The Dragon King (5 page)

“Not many supernaturals have occasion to need to hide from the Fae.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. I liked this, being so close to him, feeling the vibrations of his chest as I heard him laugh. His lips on top of my head, if only for a brief second, set my insides on fire.

“More of us need to hide from the Fae than you might think,” he said. “In my business, when someone comes to me needing protection it’s always good to have options.” His sigh told me he’d given up on me deciding whether I wanted a kiss, but when he tried to pull away, I held on. He relaxed and snuggled me back into him. “I’d given up on any hope of the Swans providing an answer, and then had to feel guilty when your mother died and the news came that there was one viable egg, and the Fae announced you were a girl. I felt grief for your father, and heartache for the child who would be born without a mother to raise her, but at the same time I felt a spark of hope. And then I got to know you, came to adore you, and later came to love you. Part of me wants to spirit you away to an island that shows up on no maps, and is out of bounds so the Fae can’t get to it from the Summerlands. I would make you fall in love with me, and try to figure out how to make it work…but I care too much about you. You’ve been locked away all your life, and if it kills me, or kills
both
of us, I’m going to do everything in my power to give you your freedom.”

I gave in to the sensory input snowballing in my brain. For the first time I my life I didn’t have to worry about revealing my body’s reactions, so I looked up, caught his gaze, and said, “Kiss me, Aaron. I don’t want to wait.”

His face came towards mine, slow, as if he were giving me a chance to change my mind. He ran his lips across mine, fast, hot. He paused, pulled back a few millimeters, and then touched his mouth to mine again, so languorous, delicate, and sensually slow my lips opened to him without my realizing it. I closed my eyes, relaxed into his arms, and let him have my mouth, let him do whatever he wanted with it.

His tongue encouraged mine to move, to do a kind of dance with his, and once I relaxed into the kiss, my lower body came to life in a way I’d never experienced and I pressed my thighs together, alarmed he’d smell what he was doing to me.

The kiss grew from a slow, relaxed caress to an urgent, demanding, hungry claim. I felt as if he branded me, owned me, and if he hadn’t ended it I’m not sure I’d have been able to. I was breathless and speechless as I opened my eyes to see him watching me, his eyes so focused on me it felt as if he could see every thought in my head and wish in my heart. All I could do was smile, close my eyes, and rest my face against his chest. The quick fantasies I’d allowed myself while swimming laps in the pool, or while showering — places no one was likely to smell the scent of arousal — were nothing compared to the larger-than-life reality of Aaron Drake in person.

“If that wasn’t true love’s kiss then the real thing might be enough to give someone a heart attack,” I said into his chest. “I had no idea, Aaron. Is it always like that?”

He kissed the top of my head and his voice rumbled on my cheek through his chest. “No, that was an exceptionally good kiss. We have chemistry, Soph. I knew we would, but it’s nice to have reality live up to what I’d hoped for.”

Something occurred to me, and while I was sure Aaron knew everything there was to know about swans, I told him anyway. “I asked one of my governesses why swans had to be flogged to
change
until they were no longer a virgin, what the purpose of it could be, and she told me it’s so parents can protect their children during the vulnerable time between human and swan. She said we can be taken over, shifted into another species, during this critical time, so we must have someone close by to protect us until we have a husband or wife to be there for us.”

Aaron looked at me a few seconds and said, “I’ve never heard that. The reason is actually attributed to a curse, likely whatever curse was the origin of the Swan Lake story.” He looked at me a few seconds and said, “Sometimes, the old women of a species know more than the books, though. It might be something for us to keep in mind at some point in the future. I’m glad you told me.”

I nodded and leaned away from him, needing to break the physical connection, though I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay in his arms forever, but it felt naughty and good and…I needed some time to sort through everything I was feeling.

Aaron let me go, grabbed two bottles of water, and aimed me towards the living area. When I was seated, he handed me an electronic gadget and said, “This is called a Kindle, it has more e-books loaded on it than are on one wall of your father’s library. I chose them carefully while you were sleeping, and had Brain gather what I needed and send them down so I could load them onto the Kindle.”

He showed me how to turn it on, and then told me to open the first book listed. I touched it as he instructed, and it opened. Aaron quickly talked me though how to go backwards and forward, how to look up words, highlight text, and make notes.

“The future King,” he said, “has been learning politics and strategies all of his life, and the current King was given the same education and has spent nearly two hundred years using those lessons. However, these things were purposefully left out of your education. If I’m to help you become Queen, with the power that goes behind it, I need to give you a crash course.”

“I’ve learned politics and strategy,” I told him. God, all those hours of chess. It was one of the few things my father did to spend time with me, though, so I’d learned all I could, trying my best to learn how to best him. Eventually, I could beat him more than he could beat me.

“No,” Aaron disagreed. “You’ve learned chess and social skills. These are a good foundation, but we have our work cut out for us.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t mind being your bodyguard and advisor, but you’re gonna need to be the one making the decisions. You haven’t been prepared for that kind of responsibility though, and I need to do what I can to rectify this in the next two and a half weeks. You’re a fast learner but we need to get started.”

I looked at the Kindle a few seconds and then up to him. “Okay then, let’s get started.”

Aaron

As always, Sophia absorbed knowledge quickly, grasped concepts immediately, and often figured out the next lesson before I got to it. I understood Raul’s grief at his wife’s slaughter, and why he wanted to protect his only daughter, but he was an idiot for not understanding she could’ve been groomed to be Queen.

Several hours into our first day’s lessons I saw the moment when her brain had reached its temporary capacity for new knowledge, and watched as she sat up and stretched until I wanted to put my lips to the curve of her neck and lick and kiss my way to... Right, we’d never get anywhere if I couldn’t control myself.

Smart as a tack, Sophia caught my look, blushed, looked down, but then brought us at least a little back on topic.

“So many of the rules in my father’s house were simply because ‘
Princesses don’t do that.
’ I understand some, I suppose, like not putting the sheets on my bed, or cooking dinner, since there are servants, but I was never allowed to touch the computer. My secretary printed out correspondence, and I wrote my response on lined paper and gave it to her so she could type it up and reply via email. I was told it’s because Princesses shouldn’t have to bother with computers, but I’m convinced it was just another way to keep me cut off from the outside world.”

I nodded, because she was right. “Cyrano checks and sends personal email,” I told her. “Though I understand his secretary assists with anything coming to or from his political email address.”

“I’ve read every book in my father’s library, many of them a half dozen times, at least. I couldn’t wait to go to another library, see what other books were available, but after seeing the possibilities available with electronic books? Does one even need to go to a library?”

I shook my head. “Your father has many books you haven’t read. After you read Wuthering Heights at eight, he had someone go through and remove all books inappropriate for a daughter. Lucky for you, the librarian he brought in removed the books on war and torture, but left the classics.” I smiled, pushing her so I could see her blush again and smell the wonderful spicy sent of her arousal. “
Anna Karenina, Madam Bovary, Pride and Prejudice
. Which books made you get warm inside when you read them?”

She looked down, embarrassed, but then seemed to summon her inner Princess, as if she were deciding not to be ashamed. “
Fanny Hill
, and several of Anais Nin’s novels.” She paused and added, “Oh, and
Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
but I had be very careful, because I got into a lot of trouble if my governess smelled arousal on me.” Her smile was naughty as she said, “I read some of them in the bathroom, and took a shower to wash the scent away.”

“Well,” I said with a smile, both amused and happy, “aren’t you full of surprises.” I leaned in, gave her a soft kiss, but worked hard to keep my lust and power out of this one. She needed careful handling, needed to learn to trust me, to see what it was like to have a normal give and take with touch. “I’d like us to survive on the food down here for a few days, and then I can send Duke for some fresh fruits and veggies, maybe some seafood, though I’m not sure how fresh it’ll be. It’s just you and me until I bring them back in, though. Want to go for a walk? I can show you a waterfall?”

She looked back to the Kindle and I knew she didn’t want to waste valuable study time, so I said, “You’ve learned a full day’s worth in four hours. We can talk about what you’ve learned and go through some hypothetical situations while we walk, but both of us need to move.”

Or at least, I did.

* * * *

Sophia

He was right about needing to move, so I set the gadget aside, drank two bottles of water, used the odd toilet, and followed the instructions for getting rid of “
solid matter
,” thinking it was probably the most polite way of referring to it in the cold, impersonal, instructions. I wondered how we would shower, and asked Aaron as I came out of the bathroom.

“That’s what the waterfall is for, Princess.” He said Princess as a taunt this time, as if he were challenging me to be too good to shower in a waterfall, and before I thought better of it, I stuck my tongue out at him.

He burst into laughter, his chest and stomach moving, his eyes happy, and I laughed with him, pleased to share this moment of joy with him.

Princesses don’t laugh out of control. They smile with reserve, or at most they do a little semi-titter to be polite when someone tells a joke, but they never laugh.

But on this day, Aaron and I
laughed
, and when one of us slowed, the other laughed harder, and then the other began all over again. We ended up in each other arms, my head to his chest again, and he said, “I love having you in my arms, Soph. Wanted to hold you like this forever, but it was forbidden.”

“If I’d known what this was, how it would feel, I’d have wanted it, too.”

I put the hoodie back on and accepted the flashlight Aaron offered. He let me go first, telling me whether to go right or left and pointing out landmarks and interesting features so I could find my way again.

“Tell me the things you noticed on our way in, the things I’ve done to be sure no humans will accidentally stumble upon my safe house.”

“The locked gate, hiding the vehicle, the fact it took the strength of a supernatural to jump over the stream without getting wet on the way in, while there was another tunnel that allowed someone to explore and stay dry. There was also a locked steel door with danger signs, and then the final wall we had to climb. I imagine humans could climb it with the right equipment, but only a supernatural would be strong enough to grab and pull ourselves up, over and over.”

He nodded. “Correct. If someone came through the door I’d know, and would have someone here to guard it, so when they saw they needed equipment and came back, they’d be arrested for trespassing.”

“How many safe houses do you have?”

He shook his head. “Only three with this level of supernatural safety, but my company owns a few dozen spread out over the world, so my employees have a place to go if they get into trouble somewhere far from home.”

I thought back to some of our lessons from the morning and noted, “It’s going to be nearly impossible for me to garner a power base while hidden in a cave. There’s no way I can meet with any of my father’s allies, as they’ll capture me and return me to him. I suppose I could try to arrange a meet with the Crows and the Hawks? Maybe some of the Cats?”

“My preference would be two weeks with just us. This will give us time to figure out whether we go out into the world as a united front, or whether you’d prefer another option. It will also give me time to train you, prepare you for what’s to come.”

I nodded, understanding the logic, but disappointed. “I know, Aaron, but I went from being held prisoner in my father’s house, to hiding out in a cave. I don’t want to complain, and I know it’s only for a short time…” I trailed off, unsure of how to share what I was feeling.

“I’m sorry, Soph. If you want to do this another way, let’s discuss the pros and cons, figure it out. I’m just acting as advisor right now, giving my advice.”

“No, you’re right. I need to learn what I can before I step into the spotlight.”

I came to another fork and paused, and he told me to, “Take a right turn and then follow the sound of the water.”

This was a new game, deciding which tunnels would take me to the water, and finding my own features around each turn so I’d be able to remember which direction to go on the way back to the safe house. When we finally made it to the waterfall, my spirits lifted immediately. As a swan, I was drawn to both air and water, and water travelling through the air was probably the ultimate. I’d spent so many hours sitting in front of the little waterfall at my father’s house, and this one was a thousand times better.

He let me sit just out of reach of the spray for a little while before he sat with me and said, “Amongst shifters, nudity isn’t a big deal. We all see each other before and after the
change
. Swans are a little different, as you tend to do it in pairs instead of groups, but if I’m going to show you my other form you’ll need to be able to see me naked a few minutes. Are you up to it?”

Was I okay seeing him naked? Was he really asking me this? Aaron was, like, the hottest guy on the planet. With a face that looked like a sculptor had chiseled it from granite, and his hard, muscled body, and eyes so intense when they looked at everyone else, but soft when they turned to me.

But could I look at him naked, when he was looking at me?
No
. The kiss had overwhelmed me, and while I wanted more, I was certain I’d never be able to look him in the eyes again if I saw him naked right now.

“If we turn our flashlights off, I won’t see, right?”

He chuckled and said, “Right. Don’t turn it off, just don’t aim it at me.”

I watched until he left our little circle of light, and when I could no longer see him I heard the sounds of him removing his clothes. I averted my eyes, as it didn’t feel right to even
look
in his general direction.

“I’ll begin counting down from ten and will stop at five. Keep the count going and shine your light on me at zero. I should be
changed
enough at that point, my human nudity will no longer be an issue.”

I followed his instructions and saw the dragon growing and forming before my eyes. Some shifters, like wolves, tend to keep a similar mass. So, a two hundred and fifty pound man turns into a two hundred and fifty pound wolf.

Swans and most birds lose mass when we
change
, while Lions and the largest of the Cats gain mass.

Aaron was at least twenty five or possibly thirty yards long, and he was
huge
. It was hard to see his coloring in the cave with the flashlight, but he seemed to be a deep, iridescent green with a lot of shiny, brilliant, gold.

When he’d fully formed he went to the ground, resting his gigantic head on his huge claws.

“I won’t hurt you, Soph.” His voice was so deep I felt the vibrations inside me. “I don’t have two personalities. I’m always the Dragon, just most often in human form.”

“Can I touch you?”

“I hope you do. I’ll stay down so you can explore to your heart’s content. Once you’re comfortable, I’d like you to climb onto me a few times, so you can do it in an emergency if necessary. We’ll talk about how to hold on when I’m flying.”

I expected his scales to be like those of a snake, but they were hard, as if each one was made of garnet. I looked at them under the light and the illusion was even stronger, with each scale cut and faceted as if a master jeweler had made it. He had about three feet of gold scales at his shoulders and on a portion of his legs. Or… arms? His claws were long and scary, and appeared to be made of obsidian.

I could easily see how his tail could be used as a weapon, all the way down to the sharp, pointy, weaponized tip.

“How do I climb up?”

“Walk to my left front leg. You’ll see places to put your feet.”

When I made it nearly to the top of him he said, “Okay, walk forward just a little and you’ll see an indentation. Sit in it and grab the gold handles in front. If you lay forward, your legs should be able to squeeze on either side of me, with little knobs sticking out to keep you from sliding back. I’ll need to rise up for you to get the effect, but I’ll wait until you’re seated.”

His deep voice vibrated under my feet, and I told him, “I love your voice in this form. Do I still call you Aaron? You’re so regal I feel as if I should bow to your or something.”

He laughed, but I could tell he was trying hard not to move me around too much. “As always, you’re very perceptive. I’m the Dragon King, Princess, but I’ll never ask you to bow to me.”

I froze as the ramifications I’d missed earlier slammed into me and took my breath. “The Dragon King and Swan Queen can’t form a union, Aaron. The supernatural community would never allow it, even without everything else in our way.”

“Yes, they’ll allow it, but that’s a conversation for later. Are you settled?”

Aaron walked around a little and I saw what he meant about how to hold on with both my hands and legs, and even how to stabilize myself with my elbows, keeping my upper body almost flat so I wouldn’t be buffeted around by the wind as he flew.

He had me slide down and climb back up until I could get into position in mere seconds. I was easy on him at first, careful to step gently and not ruffle his scales, but he told me swords and bullets couldn’t penetrate his armor and I shouldn’t worry about my soft shoes hurting him.

His deep voice reverberated off the cave walls, and a few times he blew fire out of his mouth. I thought he was showing off, but he said he wanted to get me used to it, in case he needed to use it defensively with me around.

His words reminded me that, while we may seem safe at the moment, it was only because Aaron had planned so well and created this space to hide me. Or, perhaps not to hide me specifically, but it worked for me.

I slid down, stepped beside his head, and looked into his eye. I could clearly see myself reflected in the huge lens, so much larger than my head.

“If you’re so hard to kill, why are there so few of you left?”

He began to
change
before my eyes, turning back to human, and I turned around before I could see him naked.

He moved fast, and within seconds he said, “I have my pants on, Soph. You can turn around.”

I watched him put his shirt on, and then his socks and boots. “You aren’t cold?” I asked.

“Nope. Fast metabolism, much warmer than normal body temp. You have a fast metabolism, too, but swans feel the cold more than other shapeshifters, which is odd since you have to stay warm in flight.”

“I can stay warm if I’m moving, I only feel it when I’m not exerting myself. Are you going to answer my question?”