Page 15 of Dragons' Mate
Stars. Fionna is as much of a slave as I ever was. More. I’ve only had my own life to guard.
The gong sounds again, and I can see from the way Quinton’s hands are twitching at his sides that he’s about to lose his patience, strip Fionna bare and leave her here gagged.
“No return debt will be sought,” I assure her, quickly explaining that she’ll need to change clothes with me and find Autumn, who will get her the rest of the way out of the palace. “You choose what you do next. No dragon princes, no trials, no obligations except to say nothing of what's happened here.”
She still doesn’t move. “B-But what would I do?” she asks me so earnestly that it breaks something inside me. “I know nothing except how to please their highnesses. I’ve no other purpose.”
“Blight take me.” Quinton advances on Fionna. There is enough menace flowing from him that she steps away, her spike of fear so sharp that even I can scent it. Or is it me feeling Quinton’s body again?Shit.
A growl rumbles deep inside Quinton’s chest. “You want to please a dragon, girl? Well, here is how you bloody please me: find yourself a better purpose than dying at the trials for the sake of other peoples’ problems. Understood? Either that, or I can snap your neck now and be done with it.”
Well, that’s another way of getting to yes. Fionna nods with what seems like reflex.
That’s all the signal I need to start stripping out of my gown. The gong is sounding yet again beyond the wall, and the hum of the ballroom is falling quickly now. We are out of time for talk and I’m so focused on getting into Fionna’s dress that I jump when her fingers close around my forearm.
“Your mark,” she says. “I’ve seen it before.”
I jerk my arm back, my jaw tightening for a moment. “Yes. I know. It’s a slave brand.”
“Oh, is it?” she shrugs, getting back to her own dress. “I didn’t know. Our estate didn’t keep slaves.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Strange.”
I’ve neither time nor interest to find out what about my brand Fionna finds strange, because there is no more music at all coming from the other side of the door. No more dancing.
The moment the last lace button of my dress is fastened, Quinton leads me out into the eerily silent Great Hall. Except for the occasional quiet whisper or rustling silk, everyone’s attention is rooted to the priests’ dais. There are three priests of Orion there now, all in hooded robes. Their faces are tattooed with images of constellations, as if they wear a living map of the heavens on their skin.
As Quinton and I snake our way through the crowd, the middle priest steps forward. A pack of four shirtless dragon shifters and one fully dressed human woman are already kneeling on the hardwood of the dais.
“What’s with the stripping?” I ask Quinton. With shirts off and masks on, the whole thing looks decidedly odd.
“Quiet,” Quinton hisses back.
On the dais, the priest holds up a ceremonial dagger and a silver chalice with an image of a dragon’s eye. The priest bares his forearm—which too is tattooed with constellation marks—and deftly slices the blade over his skin.
I flinch.
The priest spills several drops of his blood into the chalice, then proceeds down the line of the kneeling pack to draw a similar sacrifice from each of his five pledges. Each time a new drop of blood touches the silver, the dragon’s eye pulsates with a flash of light.
“Have you come to stand before the Goddess Orion, Celestial Dragon who watches us always, to seek her permission to enter the Equinox Trials?” The priest’s voice, filled with divine authority, resonates through the hall.
“We do,” the dragon shifters answer as one. The woman with them follows along a moment later, but none of them pay attention to her.
“And, should she grant your request, are you ready to receive the Mark of Orion, which will bind you to her will, as delegated by her to my judgment, and mine alone?” The priest asks.
“We do,” the group answers.
“Do you pledge yourself from the moment of your marking until I release you from the trials?”
“We do.”
“Then so it shall be.” Dipping the dagger into the chalice, the priest chants softly and draws a symbol in the air. The mark glows above the dais, and then again on the bare backs of the males. A similar mark glows on the woman’s neck. That explains the dressing arrangements at least.
The dragons go rigid as the magic sears their skin, but the woman screams. Her howl of pain echoes from the fancy marble columns and statues until the mark settles, leaving a luminous tattoo behind.
“Orion has accepted your pledge,” the priest announces as the pack on the dais removes their masks.
