Chapter Two

I screamed as I was hauled to my feet before my mind had fully awoken or my eyes adjusted from sleep to wake. A very big man with violet eyes, a wild tangle of golden hair, and a lot of naked flesh, dragged me through the tunnel and onto the ledge. He was growling as he did so, and his grip communicated his strength and his anger.

The muscles in his arms stood out against his skin as he held me out over the edge by my throat. I felt the wind grab my skirts, and saw it lift the golden strands of his hair. My feet frantically sought purchase and I managed to plant my tiptoes on the very lip of stone.

“Please,” I gasped, clinging to the wrist of the hand that held my throat, his grip both my lifeline and my torment as I struggled to breathe. It was a very long way down, and the wind seemed determined to take me. All it would take was his fingers to release… “Please, I seek the dragon.”

He snarled at me, his lip curling back from his straight, white teeth. The incisors and the premolar were longer and sharper than mankind. Even with such a savage expression on his face, he was ridiculously handsome for someone about to kill me. “Why do you seek the dragon?” He demanded.

“Where are your clothes?” Not, I reprimanded myself, the response to give when your life hung upon your words. It did, however, seem to puzzle him. He frowned as he brought me back onto the ledge and released my throat. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, gasping, and holding to the stone with gratitude, prostrating myself to maximise my contact with safety.

“Why are you here?” He asked me, his voice a dark growl. His hair fluttered around his knees in brilliant threads of gold that had never adorned the head of someone of mankind origin.

“I am from the Kingdom of Uyan Taesil,” I sucked in air, my throat reluctant to allow it passage. It felt as if he still gripped me by it and I was certain that I would wear a bruise the size and shape of his hand around it come the morning. My heart still skittered in my chest like a panicked rabbit fleeing pursuit. “I seek the Fae Court. Our King Mathhian returned a month ago with a new bride. She has taken over the kingdom as he has declined from an ailment he contracted in his travels.”

“And what has this to do with the Fae Court?” he demanded.

I pushed myself up to sitting and looked up at him from my position on the ground. He was very naked.

Very, gloriously naked, I amended to myself. There was just simply a lot of man, a lot of golden hair, and a lot of flawless skin. He was entirely indifferent to his lack of clothing, but I did not share the sentiment. It was the most unclothed I had ever seen a man and my eyes simply refused to stay where they should, the temptation was just too great.

His hair curled just as golden across his chest… and lower. I jerked my eyes back up to his violet eyes. His pupils were convex, which, combined with the purple eyes and the unusual shade of hair, indicated a brethren heritage.

“Our Kingdom has always welcomed the brethren,” I told him, trying to recall the conversation and reply coherently. “And we have always lived together in accord. The new queen… She is torturing them.”

He sighed out a breath. “The Fae do not care about mankind’s worries,” he told me. “Even when they involve brethren. They will only act if the brethren appeal to them to do so, and even then, it will be after due consideration. They will not act at the behest of a small girl.” 

“Please,” I pleaded. “I must try.”

“Go home, girl,” he turned and went into the cave. “And stay out of the troubles of kings and brethren.”

“I cannot,” I protested. “Mathhian is my brother.”

“All the more reason to go home and mind your manners, foolish princess,” he said. His golden hair brushed the back of his knees in snarled tangles, and it cloaked his body from my sight as he strode away into the cave.

I rose to my feet and gave pursuit. He had lit a torch and was moving around the main cavern using it to light others that were mounted to the walls, spilling golden light into the darkness, and sending shadows dancing across the treasure pile. The light caught in the facets of the gemstones throwing a rainbow of lights around the chamber walls.

I paused in admiration of the prettiness, finer than the grandest of ballrooms, before I recalled myself. “Please, I must try. Let me stay until the dragon returns, I beg of you,” I followed him as he moved from torch to torch.

“The dragon does not care for mankind.” His hair was like spun gold. I wondered why, when there was a wealth of cloth in one of the chambers, he remained so determinedly bare.

“But he lets you stay.”

The man laughed, but it was not with humour. His laughter held the lush darkness of magic in its tone. “I am not of mankind.”

“Please,” I slipped on some gold and fell to my knees, picking myself up stubbornly. “I can help around the cave…”

We had done a full ring of the chamber, and he came to a standstill, looking out the tunnel at the night sky. I hoped he did not intend to drag me out of it again. He did not seem inclined to do so, becoming almost preternaturally still, his gaze fixed on something I could not see. If his chest did not rise and fall as he breathed, and if his hair did not move in the breeze that blew in at us, I might have thought he had become a golden statue.

He truly was a magnificent figure of a man, I decided. Taller than any man of my brother’s court, wide of shoulder, and narrow of waist, with the musculature of the most accomplished knight, and a face a bard would sing sonnets about. He belonged in the dragon’s cave, the most beautiful piece of treasure of all the treasures it contained.

“What help can a princess give?” He said eventually, with genuine curiosity, still not looking at me.

“What is needed?” I would try my hand at any task if it meant I could stay until the dragon returned. Perhaps, with the golden-haired man’s help, I could persuade the dragon… “I will do anything that needs to be done.”

“Is that so?” The man seemed amused, and he moved at last, turning slightly towards me. He cast an assessing eye over me from head to toe and back again. I swallowed realising the situation left me vulnerable should he decide to take advantage of it.

“The dragon won’t want you here,” he looked away at the sky again. “He is looking to take a wife from amongst the brethren. It would be difficult for him to explain to a woman he wishes to woo the reason for keeping another in his cave.”

“A wife from the brethren,” I repeated, wondering how such a thing would occur. Of course, the brethren came in many forms… I could not imagine it, however. I shook my head and drew in a breath. “I don’t intend to stay for long,” I promised. “Just long enough to hopefully convince him to help me.”

“We’ll see,” he decided. “You may stay for the remainder of this night. If you prove useful tomorrow, we will discuss the next night.”

“Do you know when the dragon will return?” Not this night, nor tomorrow night, from the sounds of it.

“The dragon returns when the dragon wishes to return,” the man replied. “You may sleep in the bed.”

“Are you his... friend?” I tried to work out what role the naked man held in the cave. If it were me, I would keep him around purely for the view, I thought wryly, but I doubted the dragon shared my aesthetic.

“The dragon and I are very close,” he found this amusing, and his lip curled at the corner. I wondered if what a true smile would look like on his face, and rather thought I would not survive it decorously. “You should retire. It is late. If you are to be useful tomorrow, you will need to sleep tonight.”

I decided to do as he instructed as he was being benevolent enough to allow me to stay, but it occurred to me as I approached the bed, that there was only one such in the cave.

“Is this… your bed?” I asked him, hesitantly. “I don’t want to cause you to have nowhere to sleep.”

“There is room enough for two,” he replied. He had not moved from the entrance to the cavern.

“I can… sleep elsewhere. In the room with the cloth,” I fretted over the indecency of sharing a bed with a naked, golden haired man, and what he might intend to do in it.

He laughed, the sound rolling over me like the scent of the incense, full of smoke and mystery. “Do not fear me, Princess,” he said, turning on his heel and walking back into the cavern. “I will not touch you unless you ask me to do so.”

I wondered what he meant by that as I lay onto the bed again, drawing the furs and silks over me. For a long time, I lay wary, expecting that at any time he would come to the bed and force himself upon me. But there was only the crackle of the torches as they burnt, the occasional clink of gold and jewels as he walked over them, and the whisper of pages being turned.

He sat on one of the thrones and read. At least that explained the piles of books and bottles of wine arranged around the treasure.

I fell asleep, only to wake as the mattress shifted and he slid beneath the furs and silks.

He was still naked, I observed with bemusement. Was he under a Fae curse where he could not wear clothing? That might account for his comfort in his own skin if he had had to acclimate to always exposing it and might also explain why he lived in a dragon’s cave. If I were as beautiful as he and cursed to be unable to cover myself, I would find somewhere safe and isolated to live, too.

I fell asleep, speculating.