Iris's Guardian

by Lisa Daniels

  She almost gave the order. It bubbled up to the tip of her tongue, waiting to unload the man's fate. Everyone knew that you weren't supposed to lip a princess, and she sensed insubordination. Apathy, even. At the same time though, it felt refreshing to be stood up to like that.

  How much normal conversation have I been missing out on?

  Some of the green paint had dripped all the way from the brush onto her hand. “Oh!” Her shame, embarrassment, and the other thing turned to surprise. She ordered the guard to fetch her a cloth, and he did as bid, not saying anything else, but smiling at her with a half smile. A mocking one. And with a look that made her feel as if she were being undressed. Inch by inch, from the top of her lacy gown to the bottom of her black, high heel shoes.

  What's wrong with me? She shook her head to clear away the steam that heated her mind, sped her heartbeat up. She must be starved for affection. Yes. That would be it. Starved due to the polite arm distance she always needed to keep from everyone. Starved because her parents offered her no affection other than duty.

  She pointedly ignored the green-eyed guard for the rest of her monotonous day, though when she thought of him, if was as if her gray day had been painted a little extra color. Certainly better than the atrocious mess she splashed on her canvas.

  She attended the evening feast, where a prince and two princesses from their neighboring kingdom, Yaltine, commented on how they were stepping it up with the border guard.

  “We're getting more raids on the villages from the Dark Clans,” princess Esmer said, when elbowed in the ribs by her older sister, Hallie. Marea liked Esmer – she wore the princess mantle better, with a vibrant fire mane sprouting from her head, instead of the wet yellow straw that stuck out at awkward angles from Marea's.

  I could have a bird's nest in my hair, and no one would notice. Marea ate her food in her normal silence, only speaking when spoken to, observing the royals and nobles from both kingdoms laughing and discussing with one another. Her father, clad in golden robes, entertained the king of Yaltine, who stood several inches taller, with a ferocious red beard jutting out from his chin. So many red heads. First the guard, now this family. Plenty of people with a touch of the Wilderness.

  Esmer spotted Marea, who was slightly hunched over her squid rings, plucking at them. The distinctive aromas of each dish flooded the room, from the salted fish dishes, to the juicy red meat dishes, and roasted vegetables, all creating a musk that blended together perfectly. Marea pressed the fork in her hand hard, so that little lines formed in her skin.

  “I notice you have a lot of security following you nowadays,” Esmer said to Marea, pointing to the ten guards who even stood in the room with them, though they leaned against the wall edges. “Have the dragon attacks been getting worse?”

  Marea shrugged. “They say they spotted one swooping around the castle, trying to reach one of the princesses. My father is a cautious man, and I am of course, an unmarried woman.”

  “Same,” Esmer said, with a trilling laugh. “I just have the one guard, though. I suppose when you're the twelfth child in a very big family, protection isn't quite as important.”

  “Don't say that!” Hallie scolded her sister, a scowl knitted over her brow. “You know perfectly well we're safe in our palace. It's the villages the Dark Clans are scavenging, and we have a big army.”

  “We have in total one mage,” Esmer pointed out. “And an army is useless against a really determined dragon. Marea, how many mages does your kingdom employ?”

  “Uh...” Marea didn't want to talk, though she appreciated Esmer's effort to include her. “We have around eight. Ice and fire mages.”

  “See?” Esmer said, now turning to her sister again. “Eight mages. We have one. Because our father's spending his treasury on the wrong resources.”

  Marea tuned out the conversation as the sisters continued to argue, uncomfortably picking at her blue velvet dress, changed especially for the feast.

  Dragons stealing princesses. Monsters eating people. The Dark Clans probing at the border kingdoms, robbing people and stealing women as well, taking them back into the Wilderness. The untamed land beyond the hundred kingdoms. Lands of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes – and thousands of monsters.

  How humans could even live in the Wilderness, Marea didn't understand. Surely they'd all be eaten. But no, they lived there, and sometimes they came into the kingdoms to civilize themselves.

  Like that guard...

  Marea's eyes trailed along the guards pressed against the wall, but she caught no sign of the emerald eyed man. Nine guards. The tenth was missing.

  She didn't think much of it, and focused on finishing her meal, before retreating to her chamber for the evening.

  Walking up the spiral staircase, the nine guards behind her, filling out the wide stairs, along with one of the handmaidens to lock her into her room.

  Like a prisoner, Marea thought wryly. She listened to the click of the key turning, and examined the slice of moonlight that came in through the window, onto her pink bedsheets. She prodded the braziers in her room one by one, and they flickered into life, enchantments gifted by the fire mages in her father's employment. Smokeless, they provided heat and warmth.

  Wish I could be a mage. Far more useful than being locked in my room at night. She watched the flickering light for a moment, before heaving a sigh, and stepping in front of the huge mirror on her wardrobe, watching herself as she peeled off the evening gown. She unclasped a few buttons on her shoulders, allowing it to flow down into a blue pool on the floor, leaving her undergarments on, white, plain and unassuming. She rubbed her feet as she removed the high heels. Her tendons were sore and red from wearing the new shoes, and already, a blister formed on her fragile skin. She placed on flat soled silken slippers instead, planning to sit by the window and read, whilst observing the kingdom outside beyond the castle.

  She liked doing this, seeing all the crooked buildings and bending streets with their little lights and sometimes quirky designs. She also liked looking into the Wilderness, a huge, forbidding expanse that spoke of ghosts, demons and monsters, where sometimes, if you concentrated hard enough, you saw the dragons flying. In the distance though they looked like little specks, birds and bats, rather than the huge creatures they were up close. Not that she'd ever been near a dragon.

  She did see one once, though, diving towards one of the farmlands, scooping a rather unfortunate cow from the field.

  Marea ran her hands through her straw hair to get rid of the worst tangles, and picked up the current book she was reading, A History of Glenderal. Glenderal. Her kingdom. One she'd likely never inherit, due to the ridiculous glut of princes and princesses swapping themselves around.

  Royal families breed like rabbits.

  She smiled to herself, flipping open the book.

  “Hello, princess.”

  Marea jumped at the deep voice, and let out a shriek when she saw someone standing to the side of her, his face partially concealed in shadows. A big, meaty hand clamped over her mouth mid-shriek, muffling her sounds. His voice. She recognized that voice.

  “You!” The exclamation came out obscured, but he heard what she said.

  He chuckled, and she shrank back, trembling, as he reached over to her window, and unlatched it. “I must say, reaching you was easier than expected. Still, it was a challenge, and I’m all about the challenge, you see...”

  Marea prepared to bite his hand, so she could bawl at the top of her lungs. Curses, he caught her in her undergarments! And how did he get into her room? Was he waiting here the whole time? Was that why she didn't see him at the feast? Her eyes bulged in shock and horror as the man with the emerald eyes stepped onto the window ledge, dragging her with him.

  What?

  Without any ceremony, he hugged her tight and launched himself off the ledge, with her squished against his body – and now she gave voice, screaming, hoping a mage might hear. The cold night air assaulted her lungs, and she felt
him change and widen behind her.

  Her bawling turned into high pitched shrieks of terror when she realized the arms hugging her had transformed into talons.

  A triumphant roar sounded above her. The heavy swish of something, like sails in a strong breeze, beat about her. Wings. Petrified, she managed to tilt her head up enough to see a long, serpentine figure, massive green wings attacking the air, and the mouth of the figure open, before belching flames.

  A dragon.

  Green eyed man was a cursing dragon.

  So much for her father's protection, then. Didn't account for the fact that the sodding things could shapeshift into humans.

  She continued screaming until her throat became hoarse, until the cold wind froze her lips shut and made her body tremble nonstop in her thin, inadequate clothes.

  The dragon flapped towards the Wilderness, taking her far away from home.

  Chapter Two

  Being taken by the green-eyed man who also happened to be a dragon, put a massive black stain on Marea's life. Not to mention that by the time the dragon dropped her off at his lair, she was shaking from the cold, her teeth chattering, her delicate skin purpling from the bitter night wind.

  The location seemed to be on a distant mountain, up a steep slide, where a hollowed-out cavern existed, leading to the dragon's home. He carried her inside with one arm raised in dragon form, making him lurch forward every front step, until they made it to the end, and Marea, shivering and shivering, noticed that for a nefarious dragon, he seemed to have a lot of human furniture in his abode, past the main entrance which was wide enough for him to wade into. He dropped her on the floor, and she stuck herself to the carpet. She watched in horrified fascination as his form contracted from the scaly green monster with rows upon rows of dagger sharp teeth, to the emerald eyed human, who still wore his fake guard uniform. He examined the shaking Marea critically, strong hands placed on his hips, before he bent down to where she lay in a flop on the carpeted floor, and placed a finger under her chin. He lifted her head up, until she stared into his powerful gaze, feeling swallowed up by his presence, along with her fear and weakness. She felt like an icicle, unable to think properly, or resist anything.

  “My first princess,” the dragon murmured, now running a hand over her face. It burned against her skin, hot with cold, sending throbbing pain in her cheek. She whimpered, and the dragon pursed his lips, before hauling her over his shoulder, and pacing through the brazier lit cave, where shadows danced upon the walls, along with casting strange shapes over the landscape paintings of the Wilderness, and a sculpture of a knight. If anything, the dragon's place seemed rather cluttered, living up to his race's reputation as hoarders.

  Marea wondered what fate awaited her if she didn't freeze to death first. They now went up a stairwell, and ended up in a large room.

  A tower. Of course a dragon will have a tower to keep me in. She groaned as he placed her down by a copper tub, with water already in it.

  “Got this beauty from a witch,” the dragon said. “The Tub of Plenty. Always refreshes its water for washing. Always warm. Witches are ingenious creatures, really...”

  The dragon, ignoring the weak protests from Marea, ripped off her undergarments, leaving her as naked as a newborn.

  She'd never shown herself like this to anyone. No man had ever seen her naked, though sometimes she dreamed of being ravished by a devastatingly handsome prince, who might sneak into her room after a feast and carefully peel off her clothes one by one.

  No prince was destined for her, it seemed. Her chest trembled as the dragon allowed his emerald eyes to scour over her form for a moment, before picking her up and dumping her in the tub. The explosion of warmth over her body from the previously biting cold made her sigh. The dragon helped support her head as she gradually warmed up in the miniature sea of bliss from the tub – which never seemed to lose its temperature.

  What a marvellous enchantment, Marea thought absently, though she was sure if she ever came face to face with the witch responsible for this tub, she'd be cannibalized. The women of the wild were savage, and everyone knew witches to be tricky and mischievous.

  With a perchance for hot tub enchantments.

  Whatever delicacies the dragon gave to her now, she knew that it depended on the dragon himself what would happen to her.

  She originally assumed dragons just kept their princesses locked up in towers, waiting for the knights to come so they could defeat them.

  The fact they could transform into humans added a whole new level onto the situation. One where the dragon could use and abuse her to his whim.

  Naked in the tub, she trembled whenever his rough hand slid over her breast, tangled up in her hair, or dipped dangerously low, to her well-trimmed nether regions. She was powerless in this position, and she didn't know whether to be terrified out of her mind, accepting of the situation, or even to find it thrilling. She was far removed from her protection, locked under the mercy of a dragon.

  At one point, with her eyes shut as she warmed up, he leaned forward to whisper into her ear, “By the way... my name's Kazak.”

  Kazak. How... dragony. Marea assumed he already knew her name, and didn't deign to answer. The insubordinate human who lipped her in the garden, turned out to be a fire breathing shape-shifting dragon. Her heart had already gone through far too many surprises in a short space of time. Marea wasn’t sure how many more she could handle.

  She gasped in the tub when he bit down on her ear, and let his hands glide over her chest for a moment, the water sloshing over the edges. Her cheeks flared, and a part of her soul ignited from the contact, sending vibrations through her spine. She was gradually transforming into an electrical storm on the inside as everything became supercharged, fraught with tension so tight it could be cut with a knife.

  Oh no. He could take me and there’s nothing I can do. I’ll be made impure.

  The thought should terrify her. She wasn't supposed to do anything out of hand, to deflower herself to anyone other than the prince who she'd marry. Not that all the princesses stuck adherently to those particular rules. It didn't make her quail as much as she expected, however. A shameful kind of blush crept through her body. Powerless. At another person's mercy.

  “I should have had you executed,” Marea murmured.

  Kazak laughed, as he went to grab some towels, before he hauled her out of the tub. “I think you would have had a bad time, princess, trying to execute me.” A dark grin lifted his lips as he deliberately allowed his fingers to trail over her left and right nipples. To her annoyance, the nipples pebbled under his touch, reacting to the stimulus.

  The dragon's eyes dilated slightly, before he wrapped the towels around her, rubbing her skin gently with the material. Any moment, against her will, he could take her, but instead chose to act in this suggestive, teasing manner. Testing the boundaries. Seeing what stirred beneath her royal surface, buried under layers of protocol, and the rose mask she wore.

  Those eyes devoured her as she was rubbed dry, his hands firm against her skin, generating an almost painful friction that helped wake up her brain, and remind herself that she was alive, and not a frozen ice stick. When she finally clambered into the bedsheets, with new clothes on her that were slightly too big even for her broad shoulders, she began to calm down. His clothes? Speaking of clothes, she wondered how he came across the uniform he wore. The normal way? Or did he kill someone to wear that outfit?

  She didn't want to think about that as her eyes fluttered shut, and she curled up in the heavy sheets of the bed. Far away from home. Too far to be saved.

  What sort of things would she be subject to? She never studied the lessons about what dragons preferred to do with their princesses. She remembered something about towers, because that was the one basic fact everyone knew, and she certainly was in one now. What did dragons even do, anyway? Just collect treasure and ravage villages? Did they have a society? A reason to do these things?

  All the thoughts
whirled in her head like a storm. The warmth of the bed tugged at her, lulling her thoughts into some form of sleep, though she dreaded what the next day would bring.

  She also knew, somewhere in the darkness, as he turned off the enchanted braziers, that he was watching her. Studying his new catch.

  Chapter Three

  It became quickly obvious to Marea that being a dragon's princess, or at least this dragon's princess, was hard work. From the first day, after she'd thoroughly defrosted from her unpleasant night flight, he set her to work. Actual work. He seriously just gave her a broom and a mop and bucket, and told her to clean her tower. Then, after she finished that, to clean the bigger rooms.

  “Princesses don't work!” She exclaimed, and he merely raised an eyebrow.

  “You'll work for me,” he replied. “Or would you prefer I leave you on the side of the mountain?”

  That threat became compounded when he hauled her over his shoulder and proceeded to take her to the entrance, where he warned her any other dragons loitering nearby might enjoy a bite out of her.

  Grumbling, irritated, Marea did as expected, though the humiliation burned deep. Princesses didn't clean. Princesses didn't dust and mop.

  She tackled the floor furiously, and felt massively incompetent doing it, because she didn't know how to work her way around a broom. How to dust, or how to not scream when a huge spider came crawling out of the corners.

  Marea used water from the Tub of Plenty, and soon found additional complications for the mop and bucket, because the mop got dirty fast, and she couldn't wring out the dirt, meaning she kept spreading it along and achieving absolutely nothing.

  Kazak found her frustration vastly amusing. He took a fiendish delight in giving her mundane tasks, just to watch her struggle. Manual labor – the worst thing to inflict upon a princess. Ever.