Page 2 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons
She’s a little thing, probably not even eighteen, with large oval eyes and full lips. Her hair is long and plaited. It falls down her back and I have a moment of envy. I didn’t think to braid mine, and it’s currently like a lion’s mane around my head from the rain and the general lack of hygiene of the past week on the road.
The blonde shrugs. ‘They take you.’
‘Who’s they?’ another asks.
She rolls her eyes.
‘Where the hell are you guys from, the ass end of nowhere? The dragons.’
At our blank looks, her incredulous eyes sweep over us. ‘We’re Tributes for a dragon faction. Don’t you guys know anything?’
The youngest of us quails. ‘Dragons? They... They’re a myth. Aren’t they?’
The blonde leans her head back against the wall with a sigh. ‘They’re not a myth. I ain’t never seen one, but I’ve heard stories. We’re for them. Well, one of us is.’
‘For what?’ I ask. ‘What do they want us for?’
She seems surprised that I’ve spoken, and her eyes find me again.
‘Food? Sex? Money? No clue. But a girl like us is given to them every ten to twenty years or so. That’s what I heard. My town elders were fucking ecstatic when they found out our town was picked to contribute this time. It means trade agreements and prosperity for blah blah blah.’ She rolls her eyes.
‘And what if we aren’t chosen?’ I ask. ‘What happens to us then?’
The Blonde’s lips thin. ‘I don’t know, but we’ve been traveling north for over a week. We’ve gotta be close to the Barelands. I’m guessing we get sold.’
We all shudder. Tribes of savages. Radiation sickness. Dead land. Slave markets and dangerous towns. Those are the bedtime stories we grew up on. Be good, or you’ll be taken north where bad things happen to little children, and they never return.
After those bombshells, we all fall silent. A little while later, the younger guard comes back in. He has an armful of dresses and a brush which he throws to the floor.
‘Make yourselves look presentable.’ His grin is nasty as he sits back in his chair to watch us. ‘The ones who aren’t picked are coming with us and, good news, we get to have fun with you along the way.’
He throws back his head and guffaws as some of the girls fall on the clothes, trying to choose the best for themselves.
The blonde gives me an apologetic glance before she wades into the fray and grabs a cornflower blue dress. Another girl grabs it as well, and the blonde doesn’t hesitate. She hits the other girl hard in her face.
‘Let go!’
The girl’s scream is shrill. ‘That one was mine!’
The blonde shrugs. ‘It’s mine now. Sorry, sweetheart, but it’s every girl for herself.’
But even as she says it, she glances back at me. I haven’t moved. The truth is, I know I’m nothing special. Men at home wanted me, but only because I said no. People want things when they can’t have them, I’ve noticed.
Anyway, I won’t get chosen, so there’s no point in fighting the other girls for anything. Most of them are prettier than I am.
The blonde pulls a dark green shirt out of the pile and throws it at me with a wink. ‘You’re welcome, Red.’
I hold it up and realize it’s meant to be a dress–a very,veryshort dress. It’s cleaner than my ripped trousers and unraveling knit sweater though, so I take them off, ignoring the guard who’s drooling over us.
I eye his weapons in case he tries to grab me once the dragons are gone, so I know what to aim for. I’ll die for fighting back, probably, but at least I’ll take that sonofabitch with me. And death is better than getting sold in the Barelands.
I throw the ‘dress’ over my head. It’s tight and fits me like a glove, and no matter how much I try to pull it down, it ends just under my ass. My mom let me wear one of her floaty dresses to a barn dance once, but Judge Mearcroft stared at me all night, and, very late, when everyone was wasted, he pulled me into a dark corner. He told me while he was trying to kick my legs apart that he bought the dress for my mom because he had a bet with the sheriff that she’d give it to me to wear and I would be in it the first time he got to fuck me.
I kicked him in the ’nads and ran. Luckily, he was so drunk that night, he didn’t remember a thing about it the next day or I would have probably found myself in the sheriff’s cells.
The blonde is the first one to grab the brush and tell the others that she has hair skill. She pulls it through her own long locks and the other girls form a line. They grumble a little, but Blondie showed her mettle, so she’s in charge now. I don’t make the rules.
She brushes everyone’s hair until it shines as well as it can. When everyone else is done, she looks at me and I shake my head.
