Mara’s dragons were livid with rage as they raced forward, crowding over Dylan like a swarm and Sarah let out a scream. They bit and gnawed, but most of them were too young, too inexperienced to be able to pierce his thick hide. Dylan roared violently and grabbed one by the throat, nearly popping its head off, and used it as a blunt weapon against the others.
Bones popped and wings were torn, and blood seemed to shower down in heavy dark globes. “Dylan, behind you!” Sarah shouted, just as Mara bore down on her.
The Shifter soldier turned in time to see one of the bigger Rogues flying down through the air. Dylan turned on his back, catching the attack with all four legs, and tossed the heavy blue-grey dragon into his brothers. Several squealed in pain and dropped out of the undercarriage as Dylan righted himself and continued his massacre, slashing left and right with his claws and biting down on the unprotected bellies of his foes until his mouth was a slavering haunt of blood and bile.
At the far end of the room, Mara had her fingers around Sarah’s throat. They were like icy wire, constricting tighter and tighter. Sarah gasped, trying to free herself – the look in the other hybrid’s eyes was one of vengeance. Her dragons were being torn limb from limb; the least she could do was kill Sarah.
“You ruined everything, everything!” Mara screeched. “You’ll die for this! Dieee!”
Sarah shook her head, but the woman’s grip was too strong. I’m going to die, she realized. It was an oddly calm thought. Working as a nurse, she had always thought her own death would be like the ones she had witnessed: quick and painful and brutal, or slow and equally painful. But it wasn’t like that all. Oxygen began to run out and her vision blurred. This is it, she thought.
A clatter of steel pipes and broken cement exploded behind them. It was enough for Mara to loosen her grip temporarily as she looked behind her, and Sarah coughed and looked between the woman’s legs. A black shape had shot straight up through the undercarriage, forcing its way through the infrastructure and burning away the rest in a plume of brilliant dragon-fire.
Gavin! Sarah felt a breath of fresh air, grunted, and kicked out wildly at Mara. The other hybrid was taken by surprise and let out a grunt as the kick hit her in the stomach and face. She spiraled backward, clutching at her nose, which fountained blood.
“No! STOP!” Sarah said, holding her throat and rushing forward, but it was too late.
The giant hole that Gavin had opened in the floor careened toward her and Mara could only let out a tiny gasp as her foot stepped back into empty air and she disappeared over the side. Sarah slid to the hole where a fracture of cement and rebar looked over the edge, into the bottomless night and the water below. Mara was just a pale dot, and when she hit the water there was a white explosion of waves and then nothing.
“No,” Sarah said, coughing. She had never meant to kill the hybrid. It had been an accident, but it was an intractable one. There was no coming back, no do-overs. “Goddammit, no,” she pleaded again, punching the cement. Her eyes were stained with the dust of the room and her own tears.
Upon witnessing the death of their leader, the other Rogues immediately lost the will to fight, dropping like rag-dolls to the floor and clambering toward the hole. Dylan and Gavin stepped back, taking up a defensive position around Sarah just in case, but it was clear the other dragons were at a loss – their mistress was dead, killed by another. They all began to let out horrible sobs, a whining high-pitched howl that filled the air and was haunting in implications. Sarah stood back up, just as Dylan resumed his human shape beside her. Gavin remained in Form, one wing spread, his eyes reddened and wary. So like him to remain suspicious, Sarah thought fondly.
“It was an accident,” she replied.
“I know it was,” Dylan replied. His face wasn’t a scowl any longer, if anything, there was pity lining his features, an impenetrable sadness, with little way to console it. “But it’s over now.”
“What about them,” she pointed to the dragons, some who had now returned to human form; miserable and skinny men and women, naked and dirty, sobbing at their loss.
“They’re all alone now. For so long, Mara was their guide, their voice… the thing that gave them purpose,” Dylan replied blandly, “but now they have a new choice, a new path. I hope they make the right one.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do for them?”
Dylan sighed, and looked up at Gavin who merely flexed his broad neck toward them and snorted derisively. “If the Order has their way, they’ll purge this whole place… and them along with it,” he saw the horror rise in Sarah’s face but held up his hand, “but considering we just got rid of their leader… and ensured that she can’t control them any longer, I think we have some leeway. Gavin and I will appeal to the council, try to make them see what happened here.
“With any luck, we might be able to rehabilitate them. I feel… like we owe them that, at least, a second chance. We have to try, anyway.”
Sarah nodded and took a step back from the edge. They stayed for many long moments, drenched in the lonesome cries of the Rogues. Silence was the only comfort they could offer.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Sarah leaned back in the pool and watched the stars flicker up above. She braced her arms against the side of the pool and kicked her feet. Behind her, the small garden brought down the scent of lupines and other wildflowers.
“Was I right, or was I right?” she said, and splashed a handful of water at Dylan.
He held up his hands and smiled. His stove-pipe chest boomed as he laughed and he splashed her back. “Admittedly, you were right.”
Ever since both he and Gavin had given their report to the council, it had turned out better than Sarah had hoped. They’d listened to her recommendation, and tried to reintegrate the leaderless Rogues back into society. It was rough, an uphill climb, but most of them would be okay. On top of that, she’d decided to help both partners make better use of the almost unlimited funds that poured in. Dylan had hesitated about it at first – it didn’t seem right to take money and use it for their comfort - but Gavin’s disconsolate opinion had weighed in. Singled-worded, as it was. Yes.
The newly installed rooftop pool and garden had cost a small fortune, but it complemented their penthouse suite quite well. She smiled and leaned back again. Dylan was beside her in an instant, his hand sliding up her belly. She giggled and let him touch her, reveling in the feel of his hands under the water as he rubbed the tender spaces under her breasts. Her bikini was short enough as it was, and did little to conceal her bust, especially in the water where it floated up to his touch.
“And you thought a swimming pool wouldn’t fit the décor,” she said in a chiding manner.
“It’s not that,” he said after a moment, his hand up higher, under her bathing suit. She let out a little sigh as his fingers twiddled with her nipple, and gave a little moan. Her long hair splayed out in the water like a thousand golden scrolls. “I just don’t know what to tell the Order when they see our next receipt and funding bill.”
“They’ll say wow, why didn’t you think of that before,” Gavin interrupted, coming up the stairs from the kitchen in his bathing suit. He was carrying a silver tray with three mixed drinks, and set them down beside the pool.
“Or else they’ll skin me, and use my flayed body to suffocate you for insubordination,” Dylan said sulkily, and that made Sarah laugh. Sometimes she felt as if her two men switched personalities, with the usually dark and gloomy Gavin suddenly becoming the life of the party while Dylan turned into his shell.
“In any case, I think we should have another toast,” she said, reaching over and handing the daiquiri to Dylan, who took it with a grin. Gavin slid into the pool beside them and raised his own glass.
“What exactly do we toast to this time?” he ventured.
“Oh, I think that’s pretty obvious,” Dylan snapped and gave them both a sly wink. “To our savior, even if she doesn’t have wings or sharp talons or a beak. To Sara
h!”
It was unanimous, and they all clinked their glasses together and drank deeply. Gavin finished his in almost a single gulp, and raised his eyebrow when he saw that the others were sipping theirs politely. Dylan laughed this time and Sarah joined in.
“Now that you mention it, Sarah,” Dylan said, setting his glass down, “we did leave something out of our report. But for your own protection, it’s best that it stays just between us three. When Mara confessed to being able to control the other Rogues, I looked into some of the ancient history in the Order’s library. Most of the tomes haven’t been touched in years, and what there is of it is often cryptic and apocryphal. Nevertheless, I did find several passages which referred to something similar – a hybrid being able to influence the behavior of Shifters.”
It was Sarah’s turn to raise an eyebrow and she put her own glass down and sat down on the bench in the pool and the water rose to the tops of her breasts. “You think the Order would want to… do something about me, if they knew?”
Dylan cleared his throat. “The Order may have good intentions, but sometimes that isn’t enough to do what’s right. I don’t know what they’d do, to be honest. Which is why it should remain a secret.”
Gavin looked uncomfortable and rubbed at his eye, wondering how to bring it up. “Erm, that does bring up another point. Does Sarah have control over us? I don’t really feel like it, but...” he hesitated, “not that I don’t trust you, Sarah.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I think if I do have an influence on you, it’s only reciprocal. Mara wanted control, and so she manifested it.”
“Well, what exactly do you want?” Dylan prompted.
A sly grin passed over her lips and she pursed them and narrowed her eyes as she reached for her drink and slurped through the straw. The anticipation was languorous, and Gavin shifted uncomfortably again, but it only made Dylan laugh out loud.
“I take it back, you do have some measure of control over us,” he gestured to Gavin, “or at least on him. But tell us, what is it that you want? You’re not like Mara.”
Sarah nodded. “No, not like Mara,” she admitted. “What I want has always been simple.” She looked up and studied the faces of the two men. “To be loved, of course. But I already found that, so… it doesn’t seem like it’s worth worrying about, now does it?”
Gavin sighed and leaned against the pool near her arm. “You had me worried there,” he said, half-jokingly, and kissed her forehead.
Dylan came up beside her again and his puckered scar no longer seemed scary to her. Rather it was a mark of his maturity, a painful lesson that had allowed him, when it really counted, to be there for the people that were most important to him in life – Gavin and Sarah.
His hand moved through the water and rubbed her inner thigh. She opened her legs, even as Gavin advanced on her from the other side, sucking on her neck. His tongue truly was like fire, and she felt it course through her body. She sighed and tilted her head, and he began to nibble. Dylan’s hand ran over her crotch, but she was already pulling the bottom of her bikini off. It floated indignantly to the surface of the pool and floated away from them, and he smiled and rubbed his palm against her groin. Sarah moaned again, spreading her legs as wide as she could, and his fingers tickled over her clitoris.
“Mmm, like that,” she coaxed.
“You smell amazing,” Gavin said into her ear, and bit down on it lightly, causing her to open her mouth in a silence utterance of pleasure. “I bet you smell even better down there.”
Dylan’s hands moved lower and he braced his palm flat across her clitoris as he slid two fingers between her vulva. She bucked her hips into his digits, but he teased her a moment longer, circling and rubbing the large lips of her sex until she reached out with her hand and clutched his massive bicep.
“In,” she said.
He thrust his fingers inside her, and she jumped back with an Ah, her breasts coming out of the water. Droplets drooped over their tan parabolas like a bird taking flight, and Gavin rubbed the space between them. His mouth went lower until he found her nipple and tugged on it lightly. Sarah squirmed against Dylan’s fingers reaching inside her and Gavin’s tongue doing laps against her nipple and tried not to scream out loud, though it would make little difference this high up on the rooftop of the building. She wondered if anyone in the higher skyscraper buildings were able to look down and see what was happening. At this point she didn’t even care.
A strong urge to come rose up in her belly and she pushed her hands down toward her crotch and held Dylan’s fingers inside her. He responded by freezing, and she let out a few short breaths as the urge dissipated, even though she could still feel both of his fingers deep against her, perilously close to her G-spot.
“I think she needs some more loving,” Dylan offered quietly, and Gavin merely nodded. Sarah smiled a big grin and let him drag her out of the pool. There was a pool chair almost fully reclined and she offered it to Dylan who awkwardly climbed onto its netting.
“You don’t need these,” she said, pulling down his swim trunks. His penis was already pressing hard against them and sprung out as she lifted the wet fabric and threw it into the pool next to her bikini bottom. He couldn’t take his eyes away from her – her supple nimble body was immaculate in every sense of the word, her high hip bones curving with feminine grace into her long legs. The small hump of her pubic fur was like a small bristling mammal, and between the space in her thighs he could see her labia drooping, drops of pool water dripping off it onto the tiles.
Gavin had thrown his trunks into the pool as well and waited impatiently as he let Sarah guide the two of them. With some effort, she swung her legs over Dylan so she was straddling him with her back to him. Then, with acrobatic dexterity that surprised both men, she slid upward so that her vagina was accessible to Dylan. He understood the cue and supported both her legs, drawing her closer. She wasn’t prepared for the ferocity of his tongue as his face buried into her cleft and his tongue began to stroke her pussy, pressing in. His nose brushed against her and she propped herself on her hands and nodded at Gavin, who approached diffidently.
He seemed at a loss as he ambled forward, but his look of confusion turned to one of pleasure as she took him in her mouth, burying his shaft into her cheeks. He cooed like a happy animal as she moved in and out, her neck cracking with the effort of stimulating him. At the same time, her back arced as she tried to stem her own overwhelming pleasure – she had given herself to Dylan, and he went to work with gusto. She felt her own pre-cum gush out of her, but that only drove him crazier as he slurped at it.
The thought of Dylan licking her in such a way was almost too much and she quickly pulled Gavin’s member from her mouth and screamed. Dylan’s hands wrapped around her buttocks, refusing to let go.
“Wait, wait!” she plead, “Not yet, I want more of you.”
It took great effort on his part but he stopped and let her slide down his chest. Her juices smeared across his pecs and down his abdomen, a sticky clear fluid that smelled like the inside of a cave, damp and inviting. She positioned herself above him, propping his penis toward her, and slid down on it. Both of them were so eager for it, that she was surprised at how easily he penetrated her. Nevertheless, it caused both of them to groan at the same time.
“I’m not done with you,” she said, motioning Gavin to come closer. His penis was rigid and hard, curved upward like a tree branch, and she urged him toward her face where she could better suck him off.
Behind her Dylan set the pace, stroking her buttocks and wrapping his hands around her small waist as she slid back and forth against his member. She reached down and spread her pussy wider with her fingers, and could hardly believe the pressure she felt coming from inside. I’m going to cum so hard, she thought, and hoped she could withstand it. But for Gavin and Dylan’s sake, she had to endure it
She had never given consideration to the idea of being polyamorous. Nor had she ever had lovers quite like
this before. It was a new experience for her, one she had given herself fully to – no regrets, nothing but desire. And love, she wondered. Perhaps she did love them. It was too early to tell, but if she could ever love anyone, she knew it would be these two dragons.
She sucked harder, urging Gavin to come. When she looked up, her lips still fully encircled around him, he smiled back and stroked her head. Almost there, she thought, moving her head faster. Her tongue was getting tired, but she knew it would pay off. At the same time, Dylan was grunting loudly, like a predator on the hunt. His sharp gasps synced with his movements on her hips as he thrust into her. Her vulva felt positively livid with the heat of their lovemaking, and she gasped.
All at once Gavin came hard, a lengthy exhalation drawing out of his lips, and his hand pulled her mouth harder over his member. She felt a jet of heat explode against her throat, filling her cheeks, and had to use her own hand to push back against his thighs. A salty pungent flavor filled her mouth as she gasped for air, and felt the warm goo sliding down her throat. Gavin sighed loudly, voicing syllables she had never heard before except from dying animals.
Almost a second later, there was another sensation, but this one flooded into her nether regions and she felt Dylan’s seed spurt against her walls, coating her with its filigree, and she leaned back against him, stretching his cock and pushing it against her own G-spot so she could come with him.
“Geezus, oh geezus, hold me, h-hold me,” she screamed, moving his hands from her waist up to her breasts.
He bucked his hips into her three times, succumbing to his orgasm, and hers followed shortly after, rocketing through her like fuel thrown on a blaze. His hands squeezed tightly on her chest, pressing her against him. He felt the pulsing of her vagina around his member and breathed her name.
City Of Dragons Page 6