Chapter 4
915 Words
“What help can a princess give?” He said eventually, with genuine curiosity, still not looking at me.
“What is needed?” I would try my hand at any task if it meant I could stay until the dragon returned. Perhaps, with the golden-haired man’s help, I could persuade the dragon… “I will do anything that needs to be done.”
“Is that so?” The man seemed amused, and he moved at last, turning slightly towards me. He cast an assessing eye over me from head to toe and back again. I swallowed realising the situation left me vulnerable should he decide to take advantage of it.
“The dragon won’t want you here,” he looked away at the sky again. “He is looking to take a wife from amongst the brethren. It would be difficult for him to explain to a woman he wishes to woo the reason for keeping another in his cave.”
“A wife from the brethren,” I repeated, wondering how such a thing would occur. Of course, the brethren came in many forms… I could not imagine it, however. I shook my head and drew in a breath. “I don’t intend to stay for long,” I promised. “Just long enough to hopefully convince him to help me.”
“We’ll see,” he decided. “You may stay for the remainder of this night. If you prove useful tomorrow, we will discuss the next night.”
“Do you know when the dragon will return?” Not this night, nor tomorrow night, from the sounds of it.
“The dragon returns when the dragon wishes to return,” the man replied. “You may sleep in the bed.”
“Are you his... friend?” I tried to work out what role the naked man held in the cave. If it were me, I would keep him around purely for the view, I thought wryly, but I doubted the dragon shared my aesthetic.
“The dragon and I are very close,” he found this amusing, and his lip curled at the corner. I wondered if what a true smile would look like on his face, and rather thought I would not survive it decorously. “You should retire. It is late. If you are to be useful tomorrow, you will need to sleep tonight.”
I decided to do as he instructed as he was being benevolent enough to allow me to stay, but it occurred to me as I approached the bed, that there was only one such in the cave.
“Is this… your bed?” I asked him, hesitantly. “I don’t want to cause you to have nowhere to sleep.”
“There is room enough for two,” he replied. He had not moved from the entrance to the cavern.
“I can… sleep elsewhere. In the room with the cloth,” I fretted over the indecency of sharing a bed with a naked, golden haired man, and what he might intend to do in it.
He laughed, the sound rolling over me like the scent of the incense, full of smoke and mystery. “Do not fear me, Princess,” he said, turning on his heel and walking back into the cavern. “I will not touch you unless you ask me to do so.”
I wondered what he meant by that as I lay onto the bed again, drawing the furs and silks over me. For a long time, I lay wary, expecting that at any time he would come to the bed and force himself upon me. But there was only the crackle of the torches as they burnt, the occasional clink of gold and jewels as he walked over them, and the whisper of pages being turned.
He sat on one of the thrones and read. At least that explained the piles of books and bottles of wine arranged around the treasure.
I fell asleep, only to wake as the mattress shifted and he slid beneath the furs and silks.
He was still naked, I observed with bemusement. Was he under a Fae curse where he could not wear clothing? That might account for his comfort in his own skin if he had had to acclimate to always exposing it and might also explain why he lived in a dragon’s cave. If I were as beautiful as he and cursed to be unable to cover myself, I would find somewhere safe and isolated to live, too.
I fell asleep, speculating.
I awoke in a nest of golden hair, with my arm around his waist and my face pressed up against his back. He was still asleep. Apparently, with a naked man in bed with me, I became a cuddler. It was an inconvenient time to discover this inclination in myself, and potentially compromising if he took it as an invitation.
I hoped the dragon returned soon before I had to spend another night in bed with this dangerously beautiful man.
His hair carried the masculine, incense scent. This was his bed, he slept in here, and it was his scent that permeated the cave, I realised. I eased myself back from him carefully, alarmed, and embarrassed. I slid from between the covers, placing my bare feet upon a floor covered by a fur rug as luxurious as any in the castle of Vienthrey. He did not move.
- Writer
