The Dragon Lord's Pet Read online

  “It has been limited, your majesty. I wanted to ensure the security of the hall, so I have had little time to question her.”

  “We will question her together,” Casimer said. “I will not leave this matter lingering. I wish to be with my wife and son, so we must settle it quickly. This must not be allowed to mar the most joyful day of our lives.”

  With another bow, Vitomir went to the dungeon to retrieve the girl only to find the jailer moping about her, covering her with a blanket, showing kindness and mercy she did not deserve. Vitomir had been explicit in his instructions. She was to be left alone, guarded ferociously. And there she was being tended like a wounded little lamb.

  “What are you doing!” he growled as he pushed into the cell.

  The jailer fell back stammering and making excuses.

  “Release her,” Vitomir said, ignoring most of them. “Everything but the collar.”

  The jailer followed his orders and soon the shackles fell from her legs and arms. Only her neck remained encircled with a collar that would deprive her of flight. Before she moved, Vitomir clamped a chain to the collar and tugged her from the remains of the restraints, urging her swiftly off the slab and onto her feet. She stood at the greatest distance possible, her beautiful blue eyes glowering at him balefully.

  “Come,” he ordered. “You have an audience with the king.”

  Chapter Four

  It was swifter to carry her over his shoulder, so Vitomir slung his prisoner thusly and carried her off to the king’s private chamber where Casimer was waiting. The king exuded impatience with the entire proceedings already. This girl had picked the wrong day to anger the realm’s most patient monarch.

  Vitomir set her on the floor and pushed her down to her knees. She went with a little growl, kneeling down by his feet. He looked down at her dark hair, his eyes cut to two golden shards. Oh, how she needed thorough punishment. There was nothing but resentment in her posture. She was clearly experiencing little shame or remorse. He was going to change that.

  “Tell us your name,” he said, giving the chain attached to her collar a little jerk.

  She remained silent and stoic as before.

  “You will not even tell me the name of the maiden who was to kill me?” Setting his irritation aside, Casimer crouched down before her, his eyes fixed on her snarling little form. His tone was almost cajoling as he tempted her to respond, speaking to her not as a potentially deadly threat, but as an angry little animal.

  The approach worked.

  “Lilly,” she ground out between her teeth. Her voice had a pretty, feminine quality to it, just like the rest of her. Casimer glanced up at Vitomir, as if to say that he had found the secret to interrogating this girl.

  “High Lord Vitomir has already puzzled out your secret,” Casimer said with impressive patience given the situation. “We know who you are, Lilly of Lazarus. I can even imagine how you came to be here. Your father must have opened a portal for you, but not before filling your head with lies and telling you that you must kill me. Is that what happened?”

  “My father is dead,” she said, speaking slowly at first, her words gaining both rapidity and volume as she went on. “He was old when I was born. He told me that he would have lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. He told me that he had already lived long in the dragon world where he really came from. Where I really belonged. He told me you sent him to the human world where he would wither and die, because he tried to stop the poisoning of the royal line with human blood. What part of that was a lie?”

  “None of it, put that way,” Casimer admitted. “Your father was once my most trusted ally. He betrayed me and the woman I love because of his bigotry against humans. I could no longer tolerate him in my realm. Living in the human world seemed a fitting punishment. You come to slay me for that, when you are part human yourself?”

  “I’m part human because my mother was a whore. And so is your bride.”

  Her words were caustic enough to make Casimer rise and take a step back, his regal expression grim.

  “Enough!” Vitomir growled, snapping the leash. “You speak to the king of this realm, girl. Show some respect.”

  “I will show him the point of a blade and nothing more!”

  * * *

  Lilly took pride and refuge in her rebellion. Behind her aggressive facade, she was actually very confused. She had believed Casimer to be a cruel and vicious dictator, but here he was speaking to her calmly mere hours after her attempt on his life, his eyes on hers with a humility she found difficult to deny.

  So far, the king had not been cruel at all. Even the jailer in the dungeon had attempted to make her comfortable in her shackles. According to everything she thought she knew about this realm, she should be dead by now. But she barely had a scratch. Was it possible that these dragons were not as evil as she had been told?

  She pushed the uncomfortable dissonance away. All she had was her hatred and she intended on clinging to it. When the tall man at her side, the giant who had first captured her, flicked the leash, she let out a snarl, almost grateful to him for giving her a reason to be angry.

  “Apologize,” her captor growled. “Beg the king for mercy, and thank him for that which he has shown you thus far.”

  They had taken her sword. They had taken her flight form with the infernal collar around her neck. But they had not taken her teeth. Lilly responded with a swift bite to her captor’s leg. Unfortunately for her, she made contact not with flesh, but with hardened leather, which left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

  She saw the mirth before she heard it, a chuckle from both dragon men, snorting at her foolishness. It only made her angrier.

  “I will kill you both!”

  “You will do nothing, boot-biter.”

  She was grabbed from the floor, twisted in the air, and pulled down over her captor’s hard raised thigh, propped up on a nearby shelf. He kept her in place with one hand on her collar as the other came down to punish her, his powerful palm sweeping through the air and catching her low across her cheeks, sending a bolt of pain through her flesh.

  She wanted to be stoic, but she could not help her yowl. She was not as accustomed to pain as she should have been, and his hand was hard, his palm like leather against one of the softest parts of her body. He was not treating her as a viable threat to anything. He was treating her like a juvenile, even though she was a full eighteen years of age. Over and over again, his hand landed on her ass, painting it with heat and pain.

  All the while, Casimer looked on, his expression one of satisfaction as she was spanked thoroughly, until finally the great giant of a dragon who was punishing her let her slide from his thigh back to the floor, where she once again knelt at his feet, her ass now blazing and painful.

  There she stayed silent, biting back the whimpers that rose to her lips, and blinking back the tears that threatened to flood her eyes.

  “I don’t think she’s a threat to anyone or anything besides herself, especially in that collar,” Casimer said when Vitomir was done with her.

  “You’re wrong,” she growled under her breath.

  “Chain her up,” Casimer said. “I will speak with you privately, Vitomir.”

  Vitomir wrapped her chain around a column and performed some kind of touch that made the wrapped links fuse together. She was trapped as they walked out and left her alone in what she could only describe as decadent surroundings. The wealth on display in this single room could have fed a small city for a month, but of course the dragons had hoarded their wealth. They were greedy, nasty, cruel creatures and she would find some way to carry out her mission.

  For the moment, though, all she could do was kneel there and rub her butt and try to regain a semblance of the dignity that had been masterfully stripped from her since her arrival.

  * * *

  “What is your will, sire?” Vitomir put the question to the king.

  Casimer drew in a sigh. “I am torn, Vitomir. An attempted assassinat
ion should carry penalty of death. To fail to carry it out risks others potentially trying their hand.”

  “Only a limited handful of your most trusted and loyal guard know what she tried to do,” Vitomir replied. “Her presence here is still a secret to most. Mercy is an option.”

  “Mercy as I showed her father? Mercy she neither asks for, nor would seem to appreciate?”

  Vitomir stayed silent. He was almost certain Casimer would not order an execution for a teenage human girl who had not so much as drawn blood. It was not in the king’s character.

  After more thought, Casimer sighed and began to speak again. “And yet, aside from an incredible scene and a vast mess, she has done no actual damage. She has harmed nobody. Her prime sin seems to have been by merit of her birth, and that is not something I am prepared to take her life over. And yet she has been clear enough in her intent. She presents a danger, so she must be contained. Is imprisoning her in my dungeon any more cruel?”

  “There may be another option, sire,” Vitomir suggested. “She is young, and I think we can safely assume, filled with loathing which is not truly hers. She does not hate this realm because of what was done to her, but because of what she has been told about it.”

  “That seems to be enough for her.”

  “Lazarus has delivered his daughter to this realm as a means of revenge. What if we could take the product of his hatred and rehabilitate her?”

  “She is far too potentially dangerous to allow anywhere near this city,” Casimer said. “And I will not send her back to the human realm to make a second attempt…”

  “What if she were to become my pet?” Vitomir made his intention more clear. “My estate is a significant flight from the city, and I assure you I will not allow her any freedom before she has atoned for the sins she committed here today.”

  “You want to take her as a pet, Vitomir?” Casimer’s brows rose in surprise as he shook his head. “I tell you now, human women are troublesome enough when they are raised well. I think this one will be almost impossible. You will gain little pleasure from her, certainly in the short term.”

  “I do not wish to take her for my pleasure, sire,” Vitomir said. “I know she will not be any kind of pleasure pet, certainly not immediately. I wish to take her because that is the only way to gain some good from this situation. In my care she will not be cossetted. She will be disciplined and trained. And given enough time, I believe she will not only seek forgiveness for her actions, but come to enjoy living in this realm. She will have the life her father threw away and then she will see his bitterness through a different lens.”

  “You will not be able to relax for a second,” Casimer warned. “She will test you to your very limits of patience, and security, and I can only imagine what else besides. I can’t imagine you will enjoy most of what the task will involve, so why are you so keen to have her?”

  “You have looked upon her, have you not?”

  Casimer let out a laugh. “She is pleasing to the eye, but that will not be enough.”

  “She is pleasing and she has a strong spirit. Both are qualities I find alluring,” Vitomir smiled. “I believe I see potential for her to be quite a different creature in a few years. And she will be a challenge. I like a challenge.”

  The king nodded, his decision made. “Very well, Vitomir. I commend her into your care and I wish you luck.”

  “Thank you, sire. All the best to Mika and little Vadim. May they stay healthy and may the boy grow to be as strong and wise as his father.”

  “No need to praise me any further, Vitomir. I have already given you what you wanted,” Casimer chuckled. “Though I do think you should be more careful about what you wish for. Take her swiftly. Mika has not heard of this incident and I intend to ensure that she does not.”

  “I will begin preparations for her transport immediately,” Vitomir said. “Farewell, sire.”

  Chapter Five

  Lilly waited a very long time chained to the column, half wondering if they had forgotten about her. It seemed unlikely. There was more chance that she was being left to stew in her own anxieties. The collar around her neck was not overly heavy, but it was uncomfortable simply because its weight reminded her how trapped she was. There was a window across the room. She could have slipped out of it, she could have taken flight and escaped, but for the collar.

  She tugged at it, but of course that did nothing. Running her fingers around the seam of it revealed no point of weakness. It was a complete circle, locked in place around her neck and there was no way she was going to get it off… unless… she held one side of it and tried to bang the collar against the column while not hitting her head. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and when she succeeded in striking it somewhat hard, the collar maintained its integrity while a good-sized chip of stone went flying across the room—right into the shin of the man who had just opened the door.

  Vitomir. She had heard what the others called him. It was a cold name, a reptilian name. As his golden eyes fell on her, a shiver ran through her body. He was alone now.

  “I see I’ve returned just in time to stop you chipping your way free,” he said, the deep gravel of his voice resonating with something so deep inside her she did not entirely understand what it was. All she knew was that it made her feel hot and cold all over. The hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms all stood erect as he drew closer, goosebumps appearing over her naked skin.

  He pulled the loops of chain free from the column without any issue, the metal links obeying his command. The chain leash tightened, the link between her neck and his hand trembling as she shook. She tried to stop it, but couldn’t. This man had an intensity and a power that frightened her, and now that the adrenaline of two clashes with the king had abandoned her, she was starting to realize just how weak and small and soft she was in comparison to him.

  “Come.”

  She tried to stand up, but he nudged her back down with his knee, gently but with unmistakable force. “You are not worthy to stand in the presence of your betters,” he growled down at her. “You will stay on your knees. You will crawl when ordered. You will not enjoy the privilege of clothes or modesty, or any of the trappings you have taken for granted.”

  Hearing this, she rose to her feet in defiance. Almost immediately her feet were swept out from under her and she landed on her bottom with a bump. The leash was pulled taut as he took a knee in front of her and pulled her face up to his.

  “Do not test me, pet,” he said in an icy snarl. “I am not toying with you, and this is not a game. You have committed the most serious crime this realm has seen since your father betrayed the king. I would say that you have, in fact, surpassed him. You do not understand this yet, because you know nothing. Believe me when I tell you that your actions have made you forgo all trappings of person hood. You are lucky to even be called pet. You are closer to a wild thing. But I will tame you, girl. You will learn to sit and to beg and to obey. It starts now.”

  His lecture was delivered with total dominant conviction, his eyes boring into hers until she felt that there was nothing and no one else in the world.

  He straightened and gave a tug on the leash. “Come.”

  She went, crawling across the polished stone floor on her hands and knees, her sex exposed to all those who looked on with a mixture of curiosity and disdain as he led her through the halls of the palace. There were guards everywhere, and others besides. It would have been a long walk, and it was an even longer crawl to their destination, an outside landing place where an iron cage was waiting. She knew immediately that it must be for her, and she found herself eager to get into it. Already her knees were aching from the crawling, and in a cage she would be able to sit and maybe even hide. She had never been so vulnerable, or felt so very weak.

  This had not gone at all to plan. Not at all. She did not know a thing about the man who now held her captive, aside from the fact that he was massive, important, and did not care at all for whatever rights she m
ight imagine herself to have. Her one attempt to hurt him had been an embarrassment and she was not eager to try again.

  In the movies she had watched back at home, slim slips of girls were able to fight grown men easily, punching and kicking and all the rest of it. Between that and her father’s instruction she had come to fully believe that she was capable of dominating a man if she wanted to. She doubted that now. She certainly could not beat a dragon. The strength these men had was so far greater than hers, there was no contest. Within seconds of her arrival in the dragon realm Vitomir had swatted her out of the sky like a fly, and now he was making her crawl along behind him, working to keep up with his long stride.

  He stopped before the cage, drew a black blindfold from his pocket, and wrapped it around her eyes.

  “Hands,” he ordered. “Hold them out to me.”

  She did as she was told and felt shackles being placed on them, shackles linked with chains that were linked to the cuffs at her feet so that she could not lift her hands to her face and remove the blindfold. Trussed and chained so securely even Houdini could not have escaped, she was slid into the cage and the heavy door was closed behind her.

  * * *

  Vitomir made sure the cage was entirely secure, including the grips that he would lock his talons around during the long flight home. He tested every bar and joint, twice over before being satisfied that his pet would not take an accidental tumble from several thousand feet in the air.

  Satisfied that she was secure, he took a deep breath and flowed into his flight form. He had a long, powerful body, the upper side a bright burnished red, his belly and neck a vibrant gold, which gave him a fine and rather unique form. Usually a dragon would have one light and one dark color, gold and black, or red and black, or sometimes blue or green would be the deeper hue. Vitomir had taken his form from the lighter halves of his parents. It was said that a dragon with two lighter hues would be a bringer of peace. Thus far, the only peace Vitomir had brought was at the end of a blade or in the path of his flame. He had earned his status as high lord by proving himself capable of holding down the reckless and lawless elements of the province he ran, far to the north of the royal city.