by Ophelia Bell
She had the clearest vision of a beautiful, fair-skinned woman with deep, compassionate green eyes. Yet she had no recollection of a baby. She hadn’t had a baby in centuries. Someday maybe she would again, but for now she only wished to fly.
***
Belah, we tried to avenge you again, but he is more powerful than before. Not even the three of us together could overtake him. We dare not let our sisters near him—his Blessing is too much of a lure, even for males of our race. He has begun killing. He has corrupted two other Blessed humans and coerced them into hunting and killing for him, too. They are as strong as an army. The younger dragons are no match for them. You must wake up and help us convince him to stop—it is you he asks for. Only you can convince him to stop.
The smooth, deep voice sank into her mind like honey, reminding her of the warm, red gaze of someone she cared deeply for, once upon a time. All she cared about now was the push of the wind propelling her as she beat her wings, and the caress of the air sliding over her scales like silk. The North Wind was her only friend now, and his caress the only touch she needed.
***
Belah, we need you. Mother says you must make the decision for his punishment. Please, he is killing them. So many of them are suffering, forced into hiding. We must do something, but you are the only one who can calm him.
Another feminine voice this time, evoking an image of a bronze-skinned beauty with shimmering golden eyes and flaxen hair. The itch grew enough to make her slow and consider the words she heard. There was no suffering among the clouds and the sweet flow of the breeze, however; here, suffering was not her concern. She flew on.
***
Belah, we’ve been fools, but we know now it was your blood you needed to awaken. We convinced him to give it back to us, at least enough of it to revive you. He refused to relinquish it all—the only way to get all of it back is for you to agree to see him. You need to wake up and help us, sister. You must make him stop these horrible things he does to us—to all the higher races. He is too powerful for any dragon to slay now. Nikhil has become a monster. Please, sister. He has found our children and hidden them away from us.
Nikhil. The name echoed in the clear air around her. The itch became a buzz. Then a high-pitched scream. Pain erupted from her wrists and ankles, from her breasts and belly. The clouds around her began to swirl in a tornado of color, whipping violently until she had no control over her direction. The wind became a twisting vortex of red, green, and white. Instead of the slow, lethargic pull she’d felt when her blood flowed out of her body, she felt the piercing, burning surge of it being forced back in through the wounds it had left from.
Belah’s spirit slammed back into her body with a sound as deafening as a thunderclap. Along with it came the memory and weight of all the things her siblings had told her while she lay unconscious, lost in her own world and oblivious to the time that had passed.
She lurched up with a scream that vibrated the air around her, found herself flailing and splashing in water with five pairs of hands struggling to hold her steady. A large pair of arms slipped around her from behind and pulled her back against a broad, strong chest.
“Sister, calm down, I have you,” Ked said.
Belah stared wildly, kicking out at the other four who now stood back out of her reach, regarding her with worried looks. Nothing was right about this view. The last thing she remembered seeing was Nikhil’s look of adoration as he made love to her, timing her climax so it hit her at just the right moment to send her flying into that glorious, vast nothingness.
“Nikhil,” she said, though the word came as barely a whisper now, her voice suddenly used up with the scream of pain from her life’s blood being forced back into her body. The torrent of emotion and sensation overwhelmed her now, all of it rushing back in a flood. Every stinging cut Nikhil had given her blazed fresh, as did the tingling afterglow of her orgasm.
But her surroundings didn’t match her memory. She stilled in Ked’s grasp, but remained rigid, uncertain. Slowly, the familiarity of this place sank in. The sights and sounds and scents were known to her because this was the place she’d been born. They were in their mother’s Glade, the most sacred place for all dragons. This was their version of the Ursa’s Sanctuary or the Turul’s Enclaves, or the Nymphaea’s Haven. They never came here unless they were in grave danger.
That understanding caused her to struggle against her brother’s strong grip. Panic flared inside her as all the missives she’d heard from her siblings came rushing back.
“No, no, no. What did you do? Where is Nikhil?”
She clawed at Ked’s arms, her talons manifesting from the tips of her fingers and raking down his flesh leaving angry red stripes.
“Belah, he has turned on us. He is our enemy now.” Ked’s voice was low and firm in her ear.
She shook her head, ignoring the hot rush of tears that flooded her eyes.
“No! He would never betray me. Never! Where is he? Why did you take me away from him?”
With one hand she reached back and swiped at her brother’s face, caught the side of his cheek, and heard a harsh grunt of pain. She may not be able to draw blood, but she could make him hurt. At the same time, she released a lungful of her breath, filling the air around them and pushing the magic into his face where he would have no choice but to breathe it in, or else suffocate.
With a harsh curse, Ked released her. Belah shifted and launched herself into the air. She had to go to Nikhil now, to explain what happened, to beg his forgiveness. How long had it been since their wedding day? She had no way of knowing. She only hoped it hadn’t been too long.
Above her, the idyllic blue sky split open as though sensing her need to depart, displaying a dark, cloudless, starlit night through a swirling portal. She flew through, ignoring the angry, desperate call of her brother and her other siblings. With a crack as loud as the thunderclap that returned her essence to her, the portal closed behind her.
She circled, disoriented for a moment until she caught her bearings by the light of a crescent moon. Beneath her was a mountain peak jutting up from the dense cloud layer. On the summit of the mountain was a stone structure built in the shape of a hexagon with an elaborate, glowing mosaic in the center.
Belah remembered the place from her childhood, but hadn’t been back in thousands of years. She knew that beneath the cloud layer lay a monastery populated by a celestial race of humans who had served her kind since she and her siblings were born. Somewhere beneath her the monks kept records of her race’s history, and the most valuable treasures that the dragons had created. The Monastery was the safest refuge for the younger generations of dragons, who were rarely allowed inside the Glade.
The Monastery wasn’t where she must go, but it helped her choose the right direction. She flew west as fast as her wings could carry her, hoping it would be fast enough to outrun her brother, who she knew was already chasing her. She had nothing to say to him – not until she found Nikhil and let him know she was safe. That he might believe she had died after all her promises to the contrary left her with dark, twisting despair in her soul.
While she flew, her mind replayed the messages her siblings had given her while she lay unconscious. Each one had been more urgent than the last, and had made less and less sense. She had no daughter that still lived. All but one of the children she had borne in her life were now long dead after living their own long lives and carrying on her line. The one remaining son had been hidden away eons ago and likely lay in hibernation in some secret place even she and her siblings had no knowledge of, in spite of her brother’s searching.
She had not even had the chance to mark Nikhil so they could breed. If she found him and he were well, she vowed she would grant his wish now. There was no need for him to be punished, as her sister Aurum had suggested, and she couldn’t imagine him harming anyone without her orders.
The c
loud cover burned away with the heat of midday and she dipped lower, recognizing the shape of the shoreline that drifted past beneath her. Close to dusk, her heart swelled with the familiar sight of the Nile Delta and its teeming life. It was just as she remembered, beautiful and green, with the monolithic pyramids standing guard in the distance. She picked up her pace, veering in the direction of the coast and the peninsula where her palace lay.
The closer she came to the city itself, the more pronounced the wrongness of the place seemed. She used to revel in the contentment of her people as she flew over, proud of how she ruled with love and generosity, how she protected them from the outsiders who wished to conquer and plunder.
Now, the difference was striking enough to cause her to falter. Strife and hunger were prevalent at the outskirts, only growing more concentrated in the densest center before fading to general dissatisfaction closer to the palace district. The city was visually different as well, though the differences were subtle. The buildings looked rundown, the walls crumbling in places. Some new ones had been built but without the care of the original structures.
With apprehension, Belah circled wide around the palace, remaining high in the growing dusk to avoid being seen.
The first skull she encountered mounted atop the palace walls shocked her and she slowed. Then there was another, unmistakable in its shape and size. They were the skulls of massive, horned creatures, with long, sharp teeth.
Sickness welled up in her gut. Disbelief urged her forward. Dozens upon dozens of dragon skulls adorned the rooftop of her former home, including two huge ones mounted on the wall outside her own chambers. The horror of the sight dimmed when she looked through the doorway into the palace.
She hovered in the air, staring into the well-lit interior of her rooms. What she witnessed made her heart lodge in her throat, so similar it was to her recollection of the last time she’d been inside that room.
The woman strapped onto the contraption that rested inside the opening of the balcony might have been Belah, based on her appearance. From her vantage she could tell it was a bronze-skinned woman with jet-black hair. The woman was both fearful and aroused, and just as blindfolded as Belah had been on her wedding night. But this was a human woman—Belah could tell by the clear, bright aura that surrounded her—and a virgin, no less.
Confused by the sight, she reached out farther with her mind, seeking out Nikhil.
Suddenly a dark cloud surrounded her, accompanied by a gust of wind.
“You must not alert him to your presence, sister. You’ll endanger us all. Come away from here. This place is no longer safe for our kind.”
Belah shrank from the presence, irritated at how well Ked held her encompassed in the dark cloud.
“Leave me be! He needs to know what became of me. I don’t care who he’s brought to our bed since you took me away from him. He deserves the truth.”
Ked’s power tugged at her mind, seeking to suppress the blaze of longing that burst from her soul when Nikhil’s shape came into view. He was every bit as powerful a figure as she remembered, fully naked with a small, glinting dagger held loosely in one hand.
“He knows the truth already, sister.” Ked’s power tugged harder at her mind and a pair of strong talons clutched at her shoulders, pulling her back.
Belah resisted, her heart splintering when she watched Nikhil approach the female he had bound, murmuring soothing words and exuding a love that was too similar to what she’d felt from him herself. Was she so easily replaced?
She resisted Ked’s talons, shrugging away so she could see what the man she loved would do to the woman who looked like her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nikhil bent to the female’s breast, captured a nipple in his mouth, and sucked. She tasted of dirt, and he had to restrain the urge to let her go and rinse his mouth out. The female on his rack was no replacement for his ‘Iilahatan, but he kept trying to find closure somehow.
He wanted nothing more than a child with her. A boy of his own blood to cherish the way he always wished his father could have cherished him. To teach in the ways of war he wished his father could have taught him. He had been the best warrior in his mistress’s armies, but what kind of warrior would he have been if he’d had his father’s wisdom on the battlefield, too?
Perhaps he would never have needed to take that wound while seeking her glory. Perhaps he never would have met and fallen in love with her when she came to save him.
Perhaps he could have turned around and truly conquered her, rather than living the rest of his unending days being conquered himself by his craving for a woman who left him.
He hated himself for that one weakness now. He had let himself grow to need her, to love her, and it had nearly destroyed him.
Somehow it hadn’t, and for that, he was grateful. He could credit his absent wife for that, no doubt. All the rituals and blessings on their wedding day had made him strong, had set a fire alight in his belly. But the fuel that had kept it burning for the past two centuries was her blood.
He left the side of the virginal likeness of his lover and sipped from a goblet of thick, fermented liquid. Even as old as it was, it still made his blood sing. Her blood still tasted of her very essence and reminded him of the flavor of her sweet juices that would flood his tongue in the moments when he had his mouth latched to her nether lips, drawing her pleasure from her with his tongue.
He’d been beyond sanity after waking up alone in their chambers with her gone and nothing but her blood for his company. Being granted the throne in her stead didn’t calm him. He could see them everywhere. Dragons were the ones who had taken her from him. They needed to suffer until she was returned.
He had no memory now of those times, only that he rabidly searched for her, interrogated every dragon he could find, using the knife she’d given him to torture them. The second they saw their own blood spill, they talked, but none of them had anything helpful to say.
Finally, he simply took to killing them outright. If he killed enough of them, the gods themselves would take notice.
And they did.
By the time her brothers came to reclaim her blood, he had lived on killing for decades. But they wouldn’t return her to him. They made a deal—their useless blood for hers. “Because it is sacred to us,” they told him.
“Is she dead?” he asked.
The three of them had stood around him in this very room while he asked that question and told him, “Yes, but her blood will revive her.”
By their accounts, a dead dragon’s blood was sacred. Nikhil didn’t believe it. He’d killed enough dragons to know better. The Twins had taken to Belah’s blood immediately, but after them, every single human he fed it to went mad and died within hours.
He hunted other dragons and tested their blood, both living and dead, on everyone he could convince to accept the test. Only the blood of the living dragons granted power to those who drank it, but never the level of power that he or the Twins had.
All he knew was that somehow he was special. Perhaps if he had a son or daughter, somehow his power would be passed on.
The nubile woman bound to his rack today was one in thousands. The only thing that differentiated this woman from all the rest was that she actually seemed to enjoy being terrified.
Nikhil’s cock couldn’t resist that combination of terror and arousal. He supposed he had his goddess to thank for that. Ever since their wedding night, he’d been acutely attuned to the hearts and minds of everyone he encountered. He could read thoughts, emotions, intentions. He could see things he couldn’t see before, like shimmering clouds around people that he learned signaled their moods and desires.
This woman wanted him so desperately.
He wished he wanted her.
The people his ‘Iilahatan used to rule now feared him as their devil. Apophis, they called him. He still lived, he s
till killed. He didn’t care what they thought. He only wanted her, though now he wasn’t sure what he would do with her if he had her back. If he had her back, he would never let her go again. He would leave her bound to this rack so he could drain her blood and teach her what it meant to truly be conquered every day.
Now he only wanted a child that looked like it came from her womb. The woman in front of him was nobody, but she looked like his love. If she bore him a child it might also look like her.
He swiped the blade of the knife across the underside of the woman’s breast, but didn’t dare taste her blood. Human blood tasted just as filthy as this woman’s skin had tasted, but he relished the flash of pain that crossed her face and the resulting arousal. He only needed a little to help his cock rise. Another slice and she cried out. Then he was on her, shoving deep into her while he held the blade to her throat. Her fear kept him hard.
When he was finished, he called to his guards and ordered them to take her away. If his seed took root, he would wait and see what came of it. A son would allow the woman to survive. Anything less, and he had no use for her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Belah hovered, too paralyzed by the sight to do more than instinctively beat her wings to stay aloft. The aura of the man she viewed was nothing like the Nikhil she remembered. Not even a glimmer of that man remained.
Around her, the darkness thickened, obscuring the sight from her tortured gaze. With a swirl of dizzying movement, Ked transported them away. The air chilled suddenly, then warmed again and when the darkness abated, she found herself in the middle of a lush garden on a stone path that led down a hill to what looked like a small village.
“Where are we?” she asked, numb to any other thought but her present surroundings.
“At the Monastery. Things have changed since that day, Belah. I will tell you everything.”
He shifted into his human form and clothed himself in simple robes. Reluctantly, Belah followed suit, though what she really wanted to do was fly away. If only she could return to the uncomplicated bliss of her slumber.