Sacrifice: A Reverse Harem Dragon Fantasy

by Ava Sinclair

  “I feel…awake,” Lyla says. “And the soreness…” She’s up to the tops of her thighs now and puts a hand to her lower belly as she blushes.

  “Gone?” I ask. “Good. You’ll need these springs again tomorrow. They are popular with newly claimed females.”

  I push myself backward, stroking through the healing waters, watching as she wades deeper. Ours healing pools are the strongest in the land, save for the one in the Mystic Mount. That one is rumored to be powerful enough to raise the dead, and is jealously guarded by its keepers.

  Lyla sinks in up to her waist, then lower. She closes her eyes as she lifts her blonde hair. She is a vision of beauty, luxuriating in the pool, her breasts bobbing on the surface of the water, their nipples beckoning me. My cock stiffens and lifts, straining towards her, acting now like a living thing that would pull me forward if it could.

  “Are all the pools like this?” she asks, glancing across the massive cavern.

  I tell her no, that there are different ones, although I do not elaborate. Eventually she will learn the different pools, and their purposes. There are ones for bathing; the minerals in the waters replenishing human skin and leaving it silky soft. There are the birthing springs, where – once a year – some human females choose to deliver our young. Then there are the dream springs with heady steams that, when inhaled, induce visions. Those are reserved for the rare girl child born to our kind, whose power is tested in those waters before they are sent to join the witches.

  “Come,” I say. “You’re still new to the pools. They do more than reinvigorate; they also heighten the senses. If you stay any longer, every little noise and smell will be a distraction. You may not be able to sleep for days.”

  I can tell she doesn’t want to leave. We must supervise the humans – both mates and servants – lest some become addicted to the waters. Years ago, my father was forced to station a guard at the door when a servant insisted on sneaking in. So energized did the servant become that he refused all food and sleep. He eventually died, consumed from the inside by boundless energy as his body starved. I tell Lyla this as she steps from the water, and she nods.

  She’s a vision on the edge of the pool, but when she leans down to pick up her discarded gown, I stop her.

  “No,” I say, climbing from the water. I snatch up her dress and toss it on a nearby rock before clothing myself. “It’s time to leave.”

  “You’d have me walk unclothed?” She is indignant.

  “It pleases me,” I say. “But do not worry. In my company, no other will dare lay his eyes upon you.” And it is true. As we head back through the castle halls, everyone we pass instantly turns their backs to us in deference to my position and my mate’s privacy. Only Lyla’s mates can look upon her nakedness, and we are a possessive lot. My making her walk naked is by design. I want her to understand how safe she is in our presence now, want her to know that she could walk anywhere — even naked — and be protected because she is ours, because all within the walls of this castle, nay, this kingdom, know better than to touch the mate of a Drakoryan.

  Still, I can tell it is hard for her, and I share her relief when we finally arrive at my bedchamber. Here, I will put my stamp on her.

  The servants have left food and wine on the table. I pour a glass, and take it to her.

  “Drink,” I say. “It’s the finest in the empire. Volcanic soil makes for the best grapes. The ones we grow are as big as your little hand.” I lift her hand and mold her fingers around the stem of the glass. “Bigger, I think.”

  She regards me for a moment before taking a sip. “It’s delicious.”

  “Another.” I’m watching her mouth, her lips where the wine tinges them. I imagine those lips open in a moan, or wrapped around my cock. I must have her. This is enough courting for me. I take the glass away.

  “Are your lips as sweet as the wine? Let me taste.” I lean down and put my finger under her chin, tilting her head back. My lips meet hers, parting them. I sweep the honeyed cavern of her mouth with my tongue, tasting her sweetness mingled with the wine.

  As my tongue tangles with her, I undo the clasp of my belt, sending my leather garment falling to the floor. I take her hand, guiding it to my cock. I mold her fingers around it, just as I molded them around the wine glass, and she cries out, pulling her head away.

  “It moves!” she cries, pulling her hand away as well, and I laugh.

  “Of course it does. See how it stiffens for you, little Lyla?”

  She retreats a few steps, pointing at me. “No. Not like that. Not like your…” She flushes. “Not like your brother’s. I felt something different with yours, something under the skin.”

  “Did you now? You are a very observant female to notice so quickly. Come. Let me show you how different one brother is from another.”

  But she shakes her head, staring at my cock, for now it’s clear she sees the difference she felt. “No.” Her voice is quavering. “I’m not ready.”

  “Worry not,” I reply. “I will ready you. And then, I will drive you mad.”

  LYLA

  I’d thought it was my imagination. When Lord Zelki wrapped my hand around his cock, at first it had felt like his brother’s. It was warm and hard and firm, evoking a flashback to the rushes of ecstasy that has coursed through my body when he’d impaled me.

  And then I felt it — the surface, bulging, undulating, as if something was moving beneath the skin. I am not an experienced woman, not yet. But instinctively I knew this was not normal, that if it were, I’d have caught some whispers of it from the wives of my village. Then, as I backed away, I’d seen it. His huge cock, pointing straight at me, had bulged and flexed before my eyes.

  I am still objecting when Zelki lays his hands on me again. He closes his mouth over mine, swallowing my objections. The insistence of his kiss sends heat coursing through me; despite my fear, my body is already betraying me — my nerves set alight by the nearness of this powerful man, so beautiful, so virile, so … demanding.

  I try to tamp down the excitement, but his hand moves between my legs now, his palm closing over the mound of my outer labia before he drags a finger up through my dewy slit. I jolt at the sensation; his touch is insistent, but so light as to send a shiver through my body.

  “You are a passionate little thing,” he murmurs into my hair, and when my knees grow weak from his touch, he lifts me from the floor and carries me to his bed.

  His bedchamber is as large as Drorgros’, but nearly every inch of the stone floor is covered with some kind of fur. I recognize the pelts of a giant Wolven, and a Night Bear - beasts that can kill with one bite or swipe of their mighty paws. There are other furs, too — unrecognizable pelts of animals from a world that is bigger than I ever realized.

  Zelki lays me on the bed and stands over me. His huge hands roam my body, his touch possessive. He clasps my breasts, squeezing them, and leans down, the hot suction of his mouth on my nipple causing me to cry out and arch upward from the bed. I am forced to wrap my arms around his neck, and hang there, crying out at the rhythmic pull of his mouth, so hot, so demanding. He thrusts two fingers into my pussy, meeting a flow of arousal that eases their entry into my welcoming body.

  “I don’t want this!” I say through gritted teeth, but I’m speaking to myself, not him, in a bid to win back control of my traitorous body. What have these men done to me that I should so easily play the whore? My legs are spread, my hips rising to meet Zelki’s fingers. There’s no pain now, thanks to the healing waters. There is only excitement, and a burning want to be filled.

  When he releases my nipple, I sink back down onto the bed, gasping. Zelki smiles, and reaches for the bedside table. “Remember this?” He holds up the fruit he fed me in the hall, the one with the skin like a red rock, the one called Bride’s Melon. Just as he did in the hall, he cracks it open with his bare hands. But this time he drizzles the juice over my breasts, then between them, down to the top of my cleft. He lowers his head, his mouth foll
ows the line of juice. My skin tingles where the juice fell. I begin to squirm. The tingle seems to sink below my skin, making my body thrum. Zelki dips is finger into the fruit, and when I realize what he intends, I try to pull away. But he’s too fast. I cannot take this. I will not be able to stand it. I cry out as he slides the fruit into my body. It dissolves inside of pussy just as it did in my mouth. The juice mingles with my own arousal, sliding from my pussy down to the crinkle of my bottom hole. I am alight, tingly and suddenly all I can think of his being filled, of having my tingling passage touched, stroked, fucked. I am writhing on the bed, desperate for relief. I slide my hands between my legs, but Zelki catches them, clasping them at my side.

  “No,” he says. “No.”

  He flips me over, shoving my head down onto the bedcovers as he pulls my hips roughly back and up. My ass is in the air. I feel his mouth on my labia. I scream. His tongue feels large, magnified. I push back as he laps at my pussy, licking away the mingling juices. His finger has moved to my bottom hole. I want to move away, but instead, I push back as he moves over top of me. I want this. I want it more than I can say.

  “Let go,” he growls in my ear. “Let me see you fly.”

  He shoves his cock into me. I look back, passion-drunk, my vision hazy. His cock seems thinner as it enters, but once inside me, I remember how it had felt to touch him, what I’d seen. When he begins to move, I remember his words. He promised me pleasure, but this is beyond pleasure. He moves inside me, seeking. Then he stops moving, or at least his hips do. His cock continues to move inside me, pulsing in one spot to caress a secret, internal source of pleasure that seems a hundred times more sensitive than the external bud he so masterfully stroked with his tongue.

  I scream into the covers as he holds my hips and begins to move his hips again, the bulge on his cock caressing that single spot with each thrust. Rushes of pleasure ripple through me. He is fucking he hard, one hand fisted into my hair, one hand on my hip. I can’t move. I can only absorb the impact of his feral barrage of savage strokes as I scream my pleasure.

  Zelki is using me, dominating me completely. I am helpless, subjugated, but I love it. He’s forced me to submit, and that submission has awakened something feral inside me.

  I scrabble to all fours, reach back, raking his side with my nails. He laughs, pulls out, throws me on my back and shoves into me from above. I wrap my arms around his neck. This time it is my hands in his hair. I tangle my fingers in the raven strands as I move with him, meeting his thrusts. I feel detached from my body, which I realize has its own innate knowledge of this primal dance, is communicating with Zelki’s in a language older than the mountain. I hear a scream and realize it is mine as I come, my pussy pulsing and drawing hard on Zelki’s cock, demanding the release of seed that floods into me. I arch against him. His body is hot; I imagine myself seared to him, being absorbed, consumed. I have not felt this kind of power since the dragon took me off the mountain. I have never felt anything like this.

  When Zelki stops moving, his cock stays lodged in my pussy, the length of it engorged.

  “I don’t want to let you go,” he says, and now his voice and mannerisms are surprisingly tender, a sea change from the ravishing lord. I can feel my body start to settle, to return to normal. The fiery nerve endings are cooling. I relax, sinking into the bed under his warm, muscular form. His eyes, so like his brother’s, study me. I stare into them. Although Zelki is young, his eyes are not. They have seen things. Know things. I am certain of this.

  He lifts himself up on his elbows, staring down at me.

  “Did you see the furs on the floor?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Wolven. Night Bears. Cave Tigers that could swallow a little thing like you whole. I slew them all with only a knife. I have fought my brothers and defeated all save one. Outside my family, I have never been defeated.” He pauses. “Until today. I came into this bedchamber to master you, Lyla. When I said the beast in me would meet my match in you? That was to play to your vanity. But you, my wild little lover, have put me in my place. You, Lyla, Drakoryan Mate, Bride of the Lords of Fra’hir, are unlike any other female.”

  “Have you had many other females?” I ask, studying his face in the firelight.

  He grins. “Hundreds. We all have, save for Tythos. He’s had thousands.” Zelki winks at me. “But no more. We are yours now. No other female will do for us, and we would all die to keep you happy and safe and cared for.”

  “How can you know that?” I ask.

  He lays on his back, pulling me up on top of him. I’m straddling him now, looking down on him. Zelki stares up at my breasts and puts an arm behind his head.

  “Because I am the strongest, the bravest, and the best among my brothers, and yet I lay here, your willing slave.”

  I flush at his words. Is he teasing me, or have I conquered this man merely by submitting to him?

  “My slave?” I say. “So, you would do anything?”

  “Name it.”

  I lean over and place my palms on the huge mounds of his pectorals. “Very well. I want to see the dragon.”

  ZELKI

  My brothers would not approve of this. There is a protocol we are deemed to follow. Knowledge is revealed piecemeal, in digestible bites so as not to overwhelm a freshly taken mate. It starts with the initial claiming by the victor. Slowly, she’s given more insight. Glimpses of the castle, the hall, the others who will claim her, then the revelation that she is not alone. Enid was one of those revelations. The dragons? They are the last, after the consummations, after the Deepening which brings full understanding.

  But she wants to see one now, and I have decided to share this with her, secretly. I can do this without revealing the whole of the truth.

  I find a shift for her to wear. It is thin and gauzy, and through it I can see the shape of her breasts, her narrow waist, the belly that will one day swell with a Drakoryan son. But I get ahead of myself. There are two brothers yet to claim her before the Deepening.

  I was afraid Enid would speak of it, that she would tell Lyla too much. Fortunately, she did not. Perhaps Drorgros raised a brow, warning her to be quiet. Perhaps one of Enid’s mates, sensing the conversation, whispered to her mind that she’d said enough. It is not for a Sister to reveal the mysteries to a newcomer. That is the right of her mates alone.

  I know I am out of order, with what I am about to show her. We climb staircase after staircase, walking upwards through spiral hallways. We pass a storeroom. Lyla is looking ahead to the next bend, and away from the doors with their small grated window. Had she stopped to glance in one, she’d have seen treasure piled to the ceiling. The upper reaches of the castle are full of such rooms. Other rooms, deeper below the mountain, hold even more treasure — spoils of conquered kingdoms. Our kind has little need of the glittering rubies, the cold coins and goblets and ornate shields. We hoard them only because we realize their value to the fully human. Man’s reliance on such trinkets is yet another of their weaknesses. One day, should we relax our grip and restore some of their power, we can reward the humans with what they prize.

  “How much longer?”

  We’ve been climbing for a very long time, and Lyla has started to tire. Had she not been to the pool, she might have collapsed already.

  “A way, yet,” I say. “I’ll carry you.” I lift her over her objections, cradling her in one of the furs I picked up before we left my room. She’s light and warm in my arms. “Put your arms around my neck, Lyla.”

  She complies, and the feel of her clinging to me rouses a protectiveness nearly as strong as my sexual urge for her. I could easily see myself killing to protect her, keep her. And suddenly, I hate my brothers. I hate Drorgros for having had her. I hate Tythos and Imryth, who now await their turn.

  I was warned of this. Once a year, the Oracle journeys to the Mystic Mountains, where the witches divine which houses will be allowed to select a mate. He returns with advice for the Drakoryan males who are given perm
ission to mate. We are told which strengths we will bring to the relationship, and which weakness. Mine is jealousy, and anger. I am feeling my weakness. I must master it, before it masters me. She is not mine. She is ours. I must remember that.

  I can feel the wind. I can hear it. It whistles from the top, from the uppermost watchtower above the Oracle’s room. Lyla grips me tighter as the wind gets stronger. When we emerge onto a narrow, spiral stone staircase outside the walls, she gasps in fear. The steps are slick with ice and snow this high up, and the gusts so strong they would easily knock down an average human male.

  I must keep her warm. I close my eyes, uncoiling the beast inside me just enough to raise my body temperature, warming her as I climb. Finally, at the top we emerge onto a platform with a peaked stone roof. From here, we see nothing but mountains. From here, we see to the ends of the world. I set her down, draping the fur over her shoulders. I point to the north.

  “Wait,” I say.

  We wait. It is late in the Long Day. The sun is sinking ever so slowly in the sky, a giant blazing ball of orange. In her village, she’d already be in bed. But magic is employed here to shift time. Nights are brief in the wake of a claiming, the days longer.

  A gust of wind blows so hard that Lyla closes her eyes against it. When she turns back to face the north, she tenses and gasps. I know she has seen the silhouette before, that even from this distance the small speck over the mountain could trigger the most traumatic memory of her life.

  I ready my arms to open, to hold her should she turn away in fear. Instead, she steps away from me and rushes to the railing before I can stop her. The dragon, which had folded its wings to ride an air channel down to the opening in the mountain, now spreads them to brake, blotting out the sun. I jerk her back.

  “No!” she cries, fighting me. “I want to see!”