Chapter 13

There were gasps at the sound of her voice, loud enough to be heard even from the height of a dragon.

Revealed, Lenora stood, looking out from behind Alistair's massive neck. In front of them, despite the initial terror, a gathering had drawn together. Nora had listened, nearly sick to her stomach, while they made the easy decision to sacrifice her stepmother.

It wasn't that she had affection for her stepmother. No, the past few months had put it all in a new light. But it hurt, all the same, to hear how little the people of Mossley cared about each other.

"You can't do it here!" she insisted.

"And why not?" Alistair did not sound pleased to be interrupted, but at least he had listened to her.

"Because you'll burn the village too," she said.

She wondered if she should've had some stronger reason. Should've argued for Helga's life, after how she'd spent years raising Nora. Yes, she'd been cruel at times, but she hadn't forced Nora to sleep out in the cold… not often anyway.

But she couldn't bring herself to speak any words in her stepmother's defense.

"Very well. I will take this hag some distance and deal with her. In the meanwhile, you will stay here among the villagers until I return."

He adjusted so Nora could dismount.

"No harm shall come to Lenora Tashe while I deal with your latest gift." Alistair's words did not come as a roar, but it made no difference. Everyone heard the threat of violence in them.

And then he was gone, the gagged protests of her stepmother lost to the wind.

Nora braced for censure after how she was complicit in Alistair's demands, but it did not come.

"Nora's alive!" Friar Jeffreys exclaimed.

"She convinced the dragon to spare the village," a young woman joined in.

"And to end the tithe, just as Bess had said," another added. This was the mayor.

Slowly they edged closer. Not too close, though. She realized why. She may have been one of them once, but no longer. She was part of a dragon's hoard, not a person.

Even if she had killed him, it was unlikely they would have revered her. If anything, she would have come back and been placed back under her stepmother's thumb.

The first to truly approach her was none other than Crazy Bess. The nickname was a bit cruel, but then, so was convincing the town to give her up for the tithe. "So, you visit us at last."

"It's not like he listens to me," Nora grumbled.

"That's not what it looks like."

Okay, Alistair did listen to Nora, to a point. He'd let her come and halted his flame when she'd told him to. But he was still a capricious creature, and it was unlikely she would ever tame him.

But Nora didn't feel obliged to agree aloud. "That stuff you told me about how to kill a dragon didn't work at all. I stabbed Ali—the dragon," she corrected, not wanting to give up his name, "with his own scale my first night there and it didn't so much as tickle him."

Bess laughed, the creaking sound drawing worried glances from the denizens of Mossley who were nearest.

"My prophecy was quite exact," Bess countered. "You simply misunderstood. By sending you to the tithe, the dragon has now agreed to stop requiring anything further from us, keeping our village safe. And that only occurred because he has let his guard down and listened to your counsel."

"But you couldn't have known that would happen," Nora argued.

Bess just raised an uneven brow, as if to reply, Couldn't I?

"And the stuff about me being able to pierce his heart?"

But Bess's answer was drowned out by the returning flap of wings.

A gangly figure pushed forward, even as the wind roared with Alistair's approach. "Nora, wait!"

It was Garth, the farmer's son, who had escorted her to the tithe. The one she had considered tumbling with a summer ago.

"We're going," Alistair growled. Clearly disliking Garth's approach, he didn't wait for Nora to mount, instead encircling her with his claws without so much as landing.

Garth didn't back away. "We thought you were dead, if we'd known… it's one thing to be eaten but another to be his victim," he stammered as Alistair began to take flight. "I'll make this right, Nora! I promise!"

His foolish calls spurred Alistair higher. Knowing how much the dragon disliked people encroaching on his hoard, she admired his restraint.

Garth was still yelling foolish vows.

"I don't need saving!" she called back.

But it was lost to the wind.

They flew back to Alistair's mountain, or home, as Nora found herself thinking of it, that same day.

She was surprised by the relief that she felt returning to the now familiar cave.

"Are you unhappy with me?" Alistair tossed the words out carelessly, nonchalantly as he slid his now-human legs into skin-tight leather trousers.

Nora had been too busy admiring the view to track his thoughts. "Come again?"

"For what I did to your stepmother."

Nora didn't know the details of what Alistair had done, nor was she curious. But there was no doubt the woman was now dead, and it was unlikely there were any bones left to bury.

She should have been troubled. Even on the flight over, she had felt a growing anxiety because she should be upset, should be defending the woman who had raised her, but in her true heart, she could not find so much of a scrap of affection or kindness for the woman who had cruelly beaten and abused Nora since she was a child.

That realization had distressed her more than the actual prospect of her stepmother dying. That she might be so callous. It made her want to lie to Alistair about her true feelings, to rail at him that he had committed a terrible act of villainy she wouldn't forgive, but it would be hollow. And he had never been less than honest with her.

"No. I'm not. I should be, but we weren't close, and it's as you said. The village decided."

After living with Alistair, seeing how he cared for her even though she was nothing more than a piece of his hoard, how he despised the thought of anyone lifting a hand against her, no, she couldn't bring herself to feel a single drop of remorse for what Alistair had done. Nora had been a child under her care. She hadn't deserved the cruel treatment then. And she certainly hadn't deserved to be given up to a villainous dragon—no matter how caring the dragon had turned out to be.

Alistair shepherded her deeper into the caves. Though she now knew them well enough not to stumble even in the dark, she enjoyed the opportunity to cling to him. Sometimes she even let him carry her.

"I just wish to understand why it mattered so much to you. Because you disliked the idea of someone touching one of your belongings?"

"It's because I loathed the idea of someone touching you." The force behind his words startled her. "I will keep you safe from any who would dare to harm you. And those who have already done so will be punished. This is my vow to you."

"No one else has harmed me," she assured him, her words soothing the protective beast.

"And no one ever will again."

So he took her there, against the tunnel wall where her cries could echo throughout the entire cave. Then again on the four-poster bed which now sat atop the pile of textiles that was already on the mountain of gold.

And when it was late, she dozed off, content in her dragon lover's arms. Something warm settled in her chest, something that felt like more than her own gentle feelings, as though there was another presence twin to her own. It was the most comforting thing she'd ever felt.

Relaxed as she was, she did not bother to rouse herself enough to voice her worries, the way Garth's promises to rescue her still rang in her ears—surely, they meant nothing.