Page 17 of Dragon Lord
“I’ll stay and clean the cave while you’re gone,” she offered as her courage evaporated.Maybe he would never return.
His bottomless eyes grew amused.He licked his chops.“I think not.”
She pressed her lips together.’Twould be unwise to curse him out.She was smart enough to understand her choices.Go along and be eaten later, or be eaten for breakfast before the trip.
“I will not go without a blade,” she repeated.She had to stand her ground on that at least.
“I’m the only protection you will need.”
“And if you leave me at a campsite and go off hunting?What if I’m set upon by bandits?”
He narrowed his eyes at her.Then he grunted.“Fetch a small sword, if you must have it.Not a broadsword, mind you.Find something you can easily lift.”
She ran to pull on her britches and boots first.She didn’t like the way the beast eyed her legs.Fully clothed again, she hurried toward the spot where she had dropped her brother’s sword during her initial fight with the dragon.Shecouldwield a broadsword, but she preferred a familiar blade.
A few moments passed before she found the weapon.As she had no scabbard, she stuck the sword into her belt, the pommel holding it in place.
Weapon or no, she hesitated.The prospect of flying made her heart pound.She’d never been higher off the ground than the roof of her hut that sometimes needed the thatching patched.
“Where are we going?”she asked.
“To the faerie circle at Fern Lake, past the Black Hills.”He stalked closer.
Before she could back away and reestablish the distance between them, his barbed tail snaked out and wrapped around her waist.The next Einin knew, she was flying through the air, and then she was sitting on the beast’s shoulders.
“Ay!”She wrapped her arms and legs around his muscled neck as he lumbered out of the cave, his body swaying.“Wait!”
He did not.Instead, he unfolded his enormous blue-black wings, and Einin could do naught but gape, her breath caught.He wasn’t a handsome creature in dragon form, but even she had to admit that the wings were majestic.
He flapped them once, twice, then dipped into a crouch.His enormous muscles flexed and bunched between Einin’s thighs.“Hang on, sweeting.”
“I am not certain if I’m ready to travel the wide world!”All those years she’d dreamed about a journey, she’d envisioned herself walking, or at most, in a horse cart.Noton the back of a fearsome dragon.Notin the sky, at risk of plunging to the ground at any moment.
The dragon launched into the air, and she dropped forward to lie flat against his neck, gripping him for all she was worth.“No!No!N—”
“Nothing to it.”The great beast laughed.
Draknart soared,the small weight on his back unfamiliar yet not unpleasant.Einin’s slender arms hugged his neck, her curves pressed to him.Predictably, the man inside the dragon demanded to come out to play.Draknart grinned.Mayhap they could play some more tonight, as they had the night before—as long as he didn’t go too far.He flew faster and faster at the thought, as if he could somehow reach midnight sooner.
A series of loud gasps coming from her slowed him.
Was she crying?Had the fear broken her at last?Or—
She squeezed her thighs as if she were riding a horse and urging it to greater speed.Then the noise came again—sounding suspiciously like laughter.
Draknart looked back to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.He had little experience with joy as a human emotion.He couldn’t remember a single human laughing in his company ever.He stared at Einin, the sparkle in her eyes unlike anything he’d ever seen.Her light and her pure sweetness struck him straight in the heart.He couldn’t turn from her.Good thing he was flying high above the tree line, or he would have crashed into a tall oak and broken his damn neck.
Aye, but she’s a find.The gods themselves hadn’t heard music like her peals of laughter.Draknart could have listened to the sound until the end of his days.Belinus was going to be so grateful for her, the god was not only going to lift the goddess’s curse, but probably gift Draknart with treasure.
He watched Einin for another moment before he faced forward, sure of his plan, eager to become once again a proper, true dragon.
He flew through the morning, landing at midday only because she shouted at him that she had to make water.He set her down in a clearing and watched her hurry toward the trees, stretching her stiff limbs.
She looked back at him from the edge of the tree line, a quick glance over her shoulder, with a speculative gleam in her eyes.‘Twas Draknart’s turn to laugh in delight.She meant to run!She’d brought that sword for a reason.Einin of Downwood was nothing if not tenacious, even in the face of formidable odds.
A fine lass, indeed.She made life more interesting for certain.A shame Draknart couldn’t keep her.If he had someone like her, he might not feel compelled to sleep the years away.
Of course, she wouldn’t want to stay with him, not in his dank cave.And she’d go back to her village over his dead dragon carcass.Draknart could never allow her, not to people who’d scarred her silken skin with whips.But in Fae Land… in Belinus’s palace, under the god’s protection, Einin would be safe and happy.
