The Princess' Dragon Lord (3 page)

Her husband? The dragon clan thing, and
calling her a princess, she could overlook as some kind of weirdo
nerdy cosplay thing, even though this guy didn't look the cosplay
type, but her husband? He was a fricken' lunatic.

"Forgive me,"

His hand touched her shoulder. She jerked
away and again flew across the bed in a blind panic. She hadn't
even noticed his approach. Her clothes were all in place save for
her jacket and knit cap, but her feet were bare. Where were her
hiking boots and socks?

He looked ready to cry at her reaction, and
that panicked her all the more. She was rejecting her crazed
stalker, and it could be a matter of seconds before that sadness
turned into rage and he decided to chop her up.

Diana recalled losing her bag and the radio
while being chased. The bag filled with her supplies was an
annoyance to lose, but all were replaceable. The radio that the
park rangers had given her, the only chance she had to call for
help and let people know she was missing, could not so easily be
overlooked.

She ran for the door.

"Wait!" He called.

Yeah right
. She threw aside the heavy
cloth that was the door and kept right on going, pushing her legs
to go faster as she heard his footsteps following behind her.
"Princess! It's dangerous! Come back!"

She didn't stop. No goddamn way, thank you
very much. She ran through the narrow halls made up of more of that
red rock. It was like running through a maze, but there had to be a
way out, everything looked so open above her with no actual ceiling
over the walls. There was, however, more of that red rock, way high
up. There was something beyond this.

"Princess!"

"Get away from me!"

He was catching up to her. She could
practically feel his panting breath on the back of her neck. He was
going to catch her! Then,
yes
! There it was! An opening that
led to a larger, brighter space outside these small walls. She
could see it! She was almost there!

The man behind her screamed.
"
Diana
!"

She just made it to the doorway when a giant,
hard something fell into her path. She couldn't stop. She hadn't
even time to scream before impact. She just ran right into it, the
force of her weight knocking her back so that she fell on her ass.
It was like another stone wall had slid down in the way, stopping
her like she'd activated some sort of trap in an
Indiana
Jones
movie. She looked up at the…scales?

A wall of giant, glittery red scales blocked
her path.

But walls didn't move like this one did. The
scales shifted, revealing a large, golden yellow eye, the size of a
basketball, with a single, sharp black slit acting as the pupil. It
was looking right at her, and she could see her own reflection,
staring in horror back at her in that eye.

She couldn't move. The sight shocked her into
immobility and the only sounds that left her throat were airy
squeaks.

A snake. A giant snake. She hated snakes and
lizards and anything with forked tongues.

Then the creature shifted further and stood
up. Its entire scaled body came into view over the thick stone
walls. A giant reptilian hand with black claws gripped the top of
the stone just beside the doorway, cracking it and causing several
tiny pebbles to burst free.

It was the biggest lizard she'd ever seen in
her life. It had wings.

It was…a dragon.

It spread its wings, massive things that were
the size of the creature itself, and from its narrow mouth a long,
red, forked tongue slipped out and wiggled at her before being
sucked back inside.

She shook on the spot, unable to move with
fear. It just
had
to have that tongue.

Maybe it was like the T-Rex from
Jurassic
Park
. If she didn't move, it wouldn't see her.

Nope. It bent down its huge neck over the
stone walls, and tilted its massive head sideways to better look at
her, kind of like how some birds did when staring at their prey.
Diana saw her reflection in its giant eye once more. It blinked at
her.

She looked behind herself to see Azoth
standing there. His fists were clenched and a snarl marred his
handsome features until he was almost ugly with the anger on his
face.

Azoth's anger wasn't directed at her,
thankfully, but at the dragon. He was going to save her. She was so
glad to see him.

He marched in front of her, keeping his eyes
on the dragon, which backed off as the man stalked forward and
punched it in the snout.

The creature released a pathetic cry at the
strike, but it didn't open its mouth to gobble up the man in one
swallow like any other monster would have.

"Beast! You'll not come any closer!"

The dragon's wings fluttered shut, pressing
closely against its scaled back and stomach in a movement that
reminded Diana of a dog tucking its tail between its legs. It
slipped back over the stone wall and sulked off, away to wherever
it was the creature spent its time in this place. She could feel
the vibrations of its clawed footsteps against the red stone as it
moved farther and farther away.

Even as it walked away, it still glanced over
its massive shoulder. At her.

What was it staring at her like that for? She
wasn't the one who'd punched it in the nose.

Only after it had gone a certain distance did
Azoth turn to look at her. There was sympathy in his eyes. He
lowered himself to his haunches in front of her. It did little to
minimize his sheer size, but at least now she could see his face
without craning her neck up at him. He did not touch her, though
his hands continually moved forward and pulled back, as if he was
struggling with the urge to just grab her and hold on tight. "Are
you well, love? He didn't frighten you, did he? I'll not allow him
to touch you."

Diana lifted her finger—she couldn't seem to
stop it from shaking—to point in the spot where the dragon had once
stood. "That—that was—"

Azoth took her hand and held it close to his
heart. "I swear to you, he will never harm you again." His other
hand went out to her face, his thumb tracing the long scar that ran
diagonally down between her eyes.

She snatched her hand back and scrambled up
and away, suddenly remembering who this man was and what he'd done
to her as the fear of the giant lizard simmered down. "Get away
from me!"

Azoth stayed down as she got up, more of that
sad expression on his face.

"Why did you bring me here? Take me back,
right now."

He stood slowly. "Princess—"

"Stop calling me that!"

If Diana, in any universe, had ever been a
princess, she would've have known it. Princess Diana! Yeah right.
It was too ridiculous. There was only one Princess Diana in the
real world and it certainly wasn't her.

"I call you that because it is your name,
Sweet. You are my wife, princess of the fae and dragons. Why can
you not remember me?"

"I am a grade school art teacher, and you are
a World of Warcraft rapist freak."

He recoiled as though she'd slapped him
and
kicked him in the balls. "I—I am not," then he took on
that angry expression she'd been so fearful of seeing.
Shit!
She shouldn't have said that.

"Diana! I have never forced myself onto any
woman, ever! Do not make such accusations!"

"What do you call what you did to me
then?"

He flew up faster than her eyes could see,
his large hands on her small shoulders, pushing her back against
the stone walls with an angry shove that knocked the wind right out
of her.

His eyes were stone cold on her. "You
appeared her from nowhere, soaking wet, wearing these ridiculous
garments," he said, his nose curling down at what she currently
wore. "You knew me on sight, called me by my name.
You. Know.
Me
."

She shook her head. If she accused him of
lying, or being delusional, would he go off the deep end and snuff
out her life right here and now? She didn't dare speak.

He pushed himself away from her. "I can see
that whatever spell has taken hold of you is strong. I know not
what miracle brought you back from the dead—"

"
Dead?
"

He ignored her. "But I am grateful for it.
Even if you do hurl insults at your husband, whom you claimed to
love so much. Perhaps that is my fault, however."

"No, wait. What was that part about being
dead?" She shrank against the wall, trying to inch away from
him.

He noticed, there was no doubt in her mind
about that, not with the way his eyes scrutinized her as she moved,
but he didn't say anything about it.

"I believe what I am about to say will only
frighten you further, but perhaps you are owed the truth. It may
even help restore your memory. Mayhap that is the cause for such a
lapse. Reincarnated souls rarely recall anything from their
previous lives."

"Will you get to the point!" she yelled.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "On our wedding
night, more than a millennia ago, I lost control and transformed
into the beast you just saw, my dragon half. I am ashamed to admit
that I attacked and killed you that day, along with most everyone
in your family."

Chapter Three

"Can you say that again?"

Azoth clenched his hands into large, boulder
sized fists. "I—very well may be the one responsible for your lack
of memories. I know not everything that happened as I was overcome
by some other force, but the day we wed, we drank from our wine
goblets, sealing the pact we made to each other, and..."

His jaw clenched and he shook his head.

"And what?" Diana demanded, allowing her
voice to become hard. In no way did she believe what he was saying,
but she needed to hear the fantasy that he was making up for them.
It's the only way to determine whether or not he really is
dangerous
, she told herself.

He looked at her, his red-brown eyes soft and
pleading. "I have no memories of what occurred after. I awoke to
discover that I had transformed into my dragon counterpart, and
that I had gone on a rampage that nearly destroyed all of the fae
nobility, including my bride."

He touched the space between her eyes again.
Dazed, she allowed it. “Likely, that is the cause for your
scar.”

She swallowed hard. He kept on saying dragon
half and counterpart. “You're saying you and that...thing out
there,” she didn't want to say the word dragon. “are one in the
same?”

He nodded. “I had never known before that
losing control could be possible. Whenever I transformed, the
dragon was always a part of myself, never separate in mind or
spirit. Then I transformed and he—we—” he didn't finish, but his
eyes went back to her scar.

Everything went kind of hazy on Diana at that
point. She tried to tell him that he was mistaken, that she'd
gotten the scar when she was a little girl and fell off her bike,
but she wasn't sure if she succeeded or not. The floor suddenly
rushed up to meet her and there was nothing she could do to stop
it.

Azoth’s hands took hold of her, slowing her
descent, and he gently shook her shoulders, as though trying to
wake her, but she hadn’t fainted. “Diana! You are not well. I will
return you to bed.”

His words suddenly woke her up. She slapped
his hands away. “No!”

He recoiled. “I will not put my hands on you
if that is your wish, but you must not be up and about. The
shock…it is not good for you.”

She didn’t like his assumption that he knew
what was good for her. She didn't like that her body warmed and
tingled in the most sensitive places she had whenever his hands
were on her. She didn’t like him period. “Just stay away from me.”
She was more than happy to sit on the floor, away from him, and
away from that creature out there.

That was one command he didn’t seem to want
to respect. He knelt in front of her on one knee. He wasn’t close,
but he wasn’t far enough away in Diana’s mind. “Princess, you must
believe that I would never have reason to cause you harm. I…” He
put his fist to his heart. It made a dull pounding sound on his
chest, then he shook his head. “I have no suitable reason for the
actions of my other half. After the attack it had been discovered
that a servant planted a potion in my cup, but that is hardly
excuse enough. I should have fought for you, I know this. Diana,
please
,”

It was the way he said her name, the way his
voice rumbled, that made her look at him. His rust colored eyes
were begging her. He looked like his heart would shatter if she
said the wrong thing, and stupidly, her own heart ached for
him.

She didn't even know him, but she felt sorry
for him, and his pain.

That giant lizard outside these stone walls,
that
dragon
, that wasn’t a robot from a movie set, was real.
That thing was too big to be fake, moved too naturally to be made
out of mechanical pieces, and its eyes were too alive. It had a
soul.

Some of this was real, but, “You had sex with
me. I never asked for that.”

“You did!" Azoth said. "You arrived here,
appeared from nowhere, a gift I never expected to be given. At
first we spoke and held each other. I asked to kiss you and you
said yes. You! Diana, believe me!”

It seemed like he was going to stick with
that story, but Diana remembered none of it.

She shook her head. She felt like a lost
little girl. Everything Azoth said frightened her, and, strangely
enough, what she wanted right now was her mother. She hadn't
thought of her for such a long time, could barely recall her
face...

“I want to go home.”

Azoth’s eyes became sad again. “I will not
say that had I the ability to free you, even should it mean never
seeing you again, I would grant you your freedom. Such would be a
falsehood. I'm too selfish for that. In truth, however, I know no
exit to this place. It has been my prison for the last one thousand
years. My punishment for killing the daughters of Mab and most of
her subjects.”