He’d had enough. It was time to confer with the judges. There had never been any question what he would do with her once she was found and brought back. He’d only kept to the formalities of her trial to frighten her, and it had worked. She was terrified. Magnus chose not to tell her it was not the tribunal she should fear, but his own very personal retribution.
The voices of the judges echoed back to him as he walked to the corridor. He turned back for a moment, staring at his erstwhile favorite with scorn. Her lips tightened, and she dropped her gaze to her hands.
“Do you still sing, Leida?”
Her eyes glistened in the muted light as she again met his gaze. “Sometimes,” she whispered.
“Is it still a siren’s call?”
He was puzzled by her smile, humorless and melancholy. “No, my lord.”
He shrugged, turning away again. “I thought not. I should have
known.”
He didn’t stop as her voice carried to him, drifting with the shadows in the hallway. “You did know, Magnus. Long before I did.”
Dragons were an avaricious lot,the accumulation of wealth an instinctual urge bred as deeply into them as the will to survive. They held their own code regarding their treasures, bartering with each other for some priceless bauble or stealing outright from rich humans. But where humans were concerned, the pendulum did not swing both ways. Humans who stole from dragons usually faced a gruesome and violent death.
Leida had been fully aware of the risk when she took the small ring from the heap of coins, jeweled girdles, and tangled necklaces that made up the pillow on which Magnus rested his head when in dragon form. She knew he would miss its presence upon returning to his caverns, likely more sensitive to its absence than to hers, but she couldn’t help herself and dropped it into the small purse tied at her waist before sneaking out of the caverns while the other servants slept. She had expected his anger at finding it gone. She had not counted on his abiding need to hunt it and her down in order to return it to his possession.
She rubbed her eyes, exhausted from fear, worry and lack of sleep. As the time following Magnus’s exit lengthened, she found a place near the entrance and sat down on the hard floor to wait. He had seemed unmoved by her plea, showing little expression save a faint, scornful twist to his lips as he commanded her to rise. In the mind of dragonkind, she had committed the unthinkable crime—humiliated her master by stealing from him. He might well demand her death, administer the killing blow himself. Leida prayed the ring’s recovery and her willingness to admit her larceny might earn some small mercy from him.
What had he said? She’d robbed him of that which he held most dear. The remark puzzled her, for in her memory he had only shown a marked preference for a ruby-encrusted crown and a jeweled girdle he’d been fond of draping over her naked hips once their relationship had deepened in its intimacy.
Leida blushed, recalling the long evenings when he’d taken his human form and reveled in the feel of her against him, beneath him, her only clothing the delicate girdle. She had not forgotten what he tasted like or how he felt beneath her fingertips, and if the slow throb still lingering between her thighs was any indicator, her body not only remembered but continued to crave him. He held her life in his hands, yet she could think of nothing beyond the hot taste of his tongue, the way he gripped her hips to hoist her against him, the hard curve of his erection as he crushed her to him. Four years or forty, she still desired and loved him as fiercely as the day she left him.
Soft footfalls alerted her to the judges’ return. She knew from whence they came. The great caverns belonging to the Dragon King descended far into the earth, hollowed and polished by the passage of the greatest male earth dragon and his pages. Below her feet were soaring chambers filled with astonishing wealth and an aging reptilian king administered to by his dragon pages and a staff of servants comprised of humans and wood sprites.
She rose slowly, her stomach again beginning to pitch and roll with dread. Magnus followed the tribunal, keeping a short distance between himself and the others. Leida glanced at him, sickened by the unmistakable gleam of retribution in his eyes. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and she struggled to hear what the dragon lords said.
“Leida of the Far Lands,Magnus Silverclaw has chosen to be lenient with you. He has spared your life.”
It was the oldest judge, the silver-haired one who had first questioned her. A tide of relief surged through her, and she suppressed the urge to dissolve into uncontrollable weeping. Suspicion followed hard on the heels of her joy as the dragon lord held up a hand, revealing a delicate choker made of spiderweb strands of interlocking silver. A lustrous black pearl surrounded by tiny diamonds was set in the middle of the choker.
It was a beautiful piece, made for a queen or highborn noblewoman of the middle kingdoms. Leida blinked in confusion, frozen in place as the judge approached her and wound the choker around her throat, latching it at her nape.
It became immediately apparent that the choker was more than an ornament. A crushing weight settled on her shoulders. Invisible but undeniable, it bowed her back, only lightening when the judge removed her manacles. She staggered, reaching up to claw at the slender band.
Her gaze found Magnus. He watched her, unmoved by her frantic attempts to rid herself of the necklace. “You can’t remove it, Leida. Only I can. It’s iron disguised in silver, a means to bleed you of your magic, much like the manacles.” His lips thinned to a vicious smile. “You wear it well.”
Leida dropped her hands, curling them into fists by her sides to keep from reaching up once more and trying to tear the necklace away. She had been prepared to lose her magic, but not like this. Not this slow death like blood trickling from a small but fatal wound. Her voice was hoarse, thick with tears as she addressed Magnus.
“Is this collar my punishment then?”
His features hardened, their austerity becoming more pronounced as his expression turned grim. “No. That is but part of it. You owe me four years of time, time in which I searched for that which was mine, that which you took. You will attend me, no longer as the favorite, but as the least of my servants, bound to me by adjudication if not by loyalty.” His voice might have brought on ice storms, it was so frigid. “This is your sentence, Leida.”
A blind panic threatened to swallow her. Not death, but close enough. Slavery and separation from the one she loved most in the world. Four years! He could have said it was an eternity, and it couldn’t have been worse. A red haze passed over her vision, obscuring the faces of her judges who watched her with widening eyes. In the euphoria of her desperation, her spirit seemed to leave her body for a moment, and she watched from a distance as her physical self ignored Magnus’s bellowed warning and bolted for the way that led above ground.
That muted detachment came to an abrupt end when she slammed into an invisible wall. White-hot pain exploded in her nose, fanning out across her cheekbones and into her skull. There were shouts behind her, Magnus yelling some incomprehensible command. She ignored them, ignored the flow of warmth over her mouth and down her chin, the coppery taste of blood trickling in the back of her throat. Even the pain faded as she threw herself once more against the unseen wall imprisoning her in the cavern.
She screamed as strong arms encircled her, lifting her clear of the floor. Lights danced across her sight as she clawed and punched at her captor in her bid to break free. It was futile. Even in human form a dragon lord held tremendous physical strength, and Leida found herself face-to-face with Magnus, her arms pinned behind her back.
Panic and rage still burned within her, making her nearly insensate. Some distant, unemotional part of her heard her growls, almost animalistic, as she struggled in Magnus’s hold. His face was white with shock and fury as he subdued her. Blood smeared his hands. Her blood.
“Pax, Leida,” he said softly, the words both a command and a spell.
Leida felt the magic wash over her, a soothing warmth that calmed the terror if not dissipated it all together. Tears followed, making it difficult for her to breathe beyond the blood and mucus clogging her nostrils. Her eyes felt puffy, the pain in her nose blooming to a swelling ache. She blinked slowly at Magnus.
