Queen of Dragons (Drakon, Band 3) - Softcover

Abé, Shana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553588060 ISBN 13: 9780553588064

Verlag: Bantam, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

They are the stuff of glittering legend, supersensual creatures able to shape-shift from human to smoke to dragon. Now they face an enemy determined to destroy their dazzling world of magic and passion. Queen of Dragons It’s a stunning claim: the existence of a lost drákon tribe. And it comes from an intriguing source: a woman calling herself Princess Maricara of Transylvania. Alpha lord Kimber Langford, Earl of Chasen, can’t ignore the possibility. For whoever this unknown princess may be, she’s dangerous enough to know about his existence—and where to find him. And indeed, it isn’t long before Maricara breaches the defenses of Darkfrith and the walls around Kimber’s heart. Yet the princess arrives with urgent news: a mysterious serial killer is targeting the entire drákon race. To save their kind, Kimber and Mari must ally themselves body and soul in a battle that can spell their salvation, their extinction…or both.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Shana Abé is the award-winning author of nine novels, including The Smoke Thief. She lives in the Denver area with four surly pet house rabbits, all rescued, and a big goofy dog. Please, please support your local animal shelter, and spay or neuter your pets.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

April 1782
Four Years Later


It was a night without moon or stars, the clouds boiling heavy with dark, impending snow, masking not only the ruts of the road but also anything that might be hiding above. Anything lethal.

Fortunately, he didn't truly need to see to sense an aerial threat. He felt them occasionally, or thought he did: distant tremors in the air, never too close, usually so faint he half thought he was imagining it.

The cold seemed the greater threat, actually. He'd never known a spring night this frigid, not in his life, and wondered how the bloody hell anyone managed to live here. Springtime at home meant bright green crocuses and warmed streams splashing free of their ice-not this. Not this bitter, relentless chill that sliced through his greatcoat and froze to frost inside his mouth and nose.

His horse stumbled, pitching him forward in the saddle. He righted himself and tried to calm her with a hand to her neck, but the mare only shuddered at his touch. He pulled back again.

Riding horseback was never ideal. But he'd been unable to hire a coach to take him up these mountain roads, no matter how much he offered. No one wanted to venture here.

And that was good, he knew. It meant, finally, that he was close.

The mare skipped to a halt, sending him forward again. He swore under his breath, snapping the reins, but she would not move. When he used his spurs she tossed her head and reared; he held on with both hands, but she only went into a buck, panicked, squealing, and he realized suddenly that there was something ahead of them on the road, something that spooked her.

He lost his grip. He hit the ground and then lost his breath, managing a roll to his feet, swiping the mud from his eyes. The mare pounded off and the danger-sense grew and the skin crawled along his spine-he was already Turning, but it was cold, and he was winded. And it was too late.

Her morning began the way too many of her mornings did: with the wind blowing her hair in heavy ropes across her face, her body curled in a ball atop a loose mound of hay, her fists clenched. Even her toes clenched. She wore no clothing. Beneath the hay, the terrace floor was cold, cold-nearly as cold as the ice topping the mountains, just as glimmering, milky-pale stone hewn from the hills centuries past.

Her mouth tasted of ashes. Her hair smelled of smoke.

Maricara opened her eyes, then closed them again. The sky above loomed pink and scarlet-gold, domed with soft, glamorous clouds all rimmed in gilt. It was wildly beautiful and deeply inviting, a sky fit for a princess. Or at least a serf masquerading as one.

For an instant-a brief, wistful flicker of time-she pretended she was still asleep. In a bed. With pillows.

The wind stole her hair again, whipping it hard over her nose. Definitely woodsmoke.

Cautiously, she began to stretch. Fingers, toes, the warm tucked spaces of her body chilled at once as she flexed against the straw. Nothing broken. Some pain in her left hand, bruised knuckles. A cut along her belly . . . that could be a problem. A stomach wound meant she had either flown too low or reared up too high.

Mari sat up and explored the wound, sucking in air to dispel the pain. The edges were clean, razored, and not terribly deep-but it hurt. She'd have to wash it carefully; the last thing she needed was blood poisoning.

She climbed to her feet, brushing the loose twigs from her torso, bending down to get her legs. She shook back her hair and spoke to the open view before her.

"Where was it last night?"

The voice behind her was thinner, younger, and threaded with a calm that probably was not real.

"A village several leagues away. Deda."

"Deda. That far?"

"Apparently."

She combed her fingers through her hair, looking down at the shiny dark strands. In the past two years it had grown past her hips; she could go the length of her arm and not reach the end of it.

I should cut it, she thought. Too long to powder, too heavy to curl. I should cut it.

"Did I kill anyone?" she asked aloud and, in the silence that followed, glanced over her shoulder at the boy who lingered against the east tower wall.

"No," answered her brother, and shrugged a little. "Not that I know."

He was staring down at the hay, his cheeks and mouth chapped with the wind. His eyes were black-lashed, crystal-gray, exact reflections of her own, but their similarities ended there: For one thing, he was dressed, and dressed well. Sandu usually favored the plainer styles; it was a struggle to convince him to wear anything beyond breeches, boots, and a shirt. Yet this morning he was done up in one of his finest waistcoats, a wig, three layers of lace, and heels that lifted him taller than she. Mari studied him a moment, her mind turning-the barren terrace, the wind, the lanky young prince in ivory and velvet-until she remembered the day.

"Petitions," she said.

"We're almost ready to begin."

"I'll be down. One half hour."

"I'll tell them."

He turned away at once. She did not wait for him to reach the door, the footmen she knew would be stationed just inside. She couldn't walk in like this, and in any case, she didn't want to see their faces. She certainly didn't want them to see hers.

Maricara Turned to smoke.

It was a rush of sensation, an instant lightness that required neither breath nor thought. All human flesh was gone, all sense of cold or pain; all that came instead was lovely and silken. She'd had this Gift since the age of eight, the youngest of any of the dr‡kon she knew-although it had taken a full year after that for her dragon form to emerge . . . claws and wings and velocity, the violence of the wind tearing at her eyes . . .

But this morning she was smoke, because smoke could roll down the side of the castle walls, smoke could skim the rough, familiar stone-like rubbing her hand over sandpaper, only without body, without weight. As smoke she could move any direction she wished, down farther, diagonal to the rampart, entangling briefly with the remains of a seated granite griffin, carved by some long-ago ancestor . . . down another level, and then she was at her own window, at the hairline crack in the glass she had made years ago, back when she had been imprisoned here.

It took time to sift through the break in the glass. It had been the greatest danger of discovery, the minute and seventeen seconds she needed to force herself through the fissure. But she'd never dared to make it larger, and then later, when it no longer mattered, she simply hadn't bothered. It would only be another breach in her defenses, anyway.

She became a gray well upon the sill, a plumy waterfall to the floor. When she was fully inside the room, she Turned back into woman, nude again, suppressing a shiver.

The dr‡kon were unable to transform anything else in the Turn, not gemstones or weapons or food, certainly not clothing. Out of habit she remained motionless and in shadow, allowing her physical senses to surge back-her heart pumping to life, the scent of wood polish and hot coffee suddenly sharp in her nose-but her skin prickled against the fresh chill.

She heard the wind groaning through the vent of the chimney and the slow tick of the Belgian clock upon the secretaire.

And breathing. And petticoats very lightly brushing stone.

Mari turned her face. From the doorway her maids took her cue, stirring and then coming forward, carrying garments and cosmetics and jewelry.

The private quarters of the princess were lavish and golden, a true reflection of the wealth of the castle. The bed was...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Bantam
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0553588060
• ISBN 13: 9780553588064
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar