Dragonbound Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Chelsea M. Campbell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503936096

  ISBN-10: 1503936090

  Cover design by Kirk DouPonce, DogEared Design

  For Chloë, who made me believe in this book

  CONTENTS

  1 PUTTING THE “VIRGIN” IN VIRGINIA

  2 A PIECE OF ADVICE

  3 MAYBE HE HAS A SON MY AGE

  4 I’VE ALWAYS HAD A SOFT SPOT FOR VIRGINS

  5 FAMOUS LAST WORDS

  6 YOU’RE NO PALADIN

  7 FLUENT IN BEING HUMAN

  8 A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

  9 HURT IS ALL YOU’RE GOING TO GET

  10 ALL BRIDES LOOK GORGEOUS ON THEIR WEDDING DAY

  11 TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW

  12 THE BEST KIND OF TRICKERY

  13 JUST BECAUSE I WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE TODAY DOESN’T MEAN IT’S OKAY TO GET ME KILLED

  14 DO I LOOK LIKE A WILD ANIMAL TO YOU?

  15 KILLING DRAGONS IS SORT OF HIS JOB

  16 I DON’T TRUST ANYONE

  17 TWO USES

  18 I’M VIRGINIA FREAKING ST. GEORGE

  19 AN UNDERGROUND ABYSS

  20 WHERE EXACTLY DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

  21 GO WITH THIS

  22 IF I HAD ANY STANDING AS A ST. GEORGE, I CERTAINLY DON’T ANYMORE

  23 DAUGHTERS SHOULD GET MORE CREDIT

  24 THE MOOD-ENHANCING QUALITY OF SPIT

  25 NOT LIKE THE REST OF THEM

  26 IT’S LIKE YOU WANT ME TO MURDER YOU

  27 SORRY DOESN’T BRING BACK PLOT TWISTS

  28 LOOK AWAY, VIRGINIA

  29 HOWEVER YOU GOT THAT WAY

  30 THE BRAVEST THING I’VE EVER DONE

  31 VERY MUCH ON PURPOSE

  32 AN IMPORTANT JOB

  33 HOW CAN YOU HOLD SOMETHING WRONG IF IT’S IMAGINARY?

  34 NOT. FAIR.

  35 BLOOD DEBT

  36 AT LEAST ONCE

  37 LIKE A CAT WITH A MOUSE

  38 KEEP YOUR OPINIONS TO YOURSELF

  39 IF YOU NEED ANY HELP MURDERING THAT WEDDING DRESS

  40 A PRETTY GOOD START

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  PUTTING THE “VIRGIN” IN VIRGINIA

  I want to punch everyone at this party in the face.

  The girls for snickering behind my back. And for how they all fit perfectly into their corsets and ball gowns.

  The boys for how they ignore me. I’m a freaking St. George. At the very least, that makes me some pretty good breeding stock. They should be more interested.

  The old men milling around the party, because they keep looking at me like I’m a cow at an auction. And not even a prize cow or anything. More like one that’s only so-so, but that they’re getting at a huge bargain.

  There’s also my older sister, Celeste. This is her party, yet another celebration of how wonderful she is. She slayed the dragon whose head is currently hanging on the side of the paladin barracks overlooking the courtyard. A purple dragon, one of the worst clans. It’s right next to my window, and it smells sickeningly sweet, like decay and death and blood. Flies swarm around it, and I can hear them buzzing while I sleep at night. Celeste is the epitome of what a St. George should be. Magic? Check. She can use the family power like nobody’s business. Good with a sword? I think the scaly severed head staring down at all of us is proof.

  Then there’s my father. He’s the one who invited all the old men from out of town. They’re not paladins, not from any of the Families, so I know they’re outsiders. Most of them are his age, and fat, balding, and somehow also way too hairy. He keeps pointing in my direction while talking to them, like they’re discussing how many actual cows I’m worth. Or, more likely, my father is trading me for weapons and armor. It’s a smart move, if I’m being completely impartial. Trade the useless daughter for tools that will help better the whole community. Think of how many dragons could be slain with the haul Vee will bring in. That’s probably what he’s thinking. And it’s not like I don’t turn seventeen in two weeks. My deadline’s almost up.

  And that brings me to the person I most want to punch in the face. That would be my best friend, Torrin, who’s spent this whole party by my side—plus five points for loyalty—but whose eyes have been on other girls. Mostly Mina Blackarrow and Ravenna Port, who are both tall and blonde and weigh about twenty pounds less than me, and it shows. But still. Minus ten points for ogling those girls, who, like pretty much everyone here, I’m not on good terms with. Minus twenty points for never looking at me like that. Especially tonight, when I’m probably going to be sold off to the highest bidder.

  “Torrin,” I say, “can you do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Will you kindly inform everyone at this party that I intend to punch them in the face?”

  He laughs, the corners of his mouth jumping up into a smile.

  “I’m serious.” To show him just how serious, I make a fist.

  “Uh-huh. Your thumb goes on the outside, by the way. Don’t hold it under your fingers like that or you’ll break it. If you were actually going to do all the punching you say you are.” He picks up two miniature chocolate cakes from the dessert table and offers me one.

  Plus three points for generosity. But he’s still at negative twenty-two by my count.

  There’s a moment where we’re quiet, eating our cakes and staring at the festivities. Ravenna Port laughs really loudly at something George Marks just whispered in her ear. She sounds like a horse, but that doesn’t seem to bother him, especially when she takes his hand and leads him to the dance floor as the string quartet eases into a slow, romantic song.

  “They’re here for you, you know,” Torrin whispers.

  I almost drop the last bite of my cake. A couple dark crumbs spill down the front of my white dress. I swipe at them without thinking and end up smearing frosting across my chest. I shut my eyes and bite my tongue, silently cursing my father. He’s the one who made me wear this stupid white dress tonight. To emphasize how pure and pristine I am to my new suitors, no doubt. Putting the “virgin” in Virginia, that’s me.

  “Who?” I ask, my voice shaking. “Who’s here for me?”

  “I think you know,” Torrin says. He jerks his head in the direction of a couple of the old men. One has a beard so long it’s tucked into his belt. The other has huge sweat stains around his armpits.

  “Yeah, so?” I grind my teeth together, even though Celeste would roll her eyes at me and tell me how bad it is for me. But thinking about that just makes me grind them even harder.

  “They’re not from around here.” He gives me a look. An annoyingly knowing sort of look. Like he has the nerve to be concerned for me. And yeah, okay, best friend and all that, but it’s not helping. “How long has it been since you left the barracks?”

  I glare at him. Teeth cracking apart from grinding in three, two, one . . . “That’s what you’re worried about? My father is pretty much having a silent auction for me right now, and that’s what you—”

  “How long, Vee? Four years? Five?”

  “Four and a half,” I whisper, but not to him. He
’s pissing me off too much, so I say it to my feet. My wonderful feet, who have never brought up uncomfortable facts exactly when I didn’t want to hear them.

  He takes a deep breath and slips his hand into mine and gives me a reassuring squeeze. For a moment, I don’t feel quite so alone in this. But then I pull my hand away because, the truth is, I am alone. I’m the one with no magic, the one who can’t fight dragons, the one who has to be married off to some foreigner. Torrin’s a Hathaway. He fights almost as good as my sister, and he’s fireproof.

  And did he watch his mother get ripped to shreds by a dragon in the marketplace? Did he have to just stand there, helpless, hearing her screams, the crunching of bones, and the ripping of flesh? Does he still wake up in the middle of the night, years later—four and a half, to be exact—and still smell her blood and the stink of her charred skin?

  The memory makes a cold, sick feeling ball up in the pit of my stomach. I shudder just thinking about it.

  But the last thing I want is Torrin getting misguided and thinking he needs to feel sorry for me, so I push the shuddery feeling away and latch on to my anger. “And what, exactly, is so wrong with staying in the barracks? You know what the barracks has going for it?”

  “Vee, wait, I didn’t mean—”

  “No dragons. Not in dragon form, not in human form—none. Zero. This place is crawling with paladins like you and Celeste who’d kill any of them that so much as thought about stepping foot in here. Out there”—I point a shaking finger in the direction of the entrance to the barracks that leads to the rest of town, and, more importantly, to the marketplace—“you can’t trust anyone out there.”

  Anyone could be a dragon. After all, my mother knew her killer, and she never suspected a thing. She married into the St. George family, she wasn’t born a paladin, so she didn’t stand a chance against him when he turned on her. Some people blame my “condition” on my father for marrying an outsider and diluting our bloodline. Celeste inherited everything she was supposed to, all the skills needed to become a hunter, and there was nothing left for me.

  “I might not like most of these people,” I go on, gesturing to the other partygoers, “and some of them might even hate my guts, but at least I know who they are. We grew up with them, so even if I can’t trust them to not talk about me behind my back, I can still trust them not to transform into my worst nightmare and go on some murdering rampage. Inside these walls, me and the people I love are safe. Outside . . . anything could happen.”

  “I know, okay?” He puts his hands up, palms out, pleading with me. “That’s what I’m trying to say. You can’t marry one of these guys. You’d have to leave. And . . . you can’t.”

  I laugh. “Well, you know what you can do to stop them.”

  He goes quiet and looks away, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. An uncomfortable silence falls between us. Doesn’t he know that I was joking?

  Okay, half joking.

  Marrying Torrin would be about a hundred times better than getting sold to some guy three times my age. So what if he’s not in love with me? Normally I’d say that was a big factor I’d look for in a husband—does he love me, yes or no?—but in this case, it’s kind of moot. I mean, this is my life on the line here. Maybe it’s not life or death, but when I think about having to spend the rest of my life with some stranger, someone who won me in an auction because I can produce paladin children for him, it makes me sick to my stomach.

  In two weeks, I’ll be married, and one of these old men will be sweating and heaving on top of me. Touching me in places I’d never let them anywhere near if I had a choice.

  My eyes are starting to water, so I close them and take a deep breath. I’m not going to think about two weeks from now.

  I get ahold of myself—I’m Virginia St. George, and someone might steal the rest of my life from me, but they are not taking what time I have left—but when I look up, I accidentally make eye contact with one of my suitors across the courtyard. I glance away, but too late—he’s already coming over here.

  “Vee,” Torrin says, his cheeks still red, “you know I—”

  “Save it.” I grab his hand. “You’re asking me to dance. Now.”

  He catches on, glancing in the direction of the old man making his way over here, and puts a protective hand on my arm and leads me to the dance floor.

  The romantic song is over, and the band is in the middle of a sad war ballad that sounds absolutely heartbreaking on their stringed instruments. Figures.

  At first we don’t say anything. We just dance, performing the steps we’ve had to learn by heart since we were kids. This isn’t the first time I’ve danced with him, but it is the first time it wasn’t for practice. I try not to think about the times I’ve seen him dance with other girls. I wonder what else he’s done with them, once the parties are over, but I wince and try not to think about that, either.

  Instead I look into his eyes, not wanting to risk making eye contact with anyone else. In my head I concentrate on counting out the dance steps—one, two, and-three-and-four, one, two, and-three-and-four. And if I enjoy the warm weight of his hand on my waist, or the way we’re close enough that I could easily rest my head against his chest, well, who can blame me?

  Then he ruins it all by leaning in close and whispering in my ear. “You know I can’t marry you.”

  There’s a bad, bitter taste in the back of my mouth. I swallow it down, trying to wash it away. But my heart is pounding and my fingers clench up, digging into his skin like a cat flexing its claws.

  Great job. Way to not give yourself away.

  “I know,” I tell him, letting myself sound as annoyed as I feel, which, in case it isn’t obvious, is a lot. “Of course I know that.”

  “Ahem.” There’s the sound of a man clearing his throat behind us. We both pause to stare at him. He’s the old man I accidentally made eye contact with, the whole reason Torrin and I are dancing in the first place. He smells like sour sweat and fried fish. His clothes are dyed a deep blue, so I know he must be from one of the southern cities, where they grow the best indigo. When he speaks, his voice is gravelly and low. “I’m cutting in.”

  Like hell he—

  “Like hell you are,” Torrin says. “She’s busy. With me.”

  “Psst,” I hiss, getting Torrin’s attention. Then, quietly, out the side of my mouth so only he can hear, “Punch him in the face.”

  Torrin ignores me and puts himself between me and my suitor.

  The old man looks Torrin over, sizing him up. “Lord St. George said she was available.”

  “Clearly she’s not.”

  “Yeah,” I add, “dancing with me is by appointment only. If you didn’t put in your request, like, three weeks ago, you’re out of luck. It’s not fair to everyone else who followed the rules and waited their turn.”

  Both Torrin and the old man glance at me like I’m completely nuts. It’s like they’ve never heard sarcasm before.

  “Fine,” the old man says. “I’ve seen enough, anyway.” Then he storms off.

  “Can I put you down for three goats and two cows for a bride-price?” I call after him.

  “Vee!” Torrin warns.

  “That’s funny,” I say. “I thought he was interested. What changed his mind? Was it the chocolate stains down my front? The way that, even with this corset on, I’m a little lacking in the chest department? It’s not my wonderfully refined manners, I’ll tell you that.”

  “This is serious.”

  “I know. And thanks for, you know, getting rid of him.” Though if it’s not him, it’s going to be one of the others. I’m not exactly saved or anything.

  “Yeah, well . . .” He sighs. “I can’t get married. Not to you, not to anyone. At least, not right now, while I’m in training.”

  Paladins in training have specific vows they have to make. They’re not allowed to go around making vows to other people. He’d be giving up his whole career if he married me right now, plus shaming h
is family, and I know that would be asking a lot. I mean, it would be a huge sacrifice even if he did feel that way about me. But asking him to do that and spend the rest of his life with someone he isn’t in love with? It kind of makes me just as bad as the suitors who are here for me tonight.

  Well, almost. And I might have chocolate smeared across my dress, but at least I don’t smell. As far as I know, anyway. And, unlike them, it’s not like I’d make Torrin sleep with me if we had to get married. If he felt obligated, I wouldn’t protest too loudly or anything. But that’s different.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, letting out a deep breath. “It’s not your problem.”

  “I’m not saying that. Don’t make it sound like I don’t care what happens to you, because I do.”

  “And I care what happens to you. So, even if you were offering to marry me, I couldn’t let you throw your life away like that. I’d have to turn you down. So just save us both the embarrassment and—”

  “Excuse me, Miss St. George?” Another male voice interrupts us. I whirl toward him, ready to tell another old man where he can stick it, but I stop short when I see him, because he’s not at all what I expected. For one thing, he’s young, maybe only a few years older than me, if that. But I’ve never seen him around before, so he’s not from one of the Families. He’s tall with brown hair and deep blue eyes. He looks directly at me, like I’m the only person in the world, and flashes me the most inviting smile I’ve ever seen. He takes my hand, raising it up to his lips, and very softly kisses my knuckles, making my skin tingle. “It would be my pleasure to have this next dance with you. If you’re not preoccupied.” His accent is rhythmic and clipped. I can’t place where he’s from, but the way he talks makes every word sound absolutely fascinating.

  “Obviously she is,” Torrin snaps. “Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something here?”

  The new guy ignores Torrin, simply raising an eyebrow at me.

  “It’s all right,” I tell Torrin. “I think we were done here, anyway.” I smile at the new guy and add, “I’d love to.”

  “Excellent.” The stranger shoots me a warm smile and offers me his arm.