“Give me the blood,” I said.
The shorter of the two men, the one who always forced the blood into my mouth, sniggered. “See,” he said. “She’s learned to like it, just like I told you.”
“Give me the blood,” I told them. “I will take it.”
Both the men sniggered. Lord Hei frowned. “Are you sure, Laela?” he said. “You still seem weak. You won’t drop it?”
“No,” I said. “I won’t. Give me the blood.”
“Here.” Lord Hei retrieved a small cloth-wrapped vial from the pocket over his heart. “It is the last dose. Let me...will you let me give it to you, Laela?”
“I will. I will let you give it to me. But you can’t take any more of my blood. You’ve already taken enough.”
Lord Hei looked over at the other two men, who shrugged. “She’s right,” said the one who always handled the blood. “We’ve already taken more than enough. Just give her the last dose, and be done with it.”
Lord Hei stepped into the cell with me. He had to reach up to pour the blood into my mouth. He stroked my cheek with his other hand as he did so.
“You feel so warm, Laela,” he said. “So warm. And soft. I thought you would feel hard, like stone or bone. What color do you think you will be?”
“Black,” I told him. “Like a curtain of midnight. Or red as blood. White as bone, green as grass, blue as the sky.”
He nodded. “All will be beautiful.” He slid his fingers through the tips of my hair. “What do you think?” he asked. “Are you ready to come out? Come out and meet my court?”
“I am,” I told him. “But I should wash first.”
“It shall be done.” And in short order three women came and got me and led me out of the cell and up—I wavered and clutched at the wall as I climbed, but I did not fall—to a bedchamber, where they bathed me in steaming hot water and put me in a clean gown, finer than anything I had ever touched before, and changed the dressings on my wrists. The wounds were healing cleanly and quickly, faster than they should have. The healing skin shimmered in the light like snakeskin. When they were done washing and dressing me, my head was as light as air, and I floated after them back down the stairs and into the keep’s great hall.
The keep’s great hall was not that great. It was in keeping with the size of the rest of the keep. Lord Hei was a small lord of a little valley. What did he want with a dragon? To have one, and no longer be the small lord of a little valley. I floated after the serving women to the head of a small table at one end of the hall, and sat down beside Lord Hei.
“You are so beautiful, Laela,” he said. “So beautiful. I did not even realize how beautiful you are. This gown”—he fingered the velvet gown I had been dressed in—“is not fine enough for you. You should be in the finest silk and jewels money can buy. And you will be.”
“You are too kind,” I said.
“We will only be a small, intimate”—his eyes gleamed—“group this evening. But that is fitting, do you not agree?”
“It is fitting,” I agreed.
“And, look! A guest. An admirer of yours, come to ensure your safety.”
The men who had cut me and forced the blood down my throat came into the hall, dragging someone between them. It was Joki. He looked even shabbier than before, and his puffy face was bloody and swollen with bruises as well as drink.
“You see what ardent devotion you inspire, Laela,” said Lord Hei, and stroked my drying hair, which had been left to float free like a shimmering curtain down past my waist. He ran his fingers through it all the way to the end, his hand coming to rest on my hip.
“Get your hands off her!” screamed Joki.
Lord Hei kissed the side of my neck, as the two men punched Joki several times in the stomach.
“She prefers me to you, doesn’t she? She spurned your touch, but she won’t spurn mine. Will you, Laela? Do you have anything to say to your former captor?”
“Yes,” I said. “Have him brought up to me.”
“He is dirty, my love.”
“Soon you will wash me clean. Have him brought up to me.”
The two men dragged him up to me, letting him sag to his knees at my feet.
“I think you have something for me,” I said. “A wand. Give me the wand.”
“Laela! You don’t mean to stay with these...bandits.” Joki groaned as the men kicked him in the ribs. “And it’s not yours to take anyway.”
“Give it to me, and I will free you.”
“See what a queen she is already!” said Lord Hei, squeezing my hip and running his hand down my thigh. “Give it to her, old man, and I will let you live.”
“Give it to me,” I repeated. “And you will live, and go free. I need it, so that you can go free.”
“Laela...” Joki gave me a long look in the face. Then he shrugged as best he could, pinned as he was down on the floor. “Very well. Let me up, you two, and I will give it to her. Consider it a gift,” he said, as he struggled to his feet and pulled a slender bundle out from under his shirt. “A gift to mark your transformation. I can see it has
