Everybody had a temper. “I thought you and I were going to work together.”
“We are,” he said. “Between the two of us, we will broker peace, after we kill Ulric.”
She couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “So you really do want him dead?”
“Yes. He’s undermining my authority, and his appetites are uncontrollable. He harms women. He harms everyone, actually, and I don’t like it. In addition, he wants to duplicate that ritual he performed long ago, and I can’t let that many enhanced females die.”
For the first time, a kernel of hope unfurled within her. “You don’t want to hurt people?”
“No. We need them for mates.” Drake appeared long and lethal on the leather sofa. “I really do want peace. Once the Realm is destroyed, I’ll have it.”
Her throat hurt from trying not to scream at him. “Then what are you doing kidnapping enhanced females, if you’re not helping Ulric?”
“It’s none of your business,” he said slowly, enunciating each word. “I understand things are different in the Realm, but in my nation, everybody has a place. Our society is very organized.”
One of her eyebrows rose on its own, and she realized her head still hurt from teleporting. “What exactly is my place, as you see it?”
“As queen, you can have anything and do anything you want.”
“What if I want to help enhanced females escape?”
He looked away and then back. “That is not going to happen. You can beat your head against the wall as much as you want, but they’re here as long as they’re useful, and then I set them free.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, the skin prickling along her nape.
“None of your business,” he repeated.
Was he just bringing the women here to see if the soldiers wanted them and letting them go if they didn’t? It didn’t make sense to her. “What about Ulric’s grand plan to kill all enhanced females?”
“That was never his plan,” Drake said, gesturing to her tea. “Drink. I promise you, so long as there isn’t an accident during the acquisition phase, none of these females get harmed.”
Her head jerked up. “The acquisition phase? Is that what you’re calling kidnapping? Nice.” She’d heard of euphemisms before, but that was a new one to her. No way was she drinking that tea.
“Thank you,” he drawled. “I do my best.”
She looked at him, trying to find the boy he’d once been. “I thought we were friends.”
“We were.” He shrugged. “I still consider you a friend. I think you’ll make a fine queen, as I said.”
“You know I’m human, right?” The words escaped her before she could stop them.
He studied her for several long moments. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” she admitted, looking away. Several books were carelessly piled on the bookshelf. One with black scales was tipped to the side. Her heart beat faster, and she hid her excitement. “However, as you know, all immortal beings take on the characteristics of one species only, regardless of their lineage. Apparently, I’ve taken on the aspect of being human. I probably could die, Drake.”
It was impressive that he sat there with his eyes barely moving. Chaotic thoughts were no doubt skittering through his brain, but he revealed nothing. As a fully grown male, his face had sharpened with age. His skin was pale, and long lashes surrounded those odd green eyes. He was conventionally handsome in a sharply defined way, and yet she could still glimpse the boy he’d been.
He leaned forward. “Well then, you won’t be human after we mate. Perhaps your dormant genes will awaken, and you’ll be more powerful than you hoped.”
As an idea, it wasn’t a bad one. “I think you could have just asked me to mate you,” she said. “You didn’t have to kidnap me.” To think she’d been prepared to do just that, but now he’d shown his true colors. He was cold and unfeeling, and he’d kill anybody to get what he wanted. Even her.
“No, I didn’t need to kidnap you. But it was the most expedient method, and I wanted Paxton Phoenix here. When you agreed to meet in the dreamworld, I knew that the two of you would be in the same place in the real world, and I took a chance that you’d be in your bedroom in Realm territory.”
The more information she could get from him, the stronger she’d be. “How long have you known you could teleport?”
“About ten years,” he admitted, and he’d kept that secret the entire time. What else had he kept from her? “Isn’t it ironic that the Seven created this situation for us?”
She ran through the events of the last couple of decades. What else had Drake lied about? “Do you remember when my uncles were taken by the Kurjans?” Sam, Logan, and Garrett had all been kidnapped at one point and tortured mercilessly before they’d escaped. “You told me at the time that you had no idea they’d been taken. Was that the truth?”
“No,” Drake said. “I knew where they were, and I knew who was torturing them. My father was one of the people questioning them.”
“So you lied to me,” she said.
“Only because I had to. You don’t understand the way war works.”
“Nobody understands the way war works.” She threw her hands up. “The whole point of our connection was we wouldn’t be at war, that we would trust each other and be honest.”
For years, Paxton had been warning her that Drake was lying and that he wasn’t the person she wanted him to be, the person she needed him to be. “I don’t know what my path is,” she muttered. “I do know that we’re supposed to find peace together.”
Drake reclaimed his glass and swallowed the rest of the Scotch. “I do know your path. You’re going to be my queen.”
“What if I don’t want to be queen?” She stood, ready to fight.
His gaze was cold. Frozen. “Irrelevant. I would prefer to have your acquiescence, but I don’t need it.”
“Are you truly so unfeeling?”
He sighed as if annoyed she didn’t understand him. “This is who I am. My path has always been clear. I knew I would lead the Kurjan nation, and I knew I would take down the Realm, from within if necessary.”
“Lying to me through the years, even when we were kids, was an acceptable way for you to do that.” It was strange, but his betrayal hurt. She had thought they were friends. He had known they were enemies.
“Sit down,” he ordered.
She sat, trying to find some sort of way to get through to him. “I won’t be forced into a mating.”
If anything, he looked bored. “You’ll be forced in any direction I want you to go. It is completely up to you what kind of life you have with my people. You can be queen and have all the freedom, riches, friends you want, or you can be queen and be kept in a nice little gilded cage. It is up to you, but you will give me sons.”
Her mouth went dry. There was nothing soft or relenting about him. Worse yet, there didn’t seem to be any emotion. He’d never shown a lot as they’d been growing up, but she had figured that was just since he was out of his element in the dreamworld. She now realized he’d been far nicer there.