Page 2 of Dragon Valley
1
NADIYAH
The golden dragonnudged me with her nose, sniffing out the charred rabbit treat she knew I hid from her.
"No, Dusa!” I told her sternly. "Fish for Nadi first. Then you can have the rabbit."
Dusa huffed with annoyance, shooting two small plumes of smoke through her nostrils, and sat on her haunches defiantly much like a dog would. That is, if dogs were winged reptiles the size of large horses that breathed fire and were covered in greenish-gold scales.
I narrowed my eyes at my oversized lizard companion, refusing to back down. Like with caring for any animal, there was a time to be gentle and a time to be stern. Dusa was being especially stubborn today, which meant I couldn't let her get away with anything.
Dragons were highly intelligent and knew how to manipulate their riders if given the chance. Give them an inch and they would take a mile if they were in one of their moods.
“Dusa!” I repeated, raising my voice. "Make Nadi boiled fish or I'll give the rabbit to Ryo."
My golden-scaled girl widened her eyes in disbelief. She huffed again, louder this time and rolled her eyes as she finally turned to the stream.
Sprawled out on the grassy bank next to me, Azel chuckled.
"You're a hard bitch with her," he teased. "Damn Ryo's got me wrapped around his claw."
"And that's why he's spoiled," I shot back with a hand on my hip. "You know they're just like children, they need consistent discipline. You can't give into all their whims and wants. Otherwise, who's riding who?"
"You know what youshouldbe riding?" Azel grinned and placed his hands behind his head, stretching out his long, lithe torso and making his round biceps jump.
Damn him. I just rolled my eyes and turned back to my dragon, trying to ignore the heat spreading through my cheeks.
Azel and I grew up together. He was two years older than me and rubbed it so hard in my eight-year-old face when he began his Rider training. That two-year wait felt like two centuries. Nothing else meant more to me than waking up on my tenth birthday and receiving my dragon egg.
Becoming a true Rider was all I ever wanted out of life. Since first learning to read, I devoured the ancient Rider texts every minute I could. I watched the massive dragons soar across the sky with envy, wishing I could see our beautiful valley and the rest of the world with that incredible view.
In recent generations, more dragons began rejecting their Riders. Some treated their dragons too harshly, resulting in being roasted alive by the hatchlings' mothers. Others were not firm enough with the stubborn beasts and the dragons refused to let their rider mount them.
So when my time finally came, I wanted to do it the right way. The Old way, with a balance of nurturing love and firm discipline. Since the time she hatched, Dusa made me so frustrated with her stubbornness. I felt tempted to give up hundreds of times. Over the years we went through periods of impossible highs and devastating lows. Such were the ways of the Dragon Riders.
But over time we grew to understand each other, and in doing so, I learned more about myself. She did things to purposely set me off, which taught me to control my emotions. I learned what she enjoyed and what she hated, and used those things for her rewards and discipline while training her.
Now a decade later, we were bonded as closely as two animals of vastly different species could be. In our souls, Dusa and I were sisters. On the surface, we were best friends. We felt each other’s emotions as though we were born in the same womb and grew up together. The bond between a dragon and her Rider was sacred, a blessing from the Dragon God.
And just like siblings, we drove each other crazy sometimes. Dusa thought I had a stick way too far up my ass most of the time. But I had to be that way, or else she’d be completely out of control. I felt she enjoyed pushing my buttons a little too much. If you asked her, she wouldn’t deny it.
It was said that a dragon often balanced its Rider with having a completely opposite personality. Completely true in our case. Other times, dragon and Rider seemed to have the same personality inhabiting two bodies. Azel and Ryo were a prime example of this.
My childhood friend laid out on the grass, every inch of his tanned torso being kissed by warm sunlight. His dragon laid on his back several feet away in a similar pose. With his teeth bared and his claws up in the air, Ryo looked more like a dog rolling on its back.
I ignored Azel’s proposition and watched Dusa cook the fish in the stream with her breath, but his words didn’t stop my face from heating. Nor did it stop me from from thinking about how low his leather trousers rested on his hips as he laid back, showing off that deep V-shape and the trail of hair leading further down below.
The skinny boy I used to wrestle and run around with in the valley was now a man. He stood towering over me with well-defined muscles from years of dragon riding. My body reacted differently to him now than back then. Out of nowhere, he grew a charming smile and a confident swagger that had all the girls in our clan giggling. And I wasn’t sure how to feel about any of that.
I knew him almost as well as I knew Dusa, but this grown-up Azel almost felt like a stranger. He would be choosing wives soon, which only made me feel weirder about the tension and flirting.
Dusa sat back on the bank and looked at me with an expression that said, “Are you satisfied now?”
I stood and looked into the stream, the water still boiling gently from her breath. Piles of dead fish floated to surface, quickly killed but still raw enough to infuse with spices and herbs at tonight’s feast.
“Good girl,” I said with a rub to her neck and handed her the charred rabbit.
She snatched it from me greedily and huffed at my eyeroll.
