The Dragon Prince's Obsession

FOUR

He jerked away, lips parted and eyes wide. Whatever I heard, or thought I heard, quietened as he stopped talking.

“Did you just – tell me to shut up?” His eyes darkened.

I shook my head. Then nodded. Then shook my head again. His brows raised as my head continued to jerk.

“There – I heard footsteps and I – I do not want to die. Not today. Not soon. Please, I apologize if I offended you. I merely ask that you keep –“ I heard the sound again and this time, I knew I. did not imagine it. Someone, a person who could be dangerous, wandered about close by.

“Did you hear – Can you see them? I can hear footsteps,” I whispered, stepping closer to him to keep the conversation between the two of us. He stepped away as I moved closer. I stopped, swallowing down bile. It had been a day at least, but I did not stink bad enough to drive him away.

“What is your name again?” At least he knew to keep his voice down.

“Adela,” I answered. He muttered the name again, over and over, his brows furrowing further each time he said it.

For a minute, the resemblance between himself and the king struck me. They could have been born from the same womb. They could be twins even. It would be so easy to mistake one for the other, especially with his eyes narrowed to slits. The only difference between them was their eyes and their dragon tattoos. The king never hid his but his brother had some modesty at least.

“Adela who?” The question brought back so many memories. Painful memories.

“Nobody.” I looked away, wondering what caused the mist in my eyes. The air turned chilly out of nowhere. I became conscious of my dress that did not reach past my knee with torn sleeves that barely reached my elbow.

“Nobody,” He said, scoffing. “Your last name is fitting for your kind, I must say.” My throat worked to quench the burn I felt climbing up.

I meant it when I said I did not want to die.

One would argue I had nothing to live for. I had one friend whose path was as different from mine as day is from night. No mother, no father. No brother, no sister.

Maybe your love is a curse. An ugly thing that takes but never gives.

Everything I loved died. Why did I want to survive so badly? Yet, death stood too final, too bitter a preference. As long as I had life, I had hope. Once, I thought I had no hope left but my life took a ninety-degree turn. Once, I thought life could never get better but it and now I had hope. No hope of a better life existed in death. I wanted a better life. I deserved a better life.

And if I had to play nice with this man to stay alive, I would.

“It is not my last name. I do not have –“ He raised his hand, palms facing forward as though a force would shoot out to silence me. I shut my mouth.

“I know.” He smiled, lips pulling up. He crossed his arms on his chest before he continued. “I find it fitting that you acknowledge your irrelevance so freely. It makes me want to smother you less.”

“I never said –“ I paused to calm my racing heart, balling my palms into fists as he continued to smile down at me. “I never said I am irrelevant.”

Play nice, Adela. I whispered to myself. Play nice. You are no good to anyone dead.

“You did not?” He raised a taunting brow. I could not – Did not understand. He seemed both annoyed at my existence and amused. “How important can a nobody be?” He smirked again. “You just called yourself nobody, kitten.”

“Kitten?” It was my turn to raise a challenging brow at him.

“Are you deaf as well as blind? You are like a cat, are you not?”

I looked around, searching for a sign or something. I did not know what but I knew I had to look away from his amused eyes before I did something crazy like call him a ladybug. After all, he was red and had wings.

“Tigers are cats,” I said to myself.

“Tigers are vicious.” He scoffed, moving away from me. So far so good, he had not tried to twist my neck or claw out my intestines. My lungs expanded as I took a deep breath, free from his smothering proximity.

“I can be vicious,” I muttered.

Then he laughed.

For once, it did not sound like a villainous or mocking sound.

“If you could growl louder than your stomach, maybe I would feel threatened to kill you faster than I want to.” And then – he patted my head? I wondered if he expected me to purr like a cat then. My stomach growled in answer.

Again, he seemed to sit on air.

Are you blind?

His stomach growled in response to mine. We both looked down at it. A thought struck me that made me take a step away from him. Then another. And another. Until I started to gear up for a sprint.

“If you are thinking about me eating you, you should know I like my meals hot and spiced, Adela,” He said to his stomach. Raising his head, his dull red eyes assessed me. “I also prefer meat.” He crossed his legs before him. “Either way, if my beast gets hungry enough, he can be wild.”

I ignored the provocation, cast the threat to the back of my mind as I lowered myself down, careful of any invisible stones. His beast would have to make an appearance to be a threat and much as he tried to hide it behind the glaring pride of a Draki, he could not shift.

“What is this place? Why do I see nothing but a stretch of unending green grass?” I asked when I settled on hard ground. Too many things battled for attention in my mind.

My safety, my hunger, my friend. What went on in the Dragon Mountains as I sat here. Would anyone look for me? Lucille would be worried. If she was still – conscious. I refused to worry about that. I could not bear to think of Lucille as being anything but alive. I tried not to think of her. The last time I saw her, she had been losing oxygen. The more I thought of her, the more she resembled a corpse. The blue corpse of my friend that I abandoned.

I shook my head, hard and fast until I got dizzy, hoping to fling the thought out of my head.

“What is your name again?” The man opposite me asked, his lips moving to form words, his frown deepening.

“It is the same one you keep muttering under your breath,” I said under my breath, readjusting myself as though I could find a position in which I was not starving. His sharp gaze cut to me. I looked down at my hands.

“You look like a human. You smell like one. You are more infuriating than any I ever met but you are human. An orphaned human serving under a dragon king but human nonetheless.” He paused his musing, shook his head before continuing. “Green grass,” He muttered. “You are not blind yet you cannot see.” He groaned, stretching out his crossed legs. “The more I think of this, the more I want to snap your neck to end the mystery.”

“I – what–“ I blinked, concerned as to whether or not to be. Frustration leaked from his words as he crossed his legs again.

“Tell me, Adela, do you bleed red?” I blinked. What other colours would I bleed?

“Y – yes?”

“Do you bleed often?”

“I – I mean, I bleed every month?”

“What?” He turned to me, his brows shooting up further.

“What?” I answered, blinking harder.

He turned away from me, putting his bare, broad back in view. His shoulders heaved and I continued to stare at him in a state of confusion. It almost felt – it felt like I was being accused of being something other than human?

Silence reigned after that, punctuated intermittently by the growling of our stomachs. He continued to brood with his back to me as I wondered, despite my better judgement, what went on in his mind.

“What were you doing there?” I asked, unable to stand the crushing silence any longer. It made my problems seem ten times worse. I had to engage my mind, else risk it wandering into pits that could consume me with fear, anxiety, or worse, grief.

In response to my question, he turned to me, a wave of familiar anger already wafting off him. “Do you know it would only take a second to end your life?” I swallowed, clenching my fists.

If he wanted to kill you, he would have done that a long time ago. I thought to myself. A memory surfaced of the king’s mate. He likes to play games with his victims.

Sometimes fear of this man paralysed me and other times, he seemed like an ordinary man. As ordinary as a dragon shifter could be. Again, silence and the occasional rumble of hunger surrounded us.

“Lucille.” He snapped. I jumped at the sudden and angry sound. He eyed me up and down as I flinched. “You really are a cat.” He mused.

I ignored his musing. “What about Lucille?” I asked. He looked at me again, like a puzzle piece that would not fit where he expected it to go.

“You asked why I was there.” Again, he turned away from me, giving me time to process his words without having him glare at me like I drowned his cat.

Lucille. Lucille.

My eyes widened. My throat worked but no sound came out of my mouth. Could it be? Of course, Lucille was his sister. His baby sister. As old as the war between human and dragons but still a baby to most of the Drakii.

The witches took Lucille and the Tor Drakis came for her. Who would have thought – who would have imagined that the prince would be interested in what happened to his sister? Except he had come to steal her away before his brother got here just to spite him. If Mikhail hated anyone almost as much as humans, that person would be his elder brother, the dragon king. He never even tried to hide his hatred for his blood.

“You came for Lucille!?” I could not help but exclaim. “Since – since when do you care about her?” He refused to look at me then. I wondered if he felt – shame? A man like him would probably be ashamed to admit he could feel something like love even for his younger sister.

“Since she became my sister.” He stood, his back still to me.

Since she became – but she had been his sister since – since she was born! For some insane reason, I smiled.

“I guess you are not so bad after all.” He pivoted on his heels, red eyes like flames.

“There you are wrong. I am worse than you can even imagine, human.” The venom from his words, the tightening of his fists, his jaw, they made my heart fall.

Then it jumped.

“There is – there is someone out there.” I could not be mistaken this time. I heard it. It was not a hallucination, not a product of my imagination or a dizzying hunger. Someone was walking around out there.

“There is an entire world out there, human.”

“W – what is this place?” I stood on shaky legs, adrenaline coursing through me all of a sudden. My flight response had reawakened, urging me, pushing me to run.

“If I tell you, then I would have to kill you. First, I have to determine what kind of cat you are, Adela.” And then he broke into a run.