Zabina
The man stops before the bronze doors and opens them with a single hand.
"Wait for the prince inside."
I nod slightly and enter.
The chambers are spacious, dark, and deeply masculine. And they smell like him. Recognizing it unsettles me in a way I prefer not to examine too closely.
I approach the enormous bed and sit on the edge. Then I fall backward onto the blankets and stare at the high ceiling.
I bite my lower lip without realizing it.
His touch. His taste. The exact way he tangled his fingers in my hair, as if he knew precisely how to drive me crazy. The weight of his body against mine in that dark chapel. The moan that escaped me and still vibrates in my throat.
If I had any sense, I wouldn't be thinking about this. I wouldn't be desiring a black dragon in the heart of the black dragons' kingdom.
I sit up abruptly.
I wander through the chambers aimlessly, brushing the cold walls with my fingertips, looking at the objects on the table without really seeing them. I stop in front of the slightly ajar bathroom door.
A bath would do me good while I wait.
The warm water envelops me. I close my eyes and sigh.
And then it comes back. As it always does when my guard is down.
I'm nine years old, asleep in my bed. I startle awake when the balcony window swings wide open, and a black dragon peers in.
I scream and get out of bed. The gem on my chest glows with overwhelming intensity, and the dragon bares all its teeth. The scent it gives off got stuck in my nostrils like a nightmare.
Dad enters and transforms into a beast.
Mom takes me out before I can see what happens. Though I can imagine.
That was the first time we fled.
Dad never told me what happened to the black dragon.
They were always tense, always alert. I knew something was wrong, and at night I dreamed of that dragon, and that scent would wake me up.
A week later, it all happened again. But that time, it wasn't one — it was six.
"Dad…" My voice breaks. "Why isn't Mom coming?"
He stops at the door and looks at her.
She smiles at me.
"I'm right behind you, my love. Dad's going to take you to a safe place."
She looks at Dad.
Back then, I didn't understand that look. Now I do, and it hurts twice as much.
My father lifts me against his chest and runs without looking back down a cobblestone alleyway while I cling to his neck with both hands, never taking my eyes off our house, which grows smaller and smaller.
"What's happening, Dad? Why are we leaving?"
"Because they found us, daughter."
I look up just as the first black dragons cross the sky over our cabin. They're enormous, and their shadows devour the stars. I'd never seen so many together.
The village rises as a spectator.
Then I see her.
My mother takes her beast form and spreads her white wings over the rooftop. In the middle of the night, she seems to glow — a flash of pure silver amid all that darkness.
"Dad…" I squeeze his neck. "We have to help her. We have to go to her!"
"We can't, Zabina. I have to get you out of here. I have to keep you safe."
"Mooom!" I scream with everything I have.
She doesn't turn. Or if she does, I don't see it.
My father takes his dragon form, and we take flight. The last thing I see before the night closes over us is my mother surrounded by blackness on all sides, her white light growing smaller and smaller… until it disappears.
I wipe my tears with the back of my hand. I stay still, my gaze lost, letting the weight of that memory settle over me as it always does.
I'm tired.
Tired of running, of hiding, of dyeing my hair. Of pretending to be human in a village that will never be my home.
Maybe Abisai can help me understand. Maybe within this kingdom, there are answers I couldn't find in all those years of forest and solitude. Why they hunted us. What they really wanted.
He owes me his life.
And I… trust him.
I shouldn't. I know. He's a black dragon, and I'm exactly what his kingdom has spent two hundred years exterminating. Trusting him is the most absurd thing I've done since I picked him up from the forest floor.
But I trust him.
And that, in some way, terrifies me more than anything else.
"Abisai. Wait."
The words slip out before I can stop them.
He stops with his hand on the doorknob and doesn't turn immediately, as if he also needs a second. When he does, his eyes find mine from across the room, and something in that gaze tells me he was waiting for me to call him.
That should bother me, but it doesn't.
When he approaches, I don't step back. When he tangles his fingers in my hair, I don't look away from his eyes. And when he kisses me, I lose myself.
He pulls away just enough for the air to return between us and rests his forehead against mine. Our breaths mingle, and the world outside this room ceases to exist for a moment — at least for me.
"Abisai…"
"Don't say anything," he whispers. "If you say something, you'll convince me this is a bad idea."
I feel his smile before I see it.
"Isn't it?" I ask, still breathless.
"Probably," his thumb brushes my cheek with a gentleness I didn't expect from someone so large. "But I like you. And I can't pretend I don't."
"We barely know each other."
"I know you enough."
"You're a black dragon prince, and I'm…" I stop. "This doesn't make any sense, Abisai. None. We're from different worlds. We have plenty of reasons to stay away from each other, and yet here we are, and I don't understand what's happening to me with you, or why I can't…"
He kisses me, just for a second. Just enough to cut my sentence in half and leave me speechless.
He pulls away and looks at me with that half-smile that's starting to become the most insufferable and the most irresistible thing in the world at the same time.
"You were saying something?"
I open my mouth and close it.
"You're infuriating."
"And you think too much."
"Someone has to."
He leans in just enough for his breath to brush my temple.
"I'll have dinner brought up to you and some clothes. Wait here and rest. You're in the safest place in this world."
"Will you leave me here? How will you justify a woman in your chambers?"
"How naive you are, Zabina."
I frown.
"I'm a prince. No one interferes in my business."
"Now that your brother has passed, I..."
"I'll bring you dinner."
He cuts me off and leaves.
I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the door for a long moment.
I don't understand what's happening to me. How someone can enter your life in three days and turn everything upside down without apparent effort. I don't understand how I can trust him, desire him, and at the same time know with absolute certainty that he's exactly the kind of person I should be running from.
I lie back on the blankets and stare at the ceiling.
The most irritating thing of all is that he's right.
I think too much.
I hear a soft knock on the door and tense up. Not knowing what to do, I hide in the closet.
A large man enters, with long hair and dressed elegantly. Too elegantly for someone who's only bringing dinner.
I watch him sniff the air, and my heart races when his mouth curves into a slow smile.
"What a… pleasant scent. It's not my nephew's."
His eyes fix directly on the closet. I back up until my spine hits the wood.
"What did Abisai bring back from the Jurdiena forest?"
I hear his steps approaching. The gem inside my chest glows fiercely. That scent… that damn scent churns my stomach. I cover my mouth with my hands when I feel him place his hand on the closet doorknob.
"Lord Thymá."
It's a woman's voice.
"I was looking for Abisai."
"The prince is in a meeting with his men."
The silence outside weighs heavily. I crouch against the wall and rest my head on my knees. That man… Abisai's uncle… is the same one from that night. The same scent.
The same shadow.
The closet door opens.
My eyes meet those of a woman who smiles at me calmly.
"I'm Stema. I'm here to take care of you, Miss Zabina."