The Princess' Dragon Lord (7 page)

She smiled as she watched the show, her heart
swelling as Azoth gradually warmed up to his fiancée and began to
shyly return her playful advances.

After so long of this, Diana nearly fell
asleep, but then was jerked back to full awareness. From the corner
of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Nyx’s face and dark hair as he
watched the exchange through the door, which had been left slightly
ajar.

There was jealousy and anger there, so much
so that it made her stomach do a whirl as fear bubbled within
her.

She came out of the vision to the feel of
Azoth’s hands, gently shaking her shoulders.

“Diana?”

She blinked, feeling as though she’d just
come out of a dream. “What happened?” Becoming more aware of
herself, she realized they were still in the bath, and the water
still poured from the dragon’s mouth behind Azoth in rapid
gurgles.

He was smiling a proud smile, so different
from his younger, pouting self. “The pleasure I gave you was so
great that you fainted.”

She looked at him, looked long and hard until
his smile vanished. He was trying to hide his worry. Worry that
she’d wake up and not remember again? Most likely.

She didn’t know why she had a better grip on
what he was feeling now compared to then. Maybe she just knew him
better? If that made any sense considering her lack of
memories.

“I think we need to get out of here now. I’m
clean enough,” she said.

Azoth’s face was one big question mark, but
he said nothing.

To Diana’s momentary embarrassment, he was
still inside her, and they had to separate before that was
possible.

Diana sat on the edge of their little pool,
letting her legs dangle inside the water while Azoth, completely
naked, walked over to a hook on the wall and pulled off a small rag
and tossed it to her.

“Dry yourself.”

She looked at it, stunned. The thing was
brown in color and nearly threadbare. It was more like a hand
towel. She definitely couldn’t wrap her hair in it, or even any
part of her body.

She guessed it to be the only thing available
to him, however, when he shifted into his leather pants, still
dripping wet. How me managed to get the leather over wet skin, she
had no idea.

As they dressed, she caught sight of his
back. Diana winced at the mish-mash of scars that were there. It
looked like Freddy Krueger had played with him.

She looked away and set about drying herself
off. She did the best she could with what she had, and was still
damp when she pulled on her clothes.

“How did you dry my clothes?” She asked.

Azoth looked at her. She tried to ignore the
tiny water droplets falling from his hair and down his rippling
chest.

She looked down on herself instead. “I fell
into the water before coming here. How did you dry them?”

“My dragon breathes fire. I prepared a pit
and had your garments placed over them during our earlier
activities.”

“Earlier—?” Too late she knew what he
meant.

His grin was back.

She sighed. No point in being embarrassed
about it considering they’d just had sex.

“Can I meet your dragon?”

Azoth stiffened. His face hardened into an
unreadable mask. “No.”

“Just for a few minutes. You can be right
there with me.” She
wanted
him to be right there with her.
There was no way she was ever going to be brave enough to get near
a creature that huge that had attacked her. Not in any
universe.

Azoth’s lips thinned. Diana watched as his
hands clenched, and her heart sped up at the thought that she might
not get the chance to find out what was really going on.

“Please, I need to see him. You can control
him anyway. He’s your dragon.”

“Yes, princess, but he is no longer a part of
me.”

“What?”

“Ever since that day that he took over and,”
his eyes flashed to the scar over her eye. “We have not been of one
mind since then. He obeys my commands, yes, but should the creature
become mad again and attack, there will be little I can do in this
form.”

There it was. That helpless feeling that she
hated so much, but she couldn’t let it consume her. “You said a
servant tampered with your wine,” she said, and more and more she
got the feeling that Nyx was the accused. “And that’s why he
attacked. That was a thousand years ago. I keep getting these
random flashes of memories, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m
near you, or what it is, but what if something else comes back to
me when I see him?”

“You have already seen him. Did you have any
visions then?”

He meant her attempt at trying to run away
before the dragon stopped her in her tracks. “No,” she said
reluctantly. Her hands were clenching up as her patience wore thin.
“But I still want to see him.”

His entire body became bowstring tight. His
neck and jaw clenched as he stared at her, his eyes hard and angry.
He threw his hand through his hair, paced around, and then finally
gave in.

“You will stay behind me at all times. Should
he rise up, raise his claws, or inhale deeply, you will leave me
there and run.”

“I wouldn't leave you there to get killed,”
she said, suddenly rethinking her plan to go and see the
dragon.

He’s trying to scare you out of going
,
she thought. Then inwardly repeated that thought five times to
comfort herself.

“He will not kill me, but should he attempt
to attack, I could perhaps give you some time to return to my
dwelling. He does not enter that space.”

He said it as though he still weren’t
convinced of the wisdom of this.

Diana couldn’t blame him. If that dragon
really wanted to kill her, roast her like a hot dog over a fire,
and then eat her, there was likely nothing either of them could do
about it.

Azoth's house, if it could be called that,
was made up of carved rock with no roof. An animal of that dragon’s
size could easily climb over those walls and search her out if it
wanted.

“Do you still wish to meet him,
sakkra
?”

She steeled her resolve. “Yes.”

“
Fekkah
,”

Diana didn’t know what that meant, but from
the twist of his lips right before he’d said it, it had obviously
been a curse.

Chapter Seven

Azoth led her out of his bathroom and back
into the treasure trove. Instead of moving across the stone
clearing to the space he made his home in, the turned towards the
mountains of gold and jewels.

“How did all this get here?” She asked,
eyeing a particularly huge ruby—it was the size of her fist!—as
they walked by.

“Our marriage was meant to bring together our
people. Some of this would have gone to Mab, your mother, had it
been successful.”

“And now?”

His eyes shifted down to her. Guilt pierced
deep inside her at the realization that she was probably bringing
up painful memories, but he continued on.

“After my actions, war between the dragons
and the fae broke loose. As a peace offering, my sentence was to be
separated from my dragon, no longer one entity, but two, and
imprisoned here until any member from your remaining family deemed
I had been forgiven. It was not enough for your mother, not that I
could place blame on her, and the clans nearly destroyed each
other.” Azoth said. “Eventually, the bounty of my people was placed
here under my watch, to keep fae warriors from plundering it during
the war.”

“Oh,” Diana said, sadness creeping into her
heart. “Where are they all now? The fae and the dragons?” Mostly
she was curious about the family she had never known.

“Dead, mostly,” Azoth said. “Of the many who
killed each other off, there were a select few from each side who
fled at the thought of battle. Cowards, yes, but oddly enough,
their cowardice is to be thanked. Because of their lack of loyalty,
some fae and dragon blood still exists today. Though it has mostly
been mixed with the humans. Just around this bend, princess.”

Azoth pointed her towards a new cave,
appearing from between the mountains of gold and precious stones,
crowns, and jeweled goblets.

Naturally, her eyes followed his finger, and
his hand on her lower back led her in that directions. It was
because of that, that she nearly missed the portrait in the stone
pillar they’d passed.

“Wait.” She came to a halt, digging her heels
in when he tried to pull her forth.

“Do you or do you not wish to see—?”

“Is that me?”

He stopped now too, no longer tugging her
along since she’d seen what he didn’t want her to see.

Diana stepped out of his hold and approached
the portrait to examine it.

It was her, there was no question about it.
Her princess self, anyway, but all the details were there.

The portrait itself looked to be done in
pointillism, which was amazing. Diana never had any talent for that
sort of art work. On first glance she thought he’d used glass to
make it, imbedding the shards into the pillar itself, but then she
stepped closer and squinted.

No. The portrait, all the way down to her
hair and the details of her eyes, had all been put in place by tiny
diamonds and sapphires. Rubies and garnets and tourmalines made up
the varying shades of her lips, and even, when Azoth had cut them
down to small enough size, the blush in her cheeks.

Had it not been for the lack of the scar down
her eye, and the difference in her hair color, it would have been a
perfect likeness.

She looked at him, but she had no words, only
the awe she felt.

He looked more like that pouting, younger
Azoth from her vision. His arms were crossed, and he wasn’t looking
at her.

“A millennia is long time to go without
practicing the skills my wife attempted to instill in me.”

Diana recalled her former self’s words.
I
may not always be able to look at the real thing.

Poor Azoth had learned that the hard way.

“Let us be off now before I change my mind.”
Azoth said.

Diana smiled and went with him. Now, unlike
back then, she recognized his defensiveness for what it was, and
she wouldn't be intimidated by it.

She shocked him by looping her arm through
his. “Lead the way.”

He did. Not much farther into the cavern,
there was another smaller cave within the cave. Oddly enough, this
one looked like it was perfect for a dragon, something right out of
a kid's fairytale painting.

It was a round bump in the rock with a near
perfect semi-circle opening. There were scratches along the opening
and the rock leading into the little space. The mouth of the
smaller cave was black, allowing her to see nothing inside. Judging
by the size, she should be able to walk inside without being
cramped, but logically she knew it shouldn't have been big enough
to hold a dragon so large. Odd.

“Does it lead underground?” She asked,
suddenly picturing a labyrinth beneath her feet where the dragon
crept around and slept.

“No,” Azoth said. “Dragon! Come forth.”

Diana put her eyes back onto the dark hole of
the small cave. There was a shift of movement, and then a that
same, triangular, scaled head appeared from within. At his master's
call, the beast reached a clawed, reptilian hand outside of its
sleeping space, and with a hard crunch that made the ground beneath
Diana's feet shake, punctured the rock with its claws and began to
wiggle its massive body from outside of the tiny cavern.

It was like watching a cat squeeze through a
space half the size of its body, and then still make it through
anyway.

The dragon, large, scales of several shades
of red, and fierce, shook itself from the rocks and dust it had
collected from its bed as it wiggled free. Diana stepped back, and
Azoth pulled her behind him to better shield her from the falling
debris, though it hardly would have done anything had she been
struck. None of the rocks were big enough.

After shaking out its body and wings,
fluttering them onto its back in a particularly bird-like motion,
the dragon looked down at them. Then its eyes found Diana, and
locked on.

It keened and stepped forward.

“Stop!” Azoth commanded. His entire voice
filled the cave, and he stepped forward, his palms spread out, and
his body tight and all alpha male.

The dragon did as he was commanded. Diana
thought she saw some sadness on its face. A kind of child-like
what did I
do?
all over its puss.

“Be quick about whatever it is you wish to
do,” Azoth said, slowly lowering his hands after the dragon didn't
move.

“O-okay,” she said. She hadn't really thought
about what exactly she would be doing. She started with just
stepping forward a little, never entirely leaving the safety that
being behind Azoth's back provided.

The dragon's snake eyes never left her. It
sat down at her quiet approach, its devil tail wrapping around its
legs, again, reminding her of a cat.

“Um, hello,” she said. Holy hell, was that
smoke coming out of its nose?

The dragon still watched her. Like she was
something to eat, or something he'd wanted to see for a long
time.

“Does he have a name?” Diana asked. If she
knew its name, maybe the giant reptile wouldn't seem
so...giant.

“He and I are one in the same. There's no
need for one.”

“You used to be one and the same.” Diana
corrected. “In the thousand years you've been separated, you've
never named him?”

Azoth shrugged. He seemed to be relaxing now
despite his earlier fears. Or maybe he was relaxed because the
dragon was now relaxed. Azoth used to transform into the creature
in front of her, so was it possible their emotions were tied
together as well?

A blanket of sadness overtook her at his
casual dismissal of a creature that used to be so much a part of
him, that very well was still a part of him. “I think you've been
punishing him for too long.” she said.