The Dragon Prince - Ladon

Chapter 2

-Rivanna-

In a way, I would have preferred it to be the dragon king. The dragon prince had gotten a certain reputation. His cruelty was said to know no limits. He was colder and scarier, they said, and now I was trapped beneath a tree unable to get anywhere. I was completely at his mercy, and he was … naked. I had seen naked men before. Our camps didn’t offer much privacy, but the dragon prince was different. His skin had this deep golden color, as if he had spent all his time in the sun, and his hair the color of very light sand. His yellow eyes were piercing and scary, and his body had to have been blessed by God or something. Rippled with muscles, and he had a few scars and a dark tattoo that swirled all the way up his arm and over his chest. It looked like quite the artwork and must have taken forever to make and not to mention painful.

Wait … what was I doing?!

Was I here to paint his portrait or get the f*ck out of here?!

I pushed and pulled, but I got nowhere. It just hurt like hell. This tree really wasn’t moving and the longer I waited, the less of a chance I knew my leg had of surviving. The dragon prince, on the other hand, looked like he had all the time in the world. He even found a rock further away and leaned back on it, while watching me. I tried not to look at him, and I wished he would just fly out of here or at least find some clothes to put on. I didn’t want to see something so disgusting as a dragon naked. It was simply enough to feel sick over. No matter how beautiful God had made him, or Gods, as the dragon believed. How st*pid was that not? Gods. There was one God! And he would bring us strength in our cause, as he had for a long time now. Ever since King James died, we have fought, and we have won over and over. Now might sadly be the time where I die, but at least I could say I had fought until the very end.

“You know I don’t think your leg is going to make it for much longer,” the dragon prince said.

I kept pulling and pushing, even though it didn’t do anything, I refused to just lie around and wait for death.

“I don’t need your help!” I snarled at him.

I wasn’t even sure why he wanted to help me. I could only believe he wanted information from me, and I had heard of the ways he got information from people. It was not in a good way.

“Who says I am still offering?” he asked me with a cruel smile on his lips.

I glanced at him, seeing the way his yellow eyes almost got a darker color. I didn’t like it. It felt like something was going to happen soon. Something bad.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone?!” I yelled at him. “I am worth nothing to you!”

“I don’t believe that,” he said, and pushed off the rock to come over to me again.

He placed his hands on the tree trunk and then put pressure on it again. I screamed so loudly that a few birds left the trees.

“Stop!” I screamed, the pain too much.

“What was that?” he asked and took the pressure off a little. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about you and your little human gang?”

“F*ck you!” I shouted, tears running from my eyes.

He shook his head, as if he was disappointed in me, and then put pressure on the tree again. I screamed and screamed, but this only proved to me that the rumors about him were true. He was cruel. Even crueler than his older brother.

“Stop! Please, God!” I yelled.

“There is no god here,” he said, as he took the pressure off again.

He then reached out and grabbed my jaw, holding my head in place and making sure I was looking at him. I made sure to glare at him, telling him through my eyes how much I hated him and that once I got free, he was a dead dragon. Just like all dragons should be.

“There is just you and me, Red,” he said. “And you’re going to tell me everything you know, if you want that leg of yours to survive.”

“You’re a monster!”

“I know,” he said before finally letting go of me. “Now, what is it going to be?”

He added a little pressure in order to emphasize what he was saying, and I tried to take deep breaths in order to handle the pain. A pain I knew would only grow, because I was not giving him sh*t.

“Well?”

“I would rather die!” I yelled.

He tsked at me and shook his head.

“Wrong answer.”

He put his weight down and I screamed. I thought I was stronger than this. I honestly believed I could handle anything coming my way, but no one prepares you for true torture, done by a monster. Everyone broke when the prince got his hands on them. At least that was what I had been told, and it seemed quite true to me.

“Wait! Stop!”

He quickly backed away, and I saw the smug smile on his lips. Yeah, he believed he had won, but I was not about to let him.

“What’s it going to be, Red?” he asked.

“Get the tree off my leg and I will talk. I promise,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow, but then shook his head.

“That is not how you and I play,” he told me. “You give the information, and I will remove the tree.”

“Then how do I know you won’t just leave me here afterwards?” I asked.

“I guess you will have to trust me.”

“Trust a monster?”

His eyes seemed to darken, but all he did was shrug a little.

“I think I will take my chances then,” I said.

“Chances?” he asked, confused.

Just then there was a loud whistle, and I knew my men had come back for me. I was one of the leaders of this organization after all. They couldn’t risk leaving me behind. The dragon prince looked over his shoulder confused, and just then something came flying through the air. It looked like a small ball made of leather, but then an arrow with the tip on fire pierced it, and acid-like powder came down on the dragon prince.

He screamed, as the powder burned his face, and he stumbled away. My men came running from the woods, all working together to get the tree off my leg, while two others pulled me out from under it. They helped me stand, and I saw the dragon prince on his knees, his hands now covering his face, but I saw him look between his fingers, his yellow eyes shining with anger. It made me almost shiver, the way he looked at me.

“Come on, let’s go!” Tristan, my most trusted friend, said.

He had my arm swung over his shoulder, and was pulling me with him, as I limped beside him. It was very hard to be in a hurry when I was in so much pain. I could still hear the dragon prince yelling in pain, but soon that yelling turned into an inhuman-like roar, and I knew he had gotten his strength back and was changing into his other form.

“We need to hurry!” someone said.

“Come on!”

We all did our best, as we ran through the woods. Sadly, I was the one slowing us down.

“Wait!” I said. “We need to take cover!”

“Why?”

“Now!” I yelled.

Tristan looked around and found an underground cave that we all ran to. I knew the dragon prince’s strategy, and just as a shadow flew over our heads, the forest was set on fire. Hadn’t we taken cover we would have burned with it. We waited and listened until we heard him fly away. He didn’t sound happy at all, but at least we had managed to escape him.

“Here, put her down.”

Tristan helped me down on the ground, while Kirr, a great fighter who also knew a little about medicine, started to take a look at my leg.

“That damn dragon,” Tristan said.

I hissed, as Kirr put some pressure on my leg to see where the damage was.

“He was going to torture you.”

“I know,” I said and looked up at Tristan. “You got to me in time.”

“We leave no man behind,” he said.

We smiled at each other. We had known each other since we were kids. There was no one I trusted more than him.

“We need to get her back to camp. And in a hurry,” Kirr said.

Tristan helped me stand, while two others checked if the coast was clear. We all put our masks on again, but now it was more to protect us against all the smoke. It was going to be difficult to get back with the forest on fire, but this wouldn’t be the first time the dragons had made it hard on us. We always survived.