Kiss of a Dragon(53)
Her mind was awash with a sudden, intense desire. A need for him to close the last millimeter of distance between their lips, to feel his hands on her body, to having him thrusting hard inside her, filling her like no man had before… she leaned forward…
Fae prince. That thought blared through the haze that was fogging her mind.
She jerked back. “I know your name.”
His eyes widened for a split second, then narrowed. The runes at his temples surged and shifted. “I doubt that very much.”
But she did. She remembered Lucian saying he had to meet a fae prince. “You’re Zephan, a prince of the Winter Court. Lucian told me about you. He doesn’t trust you.” She pulled even further back. “And neither do I.”
Her mind instantly cleared, as if the fog had been burnt off by the memory of Lucian’s words.
Zephan smirked, but it was cool again, not heated like before. “No doubt because I could bed you with a simple touch.”
A shiver ran through her. A touch? He was using magic on her, messing with her head somehow. Lucian already had amazing magic, and he was only part fae; who knew what a fae prince could do.
His smirk grew even colder and more haughty. “But I’m not the one you should be concerned about, naïve little Arabella. Come, let me show you.” He swept his hand toward the bed.
She frowned and held her ground.
Zephan rolled his eyes. “Not the bed, simple girl. The mirror.”
She looked again, and the screen over the bed had transformed into an enormous mirror. “I don’t understand.”
He beckoned her forward, and she grudgingly went along. When they reached the edge of the bed, the mirror transformed from a flat, silvered surface that reflected her and Zephan standing side-by-side to a close-up video of Lucian’s face. His expression was dark and angry with an intensity she’d never seen on him—it made her recoil and pity the poor fool in his way.
She whipped a look at Zephan. “What is this?”
His smirk was still ice cold. “A memory. A glimpse of the past through the prism of magic. Something to help you see the error of your ways. And why you should never be seduced by a monster like our irksome and brooding dragon prince.”
She frowned again, but her attention was caught by Lucian moving. The view shifted to show him kneeling next to a very pregnant woman. Her belly seemed nearly ready to burst with the size of the baby contained within it. Lucian’s back was to the mirror frame, but Arabella could see him lay a hand flat on the hugely rounded belly. The runes on Lucian’s hand swarmed around his skin, pulsing and warping, and the pregnant belly underneath his touch surged with them. The woman arched her back, pushing up into Lucian’s hand. Arabella could finally see her face as she threw her head back, her long reddish-brown hair spilling all over the floor. Her mouth was wide in a silent scream. Not a whisper of sound came from the mirror—Arabella heard her own heartbeat yammering in her chest, but nothing from the scene splayed in front of her. Lucian’s hand shoved the woman down, holding her belly secure as he raised his other hand.
It shifted into a fistful of talons.
Arabella gasped and covered her mouth with her own hand.
His claws slashed at the woman, splitting her belly wide. Blood gushed everywhere, great buckets of it, all over her belly, the floor, Lucian’s hands and arms.
Oh God. Arabella’s hand trembled against her mouth.
The woman’s endless, wordless scream finally forced her up off the floor, her eyes popping open.
They were green.
Oh, holy fuck, they were green.
Lucian kept slashing and tearing at her body, opening it up wide, digging deeper, then finally, when Arabella thought for sure her own stomach would empty out onto Zephan’s pristine white bed, Lucian reached with human hands into the gaping, bloody hole and lifted the baby free.
A dragon baby—tiny and golden and lashing out with fire.
“Oh, God.” The words leaked out of Arabella.
Zephan held up a hand, and the image froze—Lucian holding the bloody infant dragon over the horribly empty womb of its mother’s body.
“No.” Arabella didn’t want to know this. Whatever this was, there was an explanation for it. Something that gave some reason for why Lucian tore a baby from its mother. But her mind was already spinning the tale. The woman was his mate. His previous mate. And the golden baby dragon was Lucian’s. Only he had no mate now, and no dragonling, either. Unless all of that was a lie, too.
Tears crowded her eyes, and she fought to blink them back.
The mirror returned to plain silver, reflecting back her red-blotched face as if she had already lost the war with crying.
“Sadly, the baby died.” Zephan’s voice was cool. “Although, that’s typically the case. The mate dies. The baby dies. Truly a horrific business, reproduction in the House of Smoke.”