Finding the Wolf(The Dragon's Hoard #1) (3 page)

Werewolves were creatures who only lived in the Wilds beyond the human city. It was an area controlled by the dragons only on paper. To truly own the area the dragons would need to fight, defeat, and decimate the wild races populating the Wilds that refused to complacently fall under the dragons' claws. One such race who could not be controlled was the werewolves, but they generally kept to themselves in the Wilds.

Beneath the human skin, a beast would lie in wait. Human seeming, human smelling, human in everything except soul, werewolves would shift into their bestial forms and hunt.

"I want to tell you the story of what happened to me," Leon continued. "And then I want you to tell me the story you were told that put you on my trail."

Nyle looked down at the tiny human from his dragon-sized perch, sighed, and shifted into human form. He collected two cushions because the human bottom did not enjoy the sharp feel of cut stone. Once they were both settled comfortably, he nodded for Leon to continue.

"I was born human," Leon began. "As the third prince, I had few responsibilities. One of those few was to visit the outlying territories to deal with problems that arose. My older brothers could not do this job because, as the Heir and the Captain of the Guard and Royal Forces, they could not leave their posts for the lengthy amount of time travelling across the Kingdom would take. During my sixteenth year, I was sent to investigate the disappearances of a number of young men. The problem had started with the farms in the outlying territories and had slowly been inching towards the capital. My assignment was to investigate the disappearances, find the culprit, and stop the problem."

Leon took a deep breath and Nyle could tell that they were coming to the difficult part of the story. When Leon began speaking again, Nyle could hear the breaks in his voice that told of pain and suffering even though his words seemed perfunctory. The occasional growl would suddenly appear in his speech too, as if the pain in the story couldn't be explained using mere words and instead needed another, wilder outlet.  There was a clear difference between when the calm prince and the wild werewolf had dominance in telling the story. 

"I found the culprits easily enough. Actually, you could say that they found me. The werewolves knew we were coming, because two nights travel from the border with the Wilds, they attacked our camp. I was bitten and forced to join their society as a slave. Normal werewolves are born, you see, and as a bitten human I was second-class. There were a number of bitten young men like me; they were creating slaves to serve them.

"It took me two months to escape. It was long enough for me to understand what I had become and to know that while I could return home, I would not be welcomed back any longer. I informed my father, King Leander, what had been causing the disappearances and then vanished myself before he realized what had happened to me. For two years I have lived among the humans, pretending to be one and only mostly succeeding. I was always worried that my father would realize what had happened to me and try to kill me because of it, so I tried to hide, but I'm still a werewolf and werewolves need to run and be wild every once in a while. Hiding among the humans was hard, but after the first few months I realized my father didn't care to put any effort into locating me. I stopped paying such close attention to what he was up to. By then I was only trying to conceal my wolf, because without the responsibilities of a prince to ground me all I had left was a wish to howl and run in the forest, which I couldn't give into for fear of being too blatantly overt in my father's face. Wild sex gave me back some of that grounding; I've never found anything fiercer and therefore more calming than a round of rowdy bed play.

"But the other night," Leon's tone changed to the purring vowels Nyle had heard on the street that night right before he was dragged off for sex, "my wolf chose you. My human side had no say against taking a dragon to bed, and even though I knew it could be deadly the wolf didn't care. Still doesn't care." He paused, as if he were gauging Nyle's reaction.

Nyle could see the truth in the wolf's eyes peeking out behind Leon's human skin, but could also see what Leon was not telling him. Leon, the human part of the werewolf, was also not adverse to a relationship with a dragon. Nyle had spent the past couple of days not thinking about the feeling of Leon over him, inside him, holding him. With Leon's truth staring him in the face, Nyle could not lie to himself. Nyle had enjoyed the sex, and not just because it had been a pleasurable experience. No, Nyle had enjoyed Leon and would very much like to learn more about the confident, proud, and courageous man before him. There was something inherent inside Nyle drawing him towards Leon. Leon was so pretty and Nyle wanted Leon in his hoard. It was probably the same feeling Leon's wolf was feeling towards Nyle. 

Nyle could tell that Leon saw his decision in his face and that it seemed to satisfy him because Leon continued his explanation in a final rush. "And then I realized that something had to be happening outside of the small world I had confined myself in and it had to be very large to include me after all these years. I'm still a prince even though I abandoned that part of my life for a long time, and if there's something going on I know it is my duty to do something to fix it." 

Decision made and further cemented, Nyle stood up. "Come," Nyle said with a gesture to have Leon follow him. They headed to one of the large and delicately carved pieces of furniture along the walls of his cave. The armoire was filled with the most beautiful men's clothing Nyle had collected throughout the years. He chose a pair of fitted black pants that he knew would be tight around Leon's bottom, but loose and flowing through the legs. The stitching for the pants was made of silver thread and a silver dragon climbed up Leon's right leg in intricate detail.

"I was told by the Eldest that the human king had failed in his search to locate his third child," Nyle explained as he led Leon back to his pile of jewels. "King Leander had sent the child on a mission to find and stop the disappearances of young men in the city. I was tasked with discovering what had happened to you and to bring you back."

Nyle dug through his onyx and jet stones that had been set into silver, wishing that more black gemstones had been made into jewelry rather than figurines. He found a net of jet and silver meant to be attached to a woman's hair and two silver armbands with the stones outlining a dragon shape and began fitting them on Leon.

The dark stones glittered in Leon's hair and on his arms, tantalizingly enhancing Leon's already jewel toned hair and lightly tanned skin.

Nyle dug through his pretties one more time before finding the most important piece. His hatching gift from the Eldest was a sapphire the size of a human child's fist set in silver on a silver chain. With the necklace on, no one would doubt that Leon's eyes were two gems set in his face. Leon was a human pretty covered in Nyle's pretties, which actually made Nyle inordinately happy and would force the Eldest to acknowledge Leon's right to belong in Nyle's hoard.

"My father never mentioned that I had returned with the solution years before and was hiding from imprisonment?" Leon asked as Nyle looked over his human pretty. Perhaps … Nyle dug out a toe ring and a regular ring in silver with small sapphires and made Leon put them on.

"That is what I wish to enquire," Nyle replied. He studied Leon one last time before nodding, satisfied that his pretty covered in pretties was perfect. "I will walk slowly. You need to keep one hand on my side. Do not speak unless you are specifically addressed."

Leon looked down at the jewelry Nyle had dressed him in for a long moment.  Nyle hoped Leon was remembering his school lessons about dragons, because a dragon never willingly parted with their hoard to a non-dragon. When Leon looked up and nodded, his eyes reflecting comprehension and agreement, Nyle shifted back to his golden dragon form, waited for Leon to put his hand on Nyle's side, and led them out of his caves.

They met elder Toel along the way and Nyle bowed his head respectfully even though he knew Toel had no doubt been lying in wait for when Nyle finished his contemplations.

"How fare thou on thy mission?" Toel asked.

"My investigation has been a success, elder An'tatoel," Nyle replied. "But an equal number of questions have arisen that must be addressed at once."

Toel looked at Leon, shock at Leon's dress crossing his face, before replying. "So I see. I shall inform the Eldest of thy imminent arrival."

"My thanks," Nyle said with a bow as Toel left at a quick clip. Nyle followed at a slower pace so Leon could keep up and arrived at the entrance to the Eldest's cave as Toel was just leaving.

"He shall see thee immediately," Toel said.

Nyle nodded politely before walking into the cave.

The Eldest was a giant golden-scaled dragon of such age that none could quite remember how long ago he had been hatched. His power was so strong that he could control all dragons with a bit of shine and sparkle. Yet, the Eldest respected those of his race so his outer meeting room was totally devoid of anything that could be used for magic. Only the golden eyes of the Eldest held any power in the empty room, but Nyle knew not to look directly into the Eldest's eyes.

Nyle bowed his head and his knees and remained lowered until the Eldest bid him to rise.

"An'nanyle," the Eldest intoned softly, his voice deep with the accent of the language of dragons from generations past. "Speak."

"I have located the missing prince, but feel that the human king was not forthright in his account of the problem at hand so am unsure of how to continue my directive."

"Explain," the Eldest said when Nyle stopped speaking.

"The third prince, Leon of the human court, was indeed sent to investigate the disappearances of young men. However, that was approximately two years ago and the prince was sent to the outlying Wilds. The prince returned, changed into a werewolf as you see him now, but with the answer to the issue. The werewolf clan had been biting humans to create slaves for themselves, which the prince reported to the king before retreating into the human city."

"A incongruity indeed," the Eldest mused as he turned his head to look at Leon. His face did not show a reaction to seeing Leon as Toel had, but nothing truly surprised the Eldest much any longer.

"The ease with which I located the third prince spoke of the king not having conducted a search himself. Rather, I believe that once I found the prince, I was supposed to have killed him because of the creature inside him. I also have to wonder if the king has eliminated the werewolf threat in the Wilds."

"A discrepancy that cannot be ignored," the Eldest agreed. "And since you have claimed the third prince for your hoard, a stance I do understand, youngling, we must therefore protect the prince. I will think over all you have said. Please send An'tatoel in as you leave."

Nyle bowed as he backed out of the cave, wondering what would happen, but knowing not to be rude and ask.

*~*~*

Nyle's caves had a set of smaller rooms that he led Leon to when they returned. When Nyle had been a child, and was much, much smaller in size, he had lived in his smaller rooms. As he and his hoard had grown, Nyle had expanded his caves and could no longer fit into his small rooms as a dragon. As a human, however, Nyle could fit, and he enjoyed finding interesting human things to put into his human-sized rooms.

He had a bed with blankets ready for Leon in those rooms, and he had a bath.

All young dragons went through a phase in their research where they wanted to find out what would happen to a dragon's internal fire if they were submerged in water. Nyle had gotten the impression when he was building his project that most dragons jumped into the nearest lake and then returned to more pressing experiments.

Nyle, who didn't like the thought of jumping into cold water, had built his own bath. He had hollowed out a basin in the floor of a small side room and tiled it. Then he had dug a path to the nearest underground stream and diverged the water. The water came down a pathway that went over a number of wood burning fireplaces and drained out of the bath back into the original stream.

Leon seemed suitably impressed with the bed and the bath and had no qualms about getting naked and having Nyle join him in the water.

The clothes and jewels were laid out neatly to the side and Leon stood in front of Nyle, naked and seeming quite happy to be there. Nyle couldn't help blushing and hoped that Leon couldn't tell that he was responding to Leon's lack of clothing, too.

Apparently Leon was perceptive enough to see how aroused Nyle was. He was part wolf, so perhaps he smelled Nyle's changing scent.

"Well, I'd help you out with that," Leon said with a long glance at where Nyle was tenting his pants, "but the cold water will kill it in a second." He indicated to the bath.

"You cannot perform sex in cold water?" Nyle asked, intrigued to learn something else new. He wasn't nearly as perturbed at the thought of having sex with Leon again as he thought he should be. It had been a pleasurable experience the first time and Leon was a perfect subject for continued study of the phenomenon. Leon was strong and well-muscled in a sleek body built to display Nyle's pretties—to
be
one of Nyle's pretties—and Nyle wanted to keep him forever, particularly if forever meant more sex. Sex and pretties were the perfect combination.

"No," Leon replied. "Instant shrinkage. But I haven't had a proper bath since I had servants in the castle. We can continue this later." Leon's sultry look made Nyle twitch.

Nyle wasn't about to allow a little cold water ruin what could be a lot of fun. He opened a small side panel in the wall next to the bath and blew a long stream of fire onto the line of wood set underneath his carved pipe.

"Give it a few minutes," Nyle said as he attempted a sultry look of his own.

"That is really useful," Leon purred. With speed Nyle knew was borne from the wolf inside him, Leon suddenly had their chests pressed together and other things rubbing delicately in ways that made Nyle gasp.