Page 10 of Dragon Lord

A journey.

E inin stared at the dragon.

To run wild and free. To see some of the wide world…

No woman from Downwood had ever gone farther than Morganton, and that was Einin’s own aunt back when she’d married a fletcher.

Most women never traveled beyond the surrounding village markets.

Einin knew plenty of people who’d never once left Downwood.

At least she’d gone to the markets in the nearest villages as a child, with her father, to sell goat cheese and milk.

She had dreamt of faraway places all her life, tried to imagine the people and landscapes from the tales of the few stray travelers who’d come through her village.

The tinker always told such stories! And returning soldiers too, although their tales were much darker.

The traveling priest shared little, the darkest tales yet, mostly about the burning of witches.

There had to be more. There had to be such wonders!

“What journey?” She tilted her head, her heart racing with cautious excitement. “Where?”

The dragon said, “Hmpf,” and kicked a shredded old shield out of his way, looking after it as if it held great interest. Embarrassed? No, Einin thought, could not be that. Not this dragon. Probably not any dragon. They were a murderous and conscienceless lot, down to the last one.

Yet he examined his sharp talons with undue attention as he said, “A bit back, I offended someone.”

This she could believe. “And you’re going to offer an apology?”

Once again, that did not sound like the dragon she knew.

Yet Draknart nodded. “Something of the like.”

Einin’s mouth gaped. The priest kept preaching about miracles. This might be the first one Einin ever saw. Where the priest had failed, the dragon might yet make a believer out of her.

She narrowed her eyes at the beast. He wanted to go somewhere, that 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 boiled eggs and bread 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.

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. Find something you can easily lift.”

She ran to pull on her britches and boots 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 during her initial fight with the dragon. 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. The prospect of flying made her heart pound. 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 faerie circle at Fern Lake, past the Black Hills.” He stalked closer.

Before she could back away and reestablish the distance between them, his barbed tail snaked out and wrapped around her waist. The next Einin knew, she was flying through the air, and then she was sitting on the beast’s 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. His enormous muscles flexed and bunched between Einin’s thighs. “Hang on, sweeting.”

“I am not certain if I’m ready to travel the wide world!” All those years she’d dreamed about 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 sky, at risk of plunging to the ground at any moment.

The dragon launched into the air, and she dropped forward to lie flat against his neck, gripping him for all she was worth. “No! No! N—”

“Nothing to it.” The great beast laughed.

Draknart soared, the small weight on his back unfamiliar yet not unpleasant.

Einin’s slender arms hugged 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.

A series of loud gasps coming from her slowed him.

Was she crying? Had the fear broken her at last? Or—

She squeezed her thighs as if she were riding a horse and urging it to greater speed. Then the noise came again—sounding suspiciously like laughter.

Draknart looked back 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, the sparkle in her eyes unlike anything he’d ever seen.

Her light and her pure sweetness struck him straight in the heart.

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’s a find. The gods themselves hadn’t heard music like her peals of 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 he faced forward, 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 and watched her hurry toward the trees, stretching her stiff limbs.

She looked back at him from the edge of the tree line, a quick glance over her shoulder, with a speculative gleam in her eyes.

‘Twas Draknart’s turn to laugh in delight.

She meant to run! She’d brought that sword for a reason.

Einin of Downwood was nothing if not tenacious, even in the face of formidable odds.

A fine lass, indeed. She made life more interesting for certain. A shame Draknart couldn’t keep her. If he had someone like her, he might not feel compelled to sleep the years away.

Of course, 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.

Draknart could never allow her, not to people who’d scarred her silken skin with whips.

But in Fae Land… 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. “Brown bear sow to the east with two cubs.” He sniffed again. “A wolf pack to the west.”

She stiffened as her gaze snapped to his. Her slim throat moved as she swallowed, indecision creeping into her eyes. “Close by?”

“Don’t wander far.”

Her body near vibrated with frustration. Her shoulders slumped. She sighed. 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.”

Her hand inched toward her sword.

He grunted. “I’ll hunt in the woods. I did not bring you along for a quick meal.” He reached for her with his tail so he could resettle her on his neck. “I swear.”

“I’d rather climb up myself,” she told him, and then she hopped onto his knee, and from there pulled herself up to his shoulders.