The Princess' Dragon Lord (10 page)

Big Azoth was waiting for them, lying curled
up by the carved doorway. He crooned when they emerged, and Diana
wished she'd brought the dragon fruit with her to offer as a treat
of sorts.

She just settled for running her hand across
his nose as they passed. He crooned again and settled his head down
on scaled, reptilian claws, eyes closing for sleep.

Azoth was in no hurry to drag her away from
the dragon, nor did he admonish the creature for sleeping
there.

Maybe he was finally beginning to...not
forgive, but at least let go of some of his self hatred, and the
hatred he'd been directing at the dragon for all these years.

That might explain the crooked smile on the
dragon's long mouth as the beast slept.

Azoth took her to a particular mound of
treasure that was smaller than all the rest, as well as containing
items different in design from the other piles spread out all along
the cave.

For one thing, there were very little gold
coins, emeralds, and rubies to be seen. Most of what lay in this
pile was silver in color. There were scepters instead of swords,
crowns of silver and gold leaves, and even gowns that looked to be
made from shimmering moonlight.

Without a doubt in her mind, Diana suddenly
knew that, that was exactly what they were made out of, the same
way she'd once worn gowns woven from spider webs and morning
dew.

“This was part of the dowry my family
received on the contract of our marriage.” Azoth said.

“Your family was allowed to keep it?”

The
after the attack
part was left
unsaid.

Azoth's cheeks became noticeably pink. “Of
course, much of it was sent back after my loss of control. Dragons,
as you can see, are known for their love of treasures. This lot
they refused to part with. You wore the gown on the day of our
marriage.”

Diana looked at him sharply. He refused to
look back at her.

Now her face was becoming warm. The
difference was that she never looked good when she blushed. “I
guess that was the part of the treasure you refused to be
without?”

He nodded stiffly.

Diana went over to examine it. It was another
medieval looking thing with a lace trim around a square neckline
and long trumpet sleeves. It shimmered like a thousand tiny
diamonds in moonlight, yet was softer than silk. She had flash of
vision pass before her eyes, this time without seizure or pain.

It was herself, wearing this gown, smiling
bright and feeling happier than she'd ever felt before, despite how
mere days earlier the knowledge of her coming marriage saddened
her.

Azoth was in the same chamber as she, long
jeweled sword at his hip, red cape at his back, dark leather boots
on his feet and legs, with a metal breastplate to protect his
chest.

His tux for the big day. Guess the fae and
the dragons didn't hold the same superstitions about not seeing the
bride before the ceremony as humans did.

Diana's memory of her happiness was so great,
that it swelled into the here and now, warming her heart, and
putting another great smile on her lips.

In her memories, she ran into the arms of her
husband to be. He kissed her ear softly, and she felt his lips
there, and his warm breath as he spoke.

“
I will stay with the fae. You need not
leave your people for me. I will stay.”

“
Sakkra?
”

Diana was jolted out of the memory by a
gentle shake of her shoulder.

She turned her head. Azoth was watching her,
more of that worry she was becoming used to on his face.

“Are you well?”

She smiled at him, more of her memories
becoming clearer, fitting properly together, and the emotions that
she'd felt at the time coming with them.

He'd been planning to stay for her. He was
going to leave his home so that she could keep hers. She hadn't
realized she'd been holding her wedding dress until she clutched it
tighter to her chest, hugging it, and the happy memory it came
with, closer.

“I love you,” she said.

Stunned pleasure washed over his face. He
smiled then and ran his fingers through her dark curls. “And I you.
What did you see?”

“Us. You were telling me that you were going
to stay with the fae.”

He nodded, holding her close. She came
easily, absorbing his warmth and letting it spread throughout her
body, lulling her.

“Ah, yes. You should not offer me so much
gratitude for that. I had been shivering like a mouse under a cat's
claws as I contemplated making such a decision, and nearly
convinced myself not to do so many times before telling you my
final plans.”

She put her arms around his back, wishing she
could just disappear within him. “I still appreciate it.”

She pulled her hands back and inched them
between themselves, down low until she found the strings of his
breeches. His nostrils flared at her actions, his eyes becoming
bright like fire.

“I do not think I can be gentle with you,
Sakkra
.”

The last time he hadn't been gentle had been
amazing. “Good. Kiss me,” she said, dropping the wedding dress to
be forgotten between them.

He did, swooping down hard and hungry,
consuming her mouth and opening her lips with his tongue.

She was out of breath within seconds.

His hands came around her back and gripped
her ass with such a hard pressure she knew he would leave behind
fingerprints on her flesh. It hurt, but the amusement of having his
hand prints on her butt prevented her from so much as uttering an
ouch.

That, and the ache that built inside her for
him was too much to ignore, and she was forgetting all about being
gentle as well as her fingernails clawed at his back, pressing in
and pulling on flesh.

Azoth groaned, lifted her, and put her on her
back. He was on top of her now, his body squishing her into the
smooth rock floor.

Like their first time together, she realized
with a start, as more and more new memories came to her between
Azoth's biting kisses and intimate caresses.

They came onto her quickly, and vividly, and
just like that, like the curtain had been pulled back, she could
tell exactly what had happened after falling in the water from the
twin falls.

She'd banged her head on the rocks below, but
instead of passing out, or dying, as any other normal person would
have, a calm serenity overtook her. She managed to stay beneath the
water's surface as the dark skeletal creatures that were the bony
trees continued to hunt for her from above. As their feet, or what
passed for feet on a tree, stomped up and down along the hills and
rocks, they created such a racket that she even heard the muffled
pounding from inside the water.

Their forms were twisted and blurred from
looking at them, making their branches appear thinner, and much
less powerful than what she knew was possible. But she knew their
dangers and knew which master they served. She could not be fooled
into presenting herself to them for another chase.

Dagda, her beloved uncle and brother to her
mother, who, for all Diana knew, was now dead, had called upon
these monsters to attack her. She knew this as his spell from
memories of her childhood where, when he felt like amusing his
visiting nieces, he would bring the trees to life and have them
present their blossoms as gifts.

They were not so magical now. That he could
command them to do this to her frightened her, but how was she to
escape them?

The dragon mirror she'd found then began to
grow hot and heavy inside her jacket pocket. She had all but
forgotten its presence, had thought it was still with the rest of
her abandoned art supplies, and her love for her old friend Nyx
bloomed within her as she reached for the dragon frame.

A gift he had given to her, as a peace
offering to her marriage and the way they had parted when she
refused his proposal. He had given it to her when they both still
assumed she would be leaving the forests, to make her home in the
mountains with the rest of the dragons. He'd said that it would
allow her to see visions of her home should she wish it, and
deliver her to that place she most wanted to be, if she wished even
harder.

The image within the looking glass was also
difficult to decipher thanks to the turmoil of the falls, but she
knew whom she was looking at, and wished with all her might to join
him and be safe in the arms of her poor imprisoned husband.

She'd just appeared from nowhere, dripping
wet, her skull still throbbing.

A clatter to her right pulled her out of her
musings, and there he was. Azoth, her husband. He stared at her,
his jaw hung in the most laughable sort of way, and the bowls of
paint he'd been carrying splattered now on the rock floor at his
feet.

“
Sakkra
,” he'd called her on a
whisper, the dragon word for love that she adored. “Diana?”

Her heart cried out at the sight of him, and
her body ached for their long separation. She ran to him, and he
barely managed to catch her before she could drop to the ground and
make a mess of her odd clothing in all that paint.

“You are real,” She'd heard him say, before
he squeezed her as tightly to him as she would allow before the
pain constricted in her ribs. “You are real.”

They'd been together for hours. Azoth asking
questions Diana had few answers to, and Diana asking questions that
Azoth was ashamed to give reply, all the while he constantly
provided her cups of water to drink from his fountain of
healing.

She was quick to assure him that she knew
neither he, nor his dragon, would ever willingly hurt her, although
he was not so forgiving of himself.

It was as though with her knock to the head,
the spell had been switched, and Diana had all of her memories from
her time as princess, but few from the time she lived as a normal
mortal woman.

She wished to tell him of her uncle's
involvement in their botched marriage ceremony, but before she
could do so, her husband lost control and could hold back no
longer.

He took her, and Diana came into his arms
willingly. She had opened for him, and begged for him, and he gave
into her with fierce passion at first, and then, as his control
returned, he became gentle and serving to her needs as well.

They joined several times. On more than one
occasion, he shed tears for the both of them afterward.

Perhaps it was the healing power of the water
from the spring that caused her to slip back into the previous
spell. If a knock to the head could jar her memories, then,
perhaps, healing the blow with magic could undo any progress she'd
made.

It certainly explained why she woke up with
little to no memories of Azoth, or taking him into bed.

Azoth collapsed on top of her with a hard
groan, pulling Diana back into the matter at hand. Sensing she had
not come to her pleasure, though oblivious as to why, he grinned
wickedly at her as he shimmied his way down her legs.

She didn't think anyone would want to do
that
to her after making love, but she didn't offer a peep
of protest either as he got down to business and made her gasp and
shiver.

He crawled his way back up and pulled her
close so that they were chest to chest. His nose was in her hair,
inhaling and exhaling in a deep, and sleepy, sigh.

She allowed her fingers to play along the
expanse of his wide chest, hesitant to ruin the moment.

Considering the last time she hesitated, she
woke up in his bed with no memories of how she'd gotten there, she
decided to just be out with it.

“I know who did this to us,”

Azoth tensed, and he lifted himself onto one
elbow to look down at her. “Do you?”

She nodded. “And I know why, and I'm pretty
sure Nyx was as set up as you were.”

Chapter Ten

After untangling themselves from each other,
though not before Azoth could coerce her into another slow, and
sensual tryst, Diana found the mirror, right where her husband had
said it would be, kept safe inside a silver chest decorated with
prancing elk and swooping birds.

She explained its magic to him, and all color
drained from his face, leaving him whiter than snow.

“All this time...”

She put her hand onto his arm, and he took
her fingers and grasped them tightly. “You couldn't have known,”
she said, referring to the mirror's powers of searching for loved
ones, and, in times of desperate longing, transporting the wisher
to that person.

Had he known about it, Azoth could have freed
himself from his prison and found his lost wife ages ago.

“You thought I was dead. There would've been
no reason for you to ask to see me in the mirror.” And that was
something he just might have done if he knew the mirror was spelled
to do such a thing.

The fae were not quite as notorious for
spelling things as the stories all claimed them to be. In fact,
Diana was willing to bet everything she owned that the mirror was
the only item in that pile, in all the piles of treasure in this
whole strange cavern, that was spelled to do anything at all.

If Azoth had been given lots of cool toys to
play with, it would hardly have been considered a prison. No wonder
he learned to make paint.

“We're getting out of here,” Diana said.

Azoth stared at her blankly.

“The mirror was what brought me here,” though
she had no idea how it got out of this place and found her to begin
with. “If we wish it, it will take us outside.”

“Out,” Azoth said, testing the word on his
tongue. A slow smile spread over his mouth. “I should like to see
the sky again.”

“I'll show you everything you could ever want
to see. The world's changed so much, there's so many great things
to see and do.”