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Beneath the sea—”
At the third line, the dragon’s eyes fly open. His long neck rises, lifting his huge triangular head with its elegant, tapered jaws. He blinks thick black lashes over slit-pupiled yellow eyes and shakes himself a little. The ridges above his eyes contract in an expression so similar to a confused frown that I almost laugh. But I keep singing, and he keeps staring, as if he thinks I’ve gone out of my mind.
I see the precise moment he realizes that it’s a circular song, one that never ends, and that I intend to keep singing it indefinitely.
“I’ve had very little sleep.” His deep voice rolls through the cave, rippling over my skin, but I keep singing at the same pace while he talks. “It has been a difficult night. But you’re human, so I suppose it’s no use to ask for a little consideration.”
Consideration? As if he didn’t kidnap me yesterday. The sheer arrogance. He’s lucky I have a nice voice. This could be much worse for him.
The dragon rises to a sitting position, which looks so doglike that I remember another loss—the hounds in the palace’s hunting kennels. I used to visit them secretly, even though my mother warned me not to. She said they were savage animals bred to kill. But not one of them ever scratched me with a single tooth.
I sing louder, adding a defiant twang to the words.
The dragon huffs in disgust, and then he sniffs, his gaze sharpening. “Did you—did you piss in my nest?”
“—I swallowed his soul, so I could be whole, then I went to the tavern to barter for ale,” I sing sweetly.
“Do you know how long I worked on this nest? Gathering the materials, selecting only the finest pieces to include, compressing the grasses, shaping and weaving the edges—” Instead of rising, the dragon’s voice grows deeper, deeper, like building thunder, and his body seems to grow taller, broader, and more terrifying by the second. His shoulders and chest heave with angry breaths, and a haze of orange heat glows in his nostrils.
I want to be defiant, but a tremor enters my voice in spite of my best efforts.
“This nest was for her. For our hatchlings.” Fire flickers in his mouth as he speaks. “And you pissed all over it.”
My voice breaks, shrills into a terrified squeak as he charges me. His broad, scaly cheek strikes my shoulder, a sideswipe that sends me flying into the nest again.
“When hatchlings piss or shit in their nest, we put their faces in the mess so they learn not to soil where they sleep.” The dragon lifts his sinewy foreleg and nudges me over with his claws, turning me face down. His claw hooks into the back of my dress, and he drags me toward the spot where I relieved myself this morning.
“I’m not a hatchling,” I gasp, desperate. “I’m an adult, a princess.”
“Do all princesses piss in their beds?”
“Where else was I supposed to go?”
“Anywhere else.”
“You told me to stay in the nest.” I cling to those words, sensing they might be my salvation. “You said that, remember? I was obeying you.”
He stops moving, and I cringe, my face inches from the wet spot.
“I did say that. You’re right… I should have been more specific. I should have remembered your physical needs.” His claw slips free from my dress, and I scramble back, away from the piss-soaked grass.
The dragon’s scaly jaw tenses. “I apologize for the oversight. I’m not used to having such a weak, helpless life form to care for.”
I want to protest that I’m neither weak nor helpless, but the truth is, compared to him, I am, much as I hate to admit it.
“Yes, well… you’re a terrible kidnapper,” I say. “Any captor worth their salt knows that they need to provide their prisoner with food, drink, and a place to relieve themselves. I’ve had to take care of two of those needs on my own. So you’re a complete failure at this.”
The dragon’s yellow eyes widen. “Right. You’re still hungry. Shit.”
“Yes.” I wrap my arms over my stomach. “Is that your plan? To starve me to death?”
“I—no.” He wheels away, his immense wings flaring. I barely noticed the wings this morning, they were folded so tightly against his body. “I’ll return shortly with sustenance for us both.”
He leaps into the wind and soars away from the cave.
I collapse against the straw, drawing a long breath. I succeeded in angering him, that’s for certain. And I discovered something important—he planned to share this nest with a female dragon. She died yesterday.
I can use that.
