To The Princess Bound (35 page)

“I’ll let her go when I’m relatively certain she’s not going to try to kill me,” Dragomir said, his eyes moving from the grime floating in his bucket to the black streaks now staining the towel.  “Until then, I don’t want her interfering.”  He took his eggs over to the frying pan and proceeded to crack them over the stove.

Seeing a tuft of feather and other dubious material still sticking to one of the shells, Victory thought she was going to be sick.  “You should wash those first,” she managed.

“Maybe,” he said, dropping the feather-crusted shell into the disgusting bucket of compost and picking up another. 
Crack.
  “But, now that you so thoughtfully used up all my clean water, that would mean another trip to the stream, and I’m tired of your complaining.”  Dump. 
Crack.

“When my brother gets here,” Victory said, “The first thing I’m going to have him do is take me to a decent meal.”

Crack.
  He looked down at her, irritation in his blue eyes.  “How do you know it’s not decent?  You haven’t even tried it.”  Then he frowned.  “And I thought the first thing you were gonna do is have him execute me on the spot.”

“Lobster.  Filet mignon.  Wine.  Maybe a little shrimp scampi or lasagna.”  She smiled at him.  “I’m going to eat it all in front of you, make you watch every bite. 
Then
I’m going to have him cut off your head.”

Dragomir rolled his eyes and cracked the last filthy egg into the pan.  Then he took a primitive wooden spoon and stirred it all together, until the yolk and white were blended.  “And,” Dragomir said, reaching for the bag of salt, “since we don’t have any cheese…”  She watched, horrified, as he dumped nearly a palmful of salt into the eggs.

Then he proceeded to pluck three large potatoes from the pot he had boiled the night before and nipped them into the skillet.  Victory felt her gorge rise.  “That wasn’t refrigerated.”

“Nope,” he said.  Then, as she watched, he built a fire inside the stove using sticks of wood and kindling, then stirred the pan as it started to heat.

“This is taking
forever,
” Victory said, finally getting impatient.  “Why don’t you use a gas stove?”

Without looking up from the eggs, Dragomir said, “Do you see any gas lines running to my home, Princess?”

She narrowed her eyes.  “They sell canned gas.  I know.  It’s one of our imports.”

“Purchasing and transporting a gas stove costs more than I make in a year.  Every
bottle
of gas costs the same price as five goats.”  He tapped contaminated egg off his spoon and looked at her.  “So which would you rather have?  Fast-cooked potatoes or slow-cooked meat?”

“Slow-cooked is right.”  She wrinkled her nose at how long it was taking for the stove to heat.  “Is that
ever
going to be done?”

He squatted, opened the stove, blew on the coals, and threw more wood on the fire.  “You know,” he said, closing the iron door again, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m going to do your heart last.”  He stood, his blue eyes watching her with a calculating look.

“Uh,” Victory said.  “What?”

He poked a big finger between her breasts.  “Your heart rama.  That’s going to be last.  If I open it up now, I’m just going to be leaving you with all sorts of other worries and hang-ups that have built up in the womb and liver ramas, and when you fall madly in love with me, I want it to stick.”

Victory jerked away from his touch, horrified and how close his hand had come to her now all-too-sensitive nipples.  Then her jaw fell open.  “You’re doing it
again?
”

“Yep,” Dragomir said.  “After breakfast.”  He started stirring the skillet again.  “Hungry?”

She backed to the end of her chain.  “You can’t.”

“Why not?” Dragomir asked.  “Your brother asked me to heal you.”

Victory thought of the way that she had been doing everything she could to avoid thinking about the way his big body moved like a cat, the way his blue eyes danced at her complaints, the way his big hands worked the goat’s udders…  “Uh,” she said, reddening at the warmth that was building at the thought, “I feel completely healed, thank you.”

The Emp gave her a flat look.

“I
am,
” she cried.  Then, at the warmth between her thighs building under his scrutiny, she squeaked, “
Too
healed.”

“We’re opening another rama.  The womb this time.  It will help you with your creativity.  You like to paint?  Sew?”

“Uh,” Victory said.  “Do I have any say in this?”

“Nope.”  He went back to stirring his meal.

“Listen, you cad,” Victory growled.  “I’m a
princess.
  I don’t need to sew.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “You want something more than that shift?”  He gestured to her linen robe.

“Of course I do,” Victory muttered.

“I have goat wool.  I know a lady in town who has a spinner and a loom.  I can arrange for you to use it.”

Victory stared at him so long he had a chance to finish breakfast and serve it up on two wooden plates, carry one of them to Lion, feed her, and then sit back with his own meal with a sigh.

“You have got to be
utterly out of your mind
!” she finally cried.

Dragomir looked up at her over a mouthful of his contaminated egg-and-potato mash.  “Winter is coming,” he said.

“My
brother
is coming,” Victory snapped.  “And when he does—”

Dragomir rolled his eyes and went back to his meal.

Victory watched him eat for several minutes before she realized that she was hungry.  “I want some of that,” she finally said.

Dragomir kept eating.

“Hey,” she said, walking up and smacking him on a big shoulder.  “Let me try it.”

He looked up at her and she saw him deliberate.

“I’m really hungry,” she admitted.

Growling, he offered her the plate.

Victory gingerly picked up a bite, tasted it.  She took a few more forkfuls, forcing herself to swallow them.  “It’s really bland,” she said, grimacing.  She took another bite.

“Then
give it back
!” he roared, stretching out an arm to take the plate from her.

Victory twisted out of reach and kept eating.  “You get hungry enough, you’ll eat just about anything.”  She finished the food, then handed him the plate.  “That was passable, considering your resources.”

Dragomir sat on his chair and fumed.  “That was my breakfast.”

She gestured at the unrefrigerated pot on the stove.  “Have some potatoes.  There were a couple of those left.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, dropping his face into his big hands.  For several minutes, he said nothing, just stared at the floor.  Then, with a growl, he got up, grabbed a bundle of twine from the wall, and started walking out the door, Victory in tow. 

“Where are you going?” Victory asked, reluctantly following along behind him.  Reluctantly because if she didn’t stay within chain’s-length, she was going to be dragged.

“Getting myself some breakfast,” Dragomir growled.  He strode out to the yard where the goats were clumped together around a bush that had had the misfortune of growing through the fence, and tied the twine around the neck of the goat he had been milking that morning.

Victory’s eyes widened.  “You’re going to
kill
it?” she gasped, feeling sick.

Dragomir gave her an irritated scowl.  The goat on a lead, he went to the small shack beside the house and whistled.

A moment later, a huge black beast came charging up to the yard from the direction of the fields, ebony mane and tail flowing out behind it.  Victory frowned.  “Is that a
horse?
”

Dragomir petted the animal, greeting it with soothing words.  Then he took a set of leather straps off the wall inside the hut and began harnessing the beast.

Victory grimaced.  “How primitive.”

If he heard her, he ignored her.  He set a saddle onto the horse’s back and cinched it down.  Then he tied the goat’s lead to the saddle horn.

“Come here,” Dragomir growled, turning to Victory.

Eying the animal warily, Victory backed to the end of her chain.  “Why?”

Dragomir grabbed the leash and reeled her in.  Then, amidst her flailing and complaints, lifted her off her feet and dropped her onto the horse’s back in front of the saddle, alone and unattended. 

Victory froze, feeling the great beast move underneath her.  “Oh my gods,” she said.  Inside, Lion had started shouting, the thumps of her body hitting the chain ringing throughout the hovel.

“Better tell her you’re all right,” Dragomir said, glancing at the open door.  “She’s going to hurt herself again.”  Then, to her horror, he swung up into the saddle behind her.

Ducking low in terror on the horse’s back, her hands gripping the animal’s mane, Victory somehow found her voice long enough to shout, “Calm down, Lion.  He’s only assaulting me with a horse.”

Unable to understand her, Dragomir clucked at the animal and, holding the leather straps, started leading it and the goat toward the fence.

“I’m sorry I ate your breakfast!” Victory cried, as she felt its mass jolt beneath her.  “Please!”

“Stop thrashing or you’re going to spook Thunder,” Dragomir said.  He reached around her and patted the horse’s neck.  To the horse, he cooed, “’Cause he’s an ornery old cuss, isn’t he?”  The horse whickered back.

Grinning, Dragomir patted its side, then looked down at Victory.  His grin faded.  Straightening, he wrapped an arm around her and kicked the horse forward.

“Where are we going?”  She tried to keep the whine out of her voice, but being held this close, it felt like every nerve in her back was afire where he was touching her.  And the big arm around her waist wasn’t helping matters.  That, and this close, he smelled…

…masculine.  It wasn’t a smell that Victory was used to, and it made her shudder with yearning before she got her instincts under control. 
What did he
do
to me?
she thought again, horrified.

Then she realized he hadn’t answered her and a feeling of foreboding began to seep into her consciousness.  “Dragomir?” she asked, nervous.  Then, when he didn’t answer, she scowled and said, “
Slave?
”

He tilted his head to peer down at her, his blue eyes thoughtful.  “I thought Imperium Royals were a genetic mutation similar to an Emp or a Psi, but with brainpower.”

Victory frowned up at him.  “We have photographic memories, among other things.  My brain is like yours, except better.”

He grunted.  “For a super-genius, you’re making some very interesting miscalculations.”

Victory twisted on the back of the horse to face him.  “Like what?”

Still watching the road, Dragomir said, “Oh, I don’t know…  That I currently have you trapped on a horse, chained to my waist.”

Victory scoffed.  “We both know how long
that’s
going to last, once my brother gets here.  I haven’t decided if I’m going to sell you off to a fetish pleasure-house or keep you for my own amusement.”

He smiled pleasantly.  “Or that I’m about three times bigger than you, haven’t had breakfast, and am fighting an overpowering urge to make you walk.”

Victory’s mouth fell open.  She glanced down at the rocky ground, then at the skinny brown goat that was fighting in vain against its lead, then back up at him.  “Uh.”

“But please go on,” Dragomir insisted.  “You were saying something about a fetish pleasure-house?”

“Uh,” Victory said.  “You know, that tree is really
green.
  I never noticed it before.  Is that imported?”

He glanced in the direction of the foliage.  “That’s an alder.”

“Father has to import most of his hardwoods,” Victory babbled.  “The only ones that Mercy has reliably been able to grow has been oak and maple, and they really only grow on a thin band on either side of the equator—this village is way too far north.  There’s so much rock and so little dirt on this planet that we really haven’t been able to establish any serious tree-farms.”

He peered down at her for a long moment.  Victory grabbed extra fistfuls of the horse’s mane, just in case he tried to fling her off.

“A photographic memory, huh?” he asked finally.  “How many potatoes were left in the pot?”

“Seven,” Victory said immediately.  Then she frowned.  “Well, six and a half.  You’d cut one up for breakfast.”

She heard him suck in a breath behind her.  “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“What?” Victory asked nervously.

“Why you keep being overwhelmed by the visions.”  He looked down at her, his blue eyes kind.  “You’re living them over again, aren’t you?”

“Part of the Imperial Curse,” she muttered.

He nodded in commiseration.  “Does the other part consist of being a pampered pain in my ass?”

She glared up at him.  “Definitely the fetish house.”

“You know, you’re right.”  In an easy motion, Dragomir lifted her up and dropped her onto the ground beside the goat.  “Stretch your legs a bit.”  He never slowed the horse.