The Dragon King

by Candace Blevins

  I let him roll me in the electric blanket, and watched as he wrapped a second around my feet. “Twenty minutes in here Soph, and then we get started. Close your eyes and try to relax for me, okay?”

  I remembered it hurt worse when Boris flogged me when I was cold, and wondered how Aaron knew to get me warm to keep it from hurting as bad.

  I didn’t ask, though. I didn’t have it in me to know the answer right now.

  He left for a bit, and when he came back he didn’t speak, just unplugged the blankets and carried me out, still in them.

  Aaron worked fast, and within moments of standing me up, leather cuffs were wrapped around my wrists and ankles. He chained my wrists to a bolt in the stone above me, and my ankles to the walls beside me. He’d set up heat lamps in here with the third battery, so this section of the room was warm, but we were in a huge cavern and I’d have preferred to do this in the room we’d slept.

  I knew we’d fly straight from here outside, though. He would carry me out of the cave in his claws and let me go when we hit clear air. I’d never taken off to fly — only jumped from high up and let the wind catch me.

  He put something around my hips and ran it between my legs. I jumped and screamed when it came to life and he finally spoke, “It’s called a butterfly vibrator, Soph. It’s going to help you enjoy this.” His hands stroked my back, my bottom. His lips touched my shoulders.

  The vibrator made my clit come to life, and I pushed my bottom towards him, as I moaned.

  “Mmmm, that’s it. You’re beautiful like this. All mine.” His fingers finally moved to touch me where I craved them, but he only teased me.

  I moaned again when he stepped away, and then had to focus on breathing when I saw him lift the flogger.

  I expected the first strike of the flogger to make me scream, but it was more of a caress than a strike. I’m not sure how many he gave me before I wanted the next strike, and eventually wanted him to hit me harder. I liked the strokes to my upper back and bottom the most, but he let the flogger hit every inch of my skin except my face. He’d told me ahead of time he’d take care of the skin of my head with his talons, as he couldn’t bear to strike me there.

  Before long I was screaming, but it wasn’t all pain. He’d been right — it was sensation, and for the most part I got to decide what to call the sensation. Pain, pleasure, or an amalgamation of the two. I chose the last.

  When he paused and switched floggers, I knew this was the worst of it, but I also knew we were close to the end.

  My scream at the first strike was real, the pain excruciating, but…not the same as before. This flogger had bits of sharpened stainless steel woven into the knots on the end, designed to shred skin, but it was as if the nerve endings had been partially deadened. I felt it, but it was almost bearable, and certainly not the unholy hell Boris had put me through

  The skin at my back tore open, then my bottom, my thighs, calves. He had me lift my right foot and he slashed the sole. I screamed in agony as I put some of my weight on the ripped sole so I could lift my left.

  He moved to my front, removed the vibrator and slashed my shins, thighs, hips, stomach, and breasts. The last to go were my arms, and he moved in a circle as he ripped the skin on them, and finally slashed at my hands above the restraints.

  I fell to the floor as I slid from the skin of my hands and arms, and felt the rest of my skin slipping away. Huge claws formed on his fingertips and I shuddered as he dug into my forehead and pulled a claw through my scalp, down to the back of my neck. Gentle fingers pulled the skin away and off my head, but I only sobbed at the sensations — no screams. Boris had flogged the skin off my face and this seemed kind by contrast.

  I wanted to thank him, to hug him, to show him how much I loved him. The de-skinning was awful, and yet not terrible. The difference in having this done by someone who wanted to hurt me, who enjoyed my pain, versus someone who cared for me, maybe even loved me?

  All I could verbalize though, was, “Yours. Always yours.”

  “I know, Soph.”

  The air pressure in the huge cavern changed as Aaron went from human to huge dragon. He lifted me in his large claws as I began to change, but something didn’t feel right.

  We were out of the cave in a matter of seconds – dragons can fly four hundred miles an hour and we were only a mile or two from the exit, apparently.

  I felt heat as he breathed fire, saw the huge wooden wall blocking our way disintegrate as he tried to pull me closer to his body, but I was too big and he couldn’t. I expected the heat to burn me, but it bounced off me as if I had my own armor. When he came out of the cave, flew high into the air, and released me, I knew why the change hadn’t felt right.

  I wasn’t a Swan.

  I was a Dragon.

  Once again, I spread unfamiliar wings and hoped they held me, and once again, they did.

  These wings worked basically the same as my swan wings, but the body in between made them handle completely different.

  Aaron gave me pointers as we flew, explaining how to turn, lift, accelerate, and decelerate.

  As we came in for a landing on top of the mountain I saw the eagles first, and then the line of swans behind them.

  My father turned human as his feet touched the ground, smoothly morphing from one form to the next.

  “What have you done with my Sophia?” he demanded of me.

  “Father, I am your daughter, but in another form.” My voice didn’t sound like me, so I knew this wasn’t going to convince him.

  “This isn’t possible. I demand to know where my daughter is. You smell of her, but she isn’t Dragon.”

  “We’ve always been cautioned against being around other shapeshifters in the critical period between human and swan. When my mate helped me change, he used his talons to help remove my scalp...” I gave an awkward shrug, not used to this form. “It would appear I’m a Dragon now, Father.”

  I hadn’t argued with Aaron when he’d told me his intentions, but had considered the warnings and wondered if anything would happen. It looked like something had, and I wished I knew more about what this meant. If my father did, I’d know soon enough.

  He looked to his left and said, “Old friend? Some help?”

  The eagle landed as my father had, turning to human as his feet touched the ground. I wondered how much practice it took to perfect that little trick.

  I watched as the Eagle King touched my father the Swan King, and my Dragon eyes saw the transfer of power. My father reached his hand towards me, energy shot into me, and I was a swan.

  But, once again, it wasn’t right.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Aaron

  Sophia was a ninety pound swan. She’d shifted into her animal form with no change in mass from her human form, and the mythologies around swans who could do this were legendary. In fact, I’d always assumed they were just that — legend with no basis in truth.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d heard the legends, though, and I watched in awe as three swans landed, went to human form, and dropped to their knees saying, “Queen Sophia.”

  A mountain lion stepped from the woods, shifted to human, and went to his knees as well, saying, “Queen Sophia. It’s an honor to kneel before you.”

  The Eagle King screamed, “Noooooo!” and stepped forward with a knife in his hands, poised to sink it into my beautiful Sophia.

  My instincts took over and I shot my wing forward and brushed him off the top of the shiny white quartz boulder before the knife touched my beloved. He turned to eagle and flew to keep from falling.

  I sucked in the energy from my mountain and felt it pulling power from everyone standing on the white quartz. Raul’s eyes grew wide as he looked at me, and he said, “This is between my daughter and me, Dragon. I’d heard the rumors this is what you are, and I’m sure you have powers unheard of to the modern world, but this is a family matter and you’d be best to step back and let us deal with it.”

  “She’s my mate,
old friend.”

  He looked to Sophia, the question of her virginity in his eyes. She was still a huge swan, unable to speak, and I wasn’t sure if she had the energy to change to human. I touched her, fed her more than enough to do so if she chose, and she did.

  She was naked but didn’t try to hide her body. Sophia stood tall and regal as she said, “I’m still a virgin, Father, but only so I could officially break up with Cyrano before I…”

  She trailed off, realized she had, and lifted her chin. “If you’ll leave me be, My King, and allow me my own life, my own choices, then I’ll leave you alone. If you force my hand then I’ll take the crown from you, Father. The choice is yours.”

  We’d discussed her riding off on my back, holding on while I carried her to safety, but she stepped away and jumped into the air as she shifted into dragon form. She was obviously shaky, but managed to make a circle of the mountain before she headed into the distance. I flew to her, close enough we could talk, but waited until we were several miles away before I said, “The sun will begin lightening the sky within the hour, and we don’t have enough time to get back to Chattanooga. Follow me. I know a place we can talk.”

  I flew us to Silver Run Falls and turned to human as I landed. She did the same, and I fed her more energy.

  I watched goose bumps rise on her skin, saw her breathe in the energy, her eyes on the falls.

  “How can you keep giving me more and not drain yourself?” she asked

  “I fed off the mountain,” I told her, “and my mountain drained everyone who was standing on the quartz, and gave me their energy. I’ve developed a huge reservoir and can hold a lot of energy in reserve, Soph, and you haven’t. We’ll work on that, but not today.”

  She nodded, her eyes still on the falls, and I marveled that she wasn’t hiding from me as we stood together, naked. Two weeks ago she’d have run into the woods. I could tell she was aware of her nudity but was refusing to let it affect our conversation.

  Still looking towards the crashing water, her eyes likely focusing to see the doorway into Faerie, she said, “You lost safe passage when you harbored me from my father.”

  “Yes. If we enter the Summerlands in a place you’ve never been, can you teleport us to the Temple of Hecate? A doorway not too far from the temple comes out a few miles from my house.”

  “Will I keep your energy when we pass into The Summerlands? Yours will be stripped, but since you gave me mine, will it be stripped as well?”

  Damn, I was hoping she wouldn’t go there. I put my hands on her shoulders, pushed a little more energy into her, careful not to hurt her with it. “I’m gifting this energy to you. Take it, make it yours, Soph. If you own it and believe it to be yours, you’ll keep it.”

  She nodded and stepped away from me. “I need a few minutes to sit on that boulder, let the spray hit me. I’ll pull in some more of my own energy, mix it all together until it feels like me and not you. Okay?”

  I nodded and watched her rock-hop her way to the huge boulder. We needed to hurry, but she needed to hold onto the energy or we’d be sunk.

  I watched her as she sat and closed her eyes. At four feet eleven inches and barely ninety pounds, with her snowy white hair she truly looked a fairy princess.

  And, in truth, that’s exactly what she was. A fairy princess who, by Fae Law, had been kidnapped from her father, and I was the criminal. The fact she’d run away didn’t matter, the moment I helped her stay away from her father, Fae Law considered me her kidnapper because I was enabling her to stay away from her rightful protector and owner.

  I’d been given passage into the Summerlands several millennia ago and had enjoyed my time there. Now? For the first time in thousands of years I was walking into a situation I wasn’t sure I could get myself out of. I was totally dependent on Sophia to get us out, but I believed in her strength and her cunning.

  This wasn’t our only option, but was the easiest way to get home today. Still, I considered the option of stealing a motorcycle and riding back as humans. If we stuck to the main roads, her father’s options would be limited, though there was the danger he’d send an animal to collide with the bike and wreck us. A stolen car would be less dangerous as far as animals, but more dangerous when it came to the police. We were in the middle of nowhere, so renting a car wasn’t an option, unfortunately.

  When Sophia stood and looked at me, I walked to her and told her our options, ending with, “If you believe you can get both of us through, then — because I believe in you — I’ll follow you and will trust you’ll get us out the other side.”

  “It should just be a matter of teleporting near the temple and then walking to the doorway. If we’re fast, we can be in and out before anyone notices, right?”

  “This is The Summerlands, Soph. The land will know I’m there and I don’t know how it will react to me. It will have to drain me, but whether it hinders, helps, or stays neutral beyond taking my power?” I shrugged. “No way to know.”

  She nodded and said, “It’s important we begin talking to people, explaining our side of things. The sooner we get to your house, the sooner we can begin recruiting allies.”

  I nodded and looked at my own nudity instead of hers. “As you go through, use the water molecules combined with the fabric separating this world with Faerie to weave clothes onto you.”

  “That’ll work?” she asked.

  I smiled, “Yes. Keep a vision of how you want them to look, and use the materials Faerie allows you to have. You’ll be naked again when we leave, but you’ll be clothed while in The Summerlands, at least.”

  She nodded and I accepted her hand, looked around, took a deep breath to smell the area for humans, and then followed her into the falls when I was sure we were alone.

  My power was drained from me the instant my right foot touched Summerland ground.

  Sophia took a breath, wrapped her arms around me, and the landscape morphed, dizzying me until I could ground myself to our new surroundings. I reached for her hand and started walking. “How much energy did it take to teleport us? If it was less than a quarter we can get away with you teleporting us from hilltop to hilltop, where you can see the destination, otherwise we’ll need to walk most of the two miles.”

  “About fifteen or twenty percent?”

  I nodded and headed for a hilltop. If I did this right we could do it in two jumps, with less than a quarter mile of walking. Maybe.

  When we reached the top, I pointed to the next hilltop. “Can you get us there? See the tower? The edge of the meadow, near the woods, would be good.”

  She nodded, wrapped her arms around me, but nothing happened.

  I looked again and saw the crossroads glowing between us and the hilltop. The Summerlands were going to make us go through them, which meant the land was choosing to throw obstacles in our way. I refrained from cursing, both for Sophia’s benefit as well as the land.

  “We’re going to have to go through the crossroads, Soph. Don’t know if it’ll be your decision or mine, but we’ll need to make the decision and move on as fast as we can. Whatever it is, it’ll likely be engineered to waylay us long enough for someone to arrive and attempt to take me prisoner.”

  As we neared the intersection of two dirt paths I saw Angelique pacing as I heard Sophia’s indrawn breath.

  “It’s my mom. I don’t remember her, but I’ve seen pictures.”

  “So, likely your decision, then.”

  She nodded and we slowed as we reached the intersection.

  “My beautiful Sophia. What have you done?” her mother asked, clearly distressed.

  “Taken my life into my own hands, mother. I don’t want to be a pawn. As the Princess, I’m fully aware my life can never be entirely my own, but it can be more mine than father was allowing.”

  “Your father is a good man, Sophia Victoria Angelique Siyanko, and you shall go back to him.”

  Thankfully, her name had changed, and the power her mother put into the name had no bearing on
Sophia, who smiled at her mother and said, “I believe he’s made the decisions he feels are best for our people, but I won’t debate whether he’s good or not, mother. I hope we get the chance to talk later, when I have the time, but for now I need to know my choices so I can take the path that correlates to my decision.”

  “The path before you means change for the Swans, change our people can never come back from, and things will never again be the same. The path to your left will take you home to the day before you left, so you can choose to remain at home and marry as you were supposed to. The path to the right will remove you from the equation entirely, so your father can continue to rule and one of your male cousins will be able to take the throne.”

  Sophia looked at me, then back to her mother. “I believe change is good, in this instance, so I’m going to continue on the path I’ve already been taking.”

  Her mother nodded and we walked on without looking back. I was so proud of Sophia for not getting bogged down with the details. It’s possible the specter was Sophia’s mother, but more likely an image created by The Summerlands. Sophia had chosen to remain on her path without deviating, and without spending four hours talking to her dead mother. She was truly fit to be Queen, and I’d make sure I told her this when we had time for the conversation.

  As we walked up the forested ridge, a centaur came at us from the left and a unicorn from the right. What Sophia didn’t know was that this particular centaur wanted me dead.

  “Kyrus,” I said to him as I came to a stop.

  “I’ve always known you were disgraceful and wicked,” he said with a sneer. “You’ve finally broken the law in a way you can’t worm your way out of, not even by fucking every Royal female in the land, and a few of the male Royals, if the rumors are true.”

  Okay, so yeah, I’d bedded pretty much every queen and princess in Faerie at some point in time, and a few dukes and duchesses while I was at it, but I’d had thousands of years to work my way around to them all. And yes, I’d gone through various periods of breaking the rules simply because I could, and I’d gotten away with it when Kyrus had gotten in trouble. I needed to get us past him, though, and out of Faerie as quickly as possible.