Dragon's Tribute Part 8

Motionless, he watched her approach and change into woman form. The grave sadness on his face unsettled her. Was he offering a sincere expression of remorse, or was he only trying to appease her and get her under his control? He beckoned to her. "Drink with me, and say you forgive what you call my stubbornness."

She noticed he didn't admit to being wrong, much less offer to let her visit her family. Her plan required her to accept his overture, though. "I don't want to quarrel with you. Let's say no more about it for now."

She put her hand into his. "And I never want to quarrel with you," he said, his voice rough with yearning.

Drawing her close, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a lingering kiss.

With no will of her own, her lips parted to welcome the flicker of his tongue. The familiar honeyed warmth flowed through her veins. Sighing, she settled on the cus.h.i.+ons beside him, with his arm draped over her shoulders while he fondled her breast. She nibbled the bread and offered him a bite from her fingertips. He sucked her fingers into his mouth and circled each in turn with his tongue.

s.h.i.+vering, she pulled her hand away and poured a goblet full of the tart, crimson wine. She took a small sip before handing him the cup. Getting tipsy herself did not enter into her plan. She urged him to drinkwhile she sampled the bread and meat. They fed each other and pa.s.sed the cup back and forth, his fingers constantly playing with her hair and caressing her nipples. Delectable sensations rippled through her. Lightheaded, she forced herself to keep her mind on her goal.

"This wine makes my mouth pucker," she said, trilling a laugh that she hoped he wouldn't recognize as false. The claim itself, at least, was true. "I want some mead to sweeten my palate." She slipped out of his embrace to pick up another pair of cups and fill them from the mead cask. To her relief, Virid waited for her rather than getting up. In an alcove out of his sight, she emptied an entire vial of poppy extract into his drink. She had to make sure he slept soundly and long this time.

As she walked toward him, he reclined on one elbow, watching her like a starving man gazing upon a banquet. His unguarded need stabbed her with a moment of guilt for her trickery, but she suppressed it.

If he'd listened to reason in the first place, she wouldn't have to do this to him. Again she took only tiny sips from her cup. When he didn't drink as freely as she wanted, she held the goblet to his mouth, laughing. "You got me drunk the first time we caroused together, remember? Why shouldn't I be able to do the same to you?"

"Why, so you can ravish me as I lie helpless?" He smiled as if genuinely amused by her game. The sight of his needle-sharp teeth, almost like the fangs of a snake, reminded her of the way they gripped her neck when he ravished her as a dragon. The memory stirred warmth in the pit of her stomach.

"You won't find out unless you cooperate." She offered him the goblet again.

With a low chuckle, he gulped down the rest of the drink. "There, I have obeyed your will, and you have me in your power. A fitting revenge for my taking you captive." He swept her into his arms, and they toppled onto the cus.h.i.+ons together. His eyes, fixed on hers, smoldered with the same glow they held when he wore his dragon shape.

He kissed her, t.i.tillating her tongue with the sticky sweetness of the mead. Its flavor and the thrill of his touch intoxicated her. No, I have to stay alert. I mustn't fall into the trap I set for him.

She broke off the kiss. He nibbled her ear and her neck, making her s.h.i.+ver again. Rising to her elbows, she flicked one of his nipples with her tongue. His moan of pleasure gave her a sense of power that she couldn't help but pause to enjoy. She slithered down his body, licking along the patterns of his pale, olive-tinged scales. The smoothness of his skin under her caressing hands made her palms tingle. His c.o.c.k jutted into the air by the time she reached it. Taut veins stood out on the rigid shaft. The engorged, crimson tip almost scorched her lips when she tasted it. She traced the pattern of veins with her tongue until he growled in desperation, then sucked the head into her mouth. His hips bucked. She swirled hertongue around the tip, tasting the salty droplets that oozed from it.

"Now-" he groaned.

Yes, now. She wanted him drained so that he would sleep quickly. She drew more of the shaft into her mouth and laved it with her tongue. His back arched, and his hips pumped at frantic speed. A geyser of hot fluid erupted into her throat. She swallowed over and over until he went limp. His labored breathing filled her ears.

When she lay on her side next to him, his eyelids were drooping. He cupped her rounded belly and ran his hand over it in a lingering caress. "You have consumed me, my jewel," he said, his voice slurred. "I need to rest."

"Yes, we should sleep." She hoped her reply didn't sound too anxious.

She felt heat radiate from him, and his shape began to blur. She sat up just in time as the transformation overcame him. He loomed over her in dragon form.

"You are right. I must sleep. Have you forgiven me?"

"Yes." She wasn't sure how true that was, but she did believe he sincerely craved her forgiveness.

"Beloved." He clamped his claws around her forearm, not quite hard enough to cause pain. "You will not leave me, will you?" His emerald eyes glistened.

Guilt clogged her throat. She rubbed her cheek against the smooth scales of his neck. "Of course not."

Not for long, anyway.

He nuzzled her one final time, lurched to his bed of gems, and sank into a stupor.

While he lay like a colossal figure carved of stone, she wrapped a fresh undertunic and kirtle with a pair of hose and shoes. Into the bundle she tucked a pouch of copper farthings and halfpennies, modest enough in value that her parents could spend them slowly without drawing suspicion. Last she added one of the two vials of healing potion. Virid would certainly notice the loss of it, unlike the poppy syrup. No matter, she would face his anger when the time came.

Carrying the bundle, she flew through the quiet night to the edge of the forest that bordered the village.

There she s.h.i.+fted form and scrambled into the clothes. She had to lace the bodice of the kirtle high above her waist, because of the hard bulge in her stomach. At a brisk walk, she headed for her family's holding.

Without the stamina of a dragon, she quickly started panting from exertion. Pebbles on the path, harderthan the soft earth of the forest, hurt her feet through the soles of the embroidered slippers that she'd settled for in her hurry. With her human eyes less attuned to the moonlight, she stumbled a few times.

n.o.body challenged her on the way. She paused by her grandmother's hedge to catch her breath and press a hand against the stabbing pain in her side. When it faded, she crept to the door. Grandmother would welcome her, she knew. Rowena wanted some preparation before astonis.h.i.+ng her parents with a return from certain death. Shaking, she tapped lightly on the door.

An inarticulate grumble interrupted the faint snore from inside. With a nervous glance toward her parents'

cottage across the yard, Rowena knocked again.

"Who is it?" came the old woman's voice.

"Please, Grandmother, it's me. Let me in," Rowena answered in a rapid whisper.

"What?"

"Hurry, open the door." She couldn't speak louder, for fear of waking the rest of the family.

Slow steps dragged across the floor inside. Finally, she heard the bolt removed and the latch lifted.

Grandmother stood in the doorway, wearing a plain s.h.i.+ft, with her gray hair straggling loosely around her shoulders. She looked thinner than Rowena remembered.

"Child, is that really you? Get inside before anybody sees you." She grabbed Rowena's wrist and pulled her into the single room, shutting and bolting the door. "Come, sit down. I can light one candle, and no one should notice with the shutters closed." By the glow of the banked coals in the central hearth, she groped for a tallow candle and lit it from the embers. The stuffy room filled with the odor of melting fat.

Rowena accepted a seat on the one stool by the hearth under the smoke hole in the roof, while Grandmother sank onto the bed. "Why did you dare to come here, girl, in your condition? Suppose anyone catches you? You are with child by the dragon, aren't you?"

"You should know. Your dragon sired your baby, didn't he?"

After a long silence, Grandmother said, "Aye. I let the people here think Robert, my man who died, was the father, but it wasn't so." She got up and filled a cup from a jug on a shelf. "Here, you must need this."

Rowena took a gulp from the mug. Ale, something she hadn't tasted since her capture. "Why did you leave your dragon? Did you escape because he treated you cruelly? Or did he cast you out, the way ourneighbors think?"

"Not exactly." Seated on the bed again, Grandmother stared at Rowena's rounded stomach in the candlelight. "Your pregnancy is different from mine. My unborn babe didn't grow that fast. My dragon gave me the choice to leave, and I took it."

"Why? Didn't he want a child?"

"Oh, yes, but his magic showed him early on that my baby would look fully human. He wanted a young dragon to bring up."

"So he threw you out? That sounds cruel to me."

"Not at all." The old woman twisted her fingers together in her lap. "He did not believe a human child would be happy growing up in a dragon's lair. He thought the baby deserved a chance at a normal life.

When he put it that way, I agreed."

"So you left. Wandering alone couldn't have been easy."

"No, it's a wonder I wasn't ravished by bandits before Robert took me on as a partner. You know the rest of the tale. We found our way here just before Robert fell sick and died, and your mother was born soon after."

"How long did you carry her?" Rowena touched her tightly rounded abdomen.

Grandmother looked puzzled. "The usual nine months. It is strange that your womb has grown so big already."

Does that mean my baby won't be human? She shrank from pursuing the question. "What about the amulet?"

"The dragon did give it to me for protection, but not exactly like I claimed. In case I ever ran into another of his kind, he said they would recognize it and not harm me. Of course I couldn't tell the folk here that I'd loved a dragon and he'd given me a talisman of protection. So I made up a half-true story of my escape."

"It worked, didn't it?" Rowena said, sipping the ale and savoring its refres.h.i.+ng tang. "They felt sorry enough for you to let you stay, even if they never quite approved of you."

"But they wouldn't let you do the same. You aren't thinking of asking, are you?" Rowena shook her head. "I know better. I just had to see my family once more. Especially with Harold so sick. Is he-?" She was afraid to ask.

"He still lives, but not for long, we fear."

"I brought something to help him. We have to go wake them up right now." She set down her mug and stood up.

"What do you mean?"

She patted the pouch tied at her waist. "I have a healing potion. Magic. Tomorrow morning might be too late for my brother. You have to go in first and warn them what to expect."

Grandmother's eyes again lingered on Rowena's stomach. "Just seeing you alive will give them a shock.

Maybe you'd better not give them the full story first thing." She took her winter cloak from a chest in the corner and draped it over Rowena. "Wear this so your condition doesn't show." She pulled a russet kirtle on over her s.h.i.+ft.

The contrast between the drab, coa.r.s.e fabric and Rowena's finely woven gown, like the odors of the cramped hut with trampled straw on the earthen floor compared to the cool, crisp scents of the dragon's cave, struck her with awareness of what a different life she'd embraced in the past two months. Would she dwell here now even if she could?

She followed her grandmother across the yard to the larger cottage. While Rowena flattened herself against the wattle-and-daub wall out of the direct line of sight, the old woman tapped on the door. After a few knocks, Rowena's father opened it. She stifled a gasp at the sound of his voice.

"We have a visitor," Grandmother said in a quavering whisper. "One who has to be kept secret."

"What are you talking about, Mother Joan?" He sounded none too pleased about being awakened with mysterious news.

"Be quiet, and I'll tell you." She slipped inside. Rowena heard murmurs through the open door but couldn't distinguish words.

Abruptly her father's voice rose to a shout. "What? Are your wits addled?"

A piercing cry from her mother: "Are you sure? It's not her-"

Grandmother cut her off with, "No, it's not her ghost. Your daughter is alive. Now, hush. Do you want to wake the whole town?" She beckoned to Rowena, who clutched the cloak snugly around her to hide thepregnancy and stepped into the doorway. Grandmother hustled her inside, with the straw crackling under their feet, and slammed the door. The smells of the byre to one side of the main room where the goats sheltered in harsh weather, the sweat of too many bodies in the smoky cottage, and the kettle of pease porridge kept warm on the central stone hearth rolled over her.

"Mamma? Papa?" Rowena glanced from one to the other in the wavering light of the single candle her father held. He wore only a pair of breeches, and his straw-colored hair stuck out in all directions.

He peered at her and slowly set the candle down on the rough-planked table. "By Our Lady, it's really you." He didn't smile. "How did you escape?"

"I didn't, exactly. The dragon doesn't keep me chained or locked up. I slipped away, just for tonight, to see Harold."

He frowned. "What do you want with your brother?"

"Joseph," her mother interrupted, " what does it matter how or why she came? We have our child back."

Dressed in a hastily donned, unlaced gown, she threw her arms around Rowena, who felt the plump body trembling.

She squeezed her mother in a tight hug. "It's all right, Mamma. I've brought medicine for Harold. A healing potion."

Gently drawing back from the frantic embrace, she noticed her two other brothers, aged six and eight, emerging from the back room. Little Peter rubbed his eyes and stared at her. "Rowena? Where did you come from? Are you an angel now?"

She said with a shaky laugh, "No, I'm alive, and I've come to visit Harold. Is he asleep in the loft?"

Papa still looked dubious, but Mamma clasped Rowena's hand and tugged her into the back room. Her father trailed behind them with the light. "I've got him in our bed where I can watch him. He gets worse every day. We've tried all the herbs for fever, and the priest has anointed him, but nothing works."

By the glimmer of the candle, she saw Harold lying on the single bed in the smaller room, near the ladder that led to the loft where the children normally slept. The little boy's cheeks flushed red, and his open eyes looked dazed. He blinked at the sight of his sister. "R'weena? You're home!" The words triggered a fit of coughing.

Mamma dipped a cloth in a basin of water and wiped his forehead. "He got better for a while, and then the fever came back. It settled in his chest, as you see. And he has blood in his stools." She rubbed hereyes.

Sitting lightly on the edge of the bed, Rowena untied the pouch at her waist and got out the blue vial. "I brought something to make you well, Harold. Will you drink it for me?"

Papa grumbled from behind her, "I have my doubts about this magic."

"Then keep them to yourself," Mamma snapped. "Rowena, give it to him."

Uncorking the vial, Rowena inhaled its fragrance, like honey and roses. "Drink up, Harold, and you'll feel better in no time." She hoped the dragon was right about the virtues of this potion.

"Does it taste nasty?" the boy asked.

"Oh, no, it's delicious," Rowena said, counting on the flavor to match the delightful scent. She slid her arm under his back and raised him to drink from the bottle.

After one sip, Harold gulped down the liquid. "That's the best thing I ever tasted. I feel all warm inside."

His voice already sounded less reedy, and he didn't cough after speaking. "Can I have more?"

Rowena laughed softly, lightheaded with relief that the remedy seemed to work. "I'm afraid that's all I have."

"The sickness is leaving him," her mother whispered, her hand against his brow to test the temperature.

He's already cooler."

"Too soon to tell," said Papa, but he sounded less suspicious than before.

The brothers crowded into the bedchamber, followed by Grandmother. "He's recovering, isn't he?" the old woman said.

"Yes," said Rowena's mother, "it's a miracle."

Her father put in, "He may be getting well, but I wouldn't call it a miracle." His eyes met Rowena's. "Still, we thank you, daughter."

Her two brothers threw their arms around Rowena, who stood up to hug them. "I'm glad you're back,"

Peter said. "You can stay now, and it'll be just like before."