Dragon Green

by Macy Babineaux

  “Why the gloomy look?” she asked, an exaggerated pout forming on her lips. “Do you not wish to have fun on your wedding night?”

  “Perhaps we have differing thoughts on the nature of fun.”

  She laughed at that. “Can you not indulge your new wife? You might even like it.”

  With that, she ran to the bed, throwing herself upon it and rolling over to sit up on her elbows. Then she hooked a finger at him and beckoned him to follow.

  Vander moved to the bed, half expecting her to jump up and run from him once more. But she surprised him by sitting up, putting her hands around his neck, and pulling him down on top of her.

  She put her lips to his, surprising him with a slow, sensual kiss. No biting. No hungry thrashing of the tongue.

  Then she bucked underneath him, catching him off guard and rolling him onto his back. She sat up on top of him and giggled again.

  “I do believe I am going to enjoy married life,” she said. “Maybe father was right after all.” She looked down into her cleavage and reached between her pale breasts. Her fingers withdrew what looked like a spool of thread.

  Now what? Vander thought. He doubted this was how most wedding nights went.

  She held the tiny spool up between pinched fingers. “Razor silk,” she said. “Ever heard of it?”

  “No,” he said. “Look, Nevra—”

  “Not many have. It is crafted in secret in the southern reaches of the swamp. Stretch out your arms for me.”

  “I must confess,” he said. “I am beginning to grow a bit weary of your games.”

  She looked at him with mock surprise. “Do you not know?” she asked. “Did they not teach you such things growing up in your secluded island paradise? Everything is a game. And you never stop playing.”

  He sighed as she sat on top of him. He was beginning to tire of her philosophizing as well.

  She made a show of batting her dark lashes at him. “Would you not indulge me, husband?” She lifted her arms high in the air to show him how to do it, as one would instruct a child.

  He sighed again, then extended his arms. It was only silk. If she wished to tie him to the bedpost, he could easily snap free. He would play her little game only a bit longer.

  She giggled with delight and reached out to wind the silk around his right wrist, tethering it to the thick bamboo post. She drew a nasty-looking little dagger from her belt, and his heart thumped harder in his chest. But she only meant to use it to cut the silk before tying off the end.

  Then she quickly moved to bind his other wrist so that he lay bound, arms outstretched.

  Nevra climbed off of him, smiling at his erection as she did so. Gods help him, he was still aroused, though he knew not why.

  She tied his ankles to the posts as well, each binding a little tighter than he would have liked. The silk bit into his skin, and he could already feel the numbness in his fingers as the circulation slowed.

  Once she was done, she stepped back to admire her work.

  “This is how I like my men,” she said. “Completely at my mercy.”

  Did she mean to cut him with the dagger after all? Was this all part of some sick mating dance the black dragons played at down in the swamps?

  “I would not try to wrestle free if I were you,” she said. “Nor would I try to take dragonform. Razor silk is far stronger than it looks, and you would likely lose your hands and feet.”

  He twisted his right arm to test what she had said, surprised to find that it was true. The silk did not break as he flexed his wrist. It seemed stronger than steel, cinching tighter as he struggled.

  Nevra laughed and stepped forward again, leaning over his lap.

  Vander took a deep breath in through his nose and clenched his body, hoping she did not mean to use her teeth down there.

  Instead, she pursed her lips and blew across the tip, making him waggle gently. She looked up at him and smiled.

  “We’ll not be consummating our marriage this night,” she said. “Perhaps on the morrow, or the day after that.” She reached out and cupped his balls, giving him a hard squeeze.

  He winced, hissing through his teeth. She held up the short blade.

  “No,” he said. His heart pounded in his chest. There was no doubt now. The woman was mad. He’d been a fool to let her bind him, a mistake he would not make again. If there was an again.

  She turned the blade over in her hand. The moonlight streaming through the open window danced across its shiny edge.

  But thankfully she didn’t not lower the blade to his skin. Instead, she reached up and put the dagger in his bound right hand.

  “You can cut yourself free after I leave,” she said. “I’m going to spend the night in another room. I’ll find a servant and have them prepare it for me. I just wanted to set the terms of our union. I will be owned by no man. And I will lie with you, not when tradition dictates, but if and when I desire it.”

  She curled her finger against her thumb and thumped the head of his erection, giving his balls another squeeze. He grunted and lurched forward, almost dropping the knife.

  Then she let go of him and stood. “Do you understand?” she asked.

  “All too well,” he said hoarsely.

  “Good,” she said, grinning down at him. “I’m not all bad. At least I didn’t leave you like this for a servant to find. Besides, you might want to go for a moonlight swim later. I wouldn’t want to keep you from that.”

  She turned her back to him and strode from the room, leaving him bound and winded, a dull, throbbing ache between his legs. When the door had closed behind her, he took a deep breath and began to cut through the razor silk. She was right. The stuff was amazingly strong. It took a long while to free his hands, and nearly as long to cut away the silk binding his ankles.

  As he worked, the anger welled up in him. There was duty to the realm and to his people, and then there was this. The owls had set him to wed a madwoman.

  Once he was free, he kneaded his wrists, feeling the blood flow back into his hands. Then he climbed out of bed and slid back into his armor. He paced, thinking of the best way to handle the situation.

  Nevra said she would stay in another room in the palace. Finding her would be easy. But then what? He wanted badly to return the favor, to teach her a lesson. But he was at a loss for how to do so. He would also have loved to expel her from the palace, from the entire island. But as far as he knew, her father was still around. Several days ago he had nearly threatened open war.

  The more Vander walked back and forth across the floor, the more he calmed. Nothing had truly been hurt but his pride. Well, he was still sore below, but nothing he could not sleep off. And no one needed know what had happened here.

  Eventually he stopped, taking a deep breath and running his fingers through his hair. He let out a ragged laugh. She had planned this, catching him off guard. But now that he knew what he was dealing with, he would not be caught with his guard down again.

  He walked to the door and bolted it fast. He doubted she would return, but why take any chances? He decided he would deal with her tomorrow. It had been the longest of days, and a good night’s rest would do him well.

  Vander returned to his bed and slid between the white satin sheets. Gods, could someone conjure up a stranger wedding night from a fevered dream? He chuckled to himself, put his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes.

  He saw her face, her dark blond hair pulled back from it and bound in a tail. Her dark hazel eyes were bright with curiosity, her button nose, and her soft pink lips. It was as if she were here with him, as if either he had never left her world or she had come along with him to his own.

  He reached out to put his hand on her cheek, to cradle her jaw while he leaned in for a sweet kiss. But to his horror and surprise, his hand moved through her face, the image dissolving like smoke.

  All that was left in her place was darkness, a void so empty he could feel it deep in his soul. And then, high above it all, he heard it for t
he first time.

  A woman’s voice, singing the most beautiful song he had ever heard. Was it Brynn, singing to him from across the endless stretch of space between their worlds? The voice was frustratingly far away. Its beauty touched him even though it was low and difficult to hear. That only made him want to get closer.

  That feeling gripped him, absolute and complete. He needed to go towards the source of that voice, to find whoever it belonged to. If it was Brynn, all the better. But he was compelled either way to move in its direction.

  He felt himself climb out of bed and open his eyes. Moonlight still streamed in through the open windows. Was he awake or still in a dream? He could not tell. But the voice was still there, singing to him from far away, the achingly forlorn song carried across the water and on the wind.

  He needed to go to it. Nothing else mattered.

  Vander walked to the door and drew back the bolts that held it fast. The halls were empty, everyone tucked away for the night. He walked down the stairs, through the gate, and out onto the beach.

  For a moment, fear gripped him. He thought the voice had stopped singing. All he heard was the rhythmic rush of the waves lapping against the surf.

  But then he closed his eyes and there it was. He had never heard anything so lovely, could not even imagine a song so sweet. Its singer was far away. That he knew. But it would not deter him.

  He walked down to the beach, the moonlight making the white sand look a dreamy blue. There, where the water met the land, he crouched down and began to transform. His body grew, wings unfurling, tail extending. Once in dragonform, he craned his long neck to look back at his home, not caring if he returned. Nothing mattered but the voice and the song, all the clearer to his dragon ears.

  The source was northward, away from both the island and the mainland, in the direction that no one sane, man or dragon, dared to travel. Tonight he would, though. He would fly across the water and find the singer of that song.

  He had no choice.

  Vander dug his claws into the sand and launched himself into the air, flying up and out over the moonlit sea.

  12

  BRYNN

  She bolted upright in her bed, gasping. The room was dark except for the digital numbers of her bedside clock. 4:12am.

  Her skin was covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Vander was in danger.

  Brynn threw the sheets aside and swung her legs out to the floor. She bent over and put her head in her hands, trying to remember. What had she seen while she slept?

  His face, floating there, that beautiful, affable smile of his and those green, green eyes. Then he had reached out to touch her and everything had become a haze. But she had heard a voice, a woman singing. After that she remembered nothing but a feeling, as strong as any she had ever had.

  He was going to die. That voice, as pretty as it sounded, was luring him out, as if coaxing him to walk across a deep pit full of spikes. She felt it with absolute certainty. And she knew something else, though she didn’t exactly know how. No one knew where he had gone.

  Brynn got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror.

  She looked as terrible as she felt. Her eyes were bloodshot, dark circles underneath. Her skin was pale. Could have something to do with losing both your career and the most amazing man you’ve ever met in the span of a day, she thought. And of course, now finding out that in his world, God knows how far away, he’s in grave danger, with no one to help him.

  But even if she wanted to help him, how in the hell would she even start? Vander had come here through a portal created by some woman on the other side. Brynn had no way to communicate with that person, whoever she was.

  She’d spent her whole life just looking for evidence of Xandakar. That was hard enough to find, much less a way to actually get there. Then she saw something in the sclera of her right eye, and she leaned into the mirror and pulled the skin of her eye down with a finger to get a better look.

  She saw filaments, like tiny strands of wire in the whites. Holy shit, she thought. This is that thing that fused with me down in the desert chamber. I’m infected with it. The filaments formed several spiral patterns just under her iris, and the metal had that same strange mother-of-pearl shimmer.

  So on top of everything else, she was a host for some ancient technological virus from another world. Brynn thought about throwing on some clothes and heading to the emergency room. But they wouldn’t have the first clue what they were dealing with. More than likely, they’d call the feds, and within hours she’d be sealed up in some white cell the government had built just for such an occasion.

  Still, maybe she should do that. Whatever was inside her, maybe it was a threat to others. Maybe she was being selfish. Maybe—

  No. It was a voice she hadn’t heard since she’d been in the Xandakarian chamber. She recognized it as the voice of the fabricant.

  I am a threat to no one, it said. Much less you. We must travel to his world. We must help him.

  Okay, she thought. Now maybe I’m going crazy on top of everything else.

  You are not crazy, the voice said. But wouldn’t that be exactly what a crazy voice inside your head would say? Time is short. If you wish to help him, you need to act quickly.

  Part of her, the sane, rational part, said she needed to stop listening to that voice. She needed to get in her car and seek medical attention right now, no matter what might happen to her.

  But the other part, the one that thought she might have just fallen in love with a dragonlord from another world, told her she needed to listen to the voice, to do whatever it said.

  “All right,” she said to her reflection. “Say I wanted to help him. What do I do?”

  When she was a little girl, her mother used to cut her hair. She’d put a piece of Scotch tape across her bangs so that she could cut in a straight line. But sometimes, her father would take her to an honest-to-God barber shop, one with an old-fashioned red-and-white spinning pole outside. Inside, two old men in white coats cut hair, told dirty jokes, and swept the floor. The place smelled like mint and tonic. But what Brynn remembered the most about that old barber shop was the way the mirrors on either side reflected each other, creating a bizarre tunnel of reflections that extended into infinity.

  She wondered how those old men could work there and look at that all day long. She thought it just might drive her insane. But as she looked into her own bathroom mirror, she felt that same sensation of vertigo and nostalgia as the mirror stretched out into infinity.

  She felt disembodied, ethereal, as she saw a million worlds and a million doors between them. The thing inside me is showing me this, she thought, though she still didn’t completely understand why.

  There are many worlds, the voice said. And many doors between them.

  The vision swooped in on one door in particular, an old wooden one colored a deep, dark maroon. The paint was chipped all around the edged, and a scuffed bronze doorknob sat there, just waiting to be turned.

  The perspective pulled back, and Brynn saw the sign that read “Fifth Street Tobacco Shoppe”. She didn’t know the store, but she recognized the street. She’d been there just last year for a music festival. Austin, Texas.

  Go, said the voice. Find the door. And save him if you can.

  If you can. Thanks for the vote of confidence, she thought. But now the entire vision was collapsing in on itself, the millions of worlds becoming one. And it was too much for her mind to handle.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, putting her palms to her temples. Then everything went black.

  13

  VANDER

  As he flew across the water, the voice became even clearer and more beautiful. His father had told him never to venture this way. But his father was gone, wasn’t he?

  And that voice was so alluring, so achingly strong. He had to find the person it belonged to. Still, as he flew, there was no land in sight.
He pulled up, flapping his wings to fly in place, looking for any sign of an island. Sunlight was just beginning to glow upon the horizon. It was still dark, but Vander’s eyes were excellent, even with little light. But he couldn’t see a thing.

  Down here, the voice said, the same one that sang the song. Come to me.

  He looked beneath himself and saw only water. But the voice was far too strong to deny.

  Vander pointed his head towards the water, folded back his wings, and dove straight down.

  He hit the dark water and felt the chill across his body and wings. The water was far colder out here, so far from any land. He opened his eyes, millions of small bubbles clouding his view. As they dispersed, he would have gasped had his jaw not been clamped shut to hold in his breath.

  Even in the dim light, a city lay before him on the bottom of the sea, as big as any he had ever seen above land. Silvery pink and blue spires rose up across the cityscape. Glowing white kelp swayed between homes and buildings, serving as makeshift lamplight. And he saw thousands of merfolk swimming this way and that, no doubt going about their daily routines. They all had slightly different shades of scale and skin, some bluer, some greener. Some had short pink hair, others long and orange or red. And all of them were female, massive fish tails kicking out behind them as they swam, human from the waist up. Some had small, pert breasts, others large and curvy. Their faces were all fair, though some were more beautiful than others.

  How did I not know of this place? he thought. And as he marveled at the scene, he felt the soft burn of the lack of breath in his chest. Even dragons needed air.

  Vander looked back up to the surface, just a few kicks away, and started to flex his arms and legs.

  Wait, the voice said. The power locked him in place. Was that what it meant to do? Lure him here, then make him drown within sight of their city?