Jenna shuddered. “Oh God. No wonder he had no problem with my having been caged.”
“Yes. Indeed. It used to be quite common in the years after the Plague. And I spent the first five years of my life thinking that that was normal. But then...something happened which changed my mind.”
He turned the spit again, and she came to stand beside him, hugging herself under the fur wrap. “May I ask what?”
He looked at her, then shook his head. “My mother fell in love.”
“And not with your father.”
He laughed. “Oh no. My mother was a lesbian. This whole time she had been forced to engage in a form of sex that was completely unnatural to her. I don’t know if my father knew, but I know that if he did, he didn’t care. His treatment of her was just another way for him to get back at humanity. But anyway, I was five, and Grimald was two, and my mother fell in love with one of the other kidnapped humans. Ranald’s mother, in fact.”
“The one who helped you rescue me.”
“Oh yes. I hope no one caught that, or he’s going to end up in chains himself. Ranald has more nobility in his wingtip than my father has in all his form.” He sighed. “These days, at least.
“The two adored each other, and spent as much time as they could together. My father allowed it because it made my mother more tractable. And because he knew that their relationship could go absolutely nowhere. Both women had been Marked, you see, and so they could never make love.”
Jenna’s brow knit as she looked at him. “I don’t understand. Marked?”
Taran barked a laugh. “Oh, of course he didn’t tell you.” He reached over absently and toyed with a few wavy strands of his hair, seeming unaware that he was doing it. “When a human and a dragon mate, their essences mingle, and they become in certain ways, one being. It changes them, creates a bond which cannot be broken. If I had mated with you last night, you and I would have been thus bound. If either one of us should make love with another person, and betray the bond, both of us would die.”
Jenna stared at him, heart pounding. The King knew this. He knew and he lied. He said I’d be free to do what I wanted after giving him his damned heir. Is there no end to his cruelty?
Taran nodded gravely. “When my mother and her beloved discovered this cruelty, they found themselves caught in a terrible dilemma. They could not be together, not even once. My mother cared not if my father died with her, but Ranald’s father was and is a good man, just as his son--and one who adored and doted on Ranald. My mother's beloved could not take his father from her little boy. And so the two lovers were forever separated, not even able to spend the one night together that would kill them.”
Jenna swallowed and looked down, her eyes brimming over again. God, it embarrassed her how much she was crying lately. But it wasn’t as if she didn’t have reasons. “What happened?”
“They threw themselves from the cliffs,” Taran replied in a soft, bleak voice.
“Oh God.” This time she did reach out and touch him, just lightly on his oak-hard arm. He blinked at her, but didn’t move away. He merely seemed...confused. “I’m so sorry, Taran. You didn’t...see her do it, did you?”
He shook his head. “But Ranald’s father did. He has never recovered. He despises my father for this; blames him completely. He exiled himself from the island as soon as Ranald was old enough to take his place in the castle guard.”
She didn’t move her hand. She suddenly, keenly wanted to hug him. Not so much him, but that small boy, with his mother’s jet-black hair, who suddenly had no mother because of his father’s cruelty and a strange quirk of dragon magic. But there was only this huge, muscular figure in the cave with her, and she looked at him with tender sadness, wondering if such an act of comfort would offend him.
His eyes widened slightly, and his expression softened. “Do not weep for me, Jenna. Nor for us. We were to be your captors and I your rapist, remember?”
“You wouldn’t have, you already proved that. I couldn’t even hide it from you.” She rubbed her hand up and down his arm; he blinked rapidly, but stayed where he was.
“You aren’t frightened of me?”
She smiled up at him, and then did hug him, very lightly, her awareness of his warm, superb body against hers a huge contrast to last night’s numbness. “You saved me from that horrible situation, even though you must be in a ton of trouble for it.”
He didn’t seem to know what to do. His hands stayed at his sides for a moment, and then drifted up slowly, very lightly brushing against her back. She felt that strange jolt again--but that reminded her too much of last night, and she stepped back a little awkwardly.
He looked at her, his eyes gleaming brightly again, and then sighed. “Oh yes. I shall be hunted by my father for quite a while over this. I cannot fight everyone in the King’s Guard. I will have to wait out his anger. He will forgive me eventually; he always does. But for now, I--and you especially--must stay out of sight.”
“So...what then, we stay here?”
“Yes. Father has closed the borders, but Ranald got a message out to his father. The two of them will work together to arrange for your return home. It may take some weeks before they are able to secure a boat and a safe place to land it, since flights in and out are being searched.”
She nodded, feeling a twinge of relief. “Then I go home. And kill my aunt.”
He scoffed a laugh as he turned the spit again. “Oh will you? Is she the one responsible for all of this?”
“Oh yes.” Jenna scowled down into the flames. “My parents died in a car accident when I was fourteen. A drunk driver went into their lane and hit them head on. I had no close relatives, so I ended up shipped across the country to live with my rich-bitch spinster aunt. She hated us because my Dad was Italian instead of pure white-bread like the rest of the family.
And I spent the next five years basically apologizing for being around, while she resented me for being around and I tried to find some way to go live on my own. I finally got a waitressing job, but she would sabotage me, keeping me from getting rides to work. She said that work like that wasn’t good enough for someone of her blood--but she never used her connections to help me get something better.”
Jenna leaned against the wall. “I hated waitressing. I really wanted to go to college. You know, do normal-people stuff instead of limping around with plates of food, with blisters on my feet and pinch marks on my thighs.
Or sitting at home hating that crazy bitch. I wanted to actually do something with my life. But she...I don’t even know what she thought she was doing. She’d push me away, then reel me in. She told me she wanted me out of her life, then she prevented me from getting out.”
“She does not sound entirely rational,” Taran mused. “But she...arranged for your delivery here.”
“She signed me up as part of a mail-order bride service without my knowledge. That was how your father found me. I guess I should be fair. Nobody knew about what my aunt had done until they came to pick me up.”
“I see. And my father is hardly the sort to apologize and pack you off back home.”
She smiled sadly at him. “Guess not.”
He looked at her for a few moments longer, his expression gentler and less bitter than it had been. “When I rule this kingdom, things will be different. Even if he passes me over for my brother after this, this sort of cruelty will come to an end. It sits well with no one, except my father. We are dragons...not monsters.”
“No, you’re not a monster.” Her voice was quiet, but for some reason he gave her a startled look, and his manner softened a touch further. She smiled shyly at him and went on. “Even when I first saw Ranald in my...cell...I might have been terrified, but...claws and scales don’t make a monster. Actions do. Plenty of monsters...have been human. Including the ones that set that disease loose on everyone.”
He stayed silent a moment longer, then offered a small, thin smile that looked more genuine than any positive expression he had g
iven thus far. “If only more humans agreed with you on your definitions, neither of us would be in this predicament now.” Then he seemed to reel himself back in, and raised his chin, tone going businesslike. “The fish should be sufficiently cooked for you. Come, sit at the table.”
A slab of spit-roasted fish wasn’t her usual idea of breakfast, but Jenna didn’t complain when it was set on her plate. She managed to tuck in slowly, despite her churning stomach. He had taken three-quarters of the fish for himself; she wondered if filling his human-shape stomach would be enough for his needs.
He was done with half his meal by the time she had taken her fourth bite, and his brows drew together as he looked at her. “You eat like a mouse. You’ll lose your figure if you keep that up.” He made an encouraging gesture at her, and she blushed and took another bite.
“Losing my figure is why I’ve been on diets most of my life.” She pulled a bone out of the slab and set it aside. “I was supposed to.”
His expression quirked with baffled distaste, one eyebrow and the corner of his mouth going up. “That sounds ridiculous.”
“It’s expected.” Her voice shook a little bit and she kept her eyes down. “My aunt especially expected me to find a way to be what your father termed a ‘fashionable twig’. And men back home, well, lots of them figured I was hot enough to grab a handful of when I passed them, but not hot enough to date or...anything.”
Both his eyebrows went up. “I went to college in the States, and I saw some of how very small women became the fashion, but...I never understood the reasoning behind it. Women come in all sorts of sizes, and only some are naturally thin. Nor does every man want someone so much smaller than he that he risks breaking her in bed.”
She blushed and glanced down at her meal, taking another bite as her mind flashed back to last night. The smell of his skin, his warm breath, the gleam in his eyes. Then, it had been a horror, because it was forced on both of them. But now...now she wondered. What if it wasn’t? “Humans pressure each other a lot. If a man is with a bigger girl, often his friends will laugh at him. For a lot of people, you stick with what’s expected of you because if you don’t, people reject you.”
He had stopped eating, and looked at her with a strange sadness. “I know. Humanity’s fear of difference can make them...xenophobic. Even against those they loved when they thought I was just like her.” A brief cough. “I mean, thought they were just like them.”
She had caught that. She watched him quietly as he nibbled on his food, taking a few more bites herself, but mostly keeping a troubled eye on him. “Taran?”
“Hm?” He glanced at her distractedly.
“You don’t...actually...dislike human women, do you?”
His cold, defensive stare lasted but a few moments before softening as she looked him in the eyes. She saw a flicker of pain and loss in their green depths, and then he looked down at the tabletop. “No.”
“Then why do you pretend to have such disdain for us?”
He set down his fork. For a moment he hesitated, seeming on the verge of admitting something. But then he simply rose and stepped away from the table. “Finish your meal,” he said in a flat, tired voice. “I must get a message out to Ranald.”
The dragons used messenger-birds: a strange sort of pigeon with violet and green feathers. She watched him write on the tiny scroll and fasten it to the creature’s leg as she nibbled on her fish.
She had offended him, she worried. Yet he seemed calm; just worn out, somehow, and sad. She knew that further queries would only deepen his brooding, so she left him to it for the moment.
Eventually, he went out to soar over the waves for a while, probably just to be by himself. She started fretting, wondering if she had touched a particularly sensitive nerve. But when he returned--carrying a gallon jug of fresh water--she forced herself to address him with something that couldn’t be sensitive. Something pleasant. “What is it like to fly?” she asked, having been genuinely curious for a while.
He blinked at her, then smirked. “Well, you’d know, if you hadn’t passed out on the way here!”
She mock-pouted. “Don’t tease me, I had a rough day.”
“Humph.” His eyes twinkled faintly as he went to stow the jug. “All right, all right. But at any rate, I suppose I can show you. At night. I mostly swam on my way down the coast; my scale color stands out too much during the day.”
“All right,” she said with a tiny smile. “Just um, let me know when.”
6: Warmth
They did not fly that night, or the next, or the next. They seemed to both need that time just to get used to each other. It was as if the King, by forcing them together, had driven a wedge between them instead, and one which had to be slowly pried loose, the breach mended. Trust built, and assumptions discarded. But at least, despite the discomfort underlying it all, Taran seemed as willing to keep trying as she.
They kept having small conversations, short and mostly non-committal, until the awkwardness slowly trickled away, and eventually they could joke and laugh together freely. She learned about dragon society, which used modern technology but preferred certain Medieval trappings still, such as dungeons, stonework, and trading in precious metals instead of paper money.
He asked her questions about her past, her parents, the life she had led before the car accident and Aunt Margaret. Once, half joking, he asked her what she would have done if she had seen a dragon as a child.
“Probably squeal and cling to you like a burr, and have to be dragged away. I was one of those kind of kids. Unicorn folders, a gryphon stuffie. I wanted Dracula to guard me as my sleep, I wanted Frankenstein to be my best friend, I thought King Kong got a raw deal and I’d probably hug a dragon.”
He laughed incredulously at that. “My father would not have known what to do with a squeeing, dragon-hugging little girl. I think it might have driven him back sane again. But I would have thought it was quite charming.”
“Good,” she commented, and he gave her a startled look.
On her sixth day in the cave, a storm blew in off the sea, and dropped the temperature as it drenched the cliffs and sent winds skirling past the cave mouth. Jenna stood near the entrance for a while, watching the storm while hugging the furs close around her. It was going to be a cold night. Taran usually kept a fire going until they went to bed, but tonight she wished there was a way to keep it going while they slept.
They talked for a while, quietly. The subject of the Plague, of how Lyme Disease was more subtly ravaging humanity, came up, and she told him about the experiments on Plum Island and how the news had come out that the military researchers there had either accidentally released the virus, or had done it on purpose.
She asked if he thought that his father might recover in part from his misanthropy once he learned of the specific humans responsible for the Plague-- possibly along with addresses. “That might actually get his attention,” Taran admitted thoughtfully. “I suspect he got it twisted in his head somehow, and views the whole mess as a war on dragon-kind.”
“It isn’t. Humans were always the first target. I know people who had it for years. One of them has brain damage. It’s meant to cripple armies, whole populations--of humans. I don’t think a single one of its creators thought outside of our species, but that doesn’t change a thing. It affects other creatures too. Dogs can get it.”
“This illness...who would devise such a thing? It is like burning down an entire forest to catch one deer.”
“That’s the military for you. Germ warfare isn’t even legal, but that has never stopped them. Their leaders don’t think any more of the rights of others than...well….”
“My father,” he finished for her, regret in his voice.
They moved on to kinder subjects after that, not wanting to drag the mood down too much. She spoke of her life in her aunt’s strange, stilted world of gilt-edged tea sets, whispered gossip and snide remarks. How she hadn’t been allowed to learn to drive because of her aunt�
��s strange obsession with her being “too good” for any sort of real work--yet not good enough for the family because of her less than purely Anglo Saxon heritage.
And somehow, now that she was away from the whole imprisoning mess, she found the humor in some of it. Aunt Margaret was a small, dull person on the inside, insulated from the world by her cash, obsessed with manners while lacking them herself, and with no endurance for any experience outside of her narrow, cloistered little life.
She would have screamed and fainted at the sight of even a small dragon. She probably would have died outright if Taran had shown up with Jenna on his back. “Seriously, her head would just explode. I’d pay cash to see that.”
Taran chuckled. “I could probably be talked into it, provided we made certain that my appearance was neither recorded nor witnessed by others.”
Jenna’s eyebrows rose. “Seriously? You’d do that?”
He snorted. “Please, the woman violated your consent even more than my father did. Given the proper precautions, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“...Wow.” That made her feel better--and warm to him even more. He understood. He sympathized. And best of all...under the surface grumpiness he had a sense of mischief as wicked as her own.
They talked on, relaxing as the evening’s candles slowly burned down. He described his college days, where he had double majored in history and anthropology to study human society more closely. He stumbled a little in some of the stories, as if rewriting them in his head to omit certain details. She wondered why, but kept her curiosity mostly in check, still feeling a little shy.
“I had decided to go as far as my doctorate. It struck me as important to understand the race we share the planet with, and whom we depend on now for mates.” He looked up, touching his lower lip with a fingertip. “I received my bachelor’s degree with honors three years ago. But after that, I could not stay.”
She sat forward in her chair, unable to resist asking. “Did your father call you back?”
Romance: Bought by the Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Romance Standalone (Paranormal Romance) (Studly Shifters Book 2) Page 4