His spiked tail curled and uncurled, rustling the leaves the winds had blown in. As he took a step forward, the dried bones of his past meals crackled beneath his feet, the sound downright music compared to the priest’s bleating.
Draknart blinked the sleep from his eyes, tested his stiff muscles, and then he scraped his talons over the stones for a good sharpening. The sooner he ended the disturbance, the sooner he could reclaim his peace.
He was accursed, but he was not yet vanquished—nor would he be today.
A cheer rose outside, sharp as a toothache. And before Draknart could finish thinking—Here we go again—a soft bundle tumbled down the steep slope of the cave’s entrance.
Another virgin sacrifice. He had half a mind to bat it right back out with his tail. If the villagers must disturb him, couldn’t it have been for a wee fight? At least a hired knight would have provided him with exercise.
He stifled a groan and watched, with a petulance probably unbecoming a dragon his age, as the sacrifice bounced to her feet with the agility of a forest doe and threw off her mud-colored cape. Previous sacrifices had come overwrapped in bothersome folds of skirts. This one wore precious little—all of it skintight.
Draknart narrowed his eyes and huffed, a slim trail of smoke rising from his nostrils. Smoke he hadn’t meant to release. He was old enough to know how to control his fire, dammit.
He blinked as the crown of hair on top of the lass’s head came undone from the tumbling. Her vibrant red braid swung low to a shapely arse. She was as boldly curvaceous as she was scandalously bare.
He cocked his head as he asked, “Have they run out of virgins at the village?”
She reached for her scabbard and drew a sword that suited her not—too large and heavy for a lass her size. Yet her movements were smooth and fluid, and she kept both hands on the hilt as if she meant to use the weapon. Her eyes were the color of amber and filled with fire. She kept her gaze on his, never removing it for a moment.
“They ran out of knights.” Her voice rang through the cave, the clear trill of the first bird greeting dawn in the forest.
Draknart had nothing against birds. He liked them just fine for a snack, enjoyed snatching them out of the air, liked how they darted this way and that, providing him with both entertainment and challenge. It’d been a while since he’d had either.
He measured up the heaps of leaves and debris stray winds had blown into the cave and wondered how long he’d been asleep this time. A few years. Not more than a decade. He smelled spring in the air, and the sweet scent of woman. The scent stirred his appetite. He licked his curved fangs. “There’s been a war, then?”
She nodded, grasping the sword hard enough to turn her small knuckles white.
“And drought?” he guessed as a raven called outside.
She shifted her gaze from him briefly to scan the terrain of the cave, much as a fighter would. “Flooding.”
Draknart gave a rumbling sigh. ’Twas only when life turned difficult in the valley that the villagers remembered the dragon in the hills. Depending on what new priest they had, they would either try to kill Draknart or appease him, convinced that once they’d done something to the dragon, everything would go back to being well fine.
“What’d be your name, then?” As the question hung in the air between them, he frowned. ’Twasn’t a question he normally asked a sacrifice.
She stalked closer, an odd thing to do for one of her kind. “I’m Einin of Downwood.”
Most maidens fainted right off at the sight of the dragon. The ones with sturdier constitutions shrieked a little first before folding. The truly extraordinary even got in a yard or two of running.
Instead, Einin stood tall as the poplar saplings by the river. She stared Draknart down—or tried. Gave it a good effort, in any case.
He shifted to gain a better look, stretching his aching limbs once again. The tip of his great wings dragged on the ground, the scraping sound loud in the cave. She did jump back at that, but only just.
Limber.
Then again, she ought to be on those long legs.
Draknart especially admired her long, lean thighs. “Has the flood washed away your clothes?”
Her cheeks pinked, but she wouldn’t be distracted enough to put down the sword. “I wear my brother’s clothes. A long skirt with petticoats would get snagged in a fight.”
Practical.
She seemed to have more common sense than all the previous virgins put together, and more courage than most of the hired knights.
Draknart’s stomach rumbled, the sound filling the cave. He measured up the wee maiden.
Wee indeed.
