by Emma James
She still couldn’t bring herself to speak. She could barely believe the evidence staring back at her.
“Now you understand how so many of us can live together in our citadels. We live there as people, not as dragons. We only take our dragon form to fly over the land and to hunt our food in the mountains. We take our dragon form to fight our enemies, but to our friends and families, we are as human as you.”
Her eyes drank their fill of his handsome face, but overwhelming emotion welled up within her and threatened to burst out. She dangled on the brink of laughter and tears at the same moment.
He put his arms around her, and his face hovered not an inch from her eyes. His warm lips touched hers. In a flash, she threw her arms around his neck and clutched him against her. Her eyes overflowed with tears of joy. She devoured his mouth and hurled herself against him.
She never wanted anything but him, and now all her dreams came true. Her body longed for completion in him, and now nothing remained to bar her way. She gave herself over into his arms.
He leaned closer, and she lay back on the warm ground. He stretched his body over hers, and her arms and legs welcomed him. His lips probed her mouth open, and their tongues frolicked in joyful union.
All the dragon’s magnetic power permeated his human form. He intoxicated her senses and filled her nostrils with the scent of a man. This time, unlike the many times she played around with Marcus, she could give her whole self to him. Her inner being lay bared for his pleasure, and her flesh quivered with anticipation.
Tanak was in no hurry. He cradled her in his arms and kissed her long and deep. His warmth rippled down into the nest between her legs, and she rubbed her thighs against his legs. He ran his hands up and down her sides, from her hips to her ribs. She pressed her chest up into his hands in an agony of desire.
His endless caressing caught hold of her thin dress. It migrated up to her hips, and his hand touched her bare thigh. She trembled at the contact. His hand trailed her sensitive skin and found the inner line leading up to her warmth.
She opened to his exploring fingers, and his gentle circles around her opening brought a moan to her lips. She arched her back against the ground, but no encouragement would induce him to escalate against his inclinations.
He discovered her inner wetness, and her flesh rose to meet him. She tried to claw his clothes off him, but he only pushed her back down with a firm hand. He made her lie in seething torment while he stimulated her to the brink of insanity. His fingers delved into her molten cavern and brought her vital essence bubbling to the surface.
She contorted on his fingers, but he wouldn’t bring her to completion that way. Just when she thought she would explode, he withdrew his hand and rolled up on top of her. He covered her mouth with his lips, and his tongue insisted on her attention with no room for respite.
She whined for him and wrapped her legs around his hips. He rocked back and forth with his bulging spike digging into her engorged flesh. She grabbed his buttocks and scratched his back.
With a quick movement of his wrist, he freed himself and laid his naked manhood against her choice fissure. He arched to angle his shaft into her waiting channel. A flicker of fear blinked across Margila’s mind, but she didn’t have time to hesitate before he was home.
His rigid lance split her open. A stab of pain rocketed through her, and she screamed out loud. The next minute, he pumped down hard to the very limit of her being. His shaft touched the delicate landscape of her innermost self, and his rhythm transported her to a distant world full of pleasure and delight.
She grappled with him there on the floor, but every stroke of his shaft sent waves of heavenly warmth through her. They rocked her far away to the clouds, where no fear or anger or danger could touch her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Margila straightened her dress in the sunshine at the cave’s mouth. Tanak sat on a rock outside and checked the sky. “We should be going.”
“What happens now?”
He stood up. “Now we go home. There’s no reason to hang around here anymore.”
“I thought you planned to hunt.”
“You’ll have plenty to eat and drink when we get there. We’ll be safer there, and I have no idea when the soldiers will come back.”
“They’ll be looking for a dragon, not two people.”
“All the more reason to get out while we can. I have to report to my father what we’ve seen. Our people need to prepare for the Axis invasion.”
Without another word, he started to grow larger. The same transformation process reversed itself until the dragon stood before her in all its majesty. Margila stared at him. She still could hardly believe the man to whom she just gave herself was the same person as this fearsome reptile.
In spite of everything, she could never forget that she gave herself willingly, with her whole heart, to this beast without knowing he was really a man underneath. She loved him for his inner strength, for his kindness to her and his noble bearing. His handsome appearance was simply a nice addition. She would love him and desire him even if he wasn’t a man.
His tail whipped the air, and he raised his head to sniff the air. Then he bent his head close to her. “Climb onto my back. Step on my head, and I’ll lift you up.”
She put her hands against his side and her foot on his head. With a sweep of his muscled neck, he boosted her up. She threw one leg over his back and found a secure place to sit where his neck met his shoulders.
He unfurled his wings and lifted off the ground. The wind whistled through her hair, and she raised her face to the sunshine. His wings stroked up and down, and his muscles rippled under her. The mountain fell away.
Tanak circled the caldera where they spent their first days. One side of the bowl had collapsed where the Axis vessel fired into the mountain. Then the mountain grew smaller and smaller. He swept over the landscape, but he didn’t head north. He circled east.
Fields and roads appeared down below. Tanak hovered over a high mountain with a blackened post sticking out of the top. Margila gazed down at the sight of her own sacrifice. She cast her eye farther east. Her own village spread out along the river. The green grass of the Common lay browning in the autumn sun. Smoke billowed from the chimneys.
How tiny and insignificant the village looked from here. Even the few shiny metal vehicles parked on the Common reminded her of children’s toys. How little those people understood about their own world! How paltry and petty their concerns seemed to her now!
If only they could understand the Raveniss as she could, maybe they would give up this tragic war. She didn’t understand the Raveniss as well as the other women who went before her, but even she knew how fruitless and wasteful this war was for both sides. If only she could get them to understand, she could save so many innocent lives.
Even as that thought crossed her mind, she knew, as Tanak and all the rest of the Raveniss knew, that it was useless. The people in that village didn’t want to understand the Raveniss, and they certainly didn’t want to save innocent lives. If they did, they wouldn’t hunt the Raveniss in the first place. The Raveniss represented innocent lives. Now the village sold what little sovereignty they had to the Axis for some blood-thirsty obsession with destroying the dragons.
Margila turned away. She no longer belonged to those people. She no longer wanted to be one of them or to involve herself with their concerns. She hated their prejudices and their headstrong traditions. Another, brighter future awaited her. Enlightened people with access to a whole universe of information waited for her in the north. They would welcome her as Tanak’s consort. She would raise children with him in peace and light.
Tanak didn’t linger around that mountain, either. He only gave her a brief glimpse into the world she was leaving behind, enough of a glimpse to solidify her resolve. Then he turned away northward.
She never saw him in the full power of his flight. He covered vast distances with every downbeat of his wings. Mountain ranges slip
ped away. In the far distance, the ocean crashed against rocky shores. Margila had never seen the ocean before. Her village had no word for it, and she couldn’t understand what it was.
They passed another mountain range, and deserts stretched to every horizon as far as the eye could see. Night fell, and another day dawned before they came in sight of a higher mountain range. It dwarfed all the mountains Margila had ever seen before. Snow capped its peaks, and waterfalls tumbled from high cliffs into bottomless canyons.
Margila sat up to get a better view. Tanak flew far into this vast mountain range before a spot of gray sprang up on the cliff face. They flew closer, and Margila could just make out spires jutting against the sky. Colored banners waved from their pointed tips, and the battlements extended from one mountain to another.
The city covered several mountains with high walls and towering spires. Interconnected citadels formed one massive edifice set into the mountains. Tanak flew over the first parapet and soared down over well-tended fields dotted with villages. Margila craned her neck to look down. Livestock browsed in the fields. A herd boy raised his hand to wave to the dragon as it passed overhead. Could this be a home like the one she left behind?
Tanak flew onward to the next parapet and up to the highest spire. The closer he came, the better Margila could see. A wide courtyard connected four spires at their corners, and people walked around down there. The dragon didn’t concern them at all. Why should it? It was one of their own people.
Tanak flapped his wings and banked down into the courtyard. He landed on all four legs, and Margila slipped down to the ground. She couldn’t get enough of the impressive structure and the flags flapping in the wind.
The people she saw from the sky were soldiers. They wore armor, like ancient knights, and they held weapons at the ready. Before Margila could formulate the words to ask any questions, she found Tanak standing at her side in his human form. He took her hand and turned her toward the north spire, where a crowd of people came to meet her.
A man and a woman in the finest clothing Margila had ever seen led the procession. The man wore a golden crown on his head. The woman came toward her and held out both hands. “Welcome, my dear. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to finally meet you and welcome you to our fair city. My name is Katya, and I am Tanak’s mother. This is his father, the Archduke Martindale.”
Margila blushed and bowed to them both. “Thank you. It is an honor to finally meet you.”
Katya laughed and raised her up. “Please, please. You are our own family now. You must dispense with all those formalities. We may not look the same as your people in the village, but we are, after all, people just like you.”
Tanak stepped forward and embraced his parents. His father clapped him on the shoulders. “You took your time coming back. I was worried and wanted to send out a patrol to find you, but your mother insisted these things take time. She should know.”
Margila’s head shot up and she stared at Katya. “You do?”
“Of course, my dear. I was sacrificed, the same way you were, and look at me now, welcoming my own son’s mate to follow in my footsteps.”
“But that means Tanak is a hybrid, too.”
“That’s right. As you can see, there is no difference between the hybrid offspring from any other Raveniss. Your children will be fully Raveniss, as if you never came from the village at all.”
Margila shook her head. “I wonder why I worried about coming here at all. I shouldn’t have taken so long to make up my mind.”
“Nonsense, my dear. Leaving behind everything you know and love to mate with a Raveniss takes real courage. You have our deepest respect, and we will make every effort to make you comfortable here. As you can see, you will find other maidens from your own village here, in every walk of life. Some of them you may already know from previous lotteries.”
Tanak interrupted. “There’s another reason we took so long getting back. The humans have brought in a fleet to wage war against us. They have vessels patrolling the mountains, and they attacked us more than once. I would have been killed if Margila hadn’t saved me.”
“And I would have been killed if Tanak hadn’t saved me.”
The Archduke frowned. “In that case, you had better come and give me a full report. We must send out fliers to patrol our southern boundary, and the other families will have to be informed so we can call up a council of war.”
Tanak turned to Margila. “Mother will take you down and show you to our chambers. I will meet you there in a little while.”
He and his father went back through the door into the spire, along with a crowd of other men. Katya hooked her arm through Margila’s elbow. “Come with me, my dear. You must be starving.”
Margila laughed. “Pretty close to it.”
Katya snapped her fingers, and a bunch of women crowded around. Others hurried away into the citadel. “I’ll show you to your quarters, and you’ll find a hot meal waiting for you there, along with some more suitable clothing. Leaving the village as a sacrifice is hard for a young girl. No one knows that better than me.” She motioned to an elegant lady on Margila’s other side. “This is Praila. She is married to my older son. She came from your village several years ago. Maybe you remember her.”
“Only distantly. I think, back then, I was too young to understand the lotteries.”
“I remember you, Margila,” Praila replied. “I remember what a lovely little girl you were. I’m glad we’re here together, married to two brothers.”
“What about your other sons? Tanak said he had three brothers. Are the others married to a Raveniss woman?”
The smile evaporated from Katya’s face. “I’m afraid no one is married to any Raveniss woman. We have so few people that all the men must take their wives from the village. We have a lottery of our own, and each man must wait his turn before he goes to collect the sacrifice. My younger sons have not yet had their turns.”
“That must take a very long time.”
“Not only that, but each man takes his life in his hands going anywhere near the village. Sometimes a girl already has a sweetheart who wants to fight the dragon to save her.”
“That happened to me. Tanak had to knock my sweetheart out to get away.”
“Some men aren’t so lucky. In earlier years, whole cadres of village men would lay in wait on the mountaintop and attack the dragon as a group. Several of our men lost their lives that way, and our numbers are already low enough.”
Katya led Margila down into the spire. A winding stone staircase spiraled into the citadel’s heart and opened out in a large stone passage lined with vaulted chambers. Light poured into the rooms from windows in the walls. Tapestries covered the walls and made the place bright and inviting.
Katya kept talking the whole way down the passage, but Margila couldn’t stop staring at everything around her. She didn’t understand half of what Katya said.
At last, Katya opened a heavy wooden door and led the way into a chamber unlike any Margila had seen so far. An enormous bed stood in the center, and high windows overlooking the mountains gave a commanding view of the villages and farms far below. A washstand stood beside the bed, and a stuffed couch and chair sat before the windows.
Margila went to the window and drank in the sights with her whole self. “It looks like home.”
“It’s much nicer,” Katya told her. “None of those people suffer from hardship or want. The produce from the farms goes to a central distribution hub so everyone has enough during the winter. When the snows come and the winds howl, all the people and animals come into the central keep to stay warm. They sit around the fires and tell stories, and the children play games together in between wrestling in the snowy courtyards. No one goes without here. We all look after each other.”
“Who tends the farms? Do you have a subclass of farmers that provides all the food to everyone?”
“There is no subclass. There is only Raveniss. Many of the men from the ruling families
make their lives on the farms. Everyone gives their work according to his or her skills and desires. If someone wants to tend the flocks, he does so. If he feels called to observe the stars, he spends his time doing that. No one tells anyone what to do, but everything gets done in its own time.
“That sounds very civilized.”
“It is. Now stop talking and sit down to eat. The food won’t get any hotter.”
Margila became aware of the most delectable smell, and Katya showed her to a table set next to the window. Roasted meat, steamed vegetables, and warm bread with butter lay on a plate, all ready to satisfy Margila’s appetite. She ate and drank until she could hold no more.