Chapter 11 #2
Bradley was quick to protest, signing, “So you’ll strike one knight down with a lightning bolt and then quadruple in size and what? Sit on another and squash him into chutney? That’s two spells. And then what?”
“Weren’t you listening? Fiery Curtains of Death.”
Bradley threw up his hands.
“I mean it, Bradley, I’ll find a way to defeat those Heroes. I need this.”
Memory stirred, bringing with it visions of that rainy day in the lilac garden by the lake. Bradley’s heart ached for the little dragon, but his will was just as strong. He shook his head. “You are a luck dragon. You don’t need treasure. You don’t need to fight!”
Tears threatened to spill. “Then order me not to. Aloud.”
The two best friends faced off, the air between them tightening with the threat of irreconcilable ideologies.
“Excuse me.”
The princess’s words were like a soft hand placed upon a fearful dog’s head. Dirk turned towards that gentle voice, and Bradley bristled at the interruption. Again, a royal inserting her upturned nose where it didn’t belong.
It took Millie a moment of internal wrestling to force the damning words from her mouth. “I can tell this is a topic of great strife between you two. I’m not here to cause a rift between friends. As much as I want to be a pirate . . .”
She released a heavy sigh and quickly dabbed at the corner of one eye. To have her dream for a day only for it to be snatched away because her heart was already too soft for the little dragon. If she couldn’t harden it against him, could she even make it as a pirate?
“Master Dirk, perhaps you’d just best return me to Amberly before either of us get too attached to this idea,” she said in a rush.
“You’re not going anywhere,” the baby dragon barked.
Millie almost sagged against the railing in relief. Piss and plagues, that’d been close!
“First, because I want to fight those Heroes, and second, I don’t have another indurus spell to make the trip.”
“I’ll write one this instant,” Bradley volunteered. “You can take this hellion back to her castle—”
“Hellion?” Millie shrilled.
“—no one will discover what you are, and I’ll finally have the peace and quiet needed to remove the curse and pass my Master’s exam.”
“I see.” Dirk held up a single claw. “One moment, please.”
He disappeared into the workroom and, a moment later, emerged with every sheaf of rice paper left in the tower. Bradley gasped and launched himself at the luck dragon.
Dirk swooped higher into the air, crumbled the rice paper to bits, and threw it above his head like confetti. Not a scrap of translucent white wafer hit the balcony floor. The desert breeze snatched every crumb and whisked it away into the dunes far, far away.
“Try writing me a spell now,” the luck dragon sneered.
“I’ll just place an order for rice paper with Miss Penelope.”
“You’ll have to force it down my throat.”
“Gladly.”
“I’ll bite your fingers!”
“You’ll gag on my blood, you little pescatarian, and then I’ll shove that wafer right into your stomach!”
“So? You can’t make me fly back to Amberly. You can’t tell me to go!”
“Then I’ll ask Master Excelsior to order you. I’m sure he’d love to know all about your little extortion ring, Dirk the Dangerous.”
The cerulean scales paled to aquamarine. “You . . . you wouldn’t dare.”
“T-t-try me,” Bradley ground out.
The look of betrayal in those golden eyes threatened to fell him, but the love in his heart for the little creature burned hotter. The luck dragon needed to be protected, even against himself.
The baby dragon and the sorcerer apprentice were startled out of their glaring contest by the princess yet again. This time, she slapped Bradley across the cheek and yanked on Dirk’s tail.
“Ouch!”
“Hey!”
“Quiet, both of you.” She jabbed her finger at each of them in turn.
“You, Dirk, have just condemned yourself defenseless against any Heroes by trashing all that rice paper, and you, Mr. Donmarin, have just destroyed your trump card for removing your curse because you’ll no longer have access to Dirk’s luck, since he’ll be using all he has to keep his ownself alive.
And all of your impulsiveness has endangered my chances of legally becoming a pirate. Again!”
Millie sucked in a frustrated breath and pressed her fingers against her temples, massaging away the tension headache that had formed there. “Men. And they call us women irrational creatures.”
“Technically I’m a male,” Dirk said.
“You do not have permission to speak yet!”
The baby dragon gulped and fled behind Bradley’s broad shoulders.
The pirate aspirant dropped her hands and lifted her chin.
“We all three need a truce, at least until the griffin returns with more rice paper. Master Dirk, you’ll promise not to take any unnecessary risks and let the tower and desert heat do most of the work against the Heroes.
Mr. Donmarin, you will enchant him with whatever spells he needs to keep him unharmed and healthy. ”
Bradley snorted. “And just how will I do that?”
“You will take speech lessons from me,” she declared.
“My curse is not a psychosis!”
“And I bet you don’t know that when you talk in your sleep, you have no trouble whatsoever with your pronunciation. You weren’t the only one disturbed last night by an unwanted bedmate.”
Bradley reared back as if Millie had just become a snapping turtle with desires on his nose for a mid-morning snack.
He risked a glance over his shoulder at the baby dragon; Dirk gave an unhelpful yet sympathetic shrug.
The luck dragon’s hearing was fantastic, but even he couldn’t make out murmurings said into a pillow behind a closed door separated by several stone floors in the dead of night.
The sorcerer apprentice glowered down at Millie as if the heat of his gaze would burn a confession out of her. “Lies.”
With her feet braced as far apart as the taffeta skirt would allow, her manicured hands on her hips, and looking every inch the pirate aspirant she claimed to be, Mutineer Millie craned her head to look up at him. “What do you want to lose, Mr. Donmarin? Your pride or Dirk’s life?”
Fire snapped in the sorcerer apprentice’s eyes, a strange wind rising from his feet and flapping the robe about his knees. The princess never blinked, her expression as resolved as ever.
Upon Bradley’s shoulder, the white claws of Dirk’s paws landed as lightly as sparrows. “Anything’s worth at least one chance, isn’t it?”
To keep Dirk alive? Yes.
“And what will you do with the remainder of your day, after you’ve finished driving me crazy with your stimulating instruction, Tula?” Bradley asked the princess.
“Well, I want to become a pirate, don’t I?
Better start acting like one, I suppose.
” She turned to the desert waste with a mischievous smile and watched the heat specters twist above the orange dunes.
“Who wants to rescue an uncouth, foul-mouthed hellcat in trousers with a cutlass? When I’m not hurling insults down at the Heroes, I’ll make sure I’m seen picking my teeth and trimming my toenails, swigging ale and belching, perhaps I’ll even sing off-key and recite bad poetry. ”
The very idea of picking at one’s teeth and trimming one’s nails outside the privacy of a bathroom activated Bradley’s gag reflex. He clenched his jaw, refusing to vomit in disgust in front of this princess.
Dirk shuddered. “Sounds perfectly dreadful.”
“Good,” she said brightly. Then she stuck out her hand for Bradley to shake. “We’ll still need you to cook, by the way.”
With more snarl than sigh, Bradley took her hand and squeezed. He found her own grip surprisingly robust. Not to be left out, Dirk placed a paw over their joined hands. “It’s settled. Now who’d like some brunch?”
“I’ll get the beans started,” the apprentice signed.
“Beans?” Millie snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll have scones with marmalade and soft-boiled eggs like civilized people.”
The muscle in the apprentice’s jaw twitched as he ground his teeth.
“Please?” Dirk asked, his golden eyes adoringly large. “It is a special occasion. Sort of.”
“You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘special.’” But Bradley had a hard time denying the little dragon anything—with the exception of whatever might endanger him, of course. He turned for the workroom. “Come on.”