Taming the Dragon Collection (7 page)

For the first time she could tell that Aleksander was completely flummoxed by what he was seeing. His face was growing red and his fists were clenched, causing the veins in his forearms to threaten to explode out of his skin. He tried to speak but he stumbled over his words.

“You mentioned I liked your human form,” she said, realizing that for the first time she was in control of the situation with the dragon. “I do enjoy looking at it. You are the perfect man. Do you enjoy what you see in my form?”

“You are human,” he sputtered.

“Your petty dragon problems are of no concern to me,” she said. “It’s obvious you like my body.”

Aleksander stood up, oblivious to what was going on around him. Mara’s eyes grew wide and she tried not to laugh as she looked down to see the front of his robe lifted and draping over what appeared to be a massive erection. It was so long and so thick that his robes hung off it like a sheet thrown over a log.

“Get dressed and get back to work,” he ordered. “I have something to attend to. When your husband returns I will kill him, mark my words.”

Aleksander turned and stomped out of the room, leaving Mara standing alone in the bath. She giggled and finished washing herself. This was too perfect: she had the power to turn the great dragon on and he didn’t know what to do about it. Things were about to change around here for the better.

TAMING THE DRAGON PART 2

Chapter 9

Mara sat up in bed and stretched, expecting to see her fellow maids doing the same thing. However, her eyes fell on empty beds as she glanced around the large bed chamber they all shared.

“Where is everyone?” she asked out loud. “What time is it?”

She could hear clanging coming from another chamber, indicating the maids were hard at work on something else.

“They must have let me sleep in after yesterday’s ordeal,” she muttered, pulling herself out of bed and shaking her long blonde hair out. It was clean for the first time in weeks and it felt absolutely glorious.

As she slipped into her usual brown dress she wondered if the other maids would scold her and chastise her anymore for the events of the day before. She had finally decided she’d had enough of being the dragon Aleksander’s slave and she’d made a run for it. Unfortunately, when a dragon doesn’t want you to leave, there’s not much you can do to escape. Aleksander should have never known she was running for her life, but somehow he had found her not far outside his home.

“He’ll never let me go,” she said, staring at the doorway that led to her usual morning duties of cleaning and preparing for the night’s meal.

As she stared, a devilish smile appeared on her face, one that she just couldn’t wipe away. “He’ll never let me go, but he doesn’t know what to do with me.”

The day before, Aleksander had walked in on her in the bath and had combed her hair out while he talked to her. It was the most gentle and loving thing he had done the entire time they had been together, but it was also the strangest. His heart was encased in ice, much like the icy breath he had used to fight the dragon-slaying knight Val Woodshadow.

She had lied to the dragon and told him she was married to Val, and that had triggered something in him. Was it jealousy? From that point forward he had looked at her differently, not like one of his maids but like an object of desire. His usual calm and collected demeanor had been replaced by one of frustration and confusion as his eyes traveled her body. She had turned the great dragon on and he obviously wasn’t used to the feeling.

The other maids had made it clear that Aleksander had never tried anything sexual with them and saw them merely as his property and not as objects of sexual desire. Mara had changed all of that and the dragon had been thrown for a loop. It made her happy that he was so pleased with her body, but at the same time it scared her.

If he wasn’t going to let her go before, he definitely wouldn’t now. But Val would eventually come back and try to slay the dragon. His pride wouldn’t allow him to admit defeat to a foe. In Val’s eyes the fight was probably still on; Aleksander just didn’t know it. When Val came back, who knew what he would do with her. He might just kill her alongside the dragon and tell everyone the dragon had killed her, or he might actually take her back to be his wife or a member of his harem. Did knights have harems? She wouldn’t put anything past Val.

“He definitely treats me better than Val ever did,” she said, pulling her hair back so it wouldn’t get dirty while she was cleaning. “He hasn’t tried to rape me and he doesn’t call me stupid and make fun of me constantly. That’s something in his favor.”

It was probably the only thing in the dragon’s favor, though. He’d already made it clear to her that she was human and as a human he saw her as a lesser being. His ego was just as large as Val’s, but for some reason it didn’t bother her as much—probably because Aleksander was a dragon and had good reason to have a big ego, unlike the blowhard knight, who was merely human.

She smiled as she exited her chamber and looked for the other girls in the labyrinth that was Aleksander’s domain. He had managed to say one thing the day before that had pleased her. He had promised to kill her husband when he returned. This made her giddy and happy to no end. Aleksander truly was the lesser of two evils and Val deserved to meet his end at the hands of a dragon.

“He’ll get what’s coming to him,” she muttered.

“Who, dear?” Raylene asked, walking out of a chamber behind her.

“Oh, nobody,” she quickly said. “I was just thinking out loud.”

“I hope you weren’t talking about the master,” Raylene said, giving Mara a disapproving look. “I would hope you’ve learned your lesson and we won’t have any more funny business.”

“No,” Mara said, shaking her head vigorously. “I did learn my lesson and I wasn’t talking about the master. I was talking about someone from my past, that’s all.”

“Well, okay, then,” Raylene said. “Let’s quit flapping our gums and get to work, then. You need to clean the dining chamber and then take a bath before you serve the master his dinner.”

“A bath?” Mara asked. “But I just had one yesterday.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Raylene said, wagging her finger at Mara. “Don’t question orders. The master said he wants you to take a bath every day before you bring him his dinner. Those are his orders, and we do what he says.”

“Well, okay,” Mara said, then turned and walked away to find the dining chamber. Another smile crept across her face. Aleksander wanted her to be clean every day. Things were definitely starting to get interesting.

* * *

This time she had to bathe herself with no visits from the other maids or Aleksander. She found herself disappointed as she washed the soap from her naked body. She had almost hoped Aleksander would show up again and talk to her so she could continue to tease him and throw him off. It would have been fun to see the dragon lose control again.

After her bath she went to the kitchen to prepare his meal, but she found the other girls already hard at work.

“I usually fix his meal,” she said as she walked into the kitchen.

“Well, you were bathing,” Priya said. “We couldn’t wait for you to finish doing whatever you were doing in the bath.”

Mara felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. She hadn’t done anything unsavory in the bath, she had simply bathed herself.

“We’ll get it together and you take it to the master,” Abigail said curtly.

Did I do something?
Mara thought.

The other maids were all bustling about, but every time they looked at her there was contempt in their eyes. It took Mara a second to piece it all together, but finally she realized they were jealous of her. Each one of them had spent years serving Aleksander, but none of them had been given the privilege of a nightly bath. This one small gesture by Aleksander was enough to drive a wedge between her and her fellow maids.

Well, screw them,
she thought as she walked over with her head held high to the giant bowl of stew that Aleksander always ate. She hadn’t done anything wrong; it wasn’t her fault that Aleksander found her more attractive than them.

She quickly turned and walked out of the chamber, leaving the other maids staring at her with their mouths hanging open. They had noticed her curtness as she had grabbed the bowl; hopefully they would think twice before being bitches again.

Aleksander was in his usual spot, drinking his usual wine and waiting for his usual meal. She hadn’t thought a dragon would be such a creature of habit, but here he was. As she walked into the room he looked up at her like he usually did, but this time his eyes lingered on her, traveling the length of her body before returning straight ahead of him. That was unusual.

Mara set the meal down in front of Aleksander and stepped back, waiting for his usual dismissal after he had tasted it. As always, he picked up the spoon and took a sip of the broth, nodding his head in approval. She turned to walk away, but Aleksander cleared his throat, stopping her in her tracks.

“Yes?” she asked, turning back to him. “Is your meal not satisfactory?”

“It is good,” he said, nodding. “Your husband, tell me: how many dragons has he slayed?”

“Two, sir,” she answered, walking back to stand beside him.

“And what color were they?”

“Black and green.”

“A green dragon is no easy dragon to slay,” Aleksander said. “How did he kill them?”

“He said he charged the black dragon and flew through the air, cutting its head clean off its shoulders before it realized what was happening.”

“That is quite a feat,” Aleksander said, nodding his head. “But he was lucky, because he caught the old thing napping. If the dragon was paying attention, that would never have happened. What about the green one?”

“He was with an adventuring company. He had a wizard with him who managed to cast a spell that distracted the dragon long enough for him to strike.”

“So he got lucky again. Without the wizard’s magic he would have been killed.”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“I am no sir,” Aleksander said. “He did get lucky, and he is not as cunning as he seems to think. I will kill him and show you that he is not the man you believe him to be.”

Mara kept her head down and tried not to show her smile. These sounded like the jealous words of a jealous man.

“The green dragon should have killed him,” Aleksander continued. “Do you know where a wizard’s magic comes from? It’s a magical weave that flows through all living creatures. Dragons have a direct line to the weave; it’s where our magical nature is derived from. Human wizards can tap into the weave, but they do not have a constant, direct connection like a dragon would. Your human sorcerers are said to have dragon blood and they have a more continuous connection. It is why they can cast spells from their heart rather than needing to do a chant or incantation like a human wizard.”

Mara just stood in awe. She had never known any of this and Aleksander had just laid it all out for her. What other knowledge did he have about the world? Had he learned this from experience or from the dusty tomes in his library?

“You have made your point, sir,” she said. “A human is no match for your might.”

“Of course he’s not,” Aleksander said, taking another bite of stew. “I do not need you to point the obvious out to me.”

“Perhaps you can tell me more about dragons and where they come from,” Mara started to say, but Aleksander’s hand quickly went up to shush her.

“I’m trying to eat,” he said, not even granting her the courtesy of eye contact. “I am hungry. Now be gone.”

“But, sir,” she started to say.

“Do not call me sir,” he responded. “I have tolerated it to this point but I can no longer. I am not one of your human knights. I do not need a king to grant me such a title to know my own importance.”

“Then what do you prefer to be called?”

“My name is Aleksander,” he responded, puffing out his chest and finally looking at her.

“Then I shall call you Aleksander,” she said, bowing.

“I heard you call me something else to the maids while you were being bathed,” he said, eyeing her sideways as he began to eat.

She could feel her heart jump a little. Had she called him something nasty and he had overheard it? She quickly racked her brain, trying to remember what she had called him during the bath. Surely she hadn’t said anything unsavory about him. Sure, she had called him a few choice words during her first few days here, but he couldn’t be everywhere, could he?

“What name was that?” she asked tentatively.

“Alek.”

“It is a shortened version of your name.”

“I like it,” he said, finally turning toward her. She was taken aback by what he said. “You may call me that, but only you. Do not call me that to the other maids, only to me.”

“Thank you, Alek,” she said, smiling and giving him a curtsey.

“That will be all,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

“I have so many questions for you, though, Alek,” she said, not wanting to go. “So many questions about you.”

He put his spoon down and put his hand on his chin, pondering what she had said. Finally he turned to her with the same cold expression he usually wore. “This is my meal time. You do not join me for meals, thus you have no right to ask me questions. I have allowed our little conversation to go on too long. Be gone, Mara.”

Mara turned and started to leave the chamber, but she smiled again. This had been a productive meal. He had checked her out once more and appeared pleased by what he saw, and now she was allowed to call him something the other maids could not. She was obtaining a position of privilege. As she exited the chamber, one more thought came racing into her mind.

“He called me Mara,” she said, hugging herself tightly. “He doesn’t call any of the other maids by name.”

Chapter 10

Mara refused to be swayed by Alek’s constant dismissals when she asked questions. The next night at dinner she persisted in questioning him about his past and about dragons, but he immediately shooed her out the door and forced her to leave.