by Lisa Daniels
Ruelle watched Arlain like a predator waiting for when the drag became too much, or she made an error in her movement. Ruell spotted it when Arlain stepped in too close, too fast. Ruelle leaped on her advantage, closing in on Arlain with a body tackle that sent the woman clasing to the ground. Ruelle got two blows to Arlain's wrist, forcing her to let go of the heavy weapon, and a few more in the fighter's face, before placing her blade near Arlain's throat.
The woman coughed, smirking through bloody teeth. “I yield.”
The fight had taken two minutes for Ruelle, which was about average fight time, since people tired, people made mistakes. It went on longer for Kerric and Jacen.
“Can I assist Kerric?”
“No. If you do, the door will remain shut,” Arlain said, coughing as she sat up. Her black eyes scoured Ruelle's sleek form. “A worthy fighter. It's not often you get a princess well trained in combat.”
“Yeah, I was forced into it,” Ruelle said, shrugging. They continued making light conversation, until Jacen tripped up Kerric. However, the shapeshifter dragged Jacen down with him and slammed his sword into Jacen’s neck, impaling him. Kerric instantly jumped back, and Jacen pulled himself off the sword, the bloody wound healing up instantly. Jacen held up a finger, patting his throat with the other hand.
“Sorry. I needed to let my voicebox heal. You win.”
Ruelle’s jaw dropped. “Are you guys immortal?”
“We are Guardians. Comes with the territory,” Jacen said, rubbing his throat. “Doesn't mean it feels nice, though. Ugh. Well. Off you two go. Through the door.”
Ruelle blinked. “What? This is all the Trial of Lovers is? A fight?”
“Nope.” Arlain said. “Now go.”
Kerric and Ruelle glanced at each other, confounded. Both of them went through the door. A woman with a serpent tail and snakes in her hair waited behind it, with gleaming yellow eyes.
“Right. Second part,” she said, as if she’d been listening to the conversation outside.
“There's a second?” Kerric scratched at his stubble. The serpent lady smiled, her hissing snake hairs twisting up.
“Yes. Right, you two need to go and kiss one another now. Show me that your love is genuine and heartfelt, and you get to pass to the next door.” She pointed to the golden door behind them. “Go on, then. Smooch.”
Ruelle narrowed her eyes. Kerric shrugged, giving a boyish, oh well smile. “Come here, darling. Pucker up your lips for a 'smooch.'”
Sniggering, Ruelle embraced Kerric and placed her lips to his. Her heart pounded fast, and although some faint memories of the night they shared stirred in her heart, it was hard to get into the mood with the serpent lady glaring at them.
Really forcing the act, Kerric and Ruelle grabbed at one another harder, crushing their bodies together and suctioning their lips to the point where neither of them had air left in their lungs. Ruelle ruffled his hair, before pulling away, gasping, and Kerric looked slightly dazed, possibly because of oxygen deprivation.
“Well?” he demanded, out of breath.
The serpent lady folded her arms as the snake hairs hissed at one another. “Eh, that was good enough. Off you go, then.”
Both out of it, Kerric and Ruelle headed to the door, feeling more and more confused by the minute.
The Trial of Lovers was nothing like either had expected.
Through the third door, they saw a room full of stone statues. A trough of glistening water lay ahead, with a number of bejewelled artefacts, ranging from diamond studded chalices to manky, dirty wooden mugs.
They passed the statues cautiously. Ruelle half expected them to spring to life and start attacking. Most statues looked human shaped, though their forms were indistinguishable from male or female.
They halted at the water, and a small mouse sat on his rear legs to look at them.
“Congratulations,” the mouse said. “Your reward is here. If you drink from the Water of Life, you will retain your youth forever more. If you have power, it will be enhanced. All you need to do is drink.” The mouse twitched his tiny whiskers. Displaying a smug grin.
Immediately, Kerric reached for a platinum chalice.
“No! Wait!” Ruelle slapped his hand before he seized one. “Don't be reckless. You think it's a coincidence that all the statues are human shaped?”
Kerric clenched his fingers, eyes wide. “Oh.”
“Yes. I bet you my socks they've been cursed from the water. Don't touch anything.”
Ruelle picked up the mouse by his tail, though he merely glared at Ruelle for her treatment.
“Are you lying to us, mouse?”
“No,” the mouse squeaked, twirling in her hand. “You do have to use one of the containers to drink from. But only one of them's good enough.”
Ruelle dropped the mouse. “There's hundreds!”
The mouse did an approximation of a shrug. “Yes, well. Good luck.” He vanished into a hole before they could ask any more questions.
“May as well pick one, then,” Kerric said.
“If we touch the wrong one, I'm pretty sure we'll be turned to stone,” Ruelle said, before adding, “I've heard of a trial like this before. It's always the most unassuming container that's the good one.”
Kerric stared at a diamond chalice. His eyes filled with longing. “Are you sure...?”
“You're like millions of years older than me. You should be the one telling me this.”
Kerric laughed, but followed Ruelle's lead as she sifted through the collection of chalices. They continued scouring through the containers, with Ruelle trying to oust out the most insignificant and grimiest one possible. She debated between a stone one, a wooden mug, and something that looked suspiciously like a chipped wooden egg timer – and decided to go for the egg timer.
It wasn't the smallest by any means, but it was the smallest and least appealing object she saw. Squeezing her eyes shut, she grabbed it, waiting to be turned to stone. When nothing happened, she dipped the tiny cup in the water and drank it.
Warm affection flooded through her as the water trickled into her body. Kerric waited a moment to see if she was about to turn, and when she didn't, he took the cup as well and drank.
“Congratulations!” The mouse squeaked, now poking out of his hole. “You've completed the Trial of Lovers. You can go home now.”
Kerric glared. “Wait. Isn't there supposed to be a legendary artefact here?”
“You used a legendary artefact to drink from a legendary water source. Is that not enough?”
“I'm nearly immortal anyway! What a useless gift!”
“But she isn't,” the mouse pointed out, twitching his whiskers towards Ruelle, before he disappeared back into his hole.
Kerric flushed at that statement, abashed. They stood in silence, before he muttered, “I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about... that. What the reward meant for both of us.”
“Don't worry.”
The Trial of Lovers completed, both of them stood there. The Water of Life invigorated them, igniting a new future in Ruelle's brain. She held Kerric's hand, gazing into his green eyes, inhaling his scent and ruffling his hair with her other palm.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Kerric,” Ruelle said softly. “Rather than having me be sold to some other dragon, who probably wouldn't have put my skills to use.”
“No worries.” He leaned to kiss her hand, eyes still fixed on hers. The noble bow he gave made her smile. “If you want, we can go on more Quests after this. If you're up for it. If you want to stay.”
Ruelle bit her lip, heart fluttering fast, creatures wriggling in her stomach. “If I stay, I want the potion gone from my system. I don't want to stay because I'm forced to. I want to stay because my heart wishes it.”
Her words struck a chord in him. He swallowed and nodded. “I'll take it out of you. I'm sorry I... made you drink it.”
“I understand. Just don't do it again.” She leaned to his ear and whispered, “and I might just grow to li
ke you a whole lot more.”
His answering grin was radiant, as he walked with her past the gargoyles, who waited impassively. “Let's go home, then,” he said, giving her one last hug.
“Let's,” she agreed.
More fame and glory awaited them. More Quests. More time together. And more opportunities for Ruelle to put her skills to use.
The End
Captured by Mokkan
Dragons Take a Princess
(Book 4)
Chapter One
Xanthia didn't appreciate the whole “being a prisoner” thing. Being inside a locked tower without the luxuries of her former life did no wonders for her temperament. Her younger sister could probably cope with the whole situation because, hey, Ruelle was a freak. She knew how to do that martial arts stuff, so she probably escaped long ago, after they both got captured at the same time by Dark Clan slavers. Xanthia, however, was a proper princess. She swallowed up the rulebook and made sure she knew everything. How to curtsy five different ways. How each kingdom liked to eat their food, and which princes were considered the hottest of today's youth. She knew the names of all the prominent Questers, and the names of the most fearsome dragons to have ever ravaged the kingdoms.
Everything a good princess needed to know.
Then, thanks to her stupid younger sister's curse, she'd been swept up in the whole momentum, sold in some undignified way to a dragon who liked to hoard princesses, and was now forced to share a tower with fourteen other lost princesses, all of them dressed up in scrubbing clothes.
As usual with princesses, they established an instant pecking order, which was actually sorted by “who had the blondest hair and bluest eyes.”
Unfortunately, since Xanthia had mousy blonde hair and dirty blue eyes, she ranked low on the list.
Which meant she got assigned the worst chores out of all of them.
Quietly, as she scrubbed inside the toilet, a nose peg pinching her nose, she seriously considered stabbing the head princess, Vanessa. Vanessa was such a bitchy princess name too, the kind you expected to hear from the particularly whiny and superfluous type. Vanessa had such shining golden hair that Xanthia wasn't particularly convinced Vanessa didn't cheat with it in some way. She also hosted such jaw-dropping blue eyes, glimmering like sapphire teardrops, that they ignited flames of envy within.
Just a shame her beauty got marred by the constant uppity attitude she wore, and the absolute belief that she was the most beautiful princess on the planet.
Her second- and third-in-command, princesses Andrea and Belle, helped to enforce her will and alpha status. With the addition of Xanthia, all the princesses relished the opportunity to put someone else down.
The dragon that owned them all had built a reinforced glass viewing area in their tower so he could show off his fifteen princesses to all the other dragons that came. Xanthia, as the newest addition with the darkest blonde hair color, stood out. It made the other dragon visitors take notice of her. This infuriated Vanessa, who wanted everyone to be looking her way all the time.
Xanthia finished scrubbing the toilet and massaged her knees, examining the purpling bruises from all the times she kept bashing into things.
She stretched and pushed a hand against her back for a moment, before hearing an insistent rap from outside the bathroom.
“Are you finished in there yet, Xanthia? I need to attend to my lady things, and if you're not done this moment, then you'll be assigned dishwasher duty as well today!”
“I'm done!” Xanthia screamed back at Vanessa, not wanting to do those stupid dishes. Cleaning dishes from fourteen picky eaters was a constant living nightmare. No one wanted to do it. Which was precisely why Xanthia got assigned it the most.
Vanessa burst in as Xanthia finished washing her hands. The super bitch imperiously clicked her fingers.
“Out! Out! I don't want your dirt infecting me. Out you go!”
“Yes, Princess Vanessa,” Xanthia replied, whilst imagining flicking the scrubbing stick all over Vanessa's gleaming hair, just to hear her shriek with shock and rage. Instead, Xanthia did nothing and stepped outside the bathroom, only to be almost tripped by Belle, who giggled in a cute and affectionate way that made Xanthia want to strangle the living daylights out of her.
“You ought to be careful where you step!” Belle said, as Andrea nodded, smiling with her pearly white teeth and giggling in tandem with Belle.
Just you wait. I'll have my revenge, and you're so going to regret treating me like this. I'm a princess from the central kingdoms! The audacity of you bitches!
Full of righteous fury, Xanthia headed to the seeing room at the bottom of their vast princess tower, hoping to catch a glimpse of any Questers.
She'd seen a few make their way to the inner cavern, possibly for show by her dragon captor, Mokkan. She never got to see much of him in his human form – he preferred wearing his green dragon form, and showing off, not just in front of dragons, but in front of his princesses, too.
It made sense, she supposed. Xanthia could only hope Mokkan got too confident for his own good, and a Quester took him down, allowing the fifteen of them to finally escape.
She passed one princess who sat on a sofa, brushing her hair, and she wrinkled her nose at Xanthia as if she smelled like dirt.
“How long has it been since you've had a bath?” Princess Jackie said.
Xanthia merely glared at her. “When one of you finally gets out of the bath long enough for me to have one,” she retorted, her irritation spiking.
With only one bathroom and fifteen fastidious princesses, it virtually guaranteed that Xanthia rarely got any opportunities to bathe at all – not unless she wanted to line up for several hours and endure being taunted and laughed at by the others.
Finally down on the lowest floor where the reinforced glass stretched all along near Mokkan's cave entrance, Xanthia went to one of the tattered sofas by the glass and arranged herself comfortably on it. From here, she was able to catch a brief glimpse of the outside and into Mokkan's living room, where she saw a fraction of a mahogany table, but nothing else.
All the other princesses had managed to decorate their rooms somewhat, even the one who was bottom of the pit before, now that Xanthia had usurped the last place position.
For Xanthia, the girl who led her sisters in games, who used to mock Ruelle for being more like a boy than a girl, who once got one of the cooking servants in trouble for adding an extra bag of flour in the soup when no one was looking, it never occurred to her that the tables might turn.
And now she was being sucker-punched in the face by fourteen other bitches like her.
Gods, I'm a terrible person.
Xanthia absently plucked at her robes, like a plain brown monk's habit, with a few dirt stains embedded in her skin. Her blonde hair hung limply about her shoulders, a fragment of its former glory.
I feel so bad for treating Ruelle as I did. What I wouldn't give right now to have her fighting skills.
Someone walked through the cave entrance, and when he neared, Xanthia recognized him as Mokkan. Her captor. Not a visitor or Quester, like she'd hoped.
The dragon, now in his human form, hesitated to regard Xanthia. Green eyes shone from his solid, wide features, which, upon second glance, suited him quite well. He had a bullish appearance, oddly handsome, though not in the conventional prince way, with their rapier thin cheekbones and elven faces. No – this one looked as solid as a mountain, with the muscles to back him up, and a fuzz of red hair upon his head. The kind of man who appeared aware of his body and aware of the strength he contained. He stared at Xanthia disapprovingly.
“Excuse me. You're Xanthia, right?”
She nodded reluctantly. At least he remembered her name. He probably made a point of remembering all the names.
“Why do you look so filthy? Even as a scrub maid, you should have some kind of charm to you, so everyone knows there's something special. I even released mice in the tower so you could all learn t
o charm animals.”
“Oh, is that why we have a sudden infestation of mice?” Xanthia raised an eyebrow. A smile twitched her lips – she remembered the screams when they discovered about ten mice in the tower kitchens.
Mokkan looked crestfallen. “Did no one bother bonding with them? They're magical mice. They can understand human speech.”
Xanthia shook her head. “I think all your princesses have a phobia of small, furry things.”
“Hmm.” Mokkan folded his large, impressive arms. They bulged out of his tunic, tapering around his bones in a way that made Xanthia want to trace the individual veins running under his skin. “But why do you look so bad?”
“There's one bathroom, Mokkan. And fifteen princesses. Each who takes on average one to two hours to have one bath. I don't think you'd ever bathe in that scenario, either.”
The dragon wrinkled his brow. “Hmm. I didn't think of that. No one mentioned it.”
“Why would they? They hate you.”
Now Mokkan let out a sigh. “I suppose it's to be expected. Alright. I'll let you out and you can have a bath in my place. You should keep yourself looking pretty.”
Xanthia blinked at the offer. “Uh… really?”
“Really. You look like you could do with a little pampering. But, uh – seriously. I paid a lot for those mice. Try and befriend one, will you?”
What an odd dragon, Xanthia thought, finding his gesture oddly thoughtful at the same time. It sounded like he took the rumor of princesses being able to bond with animals seriously.
Grateful, but not wanting to show it, because for the love of the gods, Mokkan was a freaking dragon, she hurried over to the locked door and stepped through once he unlocked it. For a brief second, she entertained the thought of just running for the exit, bath be dammed, before twenty-four years of reality caught up with her. Just exactly how far did she expect to get in the Wilderness, from a dragon who could fly at ten times the speed of her run? With a wistful sigh, Xanthia followed Mokkan into the living room, grateful that none of the other princesses bore witness to her temporary release from the tower. She'd never live it down.