by Jo Beverley
He was holding a cup of hot water and a cloth and began to dab at her hair. She looked at the fire, at sizzling meat and smoke; at a whirling insect caught by the light.
She felt a tug and one side of the crown came free. He couldn’t avoid pulling some hairs, but she didn’t complain. Instead she made herself think of how careful he was being. How gentle. Excellent qualities in a husband.
And the meat did smell wonderful. Perhaps if she didn’t think of where it had come from . . . after all, she was going to live in Dorn. They probably drooled their meat all the time.
“How many dragons are there?” she asked.
“Not enough.” He was back to sucking lemons.
“Why not?” she persisted.
“It’s complicated.”
Fine. She needed to know these things, but she was too tired to push. Her fretful mind wouldn’t leave the puzzle, however.
Not enough for what?
Not enough to wage war on Saragond?
After all, only one dragon ever came.
What if there was only one—Seesee?
That had to be nonsense. There had been another, the one Galian had killed. Only two? That couldn’t be. She remembered in her early days on the Princess Way asking why the dragon came, and why only every eight years. And why it went away.
“Because the sacrifice compels them,” the historian had said. “Otherwise dragons would come in flights of hundreds to plunder us, driving us to starvation.”
That had satisfied her then, but now it made no sense.
He was easing the rest of the crown free, his other hand steadying her head against the pull.
She shifted, aware of warmth flowing between his hands, and of shivers, stirrings, aches elsewhere.
Her Princess Ball was happening now. Hers as much as Izzy’s. She should be dancing, flirting, kissing. She should be receiving a kiss from each of her guard. A delicate kiss, but she’d looked forward to it. Especially Jerrott’s.
This man was her husband, key to the exquisite pleasures she’d been promised once she’d done her duty. She swallowed, close to drooling herself. Would he kiss her now?
Then his touch ended. He rose to his feet and her crown tumbled into her lap even as he walked away.
“I need check if Seesee help wants. Attend meat, pray thee.”
His Saragondan was awry, as awry as her wits.
She watched him stride away, and then looked at the silly little crown, teardrop jewels trembling in the firelight, just as she trembled tearfully in every nerve.
* * *
Rouar dragged off his boots, then threw himself into the cold water. Seesee raised her snout from drinking and blinked an enormous question at him.
“Drool. Drool on a fertile woman. Nightfall. It’s never happened to me like this before.”
Queen. Seesee slurped in enough water to shrink the stream. Queen’s drool makes women happy.
“Don’t you mean men?”
Men happy means women happy.
“You’re smirking.” But the thought of that sort of happiness made him groan. He pushed to his feet, sodden. “She has to be a virgin.” In case the princess was checking, he pretended to wash the dragon. He’d swear Seesee chuckled.
How can you find humor in this? It’s life and death. Her death.
She’s a nice princess.
Had that been nice or tasty? Dragon speech was often ambiguous.
I like her, he tried. She’s brave.
I like her, too.
But again, like was open to a number of nuances. Rouar leaned against Seesee, for once not finding the dragon comfort he’d known all his life. Could he and the other guardians have misunderstood the dragons? Was this not going to work?
Princess not happy.
Rouar needed to stay far away from the drooled princess, but dragons seemed driven by a need for happiness in all. It had made today difficult for Seesee, and she didn’t need more stress. And he should try to ease the princess’s last days.
He sloshed out of the stream to his boots. They were dry, but they were the only thing that was. He walked in hose-feet to the fire, stripping off his jerkin. He felt the power of the drool from yards away.
“I turned the skewers,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s right. I’ve never cooked on an open fire before.”
She glanced up at him, then away, and then shot him another wide-eyed glance. At his crotch, then away again.
Parts of him were swelling and his jerkin was no longer covering down there. He dropped his jerkin and grabbed his pack. “I need to change.”
He hurried back into the wood, thinking, I’m Guardian of the Queen, third maj of the second council, seyer of the Dragon’s Womb and engaged in a mission to save my world. What am I doing lusting like a raw youth after the one woman in the world I must never touch?
Seesee stood. Shallow. Lake better.
“There aren’t any lakes around here.”
It was as close as he’d ever come to snarling at a dragon. He stripped naked, dried himself, and dressed in looser hose and a tunic pulling his mind into order at the same time. He simply had to keep his distance.
He returned to the fire to find his bride picking glue out of her hair. It was plain brown hair, but thick and shiny. In fact, the firelight dancing on it made it quite beautiful. Like a glossy nut in sunshine. Rippling from her fingers, fluid as it would run over his skin, drowning him . . .
Drool!
He wanted to run back to the stream, but he sat—as far from the tormenting woman as he could while still being able to reach the meat. He struggled to think only of food, but his mouth watered at the thought of the taste of her, of her lips, her mouth, her skin, her sweat.
When he used one of the padded cloths to turn a skewer, his hand trembled so much he almost dropped the meat in the glowing wood.
Queen drool. Dragon drool was an enjoyable stimulus to sex, but queen drool was a whole other thing. Treasured but carefully guarded. He was only twenty-five. Fifteen years ago, when the last dragon had returned to Dorn a queen, he’d been too young to even think about such things.
His mind sharpened. Did the power of the drool mean Seesee was growing eggs already?
No. It had been clear that large amounts of princess blood would be necessary for that. Only a little blood for a ripe young dragon ready to queen, but for an older one who had queened once already, the entire blood of a princess.
Need blood, she’d thought at him. Lots, lots, lots, always with an image of a young woman chained to the rock that was drenched with the blood from her fatal wounds.
Obviously, something had started, however, and the effect would only get worse with darkness. That was when drool had the most power. He felt it growing, creeping over him like fingers on his skin, beneath his skin, like love songs in his mind.
“Is it supposed to singe?” his tormenting princess asked.
Chapter 6
Rouar hastily lifted the skewers off the fire. For courtesy, he should take one to her, but he couldn’t risk being that close.
“Like this,” he said, picking up a skewer and biting into the meat, not surprised to see her roll her eyes.
She used the other cloth to pick up a skewer, and then gingerly nibbled. Even the sight of her neat, white teeth tightened his balls.
Then she smiled, making him want to groan. “It is good. I’m surprised fresh-killed meat is so tender.”
“Drool. Tenderizes it.”
Among other things. And he was eating it!
“May I have some tea?” she asked.
“Serve yourself.”
From her look, the princess had decided the Dornae were hopelessly uncouth, but she poured tea into a cup. “Shall I pour for you?” she asked, making it a clear reproof.
“No, thank you.”
<
br /> She sipped, but then exclaimed, “Hralla. You’re trying to drug me!”
“We always drink it at night. It’s soothing,”
He poured himself some and drank. He certainly needed soothing.
“We only use it for medicine, or for the SVP ritual, of course, because we have so little. Why will you not trade? You seem to have many things we would value.”
“We have no need.”
He could sense her frustration, so different to his own, but he was incapable of complex thoughts.
“Will I be allowed to send letters to my family?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes, of course.” As long as you are alive. He had to do better than this. He gathered himself and looked at her. “Family. You have brothers and sisters, I gather.”
“Five brothers, two sisters. Izzy is the Virgin Princess now. That should delight her.”
“She won’t be worried about you?”
She bit off a piece of meat. “Not Izzy. Unless she thinks the same thing will happen to her.” She licked sauce off her upper lip, leaving it glistening. “It won’t, will it?”
He swallowed his own drool. “No.”
“Good.” She reached for another skewer of meat.
He’d eaten only half of his first and dared not eat more. “Brothers?”
“Five, as I said.”
He’d forgotten.
“One older, four younger.” She caught a drip of sauce on her tongue—luscious pink tongue—and relished it. “What do I call you?” she asked, beautiful eyes fixed on him.
“Call me?” He was going to choke, pass out, explode.
“Is it correct for me to call you Rouar?” She frowned. “I don’t think I said it right. It feels strange in my mouth.”
In my mouth . . . He forced himself to bite and chew. “Call me Rou, then.”
“Rue?”
He repeated it, but she couldn’t get it. “Try Ro. It’s closest.”
“Ro.” She tried to roll the r in the back of her throat. A deep, sexy purr. “And I’m Zlinda.” She was smiling at him, gilded by firelight. Warm, interested, welcoming . . .
He swallowed against a thick throat. “You won’t mind me calling you that?”
“We’re husband and wife.” She ran her tongue down her third skewer of meat, licking the sauce, eyes half closing as she relished it, but still seeming to catch the fire’s flame. “What does that mean in Dorn?” she purred. “Being husband and wife.”
His mind went blind-blank.
She closed her lips around the end piece of meat and slowly pulled it off. “This is so good,” she mumbled. When she swallowed, she looked straight at him. “We will share a bed? With all that means? Tonight?”
There was nothing coy in the question. Did drool work on her, too?
“No,” he choked out. He needed a reason. “No bed.”
She smiled at him. “Do we really need one?”
It was as if an earthquake shook inside of him and a volcano exploded in his head. He was on her side of the fire, licking sauce off her full lips. Her eyes widened, but she licked him back, her tongue like fire.
Distant alarms clamored, but he was deaf and blind except to her. The bravest, brightest, most beautiful woman in the world, pulsing with heat and life. Round, sweet, wet, willing.
He grabbed that marvelous hair, cradling her skull, commanding her lips to him, then plunging his tongue inside to explore her deeper, hotter taste. A clatter told him her skewer had fallen onto stones, but he was lost, lost in the torrid wave of her, her smell, her taste, her essence drowning him.
Their mouths became as one, sweet and spicy with the sauce, hot and deep as the womb itself. They were plastered together, her supple, vibrant body everything a man could ever desire. He fought billows of silk to reach her leg, her silk-covered leg—was ever anything so alluring? Except a silk-covered bottom, so round, so hot, so damp in secret places.
Wife. He tumbled her to the ground, throbbing, struggling one-handed with his clothing—
“Ow! Stop. Stop. Rocks! Owwwww!”
One of her flailing fists glanced off his nose. The pain was just enough to bring him out of madness. He heaved away. By the womb, what had he almost done?
She sat up, rubbing her hip, but smiling. “Just rocks. I’m sure we can—”
“No!” he snapped, backing, unable to be anything but rude.
“I’m sorry. But the rocks . . . it hurt.” Tears glimmered around her eyes.
He wanted nothing more in the universe than to comfort her, to take her into his arms again and drown in her wonders.
To save her.
Temptation slammed into him. If she wasn’t a virgin, she would be safe.
But the dragons would die out.
Dorn would die.
“That’s why we have to wait,” he said desperately. “Until we reach Dorn.”
“Oh.” A tear escaped to trickle down her cheek. “But won’t that take three days?”
Three days. Two more nights. His body pounded with pain, his mind exploded with it. “The river,” he said and staggered off to throw himself into the saving shock of cold water.
Seesee lay coiled in the stream, and he sensed nothing from her. Not alarm, not amusement.
“If I start doing that again, stop me.”
But you would enjoy it.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
People are funny.
“Coming from a dragon . . . Doesn’t it matter to you that the dragons survive?”
Yes.
“And don’t you need princess blood—to lay eggs?”
Say no, say no.
Yes.
He gave up. Dragons could communicate, but that didn’t mean people always understood, even dragoners who lived their lives with them. Among the dragoners they used dragon sense to mean “incomprehensible.”
Dragons liked their people to be happy, that was clear, but would they put that before their own survival? If so, if couldn’t be allowed.
He staggered up, soaking wet again, this time including his boots. As he changed into his last dry clothes, he hoped the ones hanging by the fire would dry overnight, or next time he needed a quick dunking he’d have a problem.
His biggest problem right now was how to survive the night. He had to return to his bride and it would soon be bedtime, womb save him.
Bed. The princess was exhausted. Once she was asleep, he could keep far away.
“Seesee. Bedtime.”
He felt her grumble that it was early, exactly like a child, but she waddled out of the woods and wandered the rocky ground until she found a spot to her liking. Then she settled down, neck and tail coiled, wings furled on her back.
Standing no closer to his wife than he must, Rouar said, “Let me show you how to sleep on a dragon, Zlinda.”
She gave him a look but rose, an image of dejection, especially when struggling in the absurd skirts. She should get undressed. . . .
By the womb, no.
“I need”—she hesitated—“to go to the river.”
“Right, of course.” He had to offer. “Do you need me to guide you?”
She shook her head, picked up her bag and walked away, clutching her ridiculous skirts in front, trailing them behind.
Her stained and drooled skirts and the heavily drooled veil tied around her waist like a belt. No wonder she was driving him so completely mad. He wasn’t simply affected by bits of queen drool—the princess was covered in it.
He needed to get her out of those clothes.
But how, when he’d not brought any skirts and she considered showing her legs as indecent as a Dornaan would think showing genitals or navel?
* * *
Rozlinda picked her way toward the woods, surprised that she could feel even mo
re miserable on this horrible day, but she did. Without that hralla tea she’d probably be howling.
Everything had been so wonderful for a moment and then—pop!—it had gone, leaving her empty and feeling hungry even though she’d stuffed herself on that delicious meat. And now she was struggling through trees in gloomy light on her way to piss in the open and wash in a river.
The going wasn’t quite as bad as she’d expected, because Seesee had trampled a wide path, so she had only to clutch up her dragging skirts and frequently unhook them from branches and broken saplings. From the Princess Way to the Dragon Path. Perhaps that should be the title of her book, though understanding between Saragond and Dorn seemed less likely by the moment.
I am glad to ease your way, Princess.
Rozlinda froze. Had she imagined that? No, even though her ears definitely hadn’t heard anything, she’d heard words. The dragon could talk to her? Did that mean the dragon could hear her thoughts? What if she then told them to Rouar?
Private things.
Remembering what the Dornaan had said about speaking helping, she softly said, “You won’t tell him?”
Private things.
Hoping that meant what she thought, Rozlinda plodded to the riverbank. It was only a stream, really, but pretty in starlight, shallow at the edges and chuckling over stones, making sweet music in her hralla’d mind. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps hralla opened her mind to the dragon. She’d be careful about when she drank it, then.
She relieved herself near some bushes, and then settled to washing off as much of the dust from her skin as she could. She unwound the bandage and found the long cut healing well. Perhaps there had been something more than numbing power in the cream Reverend Elawin had used.
The water was cold, but the idea of bathing fully grew in her mind. Why not? She untied the veil, but that was as far as she got. The bodice laced up the back and when she tried to reach the knot, she discovered that the dress’s sleeves were surprisingly tight around the shoulders.
She could ask Ro.
Oh, no, not after what had just happened. She could live with the dirt, and the bodice wasn’t tight. She could sleep in it. Anyway, she had no nightgown. If she somehow managed to undress, she’d end up sleeping on a dragon, next to her strange husband, in her sleeveless, calf-length shift.