Dragon Lord
By
Kaitlyn O’Connor
(C) Copyright by Kaitlyn O’Connor, April 2007
Published by New Concepts Publishing
Smashwords Edition
Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, April 2007
New Concepts Publishing
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
An ambiguous mixture of emotions ran along the periphery of Raina Willows’ mind as she carefully polished a three foot segment of the dark mahogany balustrade. Narrowing her eyes, she studied the section critically. The light powdering of dust she’d been stirring around, she saw, had collected in a groove on the bottom side of the railing. Settling her rump on one of the stairs, she speared the polishing cloth with the nail on her index finger and ran it back and forth along the decorative furrow until she’d removed the pale line and then focused on the intricate carving that supported the balustrade.
It was archaic, Raina decided, but she still wasn’t altogether certain of how she felt about it. Vaguely resentful, she supposed, maybe a little threatened.
Threatened might be a little strong, she amended, lifting her head briefly to flick a gaze around the vast foyer of the mansion, but something like that.
From the moment she’d first seen the place, from the outside, the fanciful notion had swept over her that she was walking onto a movie set for a filming of a vampire flick or a ghost story. The gothic mansion and its setting had the sort of theatrical feel to it that gave her a mild case of the willies even before she’d set foot inside, and the interior of the place was even more gothic--heavy crushed velvet draperies on all of the tall windows, heavily carved furniture, dark mahogany moldings everywhere.
She wasn’t sure why she’d worked so hard to get the job.
Aside from the fact that she desperately needed work, that is.
Cleaning lady wasn’t exactly the sort of thing one could put on a resume to get a leg up in today’s world. She’d gone after the job because she’d thought it would be a cinch to get it and she’d been beat out by the competition on every other job she’d tried for over the past couple of months. Immediate needs had finally overrode the desirability of career building.
She’d felt like a peon, though, from the first moment she’d been interviewed, and that, at least, was no exaggeration. The housekeeper had looked like a character out of an old horror/vampire flick, not quite medieval but damned close in her severe, mid-calf length black dress, her gray hair slicked back and knotted at the back of her head in a style that looked like something out of the eighteen hundreds.
Raina had known immediately that she’d fucked up when she’d shown up for the interview in jeans and a knit top, be they ever so neat. The housekeeper, Mrs. Higgenbottom, had looked her over as if she smelled something that stank--like shit.
It was menial work she was applying for, though. How the hell was she supposed to guess they’d expect her to dress up just to crawl around on her hands knees to clean? She’d figured she should wear work clothes. She’d worn her best jeans and a neat, almost new, conservative knit top.
It had been obvious immediately that she’d figured wrong. The housekeeper, she strongly suspected, would’ve pitched her out on her ass right then and there, without an interview, except for Mr. Smith. The woman’s face had looked as if it was about to crack wide open with outraged contempt--that Raina had dared to show herself like she was--when she’d looked up and met Mr. Smith’s gaze. Raina hadn’t noticed a single emotion ripple across the man’s face and yet after that exchange of gazes, the housekeeper had settled and started the interview.
What was up with that, anyway?
So far, she’d met--not been introduced to, but had them pointed out to her--Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, Mr. Black, Mr. Green, and Mr. White.
No way in hell was she believing that was their real names.
They were like--a security detail of some kind, reminded her of glimpses she’d had of the secret service men that surrounded the President--they were that fucking scary! Maybe a little more scary.
Except for the detail of slight variations in hair coloring, they almost looked like a matched set of bookends--all of them were at least six foot tall and built like bouncers on steroids. All of them wore suits and dark glasses. All of them had hard angular, strangely exotic faces and looked as if their faces might crack if they ever used any of their facial muscles for anything approaching a smile. They all had unfashionably long hair, which was smoothed back on their heads and tied at the base of their skulls into a ‘ponytail’ that should’ve made them look ridiculous but somehow didn’t--probably because they practically dripped testosterone.
Like the housekeeper, they all wore black, except their suits weren’t throwbacks in style like the housekeeper’s dress--or dresses. Either the woman wore the same dress every day or she had a closet full of the identical style. It was Raina’s third day on the job and she’d yet to see the woman wearing anything that looked the least bit different from the dress she’d worn the day Raina had come to interview a week earlier.
She had yet to see the mysterious Mr. Simon Draken, her actual employer, but, as curious as she was about the man, she actually dreaded the possibility of running in to him.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Higgenbottom, had spent most of her first day on the job telling her what was expected of her and laying down the ‘rules of the house’.
She was a servant, not to be seen or heard--at all--which was where the archaic attitude came in. Mr. Draken was a busy man and rarely left the west wing, where his ‘suite’ lay so she was assured an encounter wasn’t likely, but if she happened to be in an area of the house when he did pass through, she was to try to make herself invisible and never to look directly at the man.
Archaic!
It made her uneasy, though. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to look at the guy because she was a servant and dirt beneath his feet, and maybe there was some kind of dark and creepy reason she wasn’t supposed to look at him.
It was a flaw in her personality, she supposed, that aside from engendering a good deal of resentment in her, the restrictions had also given rise to a wealth of curiosity she might not have felt at all if Mrs. Higgenbottom hadn’t been so adamant that she was forbidden even to look at the man. Her active imagination had instantly began to conjure speculative images.
The mansion almost looked like it could’ve been from the Dark Ages, in style anyway. Except for the style of the architecture, it didn’t look old, but the house didn’t look new either, mostly because she couldn’t imagine the craftsmanship evident in the place having been mass produced or even handcrafted by modern day millworkers.
So she figured he must be old, especially with his archaic expectations of his household staff.
He was obviously filthy rich, too. Even if this estate had been handed down to him, she couldn’t imagine a younger man wanting to live in a place like this--single, she thought. There’d been no mention of a Mrs. Draken.
The fact that she’d been forbidden to look at him made her think he was deformed or disfigured in some way.
Maybe not.
The security detail that guarded the place as if it was Fort Knox suggested he might be someone who’d, at least at one time, been famous, maybe a political dignitary or something.
Or maybe not. She supposed it could’ve just been his wealth.
Shaking the thoughts off, she focused both her mind and her gaze on her work for a moment, examining it carefully. She didn’t want to get fired when she hadn’t even collected her first paycheck and Mrs. Bitch, old as the crow was, had the eyes of a fucking eagle. If there was so much as a speck of dust or a smudged fingerprint, the old bat would make her start over from the beginning.
She’d been trying to convince herself this was just the ‘new girl’ shake down, typical of most jobs where the boss led you around by the short hairs and cracked the whip over your head until they were certain you’d been properly broken in and cowed. If she could just make it through the initiation phase, it would be smooth sailing after that.
The intricate carving of dragons and vines and strange, exotic flowers was beautiful, she supposed. She’d thought so before she was told to clean and polish the damned thing anyway. All the tiny crevices and grooves collected dust, though, and a cleaning rag and polish just didn’t get it insofar as removing the dust in the minute fissures.
Unconsciously rolling the kinks out of her shoulders and back, she glanced surreptitiously around the foyer again. Seeing no sign of Ms. Hatchet-face, Raina lifted her head for a more thorough search. All the doors along the foyer within her view were firmly closed and after a moment, she slipped the toothbrush out of her jeans pocket.
The woman would probably shit a squealing worm a mile long if she caught her using a toothbrush, which was why Raina didn’t intend to get caught. She also didn’t intend to spend the entire day cleaning the fucking balustrade that wound up both sides of the foyer in a grand, horse shoe shaped curve.
Draping her cleaning rag over the handle of the toothbrush, she dipped the soft bristles in the cleaning solution and made short work of the balustrade support, darting an occasional guilty glance around to make certain she wasn’t caught at it. When she’d finished, she used another rag to wipe off the excess cleaning solution and then stood up and leaned over the balustrade to clean the outside.
Somewhere in the rounds of balancing and cleaning and the need to finish the task quickly, she became so focused on what she was doing that she not only forgot to keep a look out for her nemesis, the housekeeper, but she also didn’t pay any attention to the march of many feet on the upstairs landing until they slowed and finally stopped.
It was the cessation of the sound that finally penetrated her absorption. Instinctively, she glanced up and froze as she met the gaze of the man standing at the top of the stairs.
His eyes were unlike any she’d ever seen--on any human, or animal for that matter. Even with the distance separating them the color--a strange gold flecked with orange-rust--seemed to jump out at her. The black pupils didn’t look ‘normal’ either. Instead of round, as they should’ve been, they were elongated, almost diamond shaped.
It wasn’t the eyes, though, that caused her such a jolt. It wasn’t anything her eyes were registering, because she wasn’t actually aware of noting and cataloguing his physical attributes at that suspended moment in time. She wasn’t the sort of person who went around talking or thinking in terms of ‘auras’ and yet she’d felt his even before she looked up, an almost electrified charge in the air that had already been crawling over her and prickling her skin even before she looked up. Once she did look up and met his gaze, she was enveloped in something like a force-field that was ten times stronger than that first awareness, a powerful, unidentifiable ‘something’ that seemed to suspend her breath in her chest and her heart and then jumpstart both with an electric current that made her heart take off like a runaway freight train.
He seemed almost as frozen as she was, though she was quite sure, later when she could think at all, that it wasn’t for the same reason or anything approaching it.
For her, the closest she could come to describing her feelings later was that she was awestruck, as if she’d found herself in the presence of some deity, or a being with god-like powers--or a sex god of the silver screen.
After a long, long moment, while her heart hung suspended in her chest, and the air she’d sucked into her lungs and held slowly depleted of oxygen and began to bleed a dizzying current of carbon monoxide into her feeble brain, he lifted a pair of sunglasses and settled them over his eyes. The movement, or the sudden release of her captive gaze, allowed Raina a handful of seconds to gather an overall impression of the man before she became aware of the men surrounding him, standing slightly behind him.
A security detail, her mind clicked.
The mysterious Mr. Draken, her mind added.
The toothbrush in her hand.
Guiltily, Raina made a belated attempt to hide the contraband in her hand. She averted her gaze but not before she saw her guilty movement had drawn his attention directly to the toothbrush she’d tried to palm.
She was never to be seen, or heard, and under no circumstances to look directly at the man. The color left her face in a rush as those rules, drummed into her head over the past several days, belatedly filtered into her mind. Straightening abruptly, she grabbed her tray of cleaning supplies, galloped down the stairs, and around the curve, flattening herself against the wall. Her heart, jump started by her abrupt awareness, was galloping in her chest at around ninety miles an hour. Her lungs, laboring overtime now that she’d remembered to breathe, pumped like a bellows, over oxygenating her blood so rapidly she thought for several horrifying moments she was going to pass out.
Triple shit! she thought in dismay as she caught a glimpse of the housekeeper’s shoes in the doorway off to her right.
She’d broken every single damned rule in the space of a heartbeat and topped that off by galloping down the stairs like an idiot, drawing even more attention to herself!
She flicked a look at her hand by her side and saw the bright blue handle of the toothbrush sticking up out of the cleaning cloth. As casually as she could, she rotated her arm so that the handle, she hoped, was hidden from the woman’s view, but she had a bad feeling it was way too late to be worrying about the damned toothbrush. Even if Hatchet-face hadn’t seen the toothbrush, she’d probably seen her gallop down the stairs, and seen her look directly at the man--Simon Draken--staring at him as if she’d heard a chorus of angels singing in the background.
She knew it had to be him. As stunned as she’d been, she’d been dimly aware that he wasn’t alone even before she glanced up. The fact that four of the security men had flanked him was enough to assure her it was ‘his lordship’ himself.
She frowned at that thought. She’d been too mesmerized to take in any particular details about him, but she certainly hadn’t gotten the impression that he was old. His bearing had been ramrod stiff--almost military, although ‘regal’ was what popped into her mind from out of nowhere--not bent with age. His bearing aside, the impression she’d gotten was one of exceptional height, and massive proportions, not a body shriveled with age.
Not fat.
He wore black like everyone else in this bizarre household, but it hadn’t been a suit. The slacks had been tailored to fit narrow hips and long, lean legs. The shirt, almost ‘blousy’ and old world looking, had been open at the neck, but his shoulders were broad and straight and the silk-like fabric had draped what seemed, in retrospect, hard, bulging muscles a body-builder would envy.
The men were halfway down the stairs before her hearing picked out the sound of their footsteps over her drumming heartbeat. Inwardly, she cringed, wishing she hadn’t stopped by the stairs. She’d been lucky to make it as far as she had, though, without her legs completely losing muscle tone and dumping her in the floor. She was fairly certain she wouldn’t have made it down the hall to the service area without embarrassing herself.
Sweat beaded her brow when the contingent reached the foot of the stairs and paused. The housekeeper was still watching her. She wasn’t going to look, even though it was eating her alive to glance in that direction just to see if he was looking at her.
She wasn’t going to.
She slid her eyes in his direction. She couldn’t see anything but black shoes and calves clad in dress pants--and a pair of knee high black boots. The toes were pointed toward the door. For some reason, though, she had the impression that he’d glanced in her direction.
Paranoia?
After that brief hesitation, the entire party went out the front door.
Raina expelled a breath of relief when they disappeared.
She counted to ten, expecting to hear the crisp footsteps of the housekeeper. She knew the woman wasn’t going to bellow at her from down the hall.
“Mr. Draken will be back in an hour,” Mrs. Higgenbottom said finally, her voice sounding almost mild for her. “Be certain you’ve finished with the balustrade and moved into the dining room by then.”
More than a little stunned, Raina nodded, but the soft click of the door told her the woman hadn’t waited for any kind of response.
Her entire body slumped as the tension went out of her. Feeling dazed and more than a little confused, Raina moved away from the wall when the weakness finally subsided and strength slowly began to return.
She hadn’t been dismissed.
Yet.
The old bat was probably going to wait until she’d finished cleaning and then fire her, Riana thought morosely.
And how the hell did she know he’d be back in an hour? Where would he go on the island that would take him an hour to get there and back? He wouldn’t be leaving the island. It was a fifteen minute ride around it to the dock and another ten to fifteen from there to the mainland, twenty or thirty to the city limits.
Shaking that puzzle off, Riana hurried up the stairs and hustled to finish the seemingly endless task in the time allotted. It wasn’t just that she was concerned about the housekeeper, either. The entire episode had left her feeling strangely disoriented and jumpy. The man exuded cold and dangerous. As scary as she’d thought his watch dogs were, the main man made them seem warm and cuddly in contrast.
That was the impression that had made her heart stop and her breath freeze in her lungs, she decided.
The image of his strange eyes hung in the back of her mind as she worked furiously to finish the cleaning and polishing so that she could play least in sight when the man came back.
Emotionless, she thought, not just cold in the sense that he might have been looking at a roach that had had the audacity to creep out from under the rug. His eyes, his expression, had been as cold and distant as if there was no soul in the body.
She’d seen a flicker of something, though, she realized after a while. Fleetingly, so briefly she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been staring into his eyes, she’d seen something pass through them, an acknowledgement of her presence, she supposed. Surprise, maybe? As if it had been so unexpected for him to discover an actual living, breathing being cleaning his house that it had jolted him out of that faraway place where his mind ordinarily dwelt.
* * * *
Such turmoil churned through Simon as he left the house that it was only habit that guided him down the path he’d worn over the years from the house to the sea. He found he could not sort the confusion of thoughts and impressions, even though he felt a need to do so, and that disturbed him almost as much as the fact that he was in a state of disorder at all.
He had not expected to encounter the woman--his people knew he did not like to deal with outsiders--but he was not unaware of the woman’s presence in his house. As little interest as he had in such things, he was kept informed of everything that went on around him. That was a given. Whether he was interested or not, his rank placed as many obligations upon him as it did his people.
And that being the case, he should not have felt such a jolt of … shock upon encountering her. Should not have felt even a great deal of surprise, let alone stunned to such a degree that it seemed to suspend him in time so that he’d found himself unable to move, or think, or even breathe for a seemingly endless time.
It was shock that he’d felt, though, he finally acknowledged, an unpleasant jolt of stunned what?
He still was not sure, but his mind obligingly recalled every image it had recorded in those moments, every impression, and tumbled them around again in an effort to find some explanation, some logical reason for the disturbance.
A small, pale face surrounded by untidy locks of dark, reddish brown hair emerged dominate, and most strongly of that impression was the eyes--because they seemed larger than anything else about her face. More vaguely, he had had the impression of clothing that had seemed far more suitable for a man--at least the men of his culture--fitted, though there had been nothing at all mannish about the body the clothing so faithfully conformed to--large, soft breasts, a narrow waist, nicely rounded hips and shapely thighs.
He had noticed everything about her body, he realized with a mixture of surprise and irritation. Without any actual intention of doing so, without even a conscious awareness of it, he had catalogued every pleasing curve, could remember very clearly every detail of shape and size, even a calculation of firmness and softness.
Arousal, he realized as he felt his body stir again only at the memories. Part of it, at least, had been desire.
He examined that with suspicion, searching for a reason to dismiss it, and realized that he could not. The potent attraction, unwelcome as it was, unfathomable as it was, had been the greatest part of the jolt to him.
He had not been with a woman in He could not exactly remember the last time. He had a vague memory of expending himself on some nameless, faceless female, but nothing beyond that--no perception of time. In truth, he had ignored his physical needs so long he rarely felt it to any great degree anymore and he could not even recall when he had managed to quash even the call of his manhood.
That explained it, though--need. It was not want. It was only nature demanding he remember that his body had needs besides the intake of nourishment and the need to rest.
That did not explain why, though, the eyes bothered him so much, why the expression on her face haunted him.
She had felt it, too, he realized after a few more minutes of thrashing the idea around in his head, feeling almost more stunned by that realization. That was why he had felt such a jolt. The look in her eyes, on her face--it had mirrored the same, inexplicably powerful force of attraction that he had felt.
Reflected back at him, he wondered? Overlain there by his mind’s eye only because it was what he felt? Or had she actually felt it, too?
Frowning, he examined that more carefully.
He did remember it correctly, he finally decided, but the attraction wasn’t all that he’d seen. It might not even have been the emotion that dominated that little face that he’d found so appealing, so strangely fascinating.
She’d been focused on his eyes, paled as she stared him, froze like prey that has sensed the interest of a predator.
He hadn’t been wearing his glasses, he realized abruptly, feeling anger and far more disappointment than he should have.
He had scared the hell out of her.
* * * *
The conflicting thoughts and impressions did nothing to settle Raina’s nerves. As tired as she was by the time she’d managed to finish, she was still jumpy. The faintest sound made her stiffen and cock her ears to listen intently until she’d identified it.
She was frantically polishing the last segment of the balustrade when she heard the sound she’d been listening for--the faint scuff of soles on the walkway outside the front door. For a split second, she froze like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. As she stared at the door, though, and saw the door knob begin to turn, she grabbed her cleaning tray and darted toward the formal dining room on tiptoe.
God only knew why she thought that would help anything. The cleaning supplies jiggled and rattled with each step, noisily marking her quick retreat.She almost spilled the thing in her haste to clear the doorway and close the door behind her.
Struggling not to pant for breath like an obscene phone breather, Raina, inspired by some insane impulse she couldn’t resist, paused before closing the door completely. Holding it with no more than a thin sliver between the door’s edge and the frame, she peered through the minute opening as the men entered the foyer.
He was in the forefront again. Despite the panic that threaded through her veins, she allowed her gaze to take a full sweep of him before she focused on the hard planes of his face, studying his profile as he came into full view.
He hesitated fractionally as he placed one boot clad foot on the first stair. For a split second, she thought he knew she was there, that he was going to turn and look straight at her.
He didn’t. He mounted the stairs and disappeared from view, leaving her to wonder if she’d just imagined that slight hesitation.
When the last of his escort had disappeared up the stairs behind him, she very carefully closed the door, wincing as she heard the click as the door caught and wondering if it only seemed loud to her or if it actually had been loud enough to carry up the stairs.
After glancing around the vast dining room vaguely for a moment, she finally moved to one of the dining chairs that lined the wall nearest her and collapsed weakly on the seat.
Staring at nothing in particular as her mind focused inwardly, she tried to sort the unfamiliar riot of emotions inside of her. With a touch of surprise, she finally realized that uppermost was almost a sense of awe, giddiness--vague hysteria--as if she’d discovered herself in the presence of some rock star or god of the silver screen she’d lusted over and fantasized about for years--except this man was a complete stranger. She was absolutely certain she’d never seen that face before. She would never have forgotten it.So how, him being a nobody as far she was concerned, could he have had that kind of effect on her?
Chapter Two
Audric studied the prince surreptitiously as he followed in his wake, ostensibly scanning their surroundings for any sign of an assassin. He knew the others were alert for the possibility, though, and only half his mind was focused on that constant vigil. The other half was focused on the prince himself, searching for some outward sign that his ruse had been detected.
Simon had seen the woman. There was no doubt in his mind that, for the first time since he could remember, something had finally penetrated the shield of ice Simon had erected around himself. Unfortunately, since he’d been behind his half-brother, as was his place, he hadn’t seen what sort of effect it had had on him.
He was still heartened. Even a tiny fracture was welcome after all these years when he’d almost lost hope that he would ever again see the man he’d worshipped since he was child, guarded with his life since he was old enough to take his place in the royal guard.
When Simon stopped at last on the promontory where he always stopped, staring out at the sea, Audric motioned for the royal guard to take up stations and then moved to a position that would allow him to keep watch and still catch an occasional glimpse of Simon’s profile.
Uneasiness filtered through him when Simon turned his head and stared at him for a long moment before his gaze focused inward again and he turned to stare out to sea as he had ritualistically once a week since his exile from his homeland. He knew, if the others didn’t, that this was Simon’s penance for living when the woman he’d loved more than life had died, taking his heart and soul with her.
To everyone else, it might seem as if Simon was hardly aware of where his eyes focused. It was just a sea, not the sea that had swallowed Evangeline and taken away the light in Simon’s eyes.
He knew, though. The very first time they’d come this spot and looked out at the sea the image that had been printed indelibly on his mind forever had surfaced instantly and he’d thought for several moments that he would throw up.
That was why Simon came here, not because this sea reminded him of home, but because every time he looked at it, he saw Evangeline’s long black hair drifting in the tide, saw her lifeless eyes staring back him.
He came to torture himself. For living? Maybe. Probably. But Audric thought it was also because he was searching for his lost soul, trying to figure out why he was still alive--or still breathing. What Simon had been doing since he’d been exiled didn’t actually constitute living. Existing more accurately described it.
Despite every effort he’d made himself to banish that nightmare, Audric felt it grip him again the moment he acknowledged it, felt the memories wash over him in a sickening tide.
He’d been afraid and struggling mightily with the effort to hide it and maintain his dignity when they’d been brought out, they thought, for execution after the months they’d spent in that stinking prison. He’d told himself he’d expected nothing less, that he was surprised they’d even waited as long as they had. He’d told himself it was better to get it over with than to die by degrees, slowly rotting in prison, becoming less of a man and more of an animal every day.
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.
No thought had entered his mind when he had gazed into the eyes of the woman bound to him for life. Awareness of anything beyond her had faded to nothingness. They might have been completely alone instead of in the midst of a grand, royal binding ceremony with hundreds of onlookers.
Habit was all that had guided him through the rest of the formalities, the manners and stilted customs that had always annoyed him, but that had been drummed into him until it required no thought at all to perform as was expected of him.
It was just as well, he’d thought wryly, later, when he could think at all. Because his instincts from that moment were purely primal, savage, urging him to slough off any semblance of civilized behavior. Urging him to grab her and carry her off to his lair at once, to stake his claim on her, and defend his sole right to her to the death if any other male so much as glanced in her direction.
He’d seen that look in many women’s eyes in his life, for he was crown prince and not hard on the eyes, accounted handsome by most, though he’d always taken that with a grain of salt--not love, not even exactly desire, but--worshipfulness--as if he was a god. For the first time in his life, though, it had made him feel like a god--more powerful than an ordinary mortal, more desirable.
He’d succumbed in that very moment, so enraptured by her perception of him that all he could think of was being what she wanted and needed him to be, terrified that he would slip and fall and she would wake up and see he was just an ordinary dracon, not special in any way beyond the accident of his birth.
For two years out of an entire life, he had walked among gods, known passion unlike anything he had ever experienced, love that was for him alone, as a dracon--not because he’d been born a prince--known true happiness, not just an absence of unhappiness or boredom or strife, known what it was like to look forward to every day with eager anticipation.
And then as instantly as the snuffing of a candle, it was all gone--all of it--his beloved father, his princess, the daughter he had adored--everything--snatched away from him so jarringly that he couldn’t even take it all in in the months he’d spent in prison.
Until the very day he was marched from his cell to his execution, he had still believed he was the god-like being Evangeline had perceived, believed he would still overcome, that he would take back everything that had been taken--somehow.
It had come as a shock to realize he really was going to die, that he really was just an ordinary dracon after all, not even a prince anymore. He’d still had his pride, though, that inborn arrogance that had been so carefully cultivated in him because he’d been born to rule. He’d braced himself for death. As afraid as he’d been when they’d gathered them all, he thought, for execution, he’d told himself he was ready for it, that he could face it with dignity and strength--show them all that he was the prince, whether they wanted to acknowledge it or not. He could face it like a dracon, even though waiting for the execution was nothing in the world like facing a foe on the battlefield where one knew one had a chance to live as long as strength and skill held out.
And then they’d ripped all that away from him by dragging his beautiful Evangeline out onto the beach in front him and killing her instead.
He’d been far more afraid when he saw what they meant to do than he had been when he had expected to be the one who watched death slowly overtake him. He’d been petrified, mindless with it, unable to summon any of the quick wit he’d always prided himself on.
He’d tried. The gods knew he had--reasoning, threats, bribery--and begging when nothing he’d said had had any effect at all other than bringing a glint of hard satisfaction to Jaelan’s eyes.
Evangeline hadn’t pleaded for her life. She’d only stared at him with her beautiful, wide golden eyes, hopefully at first, and then without hope, but with fear and resignation. “I love you, Simon,” she’d called to him. “Don’t watch. Don’t let them use me to hurt you. Please don’t watch.”
He hadn’t been able to tear his gaze from hers, though. Somewhere in the madness his mind had beguiled him with the hope that he could hold on to her. If he just didn’t let go, he wouldn’t lose her.
This time as he remembered, instead of feeling the emptiness wash into him as he watched her soul fleeing from him, instead of the soothing, hurtful images of the happiness he’d known and lost, he saw Jaelan’s smile of triumph--not Evangeline’s smile of love. He heard the complacency in Jaelen’s voice as he banished him forever, not Evangeline’s teasing voice echoing to him through the forest as she raced him to the glade that was their special place.
Rage and hopelessness warred inside of him instead of a bittersweet taste of peace, a remembrance of the days before when all he had known was the joy of greeting each new day because he had anticipated that it would be as grand and glorious as the day before.
And when he struggled to thrust those memories from his mind, strained to reach for Evie and wrap his mind in the warmth of her, her scent, the soul deep beauty of her, a pair of wide, soulful green eyes peered back at him. An image of a rosebud of a mouth parted in surprise teased him instead of Evie’s generous, full lips curling in a tempting smile. Instead of visualizing Evie’s long, graceful arms and legs twined about him as they made love, the press of Evie’s full, generous breasts against his chest, he remembered the compact little body of the human woman and saw himself striving over her, felt a rippling heat-wave move over and through him as he imagined her body engulfing his flesh.
And for a just a moment, so fleetingly he could almost convince himself he’d imagined it, he saw the look in her eyes and knew what it was. He felt the impact on his soul just as he had the first time he’d looked at Evie. And stark terror hit him--the paralyzing fear one feels in anticipation of inescapable pain. The fear that threatens to swallow one up when the certainty fills one that what is about to happen, and can not be avoided, is going to cause excruciating pain, even before the nerves detect it and send the sensation flooding into the mind.
Sucking in a harsh breath, he thrust it from his mind, telling himself he didn’t see that at all, feel what he’d thought he’d felt.
Anger and resentment flickered to life inside him, began to boil like acid through his veins. He wasn’t going to feel that again. Even if he had wanted to feel those things, no one could make him feel that again. Evie had given it to him and she had taken it with her to her grave.
He was safe. He couldn’t die again because he was already dead.
But she had cut up his peace. Just by being there, she’d punched a hole in the wall he’d so carefully erected to shield him from the pain he couldn’t bear, ripped away his ability to summon the comforting memories that were all he had left.
Damn her!
Giving up finally in his quest to relive the past as he had every miserable day of his life since he’d lost Evie, he turned away from the sea and fled back to his prison, hoping that he could at least find the peace of nothingness again even if he couldn’t feed his withering soul on his memories.
The gods help him. He didn’t think he could live and bear it if he had to feel everything again. This time, he would go mad!
Chapter Three
Raina was so tired by the time the housekeeper let her go for the day, it took all she could do to climb the stairs to the loft apartment she’d been given above the garage. “Who would’ve thought cleaning and polishing would be so damned hard?” she muttered to herself as she sprawled in the first easy chair she came to and stared tiredly into space.
Actually it wouldn’t have been if the place hadn’t been so fucking huge, and every damned thing in it hadn’t been made out of wood. The whole bottom half of the walls had been paneled in wood in the damned dining room!
She was starting to hate wood.
If Ms. Hatchet-face hadn’t told her this polishing business was just a once a month thing, she would’ve quit before lunch and headed back to the mainland--even if she’d had to swim the damned inner-coastal waterway to get there!
If she didn’t get used to this, in a hurry, there was no way she was going to be able to take classes next quarter. She didn’t have the energy to think!
The longer she sat, the more inclined she was to forget supper and head straight to bed. She didn’t even feel up to taking a bath. Expelling a deep sigh, she pushed herself up and headed for the bathroom, dragging her clothes off and discarding them piece by piece as she went. She was down to her sports bra and panties before she even reached the bathroom. Stopping by the four poster bed to push her sneakers off and wiggle out of her jeans, she held onto a post to balance herself as she pulled off her socks and dropped them and then padded barefoot into the bathroom. The cool tile felt like ice under the warmth of her soles, and she gritted her teeth as she hopped onto the bathmat to adjust the water.
She hopped off again as the twist of the knob produced a clanking, knocking noise and a sputtering of rusty water and then a long, agonized groan. Wincing at the sound, she grabbed the knob and twisted it to ‘off’.The groaning stopped. After staring at the thing in consternation for several moments, she tried it again, just in case the first time had been a fluke. This time the pipes groaned first and coughed up a couple of frigid blasts of water, sputtered a few times, and then just dripped. Turning the faucet off again, Raina glared at the shower for a couple of moments and finally spun on her heel and stalked back into the bedroom/kitchenette/living area.
A scan of the main room produced the information that there was neither a phone nor an intercom. What a surprise!
She looked around in disgust even though, when she’d dragged her belongings upstairs upon her arrival that morning, she’d been delighted with the place--actually loved it. She didn’t love it without frigging water, though!
She didn’t feel like putting her clothes back on, trudging down the stairs, across to the main house to find somebody to help, and then back again!
Abruptly remembering she’d glimpsed someone working in the garden when she’d followed the covered walkway to the garage, she moved to the window that faced the garden and looked down. There was a man on his knees pulling weeds from one of the beds. She looked down at herself, but then shrugged. She was wearing a sports bra not one of those lacy, seductive things that revealed almost as much as it covered. Pushing the window open, she leaned out.
“Hey!” she called out in a loud whisper. “Psst! Garden guy!”
The man stiffened and glanced around.
“Up here!” she called again, leaning out the window to wave at him.
He lifted his head and gaped at her.
The thought crossed her mind that he might not be entirely bright.
“My water isn’t working,” she said plaintively. “Do you know anything about plumbing?”