Nay! Not after all those cursed decades! Not when he was so close to freeing himself from the damned curse.
The great stones of the fairy circle lay toppled over like storm-crushed trees.
No way in.
He stopped within reach and tossed his head back, shouted his rage to the dark sky, waking the birds in the trees. He would murder the men who had done this. He would pick off their limbs one by one. Slowly.
He picked up the nearest stone, then hurled it, and then another and another, their crashing weight shaking the ground. His chest heaved with murderous rage.
He didn’t know how much time passed before he quit and turned to look for Einin. Then he roared again, because she was nowhere to be seen.
If she ran, gods help me…
He scented the air. When he caught her scent nearby, he calmed some. She was just hiding behind a tree.
“Come out. I will not hurt you, lass.”
She did so with caution, stopping as far from him as the clearing allowed, hesitating. Her gaze cut to the stones, then, filled with questions, returned to him. Her voice held undisguised awe as she said, “That’d be the fairy circle, then?”
Draknart wanted to pull trees up by their roots. He restrained himself. “Aye.”
“Who would destroy such a wonder?”
“Men.” He could smell a faint trace of their scent.
“Why?”
“Why do men do anything? They have no more reason than sheep.” He ground his teeth, plotting bloody murder. “I’d wager one of their priests was involved.”
Draknart leaned closer to the stones to catch more of the scent so he could hunt down the villains. His dragon blood demanded a swift dispensation of justice. He would—
Wolves howled in the distance.
Einin took several hurried steps toward him.
Draknart sniffed the stones one last time, the scent faint. The men had been gone for days, perhaps as long as a sennight, and he could not fly until first light.
Einin rubbed her arms against the chill of the night. Her stomach growled. She kept looking in the direction of the wolf howls.
“We’ll return to the lake.” Draknart swore under his breath as he strode back to the path that had brought them to the circle. He went slowly, to make sure she could keep up with him in the darkness.
On the sandy beach, he picked up enough driftwood to last the night, then built a fire. He could cough up a spark or two even in his human form when he tried hard enough. When the goddess had cursed him to be halfling, she also had to bless him, to keep balance. So she’d blessed his human form to retain some of his dragon abilities: keen eyesight, sharp smell and hearing, extraordinary strength, and the odd spark here and there. Not enough. Not nearly. He didn’t want to be a man with a dragon’s senses. He wanted to be dragon.
“You can wash up, if you’d like. I’ll keep track of the wolves,” he told Einin, then he went back to the woods for the rabbit he scented nearby. Just now, he didn’t have the patience to start fishing as a man.
The hunt was short. He was barely away from Einin at all. When he returned, she was knee-deep in the water, her britches rolled up to midthigh. Draknart dropped the rabbit next to the fire and turned his gaze from the strip of Einin’s bare skin that caught the moonlight.
She hurried out of the water, rolling her britches down, avoiding looking at his naked body. She used her sword to skin the rabbit first, then to gut it, then she ran a sharp stick through the small carcass and held it over the fire.
She was quick and efficient. Draknart left her to her task and set her from his mind. ’Twould not do well to dwell on the thought of spending another night with her. He had enough problems. He strode to the lake and walked in, ducked under the water, and held his breath, swimming far and fast, his mind a hornet’s nest of questions.
As the fairy circle has been destroyed, can it also be rebuilt?
The stones, yes, he could put them all back together. But what about the magic of the place? Would Belinus himself be needed for the opening of the portal? Were the circle whole again, would he come?
Draknart swam as he thought. When he surfaced, nearly in the middle of the lake, he still did not have an answer. Nor did he gain it while he swam back. As he walked to shore, he shook the water out of his hair, then returned to Einin.
He dropped next to the fire, opposite her. She immediately offered a hind leg to him on the tip of her sword. He shook his head. He was tired of bite-sized meals.
She kept her gaze on him as she ate a juicy strip of roasted meat. “Do you not eat when you’re a man?”
He ran his tongue over his incisors. “I dislike the dull teeth and lack of claws. Hunting and eating like this isn’t worth the bother.”
She ate half the rabbit and left the other half for morning.
“Thank you for my dinner,” she said, then her gaze hardened, sharpened as she added, “When you turn into dragon at dawn… Do not put me in your mouth while I’m sleeping. Not even just to taste me.”
He grunted.
She would not move her gaze from him. “How would you feel if someone put you in their mouth while you slept?”
For the love of dragonkind… Her words heated his body and had him hardening all over. “I would not mind.”
“I do.” She fixed him with a glare, her hand moving to the pommel of her sword so as to leave no doubt that she would defend herself.
“Aye,” he said with a grunt of displeasure. “I will not taste you again.” He couldn’t resist adding, “I give you my word as a dragon.”
She gave a brief nod, then curled up next to the fire and closed her eyes.
He watched her for a while—soft cheeks, graceful neck, full lips, and lovely hips, those long legs, encased in nothing but britches. The longer he watched her, the hotter the fire felt. The more he wanted her. Since dragons, in general, weren’t known for their self-restraint, he stood and strode into the forest.
He wasn’t tired; he’d woken up from a long slumber mere days ago. He wasn’t hungry for meat; the deer herd he ate after he’d awoken filled him up. He stalked through the forest for a while, hoping he might come across a bear he could wrestle for entertainment, but the bears stayed out of his way, so he returned to the fairy circle, doing his best to keep his mind off the maiden sleeping by the fire. He kept track of the predators in the area by their scent. They’d scented him too, so none neared. Einin was safe.
Draknart stared at the toppled stones for a few moments, then, gritting his teeth, he stomped to the nearest one and heaved until he righted it. Mayhap he was sentimental, but he’d seen those stones erected. The men and women had been coarser and at the same time more refined than the ones in the villages now. They had respected the old gods and followed the old ways. There had been something sacred in their creating of the stone circle, so Draknart had watched them from the shadows and hadn’t eaten a single one.
Even the old gods had come to the circle, their curiosity aroused. The clearing had been a holy glen of theirs to begin with. They were so pleased with the humans’ gift, they made the stone circle into a gate.
Draknart lifted and heaved boulders that had taken ropes and oxen to raise back in the day. He put his shoulder into the work, uncaring of cuts and scrapes. Only when the circle stood once again, the sky lightening with the first rays of the sun, did he return to Einin.
By the time she sleepily blinked her eyes open, he was once again a dragon. The moment she saw him, her hand flew to her sword. But a heartbeat or two later, she relaxed, letting go of the weapon.
She sat and yawned, then stretched. The effect of her body in those damned formfitting britches was the same on Draknart as it had been before. The man inside him stirred and wanted to claim her.
Gods help him. Make the day go fast.
“Do we return home?” Einin asked, her gaze calculating.
“We stay another day,” he told her. They needed to wait until twilight to see if the rest
ored fairy circle would work.
She turned toward the lake, thinking deeply about something, her shirt stretched over perfect breasts perfectly outlined in the muted light of dawn. She raked tiny white pearls of teeth over her full, ruby bottom lip.
“I’ll go look around from above,” Draknart said and launched to the air to fly a few circles.
He spotted a bear—the one that had been too cowardly to challenge him in the night—a large pack of wolves, as well as some smaller game, but no men, not nearby at least. The nearest village was on the other side of the lake.
Draknart did go for a visit. He dipped into a low flyover when he reached the ragtag collection of huts—much screaming and running about—but he did not scent the ones who’d destroyed the fairy circle. He didn’t set as much as a single thatched roof on fire. He was a picture of fairness and self-control, he was. Einin couldn’t find a fault in him this morning.
By the time he returned to her, landing in the middle of their small beach, she’d washed her face, rebraided her hair, and eaten the second half of her rabbit.
“What will we do today?” she asked, with only a hint of wariness.
“How about I take you flying?” Their flights had made her laugh before. He wanted to hear the sound again, although, the feel of her slim thighs clamped around his neck was likely to give him a heart attack.
Too late to back out now. He’d already made the offer.
The wariness disappeared from her eyes, replaced by enthusiasm. “Yes! Please. I mean, thank you. I would like that.”
She hurried to him, and Draknart held still while she climbed his scaled body, no matter the thoughts those small hands all over him put into his mind.
“Ready?”
“Aye!” Then, when he launched into the air, she squealed with delight.
He flew a lazy loop around the lake. They had plenty of time. “How ’bout a swim?”
Einin shouted toward his ear, but the wind whooshed by too loudly for him to hear her as he dove for the water, then under the lapping waves. Her arms and legs tightened around his neck. The muscles of her thighs squeezed him. Pleasure tingled through his body. But then she gripped tighter and tighter, her body communicating a different mood from his.
He bumped back up to the surface and floated. “What is it?”
She gasped for air. Coughed. “I can’t swim.”
“All living things can swim.” Some might not like the water, but they could all paddle along enough to save themselves in a flood.
She coughed some more as if in distress, so he held her safe with one wing as he shifted to his back and stretched out on the water, plopping her back on his belly. At least they could see eye to eye this way.
She lay flat on top of him, all wrung out, holding on for dear life. “I never learned. The creek near the village is too shallow, and even the closest lake is too far away.”
Draknart regarded her with curiosity. Humans could not swim unless taught. Huh. They were weak as a species with many shortcomings. He had high hopes that someday, they’d disappear altogether. A heavy flood might help—the gods willing. They could all drown for all he cared.
He floated slowly around the middle of the lake. After a while, Einin’s death grip eased, and she relaxed against him. Then more time passed, and she turned onto her back, trailing her hand in the water that reflected the wispy clouds above.
“It’s peaceful here,” she told him.
“You like it, then?”
“I’ve never been this far from the village before.”
He heard the smile in her voice. Why it should please him to have pleased her, he couldn’t fathom. Yet a rare contentment came over him. Should the high floods come, he was glad she would be with Belinus. The god would keep her safe. And should Belinus have sent her back to her village by then, Draknart decided he’d swoop in. The waters could wash away all mankind, for all he cared, but not his Einin.
The sun warmed his belly pleasantly, but not as pleasantly as her body. When he could smell her light, sweet sweat, he splashed some cool water on her with a wing. And when she laughed, he did it again, playing like a dragon pup, a long-forgotten feeling. He only stopped when her stomach grumbled again.
“Was the rabbit not enough, sweeting?” He would have thought, as small as she was, a hare would satisfy her.
“’Twas, and I thank you for the meal,” she said, but scanned the water with a wistful expression as if searching for the fish he’d promised.
“You eat every day?” he asked. He was familiar with humans and their ways, but not with every little detail.
A fond look came over her face, as if reliving pleasant memories. “During the good times, even twice a day.”
Dragons ate but once a sennight, could easily go a fortnight, and would survive a full month without a feeding. While they slept the long sleep, they could go without food for years. For certain, as a species, humans were most ill-suited for survival. Draknart didn’t forecast them a bright future.
“Come and gone,” he muttered under his breath. “Mark my word.”
“Mark what?” Einin’s gaze turned to his.
“Never you mind.”
No sense in vexing her just when they were beginning to get along so nicely.
He floated to shore with her and let her off on the sand before turning back into the water. “I’ll see about some fish.”
He swam out and plunged into the deep, came across half a dozen pike, picked a lively one that gave him some sport, and brought it to her. She already had wood gathered for a fire. He dropped the fish, then used a talon to gut it.
“That’s a five-footer,” she said, wide-eyed, heaving to lift it by the tail. “And weighs three stone at least.”
So maybe he was showing off for her a wee bit. He found suddenly that he wanted her to see him as something other than an evil beast. Draknart wanted her to remember him well, after she went to the god.
He lit the fire, and she took care of the roasting, a piece so small, it was hardly worth bothering with. While she ate that, he swallowed the rest of the raw fish.
“I thought you said you didn’t eat every day,” she remarked.
He shrugged. “No sense in letting good food go to waste.”
She’d loosened her braid to dry from their earlier swim, and her hair spread around her shoulders, cascading down her back. Her still-damp shirt now stuck to her skin. The man inside Draknart craved and demanded. He hoped Belinus would come to the circle tonight. Draknart couldn’t trust himself with Einin much longer.
She looked at him over the fire. “Before the curse, could you turn into a man?”
“Aye, at will.” A form close enough to human so humans wouldn’t know the difference. That was how he’d swived the usual virgin sacrifices. Then he’d turned back to a dragon and eaten them.
Einin appeared deep in thought. “Why not stay in the shape of a man and live in one of the villages?”
“If you can be a dragon, always be a dragon,” he told her, a little offended at her suggestion.
“How old are you?” she asked next.
He tried to think back through all the changes of the human world he’d witnessed: the great plague, the wars, the succession of kings. “I’ve been in the hills since before the first villages.”
She stared at him. “But that’s a thousand years, at least!”
Sounded like a lot when she said it like that. “And you?”
“Twenty.”
He’d had stomach aches that had lasted longer. She was such an insubstantial wee lass, ’twas hard to fathom how she managed to fascinate him so thoroughly. Aye, she was small, but her fire and her courage were great. She’d been willing to give her life for her village. A village with people like the cowherd’s wife who’d whipped her bloody. Einin was more of a hero than any of the knights who’d come to challenge Draknart, knights bought by the village, men who fought for gold coin.
She licked her fingers, and for some reason,
Draknart found even that interesting. She seemed equally fascinated with him, for she watched him through narrowed eyes. “Are dragons immortal?”
“We can be killed.” He’d seen plenty of his brethren fall.
“But if you’re not killed.” She tilted her head. “Would you go on forever?”
“I am not certain. Dragons are a querulous sort.” He had to think. “I know this, I have never seen one die of old age.”
“What do they die of?”
“A stronger dragon coming by and killing them for their territory.”
She digested this for a couple of moments.
“How about your family?” she wanted to know next.
“I barely remember them. I flew the nest early.”
She hesitated before she asked her next question. “Have you ever had a mate?”
“Not a mate. But I shared a cave now and then with a she-dragon.” Thinking about her always put him in a bad mood, so he didn’t.
“And children?”
He shook his head. “Dragon pups have always been rare.”
“Where is the she-dragon now?”
“When I was…cursed…” Draknart turned from Einin, flopping down onto his stomach and curling his tail around himself. “She disliked it.”
Gruna had tried to eat him several times in his human form, before he’d finally wised up and left her.
Draknart didn’t like those memories. He liked thinking of the decades that had passed since even less. Truth was he’d been lonely. And humans were growing more and more common and annoying.
The first batch he’d seen in the valley threw stones and sticks at him. He thought they were a strange kind of ape, like the ones he’d seen on his longest flight to the south in his younger years.
After he’d eaten the first tribe of intruders, he had some peace and quiet for a while. Then another batch came. They had sharp stones tied to their long sticks that cut his knees. But out of all the people who’d passed through his hills, the current people of the villages seemed the worse.
They had swords now. But they kept their sharp sticks too. And they could shoot them from some contraption from afar. One impertinent little gnat not long ago had nearly blinded Draknart with something they called an arrow. Draknart had questioned the knight for some time about the strange invention before eating him.