Where Sleeping Dragons Lie (Skeleton Key)

by Cristina Rayne

  “Fool,” Taron muttered, his pain now more apparent with his voice booming down on her from above.

  “Why didn’t he wait to challenge Jathar until he had been awake for at least a month, hell even another day?” Briana found herself asking, her eyes riveted to the two dragons squaring off. “I don’t understand.”

  “We are never more invigorated, more powerful than after the sleep,” he answered, sounding more disgusted than happy about such an obvious boon.

  “Jathar must know this. Why would he accept with the odds so out of his favor?”

  “Long ago, Jathar was once my father’s greatest warrior. Perhaps that’s why he was not content with his lot. Those of the House of Blue Stone have always prided themselves on their strength, believing that the most powerful beings in all things should rule. Given this philosophy, it’s not a surprise that they allied themselves with a non-shifter people strong in magic such as the Ansi.

  “My family, well, we’re more scholarly, than warrior, I suppose. Our strength lies in our knowledge, our wisdom. This has always been a point of contention between our two houses, but the various noble houses of the stone dragons have always respected us for that strength—until Jathar. The Houses flocked to his banner without hesitation. We should have known it was really a grudging respect, at best.”

  “And Dagon?”

  “He believes that today is the only day in which he has a good chance of winning, today when both his mind and body are optimized to one hundred percent vitality. He is—right,” Taron admitted reluctantly.

  Two roars sounded from below as both dragons leaped into the air, and Briana couldn’t help clutching at Taron’s leg in anxiety. It had begun. There was no turning back now, and she had never felt more frightened in her life.

  The two dragons slammed into each other a split-second after the dragon king unleashed a stream of death-fire right into Jathar’s face. However, the other shook it off as though he had only been sprayed in the face with a water gun and immediately went for Dagon’s jugular, smoke pouring from his blue face as he managed to only slice a tooth harmlessly across the scales on his king’s neck.

  “Can he—actually bite through Dagon’s scales?” Briana asked faintly, horrified that she might actually witness something so gruesome.

  She was immensely relieved when Taron shook his head, but it was short-lived. “No. A dragon’s scales are impenetrable by tooth, claws, or sword. The trick is to use them effectively as a distraction while hitting the few points of vulnerability we do have—eyes, ears, an open mouth, and most importantly, our necks. They may be covered in scales, but they can still be crushed in the powerful jaws of a dragon if bitten just so.”

  Suddenly, Dagon’s wings folded back onto his back as he latched onto the stone dragon with his talons on both hands and feet, and he started to drop like a rock, taking a startled Jathar with him into the beginnings of a death spiral. She both heard and felt Taron gasp as Dagon did some weird-looking flip upward of his hind legs, the result making Jathar’s fall even more unstably as the stone dragon’s flapping wings struggled to right himself with Dagon still awkwardly clinging to a space just above both wing joints with the talons on his hands.

  Seconds away from crashing into the ground, Dagon abruptly released Jathar and unfurled his wings, having time for only one mighty flap upwards with all his might before he turned sharply to the side and hit the ground rolling. Even though Jathar had been flapping his wings like mad the entire time, due to Dagon’s strange acrobatics, his wings never got any lift, and he slammed brutally into the ground.

  “Looks as though Dagon found one more point of vulnerability,” Taron said in something like disbelief. “If Jathar didn’t just break every bone in his body, then I’ll eat my own tail. Even a dragon’s scales can’t protect us against an impact from that kind of fall…”

  The stone dragon lay still and silent where he had fallen in the center of a small crater of his own making, one of his wings bent at an odd angle and crushed beneath the bulk of his body. From so high up, she couldn’t tell if he was dead or just unconscious.

  “Dagon hit the ground pretty hard, too,” Briana said worriedly as she watched the dragon king continue to tumble uncontrollably across the palace lawns in a whirl of reds and blacks.

  Taron’s talons dug into the earth, betraying his desire to rush to his brother’s side. To be unable to help a loved one in obvious need was pure torture, even for her who barely knew Dagon.

  After what felt like an eternity holding her breath, Dagon finally stopped rolling and fell still for another heart-stopping eternity. What if he, like Jathar, was too injured to get up? In a fight to the death, was there such a thing as a draw if neither one could even get up to finish the other?

  Then a rush of adrenaline surged through her as Briana saw Dagon lift his head and shake it vigorously before staggering up onto all four limbs.

  “You foolish, crazy bastard!” Taron growled, the anger in his voice belying the blatant relief in those large eyes.

  Briana hugged as much of his forelimb as possible in her excitement as she watched the dragon king flap his wings once and then walk stiffly over to the rim of the crater Jathar’s impact had punched into the lawn. He peered down for a brief moment at his fallen opponent before suddenly turning towards the silent army of stone dragons at his back and shouting several phrases in the Draknar language that seemed to reverberate to the four corners of the world and send ripples of unrest throughout the enemy ranks.

  “What did he say?” Briana demanded.

  Taron’s tone was gleeful as he translated, “‘Let this serve as my judgment for the murder of my father, the late King Lyven of the House of the Red Flame.’”

  Then without further preamble, Dagon jumped down into the crater. He picked up Jathar’s limp head and pried open his mouth. Like watching a train wreck, Briana couldn’t turn her gaze away even though she could guess what was coming.

  Dagon opened his mouth, and a burst of orange-red flames flowed from his mouth into the mouth of his enemy for at least a full minute. When Jathar’s smoking body hit the ground again, this time, Briana had no doubts that he was dead.

  The battle was won, and now the hardest part of the war would truly begin—the aftermath.

  EPILOGUE

  “Why am I not surprised to find you out here instead of where I left you?” Taron said with a chuckle as he stepped up behind her and slid his arms around her waist.

  “Your suite was a bit too gloomy for my current mood,” Briana replied, turning around in his arms so that she could look up at his face.

  She was dressed in a multi-layered robe-like dress in white and gold that Taron informed her was worn by the nobility for celebrations. It was both comfortable and beautiful, two things that were not usually true when it came to formal dresses. When she had first seen it, she had been immensely relieved that no corsets were involved.

  With the dress and standing out on the extensive balcony outside Taron’s living room, looking out from the side of a high mountain with several dragons flying overhead as the sun had begun to set, Briana had felt as though she had entered the pages of a fairytale.

  “Considering that no one has lived in these rooms for over two centuries, I’m not surprised that it feels a bit stuffy,” Taron agreed. “A little airing out should fix that particular problem within a month or two.”

  “That’s assuming I’ll be here long enough to enjoy the end results.”

  He instantly went rigid. “You are still unsure about staying? Unsure about me?”

  Briana pulled out the skeleton key from where it hung on a new chain of gold under the collar of her dress. Might as address the enormous elephant in the room now while they were still alone.

  Taron recoiled from it as though it were a cobra.

  “Honestly? I just don’t know.” She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue, “The part about you, about us? Surprisingly, that’s the easy part. I’ve only kn
own you for a couple of days, but it already feels like we’ve known each other for a lifetime. Now, I just have to decide if I can bear giving up all of the people I care about in my world forever for a life here in this world, a world I hardly know at all. I’m not sure if I can ever make that decision.”

  “Then don’t make it tonight,” Taron said firmly. “Let me show you the joy of my people, the beauty of my kingdom. What better way to start than a celebration of victory? A celebration of a kingdom starting on a path of healing?”

  Briana looked down at the key resting in her palm. If, in the end, she decided that she couldn’t bear to leave her home world behind, the longer she stayed here and the more time she spent with Taron would make leaving him hurt that much more. She looked back into Taron’s earnest eyes. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she would be doing just that, even if she left tonight.

  Suddenly, the weight of the key in her hand disappeared. Startled, her attention instantly shot back down to her palm, but only the gold chain remained. She stared at it for another few seconds, her brain unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

  “The skeleton key—disappeared…”

  Hearing the bewilderment in her own voice gave Briana an absurd urge to giggle.

  “What?” Taron asked sharply, looking down at the hand that now only held a chain with a look as though he thought she was yanking his chain.

  “Well—Granny Ruth was always nagging me about going out into the world in search of adventure rather than spending my days hovered over an old tome,” Briana said slowly, the beginnings of a smile forming on her lips as she released the necklace and let her hand drop back down to her side. “It seems the universe agrees.”

  When the implications of what she said finally sank in, Taron gathered her more tightly into his arms and spent the next few minutes kissing her senseless. “I promise we’ll have great fun together, Absorption Girl,” he said once he allowed her to breathe again.

  She laughed. “No doubt. Royals are always a magnet for trouble, remember?”

  “That’s why you will be needing this.”

  A burst of incredible heat suddenly stabbed into her chest, making Briana cry out and clutch hard at the back of Taron’s tunic. It was immediately followed by the largest surge of adrenaline through her entire body that she had ever experience, making her feel as though she could suddenly fly.

  Her pulse racing, Briana squirmed within his arms, the urge to do something, anything, was suddenly almost overwhelming. She had never felt so alive! She wanted to run through the forest again with Taron, to dance, to make love, to soar the skies. Then in the next breath, that strange euphoria abruptly disappeared, leaving only dizziness and a sense of confusion in its wake.

  “What—did you just do to me?” she panted, looking up at him with wide eyes.

  Taron planted a teasing kiss on the end of her nose. “You didn’t think the length of a human lifetime with you would be enough, did you? I just merely gifted you with a portion of my Dragon Fire to ensure we will have centuries of fun together.”

  The look on his face was smug.

  “Merely?” Briana echoed a bit shrilly. “You just essentially granted me immortality like a damned genie handing out wishes and you act as though it’s no big deal! What if you just cut your own lifespan short by doing that, you big, reckless lizard! Or—”

  Briana yelped as she suddenly found herself tumbled onto her back with a darkening sky overhead and a wickedly-grinning dragon-shifter prince between her legs looking down at her with eyes of flame.

  “Perhaps I need to reenact our activities from last night to teach you the meaning of the word, ‘fun,’” Taron growled.

  A burst of heat rose to her face even as her sex began to throb in sudden arousal. Briana raised her hands to cradle his face lovingly. She had a sneaking suspicion that he would win a lot of future arguments this way.

  She could always worry about eternity tomorrow.

  Briana wrapped her legs snugly around Taron’s waist and thrust her hips up to rub teasingly against his hardness. “Then teach me, for the rest of our lives.”

  Needless to say, they were super late to Dagon’s victory banquet. In the years to come, it would become a regular occurrence.

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Skeleton Key novella!

  All reviews are appreciated.

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  —

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