by Ava Sinclair
In that moment, I find my answer.
“I want to stop being afraid,” I say. “I want to be brave.” I pause. “I want to know how to kill a dragon.”
Turin turns away, running a hand over the curve of his bearded jaw. He crosses his arms across his broad chest as he stares down at me. I study his face, looking for signs of amusement. There is none.
“You will be a Drakoryan Bride, Isla.” His tone is reasoned. “You’ll have no need to be brave. We will protect you…”
“No.” My heart is thudding in my chest, and even if my request is irrational, just speaking it gives me a sense of power that I’ve not felt since before the attack. “Your protection is irrelevant. I will never feel safe until I can feel safe alone. I cannot feel safe alone if I can’t defend myself.”
“Isla…” he begins.
“I want you to teach me.” I raise myself to my full height, and although I am still so small compared to this huge Drakorayan warrior, I don’t feel it. Both Lyla of Fra’hir and Lady Klea were right. If I am to survive, I must find my purpose, and my power. “If you don’t vow to teach me, I will not lie with you.”
His mouth quirks into a smile. “Is this the same water-logged waif I found floating in the ashy water of a village well?”
His grin is handsome, but I refuse to let Turin’s charm do its work.
“Kneel.” I speak the word earnestly. “Kneel and promise.”
“Kneel?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Yes.” I step back. “Kneel, Lord Turin of Za’vol. Kneel and promise, and I will put aside my pain and lie with you this night. I will accept your body, and your protection, if you are not false. I will give you my innocence if you vow to help me regain my bravery in the face of danger. You will be my first if you promise to teach me to kill a dragon.”
“And what promise will you extract from my brothers?” he asks.
Now I’m the one who smiles. If this great man finds my demands amusing, he’s not showing it. He is treating me as one who holds the advantage.
“That,” I say, “will be between me and them.”
Lord Turin holds out his hand. I stretch mine across his palm. It looks like a child’s hand by comparison. He places his other hand over mine and drops slowly to one knee. Even kneeling, he is nearly eye level, this huge lord.
“Isla of Branlock,” he says, “I, Turin of Za’vol, vow not only to protect you with my life, to avenge the wrong done to you and your village, to save your sister and friends if I can, but I also promise to teach you what I have taught human soldiers. I will teach you when and where a dragon is most vulnerable. I will teach you how to find its soft spots, where to best lodge a blade to bring it down. Isla of Branlock, I will teach you how to kill a dragon.” He grins again, this time wickedly. “But I vow to also teach you such pleasure that you will never kill me.”
I feel a tingle of desire. For the first time, I notice how beautiful he is. My heart flutters in my chest.
I have never kissed a man. My virgin lips press to his in what starts as a chaste gesture. His lips are warm and stay affixed to mine as he rises and lifts me into his hard, strong arms. He carries me as if I am a child.
“Another,” he says when our lips part. I press mine to his for the second time. This time his tongue moves between them—bold, hot, demanding. I feel the faint throb between my legs. I feel…desire.
Turin lowers me to the bed I’ve slept on since I arrived. He undoes his leather skirt and drops it to the floor. I feel his weight dip the mattress as he joins me on the bed. I feel nervous but not afraid. I feel a quiver run through me as his body touches the length of mine. My hand is trembling as I reach up to touch his arm. His shoulder feels like a sun-warmed boulder.
Turin is quiet. He lays back, his eyes riveted on mine as my hand moves over the rise and slope of his muscles. He watches me through gray eyes that flash with gold. I swallow my rising fear. He watches me with dragon eyes, but I have his promise in my heart and am not afraid.
I sit up, trailing my hand down the ridges of his torso to the junction of his thighs, where the tower of his cock rises from a thicket of golden curls.
“What do you know of coupling, Isla of Branlock?” His voice is thick with desire. His cock bobs towards my hand, as if encouraging me to reach for it. I think of my mother, who raised me and my sisters to be of good character, and how she would chide me for my boldness. Still, I was always curious, and prone to eavesdrop on the young wives who went to the well to draw water.
“I know that is a cock.” I nod towards the eager rod of flesh. “It goes between my legs. Some of the women of the village said the first time hurts.” I feel my brow furrow with sudden misgiving. “Will it be worse for me? The men of my village were not so large as you, so their cocks …”
He sits up, his eyes flashing. “What do you know of their cocks?”
I pull my hand away, angry at his tone. “Women talk. All I know I learned from listening.”
Turin sighs. “Forgive me. Dragons are jealous of what is theirs.” He lifts a hand to cup my face. “There may be pain, but it will be lessened if your body is properly prepared.”
He raises himself to his knees. His cock juts from his groin like a fleshy sword. Turin reaches for the hem of my shift and lifts it over my head. His eyes caress my naked body. He trails a finger from the top of my shoulder downward, mimicking how I touched him. I feel a tingle along the path of his finger. The soft throb between my legs increases. I am wet.
“That feeling is your woman’s desire.”
I look up at him curiously. “How do you know where my desire is hidden? It is easy to see on a man.”
He chuckles. “A Drakoryan’s sense of smell is as strong as his sight. I can scent your sweet arousal, Isla of Branlock, the ambrosia of your honeyed musk. It’s but a trickle now. Let me make it flow.”
Turin wraps an arm around my waist and lowers his huge head. I feel a sudden hot, wet pressure on the right nipple of my breast. Pleasure tears through me like a spear that lodges in my quivering core. I understand now. I feel a ripple low in my belly and a steady throb that corresponds with the pulses of his mouth. The room resounds with a woman’s lusty cry. I realize the cry is mine. My head is thrown back. My long hair tickles the back of my calves as I arch my body towards the huge man holding me. The pad of his forefinger slips through the seam of my pussy, stroking the swollen folds of my inner flower. At the apex of my cleft, Turin’s deft touch finds a spot that has me moving hungrily and mindlessly against his hand.
I want to ask him what he is doing, but the words don’t come. While the women of my village spoke of pleasure, nothing could have prepared me for this. Turin’s lips press against my neck. He moves around to clutch the pale mounds of my buttocks, squeezing and spreading them. A finger slips between to caress the rosebud of my anus.
His hands are everywhere. His mouth is, too. I am helpless again as he lays me on the bed, but this is not a fight I want to win. I think of Jayx’s words and realize he was right. In this moment, the burdens of my past are lifted as I find solace in pure, feral pleasure that drives everything from my mind, even if for just a moment.
Turin spreads my legs. He is between them, peering down. His finger presses against the entrance of my virgin pussy. He looks at me with slight concern. “You are well guarded here, too, my little warrior. You will have to be brave as I shatter this shield.”
What does he mean? He does not give me time to question it. Turin slides between my legs. I feel the head of his cock press against the sensitive bud of flesh. It nudges and moves like a finger, hot and quivering, teasing the need from within. He takes my hand and lowers it so that I grip the length of his cock. I feel the surface change from smooth to ridged under my hand. I feel his girth diminish, compressed under my touch.
“I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to.” Those are the last words he speaks before he pulls both my hands above my head, before the cock teasing the tiny pleasure c
enter of flesh slips down and slides into my need-slick pussy. My vision goes red from a sharp, unexpected pain and I scream into the mouth that has found mine.
I’m angry. I feel betrayed. He hurt me. I pull my hands from his grasp and he rises up on his arms, absorbing my pain as I pummel his chest with my clenched fists.
“Sssshhh,” he says, even as he allows me to thrash him. “Wait, my little fighter. Wait.”
My blows grow less violent as the pain recedes to be replaced by the soft throb that made me open my legs in the first place. Hands that struck now move to claw at his back with renewed need. I am mewling like a hungry kitten as Turin begins to move, his deep, certain laugh mingling with my animal cries of desire.
There is a shadow of soreness, but it is eclipsed by the pleasure as his cock soothes me with its first strokes. I feel my hips move of their own accord, following his motions with clumsy sweetness. Turin is smiling down at me. His golden eyes are gray again, and filled with caring. I close mine, unable to take all of what he offers. It feels like too much.
I am buffeted by sensations, lost as Jayx said I would be on a sea of bliss. Pleasure moves through me in a rolling rush and Turin holds me through it. Only when the last wave of ecstasy washes over me do I feel a flood of warmth as he christens my newly claimed body with his seed.
He has claimed me, this first Lord of Za’vol. He kisses me, tells me I was brave. In the dark, I think to myself that this is just the beginning. I will be braver still.
Chapter 8
ZYVIS
It is my mother’s idea for me to help ferry villagers back across the mountain for the harvest. Her criticism is easier to take than my father’s.
When she came to me, I was sure she’d mention the battle. I have been wracked with shame since it ended— shame of defeat, shame of disappointing my father, shame of losing control. I failed in every conceivable way.
How can I go to Isla now? My mother seemed to know I needed to talk. In her practical way, she reminded me that one failure does not excuse another, and if I failed to find a way to woo and win Isla, my house would produce no sons to carry on after me and my brothers.
“Go to the villages with the others, Zyvis.” She’d come to find me on the wall, where I’d gone to stare into the crevasse where I’d nearly killed my own brother. “It will do you no good to steep in self-loathing. Counter the error you made with an act of nobility.” I’d flinched. Even if Mother did not directly mention what I did to Jayx, the reminder that she’d witnessed it deepened my shame.
“I’m not a farmer, Mother.”
“Neither are the other lords. But we have relied on a share of the villagers’ harvest for years to fill our storehouses. With the villagers here, the entire harvest must be brought here as well. Dragon strength is needed to take workers to the fields. Within days, sheaves of grain and baskets of grapes and berries and figs will be ready for transport. Dragons will journey to and fro with food not just for our households, but also for the villagers we are now sworn to protect. Will you stay and lick your wounds or behave as the man I raised you to be?
My mother should have been born a man. Even her quiet words command obedience.
“If it would please you, Mother,” I’d said.
“My son.” Despite what I’d done, she still looked at me with loving eyes. “Please me not. Please yourself. Take pleasure in doing good.”
As I wing my way across the mountains, I understand the wisdom of her advice. Going to the now-abandoned village reminds me there are challenges greater than personal disappointment. I am carrying two iron cages filled with village men who will harvest the crops they left behind. My friend Zelki of Castle Fra’hir flies behind me. He also clutches two cages. The air above the mountains is bitter cold and thin. We take turns falling one behind the other to breath out warm air onto our passengers. It’s the same method we used when we evacuated the villagers.
We are heading for the ruins of Stonecross. As we approach, two dragons wing back towards the empire, their cages filled with frightened livestock. Below, men work quickly with scythes to harvest and bundle wheat in the fields. The dragons who bore them have shifted back into men who work side by side with villagers to prepare the harvest for gathering.
The Drakoryans always managed how much food villages were allowed to grow, making sure they produced enough for themselves but also for us, their rulers. We kept land they weren’t allowed to farm burnt to ash. Villages that pleased us were allowed to produce more to trade with one another. A village that displeased us saw more land burnt, curtailing the harvest for their use since the dragons always took their due. This system kept them obedient. Each year at harvest the crops would be bundled or put in baskets that we would come by night and take away.
The fields we pass are thick with bundled wheat and huge baskets of other crops. It’s a good harvest this year. We will need it since winter is on its way. We will not be able to till fields in the Drakoryan valley before spring. What is harvested here will have to feed both villagers and Drakoryans until new fields can be planted.
As what remains of Stonecross comes into view, I glide down with Zelki. We hover above the ground outside the village, pumping our wings to slow our descent as we lower the cages full of human cargo to the ground. Once they are safely on the ashy earth, we fly a safe distance away and land ourselves. I shift into a tower of violet flame beside Zelki’s blue one. Re-formed as men, we walk to the cages to free the villagers so they can work.
The men we’ve brought are strong from a life of toiling in the fields, toiling for us. As dragons, we are used to seeing fear in their eyes. As a Drakoryan man standing face to face with those we rule, I still see that fear. But I also see something else. Zelki sees it, too. As the villagers head to the fields to take up their scythes, he comes to stand at my side.
“They resent us now,” he says.
“They shouldn’t.” I look over at my friend. He is the youngest of House Fra’hir but was the second to take his mate. I don’t want to think of that now. I look to the villagers. “We saved them from the ShadowFell.”
“They have not forgotten what we did before we saved them.” Zelki sighs “For now, they are too busy rebuilding and harvesting to think on it. I fear that come winter as they sit by the fire they’ll stew on our deception, of how we burned their lands and took their daughters.”
Two scythes lean beside what remains of a cottage. We each pick one up as we pass on the way to the fields, which are apart from the villages and blessedly undamaged by the ShadowFell’s fire. I try to be optimistic. “Come winter they’ll be warm and well fed in better houses than they had here. And should there be unrest, they’ll have but to look to the mountain castles to remember that the dragons now watch their every move.”
Zelki laughs. “Sometimes you remind me of your father. Peace through dominance, Lord Udra used to say when he was training the troops.”
I frown at the mention of my father. I’d come here to forget his overbearing ways but find myself defending him. “He’s right, Zelki. Are not the race of humans who serve in our army and households content?”
Zelki nods towards two villagers bundling sheaves of wheat. As they work, they look towards the empty houses that used to be their homes. “The humans who make up our serving class have been subjugated for generations. But these? They have been more independent. Yes, we ruled them, but from a distance. Yes, we were a threat, but not a daily presence. The villagers had more autonomy, more freedom. It’s more than land and homes they lament.”
I begin to swing my scythe, felling grain at twice the rate of the village men. Several look up to watch before going back to work. Zelki may be right. The villagers may well resent the changes in their lives. They may resent us as rulers. However, the Drakoryans will always be stronger, both in man and dragon form.
I do not want to speak on this any longer. I fall silent and concentrate on my work, cutting a swath through the field. Zelki does the same. Villagers
fall in behind us, gathering the wheat to bundle into sheaves. I look back at them. They glance up but avoid meeting my gaze.
Chapter 9
JAYX
Before everything changed, Turin’s claiming of Isla would have been celebrated by a great feast. It’s easy to imagine Isla walking into the room on my brother’s arm, clad in the sunset orange of his dragon color. With her red hair, she’d have looked like a living flame.
The other lords would have lifted horns and goblets of our best wine as they cheered and pounded the tables. By the time Turin arrived in the hall, I’d have already been half drunk on wine and anticipation of my chance to bed our beautiful mate.
Damn the ShadowFell.
Anger flares in my breast but is cooled by the guilt I feel over indulging my self-pity. True, the Drakoryans have lost a tradition. Isla has lost far more.
Turin told me that leaving her side was nearly as difficult as winning her in battle.
“She’s unbelievably sweet.” My younger brother smiles at me over the pile of food mother has ordered brought to the empty hall. “And unbelievably passionate.”
“It’s the red hair,” I muse with a wink.
My brother grows serious. “It’s more than that. There’s an intensity to her, a heat.” His eyes meet mine. “She made me promise her something, Jayx.”
“And what was that, Turin?”
“She wants to learn to fight. She wants to learn how to kill … a dragon.”
“To kill a…to kill a dragon?” I repeat my brother’s words back to him, sure I’ve misheard him. I lean back in my chair. “And of course, you told her this was impossible.”
“No. I promised her I would.”
“Turin.” I push away from the table and stand. “Why would you make such a vow? You should have promised her anything but that.”
“It’s all she wanted, Jayx.”