Queen of Dragons - Shana Abe

She looked down at her feet. At her own rumpled blanket, her naked toes. A puddle of water shimmered flat on the floor not three paces away, pooled in the pitted stones beneath the window.

The earl spoke more quietly. "You're amazing. Do you realize that? I've flown since I was a boy, I've flown with the best of our tribe but you—frankly, I don't know anyone with skills to match yours. You've mastered moves I didn't even realize were possible."

Her eyes flashed to his. He wasn't smiling. His tone wasn't teasing, or ironic. His expression remained calm and courteous, as if he'd just complimented her on her coiffure, or her arrangement of flowers in a vase. The line of red light rippled down the muscles of his arm, melted into shadow against his flat stomach; the yellow caught the mussed fall of his hair.

"Well," she said, and nothing more.

"Perhaps, someday, you might want to share a few of your secrets with me. Just a few." "I don't know any secrets."

"Oh," he said, "then perhaps you'd care to hear some of mine."

Mari chewed at her lower lip. Kimber leaned forward slightly, his elbows on his knees.

"I'm afraid of losing, Princess. I don't like to lose. I never have. I've been the best at nearly everything my entire life, and it's...exhausting. I think maybe you understand what I mean by that. Every man agonizes over failure, I suppose. We don't like to disappoint those who depend upon us, our wives, or our parents or children. But a king must trouble himself with much more than that. By his birth and his nature he is more than his family. He is his nation, and that's what we are, Maricara, both of us. We're kings, and so we are nations. When I fail as a king, when I lose, it's not merely I who suffers. It's my tribe. Those weaker than I, and less able. Every single one of them is dear to me, locked tight in my heart. They look to me for courage and guidance, and God knows I do my damnedest for them, but." His voice trailed off; he shook his head, his mouth tightening.

"It's hard," she said.

"Yes."

Her fingers plucked at the nap of the wool against her thigh. "They can't do what you do. They don't have to, so they don't comprehend. Possibly.. .they even fear you a little."

"Possibly they do."

"But still you defend them. You worry."

"Exactly."

She hesitated, then dropped down in place, tucking the blanket beneath her knees. "So you're afraid of the sanf."

"All evidence suggests I'd be an idiot to underestimate them." "They're only Others. They haven't managed to eliminate us yet."

"Maricara," he said evenly, "should these particular Others come to Darkfrith, should they violate my land, harm a single innocent of my tribe..."

She waited, watching him search for the words, the fine curves and planes of his body shaped in red and gold.

"I'm not afraid of these hunters. I'm afraid for mankind. For what will happen to them. If the sanf declare war.. .I'm not going to lose."

"Yes," she said, and nodded. "I do understand."

"I know." He reached for her hand without hurry, giving her plenty of time to pull away. But she didn't. She let his fingers slip over hers, a light caress, gentle as the summer breeze that roused the sycamore leaves. Her hand was lifted; their fingers intertwined.

"What would you do?" he asked. "In my position?"

She thought of what she had done: warn her brother, flee the castle. At the time she'd believed it the best she could offer any of them. Despite her efforts, her people truly didn't want her among them. They hadn't for years. She'd tried leading them and protecting them, had tried carrying on the way the princes of Zaharen Yce always had, because that's what the Zaharen demanded, justice and power and wealth, the ingrained surety that they were better than all the fragile creatures crawling the earth. They were drakon, and so were better. And in return, the dragons of the mountains had gotten...a girl-child. A peasant who wore rubies and imported French fashions, who flew through nightmares every night and held on to her position by the skin of her teeth.

It had been easy to leave. If she had been a real princess, a true leader, she would have stayed even though they hadn't wanted her to.

Maricara spoke to their clasped hands. "Anything," she said at last. "I would do any terrible thing to save my people, no matter what came." She glanced up at him through her lashes. "In your position."

He regarded her gravely. Over the course of their talk he'd shifted more into the yellow-thrown light; his eyes held a strange, clear glow she didn't think she'd ever seen before. It might have been concentration, or relief, or anticipation. It might have been nothing more than the effect of the clover-leaf window, turning the pale green to greenish gold.

He was going to kiss her. She realized it; she held frozen for it; she could not move. She could not even try.

Kimber tilted toward her. His fingers curled over hers.

"You promised," she whispered, but she didn't really mean it. She didn't really want him to stop.

He came so close his face blurred, and then even closer. He traced words against her cheek, warm, almost inaudible. "This isn't ravishing." Slowly his lips moved to hers, touching, gliding: a languorous, sleek sensation. "This is merely seducing."

Mari found that she was holding her breath. "I don't..." He turned his lips back to her cheek, stroked the tips of his fingers in a line along her shoulder, up to her neck. She felt her eyes close and her head tip back in unexpected pleasure. "I don't perceive the difference."

"Ah." His other palm slid up to cup the back of her head. His legs eased around her hips. His lips brushed to her ear, the rough skin of his chin a surprising scrape against her throat. "For one thing"—his voice lowered to the barest, broken murmur—"with ravishment.. .there's less conversation."

And he bit her earlobe. Not hard, nothing painful, but it sent goose bumps along her arms and somehow tipped her head even more. With both hands in her hair he brought her mouth to his, this time without languor but with fire. With heat and intent, his body ardent, only blankets between them. He held her face between his palms and drew his lips back and forth over hers until she could not breathe.

She'd never known such a thing. She'd never been kissed in such a way. She'd had no idea that kiss meant this whispery, butterfly nervousness in her veins. The scent of him wrapping around her, filling her pores. Kimber's hand slipping under her hair, down her back, his fingers spread, urging her nearer. Her heart leaping in her chest. Her fingers against his arms, feeling the smooth flex of muscle and tendon, strength that pulled her nearer still, until their bodies grazed, because the blankets had somehow fallen aside.

His tongue brushed hers; he tasted of man and smoke. Their lips parted, clung, returned to delicious friction. The dragon in her woke to barbarous joy, lifting her blood into light, into fire—everywhere his skin met hers, every flushed, sensitive place. He made a sound in his throat and closed his arms hard around her and—

Maricara Turned to smoke.

She didn't mean to. It happened without her volition; one instant she was there with him, feeling her heart throb, feeling the butterflies rifle through her veins—and the next she was near the ceiling, no heart, no panic. Just vapor, diaphanous against the stone.

Kimber remained motionless below her, still seated on the floor with his legs apart, a very obvious empty space where she used to be. After a long moment he glanced up at where she lingered, then climbed to his feet.

"Come back," he said. No anger. No accusation. His voice carried a shadow of tension, but the chiseled contours of his face revealed only that same polite patience he'd displayed before their lips first met.

It was enough to give her weight, to let her trickle down to earth and pour into the shape of a woman.

She knelt and scooped up the blanket, wrapping it tight around her, her hair tugged in its folds. Kimber remained where he was, out of the light with his hands by his sides, looking at her askance.

"I'm sorry," she blurted.

"No, I'm fairly certain that's what I'm supposed to say. Poor princess, we keep going about this backward. First we kiss, then we sleep together." He ran a hand through his long hair, pushing it from his cheekbones with a little more force than necessary. "It seems we were teetering at the edge of ravishment, after all. So. My humble apologies, Your Royal Grace." And he dropped his hand to execute a flawless bow, made only slightly unreal by the fact that he wore no clothing, not even the blanket any longer. And that he was still fully aroused.

Mari tore her eyes away. "I do not—" she began, and gave up, and started over. Damn it all, she was blushing again. "I didn't plan that. I meant no insult."

"Well, that's a relief. Never fear, I'm a thick-skinned sort of fellow. I've had far worse responses from the ladies fair."

She didn't want to delve into that, to wonder what worse might be, and what ladies he meant. She didn't want to think of him like that, or like this: charming and nude and impersonal, as comfortable in his own skin in this bare colored chamber as he was an earl in powder and velvet and pearls. She didn't want to feel that she had to explain herself, to speak of the butterflies.

But she was speaking anyway. She was wringing her hands. "You see, once I—"

"Please." Kimber shook his head, his tone now peaceful. "Lovely black dragon. It's forgotten. Look there, have you noticed the angle of the light? It's close to noon at least. If we don't get back soon, Audrey's going to accost every unfortunate pig farmer in the region, searching for us."

"Yes. All right."

But he didn't move, and she didn't. They only gazed at each other.

Mari broke it off first. She bent down, retrieved the other blanket, grabbed the pillow by a corner of its cover and placed them both by the lantern against the wall, out of easy sight. She found the blindfold she'd tried wearing for the first time last night and felt a new wave of embarrassment, crumpling it in her hand, tossing it on top.

She'd thought it would help. She'd thought if she could not see anything, if she couldn't actually open her eyes in the middle of the dreams—

"I suppose I can return for all this later," she said, knowing that she never would. She did not turn around. "Very well. I'm ready."

"Maricara." Still peaceful calm. "How old were you when you wed?"

She closed her eyes. He couldn't see her face; it didn't matter, but she did it anyway. "Nine years. Eleven months."

There was a pause. "How many days?"

"Three."

Outside the leaves kept up their quiet murmur. The day was warm and sparkling bright. The songbirds began again their ballad of bejeweled notes.

"Did he hurt you?"

She kept her tone untroubled. "I was a virgin. Doesn't every husband hurt his bride?"

"No," Kimber answered. "Not every one." Another pause. "You will return with me to Darkfrith, won't you?"

"Yes."

"Good. There's something there I think you'll appreciate."

She did look at him then, turning just her head, a quick glance from over her shoulder. "What is it?"