Page 13 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 13
“You’re a greedy little thing, aren’t you?”
I had sat down to breakfast with the dragon riders, struck by the scents of good food when I did so. I’d endured wave after wave of agonising hunger in the night, waking me promptly to see to the little dragon, feeding her from the bowl Nadia had brought, then others that different maids had brought forward. Right now she was perched on my mother’s fine tablecloth, her claws pricking at the cotton as Flynn dangled a scrap of meat in front of her. She lunged at it with all of the ferocity of a born predator.
“So you are allowed to feed her now?” I asked, reaching out with my own scrap and feeding the dragonling.
“You’re bonded to her now, so that won’t break,” he’d replied, smiling down at the small queen.
“Well, not unless you’re a total bastard,” Ged replied, Brom shooting him a reproving look at his use of language. “There was one dragon that turned on his rider. Prick was one of those men who like to hurt children for their pleasure. First time he tried it after bonding with his dragon, his beast turned on him.”
I stiffened, but each one of the men made a low rumbling sound of discontent at that, their dragons echoing the sound outside.
“Would’ve cut his bloody balls off if I knew,” Soren snapped.
“That’s the only incident we know of a dragon rejecting their rider,” Brom said smoothly. “She’s yours now, and you are hers. You’ll feel what she feels, sense what she senses. As she gets older, stronger, when she can see and think of more than her belly, you’ll feel that too.” He was still the big, gruff wing commander, but right now, something in him softened. “You’ll never be alone again.”
“Which isn’t always a good thing,” Flynn said with a wink. “They are intrusive buggers, pressing on your mind, sorting through your thoughts.” He chuckled. “Sending you messages. For instance, Glacier is very determined to see more of his queen.”
“So dragons observe the same hierarchy as humans do?” I asked. “They see her as a potential ruler, as we do the king?”
All four men looked at each other then, in the age-old way men do when they’re about to discuss something indelicate in front of a lady. But this lady had squelched around in pig shit every day. I could take it, and I told them that.
“They see her as a potential mate,” Ged replied, looking into my eyes and holding them. “Males are plentiful, females not so much.”
“Wise men theorise that before we came to Nevermere, all the male dragons would strive to be the one to mate with a queen,” Soren replied, looking down at his plate of toast and eggs, then picking up his cutlery. “There’s evidence that there were more queens back then.”
“Each one would stake out her territory and call the strong males to her,” Brom said. “And during each mating season, they would fight to be the one to mate with her, to produce the next clutch of eggs. In the old days, Nevermere was ruled by a queen and her consorts were the riders of the dragons she chose to mate with.”
“Celestia…” Ged said, looking a little misty-eyed.
“So what happens now?” I asked, picking up the baby dragon when it appeared she was finished. I fought the urge to hunch my body over hers, to protect her. From what I wasn’t sure.
“When her time is ready, the prince’s dragon, Darkspire, will mate with her,” Brom replied, holding my eyes with his hazel ones. “She will bear the eggs to provide us with the next generation of dragons, laying a queen egg when you and the prince take the throne.”
My mouth felt bone-dry all of a sudden and everyone seemed to note the slight shake in my hand as I reached for my tea cup. My sip turned into a noisy slurp, a drop of tea sliding down my chin. Each of them watched me wipe it away, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.
“So I have no choice in the matter? And neither does my dragon?”
“The prince is a good man,” Brom replied, “and Darkspire will care for the queen in a way only a dragon can. It’s literally his life’s purpose to love and care for his rider and his mate.”
“It’s every dragon’s purpose,” Ged added darkly.
“Shut up, boy,” Soren snapped. “There’s some things you don’t say in front of a lady.”
“I was shunned from my family estate up until less than a day ago,” I replied sharply, staring down each man. “People hurled rocks and abuse at me with impunity, then robbed me on market days, knowing there was little I could do about it.” I studied their faces intently. “I refuse to go forward into any more situations that make me feel powerless.” My eyes settled on Ged, somehow feeling that he was the weakest link. “What do you mean, all dragons? Don’t you have wives or husbands? Sweethearts?”
The silence that followed was answer enough, but Ged drew himself up, leaning back in his chair before he answered.
“A rider might tarry with one of the maids or a tavern wench for a time, but not for long. Developing finer feelings…?” He let out a long sigh. “It doesn’t end well. Creates a tension between a rider and his dragon. Not of jealousy, but of disloyalty. You’re feeling her hungers as your own right now, yes?” I nodded, my free hand straying to my stomach, still aching slightly from being woken by her screaming need for food. “Well, when she’s grown, you’ll feel the full gamut of all her hungers.”
He willed me with his eyes to understand what he wasn’t saying and, as a girl that grew up on an estate, dogging her father’s footsteps as he went around the fields, I had an idea of what he meant.
“Imagine if you felt the same way your prize heifer does when you put her with a bull.”
“Ged—” Brom growled in warning.
“Imagine if you felt the exact same need that has the kitchen cat yowling for a mate when she comes into heat.”
“Ged, enough. She understands.”
But I didn’t tell Ged to stop. So he didn’t.
“But rather than just animal lust, imagine a creature of such depth, wisdom and sophistication that it blows your mind each time you reach out to touch it, consumed with a soul-deep need to be with a queen.”
Ged’s voice broke on the words, and that seemed to quieten the others. It was almost as if we all observed a moment’s silence for what he was telling me.
“They know they shouldn’t, that the queen belongs to the king or the prince, but…” Ged’s eyes shone then, his gaze fierce. “But their hearts break, down to every single dragon, each time she mates with him. You can’t do a bloody thing with them for a week afterwards and, to be blunt, you don’t want to. What woman, what man would want to stick around and bear witness to that? To the sight of their loved one breaking their heart over another woman?”
“You’ve done that with the queen?” I asked, my voice so much smaller now, almost a whisper.
“I have and I will and I’ll do the same for you when your dragon’s mating time comes?—”
“And we do that for Nevermere,” Brom said grimly.
I was up and out of my chair, pushing myself one-handed away from the table, despite my own empty stomach, then rushing away from the dining room, no particular destination in sight. My eyes filled with tears, impairing my ability to navigate my way as I clutched the tiny dragon to my chest. She cheeped a small sound of discontent and, as I pushed open the back door that led out into the gardens, I felt a small tendril reach out and touch my mind. There was confusion there, some fear, but mostly love. A sob caught in my throat, one I choked back automatically as I felt it.
Because this, multiplied by a thousand, must be what the dragons felt for their riders and their queen.
“Pippin!” someone called out. “Pippin!”
I plunged into the gardens, not wanting to hear, not wanting to talk anymore. I walked left, straight, then right and right again, until I was deep inside the maze of the gardens, then sat down on a sun-heated stone seat, feeling the warmth soak in through the seat of my pants.
“Pippin…”
Brom appeared between the hedges of finely trimmed shrubbery, seeming to take the two of us in with one look.
“Can I sit down?”
I let out a little huff of breath, brushing away my tears, then blinking again. I felt so irritated with myself. I’d watched the trial of my betrayers dry-eyed and now I was weeping like a maid. Over what? The romantic future of four men I barely knew. But I nodded, and he strode forward, coming to sit on the bench beside me, his big, tall body throwing a shadow over both me and my sleeping dragon. She seemed to settle when he was close, letting out a long sigh, the sound, making us both chuckle.
“Don’t make the mistake of pitying us, Your Highness,” he said, turning to look at me. “Believe me when I tell you, not one of us would make a different choice, if we had our chance again, not a one.”
But I was a woman who’d up until recently had all of her choices taken away from her. He was going to have to forgive me if I couldn’t readily reconcile myself to the fact that I was going to take all of theirs away when it came to matters of the heart.