Page 8 of Dragon Unhinged

I shake my head, ignoring the way her simple touch seems to light up places in my body that I thought were near dead. “It’s a magical key, princess. Not a physical one.”

“I’m not a princess. Stop calling me that.” She purses her lips, as if she’s determined to find some way to make my life even a little easier.

If only.

“I used to dream of a princess coming to rescue me. I guess I’ll have to keep dreaming.” I let my irritation at her existence in front of me filter through into my voice. I don’t want to admit to her, or myself, that her company is almost a relief.

I have no idea anymore how any of my expressions come across.

“I’ve never met a man who wants to be saved, let alone by a princess.” She nudges me with her shoulder, and then her facefalls. “Let alone a dragon. Usually, the knight is going to slay the dragon for taking the princess and most likely eating her.”

“Only human males would punish a dragon for devouring a female until she’s writhing with so much pleasure she might die.” I carefully reach up, wanting to cup her cheek, but before I do, I think better of it. My hands are covered in dirt, and worse, and I don’t want to mark her flawless cheek with my muck.

Her eyes widen as her body flushes and her cheeks pinken. I want to laugh at her response, but it does something to me and my dragon to know that thought turns her on.

She clears her throat and focuses on the cuffs again. “If I can’t get you out of these cuffs, and I can’t get you to leave through the door, is there anything I can do to help?”

With a sigh, I whisper, “This helps.” I say it almost begrudgingly, but I do mean it.

Her eyes flutter back up to mine, her perfect lips parting. “What?” The word is breathy in her melodic voice.

“Company. Someone to talk to who doesn’t treat me like a monster.” I can’t look at her, can’t even think about saying anything more right now. Not when I feel like these few moments with her have broken something deep inside me. There’s a calmness I haven’t felt in a long time, but worse than that my rage boils to the surface without my walls to hold it back. I’m feeling everything I’ve been trying to suppress.

How can I tell her that just being with her, just knowing she’s not afraid to sit next to me, to touch me without causing pain…makes me feel more like a man than I’ve felt in what feels like years?

Her hand reaches for mine again, and this time it doesn’t seem as focused, but just as curious, as she looks, not at the cuff, not at the piece of spelled metal that keeps me prisoner, but at my hand itself.

“I read online that shifters heal quickly, too quick to leave scars, or even marks. But you…” She gently rubs a thumb over one of my jagged fingernails, and then down a scar from one of my earliest battles.

I shouldn’t have underestimated the lynx. He was small, especially compared to my dragon, but he was fast, and he got a claw lodged in my foot and ripped a few scales loose as I tried to shake him off of me.

“It’s another gift of the cuffs,” I say bitterly. “They bind all magic, or damn near all of it. I heal faster than you would, but not by much. Not anymore.” I dare a furtive glance at her as she traces exposed cuts, bruises, and scars.

I’m half certain I’ve finally snapped, finally lost my damned mind. That would make more sense than believing I actually have a gorgeous woman in my cell, looking after my wounds as if they cut her as deeply as they cut me. If it weren’t for the fact that her soft, gentle hands caress the edges of my wounds, the callused skin around them, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m certain I couldn’t have conjured her lightly floral scent with a hint of vanilla in a million years, and the fact that the damned Scottish wolf gave her my name, proving that if she is a hallucination, then at least she’s a shared one, I would know without doubt I’ve given into the darkness and lost my mind all together.

“I can’t stay late tonight, but I can come back tomorrow, if that would be okay?” Her eyes find mine again, a weird sense of hope searing from inside, and it’s as if she’s fixed me with some kind of spell, because there’s no way I can look away now. “The house should be pretty quiet, and I’ve only got two classes, so I could come back early.” She smiles at me hesitantly. “That is, if you want me to?”

“Of course.” The words are out of my mouth so quickly, and my voice seems gruff from disuse, but I don’t regret agreeing.

Even if this is some kind of torture, I know it’s too late to turn back now, and even if I could, I don’t want to give up this small piece of relief. At least this way, I might die with some of my own dignity intact when the time comes.

She nods once, like it’s a done deal. “Do guards watch you during the day? Is there any time that I have to worry about being caught?”

I shake my head. “Someone shoves a tray of food through the slat in the door early in the morning, and then as long as we don’t make noise, as long as we don’t draw attention, no one bothers with us. Not until they come to drag us to a new fight.”

“Fight?” Her brow furrows again, and I swear, it just makes her cuter.

“Yes, your father is an extravagant cock fighter. Instead of roosters or dogs, he captures shifters and makes them fight.”

Her mouth hangs open in disgust. “That’s barbaric.”

You’re telling me.

I think it, but I don’t dare say it out loud. Not when I don’t know how she’s here, or whose side she’s really on.

“Until tomorrow then.” She presses her palm to my cheek, and whispers. “Declan.”

Gods, how I’ve longed to hear someone use my name, someone treat me like I’m worth something more than my teeth and talons.

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