The Dragon of Ankoll Keep

by K S Augustin

  So she was directing the dream? Gamsin felt a jolt of power wash through her at the thought. Tentatively she reached out and touched him on the jaw, feeling the slight stubble rough against her fingers. Amazing how she didn’t feel any revulsion at the sensation. He caught her hand and kissed each of her fingers, pausing between each small caress. That was…almost pleasurable.

  Even when he shifted closer, his head descending toward hers, she felt no distaste. He brushed his lips against hers, once, twice. On the third try, she stopped him, pulling him into a full kiss, impatient for the deeper embrace.

  Yes, it was exactly like a dream, exactly like dreams she’d had in the past. Except, there was something she couldn’t quite fathom. Something to do with past dreams turning into nightmares, but she couldn’t recall the exact details. Pleasure turning to…fear? Hurt?

  Ankoll’s lips softened, his tongue teasing her lips, and the filament of unease evaporated. Her doubts disappeared. An attractive man was kissing her and Gamsin was determined to enjoy the experience.

  She opened her mouth and allowed him entrance, their tongues sporting coyly with each other. Of their own volition, her hands moved to his body, running over his chest and feeling the muscle beneath the thin cotton of the shirt.

  He moved, pulling the shirt higher, allowing her fingers to roam over his skin, giving her time to adjust to the increasing intimacy.

  It was like playing with a new and fascinating toy and—more importantly—having the freedom to do so. And, to her delight, he began playing back.

  Slowly, he started stroking her neck with the back of his hand and she leaned into him, rubbing against him like a cat, her eyes closed. She wanted—willed—his hand to move lower and he eventually obliged, stroking her breasts again with the back of his hand, watching the nipples harden and pucker against her skin. She felt her shirt being lifted up, over her body and head, and heard the soft sound of it as it hit the floor next to her bed.

  “You are lovely,” he murmured, planting featherlight kisses on her smooth pale skin.

  Nobody had ever called her lovely before.

  “You are brave and strong.” He nipped at the side of her ribcage, the ticklish sensation making her laugh. He lifted his head and looked at her. “I would like to make love to you. Not just because you have saved me from a sorrowful burden, but because, in truth, you are also intelligent and kind and worthy of any man’s ardour.”

  She recognised the expression on his face, the sharp hunger in his blue eyes, and knew she should feel afraid, but she didn’t. Outside the day was bright with the afternoon sun and she knew the bad things that she couldn’t fully recall only happened in the shadows, in suffocation, dankness and sweat.

  She breathed in the sweet scent of summer and smiled at him.

  “I would not be so brave if I didn’t surrender to my fantasies,” she commented softly. A lightheadedness was making it hard for her to think but, in truth, she didn’t mind at all. A heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she was not inclined to ask for it back.

  She put her hands around his neck.

  “Kiss me again,” she said.

  He leaned down and, once more, their lips met. He probed her mouth with his tongue while a hand slid to her breast, his fingers circling, circling the flesh until her nipples hardened and she pushed against him, urging a more satisfying stroke. When he took the nipple between thumb and forefinger, she gasped.

  Oh, she had never felt so delicious in her life. Ankoll left her mouth and moved to her arched neck, kissing the sensitive flesh while she slowly writhed. He moved lower until he captured the other breast in his mouth and Gamsin gasped, feeling his tongue flick against her, setting a counterpoint rhythm to the motions of his fingers on her other breast.

  And, suddenly, she felt hot. Too hot. Her trousers were restrictions against her skin, a rising dampness in her groin demanding release. Impatiently she shifted her hips, a silent request and, after a slight hesitation, Ankoll obliged, undoing the laces and peeling the clothes off her legs.

  “We can take this slow,” he murmured. “As slow as you like.”

  “I-I don’t know what to do,” Gamsin was forced to admit. She was a thief, an acrobat, a cunning wharf rat who judiciously liberated goods from people with more money than sense. She wasn’t a real woman. Real women had rich gowns, ornate hairstyles and powdered faces. With her short, straight, dark hair people mistook her for a slim teenage boy. Surely—

  “Oh!”

  That was her fault for not paying attention, for while she was agonising, Ankoll was doing. Doing wonderful, incredible things to her body. Her legs wide, she shuddered with a mixture of pleasure and disbelief as he stroked her dark curls then bent his head to lap at her with his tongue, gently parting her lips and nuzzling at her sex, sending sharp jolts of dizzying sensation to mix with toe-curling waves of sheer, unadulterated pleasure.

  She grabbed his hair with her hands, fistfuls of smooth, dark chocolate cascading over her fingers, eager to…push him away? Pull him closer? Was this what the women of the circus giggled about? She groaned aloud. How could anyone even think with such ripples of mind-numbing agitation conquering their soul?

  Then even thinking about thinking was ruthlessly dismissed. She felt her body coil, could hear her breath quicken and become more laboured as a spiral of exquisite, erotic feeling took hold, radiating from her groin and sheathing her body until she was fully in its grip. She cried out, eyes suddenly open, and bucked, riding wave upon wave of pleasure. On and on it went. The world stopped. Only feeling continued, rocking her body with its convulsions.

  Ankoll edged back up to look in her face and, as she shuddered, something large and hard began to invade her.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, his voice calming her unnamed fears. “I will not harm you, my little saviour.”

  She felt him start to move inside her, her wetness making his passage easier. Slowly he progressed, then retreated, before moving forward again. Gamsin could feel herself stretching to accommodate him, thought she should be panicking, pulling away, but all she could think was how wonderful he felt. Wantonly, she coiled her legs around him and moved lasciviously, encouraging him, but he still took his time, only slowly moving deeper until he was buried inside her to the hilt.

  “Ah,” he sighed. “You feel wondrous.”

  Then, as he started to move, it began again. With each thrust, the coiling started anew. And, this time, he met her, movement for movement, sensation for sensation until she climaxed for the second time, feeling shudders rack his body as he held her in a tight embrace and emptied himself into her.

  “You should sleep now, Gamsin Thief,” he told her in a low voice, moving a tendril of hair away from her face with a gentle finger.

  She tried to say something, tried to capture his hand, but a languid heaviness consumed her and she drifted into unconsciousness.

  Gamsin sat up in bed, gasping, her hand moving to her throat, feeling the soft cotton of her nightdress against her skin.

  Nightdress?

  She looked down at herself. She was in her bed, the blanket covering her. Around her, the furnishings of her chamber looked ordinary and mundane. One of her window’s shutters was open, spilling bright morning sunlight into the room.

  Sunlight?

  But shouldn’t she be at the top of the keep? And what happened to the dragon? She frowned, trying to concentrate. She remembered the dragon, remembered it turning into Ankoll and him approaching her. Oh, she had tried to do as he asked. Truly, he was an exceptional specimen of manhood and she wanted to show her gratitude for all he’d done—extending his protection and the peace of his keep to her. But he’d chosen the wrong deliverer. She was too weak and too broken to aid him and had said no.

  What had happened then? She wished she knew, but a fog descended on her recollection.

  Did they mate? Did he—?

  Frantically, she moved a hand between her legs, but felt no betraying wet
ness. No, no man had found his own pleasure inside her body last night.

  But if she had turned Ankoll down, who moved her to her room and changed her clothing before settling her peacefully in bed?

  Gamsin threw back the covers and got up, dressing quickly. Hopping, she pulled on her boots then opened the door, flying down the stairs. She stopped on the second level when she heard sounds emerging from the kitchen, and approached warily.

  “Greetings.” Ankoll smiled, turning at the sound of her quiet footsteps. He was carving a loaf of bread, laying thick slices on a platter, next to wedges of ham and yellow farm cheese. Beside the platter stood two mugs of ale. Despite herself, Gamsin’s mouth began to water. She’d tried her best for the past two weeks, but had to admit she didn’t have a tenth of Ankoll’s culinary skills. It was all she could do to hack off some inexpert pieces of ham and wolf it down just to keep the hunger pangs away. In truth, she’d never eaten so well as when she dined with him.

  “Breakfast will be ready in minutes,” he told her.

  She moved to a bench and sat, still eyeing him with suspicion.

  “You’re back to being human.” It was obvious, but the only thing she could think of saying.

  He nodded his head agreeably, a smile playing on his lips. He looked the same as always, dressed in his usual open-necked shirt and dark breeches. His fingers were their usual lean lengths, not even slightly resembling flesh-rending talons. But Gamsin could not forget the night visions that had confronted her at the top of the keep.

  “Will you…turn back into a dragon?” she asked, watching him.

  Ankoll brought the mugs over to the rough wooden table, followed by the platter.

  “No,” he paused. “Well, I don’t really know. Perhaps not.”

  He helped himself to some food.

  “But we didn’t…” Gamsin faltered. “I don’t remember…”

  “We…came to a different resolution. The first part of the curse is lifted, I know that to be true. But I can still feel the spirit of the dragon within me.”

  The spirit of a dragon…the sharing of one consciousness between two entities…

  “What’s that like?” Gamsin asked, chewing on some bread. He’d made her two loaves before he changed, but they had only lasted a week and got hard and dry near the end. Now Ankoll was back, and she gratefully devoured a slice of the fresh, light loaf.

  “To be a dragon?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s a fearsome beast, ruled by twin passions of greed and hunger. It’s difficult having such an unbridled spirit rule you for half of your life.” He drank some ale. “It frightens me to admit that such licentiousness can be liberating, until you hear the cries of people and realise that you’ve struck down one of their loved ones, or spirited away their only food for the winter.” He swirled the liquid around in his mug, watching it. “Maybe that’s what the sorcerer Beltrin had in mind all along when he laid such a curse on me—to show me the folly of ignoring my own people and putting my own needs above theirs.”

  “But if the curse is lifted, then you can be ruler to your people again,” Gamsin countered. “You can bring the castle and your lands back to greatness.” It made her heart sink to say each word, but it was the truth.

  Ankoll smiled and shook his head.

  “I am centuries past doing this. My blood kin are all dust and my lands now belong to another lord. It is only the isolation of this castle—and the barriers I have put to its access—that keep me safe here. No, I have another task and that’s to find Beltrin.”

  “The sorcerer who did this to you?”

  “The curse is not fully lifted, I can feel this. I need to find him.” He lifted his blue gaze to Gamsin’s. “Will you help me?”

  “I? Help you?” Surely she was the one responsible for the curse continuing instead of lifting. Hadn’t she done enough damage? “How could—”

  “You are brave and smart, young Gamsin. You are also of this world and know more of its workings than I. My knowledge is centuries old and pitiful.”

  “But how can you be sure Beltrin is still alive?”

  Ankoll took a deep breath. “I can feel him still in this spirit world. His trace is faint, but I can track it. Tell me you will help me.”

  She looked at him helplessly. Her, help a sorcerer? Surely he was jesting! But, then, how else could she make up for her betrayal?

  “You have helped me once before,” he pursued. “You showed courage when none others, in hundreds of years, did. Help me again, Gamsin Thief. Please.”

  Chapter Six

  “I was wondering when I’d see you again.” Ankoll smiled and stretched out his hand, and Gamsin took it.

  “I missed you,” she told him and there was a touch of wonder in her voice, unused as she was to hearing such words pass her lips.

  “And I, you.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Ah, you’ve never seen this place in person, have you? This is my chamber in Ankoll Keep.”

  Gamsin looked around. It was a little more cluttered than her own room at the keep. There were three chests against one curve of the wall instead of one, a large padded chair with intricately carved armrests facing the fireplace. And against another wall…

  She walked over to the long, slim mirror and saw she was wearing the ruby gown from the chest in her chamber.

  “This is too fine for me,” she began to protest, but he walked up to her and laid a finger on her lips, stopping her words.

  “From the moment I saw you, I knew you would look good in such colors. Jewel colors for a jewel.”

  Gamsin recalled something he said. “How can this be the keep? We are travelling…trying to find the sorcerer Beltrin.”

  “Yes, we are travelling. But you are also asleep.”

  She shook her head. “This is beyond me. How can we be at the keep when we’re travelling? And how can we be speaking if I’m asleep? Look,” she indicated the window. “It is bright day.”

  He pulled her over to the bed and sat her down, settling next to her.

  “Do you remember my asking a favour of you? That you would feed me for three nights as a dragon then mate with me when I turned back into human form?”

  “Y-yes.” It was painful to think about because she knew she’d let him down that last, fourth, night.

  He seemed to read her thoughts. “You didn’t fail me, young Gamsin. We did indeed mate.”

  She stared at him.

  “No, we couldn’t have! The next morning, I…felt myself…” She faltered, unwilling to say more.

  “Between two people,” he stroked her cheek, “especially when one is particularly honest and courageous, mating can transcend the physical. So, in order to break part of the enchantment, I brought you here, to a dreamworld. I asked for your trust and, in return, I dulled as many of your fears as I could.”

  “I… We…”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “But I don’t remember.”

  “You will. When you trust me as much in the physical world as you do here, you will.”

  Gamsin tried to concentrate on his face, but his words and body began to fade, blending into the rest of the room.

  “No.” She reached out, wanting to spend more time with him, to listen in pleasure to his calm, deep voice, but her hand passed through him as if through vapour.

  Everything turned to black.

  Gamsin lifted her head and punched at her bag, trying to rearrange it into a more comfortable shape. She was angry—angry at the misty morning, angry at Ankoll, angry at herself. For the truth was, she’d allowed her stay at Ankoll Keep to dull her senses and make her soft. And now, instead of relishing the fact that she’d found a thick mat of moss under a giant tree for her sleep on the previous night, all she could think was that her chamber at the keep was much more comfortable.

  Her chamber.

  And that was the other thing. She considered herself a realist, one not given to flights of fantasy, yet here she was al
ready assigning herself ownership of an entire room, as if rights to it were hers to enjoy or give away.

  She shifted position, turning on her other side, but that meant she faced the tree. No, the position was too vulnerable, so she shifted again. In front of her, tiny wisps of smoke from the embers of the previous night’s fire drifted straight up, indicating a still morning.

  She yawned and reluctantly got to her feet. Ankoll Keep was a week’s travel away and the sooner she stopped thinking about it the better. There was a creek nearby and she knew she should have walked down to it, to freshen up and perform her daily ablutions, but—to be honest—she just couldn’t face what she knew she would find there.

  Off-key whistling split the morning air and Gamsin grimaced. This was the third morning that the day had begun like this and it wasn’t getting any easier to bear. Maybe it was because she was so used to travelling alone that having a companion was difficult to tolerate. Or it could be a reaction to Ankoll’s unbridled cheerfulness.

  He appeared from behind a tree and held up a hand—four silver fish dangled from a string.

  She didn’t know whether he’d used fishing skills to net his catch or just magicked them onto his hook. That was the burr that chafed her. Ankoll was approaching their journey as a time of relaxation and fun. He always had to keep an eye on the future, he’d told her, always careful never to wander too far in case the change caught him and he wreaked chaos on unsuspecting innocents. But now, with his curse almost lifted, he could afford to enjoy a life that had passed him by for centuries.

  He may not have used his weather-changing sorcerer skills to conjure the cool mornings and warm sunny days, but he certainly used some of his powers to start their evening fire and—she was sure as she eyed the fish coolly—catch their meal for the day.

  It shouldn’t be this easy for him. It was never this easy for her so it shouldn’t be for him. She knew it sounded petty, but there was also logic behind the infantile thought. Because if he was this trusting toward everyone, then someone was certain to come along and try to take advantage of it. And Gamsin didn’t want to be around when that happened, sorcerer or not.