The Dragon King's Obsession

EIGHT

Our kind and the beasts have been at war for close to a hundred years. The discovery of shifters put us in distress and at first, we cowered away, giving them a wide berth, but they encroached upon us. They had been in hiding before and now they wanted to dominate.

I had grown up with the stories my Grandfather told. He had not been born when the war broke out but he too had heard the stories and if they were to be believed, then the first war had been bloody.

The first village ever burnt down was left as it was. A reminder of what the dragons had done to us. As hunters, there were days we got tired of training. When the rigorous exercises became too much for us to bear and we nursed the idea of quitting. On those days, an instructor would march us to ‘The Wasteland.’

No one remembers what the place was called before the war. All that was left was a phantom village of burnt houses and blackened bones. Skeletons littered the roads. Bones of both the young and old. And we were reminded of why we trained.

We started to train at thirteen and the teacher never forgot to tell of about the small children.

“This one could have been your best friend.” He would point at a little skeleton, forbidden from taking anything from its place. “She could have been your sister,” He would say and we would train ten times harder, knowing he was right.

There were still thousands of dragons and they could lay waste to our friends, our families, if we did not protect them.

I had been two years old when the second war had broken out. My grandfather, surprisingly, had been the one to propose a treaty between humans and dragons. Our kind had refused but we were also tired of the stench of smoke and death in the air. He had taken ten hunters with him as a sign of goodwill and the dragon king had promised to bring only one dragon.

My grandfather had been the only man to come out of the meeting alive and he had come out boiling with hatred. His leg was mutilated. A giant scar that had to be stitched made him bald and all the hope he had had about living at peace with the dragons had been dashed. And he had gone on a rampage.

The humans did not hold back this time. We had fought and fought and fought. The fight had raged from when I was two until when I was ten. In that time, we had managed to kill the new king of the dragons, one Valiant Pendragon. The beasts had retreated at the emergence of Kreon as king but they still killed us and we still killed them.

I had been born into this fight. Grown up in fear. I had played with swords as a child and listened to bedtime stories of dragons being killed and humans being mutilated. I hated dragons and I was sworn to the code of the hunters to kill any I stumbled across.

Yet, I stood there and moaned like a w***e while the king of the beasts groped my breasts and sucked my neck. I made an abhorrent sound at the back of my throat when he gripped my waist. I had been sliding to the ground, legs too week to hold me up.

“My – oh!” A startled voice said from the entrance to the hall. He raised his head and growled one word.

“Out.”

The man all but fled the room and he returned to pulling down my underwear but the spell on me had been broken.

He put his hands on me and all thoughts fled but the look that man had given me? Mouth falling open with an incredulous stare? It mirrored what I would have given myself if I was standing outside my body, watching myself scrunch my eyes and claw at a beast’s back, forgetting who I was.

My chin trembled. I felt like everyone in the world knew what shame I was bringing to my family name.

“What is it now?” He growled, rising to his full height. He pulled my underwear with him and I felt slickness run through my inner thighs.

“I don’t want this,” I muttered, voice thick. My throat tightened further when I could not decide if the problem was that I did not want it or if it was that I knew I was not supposed to want it. Because a few seconds before we had been interrupted, I had been panting to be taken right there in the destroyed hall of his dining.

I often acted before giving things thoughts and the results were usually disastrous but never had I let myself go like this.

“You think it matters if you want this or not?” He almost laughed. I looked away.

His words did not surprise me. Dragons were known to take without asking. Laying claim to things they had neither purchased nor earned. What would stop the king of them from pushing his straining erection into me?

My throat tightened further. I was used to playing games, the most dangerous of them. I was the one my friends volunteered to ride a wild bull and I would jump on without first thinking because I always found a way to make things work for me. I did not see a way out of this one.

He sighed when I would not answer. I could not answer for what would I say? I was strong among my kind. I was a threat to his kind with my bow but now? I was completely at his mercy and he knew it.

“How is it possible to want to kill and keep a person at the same time?” He muttered. He said it to himself but although he was no longer pressing me into the wall, I could still feel his breath on my face.

He pushed away from me as his expression grew taut. “I want to split you open and claim every inch of you,” He murmured, eyes hardening further. “But I shall never degrade myself to be with someone who does not pant for me.” And with that, he was gone.

The dragon on his torso shifted. Its wings folded and moved until the dragon head was at his back and golden yellow ink seemed to stare at me.

I righted my clothes, missing my underwear, and prepared to leave. The last time I had worked up such a temper against myself was when I had caught Elliott in a darkened corridor of my father’s castle, with my father’s mistress latched onto him.

I had been enraged at myself. Furious. I was not unaware but I had doubted myself, wanting to be wrong. But catching him with his hands up another’s skirt, in my father’s castle, right under the roof I lived. I had been overcome with the urge to slam my head against a wall.

The same man that chaperoned me to the dining hall was waiting for me outside. Wordlessly, he led me back to the king’s chambers and clicked the lock behind him once I got in.

I shuddered to think of life continuing this way for me, a well-kept mistress for a beast.

The gleaming piece of jewellery from the king’s horde sat on the bed. I imagined the reverence with which Adela had placed the piece back into his case and let it sit on the bed. Grabbing it, I walked to what I had once thought to be the balcony and then I chucked the jewellery with all my strength, as far as I could throw it.

I went back in, sitting on the floor with my legs crossed beneath me and my back leaning on the bedframe. I had too much sense than to cry but my eyes stung a little.

I was at a loss as to what to do. I felt like a child once more, frightened by stories and knowing that if the beasts came, I would be defenceless. I was living the reality of being defenceless, thrust into an unfamiliar world. My bravado seeped out of me by the second. My senses flew out the window from a touch. My mind rumbled in tumult, my body betrayed me at every turn.

My mood turned wretched at every beat of my heart. My day went further downhill as it progressed.

Adela brought me breakfast with a sneer on her lips. She looked alarmed when she came back to a full plate. I could not eat. My stomach growled and squeezed but my hunger did not come with an appetite.

For lunch, she came with more food and two pitchers, one smelling strongly of whiskey. She came with Olivia trailing behind her and once the younger girl saw me, her eyes lit up and she started to talk nonstop.

“Oh, this is such a pretty dress, Missy. The king is very kind! That is a fine gold thread there and your hair, oh goodness, I know I’ve said this before but –“ I drowned out her words.

I could see what Adela was doing, bringing the other talkative girl but it did not lift my mood. If anything, it made me more moody. She talked and talked and talked until it felt like my ears would fall off. I slapped her hands away when she reached for my hair but it did not deter her.

Still watching me closely, Adela asked. “Do you not like the meal? The kitchen would be happy to make you something else.” She offered.

I pushed the tray away, getting a bit of alcohol on my dress. “I’m not hungry,” I said. The girls shared a look above my head.

“But you have not eaten anything since you got here.” She frowned but I continued to ignore her.

Their life had not been turned on its head. No one was holding then against their will and claiming proprietorship of their life like they were guinea pigs to be owned. Their families did not search for them. Their friend had not been killed by a monster. Their bodies did not ignite from a certain touch which they should have abhorred.

“Come, Olivia, let us give her some space.” With that, they walked off.

I was being a petulant child, refusing to eat.

Do you suppose to force my hand by starving yourself, Missy? My mother used to ask when I disdained her meals after a rejected request. I did not remember her well but the smell of lavender still brought hazy memories of her smile to the forefront.

A few hours later, I was still seated at the foot of the bed but with my legs stretched out. Though my butt had started to hurt, I had no desire to move an inch.

The door creaked open and a head of jet black hair poked in. It was the girl from the table. The female dragon. Her kind was supposed to have gone extinct but dragons were also not supposed to have tattoos that could bleed out from their skin and take a form.

“Hello.” Her voice was soft and instantly reminded me of Goldie’s. She walked into the room with Adela following behind her.

“What do you want?”

“I am Princess Lucille but please call me Lucy,” She smiled shyly. I held on to my hard face. There was another royal? These men hid their secrets better than we thought they could. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She stuck out a hand which I ignored.

She was a tall girl, looking to be about five feet, ten inches and she loomed over me as I sat on the floor. I stood.

“What do you want Princess Lucille,” I sneered. She took an unsure step back before saying.

“I have come to break you out.”