by Marc Secchia
Kal gasped, “Who the hells are you?”
Rising, the girl pointed at him, eyes ablaze. “You are a liar and a thief, Kallion of Fra’anior.”
A cold as frosty as an Immadian midwinter seeped from the pit of his stomach, casing his limbs in a heartbeat. Kal choked on bile, hearing a wailing in his ears as if storm winds keened over barren rock.
“I don’t like liars, not even the most handsomely packaged ones.”
What could he say? All his life, Kal had drifted through a world of lies and half-truths, subterfuge and misdirection, hiding his tracks and his trade with an obsessiveness bordering on paranoia. Now … her? He refused to die like this!
Not without a kiss, at least. That should roust his doom from its hiding place.
“I-I d-did not lie about stealing hearts,” he faltered. He had to drop his gaze, for the girl’s eyes minded him of staring into the heart of a bonfire. He feared to combust. “Besides, the disadvantage is mine.”
“Oh?”
“Nameless hearts are hardly worth stealing.”
“Hardly worth–” her roar echoed in the chamber. He had no need to look to feel the heat of her glare. She hissed, “You brave little burglar. Very well. I should inform you that you speak with Tazithiel. I prefer to be addressed as Tazi. Tell me, how does a man go about stealing that which can never be stolen?”
Please, let the heavens open and smile upon the grave he was cheerfully excavating for his soon-to-be flaccid, truncated corpse. Forcing gravel into his voice, Kal said, “Tazi. Tazithiel. Thou art the twin suns’ radiance descended from heaven itself to illuminate my worthless existence in splendour.”
“If you think a few lines of bad poetry will–”
Kal was already in motion, striking with the speed and precision of a cobra. His lips clamped over hers. Softness. Fire. Heat detonating with unbearable sweetness between their bodies.
Growling, “Kiss me, thou beauty,” Kal kissed Tazithiel as though she were the last woman in the Island-World, his salvation and his muse, his passion and his heartsong. He kissed her as the stars kiss a velvet night sky. He kissed the girl as if he recognised this was the last act he would perform upon the Isles of the living, which it likely was.
For he kissed a Dragoness.
Chapter 2: All that Glitters
THE IMPACT oF Tazi’s clenched fist against his upper lip brought Kal’s dreamy kiss to an abrupt halt. He flew backward over a treasure chest, flipped head over heels in an ungainly somersault, and landed with a thump on his rump wearing a king’s coronation crown with a certain rakish flair, he decided, over his left eye. Great Islands, the woman had a punch like the recoil of a Dragonship’s war crossbows. He dabbed his lip in approbation. Split like a ripe prekki fruit.
She was so sexy, it hurt.
As for the girl-possibly-Dragoness, she immediately covered the essentials with her hands, but that gesture, happily, left much exposed to Kal’s admiration. Shock slackened her lips, which moved as though echoes of their kiss–a veritable Island-trembler of a kiss–still played havoc with her constitution. Pools of hungry fire, her eyes drew him in as though she reeled in a Dragonship by its anchor-hawsers.
Kal cleared his throat. He had no idea what had just happened, or how much time had passed, but he knew he would die a man who had just supped upon the mythical Isle of Paradise.
He whispered, “That would be how to steal your heart. No lies.”
“But you are a fortune hunter.”
Tazi coloured as her words emerged low and husky.
Kal knew he must not smirk. Ha. Old lava-lips had struck; now he must talk his way out of this fine fettle. Assuming an air of injured dignity, he said, “You presume I am some common cutpurse or marketplace idler. You presume motive, where none exists. You cannot know my heart. For all you know, Tazi, I was passing on the wings of a Cloudlands storm.”
“So, it says nothing that you staked out my cave for two weeks? I fail to accept your logic.”
“You’re the liar here.”
“Me?” Suddenly, peril stalked the air. Kal knew he had erred. Never call a Dragon a liar, was the saying. Worse, never spite a Dragoness.
Now his lips seemed as parched as the shores of a lava lake. Not as pleasing an image as before. “I meant, o Tazithiel, that you aren’t what you seem.” To the arch of a questioning eyebrow, which rivalled the nearby eyelashes for allure, he said, “You haven’t appeared in your true form.”
“True form? I am truly a woman, as you see.”
“Only a woman?”
“Only? Not enough woman for you?” Tazi’s spine stiffened. “Did you kiss a dream, o scourge of the infirm and elderly, o plague of the Isles? Your hands seemed quite certain of what they held.”
Well, if she wanted to play games, and he was trapped in a cavern with a sultry image of arguably the deadliest creature in the Island-World, which skulked somewhere as yet undetected–Kal knew he must play for his life.
He drawled, “Do you have any idea how challenging it is to hold an intelligent conversation with a paragon of nubile womanhood clad solely in the splendour of her own skin? You women are always bleating on about how men should love you for your personalities and your inner qualities, rather than panting about your skirts like hounds on the scent–and here you are, stark naked, cavorting about a cavern with a total stranger. For shame, say I.”
“I do not cavort.”
Kal stroked his beard, pretending sage thought. “Not that we are strangers, exactly, after that kiss.”
He expected her to blush like the suns-set. Instead, he startled as Tazi levitated two rubies and a flower-shaped, emerald encrusted bowl, placing them in strategic locations. The fist-sized rubies were insufficient to conceal her voluptuous charms, and the upturned emerald bowl concealing her loins only conjured up an image that made him squirm like a self-conscious teenager.
Unholy, smoking volcanoes!
“Safer?” she smirked, seeming to read his mind.
“A most fetching choice of outfit.” Kal bowed elaborately. “I cannot imagine what I might have found so diverting, earlier. With that, my lady Tazithiel, I shall bid thee fare–”
“You shall not.”
Was that a crackle of real fire in her voice? Whether a trick of tone or a curl of magic, it stopped his intended retreat more surely than a man ramming his head against a boulder, full sprint.
Kal sighed. Again. “Because I stole your heart?”
“Because you called me a liar.”
“Very well. I shall place said heart here, in my pouch, for safekeeping.” Kal pretended to fumble with his belt-pouch while his mind raced at the speed of a swooping hawk. How to not end up a Dragon’s dish? “I regret to inform you, but you did lie when you told me you don’t bite. No Dragoness worth her wings can make that statement.”
“Now who’s making assumptions about intention, never mind my fundamental nature?”
Kal tried to decide if the motes dancing in her eyes were amusement, desire, or a prelude to a feast. Lightly grilled Kallion-kebabs served on a bed of saffron-and-herb rice, anyone? He said, “Truth, Tazithiel. Cold, hard reality. The power of your punch is an ode to inhuman strength, and your fiery eyes make the truth a dead certainty.”
She glared at him, her lips compressed into a hard line. “Have you ever considered why it is called a dead certainty, Kal?”
He shrugged, a poor disguise for dread churning his intestines into an eel-pit. “The same reason Dragonship Steersmen spit upon navigation by dead reckoning. Reckon wrong, and you’re dead.”
“Suspecting I’m a Dragoness, you stroll gaily into my lair? I call that dead reckoning.”
Kal riposted, “Private viewings are more my style. Not for thievery, lest you be tempted to cast further aspersions upon my character, which have wounded me most sorely, might I point out, but for the purposes of purely aesthetic appreciation. I like what you’ve done with the place.” Switching deftly to Dragonish, he added, A specta
cular Dragon hoard.
Aye, little Human.
Kal was just about to shout, ‘Proof!’ when her lips quirked into a ravishing, genuine smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. Flying ralti sheep! She already knew. Of course, he had whispered in Dragonish when he first spied her. Fool. Trust a Dragoness to sniff out his secrets. He glanced about surreptitiously. So, where was the beast? Where did it lie in wait, while playing the tease in a pretty Human likeness? This semblance of a girl was an extraordinary feat of magic–tactile, motile and altogether compelling. But Kallion was not fooled, oh no. Never fooled.
Tazi smiled, “So, Kal of allegedly intelligent conversation, meagre linguistic prowess and imperfect theft of hearts–tell me, what did you first notice when you stole into this cavern?”
He affected a casual shrug. “Gold. Gems. Great heaps of heartless bullion which can never fire a man’s heart as powerfully as kissing a Dragoness.”
“Ooh. You’re so smooth,” she hissed, clenching her fists at her sides. Mercy, her conversational shifts made him feel as if he was walking a tightrope, blindfolded, over a chasm filled with raging battalions of Dragons locked in mortal combat. “And then, Kal? When did you decide to despoil a defenceless maiden?”
“Actually, I didn’t.” He was probably more surprised by this admission than Tazithiel. He must be suffering a fever–no. Nor were his suppurating remains pushing up fireflowers in a graveyard. Aye! He had not plotted the slightest whisper of despoliation, at least, not until the incident with the flower-shaped emerald had plunged his thoughts into the proverbial mire. He pursed his lips against an incipient confession.
A growl throbbed deep in her throat, discharging a cold trickle of sweat down his neck.
Kal said, “I could add a swift despoliation to my list of urgent–no? Despoiling’s a nasty business anyways. So last-century.” He was babbling; they both knew it. “Of course I noticed your state of undress. After all, that’s what you wished me to notice, so aye, you win on that count, by an Island, by ten thousand leagues, by any measure that exists under the twin suns, you win. But Tazithiel, the first detail that struck me was your eyelashes. You have truly wondrous eyelashes.”
Her expression seemed frozen between disbelief and stupefaction. “My eyelashes?”
A touch mournfully, given as he was about to have his head garnished and served up on a golden platter, Kal added, “Unquestionably, your eyelashes frame the greatest treasure in this cavern.”
The rubies and the emerald wobbled precipitously, but Kal did not shirk from meeting her effulgent gaze with all the honesty he could muster. It was the truth–the naked truth, pun intended. Perhaps it was the first unadorned truth he had offered Tazi in their entire conversation.
“Now, that’s a heart-stealer,” she whispered.
“Soo …”
“I fear you leave me no choice,” the girl cut in. Without warning, every button of his loose-weave linen shirt popped open. The fabric began to wind its way, snakelike, off his shoulders.
“Freaking fireballs!” Kal exclaimed, failing to capture the errant garment. It flapped away across the cavern, ghostlike.
“I find myself in the mood for a little despoliation of my own.”
Somehow, the word ‘despoil’ had instantly mutated into his new favourite expletive. Kal made a despairing grab for his belt, complete with sword, daggers, and a few other implements unruly rummagers rather enjoy having about their persons, but her magic hindered him. The belt landed several feet away, neatly looped over the pommel of a magnificent blade. His weapons scattered upon unseen winds. Next, his bootlaces began to writhe with, in his opinion, completely unnecessary urgency. No amount of splaying his toes or kicking his legs rescued his footwear from a fate similar to the belt.
“I … I don’t fancy being helplessly violated by a fire-breathing monster!” he gasped.
“But you look so tasty. Just an appetiser–”
“Great Islands, stop!” His yelp did nothing whatsoever to halt the earthward slide of his trousers. Coyly, the girl levitated a four-foot silver sceptre crowned with the largest sapphire Kal had ever seen, and positioned it so as to preserve his blushes. He could not withhold a sarcastic, “Why, how complimentary.”
“Truly, the crown jewels,” she quipped, making short shrift of his underwear. “Isn’t this much fairer?”
“Fair?” he squeaked. “I’m captive to a despot with fifty invisible hands. On which Island might this be fair, pray tell?”
With a devious and utterly ravishing smile, the enchantress approached him, eyeing up the sceptre in a manner capable of making metal and stone blush, never mind the man it concealed. Tazi drawled, “I’ve decided to keep you for a bit, Kal. Hope you don’t mind. We Dragons do like to play.”
Dragon? Oh no … “I–I’m too o-old for you!”
Old? Ralti-stupid idiot! When had age ever been an issue? Well, even an affluence regulation expert had his morals, and boundaries he would never cross. Kal took a certain pride in never having despoiled a woman in his life–despite the fact that unannounced appraisers of royal personal effects must perforce have some familiarity with ropes and the temptations posed by damsels in perilous situations. On numerous occasions, such quivering temptations had been delicately incited to his point of view … only, he preferred his temptations minus the claws and fangs. He had not seen this woman’s draconic finery, but his imagination served up detail copious enough to bead his brow with blood-like sweat. Further, Kal much preferred the other party being the victim, not he. The situation struck him as a form of warped poetic justice. Aye, he had trespassed. Aye, Tazithiel was as seductive as a devouring flame. He could not dream of a more agreeable way to die.
She scared the living pith out of him.
“Kal, Kal, Kal,” the Dragoness’ image wagged a finger beneath his nose. “How old do you think I am?”
“Er, eighteen?”
“Double that,” she mocked gently, bunting her hips against the sceptre. Kal could never have admitted, not even to his own mother, what he thought just then.
“Impossible.”
“We live long. And I say to you that he who would play with fire … must declare his age.” She modified the common saying unexpectedly.
“Forty-four, with a definite wish for many more summers of life,” Kal stated. “May I suggest a bargain, lady?”
“No.” Ebon rivers of hair reached for him, caressing his forearms. That much magic, and her effortless control of it, was freakier than skulking around a haunted tomb on a tempestuous night. The darkness gathering around Tazithiel’s head, linking them, made her pyretic eyes blaze the more brilliantly, until Kal feared he would have suns-spots permanently scarred on his retinae. But he could not look away.
She said, “Dragonesses don’t strike bargains. You walked in willingly. You’re my prey, now.”
Kal shoved aside the babbling of his mind–much of it couched in unrepeatable swear words–to focus on the present, an impossibility when fire filled him up to his throat, and the very air seemed to tremble with the turmoil of his commingled passion and terror. How the hells could he feel this way when the main dish on the menu was evidently freshly ripped-off leg of Kal?
“A request!” he gasped.
“Make it quick,” Tazithiel murmured.
Indicating the sceptre, he ventured, “I do feel that your expectations of me might be somewhat … overstated.”
For a second, her jaw hinged open and Kal pictured fangs sinking into the pulse pounding in his neck. Then, rich laughter washed over him. Torrents of laughter. Gales of mirth, pummelling and compounding his confusion and misery–the vicious man-eater! He stiffened in outrage. Was it not beyond spite to taunt a meal like this? Tazithiel laughed so hard, she clutched her abdomen as tears splashed her cheeks.
Kal was violently unimpressed. He shouted, “What in a Cloudlands hell do you mean, woman? What’s so funny?”
“Kal,” she tried to speak, but hiccoughed. “Kal
… sweet little man.”
His teeth ground together audibly.
“You don’t have much experience of Dragonesses, do you?”
“Obviously not.” He produced a creditable snort of discontent. “My bones would look rather more chewed upon, were that the case, and my remains would’ve long since been scattered from here to Immadia Island. Mercy–”
“Mercy?” As though he had slapped her with a battle-axe, which was not far from his thoughts just then, the girl’s face changed again. Challenging. Callous, even. “It’s dangerous to beg mercy of a Dragoness.”
He bawled, “Are you mad? Stop it! Just flash your ugly fangs and eat me already!”
Her eyes dimmed. “Eat you?”
Suddenly, he wished never to have uttered those words. A travesty, dulling the fires of this incomparable woman. He muttered, “Spit-roast Kal, done to perfection. That’s the point, isn’t it? Cloth would only stick in your fangs and spoil the meal.”
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh! That’s … oh. Revolting. No.”
He could not make sense of the expressions darting across her mobile face. Suddenly, the spark reappeared; momentarily vibrant, stealing his thoughts away to pyretic desire. Tazi essayed a tremulous smile, allaying the storm of his fears.
Kal wagged an eyebrow, the limit of his daring. “Not so?”
She said, “Never so. Kal, you’re a sick windroc if you thought … listen, you parakeet-brained … you lovely Human. I’m a Shapeshifter. This is my natural form as inasmuch as I am a Dragoness.”
She was a shape-changing enchantress? Slap him over the head with a windroc!
Well, being slapped over the head by the Island-World’s premier avian predator, a hook-beaked, ferocious monster of a bird at over eighteen feet in wingspan, might stagger him rather less than he was staggered already. Perhaps a gentle slap to wake him from this daydream?
What dropped from his numb tongue was, “I kissed a lizard?”
“That’s highly insulting in draconic circles, Kal,” Tazi said reproachfully. “No, you did not kiss a lizard. You kissed the Human manifestation of a Shapeshifter Dragoness. Ah … Human-me. The non-reptilian … Islands’ sakes, it’s difficult to explain.”