by Randi Darren
Leila looked down, then back up to Vince, her face turning the same color as her clothing.
“You dressed me?” she asked.
“I did. I was a complete gentleman, though I did steal a single kiss from sleeping beauty,” Vince said with a smirk. “Now, can I come in? Breakfast is getting cold. I might eat it myself.”
Vince hefted the tray full of sausage, bacon, hash browns, toast, and two skins of water.
Leila looked at him as she clearly thought it over. Before too long, though, she stepped aside and gestured into her room.
“Then by all means, come in,” Leila said. “Though we’re still going to talk about you letting me sleep when I had things to show you.”
“I saw quite a bit while I dressed you,” Vince said, walking into her room.
Leila sniffed and closed the door.
“Not as if you haven’t seen it before. Though I’m glad you’re still wanting it after having it,” Leila said.
“Of course. Did the soreness go away quicker last time, by the way?” Vince asked.
Moving to her table, he set down the tray and quickly divided the food in half.
“Mm. For our second time together, it definitely went much better than I predicted. The soreness didn’t last as long either, no.
“That’s quite a lot of bacon.”
“You looked pale. I made sure to load up on meat.
“Now, you can eat everything I’ve put there for you, or I can feed you,” Vince said, indicating her half of the mound of food. “I want to see your tummy bulging.
“And no talk about work, either. This is small talk time only.”
Leila slid into the chair and picked up a rather large sausage link, bringing it to her mouth.
Her large eyes flicked to him, and she gave him a smile.
“What about flirting?” she asked a second before she pressed her lips around the sausage. Then she tilted her head to one side, watching him.
Well, that’s different.
And fun.
An hour later and after a quick bath to wash the sweat off, Leila finally managed to get Vince to her workshop.
Looking around the small room, he felt mildly surprised. He’d been expecting something out of the books his mother used to read to him when he wanted a scary story.
Jars filled with souls, half-decomposed bodies, and maybe a soul construct floating around.
Instead it looked just like his own study, but with far more storage.
“Come, come,” Leila said, moving quickly over to a very obvious wall safe.
“I have something in here that I was experimenting with for a while. I managed to complete it a few days ago, but it needed a bit more testing,” Leila continued. “Now seems like a good time to show it off, and what I want to do.”
“Uh huh,” Vince said, coming over to stand next to Leila. Reaching down, he lightly began to draw his fingers back and forth along her shoulders as she fiddled with her safe.
“Stop it. You make me dizzy when you touch me like that,” Leila complained, her back shuddering.
“Really? That’s kinda neat,” Vince said with a smile, drawing idle patterns along her spine.
“You’re like a living drug that I can have sex with,” Leila said. “Now stop it. I need to focus. You can bother me again tonight if I’m not sore.”
Chuckling to himself, Vince stopped and took a step back to give her space. “As the Warlock commands.”
A few seconds later, the safe popped open to reveal three strange glowing cannisters.
“These are soul prisons,” Leila said, pulling one out. “This particular one is an air spirit I captured years ago. I’ve been fiddling with it for as long as I’ve had this idea.”
Standing upright, she walked over to a table and hopped up into the chair, placing the cannister in the center.
“Now, what this is,” Leila said, pointing at the chair across from herself, “is a construct of my own devising. I’m sure you’ve heard of them before?”
Vince nodded, sliding into the chair Leila had indicated.
“This is mine. It’s a utility construct. It feeds on the mana in the area and either turns it into heat or cold air,” she said, tapping the cannister with a finger. “It’ll last indefinitely and is entirely harmless.”
Leila then pressed her hand to the top of the magical cylinder, and it vanished.
“And now I’ve set it loose,” she said with a grin, “its goal is rather simple. Adjust the ambient temperature to what a thermometer would read as seventy-four or seventy-five degrees.”
A bright white presence of what looked like ethereal mist floated between them above the table.
“It’s drinking in some of the ambient mana right now. It doesn’t take much to survive on. Nothing we’d ever notice.
“This isn’t my first construct, but it’s my most advanced. An eternal construct hasn’t been an actual thing until this moment.”
Raising his eyebrows at that, Vince was a bit in awe. What she’d just told him was that left to its own devices, this little thing would outlast even the planet.
As long as it had mana to feed on.
“And I shared it with you,” Leila said with a sappy smile on her face. “Though now I have to turn this around in the opposite direction.”
Turning his gaze back to Leila, Vince waited.
“I took the souls of those two Dragons you wanted me to. I kept them. Put them in cannisters,” Leila said, her words slow and drawn out. “I’ve been experimenting with them, just like I was this.”
She gestured at the strange spirit.
“Except the Dragon souls feed on mana in a designated area. One will patrol an area devouring mana, with the release point being the center of the circle.
“Eventually, in thousands of years and long after it’s devoured enough to exist for all time, the area it’s in will die. It will be nothing more than a desert at best, even devoid of desert creatures.
“Mana is the very essence of life, after all. Without it, nothing can survive.”
Letting out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Vince only had one question he wanted to know the answer to.
“Would this Dragon construct also take mana from living things?” he asked.
Leila nodded slowly, her eyes unfocused on the middle distance between herself and the wall.
“Oh yes. It’ll violently attack any living thing it finds, kill it, and drain it of all mana.
“Bunnies, mice, birds, humans, other Dragons. Doesn’t matter,” Leila said. “Kill them, drain them, go back on patrol.”
“How large is the area it’d end up… end up killing off?”
“Large. Very large. Mostly because it needs to take in so much mana. Fifty miles each, maybe? It’s a rough guess—I don’t really know. But that’s what I’d estimate.”
“In other words, one of these could wipe out a city, the villages surrounding it, and everything in the area.
“Like a giant bomb,” Vince said.
“More or less. It’d be very bad on a city. The more mana available, the faster the death toll would rise. Like fire given oxygen.”
Leila gave herself a shake and then sighed, looking at Vince with a smile.
“It wasn’t my intent to make it when I set out. But I did. I have two of them.
“And any Dragon brought to me alive can have the same result. Which is why I’ll need to go with you when you head south.”
Leaning back in his chair, Vince started thinking on it.
“Mouth and Blue will be coming. They already told me they can keep the… the pregnancy in check until we’re ready,” Leila said, meeting Vince’s gaze dead on.
Ah. So soon? I didn’t think it’d happen that quickly.
Nodding his head again, Vince then shook it.
“Alright. Pack your things. We’ll be heading for the front later today.
“Thera plans to move out immediately.”
***
“You want me to go capture a red and bring it back for you,” she clarified.
“Yes,” Leila said with a nod. “I need its soul.”
“Hm. I will do this, Warlock. Though if it is a female red, I will offer for her to join my wing first, if I feel she might fit,” Taylor said with a snuff.
Ramona was looking over Taylor’s wings with a critical eye.
“You sure you can do this?” Ramona asked in a neutral tone. “Your wings look well enough, but they do not appear completely set.”
Taylor’s draconic face looked like it was sucking on a lemon.
“No. I’m not. Which is why I’ve asked you to accompany me. With you, I feel we can easily take on three Dragons, let alone a solo on a surveying flight.”
Ramona blinked twice at that, then lowered her head down and headbutted the Dragon.
Without another word, the Dragonnewt and the Dragon turned and took off into the sky.
Must be some sort of show of understanding or affection.
Vince scratched at his cheek, then looked at the audience around him.
Mouth, Blue, Caroline, Yaris, Leila, and Red were all nearby. Everyone else had been sent out on their own duties and chores.
For better or worse, this was his traveling strike team.
Still seems weird to see Mouth in leather armor though.
As if sensing his eyes on her, the busty Dryad met his gaze and gave him a fetching smile.
Then she gave him a tiny hand wave, practically vibrating in place with energy.
And if she wasn’t so excited to be here, I think I’d try to send her back anyways.
Actually, let’s make sure she’s as trained as we can be.
“Alright, Mouth. Let’s see what you can do with that stick of yours,” Vince said suddenly. “We might be waiting a while.”
“Huh?” Mouth said, her hand on her quarter stick, bringing it up in front of herself and bouncing the end of it off her forehead. “Ow.”
Shit. I think someone might have lied to me.
“That doesn’t count,” Mouth said with a pouty frown.
Then, in a strange twist of reality, she fell in a fairly defensive position, her staff held and angled correctly towards him.
That or Mouth is just Mouth.
Time passed quickly as everyone willing took a turn sparring with Vince.
Surprisingly, Yaris managed to score a hit on him with a wooden saber.
“I think I see them,” Leila said. Her eyes had never stopped scanning the sky above them.
Vince let his blade fall out of formation, and he turned away from a panting and out-of-breath Blue.
“It does appear that way,” Vince said, immediately catching sight of a large black Dragon heading their way.
With its jaw and claws holding on to a smaller red.
Ramona was a much smaller figure, flapping along beside the Dragons.
“Guess they worked well together,” Vince said.
“I would hope so,” Caroline replied. “Considering that the offspring of a Dragon is a Dragonnewt. Mother and daughter hunting pairs do quite well in the wild.”
“By the way,” Yaris said casually—far too casually. “Since it’s likely our big friend is going to land here in a minute or so.
“This seems like a good time to bring up the fact that Felicity put in for a permanent transfer to Felix’s Legion.”
She did what?
Vince frowned for a second, then shrugged.
“That’s fine. I wish her happiness and nothing but the best. Gods above know she deserves it, and I clearly wasn’t going to be the one to give it to her,” he said.
“Oh. Alright. Then you’ll be pleased to know I already approved the transfer,” Yaris said. “Her last day was yesterday. Though I did get a final transfer approval for Mr. White in the same day.”
Felicity was a monument to efficiency and keeping things in line. I’m not sure if Brother is getting the better deal, or if I am.
Taylor landed in front of them suddenly, with a crash and spray of dirt.
“Stop struggling, fool,” she growled around the neck of the other Dragon. “You’ll just make this worse.”
The red Dragon struggled for a second more, then fell limp onto the ground beneath Taylor.
Letting go of its neck, she stomped down with her back leg onto its shoulders.
“We caught this one on its way in,” Taylor said. “Not a female, so no use to the wing.”
“I can join a wing? I don’t mind! I’m more than happy to be an omega,” said the Dragon.
Taylor huffed at that and leaned into the other Dragon.
“Only room for one male in my wing,” Taylor growled.
Ramona dropped in and landed lightly next to the other two Dragons.
“From what we could gather on the way back, their orders are fairly simple.
“Observe, do not engage, report back. They’re being used as no-risk scouts,” Ramona said, then flashed Vince a feral grin. “Or at least, no risk until now.”
Vince unsheathed his blade and made his way over to the red Dragon’s chest.
His hatred for Dragons had mostly dissipated with Ramona’s return.
He wasn’t about to look down on a power boost, though.
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, man’s gotta eat.
“What? What are you doing?” the Dragon asked.
“I can interrogate him after,” Leila said, a purple rope coming to life between her hands.
Spinning out between her fingers, it grew longer and thicker with each passing second.
“After? After what?” the Dragon asked. “After what!?”
The red started to visibly thrash against Taylor’s crushing weight on its back.
This isn’t… right. Is it?
But this is war. And this is what we have to do to get them to leave us alone.
To get them to realize they can’t attack us.
Take from us.
Kill our people.
Leila’s glowing rope of soul-sucking evil flipped out of her hands.
It speared right through the Dragon’s chest. The Dragon fell limp to the ground, unmoving.
Then the rope became taut and Leila started pulling it back towards herself, hand over hand.
Then a squirming, writhing, miniature white Dragon popped free of the red’s body. It was wrapped up in the chains, being inexorably drawn to Leila.
“You can do it now,” she said between gritted teeth as she kept pulling the very obvious soul closer to herself.
Taking that as his cue, Vince slashed at the Dragon’s chest. Scales popped and sprayed out from the strike.
As he brought the sword back around the other way, a massive gaping wound appeared.
Sheathing his blade, Vince went shoulders deep into the cavity with his hunting knife.
Ten seconds later, he came back out with a massive chunk of pulsing Dragon heart.
Looking around at everyone, he realized they were staring at him.
Frowning, he took a bite from the bloody organ and then started to walk back to his tent.
He’d much rather eat in private. Not to mention he was certain it was going to get everywhere.
Always such a messy meal. Suppose I could go about it in a different way, but… who’s to say it wouldn’t lose some of its power?
Red trotted up beside him, her face pressed into what he presumed was a hunk of Dragon heart.
Lifting her head up, she gave him a bloody-toothed grin.
Her face was plastered with red blood. Going from her chin all the way to her eyes.
“Bringer was right! Dragon is very delicious,” she said, nodding her head. “Red is quite happy with it. Though Red still prefers eating from Vince.”
Lifting her pinky nail, she wedged it between two of her teeth and started working at something.
“It’s much
easier to eat as well. Doesn’t get stuck between my teeth,” Red said. “Not that I’m complaining about a free meal.
“I never imagined it’d be so… rich.”
Red’s entire pitch and timbre had started to change. Going much higher and sounding far more feminine.
Then she gave herself a rough shake, a frown visible on her face.
“Red. Red is Red. Red is no more that woman,” she said, her voice dropping into its normal tone again.
And what happens when your memories finally return in full?
Chapter 31
“Red wants to know why we’re still waiting,” whined the Beastkin. “Why aren’t we going toward our foe and tearing out their throats? We should be fighting them.”
Red’s speech pattern had returned to normal, though the pitch of her voice had taken on that distinctively more feminine quality.
Permanently, it seemed.
To Vince, it seemed to fit her appearance more than previously.
He’d never tell her that, of course. It was obvious to everyone she wanted nothing to do with her previous self.
“Because we’re waiting for the signal, you silly thing,” Mouth said, idly scratching Red behind the ears. “Be patient. Just remember you can demand a meal from Vince as soon as the battle is over.
“Right?”
Red grunted and turned her head into Mouth’s hand, moving Mouth’s scratching fingers to where she wanted them.
“You’re right. Red thanks you, Mouth.”
When did she let Mouth start petting her? She didn’t used to like anyone touching her at all.
More so than Taylor, even.
Catching his inquisitive look, the Dryad gave him a wide, knowing smile. Tilting her head to one side, she watched him but said nothing.
Sighing, Vince looked back to the cliffs in front of them. They were impressively tall. Tall and foreboding, with enemies and guns at the top.
Personally, he agreed with Red. He’d rather be engaging already instead of waiting.
“Thera gave us our orders and was quite clear,” Caroline said from her place atop Taylor, wearing the same armor from her last ride on the Dragon. “There’s no reason for us to disobey simply for the sake of impatience.