Page 18 of The Dragon King’s Pet

“Seems to me dragons are drawn to humans as well,” she said in turn.

“You’re argumentative,” the king observed with a little shake of his head. “It is not a trait that will bode well for you here.”

“I’m only stating the obvious,” Mika replied. “Like you did.”

“Like I did?”

“You just called me beautiful, remember?” She smiled in spite of herself. It was a strange time to discover a flirtatious side, but a great many things were being awakened in Casimer’s presence. Maybe it wasn’t so strange after all.

CHAPTER 7

Casimer could not help but chuckle as the impudent young woman gave him what could only be described as a reckless grin. She probably thought her beauty would earn her special treatment. She was quite obviously incredibly spoiled and used to being given preference due to her appearance.

His first impression of her as an addled innocent was giving way to something a little different. She was very beautiful, of course. Her awareness of the fact was interesting. It was not that she seemed arrogant so much as self-possessed and poised. She was innocent, but she was not helpless. He could see that immediately. She had her father’s spirit, and if the stories were anything to go by, her mother’s rebellious intellect as well, perhaps.

Casimer was eager to explore her capacities. It was difficult to tell at this stage just what being a quarter dragon meant for a woman. Her father with his half blood had retained his flight form. Indeed, in many respects he had been more dragon than human. But the same obviously was not true of Mika. She had managed to pass among humans for eighteen years—though he had already seen some signs that the dragon blood flowed in her veins.

There was a secret he had not shared with Mika, or with anybody. He had allowed the rise of human dragon hybrids out of interest. Vilka had been an exceptionally interesting test case—and he had proven to be no less of a dragon warrior for his human blood. Casimer suspected that the young woman squirming half naked before him would have distinct dragon qualities as well. But he could never forget her human side. Human dragon hybrids had only existed for a matter of decades, a mere blink in the eye of his lifespan, and yet in that time they had caused great chaos. Humans were wicked little things who needed to be treated with the firmest of hands. This one was still scared and confused, but he could already see that she would be trouble in very short order unless she was tamed and broken to his rule.

“You will enjoy being part of my household, I think,” he said. “But you need to learn proper deportment and manners. This is a world of order and strong rule. You must act according to your station.”

“And what is my station?”

“What is my station, my liege?” he repeated, correcting her speech.

“I’m not your liege,” she said, attempting to look serious to hide her deliberate rebellion. He saw the glimmer of mischief in her eye, however. She was enjoying her disrespect. She would not enjoy it much longer. Casimer had every intention of teaching her a lesson, but he wanted to gauge her temperament and character first.

“Allow me to make your place in my world very clear,” he said, leaning forward. “You are my prisoner. My pet. You are my toy. You are a plaything with which I will amuse myself. You are here at my pleasure and you will perform at my desire.”

He watched her eyes widen, her round pupils expanding like two saucers. Casimer found her quite adorable in that moment. She looked incredibly human, and incredibly vulnerable. His words no doubt frightened her, but they were not designed to be cruel. Yes, Mika had some dragon blood. That made her fractionally more of a fully recognized person than her mother or grandmother, but not by much. She could never be accorded anything in the way of rights—Casimer doubted she would know what to do with freedom even if she were given it. Her actions thus far were irresponsible and dangerous in the extreme. If he had not had a portal opened, she may very well not have survived her vacation in Ibiza anyway. She was too innocent to notice the way men of ill intent orbited her, keeping their distance, but planning their attacks. She was an innocent, and yes, though she had some intellect and evidently no shortage of spirit, it was best she were kept much as a pet would be.

“You can’t do this,” she said, shaking her head. “You just can’t.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice coming in an icy hiss. “I can do whatever I please. This realm and all that live in it are mine.”

“Not me,” she said, showing a sign of bravery that he found rather amusing and somewhat admirable.

“Especially you,” he purred.

She no longer seemed inclined to let her tongue loose. She was retreating from him by fractions, her breath coming faster. She was excited, fearful, and something else… something he could scent. Aroused. She was blooming like a flower, her fragrance clear to him across the small divide between them.

He felt his own stirrings in response. They surprised him with their strength. Desire was one of the first things to fade with age usually. It had been a very, very long time since he had mated. His princess had died centuries earlier and though the grief of her loss had faded, he had never been interested in taking another lover. The harem, which had at times held up to a hundred fertile dragon women, was now entirely empty, dozens of rooms tended daily by servants, used in some cases for dignitaries from the further reaches of the realm, but otherwise unused.

Casimer did not look old in human terms. In his walking form, he appeared as a man in his prime. Humans reached a similar peak in their forties. Casimer was much, much older than that and the years had taken their toll. At times he had yearned for what the end of his life cycle would bring, but the trouble with the humans had brought him back to his senses and to the affairs of the realm. She did not know it, but in some sense, Mika had brought him back to life.

Looking into her eyes, he felt more than the obvious erotic impulses any male might feel when confronted with an aroused beauty of a woman. He felt a resurgence of what could only be described as his true self. It was strange, to be reminded of what he had once been, and to see himself anew in the eyes of this strange woman who shared only a fraction of the bloodlines.

“Are you going to stare at me until I submit to this insanity?”

If anyone else had dared make such insolent use of their tongue, Casimer would have reacted harshly. A public lashing would have been the first and least of their punishments. But his pet was yet to be trained and he could not blame her for behaving so wildly.

“I’m going to whip your bottom until you beg for mercy,” he said with a broad smile that evoked a visible quiver in his pet.

“What!?” Her eyes widened and a cute blush spread across her upper cheeks and the bridge of her nose. There was also a faint change in the hue of her décolletage. More than the pinkening of her skin was the fresh flash of her desire, the pheromones of her need rising around the pair of them, enveloping his body along with hers. In a very real way, she was reaching out to Casimer, touching him intimately, her very essence entering his body with every breath he took.

He doubted she was aware of that. What little he did know of humans suggested that many of their senses were dull, or completely missing. They had no capacity to manipulate matter through touch, as the dragons did, consciously directing the material of creation to take the desired form. The human realm had been built on far more brutal, simple means. They had created their world through smelting and beating and cutting and digging and other essentially simple methods—until recently, where their intellects had managed to do through conscious effort that which dragons did out of simple instinct. They called it science, and with their science they had split the little worlds inside matter and begun to play with them.

Vyktor, father of the dragon human hybrids, had believed more than anybody in the capacity of humankind. And Vilka, the half-breed, had defeated an eater of worlds. What would this one do? She looked innocent and perhaps even a little simple, but he doubted she was either of those things. He gathered his wits and reminded himself that twice before, human women had bested their dragon mates, at least for a short period of time. He could not allow her desire to cloud his mind.