Dragon's Tribute Part 7

Circling over her family's holding, she focused on her grandmother's one-room cottage. At sunrise the old woman would emerge from her door to plod across the yard to the shared livestock shed and milk the single nanny goat allotted to her. She couldn't miss seeing the message packet if it lay on her front walk. Rowena circled as low as she dared, concentrating on the technique she had practiced with pebbles and rocks. She hovered for a second, clasping the small package in her claws, and let it drop. It landed on the stone slab outside her grandmother's door.

With a hissing smoke-puff of relief, she shot upward and raced for the cave. Now she needed to get back before Virid noticed her absence. She could do no more until she'd allowed time for Grandmother to read and answer the note.

Glad the rain had stopped, so that no telltale wetness could betray her unauthorized journey, Rowena changed back into a woman the moment she landed on the ledge. When she emerged from the entry tunnel into the great hall, coins clinked with the dragon's movement. She froze, one hand on her chest,the other bracing her against the wall.

He raised his head, eyes glittering. "My jewel? Is something wrong?"

"No." Could his keen ears catch the hammering of her heart? "I had trouble sleeping, and I went to the portal to look at the moon."

"Come lie with me." He extended a foreleg to beckon her.

She crossed the chamber and reclined in the circle of his front legs. He laid one across her body, claw-tips grazing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Why are you breathing so heavily?"

She could hardly confess her solitary flight now. With a hand on her belly, she said, "Sometimes I have trouble getting enough air when I'm lying down. It presses on my ribs." That excuse held some truth, for the pregnancy had expanded alarmingly within the past week or two.

Virid's talons lightly skimmed the visible bulge. "Our youngling will be strong and vigorous. He grows faster than a human infant."

"Or maybe she." With the relief of knowing her mate didn't suspect her secret errand, Rowena found herself overcome by weariness. She hid a yawn behind her hand. "I might have a girl, like my grandmother."

"Perhaps." He seemed unperturbed by the suggestion.

"What, your dragon magic can't tell?"

He said with a ripple of laughter, "I cannot even divine whether the child will appear dragon or human.

Having waited so long for my true mate, I can wait with patience for the birth."

She snuggled up to him with her head pillowed on his torso, knowing that she would feel stiff and sore from dozing on the treasure pile but wanting to encourage him to fall back to sleep quickly. The longer they conversed, the more likely she would become nervous again and let him catch her in a lie about her evening's activity.

Hardly able to stand the delay, yet afraid of using the poppy syrup again too soon, Rowena waited until the second night afterward to slip the drug into Virid's evening drink again. Since the first dose had clearly taken effect but hadn't lasted very long, she increased the amount by a couple of drops. As soon as he slept, she flew to the tree where she had been sacrificed.

Upon landing, she saw nothing that looked like a message. In the faint moonlight, though, even dragoneyes could miss such a small object. She searched the ground at the foot of the dead tree, still draped with the remains of the ropes that had bound her. Nothing. Inhaling and exhaling in rapid hisses of frustration, she widened her circuit and turned over every rock. No letter.

She silently commanded herself not to panic. Lack of a note didn't necessarily mean Grandmother had not read the letter. It could mean only that she hadn't found time to sneak out and deliver a reply. The tree was a long walk from the village, especially for an old woman. Rowena leaped from the earth, her wings flailing the night air. She would simply have to return in a night or two.

The next day, she couldn't hide her dismal mood from the dragon. She had no appet.i.te for apples from the basket he had filled on his latest orchard-robbing expedition. She barely nibbled the rabbit he roasted for her when she refused to change shape and eat it raw. When he read to her from a Latin scroll of the lives of saints and martyrs that usually enthralled her, she fretted and lost the thread of the tale.

"What troubles you today?" he finally asked. "You seem unlike yourself. Perhaps you need to fly in the clear air and exercise your wings."

"I don't feel like flying." She wrapped her arms around her knees and edged away from him.

His whip like tongue encircled her neck and insinuated itself into her bodice. "Then another kind of exercise might help you relax."

Her skin itched with irritation at the caress that normally made her tremble with excitement. "I don't want that now, either. Just leave me alone."

"Can you not tell me why?" The wistful rather than impatient tone of his voice made her feel almost guilty about keeping secrets from him.

Unable to confess her problems in communicating with her family, she gave him a partial truth. "I've already explained what's bothering me. My body feels wrong, I'm worried about the baby, and I miss having my mother and grandmother to talk to, which you won't hear of. So why discuss it at all?"

He withdrew toward the entrance tunnel. "Beloved, I have difficulty understanding why you yearn after that life when I give you every luxury you could wish for. But I do grasp that your new existence still feels strange to you. Please try to comprehend that I do everything for your good."

"If you say so." She hid her face on her folded arms.

The dragon rummaged in the treasure pile for a moment. "I shall leave you to your thoughts, then." Then she heard him behind her, leaving the cave. She occupied herself with flipping through some of the colorfully illuminated books until he returned.

Although tempted to check the tree again, she couldn't risk his finding her absent. Judging from the position of the sun when she went out to sit on the ledge, he stayed away longer than usual. She wondered where he had gone, surely not hunting again. They needed no more food today.

When he finally reappeared, he carried something in his talons. She watched him glide to a landing. The object turned out to be a basket with its contents wrapped in cloth. "I have brought you a gift," he said.

"I hope it will cheer you."

Too curious to bother going inside first, she unfolded the top layer. She could hardly believe the aroma wafting from the package was what it seemed. "It's fresh bread!" She peeked under the cloth. "Two loaves!"

Hurrying into the great hall, she unwrapped the still warm prize. Tucked into the side of the basket she found a smaller, sticky package-a wedge of honeycomb. Her eyes widened with delight. "Oh, Virid, how did you get it?"

Keeping his dragon shape, he curled on the floor like a giant cat. "Easily enough. I scented the hive in a hollow tree and subdued the bees with smoke, as your beekeepers do."

"No, I mean the bread, of course." She spread a cloth on the chest they used as a table and broke off a chunk from a loaf. After the scant amount she'd eaten earlier, her stomach cramped with hunger. She swallowed to keep from drooling.

"I bought it. After all, I have plenty of coins." A smug tone colored his reply.

"What? How-?"

"I took human shape and walked into a town. Not your own, a larger one some distance away."

"But you don't look human," she blurted. How could he walk among ordinary people, with his olive skin and silver-blue crest of hair?

"With a cape and hood, my peculiarities are not obvious."

"What about the risks you keeping harping on?" She smeared honey on the bread and took a generous bite. The flavor warmed her down to her toes.

"I have prudence and skill enough to keep out of sight while in my true form. The folk of the town saw me only in the guise of a cloaked man." "Well, this is more than wonderful. Would you like some?" She held the fragment of bread up to his grinning jaws.

"No, thank you. I am pleased that you enjoy it. You said you missed bread and honey."

She paused in the act of stuffing another bite into her mouth. "You remembered that?"

"I remember every word you speak. And I would not have you unhappy." His tail and forelegs embraced her.

Savoring the heat he radiated, she turned to hug his neck. "Thank you!" She planted a kiss on his scales.

When his tongue whipped out to lap drops of honey from her mouth, she melted inside. Nothing had forced him to bring her this gift. As long as she remained his bedmate and brood mare, he need not have taken any notice of her fretful mood. And regardless of his claims, he had risked attack or capture. He must care for her more than she'd realized.

Contracting into man-shape, he wrapped his arms around her. When he kissed her more deeply, whispered yearning words against her lips and neck, and lapped his way down to her flowing quim, her thoughts scattered and her body dissolved into a flood of delectable sensation.

Despite Virid's kindness, Rowena knew better than to broach the subject of her family again. Even though he had risked his own life in a visit to a human town, he wasn't likely to change his mind about forbidding her to do the same. As soon as she could slip away while he slept that night, she flew to the tree of tribute.

The moment she landed, she noticed moonlight glinting on metal. She swooped down upon the object.

Her bronze amulet lay half under a large rock, with parchment tied to it. With her heart pounding, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the packet. Even dragon eyes couldn't read quill scratchings by this faint light. Rather than trying, she hurried back to the cave with her find.

With Virid asleep, she judged it safe to read her message inside the lair. In woman shape, dressed only in a silk undertunic, she retreated to one of the side alcoves and unfolded the parchment. It was her own letter, she discovered, with a fresh note written on the back in what looked like berry juice. Used to reading by the glow of the walls, she had little trouble deciphering the words.

"Dear Granddaughter: Your mother and father and brothers are well, save for Harold. He has been sick with the fever, and he now has the cough in his chest. We fear he may die. I did not tell anyone of your message. It is not safe. I thank the Blessed Virgin that you live. Your loving Grandmother." Fever. Cough. So Harold had fallen ill with typhoid and the disease had led to lung fever, as it often did.

Rowena buried her face in her hands, tears welling in her eyes. She had to do something, but what?

Would the healing potion stored on the medicine shelf cure disease? Perhaps, if only she could deliver it to her brother, something Virid would not allow.

With unshed tears choking her, she burned the message in the dying embers of the fire pit, then huddled on her bed cus.h.i.+ons, staring at the ceiling in silent misery. Her hand wandered over her distended stomach, larger by the day, it seemed, with the skin as tight as a drum-head. As long as she carried the dragon's child, he would never let her show herself among people.

Yet she felt she had to ask, at least. Suppose her brother died without her ever seeing him again? At daybreak she confronted Virid, first broaching the other subject that preyed on her mind. "The baby,"

she said, standing on the ledge in her s.h.i.+ft, with gusts of wind molding the cloth to her body. "I've gotten big so fast, but I don't feel quickening."

The dragon spread his claws across her swollen belly. "The child lives. I sense it." When he focused his gaze on the place he touched, the faint glow appeared.

"Then why can't I feel it moving?"

"You ask questions I cannot answer. Centuries have pa.s.sed since I saw a young wyrmling, and I have never fathered one myself. Thousands of years ago we thronged these lands, but I was only a dragonet myself then. And even before time and human warriors thinned our ranks, we led solitary lives. Unless mated, a dragon lives alone."

"Don't you get lonely?"

He snorted. "A typically human question. We do not need to gather in herds the way your kind do. We mate for life, and a dragon who cannot find his destined beloved prefers solitude. Besides, more than two dragons living at close quarters would quickly strip their land of prey."

"What happens when the baby grows up, then?"

"He must range widely enough to find his own territory. No great task, with so few of us left in this country. But that lies far in the future. We will have many years with our child. Soon enough, he will come forth."

"Or she," Rowena absently corrected. "How soon?"

He said with an impatient flutter of his wings, "You persist in asking for answers I do not have. Almosttwo months have pa.s.sed since you conceived. If you were a pure she-dragon, the time would be almost here. But you have human blood. And from all I have heard, these cross-breedings are always shaped by the unpredictability of magic."

She drew a deep breath to nerve herself for what she had to ask.

"If there's no telling when I'll give birth, then I want to see my family now, one last time, before the baby comes."

Tendrils of smoke curled from his nostrils. "I have spoken my final word on that subject."

"Only once, just to let Mamma know I'm alive. I can't let her go through the rest of her life thinking I was torn apart and devoured. And I want to talk with Grandmother and hear the full truth about her dragon. I have to do this, have to know." She couldn't state her real reason, the need to find out how sick Harold was and help him if possible.

"Out of the question!" he roared Tears burned her eyes. "I'll never ask for such a thing again. I'll follow all your commands without a single protest."

"I have explained why I cannot allow it. Why can you not rest content with all I've given you? Why must you ask for the impossible?"

"It's not impossible!" She planted her hands on her hips, raising her voice to match his shout. "It's just your stubbornness. You're so hardheaded you won't admit I can take care of myself."

"My jewel, the danger-"

"Stop blathering about how it's for my own protection, and stop calling me that. You treat me like part of your treasure h.o.a.rd instead of a mate."

"Do I have to lock you up like a treasure to keep you from throwing away your life and our child's?"

"Just try it!" She marched into the cave, calling over her shoulder, "You can't watch me every minute. I'll fly away, and you'll never see me again-or your wyrmling."

Following, Virid slithered past her, s.h.i.+mmered, and flowed into human shape. He grasped her by the shoulders and gazed into her eyes. "Do not even speak of such a thing."

She tried to wriggle free of his hands, but he held her too firmly. "Would you keep me here by force?Just as I suspected all along, I'm only a possession or a breeding animal to you."

"No, my dear one!" His eyes gleamed with sadness, not anger, and the pressure of his fingers slackened.

"If you fled, I would indeed be--lonely. I have never felt loneliness before, yet I know its meaning. It is the emptiness I would suffer if you left me."

"A likely tale. You'd miss our swiving, you mean." She pulled away from him and stalked over to the chest that held her clothes.

"Yes, of course, but not only that. I could always find another wench for that purpose." He followed her across the chamber, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, as if he fought the urge to seize her again. "Rowena, what are you doing?"

With abrupt, jerky movements, she pulled a kirtle out of the box and tied it into a bundle with her s.h.i.+ft.

"Going out, the way you gave me permission weeks ago, remember?" She took a few strides toward the exit.

"Where?" He stepped into her path.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to the village. I'm not stupid enough to try that in daylight, and you would stop me anyway, wouldn't you?"

"I would not allow you to take that risk with our young," he said, standing stiffly motionless in front of her. "But otherwise I would not use force to confine you."

"Good, because I need to get away from you. Don't follow me."

A shadow of what looked like sadness fell over Virid. Without another word, he retreated to the treasure pile, lay down, and closed his eyes without changing form.

An ache tugged at Rowena's breast, tempting her to run to him and throw her arms around him. Could it be that he would actually suffer if he lost her? She stifled the impulse to offer him comfort. Surely that display of sorrow was only a dragonish trick to get her to surrender to his will. Besides, if his pain was real, let him wallow in it for a while. The experience would teach him a lesson.

Chapter Eight.

With her bundle of clothes, she flew to the open meadow where the two of them had frolicked several times. After dressing, she strolled around the field, picking wildflowers and savoring the summer breeze and the coolness of gra.s.s underfoot. Or pretending to savor it. Her thoughts kept wandering back to the lair. Hours pa.s.sed while she alternately walked until she grew tired and dozed beside the stream or bathed her feet in it. Her head pounded with confusion. She had to take that healing potion to her brother, yet she could not openly defy the dragon. And the new fear that she might actually hurt her mate by her defiance added to her turmoil.

When hunger threatened to drive her back to the cave, she shapes.h.i.+fted and killed a wild goat. In dragon form, she had no qualms about devouring it raw. Finally, when the sun began to sink toward evening, she decided she had punished Virid enough. Not only that, she had worked out a plan to bring aid to her family. After this one last time, she resolved, I shall become the kind of mate he wants.

Upon her return to the lair, she found Virid, still man-shaped, waiting with a cooked haunch of venison upon a silver tray, a decanter of Burgundy wine, and a spray of wild roses arranged in a Grecian vase.

The rest of the bread lay sliced on a platter.