Waking the Dragon Read Online Free Page B

through and then gave me his back so I could wrap the flaps around each shoulder blade where the wings protruded. “That’s because no one knows what the treasure truly is.” I buttoned along the two seams under each wing.
    Wide-eyed, he asked excitedly, “Is the Vale of Stars a real place? Do they have a real treasure?”
    I tapped him on the nose playfully, casting an air of mystery to my voice. “I don’t know. But some say it is. No one really knows.” Placing my little charge in his big, mahogany bed, I then tucked the white down comforter at his waist.
    “That would be cool if it was.” He flipped to his side, propping his head up on his hand. “I’d be the hero and go on the quest to find the treasure to save the world.” His wings lay limp against the mattress. I stretched out beside him.
    He referred to the version of the story that declared the treasure would one day save the world from evil, though no storyteller ever knew how. “So you want to hear that one?”
    He shook his head. “King Radomis.”
    “King Radomis, huh?”
    “I love your stories about him.” He snuggled his head against his pillow, angelic eyes pleading.
    “How about his queen, Morga?”
    “Pfft.” He waved his tiny hand. “She’s just a girl.”
    I arched a brow at him.
    “I mean, she’s not like you or anything.”
    “Oh, really? How so?”
    “Well, you’re not a girl.”
    I laughed. “This is quite a revelation. Here, I thought I was.”
    A blush crawled up his pale cheeks. That was one trait he did inherit from his mother, milk-pale skin, like my own.
    “I mean, you’re a girl, Aunt Moira, but not a sissy girl.”
    “Ah.” I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh, forcing my face into a grave expression. “Well, it just so happens that neither was Queen Morga.”
    “But didn’t you say she was a princess that had to be rescued by the king? That he saved her from those bad men?”
    “You’re a good listener. Princess Morga was fated to marry a man of her father’s choosing, a cruel prince from a western kingdom. On the night before she married, she planned to escape during the traditional rite of bathing beneath the full moon.”
    One of Julian’s wings lifted and fell higher against the pillow, his voice rising with excitement. “That’s when King Radomis swooped down, shifted into a man, and rescued her.”
    I nodded. “Would you like to tell me a story? Or shall I do the telling?”
    Sheepish, he mumbled, “But I know all that part.”
    “Well, let’s skip further ahead to the part you don’t know.”
    He nuzzled his head into his fluffy pillow. I combed dark locks away from his face. Brilliant eyes were intent on mine.
    “When Princess Morga of the human kingdom in the West became Queen Morga of the dragon lair in the North, she was hated. Despised by all.”
    “Hated?” Julian stifled a yawn and curled a fist under his cheek.
    “Because she was human.”
    Julian frowned. I knew he thought of his own human mother. And perhaps of me. “Yes, they did not share the more sophisticated views of today where humans and Morgons live peacefully alongside one another.” I wouldn’t burden my precious nephew with the fact that only some shared this view in our world. He had time enough to learn of hatred and ignorance.
    “So what happened to her? They were mean to her?”
    “Stop talking and listen, Julian.”
    He snuggled deeper as I caressed his bare cheek, sweeping gentle fingers along his shoulders and the thin arch of his wing, soft as suede. Having put him to bed so often, I knew what would send him into an easy sleep. I lowered my voice and drew out the syllables into a sonorous roll. What Julian called my story voice .
    “It was worse than being mean to her. A rival female dragon, one who was pledged to marry Radomis before he fell in love with Morga, despised her so much that she plotted to poison the queen.”
    He opened his mouth on a gasp but said not a word.
    “However,” I continued,