by Rachel Red
Victor and the other several hundred dragons began battling the Oppressors, breathing fire and clawing at them. They obviously had their hands full. None of them even seemed to realize that Alexander had slipped past.
I turned my face from the window and looked at Julia. "But maybe we should get down. And maybe I should get ready with the crossbow. Just in case."
She turned from the window, a little pale. "I think you're right."
We got down, and I cocked the crossbow, thanking my lucky stars that it was a rope-cocking type and not a manual-cocking type, which many human men weren't even strong enough to cock. Next, I loaded in an arrow and moved to stand nearly hidden behind a tall stone column maybe thirty feet or so from the hall doors. I lifted the bow onto my shoulder. All murmuring in the hall quieted.
I stood silently watching the door, Julia close behind me, my stance fairly relaxed. I knew my crossbow skills most likely wouldn't be needed. But just in case, I moved the safety catch on the bow forward, turning it off. Just a split second before Alexander, the Oppressor leader, kicked open one of the hall doors.
He was a rather small man, maybe only five-and-a-half feet tall. But what he lacked in intimidating height, he made up for with his eyes. They glowed red like hot coals. He surveyed the scene in the hall, leering, revealing black, cracked teeth. His entire person, from head to toe, glowed a bright yellowish-green. He didn't seem to see Julia and me.
"Well, well. Hello, beautiful ladies of the great Keeper hall."
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Even the children and babies were quiet. The only sound to be heard was the screeching of the Oppressors outside.
"None of you look like you're having much fun. Not like I just had, and it certainly was fun indeed. I got to practice my new magic trick, which is freezing Keepers in human form with just a glance. And it worked marvelously. They're all out there, frozen like statues, and they'll remain that way for several minutes. They didn't even have a second to shift."
I peered through the crossbow scope, having difficulty aiming. Victor talked while kind of bouncing around on his toes and looking around, his head in near-constant motion. And also, my hands were trembling more than a little bit.
"Now, why I'm here. It's simple. We're running low on sex slaves in Cold Creek. All of us Oppressors get a little too murder-y at times, I'm afraid. So I decided on a two-part mission at the mountains, here, today. I'm going to abduct a few of you fresh, lovely things while hopefully, my men are annihilating some of your husbands outside while we speak. Now, there's one particular one of you I especially want. Word on the street is that your dear Lord Victor recently took a wife. So which one of you is it? A raised hand will be fine if you're too terrified to speak, which you should be. I plan on personally raping you until you beg for death."
Alexander stilled briefly, looking out at the deathly pale faces of all the women seated at the tables. I decided to take my chance. It might be now or never. Silently, I stepped out from behind the stone column and aimed the crossbow at him, peering through the scope. I fired. He turned at the very last possible fraction of a second, almost as if he'd heard the arrow release.
It hit him right between the eyes. A collective gasp came from all the women seated. Alexander fell backward, roaring, the sound tapering off to something like a moan when he hit the ground with a thud. He flailed around a little, moving his arms as if jerkily doggy-paddling through water or something. His eyes rolled back in his skull.
Julia watched him, her face as white as chalk. "He's stunned, but he won't die. We only have about a minute. Better load another arrow."
I pulled one from the side of my jeans and began to, but just then, Victor came tearing into the hall, growling, took one quick look at the scene, and shifted into dragon form. Everyone at the tables immediately sprang up and dashed over to the furthest wall. Julia and I did the same, but ran to the opposite wall.
The moment everyone was safely away, Victor breathed a jet of fire on Alexander's twitching body. Even from forty or so feet away, I felt the heat from it on my skin. Alexander's clothes erupted in flames. Reaching his enormous razor-sharp claws through them, Victor stabbed him through the eye, killing him.
But he wasn't done yet.
After picking up Alexander's corpse with his mouth, he flew over to a window, clawed the metal strips off, and dumped the corpse outside.
The women in the hall erupted in cheers. Victor flew back down, shifted back into human form, and sprinted over to me. He cradled my face in his hands.
"Did he hurt you in any way? Tell me you're all right."
I nodded. "I'm completely fine. He didn't even see me before I got him with the crossbow."
Victor heaved a sigh of relief and planted kisses all over my face. "Thank God. Thank God. I realized he was missing from the fray, had a suspicion of where he might be, and came inside as quick as I could, thinking how I'd die if he'd so much as touched a single hair on your head." Victor kissed me on the mouth briefly before pulling away. "Earlier today, you said you haven't lived a very brave life, and I could see how you might feel like that about your days in Haverbrook. But now... Kate, you are the bravest person I've ever met, male or female, ever. I'm beyond proud and honored to be your husband. You're absolutely incredible. You helped to kill the most powerful sorcerer on earth."
I grinned, placing my hands over his on my face. "Thank you. You're pretty incredible yourself. And I couldn't be any more proud and honored that you're my husband."
He pulled me into his arms and squeezed me tight, planting kisses all over the top of my head.
Sam ran into the hall, and after making sure Julia was okay, hugging her and kissing her, he gave Victor a brief report of what was going on outside.
"Zero casualties on our side, and most of the Oppressors have already fled like the cowards that they are. You should have seen the looks of terror on their faces when they saw you toss Alexander out of the window. They tore off in the direction of Cold Creek. We got two more of them before they did, though. I got one and Michael got one, making the kill count of the day six with the four that you took out, including Alexander."
Victor nodded, his dark brows furrowed. "Good. Though we've still got a long ways to go. But now, with their leader dead, the Oppressors might be lot easier to wipe out once and for all, and hopefully, in the very near future. But tonight, we'll celebrate today's victory. Tonight, we'll enjoy a little peace."
The victory celebration in the great hall lasted until four in the morning. Julia had to tell me that the next day, though, because Victor and I left long before. Several hours before, actually. We couldn't wait to make love for the second time that day. The first time hadn't even been an hour after the battle.
A little giddy on champagne, I began tearing Victor's clothes off the moment we got into our rooms. By the time we made it to our bedroom, we were both completely naked.
After flicking on the light, I pushed him down on the bed, my tipsiness making me even a little bolder than usual. Victor let himself be pushed, not seeming to mind in the least. I climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, before running my hands up and down the chiseled planes of his chest while he positioned the head of his thick, rock-hard shaft at the entrance of my slick womanhood.
My sensitive bud aching and throbbing, I couldn't wait a second longer. Moaning, I slid down the length of Victor's massive erection, taking him in to the hilt. He gripped my hips, growling, and I began riding him, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Before very long at all, I closed my eyes, seeing stars.
Afterward, we didn't go to sleep right away. Not by a long shot. It turned out that the men weren't the only ones to possibly have increased primal tendencies after a battle. I seemed to have a touch of it myself.
But eventually, around three in the morning, I did begin to get a little sleepy, and I curled up in Victor's strong arms, more satisfied and happy than I'd ever imagined possible. I fell asleep to the soothing sensation of him stroking my hair.
And I had a dream. I dreamed that Victor was in dragon form, flying through a pink sky at sunrise with me perched between his broad shoulders. He flapped his massive wings, and I threw my head back, laughing, my heart as light as the clouds we flew above.
CHAPTER NINE
Several Months Later...
It started with a tingling. Specifically, a tingling on my ring finger of my left hand, where I wear my wedding ring. And then, not a second later, my wineglass literally flew into my hand. My good friend Julia, who was sitting across from me in the hot springs, stared flabbergasted.
Her big brown eyes widened. "Am I really drunk, or... or...." She gave her head a quick shake. "What the hell happened?"
I had no idea. I'd just been sitting, completely relaxed, but wishing for a few sips of wine, which I'd left on a rocky ledge just outside the springs. But I'd been too comfortable to get up, so I was looking at the glass, absentmindedly and vaguely wishing it would fly right into my hand.
Julia drained the rest of her wine, set the glass on a rocky ledge behind her and looked at me again. "Uh, Kate? You gotta explain this to me because I've never been so drunk off two glasses of wine that I've seen a glass literally fly into someone’s hand. So what happened?"
I wish I knew. Julia looked slightly pale, the roses in her cheeks from the warm water now gone; I must have looked the same.
I shook my head. "I have no idea. I honestly have no clue what just happened."
I'd only had two glasses of wine while relaxing in the hot springs with Julia and our other friend, Elizabeth, which didn't warrant hallucinations. The three of us had been trying to have some fun and take our minds off of missing our husbands, who'd been on a scouting trip around Cold Creek, where The Oppressors lived, for the previous four days.
The Oppressors were a group of about two hundred sorcerers who could fly through the air using magic. They'd killed nearly everyone in the world with a spell about a hundred years earlier called The Event. But everyone in my hometown, Haverbrook, a small town at the foot of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, had survived it thanks to a counter-spell by a scientist with supernatural powers. Additionally, he'd created about five hundred shifter dragons called The Keepers to protect Haverbrook and combat The Oppressors. My husband Victor was the leader of the shifter dragons. Julia's husband Sam, was his second-in-command. And Elizabeth's husband Michael, was third.
Julia looked from my wineglass to me several times, her expression comically bewildered. Or, it would’ve been comical if I hadn't been just as baffled.
"Is there like ... is there like, a string on it or something?"
I actually held my glass up and looked. "I don't ... I don't think so."
"So what did we just see? How did that glass just fly into your hand?"
“Well ... I guess I was kind of like, vaguely wishing for it or something and then I felt a really weird tingling in my wedding ring finger, and ..." I checked for some sort of string on the wineglass again, something that might have somehow gotten looped around one of my fingers or something, even though I knew it was ridiculous. "I have no idea what just happened."
Julia looked at me for a long time with her dark brown brows furrowed. "We're drunk out of our minds, aren't we?"
I didn't answer right away, considering the possibility. "I guess we must be in order to be seeing things. There's no other explanation. I mean ... we did both kind of chug our first glass. And we are in a natural hot tub and hot water can make people feel drunker, right?" I reasoned.
She nodded. "Yes. This is all starting to make sense. We're so drunk we hallucinated. My new policy: no more drinking in the hot springs. Ever."
"Same here."
I reached behind me and set my still half-full glass on a ledge. Julia knocked back the last few drops in her glass, set it on the ledge behind her and then gasped. "Oh my gosh, look at me! I just said no more drinking in the springs and then I just took another little drink. I'm so drunk I don't even know what I'm doing anymore!"
"It's okay. Elizabeth will be back with snacks soon. We'll eat something and sober up."
Julia cringed. "Oh my gosh, she's gonna think we're absolute drunks. Let's not tell her about your wineglass, okay?"
I nodded. "Okay, our little secret."
That was more than okay with me. Elizabeth was a good friend, but also somewhat like a big sister to Julia and me. We tried to never act like immature idiots around her, which was hard sometimes.
Elizabeth had married Michael, her shifter dragon husband, at age forty-three, and since shifter dragons lived to be about three hundred years old after being turned into shifter dragons, didn't age until the last thirty or forty so of these years, and this longevity was passed onto their wives during a marriage rite called The Mingling of the Blood.
Elizabeth still looked about forty-three, even though she was actually about a hundred and forty-three. She hadn't been one of the yearly sacrificial brides given to The Keepers by the people of Haverbrook, which is how Julia and I had met our husbands. Elizabeth had been one of maybe a couple hundred women on earth to survive The Event, for reasons unknown. Michael, who'd been in his forties when he'd been turned into a shifter dragon, had found Elizabeth terrified and alone, wandering and eventually married her.
Julia had married her husband Sam at age twenty-two three years earlier and I'd married Victor at twenty-four, just two months earlier. And like many young women, we were prone to bouts of extreme silliness and hysterical laughter. Which usually made Elizabeth smile but look slightly embarrassed at the same time. A former ballet dancer before The Event, she was the epitome of grace, refinement and dignity, which Julia and I were not.
So we usually tried to keep things at least fairly un-goofy around Elizabeth because we did value her friendship and liked spending time with her therefore we didn't want to make her uncomfortable. Not to mention that I tried to keep my behavior fairly dignified around everyone in Stonebrook, our city beneath the mountains, save for Julia and Victor, because as leader of the shifter dragons, Victor held the title of Lord Victor, which made me Lady Kate. And I knew a lady probably shouldn't walk around doubled over in laughter half the time.
Elizabeth soon returned to the hot springs with a plate of fruit, cheese and bread, which she divided up into three smaller plates. She handed one each to Julia and me before getting back in the spring with her own plate, smiling at us.
"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
Julia shook her head so hard that a few strands of her dark hair stuck to her cheeks. "Nope, nothing weird at all. Nothing. Everything's totally normal here."
Elizabeth's smile faded and became replaced by an expression of slight confusion mixed with surprise.
"Oh. Well, that's good."
"Not drunk. Nobody's drunk. Kate and me are even the reverse of drunk. We're totally sober. As sober as ... as two birds on a haystack."
Elizabeth cocked her head to the side. "I've never heard that expression before."
"Yup, me, neither. That's because I just invented it. See, being totally sober sparks creativity. And since that's what me and Kate are right now ... totally sober ... I'm just thinking of all these different creative ways to say things right now, I guess."
Elizabeth nodded, once, slowly, her gaze going to an empty bottle of wine next to a half-full one on one of the rock ledges. "I see. Though it does seem strange that you and Kate are so sober right now when I only had maybe a glass-and-a-half out of the wine that's now gone."
Julia nodded. "It's super strange. But, yup...it's true. We're just as sober as two cats wearing mittens."
An involuntary giggle burst out of my mouth and Elizabeth gave me a quizzical, faintly amused look before turning back to Julia. "Hmm. And nothing out of the ordinary happened here while I was gone?"
"Nope. Everything that went on here was completely normal -- beyond normal, actually. Just regular, plain old things that happen every day."
"Hmm. Well...okay."
&
nbsp; Elizabeth took a blackberry from her plate, popped it into her mouth and sank back in the warm, bubbling water. Julia fell silent, but only for about two seconds.
"Kate's wineglass flew into her hand while you were gone and we were really freaked out."
Elizabeth's green eyes widened, "What –“
"Sorry, Kate, but I just cannot get over what happened." Julia winced at me, her shoulders lifting in the slightest of shrugs. "Sorry."
"That's okay. I'm kind of ... not completely over it myself."
Elizabeth sat up, her gaze on me. "Your glass just flew into your hand?"
I nodded. "Yeah. I was just too comfortable to get up to get it, so I was just half-wishing that it would just fly into my hand, and then, it just did."
"Do we have alcohol poisoning? Should we make ourselves vomit?" Julia asked.
Elizabeth glanced at Julia before returning her gaze to me. "I don't think that's what's happening here. Kate, did you have any strange physical sensations right before this happened?"
"My wedding ring finger started tingling."
Elizabeth shook her head, a slight smile curving her mouth. "So strange. It's always the wedding ring finger, though nobody knows why. Maybe it's just an indication of where the power comes from, or rather, when it started."