Dragon Tamer

Chapter 4

Prince Camden fell to his knees, cupping himself.

Shock silenced everyone and stopped my heart.

I was in deep now, I might as well keep going. "I know my place, you spoiled brat. It wouldn't kill you to learn a little humility."

Maybe, just maybe, I was treating him a little too much like a dragon and shouldn't have assaulted the prince or even suggested he was beneath me--but who was he to call me a boorish woman!?

"All rightie," Prince Eli was saying, the first one of the brothers to snap out of his awe-induced daze. He plucked me away from his brother, pushing me behind him--in case the brat thought about attacking me. Bring it on. "I think we need to have a family meeting before dinner. Kali, dear, why don't you go with Jessie and get cleaned up for dinner? We'll see you then."

In my simmering rage, I was about to ask him who the fuck Jessie was, but a tiny blonde appeared out of nowhere and took my hand. "This way, please, miss."

Prince Camden got to his feet and would have probably hit me if it weren't for his brothers holding him back. His face was red with fury; if he was a dragon, black smoke would have filled the space between us. He was definitely baring his teeth like a dragon.

I looked him straight in the eyes before I flipped my hair over my shoulder sassily and spun on my heel to follow Jessie down the hall with a disgruntled "hmph!" that would have made Elesor proud.

Camden yelled after me, calling me words I didn't think princes were allowed to use. I flipped him off and continued after Jessie who released a relieved breath once we were out of the princes' sights. We went back up the stairs.

"You're crazy, you know that?" she hissed, glancing over her shoulder as if Prince Camden would be chasing after us. "No one mouths off to Prince Camden like that."

"Maybe they should. He clearly doesn't have any manners. I like his brothers. I wish I was guiding one of them."

"So, it's true?" she asked, flitting her large blue eyes up to me. "You really are guiding Prince Camden through the Rite of Passage?"

"Well, that entirely depends on if he wants a woman to guide him," I mocked, already fed up with him. Gods, I hoped he didn't want to do it anymore. Let Dad be angry with him for declining my offer. "If he doesn't, he won't be going through with it."

"I've never heard of a woman being a guide before," she said as if I hadn't said he might not be doing it. "Are you that good, or is your family that desperate?"

"I'm that good. I'm the only member of my village who's allowed to enter the Dragon Lands, you know."

"I don't know what that is, miss," Jessie admitted, becoming more relaxed with every step we took away from the bratty prince.

"It's where the wild dragons live, just west of my village, on the other side of the Randala Valley. No human has stepped foot inside. They don't trust them, not after dragon scavengers became a thing and picked them apart for parts." Dragons were almost as rare as Dragon Vain, so dragon scavengers started hunting them and selling their scales, bones, blood, claws, horns--anything, really. Every part of a dragon was valuable to someone.

She blinked at me, surprised. "Why'd they let you in, then?"

"I understand their language."

"Dragons don't speak, only to Dragon Princes," she dismissed, then came to a stop in front of a double door entry. "This is where you'll be staying for the night. Do you need assistance with anything?"

I bit my lip, trying to remember how to do my hair the way Aunt Patrica had taught me. I figured after how sour things went downstairs I was going to have to make up for it at dinner with looks and decorum. "Do you know much about hair and makeup? I think I'm going to have to get more dolled up than I'm prepared for so the Ackers don't think I'm a savage."