Survive My Fire
By Joely Sue Burkhart
Copyright © 2007 Joely Sue Burkhart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in print or electronic form without the express, written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to any organization, event, or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Cover art and design by Deena Fisher.
CHAPTER ONE
A foreign scent intruded while I slept. A warrior. Miles away and on foot, he wouldn’t reach my lair until dusk. Sweat and musk, muscle and pride. Oh, how tasty, how divine a feast.
My dreams became torment in the roasting heat of afternoon. Memories returned from centuries ago, of my life before the curse. Rage crawled in the dark secret fissures of my heart, a fire stoked hour by hour. Trapped in this prison of wing, scale, and claw, I hated the approaching warrior. His phantom blood burned on my tongue.
I would tear him limb from limb. Shred his skin and lick his spicy blood from the unforgiving sands. Crack bone to feast on his marrow. I would dine on his fear, shred his dreams and char his secret hopes.
As soon as the sun touched the horizon and shadows stretched across the red sands, I crept from my lair.
Hundreds of warriors over the years have braved my domain. They came with sword and magic, bows and shields, hearts bursting with courage, hope, rage, envy, even lust.
They came, and they died.
I killed them all.
This one would be no different.
Ah, but he was a cocky son of a bitch. He stood in plain view on the highest point of my barrens. His back to me, he stared out over the empty Well of Tears. The Well I had not been able to fill despite an eternity of suffering.
The dying sun blazed behind me, outlining his warrior’s body, the proud tilt of his head, and then the chiseled lines of his face as he turned. Dark eyes, shadowed, hollowed with misery. Keldar was a hard land, a hard life, even for a warrior.
A curved scimitar gleamed in the growing shadows, ready in his hand but not offensive. Not threatening, not yet. The black taamid flapped about his shoulders like wings, loose and flowing to the ground. Leather knife straps crossed his chest, and a coiled whip hung on his hip. I could smell the sweet herbed oil used to keep the dragon hide supple.
No fear flickered in his steady gaze. No emotion showed on his stone face. He stared at me, waiting. For what?
Casually, I flicked a wing at him. He ducked, tucked into a smooth roll to the side, and flipped back to his feet. Impressive. Instead of trying to knock him down, I flipped around and grabbed him with my tail as thick as his body. Squeezing scaled muscle around his chest, I locked him in bands of living iron he couldn’t possibly break.
Crush him. I would crush his bones, blood spray—
Pain.
The curved blade slid into my flesh, just enough to anger me. I slung him to the ground so hard I heard his ribs creak. But no grunt of pain. Not from him.
The scent of blood—even my own—brought my hunger roaring to life. I breathed deeply and threw my head back. Flames blazed to the heavens. The ground rumbled and cringed beneath my claws. I heard horses miles away scream in terror and I knew people quaked in their flimsy hide tents and whispered prayers to deaf and uncaring Gods.
The warrior before me licked my blood from his blade.
He dared to taste my blood. A shiver crawled down my spine. This was no ordinary warrior. Already, I felt a gnat’s brush against my mind through the fragile blood bond he attempted to weave.
I dared say mine was a bitter and noxious brew compared to the sweet wealth of his blood that would soon roll in my belly. With my hunger fully awakened, I ignored my unease. Beating my wings, I scrambled at him.
He dodged aside with a roll and then leapt, kicking sand in my eyes. A child’s trick. I didn’t have to see him. I smelled him. Burnt cinnamon, roasted sage, sweat, warrior.
I would eat him alive.
He led me on a merry chase, and I found myself strangely reluctant to end the game. He smelled so good, fought with such tenacity. I felt something other than rage. Or hatred. A strange joy burned in my dragon heart.
Enough. I seized him delicately in my front claws, pinning him flat on his back against the red sands. Panting, he stared up at me. No fear, still, and he even gave me the barest hint of a smile, if the faint wrinkle around his eyes was any indication.
“I’m Jalan tal’Krait.”
I cocked my head, trying to remember what words meant. Tal, chief, of the tribe called Krait.
“I’m the last Krait dra’gwar.”
I blew hard, shaking my head. I had no understanding of the last word. Warrior class, I guessed. The last? The Kraits were once a mighty clan even in my day, second only to the Mambas. Oh, how the years eroded everything. Even the unshakeable rock crumbled before the winds of time.
Lowering my spined muzzle, I sniffed at his neck. Peeling my lips back, I snagged his clothing in my teeth and tugged it aside to reveal bronze skin and black hair spilling like blood against the rock.
I tasted him, just a lick, a graze of teeth. He shuddered in my grasp. My claws broke his skin despite my care.
Blood. Oh so sweet, so rich. I licked the fine red trails from his skin. The only element missing was fear. A few high-pitched screams to flavor my meat.
So I gripped harder, shaking him. No sound, no cry of pain, no harsh intake of breath. Curious, I raised my head.
He searched the sky behind me, and at last a small smile curved his lips. Night fell around us while I played with my food. So why was it so bright?
Why did my scales twitch and dance along my back? Why did my wings tremble, white feathers and scales raining about us? Agony wracked me, twisting and crunching my bones, reshaping my body. I roared with fury, but flames died in my mouth. Ash filled my lungs.
Straddling my prey, I jerked around. A full moon hung low in the sky, enormous, gleaming silver. Melting my shining white scales to skin. My wings to limbs. My powerful body to this slim, fragile gossamer of blood and skin.
Human.
How had he known?
Jalan tal’Krait stared up at the wonder revealed by the full moon. A woman crouched over him in the place of the fearsome White Dragon. Her skin gleamed as though she’d swallowed the moon itself. Her hair was dark like the multi-shaded camouflage of the coiled Krait, browns and blacks with highlights of red to match her temper. Her Fire.
“What have you done?”
Her voice was raw, ragged, after centuries of disuse, her words harshly accented. How much had Keldar changed in the years of her curse?
Likely much to the worse. “You are Chanda the White?”
She flinched at her true name but refused to answer. Staring down at him, her dark eyes flashing, she fought some inner war. He drew on the fragile bond he’d forged by tasting her blood, using the connection to read her thoughts and heart.
Roiling emotion slammed into him. Rage, hatred, even terror he expected after so many years trapped by such a curse. But need he did not expect.
Need to feel. To breathe, to walk on two legs and feel the night caressing her skin. To speak human words and think human thoughts. To feel alive. To feel her skin warm from another’s touch.
Clenching his jaw, Jalan fought back the rising darkness
in him. Fire blazed inside him that would match the White’s flames if he lost control for even a moment. He didn’t expect to feel such a connection with her. To feel such need himself.
Hers? Or his? Did it matter?
He bit back a bitter curse. Of course she would be lovely, proud, fierce, all the things he longed for in a mate. It would make the sacrifice all the more when he paid the final price.
For the few remaining Krait, he would do anything. Even love this woman who could never be his. It would be a fitting sacrifice to save his people.
With a harsh cry, she started to pull away. He seized her thighs, clamping her tighter against him. Growling, she heaved upward, fighting him, but her scent made him hold tighter... Musk, long-forgotten forests that once graced this barren desert, rich and decadent and green. At least, what he dreamed a green land would smell like.
“You need, woman. To satisfy you would be an honor.”
She shook her head, silken strands of her hair trailing over his face and hands. “You have no idea what I need.”
He slid his palms down her thighs to her knees, using a firm but soothing pressure as he massaged her slender muscles. She flinched in response, but his grip was firm. Drooping, she let her head fall back.
“How long has it been since a warrior touched you?”
“Too long. Years. Hundreds. But I would not—”
He felt her fear through the faint blood bond. Fear that she would abuse him, earn his hatred, debase his honor, and worse, that she would enjoy all the above and more. He allowed the harsh loneliness of his life to twist his face a moment. “You misunderstand me. I need this as badly as you.”
She stared down at him, her gaze sharp. “I ate the others. Just because you know the secret to my curse doesn’t mean I’m no longer dangerous to you.”
“I like danger.” He didn’t smile, but he didn’t try to keep the glimmer of amusement and attraction from his gaze. Her dark eyes heated, taking note as he expected. “I like you.”
Leaning down, she deliberately dropped her gaze to his neck. “Will you like me once I sink my teeth into your throat?”
He arched beneath her, groaning, fingers tightening on her legs. “Wells, yes. As long as you allow me to bite you, too.”
Trapped as a dragon for centuries, I longed for the return of my claws so I could tear away the cloth concealing his body. His hands interfered with mine, fumbling at the buckles strapping his weapons to his chest, the closure of his trousers.
He sat up, the better to gently stroke my back. His fingers long, powerful, his palms callused and harsh as the desert, but so tender. He touched me as though I would bruise. As if the blood of hundreds of warriors didn’t stain my teeth while the vicious heart of a dragon still beat in my chest.
Soft as the finest down in my wings, his hair was fragrant with oil, gleaming like dark, still waters in the light of the moon. Delicate and vulnerable, the paler skin of his abdomen and groin intoxicated me. His scent and heat rose as I slipped my hand inside his open trousers and wrapped my hand around him. He truly did want this, his girth too large for my fingers to meet, hardening even more at my touch.
Sands swallow me, I wanted him. I wanted him inside me, filling me up. Now.
Burning with need, I rose up and drew him into me. Too fast, too hard, I knew it. I cried out, stretched beyond bearing, but I didn’t care. It had been too long, and the pain increased my pleasure.
He gripped my hips and pressed deeper. Shuddering, I fisted my hands in his glorious hair and rode him hard, as though my body would die, as though I sought to crawl inside him, crack his ribs open and eat his heart.
His need was not quite as desperate as mine—until I bit him as I threatened. I couldn’t help it—the velvet temptation of his skin was too much to bear. I put human teeth marks inside the larger ring of the dragon bite and drew fresh blood.
His fingers dug into me, his body coiling beneath mine, his stone face tightening. Even then, he made no sound until I turned my head, presenting the curve of my throat, my shoulder, the round fullness of my breast, gleaming in the moonlight. And he took what I offered.
Teeth clamped high on my shoulder. I felt the moment my blood poured into his mouth. Hunger rose in him as sharp and vicious as mine. It rolled his body, tightened every muscle, flamed through the flat, hard planes of his face.
Guttural, he cried my name. Chanda—a curse to our people; a legend—forgotten, I hoped all these years. We were one, he and I, this stranger, this warrior who knew my face and my name and my moon-damned curse. We came together, bleeding, clawing and biting at each other, crying.
And for a moment, we no longer suffered alone in the barren wilds of Keldar.
Chapter Two
We collapsed, exhausted, his arms still wrapped around me while my lust died and my anger returned. I glared up at the full moon while tears boiled in my heart like acid. “What is your name?”
“Jalan,” he repeated. His heart beat strong and steady against my ear. “My water is yours, Chanda. May the rivers fill the Wells once more.”
Choking on lies and dead hopes, I jerked out of his arms to sit beside him. Unable to bear the beautiful shimmer of the silvered moon, I turned away. Barren rock and sand stretched as far as I could see. “How long have the Keldari prayed thusly?”
His voice was as flat and dead as the land. “A thousand years and more. Yet we hope. We must.”
“Why? Why such torture?”
He sat up beside me and crossed his legs. His back ramrod straight, one hand laid on the wicked scimitar beside him on the rock, he replied. “It is our punishment and our shame. Our blood demands nothing less.”
I couldn’t argue. Endless hope that my curse would someday be broken was indeed worse punishment than the hundreds of years I lay trapped beneath scale and wing. I would have surrendered my rage to the flames long ago if I had no hope.
“Hope is a cruel bitch.” My voice rang in my ears, lifting my curse to the heavens, to She Who Hung the Moon, She who punished me. “As cruel as Somma.”
Jalan took my hand in his, his long fingers curling around mine. A small touch, a precious comfort in this hard, unforgiving land of rock and heat and death.
“Tell me of your curse, Chanda.”
He must already know. How else could I sit here with him now as a woman, my thighs slick with our desire and already aching for more of his body, his touch? He knew enough to come beneath the light of the full moon. He knew to taste my blood and offer his own. Maybe—
No. I refused to consider such foolish hope. “I loved a warrior, the tal of my tribe, but he was Given to another. I begged Somma to make me worthy of his love, to soften his heart to me. He—”
Rage pulsed in my blood, jealousy burning, agonizing heartbreak. My heart was still Riven by his choice. “He would rather die than have me. I cursed our tribe, my beloved tal, the sons he would have with that hateful woman, and then I cursed Somma. For my blasphemy, She Who Hung the Moon bound me to Her form, the dragon, for all eternity.”
Until the Well of Tears reflects the light of the silvered moon and overflows to water a dry and thirsty land.
I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the image of the empty lake below, the cracks and fissures baked into the banks over the years. In a land cursed by the Gods long before my own failing, where rain never fell and the sun baked the earth unmercifully, no Keldari could remember when the Well of Tears held water, let alone was full to overflowing.
“Love.” I laughed bitterly. “It murders and lies and betrays.” My voice broke. “Love destroys.”
For awhile, we sat together in silence, sharing pain in the midnight hours. I felt the moon tracking across the sky and knew my time in human form was short. Only the full moon held the dragon at bay. Only the moon and the fragile blood bond this warrior forged in my black heart.
Curious, I wondered how he knew enough of my curse to brave my lair. He wasn’t even of my tribe, the Adders. They had died out long
ago; I made sure of it. Even my own blood, my own kin, my beloved tal dead in the war to keep his chosen Mamba mate rather than me.
I laughed harshly. And I wondered when my curse would be broken? Never, not for the likes of me. “Why did you come here? To me?”
Jalan didn’t answer immediately. I was in no hurry. Even stone would speak eventually or crack beneath the strain of my infinite patience. After centuries, I was content to sit and breathe his scent and wait for his explanation.
“Do you remember the Keldari saying about our enemies?”
I remembered. Every drop of blood in my body was Keldari Fire and rage, the very elements the Gods used to spawn us. “My brother is my enemy, unless my cousin threatens. The tribes are my tribe’s enemy, unless one not Keldari threatens.”
“Such warfare and killing has decimated our tribes. You’re not the only one cursed by the Gods, Chanda. All tribes suffer Despair until the price is paid. We... die.”
I turned and studied his face, the planes and chasms of shadow and rock carved by his life. He was older than I had been when the curse befell me. His eyes carried the shadow of death, betrayal, and lies. “The Gods decreed our punishment. We die at their whim.”
Our Gods are a brutal Trinity in Keldar: Agni, He Who Burns, the Red Dragon; Somma, She Who Hung the Moon, the White Dragon; and Yama, He Who Breathes Despair, the Black Dragon. We are all cursed to carry the Trinity’s blood to some degree. Dragon blood burns in our veins.
If we live long enough, we eventually succumb to the dragon blood and become mindless beasts, full of rage. My only brethren, my kin. I hear them calling in the desert reaches but I ignore them. They kill each other, or humans, endlessly. There is nothing left for them but killing. They can never go back. Me, well, I have my hatred but also the small, bitter hope that I will someday escape my dragon.
“We tried to kill a God, and all of Keldar suffers as a result. Only an entire people’s death will wipe away our devalki.” Jalan said nothing I didn’t know, nothing that hadn’t been true even in my time. Then, though, he raised shadowed eyes to mine. Unflinchingly, he said in that curiously flat voice, “Unless you die.”
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