by E. A. James
Sublime comfort and peace filled her, body and soul. The despair and confusion of the last days faded. For the first time, perfect clarity brightened her future. She knew what she wanted and how to get it.
She shifted in her place on the ground and rolled over on her back. Tanak stirred under her, and he lifted his head to look at her. “You’re awake.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“A few hours. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so I could go hunting. The sun will be down soon. If I don’t go now, I won’t be able to go until morning.”
She put out her hand to touch his shoulder. She couldn’t speak above a whisper. “Don’t go.”
His eyes widened. “What do you mean? You need to eat and drink. Now is my only chance.”
Her hand glided across his skin. A prickly thrill ran through her fingers, up her arm, and out to the rest of her body. “Don’t leave, Tanak. Stay here with me.”
The sparkly sensations tingled between her fingers and his skin. It jumped back and forth from him to her and back again. His muscles tensed under her touch, and his breath caught in his nostrils. He grumbled deep in his throat.
The queer sensation set Margila’s nerves on edge. It squirreled down into her deepest core and spread that old wicked warmth between her legs. He lowered his head to peer closer at her, and his nostrils flared to catch her scent.
Her body undulated against the rock in a ferment of excitement and desire. What magic was this? She was ready for him. She wanted him, and she wanted to give herself to him. She wanted him to touch her and bring her to her completion. She wanted her skin to touch his, to feel the excitement of his slippery scales caressing her secret places. She wanted his tongue and his body to stimulate her to full arousal and fulfill her every wish.
He dropped his head farther still and nuzzled his bony forehead against her stomach. She closed his head in her arms, but he kept moving it back and forth, a little farther every time. He rubbed it around her sides and stroked his long neck over her hip and down her leg. His coils slithered up her chest, around her breasts and across her neck.
She twisted and rubbed her body against his powerful curves. Every inch of him brought her to the peak of desire. Her thighs parted to surround its length. She couldn’t hold back much longer. She ached for some part of him inside her to bring her juices flowing to the surface.
She flexed her hips to grind her mons against his pelvis. He growled under his breath, and his whole body seethed in massive roiling power. She opened her eyes and found his head weaving above her. His eyes pierced her soul and flashed fire.
She gazed up into his eyes without fear. Nothing remained for her but him. The rest of the world ceased to exist. She belonged to him. “Take me. Take me now.”
“Are you certain this is what you want?”
“I’m certain. Take me now. I want you to.”
He needed no second invitation. He heaved up off the ground and loomed over her in all his great bulk. She kept her eyes locked on his face. As long as she looked at him, she knew what she wanted. Nothing would stop her from giving herself to him without reservation.
He twisted up onto his feet and stood over her. She remained on her back on the floor. Insatiable desire for him filled her being. The same undeniable attraction that first excited her when he sniffed her on the mountaintop when she hung bound and helpless from the post, boiled in every corpuscle of her body.
She spread her legs to him. She would take him into herself and sacrifice her virginity to the dragon, the way she should have done in the first place. She was always his and never any other’s. The childish desire she felt for Marcus only prepared her for this moment.
To her surprise, though, Tanak didn’t overpower her or throw himself between her legs. He moved back toward the cave mouth. She watched him with bated breath. What was he doing? Would he leave her here alone, now that he finally secured her permission to take her?
Before her eyes, he started to change. His enormous body shrank. His tail retracted into his body, as did his neck. He folded his wings against his back, and they disappeared. His face flattened out, and his nose pulled into the bones of his head.
His hind legs straightened and shrank. The knees bent back the other way, and his claws softened into fingers. His front legs hung down at his sides. His neck vanished between his shoulders, and his spine straightened to allow him to stand upright.
Margila sat up to stare at him. His glowing greenish purple skin lightened until barely any color remained. Only the faintest hint of soft pink glowed beneath the surface. His eyes changed from fiery red to the deepest blue she ever saw.
In a few seconds, the fearsome dragon with its great leathery wings and fire-breathing snout vanished before her eyes. A tall, handsome man with auburn hair touching his shoulders stood before her. He wore trousers of beaten leather down to his bare feet, and a soft woven linen shirt. Her eyes popped out of her head, but she couldn’t speak. It was the knight from her dream.
He knelt down before her. His bright eyes glimmered in the light. “Margila, it’s me.”
She put out her hand to touch his fine skin. His hair swayed when he leaned forward. His breath brushed her lips when he bent down to kiss her. “How did you....?”
“Now you know why I couldn’t take you to our stronghold before you were ready. This is our most closely guarded secret. We can shift back and forth between our dragon form and our human form. Only those people who agree to join us and make the Raveniss their own people can know our secret. If the villagers knew the truth, they would attack and wipe us out in our vulnerable human form. Only fear of the dragons stops them from mounting an all-out assault against us.”
She still couldn’t bring herself to speak. She could barely believe the evidence staring back at her.
“Now you understand how so many of us can live together in our citadels. We live there as people, not as dragons. We only take our dragon form to fly over the land and to hunt our food in the mountains. We take our dragon form to fight our enemies, but to our friends and families, we are as human as you.”
Her eyes drank their fill of his handsome face, but overwhelming emotion welled up within her and threatened to burst out. She dangled on the brink of laughter and tears at the same moment.
He put his arms around her, and his face hovered not an inch from her eyes. His warm lips touched hers. In a flash, she threw her arms around his neck and clutched him against her. Her eyes overflowed with tears of joy. She devoured his mouth and hurled herself against him.
She never wanted anything but him, and now all her dreams came true. Her body longed for completion in him, and now nothing remained to bar her way. She gave herself over into his arms.
He leaned closer, and she lay back on the warm ground. He stretched his body over hers, and her arms and legs welcomed him. His lips probed her mouth open, and their tongues frolicked in joyful union.
All the dragon’s magnetic power permeated his human form. He intoxicated her senses and filled her nostrils with the scent of a man. This time, unlike the many times she played around with Marcus, she could give her whole self to him. Her inner being lay bared for his pleasure, and her flesh quivered with anticipation.
Tanak was in no hurry. He cradled her in his arms and kissed her long and deep. His warmth rippled down into the nest between her legs, and she rubbed her thighs against his legs. He ran his hands up and down her sides, from her hips to her ribs. She pressed her chest up into his hands in an agony of desire.
His endless caressing caught hold of her thin dress. It migrated up to her hips, and his hand touched her bare thigh. She trembled at the contact. His hand trailed her sensitive skin and found the inner line leading up to her warmth.
She opened to his exploring fingers, and his gentle circles around her opening brought a moan to her lips. She arched her back against the ground, but no encouragement would induce him to escalate against his inclinations.
He di
scovered her inner wetness, and her flesh rose to meet him. She tried to claw his clothes off him, but he only pushed her back down with a firm hand. He made her lie in seething torment while he stimulated her to the brink of insanity. His fingers delved into her molten cavern and brought her vital essence bubbling to the surface.
She contorted on his fingers, but he wouldn’t bring her to completion that way. Just when she thought she would explode, he withdrew his hand and rolled up on top of her. He covered her mouth with his lips, and his tongue insisted on her attention with no room for respite.
She whined for him and wrapped her legs around his hips. He rocked back and forth with his bulging spike digging into her engorged flesh. She grabbed his buttocks and scratched his back.
With a quick movement of his wrist, he freed himself and laid his naked manhood against her choice fissure. He arched to angle his shaft into her waiting channel. A flicker of fear blinked across Margila’s mind, but she didn’t have time to hesitate before he was home.
His rigid lance split her open. A stab of pain rocketed through her, and she screamed out loud. The next minute, he pumped down hard to the very limit of her being. His shaft touched the delicate landscape of her innermost self, and his rhythm transported her to a distant world full of pleasure and delight.
She grappled with him there on the floor, but every stroke of his shaft sent waves of heavenly warmth through her. They rocked her far away to the clouds, where no fear or anger or danger could touch her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Margila straightened her dress in the sunshine at the cave’s mouth. Tanak sat on a rock outside and checked the sky. “We should be going.”
“What happens now?”
He stood up. “Now we go home. There’s no reason to hang around here anymore.”
“I thought you planned to hunt.”
“You’ll have plenty to eat and drink when we get there. We’ll be safer there, and I have no idea when the soldiers will come back.”
“They’ll be looking for a dragon, not two people.”
“All the more reason to get out while we can. I have to report to my father what we’ve seen. Our people need to prepare for the Axis invasion.”
Without another word, he started to grow larger. The same transformation process reversed itself until the dragon stood before her in all its majesty. Margila stared at him. She still could hardly believe the man to whom she just gave herself was the same person as this fearsome reptile.
In spite of everything, she could never forget that she gave herself willingly, with her whole heart, to this beast without knowing he was really a man underneath. She loved him for his inner strength, for his kindness to her and his noble bearing. His handsome appearance was simply a nice addition. She would love him and desire him even if he wasn’t a man.
His tail whipped the air, and he raised his head to sniff the air. Then he bent his head close to her. “Climb onto my back. Step on my head, and I’ll lift you up.”
She put her hands against his side and her foot on his head. With a sweep of his muscled neck, he boosted her up. She threw one leg over his back and found a secure place to sit where his neck met his shoulders.
He unfurled his wings and lifted off the ground. The wind whistled through her hair, and she raised her face to the sunshine. His wings stroked up and down, and his muscles rippled under her. The mountain fell away.
Tanak circled the caldera where they spent their first days. One side of the bowl had collapsed where the Axis vessel fired into the mountain. Then the mountain grew smaller and smaller. He swept over the landscape, but he didn’t head north. He circled east.
Fields and roads appeared down below. Tanak hovered over a high mountain with a blackened post sticking out of the top. Margila gazed down at the sight of her own sacrifice. She cast her eye farther east. Her own village spread out along the river. The green grass of the Common lay browning in the autumn sun. Smoke billowed from the chimneys.
How tiny and insignificant the village looked from here. Even the few shiny metal vehicles parked on the Common reminded her of children’s toys. How little those people understood about their own world! How paltry and petty their concerns seemed to her now!
If only they could understand the Raveniss as she could, maybe they would give up this tragic war. She didn’t understand the Raveniss as well as the other women who went before her, but even she knew how fruitless and wasteful this war was for both sides. If only she could get them to understand, she could save so many innocent lives.
Even as that thought crossed her mind, she knew, as Tanak and all the rest of the Raveniss knew, that it was useless. The people in that village didn’t want to understand the Raveniss, and they certainly didn’t want to save innocent lives. If they did, they wouldn’t hunt the Raveniss in the first place. The Raveniss represented innocent lives. Now the village sold what little sovereignty they had to the Axis for some blood-thirsty obsession with destroying the dragons.
Margila turned away. She no longer belonged to those people. She no longer wanted to be one of them or to involve herself with their concerns. She hated their prejudices and their headstrong traditions. Another, brighter future awaited her. Enlightened people with access to a whole universe of information waited for her in the north. They would welcome her as Tanak’s consort. She would raise children with him in peace and light.
Tanak didn’t linger around that mountain, either. He only gave her a brief glimpse into the world she was leaving behind, enough of a glimpse to solidify her resolve. Then he turned away northward.
She never saw him in the full power of his flight. He covered vast distances with every downbeat of his wings. Mountain ranges slipped away. In the far distance, the ocean crashed against rocky shores. Margila had never seen the ocean before. Her village had no word for it, and she couldn’t understand what it was.
They passed another mountain range, and deserts stretched to every horizon as far as the eye could see. Night fell, and another day dawned before they came in sight of a higher mountain range. It dwarfed all the mountains Margila had ever seen before. Snow capped its peaks, and waterfalls tumbled from high cliffs into bottomless canyons.
Margila sat up to get a better view. Tanak flew far into this vast mountain range before a spot of gray sprang up on the cliff face. They flew closer, and Margila could just make out spires jutting against the sky. Colored banners waved from their pointed tips, and the battlements extended from one mountain to another.
The city covered several mountains with high walls and towering spires. Interconnected citadels formed one massive edifice set into the mountains. Tanak flew over the first parapet and soared down over well-tended fields dotted with villages. Margila craned her neck to look down. Livestock browsed in the fields. A herd boy raised his hand to wave to the dragon as it passed overhead. Could this be a home like the one she left behind?
Tanak flew onward to the next parapet and up to the highest spire. The closer he came, the better Margila could see. A wide courtyard connected four spires at their corners, and people walked around down there. The dragon didn’t concern them at all. Why should it? It was one of their own people.
Tanak flapped his wings and banked down into the courtyard. He landed on all four legs, and Margila slipped down to the ground. She couldn’t get enough of the impressive structure and the flags flapping in the wind.
The people she saw from the sky were soldiers. They wore armor, like ancient knights, and they held weapons at the ready. Before Margila could formulate the words to ask any questions, she found Tanak standing at her side in his human form. He took her hand and turned her toward the north spire, where a crowd of people came to meet her.
A man and a woman in the finest clothing Margila had ever seen led the procession. The man wore a golden crown on his head. The woman came toward her and held out both hands. “Welcome, my dear. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to finally meet you and welcome you to our fair city. My name i
s Katya, and I am Tanak’s mother. This is his father, the Archduke Martindale.”
Margila blushed and bowed to them both. “Thank you. It is an honor to finally meet you.”
Katya laughed and raised her up. “Please, please. You are our own family now. You must dispense with all those formalities. We may not look the same as your people in the village, but we are, after all, people just like you.”
Tanak stepped forward and embraced his parents. His father clapped him on the shoulders. “You took your time coming back. I was worried and wanted to send out a patrol to find you, but your mother insisted these things take time. She should know.”
Margila’s head shot up and she stared at Katya. “You do?”
“Of course, my dear. I was sacrificed, the same way you were, and look at me now, welcoming my own son’s mate to follow in my footsteps.”
