The Princess's Dragon (36 page)

Out of the corner of her eye, Sondra saw the guards leering at her, licking their lips. One reached down and adjusted his crotch and the obvious bulge visible there.

Sondra nearly gave in, nearly told Onian the truth that she couldn’t do what he wanted her to, even if she wanted to. At this point she was grateful she couldn’t or she might have agreed to kill her own people, so deep was her terror and revulsion at the new torment he promised. She wanted to be brave and strong no matter what happened, but she didn’t think she could endure it any longer. Not this, anything but this.

A knock at the door interrupted them. Onian pulled her away from the wall and thrust her at the guards who grabbed her roughly. He straightened his uniform and pushed back the hair that fell forward over his brow. It sickened Sondra to see that he still appeared so attractive and reasonable and trustworthy after all she knew about him. This man terrified her the way he managed to conceal so much evil beneath such a cool and elegant façade. He nodded to the guard to answer the door and another guard on the other side stood waiting.

“The wizards are ready in the basement, Your Highness,” he said.

“Excellent.” Onian dismissed the guard. He turned to the princess. “I have no more time to play games with you, Princess. If you will not serve me willingly, then I will make you my slave. When the wizards are finished, you will obey my every command whether you wish to or not.”

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Sondra dropped her eyes, wondering how long it would take for the wizards to discover that she wasn’t really a shapeshifter.

Onian brushed at one lapel of his uniform coat then looked up at her, his eyes roving over her face. “Perhaps, when you become more agreeable, we shall take up where we left off.” He shook his head at her. “Such a pity, Casiondra; we could have enjoyed a very pleasant relationship.” Then he turned away and left the room.

The guards dragged her between them out of the room and down the hallway, heading for stone steps leading below.

They pulled her to the far end of a cluttered basement. Two wizard adepts from the Academy of Magic waited near one stone wall adorned only with a set of manacles and a circle of runes and candles on the floor. The guards dragged her to the manacles and locked her in. She sagged, resting all of her weight on her good leg, the pain in her ribs nearly bringing unconsciousness.

The wizards glanced up from their runes and Sondra expected them to notice she wasn’t a dragon right away, but they simply looked her over, nodded, and then turned to Onian, who stood to the side, out of their way but watching intently.

“It will take several hours to breach her protective shield. We will need to force the change first. Once in draconic form we can begin the measures to bind her with the collar. She doesn’t appear to have strong shields; finding her true name and weaving it into the binding spell shouldn’t prove too difficult.” The first wizard turned back to his preparations, and Sondra noticed a large metal collar lying on the stone floor besides the wizard.

“What of the manacles once she shifts, will they hold her?” Onian asked.

“No, she will break through them, but the wards of the rune circle should hold her better than any physical chains.”

“Should?” Onian asked, unwilling to see his new pet escape.

“There is always an element of chaotic randomness to magic. We cannot entirely guarantee whether we will be successful. But, since we are still alive, we have been very successful thus far,” the second wizard reassured him. “This should be a fairly routine procedure. We have performed similar bindings on dragons captured in Fomoral.”

“And if she does escape?”

“Then we all die, of course. I can’t imagine she will appreciate what we are doing.”

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“Really? Will this be painful for her?” Onian asked, his expression filled with a perverse anticipation.

“Undoubtedly, since we are forcing the transformation against her will.” Onian looked over at Sondra where she listened to the conversation, spoken in her own language for her benefit, she didn’t doubt. He smiled grimly.

“This should be entertaining.”

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CHAPTER 22

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Tolmac traveled a long way in search of a fi ght, a challenge, anything to rid his mind of the images that kept replaying over and over—the image of his soul mate embracing another, a human. Th e

image of his soul mate as a human, lost to him forever.

He couldn’t answer the question Why? It didn’t make sense. Humans were notoriously illogical and irrational, but he had never heard of one doing as his Sondra had done: becoming a dragon, mating with him, and then leaving him for another human. Of course, she wasn’t his Sondra anymore. She belonged to another, and from the evidence of that damning embrace, she had perhaps always belonged to another.

So what had he been to her then—a game, a curiosity, an experiment?

His stomach boiled with flames of rage, but just as he held himself back from frying both her and her human lover, he swallowed back the flame, welcoming the pain of it as it took his mind off the agony in his spirit, the gaping wound where her soul had once entwined with his own.

He shouldn’t care; he was a powerful dragon, he carved out territories on many worlds through sheer strength and cunning, he had never wanted for willing females. But he had always been alone, except for the brief time he’d spent with Sondra. In all his life, he’d never felt so complete, so comfortable with the presence of another, so … happy. Suddenly, the thought of countless more years living alone didn’t hold any appeal.

He briefly considered migration, but found he couldn’t summon the energy or drive to open a portal and leave this world, only to carve out another territory on another world. Besides, Sondra was here, and he didn’t think 217

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he could leave it as long as he knew she still lived here, even if she lived with another, a human like herself. He briefly contemplated mating with one of the many willing female dragons now that the Circle was destroyed by Sondra—

whose name seemed to find its way into his every waking thought. The idea of spending himself in any other female after he’d given himself completely to his little storm dragon held no appeal. Instead, he gave in to his first desire—the desire for battle.

He wanted a real challenge, and so he sought out the frost dragon he battled once before at Aquea’s Teeth, far to the north of the lands he once called home. He didn’t care if he lived or died; he just craved a battle with an equal competitor. The frost dragon had very nearly killed him, and meeting the cursed creature on its own territory meant courting death again. The cold slowed his normal reflexes and weakened him; if his body temperature dropped too low, he would sink into a forced hibernation. He was willing to take the risk, willing to die just to fight a battle worthy of his greatness rather than crush two tiny fragile humans who didn’t stand a chance against him.

He could almost picture himself hurting Sondra’s tiny human form, so fragile and soft; but he still remembered the look of her dragon aura surrounding that mortal shell. Inside, she was a dragon; he wondered if she realized that, if she felt lost in her human form when her spirit so obviously preferred her beautiful dragon form. Then he asked himself why he even cared. He knew that even when he drew that breath on Sondra and her lover he would never release it. He could never hurt her, no matter how badly she’d hurt him. He loved her; he had committed the ultimate sin for his kind and fallen in love.

Worse, he had fallen in love with a mortal human.

Tolmac could blame her for the rest of his incredibly long existence for tricking him, but he knew the truth. He had suspected something like this from the beginning. Sondra made so many mistakes, came so close to slipping up so many times. The only reason he didn’t consciously admit the truth was the sheer inexplicability of her actions. Why would a human do something as strange as change into a dragon, and then spend her time in the company of a real dragon? It just hadn’t made sense to him.

Besides, he liked her; he enjoyed her company, and he didn’t want to admit that she was a human because then he would feel obligated to send her away.

Humans didn’t belong with dragons; nothing good came of it. But the more

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time she spent with him, the stronger he denied the truth. The more he cared about her, the more selfish he became.

Apparently, the fall of the mighty Solendar, first dragon, was not enough of a warning for him; he had to go and do the same foolish thing that had cursed the Dragon God himself.

He was furious when he reached Aquea’s Teeth, but not at Sondra or her lover; he was furious with himself for ever allowing himself to fall prey to the lure of her companionship. No wonder she didn’t know how to behave like a dragon. What a fool he’d been not to invade her consciousness from the first meeting and ascertain her true reason for trespassing in his territory. He had respected her privacy and it cost him dearly.

His fury escalated when he finished exploring the entire island of ice that housed the jagged crystalline spires. The frost dragon was nowhere to be found, its lair emptied of all signs of life and treasure. Only ragged fish, whale, and penguin bones littered the frozen floor.

Tolmac collapsed on the ice, frustrated, his wrath burning out like the fire in his gut. He laid his head on the ice, his long neck curling and his wings closing over him. Giving in to the lethargy stealing over him, he watched without interest as images formed in the smooth face of the ice.

Aquea stepped from the wall of frozen water. This time she stepped out on human legs, her entire form that of a stunning nude woman with luminous pale skin and the sparkle of ice concealing her nipples and groin. Spires of ice, tiny replicas of the massive spires outside the lair, set atop her flowing blue hair. She approached the dragon, her human body swaying.

“Poor Tolmac,” she purred, kneeling beside the dragon’s head and placing her smooth hands on his cheek, just beneath one eye whose red glow slowly faded. “She is not worthy of you, my darling.” She caressed his scaled hide, his body heat rapidly fading. “I have always desired you; I have always wanted you for my own. Now that she is gone, you come to me, you come to rest in my realm, and all is as it should be. Stay here with me; let me erase her from your memory.”

She breathed ice crystals against his cheek before touching her lips to his scales. Ice flowed out from her kiss, forming a crust over his head and spreading down his body. “I will take any form you want, even this human form if that is your desire, darling fire god. Now that you are mine, you will never leave me.” The chill of the ice shield crept over him, lowering his blood temperature, 220

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forcing him into hibernation. Tolmac didn’t fight it; the cold oblivion promised peace and release from the memories that haunted him. Aquea’s frozen touch soothed him and numbed the pain in his soul. The loneliness of the island suited him, and the bleak wind that howled outside the lair played a counterpoint to his internal despair. His eyes drifted shut, their red glow fading like the dying coals of a fire and he slept; he hibernated; he dreamed.

Aquea whispered, “Sleep, my dragon, dream of me. When you awaken, you will become my consort forever.” She spared one last glance at Tolmac before melding back into the ice and disappearing from the cavern.

Tolmac dreamed of the time he first arrived on this world over one thousand rotas past. He came through the portal and found a reasonably safe place to rest, as was his need after such a draining journey. When he awoke from his rest, several rotas later, he explored the new world and found it pleasant and relatively unpopulated by other dragons, the only species he really concerned himself with.

He avoided the more crowded human dwellings, interested to note that humans somehow managed to populate every world he’d ever lived on and yet they couldn’t form portals to travel. That was the only thing he really noted about humans. He’d met a few humans in past worlds but only during rare encounters. Though he spoke with them from time to time, he discouraged their company. This was why he chose the volcano dominating the center of a mountainous ring protecting a valley inhabited solely by small tribes of people who lived simply and stayed well away from the mountains. He lived there for over one hundred rotas with no problems, though every time he returned from a hunt, he had to rebuild his lair because the volcano would erupt in his absence. He supposed it flooded the valley below in molten rock but didn’t really concern himself with such things.

After a few of these times, when the volcano erupted into the valley below, Tolmac would return to find young terrified human children chained to the rock beneath his lair. The practice absolutely baffled him. He would approach the children and they would inevitably collapse in fear before he could ask them their purpose in being there. He assumed that perhaps this was a way humans put their young through trials of adulthood, but he could not see the logic in it.

He would snap the chains they couldn’t seem to free themselves from despite their apparent struggles, and leave them be, taking his latest kill with him to

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roast and eat within his lair. They tended to hang around, making a nuisance of themselves, and so he took care of the problem the only way he knew how.

The last time he found a human chained to his lair he was growing tired of the whole mess and contemplated sending a message to the people in the valley, perhaps by torching their fields or some outbuildings. That always seemed to scare people off in the past—at least, he pondered, until some metal-wrapped human would come charging after him waving a stick around. He didn’t want that sort of problem, either; metal humans were a real hassle to dispose of. Their horses were tasty, though not as good as the mountain goats that proliferated this region.