The Dragon Prince's Slave

Chapter 4

MILAN

I have a love-hate relationship with things I don’t understand. Uncompleted puzzles. Unsolved problems. Unanswered questions. They were tormenting but I found them compelling and it was something I picked up from Ragnar, my older brother, and my mother.

I also couldn’t stand when problems went unsolved and when I didn’t get answers to questions. Questions like who killed my mother on my father’s birthday and why they did it. Not knowing the answers to those questions still tormented my brother and I but we hadn’t given up searching for them and we weren’t going to.

What I witnessed in the arena a while ago was something I totally didn’t understand and it was also something I was determined to get an answer to because I had never seen Dymbir, my dragon, behave that way with a total stranger before. Even Ragnar’s dragon, Gilzrair, which definitely had a screw loose had behaved the same way along with my other siblings dragons and it was the most baffling thing I’ve seen this year.

Then there was the girl in the middle of it all. There was something… stimulating about her beauty - it was a scared, helpless beauty. Her green eyes were the glimmering colour of emerald which sparkled when they caught the light. Long, wavy blonde hair that was smooth and silky, almost as if it was tailored from gold fabric, and pastel white skin which made her beautiful pink lips stand out. She was simply stunning.

The whole knight in shining armor to a damsel in distress was more of my younger brothers’ thing but I couldn’t have ignored her. The dragons obviously weren’t going to kill her and no one knew what to do since this had never happened before. The terrified look in her eyes was what had gotten under my skin, created this reaction in me that prompted me into action. Prompted me into jumping into the arena.

There was also the fact that she definitely didn’t belong here. The people that were sacrificed to the dragons were slaves and criminals and those people were raggedy, dirty and emaciated but this girl was not. She wasn’t dirty and her clothes weren’t torn so I also wanted to know why she had been tossed in the arena with the slaves and criminals.

The girl hadn’t said a word since I took her out of the arena and I kept a firm grip on her arm as I pulled her with me through the hallway. The arena that was currently being used for the dragon festival belonged to my family and the arena and the palace adjoined each other so it was the palace I took her to.

My eyes darted to the girl whose eyes were fixed on the floor as we walked past two servants that bowed to me and my attention lingered on her for a while. Gods, her hair looked so soft. I wanted to run my fingers through it to check if it was as soft as it looked. I also wanted to know how it would look like sprawled out on my bed while she writhed in pleasure underneath me.

The thought had come abruptly and I shook my head sideways to dispel it because the first thing I wanted to do was find out why the dragons had behaved that way with her, not take her to my bedroom and f**k her senseless. I didn’t even know her name yet and I was already picturing her on my bed.

I pulled her into another hallway and began to think of what had happened in the arena again. How had she done that? I couldn’t come up with any explanation for it and I didn’t know if she could explain it either because she had looked confused and scared when it happened.

Someone in the stands had called her a witch but that was just absurd because people that had magic went extinct hundreds of years ago so she definitely wasn’t a witch. What is she then?

“Whe- Where are you taking me?” she finally said in a small, scared voice and the corner of my mouth curved up.

“So you speak,” I replied as we passed servants who bowed to me and she jolted, positively frantic with alarm.

You’d think I sprouted fangs, that I might bite her. And for one long moment, the idea was enjoyable. I’d definitely do that if… when I get her into bed.

I couldn’t stop myself from snorting at her reaction and she slowly lifted her head to look at me before I gave her a charming smile that obviously made her relax a little bit. “Want to tell me how you did that with the dragons back there?”

“I don’t…” She shook her head sideways as her eyes widened slightly and I finally came to a stop in front of our destination - my bedroom. “I don’t know,” she muttered and I believed her because she didn’t look like she was lying. She just looked nervous and scared.

“Okay then.”

I threw open the double doors that we were in front of before pulling her into the bedroom with me because she seemed like she would make a run for it at any chance she gets and I didn’t want that. There was a servant girl cleaning the floor with a wet rag and she scrambled to her feet when she saw me before bowing to me as I pulled the strange girl towards the table in the middle of the room.

“Out,” I ordered while the servant quickly grabbed her bucket and cleaning rag and she made her way out of the room, shutting the doors behind herself. I made the girl sit on one of the chairs at the table and as I took off my jacket, I realized that I didn’t know her name.

“What’s your name?” I asked after I dropped my jacket on the chair next to her and I noticed that she was watching me like she was scared that I would attack her. I couldn’t blame her for being wary though because she was in a closed room with a man she didn’t know.

“Are you going to kill me?” she said as she nervously shifted on the chair, ignoring my question, and I grabbed the jug and one of the cups that was on the table.

“Oh, no, absolutely not. No one’s killing you.”

It seemed like someone took a huge weight off her shoulders after I said that and she sucked in a breath as she placed a hand on her chest. I smiled at her reaction and poured water from the jug into the cup before stretching it out to her.

Surprise washed over her face as she stared at the cup and she gingerly collected it while giving me a slight bow. She licked her chapped lips as she brought the cup up to them before she froze and she glanced at me for a brief moment.

She cleared her throat and pressed her lips together. “Where I come from, the guest always gives the host the first bite of food or sip of drink that is offered so…” she trailed off as she stretched the cup towards me so I could drink from it and I barked out a laugh.

She thinks the water is poisoned.

“I’ve never heard of such tradition before,” I replied, folding my hands across my chest, and she nibbled on her bottom lip. “Where do you come from?”

She placed the cup on the table and cleared her throat again. “The Northern Kingdom.”

My brows instantly shot up because The Northern Kingdom really hated our Empire so what was its citizen doing here and why had she been with the slaves and criminals in the arena. “How did you end up in the arena?”

The corner of her mouth twitched and she fiddled with her fingers. “I was… I was searching for lotus plants in the forest outside the kingdom’s border with my friend but we split up and a man from here kidn*pped me,” she muttered and I frowned. “He was going to sell me to a Lord… Lord Greeves but he wasn’t around when we got to his estate and his wife made one of her men bring me here to join those to be… sacrificed.”

What the hell?

I clenched my jaw as I wondered why the man had kidn*pped someone outside our Empire and wanted to sell her to a Lord. Lord Greeves had a lot of slaves and if he wanted a girl for other… reasons, he could have easily gotten one too but the fact that the man that kidn*pped this girl had taken her to Lord Greeves’ estate meant that the Lord had asked for her.

I then remembered that my younger brother, Marcian, who was the fourth prince had once told us about how women in The Northern Kingdom were very beautiful. I had no idea how he knew that since he hadn’t gone there before but he must have told Lord Greeves about it too because the Lord was a close friend of his.

Fools. When I get my hands on Lord Greeves and the man that kidn*pped her, they are going to be seriously dealt with.

“What’s your name?” I asked again as she swallowed and lightly touched the side of the cup of water.

“Marietta,” she said softly and my lips curved into a smile because I liked her name. She licked her lips again while staring at the cup and I let out an exasperated sigh before I reached for the cup.

My fingers brushed hers and I paused for a moment, letting them linger on hers. Her skin was literally like silk and I was absolutely stunned by how soft it was before I began to imagine how her body would feel against mine with no clothes on.

I wanted her. It defied common sense, how badly I wanted her.

I cleared my throat and picked up the cup before taking a sip of water to show her that it was just water. “See,” I said as I dropped the cup back on the table. “Not poisoned.”

The moment my hand left the cup, she grabbed it and drank all the water in it like she had been thirsty for days. She poured more water into it from the jug and drank that too before taking a deep breath.

“I just… I just want to go back home, please.”

I pressed my lips together and placed my hands on the table. “I need you to do something for me first.”

She slightly raised her brows and adjusted in her seat. “Wh- what do you want?”

“I need to test something.” All the dragons in the arena had chosen not to hurt her and she also didn’t know why they did that so I needed to see if other dragons - to be more specific, out of control dragons - would behave the same way to her. “I need to introduce you to some of my friends.”