by Calista Skye
Jennifer reaches out a small hand and puts in on my knee. “I wonder, if— I mean, when we get back. When you get your cache and regain your strength and I get back to my friends. Would you be willing to help us? I think they’re in trouble. They’re under siege, apparently. By dragons.”
The pale little hand stays on my leg, pleasantly warm through the fabric of my pants. For some reason, I think this is the bravest thing I’ve seen her do.
“Don’t they already have two dragons to help them? The only two dragons in dragon form, apart from me? They should have little trouble with the others.”
She picks up a pebble and tosses it at a tree. “That’s what I wonder about, too. Why are they so scared that they think they have to leave in six days? But I told them I’m alive and on the way. They’ll wait.”
I lean back, trying to get comfortable. The ache in my chest is getting worse. Deeper inside, in a way. That sliver of nastiness is moving around in there. “You were put here by the Plood, yes?”
“Me and the others.”
“They took all of you from your own planet and dumped you here so you would mess up the Inferiors’ plan?”
She gives me a quick glance.“Something like that.”
I smile into the fire. She has probably been told that this is something not talk about to a dragon. But I am probably the best informed dragon in the universe.
“Something like that,” I agree slowly. “The Plood worked for our king. He hired them to spy on the Inferiors and counter any silly little plan they might make to retaliate against us for laying waste to their planet. They abducted you and your friends and dumped you here to totally mess up the final Inferior plan to create dragon slayers. It occurs to me that the Plood ended up doing the opposite, and turned the slayers into an actual threat by dumping women into their midst.”
“I don’t know how much of a threat they are,” Jennifer says quickly. “Probably only to dragons in human form. I’ve seen Kyandros and Aragadon in their full dragon forms. They’re pretty scary. I’m not sure if anything would be a threat to them.”
I absentmindedly prod my chest around the wound. “It’s been a long time since last there were slayers in the world. Now there are suddenly many. They are peculiar, these ones. I don’t understand them. They enjoy working in teams, using blades. They have no armor. Their minds are hard to penetrate. They have a coldness and quietness to them, while most of the other slayers were passionate and loud. It’s all unusual. That should probably worry me, if I were capable of such an emotion.”
Her hand moves a half-inch up my thigh. “Will you help us?”
“I don’t think so.”
She withdraws her hand. “Okay. Can I ask why?”
I immediately miss the hand. Well, two can play that game. I put my own hand on her round knee. “You shouldn’t have to ask why.”
She looks up at me with clear eyes. “Because they’re your people? Your kind? And you don’t want to betray them? I thought dragons hated each other.”
I let the hand slide a little bit up her thigh, to the hem of her ugly dress. “Oh, we do. We despise and abhor one another. At the same time, we need each other. It’s a terrible plight. Some of us need the others more. For instance, the king needs a people to rule. And in their way, they need him to be king because without one, what are we? Yes, it’s complicated.”
“Are you… I mean, do you work for the dragon king?”
I think about it. “The term ‘work for’ has so many different meanings. In the way you mean it, no. In other ways, yes. In yet other ways, perhaps.”
“But he trusts you?”
I bark out a short laugh, genuinely surprised. “The dragon king trusting someone? Oh, but you are delightful company.”
“But he sent you here,” Jennifer persists. “He must have some kind of trust.”
I withdraw my hand the way she withdrew her own. “The king can only hope that in this case, he and I want the same outcome. In fairness, he has reason to believe it.”
Jennifer grabs my hand and puts it back on her thigh. “What reason?”
I lightly squeeze her flesh, letting five claws make small indentations in her skin. “The best reason he can be expected to have. I will say no more about it.”
“Okay.” Jennifer hides a yawn behind one hand. “Sorry. It’s not that I’m bored. It’s just been a long day.”
There’s movement off to the side. Another attacker.
“I’ll be right back.” I calmly lift my hand off Jennifer’s leg, stand up, and stride towards the threat.
It’s another one of those tiresome creatures that hunt in packs. And sure enough, there are three of them.
They hesitate at the sight of me, one of them nervously taking a step back.
I glance behind me. Jennifer is still sitting at the fire with her back to me, looking out at the swamp and rearranging her hair, pinning it back with that little wooden thing.
For some reason, I don’t want anything to disturb her peaceful state. Speeding up, I faint a pounce on the center attacker, but then go for the left one. I grab it by the throat and let my claws penetrate the thick skin, working them into the creature until its cold blood is gushing. I can feel its main blood vessel in the middle of my grip, pulsating hard. I squeeze it and rip it out.
The predator, who is not quite the apex he thought he was, runs off aimlessly, colliding with trees and bleeding out somewhere in there.
The second one realizes that attack is the best defense and comes at me in long, silent bounds. I lazily get out of its way, consider sticking a foot out to trip it up, then decide not to. It might be noisy.
Instead, I swing around and kick the charging monster right above its open, toothy gape. There’s a muted crack and the attacker drops to the ground, unconscious, but possibly not dead. I eliminate that possibility with one long, clawed finger stabbed right into its heart.
The third predator has already thought better of it and is escaping as fast as it can.
Jennifer is poking the fire with a long stick when I walk past her and rinse the blood off my hands in the somewhat pungent and stale water of the swamp.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
“No,” I reply and sit back down beside her. “Most things are not, as you well know. But things are not worse now than a minute ago, which I think is what you were really asking.”
“Um. Right. I think you ripped your pants.”
Indeed, there is a small rip above the boot. “I have no idea how that happened. It’s not enough that I’m walking on the ground like a lesser being. Now I also have to look like a bum.” I try to mobilize anger, but it won’t come to me.
Jennifer reaches over and tests the rip with her fingers. “How does that work, with the clothes and the dragon form? I mean, when you change from dragon to man or the other way around?”
Oh, the pedestrian concerns and thoughts of this species.
“They are special clothes that change along with me,” I make up. “Magic.”
Jennifer hides another yawn behind her hand. “That’s what I thought. You don’t know, either.”
I stiffen. Half of me wants to grab her hair, lift her up, and kick her into the swamp. The other half wants nothing remotely like that.
“One day you will provoke me once too many, and I won’t be able to stop myself from hurting you really badly,” I growl.
“Why would you want to stop yourself?” she asks, so unconcerned that it is an insult in itself. She’s totally sure I won’t harm her.
The worst part is that I suspect she’s right.
“Why, indeed,” I say as flatly as I can, completely at a loss. I’m not myself anymore.
She lies down and curls up, then adjusts herself and puts her head on my thigh. “You don’t mind, do you?”
I can’t stop my teeth from gnashing. She’s right. I don’t at all mind having the weight and heat of her head resting on my leg.
And I know I should mind. Very much.
Jennifer closes her eyes, a satisfied little smile on her unreasonably full lips.
The cold little fire crackles as it burns down.
The incredible weakness of this pitiful state! Not only am I bound to the ground, I’m also weak and mild to the only creature who has ever hurt me! Letting her lie on my lap! Enjoying the scent of her, wanting to stroke one hand along her hair!
The dragon in me hates it. But it’s too distant to get its will. If I tried to Change to dragon form now, it would not work. My cache seems infinitely far away.
At least I can be reasonably sure nobody will find that cache. It is both well hidden and well guarded.
There are noises from all over the forest behind me, but I don’t turn around. I can handle any spies or attackers while sitting here. They can feel the danger.
Leaning back on the rock behind me, I pick up my old plan for how I can make this terrible state of affairs work to my benefit. It seems a ridiculous idea; I have never been weaker. But the potential also seems ridiculously great.
Caronerax, king of the dragons.
Yes, the potential is there.
13
- Jennifer -
I stretch, not wanting to open my eyes and be blinded by the rising sun.
My dreams were filled with exotic pipes and rods and me sitting astride them. I vividly recall one, with me making my way across a field crisscrossed with electric wires at hip height, forcing me to raise my dress over my butt and carefully step over them so they wouldn’t touch my girly parts. Which failed every time, but not painfully, only pleasantly.
In other words, I wake up pretty hot and bothered.
And surprisingly comfortable.
I open my eyes and shield them with my hand.
Ah. Still got my head in a dragon’s lap.
His intense gaze penetrates me as he looks down on me. “Done with your recharge? You appear to need hours and hours of rest. How can you function at all? You spend half the day unconscious!”
I sit up and gather my bearings. “Not much I can do about that. You should try it, it’s pretty nice. Sometimes.”
The sun is up, but there are clouds everywhere. The swamp has a thin veil of mist hanging low over it, making it look almost inviting. In the daylight it’s also obvious that there’s a small island in the swamp, a few miles out. I couldn’t see it last night, but now I think that’s a good place to aim for as a waypoint.
Caronerax gets up and peers out over the mire while I munch on still pretty delicious not-sheep meat and the rest of the not-blueberries.
I turn the fur into a pouch and join the dragon on the edge of the swamp. “Looks like we can get a ways out there by walking on the dry patches. Or jumping from one to the other.”
“Then we shall do so.” Caronerax strides ahead, wading through the dirty water to the first little knoll of dry land. I follow, hoping there’s nothing sharp down there in the soft mud. It’s the ickiest feeling I’ve had for a while when the soggy mass gives way and envelops my feet in cold softness. I only sink down to my ankles, which has to be a good sign.
The first dry spot is grassy and pleasant enough, and from there Caronerax can walk from one dry patch to the next with his long legs, while I have to jump. But the less time my feet spend sinking down in the swamp, the better.
It’s not like an unhealthy swamp, with rotting vegetation and all kinds of insects swarming around and leeches biting into legs and horrific things like that. It doesn’t smell great, and the mud has an organic feel to it. I have to assume that things do live here.
We reach the last of the dry patches. From here, there’s only wet marsh all the way out to the little island, which now looks higher than before. There are trees and bushes on it, but it still has to be a couple of miles away.
I turn to look how far we’ve come.
“Caronerax, look!” I point back to the place we spent the night.
“Our spies,” he says wearily. “They have friends on the other side.”
I can’t see anyone. But someone has lit a big fire in among the trees and put some smoky wood on it, and the result is definitely smoke signals. Three round, brown puffs of smoke rise slowly into the air, one big, one small, then one big. They are followed by two more, one a tiny dot and the other a rough triangle pointing down. That’s all.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist like Ashlynn or Mia to guess what that means: ‘Someone is coming your way. Two of them, one small and one big.’
Those signals can definitely be seen from the other shore we’re making for, beyond the little island.
“Pretty smart of them,” I say as I prod the depths of the swamp with the rod. “If they didn’t have friends on the other side, they would have to follow us on foot, and we could see them easily.”
“They are organized,” Caronerax says and walks out into the swamp. He sinks down almost to his knees. And after two steps, his foot comes back out without the boot.
He peers forlornly down into the quickly closing hole where his boot is now being filled with mud. “Being barefoot seems only all too appropriate,” he sighs and walks on. But it looks like this is better — his foot can splay their clawed toes out, and now it barely sinks an inch down.
After one more step, he’s lost the other boot as well, and that helps him a lot.
I keep up with him as we make our laborious way through the mire. He adjusts his speed after mine, as usual. I’m grateful for that. And for a whole bunch of other things he’s done.
It’s actually not all that unpleasant, walking behind him and seeing the muscles flex in his whole blue body with each step, the yellow stripes almost having an inner glow. His narrow hips, the straining of the fabric around his thighs, the outline of the scales… he’s spectacular. Where the other dragons I’ve seen have spikes and such down their backs, Caronerax doesn’t. His spine is smooth and strong, two hard bundles of muscle. He’s unusual by being more ordinary. Not a bad trick to pull off.
I can’t get his cock out of my mind. I saw it in my dreams, disguised as fence posts and metal rods and wires that I wanted to ride.
What would it be like? If Mia and Eleanor can survive it, then probably I can, too. And even if I don’t, maybe it would be worth it— “Oooahhh!”
I take a step, and my foot meets no resistance, like plunging into water. I fall headlong into the mud that’s suddenly gone liquid and sink into it, fast.
For a long moment I fight it, the mud much heavier than water and impossible to swim in. There’s no bottom to it. I panic as I keep sinking fast.
“Caron—” I begin, but mud fills my mouth before I can continue.
A strong hand grabs my wrist and pulls me all the way up. I can’t see with all the mud in my eyes, but I gasp for air as the earthy taste of the dirt fills my mouth.
Caronerax lifts me up into his arms and wipes my face. “Hmm. The ground is treacherous. I think it’s only a thin layer of semi-firm matter above a much looser substance.”
“I—” I splutter, then almost choke on mud and spend a good while spitting and coughing and fishing tiny particles of mud and sand out of my mouth.
The dragon patiently holds me like that until I’ve cleaned my face as well as possible under these circumstances. The mud drips from my dress and my body.
I want to cry from the terror and the whole situation and the thought of having to continue walking like that, when the ground threatens to swallow me at any time.
“I think,” I finally manage, “I could feel something moving down there. Against my legs.”
“There is lots of movement in the depths,” Caronerax confirms. “Lots of life here that can’t be seen.”
“You feel it, too?”
“The swamp is always in movement. See the island we’re making for? It is lower now. It bobs slowly up and down.”
“Then it’s not just me. Looks like it floats. Okay, you can put me down now. I’ll try to go on.”
Caronerax doesn’t put
me down. Instead, he runs his gaze along my whole body, from toes to head. “I think we can do better.”
He turns me around as easily as if I were a Barbie doll being played with by a four-year-old, lays me over his shoulder, and keeps walking.
And then all I can see is his butt from up close, his thighs, and the ground. “Ooo-kay. This is usually something cavemen do, but I’ll allow it. Not that I think I have a say.”
Caronerax stops. “Did you say something?”
“I said, you have a cute butt,” I mutter.
“I can’t hear you.”
We slowly sink into the mud.
“Keep walking! Please.”
With his splayed feet, he still only sinks an inch or two in, and he doesn’t seem to have any issues with the mud turning to liquid under him. If he suddenly does, I fear we’re both dead. We already established that he’s not one of nature’s swimmers.
My face is hit with cold droplets of mud and water as the dragon splashes through the mire, and while this is relaxing enough, there’s no chance I can fall asleep.
I can do some thinking, though.
The air is getting warmer, it seems to me. Of course, that could be a coincidence — today is simply warmer. Or it could have something to do with the swamp. But it could also be that we’ve been gradually walking down the gentle slope from some kind of a plateau. If so, the cold was because it was much higher up than the jungle. It’s one possibility, anyway.
I think a good number of other things, too. Such as:
- His butt is perfectly round, even when seen from slightly above, all muscle and hotness.
- His pants are getting really dirty, and I’m not at all sure they are really magic.
- His boots sure weren’t if they fell off that easily in the mud.
- He smells really, really good.
- That cock of his… when I recall it, there’s a surge in my stomach. I can’t get it out of my mind.
- I wonder who our spies are.
- I also wonder if their friends will welcome us on the other side. I mean, those spies have to be cavemen. Like Caronerax said, one of the parties of spies were hostile to him and curious about me. That sounds like cavemen. If so, they will probably know about my village, and they might be helpful. But unless they have a nice helicopter laying around, how much help can they really be? And Ashlynn’s letter said that most of the tribes had turned on us. That’s a possibility we girls have talked about. There’s not much for the cavemen to gain by being allied with us — we don’t have all that much to offer them.