Captive Fire (8 page)

Ryuu did it again and again, until the tip was red and
leaking. Drakon was so close to climax he felt as if he were burning up.
Is
this what it will always be like with him?
This fire?
he
wondered, grabbing the chains to keep from keening.

Ryuu oiled his fingers and slid them in without
warning. Drakon grunted, opening his legs wider. “More.”

“Greedy,” Ryuu said, but he complied, adding more
fingers until Drakon felt split in half. When Ryuu bumped the gland inside him,
he arched his back, cock pointing toward the ceiling.

“I’m ready,” he gasped.

Ryuu grabbed his legs and put them over his shoulders,
then slid in with one hard thrust.

Drakon’s breath rushed out of him all at once the
moment Ryuu’s abdomen scraped against his inflamed cock.

“Breathe,” he said, mocking Drakon’s earlier words.

Drakon smiled, sensing his mate’s arousal and
affection through the bond. “You can feel me, Ryuu. You know I am fine,” he
said, clenching his internal muscles.

Ryuu groaned, and began to move. He pushed harder and
harder, until Drakon’s arms gave out. Ryuu grabbed his shoulders and used them
to shove inside. “Come on, my sweet prince. Come for me.”

Drakon arched his spine and climaxed without a hand
touching him. Ryuu cried out and orgasmed a moment later. The dawning light
shone on his face as his pleasure took him. Drakon wished they had forever, but
even now the day stole their time away.

When Ryuu finally relaxed, Drakon kissed his temple.
“Unlock the chains, Ryuu.”

Ryuu groaned, but leaned up and undid the restraints.
“I can feel your strength, you know,” he murmured quietly. “It’s like a burning
ember at the center of your being.”

Drakon knew Ryuu meant he could sense the dragon in
him. “I know,” he whispered, closing his eyes.
What would Ryuu say if he
knew I could sense the same fire in him?

Chapter Six

Three weeks later, Drakon was so completely attuned to
Ryuu that he felt as though they’d known each other their entire lives. He
watched his mate dress for yet another interminable meeting with his father,
wondering if today were the day he’d finally force himself to do what he’d come
here for.

You are a dragon, yet here you are, lolling around
with a lover instead of doing your duty,
he told himself, smoothing a hand over the silk blanket on the sleeping
platform. The sun shone down on them, but he felt anything but bright and
cheerful. They only had one week left before the emperor would make his move.

You should be infiltrating his citadel, not
fornicating with the prince,
he
thought, looking at the glittering luxury of Ryuu’s chambers. He was surrounded
by comfort, yet it was nothing more than a gilded box. He was like a bird in a
cage, except the captivity was of his own making.
You could have been done
and gone by now.
Or dead.

“You shouldn’t torment yourself like this,” Ryuu said,
strapping on his knives.

Drakon smiled sadly.
“Bearer of
Blades, how do you know what my heart feels?”

Ryuu’s lips quirked.
“I am bonded to you, my slave, as you are to me. Our
emotions are as one. I may not know your thoughts, but I know how you feel.” He
walked over to the bed and kissed Drakon softly. “Don’t fret. If it’s time for
you to go, just go. What must be, will be.” He smiled sadly. “And besides,
haven’t we vowed to find a way to be together? We’ve made plans.”

As if it were that simple,
Drakon thought. His heart hurt. “I don’t want to
leave you,” he whispered past the lump in his throat. “And you won’t leave your
people.”

“We only have one week left, and then we shall see
what happens,” Ryuu said softly. “Perhaps it would be better for you to go
early than to—”

The chamber door banged open.
Whatever
Ryuu intended to say fell away from his lips like ash as the emperor stormed
into the room, enraged.

“What is the meaning of this?” He threw a computer
tablet down on the bed.

Drakon only had time to glance at it before the
emperor’s guards hauled him out of bed and shackled him. This time, the chains
were of plain steel with no finger-key locks. He clamped his lips shut, knowing
that now wasn’t the time for protests. He reached for his inner dragon and
calmed himself. He wouldn’t be in chains for long.
The reckoning has come.
He glanced at Ryuu and they shared a look
fraught with everything they’d come to feel for each other: love, strength, and
the sudden hopelessness of their situation.

He doesn’t know I’m a dragon,
Drakon reminded himself.
My last
secret.
I should have told him, but I never imagined it would
come to this!
He cursed himself for falling prey to such stupidity. He knew
better. He knew the emperor couldn’t be trusted, but Drakon’s desire for Ryuu
seduced him into relaxing in the midst of the enemy’s fortress.

“This is an outrage!” Ryuu said, glaring at his
father. “You dare barge in here—”

“Your cousins are alive!” The emperor hit his son
across the face once, twice, and was drawing back his arm for a third time
before Ryuu grabbed his father’s wrist and twisted, preventing another blow.
The emperor growled in fury and his guards pulled Ryuu away. They locked onto
the prince, shoving him to his knees.

“Stop!”
The empress ran into the chamber, her red tunic
dragging. “What are you doing?
Midian, no!”

Drakon stared at Ryuu’s mother. Since the last time
he’d seen her, a few short weeks ago, she’d grown thin and drawn. Her face
looked like fine parchment. He’d known she was dying, but the reality of it was
so much more terrible than he’d imagined. He looked at Ryuu, heartsore, and his
mate looked back at him. For just an instant, misery showed in the prince’s
silver eyes, but he quickly shuttered his emotions.

“Mother, I am fine,” he said, trying to pull free of
the guards. They squeezed tighter and he subsided, obviously not wanting to
make a fuss in front of her.

“Let him go,” she said, wheezing. “Let my son go.” She
pulled a cloth from her pocket and coughed into it. She shoved it back into her
tunic, but not before Drakon saw the blood on the silk. “He’s done nothing. I’m
the one who arranged for my nieces’ escape.”

“Shut up, woman,” Midian snarled. He raised his arm to
her and she cowered. “As if I’d believe a mere female had the brains to fool
me.”

“Enough,” Ryuu said harshly, struggling against the
guards. “She is not the enemy here.”

The emperor turned back to him, ignoring his wife.
“Your toy will be executed today, my son. And you will begin the task I set for
you.”

Ryuu drew himself up. “You’ll have to kill me first,”
he stated.

Drakon felt his mate’s sincerity. His gaze went to the
doorway, planning his move. When he saw Zinan and Svana, he shook his head
minutely. He may have neglected his task, but he and Ryuu had planned for the
emperor’s fickle madness. The prince’s personal guards silently disappeared.
Drakon knew they were headed toward the flitter hangar bay, where they would
notify Ryuu’s loyalists of the situation.

The emperor laughed.
“No, dear son.
I won’t have to kill you at all.” He nodded to his warriors. “Take him to the
medical facility.”

Drakon caught his breath. They hadn’t thought that the
emperor would stoop to that. He struggled against his chains, unable to stop
himself. The rattle drew everyone’s attention and he gritted his teeth, angry
enough that he had to concentrate so he wouldn’t shift form. If he let out his
dragon, he would be trapped here, underground.
Flightless.

“Take that one away,” Midian said, waving toward
Drakon. “No need to draw this out.”

The guards bowed and dragged him across the room before
he could get his feet under him. “Bastards!” he cursed, trying to catch his
balance. “Let me walk.”

They paused in the doorway and Drakon got his
bearings. When he saw the emperor turn back to Ryuu, he grabbed his chains and
heaved, tossing his captors to the floor.

Ryuu!
he
cried in his mind, hoping their tentative bond would be
enough for his mate to understand his intention. Instead, the empress flung
herself at the emperor, a small blade flashing in her hand. He couldn’t see
what happened, but blood spattered the floor. Then he had no more time to
watch. The guards tried to grab his feet. He kicked out, breaking the first
one’s neck before he was pulled down by the second. They rolled through the
empty corridor. Drakon grabbed the guard’s sidearm and pulled the trigger. The
man’s eyes blanked, and he heaved him away. When he turned back to the door,
Svana was hauling Ryuu out by the arm.

Didn’t she go with Zinan?
he
thought, confused. Ryuu
screamed in rage, trying to get back to the chamber, but Svana had his arms
locked.

“Help me!” she cried.

Drakon got to his feet, still shackled.
“Ryuu!
We need to go.” He glanced down the hall. It wouldn’t
remain empty for long. Even now, the dissonant wail of a siren filled the stone
hall. “Dragon’s balls,” he muttered, striding up to Ryuu and shaking him.
“Ryuu!”

“He killed my mother,” Ryuu said, face streaked with
tears and blood.

Drakon looked in the chamber. The emperor lay on the
floor, blood seeping from a wound in his shoulder. Dead guards lay around him
like grim, red flowers, and the empress lay crumpled near the bed, face pale
and waxy. Even from this distance, Drakon could tell the wound wasn’t serious
enough to kill the emperor, but the empress was likely dead. He growled, torn
between killing Midian and getting his mate out of danger.

“We need to go!” Svana cried, staring down the
corridor.

Drakon followed her gaze. Guards rushed past the
junction at the end of the hall, but it would only be moments before some came
toward them. All the soldiers wore red armor.
The emperor’s men are
everywhere,
he thought, frustrated enough to chew rock.

“The empress?”
Drakon asked Svana.

She shook her head.

Drakon cursed again. He should’ve known better than to
ask. He felt Ryuu’s grief through the bond. They were wasting time here. After
one last glance at the emperor, now sitting up and struggling to reach his
plasma weapon, Drakon made his decision. “Time to go,” he muttered, grabbing
Ryuu’s arm and shaking him, hard.
“Ryuu!
Think of your
people,” he hissed.

Ryuu stopped struggling. “He killed my mother.”

“Yes, but if you want to avenge her, first we must
live.” With Svana’s help, Drakon began to haul him away. “We have only moments
before your father’s men arrive.”

Ryuu shrugged off their hold and began to sprint down
the corridor. The siren abruptly cut off and Drakon shook his head, disoriented
by the silence. At least the light in the hallway didn’t fluctuate. The crystal
reflectors studded the length of the ceiling in this section of the citadel. As
far as he could tell from the reflected light, it was just past midday. It
seemed much later to him, but then, a lot had happened in the past half hour.

“This way,” Ryuu said
,
palming what looked like a blank spot on the wall. Light flared around his hand
and he shoved, muscles bulging. Drakon glanced at Svana, but she was watching
the prince. When the stone swiveled in, leaving a space just wide enough for
one person, Drakon stared. Even with the finger-key, he hadn’t discovered any
hidden passages.

And he’d looked.
The blueprints of the citadel
had specifically mentioned the danger of hidden tunnels without proper support.
The back of his neck crawled as he considered the weight of stone over his
head.
Dragons really don’t like underground stone prisons.

“I still have some secrets,” Ryuu told him, correctly
interpreting Drakon’s uneasy expression. He squeezed into the space. “Come on.
There isn’t much time.”

Drakon grimaced,
then
followed his mate into the darkness.

****

Ryuu jogged through the hidden tunnel, trying to shove
the memory of his father breaking his mother’s neck into the background of his
thoughts, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t focus. Every time he took a breath he
saw the look in her eyes: fear, anger, and sorrow. That wasn’t how he’d wanted
her last moments on Aiyana to happen. Millennia ago, when humans had first come
here from the dying Earth, they’d named their planet after an eternal blossom,
but instead of sweet beauty, all Ryuu knew of life was heat and struggle. His
father poisoned everything with his madness.

“How much further?”
Drakon
asked,
his voice
rough. “The light in here isn’t very good.”

Ryuu knew his lover didn’t like the stone above his
head. Truth be told, Ryuu didn’t much care for it either. He’d always felt
uncomfortable inside the citadel, and these tunnels were worse than most of the
public spaces. The only light was from irregularly set crystal reflectors along
the ceiling. At night, the tunnels were inaccessible. Using artificial light
would give away their use from the surface and trudging through the dark could
mean death. There were more than a few traps and hidden drops. When he’d first
discovered these tunnels, he’d spent years mapping them out. Drakon didn’t have
that luxury.

“Ryuu?”
Drakon asked.

“One more klick and we’ll be there,” he said,
increasing his speed. “Be careful of the next turn. There’s a drop to the
left.”

Drakon grunted, and chains rustled.

Ryuu frowned. Damn his father. They’d need to get
those chains off, but right now they had no time. They had to get to the flitter
hangar and get out of the citadel.

“Zinan went to gather our loyalists,” Svana said,
keeping pace easily.

Ryuu nodded,
then
realized
she couldn’t see him very well. “Good. This simply moves up our timeline. It
doesn’t invalidate it.”

“Timeline?”

“Rebellion.
Or a coup, if you prefer to call it that,” Ryuu said.

“You planned it all along, didn’t you?” Drakon sounded
pleased.

Of course, he’s pleased. My father has been killing
his people for decades.
He slowed
down, wary of the spike trap in front of them. “Yes. But we needed to gather
support. The Arethuza as a people are more than just my father and his bloody
soldiers. More people have suffered beneath his rule than have prospered.”

Drakon said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed. “I
know.”

Ryuu shook his head. He could feel Drakon’s worry in
his mind. Their mental bond grew stronger each day.
If only I knew how and
why it had formed,
he mused, worrying over it again. He thought of his
mother.
Perhaps her blood isn’t completely human, as my father hoped.