Elara knelt on the cold hard ground with a bucket of soapy water next to her, scrubbing vigorously at a stubborn wine coloured stain someone had left on the marble.
But that stain was nothing compared to the sounds that emanated from behind those onyx doors that led to the king's private chambers. Loud feminine cries merged with low masculine groans.
She focused intently on her task, willing her mind to go blank, a skill she had perfected over the past year in the obsidian palace, the art of being invisible. A very handy skill when you served under creatures whose mere gaze could reduce you to ashes.
She was new and unnoticed and she was thankful for that. In a court filled with scaled draconians and voluptuous dryads a simple and dull human woman such as herself would always be overlooked.
She was a small woman with silver blonde hair tied into a severe knot at the back of her head. Her features were delicate, soft plump lips, large violet blue doe eyes and pale skin. The drab greyish linen she donned did nothing to flatter her slender frame. She was the exact opposite of the kind of women the dragon king bedded.
The noises from the king's chamber finally subsided as the woman let out a sharp final cry, followed by his satisfied rambling growl. Elara exhaled, releasing the breath she didn't even realize she was holding. Soon she would be done with her task so that she could scurry back to the safety of the lower servants' quarters.
The massive door swung wide open as a woman emerged, swaying slightly on her feet. Elara quickly recognized her. Lyria, one the court's famous dancers who usually entertained the king. She was a draconian with copper colored scales that dusted along her temples and forearms, shimmering brightly. Her voluptuous curves filled out her scanty silk garments which were now in disarray.
Her sheer veil was ripped and her golden breast band was askew revealing the swell of a heavy breast. Her face was quite flushed, her lips visibly swollen, and her eyes glowed with both triumph and exhaustion. She smelled heavily of sex and the king's distinctive scent.
Lyria's amber colored eyes that had slits in them landed on Elara kneeling on the floor.
Her lips curved into a smirk, one that held both pity and contempt. "He's in ....quite the generous mood," she boldly said, adjusting her breast band with a deliberate slowness. "If you work fast enough, little mouse, he might not know you're even there to begin with." She sauntered away with an exaggerated flip of her coppery hair, her hips swaying seductively and the heavy scent of coupling trailing after her.
Elara's insides churned as she recalled the duties assigned to her this morning by the stern-faced Mistress Calloway. "Clean the antechamber and the king's bathing pool after his …activities." There was no excuse she could give to evade these tasks, none that Calloway would accept.
*Flashback: thirty minutes ago*
Elara's hands were deeply buried in the entrails of a dead pig. Her life had come to an end.
Not literally
But this felt worse than death. She scrunched her face in disgust.
"You, silver hair." A loud voice called out. She knew without looking up that it was directed at her. She was the only one with silver hair among the servants. It was rare for a human to have hair like hers.
She looked up, the pig innards still dripping down her fingers, to find one of the upper servants staring intently at her with the kind of gaze reserved for shit on designer shoes.
"Me?" She asked, pointing at herself.
"Unless there's another kitchen rat with hair like tarnished silver, yes. You. Mistress Calloway stared up and down at her with obvious distaste. "Go get yourself cleaned up, you are to report to His Majesty's private chambers in thirty minutes."
The pig intestines in her hand slapped the ground with a wet loud plop. The whole kitchen went silent.
"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean." she said, baffled.
"Deaf as well as filthy, just great" Calloway's lips were set in a thin line.
"The king is in need of a new attendant and you've been assigned to him."
"That can't be, it must be a mistake." her heart sank.
"Twenty five minutes left, don't waste time arguing." She disappeared through the doorway leaving Elara soaked in pig blood and dread.
"Well," Serena said from across the prep table. A grin formed on her freckled face that was equally horrified and delighted.
"You're royally fucked."
"Thanks, Serena." "Very helpful observation."
"Literally Elara, the king doesn't call kitchen maids for their conversation." She wiped her hands on her apron coming around the table towards Elara.
"How many of his last attendants have been caught leaving his chambers at dawn?" "Fifteen? Seventeen?"
"Why would I keep count of that?"
"Well I do, twenty, twenty since you started working here." She grabbed Elara's hand, dragging her to the wash room. "They all always have that look on their face, you know the one, like they'd seen a God, like he'd fucked them stupid."
"How disgusting." Elara's face crumpled.
"How accurate you mean." Serena nudged her to the wash basin. "Strip, you have twenty minutes left to look presentable enough for him not to incinerate you on sight for offending his royal nostrils."
Elara peeled off her blood stained dress with shaky hands. Why was this happening to her? Why now? For the past year she'd been extremely careful not to catch any attention. A whole year of keeping her head down, laying low and staying invisible.
And now she had been assigned to the last person she ever wanted to cross paths with.
Elara scrubbed herself raw, changed into a borrowed dress and let Serena braid her hair.
"Remember," Serena whispered as she pushed Elena toward the stairs. "Keep your head down, do what he says, don't look in his eyes, do not volunteer information, be absolutely boring.
Right. She could do that. She'd been doing it all her life.
*End of flashback*
The Royal Wing was the complete opposite of the lower wing, massively spacious, warm and breathtaking. There were tapestries that depicted the victories of the dragons and the floors were made of polished marble instead of rough stone.
She had never ventured so far up before.
Dragon kind guards all in human form lined up the corridor.
His chambers were at the far end of the hall
Her hands trembled slightly as she gathered all her cleaning tools and she approached the doors that were still open.
She knocked even though they were wide open, there was no response. She waited for a minute and finally decided to enter since she had work to be done.
The room was a massive one, twice the size of the entire lower servants' quarters that she shared with twenty other women.
A bed that could contain six people dominated one wall. The floor to ceiling shelves stuffed with books covered two walls. There was a balcony that overlooked the scorched peaks, its curtains billowing in the morning breeze
Everything in the room was black and gold colored. It screamed wealth and power.
She felt very small.
The doors suddenly shut behind her, startling her. She sharply turned towards the door, baffled at how it had closed shut by itself.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared at the doors, "magic" she muttered.
Get it together, you have work to do.
She turned back to the room, it was empty. There was no sign of the king himself.
That was good, she could work quickly and leave before he returned. She began with the sitting area next to the fireplace. Two empty wine goblets sat on the side table and one of them had lipstick on it, probably Lyria's. She picked them up trying not to think about what else those lips had been doing.
She straightened up the cushions on the chair with practiced efficiency. A piece of torn silk, Lyria's veil, lay discarded near the hearth, evidence of what the two had been doing. She picked it up, placing it into her cleaning basket.
She moved to the bed next, and god's it was massive. Draped in black silk sheets. It was messy with pillows scattered all around, some on the floor and others bunched in odd angles. The sheets were rumpled and there was a distinct impression where two bodies had laid. Her face turned a bright red.
She had seen evidence of coupling before but there was something more intense about this one. The sheets smelled of musk and something draconic, it made her head swim. She quickly stripped off the sheets, replacing them with fresh linens.
Books were littered across the nightstand, philosophy, poetry and many others. It seemed the dragon King liked to read.
One of the books was open, its pages laying down on the table. She picked it up, it was poetry, love poetry.
A king who read love poetry after fucking a dancer senseless. Not your business, keep cleaning.
His bathing chamber was through the door on the far side of his room. Calloway's instructions resounded in her mind "Clean the bathing pool after his…activities."
She gathered her supplies, fresh towels, soap and a scrubbing brush and slowly approached the slightly ajar door.
She could hear the gentle lap of water against stone.
He must have finished and gone elsewhere, maybe the balcony or another room. She concluded and finally pushed the door open. She immediately froze at the sight.
It was an enormous bathing pool carved from black stone and fed by an underground hot spring. Steam rose leaving the room with heat and moisture.
And right in the center of it, waist deep in the water, was the Dragon King himself.
And he was completely, magnificently naked.
He had never left. She had miscalculated and she deeply regretted it right now.