Rake My Lust (Dragons of Blood and Bone #3)

1. Ally

1

ALLY

H andcuffs can be fun. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good romp around the kink room. But magical handcuffs are never fun—and I’m in a set of those now, as I come to from unconsciousness.

I don’t know how long I’ve been out; when I wake, I’m in prison, though a nice one as prisons go. It’s fucking cold, however; the surrounding air is frigid, as I shiver and my breath blows steam into the air. My body heat as a Blood Dragon should take care of the chill, making me feel toasty, even though the air in my cell is only just above freezing.

But oh, yeah—magical handcuffs restrain all dragon abilities.

Even the innate kind.

As I come back to consciousness, I register a few things about my cell. The first is that I’m on a cot, which is nice because I’m not sleeping on the cold, hard stone of wherever I am right now. I gaze around to see my cell is circular, like a tower, but with no windows.

I feel as if I am somewhere high up and I can hear a stiff wind howling outside the thick stones of the walls. This place is old wherever it is; the white granite stones have the feel of millennia, and I’m not talking about before they were quarried.

With an uneven floor and slightly jilted walls, the smooth-worn stones of my cell have been polished by many dragons over time. The space is big enough to contain a dragon, though I’m in human form.

I’m just the latest dragon to be incarcerated here, however, as I note a set of ornate black iron bars that serve as a door. Those bars are scrawled through with caustic red Bloodrunes—to curse the fuck out of me if I even try to get close.

I’m comfy beneath my thick wool blanket, though. That, plus my cot, is the royal treatment for a dungeon in Swedish Blood Dragon territory in the Twilight Realm.

I don’t know where I am, but I have a feeling I’m in the custody of the same dragon clan I just made severe enemies of right before I passed out. The powerful Magnussen Clan of the Blood Dragons of Sweden.

Famed for their brutality up here in the far north.

I just royally pissed them off by decimating a holy dragon-cairn they had a strict taboo against messing with. That, plus I did it with my two mates—Strom Eriksson, Jarl-Heir of the rival neighboring Eriksson Clan, plus the Blood Dragon Kingsguard Captain Bjorn Magnussen.

Though Bjorn’s a Magnussen, the previous Jarl-Heir to the clan I’m trapped by, he’s been outcast since his teens. He was outcast by his father, the Jarl of these lands, Oggi Magnussen.

The dragon who has captured me.

I don’t see my mates anywhere now. Sitting up slowly on my cot, because I have a blistering headache from magical fatigue, I see I’m dressed in a nice set of linen trousers with a long-sleeved tunic. A white polar bear pelt is atop my wool blanket, which is why I’m so cozy. I seize both the pelt and blanket, wrapping them around me as I sit, leaning back on the stone wall and facing my cell door.

Waiting.

I don’t have to wait long. Either the Magnussens have some sort of magical security system to alert guards of my movements, or they’ve got modern micro-cameras in here. Tech and magic intertwine in the Twilight Realm; but someone has stepped up to my cell door now.

That someone unlocks the dire curse-runes on my door with a wave of their hand and a deep blaze of crimson-green Blood Dragon magic. As iron locks click back from an ornate locking mechanism, the thick iron bars of the door with their detailed scrollwork push back.

I see my jailor; a breath of relief passes through me as I recognize the Captain of the Magnussen Border Guard, Olander Mortensen. He enters my cell with his towering bulk, far more than just about any other dragon I’ve ever met, wearing traditional black buckled guardsman leathers.

A white polar bear pelt similar to the one on my cot is pinned around his shoulders; mine dwarfs me, even though I’m not a small woman, but his fits him perfectly.

A stylized silver insignia of vicious mountains with a dragon curling through them is pinned to his pelt. As he brings me a steaming tray of bread, butter, venison meat pie, and a big bowl of stew, I don’t even ask if it’s poisoned. I tuck in as a ravenous feeling fills me.

No idea when my last meal was—the dragon inside me hungry to the max.

“Slow down, drakaina. Chew a little.” Captain Olander gives a deep basso chuckle as he sits beside me on the cot, watching me eat.

“How long have I been here?” I ask, dispensing with any introductory questions. I know for certain now that Jarl Oggi Magnussen holds me captive, since this is his same captain who was sent to collect us from the dragon cairn, now sitting beside me.

Watching me eat like a ravenous beast.

“Three days. You’ve been out this entire time.” Captain Olander chuckles again, though it’s more serious now as his gaze pierces me. He’s got nice eyes, a sort of hazel-meets-spring-green with a ring of gold around them.

Built like a Nordic strongman, he’s well kept with a trim blond beard and neat blond braids, and dragons shaved into the sides of his head. Beads of silver adorn those braids, glinting in a light source I only now realize is a flowing, magical white light that lingers around the apex of my cell.

“You gave a lot of energy to Bjorn when you pushed all your power into him through your bonds before you passed out.” The captain is serious now as I finally eat slower.

Less like an animal and more like a person who’s been starving for days.

“Was he able to do anything with it?” I ask as I watch Captain Olander. I know he was friends with Bjorn in the past, but I don’t know how far that friendship extends, since Bjorn has been outcast from his clan for over a hundred years.

For what reason, I have no clue.

“He was, actually.” The captain nods, a glimmer of approval in his eyes now as they shine gold with his dragon. “Bjorn was able to heal his wounds with what your power gave him. Not only that, but he could rise and knock his father in the mouth with a fucking doozy of a haymaker, in just his human form. Knocked out one of Jarl Oggi’s dragon-fangs before the Jarl put Bjorn back on the floor. Nearly bit Bjorn’s head off to make him surrender.”

“Damage?” I breathe, barely able to sense my First Drake right now through our mystical Bloodbonds, though I do feel with relief that he’s alive.

As is my Second Drake, Strom—somewhere nearby.

“Minimal.” Olander Mortensen gives me a knowing glance. “Bjorn got a few scrapes around the neck when the Jarl put his entire mouth over his head and bit down, but only to subdue him. Jarl Oggi would never kill his pride and joy, not like that, at least. If he’s going to kill Bjorn, it’ll be public, in a way that’ll let no one forget the sacrifice he made to support the strength of the clan. Not just one child born of his loins, but two.”

I realize as he speaks that Captain Olander played me back in the dragon-cairn. I had thought Bjorn was in mortal danger from his father, then; but the captain had known all along he wasn’t.

He told me Bjorn’s father would kill him if I resisted capture. I shake my head now as I realize Captain Olander Mortensen is not just a big motherfucker of a dragon. He’s also smart.

Something to watch out for—or secure to our aims, if we can.

“So you warning me to be still so I didn’t make the Jarl kill his son was just a play inside the cairn, wasn’t it?” I ask him as I lift an eyebrow.

“I had to get you to cooperate somehow, didn’t I?” Captain Mortensen says with a teasing but frank glint in his eyes now. “Can’t have the Hog Skjaldm?r of our entire Blood Dragon Lineage getting killed on my watch because she pissed off my Jarl. Sorry, not sorry.”

“It was a clever move. Well played.” I concede now, because it really was a good way to stop me from struggling in the moment, and drawing the furious attention of the Magnussen Clan Jarl.

One of the biggest, scariest Blood Dragons I’ve ever met.

“Where is Bjorn?” I ask now, feeling him nearby, but not close enough that we can connect our powers.

“In a different tower. Jailed and manacled, the same as you. Along with the Eriksson Jarl-Heir, though I don’t think that one’s going to stick.”

“Why not?” I grill the captain for any information he’s willing to give me right now.

“Let’s just say that Jarl Oggi Magnussen doesn’t want a war with Jarl Jorg Eriksson, not right now.” The captain chuckles, amused. “The Erikssons are our neighbors to the east and have tricks up their sleeves in battle. But you would know that… having already life-mated to the Jarl-Heir of the Eriksson Clan. Not to mention the drake who should have been Jarl-Heir to ours.”

“You can feel our life-bonds? Me, Strom, and Bjorn?” My eyebrows lift. It’s not usually possible to feel another dragon’s life-mate bonds, only one’s own .

“It… simmers in the air around you. Stretching towards them.” A strange look comes into his eyes. He sniffs the air near me and I see the gold in his eyes roar.

The fiery gold of his drake.

Clearly, Captain Olander Mortensen has some of our Blood Dragon extra-sensory gifts in his power. In another clan, he might have become a shaman rather than a warrior.

Here in Magnussen lands, however, every young drake or drakaina becomes a warrior from birth. The captain’s unique abilities are something I note, if we need to use them later.

“So are you a friend of Bjorn’s?” I challenge him now, finishing my plate and pushing it away, though I’m pretty certain I already know his answer.

“I serve my Jarl,” he says, though he gives me a clever eyebrow lift. “I am not willing to treat a possible contender for the entire Blood Dragon Kingship badly while in my care, however, Hog Skjaldm?r. You’ll get what you need here, within reason. As long as it doesn’t cross my Jarl’s orders… I shall treat you with the deference your royal station requires until the King can be contacted to sort all this out.”

“I need my cell phone,” I say at once, then, knowing the captain is going to play ball, albeit carefully. “And some proper warrior’s leathers, preferably from my own things. And I need to see both Bjorn and Strom, to see if they’re alright. Immediately.”

“Two of those things I can do.” The captain nods, though a warning look comes into his eyes now. “Your drakes must stay separated from you until the Jarl brings you all before him for questioning. I’m sorry, but those are his direct orders. He doesn’t want the three of you together until?—”

Captain Olander Mortensen cuts off then, smiling wryly and shaking his head. He pushes up to standing, gazing down at me. Not one to be left sitting in the presence of drakes, I push up to standing as well, though my body is still so exhausted from everything that happened in the dragon-cairn that I barely make it.

The captain doesn’t reach out to steady me as I wobble. Fierce approval shines in his eyes that I need to face off with him, even though I can barely keep my feet. I see a smile tease his lips, and I know I’ve impressed the Magnussen Border Captain. With a low chuckle, he turns to go.

“I’ll get your cell phone and your things. Be right back.”

Before he can leave, another thought hits my mind. The entire reason we went into that dragon-cairn in the first place was left behind there.

A place I can’t get back to now that the Magnussen Jarl is onto us.

“The contents of the stone altar in the dragon-cairn?” I ask the captain quickly, needing to know. “What happened to it?”

“The Jarl confiscated it. All of it.” Captain Mortensen frowns now, though he tells me what happened to the strange arcane items and scrolls that were in that altar, which once belonged to my Bloodwalker ancestor. He turns back, a curious look on his face. “That’s what you went down there to find, wasn’t it? Everything in that altar.”

“It was.” I nod, not seeing any reason to not tell him. “We need those things, Captain. To stop something truly heinous. A terrible creature I’ve been charged to investigate by the King himself.”

“You’re on an investigation for the King?” Captain Mortensen’s eyebrows rise now as he blinks. “Why didn’t you say that before? That changes things.”

“We have a Blood Seal from the King that confirms our passage through any territory we need to enter on our hunt, which is in the pocket of my vest from the cairn,” I say firmly now, knowing that being on an investigation for the King trumps whatever bad beef Bjorn has with his father and vice versa. It even trumps breaking into a forbidden heritage site, though Magnussens are deeply superstitious about their dead and wouldn’t see things that way.

Still, it’s a card I can play, and a good one .

But there’s been a rebellion against the King; a number of his Jarls pulled their personnel from his military and Kingsguard six months ago, citing that they didn’t like King Huttr Erdhelm’s foreign policies regarding our historical enemies, the Ice Dragons.

The whole thing has been a shitshow for months, leaving the military wanting and the Kingsguard crippled as they trained new people. It’s compromised security across the Lineage, allowing a massive blast to happen on an Ice Dragon-settled island, which started all this bullshit.

I know Jarl Oggi Magnussen was not one of the Jarls who pulled his clan’s support from the King, but he’s also one of the most powerful Jarls in the entire Blood Dragon Lineage.

His warriors unsurpassed—if he ever decided to challenge the King.

“I’ll bring your things, and you can find your Blood Seal,” Captain Mortensen says then, watching me. “Don’t let anyone take it from you. Bring it with you when you have your audience before the Jarl; you must be the one to show it to him, in public, for him to consider it. The Jarl is a dragon who considers the pressure of public opinion in his rule. You’ll need that when you talk to him. The more ammunition you have to hit him with in front of his court, the better.”

“Thank you,” I say now, grateful for the advice. “And the things from the cairn?”

“I can’t bring them to you, but know that they are safe.” The captain nods as he watches me. “But… why do you need those things, Hog Skjaldm?r? They’re nothing but a pile of oddities; historical, yes, but empty of whatever magic they once contained. And the scrolls are downright illegible; they’re all written in some dead language nobody here can decipher. Why are they so important for this investigation of yours?”

“I don’t know yet.” I scowl now, knowing the captain speaks the truth as I sigh. “I honestly don’t know what might aid me in killing the Black Dragon of the Usurper from that pile of magical trash. But something in there is valuable to our hunt; the Ancestors told me so.”

I don’t tell the captain my uncertainty about exactly who has been speaking to me from our Blood Dragon Ancestors. But my mention of the Ancestors at all has the captain on very high alert now. Lifting an eyebrow, he peers at me.

His eyes flaring all gold now with the power of his dragon.

“The Ancestors themselves have charged you with this hunt? Not just our King?” he asks.

“They have,” I respond, hearing an echo of all those dead voices screaming in my ears, like when I was down in the dragon-cairn. Kill it! They shriek at me. Because whatever the Black Dragon of the Usurper is, it decimated tens of thousands of Blood Dragons in its time, giving them terrible deaths.

And my ancestor created it, with my same Bloodwalker magic in her veins.

That knowledge sickens me now, even as it straightens my exhausted spine. I face the captain down hard, knowing I do my Ancestors’ will as I hunt this evil thing to the ends of the earth and back, besides resolving my own need to see it die.

Wherever I need to go to kill it, I will, permission or not, trespassing or not. Captain Olander Mortensen sees that determination in me. He gives a slow nod.

Then sets his fist to his chest—in a Blood Dragon salute.

“Hog Skjaldm?r, Bloodwalker of the Ancients,” he says now, with reverence, “I will fetch you the things you need. I will do everything in my power to help you in your Ancestor-bidden hunt. Though I cannot cross my Jarl. I hope you know that.”

“I understand.” I get it that the superstitious nature of the Magnussen Clan makes the captain deeply reverent of our Ancestors. “But how did you know I was a Bloodwalker? Lots of our shamans can contact the Ancestors.”

“Yes, but only Bloodwalkers take multiple mates.” Captain Mortensen’s fist is still on his heart. “And a Bloodwalker’s power only calls to the strongest drakes; which is why I feel your magic calling to me. Like many Magnussens of station, I was trained in our Blood Dragon mystical arts. Bjorn and I grew up together and trained together in the Magnussen Border Guard. We also trained with the famed Bloodwalker shamaness Maryse Allbright when we were young. I knew the feel of her power, then. Just as I know the feel of yours now.”

“Maryse is dead,” I say then, feeling like he should know, as some deep instinct fills me. “She was killed by this demon I’m chasing, the Black Dragon Usurper of the ancients.”

“I had not heard that.” The captain’s voice is deadly soft now, as sorrow sweeps his eyes. Tightening his fist, he pounds his heart once, twice, thrice, in a gesture of Blood Dragon mourning.

“Kill it for me,” he says softly now, so softly it makes me wonder what his relationship with Maryse actually was long ago. “Kill whatever it is you’re chasing, which gave Maryse her demise. I will do… anything in my power to make it happen.”

As he says it, I see love shine from his eyes now. Captain Olander Mortensen was never chosen as one of Maryse’s mates when he was young—but I see how he wished he was, back when he was training with her.

Love lost pummels from him in waves before he puts it away. His gaze is barren now, bleak, as he stares at me. He gives me one last deep nod before turning and walking away.

And I know we have an ally in Jarl Oggi Magnussen’s court.

Even if he can’t come out openly to save us.