Lucinda, Dangerously

by Sunny

  She poured herself into him in an unseen rush. All of her—willingly, wholly, gladly. Gone was the repugnance, even the hatred. She felt compassion, acceptance for the demon now, a willingness to merge fully with him. Some vital part of her found him worthy after the foray into his mind and emotions.

  The melding this time was complete: all of her into all of him. A joining, a choosing.

  Their bond snapped into place, and she spoke into his mind. If you fade away into final death, I go with you. There was giddiness, a feeling even of relief. If he ended now, she would go with him and finally be free.

  A male voice, low and musing, sounded in Sarai’s mind, startling her. Freedom in death? What good is freedom then if you do not exist?

  You choose, demon. You choose. I have done all I can.

  She felt shock and confusion come from him. You can speak to me? What have you done, Sarai? Gods, what have you done?

  You know. You know what I have done. You feel it.

  For a long stretch of silence, they hung teetering on the edge. Then he chose.

  I wish to continue rather than end, he said. But I, alone, cannot choose for us. You must decide, also.

  Irony struck her. I thought as a male you would have no trouble deciding for yourself and others. Why do you insist I must also choose when I have ceded our fate into your hands?

  There was sardonic humor in his next words. I would be happy indeed to choose for us both, if I could, but I am too weak. I have made my choice, and still we hang in precarious limbo. Decide, Sarai. Do we continue or end?

  His question reverberated down their bond like a strong wind, tossing their minds back into chaotic memory. Quick snapshots of images and emotions flashed by, a deluge of remembering. The sweet, loving face of Sarai’s mother. Being held by her tall father, safe and secure. Running down a hill, the wind in her face, with her cousins, young and innocent beside her. Her first melding, that wild, thrilling sense of slipping through ground and traveling with such flowing ease. Jaro’s first gentle kiss. The joy she felt as they pledged themselves as helpmates.

  And then the flashes became his. A pretty Monère woman, his mother, smiling down at him. The faces of so many men, passing through, never staying long. Aristo warriors of the dragon clan, some affectionate, most annoyed and impatient with the young child he was. His mother smiling less and less frequently. The word they used for her and for him, arlotto, impure—not of pure dragon blood. It also described what his mother was to them: harlot.

  More impressions: gnawing hunger, the blow of heavy hands as he grew taller, stronger, more challenging. More pain from the careless words and cavalier treatment of the dragon aristos toward his mother. Pretty words when they wanted her; uglier ones after they had their fill of her. The harder look in his mother’s eyes.

  And then, like a hot brand seared into his deepest memory, the day a tall, familiar aristo warrior found him alone in the forest collecting firewood, just before his twelfth birthday. Pretty words, unexpected compliments about how tall Hari was growing. How handsome a young man he was becoming. The flush of pleasure. The wild hope that perhaps this warrior might be his true father. That he had come to claim Hari as his son, and marry his mother. Then the brutal dashing of that dream when the warrior sprang on him, laughing darkly and excitedly as Hari struggled against him. The tearing of their clothes. The grunts of pleasure as the aristo overpowered him and forced his stiff organ into a place inside Hari he could never have imagined. Burning shame, pain, bitter tears as Hari bucked helplessly beneath the powerful thrusting body until the warrior was done, lifting from him with a mocking pat on his buttocks. “My thanks, arlotto. An even better ride than your mother.”

  No! Hari roared, his words echoing loud and strong in Sarai’s mind, stopping the images with a forceful wrenching of will. No more! Do not make me remember.

  It is you who is remembering, not I. Think of something else!

  Pain flashed, vivid and horrible. A bloody sword coming down at him. His death on a battlefield.

  Gods! Can’t you think of anything good, demon? she cried as they began to spiral down that dark memory.

  Another image bloomed, breaking past the other memory. The demon Princess Lucinda changing into dragon. The gold of her skin transforming into the gold glitter of scales. Her lunge up out of the arena into the sky. The powerful stir of wind over him from her wings.

  Decide, Hari said, a whispered voicing in their minds, as if anything louder might accidentally bring them back into the darker memory.

  Unfortunately, his good moments were few, and they did not last long. Pain again as they tortured Hari, tried to make him cry out. Even sharper pain as he saw the sharp hail of stones rip holes in her wings. Despair as he watched her fall from the sky while he lay helpless. As helpless as he had been when his innocence had been taken from him.

  No! Sarai cried.

  My only good memories are mixed with pain. The only way to stop this is to decide. Life or final death?

  It was hard to know which she wanted more—oblivion in death or the continued pain and suffering of life.

  Your mere wording betrays your preference, he said. You wish more for the oblivion that death brings.

  She felt sadness in the demon and immeasurable tiredness. And yet a stubborn part of him still clung to this existence—all that kept them still on the precarious plane of continued being.

  They were ripped back into his memories. Demon bandits rushing to surround Lucinda after her terrible crash. Then when all hope was gone, the unexpected sprouting of a dark Floradëur up from the bloody bent stem of a wild weed plant.

  Sarai froze that image. Stopped the play of memory there at that precise moment. And looking upon those eyes so like the mate she had loved, Sarai decided—for life. I want to live. My son—my son . . . I want to know him!

  And with that decisive thought, the bond between them churned and tilted and flowed down the path that led them back to life and continued existence.

  NINETEEN

  I FELT AS if I were being squeezed impossibly thin—thinner than water. Sliding along bright points of light. Sometimes jumping a short distance between gaps. It was an uncomfortable distortion. Unnatural.

  I felt even worse when I returned to my natural shape. Or at least the shape I had been in when Talon had grabbed me, that of dragon. It felt as if a tiny mouth disgorged me. There was a wrenching sensation and then the ground stretched out, hard beneath me, a bumpy, scratchy surface from all the brush and trees I flattened out beneath me.

  My vision was only pinpoint brightness at first, which slowly expanded out to tunnel vision. Enough to see Talon sprawled next to me, a tiny streak of blackness. He seemed to feel even worse than I did as he vomited up the contents of his stomach. As I focused on him, the tunnel finally stretched out into full, normal vision.

  But, though I could see him, I didn’t hear him. I couldn’t hear anything.

  Sound returned to me suddenly with a jolt as my senses settled back. It was as if the other incorporeal bits of me flowed back into the body much slower than the physical reincorporation of my flesh. Even more clearly than the sound—and smell now also—of regurgitation were the noises of pursuit: excited shouts, twigs snapping, bodies crashing through foliage. Close . . . so close. They had to see me. My body rose above the treetops, even when lying down. I was so damn large, I wondered how in holy hell Talon had managed to shrink me down a tiny plant, flow us through the ground, and reemerge what looked like only a short mile away from the arena, whose tall walls I could see from here.

  We had managed to get away. But not too far away.

  “Fly us,” Talon said weakly, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. “Away.”

  “Move back,” I said, and the deep rumble of my dragon voice drew more excited shouts toward us. Damn it, they would be upon us in a few seconds.

  I waited for Talon to stumble back several meters, then rolled clumsily to my feet, taking care not to accidentally
crush my gallant rescuer in the awkward process. My coordination was off, discombobulated. I felt as drunk as poor Talon looked.

  My wings, when I spread them, unfortunately, were as torn and bloodied as before. Whatever Talon had done, that thinning/dissipating/flowing-through-the-ground thing, it had not healed me. Flying away was impossible. For me, at least.

  “You go,” I said. “Fly away from here.”

  Talon shook his head. He might look delicate and fragile, especially from my much higher perspective, but the look on his face was as fierce and resolute as any warrior’s. “Shift back down, Lucinda. Hurry!”

  I hesitated, because while I might not be able to fly us away, I could fight them better in this larger form.

  Trust me. Please. His words, the urgency of his emotions, flowed into my mind.

  I shifted, in a process as magickal and inconceivable as how Talon had transported us. I shrank down and down until I found myself looking up at Talon in a sudden, disorienting height reversal.

  Two bandits ran into the clearing that my heavy dragon body had made. Even as I spun to face them, I wondered if I had just made a mistake that would cost Talon his life. Then I felt Talon touch me. Felt myself begin to shift again, not into dragon or demon beast, but in the melting-melding way that a Floradëur morphed. It was a much slower process this time, like the sluggish pour of thick molasses instead of a quicksilver rush. Sight, sound, the sense of touch distorted and stretched out as we flowed our way torpidly down a plant. There was a feeling of emptiness—of being so long and thinly stretched out—and then a sudden jolting reemergence back into self.

  I was surrounded by complete darkness, black and unfathomable. It took a slow, confusing second for my senses to return to me. Then everything snapped into acuteness. I smelled dank, musty air. Felt the touch of cold stone beneath my hands and legs. Saw the large root complex I leaned against like a thick, ungainly log. We were in an underground cavern, I think.

  Talon lay sprawled next to me, his slender form a smear of pure black against the darkness. He was so still—no heartbeat, no breath to fill and rise his chest—so utterly still that concern rose up within me.

  I didn’t know where we were or how far away from our pursuers we had gotten. Not too far away, in all likelihood. So I mind-spoke to him instead of speaking aloud. Talon . . . Talon, wake up. I shook him with a hand that trembled from both weakness and worry.

  He groaned, a sound that rushed welcomed relief into me, then sparked fear that someone might overhear. I bent and covered his lips with my own to muffle the noise.

  Talon blinked into startled awareness.

  I was so close to him I could see the details of his unusual eyes—the large pupils: each individual striation of his iris, varied gradations of black, the charcoal sclera in place of the usual white. It was the latter that made his eyes seem so foreign, like the eyes of an animal, a deer or a gazelle, rather than a human or a Monère. This close, I could see that his eyes weren’t any differently constructed than mine; all was the same but for the dark sclera, blending his eyes into a smooth sea of pure black.

  He blinked again, and I realized suddenly I still had my lips pressed to his. They were soft and smooth, no different from any other mouth I had kissed, but for the innocence I tasted on them. It drew me back. Broke the contact of our mouths.

  Not so innocent, he said.

  You told me you had never been with a woman before. I haven’t.

  I didn’t understand for a moment. And then suddenly I did. He had been Derek’s possession, his slave, one Derek had tried to break to his will. Talon hadn’t just been blood-raped all those many years, he had been physically raped as well. The knowledge and helpless realization boiled the blood within me for a moment then sputtered away. I was too weak and fatigued to sustain that much intensity of emotion for long.

  Wrapping his arms around his slender body, Talon focused his eyes on the ground. You called me a virgin and I let you believe it true. I was . . . ashamed, so I let you believe a lie. Forgive me.

  Nothing to forgive, Talon. Any fault lies with Derek, not you. You are innocent.

  His eyes lifted, poignantly bitter. I am young. But I am not innocent, Lucinda.

  Neither am I. I was a stupid old bumbling fool. I should have used my hand instead of my lips to muffle the sound.

  Please, do not berate yourself. It was my first kiss, a lovely one. Thank you.

  How could he not think himself innocent? I wondered in a part of my mind I tried to keep shielded from him. Where are we, Talon?

  Not far from where we were. I felt this empty space under the ground and brought us here. I was too weak to travel much farther.

  You’re strong, Talon, not weak. You saved me. When all was lost, you saved me.

  I almost killed us. Was almost too weak to make that last effort.

  Hush. Succumbing to the weariness that tugged at me like a physical hand, I lay my head back on the thick, bumping roots and closed my eyes. Rest, now. When your strength returns, we’ll leave here.

  With a delicate, almost tentative touch, his fingers brushed mine.

  I wrapped my hand around his, snug and secure, and let myself slide into exhausted sleep.

  TWENTY

  HARI OPENED HIS eyes and a young girl’s face filled his vision—a face he had seen before but could not quite place. It was unusual, to say the least. Not only that she was so close, but that she had no fear of him. Even when she saw that he was awake, she didn’t back away in wariness; she edged even closer, peering down at him worriedly.

  “Are you okay, mister?”

  Her words made him frown, an expression that had made powerful demons step back in caution, but not this little slip of a girl.

  Mister? That was a human form of address, wasn’t it? And yet the girl before him was a demon—he remembered now!—the one who had saved him. Carried him out of the arena.

  If we save you, heal you, you must save us in turn when you are whole and able.

  He turned his head and saw Sarai asleep inside her cell—either that or she was unconscious. But for some reason, he somehow knew it was the former. He felt her slumbering presence in his mind . . . no, that wasn’t quite right. He felt her through their bond.

  Great Goddess in heaven. She had willingly bound herself to him! Him—one of the most ruthless, twisted demon souls in existence. May the gods have mercy on her, because he didn’t know if he would, or could. An irrational part of Hari wondered if he had already harmed her—if the linking of his dark soul with hers had been such a shock it had torn her from consciousness. But again . . . somehow he knew that she was just sleeping. Exhausted. Not unconscious.

  Hari rose to his feet and the girl scooted back, giving him room. He was miraculously, amazingly healed. Completely whole and strong, with his full strength returned to him, and perhaps even more. There was nothing stopping him from going up the steps and making his escape. Nothing holding him back but two slender females: a young girl who looked at him with concern, and a vulnerable, sleeping Floradëur. Two females and a promise: his oath upon his lady’s name to aid them if they healed his broken body. Well, by some bloody Goddess-in-heaven wonder, he was healed. Though a part of him whispered, Not a miracle . . . the bond. Another part of him flinched away from the word. From that knowledge.

  It would be hard enough making his escape just by himself. Almost impossible if he were saddled with two helpless females, one of them he might even have to carry. An honorable demon would keep his word, even at risk to his own afterlife. Hari had never been that stupid. Even Ruric, the closest thing he had to a friend, would laugh his teeth off if anyone was foolish enough to attribute honor to his dubious self. Hari was the furthest thing that existed from that virtue. He was the toughest, deadliest, most pragmatic son-of-a-bitch survivor that existed in this bloody afterlife.

  In Hari’s mind, he saw himself turning away from the two burdensome females and starting up the stairs as survival dictated. His body, tho
ugh, seemed to be disconnected from his mind. He reached down and found himself bending back another bar, filling the cavernous underground chamber with the tortuous groan of metal slowly giving way beneath demon strength. He pulled until he created an opening large enough for him to step through, then crouched over the still, black form of Sarai, inwardly flinching at how gods-damn delicate and fragile she appeared lying there, while he, no doubt, looked like the devil about to fall upon the vulnerable Floradëur and devour her.

  He glanced up as Brielle slipped through the opening and squatted next to him, the worry in her eyes a great relief to him. Finally, he thought, some common sense in the girl. And then she spoke and he realized that the concern was for Sarai, and not over what evil harm Hari might be intending her.

  “Do you think she’s okay?” whispered the girl.

  Fool that he was, Hari reassured her instead of snarling, Don’t trust me. “Ah . . . yes, she’s just sleeping. Exhausted from bonding with me and healing me.”

  He reached over the slight, sleeping form, and four simple snaps of metal later, Sarai was freed from her manacles.

  “So easy,” Brielle murmured, her face closed and tight. Meaning: so easy for him to do what had been impossible for her.

  As the last manacle fell away, Hari felt a powerful surge of something move into Sarai. It rushed into her naturally, easily, without her conscious will, like breath filling up lungs with air. Something that should have been a part of her, but had been blocked by the metal.

  He shook her shoulder lightly. “Sarai, wake up. We have to leave.”

  Heavy lashes snapped open as Sarai made the abrupt transition into wakefulness. For a moment, Hari wondered if she might scream, and thought of covering her mouth. It would be the smart thing to do, but he couldn’t do it. Clapping a hand over her mouth would not only frighten her, it would be violating her somehow.

  An edgy tension swirled around them like an electrical charge, then eased as Hari slowly and carefully pulled back from Sarai.