But I was too ravenous to care. With a nod of thanks, I turned and ran away, clutching my treasure tight to my chest.
Chapter 2
Ragoth
I came each night for two weeks straight, and she never came. I began to fear that Zelena had been little more than a mirage.
I’d grown so grumpy with my tutors about it that I’d snapped and eaten one of them when he’d slapped a ruler down on my hand for fidgeting. Mother had made me give penance for it.
She’d forbidden my use of wings for a month. If I pulled them from my back plate, she’d know it and strip me of my title.
I would die if I were no longer a prince. To be denied my skies was already punishment enough, but to believe that I should never see my Lena again made me want to raze a town.
Muttering beneath my breath, I paced the darkness of the foggy forest, hissing at a cat-shaped face that materialized before me.
“Who are you, boy?” the cat asked, the smoky vapors of its body merely hinting at a stomach and tail.
“Show yourself, devil feline.” I licked my lips; I’d not eaten my snack tonight. He would do.
Its laughter echoed drunkenly through the woods. “Child, do you think me fool?”
I glowered when it suddenly appeared just beside me, silvery eyes gleaming like molten metal.
“What do you want, cat?” I flicked at the wisps of fog, frowning at its insubstantial nature. How was I to eat something made of nothing but smoke?
“You roam my woods, tromping about like a cattywompis dilly willow, and I wish to know why.”
I hardly understood what the cat had just said, but I reckoned I’d figured out the gist of it.
I’d been here already over thirty minutes. The past few nights I’d stayed an hour, but I began to grow impatient that Zelena meant never to return to me and that all this waiting I’d done had been in vain. “I await my friend.”
“Ah, yes, the beautiful Zelena. Do you know there is prophecy about her?”
He floated along the base of the tree line like a strutting peacock in heat, rather proud of himself, though I wasn’t sure why.
I frowned. “What prophecy?”
A cheshire grin cut across the mirage’s face like a sickle. “Why not let the girl tell you?”
“What?” I snapped to attention when he vanished. “Cat! Cat!” I roared, ready to shift to my dragon form and burn the woods down if I must to get him to come back to me.
I was just about to do it too, when not a half second later I caught wind of her delectable scent. Days of not seeing her all coalesced into a powerful surge of giddy desire, and I forgot all about my plans to incinerate the woods. I ran from out of my spot, more excited to see her than I’d been to see anything else in all of my life.
“Lena!” I snapped, suddenly angry with her for making me wait so long. I was a prince; I waited for no one. How dare she make me...I frowned when I finally spied her walking up the trail.
Her steps were slow and almost painful to watch. Each one she took caused her to wince and moan so low that only someone like me with excellent hearing could have heard the pain-filled groan that seemed to pull from between her clenched teeth.
She looked far more haggard than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was no longer so golden and full; it now hung in limp snarls around her bony shoulders. Her sackcloth gown had grown another hole or two, one so large at her chest that it appeared as though someone had made a feeble attempt at patching it up, but the seams were popped at the corners and one pitiful tug would be enough to yank it free.
Fury twisted my stomach into knots. Why did she look like this? The closer she drew, the more I could see just how badly off she was. Her hair wasn’t just dirty and snarled, but also full of brambles and weeds. Her hauntingly blue eyes were bloodshot, as though she’d not slept in days, and there was a slight tremor to her form that’d not been there before.
Rushing to her side, I latched onto her elbow, making sure not to let my talons dig into her flesh. Her weight was so slight as to be almost comical, and the whites of her eyes now looked like they took up all of her face.
Lena dropped to her knees, looking up at me with shimmering tears. “I thought of you, boy.”
“Ragoth,” I whispered, rubbing my thumb across the softness of her hand.
“I am sorry I was not able to come sooner—”
I froze the moment I smelled the blood. With a growl that erupted from the depths of my belly, I shoved her forward almost too brusquely and tore at the pitiful fabric covering her back.
She cried out in agony, hanging her head on her chest and gasping violently. Her beautifully pale and luminescent blue skin was now marred by vivid, red angry slashes that crisscrossed every square inch of her bony back.
“Who has done this to you?” I tried to temper the heat of my rage but failed spectacularly.
Lena trembled as I traced the length of one particularly nasty cut that’d sliced straight through to the meat. I wanted to kill whoever had done this. Wanted to hurt it the way she now hurt.
Hiccupping, she attempted to gather together the pitiful edges of her garment, but I refused to let her. The wounds were ugly, seeping, and some of them even smelled of infection.
“I...I did wrong,” was all she said.
“Ssh. Ssh now.” I murmured to her the way my father had the day I’d fallen from the sky and broken a wing. I knew what to do to make this better. I’d never done it before, but I’d witnessed my father doing it.
Kneeling beside her, I took her face in my hands and waited until she looked at me. “I will fix you, Lena. I will make this better.”
She trembled and her fingers slipped through my own. “If you do, they will know, and I will—”
“No one will ever touch you like this again, do you hear me?”
Lena shook her head, and the tears rolling down her cheeks—they pierced my very soul.
“Ragoth, I fear what will happen if—”
I gently placed a finger across her lips, stilling her words. “You are my friend, human. I cannot bear to see you this way. Now close your eyes and rest, for all this shall soon be over.”
My heart swelled when she nodded her okay. She trusted me. Me, dragonborne. No human in their right mind should have shown me such faith to close their eyes and give me their back.
But I found I no longer wished to eat my Lena. For she was my treasure. And treasure was to be protected.
Moving around to the back of her, I tilted my head forward and did what few of my kind would ever do for another.
I gifted her with my tears.
~*~
Zelena
The first touch of a tear rolled down my back like the gentlest of sea swells. I gasped, going completely and utterly boneless beneath him. Immediately I felt the skin begin to stitch itself back together, felt the pain lessen until there was none at all.
For days I’d cried myself to sleep, my flesh heating with fever from the open sores Zerelda had gifted me with.
And all of it because of this strange boy.
She’d found my treasure. My golden apple. She’d accused me of theft, said I was nothing but a lying whore, and that if I hadn’t stolen it, I’d surely used my body as payment for it as I had no coin to my name.
I knew the moment I returned to the cottage I should have thrown it away, deep into the woods and forgotten all about it and the boy who’d given it to me, but the gift had meant too much to me. I’d hidden it beneath my mattress, too afraid even to eat from it.
But somehow she’d found it. And when I refused to give up Ragoth’s name, I’d been beaten for it.
I knew the moment I was healed, because he placed the flat of his palm to my back and it no longer hurt. And this time it was I who shed tears.
My eyes were closed when I sensed him slip around in front of me.
“Look at me, Lena,” he commanded.
I bit down on my tongue, almost too scared to look at him and see wh
at he thought of me now. Ragoth was naught but a child, but already I could sense his warrior’s heart; he’d never have let another beat him like this.
And when I came into my powers, I would never allow another to ever hurt me like this again. But for now, I was weak, and I was powerless.
“Lena.” His voice shivered with raw power that prickled along my flesh.
Good gods, when he came into his manhood he’d be a terrifying force to be reckoned with.
I looked up at him. Jewel-colored slitted eyes looked down on me. But they weren’t full of disgust or even pity.
I should have run away from him if I’d seen either. Instead, he observed at me with a look I could hardly name or understand. But I felt it quicken through my very soul.
“Show me where you live.”
Nibbling on the corner of my lips, I shook my head. “I cannot, boy. If they were to discover I was out again, she would beat—”
“Never!” His nostrils flared, and my eyes widened as his face transformed for the very briefest of moments with the scales of a creature that should have terrified me but instead had my heart fluttering with something other than fear.
I hated humans. Hated every man and woman in all of creation. They were evil, wicked creatures that should be burned one and all. But Ragoth was a boy. To be sure, a powerful one, but a boy nonetheless and most decidedly not human. But oddly enough, I think that even should he have been human, I’d have liked him regardless.
He was kind to me when others were not.
“Boy,” I whispered, “show me who you really are.”
Dropping my hand as though I’d burned him, he took several steps back and shook his head. “No.”
I frowned. “Why not? I wish to see you as you truly are.”
He turned his head to the side. And for the first time I saw him for what he really was, a young child unsure of himself.
Getting to my feet, I was almost dizzy with relief that I didn’t hurt when I took a deep breath. I would be forever grateful and in Ragoth’s debt for what he’d done for me tonight.
When I’d set out tonight to come find him, I’d held out very little hope of him actually keeping to his word and being here. But he was quickly proving to me to be different from those in my life.
He stared at me with wide, almost terrified eyes when I drew to his side and gently draped my arm across his broad shoulders. Leaning into his ear, I whispered, “I think I should like you any way you come, dear Ragoth. But if we are to be friends, then please, let me see every side of you.”
It was important to me that he showed me this trust. No one in my life did. No one saw me as anything worth more than the value of the blood that flowed through my veins. Ragoth had given me a gift tonight, one I would always cherish.
He was my friend, and as such, I wanted to know him. Truly know him.
“If I show myself to you,” he whispered back, “then you have to promise me not to run.”
My heart sped. I knew that to look upon a dragon was a terrifying sight to behold. That for some, it’d even caused their hearts to stop beating from a powerful rush of fear.
“I promise.” I quickly nodded, terrified but also excited out of my mind with curiosity.
He lifted his chin. “Lena, I’m serious. You cannot run from me. I will not allow it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And if I do?”
His rosebud lips tilted up at the corner. “Then I should snatch you up and take you to my nest in Olympus, and there you will be my captive.”
I knew he was making a joke, but the words hit too close to home for me. I could only imagine my life in the hands of dragons. I already lived in my own personal brand of hell; I did not think I could survive anything more. Crossing my arms about myself, I took a step back, ready to turn on my heel and race back to the cottage.
“Lena?” He looked confused. “Did I offend you?”
“I’m...I’m sorry I asked. You should not have to do what you do not wish to do. I should go, I’m—”
“Stop!” He snatched at my hand as his voice shook with desperation. “I am sorry. I did not think about my words, I—”
Heart racing nearly out of my chest, I felt suddenly foolish and silly for my theatrics. He’d been teasing me, and I’d let my irrational feelings get in the way. Stepping into him, I embraced him. Giving him a fierce hug.
I’d meant for the hug to be an apology to him, but when he wrapped his arms back around me, and he leaned his head onto my chest, something broken and fissured inside of me trembled.
His was the first hug I’d ever received in my life.
Sniffing back the tears that suddenly clogged my throat, I stepped out of his arms a good ways and nodded. “I shall not run, boy. I vow it.”
With a smile that burned brighter than the noonday sun, he nodded. “I will show you who I truly am, and in return, you show me where you live.”
I knew we’d get back to this somehow. The boy had set himself up as my protector. I wasn’t sure why, and I knew that Zerelda would see me flogged if she learned I’d escaped yet again. But I wanted to see Ragoth’s true form almost more than I’d wanted anything else in my whole life.
“You may follow me home, but keep your distance, and do not speak once we leave these woods. My guard is a shifter with hearing keen as a fox.”
“And yet you escaped him.” He chuckled, voice full of questions and wonder. “How?”
I grinned. I would never tell; that secret was mine alone. I clutched at the leather thong around my neck.
“You’re dawdling, boy.”
“I am not. But if you truly wish me to change, then you should step back. Into that grove of trees over there.”
My eyes widened. “Are you really that big?”
The grove he’d pointed to was easily four hundred meters back. His grin was his only answer.
Saluting smartly, I turned on my bare heel and marched my way back. The woods were eerily silent tonight. It’d been this way the last time I’d come here. Boy he might be, but Ragoth was still a dragon, and it seemed all of wonderland knew it. I was probably a fool to be out and about with this child, but...
I cupped hands around my mouth and yelled, “Go ahead then, boy.”
Instantly his form shimmered, as though he’d been bathed in the purest of white light. I had to shield my eyes against the terrible brightness that brought stinging tears to them. When I could finally see again without the spots dancing in my vision, my jaw dropped.
The dragon was completely white, but his scales gleamed like mother of pearl in the moonlight. His head was massive and angular at the snout. There were sharp, triangular scales that ran down his neck almost like a horse’s mane would, running from largest at the crown of his head, to small and almost flat when it hit his middle. Fan-like protuberances poked out from where his ears should be.
The way they trembled and twitched, I could only assume he was listening to me. To my breathing, perhaps to see if I was scared. There wasn’t a single thought of fear in me at the moment; no, what I felt now was not fear at all. But wonder. I couldn’t seem to rip my gaze off him.
His body was massive. His belly corrugated almost like a snake’s and resting heavily upon the ground. Colossal front and back legs with talons as long as my arms, and veiny webbing between them, dug into the soil. If he wanted to, he could have ripped every tree up from the vicinity with nary a thought. A sensuous tail curled tight around him, the very tip of it looking as though it idly waved back at me.
But it was when I looked back up to his face that I recognized the boy. The glass-colored eyes gazed down on me.
The blue of his eyes against the white of his scales made them almost appear to burn like flame.
“My gods,” I whispered, not even realizing that I’d begun walking back toward him until I stood to within inches of his face.
If he wanted to, Ragoth could eat me. Snap me up and swallow me whole, and none would have been the wiser about my fate.
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But instead he kept lowering his head until he bumped against my hand with his snout.
I smiled. “Do you want me to pet you?”
Yes.
Startled, I jumped back on my heels. Looking both ways, sure that someone spied on us, terrified by the fact that I’d heard that answer in my own head.
I felt the tremors of his laughter rumble beneath my feet.
The voice is mine, Lena. I can speak to you in this form. But only if you wish it. If I actually talk, my voice would cause the earth to tremble. As you seem to crave discretion at the moment, I figured it best to remain inconspicuous.
Pulse returning immediately back to normal, I couldn’t stop the grin that cut across my face. “This is amazing, Ragoth.”
Somehow it seemed wrong to call him a boy when in this form. This was no boy before me.
“Do you have no wings?” I asked curiously as I scratched at a soft spot behind his ear fan.
He purred warmly against my thigh.
I do. But mother has grounded me for eating one of my tutors.
I laughed heartily. Gloriously enraptured by my friend and unable to remember a time when I’d had more fun.
“Well, you devil of a beast, I should hope she did ground you for that. You really shouldn’t eat your tutors; it’s bad form.”
What could have only been his attempt at a smile passed over his face. But on a dragon, it was rather terrifying, and I had to admit to snatching my hand back.
His teeth were twice as long and sharp as they were while in human form, and his snake-like tongue flickered out at me. The beast had the nerve to snap at me. Not threateningly, no. I didn’t think Ragoth would ever harm me. But I smacked him on the nose for it anyway.
“Play nice, devil.”
A snuffling sort of sound dropped off his tongue. I assumed it to be dragon laughter and couldn’t help but join in.
But all too soon I became keenly aware of the passage of time. I’d drugged Hagar with only four hours’ worth of bane. If I stayed out too much longer, he might catch me sneaking in, and tonight would be the end of my adventures with the boy.
Curtseying deeply at the prince, I said, “And now it is time for me to return to the cottage.”
The Passionate Queen Page 2
