I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2) by Marc Secchia (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

plain, it speared a sharp pang in his Dragon hearts. Disbelief. Craving. Appreciation so intense, he would have set the doctors scrambling to treat a fever had they been present. Dragon tried to see it from his perspective. A slender, dark Princess leaned over the windowsill, in a posture that presented her tiny haunches and woefully slender legs most advantageously for him to scrutinise. Sable curls tumbled down her back. She bore a sword in the King’s very presence – no-one had yet dared to inform her that this simply was not done. The low, liquid tones of her desert accent rose and fell melodiously in earnest, unselfconscious conversation with a perfectly enormous white Dragon filling his window!

Poor fellow. Struggling to breathe over there, was he?

Gnarr-harr-harr. He knew that feeling. The flicker of Aria’s wings could stop up his throat in an instant. Really, that much beauty packed into one Dragoness was extremely hazardous to the health.

She whispered, “I’m just not sure I’m ready for this, Dragon. It’s all a bit … overwhelming, and … scary. Am I being silly? I mean, what if after all this, he doesn’t see me for who I am, and there’s the complication of you … and all the Dragonesses, and war on the horizon …”

“Shh. Now, that is silly, Princess. These fears are wholly unfounded.”

Azerim’s reaction said it all.

Behind her back, Dragon winked at the King and made a ‘come on’ crooking gesture with his fore talon. Aye. She had no idea how hard he swallowed just then.

“Dragon, how do you know?”

“Oh, call it a mysterious Dragon power.”

Her breath hitched. In that second, she realised he was playing the tease; she must have sensed why, but her body lacked the capability to respond to her volition.

“Azania,” the King rasped. “Princess Azania – wow!”

Turning with a low gasp, she bowed – to Dragon’s eye, appearing more than a little flustered. “Your Majesty …”

“Wow, look at you,” he repeated.

He wanted to wave a paw to clear the atmosphere. Funny how there were ways other than breathing fire to make a room very hot indeed. Sweltering!

“So it was you in the tower, Azania?”

She smiled shyly, lowering her eyelashes yet gazing hungrily at him beneath. “Aye …”

“Then, I owe you my life.”

“If someone hadn’t stuck out his big boot to stop Gazaram’s blade, I wouldn’t be here to talk about it,” she said, in a rush. “How are you, Your Majesty? Are you in pain?”

“Please, call me Azerim. May I be so bold as to greet my saviour and old friend with a hug?”

Chapter 35: Old Friends

WHEN AZANIA HESITATED, THE King did the same. Then, he smiled, “We’re rather huggy around the Vaylarn Archipelago. Sorry. This place should have come slapped with a few cultural warnings, Princess – but I am the King. Am I allowed one very small demand?”

“A demand, o King? Your will is my command.”

His pulse leaped like a scared rabbit, but he managed to say steadily enough, “Then, approach the royal bedside, o Princess, that I might thank you properly.”

When she stepped over as if in a dream, he placed an arm about her shoulders, and pressed his lips very decorously to her cheek. Over her shoulder, as they embraced, his lips formed another ‘wow!’ Aye, her fears were that badly unfounded. This young man was besotted, or he was a luminous purple shrimp and no Dragon.

“Sit with me.”

Azania’s eyebrow arched. “That’s two demands, my King.”

Dragon rumbled, “She’s always like this, I’m afraid. I’ve tried to beat it out of her, but some Princesses just won’t fit the mould.”

“So I see,” he agreed, sounding discomfited but somehow emboldened at the same time. “Princess Azania, would you please sit with me? I’m afraid I present myself in a rather tatty and bedridden state, but I would like – heavens’ sakes, what’s going on in my kingdom? What are you doing here on the Vaylarn Archipelago? With a Sea Dragon of stupendous size, with whom you seem very well acquainted? And how did I leap from the delights of Lord Gazaram’s finest accommodation back to the Palace? Was I flying Dragonback, or was that just another dream?”

Patently, he did not want it to be any kind of dream.

Nor could he stop smiling.

Pulling up a stool at his bedside, Azania said sweetly, “You’ll be glad to be lying down for this, Azerim. In short, we crossed the ocean to recruit a Dragon army, but discovered your kingdom was in trouble, and so lent a hand and a paw of aid. This is Dragon. He is called Dragon – long, involved story – and we are acquainted as Dragon and Dragon Rider.”

“I – what? What? Hold your Sea Dragons!” he spluttered.

“If you insist,” Dragon put in.

Azerim queried, “You’re a Dragon Rider? When did that happen?”

“After he captured me from the King Tyloric’s tower – that’s in the Kingdom of Vanrace. Technically, I am still his captive Princess, but we’re sort of ignoring that inconvenient detail at present. Aye, we transported you by Dragon from Gazaram’s place to here. You really were flying.”

“As in, you ride on a Dragon?”

“Into battle, all around Solixambria and across oceans,” she explained. “You did, too.”

“Wow!”

Azerim’s new favourite word.

He scratched his modest chin-scruff, and said, “Excuse my ignorance, but is Dragon-Riding a new thing? I had thought Tamarine Dragons far too aloof to even consider such an arrangement.”

“Brand new, but very old,” Dragon replied.

“I’m remarkably persuasive,” said the rascally Princess, batting her eyelashes.

Pop went his concentration.

“One moment,” said Azerim, and pinched his arm firmly. “Aye, most probably awake. So, we have a Dragon-Riding Princess rescuing the kingdom from rebellious Lords, all of my brothers –”

“Returned safely,” Azania said.

“Mother and Father?”

“Resting upstairs in their chamber,