Dragons Realm by Tessa Dawn Page A

floor, even as she cringed in pain. As blood seeped through her night­gown, and her head lolled for­ward, Thomas the squire took the brunt of her weight on his slender shoulders and began to half drag, half carry her up the stairs, and Mina slowly fol­lowed.
    “Oh, by the way,” Mina whispered, pla­cing her hands on Ta­tiana’s back to steady her. “I’m Mina Louvet.”
    Thomas glanced over his shoulder and angled his chin. “I know.”

Chapter Seven
    “ I am go­ing to levy an ad­di­tional prop­erty tax in the com­mon­lands , noth­ing op­press­ive to the farm­ers or the mer­chants, just enough to in­crease the num­ber of guards at the en­trance to the state. And I would like to build sev­eral small, armed gar­ris­ons in Forest Dragon, posts that double as toll­ways between one province and the next, in or­der to try to ad­dress the il­legal slave trade, which still re­mains out of hand. The tolls will provide ad­ded pro­tec­tion for the wo­men and chil­dren be­ing sought by the shad­ows, and if we can mon­itor who comes and goes across the bor­ders, per­haps we can fer­ret out who is be­hind this costly, il­legal activ­ity.” King De­mitri Dragona sat back on his red vel­vet throne and leaned to one side, bra­cing a mus­cu­lar arm against a golden sup­port. “Dante? Are you listen­ing?”
    Dante Dragona re­garded his father— and his king —cir­cum­spectly from the bot­tom step of the plat­form, just be­neath the royal dais. “Yes, Father,” he mur­mured. He straightened his back to demon­strate his at­ten­tion, even as his eyes swept over his father’s purple-and-gold bro­cade robe and the golden crown, in­layed with enough jew­els to build fifty gar­ris­ons in every province, rest­ing snugly on the king’s head. He eyed the two fear­some Malo Clan guards, now perched at his father’s side, cap­tain and lieu­ten­ant, and shivered. Each male stood at least seven feet tall and would die without hes­it­a­tion for the same Dragona ban­ner that had en­slaved their an­cest­ors nearly eight cen­tur­ies past. They were a bar­baric race of muscle-bound hea­thens who could fight like demons, en­dure im­meas­ur­able suf­fer­ing like her­oes, and die like love-stricken brides wel­com­ing their long-lost hus­bands. All without cry­ing out for mercy. And just why King De­mitri in­sisted on hav­ing the bar­baric sentries be­side him, even for private fam­ily meet­ings, Dante couldn’t say. It was as if the king ac­tu­ally feared his own sons, when he had no reason to do so.
    None at all.
    “Very well,” King De­mitri drawled lazily, “then look like it, son.” He turned his at­ten­tion to Drake and sat straighter in his chair. “Now then, Prince Drake, have you cal­cu­lated the fig­ures I asked for, de­term­ined what per­cent of farm­land hold­ings should be taxed as op­posed to store­front leases and mort­gages?”
    Drake cleared his throat and began to speak, but his voice drif­ted off into the ether as Dante con­tin­ued to con­sider the dy­nam­ics of his fam­ily and the cur­rent state of the Realm: Al­though he and his broth­ers had not al­ways re­spec­ted the king as a man or a father, while they may have even re­sen­ted his cruel, sad­istic treat­ment of them grow­ing up, to say little of his heavy-handed con­duct with his sub­jects, Dante could not deny that he re­spec­ted the male deeply as a king.
    As the su­preme dragon of the Realm.
    Sure, as a child, Dante had hoped—as all chil­dren do—that one day his father would re­cog­nize him in some in­dul­gent, pa­ternal way, that the tyr­an­nical les­sons and harsh beat­ings would some­how come to an end, and Dante would be wel­comed into De­mitri’s in­ner circle of trust as an equal. In truth, he had loved his father deeply, but time had a way of bring­ing things into much sharper fo­cus—and boy­hood