The Princess' Dragon Lord (2 page)

A cold sharp wind whistled up her back and
pushed her forward. She'd have fallen all over the supplies she'd
unpacked had she not quickly caught herself. It wouldn't have been
strange except that the wind didn't stop.

Her hair flew around in dark waves, and was
only kept slightly in line by the knit hat she wore. Her bag of
brushes nearly blew away, but she snatched her hand out and caught
them, but her plastic palette was no match for the charging gusts.
She watched helplessly as it flew away. A shrub thirty feet away
seemed to reach out and catch it, but it was perilously close to
being spirited off entirely, and then what the hell was she
supposed to do without it?

Despite her worries, the wind carried on,
loud, mean, and inconsiderate.

That made her angry. Diana grit her teeth.
"Goddamnit, stop!"

The wind stopped.

The chill riding up her back kept right on
going.

That…was too damn weird.
Way
too
strange. Obviously the frickin' weather had no awareness or
emotions, despite her illogical anger and outburst. The fact that
the wind had stopped just as she'd yelled at it was just a little
creepy.

Diana got up and ran to grab her helpless
palette before the wind could change its mind and start up again.
That would be just her luck.

If the wind did pick up again, or if a storm
rode in, then she might as well just pack it up now and go home. No
point in painting if the acrylics were going to drip off the
canvas.

She looked up and around, keeping everything
quiet, even her breathing, as she observed her little hideaway
amongst the trees.

The branches didn't flap around high above
her, giving no hint that something was going down here on earth.
Birds chirped and twittered as though they weren't getting ready to
hide from a coming storm either. The sun even managed to make it
through all the leaves and branches and pine needles to put a
spotlight on exactly what it was she wanted to paint.

It had been what she'd previously thought to
be missing. The entire area lit up, and dew drops glittered like
diamonds, making the urge to stay that much more tempting.

She would take the risk, but just in
case…

Diana grabbed her red digital camera out of
her bag, snapped several photos of her subjects, and then put it
away, just in case she needed to finish the piece at home.

Then she got to work in setting up.

Even with the threat of a storm looming, she
couldn't just pack up and head back home after weaseling permission
out of the park employees to come all the way up here. She'd just
have to be quick, no more than an hour, and if it started to rain,
she'd grab the canvas and go.

At least acrylics dried fast.

Everything now in its place, she unfolded her
stool, uncapped the lid to her water, sat down, and, before the
mixing could commence, began a quick pencil outline of what she
wanted to paint.

"Run,"

Diana spun around at the unexpected voice in
her ear so quickly that she knocked over the easel itself. It
collapsed in the earth and moss with a dull thud. She paid it no
mind as she scanned her eyes over the trees and shrubs, searching
for anyone who might be hiding behind them.

The sight of no one at all didn't make her
feel better. Her heart pumped and squeezed and just plain went
insane inside her throat. The sudden mental image of Jason Voorhees
in his hockey mask and machete only made it worse.

"Hello?"

The branches of the shrubs and trees rattled
as a much more gentle wind than the last drifted by. That and the
far away twitter of some anonymous bird was her only answer.

"Is anyone there?"

Not really expecting a reply, Diana strained
her ears, listening for the sounds of boots squishing on wet twigs
and pine needles over moss and mud, or maybe even soft
breathing.

Still nothing but her and the trees. Michael
Myers didn't jump at her with a huge knife. No one did. She was
still alone, and the trees were silent. A crow cawed somewhere
above her, adding to the eeriness of the scene.

She no longer saw a fairytale forest, that's
for sure.

What. The. Hell?

She inhaled slowly. Diana could've sworn
someone had snuck up behind her and whispered the word
run
in her ear. For a half second she'd even felt the presence behind
her before it had disappeared, like the feeling of hands on her
shoulders. Her skin tingled eerily from the imagined touch.
Jeee-eeese
, she'd even felt the warm breath on her ear.

Or maybe, she'd just thought that particular
heated gust of wind blowing in her ear was someone's breath. Wind
made sounds too, after all.

"Shake it off. Shake it off." Diana said,
rolling her shoulders and picking her easel and canvas off the
ground. It hadn't been damaged, fortunately.

Whatever had happened was weird, but it was
over now.

Diana finished her sketch in record time, and
then squeezed her greens, browns, and blacks onto her palette and
began to mix them around with only a little water from her
brush.

All the while she kept both her ears open,
keeping her head down while searching around just in case there
really was someone sneaking around here.

The wind picked up again, and her palette of
paints flew out of her hand and splattered all over her jacket.

"
Run!
"

That was real. That was definitely real. Not
the wind. Message received.

Heart slamming, Diana grabbed her bag and
began to haphazardly stuff her supplies into it, leaving the jar of
water and not bothering to clean off the paint from her brush or
palette before tossing them inside. She was about to reach for the
easel when the voice came again, this time, from directly in front
of her.

"Get out of here!"

There was no one there to yell the words at
her. Nothing but the trees, and though their branches weren't bare
or anything, she got the impression of reaching claws as they all
seemed to bend down and reach for her at the same time.

"Jesus Christ!" She turned tail and ran back
down from whence she came. The trunks of the trees didn't snap from
the blowing, tornado-like wind, but they continued to bend and fall
into her path, their branches becoming hands and grabbing at her
clothes and bag, and clawing at her face and hair and hands
whenever they failed to get a proper grip.

"Help!" she screamed, leaping over a thin
pine tree that had bent and twisted at an impossible angle before
finally breaking, and crashing at her feet.

It was only through sheer luck that she
hadn't tripped up and fallen on her face. She leaped over the
obstacle and kept right on going, down, down, down, running so fast
she thought she might fly.

It wasn't fast enough. "Someone help me!"

Where was everyone? She wasn't that far away
from—the radio!

Not stopping, she reached behind her to the
pocket of her bag, her fingernail snapping as she fumbled with the
zipper to free the device.

Finally, she pulled it free and lifted it to
her lips, pressing down hard on the button that would send her
voice out to the rangers.

"Hel—"

Her voice was cut off, and the radio flew out
of her hands as one of the reaching tree branched swiped out and
caught her legs. Diana screamed as she found herself suddenly
upside down and in the air. She kicked and flailed.
The tree must have grabbed her with a weak or sick branch,
because the wood splintered and snapped, and she came
free.

Her thoughts flew faster than she fell, and
she recognized the rocks and water of the twin falls, and realized
with horror, one second before she hit, that the tree had dropped
her over the protective fencing surrounding the waterfall.

She broke through the water and it was like a
cold, hard, brick wall had smashed into her. Her head knocked
against something harder, a rock, and as the blackness surrounded
her like a clasping fist, she caught the glimpse of a pale man
looking down on her from behind the safety of the rail. She tried
to call out to him for help before she blacked out, but it was too
late, and she sank lower, lower, and lower still.

Chapter Two

Diana awoke to the lingering, warm tingle
that came from being kissed. A lot. Her lips and tongue were being
caressed, the smooth glide of another tongue inside of her mouth,
lovingly licking her deep, made her arch forward for more. Her
breasts were being squeezed, her body caressed. The scent of
arousal was in the air, thick and musky, which drove her body wild.
Hotter and hotter until she could hardly stand it.

Her heart pounded like it was in a race, and
her legs and arms, her whole body, trembled from the warm release
of pleasure that usually came after making love. It rushed through
her and bloomed in a release that made her shudder and moan.

She sank back into her pillows and sighed,
catching her breath with a smile on her swollen lips. That had been
the most intense sex dream she'd ever had. That had been the most
intense orgasm she'd ever had. Too bad she didn't get a lot of
either.

Diana released another breathy, satisfied,
exhale, and then opened her eyes to look around. Her buzz left her
as she took in her surroundings, and the fact that she was on a bed
that wasn't hers. It didn't look like something the park had for
first-aid either.

She sat up again, ignoring the twitch in her
still sensitive sex as her survival instincts kicked in. Uh, where
was she?

There was a roughly carved red stone wall all
around her. There was no light bulb or fire anywhere that she could
see, but the cave that she was in, if it could be called a cave,
was as bright and dry and warm as her own living room. Minus all
the rock, of course. The domed ceiling stretched high above her.
Like, several stories high above her, and it didn't seem to be
connected with any of the four stone walls around her.

She'd been in the park, last she could
remember. Hadn't the trees just been chasing her? It seemed like a
stupid thing to be pondering, but that's what they'd been
doing.

She reached behind her head where she
remembered bashing it in under the water. There was no bandages
covering her hair, only a slight bump. No bigger than a mosquito
bite. After falling fifty feet into water and rocks, that shouldn't
have been possible. It
wasn't
possible.

"You have risen."

Diana spun, her eyes wide and heart surging
into her throat so fast her head rushed from the adrenaline.

A man, in incredibly
large
, handsome
man, stood between the uneven rock that acted as her doorway. The
long curtain that was her door pushed to the side by his
outstretched hand, connected to a well muscled arm, as he leaned
against the stone frame. He was half naked, wearing only a pair of
boots and brown leather pants that were tight on his thick,
muscular thighs. That left practically nothing to her imagination
as far as how his body looked.

Wide shoulders tapered down to slim hips. He
had abs so deep she thought she could climb them like a ladder, and
a chest so large it reminded her of a cover model on the old
romance novels in the library. His muscles shined bright with a
thin layer of sweat, as though he'd just come in from a jog. Long,
red-brown hair that nearly matched the stone fell to his bare
shoulders in crooked waves.

He. Was.
Huge
.

His eyes, those big eyes that were the same
color as his hair, were half lidded with lust. That musky smell
she'd inhaled during her dream was back, and it was making her own
body react to him. Her sex swelled and her nipples tightened. A
wolfish smile pulled on his full lips. They were puffed out and
ever so slightly reddened in the way that happened when someone
used their teeth to bite down on them. They looked like he'd been
kissed, recently.

"Finally, I have been kept waiting for you,
princess. It was difficult with the noise you made."

He spoke with an accent she couldn't place.
So strange, but it was so familiar. She must've heard it in a movie
sometime before, but she was hardly worried about that right now.
Diana's dream came back to her as harshly as a slap to her
face.

Her dream, the sexy dream with a sexy
someone, had
not
only been a dream, but a recollection of
something she'd done. With him. And she was still in the man's
bed.

Diana went in a flying leap to the other side
of the stiff mattress, keeping it between herself and her
kidnapper. "Where am I? Who are you?"

The cocky grin slipped away, and the man's
eyes widened. "I—what is the meaning of this?”

He stepped forward.

“Stay back!”

The incredulous look in his eyes was still in
place. “Diana, do you not know me?"

"No, I don't. Don't come any closer!" she
yelled when he tried stepping forward again.

Thankfully he stopped in his tracks, but he
was still looking at her with that expression that was quickly
turning into kicked puppy sad. "What sort of spell is this? You
know me. I am your husband. Lord Azoth Dracamire of the dragon
clans."

That did it. She pointed her finger at him.
"You are out of your fucking mind is what you are. I said don't
come any closer!" she snapped as he took another cautious step
towards her.

"Diana,
miva sakkra
, please,"

He started talking some more in that language
she didn't understand, but sounded so familiar, almost as familiar
as his accent. It was giving her a headache, of the pounding
variety, until all she could hear was the pulsing inside her head.
Colors began dancing in front of her eyes.

"Shut up!" She put her hands to her ears, not
for the noise, but to drive off the pain in her skull. It barely
did anything.