Dragon and the Princess (6 page)

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.”

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 more 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.

At least she could wash her feet. She rolled off her silk stockings and when she’d washed her feet, she washed the stockings, too. When her feet were dry, she put the boots back on, wondering if the stockings would dry overnight. Perhaps she could spread them on the hot dragon. Anything was possible in this peculiar new world.

When she emerged from the wood, she saw her husband leaning on the dragon, close to Seesee’s head, looking dejected. Probably disappointed in his bride. After all, what did she know about men and their ways, never mind Dornaan ones? She wanted to escape, and sleep seemed the best refuge to hand.

She cleared her throat. “I’m ready.”

He straightened and offered a hand up onto the dragon. She relished that, clinging a little as she climbed. But then worry trickled in. “Is this safe?”

“Of course. Why?”

Something—a dragon thought?—had reminded Rozlinda that dragons liked SVP blood. She was certainly still V.

“She . . . she doesn’t like midnight snacks?”

Something twitched his lips. “You’re completely safe here, I promise. And dragon sleeping is cozy. With that and hralla, you’ll be off like a baby. Slide down beneath the wing.”

Rozlinda considered the situation dubiously, but what choice did she have? She spread the stockings over the dragon’s back and then sat down, gathered her skirts, and wriggled under the wing.

He was right. It was surprisingly comfortable. The scales were smooth here, and the dragon was slightly soft and delightfully warm. The big body rose and fell gently with each breath. She’d get used to the smell in time.

“Will you sleep nearby?” she asked, peering up at the black silhouette against the deep blue sky.

“Not yet. Go to sleep.”

Rozlinda lay on the warm, breathing dragon, looking up at the densely starred sky, trying to come to terms with her situation, but fighting tears. She believed in duty and even in sacrifice, but why did her path have to be so very hard?