Iris's Guardian

by Lisa Daniels

  Never mind she once felt envious of the castle maidens, so efficiently doing their tasks. Screw it, she didn't want any more part in this. Her soft hands hardened under the labour. Her limbs throbbed. And all the while, though she got food served to her, and was locked up in the tower every single night, she felt his presence. Even when Kazak went away on business, doing whatever it was that dragons did. Probably cackling to himself for capturing a princess and outsmarting all her guards.

  Once, Kazak had friends visiting, and he proudly showed her off to them, and they nodded appropriately, impressed at how Kazak managed to snatch her from the jaws of her kingdom.

  “I had to make do with a nobleman's daughter,” one of the dragons said mournfully. “She can cook, at least, so I make sure she does dinner for me every day. She puts a lot of nightshade in the meal. Adds quite a wonderful flavor.”

  Uh... Marea imagined the dragon's princess throwing all sorts of poisons in his meals, only to find him eat them all with a wide smile and a smack of his lips.

  That must be slightly demoralizing. She refrained from saying anything, and vaguely followed a conversation about an annual convention something, though mostly, she plotted to escape. The dragons seemed to prefer going around the caverns in human forms, rather than restrict themselves to huge fire breathing lizards that probably wouldn't be able to digest smaller portions of food in satisfaction.

  He kept giving her mundane tasks. She struggled through another day of stupid, pointless, arduous labor, when the dragon clearly didn't care whether the caverns had cobwebs draping every inch of the cave or not. She soon progressed to washing dirty dishes and clothes, as her selection of baggy, oversized items best suited for a male body ran out.

  Every night without fail as well, Kazak watched her as she slumped into her bed, utterly exhausted from the day's activities, sometimes nursing extra callouses on her soft hands. They were getting less soft, nowadays.

  Any other circumstance, she would have admitted him to be a handsome man. With a body fully under his control and presence of mind, reflected in the way he moved with a prowl, like a predator observing his prey, those green eyes fixated on her. Every night, she saw him undressing her in his mind, along with that awful smirk of his, as if he was just waiting for her to comment, so he could act upon his threats.

  One particularly disastrous cleaning session left her with a ruined carpet and with no effective way to dry it, and she threw down everything in a huff, irritated that she needed to keep doing this.

  He didn't say anything about her loss of temper, but when it came to later on that night, instead of watching her, he approached her. Her heart rate leaped up to almost triple the pace, and she actively shivered, which didn't go unnoticed on the dragon. She squeezed her eyes shut as he leaned forward and whispered into her ear, leaving a burning sensation there, “The more I see you, the more tempted I am to fuck you here and there.”

  Oh, Hell's teeth. The words stabbed inside, turning her into a pool of liquid flame, sending crackles of electricity straight to her core. Her reaction again shamed her. How could she be like this to the one who took her from home, and made her work until the bruises showed upon her hands? He didn't show any signs of affection, just amusement, long glances, and the tantalizing brush over of his hands on her.

  “Have you ever pleasured yourself before?” Now his teeth nibbled at her left ear, and she resisted the urge to jerk back, though a small whimper escaped her throat.

  No. She never had. She wouldn't really know where to begin. Royals weren't supposed to ask such degrading questions. Her mother and father never brought up the topic. They implied she needed to wait for the right prince, and then he would take her maidenhead. Like she was giving him a gift, or something, like she was trading something precious and valuable, that apparently a lot of men wanted.

  She thought all intercourse would be was for producing babies, but Kazak seemed determined to push the line with her, to keep her running in a strange state of empty, as if she needed something to fill her up. The empty settled in her stomach, itched at her core, but she felt too scared to touch down there, because in those moments of empty, it felt so sensitive, that surely nothing but pain would follow her touch.

  Or... she'd like it, like those whores in the brothels, who smiled decadently and draped themselves over the men, spreading their legs for anyone who paid them coin.

  Sinful. Undignified. Nothing to do with royal blood.

  Kazak's lips moved to her neck, exhaling hot air which made her body jerk, her spine contract in heat and arousal – arousal? And her toes curl.

  It's like he's casting a spell over me. My limbs feel so weak. I don't... I don't understand why my body is reacting like this.

  His eyes captured her soul in a gleam of green, and his hand traced patterns in her silken skin.

  “How soft,” he whispered, making Marea think that Kazak was hard, like a chunk of rock, carved out of the mountain he lived on. She was fragile in comparison. She flinched under his touch, her chest heaving, unconsciously widening the gap between her legs as she sighed. If she was soft like lambswool, Kazak was hard like sandpaper, where the wrong pressure would rip away the layers on her skin to reveal the extra soft inside, with all her feelings bundled up in silk ribbons and royal protocol.

  For the first time, and her cheeks ignited with the revelation – she wasn't sure if she wanted him to go away, or to stop touching her.

  What kind of princess did that make her, then? Not one to be proud of. A horrible, decadent person. Decadent. The thought sent a forbidden elixir inside her, one that saturated her already charged bones.

  Kazak wore a lazy, dominant smile, a hint of darkness caught in the firelight that flickered around them. The bedsheets rustled as he moved his hand lower, and ran the very tip of his tongue over her jawline and cheeks.

  “Y-you should stop,” she hissed.

  “What for? You're mine, remember? I can do with you as I wish.” Kazak's smile became impish. “So, you've never pleasured yourself. What a demure lady. And you're quite old for an unmarried princess too, aren't you?”

  The stab at her age infuriated her, and filled her with disappointment, mostly at herself. “So, what if I'm older than your average princess?”

  He smiled in response, his hand dipping lower, now across the bare flesh of her stomach, making her shrink away from his touch as it tickled.

  “I imagine keeping yourself away from temptation for so long... must build up quite a potent energy. The kind where you dream and long, but never dare act upon your thoughts...” his voice dropped to a whisper, and Marea held her breath as his hand brushed into her panties. Her body stiffened. Her heart beat at a frenzied place, and her limbs trembled. She forgot how to breathe, as his finger dipped lower, lower, until it brushed apart the delicate substance down there. He lifted the sheets now, exposing her, and she saw his hand now tugging off her panties, leaving her legs open, and her face on fire.

  “I'm going to do you a favor, princess,” Kazak said. “Because I can almost guarantee you've never even looked at what you have down there. Have you?”

  Of course not! I'm not a whore! She attempted to wriggle away, but he clamped her down.

  “Interesting. A dragon, a completely different species from you, knows more about a woman's body parts than an actual woman. You princesses really are made of air and light, aren't you? I'm doing you a favor right now. The things you've been suppressing yourself from... watch.”

  Kazak helped adjust Marea so that she was sat up against the headrest, her legs parted, and he kneeled between them. She caught a distinctive bulge in his pants – he was clearly enjoying the act. Enjoying the control.

  How did a dragon know about a woman, anyway?

  Only with experience. How many princesses had he captured before, or noblewomen? How many taverns had he frequented under the guise of a human, with that mysterious ability to shapeshift? And could all dragons shapeshift?

  That put a
new spin on things. Perhaps their high success rate of capturing princesses came with the shifting. But then, why did no princess mention it when they were rescued?

  “Humans have soft spots along their bodies. Areas that are more sensitive to touch than others. Fetishes, if you will. Some people, for example, love having their feet played with. Others, it's kissing the neck. Others still, it's pain or being stroked on the underside of their arms.” He demonstrated each area as he spoke, the rough fingers of his left hand touching her ticklish foot, her neck, her arms, along with the faint scratch of pain on her shoulders. She traced each movement in her mind and with her eye, often holding her breath, finding every single point of contact pleasurable and scandalous. She also felt disconnected from her body, as if it didn't belong to her, because it didn't respond to any of the voices in her head telling her to get away, to protest, to stop this, somehow. She just lay there, trembling like a mouse as the cat played with her, all the power under his command. It was strange how areas not related to sex could be so arousing.

  “Here,” Kazak murmured, his green eyes flashing as he caught her startled gasp, as his hand dug under her nightshirt and seized her right breast. “Sometimes these are sensitive. And when you are aroused, your nipple pokes out. See?” His fingers circled her nipple, and it stood almost painfully to attention, greedy for his touch. “Some women like to be pinched, but I think a princess like you is rather unused to pain.”

  A princess like me? She didn't know whether to feel insulted or not about that. Her mind was on fire, along with the rest of her body, and she wanted him to hurry up, to reach the part of her that ached for contact, the space between her legs.

  How horrifying, that she wanted to be used. Violated, even. Was this normal? Did anyone else feel like this?

  “You'll be surprised on how few people truly know their bodies,” Kazak whispered. “It's a shame. People act like their bodies are evil, when their bodies are simply designed to react to stimulus. Like here...” his right hand slid between her thighs, brushing over the trimmed hairs there. “You have a lot going on, here. Take this. Your entrance is here. It's where your blood comes out, your children. It becomes wet when you are aroused. Like so...” his finger glided along her impossible wetness down there, and she heard a soft groan from him. For some reason, that noise turned all her senses to hyper alert, making her far more aware of everything he was doing, and the subtle expression changes in his face. His warmth radiated over her, overwhelming her sense of being with the strength of his aura, the way he stole attention just by walking into a room, drawing her focus without fail like a magnet to observe him.

  “You don't have a hymen. Not all women have one fully developed, or they can be torn from activities. So it's not always a good indicator if you're a virgin. But you are... I can see it by the flush in your cheeks, and the way you shiver.”

  I should get him to stop now. Before he...

  She cried out as one finger slipped into her entrance. He pushed in slowly, to give her time to adjust. “You're tight.” He sighed as he said that, before his long finger touched something inside her. “This... is what is rumored to be your sweet spot.” His finger, buried inside her, pushed against the sweet spot. It felt odd, peculiar, but not unpleasant. It didn't feel as pleasurable as she expected, however, and a wave of disappointment hit. He pressed a few more times, and it was nice, strange, but not sweet.

  “Hmm. Not all women are able to come this way,” Kazak said. He allowed his hand to slip out of her. “Do you know that you don't pee from there?”

  Marea snapped out of her sexual haze for a moment, bewildered. “What?”

  Kazak chuckled. “You actually pee here.” His finger now went up her slit, before stopping midway from her entrance.

  Marea now bent to look, though normally, she wouldn't have even dared. Her... organs down there looked so bizarre. She saw where his finger rested, parting the folds down there. “Really?”

  Holy Hell. I'm actually interested.

  “Really. Another thing that humans don't always know. Of course, I've been saving the best thing for last.” Kazak smirked, making sure she watched his finger as he moved it up slightly, until it rested at the top of her nether regions. “You see the little hood here?”

  Hood?

  All Marea saw was an odd fold of flesh. “Yes. I suppose so.”

  “You have something very sensitive underneath here. So sensitive, that we will need your arousal to guide it.”

  He gathered up some of her wetness, pushed apart what he called the folds, revealing a tiny nub of flesh. Marea's heart hammered in excitement. She sensed, somehow, that all the tight coiling in her stomach was connected to this. When he pressed his finger feather-light there, and twitched it, she let out a gasping moan, instantly shuddering from the explosion of pleasure that jolted through her.

  “Oh,” she said. By Hell's Teeth, she'd never felt anything like that before. Was this why women liked...

  Whatever thoughts she tried to process then quickly became drowned out in a moan of mindless bliss, as he began flicking her nub with rhythmic patience. The pleasure became so intense that she tried to wriggle away, to gasp at him to stop, but he didn't. He pinned her quite firmly down, his finger expertly caressing her down there.

  I can't handle this!

  She cried out, jerking and moaning, her head slamming back into the bedrest, her thighs trembling, wound up with pressure. They twitched out of her control, and her body tensed up. She needed to make him stop. She needed...

  Her heart beat so fast now, she thought it would halt in exhaustion, and she screamed when the pressure inside her grew, burning, crackling, until an impossible assault of bliss savaged all her senses, as she climaxed for the first time in her life. Her body jerked and shuddered, and the bliss infected her muscles, dragging her down into ecstasy. Her body continued to sink, even as she saw Kazak undo his pants, revealing an enormous cock that jutted out from between his legs. Before she could protest, or cry out, he began to stroke himself, closing his eyes and groaning, and she watched in fascination as his hand slid up and down, seeing how he stimulated himself, sometimes by reaching to his balls, sometimes by pinching the tip.

  The more she watched, the more she felt aware of her throbbing core, and the ravenous heat there, wanting him inside. Wanting that filling her up, where the empty was.

  Her heart picked up the pace it lost again, and she stared at him with a kind of hunger, quite willing to topple completely into the darkness that princesses were not supposed to experience.

  She had never felt so much desire before, not for a prince. But for a dragon turned human?

  He opened his eyes, pupils fully expanded so that the green became black, and he smiled. Then, he stopped stroking himself, and pulled her back suddenly, before lunging over her, so that her back and head pressed against the sheets, and his body hovered over hers. “I see your greedy eyes. You want more, don't you? You want to be fucked. You want to sin, to feel my heat inside you... who would have thought a princess would crave so badly?”

  Marea whimpered in response, hating herself for how needy she felt, with the lust burning up all fragments of purity and good she harbored inside.

  “Please...” she whispered.

  In response, Kazak adjusted himself so that the tip of his cock rested against her entrance. Then, he pushed himself inside, and once again, Marea melted in pleasure, sighs and moans escaping from her mouth as the dragon had his way with her, pounding into her, stretching her out, stabbing right into the hollowness inside, the part of herself she never dared touch, or help. Much of this moment blurred past her, except for the fact in the way he broke her virginity, and made her realize, for the first time, that she wasn't the good girl everyone expected her to be.

  Perhaps that meant she wasn't really a princess at all. Just one wearing the mask.

  When he came, and withdrew himself from her, there was a tender smile there, just for a moment as he stroked her hair,
before he left her alone, to sleep in a bed that suddenly felt too small, with a newfound heat simmering away inside.

  Even if she did get rescued now – would any man want someone who had been claimed by a dragon?

  She didn't know. But when she slept, her dreams were light, and her soul calm.

  Chapter Four

  Ever since that night, something fundamental had shifted in Marea. She couldn't place a finger on it at first, because she wasn't generally that introspective. She still did chores every day, though this time, she found herself thinking through each one, trying to figure out ways to make her life easier, more efficient. In other words, to get better at doing the basic tasks she was assigned to. It amazed her, really, to discover that even the most basic, essential tasks that all peasants could do, having been raised up in households where they were expected to contribute, it still needed finesse and forethought to do efficiently.

  For example, with the dishes, it made more sense to start with the cleanest items first, like mugs and glasses, and work her way to the cutlery last, so she could preserve more water. With mopping, she needed to start in one corner and replace the water often, and work out how much water covered what.

  It felt rewarding to be able to achieve these simple tasks, when she stepped back to admire her handiwork, the cleaner floors, the fresher smells.

  Slowly, but surely, she became more confident in her own abilities. She no longer felt pampered and aloof, and spent far less of her time whining.

  Sometimes, Kazak came to her in the night to spice things up, to make her heart, mind and soul keep feeling the things she never used to experience.

  Kazak watched her blossoming confidence with a tiny smile upon his lips, though he still locked her in the tower to prevent her escape whenever he left the cave on business. Whatever kind of business dragons got up to.

  Once, one of Kazak's friends visited with his princess in tow, a rather grumpy, dark haired woman called Ness, who did nothing but lament her fate to Marea as they sat together at the servant's table, a short distance from the main feasting table, where the dragons maintained their eminently practical human forms for the smaller portioned feast.