The Princess' Dragon Lord Read Online Free Page A

possible. Whenever I transformed, the
dragon was always a part of myself, never separate in mind or
spirit. Then I transformed and he—we—” he didn't finish, but his
eyes went back to her scar.
    Everything went kind of hazy on Diana at that
point. She tried to tell him that he was mistaken, that she'd
gotten the scar when she was a little girl and fell off her bike,
but she wasn't sure if she succeeded or not. The floor suddenly
rushed up to meet her and there was nothing she could do to stop
it.
    Azoth’s hands took hold of her, slowing her
descent, and he gently shook her shoulders, as though trying to
wake her, but she hadn’t fainted. “Diana! You are not well. I will
return you to bed.”
    His words suddenly woke her up. She slapped
his hands away. “No!”
    He recoiled. “I will not put my hands on you
if that is your wish, but you must not be up and about. The
shock…it is not good for you.”
    She didn’t like his assumption that he knew
what was good for her. She didn't like that her body warmed and
tingled in the most sensitive places she had whenever his hands
were on her. She didn’t like him period. “Just stay away from me.”
She was more than happy to sit on the floor, away from him, and
away from that creature out there.
    That was one command he didn’t seem to want
to respect. He knelt in front of her on one knee. He wasn’t close,
but he wasn’t far enough away in Diana’s mind. “Princess, you must
believe that I would never have reason to cause you harm. I…” He
put his fist to his heart. It made a dull pounding sound on his
chest, then he shook his head. “I have no suitable reason for the
actions of my other half. After the attack it had been discovered
that a servant planted a potion in my cup, but that is hardly
excuse enough. I should have fought for you, I know this. Diana, please ,”
    It was the way he said her name, the way his
voice rumbled, that made her look at him. His rust colored eyes
were begging her. He looked like his heart would shatter if she
said the wrong thing, and stupidly, her own heart ached for
him.
    She didn't even know him, but she felt sorry
for him, and his pain.
    That giant lizard outside these stone walls,
that dragon , that wasn’t a robot from a movie set, was real.
That thing was too big to be fake, moved too naturally to be made
out of mechanical pieces, and its eyes were too alive. It had a
soul.
    Some of this was real, but, “You had sex with
me. I never asked for that.”
    “You did!" Azoth said. "You arrived here,
appeared from nowhere, a gift I never expected to be given. At
first we spoke and held each other. I asked to kiss you and you
said yes. You! Diana, believe me!”
    It seemed like he was going to stick with
that story, but Diana remembered none of it.
    She shook her head. She felt like a lost
little girl. Everything Azoth said frightened her, and, strangely
enough, what she wanted right now was her mother. She hadn't
thought of her for such a long time, could barely recall her
face...
    “I want to go home.”
    Azoth’s eyes became sad again. “I will not
say that had I the ability to free you, even should it mean never
seeing you again, I would grant you your freedom. Such would be a
falsehood. I'm too selfish for that. In truth, however, I know no
exit to this place. It has been my prison for the last one thousand
years. My punishment for killing the daughters of Mab and most of
her subjects.”
    Prison? For a jail, this place didn't look
too uncomfortable, though she supposed being locked up in one place
for a thousand years was more than enough reason to see it as
such.
    “ Princess.”
    She gasped. That voice, the one from the
forest, telling her to run.
    “Who’s there?” she asked.
    Azoth looked quizzically at her.
    “Who else is here?” she demanded.
    “No others are here but my myself, the
dragon, and you,” he said.
    “ Princess,” the voice called again,
and Diana recognized that it was entirely inside her