A Queen of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 4)

She assessed me for a moment, and a little smile played across her lips.

“I was not as hard as you, young Finley. I was not forged in fire as you were. I knew he could dominate me, and I didn’t push the issue. I didn’t learn how to manifest my will to rise higher, fight harder. Instead, for many years, I cowered.”

“Not all women will randomly stab someone with a pocketknife, sweetheart,” Nyfain told me, and through his rolling emotions I could pick out his brief flare of humor.

“That wasn’t random,” I mumbled. “Or did you forget you had me by the throat?”

“Yes, well.” Arleth quirked her eyebrow at us, and I wondered if I’d forgotten to mention the stabbing bit when I was recounting my history to “Ami” in the everlass fields of her village. “The mad king would not have tolerated someone pushing back. I tried to make the best of my situation, but his ill treatment of me went beyond physical abuse. He took all his frustrations out on me. Belittled me. He spent his idle time tormenting me for his own amusement. Often it was unbearable.

“His commander at the time tried to help as much as he could. He tried to intercept, even if he was punished for it. When the physical abuse did happen, and the king wouldn’t let my ladies-in-waiting see me, the commander often nursed me himself, tending my wounds and trying to make me laugh. To say I fell hard for him would be an understatement. He was my light in a very dark place, a joy amidst so much anguish.”

She wiped away another tear.

“We fought the attraction at first. I knew the king would lose his mind if he knew, especially since he hadn’t been able to get me with child. Given our circumstances, we’d never imprint, the king and I, and because of that I’d never go into heat to help things along. So even though the king was notoriously unfaithful, something I didn’t mind because it kept him away from me, I needed to stay true. Except inevitably…”

Nyfain didn’t speak, tense beside me. I leaned against him and wrapped my arm around him, hugging him while watching Arleth. He dropped his hand from the table, reaching over to place it on my thigh.

“It was about a year after I’d first given in to temptation with the commander,” she said, “that I learned I was with child.”

“So it wasn’t just the one time,” I surmised.

“No. Not remotely. Once it started…”

“Were you in love?” I asked.

“Madly. Desperately.” She wiped away another tear. “His dragon wanted to lay his claim over the king’s mark. The commander had more than enough power to do so. He was a great alpha dragon, the most powerful dragon in the kingdom. It was how he’d challenged his way up to commander from humble roots. My dragon also had a fierce need to mark him. But we knew it would mean his death. Maybe mine too.” She took a deep breath. “I knew the baby was his. There could be no doubt. I hadn’t been with the king in many months. He was busy with the new servants, and at any rate, he knew I hated his touch. He often lost his…”

“Hard-on,” I added.

Her lips tightened fractionally, and she gave a slight nod. She hadn’t been schooled in the sexually outspoken ways of Hadriel.

“He serviced me, as he called it, when he was drunk with brandy or power. There was no love there. So when I fell pregnant, and the only man and dragon I’d been with for months was the commander…”

“The only man…and dragon you’d been with?” I asked with a crinkled nose. “Your dragons banged, too?”

Her look was more than enough answer.

Get our big-dicked dragon up into the sky, and I’ll show you how dragons fuck, my dragon thought, and I wanted to scrub out my brain. It was weird enough to fuck in human form while the dragons were in control.

“Why won’t you say his name?” Nyfain asked, tensing again.

She lifted her chin a little. “Because you will have heard his name. I’d like you to know the real story so you won’t let lies tarnish his name.”

Ugh, that didn’t sound good.

“Did the king suspect?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “It didn’t seem like it at the time, but looking back on it, I think he probably did. He wasn’t a dumb man. Not to mention…he’d apparently known his chances of producing offspring were limited. That was something I found out later. He’d kept it from me—from most everyone—not wanting word to get out that he was all but sterile. He thought it would…defeat his manhood, or some such nonsense. Still, he probably thought there was some chance, however miniscule. We all hope for the impossible, every now and then.”