The Dragon King and His Human Mate

15. Still A Princess

| Anastasia |   

Three weeks had passed since I found out about Cordelia and I still couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that Vladimir shouldn't have been here in the first place. I couldn't stop thinking about how unfair it was. He had been a king, he had had everything he had ever wanted. His people had loved him like no leader before. They still loved him, even now. And everything was taken by him, so unfairly. 

And he didn't even realize this yet, even though more than a hundred years had passed.

No matter how much I tried thinking about every possibility of why Cordelia had stopped loving Vladimir, or even not loving him since the beginning as she had claimed, I couldn't find any. They had been fated mates. He had done everything to make her love him.

Hell it doesn't even matter the mate bond, how could she not fall for Vladimir? He was... god he was so lovable. Annoying, sometimes cold, difficult to deal with, but so lovable. There was a soft side under that intimidating look of his. He wasn't even as scary as he thought he was. Or maybe he wasn't with me.

But that didn't matter, I wouldn't fall in love with him.

Never.

I would never allow myself to.

Like we had come to some silent agreement, we had never once talked about what had happened between us. Not mentioning it didn't mean I had stopped thinking about his lips on mine or his hands on my body, but at least he had kept his hands to himself.

Kind of.

Because there were times his hand would gently rest on my waist, or shoulder, or hair, but it had felt so instinctively from him, like he wasn't even realizing he was doing it while my body had been on high alert the whole time.

It had felt right.

Which it shouldn't.

But we had mostly spent the one hour out of twenty-four we had together in his human form talking. Mostly about our past lives, families, memories, everything we could think of. Conversations seemed never ending that we'd both get frustrated when the sun would set and he'd have to shift.

Yet I loved his dragon. How could I love something that scary-looking, I wasn't really sure myself, but I did. I felt so not-lonely with him. It didn't matter that he couldn't talk to me, his reptile eyes alone told me everything he was thinking.

The times I had lived in the castle felt too long ago now, and I knew it was strange because I had been in the island for just a little bit more than a month. Yet they felt far away, almost like another lifetime. And there were times I felt guilty about it, times where Vladimir wasn't around and I had a little bit of time to relax and just think.

Wasn't I supposed to try and find a way out of here? Suffer because I wasn't with my family?

Why did it feel like I was getting used to this kind of life? I was a princess for crying out loud, and I was living in an island where I could barely survive, alone with a dangerously hot dragon shifter king. What was wrong with me? Why didn't I almost, not want to go back anymore?

"Don't move. Please Anastasia, it's almost finished." Vladimir had said it for like tenth time in twenty minutes, but I was growing so much impatient to see the portrait he was making me. Even though I hadn't been very fond of the idea of him painting me down. Especially now that I had messily cut my red hair on shoulder length, my face had even more freckles and I was wearing something a person who had lived his whole life in a forest would wear.

But he had shushed me and convinced me I looked perfect. Yet he hadn't let me see the unfinished work even though it had been days since he had started it.

"Done." There was a satisfied smile on his face that made me feel things in my stomach, the way he was looking at the painting. Knowing it was me he was looking at.

My eyes widened and I gasped when I saw me in there. Me in the red royal dress I had come in this island the first day. And a crown in my head.

That was the last thing I was expecting to see. "I..."

He chuckled. "You like it?" However, by his voice alone he knew I did.

I couldn't help the big smile that crept in my face. "It's so beautiful, Vladimir!"

"Because it's you." He cupped my cheek with his big palm and I did my best not to shiver under his touch and penetrating icy eyes, which was almost impossible.

"No, because you're talented," I said and put my hand above his. He only closed some more distance between us. "And because I'm still a princess in your painting." I added it more as a joke but he got serious.

"You're still a princess Anastasia."

I shook my head. "Everyone thinks I'm dead. Besides, look at me, do I look like a princess to you?"

He narrowed his eyes and this times cupped both my cheek with his palms, forcing me to look into his eyes. His gaze so intense it made my knees weak. "A pretty dress or a crown don't make you more or less than a princess, Anastasia." His voice was low, yet deep. "You are one. By blood, in your heart and in your people's heart." 

The least thing I expected him to do was leave a kiss on my forehead. His lips lingered there for a few seconds and I was positive he could clearly hear the pounding on my chest. Hell I could hear it too and I wasn't even a shifter. 

"You're my princess, Anastasia."