Read Dragon and the Princess for Free Online Page B

cold. What’s more, riding a dragon could be seen as a privilege. Had any other Saragondan ever seen their country from this elevation?
    She’d almost persuaded herself that she was content with her situation when the dragon tilted in flight. Sitting sideways in silk, Rozlinda began to slide. She clutched the man’s arm, hoping his seat was secure. She breathed again, but then the dragon tilted forward, tucked its wings, and dove downward.
    Rozlinda shrieked, and kept on shrieking all the way down, blank with terror. She only breathed again when the dragon opened its wings and leveled out. She was still panting when it landed delicately in a field.
    She was inhaling to yell her outrage when the Dornaan rose with her still in his arms, put her down, took her hand, and tugged her at a run down shoulder and leg to the ground. The footing was rough, which helped, but she squealed as she went and then crashed against him.
    She thumped him with her fists, spitting out pent fury. “You beast. You
monster.
I could have broken my neck.”
    Then she stared. For the briefest moment, humor had lit his eyes. It disappeared as if a door had been slammed, but at least he wasn’t dead to emotions. She was scrabbling for scraps and she knew it, but her unwanted husband’s ability to smile, maybe, was a comfort.
    But then she grew wary. “Why have we stopped here? So far from Dorn.”
    “Seesee can’t carry us for long periods, especially without eating.”
    “Eating?” Rozlinda’s voice squeaked with fear, because, of course, if this man wanted to feed her to his dragon, it would hardly have been diplomatic to do it in front of her people. How to get her away to this isolated spot? Marry her.
    Hot, acrid breath made her whirl. The dragon’s tongue was flickering toward her. She edged away, but the dragon stretched its neck and its glistening tongue grew longer and longer. She looked wildly toward the man, but of course he wouldn’t help. Even so, she whispered, “Please?”
    “Seesee.” He went to pound on the dragon’s nose, but sounded indulgent. “She’s only being friendly,” he said to Rozlinda.
    “No, she isn’t. She wants to
eat
me.”
    “Don’t be silly. Seesee, stop.”
    The tongue slurped back in.
    It wasn’t that so much as the word
silly
that calmed Rozlinda’s terror to mere fright. Surely he wouldn’t call her silly if her fears were true. She inhaled and exhaled, making herself calm.
    The Dornaan had taken a forked stick off his belt and was scratching the beast’s eye ridges with it. The dragon seemed almost to purr.
    “So your dragon—”
    “
Our
dragon—if anyone possesses one, which no one does.”
    “Ours?”
    “Is it not Saragondan law, too, that in marriage all is shared?”
    “More or less.” Saragondan marital property law was complex, especially for princesses, but if he wanted to share everything, she wasn’t going to argue. Talk of such practicalities eased her fears even more. Her heartbeat settled.
    She wasn’t about to be eaten.
    To show she wasn’t afraid—much—she walked closer. She ended up near an enormous nostril, assailed by dragon breath, so she turned her head away—to find herself looking into a huge, red-gold shimmering eye. It blinked a dark gray eyelid and then dazzled her again.
    “Is that where dragon-eye jewels come from? From their eyes?”
    “Their eyes are eyes and decay when they die. Dragon-eye stones are so called because they resemble them.”
    For some reason that calmed her, too. It appeared she had no escape from this situation, so she needed information. Lots of it.
    “There’s no pupil. How does she see?”
    “Seesee, show your eye.”
    A gold layer slid upward, revealing red centered with a darker red pupil. Then the golden membrane dropped again.
    Rozlinda turned to the Dornaan. “Does she speak Saragondan, then?”
    “She doesn’t speak at all.”
    “Very well, does she
understand
Saragondan? And if so, why?”
    “She probably only