Читать книгу Graymore is a dragon hunter - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 9

Graymore crouched in pain and grabbed her crossbow. As long as she wore a tight corset dress, she couldn’t swing a sword, but she could shoot. The bouffant sleeves and broad flared sleeves didn’t hinder an archer’s marksmanship. Graymore aimed for the thicket, expecting to see the dragon’s enormous snout emerge, but the beast never did. Perhaps it was flying high over the mountains, and she felt it. The fiery ache inside usually heralded the fact that the dragon was somewhere nearby, but not that it was planning to attack her at all.

«So dainty and frail a lady like you is going to hunt bears?» A mocking voice came through the thicket.

It was the sound of the velvety tenor that sent Graymore over the edge of her insides. Surely it must be an elf! No matter how hard she tried to avoid dealing with elves seducers, one of them seemed to have gotten on her trail on purpose.

A slender young man appeared beside the lake. His face seemed to be covered in golden scales. Graymore tried to get a better look. No, it was just a mask. It must have fallen off, because now the mask was gone. The stranger was so handsome. It took Graymore’s breath away. She had never seen anyone so beautiful in her life, and at her court had visited many foreign princes, sheikhs, shahs, caliphs, princes and all kinds of ambassadors.

«Do you want to kill me?» The handsome man arched his eyebrows mockingly.

Her cheeks flashed with shame as she realized she was aiming for his chest.

«I’m not a bear.»

«Are there bears around here?» She mumbled.

«There are centaurs, elves and dragons.»

«Well, that’s what I hunt!»

«You do?» He moved closer, throwing the vines aside with his hands. «A dragon hunted by such a little thing? Isn’t that funny?»

«You’ve got to be kidding me.» Graymore jammed the tip of her crossbow into the stranger’s chest. «You’ll see me catch a dragon.»

«Catch me,» the stranger jerked his arm across her throat.

«You’re the elf who wants the girl to catch him? Usually it’s the other way around. Elves catch and seduce girls.»

«It is not always! I once saw a beautiful, greedy queen come into the forest to perform a rite herself, in order to trap a rich elf or dragon as her husband.»

«Was she lucky?»

«Yes and no.»

«Why is that? Explain.»

«She caught a rich man in scales, but after her wedding night with him she turned into a dragon herself. You should have seen how she woke up in a witch’s circle and howled when she found scales sprouting in her delicate skin.»

«I have never heard the legend of such a queen.»

«It is not a legend, but the plain truth. The queen’s name was Ligeia. She ruled over an empty kingdom that used to be called the Marids.»

«There hasn’t been such a kingdom for over three hundred years. It was swept away by a flood. Allegedly the watermen appropriated the Marids for themselves.»

«And so it was. Queen Ligeia first robbed the lake’s king and then seduced the dragon. And then she turned into a dragon herself and scorched all the water in her sunken kingdom. Now instead of a lake there is a burnt-out swamp.»

«I’ve never heard of people turning into dragons.»

«Then you don’t know anything about dragons.»

«What do you mean, I know nothing?» Graymore was nearly taken aback. Does he know how many captive dragons there are in her dungeons? Was the stranger deliberately sassing her, or was it accidental? He should be prosecuted for insulting a noble! But what eyes he had! Graymore could not tear her eyes from his. She drowned in them.

«You look like Cupid aiming for my heart,» he remarked.

«I am not Cupid!»

«You’re right, you’re a dragon-hunter,» he said, his voice mirroring another sneer.

«Do you doubt me?»

«I am not!» He lifted her chin with his fingers and placed a long kiss on her lips.

She should have been outraged, she supposed, but Graymore was ecstatic. The kiss was as sweet as it had been in her dream. This stranger was as if he had come out of her dream. Only he wasn’t fiery, yet his proximity made everything erupt inside.

Graymore slid her fingers down his back. His back turned out to be too oblong. The handsome stranger’s body curved like a crooked mirror.

Graymore could hardly pull herself away from his lips. It’s not customary to kiss strangers, but don’t you tell your heart to. It is stronger than reason.

«Where are you from? Did you come from the lake?»

«I am down from the mountains,» he answered nonchalantly.

«Are you from the mountains? Only gryphons and dragons live in the mountains!» Graymore opened her eyes wide with amazement.

«Elves live in the mountains.»

Graymore knew what elves names sounded like.

«What is your name?» She asked. «My name is Graymore.»

«I know it.»

The stranger dumbfounded her with the answer.

«How do you know?»

Had the fame of her dragon exploits gone so far that even the mountain elves had heard of her?

Instead of answering, the stranger gently touched her locks and wound a long lock of her hair about his finger. Graymore noticed that he had scales growing on his finger. The lake reflected his back, unnaturally elongated and also overgrown with scales. And beneath his back, a green tail wriggled in rings. Graymore shuddered and backed away. The tail of a lizard! He must be a wizard. He was too beautiful for a normal human. Maybe he’s naked. There’s a kingdom of naga around here somewhere, beyond the mountains where the rain forests called jungles stretched out. He probably crawled in from there and immediately seduced a wandering princess.

«Don’t come any closer, or I’ll shoot!» Graymore took aim at him with her crossbow.

«You are so beautiful and so prickly!» The stranger looked at her with mild regret, and then suddenly handed her a scarlet rose. Where did he even get a rose in the hot forests, where roses did not grow? You look like this prickly flower. You look like a rose, but your character has thorns too.»

«And you have a serpent’s tail!»

He tossed the rose at Graymore’s feet and then suddenly disappeared, as if he had vanished into thin air. The stinging sensation in her chest was gone. The dragon must have flown over the mountains before it could pass.

Graymore bent down and picked up the rose. Was there poison on its thorns? The skeleton had warned her that some clever wizards could smear even rose thorns with poison.

It was a pity that the young man had disappeared so quickly. Though he turned out to be half lizard, Grayamore wanted to see him again. Why is it that the most beautiful young men turn out to be magical creatures!