The Dragon’s Treasure by Caitlin Ricci

had not realized she was wearing so little beneath the sheet before he entered their room. Suddenly his mouth felt dry and he had to lick his lips.
    “Faolan?” she called to him again.
    He flinched at the sound of his name coming from her lips. This simply would not do. How could one woman affect him so easily? The gods be damned, he was his father’s son! He had been trained from birth that women were only useful for children, nothing more. His father had sired eight sons, hadn’t he? And he remembered none of the names of their mothers. In fact, he couldn’t even tell Faolan who his mother had been or what she had been like before her death. So why was it that he couldn’t force himself to be more like his father? More like the man everyone in this damnable fortress expected him to be like. He should not be this weak. He should have come into the room and put this woman in her place. He should have done what was expected of him, then gone out hunting like the others. But he couldn’t even look in her direction without feeling repulsed by his own guilt and shame at having to be a part of her misery. How was he ever supposed to share a bed with this woman if he couldn’t even come within five feet of her?
    “Faolan?” she asked again, her tone more forceful this time.
    He shook his head to clear his thoughts and breathed deeply. He could do this. He just had to get through this one night. Then he could figure this out in the morning, after he had fed. When his head was clear, he was sure he could figure out some solution for this madness.
    “Yes, that was him,” he forced out.
    From the corner of his vision, he saw her turn her attention back to the closed door and the silent hallway beyond. “What was he doing out there?”
    He sighed and leaned wearily against the cold stone wall, wishing instantly for something softer than the stones he had been surrounded by for centuries.
    “My father probably asked him to see if we were getting along.”
    “What a silly thing to make sure of, of course we’re getting along. Why wouldn’t we be? It’s not like I’m going to kill you,” she replied with a small, nervous chuckle.
    “Not that type of getting along,” he said with a pointed look in her direction.
    Their eyes met in the darkness and she looked away quickly. She breathed a little oh before again laying down in the overly large bed. “Faolan?” she called.
    He noticed the change in her voice and came a few feet closer to see what she was distracting herself with, hoping that he could find interest in the same thing.
    “Yes?”
    “The bed, the wardrobe, even the door, everything’s so much larger than I’ve ever seen. Why is that?”
    Faolan chuckled softly and smiled at her. An easy enough question to answer and for that he was most grateful. He came to stand beside the bed and lean against the carved wooden post next to her head, ignoring how close they were now. He had barely looked at the room since it was the same as every other guest room in his home. It was not as nice as his room down the hall was, but it was far more lavish than his childhood room that had only the minimal necessities and none of the comforts.
    He glanced at the door, over fifteen feet high and wide enough to fit three large men comfortably side by side, it was no wonder it had caught her attention. He had to remind himself that she didn’t grow up knowing what his kind were, like he had grown up knowing about hers, and that she wasn’t aware of the history that joined their families together by blood, however distantly. Because of her ignorance, he chose the simplest answer and hoped that she wouldn’t ask too many questions.
    “When we are in our natural forms, we are much bigger than this form you see before you,” he answered simply with a small shrug.
    Her eyebrows went up slightly. There was very little of the fear that he would have thought she’d have at hearing he might not be completely human. Instead, she