To Claim a King (Age of Gold Book 1) Read online

  “Alexandria has never been a liar.”

  She moved without thinking, taking her sister’s hand and kissing the back of her palm. She would never have seen this coming.

  It wasn’t enough, though.

  “We’re not going to insult a man who’s broken bread with us, who sits on the Council, who brings honor to his family name,” her mother’s voice rose to a shout. “The man wants to marry you, girl. Chances are he tried to kiss you, but you, as you always do, made a fuss about nothing.”

  Xandrie was about to launch a counter-argument when the front doors swung open with such force the walls shook. Darsen glowered in the doorway. The coward had brought an entire contingent of the Guard to back him up.

  “Arrest this woman,” he said.

  “On what grounds?”

  “Consorting with the Demon.”

  Xandrie snorted. She couldn’t help herself. The man was a joke.

  Darsen turned towards her parents. “It pains me to do this, my dear, dear friends.”

  Really? He was going to suck up to them and tell a bunch of lies?

  “Your daughter cornered me by the outer walls of the village. She broke curfew, but that’s nothing compared to what came next.”

  Xandrie folded her arms. What nonsense was this jackass going to try to sell them?

  “Her emerald eyes, which you tout as one of her finest features, Kari, blazed gold before she laid her hands on me.” Darsen tore open his shirt. “She did this.”

  Xandrie stared in disbelief at the hand-shaped burn on his chest. Could those marks really have come from her? She knew of mages who only showed their skills under duress, but surely, she would have known if she’d cast a spell. Then again, the scene had been so blurry, and happened so fast, perhaps she’d conjured up a simple sui-defensor spell without knowing what she was doing?

  Then, she remembered the power rushing to her arm. Fuck. She had done something to him. But it was in self-defense, and magic wasn’t exactly outlawed.

  The guard crept towards her, fearful no doubt that the so-called Demon would rise up through her and smite them. It would have been laughable were it not for the fact that most of her family seemed to be swallowing Darsen’s horseshit.

  “If you won’t lay a telling salve on him, lay one on me. I’ll tell you what happened!” her voice was becoming desperate.

  “I think both of them should be interrogated under oath,” Aleria said, supporting her again.

  Everyone ignored her.

  Her father approached her, and for a second, she wondered if he would stand beside her, but instead he suddenly flicked a smidge of green powder over Xandrie.

  “You can approach the suspect now.”

  Xandrie couldn’t believe her own father would restrain her with some of his famous Stock Still formula, but her arms were rooted to her side and the Guards swarmed and bound her with no effort. “The man tried to rape me. He forced himself on me. Will no one believe me?”

  “I believe that’s entirely possible, and should be investigated.”

  Again, no one paid any mind to Aleria. Xandrie had seen it happen before, and she hadn’t cared much. Her sister was the pretty one; no one cared about what came out of her mouth.

  “We recuse ourselves, naturally, from the proceedings,” her mother announced. “It would be unseemly if her family were to be involved in any way. The law dictates she be tried in the manner proscribed.”

  “You’d let them torture me?” Xandrie couldn’t believe it. She’d known she wasn’t wanted or welcome in her family - she had no idea her parents hated her.

  Turning to her elder sister, eyes shining, she begged, “Don’t let him hurt anyone else. Watch him.” Aleria nodded, as the Guard seized her and shoved her towards the door.

  Xandrie felt the same fury that had overcome her by the village walls, rise from the pit of her stomach. She needed to contain herself, save that energy for what came next. She knew, all too well, what the dungeons of Malec held. There would be pincers and fire and thumbscrews and a rack. Worse yet, they were staffed with the most brutal of all men.

  She wasn’t wrong. The dungeons were stacked to the ceiling with well-oiled and highly-polished instruments of torture. The dungeon master took great pride in his work. Felons and villains folded under his hand.

  Xandrie was lashed to a tilting table, the vicious tools of her torturer all around her. She didn’t know where it came from, but each time the vile brute approached her, she burned with the power of a thousand suns and neither he, nor any of his sniveling henchmen, could touch her. They had not managed to break her skin once.

  Darsen hovered in the background, consulting with the counsellors and noblemen he and her parents were so close with.

  Pfft, noble my ass. You’re no more a noble than I’m a vessel of the Demon.

  A glint of gold said the Mayor was back there, in his ceremonial garb. He didn’t dare draw close. None of them did. They were all of one opinion: she was possessed. She had consorted with, and did the bidding of, none other than the Demon of Bhashtar. There was only one sentence.

  That sentence was “Death.”

  Demon

  The gold felt good. No, better than good: it felt like perfection. No wonder alchemists had studied it through all time. Its heft, its luster, the way it sang in his brain was more calming to his nerves than all the draughts his physicians might prescribe. Though he knew it was a sickness – that he was obsessed and should find a way to curb his appetite for the metal – Rhey Vasili plunged his hands deep into his hoard and let the coins run through his fingers. He wanted to stop. He meant to. He’d tried to. He’d even managed to stay away for a day at a time. But he always returned to his chambers, to seek the solace precious metal afforded him. He feared he’d never rid himself of the hunger for gold.

  The curse of his kind: the most powerful amongst them eventually grew sick. Feral. First, they were fascinated by gold, then, by the dark - last, came flesh and fire. This was how he had come to be crowned before his time - his father had left when his hunger for gold had devolved into a taste for flesh. He would suffer the same fate one day; there was no cure for it. He knew that was the reason why the Elders had called for the Claimings; they wanted the Kingdom to have a Queen, and an heir, when the time came. They were preparing for his fall.

  Rhey hadn’t had the time to count and touch all his coins for weeks, but he was almost done, when the doors to his private chambers clanged open. He stood, ready to growl at whoever had dared invade his sanctum, but his scowl disappeared when he took in the unexpected visitor.

  “I need your help; we don’t have a moment to lose. Please, Rhey, come with me.” Demelza already had him by the arm and was dragging him towards the door, babbling about someone who needed saving.

  “Slow down,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on. Who’s in danger?”

  Demelza sighed. “I have a friend…”

  Rhey smiled. “You have a lot of friends, many of whom get in more trouble than you could shake a stick at. Who’s done what and what do I need to do to fix it?”

  Demelza dropped her voice. “Her name is Xandrie.”

  Rhey frowned. That was an unusual name, and he wasn’t familiar with it, which did confuse him as he absorbed every detail, forever branding them in his memory. Rhey never forgot anything.

  Demelza dropped her voice. “She’s human.”

  “Human?” He tried not to sound alarmed, but if Demelza was found to be consorting with a human, there’d be hell to pay. He fixed her with his most authoritative, steely gaze. It had no effect on her, whatsoever. She knew the penalties for fraternizing with a human, but here she was saying nothing was more important than saving this woman.

  “Look, I can’t explain it, but it’s as if we’ve known each other through time. I have no idea how or why, but I feel like she’s in danger. She’ll get tortured, I know it. You have to help me, Rhey.”

  “You feel it?” said Rhey. “You haven’t actu
ally seen it?”

  “That’s what I am a trying to tell you. I don’t need to see it. It’s in my blood, my bones, my everything. Xandrie is in danger and we need to help.”

  Rhey threw his cloak over his shoulders. “The Elders will skin our hides when they find out, Elza.”

  Demelza smiled briefly.

  “Mine, perhaps. But you do happen to be their King.”

  The sentence had been “Death” but they were making a pig’s ear out of executing her. In other circumstances, she might have found it entertaining.

  First they’d come at her with long flaming torches, lit her clothes on fire, and lobbed bundles of kindling at her. Her tunic and trousers hissed and singed and fell to the floor, but she stood naked and unharmed. She could even feel her hair about shoulders. She should have been bald and eyebrow-less, but not a single hair on her body had been burned away.

  Right, so that was weird as all hells, but she wasn’t exactly complaining. Whatever luck she had, she just hoped it carried on.

  Xandrie ran through the scene in the alley with Darsen a hundred times or more, trying to make sense of what had happened. Not the “attempted rape” part, that much didn’t need investigating. The man had assaulted her with intent, plain and simple. No, the thing that interested her was the burn marks she’d left on his chest. That, along with the fact that her executioners weren’t able to roast her to death, led her inexorably to the conclusion that fire was, somehow, her friend. She knew it hadn’t always been the case - she’d burned herself plenty of times. But somehow, now, she had magics, after all.

  She laughed humorlessly. Her family had written her off, called her a dunderhead, laughed at her attempts to conjure herbs from the ground as needed, but perhaps she was to have the last laugh?

  She heard her latest assailants before she saw them. An entire contingent of the Guard was coming at her with the most incredible array of weapons. She counted ten steel-headed pikes, fourteen rapiers, a dozen or more lances and who-knows-what else. They’d arranged themselves like a Roman legion, line after line of chain-mail-covered cowards, waiting on the order to charge.

  Xandrie closed her eyes and hid her face under her hands for good measure, but seconds passed, and nothing. She dropped her hands, and frowned, confused to see their weapons at her feet. None had touched her; none had made it closer than a foot. They’d been stopped by a wall of dancing golden flames.

  Eventually, the wall of fire dropped and three guards sprang into action, binding her wrists, punching her in the kidneys, and dragging her back to her cell. She’d been back behind bars for less than ten minutes, when she heard her jailors talking about how best to rid themselves of, “the one who consorts with the Demon.”

  Just so much crap. She’d never so much as read about a demon, let alone summoned one and agreed to do its bidding. These people were extremely excitable, to say nothing of gullible.

  “The ducking stool is ready, sir.”

  Xandrie felt a chill run down her spine. She’d seen people drowned in the pond at the center of the village; their eyes bulging and tongue swollen to twice its natural size. Not a pretty sight and not the way she planned to end her days on Eartia. The thought of her breath being gobbled from her lungs by the water sprites filled her with dread.

  There was commotion in the corridor. Someone high up must be coming to have a gander at the prisoner. She hadn’t heard that much noise the entire time she’d been in captivity. What the hell were they doing?

  She pulled her scabby, flea-infested blanket over her nakedness before the door opened.

  Xandrie wasn’t given to gaping, but the man standing in the doorframe was decked out in such incredible attire, she scarcely knew where to look first. Her eye was drawn to the shimmering gold edging around his crimson cloak, then down to his leggings – holy hell, the man was stacked – then back up to his broad shoulders and mane of wayward hair.

  But it was his eyes that made her stomach do somersaults. She didn’t let that show, of course. He was clearly a trap of some kind, some Duke or Earl who wanted to curry favor with Darsen, sent to escort her to a watery end. She narrowed her eyes and readied herself for the next onslaught.

  If she was going to go down, she’d go down swinging.

  First Sight

  Rhey managed to hold back the growl that began in his groin and traveled through his entire body when he threw open the cell door and saw the woman Demelza had called Xandrie. Wrapped only in a filthy blanket, she was radiant. Her auburn hair fell around her bare shoulders – dear gods, he wanted his mouth on her skin – and her eyes, flecked with a gold so bright he thought he might never look away, burned into his. Her fight-ready stance reeked of defiance, but she smelled of fresh-tapped maple and crushed cloves.

  He mentally checked in to be sure his jaw hadn’t hit the floor, his hands weren’t clenching and unclenching in their eagerness to explore her, and his pants weren’t stretched tight over his erection.

  Ours, the beast inside him said. Our treasure.

  “You going to stare at me all day or should we just get to the part where you cowards strap me to a stool and plunge me into the pond?”

  Her voice was no siren’s song, though he was baffled to know what he’d expected, because each harsh word – delivered with a sneer – only amped up his desire. He knew he was gawping. He also knew he had to stop. He had no right. The Elders had spoken; they were preparing the Claiming right now.

  And, in any case, she was a human and there was no way on Eartia a dragon and a human would be permitted to pair. He shook his head, willing the thoughts of what he’d like to do to her – with her, on her, in her – away.

  “Demelza sent me.” His voice sounded normal, if a little lower than usual. Good. He hadn’t been sure he’d be able speak at all.

  Xandrie cocked her head and she dropped her “fight or flight, feet apart, fists at the ready” posture.

  His dragon groaned, deep in his belly, for a second time. She was naked under the blanket; he could see her when she moved under the slight, dirty fabric. He needed her covered up, so he could attempt to think straight.

  Xandrie was on it; she moved past him and found some clothes in a cupboard. “Turn around,” she said.

  He obeyed, not needing the visual. If he saw her completely naked, he might take her right then - who cared about the armed guards standing by?

  In seconds, she was at his side, fully dressed in an unbecoming uniform that totally drowned her, and ready to flee. She popped her head outside her cell. Most of her former jailors lay, unconscious, in the corridor.

  “You took out the guards?” she smiled, visibly enjoying seeing her enemies on the floor.

  Rhey could have groaned; if she had been a damsel in distress, offended by violence, like humans were supposed to be, he might have been turned off, but of course, she was as bloodthirsty as any dragon female.

  “What did they imprison you for, anyway?”

  Xandrie shrugged, looking away, before trying for a casual tone, “Consorting with a Demon, and all that.”

  In other circumstances, that might have made him laugh. He’d seen demon-sworn minions, and she wasn’t one of them - not by a long shot. There was no mark on her face, none peeking under her clothes, save for a rune on her hand: an Aether rune. No demon could bear one of those. But, as far as he knew, no human should, either.

  He wasn’t amused now because the woman looked sad, wounded. He moved closer, his body taking over; reaching her, he pulled her to him and pressed his lips on her forehead, just as he did with Demelza.

  It didn’t feel the same though. Instead of comfort and familiarity, hugging her awakened every part of him.

  Thankfully, the world around them demanded his attention. Steel-capped boots and the sound of clanking side-arms meant more soldiers were headed their way. He might have fought the next wave, but as there was a chance that the guards might harm the woman at his side, he dismissed the idea. He’d come in through a window
in the tower; it made sense to head out the same way.

  “Mount me,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” said Xandrie.

  Rhey launched himself out the window and shifted mid jump, his white-and-gold scales shimmering in the moonlight. He did his best to keep his large frame steady, batting his wings to stay close to the window. He felt her hand on him, then her legs, and then she was astride him, her hot, sweet self snug against his neck. He flexed his shoulders and shook out his wings.

  As the soldiers stormed the jail, Rhey took off into the night, taking the intriguing and enticing human with him.

  She was going to be trouble, he knew it. He also was strangely, perversely, looking forward to it.

  Xandrie had no recollection of Demelza rescuing her, so climbing on top of this golden dragon was, for all intents and purposes, her first flight. It was terrifying, and beautiful. The air around them was cool, but fragrant, the patchwork fields below a marvel, and the sensation of a muscular beast between her legs, simply indescribable. It wasn’t merely the fact that he was huge, he comported himself with grace and power. She had to hold on to him tightly, as each movement of his wings projected them almost a mile away. Xandrie peeked underneath the beast and held on for dear life.

  As moments passed without seeing her fall to her doom, she gulped and leaned sideways to peek again. This time, although her brain still came up with a million ways how she could fall to her certain death, she smiled faintly.

  She had never traveled, nor seen any other part of the Kingdom but the Northern Var, where she lived, but they left that place – home to her captors, her jailers, and her family – at top speed. They crossed the Lakelands, a marvel of waterfalls and winding rivers that pooled into freshwater lakes; then they soared over the red painted Plains, dodging thunderheads and stratocumulus, alike - places she’d only seen in books, and projected on a wall. In the rare hours when the villagers were allowed the use of electricity, they gathered in the town hall to watch shows and movies. She’d looked at the other kingdoms with such longing, and now she’d seen them with her own eyes.