It hissed out of the tree canopy and whistled in the air before disappearing against the grey sky. She waited. One second, two, three. Then a tremendous thing happened. The dragon flinched in the air. She heard it cry out and a jet of fire bloomed out of its mouth. It was a hit.
Jenisia’s jaw dropped. She hit it, she had actually hit it.
The dragon fell spectacularly. It was spinning in the air, one wing beating madly, the other whipping back and forth with the wind and gravity. To Jenisia it sounded like a storm, roaring and thundering as it fell toward the ground.
As Jenisia started to run, she pulled another arrow free and held it nocked in her bowstring, ready to fire again. The dragon was going down faster than she could run; she estimated it was going to hit several hundred yards in front of her. She sprinted through the valley, not bothering to conceal herself in the trees. Victory was at hand and she could taste blood in the air. She heard a crash as the dragon hit the tree canopy and then… nothing.
Jenisia had expected a loud thud, a tremble in the ground, or something to happen when the huge beast struck the ground. Maybe it had somehow righted itself? No, impossible. The dragon had been in a dead spin, dropping to the earth at a terminal velocity. That thing was on the ground, and she would find it. But then what? Her grip tightened on the bow. Then I will kill it… after it tells me where the purple dragon is. She felt a lust rise up in her blood, a hunger for revenge long kept from her.
Trees and brambles whipped around her, and several times Jenisia nearly fell on the uneven ground. Here, nearer to the black ridge, the ground became more rocky, the high plains making their slow transition to craggy mountains. She leapt over a thin crevasse, startled and a little surprised to see the black gash in the ground. They certainly didn’t have these in her valley. She knew she should be watching her footing above all else, but she was too excited, and crashed pell-mell through the valley in search of her fallen quarry. She almost missed it.
Jenisia was looking for a large, white dragon, but what she found was a group of trees that were crushed to half of their natural size, the trunks splintered and bare, like jagged white teeth pointing up into the sky. But no dragon. Jenisia stalked into the copse of abused trees cautiously. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest, and she forced her breathing to slow. It wasn’t over, and a wrong move now could get her killed. She came to the spot where the beast fell, but what she saw on the ground was… confusing. Baffling was more like it. There was blood splattered over the frosty earth; it was dark red against the browning undergrowth. She lowered her drawn bow. What lay before her was not a dragon, but a girl, a woman rather, judging by the size of her breasts and the thickness of the golden patch of pubic hair.
Jenisia stared down at the naked woman in confusion. She looked up to the trees. This was definitely where the dragon had come down. She knelt next to the woman, who wasn’t moving, and set her bow on the ground. Jenisia grabbed the woman’s shoulder and pulled her over, freeing the one arm that was pinned beneath her. Jenisia grimaced, then pulled the arm out from behind the woman before setting her back down. One arm had a deep, bleeding wound, just below her elbow. There were scrapes all over her pale body, and as Jenisia watched, she thought she saw her chest rise with life. She placed a palm flat on the woman’s breast, over her heart. She felt it beating there, softly, quietly. Jenisia shook her head in wonder.
Jenisia turned her attention to the injured arm. It was bleeding badly so she would have to do something about that if the woman was going to survive. Sighing, she pulled a length of cloth from her satchel. She normally used it for tying up game meat. The strap was stiff with old blood from the many prongers she’d slain. It would have to do. Jenisia prodded the flesh near the wound, making sure there was no other debris. She wiped at the blood with the cloth and it softened quickly. Something about this wound. It looked too… familiar. Using her own woolen shirt cuff, she sopped blood away from the arm and finally saw the wound for what it was. Jenisia gasped and fell back onto her ass. The wound was in the shape of a bloody Y. There was only one thing that made a wound like that, and she’d just fired it into the air at the dragon.
“Gods, what are you?” she whispered to the thin woman who breathed shallowly on the ground beside her.
Jenisia rose up over the woman and stared down at her closely. She was a stunning creature with pale smooth skin and light blonde hair that fell beyond her shoulders and splayed out around her head. She looked… pure. Jenisia breathed heavily, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. She had shot the dragon, not a woman, a dragon. Her breaths began to feel more constricted as she struggled to grapple with the situation. She had shot the dragon.
There was blood on the ground, broken trees where the beast came down. And the wound on her arm. The most damning of all the evidence, of course. The three-bladed arrows made a distinct entry wound through flesh, designed to create a large hole and bleed their victims quickly. So her arrow had pierced this woman’s arm, that much was fact. She had fired it at the dragon, brought the beast down, and now found a naked woman where the dragon fell, with the wound from her arrow through her arm. So… there was only one conclusion, but her mind fought against it. This woman, somehow, is the dragon.
“Are you a dragon?” she whispered down to the woman. Her own dark hair fell in front of her face. The woman smelled like blood and fear, a tangy, sweaty scent. Well, if she was what Jenisia thought, then she had better be afraid. Jenisia leaned down close to the woman’s face, examining the lines of her eyes, the curve of her nose. Then the woman’s eyes flew open. Jenisia startled and fell back again. The woman on the ground gasped, then cried out. Jenisia was flat on her ass, heart thumping, breaths coming hard. She slowly regained her feet. The woman’s eyes were wide and flitting back and forth like a frightened animal. She tried to sit up, her face contorting with pain. But Jenisia didn’t let her. In a fluid motion, she pulled the short sword from its sheath and held it against her throat, pinning her to the ground.
The woman’s eyes widened further in fear, and Jenisia saw confusion in her crystalline green irises.
“Speak,” Jenisia demanded, leaning into the blade.
“What - what happened to me?”
“I shot you out of the sky.”
The woman’s eyes looked from her to the woods around them.
“What are you?” Jenisia demanded.
“I - I am just me,” she said. Her lips trembled with fear and cold, but Jenisia saw something else in them. They were beautiful, yes, but she was not some foolish man to be taken in by a pretty face. Because in those confused, beautiful eyes she saw exactly what she expected. She saw deceit.
“What are you?” she asked again. The woman said nothing, just closed her eyes and breathed.
“You are dying,” Jenisia said.
The woman opened her eyes slowly. Jenisia backed up so she could look at her arm. The woman took in the wound, saw her own blood leaking out into the ground, then looked back to Jenisia.
“Will you let me die?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” Jenisia said, though she was already feeling some softening around the edges of her heart. “How is it that you are woman and beast at once?”
She shook her head. “We are all man and beast at once, surely you know that,” the woman said, holding Jenisia in her stare. “I can see it in your eyes; you are more beast than I.”
“Stop talking to me in riddles, woman, answer my question! What are you?” Jenisia was becoming heated with anger at this deceit.
The pale woman sat up slowly and Jenisia let her. She tried to raise her arm and grimaced. “You shot me,” she said, her voice trailing into nowhere. “I was here, in the woods and you shot me.”
Jenisia shook her head. “No, you were flying. You were a DRAGON!”
The blonde shook her head. “I don’t understand that. Won’t you help me please? I don’t want to die.”
“YOU WERE FLYING!” Jenisia repeated. The woman looked up at
her with earnest, and Jenisia faltered a little. She felt little fingers of doubt creep into her.
“Please,” the woman repeated, holding Jenisia in her stare. “I am afraid. Don’t let me die here.”
Jenisia was paralyzed for a moment with a potent mixture of adrenaline, confusion, and anger. Then she raised her blade and brought it down hard like a spear towards the woman’s face. She lunged into the strike, putting all of her force behind the steel. The woman didn’t flinch, only watched as Jenisia drove the sword into the ground a hair’s width from her white neck. Jenisia leaned on the fine steel, holding herself over the woman’s body. She breathed down into her face, staring into the clear green eyes. You are a deceiver, she said to the woman in her mind, but I still have use for you. The woman waited, not moving or speaking. Finally, Jenisia stood, leaving the sword sticking straight out of the earth. She moved over and knelt by the woman’s arm and picked up the strip of binding cloth.
“You may still die,” she told the woman as she threaded the strap beneath her arm and tied it over the wound. The woman gasped and shuddered when Jenisia applied pressure to the deep wound. “What is your name?” Jenisia asked. “Surely even your kind have names.”
Jenisia squatted and hauled the woman to her feet with one arm beneath her torso. She was light, easy for Jenisia to lift.
“I am Skye,” she said, then quickly reached back down, making a grab for Jenisia’s sword with both hands.
Jenisia was expecting this though, and with a lightning quick move, she grabbed the back of Skye’s hair with one hand and pulled back sharply, jerking her into the air with her back against Jenisia’s chest. At the same time she withdrew a knife from her belt and held it to the woman’s throat.
“I - I’m just scared of you,” Skye said, her voice quaking.
“I’m sure you are,” Jenisia said, “and I’m being nice right now.”
Chapter Five
Skye was helpless and humiliated. The dark-haired human bitch marched her through the forest. Her feet were on fire from the long contact with the frigid earth and her body trembled and shook with cold. The scent of her own blood flooded her sensitive sinuses. Even with the crude bandage tied around her arm, she was losing the precious liquid quickly. This was bad, very bad. She was so weak. Her body felt broken all over, and though she could move and walk and breathe, it felt like death had visited her already. She looked up to the sky and saw nothing but gray clouds. How long until she was missed? It couldn’t be long, but would they even know where to look for her? The royal spotters could only see so far in this cloud cover, and as per usual, Skye had done her best to avoid observation, preferring the freedom of independent flight over the claustrophobic protection of her handlers.
“Keep moving,” the woman said from behind her, and pushed Skye forward with a gloved hand. Skye growled involuntarily, deep in her throat, but kept moving. She still couldn’t believe she had been brought down by one of these creatures. She shook her head as she walked. She was ashamed. This things were food, not foe, how had she been ensnared so easily?
They walked out of the cover of trees, through an open stretch of rocky, high-plains grass. Such arrogance, Skye thought, this creature, walking me through the open like this. The girl must have no idea what easy prey humans were for Skye’s kind. She felt inside of her, feeling for the strength she needed. This would be the perfect time as they were in the open now. She could will the change and burn this filthy girl into nothing, then track her scent back to where she came from. She would kill them all, burn their babies and devour the adults. It would be a swift and delicious vengeance.
Skye willed the fire to rise up within her. She felt a bubbling, a shifting of things, a deep rumble. She concentrated hard, bringing the beast up, up, until… nothing. The fire reached her chest and then fizzled out. She was too weak, and she had lost too much blood. Skye hung her head and several tears leaked out of her eyes. Dammit. She hurt so much. Another shove in her back and Skye whipped around to face the human bitch. The human was smirking at her, actually smirking! The huntress showed no fear, in fact she was taunting her, as if she somehow knew that Skye was too weak to overpower anyone. Skye glanced down at her still leaking arm, then turned and continued her dirge through the countryside.
“I will kill you, you know,” she whispered.
There was only a faint reply, carried to her on the wind.
“Perhaps.”
Onward they walked, eventually climbing the next ridge. Skye had never been this far before. It was very cold here, and her naked skin felt like it was on fire. Her feet and hands began to grow numb as her body pulled in what heat remained to protect her core. She looked down at her chest. Her light colored nipples were dark red now, and the flesh of her severely scratched breasts was wind burned and scaly. She’d never experienced this before, this bitterness. It was a new and terrible thing, a cold fire that consumed her body.
Skye had grown up where the earth was rich and black and the air was warm. Her clan spread out over a hundred miles of fertile land that raced along the great sea. They had always been there, where the air was thick with a humidity that reached out over the lowlands before rising against the mountains to form clouds.
She stepped on a sharp rock and winced. She wasn’t totally numb, it seemed, but she would be if she remained in this environment much longer. Skye wondered if she could survive like this, or if the fire would die completely within her. She had been exposed before, naked, that is, on the tall black plateau that stood at the gateway to the mountains. It was where her ceremony took place, where all of the ceremonies took place. On that night she had been born naked in front of the elders of the clan. She had been shy and nervous; no one but her mother had ever seen those parts of her before. Then the change happened, her fiery birth, and any shame within her was boiled away and she was left only with power, that and an unrelenting desire for freedom.
She wanted to soar through the skies always. She wanted to travel, outside of their country, maybe across the great sea where the huge dragons of the far west resided in their high palaces. It was said that those dragons stayed in their long forms, because the beasts of the land were so large and so fierce that they would trample and kill them in their weaker human forms. Skye had always thought that sounded marvelous. Not being trampled and killed, of course, but fighting to survive, adventuring through a new land where the prey wasn’t caught with lines out of the sea or picked off as easily as the fat sows that dotted their countryside.
Her clan had become complacent, lazy, and slow. They raised livestock for slaughter and ate at tables instead of on cliff sides. It was all quite boring. Even the Lexian army was second rate, skirmishing only amongst themselves while other clans openly fought for new territories. She wanted to change, she wanted to roam, before she was tied into a union that would sequester her to some shiny bull’s home forever. She could picture it, her tending a house, raising children that only wanted freedom, while her mate hunted and fought and fucked whatever he wanted. Perhaps she should have snuck away to the north, up far along the coast where the Bahrs were still training their armies to fight.
“Watch yourself,” the woman said from behind her. Skye looked down too late and stumbled into a shallow ravine filled with rocks and brush. When had they started going down again? She fell over, bumping and scraping along thorny underbrush until her body came to a humiliated stop whereby she crumpled over herself. The cloying scent of rotten leaves and dirt filled her nose, and she didn’t think she had the strength to pull herself up again.
“I can barely move,” she said, looking back to see the woman already close behind her.
“We’re almost there,” she replied flatly.
“Where are we going? Your home? Are you bringing me to your family?”
The woman paused in mid step. Skye saw a shiver run through her, and her face did a strange twitchy thing, then she brushed it away.
“No, I am taking you to trial.”
Chapter Six
Darion rolled off the woman and onto his back. He was breathing heavily, his thickly muscled chest heaving up and down rapidly. He closed his eyes with a satisfied smile. The woman nuzzled her face up to him, on top of his chest. With one hand she stroked his body, letting her fingers trace over his chest, then down his abdominals which were tight and ridged. Her hand swooped down further, curling into his hair before gently massaging between his legs. Though he had been spent, he was still swollen with the aftermath of Naida’s delights. The touch tickled him, especially when she slipped her fingers over its head.
“I feel like I’m part royalty now,” she purred.
Darion chuckled. “Well, you do have a little royalty in you.”
“Uh-huh, the best part.” Naida’s tongue darted out and licked his pectoral muscle, teasing little circular strokes over the still sensitive flesh before skimming up and over his tight nipple. She sucked gently on the little pink nub, causing his breath to hitch in his chest as a spark of pleasure raced through him. Darion opened his eyes to see her staring at him, with one pink nipple trapped between her teeth. She bit down playfully and he grinned at her, then pushed her hair away from her face. She had full, round cheeks and giant almond-shaped eyes that were the color of honey. She flicked her tongue out at him and with one hand squeezed between his legs. He felt a bolt of excitement flicker down below. She raised her eyebrows.
“It seems my prince may have a little more of his royal gift left tonight,” she said, and started her erotic massage once more. She dipped her head down, letting her brown hair fall over her face and sucked his nipple into her mouth while her other hand stroked up and down far below. He felt heat rising in the area again and he smiled. This was what being a prince was all about. The room was filled with the sweet aroma of sex and candle wax. He watched the beautiful, buxom woman slither down his torso, trailing kisses and tiny bites as she went. Then she was between his legs, using both hands on him. He was hot all over, and the fiery need built inside him again. Naida smiled and winked, before dipping her head down and slowly lowering herself onto him. Darion let his head fall back onto the pillow as her hot mouth engulfed his favorite organ. It was an exquisite, wet heat, and he -
A Plague of Dragons (A Dragon Anthology) Page 33