by G. A. Aiken
With a sniff of dismissal, she turned away from him. Closing her eyes, Rhiannon worked hard to ignore the beauty of the dragon. And all those battle scars did nothing but enhance it. She’d never reacted this way to any male, dragon or human. Perhaps it was this unruly human body she had to tolerate. She didn’t know, but she did know she didn’t like it.
“You never told me why you attacked Soaic.”
“He spoke ill of my father.” He reached around her and pulled the potato out of the boiling water, casually dropping it back on the pile. “I don’t allow anyone to speak of my father that way.”
“You allowed me.” Rhiannon winced. “Well that came out horribly wrong.” What if the big bastard hadn’t noticed?
He gently tugged a strand of her hair. “True, but I had no intention of mating with Soaic.”
She slowly turned to face him. Although he didn’t touch her, he still stood as close as possible. She could smell him and he smelled quite nice. No perfume like some of the royals. Nor the smell of blood for those who took less care cleaning themselves.
“We, Low Born, are not mating.”
“Yes we are.”
“No. We’re not.”
“Why?” And he seemed truly perplexed. “Have you never been—”
“Before you even finish that statement . . . no. I’m not a virgin. Haven’t been for quite some time. I leave virginal female royalty to the humans.”
“So then I don’t understand why you’re so set against us being together. We’re both attractive and of breeding age. Both extremely intelligent. And quite worthy of each other’s company. So I’m not sure what the problem is”
Oh, well when he puts it like that. . . . “Did you think my mother’s orders would send me willingly to you?”
He frowned in confusion. “What does your mother have to do with anything?”
“I’m only here because of her.”
“True. But you’ll stay, Princess, because of me.”
She laughed. Dragons were naturally arrogant, but by the dark gods of fire this one made the rest of them look insecure and unsure of themselves.
“Will I now? And why would I do that?” She glanced around his sparse cave fit for a battle-dragon rarely home, but not a princess. “Your grand riches? Your royal standing? Really . . . what reason would I have to stay other than this human body cannot fly?”
She was pushing him. She knew she was and yet she couldn’t stop herself. And when he didn’t answer right away, she felt a vague sense of disappointment. She truly thought he’d be up to the challenge. Unlike others in her mother’s court. Shame she was wrong.
“That’s what I thought.” She sniffed again and turned, walking off. He could fix his own damn potatoes.
But she never should have turned her back on him. His hand threaded through her hair and snatched her back to his side. She braced her hands against his big chest, but he pulled until she looked up at him.
It wasn’t a vicious pull. Or even brutal. It was just . . . in control. And gods be damned . . . it felt so good.
“Don’t walk away from me when we’re talking.” He said it calmly. No trace of anger or rage. Actually, she saw amusement and lust in those dark eyes. Even his frown had faded a bit. “If you’re going to ask me a question, you have to give me time to answer.”
“Let me go,” she snapped.
“No. Not until we’re done.” His eyes roved over her face as he spoke, like he was drinking in her every detail. “Now, you asked me a question. You asked what I could give you to entice you to stay with me?”
He tugged the strands of hair he had a grip on and she desperately fought the urge to moan out loud.
“What I’ll give you is someone worthy of you. Someone who can handle a dragoness such as yourself. I don’t fear your rages. I don’t fear your acid tongue. In fact, I like you mean. The meaner, the better.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but another tug had her growling instead. “Except,” he continued, “when we mate. Then you’ll give yourself to me . . . completely. You’ll let me do whatever I want to this body. Whether human or dragon . . . because we’ll play with both, Princess. We’ll play a lot.” This time he grinned. A full grin showing beautiful white teeth and fangs as well as the handsomest human face she’d ever seen. Immediately her nipples hardened under the robe and a sudden, hot slickness slid down between her legs. “That’s not to say you shouldn’t put up a fight every once in a while. I don’t mind a few battle scars coming from you. But in the end, so to speak, you’ll submit to me. Willingly. Happily. And with a smile on this gorgeous face. And when you rule as queen, I’ll be by your side. Your consort. Your battle-dragon. I’ll protect your throne and you with a fierceness no one has ever known. You’ll wear my mark boldly and with utter pride. Together, we’ll breed sons and daughters who will make us proud and carry on our blood line. We’ll be a mating to be feared. To be spoken of in whispers. And when we go to meet our ancestors in the next world, we’ll spend eternity together. Terrifying those who came before us.”
His other hand came up, softly caressing her cheek then slipping down her jaw, her neck, until it slid under her robe and took firm but gentle hold of her breast. “That is what we’ll do, Princess. And that is why you’ll stay.” She panted as his hand squeezed her breast, his fingers playing with her sensitive nipple.
“Because at the end of the day, you’re going to love me. I promise you that.”
His mouth hovered close to hers and she lifted her chin a bit, waiting for him to kiss her. His lips brushed over hers and then he said, “Now. Let me show you how to make boiled potatoes so we can eat.”
He released her. Just like that. She stared at him in shock as he crouched down beside the boiling pot of water. “You see,” he said calmly, “first you have to clean off the potato before you cut it up.”
And for the first time in Princess Rhiannon’s life she didn’t know whether to kill or cry. At the moment, she was certain she might do both.
Chapter 3
With a happy sigh, Rhiannon pushed the empty plate away and leaned back against the boulder. “All right,” she said while licking grease off each finger, “that was amazing.”
Bercelak smiled again and she was amazed his face hadn’t cracked. In more than seventy years, she’d never known the dragon to smile at anyone or anything. No matter what awards and treasure her mother bestowed on him or when others may have said something funny. “I’m glad you enjoyed it, Princess.”
“What I don’t quite understand is . . . well . . .”
“Yes?”
“How you know so much about humans? You can cook like them. You know what they should eat. How they eat. What utensils to use.” They’d forgone the table when Bercelak couldn’t remember where he’d put it last.
Pouring more wine into her goblet, Bercelak confessed, “My father.”
She gasped. “Good gods, your father’s not a human?”
He shook his head. “Now that would be quite a trick . . . since humans and dragons can’t breed. No, Princess, he’s not human. He just prefers human company.”
“He does? Why?”
With a shrug, “I don’t know. He just does. He thinks they’re interesting. And he loves the females.”
Rhiannon shook her head and grinned. “Your father has quite a reputation.”
“Aye. That he does. And he’s damn proud of it. It’ll be interesting when you two meet.”
She looked up from her goblet of wine. “Meet? Why would we meet?”
“I have to introduce you to him before I Claim you. He’s rather insistent on some of the Old Ways.”
“I don’t want to be Claimed by you, Low Born.”
He growled. Low and deep from his chest. She ignored the odd little bumps that spread across her human skin, praying it wasn’t some kind of strange human disease.
“Stop calling me that. I do have a name.” For a brief moment, he sounded like a cranky hatchling, rather than a f
eared Battle Lord.
“Fine. I don’t want to be Claimed by you, Bercelak. But it’s not personal. I don’t want to be Claimed by anyone. No one has Claim on me and no one ever will.”
“But don’t you want to Claim someone? Don’t you want someone to breed with and to call your own?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand. There is so much passion burning inside you. So much desire. I see it in your eyes. You need to release it or you’ll become . . .” He stopped speaking abruptly and looked down at his empty plate.
“Like my mother?” His eyes slowly rose up to look at her. “You fear I’ll become like her? Trust me, Low Born, I’m making sure I never become like her.”
“But you already are. As surely as you sit before me now as human. The more you harden your heart. The more you cut yourself off from everyone and everything. . . .”
“Dragons were meant to be alone.”
“No. Dragons are social. We just don’t need to spend endless amounts of time with each other like humans. But you . . . they say you go to your den and aren’t seen for years at court or anywhere else. You don’t see your kin. You’ve seen no one since the death of your father.”
She winced at that. The one being she missed with all her heart was her father. He’d loved her. Cared for her. And protected her from her mother. But with him gone . . . she had no one. Her siblings were petty and only wanted the throne or what they could grab from the queen’s treasure. The other royals were not to be trusted. And the unclaimed dragon males did truly fear her.
“You’re young, Rhiannon. Much too young to cut yourself off from everyone and everything. What your mother did to you was cruel . . . but perhaps we should see the good in it. It forced you out of your den and into the world. The world you’ll one day be queen of.”
Finally, she looked Bercelak in the eye and said with all honesty, “Do you truly believe I’ll live long enough to be queen?”
Bercelak leaned back against the boulder he sat next to and placed his arm on the knee of his raised leg.
“Why would you say that?”
“She wants me dead. She’s always wanted me dead. Why do you think she sent me to you?”
Bercelak didn’t know whether to be insulted by that last statement or merely horrified. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”
“Don’t be a fool, Low Born! She’s testing your loyalty. Once you Claim me, she’ll expect you to either drag me back to her court in chains or to kill me.”
“That’s not true.” He shook his head. He refused to believe that could possibly be true.
“What? You think she sent me here because she thought we’d fall in love? That we’d look in each other’s eyes and have a beautiful and meaningful Claiming? Try again. I’m in her way. Since my birth, I’ve been in her way. When I was younger, I was just annoying. Now she despises me and wants me dead. And you . . .” She gave him almost a pitying look. “She thinks of you as her pet. A well-trained war horse. Or some over-sized battle dog. And she’s dropped me right in front of that dog, completely defenseless, and left me. Hopefully, to die.”
“And you actually believe I’d kill you on your mother’s orders?”
“No.” She looked weary. Exhausted. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to try and break me.”
“You’re not a horse, Rhiannon.”
“I know that.”
“Then why would you even think that?”
She let out a long breath. “Your reputation precedes you, Bercelak.”
His frown deepened. “Now what the hell does that mean?”
“Rumors of what you do to females once you have them here have circulated the court for years. I hear everything.”
He raised an eyebrow, even more intrigued. “Oh? And what are those rumors?”
“Forget it. This conversation is getting uncomfortable.”
“Forget nothing, Princess. Tell me what you’ve heard. And I’ll tell you if they’re true.”
“Fine.” She stared him straight in the eye and he adored how she didn’t back down from a fight. “Banallan the Gold said you kept her chained here for days.”
Bercelak grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “I did.”
Rhiannon’s body flinched the smallest bit and her brows pulled down into a brutal frown.
“But she wasn’t forced if that’s what concerns you. If memory serves, she enjoyed every second of it . . . immensely.”
Rolling her eyes, she snorted in disgust.
“What else, Princess? What else has you so concerned?”
“Derowen the Silver.”
He really had to search his brain for that one. Derowen the Silver? Gods, it had been ages since he lay with a silver. “Oh. Do you mean old Gobrien’s daughter?”
“Yes. That silver.”
My, what was that tone in her voice? “Yes, I remember her. What about her?”
“One of my mother’s guards said he could hear her screaming from nearly a quarter league away.”
“Aye. She was a noisy one. Fun . . . but noisy.”
“He said she sounded in pain.”
“Well, there’s pain . . . and then there’s pain.” He grinned at the expression on her face. “Anything else?”
“I heard what you did to the Argraff twins.”
“Yes. But I only had one. My brother had the other. Don’t ask me which. They both look exactly alike. Imagine coming from the same egg.”
She looked at him in horror. “Dark gods! You’re as bad as your father.”
Bercelak laughed outright at that. He hadn’t laughed so much in his entire life. Always so serious and intense, with much on his mind, this was the first time he ever felt he could relax. “Not in a million ages. There aren’t enough dragons in the universe to compete with him. No, I’d be forced to involve humans, elves, and, rumor has it, centaurs.”
“I’m done with this conversation.” She stood up but he reached over and grabbed her wrist.
“Tell me, Princess, what truly bothers you?”
“Nothing. But if you think you’ll chain me here and turn me into some broken dragon available at your beck and call, you’re as insane as my mother. I bend for no male, Low Born.”
“I have no desire to break you, Rhiannon. I like you mean.” He growled that last part and her breathing sped up. As, it seemed, did her desire to get away from him. She tried to yank her arm from his grasp, but he didn’t let her go.
Bercelak sat up until he rested on his knees in front of her. “Perhaps it’s time to set up some rules.”
“Rules?”
“Aye.” He tugged her until she grudgingly knelt down in front of him. “So that you feel more comfortable.”
She watched him with narrow eyes, but she did relax a tiny bit. “All right.”
“If there’s anything you don’t want me to do when we’re together . . . say no.”
She stared at him for a long time, then shook her head. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“All I have to do is say no?”
“Aye. You say no . . . and I stop.”
“That sounds very odd to me.”
“Why?” He leaned over and gently kissed her neck.
“I . . . I don’t know. It just does.”
He kissed a spot under her ear. “Let me explain it to you this way—You say ‘don’t,’ I will. If you say ‘stop,’ I won’t. If you really want me to stop, you’ll have to say ‘no.’” While keeping a tight rein on her left wrist with one hand, he used the other to wrap around her waist and pull her closer to him. “You can beg me, Rhiannon. Beg and plead for me to stop, and I won’t. Because between us, there will be only one word that will stop me. And it’s ‘no.’Now do you understand?”
Her body melted against his, her head tipping so he had better access to her neck. “Aye. I understand.”
“Good.” He slapped her ass. “Now you should go to bed
.”
It took her a moment, but suddenly she pulled away from him. “What?”
“To bed, love. You look exhausted. I’ve fixed a place for you down the cavern and to the left. It has a bed and everything. Until you can shift back to dragon, no floors for you.”
As hard as it was, he pushed her away and stood up, dragging her with him. “Besides, tomorrow we travel into Kerezik.”
A bit dazed, she pulled herself up. “Why?”
He didn’t want to answer that, at least not honestly, so he dragged his hand along her cheek. “Are you all right? You look a bit . . . ow!”
She punched him. Right in the face. And the female had a right hook that could destroy the jaw of a strong human male.
“What the hell was that for?”
“You play games with the wrong female, Low Born,” she snarled. She walked away from him, her robes swirling around her. “Do you think I’m like one of those stupid whores you had here before? Do you think you can toy with me?”
Rubbing his jaw, he looked at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You hope to leave me wet and wanting so that I’ll come begging for your affections like some dog looking for food.”
Damn. She was right on that. He was.
He stepped toward her. “Rhiannon . . .”
“No. Say nothing,” she growled.
His eyes narrowed. Why was she so angry? Angrier than he’d expect since she figured him out quick enough.
Of course, it could be . . .
“Are you already wet for me, Rhiannon?” She turned on him like a coiled snake. “What?”
“You heard me, Princess.” He walked toward her and immediately she stumbled back away from him. “If I put my hand on your pussy right this second, will it be dry like the deserts of Alsandair or wet and desperate like the Kennis River?”
She slammed into the far wall and immediately Bercelak placed his hands on either side of her head, caging her in. She looked caged in, too. Like a wild animal about to snap.
“Perhaps I should find out.”
“Get away from me, Low Born!”
“Now, Rhiannon,” he gently admonished as he used one hand to yank off the belt holding her robe together, “you know those aren’t the right words.”