She narrowed her eyes at the beast. He wanted to go somewhere, this she believed. But traveling companion her bony arse. He wanted to take her along for the easy swiving, then would eat her the first time he couldn’t find anything better. She’d be nothing but road provisions, eaten for lunch like she’d eaten her small store of food on her way to the cave.
Yet would a long journey, out in the open, not provide more opportunities to escape than the closed-in cave? She had returned to the dragon. She had fulfilled her part of their bargain. If the dragon had failed to eat her posthaste, the fault was his. She considered herself free of their agreement.
Free. Her heart leaped.
“The roads are dangerous,” she said, thinking fast. “I will not go without a blade.”
“We will not be going over the roads.”
A moment or two passed before she understood his meaning. She swallowed hard. Flying. Did he mean to carry her in his talons like an eagle carried its prey? She imagined the ground rushing far below her and grew dizzy from the thought.
“I’ll stay and clean the cave while you’re gone,” she offered as her courage evaporated. Maybe he would never return, and she could yet have his cave.
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. Something you can easily lift.”
She pulled her britches and boots back on 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. She could wield 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 instead of walking back to the dragon. There was still the small matter of flying. Her heart suddenly pounded in her chest. 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 fairy circle at Fern Lake, past the Black Hills.” He stalked closer.
Then, before she could back away and reestablish the distance between them, his barbed tail snaked out and wrapped around her waist. The next she knew, she was flying through the air, and then she was sitting on his 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. “Hang on, sweeting.”
His enormous muscles flexed and bunched between her thighs. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she was all that ready to travel the wide world. All those years she’d dreamed about going on a journey, she’d envisioned herself walking, or at most, in a horse cart. Not on the back of a fearsome dragon! Not in the air, at risk of plunging to the ground at any moment.
“No! No! N—” The dragon launched into the air, and she dropped forward to lie against his neck, moaning, her arms wrapped tightly around him.
“Nothing to it.” The great beast laughed.
Einin held on for dear life as the dragon ascended.
Draknart soared, the small weight on his back unfamiliar yet not unpleasant. Einin’s slender arms closed around 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. He slowed only when he heard some strange sounds from her.
Was she crying? Had the fear broken her at last? But instead, her thighs squeezed the base of his thick neck as if she were riding a horse and urging it to greater speed. Then the noise came again—sounding suspiciously like laughter.
He had to turn his head 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 as another peal of tickling sound came from her open mouth, the sparkle in her eyes unlike anything he’d ever seen.
That pure sweetness and lightness struck him straight in the middle of his chest. 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 was a find. The gods themselves hadn’t heard music like her 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 turning forward at long last, 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.
His gaze followed her feminine form as she walked toward the woods, stretching stiff limbs. She looked back at him from the edge of the tree line, just a quick glance over her shoulder, but he caught the speculative gleam in her eyes. She meant to run. She’d brought that sword for a reason. She was nothing if not tenacious, even in the face of formidable odds.
Aye, she was a fine lass. Part of him wished he could keep her. She made life more interesting for certain. If Draknart had someone like her, maybe he wouldn’t feel compelled to sleep years away. But 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. He wouldn’t let her, not to people who’d scarred her silken skin with whips. But in Feyland…in Belinus’s palace, under the god’s protection, Einin would be safe and happy.
She paused at the edge of the woods, her shoulders tense, her right hand hanging near the pommel of her sword as she scanned the forest. Planning which way to run? Draknart wouldn’t have minded chasing her through the woods for a spell, but they had no time to waste.
He sniffed the air, then called after her, “Brown bear sow to the east with two cubs. A wolf pack to the west.”
She stiffened as she looked back at him again. Her slim throat moved as she swallowed, indecision creeping into her eyes. “Close by?”
“Don’t wander far.”
Her body near vibrated with frustration. Then her shoulders slumped. She was not the type to give up, but she was smart enough to bide her time.
She didn’t go far into the forest. She hid herself behind some bushes, steps from the edge of the clearing and did not dally, but hurried back. When her stomach made an odd sound, she pressed a hand against her middle. Several moments passed before Draknart realized that she had not eaten since she had returned to him.
Hunger.
The first time he had this problem with a human. Never before did he have to worry about feeding lunch to his lunch. Except, Einin was now a gift, and as such, she needed to reach Belinus whole. A half-starved gift wouldn’t do at all.
“We’ll eat when we stop for the night,” Draknart told her.
Her hand moved near her sword again.
He shook his head. “I’ll hunt in the woods. I did not bring you along for a bite to eat. I swear.”
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When she relaxed, he reached for her with his tail so he could resettle her on his neck.
“I’d rather do it myself,” she told him, and then she climbed up onto his knee and from there to his shoulders.
Soon they were airborne again. When he spotted a nest full of eggs high up in the trees, he swooped low and fetched them for her, nest and all. The small slurping sounds she made as she drank them filled him with contentment.
He allowed her another brief respite at dusk, then took her to the sky once more, impatient to reach Belinus. The wait had been too long, a century without true hope. Anticipation burned through Draknart as he flew. He was as eager for the lifting of the curse as a young dragon pup for his first deer herd.
He stopped only when midnight neared, at the ruins of an ancient castle, alighting in the window of its only remaining tower. The roof was missing, but the night was clear, no clouds to threaten rain.
“What’s this?” she asked as she slid from his shoulders and surveyed the ruins the moon bathed in silver.
“Castle Blackstone.” Draknart snatched a couple of pigeons from what remained of the rafters, gutted them with a talon, then roasted them with a few puffs of fire.
Einin’s eyes flared with hunger.
“Go ahead,” he said.
She sat and ate one, watching him carefully the whole time. He ate the other one—even if the small bird wasn’t worth the bother—just so the lass wouldn’t worry that he meant to eat her.
After they finished, she walked up to one of the windows while he cleared a spot in the middle of the space. He swept away rocks, chunks of wood, and dead leaves with his leathery wings, then dropped to the stones and stretched.
Einin kept looking out, awe on her half-turned face as if she had never seen anything half as grand as the broken drawbridge over the swampy moat, the collapsed guard towers, and the rock-littered castle yard. Although, with the vast forest surrounding it all, everything bathed in moonlight, Draknart had to admit, the place had a certain charm.
The wistful, wonder-filled expression on Einin’s face made him want to show her the world. He huffed and shook off the thought. He’d show her Feyland. Belinus could show her the rest.
“What happened to the castle?” she whispered without taking her gaze off the scenery before her.
He hesitated for a moment. ’Twas not a pretty tale.
“Some decades ago,” he said at last, “the old lord of the castle took a young bride. He was a rough man, a hard man. He beat his dogs and beat his horses. He beat his servants too. One night, after too much ale, he beat his young wife to death.”
Einin turned to stare at him, folding her arms around herself.
“The bride’s brothers came and took revenge. The siege collapsed the walls and killed most of the men. The rest left.”
Einin shivered.
He opened a wing. “Come and rest.”
She cast him a doubtful glance, but she came away from the wall. She did bed down, but at a far distance from him. He folded his wing again. She watched him and seemed to be waiting for something. Midnight?
“You don’t like being a man,” she said after a little while.
“I hate it with the fire of a thousand dragons.”
“Because to be dragon is to have flight.” Her tone turned wistful.
“To be dragon is to be free.”
Her forehead furrowed, then after a moment, it smoothed out again. “Because if someone tries to take away your freedom, you can eat them?”
’Twas part of it, so Draknart nodded.
The furrows returned, and her arms moved, flexed. She looked at them in the moonlight, then pressed her lips together. “So the stronger you are, the more freedom you have.” She sighed. “’Tis why men have more freedom than women.”
Draknart had to think about her words. “Being strong helps. Yet the birds are free in the trees, and the fish are free in the lake.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then she said, her voice full of melancholy that was unlike her, “At the village markets, I’ve seen birds in cages that could not fly away. I’ve seen fish sold in barrels.”
Draknart watched her. Most often he thought about her kind as reasonless vermin. They lived in villages bound by rules. They bent the knee to their lords and their priests. Could Einin value freedom as much as Draknart did? ’Twas an odd thought to have about a human.
“You wish to be free?”
“More than anything.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “To choose for myself. Always. To choose the path I take.”
A twinge of guilt cut through him. She did not choose to go to Belinus. Yet he was fair certain she would, if given the choice. To be the god’s favored one was an honor. She would be safe in Feyland. She would see neither hunger nor whippings. Aye, when Draknart handed her over, she was going to be grateful to him.
She had her eyes closed. Draknart closed his own. At first, he heard the wind and the wolves, a brook in the distance. Then, after a while, he heard her teeth chatter.
He opened his wing again. “Come on, lass. You survived being given to a dragon as sacrifice. No sense in freezing now.”
He waited. She fixed him with an uncertain look, but then she stood and came over, carefully laid herself under his wing, with her back to him, but making sure her back did not touch his body. She held her breath when he settled his wing over her as he would a blanket.
The clamoring of her heart slowed first, and then her breathing. She was asleep by the time midnight came and Draknart turned to man. He pulled her closer to the heat of his body and kept his arms around her. He was hard against her but did not try to seduce her. Her back pressed to his chest, he breathed in her scent. She smelled faintly of roast pigeon. What dragon could find fault with that? For a while, he just watched her sleeping and enjoyed the sight of her all soft and relaxed. Then he slept.
The next day, they took to the sky once again. He pointed out a proper town—few and far between in the Black Hills. She exclaimed over everything with far too much excitement. A stone bridge. A windmill. A rich merchant on the road in a wagon pulled by a team of six matched gray oxen. Which, were he alone, Draknart would have eaten.
In fact, of all the things in town, without Einin, he would have noted only the oxen. Her enthusiasm made him notice things he would have otherwise missed. She made him see the world anew.
They barely traveled, however, when a thunderstorm forced them to land. They waited out the storm under an old wooden bridge. He found Einin another batch of eggs, and since they were on the ground this time, he baked them in his fire, right in their shells. She offered him half.
He shook his head. They amounted to even less than the pigeon the night before. “Not worth the bother.”
She tried to hide how happy she was with his response, secretly pleased that she did not have to share, and Draknart tried to hide his smile. He liked feeding her.
“Tonight, we’ll dine on fresh-caught fish,” he promised.
She did not complain. She gave thanks for the eggs.
The lashing rain and blinding lightning refused to stop. The bad weather lasted most of the day, but he almost didn’t mind. While they huddled together, Einin entertained him with tales from her village. ’Twas dark by the time the storm passed, and nigh midnight by the time they reached Fern Lake.
Draknart’s landing was controlled, but his wings stirred up the fine sand on the lakeshore nevertheless. Everything was dry here. The storm had missed this side of the lake. Einin coughed as she slid to the ground from his neck, and he remained still so he wouldn’t stir the sand again.
She walked away with a stiff gait, then stopped to stretch her shapely limbs. The dragon now knew the feel of those long legs wrapped around his neck. The man in him demanded to know the feel of them wrapped around his waist.
She was a fine woman. Belinus would grant any request for a gift such as she. Yet the eager anticipation Draknart felt when the idea
had first occurred to him had dissipated since.
The change was upon him before he could think much more about his suddenly dark mood. He was man again and as naked as a newborn babe. He stretched, the change leaving his joints achy as always.
Einin turned from him, quickly enough to nearly trip. She coughed as if she were choking on her own spittle. She hurried toward the water, nearly at a run. Since she was heading straight for the lake, she was clearly not running away, so he let her go.
He rolled his neck, watching the slim outline of her back, that thick red braid reaching to her shapely arse that popped into his mind a lot more often than was comfortable. His body was hard and ready. He’d never before been naked with a maiden and not had her. His body pulsed with the need to have Einin under him as he seduced her. He wanted to be looking into her amber eyes as they widened with pleasure. He craved the tight heat of her body squeezing his…
Shite.
Sweat popped onto his forehead. She is for Belinus. Belinus, the god. The sooner Draknart handed her over, the better.
The moment she finished drinking, he called to her. “Come. This way.”
He headed into the woods. The fairy circle was just a short way down a deer path. As fast as he’d flown, they had missed twilight. As the sun dipped below the horizon to visit another world, so could travelers pass into Feyland. They wouldn’t be able to enter the gate today, but he wanted to see it before he went fishing.
The stones drew Draknart. They drew creatures of the old world: dragons, fairies, trolls, and everything wild. They repelled most everything human and domesticated. The average man could go in search of the stones and get lost in the forest for weeks.
The path wound around a large rock formation that blocked the view of the glen ahead. Then he came to the clearing at last, and an enraged, beastly growl rumbled up his chest as he strode forward.
Nay! Not after all those cursed decades! Not when he was so close to freeing himself from the damned curse.