Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet 2)

Those words were the last thing Max heard before charging at his former master with his knife held high.

Chapter Thirty

XENON

“Blue Father, Blue Father, will you honor us with a story?” Wiltonia, one of his twin daughters asked in their drakkon tongue.

“Please? Please, please, please,” Roya, the much more dramatic of the two pleaded in their mother’s language.

Much to his mate’s dismay their twin daughters looked, talked, and pleaded like human five-year-olds, despite having been born only a little over a year ago.

However, no begging was required. Also to his mate’s dismay, several months after their reunion, it remained impossible for his daughters to find questions to which Xenon would ever answer no. Even though he owed them no reverence.

Besides he could tell they were sleepy. Their wings, which they were still in the habit of wearing out—"like fairies” Roya once explained to him—had folded tight into their little backs. A sure sign that they no longer possessed the energy required to keep them extended.

“What shall be our third story?” he asked them.

“The Lost Princess with Long Hair!” they declared together. Like him, they prefer to use assigned titles rather than names.

He picked out the already well-worn book, which lived in a small nightstand bookshelf between their two beds. Then, translating into his drakkon tongue as he went along, he read to them the tale of the human princess called Rapunzel. In the story, she is kidnapped by a witch as a baby, goes on to become impregnated by a prince, who the witch then blinds.

It was a truly horrific story, but the ending was happy. And Golden Daughters greeted the tale’s conclusion with a very human, “Yay!”

Wiltonia gave him a sleepy smile as he tucked her in. But then she told him in their language, “I have been dreaming of walking upon a bridge with a male. And I think he may be a prince. For we walk in a beautiful garden that belongs to him. Do you think this prince will come to rescue me as Wolf Mama rescued you?”

The question chilled Xenon to the bone.

“Are you not happy here on this peaceful island with your family?” he asked.

“Yes, but…” Wiltonia sighed, expelling steam from her nose. “My dream prince seems nice.”

“I want a prince too!” Roya added from her bed. “And long hair! And to meet other children like the ones in our books. And go to a school with a playground.”

Such silly wishes, but guilt crackled inside Xenon’s bright yellow flame. There was a time when he had been the King of Drakkon, all-powerful as far as the inhabitants of this mostly water planet were concerned. But he was now so weak, he could not grant even the silliest of Roya’s requests.

As it turned out, the twins had managed to find a question to which he would have to answer no.

“What took you so long?” his treasured mate asked when he entered their room with a worried head flame. “Did the twins refuse to go down without a fight?” She must have sensed his agitation over his mate bond.

“No fighting was required,” he assured her. “Only yet another book about a princess who must endure much tragedy before she is finally able to marry.”

Treasured Mate laughs. “Yeah, a lot of girls go through that princess phase. Usually when their five or six…”

A familiar agitation joined with his over their mate bond. It was one he’d come to know well in the moons since they were reunited. And it was usually accompanied by a lament about how “my babies are growing up way too fast!”

But tonight, Treasured Mate asked, “Do you think we’ll ever get out of here? I’m afraid my family will miss their entire childhood at this rate.”

Answering that question would require him to lie. And he could not do that. At least not in this form. It was not impossible for him to lie to his mate, but the Reverence imperative…well, his need to honor her in all things made lying very difficult.

The one and only time he’d punished her back when they lived in the Ice Age, he was forced to unshell. Technically having to deal exclusively with the drakkon she so abhorred was part of her punishment. But in truth, he doubted he would have been able to act so irreverently and maintain his shell.

But could Damianos?

That was the bet he had wagered when he sent the Nightwolf Triplets away. They believed Ola’s kidnapping to be a move in his cousin’s ultimate plan for revenge.

What they didn’t understand was that Damianos claiming a mate, especially one as impudent as the twin sister of his Treasured Mate, was more dangerous for himself than them. If she’d gone into heat…if they’d mated and produced a son…then he’d be just as overcome by Reverence as he had been after Treasured Mate gave birth to Golden Son.