The Princess's Dragon (20 page)

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Those that Cindara did not banish to the Void with their master, she cursed, stripping them of their fire, their heat, and their status as dragons. She consigned them to a barren existence in the coldest places of the universe as punishment for siding against her. Because of this, they held no fondness for other dragons and attacked without provocation when one entered their frozen territory. Though not as strong as ordinary dragons, much less a dragon such as Tolmac, the bitter cold they lived in and controlled served them far better than claws and teeth as an effective defense and offense. While normal levels of heat and cold rarely affected Tolmac and most dragons, he explained that extreme cold forced all of Cindara’s chosen dragons into an involuntary hibernation after only a short time, long enough for a frost dragon to kill them. The cursed frost dragon that Tolmac encountered lived at the very top of the world, in the region of frozen spires referred to by local human nomads as “Aquea’s teeth,” aptly named for the water goddess who sheltered the frost dragons within her frozen womb.

Fascinated as she was by the tales of the frost dragon and the far north, Sondra was even more entranced by what she saw beneath her as she flew over the endless ranges of mountains that separated the valley from the northern lands. For miles and miles those lands appeared constructed entirely of mountains, yet tiny settlements spread out like miniatures on their inaccessible peaks, or tucked in small valleys. The majority of the human dwellings boasted animal-hide tents, and as they flew, they often accompanied herds of the agile and sturdy mountain sheep and goats that roamed the area.

Twice, they flew over stone edifices; one small stone building that Tolmac didn’t recognize and, farther out, perched on the very top of one of the highest mountains and only reachable from the ground by a winding, treacherous trail, stood a large stone building carved out of the very top of the mountain itself.

Tolmac claimed that the nuns of Vivacel made their home here high in the mountains because they practiced the art of resurrection, which Morbidon despised and treated as theft. The nuns so feared his wrath that they chose a location as far from the underworld realm of the god as they could, lest he send his reapers to destroy them and the knowledge they held.

Sondra wished for just a moment she could fly down to the temple and speak with the nuns there. She spotted a few working in a sparse garden; their white robes bright and vivid against the gray stone of the mountaintop. They glanced up at the shadows looming overhead but seemed unsurprised and 118

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unafraid at the passage of the two dragons; one tiny figure even waved before turning back to her work. Sondra commented on their lack of fear and Tolmac explained that the nuns often saw him when he hunted and even hailed him from time to time. There followed a flash of something in his mental voice that spoke of some previous experience, but Sondra missed the chance to ask about it as he quickly banked and headed off in an oblique direction, leaving the nuns and their temple of forbidden knowledge behind.

Sondra struggled to ignore the jealousy she experienced at discovering yet another part of Tolmac’s past that belonged to someone or something other than herself.

After two cycles of gliding flight, they reached the end of the mountain ranges; Sondra tried to calculate how long the journey would take on foot and the distance boggled her mind. She found it little wonder that her people possessed no knowledge of what lay beyond Terroc’s Ring to the north. Their journey brought them to a verdant flatland that stretched before them, covered with grasses and small, tented settlements. Herds of wild herbivores grazed on the plentiful grasses that made them round and fat.

The dragons avoided the human settlements, though the shadow of their passing created havoc with the people below. Sondra witnessed humans in animal skins pouring out of their tents as the dragons flew past. Their effect on the humans failed to approach the reaction of the slow-moving, shaggy-coated herbivores that neither Sondra nor even Sir Pilphragm ever catalogued. The sight of the dragons galvanized the herds and sent them charging recklessly away. Their speed, so much slower than the fleeter-footed mountain sheep the dragons hunted previously proved no match for the winged goliaths and it wasn’t long before both hunters ate their fill and began scouting a place to rest for the evening.

Sondra admitted to Tolmac that those creatures did taste better than anything she’d ever eaten before and he gloated, disgustingly satisfied with the success of this journey. As they selected a location to rest, Tolmac reminded her again that even dragons must consider safety when choosing a place to camp beyond their lair. Sondra knew from personal experience that other dragons posed a very real threat to her continued well-being. Before the wizard enchanted her, she had spent her entire life secure behind castle walls. Since becoming a dragon—supposedly stronger, faster, and more magical—she’d experienced more peril than anything she’d ever encountered as a fragile human.

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She’d seen for herself that dragons shouldn’t live as humans do, clustering together for safety, but she wondered if Tolmac ever considered that sometimes just two dragons could protect each other far more than one alone.

Tolmac taught her many camouflage techniques during her training; shifting her scale pigment to blend into her surroundings proved her favorite by far. Not only did she enjoy the process of changing her appearance as much as she had as a human, but she found that she could will her scales to take on almost any color, and she practiced forming tapestry-style images on her stomach that left Tolmac groaning at her immaturity. Tolmac chose boulders to conceal his presence. Most humans ignored a dragon-shaped rock, but wouldn’t hesitate to hack away at a harmlessly sleeping dragon. Other dragons couldn’t spot a dragon’s telltale aura from an aerial perspective, so they also tended to overlook a large, lumpy boulder.

On this hunt, they flew farther north for a few hours and reached the coastline, where the chill bit deeply even through their scaled armor, and towering boulders marred the rocky shore. Tolmac settled against a particularly substantial boulder and Sondra watched, amazed as always, at the way his black scales shifted and changed to blend with the stony gray of the boulder. She could still see his aura from where she crouched, but for any other observer he would appear as just another enormous rock on the beach. Sondra shivered a little. For the first time since becoming a dragon she registered the cold stealing away her body heat, and she barely hesitated when Tolmac motioned her closer.

She curled against his warmth and with his guidance shifted her own color to match the rocks. Then she settled in to sleep, as he had done.

Sleep beckoned but her thoughts kept her awake. The warmth of the male dragon against her side distracted her in ways she barely understood but knew on a primitive level. She wanted him badly, though she wasn’t entirely certain what that entailed. She knew that people mated and animals mated but didn’t understand the actual process. Even a father tolerant of her boundless curiosity would never allow a virgin princess to study that sort of logical subject. Sondra had culled some information from the gossip of servants and overheard comments by the guards but none of it made any sense to her. She’d only ever been kissed by Derek and those kisses had been very nice, in fact they had made her entire body tingle and crave his touch.

Now that she lay next to Tolmac, her body felt that way again without any provocation from him. Yet he’d never given her any indication that he wanted 120

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her beyond the physical male–female dragon dynamic they’d both experienced from the start. Sondra loved him with her mind but she felt something else as well—she craved him. She felt possessive of him, of his presence and his time. She wanted to claim him as her own, body and spirit. She wanted him to belong to her and her alone and she wanted to keep him with her forever. She’d never felt that way about anyone, not even Derek, whom she once believed herself madly in love with.

Sondra’s thoughts melted into dreams. She wanted to scream in frustrated pleasure, knowing without understanding that something even better waited just beyond her reach. She writhed against him, her scales rasping across his body, igniting wherever they touched. His dark, seductive chuckle rippled through her mind, jolting her with desire, even as he pleased her without ever truly satisfying her. She struggled against the hold of sleep, eager to turn her dreams into reality but she could not escape the shivering pleasure. Suddenly the dream faded just as quickly as it had come upon her, leaving her cold and frustrated with unfulfilled passion. She slipped into a deep slumber and slept through the remainder of the night.

Tolmac fought his own yearning in his dreams, so close to taking advantage of the trusting young dragon beside him that he nearly pushed both of them over the edge. Ever mindful of his greater experience and the responsibility he took upon himself to protect the naïve storm dragon, Tolmac could not give in to his own wishes now. When and if he ever mated with Sondra, it would be at her request. He knew he could influence her with little effort and she would beg him to take her, but he didn’t want her like that. For the first time, Tolmac cared if the female he wanted to mate with really desired him in return—and not just a clutch of eggs.

The next morning, Tolmac announced that they would return to the lair. He had enjoyed their outing nearly as much as she did, amused at seeing everything through the eyes of her inexperience rather than his own jaded point of view. Still, he didn’t like lingering so close to the frozen sea and the island of ice beyond in case the frost dragon still held that territory. Sondra possessed an uncanny knack for finding danger, and the thought of her falling prey to the one creature that had nearly ended his own life sent a chill through him much sharper than the frost’s breath.

Sondra, unaware of his concerns and still nursing unsatisfied desire from

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the previous night’s erotic dream, leapt into flight without comment, and they winged their way back to Thunder Mountain.

Less than a cycle away from the lair, Sondra reached a decision. The time had come for her to tell Tolmac how she felt. She couldn’t hold out any longer, as every night brought her more devastatingly real dreams of passion that never reached fruition. She didn’t know if he would willingly welcome her in his life forever, but now she needed him so badly that she would gladly risk him casting her aside once they mated. She wouldn’t make it easy for him though, since she fully intended to stay with him, regardless of his plans. The thought of leaving him and returning to the human world to live out her mortal life without him caused her stomach to seize and lurch sickly. Now that she understood that magic existed and the myths and fairytales held true, she no longer had her work studying logic as an outlet for her time. She knew she would find life as a princess unbearably boring after all that she’d seen and done, and she would never sleep peacefully another night in the castle when her heart and her body still craved the dragon in the mountain. When they arrived at Thunder Mountain and alighted on the ledge outside his lair, she worked up the courage to confront him with her desire.

“I don’t want to leave you.” She blurted abruptly, afraid that if she hesitated, she would never say it all. He turned from his study of the distant valley below to glance at her.

“Leave? Why would you even think of leaving at this point? I still have much to teach you, little one, especially since you always manage to embroil yourself in peril when left to your own devices. I cannot have that on my conscience!” Tolmac teased before turning away again, his attention returning to Ariva Valley and something he sensed there.

Sondra failed to respond to his teasing, instead she tried to make him understand, fighting past the nervous churning in her stomach and the nearly painful lust clenching her gut.

“I mean I want to stay with you. I don’t want to leave you ever.” She waited, her heart pounding, fearing she would die if he rejected her or did something stupid like pat her head like a child. If he did that she would rip his wings off!

Instead, his head swung toward her and his eyes blazed with a fiery light, brighter than she had ever seen. Flames burst out on his body, a tracery of fire moving beneath his obsidia scales. Suddenly she had his full attention.

“What did you say?” he demanded, his mental voice harsh and strangled.

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He closed in on her. She shivered, but not from fear. The heat pouring off of him was not anger, and even in her inexperience she recognized his pure masculine desire. It sparked an answering need in her own body, literally causing sparks to zip off her wingtips and shoot along her scales.

“I said,” she tilted her head back, her lids lowering over her golden eyes, exposing her long slender neck to him, “I don’t want to leave you ever. I want to stay with you. I want you…”

This last whispered thought barely registered before he grabbed her throat with his powerful jaws and pinned her against the rock face of the mountain, his forked tongue caressing the stretch of neck he gripped firmly but gently in his mouth. His facile tongue teased the tender flesh of her throat ring and Sondra felt the heat of flames brush her scales as his breathing grew labored. She spread her wings, angling her back to him, her body instinctively responding to his own in a nearly undeniable urge to mate.

Sondra’s body shivered and sparked, and her wings quivered as he moved behind her. He opened a mental link between them, nearly swamping her as she experienced his excitement pouring through the link, followed by a vast web of emotions, images, and memories that threatened to ensnare her before he pulled himself back under control. One emotion stood out and surged between them. She felt something deeper than love rushing through the link; something primal, hot, and hungry that dwarfed the gentle, more peaceful emotion so glorified by humans. Tolmac wanted her—wanted to possess her—