Chapter 11 Irena
IRENA
“Drink!” he demands and presses his big, dirty thumb right into my mouth!
I sputter at first, trying to push his hand away, but he’s too strong for me. I taste a few salty drops of what must be his blood, coating my tongue and going down my throat.
I want to spit and curse—though both activities are considered extremely improper for a well-bred young lady. But I can do neither with his thumb in my mouth. Instead, I swallow reflexively.
As soon as I swallow, Valen pulls away. He takes me by the shoulders and peers down into my face.
“There—feeling stronger?” he demands in a harsh whisper.
“I…I think so.”
Actually, I do feel stronger. I was nearly fainting before, overcome with shame and weakness, because why did his bite feel so good? But now I feel as though someone has given me a strong shot of spirits. Is that what Dragon blood is like?
“Good. Hopefully I gave you enough to bring you back but not enough to form a fucking bond,” he mutters. “Now come on—climb on my back.”
“What?” I look at him, uncomprehending. “Why would I get on your back now?”
“Because you won’t be able to get on my Drake form once I Shift—not in that ridiculous dress,” he growls. “Which means you need to get on me before I change.”
I have to be on him while he’s changing into a dragon? The thought is both horrifying and fascinating.
“I don’t—” I begin.
“Come on,” he says again, impatiently. He kneels before me in the grass. “Get on—like I’m giving you a piggy-back ride.”
I would never dare to ask for a Nobleman of the court to give me such a ride. Besides how improper such a request would be, I’d probably break the poor man’s back. The men of the Court are nearly as frail and slender as the women.
But that’s not an issue with Valen. He only grunts when I clamber clumsily onto his broad back, putting my arms around his thick neck and locking my ankles around his waist.
Once I’m on, he rises easily and, hands under my thighs for support, jogs to the middle of the clearing. I wonder briefly why that’s necessary but before I can ask, he drops to all fours, and I feel his body changing beneath me.
If you’ve never been astride a huge male who is changing into a dragon, well, I cannot recommend it. It’s extremely unsettling.
First, I just feel ridiculous—as though I am riding him like a pony.
But then his body begins to get hotter…I feel his bare skin heat against my thighs.
And then he begins to get bigger—so much bigger that I soon find myself on my knees because his back is too broad for my legs to hang off on either side anymore.
By the light of the full moon, I see that his head and neck are changing too.
His neck is growing longer and his head is growing bigger and elongating until it almost looks like the head of a horse, only more reptilian.
Red scales the size of my palm began to flow over him, covering his skin with armored protection.
And while all this is going on, I am getting farther and farther from the ground as the dragon beneath me gets bigger and bigger. First, he is the size of a horse…then an ox…then he grows larger than a cottage!
By the time he’s finished growing, I am sitting twenty feet above the ground.
I feel like I’m looking out one of the stone battlements at the sides of the castle.
Only this is no hard, cold stone—the creature below me is living and the smooth, crimson scales that have covered him are hot to the touch.
Carefully, I tuck my skirts under me, so my legs won’t be scorched. I appear to be sitting in a kind of hollow at the base of the dragon’s neck, right between his vast wings. There is a tall spinal ridge ahead of me that I can hold onto.
Just as I’m getting settled, he spreads his wings wide, right when the first guards break through the trees to see us.
“Look—there he is!” one of them shouts.
“And there’s the Princess!” another called. “He’s kidnapping her!”
He’s doing nothing of the sort, of course, but maybe it’s better they think that. That way, when I come back from this quest with the cure for my mother, I won’t be to blame for Valen escaping.
The huge red and gold wings begin to beat the air, causing a kind of hurricane down on the ground. The guards cry out and topple over like toy soldiers, their torches blowing out and leaving them in the dark.
I can still hear their voices getting farther and farther away as the huge red dragon lifts off into the air. I grip the spinal ridge in front of me tightly, but truly his back is so broad I doubt I’ll fall off. Still, I’ve never been this high before and it’s frightening.
I look up at the moon, wondering how high we’ll climb and if Valen will really keep his word.
What if he just decides to take me back to his land instead and holds me hostage like he was held by my brother?
Or, even worse, what if he dips to one side or the other and simply shakes me off like a dog shaking off a troublesome flea?
The thought is frightening, and I tighten my grip on the spine. It’s smooth and rounded and I can’t quite fit my fingers all the way around it, which makes me feel nervous and uncertain.
But I can’t stay anxious forever. After some time, we reach what seems to be the dragon’s preferred height and level off. And since the beast that Valen has become has yet to shake me off, I start to relax a little.
It seems almost impossible that just a few hours earlier I was hiding behind the angel statue listening to my brother and the Head Healer discuss my mother’s dire health. And now, here I am—hundreds of feet in the air on a dragon’s back, still wearing my best court gown and dancing slippers.
It occurs to me that maybe I should have waited a day and planned a little better before impulsively stealing the ring and sneaking down to the dungeon to free Valen. I have no food or water and no money at all—not so much as a brass centine.
But I won’t need any of that, I comfort myself.
The dragon will take me directly to the Sorceress’s stronghold and then he’ll fly me right back home again.
As for how I’ll be able to pay her for the Healing Draught, well, I’m sure she’ll be more than willing to work out a deal with the princess of a nearby kingdom.
At least, I hope she will.
At any rate, there’s nothing I can do about any of that now.
I’m stuck up here with nothing but my thoughts to keep me occupied.
Not that flying dragon-back isn’t exciting—it is.
The land is whizzing by under us faster than the fastest horse could gallop and the canopy of stars wheeling overhead is breathtakingly beautiful.
But despite all that, my mind is racing faster than even a dragon can fly. I keep thinking about how Valen nuzzled and licked my neck and then how he rubbed his mouth against my forbidden area before he sank his fangs into my inner thigh.
Remembering fills me with shame—why did I let him do that? But at the time, it didn’t seem like I had a choice. And he claimed it was necessary to make me “hot”, so that my blood would be strong enough to fuel his change from human to dragon. But does that mean he needs to do it every time?
My cheeks get hot just thinking about it. But even worse than the preparation was the actual bite itself. Valen had warned me that it would hurt—indeed, I think he wanted it to hurt. He still hates me and my whole family for what my brother did to him.
For which, I have to admit, I don’t blame him.
If Kellis really did drug him and chain him before he could wake up and fight, well…
let’s just say if that’s true, then I’ll lose a great deal of respect for my older brother.
I can hardly believe he’d act in such an unsportsmanlike manner—our father was always so strict about a man being honorable and forthright. Valen’s story can’t be true—can it?
But why would he lie about such a thing? I have no idea and anyway, my mind keeps going back to the moment his fangs pierced the flesh of my inner thigh.
At first it was painful—but only for about half a second. There was a bright flash of agony but almost immediately it was followed with a pleasure so intense it made me tingle and throb between my thighs.
That’s your forbidden area—you must not touch yourself there! whispers the voice of guilt in my head. It sounds suspiciously like my old nurse.
I obeyed her orders scrupulously when I was younger but once I was old enough to have my own suite of rooms and a chaperone instead of a nurse, I began to experiment. I know it’s wicked, but sometimes at night, when I’m alone and I know that no one can see me, I have done a bit of exploring.
But nothing I’ve done has produced sensations half as strong as the feeling I got when Valen bit me.
I’m still aching between my legs, as though I need something to happen…
though I don’t know what. While he was biting me it was as though I was climbing some kind of hill and I felt desperate to reach the summit…
but before I could, Valen withdrew his fangs.
I can’t help feeling shamed and angry…but also intrigued, against my will. I try to push those feelings away. I remind myself that I swore I would do anything to get the cure for my mother. I’ll just have to deal with these strange feelings when he drinks from me.
What else can I do?
We fly all night for what feels like hours but near dawn the dragon starts climbing again. The air gets colder, and I shiver and pull my cloak closer around myself. Even so, it’s freezing.
He must be flying over the Poison Desert, I think. I huddle close to the broad back below me. The Drake’s heat keeps me from freezing—he must have a furnace inside him. I’m grateful for the warmth which keeps me from becoming a human icicle, but I wonder how long this part of the journey will last.
How big is the Poison Desert anyway? I saw a map once in my father’s study that showed our kingdom’s borders, and I remember a vast area with nothing marked on it but “poison sands.” But I don’t have a very good idea of how map distances relate to real distances, so I have no idea how long this part of the journey will last.
I dare to lift my head and try to look down, but despite the sun beginning to rise, it’s hard to see past the dragon’s vast body. Again, I feel like a flea on the back of a dog. He’s just so big.
Then I see a swirling cloud off to the side—is that sand? If so, we need to avoid it—the grains themselves are said to be acidic and corrosive to the touch.
But though the dragon’s wings beat faster, the cloud is closing in on us. If it catches us, we’ll both be dead! I watch in horror as it whirls with deadly intent, almost as though it was aiming right for the dragon!
I catch a foul scent on the air and quickly cover my mouth and nose with a fold of my cloak. I must not breathe in the poison fumes! But Valen has no such protection—what if he breathes them in his dragon form and dies in midair? We’ll both go plummeting to the ground!
It’s freezing cold sitting up like this, but I can’t look away.
We are now in a desperate race with the cloud.
I hold tight to the dragon spine in front of me with one hand and keep my cloak pressed to my lower face with the other.
The dragon is straining now—his huge wings beating faster and faster and his enormous lungs pumping like bellows, but still the poison sand cloud draws ever closer.
Just as it seems certain to intercept us, the dragon turns his head and breathes an enormous jet of fire directly at it.
I don’t know if his breath is strong enough to divert the storm or if he’s simply trying to burn off the poisonous gases being swept towards us by the swirling winds, but as soon as he finishes jetting flame, he folds his wings and drops like a stone.
I shriek and grip the spine with both hands. In desperation, I wrap my legs around it too. By the grace of the One True Goddess, I somehow manage not to fly off his broad back but it’s a near thing—I can feel the wind fighting to tear me away from the huge beast.
My mind is racing, and my heart is pounding. I’ve never been so frightened in my life! Is the dragon trying to kill us both? What is he doing? Where is he going? Are we going to die?
At the last possible moment just as the ground is looming up below us, his wings pop out again like sails and we transition from a dive to a glide. And then I feel a jolt that nearly knocks me off again…and realize that we’ve landed.