Chapter 3 Untitled Chapter

VIENNA

I woke up dead.

At least, that was what I thought until the pain reminded me I was still very much alive and very much suffering for it.

My skull throbbed like something had split it clean open. The inside of my mouth tasted like copper and dust. I tried to open my eyes and the light stabbed me so hard I groaned, curling into myself before I could stop it.

"Easy." A firm hand pressed against my shoulder. "You are safe."

That word had never meant anything real to me. I forced my eyes open anyway.

The ceiling above me was stone and high, carved with symbols I did not recognize. I was on a bed, a proper one, softer than anything I had slept on in my whole life. The sheets smelled faintly of smoke and something darker, like charred wood after rain.

Like him.

My whole body went rigid.

I was still in the dragon castle.

"Your head took a hard blow." The same voice again. Calm and even, like still water. "You have been unconscious for six hours."

I turned my head slowly. A woman sat beside the bed. She was not the blue-eyed maid. This one had silver hair pinned back and the kind of face that gave nothing away, old and patient and watchful.

"Where is he?" I asked. My voice came out thin and scraped raw.

"His Majesty completed the coronation at dawn." She folded her hands on her lap. "The bonding held. You survived the night. You are now under his protection."

His protection and yet someone had cracked me over the head the moment he left the room.

I sat up slowly, pressing my fingers to the back of my skull. There was a cloth bandage wrapped there. Someone had dressed the wound. I thought about the maids whispering in the dark. Those filthy humans dare to trick the king. We have to get rid of her.

They knew.

They knew I was not Vianne.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor. If they told him, if they had already gone to him and told him the woman he bonded with was a fraud, a replacement, a girl his chosen family threw away like spare cloth. I pressed my hand flat against my belly to stop the nausea.

I had to get out of here.

"I would like to dress." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Please."

The silver-haired woman studied me for a long moment, then rose without a word and laid a folded garment across the foot of the bed. She left without closing the door all the way.

I dressed fast, hands shaking. The clothes were not mine. They were fine, finer than anything I owned, deep burgundy with gold stitching at the cuffs. Someone had dressed me while I was unconscious and I tried not to think too hard about that.

I moved to the door. Ease it open.

The corridor was quiet but not empty. Two guards stood at either end, both with the still, coiled posture of people trained to move fast. Not human guards. Their eyes caught the torchlight and held it a beat too long.

I was not walking out of here.

I leaned against the doorframe and made myself breathe. Think, Vienna. Think.

The sound of boots on stone reached me before the shadow did. I stepped back instinctively. The footsteps slowed and stopped just outside.

Then he walked in.

He was taller than I remembered, or maybe it was different seeing him in full light. In the dark last night he had been a presence, a voice, a pair of hands. Now he was real and overwhelming and looking straight at me with those impossible purple eyes that glowed even in the daylight slanting through the narrow window.

He was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful. The kind of thing you admire from behind glass.

"You are awake." He said it like a statement, not a relief. His jaw was sharp, his expression unreadable. He was dressed in black with a crown sitting at his collar, not on his head, like he had taken it off the moment the ceremony was done.

"Someone tried to kill me." I said it before I could think better of it.

Something moved behind his eyes. "I know."

My mouth went dry. "You know."

"They have been dealt with." He crossed the room toward me and I held my ground only because my legs forgot how to work. He stopped close enough that I caught that scent again, charred wood and rain. "No one in this castle will touch you. You have my word."

His words. The word of a dragon king who did not even know my real name.

I swallowed hard. "I want to go home."

He was quiet for a moment. Then, very quietly, he said, "That is the one thing I cannot give you."

I stared at him. "What?"

"The bonding has been completed. You carry my mark now." His eyes dropped briefly to my neck. I reached up without thinking and my fingers found a raised patch of skin just below my jaw. A brand. A mark I had not known he put there. "To send you back now would be a death sentence. Any unmated creature who senses my mark and knows you are unclaimed will come for you."

The walls of the room felt like they were pressing in.

"So I am your prisoner."

"You are under my protection." He said it like those two things were not the same. Maybe to him they were not.

I laughed, short and without humor. The sound surprised even me. "You don't even know my real name."

He tilted his head slightly. Those glowing eyes did not blink. "No," he agreed. "I don't."

And the way he said it made me absolutely certain he already did.