Page 8 of The Fire Dragon's Mate
“His Royal Highness, Prince Declan de Lancret of Besia.”
“Quite the mouthful.” He leaned over me and grinned. “But then the rest of you appears to be as well.”
The rest of me? Gods damn it all, the blanket had fallen off me again and I lay there naked as the day I’d been born for this pervert to ogle me.
“Fetch the blanket, Beast.”
“Beast,” he said on a chuckle, but he bent and retrieved the blanket just the same.
Though I didn’t want to be grateful, I was. That he tucked the soft cloth around me was entirely unnecessary. I swatted at his hand for being far too familiar with his touch, but he only laughed and leaned insolently against the stone pillar near the foot of the cot.
Tracking his movements must’ve set offanother bout of nausea because I hadn’t done anything else. I swallowed rapidly and closed my eyes as I gripped the cot’s frame, waiting for it to pass.
“Let me help, Declan.”
I wanted to say he could but also didn’t want to vomit in his presence, sure he would find some way to joke about it to embarrass me. But also, something about the fact that he asked instead of simply helping made me wonder why his assistance required approval first. What kind of magic did a shape shifting creature possess?
“Do you resist a cure,” he asked with an edge to his voice, “because you cannot accept myself or my hoard?”
“Your hoard?” I sneered at him. “Is that what you call them?”
“It is, yes.”
“Those areprinces. And at least one princess.”
“They are the lost souls that their kings and queens flung into the unknown for me to recover.”
It struck me then that if he had not been on this island, how many of us would’ve died? No resources, surely none of my fellow princes knew how to survive living so rough, and no way to reach a populated kingdom—we would’ve perished within days.
“Fine,” I admitted, “you’ve done us a service by not allowing us to die, but must you defile them?”
“You princes,” he said with a shake of his head. “Everyone else in the nine kingdoms can fuck and marry whomever they want, but not the royalty. Never them.”
“It’s the law.”
“A law that guarantees some of you live in misery, denied who you truly love, all for the sake of babies that can make alliances when they’re old enough to be sold to the highest bidder.”
Automatically, I opened my mouth to correct him, to regurgitate every line I was ever fed about why it was important that royals resist the baser instincts of common people. Our lineage was paramount. It had to be maintained, even by third sons. But why tell him that? What was the point of explaining to a beast who lusted for men that I was meant to live to a higher standard for the sake of my people?
A people who didn’t care where I was right now. A king who may have thrown me away because I was of no real use to him. A queen who may have invented a conflict to get her way and have a reason to dispatch me.
I was starting to understand why Phineas and the others hadn’t wanted to return to their homes after the way they’d been discarded, but… “Why do they choose to stay here?”
“My hoard?”
That word… I gritted my teeth for a moment, but that only made my head throb worse. “Yes.”
He made a disgusted face. “Why would they ever return to a place that didn’t want them?”
“Yes, I… I understand that, but why not go to a different kingdom? Start again as someone new where no one knows them?”
“They’ve found that new beginning here.”
“But… But you…”
He grinned at me like he dared me to say it aloud.
Quietly, because I wanted to know and I didn’t, I asked, “Why do you do that to them?”
