The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) by Jovee Winters Read Free Book Online Page B

mean?”
    Feeling hot and twitchy of a sudden, I scooted back on my bottom a little, not wanting him to continue his affections toward me.
    “As humans we are as weak as the next. But once bonded, we become a boon to our mate. We take on not only his powers, but we desire above all things to please him in every way.”
    His jaw jutted out. “So you have intercourse, and suddenly you are in love?” He slapped his palms together so loud a boom reverberated through the trees, causing the leaves to rustle like a mighty wind had just passed over them.
    I startled. He kept so much of his power hidden from me. I’d not known he could do that. But I wasn’t scared. It’d...thrilled me. I clutched at my chest.
    “I suppose that is the gist of it,” I said breathlessly and not without a touch of sadness too. “I’ve often wondered why it was that what should have been a gift was really more of a curse to us. I do not want to be forced to love another against my will. But all stories say that morphling love feels the same as actual love...” My words drifted off, and I ached as a hollow void spread through my heart.
    Somehow I did not think I would ever feel for the king what I now felt for my dragon. How could I?
    I knew nothing of this king. But I knew my boy. Knew that if I danced for him, he’d sit enthralled before me, watching me as though I were something exotic and beautiful.
    Or when he’d tell me exploits of his time with his tutors, how his eyes would sparkle when he’d done something terribly devilish. Or that sometimes he and his brother didn’t get on, because Ragoth was beginning to believe he no longer wanted to be a successor to the crown.
    That someday he might even be a freed dragon. We’d talked often of his breaking the oath of claimanentship (that is to say, his right to the crown, should anything happen to his brother, Alwyn).
    After three years, I knew my devil as well as one friend could know another.
    Jumping to his feet, Ragoth paced. Rubbing his jaw so hard I was afraid he’d puncture himself with his sharp claws. He moved his hands to his head, mussing his thick, wavy hair, causing it to poke out in many different directions.
    I saw the youth then, and I smiled sadly. Time was our greatest enemy now.
    “I do not wish this, Lena; you belong to me.” His slitted eyes blazed.
    Feeling a little like growling at his highhanded manner, I shot to my feet and snapped a finger under his nose. “I am mine. I am not the king’s, and I am most certainly not yours. I am mine. Mine.”
    I stomped my foot, feeling the old anger and pain surge to the fore. But stomping a foot in a fit of rage was all I could do. I was weak, pathetic, with no powers of my own. I was helpless to my fate, and I knew it.
    Even though my heart desired that I was mine, I was not. I was Zerelda’s. She owned my soul, which she would not release until the moment I united my hand to the king’s. When I would once more be forced to bind my will to someone else’s whims and tender mercies.
    Ragoth held out a hand to me. “Lena, I am sorry, I did not mean to imply—”
    Knowing I was about to cry again and not wanting him to see it, I twirled on my heel and ran for the cottage. I needed to get away from him; from the things he made me feel, from the hope that bloomed stronger and stronger with each passing day that somehow, someway I’d be released from this torment.
    He called my name, but I didn’t turn back.
    ~*~
    Ragoth
    A week had passed since that night, and I was half out of my mind with fear, worry, and most of all, grief. She refused to come to me. And though I could drag her from her home if I so chose, I wanted the choice to be hers.
    I couldn’t lose my Lena. I simply wouldn’t allow it. Somehow I’d claim her, and if that meant snatching her out from under the hag’s nose, I’d do it. I’d do anything to make her mine permanently.
    I paced the halls of my chambers in dragon form, keeping my wings tightly