The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 763: A Panicked Dragon

Despite the fact that Katerina was giggling in her room, the maids were still staring in horror at whatever was inside.

Had the Princess done something? And where was Dominic?

She had definitely seen him leaving the bedroom, those were his golden wings, and he took the door off from the inside.

Sword in hand, Alexis approached the nursery.

Immediately, it was obvious what the issue was. A burbling happy baby with a bruise on her forehead sat next to the changing table, which had a splintered wooden railing, and claw marks all over the surface.

Clearly, she had decided that the table was unacceptable, but when she had torn apart the safety railing, she had fallen off the table.

That would be the scream Alexis heard.

But what horrified the staff was not the baby, who no longer cared about her bruised head. No, it was the giant golden lizard that took up the rest of the room.

"Dominic?" She asked hesitantly.

He looked up from the baby, his eyes the same as they always were, but without that usual placid tilt to them that she was used to. Instead, these golden eyes were sharp and predatory, but not hostile.

Dominic lifted a wing, inviting her to come sit with them, while the wet nurse marched through the crowd of maids.

Dominic growled as she entered the room, a small puff of smoke coming from his nostrils.

"Oh, don’t you growl at me. I’m just going to heal the princess and put a diaper back on her," the troll admonished him.

Dominic shrugged, allowing her to enter.

"Is this what a feral dragonkin looks like? I thought that they just went crazy?" One of the maids whispered, just loud enough for Alexis to hear.

Instantly, Dominic’s eyes snapped to her, and the girl froze. Behind her veil, her face went pale, but the wet nurse just laughed.

"No, this isn’t feral. He’s not even awake. If he was awake and feral, his eyes would be slitted and glowing with excess power. He heard the Princess get injured and instinctively panicked.

Just give him a few minutes and he will shift back. His instincts just need to know that his treasure is safe. Princess, you might as well sit next to him and wait, I will only take a moment.

And then once I’m done, I will find out who left her unattended on the changing table."

Alexis sat down, and Dominic wrapped one wing around her, his enormous scaled body warm enough that it felt like sitting next to a wood stove. Even in her light dressing gown, she was instantly sweating from the heat.

Now that he had both of them in his immediate vicinity, Dominic began to relax, and he gave a gentle huff before setting his head in Alexis’ lap and beginning to snore.

"See, asleep."

The wet nurse finished her work and passed Katerina to Alexis, who immediately had grabby hands trying to pull her top open.

"You are worse than your father, you know that?" She asked affectionately.

"She’s just fed. I went down to gather more supplies, but the maids were supposed to change her."

"Mistress, forgive us. We were out of diapers in this room, so I went to get some from next door. I didn’t expect her to manage to get off the table. She can’t even crawl yet."

More likely, she had grabbed one of the bars. Her grip was surprisingly strong when it needed to be.

After a moment, Katerina held out a hand, and grabbed Dominic’s horn, trying to pull herself onto his head. Alexis obliged, and moved the baby, who instantly fell asleep as soon as she was surrounded by the warmth.

"Now, that is unfair. We spend ages trying to get her to sleep, and now she just passes out on contact with him, ten minutes after a nap and feeding."

Dominic’s eye opened halfway, and Alexis could have sworn that he smirked at her before the eye closed again.

"I thought that you said he would change back in a moment? I think he just went back to sleep with no intentions of shifting," Alexis whispered, unwilling to wake the baby.

The wet nurse frowned. "I read up on heavily dragon blooded dragonkin, and asked his Royal Guards on the way up. They said it should only be a moment, and that it was unwise to threaten the family of a sleeping dragon for just this reason.

Trolls and dragon fire don’t get along, you see?

But perhaps I should have asked how long a moment was?"

Alexis crooked a finger and motioned for the Battlemage at the door to come inside.

"Explain. How long am I going to have a giant lizard’s head on my lap?"

The guard frowned. "Usually as soon as they calm down and everything is safe again, they’ll shift back. There really aren’t many cases to go by, the only ones I’ve seen who can do it are more than half dragon, and that really narrows down the options.

You see, even if one parent is a dragon, they’re presumably mating in human form, and don’t always pass down the full dragon genome.

The other world has many more dragons and dragonkin, but I’ve only met a few who can shift like this. They’re guards for the Academy, and we trained with them, but not much rattles them, so shifting incidents outside of combat are rare."

"So, you’re basing it on a conscious and enraged dragon shifting back when the battle is over?"

"More or less. I did see someone try to steal from one, and the same thing happened. But she shifted back in under a minute, despite having been asleep at the time of the shift.

Perhaps the difference is that he is comfortable, and she was covered in blood?"

Alexis sighed. "Well, at least he is warm."

"That’s one way to look at it. Should I bring you a padded blanket to rest upon? The stone floor can’t be all that comfortable."

"No, I will wake him up in a few minutes. As soon as I’m certain he’s not going to freak out again about the baby being moved."