Call of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  Even though my mind was screaming nononothiscantbehappening, the dragonling’s words touched something inside me that I thought had been buried. Something I’d done my damnedest to leave behind the day I left the orphanage forever. A need for acceptance. A need to belong.

  A growl snagged my attention, and I realized it was coming from the dragonling’s stomach. “You really are hungry, huh,” I murmured, reaching for it. If I couldn’t sate its stomach with food, perhaps I could offer it some other kind of comfort.

  The dragonling wriggled in my arms as I lifted it out of the box, but the moment I set it in my lap, stroking my hand over its scales, it began to purr again. For a few minutes, the two of us sat in mutual contentment, me rubbing its scales dry, and it nuzzling against me for warmth.

  But eventually, reality intruded. The cold floor was uncomfortable, and the chest I was leaning my back against wasn’t much better. Couldn’t Tavarian have left a chair in here, at least?

  “Who is Tavarian?”

  I jolted. “Are you reading my mind?” I demanded. We obviously had a telepathic connection of some sort, but did that mean it could hear my every thought?

  “No,” the dragonling said, “just the thoughts that jump out the loudest.”

  “Great,” I grumbled.

  “Don’t worry,” the dragonling said in a tone that was meant to be consoling. “I couldn’t tell another human about your thoughts even if I wanted to. I can only communicate with you, and with other dragons. Your secrets are safe with me.”

  I sighed. “I’m not sure that’s going to matter in a little bit,” I said, my stomach turning sour with dread. “If we don’t die in here from lack of oxygen, I’m going to be executed when Lord Tavarian and his men find me. He’s the guy who owns the place, and I came here to rob him.”

  “Why?” the dragonling asked, cocking its head at me. It didn’t sound angry or judgmental, merely curious.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Do you have something better to do?”

  “I owed a debt to a man, and this is how he wanted to collect.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  There was a long beat of silence. “They can’t kill you,” the dragonling finally said. “If they did, they would be killing me, too.”

  I blinked down at it. “What do you mean?”

  But the dragonling merely yawned, then curled up in my lap and fell asleep. Sighing, I leaned my head back and tried to do the same. Asleep, I would use up less oxygen, and hopefully survive long enough for someone to finally open this blasted door.

  Unfortunately, it was a bit hard to sleep when my impending death loomed over my head. What did the dragonling mean by that last statement? Why would the dragon riders kill it if they killed me? Surely there was no danger to its life—it would be considered incredibly valuable to them, and would be paired with a rider more suited to it. Someone who had actually been groomed for this kind of lifestyle. Someone born to ride the skies.

  Just because I had committed a crime didn’t mean that the dragonling deserved to be punished too.

  I chased my thoughts around in my head for a good hour before I finally dozed off into a fitful sleep. Salcombe stalked me in my dreams, his pale gray eyes full of disappointment.

  “How could you let yourself get caught?” he scolded, wagging a gnarled finger at me. “Don’t you know what’s at stake here?”

  “You should have been more specific about what you were looking for!” I shouted at him, but he vanished in a puff of smoke.

  Carina appeared next. She was sitting on the floor in a puddle of blood, her brother’s severed head clutched in her hands. His ears had been cut off, and his body lay a few feet away, the legs wrenched at all angles.

  “I tried to save him,” she whispered, looking up at me with bloodshot eyes. “I tried, but they wouldn’t let me. Why won’t they leave us alone?”

  A wave of blinding light washed over me, and my eyes popped open as I was yanked from the dream. The vault had been thrown open, and a tall figure stood in the door, backlit by the bright light in the hallway behind him.

  “Well,” he said softly, in a midnight voice that sent shivers up my spine, “this is an interesting development.”

  He stepped inside, closer to the gas lamp flickering by the entrance, and my breath came out in a whoosh. It was Lord Tavarian, and he was not alone. Two other men filed in beside him. One was a silver-haired man in his fifties, also dressed in dragon rider uniform, though by the girth around his midsection, I suspected that he didn’t do as much riding as he used to. The other, a stocky man with close-cropped blond hair, wore a guard uniform with braiding on the shoulders. Likely the Captain of the Guard, or whatever the equivalent was in dragon rider society.

  I am so screwed.

  “Dragon’s beard,” the silver-haired man gasped. “Where did that dragon come from?”

  The dragonling lifted its head and hissed at them, and the three men went very still. “Tell them that my name is Lessinathiaraca, and that they are not to lay a finger on you,” she said in a voice that was filled with a surprising amount of authority for what was essentially a child. She paused for a moment, then added, “But they may call me Lessie, if that is easier.”

  I relayed the information to the men, and the guard captain raised his eyebrows. “Well, if that’s not proof the two of them are bonded, I don’t know what is,” he said.

  “Of course they are bonded,” Lord Tavarian said, sounding completely unperturbed. I had the distinct sensation that he could have walked in on an orgy and would act exactly the same—like the surface of a lake on a quiet morning, smooth and completely still. “The dragonling would not have hatched otherwise.” He crouched down to meet Lessie’s fiery gaze with his silver one. “I am glad to see you are finally among us. You have been with my family for generations, and we worried that you might never hatch.”

  I felt a distinct ripple of pleasure, and realized that Lessie was preening, happy to be acknowledged. “Tell him that I will forgive him for locking me away in this vault, so long as he brings me food immediately.”

  Despite the severity of the situation, I had to choke back a laugh. If I didn’t get my head chopped off, I was going to have my hands full with her. What would it be like to raise a dragon? How would I even manage that when I had a business to run?

  “All right, enough of this,” the silver-haired man said, his voice sharp with impatience. “Captain Marcas, arrest this girl and take her away. The dragon will be cared for while she awaits trial.”

  Captain Marcas stepped forward, and Lessie immediately sprang from my lap. Her entire body quivered as she put herself between me and the guard captain, and she hissed again, sparks flying from her mouth.

  “I would not advise that, Councilor,” Lord Tavarian said to the silver-haired man. “It is essential that dragon and rider not be separated for the first twenty-four hours to give time for the bond to properly cement.”

  “Which is exactly why we should separate them,” the councilor argued. “If we do it now, perhaps there is still a chance we can bond the dragon with someone more suitable.” He raked me with a sneer. “Not a servant with light fingers.”

  I returned his sneer in kind. “You must be a special kind of stupid if you think I’m a servant just because I’m wearing the uniform.”

  “She’s likely a professional thief,” Captain Marcas said, agreeing with me. “This is not an easy vault to break into.” He narrowed his gaze on me. “Why did you come to steal the dragon egg?”

  “And how did you know it was here?” Lord Tavarian asked, turning his full attention on me for the first time. I braced myself against that penetrating silver gaze, and tried not to show how nervous he made me. “Very few know of the existence of this egg.”

  I hesitated. How much should I tell them? Salcombe had made it clear that I was to tell no one of his involvement if I was caught, and that if I violated that agreement he w
ouldn’t pay Brolian’s debt.

  “I didn’t come here for anything specific,” I lied. “I just needed the money, and figured this would be a good place to rob.”

  Lord Tavarian merely stared at me, as if he could ferret out the truth if he could just hold my gaze long enough. I wished I could see past that enigmatic gaze, but it was like staring into a chasm. All you saw was the abyss, and you had no idea what, if anything, was staring back at you.

  The councilor sputtered. “See? She freely admits she is nothing but a common thief! She must be tried for her crimes, Varrick. If we do not punish her, it will send a message to all the ground-dwellers that we tolerate this sort of behavior!”

  Lord Tavarian was silent for a moment. “I am the victim of this crime, am I not?” he finally said.

  The councilor blinked. “Well, yes—”

  “And therefore, it is my right to decide whether or not to press charges, no?”

  “Yes,” the councilor grumbled.

  “Then I choose to reserve that right, at least until tomorrow.” Lord Tavarian finally broke his gaze. It took everything in me not to sigh in relief as he turned to Captain Marcas—I felt as if a giant weight had slid off my shoulders. “Captain, she will stay here for the night, and in the morning, I shall make my decision. Post a guard outside her door to make sure she does not escape or try to steal anything else.”

  He gave me a meaningful look, then swept out the door.

  The councilor glared at me, then followed after Lord Tavarian, leaving me alone with the guard captain. “Come on then,” Captain Marcas said, waving me up. “You just caught a lucky break, so I’d come quietly if I were you.”

  I did, gathering Lessie up in my arms. She snuggled against my chest as I followed the captain through the halls and back to the stewardess’s office. She nearly toppled over in shock when she saw I was holding a dragon, but Captain Marcas held back her avalanche of questions and told her I was to be given a room for the night, Tavarian’s orders. The stewardess begrudgingly complied, although she looked like she had to swallow her tongue in order to do so.

  “Well, that didn’t turn out so badly,” Lessie said as we were shown into a bedroom the size of my entire apartment. A large bed with a quilted headboard dominated the left side of the room, while on the right a grouping of tables and sofas crowded around a blue marble fireplace tall enough for me to stand in. “I told you they weren’t going to kill you.”

  “You sure did.” I shook my head, which was growing light from exhaustion. “I guess I should thank you for choosing me. If you hadn’t, I would have gotten locked in that vault anyway, and they would have no reason not to execute me.”

  Lessie rubbed the top of her head against the underside of my chin, a purr rumbling from her chest again. “Robbing a dragon rider’s vault was a foolish idea, but I am glad you did, or I would still be in that egg.”

  A wave of gratitude and affection washed over me from the bond, and I smiled. Some of the tension eased from my shoulders, and I walked over to the bay windows dominating the center of the far wall. Night had completely fallen, and a sea of stars twinkled overhead. Their scant light, coupled with the rays from the crescent moon, allowed me to barely make out the shape of the rolling landscape I’d seen when we’d flown over the island just a few hours ago.

  How long had it been since I’d left Zuar City? Five hours? Six? I wasn’t certain how long we’d been trapped in that vault, but it was obviously late. A wave of exhaustion rolled over me, and all I wanted to do was lie down.

  I was halfway to the bed when a knock at the door startled me out of my stupor. “Come in,” I called, guessing it was a servant—the stewardess had promised to send up meat for Lessie.

  The door opened, and I nearly dropped the dragon in my arms. “What are you doing here?” I asked as Lord Tavarian entered. To my amazement, he was carrying a platter of raw meat in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. “Don’t you have servants to do this sort of thing?”

  “Indeed.” He kicked the door closed behind him, then set the platter on the ground with no attempt to explain himself. Lessie immediately sprang from my arms and scampered toward it. Her hunger surged inside me, so fierce that I nearly joined her on the floor to devour the meat before I remembered myself.

  “Thanks,” I said as Lord Tavarian handed me the glass of water. His fingers brushed mine, and another shiver ran down my spine. This close, I could clearly feel the energy coming from him—he had a sort of magnetism about him, like a cold flame, and I was a moth, drawn to the alluring flicker of power.

  Gritting my teeth, I pulled away and downed the glass of water in one go. The last thing I wanted was to get my wings burned off.

  “I appreciate you not letting that guy throw me in the dungeons,” I said slowly as he sat down on the bench at the foot of my bed. He seemed to hardly pay any attention to me, his silver gaze fixed on Lessie as she devoured the food. On one hand, it was a bit off-putting that he barely deigned to notice me, but on the other, maybe that was a good thing.

  His eyes flicked briefly toward me. “The health and safety of your dragon supersedes Xanadar’s desire to punish you for your crime,” he said simply. “This dragon has been in my family for generations, and for better or for worse, she has chosen you.”

  He rose to his feet, and it struck me again how tall he was, towering over me by a good eight inches. “Do you have a name?” he asked me. “Or should I just call you ‘girl?’”

  I bristled. “It’s Zara,” I said. “Zara Kenrook.”

  He nodded curtly. “Get some sleep,” he ordered. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

  “Great,” I muttered as he left, shutting the door behind him. The lock clicked, and though I could pick it if I wanted to, there was no point. I had no way of getting off this island—even if I could sneak onto a ship, there was no guarantee it was leaving tomorrow, and that was the first place the guards would look.

  Besides, I thought as I looked down at Lessie, it wasn’t as if I could easily sneak around with a dragon in my arms. I had no idea how I would manage with a dragon in my life, but now that I had her, I couldn’t imagine letting her go.

  6

  The next morning, a maid dragged me unceremoniously from my bed, insisting that I needed a bath before my audience with Lord Tavarian. I would have complained, but she also brought in a platter of pastries and coffee, and more fresh meat for Lessie. My grumbling stomach outvoted my brain’s need for more sleep, and I ended up at a small table by the windows, stuffing my face while servants brought in a big tub and filled it with steaming buckets of water.

  “All right,” the maid said when the bath was full. “Let’s get you in here.”

  My mouth dropped open as I realized what she was about—she was brandishing a scrub brush and a bar of soap as if she were about to go to war with them. “No way,” I protested, holding my hands up. “I can bathe myself.”

  The maid tried to convince me to let her bathe me, but when I refused to budge, she relented. “I will be back in twenty minutes with your outfit,” she said as she left in a huff. “Be ready.”

  I frowned as I sank into the hot water. Why was she going to such lengths to make me presentable? Did anyone really care what I looked like?

  I picked up the bar of soap, then yelped as Lessie jumped into the tub, splashing water all over me. “Wh-what are you doing?” I sputtered.

  “I need a bath too,” Lessie reminded me as she settled onto my chest. I winced as her claws scraped against my skin. “Far more than you, in fact. You don’t have birth residue clinging to your skin, do you?”

  “No,” I admitted, feeling a little guilty that I’d forgotten. Of course Lessie needed a bath. “But there isn’t a lot of room in the tub, so let’s get you clean quick, and then out so I can take my turn.”

  Despite my pronouncement, I took a lot more time bathing Lessie than I should have. There was something both fun and satisfying about lathering up her hide, of
watching her iridescent sapphire scales sparkle in the morning sunlight as I rinsed off egg residue. She purred as I scratched behind her head and rumbled with laughter as I tickled her belly.

  It was kind of like having a pet. A sentient, sassy, potentially fire-breathing pet.

  By the time I was finished with her, I only had time to scrub myself down quickly. Washing my hair was a whole ordeal—it was so thick and heavy that I only did it once a week, and without the special hair lotion I used, it became a frizzy, unmanageable mess.

  Thankfully, the maid didn’t seem to have an issue when she bustled back into the room…but I sure did. “Oh no,” I said as she laid out a pink satin dress on the bed. “You are not getting me into that.”

  The maid propped her hands onto her hips. “And just what would you like to wear when Lord Tavarian interviews you? A sheet? Or would you prefer to go naked?”

  “No,” I said, my cheeks burning. Desperately, I cast around for the servant’s uniform I’d worn yesterday, but it was nowhere to be found. “Surely that can’t be the only thing you have lying around. Aren’t there pants somewhere in this giant mansion? And where are my boots?” My stomach lurched as panic hit me. I couldn’t lose those boots—they were one of the most valuable things I owned!

  “Lord Tavarian had me confiscate them, along with your lock pick,” the maid said dryly. “Now let’s get you dressed. You’re lucky his last mistress left a few of her things here, or you’d be wearing a potato sack instead.”

  “That might be preferable,” I grumbled, but I let her dress me. The gown was a bit tight in the waist for me, the bodice scooped way too low for my liking, and the voluminous skirt meant I’d face-plant on the parquet floors if I tried to travel at anything more than a brisk walk.

  But, it was still better than being naked.

  What kind of woman would be mistress to a man like Tavarian? I wondered as the maid laced me up. Was she just as cold and inscrutable as he was? Or had she been his opposite, warm and full of light and laughter? I couldn’t imagine what it took to catch the eye of a man like that, but then again, whatever she’d had wasn’t enough. He hadn’t kept her, had he?