Claws and Kisses

Jara was beautiful.

There were no more forests to be had. Jara was composed entirely of sloping mountain ranges and grassy countrysides. Apple orchards and sweeping hills dotted the land, matching perfectly with the bushels of flowers and quaint, slow-moving villages that bordered the road Avel’s entourage traveled along.

All of that ended when we reached the center of the land. From miles away, it was easy to make out the colossal, towering mountain that erupted from the ground and pierced the clouds. Snow dusted the tops of its peaks, it was so high.

Before I knew it, we were before Loch’s mountain. The mountain, unlike Avel’s, had a city surrounding its base. From what I could tell, it was a human city too. For the most part, it was the average farmers, businessmen, vendors, shop-keepers, and whoever else usually ran things. However, every once in awhile, I would catch a glimpse of a group of slaves, men and women, chained up and working for whatever dragon master they were hanging around. The sight had bile rising in my throat, but the entourage was moving too quick to scrutinize any of them too long.

The carriage procession took awhile. The traffic was dense and complicated. To make matters worse, the carriages the Inner Circle and I were inside were surrounded by a platoon of dragon guards. They moved slower than molasses, and could not care less about it.

I would not mind the traffic or the guards if it were not for Avel. After our argument, he had not returned to the coach with me. He had spent half the time in one of the other carriages and the other half marching outside with the other soldiers in his golden armor. I did not know if he was avoiding me out of spite or if he was simply trying to be considerate and give me the space that I had asked for. If I knew Avel as well as I thought I did, than it was most certainly not the first option.

Once we arrived at the entrance of the mountain, the procession into the gigantic cavern was speedy. The soldiers who had been assigned to me by Avel himself led me into a side door and up a set of stairs. It was difficult getting through the crowd outside my coach, but we managed. All of the entourage was outside, trying to get inside as fast as they could while tying up the horses, directing where the carriages were to go, collecting their luggage, hollering at one another for who knows what, and so on. It was loud and hectic and I was suddenly glad for the guards who now guided me through all of it.

The stairs led to a hall, and the soldiers left me with the servants and maids there. Everything happened in such a rush that I was barely able to take in the hallway or the maids themselves before I was being swept up into my private rooms and ushered into a bathing chamber.

The head maid, Cindy, was a plump, middle-aged woman with fiery red hair and an attitude. She had the other maids tripping over themselves trying to follow her quick, loud orders. I watched in quiet amazement as they ran around me, collecting soaps, towels, creams, perfumes, and a plethora of other things I could not keep track of.

Cindy was quick to strip me of my trousers and wrinkled white tunic, all the while howling about how she could not believe the Drachen Lady of the esteemed Western Horde had been treated as such. “You poor fille,” she cooed, shoving me into one of the warm pools of water. “A Drachen Lady in trousers? That vile homme horrible. How could he?”

A red blush quickly bloomed all over my body at being exposed in front of so many people. The maids, thank the heavens, looked as if they could care less that I was as naked as a newborn babe. Even Cindy simply pinched my cheeks and laughed. “Young maidens, so shy. No need, ma chéri. We are not so shy here down in Jara.”

The other maids chuckled along with her, and my blush only deepened with her scandalous words. All too soon, Cindy and the other girls were pouring soaps and herbs onto my hair and body. For a minute however, they paused before washing me.

“Ma chéri?” Cindy lightly touched my left side, and a bubble of pain blossomed where her fingers grazed my skin. “Your mark, my lady. It’s . . .”

“Beautiful,” one of the maids whispered. The girls crowded around the pool, all clamoring to get a look. There stares were so wide and amazed that I could not help looking down myself at the mark Avel had given me.

The tattoo was a winding, curving thing. The black vines crawled up my body, twisting and turning into puffy flowers and leaves. The ink was such a deep, vibrant color that there was no telling where the mark ended and where skin began. The tattoo matched Avel’s. His was more masculine, and mine obviously more feminine and floral. Nonetheless, I thought it was the most gorgeous mark I had ever seen.

“Wow,” I breathed.

“You are so lucky, my Lady,” one of the maids sighed dreamily, her head lolling to the side as she ogled my mark. “To have a mark like that . . .”

Studying their faces through the steam of the pool, I carefully asked, “What’s so special about mine?”

Cindy pinched my cheek again, shaking her head in a way that made her neck wobble. “My shy girl, when you love something very much and want to keep it all to yourself, you make sure everyone knows who it belongs to. A mark as big as this implies that your Lord very much wants to keep you to himself. It is very romantic, ma chéri.”

I looked back down at the mark, a stirring of guilt beginning to churn in the pit of my stomach. “Romantic, huh?”

Cindy patted my cheek once more. “Very.”

As soon as the moment began, it was over. Cindy and her girls were back to running around the room in chaos, grabbing bottles of lotion off the walls and pouring different soaps and such into the water. I barely noticed them running around me, as I was too focused staring blankly at the mark.

That’s my mark on you and you are acting like it is something to be ashamed about.

My eyes snapped shut as I thought about earlier. I had practically thrown the tattoo into Avel’s face before telling him that I did not want to be around him for the foreseeable future. And yeah, everything was still hard to take in and the ginormous, very new tattoo on my side was a shock, but the ritual was obviously something that Avel thought was important and something to cherish.

And I had convinced him that I did not want any part of him or it.

Cindy pulled me out of my thoughts, lifting me up by my elbows out of the pool. The cold air of the stone chamber had a shiver brushing up my spine. One of the maids handed me a white, silk robe with pictures of birds flying on it. I shrugged it one hurriedly, glad to be clothed once more.

“All done, Miss.” Cindy smiled a dimpled smile at me as she dragged me from the bathing room once more back to the private rooms I would be staying in.

The rooms were beautiful. Everything was bathed in gold, from the glistening chandelier that hung from the ceiling to the embroidered couches in the middle of the room. Sun shone in from the draped windows, washing the room in a warm, orange glow. Lush rugs carpeted the whole of the room, blanketing the smooth rock floors. From the corner of my eye, I could make out a sliver of the bedroom, which was grand and aureate too.

“Are you sure I’m supposed to be here?” I asked Cindy, appraisal clear in my voice. It had only been a few months ago that I had been sleeping in a room above a tavern with only rats and drunken shouts to keep me company. Sleeping here seemed like a dream in comparison.

Cindy led me to the bedroom, which was even more stunning up close. “Positive, Miss.” She sat me at the vanity and waved the rest of the girls in. “I got strict orders to take care of you for the next few days. You are in my care until you head back to that western horde of yours.”

The vanity was nearly as big as the bed, and brimming full with every cosmetic known to man. The tall mirror that rested there flashed my image back at me. The features I had known all my life laid there; long, curly black hair and vivid green eyes. Pale skin, a splattering of freckles over my cheeks and nose. Curves and grooves that had made my teenage years almost unbearable with the amount of cat calls and assumptions people had based solely on the size of my chest and backside. High cheekbones, straight nose. Yet . . . something had changed. I could not quite put my finger on it, but there was something different about my eyes. Or maybe it was my mouth? My cheeks?

Cindy did not give me long to ponder before she began dolling up my face and my hair. Some of the girls helped her while the rest of them headed to the large oak wardrobe in the back of the room, pulling out different dresses and such.

The old maid hummed as she picked up and brush and began to brush through my hair. “You got some lovely thick hair, ma chéri.” She touched her own greying hair and huffed. “When you get to as old and atroce age as me, you have to start worrying about such things. The fardeaux I bear!”

I laughed, watching as she started to pin and twist my hair into an updo. Her accent was lovely and strange; nothing like the southerns I had spent the last few years with. Even though I could not understand a lot of what she said, I still found myself leaning closer to hear her deep voice as she spoke, loud and bold.

“Ma dame, tell me about yourself.” Her voice was slightly muffled from the pins she had tucked between her lips. There was a mischievous spark in her eyes as she said, “That Lord of yours, he is very handsome, oui?”

My cheeks reddened for what felt like the millionth time this hour. Cindy smiled knowingly as she popped out one of the pins from her mouth and sheathed it into my hair.

I fidgeted with my fingers in my lap, making sure not to look at Cindy in the mirror as I said, “His Lordship has been very kind to me, ma’am. I am very grateful for having gotten the chance to meet him.”

“Bah,” she waved her hand with a shake of the head. “I do not care for formalities, ma chéri. Tell me, has he got a talentueux pair of lips on that handsome face of his, hmm?”

All of the maids giggled at her frivolous words. Cindy laughed heartily as a flush encompassed the whole of my body. I must have been as red as a tomato when she patted my cheek and said, “You are precious, ma dame. I shall call you my cerise rouge from now on.”

I opened my mouth to ask her what exactly that meant, but she and the other girls were already hauling me up and out of my chair before I had time to utter a word. They led me to where the other maids stood around the bed, the whole of the wardrobe’s contents laid out on the coverlets. Scraps of fabric were everywhere, and the maids talked to one another in their rapid, foreign language. I could understand none of what they said, and only did what Cindy directed me to.

“She will wear this, girls!” Cindy grabbed a dress from the pile. It was hung on a hook and cloaked by a sheath, so that I could not see what it looked like. Cindy smiled wide as she handed the dress to one of the other girls and went to the armoire. Over her shoulder, she called, “Bella! Danielle! Get something for la dame, eh? Dépêche-toi maintenant!”

Two of the maids—Bella and Danielle, presumably—dispatched from the group to head to a set of drawers across the room. The whispered to one another, giggled, and rustled through the shelves until they found what they were looking for.

When they sashayed back toward us, I finally saw what they held in their hands.

“Miss Cindy!” I exclaimed, clutching at the collar of my robe, my eyes on the black, skimpy lingerie in the maid’s hands. “I—”

“Shh, ma dame.” Cindy rested her hands on my shoulder, a laugh rumbling through her chest. “You worry too much. Relax, cerise. I take care of everything, oui?”

I shook my head. “Miss Cindy, I can’t—”

“Oh, yes you can, cerise.” She brushed past me, heading to the vanity to pull out a case full of sparkling jewelry. “The garments are not for you, ma dame. It is my gift to that beau Lord of yours.”

Every single one of the maids burst out laughing. The humiliation in my chest swelled, and prayed to the gods that I would never have to hear that sentence again. Before I could so much as whisper a word of protest, Bella and Danielle were yanking off my robe and prying my legs and arms apart to slide the seductive lingerie on.

Bella giggled again when she saw my red cheeks. “There is nothing for you to be ashamed of, ma amie.” She nudged my arms out of the way to sidle the black brassiere around my breasts, propping them up so that they bulged in a temptatious way. “My cousin had a body like yours. Énorme breasts, small waist, round hips—the boys in my village were fou for her. You should be proud, not honteux.”

Danielle nodded from her knees as she slid the black silk panties into place. “The boys love un peu plus de butin à tenir, no?”

Bella laughed, fluffing my hair some. “You are very lucky, ma amie. I have heard stories of the heroic and handsome Avel. There is no better dragon you could ask for.”

I nodded slowly, my eyes on the window as if I could see beyond the hills and the sun to where Avel was. “Yes,” I agreed softly. “There is no one else.”

“Ah, how I wish être amoureux,” Danielle swooned, standing back up and readjusting the brassiere, her eyes dreamy and faraway. “It’s all very romantic.”

Before they could say anything more, Cindy was pushing them out of the way and unwrapping the dress. “Enough chit-chat! Ma dame, we must get you dressed. Come, come! The start of the funeral is only a few hours away! Dépêchez-vous!”

The maids swept me away, and I once more prayed to survive whatever the next few hours may hold.

I am going to be completely honest: I think the french maids are one of my favorite groups of characters I have ever written.

Hello, my loves! Another Tuesday has come, and with it, an update. I was not at all sure that I would be able to get it done, but I got so swept up in writing about Cindy, Bella, and Danielle that I actually went over my usual word count. So . . . yay!

In other news, we are thirty chapters in and are just starting to get a feel of the mating ritual. The first step was, of course, the tattoo. Wendy in the last chapter seemed to have a tough time getting a grasp on the idea of her mark and the ritual itself, and in this chapter, Cindy kind of gives her a new perspective on it. Instead of the tattoo being this big, scary thing, Cindy actually describes it as being one of the more romantic and caring things that Avel can do for Wendy.

Thoughts?

For those of you who speak french, I hope you got a laugh out of some of the jokes! Also, please let me know if I did not write something correctly. I do not by any means know the language AT ALL and simply used a translator (cuz why not have french maids?)

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. That is all for today folks, and I hope you are excited for the next few fun-time chapters (with our favorite Dragon Lord himself!)

~Elaine