Taming the Dragon Collection Read online

  “This is amazing,” she said aloud, reaching for one. “They’re so beautiful.”

  As Mara squatted beside the water, she looked down at her reflection. Her once beautiful and silky hair was now a frizzy, destroyed mess. It had been like this since she had come into Aleksander’s service. She hadn’t had a chance to wash it in some time and her hair did not respond well to the dirt and grease that had built up in it. She touched her hair slightly, nearly crying as she thought about how beautiful it once was.

  Even her once-smooth skin was dirty and bumpy due to cuts, bruises and rashes she had obtained during her service. She was a mess, and she wondered if her father would even recognize her like this.

  As she stared into her reflection, another face appeared in the water beside her, leaning just over her shoulder. She looked at it, her eyes growing wide as she made out the white beard and deep blue eyes in the reflection.

  “No!” she screamed, darting forward in the water and trying to run through the stream. “No, I will not go back!”

  Her foot caught a rock that was perfectly round and smooth and kicked back, forcing her to flail through the air as she landed face-first in the muddy stream. Now she was dirty and sopping wet.

  “Why are you running?” Aleksander asked, walking through the stream behind her. He moved quickly and with purpose; there was no escaping him.

  “I don’t want to be your slave!” she screamed, trying to move backwards through the stream. “I am not your slave and I never will be!”

  “Who said anything about being my slave?” he asked. She could tell by the look on his face that he was being genuine and not playing a game with her. “You are not a slave. You are a servant of the greatest dragon in history.”

  “You have me under your spell like the others!” she screamed, throwing a bright purple rock at Aleksander.

  He watched it bounce harmlessly off his massive pecs before looking back at her with the same stoic expression he always had. “What spell?”

  “Dragons put humans under charm spells so they won’t try to escape,” Mara said. “I know you’re trying to affect me with your spell!”

  “I don’t know any charm spells,” Aleksander said matter-of-factly. “That is not in my magical repertoire. Even if I did know one, why would I need to use it on human females like yourself? I can tell my human form pleases you. I have strived to make it the ultimate representation of the male form in this region. I have seen the way you smile when your eyes travel the hard lines of this body. Do not deny it. Why would I need a spell?”

  Mara’s mouth hung open. She was dumbfounded by the words she was hearing. He was attractive and he knew it.

  “I want to go home,” she said.

  “That is not possible,” he said, stepping forward again. “I am not done with you and never will be. You are a welcome addition to my maids.”

  “I don’t want to be your maid. I was sacrificed to you against my will.”

  “Your petty human problems are of no concern to me.”

  “Just let me go.”

  Aleksander moved forward again, his eyes traveling up and down her body. She felt self-conscious now as she realized how much of a mess she was and how repulsive she must look.

  “I am not done making use of you,” he said, his tongue darting across his lips as he looked at her.

  For some reason the way he was looking at her and licking his lips began to warm Mara’s body, entirely in one region. She could feel the area between her legs growing moist as he stared at her body. He was so calm, so assured of himself and he was admiring her form just as much as she was his.

  “What do you mean, make use of me?” she asked, still lying on her back in the stream. “Are you going to make use of my body?”

  Immediately the arousal Mara was feeling fluttered away as Aleksander reacted to what she had said. His upper lip curled in revulsion and his eyes turned away from her as he looked down and spit into the river. She could feel her face growing hot with embarrassment. She didn’t know why she had said that to Aleksander, or why she had felt the way she did. It just seemed like the right thing to do in this situation.

  “You mean have carnal relations with you?” Aleksander asked.

  “Well, we usually call it sex in my world,” Mara squeaked out.

  “Do you know what you speak of?” Aleksander asked, his usual calm and collected demeanor replaced by one of excitement that Mara had not yet seen. Even when he flew into one of his fits of rage, his voice remained calm and even-keeled. It was rising and falling so much right now that she would have thought an entirely different person was speaking if she could not see who it was. “I have perfected this form over the years. I am a dragon, an ancient dragon at that. I have seen things that you can only dream of. This body was created so I could move freely among your people and enjoy myself in my chambers. That is its only purpose. Why would I lower my overall station in life to have carnal relations with a human? The thought makes my mighty stomach churn. It is as revolting as the stew you presented to me the other night. I am perfect. Do you understand that? Perfect. Why would I soil myself by touching an imperfect creature in that way? Why would I spill my seed inside of a servant?”

  “Okay,” Mara said, blinking back tears. “You’ve made your point.”

  “You are filthy,” Aleksander said through gritted teeth. “I will not accept you trying to escape anymore, and I will not accept you walking around my chambers covered in so much dirt and grime. The other maids will bathe you and then you will return to your duties with a smile on your face. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Mara said, accepting her defeat. “After all, I was sacrificed to you against my will.”

  “Again,” he said. “Your petty human problems are of no concern to me.”

  This time Mara knew he meant it.

  Chapter 8

  Mara tried to tune out the three chattering harpies who were scrubbing and washing her from all directions. She had immediately been brought to Aleksander’s personal bath chamber and placed in a magically warm tub that was larger than some people’s houses. As she sat there close to the edge the other maids washed the dirt and grime away while chastising her about her choice to try to escape.

  “You don’t realize how good you have it, girl,” Raylene said. “Everything you could ever want is here. Plus you’re serving a being much greater than anyone you could serve at home.”

  “He’s an arrogant monster who holds us here against our will,” Mara said.

  “Yes, but at least he doesn’t beat us,” Priya said.

  “Or rape us,” Abigail chimed in.

  “Yes,” Raylene agreed. “That’s about all we’d be getting if we were still living in the slums. Men think they own women in other parts of the world.”

  “Alek thinks he owns us,” Mara said.

  “Don’t call him that,” Priya said. “His name is Aleksander. Besides, he doesn’t treat us like he owns us. We want to take care of him.”

  “You’re all under a spell,” Mara muttered.

  “Again with this spell business,” Raylene said. “You’re being foolish, girl.”

  “If I wasn’t here, I’d probably be cleaning some old man’s house in the slums,” Abigail said. “He’d probably slap me when he’s wrong and rape me when he’s happy. Or both.”

  “I didn’t have very good prospects, either,” Priya said. “I’d be one of five wives for my husband.”

  “I had a great husband,” Mara lied, trying to get them to shut up. She didn’t know why she said what she said next, but the words just flowed out of her. “He was a brave knight who worked for the king of Escrimea. He was going to take me back to his big house in Atherny and together we were going to live out our days with all the riches we got from killing dragons. It was going to be wonderful.”

  “A dragon slayer?” Raylene asked. “That’s dangerous to be talking about around here.”

  “Indeed it is,” a voice said from the doorway
. The other maids turned and yelped as Aleksander strode into the room. He paused and looked at Mara with the same cold fury he had when he’d told her off before. “Leave us now.”

  The other maids quickly jumped at his command, scurrying out of the room like rats. Mara turned her back to Aleksander, trying to cover her exposed breasts with her arms. Even though he wasn’t interested in her, she was still afraid to show him the true glory of her naked female form.

  To her surprise, he sat down at the edge of the tub behind her and began to comb her hair with a jeweled comb that had been sitting there. He expertly worked the comb through the tangles of her hair, not pulling on it or getting stuck in a tangle one bit. His hands were fast and dexterous, just like when he was counting the coins in dragon form.

  “So you say you have a husband?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she lied. “He was the one you fought on the mountain.”

  “What kind of husband sacrifices his wife to a dragon?”

  “It’s a ploy we use to slay dragons. We’ve used it before to kill dragons.”

  “I see. It did not work this time.”

  “No, it didn’t. You were…” Mara searched for words that would please him. “Too powerful and great.”

  Aleksander snorted. “Of course I am. You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that we’ve killed other dragons?”

  “No,” Aleksander said flatly. “I have no use for the other members of my kind.”

  “Are all dragons so solitary?” she asked.

  “For the most part.”

  “Do dragons ever take brides?”

  Aleksander paused for a moment, letting the comb hang in her hair. She could tell she had stumped him with this question and that gave her a small bit of satisfaction. “I have heard about others of my kind doing so.”

  “Have you ever?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he scolded. “We have already discussed this.”

  “My husband will come back for me,” Mara said. “You haven’t ever been in love, so you don’t know what it’s like. He wouldn’t just leave the love of his life to be a dragon’s slave.”

  “I want you to quit using that word,” he said.

  “That’s what he’ll see it as. And he’ll want to rescue me.”

  “I look forward to it,” Aleksander said. “He was a worthy foe and I would enjoy finishing our battle. He ran away like a coward.”

  “He was being smart and tactical.”

  “Well, when he returns I will be waiting and I will relish the battle.”

  Mara stood up and turned to Aleksander, letting the water run down her body. Her hair was finally silky and smooth. She saw his eyes grow wide as they traveled up and down the curves of her body, lingering for some time on her large, round, full breasts before traveling up to her eyes.

  “My father once told me I had the bluest eyes in the kingdom,” she said. “Do you think that is true?”

  “Your eyes are very blue,” he conceded, his own eyes still scanning her.

  “So are yours,” she said. “They’re amazing.”

  “Of course they are,” he said. “They’re a dragon’s eyes. Yours are the bluest amongst humans but do not compare to mine.”

  “Does any of me compare to you?” she asked, running a hand down her side and over the top of her leg. She was trying to be as seductive as possible, winking at Aleksander and leaning forward while simultaneously pushing her shoulders forward. This caused her breasts to hang lower and push together, drawing all of Aleksander’s attention to them. His eyes grew wide as he looked at them while she ran her hands down the front of her now smooth and wet legs.

  For the first time she could tell that Aleksander was completely flummoxed by what he was seeing. His face was growing red and his fists were clenched, causing the veins in his forearms to threaten to explode out of his skin. He tried to speak but he stumbled over his words.

  “You mentioned I liked your human form,” she said, realizing that for the first time she was in control of the situation with the dragon. “I do enjoy looking at it. You are the perfect man. Do you enjoy what you see in my form?”

  “You are human,” he sputtered.

  “Your petty dragon problems are of no concern to me,” she said. “It’s obvious you like my body.”

  Aleksander stood up, oblivious to what was going on around him. Mara’s eyes grew wide and she tried not to laugh as she looked down to see the front of his robe lifted and draping over what appeared to be a massive erection. It was so long and so thick that his robes hung off it like a sheet thrown over a log.

  “Get dressed and get back to work,” he ordered. “I have something to attend to. When your husband returns I will kill him, mark my words.”

  Aleksander turned and stomped out of the room, leaving Mara standing alone in the bath. She giggled and finished washing herself. This was too perfect: she had the power to turn the great dragon on and he didn’t know what to do about it. Things were about to change around here for the better.

  TAMING THE DRAGON PART 2

  Chapter 9

  Mara sat up in bed and stretched, expecting to see her fellow maids doing the same thing. However, her eyes fell on empty beds as she glanced around the large bed chamber they all shared.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked out loud. “What time is it?”

  She could hear clanging coming from another chamber, indicating the maids were hard at work on something else.

  “They must have let me sleep in after yesterday’s ordeal,” she muttered, pulling herself out of bed and shaking her long blonde hair out. It was clean for the first time in weeks and it felt absolutely glorious.

  As she slipped into her usual brown dress she wondered if the other maids would scold her and chastise her anymore for the events of the day before. She had finally decided she’d had enough of being the dragon Aleksander’s slave and she’d made a run for it. Unfortunately, when a dragon doesn’t want you to leave, there’s not much you can do to escape. Aleksander should have never known she was running for her life, but somehow he had found her not far outside his home.

  “He’ll never let me go,” she said, staring at the doorway that led to her usual morning duties of cleaning and preparing for the night’s meal.

  As she stared, a devilish smile appeared on her face, one that she just couldn’t wipe away. “He’ll never let me go, but he doesn’t know what to do with me.”

  The day before, Aleksander had walked in on her in the bath and had combed her hair out while he talked to her. It was the most gentle and loving thing he had done the entire time they had been together, but it was also the strangest. His heart was encased in ice, much like the icy breath he had used to fight the dragon-slaying knight Val Woodshadow.

  She had lied to the dragon and told him she was married to Val, and that had triggered something in him. Was it jealousy? From that point forward he had looked at her differently, not like one of his maids but like an object of desire. His usual calm and collected demeanor had been replaced by one of frustration and confusion as his eyes traveled her body. She had turned the great dragon on and he obviously wasn’t used to the feeling.

  The other maids had made it clear that Aleksander had never tried anything sexual with them and saw them merely as his property and not as objects of sexual desire. Mara had changed all of that and the dragon had been thrown for a loop. It made her happy that he was so pleased with her body, but at the same time it scared her.

  If he wasn’t going to let her go before, he definitely wouldn’t now. But Val would eventually come back and try to slay the dragon. His pride wouldn’t allow him to admit defeat to a foe. In Val’s eyes the fight was probably still on; Aleksander just didn’t know it. When Val came back, who knew what he would do with her. He might just kill her alongside the dragon and tell everyone the dragon had killed her, or he might actually take her back to be his wife or a member of his harem. Did knights have harems? She
wouldn’t put anything past Val.

  “He definitely treats me better than Val ever did,” she said, pulling her hair back so it wouldn’t get dirty while she was cleaning. “He hasn’t tried to rape me and he doesn’t call me stupid and make fun of me constantly. That’s something in his favor.”

  It was probably the only thing in the dragon’s favor, though. He’d already made it clear to her that she was human and as a human he saw her as a lesser being. His ego was just as large as Val’s, but for some reason it didn’t bother her as much—probably because Aleksander was a dragon and had good reason to have a big ego, unlike the blowhard knight, who was merely human.

  She smiled as she exited her chamber and looked for the other girls in the labyrinth that was Aleksander’s domain. He had managed to say one thing the day before that had pleased her. He had promised to kill her husband when he returned. This made her giddy and happy to no end. Aleksander truly was the lesser of two evils and Val deserved to meet his end at the hands of a dragon.

  “He’ll get what’s coming to him,” she muttered.

  “Who, dear?” Raylene asked, walking out of a chamber behind her.

  “Oh, nobody,” she quickly said. “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “I hope you weren’t talking about the master,” Raylene said, giving Mara a disapproving look. “I would hope you’ve learned your lesson and we won’t have any more funny business.”

  “No,” Mara said, shaking her head vigorously. “I did learn my lesson and I wasn’t talking about the master. I was talking about someone from my past, that’s all.”

  “Well, okay, then,” Raylene said. “Let’s quit flapping our gums and get to work, then. You need to clean the dining chamber and then take a bath before you serve the master his dinner.”