by Dante King
Those icy blue eyes bored into mine as she marched up to Elenari and me. For a moment, I thought she might try and steamroll over me, but she pulled up short and ran her gaze over me. She was so close that her sizable jugs—at least D-cups, if I was any judge—were a whisker away from brushing my own chest.
“Who,” she said, aiming the the blunt words at the elf at my side, but keeping her eyes locked on mine, “the fuck is this, Elenari?”
The crass language only made the imposing woman more attractive. What was more, she looked as if she was spoiling for a fight. I couldn’t help but find that a turn-on.
“This is Michael Gilmore,” Elenari said. “Michael, this is Saya, Bearer of Scopula the Gargoyle Dragon.”
I couldn’t help but notice that Elenari hadn’t used my title of “Bearer of Noctis, the Onyx Dragon.” Was she wanting to tease out the surprise a little more? Well, I had my own ideas of how to make a fitting introduction to all these beautiful dragonmancer women.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t really give a shit what his name is,” Saya said brusquely. “What I meant was, what the hell is he doing here? You know the Crystal Spire is off limits to men. If you want to fornicate, then you’ll be so good as to do it on the lower levels where such things are permitted. The Spire is the dragonmancer sanctuary.”
Elenari began to stutter a reply, but Saya held up a commanding hand and cut her off.
“I get it,” the beautiful blonde said, “you’re new here. You might not remember all the little rules and regs that aspiring dragonmancers need to adhere to. Be that as it may, you need to turn that tight little ass of yours around and get this fucking guy out of here.”
Pale and composed as she was, Elenari still managed one hell of a blush at this reprimand. She started to stammer a reply, but I decided to save her the trouble. The elf warrior had been nothing but good to me since she had picked me up in that alleyway, and I wanted to help her out of this jam. Besides, maybe when Saya saw that I wasn’t just a pretty face, she’d stop riding Elenari’s ass.
So, to break the ice in a way that I thought the beautiful, muscular blonde would understand, I reached into the pocket of my jeans, clutched the warm crystal, and summoned my dragon.
The Onyx Dragon popped into being with a suddenness that clearly took Saya aback.
The blonde woman took two steps backward and automatically adopted a hand-to-hand combat stance, which spoke to me of many, many hours spent training. However, she had only just settled into this automatic body position when her eyes caught up with her brain and she realized what she was seeing. Her arms dropped out of the loose fighting pose, and her mouth opened in shock.
A rustling and moving all around us alerted me to the fact that the women all over this designated relaxing zone were sitting up or turning to stare in my direction. There was quite a satisfying collection of exclamations and gasps.
“By the gods… Was that… Is that… Was that him?” she asked Elenari, jerking a thumb at me, and then pointing at Noctis. For his part, the dragon gazed imperiously around at the other dragons, all of whom were staring fixedly at the sable beast.
“Yeah, that was me,” I said, in a matter-of-fact voice that was loud enough to carry to every ear in the place. “Like Elenari said, the name’s Michael Gilmore. I’m the Bearer of Noctis, the Onyx Dragon. From what she has told me, I seem to be the only dragonmancer in these parts adopting the ball, dick, ball formation. Is that right?”
No one answered, but the looks of mute astonishment that I was getting from every female suggested that this was the case. There were a lot of open mouths, and more than a few slightly lascivious looks being fired my way. I felt like the new hot kid at school, albeit a school stuffed to the rafters with topshelf hotties.
“This,” I said, pointing at my dragon, “is Noctis. He’s got a bit of a resting bitch face, but trust me, he’s just as pleased to see you all as I am.”
This got a couple of laughs, and I felt the ice begin to thaw more rapidly.
Saya took a step toward me. She opened her mouth as if she was about to ask me something.
There was a blinding flash of light—and I mean, properly blinding—and my vision turned into one giant sunspot.
I had about a half-second to wonder what the fuck had just happened, if I’d been suckerpunched to the back of the head, when I blinked rapidly to clear my eyes.
My mouth fell at what confronted me when my vision cleared.
Chapter Seven
When I could see again, I became aware that we had been joined by two newcomers. These two women stood out from the rest of the surrounding females in that they were actually clothed. Not just clothed either, but armored.
I had thought that Elenari was dressed for business, what with her breastplate that plunged invitingly at the neckline, but she was nothing compared to these two fresh faces. Each woman wore the sort of armor that looked like it’d stop a fifty-caliber sniper round, let alone a sword blade. It was burnished to a mirror sheen. So shiny and clean was their armor that it reflected the surrounding garden and the women in it. As the armored women moved, streaks of liquid green and pink seemed to run across it. The breast plates were clearly tailored to suit the individual needs of either warrior and, if they were anything to go by, both soldiers were blessed with killer racks.
I had watched a few YouTube clips that decried the use of so-called “boob armor” on women in fantasy settings, but what such clips failed to mention was the hidden purpose of this armor: distraction. Not to mention that, in this world, women who could punch stone boulders to smithereens, cast powerful spells, and command dragons really didn’t need all that much in the way of traditional bodily protection.
Something that I had never seen before—not that I had too much experience of people knocking about in full plate-armor—were segmented armored hoods attached to the back of the women’s suits of armor. These hoods appeared as if they rolled up to protect the backs of their necks and heads.
Somehow, as practical and efficient as it looked, the armor also managed to be sexy too. The fine chainmail that started from around the navel, which must have been a design feature for enhanced mobility in battle, clung to the sculpted asses of the two newcomers like lycra. One woman had an enormous bastard sword in a scabbard that she wore across her back. The other had a serious-looking warhammer hanging from her belt.
Both these newcomers were sitting atop dragons, which had taken forms about twice the size of Noctis. One of the beasts was a shimmering, pale gold with a long, curved nose horn. The other was a bright silver with wings that were completely transparent folded to its sides.
Apart from being physically dazzling, the dragons also exuded a magical power that I could feel—newbie as I was to this whole magical gig. It brushed and buffeted my skin and tingled all the way down to my bones, giving me the bizarre and unique sensation of my entire skeleton having been dipped in frost.
The two impressively armored women dismounted from their steeds and slid to the ground. I noticed that they both sported the kinds of asses that’d make even the Pope question his vocation. Whatever it was that people learned at this academy, it sure as hell kept their asses in tip-top condition.
It was then that I noticed the complete silence which had fallen over this area of the upper courtyard. Not a soul spoke or moved. It was clear that, whoever these two women were, they were held in high esteem by those present. A hushed awe had fallen upon the group of women.
The warrior who had dismounted from the back of the golden dragon gave her mount a pat and then held up a hand. On one of her fingers was a ring with a large amber stone set into it. In a twinkling, the dragon disappeared, presumably summoned back to the amber crystal.
I should do something similar with my own crystal, I thought. Get it attached to a chain or something so that I can wear it. I don’t want to lose it or have it stolen.
The gleaming, sleek soldier turned to look at me, while behind her, her compatriot van
ished her silver dragon into a piece of what might have been moonstone that was set into the pin that held her dreads in place. She and the other female were similar enough that they might have been twins. They both looked the same—although one had short hair and the other long—and both moved in the same way.
These two aren’t your shouty, loud, posturing tough guys, I thought. They’re the other kind. The more dangerous kind.
I had been given some pretty searching looks in my time—cops could scrutinize you like no one’s business—but never had I been so obviously appraised than at that moment. The woman with the gold dragon had blood-red eyes which weighed me up, as if I was a block of meat on the butcher’s scales. She had white dreadlocks pinned up at the back of her head, exposing her pointed ears. Her skin was the same sort of milky white as Elenari’s. Here, without doubt, was yet another example of some elvish race—though which subrace exactly, I couldn’t say—that I had previously thought to be confined to fiction, along with dragons, goblins, dwarves, and orcs.
The two women approached me, walking with the confident strut of people who knew how to handle themselves. It was the casual saunter of people who knew, almost without a doubt, that they were the hardest motherfuckers in the room.
“So,” said the woman rocking the dreadlocks.
I didn’t reply. I figured that this was yet another test of sorts.
The woman stepped up closer to me and inhaled deeply. Then she began minutely examining me, running her eyes down from the top of my head all the way down my body. There was something predatory in her eyes, and it was clear by her stance that she was more than able to spring into fighting action without a moment’s hesitation.
My eyes flicked over the woman’s shoulder as she continued to scrutinize me like a particularly interesting specimen under a microscope. Behind her, her short-haired companion ran a practiced hand over Noctis’s satiny black flanks. She clearly had a big old set of cojones on her, because, as I watched her, she reached up and prised Noctis’ jaws open so that she could take a look at the dragon’s teeth.
I winced. That’d be just my luck; in the middle of this rather tense inspection by these couple of big cheeses my dragon would bite the inspector’s fucking head off her shoulders. I needn’t have worried though. Noctis stood there and allowed the woman to take a good look at his teeth, though he rumbled a growl deep in his chest as she did it.
Once she was done inspecting Noctis, the short haired woman turned on her booted heel and strode over to me. She, too, had blood-red eyes like her dreadlocked companion. Without so much as a how d’you do, she moved her colleague aside with a touch on the shoulder, then she reached down and grabbed me squarely by the package.
You show me a man that doesn’t tense up when he’s grabbed unexpectedly by the unmentionables by a total stranger, especially one with blood-red eyes and a don’t-fuck-with-me attitude, and I’ll show you a eunuch.
I took in a sharp little breath through my nose and said in a voice that was only a touch strained, “Yeah, those are attached.”
The woman gave me a grin. She had the same perfect, white teeth that Elenari had, and her breath smelled like oranges and lemons.
“So, you are a male,” she purred. She gave me a very soft, very pleasant squeeze, and held her hand there just long enough to feel me start to harden up.
“Yep, that’s all me, sweetheart,” I said.
Her grin widened. Then she released my sausage and beans, poked a few times at my chest and abs, and grabbed my biceps. “And what a male you are,” she said.
“The seer was right, then?” the dreadlocked elf said.
“She was,” Elenari blurted out from off to one side of me.
The short-haired elf’s head snapped around, and her lip curled in a snarl.
Elenari cleared her throat and stood up a little straighter. “Yes, the seer was right, Sergeant Milena,” she said more formally.
“Hm,” the short-haired Milena said, “isn’t that interesting, Lieutenant Kaleen?”
“That’s right,” Lieutenant Kaleen agreed. “The Overseer and the rest of the Martial Council will be very interested in the arrival of this male.” Then she turned her blood-red eyes upon Elenari. “The Overseer and the Martial Council ordered Sergeant Milena and me to converse with the seer. We verified that there was some credence to the rumor that there was a male Earthling who could be bonded to a dragon. The Council then instructed us to retrieve this man from the world called Earth—before hearing that you, a new recruit at the Drako Academy, had taken it upon yourself to go in search of him.”
There was a very heavy, very pregnant pause there. So pregnant that, had it been human, it would have been rummaging around the house at 3am looking for ice-cream to go with its pulled pork.
Sergeant Milena beckoned Elenari over. Elenari swallowed and went to stand in front of the armor-plated woman. I braced myself for what I believed, in military parlance, was known as a beasting. I felt sorry for Elenari, but didn’t think it would be wise to intervene on, what could very well be, my first day at school.
The sergeant’s lips drew back in a sarcastic smile. “You left without your squad, Elenari,” the short-haired elf said in a pleasant voice. “That was a stupid, stupid thing to do. Are you stupid, Elenari?”
There’s a loaded question just waiting to go off in your face, I thought.
Elenari opened her mouth to reply but, before she could utter so much as a syllable, Lieutenant Kaleen went off, unexpectedly.
“Calling you stupid would be an insult to all the fools in this world, Elenari!” she roared. “You’re a fucking oxygen thief, Elenari! Aren’t you, Elenari?”
“Yes,” Elenari tried to say, but she didn’t get past the Y before Lieutenant Kaleen continued with her tongue lashing.
“Shut the fuck up, Elenari!” the lieutenant bellowed, leaning forward and spraying Elenari liberally with spit as she screamed at her. “Gods give me strength, if someone wanted to kill themselves all they’d need to do was climb your ego, jump off, and aim at your intelligence!”
“You know what oxygen thieves like you get to do all day tomorrow, don’t you, Elenari?” Lieutenant Kaleen continued, warming to her theme. “You get to polish, wax, and buff every single shield in the armory, and once you’ve done that—guess what?—you get to do it again! Aren’t you lucky?”
Elenari opened her mouth to respond.
“Go on, shock me and say something intelligent, Elenari!” Lieutenant Kaleen shouted. “Aren’t you lucky?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Elenari said, looking at that special spot just over the top of the other woman’s head.
I had made the conscious decision to stay out of this little friendly exchange when it had started. Now, however, I found I couldn’t. I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave Elenari to get a tongue-lashing from her superior officer. If worse came to worst, I could always adopt that age-old technique used by cornered criminals when confronted by the authorities: beg ignorance to everything that was going on.
“Lieutenant Kaleen,” I said, “allow me just to say one thing. Right now, if it had not been for Elenari, I would probably be sitting in custody, under the watchful eye of some of the least understanding and most impatient guardians of Earth law imaginable,” I said.
I neglected to mention that I probably wouldn’t have been in the fix if the elf had not rather hastily disemboweled the thief I’d been chasing.
“You’re saying you would have been lost to us forever were it not for her?” Lieutenant Kaleen asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Without a doubt. Lost forever.”
Sergeant Milena gave me a shrewd look. “So, despite her breaking one of our only rules for new recruits, you are telling Lieutenant Kaleen and myself that Elenari was basically solely responsible for getting you here, for helping to fulfill the old witch’s prophecy, and for delivering the first male dragonmancer in millennia into our care.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” I said.
“Helpful,” Lieutenant Kaleen said.
“Selfless,” Sergeant Milena agreed.
“In that case, you can join Elenari on sword polishing duty tomorrow,” Lieutenant Kaleen said in a dangerously sweet tone that brooked no argument.
“Sounds like a hell of a time to me, Lieutenant Ka…”
“Lieutenant Kaleen!” the lieutenant said, her red eyes narrowing dangerously.
“That’s the one,” I said. “I look forward to shining my first shield, Lieutenant. Variety is the spice of life.”
“We’ll see how enthusiastic you are when you’re shining shield number one-hundred and eighty,” Sergeant Milena said.
“Now, what was I saying? That’s right, I was saying how fucking lucky you are, Elenari,” Lieutenant Kaleen said. “Now, kindly get the fuck out of my sight before I decide to get really fucking furious. And the next time you decide to get all fucking clever and freestyle, just remember to take your bloody squad with you!”
Elenari gave me one last fleeting look and then made a dash for freedom. She didn’t run exactly, but there was a definite hurry in her step.
“Now, the rest of you,” Sergeant Milena said, addressing the rest of the young women present, “resume whatever it was you were doing, while we welcome our newest recruit.”
Lieutenant Kaleen put a surprisingly gentle hand on my shoulder and pulled me a little further away from where the other dragonmancers sunbathed and gossiped. Many were grinning and whispering to each other. It was obvious to me what they were chatting about—everyone loves a good roasting, so long as they’re not the one on the receiving end of it.
“Now that we have dispensed with the niceties regarding Elenari,” Lieutenant Kaleen said, “allow Sergeant Milena and me to welcome you to the Drako Academy.” She offered her hand, and I took it. For a woman who clearly commanded a great deal of respect from the students and ruled with the old iron hand inside the velvet glove, she had the softest hands. It seemed that even badass women knew how to look after their hands.