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He guffaws, and his men chuckle. “I doubt she would,” he repeats in a mocking imitation of my deep tone. “She won’t be breeding with you willingly either, Prince. Let’s be honest with each other. I’ll give you the Parrock Banks and a few chests of treasure. You dragons like gold, yes?”
“We do,” I admit. I have a penchant for the beauty of wrought metal and the shine of well-cut gemstones, and I’m not the only one of my kind with such proclivities. We keep our favorite pieces in our own caves, but the rest of the clan hoard is housed in a secret location.
“So we’re agreed?” urges the King. “You get three chests the size of my head, full of gold and silver, and the Parrock Banks, and the Middenwold Isles. And you deliver the Princess of Elekstan to me.”
Fortunix murmurs agreement. Varex is silent, and when I glance at him, he gives me no indication of what he’s thinking.
It might be a relief to be rid of the Princess’s incessant demands and complaints. I picture giving her to the King of Vohrain, imagine his big hands mauling the small, sensitive places that I licked, imagine him shoving his cock inside her while she screams—fuck, no. That will never happen. No male, either human or dragon, will touch her, and no one will take her body except me.
I said I would never dance for her during mating season. But I think I was lying to her and to myself, because I cannot bear the thought of her mating with anyone else. The charming, irritating, delicious, fiery little Princess will take dragon form, and she will be mine. She will be winged and powerful and glorious. I will fuck her full of my seed, and she will bear my young.
“We have a deal?” repeats the King.
“No,” I growl, and there’s fire in the sound. My nostrils are glowing, smoking.
“No?” The King frowns.
“I will take the islands, as we agreed. But I’m keeping the Princess. Our bargain is now concluded.”
Without a bow or another word, I whirl and take off.
Varex catches up to me in a few moments. “That was rather abrupt, even for you.”
“He was planning to harm her,” I snarl. “But she is mine.”
“Nevertheless, you could have ended the meeting more gracefully. Fortunix has stayed behind to smooth things over.”
“Good for him. You’ll come with me. We’re going down the coast to fetch a few things before we return to Ouroskelle.”
“Things?”
“Blankets,” I tell him. “And some fucking tea.”
12
“No, that won’t work either.” Jessiva drops her head into her hands, her red hair tumbling around her shoulders. “God, why is this so difficult? There must be a way.”
She and I have been strategizing with the other women for hours, I would guess, judging by the angle of the sun. The dragons have left us alone, for the most part, so we’ve had time to sort through all the options for escape.
One of the women, Brenée, suggested building rafts that could take us back to the mainland. But that would require eliminating the dragons first. There is no way they would allow us to construct rafts right under their noses.
So we moved on to the next problem: defeating the dragons. If armed airships couldn’t take down one dragon, a couple dozen women armed with rocks certainly can’t destroy a whole clan of them.
Someone else mentioned poison, and I contributed my knowledge of the poisonous vines I encountered when I was near the lake with Kyreagan (and fuck him for telling Jessiva his name before he told me). But again—how are we to gather enough poisonous vines when we are watched constantly by at least one of the dragons? Not to mention the fact that the vines would cause us harm if we touched them.
“We can harvest the vines at night, when most of them are roosting and there are only one or two on guard,” says Brenée. “We could cause a distraction, and then some of us could slip out through the wall and head for the lake.”
“Whatever we decide, we must remember that not all of us are being kept here in this cavern at night,” I say. “Others are imprisoned alone in the higher caves.” I think of the plump, rosy-cheeked woman I saw in Rothkuri’s lair. The one who loves being licked.
“There’s something no one has mentioned,” puts in a slim dark-skinned girl with a white streak in her black hair. I think one of the others called her Gweneth. “Some of the dragons do not agree with the prince’s plan. They didn’t want to kidnap humans in the first place. What if we focused on finding those dragons and forming a rapport with them? Maybe we can persuade some of them to rebel against the princes, and then the rebel dragons can fly us home.”
Murmurs of interest and agreement ripple through the group of women.
“There’s one problem with that plan.” I rise from the rock I’ve been sitting on. “It would take time we don’t have. Do you all know what they plan to do with us?”
“Kill us? Eat us, rape us? Keep us prisoners for life? Does it really matter?” says Brenée.
Jessiva’s pale skin turns a shade whiter, and instantly I realize that she knows the truth. She knows the fate the princes have planned for us, yet she has chosen not to tell the other women. I’m not sure why. Maybe she doesn’t want to cause a panic.
