Leashed by the Dragons

by Loki Renard

  “No,” she said in a little voice.

  “Then you will tell him that you love being with us, and that we have been kind to you, and that taking you from the human world was a great kindness.”

  “Leave her alone, Valkimer,” Chak said, coming up behind him. He put his hand on Valkimer’s shoulder and pulled him away. “There’s no reason to frighten her. It’s not her fault and I doubt Casimer is going to take her word for much anyway. He knows how humans are trained.”

  Valkimer shrugged off Chak’s hand with a growl. “I am going to bathe,” he said. “I doubt the dungeons have as good baths as these rooms do. We may as well make the most of what we have while we can.”

  With that, he made his way to the bathroom, leaving Chak and Brianna alone.

  “Are you alright, pet?” Chak looked at her with concerned eyes. “I’m sorry we were gone for so long. It couldn’t be helped. You must be starving. Have they brought food?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Brianna said, turning away. She walked across the room and sank down in a chair made for a dragon male, far too large for her small frame. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins, holding the world at bay. She did not know what was going to happen to her, but she knew it wasn’t going to be good. A little tear beaded in the corner of her eye as she wrestled to keep her emotions in check.

  “What’s wrong, pet?”

  “Nothing,” she said, wiping her eyes quickly.

  “You’re upset,” he said, crouching down in front of her, his powerful body bending to try to get him to her eye level. It didn’t quite work. It was impossible for Chak to be small or pathetic, and probably equally impossible for him to understand how that felt.

  She looked into his broad, strong, kind face and felt a deep sense of total inadequacy. “Why did you choose me?”

  He looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean in the bar the night we met. There were so many people there. Why did you pick me?”

  “Well,” he said, scratching his ear. “We were looking for a beautiful girl who was on her own. You fit both categories.”

  “On my own. Yeah. I was on my own,” she said bitterly. “But I’m not beautiful. You must have realized that when you saw me in proper light.”

  “We realized no such thing,” Chak said. “You’re stunning, Brianna.”

  “Mika came to me today,” she said. “I saw her up close with my eyes. She’s stunning. I’m just… me. I’m not like her. I’m not beautiful. I’m not…”

  “Quiet, pet,” Chak said. “You are beautiful.”

  “I don’t look like Mika.”

  “No. You don’t. You look very different,” he agreed. “Your beauty is wilder than hers, and your character was formed in adversity, rather than curated by an attentive set of parents who shifted worlds for you. But that does not make you less than her.”

  “Yes, it does. It makes her a princess and it makes me a street rat.”

  “Street… rat?” Chak’s eyes darkened with displeasure. “You have no understanding of your own allure, do you, pet? All you know is that you are not Princess Mika. You have to stop looking at what you are not, and see yourself for what you are.”

  He hauled her up from her position of pity and pulled her clothes from her body. The leather skirt and jacket fell to the floor, leaving her with nothing to cover her bare body. Brianna let out a squeal, thinking she was in trouble, but his hand did not meet her bare bottom as she expected. Instead, he pulled her across the room and held her in front of a long mirror, holding her by the arms so that the length of her nude form was exposed to her gaze.

  “Look, pet,” he growled in her ear. “Look at yourself.”

  She looked, wondering why he was doing this. She had never liked looking at herself in the mirror, it was simply a diorama of physical flaws as far as she had been concerned. Now she looked again, she could see that her body had changed since they took her. She had gained weight, that much was certain. She couldn’t see her ribs anymore, though her breasts were still too small in her estimation. Reddish roots were starting to appear at the base of her hair. She hated her natural color. Every time she saw it she could hear the mocking voices that had trailed her all her life.

  “I need some hair dye.”

  Chak growled in censure. “That is all you have to say? You see yourself in all your young splendor and all you can think of is how you need to alter your appearance? Pet, you are beautiful. Look at the curves of your hips and waist. Look at the swell of your bottom. Look at your skin, pale and yet dappled with these little marks. And these nipples…” His fingers pinched her pink-tipped breasts gently. “Look how they stand up so erect against my touch. Every part of you is a wonder, pet.”

  “Mika’s legs are longer and her breasts are fuller and her face is more symmetrical… ow!”

  His hand caught her bottom with a sharp slap.

  “I will not have you play this game with yourself,” he lectured her. “It is a cruelty which only harms you and blinds you to what Valkimer and I, and everyone else sees.”

  “It’s not as easy as that,” Brianna whimpered, turning her head away from her nakedness. “You don’t understand. This is all I am to you. A body. Something to fuck and sell. And you want me to feel proud of that, do you? It’s some great achievement that I’m tradeable?”

  Chak turned her around and looked deep into her eyes. “I. Am. Not. Selling. You,” he said firmly and slowly.

  “But that’s why you took me. That’s what you had in mind in the beginning. That’s what you still might do if you change your mind,” she argued. “Mika’s not just more beautiful than me. She’s worth more. And I’m worthless.”

  Chak let out his breath in a hot sigh. “Pet… I know why you think these things. I know you haven’t been given good reason to think anything else. But I wish you could see yourself as I see you. I wish you could see how fierce you are, how your eyes flash when you refuse to give in. I wish you could see how your cheeks color when you are aroused, how your whole body becomes softer… you are the most beautiful thing to me, pet.”

  She looked into his eyes as his words washed over her. She wanted to believe them, but brutal experience had taught her otherwise. If he was saying these things, it was because he wanted something. He wanted her to tell the king that she was happy, and that they were not bad men. The same thing Valkimer wanted, but instead of ordering her to say those words, Chak was trying to seduce her into speaking them.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said, his voice heavy with something like grief. “One day, you will.”

  At that moment, Valkimer came storming out of the bathroom, naked and still drying himself off. His powerful body was a pleasant distraction from Brianna’s emotional misery, though only until she saw the look on his face. He was worried in a way that Chak didn’t seem to be.

  “Brianna,” he said. “Come here. You must learn courtly manners by tomorrow. I will not have the king thinking we have not only taken a pet, but failed to train her.”

  “What’s the big deal? I’ve already met the princess.”

  “Princess Mika was here?” Valkimer looked stunned. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing really, she was just saying hello, and that she wanted to help me if she could.”

  “And did you thank her for her assistance?”

  “Uh… yeah, I think so?”

  Chak groaned from behind her. “You were rude, weren’t you.”

  “Well, only a little.”

  Valkimer let out a growl. “You will not bring shame on us, pet. If spoken to by a royal, you will act like what you are.”

  “And what am I?” Brianna returned his scowl.

  “A guest in the royal home.”

  “A prisoner, you mean,” she sneered. “Just like you.”

  It was not the best time to rile Valkimer, but Brianna didn’t really care. She was in no better mood than him.

  “Do you want a whip
ping, girl?” Valkimer snarled down at her, all icy eyes and white fury. He was sexy when he was angry, and she felt a tremor of erotic charge run through her belly as she challenged him, drawing out his ire.

  “It’s not her fault,” Chak said. “Don’t take this out on her. Casimer doesn’t care if we trained her well or not. He cares that we took her in the first place.”

  “She’s still going to present herself well before the king,” Valkimer insisted, rubbing the towel through his hair. “Pet, show me your best curtsey.”

  “Curtsey?”

  “We trained her in seven different sexual positions and never taught her how to greet a noble, let alone a king,” Valkimer snorted at Chak.

  He turned back to Brianna, tossing the towel over his shoulder. “A curtsey involves placing the right foot below the left leg, dropping your body with bent knees while bowing your head.” He made the motion with his own body, a sight that bordered between the comical and the hot. Anything Valkimer did while naked was pretty hot, and his elegant motion reminded her of his physical prowess. A warrior accustomed to blade and fire could make any motion look masculine.

  “Try it.”

  Brianna sighed, but did as she was told. It was difficult to maintain balance with one leg behind her and she dipped into a somewhat wobbly attempt at a curtsey.

  “You’ll be clothed when you go before the king,” Valkimer said, “so you will need to mind to lift your skirt up a little to stop it from draping all over the floor. Do it again. Try not to sway from side to side. A curtsey should be a smooth, controlled motion signifying respect.”

  He nodded, a cue for her to repeat the action. She tried again, and this time it was not so difficult. It did feel silly, but they had trained her to do so many embarrassing things that this hardly registered. Valkimer and Chak had relieved her of so much of the painful self-consciousness that had made her want to sink into the floor almost everywhere she went. Even now, entirely naked before the pair of them, she felt a certain ease she would never have imagined she could have around any man, let alone two of them.

  “A little lower,” he said, coming forward to press on her shoulders lightly as she dipped down again.

  “Good,” he nodded as she came up again. “Now, one more time.”

  She put her right foot back, ball of her foot steadying her frame as her knees bent, her body dipping down toward the floor. Valkimer put one hand on her head, tipping it down so that she bowed her head. The motion sent her stumbling off balance into him, her soft naked flesh meeting his.

  Valkimer made a little sigh of impatience and helped her right herself.

  “Concentrate, pet.”

  “It’s not that easy,” she said. “I’m tying myself in knots here. One leg behind the other, kneel, bow, it’s hard!”

  “Again,” he insisted, having her try over and over, his hands guiding her into the correct position until he was satisfied. She had curtsied at a dozen or more times before he did not release her on the dip, but instead pushed her all the way down to her knees, where her mouth was less than an inch from his cock.

  “Suck me, pet.”

  She looked up into his eyes and saw satisfaction there. This was a hell of a way to be positively reinforced. His hand curled in her hair and pulled her toward his cock. He was halfway to hard, and as her lips touched him she felt him swell between her lips. Their reaction to one another had always been so immediate and fiery. He could be a total asshole, but there could be no denying that her attraction to him was as irresistible as his was to her—and there was no doubt when her tongue wrapped around the shaft of his cock and she felt the rumble of his desire run through the muscular length of his body, that he was just as helpless when it came to her as she was to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Brianna woke, the sun was streaming into the room and Chak was nudging her out of bed. Half asleep, she let him take charge of guiding her to the bathroom where he had already drawn a bath for her. He helped her into it and proceeded to help her wake up with a delicious morning massage in the perfumed water.

  “Mmmmmm…” she moaned softly. “This feels so nice…”

  “Good,” Chak said, his strong hands working over her shoulders and into her hair, wetting the dark locks before working sweet-scented shampoo into them. She didn’t have to do a thing but lie there in the majestically large tub and have him tend to her.

  “Today is an important day and you must look and feel your best,” Chak murmured.

  Brianna’s eyes flew open from their half closed repose. “I’m supposed to see the king today, aren’t I.”

  “Mhm.”

  “I’m surprised Valkimer isn’t here making me practice my curtseys,” she said with a little giggle.

  “Valkimer has been called to the king’s chambers already,” Chak said, his voice measured. As usual, he was managing to appear stoic and unconcerned. She wondered what he was really feeling underneath his composed exterior.

  “Is he in more trouble than you?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Chak rumbled, his strong fingers working through her locks. “But he and Casimer share lineage. The king may take his actions more personally than mine. Which could prove to be a good thing, or a bad thing.”

  He helped her from the bath and wrapped a towel around her. Then he sat her in a chair near the mirror and dried her hair with soft streams of his dragon breath, wrapping strands of her hair around his fingers and blowing on them gently to curl them into ringlets.

  It occurred to Brianna that she was being prepared for her audience with King Casimer much like a show dog being prepared for the ring.

  “A man who doubles as a hairdryer,” she smirked as he worked with her locks, twisting and curling and pinning them into an ornate hairstyle. She watched him in the mirror, noting how competent he was at styling her hair. “How are you so good at doing this?”

  “I was the youngest brother of four sisters,” Chak said. “I was conscripted into helping them with their hair all too often.”

  “So you have a large family.”

  Chak nodded. “Mhm. We have a small rural estate to the east. My older brother runs it.”

  “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Three.”

  “So you had ten in your family? Your poor mother,” Brianna gasped.

  “Mhm,” Chak said. “It’s common for the landed families to have large broods.”

  “Wow,” she said, her voice soft as he finished pinning her hair into place, leaving her with twists and braids all through her dark locks. Her hair looked simultaneously fashionable and incredibly old-fashioned. She liked it a lot.

  “Now for your gown,” he said, crossing the room to open a wardrobe. In it hung an emerald green dress, long and made of pretty silk, edged with filaments of gold.

  “I’m supposed to wear that?”

  “Put your arms up,” he said, scooping the dress up in his hands. It was so strange to see this burly warrior working with delicate female things, but Chak had always had a nurturing side and now she thought she understood why. His sisters must have taught him how to handle women with more sophistication than Valkimer. Ironic, really, as Valkimer no doubt thought himself to be the more noble of the two.

  Chak settled the gown over her head, carefully avoiding messing up her hair. He settled it around her frame and tightened it at the rear with fasteners that pulled the bodice snug against her torso, defining her breasts and giving her a classically feminine silhouette.

  “Beautiful,” he said, pressing a kiss to her lips. “You look lovely, pet.”

  “I look… strange,” she said, eying herself in the mirror suspiciously.

  Chak was getting dressed now, putting on the black leather and silk doublet and trousers that comprised formal attire. She watched him with new curiosity and interest. He had always been her favorite of the two men. He was far kinder and more empathetic than Valkimer. He cared about her happiness, where Valkimer seemed to care most
ly about his own. Chak was a deeply complex man, capable of extreme brutality and yet choosing gentle options where possible.

  “You like, pet?” He raised a dark brow at her and gave her an inviting little smirk of a smile.

  She nodded quickly. “You look hot.”

  “Thank you. And you are a beauty,” he said, coming to take her hand.

  She was glad that it was Chak taking her to see the king. His calm strength helped to tame her nerves as he led her from their chamber and through the grand halls of the castle, past curious people with those slitted eyes all settling on her. She avoided their gazes, embarrassed and nervous all at the same time.

  They came to a small chamber with seats ranged around the walls.

  “This is a waiting room?”

  “This is the king’s antechamber,” Chak explained. “I will go in and speak with Casimer, and then I will come for you. Wait here, pet.”

  “Chak…” She reached out and grabbed his hand. “I’m scared.”

  “I know, pet,” he said. “But there’s nothing to fear. You have done nothing wrong, and Casimer is not known to punish innocents.”

  “I’m scared for you,” she clarified.

  “Don’t be scared for me,” he said with a rakish wink. “I’ve been through far worse. And so has Valkimer. So far this is going better than we had any reason to expect.”

  “So you’re not going to be… I don’t know… put in dragon jail?”

  “Casimer’s anger burns slowly and I suspect we are yet to feel the force of it,” Chak admitted, “but I think he will have a greater use for us than that. Don’t worry, pet, you will be taken care of. I will make sure of it.”

  He kissed her again, then knocked three times on the door to the king’s chamber. It was opened and Brianna got a glimpse of the room beyond, more imposing than any of the others with ornately carved walls inlaid with jewels that dwarfed any she had seen in her life, before it closed again.

  It felt like an eternity that Brianna waited in the antechamber, twisting the silk of her skirt between her fingers. She did not know why she was so worried. After all, she was the victim in all of this, in so many different senses. She had been born one really, a genetically altered freak.