Taming the Dragon Collection (2 page)

“Please, sir,” she said, trying to push him away. He was like a statue, unmovable. “We should be moving on with your journey.”

“I thought you needed a rest,” he whispered in her ear. She felt him press his crotch against hers, grinding his codpiece against her undergarments. It was made of thick leather, but she could feel his own arousal thick behind it. “How about I relieve some of the tension you’re feeling. You want off your feet? How about you get on your back?”

“Please, sir,” she whispered. “No.”

“Or how about you just get on your knees? Will that be more agreeable?” he asked.

There was no humor in his voice. It was razor sharp, like the magical sword, Heart Fire, he had sheathed across his back.

“Sir, we cannot make love before we are wed,” she said. “It is improper, and the gods will not approve.”

“I do not fear the gods,” he whispered.

She shivered as his tongue left his mouth and found its way slowly down her neck to her collarbone. It took everything in her power not to slap Val or push him away. She knew that would be foolish.

She looked up at his face as he leered at her, knowing that he was about to have his way with her. She tried to focus on something, anything but his cold, dark eyes. She looked at the hilt of Heart Fire jutting up behind his left shoulder and tried to focus on that. Her eyes travelled, trying to find something to focus on. It was at that moment she noticed the arrow sticking out of his left shoulder. It wasn’t a very big arrow, and it didn’t look like it had even made its way through the heavy armor piece he wore in that area, but she was certain it hadn’t been there before.

“What?” he asked, following her eyes to his shoulder. Just as she gasped, he grabbed her by the hair and forced her to the ground beside the rock.

“Sir!” she cried out.

“Stay down!” he ordered. “Goblins.”

Mara crawled backwards, trying to hide herself behind the rock as Val turned and drew Heart Fire.

Goblins,
she thought.
We’ll see how powerful you really are, Val Woodshadow.

Mara couldn’t believe it, but she was rooting for the little gray bastards.

Chapter 2

Val’s magical sword flashed brilliantly against the gray, hazy afternoon sky as the goblin that had had the bad idea of jumping from above onto Val met its untimely end. The goblins just kept coming, like a force of nature pouring out of the hills, but none of them were big enough or strong enough to pierce Val’s studded black leather and steel armor. Even though he was weighed down by the heavy suit, he spun and twirled magnificently, parrying blows and delivering death with each cleave of his mighty sword.

Mara was in awe watching the child-sized gray bodies pile up around Val as he ruthlessly cut through them with a stoic expression on his face. He looked about as interested as someone practicing on a wooden dummy, but these were living, breathing creatures that he was destroying.

He’s the real deal,
she thought.
I have no hope of ever escaping him. I’m his forever now.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, though. She tried to force herself to think happy thoughts as she watched his incredible display of might. Val was about to have his way with her, but maybe things were different in Atherny; maybe it was accepted for a man and a woman to know one another out of wedlock. Maybe it was something Val did before battles to invigorate himself. He had become interested in screwing her when she had said she was tired and needed to rest. She had never been with a man before, so she wasn’t sure, but maybe it would have relaxed her and taken some of the edge away.

In her heart she knew these were rationalizations, but it was the only thing that would keep her sane. Besides, judging by his stories, Val was a man who had women literally throwing themselves at him regularly. His being told no was something that simply didn’t happen.

Mara was ripped from her thoughts by the sound of metal scraping on rock, joined by the blood-curdling sound of a guttural language not normally heard by humans. Slowly she turned her head to the right to see a four-foot-tall, grayish-green creature crawling over the rock towards her. He was truly hideous, with a long hooked nose, gnarled floppy ears and beady little eyes that centered on her.

“No,” she begged. “Please.”

He continued to crawl towards her, cursing her in his own language. He was threatening her and gesticulating wildly with his dagger. He was ordering her to do something, but she didn’t know what. She glanced forward to see Val still annihilating the horde that was raining in on him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what you want. I don’t understand you.”

He continued to chatter at her, drawing ever closer with the edged steel of his dagger. Mara had to defend herself; there was no other way around it. She moved quickly, quicker than the goblin was expecting, grabbing one of the sticks she had dropped and lifting it high to catch the goblin across the face. He cried out in pain and swung with his dagger. She immediately felt a searing pain across her shoulder and collarbone. Her dress was growing hot and wet as the creature sneered at her, preparing to stab again.

“I’ll hit you again,” she warned, weakly lifting her stick to swing again. Pain shot through her left arm as she dropped the stick and stumbled backwards into the snow. This was it; she was going to be killed by a tiny goblin.

Mara yelped as hot, sticky blood covered her face. The goblin hung in mid-air, its head slumped over as it gurgled its last breath. Val lifted it into the air and put his heavy boot on its backside, pushing as it slid off his sword and hit the ground with a sickening thud.

“You’ve been stabbed,” he said, very little concern in his voice.

“He cut me,” she whispered weakly.

“There’s no time to waste,” Val said. Quickly he slung the bundle of sticks over his back and picked Mara up, pulling her close to his body as he cradled her.

“I think I’m going to die,” she whispered to Val.

“You’ll live, sweetling,” he whispered back.

Mara could only smile. Val actually did care about her. He was moving quickly now, taking her to safety. She looked at the ground around them, at the sea of dead bodies that lay in all directions. Val was a great knight and a great warrior; he’d dispatched the entire goblin horde by himself. He was her brave warrior, no doubt about that.

As he climbed the path higher on the mountain, deeper into the rocks, she realized he wasn’t taking her home for healing. He was heading in the wrong direction.

“Where are we going?” she whispered.

“Quiet, sweetling,” he said, the strenuous activity not even making his breath ragged. He was in exceptional shape. Maybe he would defeat the dragon.

“How are you going to beat the dragon?” she asked quietly.

“Easily,” he said. “Dragons are predictable. After all, they’re just animals.”

“How?” she asked.

“Shhh. You must preserve your strength.”

“Please,” she begged. “It takes my mind off the pain. Tell me about the dragon.”

“Dragons can be beaten a number of ways,” he said, amazingly pushing himself up and over the rocks while carrying her and wearing his armor. He was a magnificent specimen of a man. “Sometimes you can use their own hubris and ritual against them. Lure them into a trap and spring it.”

“Can you kill them with a regular weapon?”

“Of course you can,” he said. “Generally their hide is too tough and thick for any normal weapon to work, but a magic weapon can easily pierce their scales.”

“Like Heart Fire.”

“Yes, like Heart Fire. I once cut a black dragon’s head clean off with Heart Fire. It was in the dungeons under the Tanzabel Mountains.”

“Where is that?”

“Deep in the countryside to the west of Atherny. It was where I was born.”

“So you do have a human past,” she said weakly, feeling pain as she laughed.

“Yes,” Val said, smiling down at her. “I suppose I do, sweetling.”

“I like it when you call me that,” she said. Val was so tender right now, so caring. This was what she wanted from their relationship; this was the kind of husband he would truly be. She could feel it.

“Well, sweetling,” he said, dipping to kiss her gently on the forehead. “I will make sure to use it as much as possible before you meet your end.”

“My end?” she asked.

Val ignored her question and glanced nervously at her wound. She felt fear grab her chest and tighten it. Val had probably seen many wounds in all his battles, so he had to know something about this one.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“Is what bad?”

“My cut.”

“No, sweetling, you will live. Do not worry about that.”

“It hurts so badly.”

“You’re not used to being hurt. It will be fine.”

Val remained silent the rest of the journey, finally exiting the rocky path and walking onto the snow-covered mountainside. The wind was howling and the snow was whipping, cutting right through Mara’s dress and chilling her to the bone. She huddled closer to Val and in response he tightened his grip. She didn’t know if she was bleeding anymore; it didn’t feel like blood was flowing, but the pain was still excruciating.

“We’re here,” he said, setting her gently in the snow. She cried out and sucked in a deep breath as she sank into the snow, feeling the sting of the cold powder against the bare skin of her legs.

“This rock will do perfectly,” Val said, rubbing a large piece of stone that shot out of the snow at an angle.

She held her wound and remained silent as he pulled four long chains with shackles on the ends from his pack and began to stake them into the rock. Mara turned her head curiously as she watched. What could he possibly be doing with that?

“Sir,” she said, trying to be heard through the howling wind. “You told me earlier that a white dragon was the smallest of all dragons.”

“That is correct,” he said, hammering with ruthless efficiency.

“But even so, those shackles are barely large enough to chain a horse to that rock. Is a white dragon really so small?”

“Of course not,” he said, looking down at her with the same predatory gleam in his eyes that she had seen earlier.

Mara immediately felt her stomach churn as her breakfast tried to find its way out the same way that it had entered. “What are you going to shackle, then?”

“Bait,” Val said, moving towards her.

She was too weak to run away, but she tried anyway. She stood up and turned to run, but he was on her in no time, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her backwards. She felt tears rising up in her eyes as he pulled her backwards. His grip was so strong, she was sure he was going to rip every hair out of her scalp at once.

“Please!” she screamed. “You’re supposed to be my lord husband!”

“An easy story to get your father to agree to send you!” he snarled, dragging her back towards the rock.

She squirmed and tried to fight, but she suddenly felt the warm flow of blood over her chest as her wound reopened. “No!” she screamed as he slammed her against the rock and began to close the manacles over her wrists. “You promised to take me away.”

“You village girls are so gullible and so are your stupid fathers. You dangle even the tiniest bit of prestige in front of them and they jump at it without using that thing inside their skull the gods gave them. Stupid sniveling mealworm.”

“Why?” she screamed.

“Why?” he yelled back in her face, pausing to laugh sardonically. “Dragons can’t resist a maiden offered to them. I told you they’re creatures of hubris and ritual. For centuries they’ve been unable to turn down a living sacrifice to their mighty nature. It will be this dragon’s downfall.”

“I thought you loved me,” she cried.

“Love? Love? Haha!” She couldn’t even cry or yell anymore as Val leaned over and spit right in her face. “You’re just as stupid as the rest of the village girls. Like I could ever love a creature as simple as a woman. You’re nothing but a means to an end for me. Sometimes it’s a means to get my dick wet. Sometimes it’s a means to kill a dragon. You could have been both, but you resisted.”

Mara just looked to her side, unable to deal with the cruelty of the supposedly brave dragon knight. If only the world knew what a piece of trash Val really was. She could only hope the dragon would defeat him and end her suffering quickly and quietly. She hoped dragons were big enough to swallow a human in one bite, swiftly and cleanly.

Val was building something with the sticks they had collected, some sort of a pyre. The last thing she saw of him was his purely evil smile as he lit the wood on fire before disappearing into the darkness behind the rock.

She was alone. Dragon’s bait.

Chapter 3

The mid-afternoon sky gave way to night as the snow continued to howl all around Mara, but the fire in front of her still raged. She gathered a little warmth from it, a small comfort in the face of what was coming.

The sky had been gray and overcast. Now it turned a dark shade of blue as the moon rose high above the mountain, bathing the location of her death in beautiful silvery light. This was how it would end for Mara, being eaten by a dragon or bleeding to death on the mountainside high above the village that she had once called home. It seemed ages ago that she had sewn her father’s clothes and prepared his supper.

Mara stared at the moon and said a silent prayer to every god she could think of, hoping her death would be painless. The waiting was beginning to drive her crazy as her wound slowly bled. She could see her skin turning pale and could feel it growing clammy. Even though it was below freezing she could feel the sweat beading on her skin. The cut had to be infected by now. It was bringing a heavy fever on.

Mara’s vision was blurring and getting fuzzy. The moon was starting to bleed into the sky and the smoke from the fire was choking her. She weakly looked up, hoping to see Val come back to change his mind and remove her from the rock. Surely he would realize the error of his ways before death’s final embrace took her.

She shifted uncomfortably as she made out a figure standing on the other side of the fire. It was some sort of giant. No, it was a man. The fever seemed to dissipate all at once as she laid her eyes on the man who watched her from the other side of the fire. Who was he? A barbarian lord? An envoy from the gods here to shepherd her to the afterlife? He was too breathtaking to be anything less than a very special man.