Page 20 of Lady Dragon
“Thoman!” she rasped with quiet exasperation.
The striped, orange cat purred and meowed demurely up at her.
She nearly wanted to boot him with her foot for giving her such a fright.
He often liked to sun himself on the daybeds along the windows and must have gotten shut into the library, which was normally no surprise, such that he had dishes of both food and water kept full in here.
It was just she hadn’t expected him to sneak up on her.
“Perhaps I snuck up on you,” she whispered at him in concession. “Now go away!”
He did not, in fact, go away, padding behind her as she hurried toward the library’s side exit, which opened onto a little-used hallway that shouldn’t be guarded this time of night. Still, there very well might be patrols, especially with the influx of unwanted guests.
Samansa eased the door open a crack, as quietly as she could.
The way was clear, no footfalls echoing down the marble corridor.
She slipped out—and nearly shut the door on Thoman’s tail.
She tried to shoo him away and hurried off in the direction she knew led to the tower stairs, hoping the cat would lose interest and drift away. But he stuck to her heels.
She stopped at the base of the spiraling staircase to hiss at him and nudge him with her slipper, but he only looked up at her in blistering affront and kept following as she started up.
He definitely reminded her of someone. Perhaps she could properly introduce them this time—there hadn’t been a chance when she’d spotted Thoman out on the castle grounds while giving Kirek her supposed tour.
So many stairs. And yet Thoman was undeterred. Samansa was panting as she neared the top, and wanted to throw off the cloak that was now too warm. But she still didn’t want to risk discovery, especially since she was almost there.
And so it was, when she knocked quietly on Kirek’s imposing iron door, that she was sweaty, flushed, out of breath, and accompanied by a cat.
Kirek cracked open the door with her usual stony expression, and then her silver eyes flickered wider. “You look like something out of one of your books—a royal trying to disguise themselves as a maid and failing completely.”
“Oh, let me in ,” Samansa muttered, and shoved by her, conscious of her casual contact with the dragon girl and yet reasonably sure she could get away with it. Indeed, Kirek let her pass inside with a tilt to her lips that hadn’t been there before, and closed the door behind her.
But Kirek didn’t look like her usual self. She looked… shadowed. As if something was weighing heavily on her shoulders. Samansa knew what that felt like. She was about to ask her what was wrong when Kirek’s eyes suddenly narrowed and she snarled, “What is that doing in here? ”
The princess grinned before she even turned to see the cat jump up onto a chair. “Oh, him? That’s Thoman. He wanted to meet you. I very much think you’ll get along.”
“I’d sooner get along with a fish,” Kirek said, her daggerlike gaze tracing the cat as he leaped back down and sauntered toward her.
“What a happy coincidence! He also loves fish.” When Thoman twined himself around Kirek’s ankle, the princess stammered with more urgency and less teasing, “But—but please don’t hurt him! He’s been with my family for years.”
Kirek tried to glare at her while shaking off the cat—gently—but Samansa could tell her heart wasn’t in it. “I won’t hurt him, though he shouldn’t test me.”
Samansa felt herself frowning. “How are you? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing is wrong,” Kirek said, but she still sounded off . “You’re sure you weren’t followed?”
“Only by him .”
Thoman began purring loudly and rubbing his cheek on Kirek’s leather-bound calf.
The dragon girl managed to more successfully glare down at him, her eyes glinting dangerously.
He, of course, didn’t get the message and carried on with singular intention.
Samansa hoped Kirek wouldn’t hurl her cat out the window and claim, very dragon-like, that she thought he would land on his feet.
“I assumed because you wanted to meet like this, alone and in secret, there must be something… important?” Samansa hedged, even as her heart picked up speed. If there was nothing bad, then perhaps it was something… good ?
“No, I…,” Kirek began distractedly, and then refocused on Thoman’s ardent efforts to make his face one with her leg.
Curse that cat , Samansa moaned to herself and then said, “Well, was there something… anything… you wished to discuss with me?”
“Yes—well, not entirely.”
This was so strangely imprecise for the dragon girl, so uncharacteristically off-balance. Samansa’s heart beat even faster.
“It seems like there’s something you want to do, or say,” the princess began slowly, moving incrementally toward Kirek, as if not to frighten her away, “and you just don’t know how to go about it.”
“Something like that,” Kirek muttered, but she was still mostly focused on Thoman, who seemed to be pinning her in place. Samansa could almost thank him now, since his attentions let her ease herself ever closer.
“Maybe we can figure it out together,” the princess said in a near whisper, once she’d almost closed the distance.
Kirek’s eyes widened as Samansa took the final step to stand right in front of her.
“I don’t think—” the dragon girl began.
“Just be quiet, Kirek, and let me be the brave one for once,” Samansa hissed with more ferocity than she’d intended.
With even more ferocity, she seized the back of Kirek’s neck in both hands. Right before the princess closed the distance between them entirely , she saw the dragon girl’s hand twitch reflexively for one of her daggers. But then it froze.
Because, by that time, Samansa had dragged Kirek’s head down and pressed her lips to hers .
Kissing her.
At first, the dragon girl stood as still as a statue—but at least she wasn’t stabbing her, the princess thought wryly, before her logical thought processes dissolved in a fizzing burst of warmth like sunlight.
Because Kirek was kissing her back .
The dragon girl started tentatively, her normally hard-shaped mouth going soft against the princess’s lips. Her tongue tasted her slowly, as if to see if she liked the flavor.
And then the dragon girl’s arms wrapped hard around her, and then she was kissing the princess like a storm. Like they were once again fighting each other in the courtyard, neither of them giving ground, only getting closer and closer, gasping, hands moving frantically over each other…
Until Kirek suddenly staggered , clutching at her chest and looking at Samansa with wild eyes. The dragon girl’s breath left her in a ragged whoosh as if she’d been punched in the gut.
No, she looked as if the very sky had fallen on her.
“Are—are you all right?” the princess stammered. She touched her tender lips. “I should have asked first. Did I do something wrong?”
“Yes. But it’s not you,” Kirek croaked, folding over and wincing as if she was in pain. “It’s me. I just—oh skies help me.”
That didn’t sound good. “You just what ?”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to—” When the dragon girl looked at her again, her eyes were wide—and terrified. “I think I just pair-bonded with you.”
It was Samansa’s turn to feel punched in the gut. Her breath caught in her lungs, and her mouth fell agape. It took her a moment to be able to speak .
“You what ?” she finally cried, her hand flying to her own chest. “How is that possible?” She patted herself, perhaps inanely—she didn’t feel any different from before, other than horror that she’d somehow catastrophically overstepped.
And yet, rising beneath the horror was a fluttery feeling that she couldn’t quash. A thrill that flew in the face of it all, unfettered, now that the impossible might be possible—that Kirek might feel something for her. And not just something , but the strongest of feelings, among dragons.
Something undeniable and powerful as a pair-bond.
Samansa didn’t understand it, but perhaps it wasn’t horrible. Perhaps it was incredible.
Kirek certainly didn’t look happy—she looked the very opposite of happy.
“It shouldn’t be possible. This can’t happen.
But it did.” The dragon girl took a stumbling step away from her and grabbed handfuls of her own hair, looking more miserable and deranged than Samansa had ever seen her—confirming the princess’s worst fears that this situation was, in fact, awful. “My mother is going to kill me.”
The princess hoped she didn’t mean literally… but something in Kirek’s tone made her sound quite serious. Any thrill Samansa had felt dwindled and died within her, leaving only panic.
She raised a pleading hand to the dragon girl, not knowing what else to do. “Don’t worry. We can fix this. I’ll help you—”
Kirek suddenly screamed, a terribly pained sound that could have ripped Samansa’s heart out. She clutched her chest once more, this time tearing at her leather armor in a frenzy.
And then a brilliant purple light burst through her armor, and a streak of red shot out of Kirek and straight for the princess .
Samansa didn’t see what happened, because then she was screaming. Her chest was an agony of sharp fire. The feeling pierced her straight through, flooding her limbs with burning light. She tried to claw at it, but her hands were dissolving—
And then everything flared red.