Taming the Dragon Collection Read online

  “A bath?” Mara asked. “But I just had one yesterday.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Raylene said, wagging her finger at Mara. “Don’t question orders. The master said he wants you to take a bath every day before you bring him his dinner. Those are his orders, and we do what he says.”

  “Well, okay,” Mara said, then turned and walked away to find the dining chamber. Another smile crept across her face. Aleksander wanted her to be clean every day. Things were definitely starting to get interesting.

  * * *

  This time she had to bathe herself with no visits from the other maids or Aleksander. She found herself disappointed as she washed the soap from her naked body. She had almost hoped Aleksander would show up again and talk to her so she could continue to tease him and throw him off. It would have been fun to see the dragon lose control again.

  After her bath she went to the kitchen to prepare his meal, but she found the other girls already hard at work.

  “I usually fix his meal,” she said as she walked into the kitchen.

  “Well, you were bathing,” Priya said. “We couldn’t wait for you to finish doing whatever you were doing in the bath.”

  Mara felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. She hadn’t done anything unsavory in the bath, she had simply bathed herself.

  “We’ll get it together and you take it to the master,” Abigail said curtly.

  Did I do something? Mara thought.

  The other maids were all bustling about, but every time they looked at her there was contempt in their eyes. It took Mara a second to piece it all together, but finally she realized they were jealous of her. Each one of them had spent years serving Aleksander, but none of them had been given the privilege of a nightly bath. This one small gesture by Aleksander was enough to drive a wedge between her and her fellow maids.

  Well, screw them, she thought as she walked over with her head held high to the giant bowl of stew that Aleksander always ate. She hadn’t done anything wrong; it wasn’t her fault that Aleksander found her more attractive than them.

  She quickly turned and walked out of the chamber, leaving the other maids staring at her with their mouths hanging open. They had noticed her curtness as she had grabbed the bowl; hopefully they would think twice before being bitches again.

  Aleksander was in his usual spot, drinking his usual wine and waiting for his usual meal. She hadn’t thought a dragon would be such a creature of habit, but here he was. As she walked into the room he looked up at her like he usually did, but this time his eyes lingered on her, traveling the length of her body before returning straight ahead of him. That was unusual.

  Mara set the meal down in front of Aleksander and stepped back, waiting for his usual dismissal after he had tasted it. As always, he picked up the spoon and took a sip of the broth, nodding his head in approval. She turned to walk away, but Aleksander cleared his throat, stopping her in her tracks.

  “Yes?” she asked, turning back to him. “Is your meal not satisfactory?”

  “It is good,” he said, nodding. “Your husband, tell me: how many dragons has he slayed?”

  “Two, sir,” she answered, walking back to stand beside him.

  “And what color were they?”

  “Black and green.”

  “A green dragon is no easy dragon to slay,” Aleksander said. “How did he kill them?”

  “He said he charged the black dragon and flew through the air, cutting its head clean off its shoulders before it realized what was happening.”

  “That is quite a feat,” Aleksander said, nodding his head. “But he was lucky, because he caught the old thing napping. If the dragon was paying attention, that would never have happened. What about the green one?”

  “He was with an adventuring company. He had a wizard with him who managed to cast a spell that distracted the dragon long enough for him to strike.”

  “So he got lucky again. Without the wizard’s magic he would have been killed.”

  “I suppose so, sir.”

  “I am no sir,” Aleksander said. “He did get lucky, and he is not as cunning as he seems to think. I will kill him and show you that he is not the man you believe him to be.”

  Mara kept her head down and tried not to show her smile. These sounded like the jealous words of a jealous man.

  “The green dragon should have killed him,” Aleksander continued. “Do you know where a wizard’s magic comes from? It’s a magical weave that flows through all living creatures. Dragons have a direct line to the weave; it’s where our magical nature is derived from. Human wizards can tap into the weave, but they do not have a constant, direct connection like a dragon would. Your human sorcerers are said to have dragon blood and they have a more continuous connection. It is why they can cast spells from their heart rather than needing to do a chant or incantation like a human wizard.”

  Mara just stood in awe. She had never known any of this and Aleksander had just laid it all out for her. What other knowledge did he have about the world? Had he learned this from experience or from the dusty tomes in his library?

  “You have made your point, sir,” she said. “A human is no match for your might.”

  “Of course he’s not,” Aleksander said, taking another bite of stew. “I do not need you to point the obvious out to me.”

  “Perhaps you can tell me more about dragons and where they come from,” Mara started to say, but Aleksander’s hand quickly went up to shush her.

  “I’m trying to eat,” he said, not even granting her the courtesy of eye contact. “I am hungry. Now be gone.”

  “But, sir,” she started to say.

  “Do not call me sir,” he responded. “I have tolerated it to this point but I can no longer. I am not one of your human knights. I do not need a king to grant me such a title to know my own importance.”

  “Then what do you prefer to be called?”

  “My name is Aleksander,” he responded, puffing out his chest and finally looking at her.

  “Then I shall call you Aleksander,” she said, bowing.

  “I heard you call me something else to the maids while you were being bathed,” he said, eyeing her sideways as he began to eat.

  She could feel her heart jump a little. Had she called him something nasty and he had overheard it? She quickly racked her brain, trying to remember what she had called him during the bath. Surely she hadn’t said anything unsavory about him. Sure, she had called him a few choice words during her first few days here, but he couldn’t be everywhere, could he?

  “What name was that?” she asked tentatively.

  “Alek.”

  “It is a shortened version of your name.”

  “I like it,” he said, finally turning toward her. She was taken aback by what he said. “You may call me that, but only you. Do not call me that to the other maids, only to me.”

  “Thank you, Alek,” she said, smiling and giving him a curtsey.

  “That will be all,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

  “I have so many questions for you, though, Alek,” she said, not wanting to go. “So many questions about you.”

  He put his spoon down and put his hand on his chin, pondering what she had said. Finally he turned to her with the same cold expression he usually wore. “This is my meal time. You do not join me for meals, thus you have no right to ask me questions. I have allowed our little conversation to go on too long. Be gone, Mara.”

  Mara turned and started to leave the chamber, but she smiled again. This had been a productive meal. He had checked her out once more and appeared pleased by what he saw, and now she was allowed to call him something the other maids could not. She was obtaining a position of privilege. As she exited the chamber, one more thought came racing into her mind.

  “He called me Mara,” she said, hugging herself tightly. “He doesn’t call any of the other maids by name.”

  Chapter 10

  Mara refused to be swayed by Alek’s constant dismiss
als when she asked questions. The next night at dinner she persisted in questioning him about his past and about dragons, but he immediately shooed her out the door and forced her to leave.

  The next night she persisted again, this time even leaning forward so he could catch the scent of the exotic soap she had used to bathe her body that day. Alek’s eyes grew wide as she got close to him and he seemed to almost drink in the aroma that she was wafting in his direction. A dreamy, almost drugged look came over him and he seemed much more willing to speak to her. It was the same as two nights ago when he had laid eyes on her body and checked her out—if she could get him interested and attracted in her, then he was an open book.

  “So, how many colors of dragons are there?” she asked.

  “Your husband has not told you?” Alek asked incredulously. “He must not be a very good dragon slayer if he does not know about our kind.”

  “He didn’t share all his secrets with me,” she said, shrugging and inching herself onto the table so that she was almost sitting in front of Alek. She’d never seduced a man before, but she just tried what came naturally and what she thought he would be interested in. As she sat there she pulled her dress up slightly, allowing Alek to see the smoothness of her legs. His eyes traveled up and down her legs before returning to meet her own. Now she was the one flustered and confused as she stared into his beautiful sapphire eyes. It was like he could bring her into a trance with those eyes.

  “The colors I know of are white, red, blue, green, black, gold and silver.”

  “That’s quite an array.”

  “Yes, well, each dragon has their own talents.”

  “There are no others?”

  “There might be. There are legends of other dragons who once existed, but they may have died out or been killed.”

  “Does it bother you that humans want to hunt and slay your kind?”

  “The problems of my kind or of humans are no concern to me. I am only concerned with myself.”

  “And your problems?”

  “I am a great and powerful dragon. I have no problems. Don’t be preposterous.”

  Mara giggled and looked away. Alek had a problem; he just didn’t want to admit it. He was attracted to a human.

  “So what do you read in your books?” she asked.

  “About treasure that I will go plunder,” he said. “Knowledge is powerful, and since I am powerful I must be knowledgeable. This world has no secrets that I do not know.”

  “Wow,” she said, running her hand down her leg and drawing his eye. “You truly are great and powerful.”

  “I do not need you to state the obvious.”

  “Do you ever run into humans on your adventures?” she asked.

  “Sometimes I find adventuring parties, but they are easily defeated.”

  “Do any of them have women?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why don’t you bring them here to serve you?”

  “They have not been given to me.”

  “But you are a powerful dragon. Don’t you have the right to take what you want?”

  Alek pondered her words for a moment before looking back up at her. “Well, yes, that is true. I can take them to be mine if I so choose, but a warrior deserves a death befitting a warrior, not a life of servitude befitting a maid.”

  Mara tried not to take issue with his words, knowing he was just telling her the truth. Still, it was hard not to be insulted by what he was saying. A warrior’s life held more meaning to him than a maid’s.

  “They deserve a warrior’s death even if they are human?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Alek said, puffing out his chest. “While they may not belong on the same battlefield with one as great as I, they have chosen to do so and if they fight bravely they deserve a warrior’s death. In my omnipotent wisdom I respect one who takes up arms and fights for a cause, even if they are beneath me.”

  “Why do you have to kill them?” she asked. “Why can’t you take a great female warrior as a bride?”

  “A bride?” Alek asked, looking at her like she was crazy. “Why would I do such a thing?”

  “Well, how else do dragons reproduce?” she asked. “Do you mate with other dragons? Would you be able to produce a dragon with a human?”

  “I will eat my meal now,” he said, leaning forward to take a sip.

  “But, Alek,” she protested.

  “That is enough, Mara,” Alek said, regarding her with coldness in his deep eyes. “You will learn and know your place. Be gone now, before I revoke any privileges I may have bestowed upon you.”

  Mara quickly shuffled out of the room, realizing she had touched some nerve with Alek. He obviously did not like discussing the thought of sex with a human or even the thought of marriage, but she knew there had to be something there and she intended to find out what it was.

  The next day she was busy cleaning the study when she stopped and looked at his huge bookshelves. There had to be some kind of answer in there regarding dragons. She looked around and listened hard at the doorway, making sure the other maids were hard at work elsewhere. Generally they didn’t tackle rooms together and they left one another to their own devices.

  Trying to be as silent as possible, she looked through his books for anything relating to dragons. Most of the books were old, without titles or pictures on the covers, and she didn’t have time to leaf through each one.

  Finally, she found a large book with a red leather cover that had a gold dragon embossed on it. She opened it, nearly gagging from the amount of dust that rose up from the old tome.

  “This is amazing,” she said, thumbing through the book. It appeared to be a lineage of dragons throughout the world, detailing which dragon had begat which. Except there was a problem with each one: they only listed one dragon as a parent and nothing for the other parent. Each dragon’s name appeared to be male as well, although some were very hard to pronounce. “Why don’t they have any females listed?”

  A sound outside the door forced Mara to quickly slam the tome shut and hastily shove it back onto the bookshelf. As she spun around Alek strode into the room, his eyes set on a bookshelf across the room.

  “I am not finished cleaning, Alek. Please forgive me.” Alek hated it when he came in to read and the room was still dirty.

  He stopped and looked around the room, taking in all the sights and sniffing the air. Finally he walked over to the leather chair he usually sat in and examined the area, nodding his head in approval.

  “This will do, Mara,” he said. “It is drawing closer to my meal time. Please bathe yourself.”

  “Yes, Alek,” she said, bowing her head and shuffling toward the door. As she began to leave she felt his eyes boring into her back. Was he admiring her from behind, or was he trying to figure out what she had been up to? She pushed the thoughts out of her head and headed for the bathing chamber.

  As she prepared to undress, she looked down and noticed that the front of her dress had ripped. It would need to be mended. At that moment a devilish thought entered her mind and she reached down, tearing the front of the dress until the tear dipped to the middle of her bosom. Now Alek would have a full view of her breasts while he ate tonight.

  It didn’t take Mara long to bathe that night, but she made sure to use the best oils and soaps that Alek had transported from around the world. For a dragon, he really enjoyed being clean and smelling good. Maybe that wasn’t so strange; after all, he did see himself as some sort of perfect god.

  That night she brought his dinner to him with a smile on her face and it only widened when his eyes landed on her. They immediately travelled to the low cut of her dress and grew wide. She even caught him licking his lips at one point. She would be a liar if she said she didn’t enjoy the attention and approval the dragon heaped on her body.

  “Something is wrong with your dress,” he said, shaking his head and trying to look away.

  “I ripped it while I was working earlier,” she said.

 
“I see,” Alek said, taking his customary first sip of stew before nodding his approval of the taste.

  “Did you have a good read today, Alek?”

  He looked up at her, his eyes traveling her body again as he seemed to struggle to form words. Was he going to tell her off again, or was something else bothering him? Finally he put his hands on the table and answered. “Yes, it was very productive.”

  “I knocked one of your books off the shelf by accident,” she lied, trying to find a way to broach the subject that had been bothering her since she had viewed the old tome.

  “Oh?” he asked, taking another sip of stew.

  “Yes. It was about the lineage of dragons around the world.”

  What she said seemed to catch Alek off guard and he fumbled with his spoon, letting it clatter to the ground as he looked up at her in surprise. “You read my book?”

  “Well, I just glanced at it,” she said innocently, leaning over the table so he’d have a full view of her breasts. “It was strange, though.”

  “You should not read any of my books,” Alek said, his face growing red.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, flipping her hair behind her as she gave him her most seductive look. He was getting angry; she had to distract him. “How come no women were listed? It listed everyone’s fathers, but not mothers.”

  Alek’s eyes grew wide and he bit his bottom lip, obviously trying to hold himself back from exploding. Mara stepped back, realizing that her attempt at seduction was doing nothing to quell the great dragon’s rage. Did he feel violated?

  “Pick up my spoon,” he ordered through gritted teeth.

  “Alek,” she said.

  “Pick up my spoon,” he ordered again, pointing at the stone spoon lying on the ground.

  Mara squatted down beside his chair and grabbed the spoon, looking up to find him leering down the front of her dress again. She pinched her shoulders forward, allowing them to hang lower, hoping to distract him from the anger he was feeling. She had no such luck.

  “Give me my spoon,” he ordered, holding his hand out. Mara stood up and presented him with the spoon, trying not to anger him any more than he already was. “Now go.”