by C. Swallow
I try to get up, but the frost is too slippery. I can’t get a grip on anything!
My rage is too blind and I can’t get any tactical thoughts working in this fight for territory.
But… I swiftly still my movement, totally confused by one fact that arises swiftly.
While my opponent has gripped my hind leg, and crushed down – they do not shake, tear, pull or do any other aggressive attack.
They are waiting for me to surrender.
Like a… oh.
Mystifyer.
I had never seen Zarcar’s demon form and my Draconess had been so hyper excited by the intruder – I hadn’t even bothered to make the connection. Even though it was obvious now.
I lightly swat at his own front leg to let him know, that I know, that it’s him.
Zarcar takes his teeth out of my leg, which bleeds and twitches with pain while it heals on its own.
I think he’ll back up. Maybe shift back.
Instead, he turns violently for my front and steps over my Draconess, not biting me.
Simply drooling and growling his displeasure and anger over the top of me.
While I smile with my teeth, Zarcar looks deep into my eyes.
I feel an opening in my chest and…
His voice, different and deranged, booms through my skull.
You traitor, each word is pronounced as if from the mouth of a high born demon. Rough yet melodic.
I test speaking back along the deep mental connection we have made.
The added frost was an underhanded move, Warlord.
He snarls over the top of me again, whipping his head up and back, his spit flies everywhere.
You think your skilled. You’re naïve and stupid and it’s pure luck you haven’t died roaming on your own. Especially in these lethal hellborn times.
On the contrary, I have been enjoying freedom. Hunting demons from the Surge!
Idiot! One prick of poison and you’ll start losing vision, one cursed sword and you’ll be reduced to a mortal form and begging for your life. One scratch from a demon bone and you’ll get infected. Fresh out of the Surge, the demons thrive with disease, Zarcar lowers his snout to my neck and chest, sniffing my unhealed wound… injured, Chyronex? Already, my sweet idiot?
I use his distraction to kick him off with my hind legs under his belly. I shove him to the side and get onto my fours.
I look to Zarcar but he’s now smoke, rushing and forming into his mortal being.
I linger in my monstrous Draconess, holding my head up and smirking down at his suddenly miniature form.
Zarcar is naked and scared, his face red as boiled beets. He screams his rage up at me, “You could have been killed, woman! That wound needs to be healed – immediately! Andoll will fix it back at the camp. What the hell were you thinking? Running off while my brother was matching forces with Rey? You humiliated all of us, you humiliated me! Chyronex! You were my charge!”
Oh.
That’s about enough.
I smoke next into my mortal form, not ten feet from him, not three feet.
My naked breasts press instantly into his unwashed, dirt stained torso, my feet rising as I stand on my tip toes and hold up my chin, snarling with my lip – and my eyes.
“I am thriving without you, Warlord,” I hiss, “The wound on my chest is my wound to deal with. How I live is how I so choose… and my Venatores…? That I so choose. Is mine. To command. Are you a part of my Venatores… or not?” Zarcar, although transfixed by my glare and I by his, remains silent, which I take as a definite yes, “So you will remain silent about my transgression of approaching Rey’s camp… and you will listen to me… won’t you?”
“…you harness your power incorrectly…a Draconess commands in an active Venatores… little sweetheart…” Zarcar shakes his head, his lip curling but not into a smile, rather a smirk and a snarl and a scoffing, mocking, curve of disrespect, “A King Commands me outside our active order. I have. My orders.”
“You seem rather passionate and proud of whatever these orders are,” I drawl my own sultry disrespect, pulling away from his front.
I step back.
I ignore the pain in my chest, from both my wound and my heart, and I look to the sky.
“To capture you… and imprison you,” Zar’s response is void of emotion.
“What?” I ask casually, pretending to be oblivious, I look down from the sky to my nails, inspecting each one. They’ve all grown long, one is torn and hanging. I tear it off and fling it at his feet.
“My orders,” Zarcar’s mouth barely moves with his spoken words.
I’m surprised he hasn’t lunged at me yet.
He seems… reserved all of a sudden. As if he’s holding himself back.
“What’s wrong, Warlord, too scared to scrap with me in the soil in our mortal forms…? I might spell your limbs dysfunctional… all… your limbs…” now I smirk.
But then the hairs on the nape of my neck, rise.
I can’t turn in time to see the other foe.
“Dearest witch shit!” Lixar collides with my naked back, wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me tight, in a feigned hug. He kisses my cheek in front of Zar, who does nothing. Lix whispers in my ear, “Oh how I’ve missed your sweet mouth and the cheek of you. You’re like a breath of fresh air…” he leans down towards my mouth, his cheek brushing against mine, his nostrils flare, “…oh, putrid meaty breath… you need a bath… and peppermint tea.”
“Ill timed, Lix,” I growl, “I have a fight with my Warlord. A fight of wills.”
“You’re infected,” Zarcar steps forward and raises a hand to the wound. I do not stop him inspecting it, “Besides. You’d lose and I’d have to fuck you quiet first, knowing how much you’d cry if you ended up face in the dirt, your ass cheeks spanked as red as your wound. However, I will not reward you with such attention right now…” Zarcar’s words are tight and restrained. He’s holding his passion in, now that Lixar is near.
“Oh, relax. I will find help elsewhere for my tiny wound. I enjoy my freedom, if you do not want to join me… and listen to my commands – then you are free to leave back to your Immortal King of Hellfire’s camp. But know, if you do leave, I will find another Venatores to replace you… all… of you,” I whisper, short on every word.
Lixar holds his breath and Zarcar catches his cousin’s gaze past my head.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lixar drawls to Zar.
Zarcar’s hand snakes out to cover my eyes, while Lixar also raises a hand to slap over his cousins.
“…somnum infernum daemonium…” sleep hell demon. Both Mystifyers hiss the curse.
I smile, knowing it won’t affect me.
At least… I think it won’t! I’m too powerful now, I had been honing my powers for four weeks!
“…somnium libidine nobis…” dream of lust for us. Lix adds to it.
They both do.
Zarcar, next, “…somnium paenitet... turpe femina… oportet veniam petimus…” dream of regret, shame on you woman, you must beg for forgiveness.
And repeated by both to seal it, “…somnum infernum daemonium…” sleep hell demon.
Whatever magic they use together, I cannot counter. Yet.
So, I fall deep into a dream.
I dream of their fire. Their demonic hearts, beat with mine; telling me their worries.
Anger.
Passion.
Death.
Destruction.
Heat.
Sorrow.
Anguish.
It is received from both. And I know without a doubt before I wake, that I am disapproved of, that my actions are abhorred – by my very own, supposedly loyal, Venatores.
Chapter 36
I wake up to a bucket of water being thrown over my sleeping and vertical, naked body. I gasp awake in the centre of a red velvet tent, the candles lighting everything around me with a demonic glow.
I look up to see chains wrapp
ed around my wrists, holding my feet inches from the ground and attached to a hook at the top of the tent’s main support pillar.
Before me, I see Andoll dressed in soldier’s garb, too big for her small bones. She drops the bucket, breathing heavily. She glares up into my soul and spits at my feet.
I hiss between my teeth; the disrespect from my own Venatores was unfathomable.
“You left me with the oh so kindred males of our kind… my patience is all but gone,” her snarl suddenly stops and a kind voice pipes through, “But I am happy now that you have returned, Draconess!” Andoll jumps forward and wraps her arms around my wet neck, squeezing me tight. We both hang from the air for a moment while she chooses to also hiss in my ear, “Do not leave me with them again!”
“Andoll, what are you doing with that bucket–?” Lixar lifts up the tent to see what’s going on, “…don’t talk to the prisoner now… what did I say, odd creature of the night?” Lixar pulls in a hand maiden who’s cowering behind him submissively while smiling in the shadows.
Lixar avoids making eye contact with me. He’s angry too, then. And clearly trying to make me jealous of a young maiden on his arm.
Andoll pounces off from me, turning in slow motion. Andoll sees Lixar raising a mocking brow at her and the shy hand maiden smirking when she witnesses Andoll’s instant glare.
“Cursed bitch. I feast on the smiles of virgin demon wenches!” Andoll snarls, bowing down to the dirt, she touches her forehead to the soil… summersaults forward… and black webs of magic shoot out all around us.
My vision is blocked by the horse sized Split Soul Dragons that Andoll harbours in her soul, harnessing them now. Lixar growls uselessly as Andoll swoops out of the tent. She uses her Split Soul Dragons to sweep away the girl from Lix. The hand maiden is screaming in between the jaws of both ravenous heads.
Lixar remains standing, alone, his hand empty of the maiden.
He pouts and whines as if to the shadows behind me, “That was my dinner!” he turns to me and finally looks me over, acknowledging my existence, “A shame I can’t eat up my own Queen for supper… oh, well…” Lixar turns to leave, leaving me hanging, literally.
“Release me at once, Mystifyer!” I call out.
Lixar keeps walking, clearly drunk with the way he wobbles.
I jerk at the chains and I end up swinging slowly around.
Now I see the other end of the tent. A makeshift bed with red covers. And someone else accompanies me.
A half-naked Warlord sprawled across his bed as he plucks black feathers from two dead swans sitting on his lap.
“Hey!” I hiss and he glances up at me, only to focus back on the swans he’s picking feathers from, “What are those innocent birds doing on your bed? Why do I hang chained? ”
“There is a time for being a demon hunter… and a time for being the infamous sorcerer that I am known to be…” Zarcar murmurs to himself, “Did you dream well?”
“I do not remember my dreams after that bucket of water,” I swing before the bastard, while he patiently picks at those feathers, “We had fun in the forest, now let me go. An imprisoned Draconess who has no will to submit is useless, as you well know. Rey will only want to kill me for being rebellious. Unless… of course… now you don’t care… since you never loved me in the first place…”
“I never said I loved you,” Zarcar is cold, but then he adds, “I suspected you overheard our conversation, now a moon past,” Zarcar throws the carcasses aside and leans forward to bring up a copper bowl. He lays each feather inside, one by one. He eventually looks up to see my curious eyes, wishing for him to continue, “If you believed the derogatory way Lixar and I spoke of you. You deserve to be hanging here.”
“As a Moon Priestess, I know truth when I hear it and what you said was truth –”
“And I know how to make a lie sound like absolute reality as I’ve lived decades longer than you, foolish witch,” Zarcar shakes his head, murmuring over the pot, “Burn to Ash of Eden.”
The pot alights with fire, lighting Zarcar’s locks of brown hair that hang perfectly, framing his handsome jaw, and his black eyes flicker with the flame.
“Oh, so now Torrent taught you a special trick only a few on this realm know how to master? Ash of Eden?” I ask, ignoring his explanation about lying to Rey and Torrent when it hit all the right nerves.
I wanted to believe him.
But I would be a fool to trust Zarcar, as I fell for him, back when we met in the Moon Tower. A young, foolish girl – I had been. I had been smitten by his handsome looks, his firm way, even if he was a dangerous enemy at the beginning; spanking me in public. Yet for the most part I had been sweet, subservient, open to his lust and only sometimes naughty, simply to tempt him.
Yet here I was now, in chains, by this man I had chosen as a mate.
“Not exactly the real Ash of Eden, this hold spell is only temporary, but still powerful,” Zarcar stands off his bed, stands before me and picks up a handful of ash, “The black swans were shapeshifting demons. Wicked fae. To kill them in another form catches more magic in their flesh. The feathers especially; mimicking the wings of Lucifer, their Master. This hold spell will calm you down, until you learn to listen once more,” I close my eyes as Zarcar throws the oppressive ash into my face. It enters my nose and my mouth as I gasp it in.
I cough harshly, my voice going rough… rasp…. and eventually…
… I’m mute.
“Speak?” Zarcar raises his hands and uses his thumbs to rub the ash off my eyes. He blows any excess off for me, rather gently. I open my mouth and no sound comes out.
Horse shit!
My Warlord stands back as my eyes, now clear, blink rapidly. My nostrils flare and my legs kick out furiously.
“Ah, ah,” Zarcar scolds me, smirking a bit as he grabs one ankle and then the other while I’m flailing, “…you can’t talk, use magic, or shift, Chyronex…” he spreads my legs, looking between them boldly, “But you can fuck.”
My captor looks up and catches my gaze, he jerks me forward without mercy and the chains creak as he pulls me right onto his hips. One spell under his breath unbuttons his breeches.
I try to growl and even that is impossible.
Zarcar has easily freed his hardened and lengthy cock so that it lies against me, warming my exposed pussy. Grasping my hips tightly with nails he should also cut, he moves his body in, right against my front, now flush with mine. As Zar looks down into my enraged face, the remainder of the hold spell soaks into my body through my skin, and into my soul, “Are you ready to pay the price for running from your position in the army… a prisoner of war… a trophy… and my slave... did you really think that I’d let you off that easy, sweetheart?” Zar asks politely, each word at the end is a promise. His demonic need to punish me was imminent.
I can’t reply, but I raise an eyebrow. As my Warlord leans his mouth closer to mine, I reach out and grasp his bottom lip with my teeth. I threaten him with a soft bite and he promptly forces his cock into my pussy in response.
A challenge.
Mute?
Powerless?
It didn’t mean I’d submit any faster.
Quite the opposite.
If I was in for punishment and pain? So was he. I rip down into his lip as Zarcar stretches me, pulling back and spitting his saliva mixed with blood, down onto his shaft.
He thrusts out and back into me, keeping a cool expression.
“You’ll cry by the time I’m done with you, darling,” Zarcar leans into lick my neck before he bites my shoulder, thrusting roughly into me.
My hips move and my body shakes with warmth as we fuck.
I wanted it. Even though I wanted to fight and fuck at the same time.
I squeeze down on him and he thrusts faster, the chains clinking and creaking from above.
I lean my head down and I use my mouth to pick up his hair, wrenching my head back and pulling out some of his strands. Zarcar snarls as he leans up,
his nose now against my cheek as he glares into my eyes.
It was as if he was his Mystifying form.
Snarling, spitting rage.
I smile into his lips. I could take this. I wouldn’t break.
Zarcar stops thrusting into me, not liking that smirk of mine.
“Now you’re in trouble, coy witch,” my Warlord whispers the menacing fact, dropping to his knees, he grabs my thighs, manoeuvres them apart… and then shoves his head between my legs. Zar’s tongue is already tasting all of me, sucking on me and massaging everything.