Page 12 of The Dragon King’s Pet

“I don’t imagine you’ll be allowed to do such a thing,” Maryon said. “Those in the king’s care are strictly forbidden from taking any kind of intoxicants. There are many protocols associated with being part of the royal household. You will have to learn them all.”

“They sound boring,” Mika murmured as Maryon took care of her.

“They may be boring,” Maryon replied. “But the consequences for failing to observe them are not.”

The veiled threat went over Mika’s head. The massaging motions of the woman’s hands were lulling her into a state of relaxation that she desperately needed. Her touch soon reached Mika’s most intimate areas, but it was less uncomfortable than the bikini waxes Mika was used to getting so she made no complaints as the woman’s warm fingers soaped and rinsed every part of her.

Finally she was dried and clad in a light ivory gauzy gown made of the softest fabric Mika had ever felt against her skin.

“The king will see you soon, I am sure,” Maryon said. “He can be kind, but he can also be very frightening if he is crossed. Mind your manners as best you can.”

With that warning, she departed, leaving Mika feeling a strange mixture of being simultaneously relaxed, pampered, and nervous.

Alone again, Mika clutched her gauzy gown about her body, hoping that it covered more than it seemed to. It probably covered more than her bikini did, but she was feeling extremely vulnerable in that moment. The comfort that had briefly visited her when the ladies were bathing her soon evaporated with their departure, leaving her very unsettled. There was something incredibly strange about the place she’d found herself in, and something very strange about how she’d gotten there. She tried not to think about it too much. It would all be cleared up soon, she was sure. She’d talk to this king and he’d send her home.

“Hail the king!”

She heard a guttural shout from the other side of those tall doors and looked toward them with a haunted blue and gold gaze as they began to slide open.

The king entered with one long, powerful stride and Mika let out an involuntary gasp.

He was impossibly tall, at least eight feet, possibly more. His masculine beauty was so great she couldn’t speak. The lady Maryon had been right. She had met the king before. He was the man from her dream, the man who had been at the head of all the finely dressed people through the glowing door.

He was real. How was that possible? She had been so certain that she must have imagined him. He did not seem like the sort of person that could possibly exist. He was too beautiful, too fearsome, too imposing, and too entirely elegant in a way that hinted at a certain kind of potential for brutality, perhaps even cruelty, if necessary.

His features were sculpted: a long nose, strong brow, eyes of blue ice set above high cheekbones, well-formed lips, and a solid chin and jaw. He looked like a heightened version of Scandinavian models she had known, muscular and yet finely put together.

He was wearing very strange clothing. A mixture of black leather and some kind of thick pale silk that held a multitude of opalescent hues. It played off the shock white of his hair and the magnetic ice blue of his eyes. Like the others, he had catlike slits for pupils. They really didn’t look like contact lenses either.

Mika couldn’t help but let out little sobs of fear as he drew closer, the doors closing behind him so that she was trapped in his presence. There was no doubt that this man was used to having great power. It was in every line of his body and in every facet of his expressions. He looked down at her as if she were an object of interest, something new he possessed. She had seen that expression on the faces of rich people purchasing new stones. It was an eager, lustful expression that reflected not just their joy in the beauty of the object, but the pleasure of possessing it.

“Dry your tears,” he intoned, his voice rich and deep. “There is no reason to cry.”

“I don’t know where I am,” she sniffed. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what’s happening. Those are pretty good reasons.”

“In many respects, you are home,” the king said. He looked like a man in all ostensible ways: a head, two arms, two legs, a torso and such. But she knew he was not a man. There was something about him that made her senses tingle, every hair on the back of her neck stand erect.

“Where am I?” Her eyes welled again. “This isn’t my home.”

“You are in my realm,” he intoned deeply. “The realm from which you came in some small way.”

“Realm? Did the mushrooms somehow bring me here? Am I high? Am I psychotic?”

“The mushrooms did not bring you here. You are no longer intoxicated, and you are certainly not insane,” the king said. “You brought yourself here when you stepped through the small portal we opened in your room. It is long since closed and another will not be opened. This is your world now, Mika Ferrier.”

His answers spawned a thousand more questions. “How do you know my name? Why did you take me? I have to go home. My friends will look for me. My parents will miss me. My father is going to be furious…”

“I am sure he will be,” he said, smirking as if something about that amused him. Was he some kind of sick sadist who liked to kidnap young women and hold them from their families? He didn’t look that desperate. He didn’t look like someone who needed to entertain himself that way either.

“Oh, you think this is funny?” Her temper flared. “It’s not funny. You’ve really scared me, and I don’t know what you mean about portals, but…”

“Your species has the shortest memory,” the king interrupted. “You do not know what a portal is, how is that possible?”

“Portals… I mean… they’re like… I don’t know,” she stammered.

“Humans opened the first true portal a few decades ago,” he lectured. “It started a war between our realms.”

“But that was a one-time thing,” Mika said. “Wasn’t it?”