by Kendal Davis
Her eyes were burning with an intensity that seemed disproportionate to the topic. Why was she so concerned about peasants?
She saw my expression and gritted her teeth before speaking again. “What do they want, Indigo? If you can make a world just as people want it, why don’t you find out what the peasants would like best?”
I spoke slowly. “I’m sure it is just what they have. No doubt, they want to live safely in their town, working in honest labor. They exist to serve dragons, and they are happy to do so. I’m quite certain that is what they like.”
Olivia made a rude noise. “You’ve never asked them, have you?”
I stood, brushing my hands against my naked thighs before reaching for my blue cloak and tossing it on as an afterthought. I was full of energy that was about to lash out. Why was she ruining this for us?
“Of course I haven’t asked them! They are peasants!”
Olivia was dressed now. She was standing before me, calm and poised. There was a light kindling in her eyes that might just as easily have been fear as a sad sort of pride. “They are humans, my poor, dear Count. People.” Her voice broke into a sob. “As am I.”
“And I love you for it.” I tried to reach for her with a conciliating gesture. My fingers caught only air, though, as she ducked away. “I respect you for it. You have such depth of emotion, such swings between highs and lows. It is amazing to be near you. It is a rare treat to experience the emotional power that radiates from you constantly.”
Unexpectedly, Olivia grew pale. She stepped back, her bare foot sinking into the fine white sand that I had created just for her. “What did you say?” Her hand went to her lips in horror.
I stared at her. “I don’t know what you mean. You heard my words. I admire your emotions. They are so strong, so pure. It is marvelous.” I was losing her, but I didn’t know why.
Olivia held her hand over her mouth, holding back a cry. “You’ve been using me for that, haven’t you? As a...farm...for my emotions. You told me that it was how dragons build their magic, by feeding off a peasant’s feelings. You weren’t even going to wait for the sacrifice, were you? That’s what this has all been for!”
“No, no...Olivia, you can’t think that. I value you for yourself. It isn’t like that, I swear.”
But as I watched her shocked face and felt the depth of her pain, I had to admit that I could feel the strength of her emotions energizing me. Her presence, her inimitable human qualities were attractive to the dragon within me.
Was she right?
Chapter 15: Olivia
My mind was reeling with the ramifications of what Indigo had told me. I was such a fool. What had I been thinking, to allow myself to become caught up in a romantic fantasy about dragons and flying aristocrats who granted wishes with magic? It was insane.
The truth was nothing like the dream that I’d been in since I’d met Indigo. Reality was harsh and unyielding, with no regard for my pathetic wishes for a soulmate or a family of my own. The real world wasn’t a mystical place where I’d get to become an immortal being, forever pampered by the handsomest man I’d ever seen.
Come on, now.
The painful revelation that I was going to have to face was that I’d been sucked into a realm of manipulative vampire creatures, who had no concern for any lives but their own. And I had actively aided them in that. My surrender to Indigo had only strengthened his magic. I was his accomplice in subjugating the peasants of the town.
And guess what?
I was next for the sacrifice.
Even if I could come to some fatalistic acceptance of my fate, which I didn’t think was possible, there was still the matter of others having to die to feed the dragon greed that powered this planet. My friend and mentor, David, was doomed if I could not stop today’s counting ceremony.
Despite the time that Indigo and I had spent together in our own private love spell, I was still no closer to halting the barbarism that went on here. I had only postponed the reckoning that awaited me.
With my fists clenched in anger, I faced Indigo. Should I fear him, if I was going to defy him? “Sir, I must ask you to return me safely to your stronghold, so I can rejoin my friends.”
He blinked at me. He must have heard every thought I’d just had.
While all the rest of my problems seemed dire and life-threatening, the telepathic eavesdropping was just rude.
“Olivia, you have this all wrong.” His eyes were sad now and his shoulders were sloped with the care of his station. “I did nothing like what you’ve just suggested. I haven’t drawn any emotion from you. I couldn’t, anyway, until…” Then he stopped, aghast at what he’d been about to say.
My voice was tinny with strain. “Until you destroy me?”
Indigo closed his mouth, perhaps afraid to say anything more. He drew himself up to his full height, suffused with an energy that might have been anger. Without even meeting my eyes, he began to change from the form of a man into a dragon.
Although I had seen him transform before, it was just as breathtaking this time. I didn’t think I could ever get used to seeing it. I knew I wouldn’t find out, if this was my last day to be alive.
His powerful chest and shoulders began to glow with a shimmering brightness. The air around him took on a life of its own, so that heat appeared to reflect from him in every direction. His eyes blazed blue, still fixed on me, with a message that I could not begin to decipher.
Then everything about his shape, and the space around him, twisted as he shifted into the form of a massive, blue dragon. His head was large enough that even being near it was fearsome. His eyes were full of light, tumbling and wheeling through every shade of blue that had ever existed. His long tail, with equal parts grace and might, curved through the air as if it were its own style of weapon.
And most amazing of all, his wings, so broad and sweeping in their span, unfurled to show their blue scales, fine and smooth, perfectly chiseled. His sleek wingtip extended to me, inviting me to climb onto his back.
Come. That was all he said.
Perhaps he felt that there would never be anything more to be said again between us.
If things had ended differently for us here, I would have taken a last, lingering look at the perfect oasis he’d made for me. I might have wanted to remember the pleasure we’d found here, or the way it spoke to the dreams that were buried in my heart.
As it was, though, I hoped never to see this place again. I would rather have my heart broken again than to have to remember how close I’d come to falling for a deceptive fantasy.
Gingerly, I climbed onto the back of the great blue dragon. It was hard to imagine holding myself close to him now, but I still had to keep myself from falling. With regret, I leaned low onto his neck, marveling at the coolness of his scales.
He was both hot and cold and the same time.
Not just his scales, but his passion, the way he lived his life.
Our lovemaking had been shot through with the heat of our fiery attraction to each other, but his true self was cool and calculating. I had to admit to myself that I’d seen that, and he knew it.
When I was safely on his back, Indigo sent a ripple of magic outward, causing the island oasis to disappear. The nothingness that appeared when he cut the threads of the illusion spread in a circular fashion away from us, so the last thing I saw was the blue ocean that had been in the distance, as if faded away. It was the last vision I would ever have of the water.
Now, my final hours would be spent here on this barren desert planet, where sand spread out in every direction.
We flew through the wide sky, whose rapidly setting sun worried me intensely. Would the others even be safe without us there? I had left them in a situation fraught with danger. How could I have been so irresponsible?
They are well. Indigo’s deep voice boomed in my mind. I wished he would stop doing that, but I needed to hear what he had to say. I left them in the care of Sage. You saw his green cloak. He is o
f House Viridis. His commitment to fairness is soul-deep. It has been the Gift of House Viridis for longer than you can imagine. It has been so since the days of the Founders. He is incapable of betraying the laws of Elter.
“Are you?” I spoke the words aloud, knowing that I did not need to do so to make him hear them.
The dragon did not answer. Perhaps he was mulling over the question.
Perhaps he already knew the answer, and he knew that it spelled my demise.
Our journey back to the stronghold of House Caeruleus was brief. I still had no concept of where our oasis had been in physical space. I wasn’t even sure it had occupied any real space at all. So much of what happened here, with distances and the creation of matter, seemed to be at the whim of these godlike dragons. I knew their power was not limitless, though. They required the peasants, their partners in a hideous form of symbiosis.
When we came to rest on the high peak of Indigo’s stronghold, it had only been a few minutes since he had assured me that my friends were fine. I would be uneasy, though, until I saw them with my own eyes.
Indigo tipped his wing down to the stone floor of the rooftop area, then in a wavering twist of energy, he took the form of a man again. He set me down gently and dropped to the stones as a man, landing on two feet. This transformation was faster than any I’d seen him perform yet, which made me nervous.
Was he, too, concerned with the welfare of the other humans who had accompanied me to his world?
“I am,” he said shortly. “My honor as Count of this House rests on the guarantee of safety that I gave them. It rests on so many conflicting things today.” He sighed. His glare softened slightly as he nodded at me. “And, indeed, I know you are worried about your friends.”
“Ha,” I answered sourly, trying on some level to cover my swirling emotions. “I am, yes.”
He waved at me in a distracted movement. The muscles rippled in his shoulder, reminding me of how it had felt to have those strong arms wrapped around me. His naked body sparkled with what looked like residual magic from his change of forms. It was riveting. I tried to think of him as a theoretical being, a mere construct of my mind, rather than a carnal man who had recently touched me all over.
I failed at that.
What shook me most about the turmoil I was gyrating through, what troubled me the most, was that he did not bother to laugh at the thoughts flitting across my mind. He was deeply concerned about something indeed, if he could not take enjoyment from that.
Were they really in danger? Perhaps we had come back too late.
“I can feel that there is chaos in my Great Hall,” he said. “We must get there immediately.” Instead of striding confidently down the mountain walkway, as he had when we had arrived yesterday, he reached out to take me in his arms.
Before I could even begin to try to shrug him off, he had transported us to the hall. In the blink of an eye, we had arrived at the place where his rule was supposed to be strongest. Yet nothing here was orderly. Guardsmen in cloaks of various colors were shouting at each other in fury. Several had power spiraling from them in towers of light that rose above their heads, magic pooling there, merely waiting to be directed at another dragon.
If only it was clear who was the enemy here. They were all dragons, and thus all immortal. For them, this would be a skirmish that ended nobody’s life. They had the luxury of battling out their differences and still coming out alive. We did not.
It did not look like war had begun yet, but it was imminent.
Indigo used his magic to spin a blue cloak out of nothing, settling it onto his shoulders as he took his place at the round table. His face was stern. His direction to his Council was even more determined, showing a resoluteness that ought to have struck fear into everyone present. In a dragon’s growl, he said, “I require that this chaos cease. Join me at the table, right now.”
If he could not even control his Guards, what hope did we humans have? Any one of these dragon men was powerful enough to kill us without a second thought. I was appalled to think that they had such astounding abilities, so much that they could achieve through their magic, yet they were so quick to descend to this level of anarchy.
It was as if they were nothing but animals.
I hesitated, not sure where I should stand. I backed away from the round table. Indigo might need to address the problems in his chain of command right now, but I did not have to be at his side. I had no business there. I could stand with my friends, if only I could see where they had gone.
Indigo had said that Sage would take them to a safe place. The green-cloaked, green-eyed dragon seemed as trustworthy as any of his kind that I had met so far.
I wished that meant more to me.
As I sidled into a corner, out of the way of the shouting, I saw something that made my heart plummet all the way down into my sandals. David was standing there, trying his best to catch my eye. His habitually ironic calm was gone. In its place was a look of real worry. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen my absent-minded, easygoing mentor alarmed about anything.
Not about me, surely. He must have known that I left with Indigo of my own free will. My choice might have been stupid, in hindsight, but it had been my own.
No. David moved to the side, revealing that Andres was behind him. The younger man’s eyes were wide with fear.
And Kat, the beautiful, energetic captain of our research vessel, who had stood up for me when I was awkward and consoled me when I was sad, was nowhere to be seen.
I stepped as unobtrusively as I could to where David stood. Between the two men and the council table stood the sedate, green-cloaked Sage. He was still true to his word, protecting them as he had promised. Sage smiled faintly at me, allowing me to pass beyond him to David’s side.
“Where is she?” I hissed at him with more urgency than secrecy.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Olivia. We thought you might both have met betrayal. Kat has been taken.” David never missed an opportunity to gather information. I knew that of old. He registered my appearance and, through whatever dishevelment he detected, decided that I had been in safe hands during my absence.
“Taken?” I echoed.
“Yes,” he said. “The dragon of House Rubellus, Brick. He has claimed Kat for his peasant concubine. Against her will.”
Chapter 16: Indigo
The disorder in my Great Hall was an outrage. In my father’s time as Count, his council of Guards would never have dared to behave in such a low manner. It was time that they learned that I would not tolerate this sort of behavior.
“First, you will all cease any use of magic. Right here, right now.” I bit the words out as if they were shards of glass. It did not matter how much it pained me to have to say them, to have to instruct my Guards on something that they knew well. I was going to get these dragons under control. This minute.
I remained standing at the round table, but I gestured for the other men to take a seat. As they did, as they saw the fierce expression I wore, they allowed their magic to dissipate into the air. The charged atmosphere relaxed slightly, at least allowing us to converse without harming each other.
“That’s enough. Are you children, to be so easily roused in anger against your own kind?” I lashed them with a look of utter contempt. All the Guardsmen in blue were properly abashed. They had supported my family all our lives. They had known House Caeruleus as their home for centuries. The byword of their souls was to uphold the honor of the dragons of Elter.
Good.
I nodded at them. My eyes settled briefly on the empty chair that should have been occupied by Cobalt, my own cousin and the Captain of my Guards. I had no doubt that he’d been framed. It didn’t even matter to Brick that the gift of the brooch was a shoddy story, easily seen through by a child. He had done what he needed to do. When Brick had forced me to detain Cobalt under the suspicion that he was my House’s saboteur, he stripped me of my best advisor.
Enough.
The anger wit
hin my chest built to a crescendo as I counted the other empty seats at my table. All the members of House Rubellus had left. The Guards from all other Houses were still present, and had been in the midst of demonstrating various degrees of loyalty to me when I entered.
“You will tell me what I’ve missed. Sage, come here. Report, please, on what has happened to my human prisoners.”
I could feel Olivia’s visceral response as if it were a knife cutting me. She had heard and noted my denial of their status as honored guests. We both knew now that it had been a pretense. Yes, prisoners. I may as well be honest with all of us here.
Sage had taken his own seat at the table. He sat with the poised stillness that was his trademark. He, like all of those of his House, had mastered the art of self-control more than any other dragon bloodline. House Viridis was Elter’s bastion of fairness, of finding balance. Sage was my chief negotiator.
“The Guardsmen from House Rubellus have all left, my Count,” he reported. “They have taken the taller female prisoner and decamped.”
“Did she consent to go?” My question was abrupt, made not because I did not know the answer, but because it belonged on the record.
Sage dipped his head in recognition of my intent, some quality of patience in his eyes looking surprisingly similar to that of the old man that Olivia cared so greatly for. “She did not wish to go. Brick declared that he would make her his peasant plaything. His concubine. She protested greatly, but he took her with him by force.”
Olivia stepped forward now, out of the shadows of the corner where she had been watching with her two remaining friends. “If all the red Guardsmen have left, does that amount to a declaration of war between your houses? Is that some kind of official withdrawal?” She surveyed the table and its numerous empty seats. “Why were there so many red Guards on your council?”
