House of Dragons: Royal Houses Book One

were out the day that I was… assaulted five years ago,” Kerrigan said faintly.
Clover knew what had happened. Kerrigan had confessed to it one night while they were drinking. But she had no clue of the depths of her own hatred and fear for the Red Masks.
“What are you going to do about it?” Dozan asked.
“Do… about it?” Kerrigan asked.
“You weren’t chosen for a tribe.”
Clover gasped. “Is that true?”
“How do you know that?” Kerrigan asked instead. “Do you have spies everywhere?”
He smiled that deadly smile that had won him his kingdom. He stepped around the desk, leaning back against it and crossing his arms. He looked smug as hell. She wished that he wasn’t such a problem. That he wasn’t handsome and powerful and didn’t know all of her secrets. She wished she could run far, far away from Dozan Rook.
“Why weren’t you chosen?” Clover asked. “I thought every Dragon Blessed graduated and got some amazing apprenticeship with a tribe member. That they all became full citizens and yada yada propaganda. Didn’t someone already pick you?”
Kerrigan deflated as she looked back and forth between them.
“Yes. I had someone. He was there, and then he disappeared in the middle of the ceremony. And no, no one has ever not been chosen.”
“Disappeared?” Dozan asked at the same time Clover said, “Gods!”
Kerrigan shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m going to figure it out tomorrow when I’m not so mad.”
“You don’t have to figure it out, Ker,” Dozan said, sliding over her nickname like a lover’s caress. He stepped forward, gently tucking a loose strand of her red hair behind her slightly pointed ear, revealing it. “You know why you weren’t chosen when all the full-blooded Fae were.”
She shuddered. At the touch, at the insinuation, at her ear being exposed.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that the Red Masks showed up to a protest on the night the first half-Fae Dragon Blessed was to be selected by a tribe?”
“That’s circumstantial at best,” she argued. “It’s not because… of what I am.”
“It could be,” Clover said gently.
Kerrigan narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You think they were protesting me?”
“You and me and Clover and everyone who isn’t like them,” Dozan said. “You’re a half-Fae to them. Nothing more. You’re a leatha.”
Clover gasped. “Dozan!”
Kerrigan just stilled preternaturally. That word was disgusting. And she never got used to hearing it uttered. That Dozan would even use it… even to make a point, it turned her stomach.
“You don’t belong out there,” he said. “You belong in here.”
A short laugh escaped her. “In here? You think I belong in the Wastes?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
Kerrigan looked to Clover in disbelief. But her friend was nodding along.
Clover agreed with him. “You’d be better off with your own people.”
“My own people?” she said in shock.
Her own people were Bryonican royalty. Her own people were the House of Dragons. And yet… she had been abandoned by all of them. The Wastes had never abandoned her, but they weren’t her people just because she was half-Fae. Just because she didn’t have to hide herself. Were they?
“You could rule here,” Dozan said, spreading his arms wide.
“Rule?” she stuttered.
“Queen of the Wastes,” he offered.
Her throat went dry. It sounded so tantalizing. To be at Dozan’s side. To have all of this. But it was impossible. It could never… would never happen.
“You would never give that up.”
His eyes grew distant. “With your power and all that you are, you could rule at my side. We’d be unstoppable.”
“My power?” she said delicately.
“Yes, you’re just growing into it. Imagine what it could be. Imagine what the Wastes would look like with you at its helm.”
Her power. Her visions. Not her. He didn’t actually want her to be the queen of the Wastes, to stand at his side. He wanted to use her power and visions. Just like Helly had always warned her about. That if anyone knew what she could do, they would use her… or try to kill her. And if Dozan was using her, then there would surely be people lined up to kill her. Because a secret like this couldn’t keep if she was his queen.
“Thanks for the offer,” she drawled, coming to her feet. “But I’m going to have to pass.”
Dozan’s eyes glinted dangerously. He was not a man who was told no very often. He had expected her to grovel at his feet, to prostrate before him for the mere suggestion of it. And maybe, five years ago, she would have. He had been the one to save her, and in her youth, she had worshipped him for it.
But five years ago, he had been the son of the king of the wastes, and within a summer, he had murdered his family to take the throne. She had realized rather quickly that no matter how much she idolized Dozan, he could only love one thing—power.
“Come on, Clover. I should buy you a drink to make up for that black eye you’re likely to have,” Kerrigan said.
She held her hand out to her friend. Clover warily took it, uncertainly darting her eyes between Dozan and Kerrigan.
“I’d think about this carefully,” Dozan told her.
She smiled back just as dangerously as she wrenched the door open. “Oh, I already have.”
Then, she slammed the door in his face and went to get rip-roaring drunk with her friend.

15
The Bargain
Getting drunk might not have been the best idea she’d ever had.
Her head throbbed as she wandered into the mountain before dawn. She ambled back to her rooms within the House of Dragons, rooms she had shared with Darby for as long as she could remember, and still, it surprised her that her friend was up and… packing when she got home. Clothes were strewn everywhere, and a handful of boxes lay at her feet.
“What are you doing?” Kerrigan asked. She removed Fordham’s cloak and tossed it against the back of a wooden chair.
Darby jumped. “Kerrigan! There you are.”
“You’re packing already?”
“Well… yes,” she said sheepishly. “Where did you go last night?