Dragon Actually (Dragon Kin #1)(77)

Bercelak didn’t know whether to be insulted by that last statement or merely horrified. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“Don’t be a fool, Low Born! She’s testing your loyalty. Once you Claim me, she’ll expect you to either drag me back to her court in chains or to kill me.”

“That’s not true.” He shook his head. He refused to believe that could possibly be true.

“What? You think she sent me here because she thought we’d fall in love? That we’d look in each other’s eyes and have a beautiful and meaningful Claiming? Try again. I’m in her way. Since my birth, I’ve been in her way. When I was younger, I was just annoying. Now she despises me and wants me dead. And you . . .” She gave him almost a pitying look. “She thinks of you as her pet. A well-trained war horse. Or some over-sized battle dog. And she’s dropped me right in front of that dog, completely defenseless, and left me. Hopefully, to die.”

“And you actually believe I’d kill you on your mother’s orders?”

“No.” She looked weary. Exhausted. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to try and break me.”

“You’re not a horse, Rhiannon.”

“I know that.”

“Then why would you even think that?”

She let out a long breath. “Your reputation precedes you, Bercelak.”

His frown deepened. “Now what the hell does that mean?”

“Rumors of what you do to females once you have them here have circulated the court for years. I hear everything.”

He raised an eyebrow, even more intrigued. “Oh? And what are those rumors?”

“Forget it. This conversation is getting uncomfortable.”

“Forget nothing, Princess. Tell me what you’ve heard. And I’ll tell you if they’re true.”

“Fine.” She stared him straight in the eye and he adored how she didn’t back down from a fight. “Banallan the Gold said you kept her chained here for days.”

Bercelak grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “I did.”

Rhiannon’s body flinched the smallest bit and her brows pulled down into a brutal frown.

“But she wasn’t forced if that’s what concerns you. If memory serves, she enjoyed every second of it . . . immensely.”

Rolling her eyes, she snorted in disgust.

“What else, Princess? What else has you so concerned?”

“Derowen the Silver.”

He really had to search his brain for that one. Derowen the Silver? Gods, it had been ages since he lay with a silver. “Oh. Do you mean old Gobrien’s daughter?”

“Yes. That silver.”

My, what was that tone in her voice? “Yes, I remember her. What about her?”

“One of my mother’s guards said he could hear her screaming from nearly a quarter league away.”

“Aye. She was a noisy one. Fun . . . but noisy.”

“He said she sounded in pain.”

“Well, there’s pain . . . and then there’s pain.” He grinned at the expression on her face. “Anything else?”

“I heard what you did to the Argraff twins.”

“Yes. But I only had one. My brother had the other. Don’t ask me which. They both look exactly alike. Imagine coming from the same egg.”

She looked at him in horror. “Dark gods! You’re as bad as your father.”

Bercelak laughed outright at that. He hadn’t laughed so much in his entire life. Always so serious and intense, with much on his mind, this was the first time he ever felt he could relax. “Not in a million ages. There aren’t enough dragons in the universe to compete with him. No, I’d be forced to involve humans, elves, and, rumor has it, centaurs.”

“I’m done with this conversation.” She stood up but he reached over and grabbed her wrist.

“Tell me, Princess, what truly bothers you?”

“Nothing. But if you think you’ll chain me here and turn me into some broken dragon available at your beck and call, you’re as insane as my mother. I bend for no male, Low Born.”

“I have no desire to break you, Rhiannon. I like you mean.” He growled that last part and her breathing sped up. As, it seemed, did her desire to get away from him. She tried to yank her arm from his grasp, but he didn’t let her go.

Bercelak sat up until he rested on his knees in front of her. “Perhaps it’s time to set up some rules.”

“Rules?”

“Aye.” He tugged her until she grudgingly knelt down in front of him. “So that you feel more comfortable.”

She watched him with narrow eyes, but she did relax a tiny bit. “All right.”

“If there’s anything you don’t want me to do when we’re together . . . say no.”

She stared at him for a long time, then shook her head. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“All I have to do is say no?”

“Aye. You say no . . . and I stop.”

“That sounds very odd to me.”

“Why?” He leaned over and gently kissed her neck.

“I . . . I don’t know. It just does.”

He kissed a spot under her ear. “Let me explain it to you this way—You say ‘don’t,’ I will. If you say ‘stop,’ I won’t. If you really want me to stop, you’ll have to say ‘no.’” While keeping a tight rein on her left wrist with one hand, he used the other to wrap around her waist and pull her closer to him. “You can beg me, Rhiannon. Beg and plead for me to stop, and I won’t. Because between us, there will be only one word that will stop me. And it’s ‘no.’Now do you understand?”