Page 38 of Lady Dragon
Pain. Fear. Confusion. Horror—
Kirek reflexively covered her ears against the silent flood of emotion. “Stop, all right, I can hear you! It’s too much and—”
Unfocused. The dragon truly didn’t know how to speak.Samansadidn’t—a human in a dragon’s scales. At least the Heartstone still seemed to be functional, translating what it could.
Kirek began pacing furiously over the forest floor, trying not to tug at her hair, while the red dragon watched her like a hawk would a mouse. She wanted to rant and yell, but didn’t want to worry Samansa any more than she probably already was.
What under the skies had happened? How was this the slightest bit possible? Dragons didn’t pair-bond to humans, and humans didn’t pair-bondat all. And it wasn’t as if Samansa were brooding, however driven to protect her Kirek felt.
Well, perhaps she wants an heir, if only out of a sense of duty, she thought with a wildness that was as close as she’d ever come to hysteria. Maybe Kirek only needed more practice on the hysteria front, and she would arrive there yet. She had a feeling this situation might just drive her to madness.How well this lesson in learning human behaviors is succeeding!
She felt like screaming.
“All right,” she breathed. “All right, we can figure this out.” Kirek was telling herself as much as she was Samansa. “We obviously did something wrong. Perhaps several somethings.”Like kissing, she didn’t add.
She was seized by the sudden urge to laugh, of all things.
Perhaps she was already mad.
Or perhaps her human emotions were overtaking her. No,no, she could not let that happen under any circumstances. She was already far too human-seeming as it was. She just needed to stay calm…
Her feet planted as if on their own accord, and she turned,shouting at the dragon, “I was supposed tokillyou, not pair-bond with you!”
Those great golden eyes blinked once.
Kirek did laugh then, though it came out more of a sob. “It was on my mother’s order. And then this happened. And now I don’t know what to do! Nothing like this has ever happened before. There’s no one I can ask about this. No one who would understand.”
The red dragon tossed her wide head at the trees—back toward the castle.
“Areyoumad?” Kirek nearly shouted. “Your brother wants you gone so he can take the throne! I suspected, but then he confirmed it to myface. And if I go back there now with adragonwho I say is, in fact, the princess, no one will believe me, your brother will think you dead, they’ll throw me in a dungeon, he’ll move to take the throne, and they’ll probably attackyou.”
The dragon moaned, a pitiful sound deep in her chest that nearly brought tears to Kirek’s eyes.Cursed bond, to connect them like this. Kirek dropped her head at the same time as the dragon, and suddenly they were leaning together—the dragon girl’s forehead touching the dragon’s.
“You should just eat me,” Kirek mumbled, a sound just as pitiful as the dragon’s. “That’s all I deserve.”
She wanted to cry, like she never had before. And that’s when she realized—the dragon had become the girl, and the girl had become the dragon. Samansa was the reallady dragon.
They truly were cursed.
The red dragon—Samansa—nudged her, as if trying to knock her out of her miserable self-pitying state. Or maybe shewas trying to get a better angle from which to bite her. Kirek would welcome it.
Instead, Samansa shifted to wrap her long neck around Kirek, crouching down on her belly, as low to the ground as she could get. As close to embracing Kirek as she could get, sheltering her with her own armored body.
Kirek felt tears stinging her eyes. Which was insufferable.
“Don’t,” she choked. “You’re making me feel worse.”
The dragon only groaned, long and deep enough to rumble her body and kick off heat from the fire within. Heat that felt surprisingly good. Kirek couldn’t help leaning back into it… and then slid down onto the pine-carpeted forest floor to hold her face in her hands.
“We can’t go anywhere,” Kirek murmured at the ground, feeling the dragon’s deep, warm breaths all around her.There’s no going back, she thought despairingly, and then added aloud, “We should just stay here for now, until we can come up with a plan.”
And so there the two of them huddled, until Kirek, at least, fell into an exhausted sleep, her head leaning on her arms, her back pressed up against the red dragon as if it were the only shelter she could find in a storm.
11
SAMANSA
Samansa opened her eyes to a pine-stitched sky, morning light filtering through the needles in golden threads. For a long moment, she had no idea where she was, only that she was stiff and cold.
