Mate Of A Dragon Villain (Skeleton Key) Read online

  Maybe that was part of why she didn’t want to write him getting killed. Just as she’d sympathized with and had kind of fallen for the twisted hero of Wuthering Heights, she’d done the same with Hargreave.

  Her mouth still tingled from where he’d kissed her, as if she’d just sucked on a spicy mint.

  That was real. He’d saved her life and kissed her like the hero in one of the romance novels she wrote, and now he was in the sky, swinging and stabbing his spear, just in the way she’d always imagined he would whenever she thought of his scenes in her head.

  And the man he’d smashed in the head before…

  Was still lying way over there. There was an injured man lying in the dirt and rocks, and Amanda was sitting here. What if he was dead? He’d looked an awful lot like…but it couldn’t be.

  She had to know. Amanda peeked her head out of her hiding place between the grooves in the enormous stones. She could just make out the top of his head. Auburn, almost pure red hair.

  That was Alger. That had to be. Everything inside her told her it was Eldric’s best friend, and he was injured over there. He’d fallen so far when Hargreave hit him. What if he was dead?

  Heart slamming, and her breath rushing out of her like a racehorse, Amanda told herself to stop thinking about it and just run to him. Run! Run!

  She did. Her feet flew, surprisingly fast considering she wasn’t a runner, and the terrain wasn’t exactly smooth. Rocks jutted up and got her in her bare feet. She hadn’t been wearing shoes, slippers, not even socks when she’d fallen through the closet door.

  And if she didn’t stop thinking about that right now, she was going to lose her damned mind. No one fell through a closet door like that.

  One problem at a time. She’d deal with one problem at a time, and right now, that was Alger.

  She found him lying face down, not moving in the rocks and grass.

  First aid training. She tried to remember it. She’d made herself take it as part of her research, but now that she was here, that she could hear the battle cries and screams of pain above, metallic noises of swords and spears clashing against each other, keeping her thoughts straight was hard.

  Shivering in her grey housecoat and leggings, Amanda got down to her knees, reached her hand out, and pressed her fingers to the side of his throat, all the while trying to ignore the almost oily look of the blood in his hair and the bright red slashes in his wings that had probably come as a result of sliding along the rocks.

  Her fingertips found nothing at first, then, blissfully, a pulse. That tiny throbbing had to be a pulse.

  She breathed a sigh. Alive then. Okay, great. That was done. Now onto the rest.

  Amanda wasn’t supposed to move him. There was the risk of a neck injury, and of making it worse, but she felt she had to roll him over if only to see the damage. It was hard. He was heavy. Had to be almost twice her weight with muscle alone, and the wings didn’t help anything, but she got him onto his back by folding his wings around him, preventing any more damage to them.

  His face was a mess. She could still see the handsome shape of what he was supposed to look like, what he actually looked like, but there was blood on him, his skin shredded on the rocks and oozing blood everywhere.

  Something hard and sharp struck the ground inches from her hand. Amanda shrieked and yanked herself back.

  A sword. A big, heavy sword had been knocked out of one of the warrior’s hands, and it had fallen blade down and struck the rock and grass, stabbing itself deep into a soft area of the earth.

  Hargreave was right. She was in danger out here and so was Alger. She had to get them back to the safety of the rocks. That tiny indent would hopefully keep them safe from any more falling weapons.

  Or falling warriors as they were killed in the air.

  Amanda got to her feet, grabbing onto Alger’s wrists. She pulled. He barely moved an inch.

  Too heavy. He was too heavy for her, but she couldn’t leave him here. Someone dropped a spear, farther away from where she and Alger were, but still. A man screamed as he fell hard to the ground, one wing missing.

  His fall was from higher up than Alger’s, so she didn’t want to think about it when the scream stopped when he came to a hard land.

  Every inch was a struggle, and probably not good for Alger’s back. Amanda was hot and sweating, and she was forced to give up before making it to her hiding place. She was close enough, and there weren’t really any men above her at this point.

  She had to stop anyway, because Alger stopped breathing. She hadn’t noticed it right away, but when she stopped to catch her breath, the fact that his chest was not rising and falling was very telling.

  And scary. It was scaring her to death, and she spent two seconds staring at him, waiting for him to gasp in a breath, for his chest to rise, something!

  She fell to her knees again, swiping her hair out of the way as she pressed her ear to his chest. Nothing.

  Amanda pressed her fingers to his neck. Nothing there either.

  She licked her finger and pressed it to the underside of his squished nose, nothing.

  He was definitely not breathing and he was going to die.

  Amanda went over a quick mental checklist of all the things she needed to do to get this done before she started. She tipped Alger’s head back, opening the airways, pressed her lips over his bloody mouth, and tried not to cringe when she blew air inside, hard enough to hopefully fill what had to be huge lungs.

  His chest rose up. Amanda turned her attention to pressing against his heart.

  She wasn’t sure if this made a difference because of his massive strength. She wasn’t sure if the way she tried to pump his heart did any good or not. She didn’t feel strong enough to get anything through his ribs, but she had to try.

  She blew more air into his mouth, turned her attention back to his heart, and breathed for him again.

  She did this until he coughed and sputtered on his own, and Amanda fell back, breathing hard and thanking God it actually worked.

  Alger opened his eyes, slowly turning his head and looking at her.

  Amanda was still gasping for breath, sweating, and probably looking about as gross as he was with the blood on her mouth. “Hi,” she said, and barely had enough air to say that.

  An angry voice roared behind her. “What’s this?”

  Amanda jumped. She spun around and looked behind her. It was…

  Long black hair with highlights that looked almost blue. Dark navy wings—the leathery parts looked like sky blue that had been dipped in teal ink.

  Almost like the ends of her hair. She’d dyed them that color for her first signing two months ago. The color had faded and she’d had a trim since then, but it was basically the same.

  That was the hero of her most popular romance series. Taller and broader in the shoulders and chest than any other dragon, he didn’t just look like a king of the dragon people, he also gave off that aura, so much so that Amanda had to struggle against the urge to fall down at his feet, bow and scrape and beg for mercy.

  Eldric Gladstone of Alzriandra. He was staring down at Amanda with a fire in his eyes. They weren’t red like Hargreave’s were, but they might as well have been in that moment.

  “He was…I was…”

  Eldric raised his sword high above his head. “Witch!”

  Amanda shrieked and fell back, almost right on top of Alger. He grabbed her by the ankle, which didn’t help anything, but he held on tight when she tried to get away.

  He must have said something because Eldric lowered the sword and stared down at his friend.

  And they were the best of friends. Amanda knew this because she’d written it to be that way. Eldric cared for this man, and with the blood on Amanda’s mouth, he clearly thought she’d been up to no good.

  But then he approached his friend, grabbed Amanda by the loose collar of her bathrobe, and pushed himself down to his knees. “Say that again, friend?”

  Amanda struggle
d to breathe. Not because Eldric was choking her, but because she was so damned terrified she couldn’t make her body do the most basic of things. It was a miracle she hadn’t peed.

  “She saved me. Don’t hurt her.”

  Eldric turned his suspicious gaze to Amanda, and with the grip he had on her, they were pretty close.

  “I saw you. Your mouth on him,” he said, his tone all kingly and accusing.

  “I…he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing, I had to breathe for him. He was going to die.”

  Eldric’s eyes widened, as if he didn’t understand the concept of CPR.

  Amanda had written this world to be mostly medieval-ish, though there were some bits of technology she’d sprinkled in from time to time to make up for her lack of knowledge on absolutely everything medieval.

  Eldric opened his mouth, but what he was about to say was cut off by a shout.

  “Eldric!”

  Amanda looked up as Eldric did. Hargreave’s black wings were spread out as he landed on his feet on the rock above them, his spear ready, and murder in his eyes.

  Eldric’s hands were suddenly on Amanda’s throat, and her throat was feeling pretty thin and small in that moment. Her heart stopped for several unpleasant seconds as she realized the position she’d just found herself in.

  “Back! Get back or I kill her!” Eldric shouted.

  What? What? No way!

  “Y-you’re the good guy! You can’t kill me!” Amanda said.

  Eldric didn’t seem to hear her, and something sharp was suddenly pressing against the paper thin skin of her throat. At least, her skin felt paper thin in that moment compared to what she felt against it. Not a knife. No, it was Eldric’s hooked talons. His dragon claws.

  And Hargreave’s expression changed. A fear that the villain of the story never should feel over anything made his features lose their strength, and he suddenly seemed a little unsure.

  His men, dressed in their leather armor and holding their old, shoddy weapons, came to land behind their prince, either on the same rock or on ground level, growling, eyes glowing red like Hargreave’s. They seemed to be waiting for Hargreave to give them the signal to attack. If he did, Eldric might just rip out Amanda’s throat, and she was suddenly struck with the epiphany of how much she wanted to live.

  “You caught this woman, I saw you,” Eldric said.

  Hargreave’s face twisted once more with that same anger. “After you threw her from the sky!”

  A silence. Amanda wished she could see Eldric’s face, that she could know what he was thinking in that moment. She had no idea what was going on.

  “This battle is over. I have something you want. If you follow, or send one more attack to my lands…” Eldric’s grip on Amanda’s throat tightened. He didn’t need to say anymore. The pathetic noise of fright that whimpered out of Amanda’s mouth was enough.

  Hargreave raised his hands to his men, briefly looking back at them. “No one moves,” he commanded, his voice loud, clear, and deep.

  There was a murmur of confusion among the men. They looked amongst each other, then at their prince.

  “I said no one moves!” Hargreave snapped, and he turned his attention back to Eldric. “I will kill you for this. I swear to the gods you will beg me to die for everything you’ve done.”

  Eldric snorted. “I could say the same of you, but your fight has always been a waste of my time.”

  Hargreave’s face turned red at the insult.

  Amanda had no clue what was going on, but her instinct was to want to be with who looked safe in that moment. Right now, that was Hargreave. He was the villain of the story, the killer, the man who needed to die for there to be any peace, and she wanted to be with him instead of the hero, the man who was currently threatening to slit her throat into a wide deathly smile.

  She stared at Hargreave, and maybe there was something in her eyes that called back to him, because he looked at her.

  “I won’t keep you in their company for long, sweet. I’ll come for you.”

  He sounded like he meant it, and Amanda felt relief.

  Then she yelped as Eldric pulled her into his arms.

  “Come onto my lands again, and she dies.”

  Amanda thought it incredibly risky how he turned his back to his enemy, but then she saw why. Just as Hargreave’s men had landed behind him, so too did Eldric’s, dressed in finger chainmail and bright blue, their weapons finer, if ruined with blood. Two men were helping Alger to his feet, and Eldric spread his wings. He waited for Alger and his helpers to get in the air before he flew off with Amanda.

  “Fight me, and I will drop you,” he warned.

  “I believe you,” she replied, wishing that she didn’t as she was taken away from the battlefield.

  What the fuck was happening with her morning?

  Chapter 3

  The castle was not quite as she’d thought it would be every time she wrote about it. It was close, but also very different. Imagining something, envisioning all the walls and tapestries and stone work, was nothing at all like how she saw them now, in real life.

  There were smells in the castle. Amanda had never thought about writing in smells, not even when she’d penned the scenes where Jane came to stay at the castle for the first time.

  It was a mixture of good smells and bad. Smells of cooked pork fat and other salted meats, followed by the smell of many bodies crammed close together after a long, sweaty, bloody battle in the sky. Amanda had been immediately locked into a small room with a window so tiny she couldn’t fit her arm through it.

  There was a tiny bed, about the size of a pathetic-looking cot she’d once slept on at camp as a kid. There was no bathroom, only a pot in the corner, and she didn’t want to think about the possibility that it was a chamber pot. She wasn’t ready to face that reality just yet, even though she badly had to pee.

  Really badly. It had been hours. She had no idea what was going on out there, and Amanda wanted out of here. She wanted to use the bathroom and she didn’t want to use a chamber pot. If this was real, then she knew for a fact there were bathrooms. They weren’t the modern things she was used to, but there was running hot water and toilets. Hot baths were important for her romance scenes, so those things had to be included.

  She knocked on the heavy wooden door. She had to pound on it with her fist because it actually hurt her knuckles. “Hello? Is anyone out there?” Amanda practically danced on her feet, squeezing her legs together. “I have to use the bathroom! The water room! I need it!”

  She pounded on the door again, but then started glancing back to the chamber pot, weighing the embarrassment of whether or not she should just get it over with and deal with the smell of urine or not.

  She really didn’t want to do that. God, she didn’t want to do it, but if someone didn’t answer the door, she was going to do it. Her hands were already starting to move down to her leggings and Amanda was ready to tear them off and squat if—

  The door opened. Fast enough that it caught on her toes. Amanda yelped and jumped back, falling hard on her ass. She stared up at a man she’d never seen before. He didn’t even look familiar to her in the same way Alger, Eldric, and Hargreave had.

  Amanda decided that he must have been one of the many throwaway characters she’d used in her books, never describing them all that much since they weren’t exactly important. They were the warriors who fought, killed, died, or were left for dead so there would be a reason to continue the battle with Hargreave.

  And this guy definitely looked like a warrior. He also looked annoyed.

  “What do you want?”

  His voice sounded half snorted through his nose, like he was really a monster instead of a man. Or part man, as the reptilian wings folded against his back and sharp scales on his shoulders seemed to prove.

  Amanda nearly peed herself right then and there, but she forced herself to her feet.

  “I…I need to pee.”

  The warrior lifted a brow and g
lanced over her shoulder, looking meaningfully at the chamber pot she hadn’t used, proving it was really a chamber pot.

  “I don’t want to use that.” Now she really was dancing around. “Please, I swear this isn’t some bad plot point to trick you or anything, I have to go!”

  Maybe it was her dance that impressed him, or the way she grabbed at her crotch to stop the coming flow that wanted to break free, but the man guarding her door took pity on her and grabbed her by the arm.

  “If you try anything, I swear to the gods I will cut that pretty face.”

  Amanda nodded, but in that moment, she was more concerned about not peeing on herself than any threat.

  There was a bathroom not too far down the stone hall. Most of the lights came from old fashioned torches, though there was a lamp inside the bathroom itself.

  Water room. She had to get used to that, though she was happy to see the toilet. That was great.

  “You have one minute,” said the guard, and Amanda noted, right before she could push down her leggings, that he wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t so much as shut the door, though as he stood in front of it, his wide shoulders acted as a decent barrier.

  “Uh, you can step out now.”

  “No. Do what you need to do or I take you back.”

  He meant it. The way he crossed his arms seemed pretty final, and Amanda’s thighs were quivering as she felt her kidneys start to suffer.

  No choice. She pushed down her leggings, lifted the hem of her housecoat, and sat.

  The relief was too much for her to bother with caring overly much about having some big dragon warrior watching her.

  When she nearly finished, she looked up at her guard, and noted the way he stared at something on the far wall. His cheeks looked a little bright, but that might’ve been the lighting.

  Right. Now that he knew for a fact she wasn’t faking, he wouldn’t want to look at her any more than she’d want to look at him.