ahead.  He felt himself hardening at the idea of having the princess as his own, finally giving her no choice but to open up and trust him.

He was tired of having his hands tied, both literally and figuratively.  If her brother’s plan carried through and they came off of the cruise alive and her brother dropped them into his village with her and her two Praetorian as make-believe little slaves, he was going to take full advantage of the situation.

When it was over, perhaps she would never speak to him again, but by the gods, he was going to open her ramas.  One by one.  He was going to restore balance to her energy-starved system, and if she took offense, then that was too damn bad.

He was tired of watching helplessly as her past overtook her.  He could fix it, and he was going to, and if she didn’t like it, she could kill him after he was finished.  He was a healer.  He would
heal
her, or die trying.

At dawn, they ate a big breakfast that the Praetorian brought to them, then he watched as her maids came and packed enough luggage to clothe an entire army for a week.  Once the princess’s belongings were safely secured and on their way to her chambers upon the cruise ship, her Praetorian came—all nineteen of them—and herded the both of them through the palace, out into the courtyard, and onto the ship in a huge fanfare of song and celebration from the observers. 

That many people, all in one place, had always made Dragomir nervous.  He shielded himself from the barrage of scattered emotional energy and trusted the wall of black-clad bodies around them to keep out any poisons or daggers.

They made their way quickly to the princess’s suite, and once they were out of the chaos of the courtyard, Dragomir finally allowed his shields to come down.

It was then that he saw the woman step from the princess’s chamber, dressed in a maid’s stark black and white.  He froze, however, upon seeing the roiling black mass of energy billowing around the woman.

The woman’s ice-blue eyes met his stare and he thought he detected amusement there.  Then she curtseyed and, ducking her head, hurried down the hall.

The princess hit the end of the chain and turned back to him, frowning.

“That was him,” Dragomir said.  “I’d recognize that
au
anywhere.”

“Who?” Victory demanded.  “The
maid?
”

“Unless your father employs two assassins,” Dragomir said, “That was the man from the hall.”  He refused to move further down the hall, despite the Praetorian pushing at him to continue.  “Either way, Princess, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to stay in that room.”

Victory frowned, but then turned to chatter in Imperial at her Praetorian.

Four of them took off at a run down the hall, turning the corner after the maid.  Four others entered her chambers while the rest remained stationed around her in the hall.  Dragomir could hear thumps and crashes from inside as they searched.

Finally, they came back with a needle, clasped between a Praetorian’s fingers like she were holding a viper.  The princess’s other captain, Whip, stumbled out of the room and leaned against the doorframe, pale and sweating, staring at the needle.  Her
au
was flickering, like a candle flame that was burning low.

The one called Lion muttered something in Imperial, gesturing at her pale companion, who was rapidly starting to slide down the doorframe, to the floor.  The princess narrowed her eyes and replied in a growl.  Immediately, the Praetorian started herding them down the hall, away from the chamber, towards the front of the ship.