Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Without another backward glance at the rising beast, Briannis clambered across the rocky cavern floor, cursing the wet skirt of her dress as it tried to tangle around her legs.
A thump filled the air. Not a heartbeat later, a strong burst of air pushed her hair in front of her face and nearly sent her to her knees once more.
A second thump. And then rock crunched in front of her. Wind blasted her face. The dragon had landed between her and the tunnel. Its lizard-like head tilted to the side in appraisal, golden eyes blinking.
Another scream tore from her throat.
Arms raised in front of her, she retreated. “Please!” A stone sliced at her foot and she whimpered. “Don’t eat me!”
A deep grumble emanated from the dragon. “Eat you?” A stream of air huffed from its snout.
Briannis stilled. Had it just…spoken?
“I don’t— I wouldn’t taste good,” she amended.
Was she really trying to reason with this thing?
Maybe she’d hit her head along the way and didn’t remember it.
“But cows are delicious. Beef yummy. I could give you one? Ten?” She winced.
Sacrificing the family cattle felt like a betrayal, but if it saved her life…
The dragon seemed to settle, lowering its bulk toward the cavern floor. “They think so poorly of me.”
Her heart leapt at the sound. No, not a sound. She didn’t hear the words. Rather, she felt them, almost like they were spoken into her soul, echoing somewhere in her mind.
“At least this one hasn’t died of fright.” Another puff of air left the dragon’s snout as it lowered its head.
Briannis blinked, dumbfounded. Did it just…sigh?
The dragon’s wings ruffled. “I do not sigh.”
She yelped. “You read my thoughts?”
Though it had been moving little before, the dragon turned preternaturally still. If not for the trickle of water and the fluttering of an errant bat waking up, she might have thought the world frozen save for her.
Finally, the dragon blinked. “You… You hear me?” The voice in her head asked.
Though not spoken aloud, the dragon’s tone held a mix of awe and disbelief mingled into the deep voice that was unmistakably masculine.
Rough and edged, it fit with the sharp looking spikes and ridges rising from the crown of its head and down the sides of its neck.
To say nothing of the wicked claws at the tips of its feet and wings.
“Yes?”
A shudder wracked its body. Its head swung side to side in the strangely human-like manner of someone trying to clear their thoughts. “Can it truly be—”
The thought shut off abruptly, like a door slammed between them. The dragon stretched its neck forward, gaze intent.
Briannis flinched and stepped back. Her heel landed on something sharp and she hissed in pain.
“Don’t harm yourself!” The voice rushed back into her mind.
She scowled. “I’m not trying to.”
Its head reared back as its nostrils flared. “I smell your blood.”
She stared down at her body. Her hands bled from little cuts and scrapes.
She raised one foot and stared as blood trickled from her heel down the sole of her foot to drip from her big toe.
Something about the sight unlocked her pain—a sharp throbbing buried under her fear and the shock that followed the revelation of the voice inside her head.
“Damn.” All at once her instincts cried out once more that she was prey. And worse, she was bleeding in front of a very real predator. So what if it spoke to her? She spoke to animals all the time, even ones that ended up as dinner.
“Come here,” the dragon commanded.
Briannis pulled her hands toward herself. “I will not be easy prey.” She twisted to look behind her, searching for another opening she’d yet to spy.
“Stop!” It rumbled, seeming to sense her panic. “I have no desire to ea—” The thought ended in a real grumble that echoed through the cave. “I do not want you as my food.”
Something about the strange wording and the desperation laced into it had her glancing back at the dragon.
“I will not harm you.”
Impossibly, it felt like truth. But this monster had killed all his brides. Why not her?
The dragon must have heard her thoughts because he reared his neck back and bared a mouth full of long fangs. Its tail whipped into a wall, sending a few stones tumbling. “I did not kill them!” he yelled into her mind.
The force of the thought was so strong it left her bracing and panting for breath.
“You didn’t kill them?” But they hadn’t returned.
Only the one, who was sent back. Merilee, Alivia, and the all the women before, none were seen again.
Although… Briannis glanced around. If this was the dragon’s lair, she didn’t see any skeletons.
Unless he ate them elsewhere or consumed the bones, too.
“I. Did. Not. Eat. Them.”
Briannis gasped as a small stream of flames flickered from the dragon’s open mouth, sending a wave of light cascading through the space before it snapped its jaws closed again.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “You didn’t eat them.”
The dragon huffed again. “You don’t believe me.”
Damn whatever force projected her thoughts to him.
“Come and let me heal you.”
“Heal me?” her brows pinched in confusion.
“Or promise not to flee and I will come to you.” The dragon shuffled a lumbering step forward and halted, head tilting in question.
Walking on an injured foot over rocky terrain was less than ideal, and the area he perched was filled with sharp looking boulders.
It couldn’t be comfortable—for her or him.
“Fine. I won’t run.” She held her head high, summoning her bravery.
Either she could trust him, or he lied and she was about to be dinner.
“Dragons do not lie,” he grumbled as he slowly advanced.
The closer her got, the more she craned her neck to watch him.
He was twice her height with his head held high as it was then.
His wings were even wider than he was tall.
It was hard to tell in the fading light—barely any filtered through the crevice anymore and only the glowing moss on the wall illuminated the space—but she thought some of the membrane of his wings might be translucent if he were out in the sun.
The dragon’s sharp claws clicked on the stone as he took a final step and stopped in front of her, staring down with those golden eyes.
“So, how does this work?” Briannis asked, trying to sound brave. Her heart still beat at a frantic pace. If he could smell fear like wolves were said to do, she was probably downright pungent.
The dragon lowered himself until his head was level with hers. Then to her surprise, lowered it further. “What is your name?”
“My name?”
His head bobbed in an unmistakable nod.
What could it hurt? “Briannis.”
“Briannis.” The not-voice hissed out the last syllable in a way that curled around her middle before sending a pleasant shiver down her spine. “Sit, Briannis. Then hold out your hands to me.”
It was even stranger speaking to him this close. His mouth didn’t move. The silent words didn’t echo back through the cavern like hers did.
Briannis did as he asked, sitting carefully on a smooth rock and then turning her injured palms up toward him. Putting blood right in front of a predator’s nose. You really have lost it.
The dragon grumbled, sending a wave of warm breath wafting across her face. Briannis scrunched up her features in anticipation of a putrid scent only to be met with a surprise. It was smokey, yes, but in a pleasant and comforting sort of way like a warm fire in winter.
A long tongue slipped from the dragon’s maw and lapped at her palm. Briannis gasped at the touch—light, soft, and not wet like a dog’s. The forked end tickled her skin, and of all thing she nearly giggled despite the tinge of pain from contact with the wounds.
“You truly thought I ate them? The other women before you?”
Briannis’s humor died. What an odd question to ask while he was…whatever he was doing to her hand.
“Yes. It’s what happens to the dragon’s brides.”
He snorted again at that, enveloping her in smoky warmth. “Foolish. Do humans remember nothing?”
“We remember quite a lot,” she replied, indignant.
The forked tongue retreated. “Your hand.” He bobbed his head toward it.
Briannis blinked down at it. It was clean, but more than that, the wound had sealed, only a hint of pink showing where the cut had been. “How did you—” Her mouth gaped as she searched for the words.
“My saliva can heal.” He nudged her other hand with his snout. “May I?”
She let the healed hand drop and angled the other one toward him. “Yes. Thank you.” She shook her head, still trying to wrap her mind around what happened. But something else nagged at her just a much. “What happened to the women, if you didn’t eat them? I don’t see them here.”
“I took them away.”
“Away?” she echoed.
“To new homes. After the one was sent back broken and left to die…” The growl that tore from his through rumbled the very cave.
Briannis swallowed. Did he mean Sheena? She’d been sent back after she escaped but, broken?
“Brutalized. Bones broken.” He snarled, and Briannis shook with fear despite herself. “Half bled out. I could not save her.”
“Good Fates,” she cursed.
A softer grumble left the dragon before he settled his head back near her hand and began to work on her second palm. “Sheena,” he said after he finished. “I shall remember that name.” The dragon dipped his head further until his chin was nearly on the ground. “Your foot?”
Tentatively she uncurled it from beside her and held it up toward him, wiggling her bare toes as she did. “Why demand us just to send us away?”
His gaze held hers. “Tell me what you know of me, Briannis of Grimshire.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but then his tongue lapped at her heel before trailing up over her sole. Briannis squealed and wiggled at the tickling sensation. He did it again, and the sensation was even stronger. Without thinking, she kicked her foot…straight into his snout.