He shrugged. “A few do. They vary.”
“You like them?” She didn’t sound haughty, merely curious.
“Not really. I find them treacherous and painfully annoying. Although made with the right seasoning, they are very tasty.”
She nodded in agreement. “This is true.”
Of course, he’d only been joking.
With a quick shake of his head, he said, “Why, Princess, did you just agree with me?”
Startled, she blinked. “Uh . . . no. No, of course not.” She turned away from him, walking over to a boulder. She sat on it and looked at him, her head held high. “I’m hungry. I await food.”
He had to give it to her. She certainly didn’t let a change in her current circumstances faze her for long. “Then you best get that rump in gear. The potatoes and vegetables are over there. There’s a pot to cook them in and fresh water. Good luck.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You . . . you expect me to cook food?”
“I did the hard part. I went down to the farm, scared the little farmer, and took his cow. Then I removed its hide, the cow’s not the farmer’s, placed it on the spit, and now watch it while it cooks. The least you can do is cook some vegetables. We’ll eat like humans. With plates and utensils . . . and a table.”
“But I don’t know how to cook.”
“Then you best learn, Princess. I’d hate for you to starve.”
She despised him. Rude, arrogant, low-born dragon!
Was this to be her life from now on? Trapped in this human body, forced to cook food for an angry-looking peasant?
Couldn’t her mother have just killed her instead? Wouldn’t it have been kinder?
“I don’t see that beautiful ass moving, Princess.”
She glared at him, about to tell him to go to hell, when her stomach rumbled. By the gods! What was that sound? Was she dying?
She looked down at her stomach, her hands clasped over it, and for the first time ever, she heard Bercelak laugh. Even more shocking . . . she kind of liked the sound of it.
“You are merely hungry, Rhiannon,” he said kindly. “Do as I ask and we’ll eat soon enough. I promise.”
Groaning in annoyance, she slid off the boulder and walked over to the pit fire. As he said, he had potatoes and some other vegetables out beside a large pot filled with water. Another bowl of water beside it. Crouching down, she studied the food in front of her. In fact, she studied the food for about five minutes, until she heard the low-born lean his long body over and, his snout right behind her, say, “What, exactly, are you doing?”
She ignored that shudder his low voice elicited in her body. Dammit, she had to ignore it! “Deciding my next plan of action.”
“To cook potatoes, you need a plan of action?”
“Everything in life needs a plan of action, Low Born. I just don’t randomly do things and hope everything turns out all right.”
“But where’s the excitement in that? The fun?”
“Fun?” She looked at him over her shoulder. “When do you ever have fun?”
“I have fun,” he snapped. “In fact, I’m a very fun person.”
“Really?” She turned and faced him. “And what do you do for fun?”
“Lots of things.”
“Do most of those things involve killing something?”
“On occasion,” he grumbled.
“Exactly.”
“Well what do you do for fun?”
She shrugged. “I enjoy when the villagers near my den run for their lives.” She grinned. “All that screaming.”
He shook his head, the tip of his snout brushing against her human body. “I guess that’s something.”
The low-born leaned back, returning to the carcass. She had to admit, at least to herself, it smelled delicious. And, dammit, so did he.
“I must say, Princess, I’m surprised you haven’t been able to shift back yet.”
She shrugged. “My skills have always been weaker than my mother’s.”
“That seems strange. White dragons are known for their powers.”
“Well, apparently I’m the exception to the rule.” She stared at the potato. Odd-looking vegetable. “My Magick has always been weaker and I’m much smaller than most dragons. One of the wizards who trained me called me the runt of the litter.”
“That’s a cruel thing to say. I can kill him for you, if you’d like.”
Rhiannon barely bit back her smile of surprise. No one had ever offered to kill another for her—at least no one she ever believed. But she believed Bercelak. “No. No. That’s not necessary. He merely spoke the truth.”
“Well, there’s truth and then there’s just being a right bastard.”
“You know, you’re not . . .” She stopped herself abruptly, but the dragon’s black eyes were on her in a second.
“I’m not what?”
“Well . . . you’re not quite what I expected.”
“And what did you expect?”
“To use your words . . . a right bastard, I guess.” Definitely not one who would cook her a meal. And he hadn’t yelled at her once. She really expected him to be much more . . . brutal. Brutal and deadly and he wouldn’t be happy until she was crying . . . which she would never do.
“That I can be . . . during battle. I don’t feel the need to be that way when I’m home.”
Squeezing the potato to see if it was juicy like fruit, she muttered, “There are some who say you’re cruel. Heartless. And not just to our enemies.”
“And who says these things?”
“You want me to tell you so you can go and hunt them down? I have not forgotten that before you were Bercelak the Great you were Bercelak the Vengeful.”
“Do you know how I got that name?”
“No.” And she shouldn’t care, but she was kind of curious.
“Because of Soaic.”
Ahh, Soaic. She’d taken a turn with him once. It was all right, but nothing that she’d write down in a diary. Plus, he feared her. They all did. To be truthful, her reputation wasn’t much better than Bercelak’s, and she had yet to wake up with the dragon she’d gone to sleep with. They slipped out like they feared she’d wake and simply kill them for her amusement.
“Aye. Soaic.” She shrugged. “He has had much to say about you.”
Bercelak poured liquid over the cooking carcass. “That’s what I thought. You know that scar Soaic has on his right hind quarter? The one that even his scales can’t hide?”
“Aye. He received that during the battle of—”
“He received it when I ripped him open from hip to claw.”
“Why would you do that?” Not knowing what else to do with the stupid potato in her hand, Rhiannon dropped it into the water.
“Did you clean that first?”
Growling, she stood and turned to face him. “Did you tell me to clean it first?”
“You’ve truly never cooked for yourself before?”
“Not only am I a princess—so I don’t have to—I’m a dragon. There’s a universe of cattle at my disposal. Why would I waste time cooking anything? Ever?”
“Have you never spent any time around humans? At all?”
“Only when I talk to them before feeding. But I don’t do that often. I find when they start sobbing it’s harder to have a peaceful meal.”
He chuckled at her words. Bercelak had never laughed at anything. At least that was the rumor in court. But she’d gotten him to laugh twice. She did. Rhiannon bit the inside of her mouth to stop from smiling with pride.
Bercelak shifted, grabbed a pair of black breeches, and pulled them on.
She frowned, confused at why he was putting on clothes. He saw her expression and shrugged. “Trust me, Princess. This will be much easier if I’m dressed.”