Dragons and Princes - [COMPLETE]

10. Marquis

The beautiful golden mark that curled across Faeana’s elegant, capturing face was a scar. It had stolen his interest for its metallic color the moment he had first laid eyes upon her, had drawn his gaze, leading the way from her cheek to her jaw and down to the swell of her breasts. He’d traced it, captured by the mark as surely as he’d been sucked in unexpectedly and mesmerized by her unmatched beauty. He had not expected to find himself speechless, but upon first facing her, he’d lost his wits and simply stared.

She was so very lovely, and again, he found himself drawn to simply gaze at her. That golden mark was a scar. A golden scar. When the light touched it, it reflected it with an almost polished quality. So smooth, as though the skin had never been broken, as though the mark had only been painted there. A golden scar . . . His chest tightened as he gazed at the golden lotus flower that had bloomed on her flawless temple, for that was almost precisely what shape the new scar took. His throat constricted. The gold that flowed so beautifully from her cheek like the tail of a comet on a dazzling sky . . . that had once been an injury that had nearly cost her life. And she’d had that scar even when he’d first laid eyes on her, when it was too dark to tell that the mark had been red, then, not black, as he’d thought. Years had passed, and he’d never realized what the gold on flawless Freyja skin had meant.

He wanted to gather the exhausted princess in his arms, to protect her while she slept, but she cringed from every touch, as though touching was unnatural for her– almost as though every touch might hurt her. He couldn’t bring himself to try to comfort a woman when her reaction to him was to flinch away, but he couldn’t help his nature for the need to do so. It felt wrong to deny the impulse.

He studied her for a long time and finally forced himself to leave her be, retreating to the crumbled throne. What was that look she’d given him moments before she’d fallen asleep? It had been a strange look, almost sorrowful. For that brief moment, he had almost been able to see a glimpse of her, of the true creature beneath the projection of what the Fenrir called deathless flesh. He had sensed the faintest thread of something he couldn’t even name . . .

Marquis spoke quietly with his cousin, who’d returned to speak with him regarding the Fenrir’s growing restlessness at the approaching small Freyja army. He told Arrand his command remained as before, they were not to ride out to meet them in battle, as these were the Freyja who would take Faeana back to her home. He sent a messenger on to greet the Freyja, heavy-hearted because he suspected the Fenrir might be slain if he could not get away quickly enough. He’d always known Freyja to be merciless, and those would expect a trap even if they dove right into it. Faeana was the final heir of the Eye, and the Freyja would not hesitate to do whatever it took to retrieve her. And if she was killed, all of the Freyja would rise to their king’s call and step onto the field, even the children . . .

Fenrir abhorred killing children, even Freyja children.

Marquis fought sleep, pacing until his dizziness drove him to seat himself once more where he’d previously seated himself. He dreaded sleep, yet the moment he sat, leaning forward to rub his eyes with his palms, an overwhelming need to rest came over him. He told himself to concentrate, so that he would not dream if he dozed, but he’d been without but a few hours of sleep for over a week for fear Morgana might rise for more destruction. He tried to force himself up– instead he felt himself falling.

Marquis caught himself and breathed, looking across the table to Faeana Dagur. His only hope. How would he convince her to help him stop Morgana if she didn’t even know he had spoken a dragon? The beautiful woman had no idea how much he needed her, and Marquis had no way of knowing if the Freyja princess would be able to stop Morgana, in truth.

"You need to rest, Marquis, you’re killing yourself, not sleeping," Arrand told him. "What’s possessed you, that you refuse to rest?"

"I can’t," he whispered, "if I dream . . ." He shuddered to think of it, but he found sleep creeping up on him like Morgana’s great black jaws. He dreaded the carnage his dreams might provoke from Morgana, dreaded seeing through her eyes as she ate Fenrir and Freyja alike, even their wolves and frey cats. Sleep came upon him before he could even finish his sentence, and he dreaded the unbiased massacre that was sure to come when he dreamed of the bloodshed that haunted him. He always dreamed of the bloodshed, he didn’t want to dream of it again. . .

Marquis dreamed instead of seducing Faeana, of taking from her the shell she shrouded herself with, and finding beneath, a woman unlike any other, a woman who could command dragons by the legions . . . A woman whom he could not breathe without. He dreamed of the Freyja woman beneath him, her strange blue eyes gazing up into his as he gave himself to her and took her as his. . .

And then he dreamed of Morgana killing her and destroying everything he loved or hated as the dragon of the night had threatened, leaving him with nothing but the dragon and himself, with a world raining ash, the trees and the mountains gone, and the oceans dry, the skies of the night and the day replaced by a continuing eternity of gray. He dreamed of the haunting form of a broken, haggard man staggering from the fields of ash, appearing like a ghost in the snow-like gray that drifted forever downward from the sky. The man was Marquis himself, his haunted red eyes being the only vivid color he could see. "It was forbidden, what we did . . ." the man wept, hatred burning in those haunted eyes, and the ghost of a man lifted a dagger to Marquis’s throat, and Marquis leaned forward, wanting an end to the gray world. And the man vanished, leaving only himself and Morgana the Black, the dragon of the night. Nothing to love or hate, was he left with, nothing but Morgana to drive him . . .

A dragon’s puppet.