by Aaron Crash
Too much, too hot, too painful, and yet in that pain was such a wanton joy. It felt like a star about to go supernova, and it felt like a carnival of cotton candy. He wanted to pull back from the kiss even as he wanted to dive deeper into it, rip off her clothes, and take her on the ground under the cottonwood tree above.
The heat burned more, the light grew brighter, and the pain grew stronger until he felt himself consumed by them. He was falling, he was going to topple and bash his skull on the sidewalk. Didn’t happen.
Aria grew in his arms. They weren’t kissing anymore, but whatever she had started wasn’t about to stop. He opened his eyes. All he could see was light exploding out of him. Before he knew it, he was blind, cradled in her arms, and then the sun inside of him exploded. He wanted to escape the pain. He never wanted to leave Aria’s arms. Not ever.
He screamed. His consciousness was plucked away by forces far more powerful than he could ever hope to be.
He woke at some point later, and he knew time had passed, but he wasn’t sure how much. He was in his bed with his fist around the pendant, clutching it tight. His clothes were on, but his shoes were off. He turned and saw Aria sitting in his desk chair by his bookcase and the reading lamp near it.
She was intently poring over a book, but he had no idea which one. He was hit with the desire to get up and at least grab his dirty clothes off the floor and throw them in the laundry basket. He winced. There was a pair of his underwear lying right on top of his jeans. And books, papers, mail, all were jumbled around his small room, which was basically a bed, a desk, a window, a bookcase, a lamp, and a bathroom not much bigger than a closet.
Steven wanted to rouse himself, get up, and ask Aria a bunch of questions, but he’d never been more tired in his entire life. The kiss had worn him out, but it had also awakened something inside of him. The pendant warmed his fist as the glowing started again. Then the pain, dammit, the pain...it felt like being burned from the inside out.
He twisted in the bed, kicked off the sheets, and flung out his hands. He was going to die, he knew it. This was what dying felt like.
“You poisoned me,” he grunted. “Dammit, that kiss poisoned me, and now you’re going to watch me die.”
Aria came over, held his hand, and wiped sweat from his face with a damp cloth she’d grabbed from somewhere. “You haven’t had Animus before, Steven. It’s changing you. It’s opening doors that you had no idea existed inside you.”
Another wave of burning swept through his body, and the light, that light ... Where was it coming from?
Then he knew in a flash of insight. The pendant. But why would the pendant be trying to kill him?
“I warned you,” Aria said softly. “I warned you that the kiss could destroy us both.”
She had. He didn’t know what Animus was, but he did know that their kiss was killing him.
Thankfully, his mind snapped shut, fleeing the torture and the concern on Aria’s face.
Before he lost consciousness again, he saw Aria’s eyes had changed. They were greener, but that wasn’t what was odd.
Her pupils had become long, horizontal slits, like the eyes of a deadly snake about to strike.
Chapter Four
EDGAR VALE WALKED TO the windows of the secret penthouse suite and gazed out at the lights of Denver. Being up so high soothed him because he was a bird of prey. He had failed in the hunt that night, but he wouldn’t rest until this Steven asshole was dead.
Tumbler in hand, he drank from the smooth single-malt scotch and enjoyed the bite. It was a Macallan, two thousand dollars a bottle, one of his Prime’s cheaper liquors. He scratched at his long beard and then felt the stubble on his scalp with hands covered in tattoos. A lot of them were from high school, but some were from prison. He’d done time, a lot of it, and he swore he’d never be caged again.
The door to one of the bedrooms—there were six—opened and Mouse crept out.
She was a slight, petite woman, with platinum blonde hair and large blue eyes. Her black nightgown made her skin appear like flawless porcelain. That pile of platinum atop her head was mussed from sleep and those blue eyes were squinted even in the orange glow of the mood lighting in the suite. “Eddie, you need to sleep. You’re not a full Skin yet.”
He hated that he was still a Skinling. He hated that he had failed to kill the little shit. He’d even failed to take out that goth bitch. He’d thought he’d drill her first and then take out the little prick as the main event.
He hated that Mouse was beautiful and smelled so good and she was off-limits to him. And always would be, most likely. He hurled the tumbler to the floor and it shattered. “I know, Mouse. I know what I am, and I know that I’m nothing special. I’m weak.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Mouse asked quietly. Yes, she seemed so shy and innocent, but Edgar knew what she could do, what she could be, when she transformed. She was a full Soul, an Escort to their Prime, and beyond reach.
“I shot him twice, once in the heart, and yeah, he didn’t die. Goddamn bullets bounced off him. And then he hit me with a mop,” Edgar growled.
Mouse raised a hand to cover her smile. “A mop?”
“And then the cops came,” Edgar said. “I ran. The Prime hates dealing with the fucking human bureaucracy, though he’s paid everyone off.”
“He does hate dealing with the humans,” Mouse agreed with a nod. “But he hates failure just as much. He will not be pleased. He will hurt us. He might kill you. You are just a Skinling, after all.”
Edgar whirled on her. He charged across the room and grabbed her wrist. “You love throwing that in my face, don’t you? You laugh at me, I know. But I don’t care. When I become a full Skin, I’m going to ask the Prime for you. It’s been done before. If I serve him well ...”
Mouse’s arm grew scales and grew hot. The smell of her transformation hit him like a fist: a sharp almond smell, like if you threw almond extract onto hot coals. Edgar felt his palm sizzle. He gripped her harder, enjoying the burn and her odor. “Yeah, Mouse, I know what you are. And someday, you won’t be able to hurt me. Someday, you’ll be mine.”
She smiled. “Why not take me now?”
Edgar shoved her away. He slammed his burned hand into an ice bucket sitting on the bar. “You know why. He put you here as a test. He’s testing you, like he’s testing me. Because he doesn’t trust you. Otherwise, you’d be with him in the Cheyenne Aerie right now with the rest of his Escort.”
That maddening smile widened on her face. Her eyes had become serpentine, blue sapphires slitted up the center. “If he’s testing us, well, that’s easy for me. I wouldn’t fuck you even if you were a full Soul. You, however. You failed once. Our Prime comes back in three days to take on a new Escort. You had better have finished the job before then or else he’ll take it out on both of us. You because you failed him. Me because he can.”
“How can this little son of a bitch be bulletproof already?” Edgar asked. “He’s not an adult Dragonsoul yet, and dammit, I don’t even think he has access to his Animus. My gun should’ve put him down.”
“He’s special. I can feel it. The Prime is too arrogant to take him seriously. Which is why he assigned you the task of killing him.” Mouse walked across the shattered glass to the window. The shards crunched under her feet without hurting them because of the tremendous power she’d been born with.
If only Edgar had been so lucky. He wouldn’t have to go through the rituals, which were painful, but almost over. Soon, so soon, he would graduate from Skinling to full Dragonskin, and the leap in power would be amazing. He hadn’t been born special, just some kid with a drunk mother and an ex-con father who had lived hard on the streets. He’d been born to die. Since God hadn’t done shit for him, Edgar would do it. He’d make himself special or die trying.
“So, no bullets,” Edgar growled. “But we have the blades. I know some men, bad men, who can help me. Next time, we’ll take magic swords and chop him into fish bait and throw th
e pieces in Sloan’s Lake. We’ll let the goddamn carp clean up our mess for us.”
Standing by the window, Mouse stretched. The lights of Denver shined on her skin and the silky fabric of her nightie. Her nipples were hard. Her hips looked so good.
Edgar felt himself stiffen. He licked his lips. “Yes, in the next three days, I will kill this Dragonling, even if I have to become a Skin a little early. The ritual might kill me, but then, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“And you will need your strength,” Mouse whispered. She drew the strings of her nightgown over her shoulders and let them drop. Standing there naked, she looked like sex personified. “To kill the boy. And to resist me.”
Edgar swallowed hard. “And you just love teasing me.”
She walked past him and pushed her nightgown into his face. It smelled like her. And it drove him insane. “I loathe my existence, Skinling,” she said. “But I do love teasing you because in the end, you’ll never have me. I’d rather join this Steven’s Escort than ever sleep with you.”
She moved past, and he watched her ass jiggle so enticingly.
“Fuck this new dragon,” Edgar spat. “He’ll never have an Escort, and I’m not going to let him acquire a Hoard or build even a single Aerie. This fucker is dead. Dead, you hear me!”
“He’d better be.” Mouse paused at the door and turned her head, so Edgar could see both her ass and her face. “Or in three days, you’ll be the dead fucker who never had the chance to fuck me.”
She laughed and disappeared into the luxury of the master bedroom, the suite within the suite.
Goddamn her. Edgar hated her as much as he wanted her.
STEVEN FELT HIMSELF float off the bed, but then he was dreaming. It all had to be a dream because he stood in front of a huge dragon the size of a house. The thing was classic dragon, all right, with long wings sweeping from a muscled back armored with dark crimson scales. The serpentine face and long jaw sported teeth like spears. A silver-streaked black beard sprouted off the chin of the beast, and a long tail curled around the dragon. Both its feet and its strong, powerful arms were tipped with massive claws.
Steven stood in the middle of grasslands just as dawn broke over the horizon. The sweet smell of dew on grasses mixed with the scent of sagebrush. It was like he was on the Great Plains east of Denver, but in reality, he knew he was in his bedroom.
The yellow eyes of the beast opened, and the horizontal slits pulsed, capturing the light of the morning sun. The dragon spoke. “Stefan Drokharis, Dragonling, you will learn to know that name, and you will celebrate it. You were saved. All others were murdered, but you were saved. For two decades, you have remained hidden from the world. But lo, on this day, the day of your birth, you have tasted your first Animus.”
Animus.
At the word, the ground broke open under his feet, and another dragon rose from the dirt, wings flapping away the dust and gasses. This dragon had dark blue scales and darker colored wings. It was bigger, and the blue beard on its chin waggled down its glittering chest.
It opened its great fanged mouth, and lightning shot from its maw and struck the red dragon, blasting off scales and charring the flesh underneath. Both the red and the blue creature took to the air. The red dragon opened its mouth and covered the blue dragon in flames even as the blue sent electricity to sizzle into the wing of the red.
The dragons crashed together, claws rending flesh, wings beating like hurricanes, tails lashing. The beasts smashed back to the ground, sending up clouds of debris that swept over Steven.
The two weren’t done fighting, though. As the dust of their impact cleared, two human-shaped figures emerged. One wore crimson plate mail, edged in black. The visor on his helmet was drawn back to reveal a face, half dragon, half human. Crimson scales covered his face and neck. The other half-dragon, half-man hybrid was blue—blue scales, blue hair, and blue armor. Both gripped two-handed swords and rushed the other. Sparks flew as the blades met, flashing in the morning sun, until the red dragon knight cut the head off the blue.
Blood geysered out of the severed neck, and then, from the wound, flashed a brilliant blue light. The red knight reached out a mailed hand, and the blue radiance poured into his palm, swirling up his arm.
The red knight turned to the stunned Steven and spoke through a fanged serpentine mouth. “Animus gives us power. We gain Animus from the souls of our enemies and from the love of our Escort.”
The dragon knight then shifted into being purely human, an older man, middle-aged with a white-streaked beard and salt-and-pepper hair. The armor fell away, and the guy was in jeans and a white linen shirt. Blood dripped down from a cut on his forehead, a wound he’d gotten from his battle with the blue dragon.
From behind Steven, because, yeah, dream logic, a gorgeous older woman slipped up to hold the dragon knight now standing there as a man.
She was in a flowing white dress, and she had a shock of bright white hair bursting over her forehead in her otherwise jet-black hair.
The two kissed and light flashed. More Animus flowed into the man. The woman stepped back and smiled at Steven, a warm, loving smile. His mother had given him similar gazes over the course of his life. He seemed to know these people, but how?
The man raised a hand and made a complicated gesture with his fingers. He spoke a word that contained soft vowels and hard consonants. Magically, the wound on his forehead closed, skin knitting together in a flash. He’d just cast a spell to heal himself using the Animus from his battle and the kiss.
The man caught Steven’s gaze. “Yes, you are a Dragonsoul, Steven. All of this is within your reach. As you grow in power, you can use the Animus to transform into your True Form, into your partial form, and from there, you can add to your armor, or you can grow your strength, or you can increase your Exhalants. You can gain the ability to breathe fire, lightning, ice, acid, poisonous gas, or dark energy. And spells, Steven, you can cast spells to harness the power of the universe. In the Drokharis Grimoire, you will find all the answers. But you must first find it, write it, and then you will know your true destiny. The magic of three, Steven. Remember the magic of three.”
Steven had played MMOs and D&D his whole life and couldn’t help but think the man was describing a gaming system. The Animus was like experience points, and he could use it to level up, improve his abilities, and unlock new skills. That meant fighting, killing, or sex with women. Actual women. If he chose to go down this path, his life would be war and sex. Yeah, that second part would be great, but the first part?
The man took the hand of his wife—his Escort. That was the word he’d used. He went on. “You were hidden, Steven, but you can’t hide anymore. And while it pains me to say it, you are not prepared to face the forces coming to kill you. Gain Animus, perfect your skills, gather your Escort, acquire your Hoard, and build your Aeries. Play the game of the Primes for now until you can bring ... revolution!”
Steven gasped and woke. He really was levitating over his bed. He let out a yelp and went tumbling onto his mattress. He’d been high enough to bounce off his bed and onto the floor. Right in the middle of his dirty laundry.
The pendant glowed, getting brighter, and he felt the now familiar heat filling his chest, from his neck to his groin. The burn hurt, but he was getting used to the pain.
Aria was nowhere to be seen.
The curtains were closed, but from the edges, he knew it was well past dawn, probably around eight thirty, which meant even if he hurried, he’d be late for his cafeteria job doing dishes, wiping tables, and cleaning up after the breakfast rush.
The glow increased. The pendant sent a holographic map of Colorado in perfect 3-D shining in the air in front of Steven’s eyes. Denver glowed brightly, all the streets, highways, and buildings. To the south was Colorado Springs, to the north, Fort Collins. Three bright flames flashed, one on the Great Plains, north of Denver and east of I-25 along the St. Vrain River. Another bundle of fire flashed on Lookout Mountai
n, near the edge of the western suburbs. Finally, right in the heart of downtown Colorado Springs, the last starburst of flame flickered.
“The magic of three,” Steven whispered, though he had no idea what that meant.
He did know one thing—he had to get to work and start his day. He’d gotten a good, uh, two hours and fifty-seven minutes of sleep. That would have to do.
The pendant’s light winked out.
Bulletproof or not, Dragonsoul or not, he had to tackle his day and try and get some normalcy back into the madness his life had become.
Chapter Five
HIS BOSS AT THE CAFETERIA was pissed that he was late, but Steven was having a hard time taking anything seriously. Part of it was his brain, dipped in caffeine, pounded by lack of sleep, bored as he hosed oatmeal off bowls and old eggs off plates.
At the dishes station, he blazed through dishes and then hustled out to wipe off tables. What was he doing working this dumbass job when he could be out searching for the three flames?
He didn’t know. Had he lost his mind? It felt like it.
Steven tried to make sense of the last twelve hours. He couldn’t be this Dragonsoul thing. That whole thing had been a dream. And yet, it did explain why the bullets bounced off him, Aria’s strange behavior, the magic of their kiss, and the glowing pendant.
He’d told Tessa that he thought he was special. He hadn’t meant dragon special. At best, Steven figured he’d get rich running a successful business, get married, and have amazing children. He’d use his wealth and connections to help his family and other people live great lives. Where did shape-shifting come into play? And Escorts? Hoards? Aeries?
Manuel Rodriguez, a work friend, was in the office, fixing a computer. Steven had to talk to someone about what was going on. Manuel was a good guy.
Steven leaned in conspiratorially, arms crossed. “Hey, Manuel. What if you were bulletproof? I mean, what if you knew for a fact no one could shoot you? Would you keep going to work?”