Dragons Realm by Tessa Dawn Read Free Book Online

in front of the dragons. She grabbed the child by the arm, snatched her frantic­ally away from Dante, and tried to tuck her be­hind her back. “For­give me, mi­lord. She is just a child. She doesn’t know what she is do­ing.” The wo­man gathered her skirts and tried to curtsy—it was poorly, at best—her wide eyes brim­ming with fear. She looked down at the child and frowned, her face grow­ing ashen. “Raylea, what have you done? Apo­lo­gize to the prince at once!”
    The girl stepped out from her mother’s side, crossed her arms in front of her chest, and boldly shook her head no , al­though she was clearly shak­ing in her stock­ings.
    The wo­man gasped. “Raylea!” She turned her plead­ing eyes to Dante and waited, pre­sum­ably for his wrath.
    Dante con­sidered the girl and then the wo­man, each one in turn, be­fore firmly purs­ing his lips to­gether in thought. Fi­nally, he said, “I as­sume this is your daugh­ter?”
    The wo­man trembled. “Yes, mi­lord.”
    “And you did not think to raise her bet­ter than this?” Damian cut in, his voice re­ver­ber­at­ing with ire.
    The wo­man fell to her knees in the dirt. “I have tried, my prince.” She prac­tic­ally groveled on the ground, even as she tucked the child tight against her bosom in a ges­ture of pro­tec­tion. “I beg your par­don. For­give her…or hold me re­spons­ible in her stead.”
    Drake took a meas­ured step for­ward. He held up his hand to si­lence his broth­ers. “Your love for the child is ap­par­ent, but it still does not ex­plain why she would dare to ap­proach a dragon prince. The com­mon­lands will soon be my jur­is­dic­tion, which makes you my im­min­ent sub­ject. Ex­plain your­self: Why are you here amongst the War­lo­chi­ans? And why has the child ap­proached the Dragon Prince?” When the wo­man hes­it­ated, as if she were search­ing for just the right words, Drake nar­rowed his gaze with im­pa­tience. “Speak quickly, wo­man. No one has time for these antics.”
    Dante waited in si­lence, curi­ous to hear her reply.
    The wo­man cleared her throat. “If it please you, mi­lord…” She stared straight at Drake, plead­ing with her eyes. “This is my daugh­ter, Raylea. She ran away from home sev­eral days ago, after she heard that the fu­ture prince of War­lo­chia would be trav­el­ing to this province for—”
    “No! No, Mommy!” the girl cried, tug­ging on her arm. “You have to ask him about Mina.”
    The wo­man gasped and shoved her hand over her daugh­ter’s mouth. “Be quiet, child! Be­fore it’s too late for me to save you.”
    Damian with­drew a sharp, curved stiletto from his belt and held it out in front of the girl. He turned it slowly back and forth, ro­tat­ing the shiny blade in the fad­ing sun­light so that the re­flec­tion flashed in her eyes, and then he placed the curved edge against the child’s throat. “If your daugh­ter speaks out of turn one more time, I will re­move her tongue.”
    The wo­man turned a ghastly shade of white, as hideous as one of the nearby gar­goyles, and she pressed her hand even harder against the child’s mouth. “Please, mi­lord.” Her eyes said everything she couldn’t say: I’m beg­ging you not to hurt my baby .
    Drake placed a steady­ing hand on Damian’s arm, in­dic­at­ing that he wanted him to wait for his dir­ec­tion, yet he was also wise enough to play his cards just so . He cast a side­long glance at the angry prince. “Per­haps the child should tell the tale, Prince Damian, since she is clearly so… eager …to speak. Per­haps we should hear her pe­ti­tion be­fore we cut out her tongue.”
    Dante waited for Damian’s re­ac­tion, ap­pre­ci­at­ing Drake’s tac­tic: It ap­pealed to Damian’s pride without chal­len­ging his au­thor­ity, and it was cer­tainly bet­ter than mu­til­at­ing a little girl in front of a vil­lage of gawk­ing