Dragonborn (The Jade Lee Romantic Fantasies, Book 1) (16 page)

"Jaseen was my cousin. My father's sister's only son. He was nearly eight cycles older than me." Kiril reached out for his ale only to find that the flagon was empty. "He had fiery red hair and freckles everywhere, which Aunt Marta hated but he thought was funny. What need did a warrior have for clear skin? And that, of course, was what I found funny." Kiril fell silent, his mind whirling back to a hot day spent wandering through a cool forest.

"I don't understand." Natiya's words were soft, interrupting his reverie.

"What?"

"Why did you find his spots funny.?"

"Huh? Oh, no. Not his spots. That he thought he'd be a warrior. He just didn't seem like one. Even I—so many years younger—could see that he wasn't a fighter. Jaseen was the gentlest soul I knew." Kiril readjusted his position on the bed so he could lean against the headboard. "We spent a lot of time there. My father and uncle were plotting, I suppose, but all I knew was that I got to run around the woods with Jaseen. It was great fun." He smiled. "He was great fun, always laughing, always happy. He taught me everything I know about the forest—where to find food, what the animals do, how to track them. He talked about the souls of the birds and the wisdom of the trees. Once he even talked to a water spirit."

Kiril twisted the empty flagon in his hands, remembering too much of his laughing cousin. "We never hunted. He knew how, of course, but even eight cycles younger, I was better at it. He just didn't like killing anything, even fish. And since he could always find berries and roots, why hurt something else?"

Kiril looked down at his palms, seeing the hard calluses there, knowing they came from steady work, hard study in the ways of wielding a sword. In the ways of murder. What would Jaseen have thought of him? he wondered. A dragon-killer? He curled his fingers into his palms, pushing aside the memories with steady effort.

Then he looked up at Natiya, felt the lust heat within him at the sight of her unbound hair, her freshly scrubbed face, and for once he didn't fight it. How much better to focus on a beautiful woman than the ugly past. Except, she would not let the subject drop.

"How did he change? What happened?"

"He got the thrice-cursed dragon egg, that's what." He turned away, clenching his teeth but forcing himself to explain. "I'm not sure why my father and uncle picked Jaseen. Probably because he was the right age. I was too young, the others too old. Plus, Jaseen took after his father—large-boned with thick muscles. A warrior's body containing a poet's soul. So they gave him the egg."

Unable to sit still, Kiril reached for his bag and pulled out a thin spool of white loga. The metal thread had not been cured in dragon blood, so it didn't matter what he fashioned out of it, merely that it kept his hands busy as he spoke.

"Jaseen wore the egg on his right bicep. His egg was dark green—like jade—and he had it worked into a warrior's armband along with the family crest." He looked at his own arm, knowing underneath his clothing he had a dark tattoo—a black stain fashioned as an armband but in truth a picture of a dragon. That had been Dag Racho's big joke the first year Kiril was brought to court: tattoo a fake warrior band across his arm, make it look like Jaseen's Platinum dragon, and immediately all would know exactly who and why Kiril was tolerated there. Everyone in Dag Racho's court who saw it—and Kiril was never allowed to hide it when there—would know him to be the last survivor of Dag Jaseen's failure.

"What happened?" Natiya pressed, and he spared a moment to wonder at her insistence, then immediately dismissed the thought. She was probing because he disliked it. She wanted to test how far he would go to please her. But she needed to understand that these painful memories did not come freely, so he raised his banded arm and gestured to her. "Come closer, Natiya. I don't want to have to shout my family history across the room."

He wasn't shouting, of course, but his ploy worked. She climbed fully back onto the bed, settling on her knees at the furthest edge of his reach.

When he would have drawn her closer, she shrank back from him. "Not yet," she said, fear still skating along the edge of her voice. "Tell me about how Jaseen changed."

He nodded, knowing he could press her no further just yet. So he sighed, dreading the return to the memories that hovered as always at the back of his mind.

"The egg was a boon—at first. Jaseen grew stronger. Faster. His sword arm became more confident, his actions more assured. He seemed to have the senses of the creature—better smell, better sight, better... everything. But he also developed a taste for meat."

Natiya straightened. "Surely he ate meat before."

"Of course he did, but not often. He didn't like it." Kiril grimaced. "In fact, he often slipped his pieces to me under the table."

"It is no crime to like meat," she laughed.

Kiril shook his head. "No crime. That came later." He focused on his hands, letting his fingers twist the metal strands of loga however they willed. "He changed, Natiya. I cannot say it more plainly than that. Where before he was kind and gentle, he became brutal and cruel. He started collecting things. It didn't matter what, so long as they were valuable. I once gave him a piece of jewelry—a family brooch, tarnished and worn. He said he would have it reset for me, put the old stones into new metal of my design, and then I could give it to my mother for her birthday."

He fell silent, remembering the betrayal.

"He stole it, didn't he? Gave you a fake."

Kiril nodded, unsurprised that she had guessed what happened; no woman could live on the docks and not learn about such fraud. "I saw the exact same piece years later adorning the breast of Dag Racho's mistress. He had taken it from Jaseen's hoard." Kiril released a bitter laugh. That treasure hoard had been worth thousands, hidden in the bedroom of a boy twenty-two cycles old. "That is what the egg does: It overwhelms a man's mind and creates a monster."

"Do you think me a monster?" Her voice was small. Afraid.

He frowned in confusion at her pallor. "Of course not."

"But I like meat. And jewels. And in my bed I have hidden all my wealth. Or I wear it on my costumes so that it is close to me."

He leaned forward, tugging on her arm until she rested beside him, still facing him, her long legs tucked beneath her. "That's simple practicality. Where else could you put your coins safely? And I am sure you need meat for your dancing. Fruits and grasses are all very well, but meat fills the belly like nothing else." Then he smiled, remembering her room. "And I have seen your wealth, Natiya. Books and books, stacked in neat rows beneath your bed. What do you read about, I wonder?"

She shrugged. "Everything." Her gaze slipped to where her fingers toyed with the fabric of the coverlet. "I hoard those books like treasure."

"Jaseen committed crimes because he was... evil."

"How?" She leaned forward, and he extended his free hand, resting it along her thigh while she focused on her questions. "What did he do?"

"You must understand. A dragon lives only to possess. It doesn't matter what, only that he has, that he takes." He looked down at the twisted loga in his fingers. He had fashioned a shimmering white dragon with outstretched wings—beautiful to behold, but created of twisted metal with cuttingly sharp points. "It is a fire that possesses the mind, making the bonded think of nothing else. Of no one else."

"What did Jaseen do?" she pressed.

Kiril looked into her eyes, wishing he could make her see the truth. "He took a woman, Natiya. The man who would not fish because he could not bear to kill, that man took Sabina in the most brutal of ways."

Kiril watched her eyes widen, but even so he could tell she did not comprehend. Not really. "You mean, like you intend to take me," she said.

He jerked back, cut his palm on his own sculpture. "Of course not!"

"But you said I am your obsession. That you want me with a fever you cannot explain."

"You would be willing!" he snapped. "The experience would be pleasant. It would not be rape."

She nodded, straightening her spine and staring at him. "And if I said no? Indeed, I have said no, but you still look for ways to persuade me, to use my body against me."

"That's not true!" he cried. "I have told you, all you need say is no."

She looked down at his hand where it had slipped to the inside of her thigh. "I have said, no, and yet you continue. Didn't I tell you not to touch me no more than five beats ago?"

He snatched his hand back, glaring first at it, then her. Why was she being like this? "It is different with a dragonborn. They are different."

She shook her head. "I think you damn Jaseen for the wrong reason. I think the failing was not in the dragon, but in the man. What he did may have been harsher because he was stronger, but the evil lay not on his arm but between his legs."

Kiril's hands became fists, crushing his sculpture, which sliced deeper into his palm. "He was evil, consumed by the dragon."

"He was consumed by rutting—just like you," she countered. "What possessed him was his prock—just like you."

"That is not true!" he bellowed, throwing away his wire creation hard enough to mark the wall where it struck. "It is the dragon that is evil!" He said the words, even believed them. But her implication hung in the air between them.

Just how far would he go to possess her? He had not yet forced her. So far she had been amenable to many of the more subtle and pleasurable ways to entice a woman. But if those ploys failed? He had already called her his obsession. He had already admitted she fired his blood as no other woman ever had. What if she said no? Even now, wasn't he belly-horned with hunger?

"I would not force you," he repeated firmly, more to himself than her.

She scrambled off the bed, leaning over to lace her boots. "Then let us leave now."

He blinked. "What?"

"Let us leave this large room with its soft bed and perfumed sheets. Let us go to the Queen's clutching cave now, before the cold freezes the entrance."

"You know where it is?"

Her gaze flicked over him, then darted back to her boot laces. "Yes."

"You will take me there?"

She nodded—a quick jerk of her chin. Then she looked up. "If you are not a man ruled by his organ, then you have no need of this bedroom."

"And what of sleep? Have I no need of sleep?" he rasped, even as he fought his own reaction. He was angry. More than angry, he was furious at her suggestion that he was no better than a dragon-possessed man. And yet, if she was wrong, why wasn't he jumping for joy? She was offering to take him to the clutching cave. To the Queen's cave, which up until now she hadn't admitted existed. He ought to be rushing her out the door before she changed her mind. And yet here he sat, in the middle of a large, soft bed, wondering why they could not stay the night. Or the hour. Just long enough for him to remind her how good it felt to be touched. So that he could...

He grabbed hold of the sheet, tearing off a strip of the white fabric so that he could wrap it around his wounded hand. His movements were harsh and violent, making him flinch. And yet he welcomed the pain, knowing that the sharp stab of sensation cleared his thoughts.

Was she right? Was he a man controlled by reason, or a beast bent on possession? He could not be the beast. But honesty forced him to admit he didn't qualify as a thinking man just then either; his reason had deserted him the first moment he had seen her dance.

Natiya pushed open the door, headed down the stairs to the main inn floor.

"Where are you going?" he demanded. Any moment when he could not see her was a physical pain to him.

"I am leaving," she called back.

He nearly tripped in his rush to her side. "Why?" he asked stupidly.

She shook her head. "To be honest, I don't know. Dag Racho hunts me. You search for the cave. I should be running away from all of you. And yet, I cannot deny its draw."

He frowned, trying to make sense of her words. It was some moments before he realized the truth. "You want to find the egg," he accused. "You want to bargain with it for your life." He grabbed hold of her, his bloodied hand staining her shirt. "You are thinking of your future. That's good, but you will not be safe without me. Not when bargaining with Dag Racho."

She jerked out of his grip. "I am not safe with you."

"Of course you are," he lied. Then he took a deep breath, struggling to find a logical solution. "Is it far? Can you make it on foot?"

She shook her head, and he read frustration in the movement. "Not before it freezes."

"Then you need Mobray. And me."

She pushed away, descending the last of the steps. "I need a mount, not you."

"You need food, blankets, and a mount. I have all three. And I am willing to take you there."

She didn't respond, though he saw her shoulders droop in silent acknowledgment. So in her moment of vulnerability, he reached out, stroking her cheek with studied care. He did not intend to do this; indeed, his mind screamed at him that it was a false move, a stupid, useless gesture guaranteed to undermine his position. And yet, such was her power over him that he could not stop himself. He had to touch her.

"Need we go tonight?" he coaxed. "The room is paid for. And I need—"