The Dragon Mistress

by R. A. Steffan

  “That he was your steward, and he fled a battle, leaving you and your comrades surrounded by the enemy,” I told him.

  He cocked a sharp black brow. “At least he was honest.”

  “And that your name isn’t Rayth,” I finished, fishing for a reaction.

  He regarded me steadily for a long moment.

  “On the contrary,” he said eventually. “Rayth is the only name remaining to me.”

  With that, he reined his stallion around and jabbed his heels into its sides, leaving me standing in the dust as he galloped away.

  “That certainly went well,” Aristede said with fake cheer.

  I blinked weary eyes at him, my exhaustion catching up with me all at once. “You sent him looking in the wrong direction. Thank you.”

  “Told you to trust us,” Eldris rumbled.

  Aristede flashed me half a smile, but the expression was worn. “It seemed the best way to keep a nice enough lad from being murdered, while also giving Rayth a chance to work off some of his pique. I don’t expect we’ll see him again until tomorrow.”

  “Probably not,” Eldris agreed. “He’s a stubborn bastard.”

  I looked between them. “You’re not worried about him being out there at night with his arm in a sling?”

  Aristede huffed a breath of laughter. “Hardly. He was a soldier for more than a decade, Frella. I’ve seen him hold off enemy forces for days while camped in hostile territory with a broken foot, protecting comrades who were too badly injured to rise.”

  I digested that, aware that in order to have seen it, Aristede must have been one of those injured comrades. I’d known, on some level, that there must be reasons these two maintained a friendship with such a bitter, prickly asshole—but this was the first real glance I’d had into those reasons.

  “He’ll be fine,” Eldris agreed. “Honestly, I’m more worried about the lad. Maybe he did act the coward when he was a kid, but I kind of liked him.”

  “Me, too,” I murmured. “I expect he’ll be all right, though. I gave him one of my knives, and he lived up here alone for a long time, apparently. It’s not cold or raining. He knows how to survive.”

  It was as good of an outcome as I could have hoped for, under the circumstances. The pair was headed in opposite directions, and both of them could handle themselves. I tried to tell myself that Rayth could fall down a hole for all I cared, but thinking things like that brought to mind too many other people in my life who had ridden away and not come back.

  “Come on,” Aristede said kindly. “We’re all exhausted and hungry. Eldris took care of the horses and hobbled them near the lake while I was bandaging Rayth’s arm, so there’s nothing much that needs doing right now. Looks like it will just be us for the next little while.”

  The knots inside me finally began to unwind. I was comfortable with these two. I trusted them. And for now, it looked like there would be no new crises rearing their ugly heads for a bit. We were well away from prince Oblisii’s reach, and the valley was safe and peaceful.

  Also, there were fucking dragons. Oh. My. Gods.

  I let the others lead the way into the cave. Eldris rummaged for some food and drink, passing it out to us before flopping down on one of the bedrolls with a groan. “I could sleep for a week,” he said.

  So could I, but I needed more answers first. “Talk and eat first. Then sleep. I think at this point I deserve a more detailed explanation of what the blazes is going on.”

  “That you do,” Aristede agreed. “And also an apology for my reluctance to bring you here. If I’d known…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “This is why you should always listen to my ideas,” Eldris teased, and Aristede graced him with a rueful smile.

  “Apparently so. At any rate, the short version of a long story is this. A little more than two years ago, Rayth decided he’d had enough of soldiering and left the army all three of us had been serving in.”

  “The king’s army?” I asked, around a mouthful of smoked fowl.

  “No,” Aristede said.

  I tilted my head. “You were mercenaries?”

  Eldris barked a laugh. “Still are, sweet thing. Swords for hire, that’s us.”

  Aristede settled back and continued. “Rayth left, and traveled up here to… get some time to himself, I suppose you’d say.”

  I nodded, finding it interesting that both Rayth and Nyx had fled to the mountains, albeit at different points in time and for different reasons.

  “It wasn’t in this cave, but another one not far from here. Rayth stumbled on a cache of dragon eggs that had somehow escaped the bounty hunters. Most of them were cracked or shattered, but about a dozen seemed undamaged. It was reckless of him, but he set fire to the forest around the cave and fled downwind until the flames burned themselves out.”

  I shivered, thinking of the stories my brother Favian had told me about the Battle at the Western Pass, where Eburosi forces had lured an invading Alyrion army onto a mountainside and then set fire to it. Still, I was rapt as Aristede continued the tale.

  “When he came back, it was to find that five of the eggs had hatched successfully. The others weren’t viable. He fed the hatchlings on rabbit meat and whatever else he could hunt or trap. But dragonettes—young dragons—grow quickly.”

  “And they’re unruly beasts, as well,” Eldris put in wryly.

  “Very,” Aristede agreed. “As soon as they started flying, they left the cave and began to disappear for longer and longer intervals. Rayth knew very well the importance of what he had. He also knew the danger inherent in it. He realized he couldn’t deal with the situation on his own. So he ventured into the city long enough to hire a messenger to track us down in the borderlands.”

  “Imagine our surprise,” Eldris put in, “when we received a mysterious message from the wine-soaked son of a bitch who’d left us with barely a by-your-leave, begging us to come meet him in this little no-name village at the base of the mountains. We probably would’ve laughed it off, but the crazy bastard had managed to pique our curiosity.”

  Aristede shrugged agreement. “We were both tiring of battle-for-hire. Perhaps we were looking for an excuse. Whatever the case, we never expected the reason for the summons to be that our old comrade had stumbled on the last five dragons in existence.”

  I could just imagine. “So you came and found Rayth with his dragons. And that was, what? A couple of years ago?”

  “About that,” Eldris said.

  “What happened since then?” I asked.

  “Since then,” Aristede replied, “We’ve been splitting our time between earning enough coin to keep ourselves supplied, and coming up here to try and tame the recalcitrant beasts. With mixed success.”

  “Gladya talked a bit about dragons when you were camped with us that night,” Eldris said. “She told you about how they’re just wild beasts until they bond with a human, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, remembering the conversation.

  “Well, there’s five dragons, you see? A male and four females,” Eldris went on. “Only, they’re starting to get big now, and range farther afield. They’ll get bigger yet. Much bigger. And eventually, some poor sod wandering around in the mountains to hunt or harvest lumber is going to see a great, flying beast breathing fire into the sky. At which point, we’ll all be in the shit.”

  “Succinctly put,” Aristede said.

  I nodded slowly. “So you three are trying to bond with them, and then they’ll be able to understand the necessity of hiding themselves away from other humans.”

  “More or less,” said Eldris. “But there’s only three of us, and we can only bond with one dragon each. Not that we’ve been able to do that even that much yet, mind you.”

  “They’ve already developed preferences, though,” Aristede elaborated. “We each have a female that will approach us, and tolerate our touch. Sometimes they even seem friendly, but it’s still a far cry from a soul-bond.”

  I shivered a bit
, feeling a wash of superstitious fear at the idea of melding with another creature so thoroughly that their death would cause your death. What would it be like? How could you wake each day knowing that it might be the day you lost part of your soul?

  “There’s a fourth female,” Eldris said. “A little green one who’s shy as anything. But we haven’t caught so much as a glimpse of her in quite some time. She might be dead.”

  Aristede’s eyes landed on me. “And then, there’s the male. The one who wouldn’t look twice at a human.”

  “Until now,” Eldris finished.

  Chapter 15: The Weyr

  CONNECTIONS WERE CLICKING together in my mind. One male dragon. A single chance for more eggs… more dragons… no matter how many females there were. And the male had approached me, after scorning Rayth, Aristede, and Eldris. My thoughts went blank, my mind calling an abrupt halt to the day’s proceedings.

  “I need to sleep,” I said without preamble. “I can’t take in anything else right now.”

  “That’s fair,” Eldris said, stifling a yawn. “It’s been quite a couple of days.”

  “Do we need a watch?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  Aristede shook his head. “No, there’s no need to worry about it. It’s daylight, and I’ll build up the campfire to discourage any… non-fire-breathing animals from wandering in. Besides, I’ll wake up if there’s any disturbance. Or possibly even if there’s not.”

  The surreality of the situation struck me anew, but I shook it off. “Good.” I eyed Rayth’s bedroll and my lips curled downward. No way was I interested in Rayth walking in unexpectedly to discover me curled up in his blanket. “Can I share a bedroll with one of you?”

  Aristede waved a lazy hand—shooing me in Eldris’ direction, though there was a twinkle in his eye. “Bed down with him. He sleeps like a log, whereas I’m likely to kick you accidentally. Besides, he’s very cuddly.”

  “Ass,” Eldris groused.

  I was past arguing, and it wasn’t like Eldris was protesting, as such. I finished my food and took a swig of clean mountain spring water from the waterskin. Figuring it was finally safe to do so, I tugged off my boots. After plaiting my hair in a messy braid so it wouldn’t get everywhere while I slept, I nudged Eldris with a toe.

  “Budge up,” I ordered.

  He scooted back, making a space for me. It wasn’t hot like it had been in the Utrean desert, but it was still pleasantly warm. Since it was still early morning, I assumed it would only get warmer. So I forewent the blanket, using it as an added layer of padding on the hard-packed dirt floor, rather than a cover.

  “Wake me if anything interesting happens,” I muttered as Eldris settled on his side at my back.

  “Sleep well, Frella,” Aristede said quietly.

  And I did.

  * * *

  I awoke much later, with the fuzzy feeling that comes from hours of deep sleep. My resting place had somehow become a lot more comfortable while I’d slept. It was also… well… breathing.

  I pried sticky eyelids open to discover that Eldris had rolled onto his back at some point, and I had rolled over so that my head was propped in the crook of his muscular shoulder, one of my arms and one of my legs thrown over his body possessively. His arm wrapped around my back, his large hand a warm weight on the dip of my waist.

  “This is nice,” he said, the waking roughness of his voice rumbling against my cheek.

  It certainly was. As many nagging worries as were hovering around me, waiting for an excuse to dive back in, I thought I could get used to waking in such a manner.

  “Very nice, indeed,” came Aristede’s voice from somewhere behind me. “I’m quite overcome with jealousy.”

  The words were light, his tone definitely sounding more appreciative than jealous. Something inside me tightened pleasantly at the idea of Aristede watching us sleep, our bodies twined together. What would happen, I wondered, if I rolled on top of Eldris right now? Would he let me kiss him? Was he hard for me? Would he rock his hips against mine?

  Would Aristede enjoy watching that as much as he’d enjoyed watching us sleep? Would he… join us?

  Godsdamnit, why did these two have to be so bloody appealing?

  Eldris shifted beneath me. “What’s that racket?” he asked, scrubbing his free hand over his face.

  I’d missed the rustling noises coming from outside until he said something, but now that I was focusing, I could hear them clearly. I straightened from my sprawl against Eldris, the pleasant lassitude and warmth from my drowsy fantasies dissipating like mist.

  “The girls are here,” Aristede said. He caught my eye. “Ready to meet some more dragons, Frella?”

  I blinked. “Oh—I am so ready,” I told him, excitement driving the last wisps of sleep from my body.

  Eldris grinned up at me, and I had to fight the urge to kiss him. He rolled upright, muscles rippling. “Then dragons you shall meet. Though you might wanna stay back at first. Not sure how they’ll take to a stranger in the weyr.”

  “Weyr?” I echoed.

  “Den,” Aristede explained. “Specifically, this cave. Now… it looks like Rayth has been busy in our absence, at least.”

  He was inspecting the back wall, from which he pulled down a couple of large fowl and a brace of hares. I realized that Rayth had been hunting game to feed the dragons, not us, and felt stupid. Of course, feeding the beasts was a logical way to keep them friendly and tame.

  I caught my breath as a pointed snout poked into the cave entrance, joined shortly by a second and a third. Long necks jostled and twined together as the three dragons scented the air. Like the male, they were mostly gray, but had irregular patches of varying sizes on their heads and necks displaying much brighter scales. I saw scarlet, some mix of blue and indigo, and jet black.

  “Hello, girls,” Eldris said, his rumbly voice low and pleasant.

  The blue dragon let out a little chirping noise and crept forward a step, but the black one hissed and pulled away from the entrance in a mad scramble of flapping wings. The noise of flapping grew more distant as it flew away.

  “Did I scare her?” I asked, contrite.

  “She’s Rayth’s,” Aristede said.

  “Ah,” I replied. “So you’re saying she’s pissy and prone to bouts of overreaction.”

  Eldris chuckled. “No, she’s just not interested if he isn’t here. They’re rather particular.”

  And squirrely, I thought, but didn’t say—remembering how fast the male had taken off when Aristede arrived and startled him. It was hard to reconcile the vision of devastating war beasts with these skittish youngsters, but perhaps that’s what the others had meant about the soul bonds. Without them, dragons were wild animals like any other—concerned only with survival.

  “C’mon, pets,” Eldris coaxed. “Come and say hello, and then you can have your breakfast.”

  The blue female shook herself like a dog and flapped her massive wings once before carefully furling them against her body. Then she slipped into the cave, all serpentine grace. The red dragon followed, using her sister’s body as a shield between herself and me, not letting me get a good look from my spot at the side of the cave.

  “Shyness does not become you, beautiful,” Aristede chided, his normally velvet voice growing even smoother and deeper, doing strange things to my insides.

  The red dragon ducked her head under her sister’s arched neck, fixing me with a ruby eye for a long moment before finally detaching her self from her companion. With a soft rumbling noise that somehow conveyed pleasure, she pushed toward Aristede, nudging him with her scaly nose. He smiled and scratched the small crest at the back of her skull.

  I watched, enchanted, as the pair of men greeted the dragons with low words and caresses. Lucky girls, I thought, a smile tugging at my lips. I stayed put, sensing that any move I made toward the beasts would send them flapping away in a huff. I’d spent enough time in Draebard watching Carivel tame skittish horses to know that you couldn
’t force an animal’s trust—you had to earn it.

  Sometimes, the best way to earn that trust was to respect their space, and respect their fear of you. Especially when they might breathe fire at you if they felt cornered.

  That point was brought home when Aristede’s dragon started sniffing at the fowl he was holding. He took one of the carcasses and tossed it toward the cave entrance. Before I could blink, a gout of flame shot out, roasting the bird it before it hit the ground. The red female leapt forward in a playful pounce and started tearing into the meat, while the indigo one peered around Eldris’ body and gave an odd little bleat.

  “Go on, then,” Eldris said with a nudge.

  Aristede tossed the other fowl into the air, and the dragon repeated her sister’s trick of midair cookery before starting in on her meal. The two men repeated the performance with the hares, and before long, not a bone or a feather remained in evidence of the small feast.

  When the meat was gone, the dragons started fussing with each other—play fighting, I thought. Without a backward glance at their human benefactors, they shoved and wrestled their way out of the cave. A few moments later, I heard the flapping of great wings. I walked up to join Eldris and Aristede outside the entrance, watching as the large shapes grew smaller and smaller before disappearing.

  “You have dragons,” I said quietly. When that didn’t elicit the kind of response that I felt would be appropriate, I turned to them, pointing between them and emphasizing my words more forcefully. “Aristede. Eldris. You… have dragons.”

  Eldris eyes crinkled at the corner, but his expression was a bit wistful. “We don’t have them yet, sweet thing. You saw. I think they mostly just see us as kitchen slaves.”

  “It’s disheartening that after two years, we haven’t forged more of a connection,” Aristede explained. “No doubt it doesn’t help that we sometimes have to leave for days or even weeks at a time to refill our coffers.”

  I nodded. Nyx might have survived up here on his own, with occasional pilferage from villages in the foothills. But horses still had to be shod, tack repaired, clothing and boots mended or replaced. And while there was safe water here to drink, it must be hard to hunt enough game for three grown men and three hungry dragons. I also knew that, depending on the season, finding enough plant-based food in wild areas like this could be harder than it looked. Lean meat only went so far.