Free Dragons Realm by Tessa Dawn Page A

mi­lord ?”
    “You may,” he answered quietly, let­ting it go.
    She did just that, and then she rubbed her palm against the skirt of her night­gown, as if she could some­how re­move the feel of his skin from her palm. Softly, she whispered, “If it is not my heart you wish to court , then what is it you de­sire?”
    He reached out to fin­ger a lock of her hair, and a sar­donic smile curved along his lips. “Your obed­i­ence, sweet Mina. Al­ways— and only —your obed­i­ence.”
    Mina blinked back a tear. “And when we come to­gether…to cre­ate chil­dren…to cre­ate your sons , what then?” She couldn’t be­lieve she had spoken the words aloud, but so be it: It wasn’t like her pur­pose was a secret, and she wanted to know now what she could ex­pect down the road.
    His eyes heated with de­sire, and his sap­phire pu­pils re­flec­ted un­spoken prom­ises of dark lan­guid nights filled with satin kisses and fiery caresses. “Then I will com­mand your obed­i­ence and your pleas­ure.” He nar­rowed his gaze on her lips. “Of that, you may rest as­sured.”
    Mina swal­lowed a flip­pant re­tort.
    She had no doubt that Dante could please her body, dom­in­ate her will, and even pos­sess her soul if he chose. After all, he was only a whis­per shy of be­ing a god; but still, what would her life be like without com­pas­sion, without com­pan­ion­ship, without even the pos­sib­il­ity of love? What would her life be like as the con­sort to a dragon, a be­ing born of fire, who was fueled by feral pas­sions yet devoid of ten­der­ness and af­fec­tion?
    Glan­cing once again at the doll, still hanging at her side, she quickly dis­missed the thought. Dante Dragona was in­deed cap­able of ten­der­ness— and kind­ness —and he would never know how much his little gift had meant to her, re­gard­less of his reas­ons for do­ing it. “Whatever your pur­pose,” she whispered, “I thank you, mi­lord.”
    He in­clined his head in a po­lite ges­ture of ac­know­ledg­ment. “And I thank you for feed­ing the dragon, sweet Mina.” He stroked her cheek once more, then backed away. “I will come to you again, soon .”
    With that, he simply van­ished from the room, leav­ing her shiv­er­ing, breath­less, and per­haps just a little bit…hope­ful.

Chapter Five
    R afael Bishop, the high mage of War­lo­chia, ducked un­der a low-hanging branch of a prickly ash tree, care­ful to avoid the dense, barbed un­der­growth. He stared at the si­lent circle of war­locks be­fore him, each male seated com­fort­ably around the fire, and gently cleared his throat. “The slave trade was es­pe­cially prof­it­able last month: We man­aged to sell three girls and four boys to the shadow-walk­ers in the west and ship sev­eral oth­ers across the rest­less sea. Los­ing Sir Henry will set us back a bit—he was in­stru­mental in hid­ing some of our early cap­tures un­til we could ar­range for their trans­port—but I don’t an­ti­cip­ate more than two or three weeks be­fore we’re back in busi­ness.”
    “The fool got caught plan­ning to raid Castle Dragon,” Micah Fiske said, spit­ting into the dirt in dis­gust. “He thought he could break into the treas­ury. How fool­ish can one war­lock be?”
    “Well,” Ra­fael said with de­ri­sion, “he is dead, so per­haps we need not tread on his grave.”
    Micah scowled. “A grisly death by fire. He was fool­ish to pro­voke the prince.”
    “Again,” Ra­fael said, grow­ing in­creas­ingly an­noyed, “no need to spit on his grave.”
    Micah crossed his arms over his bent knees, held his hands out to the fire, and rubbed them to­gether for warmth. “By the way, we have a new girl, just like you asked for. Top grade: young, vir­ginal, and pretty, not a single scar on her body. Caught her on Monday.”
    Ra­fael cocked a curi­ous eye­brow. “Do you? And how did the cap­ture