Title: Dragon's Bait
Summary: A few years later, Alys still travels the world with Selendrile. Left to her own devices as usual in the day, Alys fumes over some rather sweet dreams that have to be reality.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Vivian Vande Velde is the author of Dragon's Bait, not me.
The birds quieted at the approach of the stomping woman carrying a cloth sack in the afternoon summer heat towards the flowing stream. Alys dropped the sack on the bank of the gurgling stream and plopped herself down as well, and immediately began tugging off her boots. Devoid of her boots, she striped to her under shift and stepped into the cool water. Seeing that the woman posed no immediate threat, the birds resumed their shrill banter.
Alys wadded further into the stream, pulling up her shift and tying it so the water could go up to her thighs without getting it wet. She glanced down at her wavering reflection, looking at mud-brown eyes and long locks of lighter brown hair in a semblance of combed order. Her figure had matured in the past two years: she stood just a couple of inches taller, but there would be no boy's clothing to hide her hips (or bust, she thought a tad proudly).
"But he doesn't seem to notice," Alys told her reflection with a sigh. She let the cool water seep away the edge of her anger, trailing her hand over her reflection to clear it away. "Of course, he doesn't seem to notice the throng of lovesick women at towns either."
She wadded back to the bank, drawing out a man's shirt from the cloth bag and a bar of soap. With her dragon companion's hoard, Alys could pay to have their clothes washed in the quaint little French town they were currently visiting, but she preferred to wash the clothes herself. The repetitive process cleared her head of thoughts of Selendrile, and his seemingly significant failure to notice the effect he had on her.
And the dreams certainly weren't helping, Alys thought, her face flushing as she remembered. Last night, she had dreamed of the day he rescued her from a fiery doom in Saint-Toby's-by-the-Mountain. In the dream, after he'd dropped her in the hay stack, he'd looked her over for injuries. Very thoroughly looked her over. She'd woken up gasping his name in ecstasy. And upon seeing it had been just a dream, again, she'd grabbed the laundry and stomped off to the stream.
She feared the time when she woke up from such a dream with Selendrile nearby. And yet by now, Alys felt Selendrile must know something of her dreams. They had been plaguing her for a few months now and something like that was hard to hide from someone you shared a room with, especially when that someone had above-and-beyond human senses. They masqueraded as a married couple, on honey-moon even, traveling through France, but the looks he gave her away from public view were the same trademark emotionless dragon-mask.
Pounding the shirt against a large stone in the water to get out a stain, Alys caught sight of the two wedding rings, one stacked on another, glinting in the late sunshine on her hand. The bands had been forged of real gold, with Celtic knots etched across the surfaces as their only decoration. Selendrile had given her ring without flourish, dropping it on her lap one night and explaining that he saw other married couples wearing rings. The second ring was Selendrile's, which she kept during the sunlight hours. His clothes were far less likely to be stolen from where he hid them for the day than the ring.
She'd also dreamed on more than one occasion that the incident of giving her a ring had meant something more than an accessory to their disguise. Alys stepped out of the water and hung the shirt on a nearby tree to dry and retrieved another article of clothing from the sack.
"Just stop thinking about him, and wash the clothes Alys," she told herself with grim determination. But for once the simple repetition of washing failed to settle her mind. She glared at her reflection beside her. "You really want to wallow in misery today, don't you? Remember: Selendrile is a dragon and you are a human. It's clear he doesn't like you like how you want. Dragons probably can't even feel romantic love for humans. So all this dreaming nonsense needs to stop!"
Alys huffed at her reflection and took out her frustration on the tan trousers in her hands. Beating the cloth in the water, she continued to rant at herself, "If you don't stop, you'll end up ruining what you already have. You won't have a dragon at all, just some silly dreams and memories. So what if he doesn't ever kiss you aside from keeping up pretenses! Stupid little pecks on the cheek…"
Water splashed up her front with a particularly hard smack on her account. She fumed at her wavering reflection, as if was the true culprit for her current predicament. "Maybe," she said tersely, "You should leave him now while you still can. Who knows, perhaps you'll meet some nice human man to wed." She grimaced at the thought and carried the trousers out of the water to hang up.
Returning to her washing, she made quick work of the rest of the clothes and settled beside the tree baring the product of her labor to dry herself as well. Her lips seemed set in a permanent pout today, her brows furrowed as if glued in place as well. Finally, her knees drawn to her chest, she let her head sink down and started to cry. It would be impossible for her to leave Selendrile. And knowing it was equally impossible for him to love her as she did him simply shattered her protective barrier of anger. Curled up, she cried herself to sleep while waiting for the clothes to dry.
Alys woke up with a jolt at the feel of hands picking her up from the ground. She yelped in surprise and almost hit whoever the figure was leaning over her, when she recognized the amethyst eyes in the sparse light of twilight. "Selendrile! What are you doing?" she demanded, allowing him to pull her up.
"You were crying," he replied. Alys flushed, furious he had found her in such a state of disarray. He had tied his golden hair back into a pony tail rather than tucking it into a cap tonight. She noticed grass stains on his brown trousers and silently seethed that already she'd have to do more washing.
"I was doing the laundry and some water splashed in my face," she grimaced at her own lie and turned around to gather the hanging clothes. She shivered at the coming night air and realized she still wore just a shift, and hiked up to her thighs at that. She tugged it down to cover herself and darted to her dress from the morning, only it wasn't lying where she left it. She glanced around the tree for it, but still it failed to appear.
Alys turned to Selendrile suspiciously, not in any mood for his mischief, and asked, "Where's my dress?" He shrugged at her nonchalantly, watching as she reached to pulled a shirt from the tree. He caught her hand before she could touch the fabric and gave her a gentle, but firm push from the tree.
"They're still wet," he explained, still holding her hand. He slipped his own ring from her finger and released her to put it back on. "In the meantime you can tell me what made you cry."
"Or," Alys snapped, "you can use your keen dragon senses to find my dress." Her anger seemed to had returned thrice-fold. He raised his eyes at her tone, then smirked.
"Honey," he said sweetly, but his smirk remained, "you needn't be modest with me."
"Take off your shirt then," Alys demanded. Without hesitating, Selendrile pulled it up over his head and dropped it between them. Alys snatched it from the ground and hurriedly pulled it over herself, taking a few steps back. She could feel her heart pounding and heat flaring in her face. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if that could hide her sudden trembling from dragon eyes.
"Alys," Selendrile said her name slowly. She closed her eyes against the sudden wave of heat that stirred in her, and then fixed her expression in a glare. He had to know the effect he was having on her, and the smug jerk of a dragon was simply going on to rile her up just for the fun of it. "Why were you crying?"
She puffed her lips in a grunting sigh. Why wasn't he letting the subject drop? "If you really must know, dragon, I was crying because I'm human," Alys snapped.
"What if you didn't have to be?" Selendrile asked, his smirk faded into his usual cool mask. Alys stepped closer to try and read his eyes in the sparse light left in the deepening sky.
"I would miss the feel of sunlight on my skin," she replied, unsure what his question meant.
"You would still be human in form, but like me inside. And," he paused, for the first time in two years his tone sounded unsure, "you wouldn't be able to leave me, not for long periods of time at least. I wouldn't be able to leave you either."
"Why?" Alys questioned.
"Mates are weaker when they are farther apart," he explained. Alys stared at him in disbelief, only really able to focus on the first word in his sentence.
"Mates," she said, her voice quieted with disbelief. "Humans and dragons can… be together in such a way? How?"
He leaned in towards her and just barely brushed his lips on her throat, but it was enough to reawaken the surge of pleasure humming in her veins. She stayed perfectly still as, ever so slowly, her made a line of such feather soft kisses to her own lips, afraid moving might disturb whatever lovely illusion this certainly must be. But then she felt his hands on her back, pulling her closer into an embrace. Her own hands slid up his bare chest to entwine around his neck as she kissed him back in earnest. She could hear her blood singing happily as it speed up with their contact, her heart beating too frantically to be just a dream.
When he finally broke their kiss, still too chaste for her own liking, he breathed lightly on her hair, "This is how. Do you still want to loose your humanity?"
"Yes," Alys replied firmly, watching one of the very rare true smiles spring to his face. "Very much."
Well, isn't that sweet! Please don't forget to review! I may be inclined to write about Selendrile's day... ;)