Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
The dragon whipped its head back with a grumble.
Oh no. The sound may well have doused her in ice. Did I really just kick him?
Faster than she could blink, he swiped out with his front paw and grabbed her ankle.
His claws clicked together but never scored her skin.
For a few heartbeats, they were locked in a frozen staring competition.
The dragon’s grip on her ankle flexed, drawing all her focus to that point of contact—his warm, smooth scales against her skin.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, that touch did something to her.
A warmth settled low in her stomach and suddenly she was aware of the way her dress stuck to her curves from the dampness and how it had ridden up to her hips when she raised her leg.
Maybe he heard her thoughts, because his gaze dipped to the juncture of her thighs and the thin undergarments exposed there.
She wiggled her hips in a failed attempt to shield herself.
His nostrils flared. “Do try to hold still.”
“It tickles.” The huskiness of her voice startled her.
He tilted his head and lapped at her heel again, this time keeping his tongue away from the sensitive arch of her foot. “Tell me. What do you know of me?”
Watching his tongue lap at her skin was doing things to her that she didn’t want to think about, especially with the strange ability of him to hear her thoughts, so she did her best to relax and stare at the ceiling as she talked.
“You’re our guardian dragon, and have been for generations.
You protect Grimshire from enemies and invaders, plague, drought, and other ills.
It keeps us safe and thriving. But in return, you ask for a bride every five years from the unmarried maidens of the city.
The Fates select your bride and the citizens deliver.
If we fail to do so, we are punished. Or like Sheena’s year, when she left…
” Her brows pinched as she considered what the dragon had said, how upset he had been at her mistreatment.
“We were punished because she left? Or,” he’d stopped lapping at her foot and she sat up, “was it because of how she was returned?”
The dragon crossed his forepaws on the ground and laid his chin atop them. “Neither. I rarely punish you humans, even when they deserve it.”
“You… don’t?” The impossibility of it struck her as even more strange that their odd method of communicating.
All her life—all the lives of everyone in the city—were built on tales of the dragon: the rewards for submitting to him and the risks if they did not.
He was the threat that kept enemies away and encouraged children to obey their parents lest the dragon catch them out of bed at night and seek to punish naughty behavior.
The need to deliver a maiden bride kept women from wedding their loves or seeking pleasure.
Same for the men. To deny the dragon was the greatest offense.
“How could so much be forgotten? So misunderstood?” He closed his eyes as if in pain. “No wonder things changed. No wonder the promises were not kept.”
“What changed? What promises?” Briannis inched forward, rising on her knees.
He blinked open his eyes. The depth of emotion in them rocked her.
This dragon, this creature they were taught was both protector and monster, hadn’t eaten her. He’d healed her.
“Thank you, again.” Did anyone thank him for all that he did? Not to his face surely. And that made her wonder… “Do you have a name?”
He stared back at her, as if she should know.
“We just call you the dragon,” she admitted, cheeks heating in embarrassment. “But that’s not it is it?”
“Noctokozain.”
“Not-co—”
“Zain will do.”
“Zain.” It fit him. It really did.
The dragon—Zain—almost seemed to smile. His mouth opened and he released a long puff of warm breath which surrounded Briannis like a comforting blanket. She found herself leaning into that warmth. Yearning for. Especially as it faded and the chill of the cave returned.
“I suppose all your brides get to learn your name.” Briannis shoved her frizzy hair behind her shoulder.
Zain stretched his wings before tucking them in closer to his sides. “I have not been able to speak to any of them. Only you.”
“What?” Briannis replied, taken aback. “None of them?”
He shook his head.
“Then how can you speak to me?”
He raised his head slightly, bringing it level with hers. Warmth radiated from him, leaping the few inches that separated them. “You are—” The thought slammed off abruptly.
She leaned closer. “I am what?”
“Cold.” He raised a wing. “Come, you’ll be warm near me.”
Her eyes narrowed. She was pretty sure that wasn’t what he’d been planning to say at first. But she was cold.
Though she would have balked at the idea hours ago, she found herself inexplicably yearning for his warmth and closeness now.
The rational part of her said she was just curious about him.
How many times had she thought about him over the years?
Desired to get a look at him up close and study him?
That was why she took his invitation and came to sit next to his chest—or at least that’s the reason she gave herself.
The green of his scales lightened as they flowed down toward his underside, transitioning into a paler green bordering on tan, almost like the first leaves of spring.
It was much warmer near him.
A soft gasp slipped from her lips as his wing curled over her almost like a blanket and urged her to lean back against his side. She did, settling into the crook of his shoulder. He’d turned his long neck until he stared at her, blinking. “Better?”
“Yes. Much.” There’d be no chance of her getting cold there. Maybe the opposite. “Will you tell me about you? Whatever we have lost?”
His chest expanded, moving her forward, then back as he exhaled in a deep sigh.
Briannis’s lips quirked up. And he said he didn’t sigh.
Zain’s eye’s narrowed before he breathed a puff of hot air at her.
She giggled in return. Giggled…when only minutes ago, she thought she might die. Thoughts of her family rushed to the surface. They probably thought she was dead. Or dying. All Zain’s warmth wasn’t enough to keep the cold of that revelation away.
“I wasn’t always a dragon.”
Now that snapped her from her tormented thoughts.
“At least not fully,” he continued. “I was born to a family far in the south with the ability to shift into dragon form. But my normal form was human.”
Human. Briannis gaped. She knew of no other dragons, and certainly no humans who could become them.
“Yes. A surprise, I know. As my father’s heir, it was my job to travel and build relations with other kingdoms.”
Heir? He was a—
“A prince, yes,” he answered her thought.
“On one of my journeys I met a young and beautiful witch. She desired me—or rather, my crown. I might have been a young fool, but even I could see that. When I rejected her, saying that I would only bind myself to my fated mate, she placed a curse on me. If I would not wed her, then I would have to wait for my mate…as a dragon.”
“What a selfish bitch.” Briannis hugged her arms about herself. For some reason, the story brought to mind Finola’s face. Another selfish woman who wouldn’t hesitate to damn someone for denying whatever she desired, feeling entitled to the very ground she walked upon.
He laughed, chest rumbling. “Indeed. Unfortunately for me, she was powerful. My one blessing was that I could communicate with my family when they were also in dragon form. I told them of my plight, and they sought out any who might be able to help me find my mate. Eventually, a powerful seer was able to give me direction. My mate did not yet walk this plane, but she would come from the city of Grimshire far to the north.”
“Here?” Briannis sat up straighter. “Then your brides—”
“You’re getting ahead of me, but yes. My brother made the journey with me, for he could still become a human and speak when I could not.
He described my plight to the leader of the city, and an agreement was forged.
I would stay and live in the mountains, protect the city in any way that I could.
In exchange, the young maidens of the city would be presented before me each year so that I could determine if any were my mate. ”
So long he waited. Briannis absently stroked the scales of his leg. “But that’s so different than now.”
“Mmm.” He dipped his head, lying it on the ground. “Time has a way of breaking down truths, wearing them away until they are a twisted shell of what they once were. Some pieces remain, but others…” His tail whacked into a pile of stones, sending them scattering and splashing into the nearby pool.
“The agreement held for a while. I would land outside the city and the women would come before me. But none were the one I sought.” Sorrow laced his tone.
Briannis’s hand stilled on his scales. “How did you know? That they were not your mate?”
“Mates are a rare blessing. Some of my kind search their whole lives to never find one. But my father found my mother—a human woman he met in a small fishing village. He said he felt a pull to her, a force tugging him in her direction. And once he was near her, there was an undeniable urge to join with her.”
“Oh.” A rush of heat flew to her cheeks as she pulled her hand away from him.
“I never felt that pull, that desire. But I protected the city all the same from any enemies who could threaten my future mate.”
“Plagues? Drought?” Briannis asked, leaning forward.
Zain shook his head. “A foolish human wish. No dragon can stop a plague. Perhaps burn a field to purge a fungus, but no. Not as I assume you mean it.”
Her head fell back against his side as she pinched her eyes shut. So the plague that killed her parents wasn’t a punishment. It had nothing to do with the dragon at all, nor could he stop it.
“You have some experience with loss,” he said into her mind.