Page 19 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 19
“So, pressure is important,” Ged informed me, grabbing my sand-filled hand and pressing it against Cloudy’s patient side. I jerked it back when I heard a grumble from the big dragon, then caught the sound of Glimmer warbling along with him. “You can’t feel him like I can, but you will with Glimmer when she gets older. He wants you to work here.”
Ged pressed my hand to the dragon’s flank, shifting it until I reached the right spot. I was getting better at this, the easy way they touched me, like I was just one of their number, rather than a lady. I probably looked like one too, with my stubbled scalp.
“So you want to rub the sand across the skin with the direction of the scales.”
He moved my hand in the right direction, pulled it back and then did it again.
“You don’t want to go against the grain as sand will get under individual scales and cause him pain.”
I jerked my hand back at that, Ged laughing as the sand trickled back into the water.
“You’d need to really work at it to do that, though. Their scales fit quite tight to their bodies as a form of defence against projectiles and such, but just keep it in mind. Grab some more sand.”
I ducked down in the water again which meant my shirt became totally drenched, as we were now standing in much deeper water. When I stood up, Ged stared. I blinked, saw his eyes drop down and stay there, following the line of my shirt, the way the cotton stuck to my skin and made clear the curves of my breasts. But as I shifted uncomfortably, my shoulder hunching forward, he shook his head.
“My apologies, Lady Pippin.” His words were all politeness, even if his tone was now rough and raw. “I am a simple man, even a crude one. Put a set of tits in front of me, I will look, even if they’re high-born ones destined for a prince’s hands, not mine.”
He laughed as I gaped at him, but then my eyes narrowed. I raked them across his form, taking in the thick muscles of his arms, the broad expanse of his chest, as a form of retribution, but while his laughter stopped, he didn’t seem at all abashed.
“Yeah, don’t go doing that,” he told me, stepping closer, water dripping from his skin, his beard. “Brom’s had some stern words with us already and?—”
“Ged!”
The man froze at the sound of Brom’s shout, then turned back towards his dragon.
“Put the sand on his side, then drag it across, firmly, but not hard. The idea is to loosen any old scales and let them fall free. They’ll irritate your beast something fierce and create points of weakness an enemy can take advantage of or the cold can penetrate when we go to high altitudes.”
Ged stepped back then, crossing his arms and nodding at his dragon. But his eyes were upon me as I leaned in, as I did as he said. As I scrubbed the sand in one direction, some fell down into the water, taking with it a bright red disk.
“Oh!”
I dropped my hands down in the water to clean them, then snatched the scale off the surface where it floated lazily. A ruby red disk of such brilliance, it was hard to see how women wouldn’t collect these scales, using them for jewellery or crushing them up for cosmetics.
“Pretty things, aren’t they?” Ged edged closer, his hands floating on the water, moving forward until he shot a look over his shoulder. That knowledge, that he was being watched, kept him from getting too close to me. “And we’ll end up with a lot of them in the water before we’re finished. They stick to your bloody skin too, so we better get started.”
Whatever mood, whatever tension had been building between us, it seemed to dissipate as our attention was taken by a big dragon who wanted to be washed, his head whipping around and nudging at his rider when we didn’t move fast enough.
I was glad for my thin shirt and the cool water, because this was damn hot work. I think I’d imagined myself decorously scrubbing at the dragons on a step stool using a broom or something much more appropriate, but where would be the fun in that? The first time Cloud Raker doused us in water, I’d just stood there, open-mouthed and spluttering, but Ged had let out a war cry, sending great slapping splashes towards his beast until steam trickled out of Cloudy’s nostrils. He ducked his muzzle down, flames appearing under the water’s surface until it began to bubble, forcing us away from him.
“You blasted great tea kettle!”
I watched in alarm as Ged picked up a stick and lobbed it at his animal, but Cloudy let out a blast of fire at that, burning it to ashes. I searched wildly for Glimmer, but she just perched on Cloudy’s neck, little claws pricking his scales as she crowed, a wash of vicious joy filling me. She was having a fantastic time and no pushing from me would get her to calm down. Instead, I felt her emotions colouring mine, my hands reaching for projectiles, then lobbing them at the dragon, one after the other to the sound of Ged’s shouts of amusement and hers. Cloud Raker blasted them from the sky before they got close, then his head reared back.
“Oh shit!”
Ged ran towards me, scooping me up into his arms and then dragging me into the water, yanking me down into its depths as a blast of flame went over our heads, only for both of us to emerge spluttering. But somehow that was a call to arms. Glacier came lumbering over our way, sucking in water and then dousing us and the other two dragons thoroughly roused in response.
“Glimmer? Glimmer!” I stood up from the water with a gasp, seeing the other dragons arrive now. Some of her joy soured just then, as she heard them call, uttering deep, threatening sounds. “Glimmer!”
“Don’t worry about the little queen,” Ged said, grabbing my shirt and hauling me over to Cloudy’s side. My dragonling quickly scaled the big male’s back, launching herself at me as soon as she was close.
My hands shot out, my eyes tracking her every movement as she sailed through the air, not able to blink until I snatched her out of the sky. I turned then, dragging myself free of the water and then collapsing down onto the bank. I was joined not long afterwards by the other men.
“What are they…?” I started to say, watching the dragons’ heads whip back and forth, as they hissed and snarled at each other. Electrical flames crackled in Wraith’s mouth, making Soren groan.
“Any fish that’s in that water is about to meet its maker,” he warned.
“But why are they…? And should they…?”
“The dragons are testing each other, Pippin,” Brom replied, his hands resting on his knees as we all watched. “In the wild, they’d be creating a hierarchy, seeing who was fit to serve the queen when she was grown.”
He nodded to Glimmer, who was now perched on my shoulder, observing every single thing that went on, her whole body trembling with a strange kind of energy. She looked like a hunting dog that had spied its prey, a hawk about to drop into a stoop and when I reached up to scratch her head, she startled, something that had each man chuckling.
“They’re proving themselves to their queen,” Brom continued, then his eyes slid back to the romping dragons. “If they don’t bloody kill themselves during the process. Oi!”
His cry reverberated all the way through the quarry, able to stop even four rampaging dragons in their steps. I found myself laughing with incredulity when these gigantic monsters dropped their heads, looking almost shamefaced. Cloud Raker and Wraith emerged from the water, Glacier seeming to be content to swim through the lake, then flip over, floating with the aid of his outstretched wings, while Obsidian curled up on a big flat rock on the other side of the lake.
“We’ll dry out quick,” Ged informed me, “with this sun and these bastards.”
Cloud Raker lay down beside us and I watched Glimmer preen, then chirrup in a strangely coquettish way. The dragon’s body curled closer, the incredible heat of his body radiating off him as he reached out and touched his nose to my dragonling’s.
“Love at first sight,” he said, settling back against Cloudy’s side and closing his eyes. “Always the way.”
I hadn’t meant to fall asleep beside a man who wasn’t family nor my husband, but my eyes had grown heavy due to not getting enough sleep with my dragon-feeding duties, then heavier again in the heat. I dropped down, down into the softness of the grass on the bank, into that endless warmth.
And in my dreams, it felt like it licked me all over, flickering across my legs as the water evaporated, then sliding higher up, making me shift restlessly. There was a pleasure to be drawn from lying in the sun. I’d done it often enough out in the empty land where the wildflowers grew during the last summer, when I just couldn’t deal with the stench of pig shit anymore. But this…? I heard a low hum, felt it reverberate through me, forcing my thighs to slide against each other, seeking something, some friction, some?—
“Lazing in the sun like laggards? Why am I not surprised?”
The voice was an unfamiliar one and full of such command that my eyes flicked open, as did the other riders’. A man stood there, a vision in black, eyes as blue as the sky above him, his hair a halo of black curls, kept back from his face by a thin gold circlet. It was a symbol of his rank, something that sent a bolt of fear through me. I shifted abruptly into a seated position, Glimmer squawking at being dislodged from where she was sleeping across my stomach. I caught her before she fell, clasping her close to my chest, but the damage was done. The prince, because that’s who he was, frowned at the sight, his gaze jerking around to Brom.
“What the hell have you been up to? Why is some stable lad handling the queen dragon?”
Stable lad. My hand went to my scalp, now hot to the touch and no doubt sunburned, running it over the short stubble there. I blinked, feeling my cheeks redden even further, until I was sure I was the colour of Cloudy’s scales.
We got to our feet, all of us, as I tugged at the hem of my shirt, looking over my shoulder longingly for my pants before dropping down into a curtsey as the others bowed.
“If I may, Highness,” Brom said, head still bent. “May I present the Lady Pippin Wentworth and her dragon, Glimmer.”
Those cool blue eyes seemed to see me for the first time, taking in my cropped hair, my height, my men’s clothing and my bare legs in one long look, before sparing Glimmer a glance.
“Your intended,” Brom prompted, when the prince didn’t reply.
“Is she now?” His Highness replied in a tight voice.