Sold To The Dragon Princes: The Novel

by Daniella Wright

  Something wedges in my throat. Before I open my mouth to tell him exactly what I think of that statement, Tannic walks in.

  Both Kostya and Tannic examine each other for a moment, and I suspect Kostya is happen for the interruption. I don't plan to let him get away with it, though. Never again.

  “You two have some serious talking to do,” I say, placing my hands upon my hips. “And there's something Kostya owes me right now.”

  Kostya narrows his eyes as he regards me. “What are you implying?”

  “I'm implying,” I iterate, “that you two will seriously work at your fucked up relationship. You think you can continue this BDSM stuff for much longer and just expect things to be okay? You need to decide, Kostya, if you want to take him back, and forgive him. And Tannic – you need to decide how serious you are, and keep that thing in your pants. And accept that you can be happy with each other. No 'sowing your seeds' needed.”

  “We still have another five months to go on the deal,” Kostya replies immediately, glaring at Tannic. “I've already stated explicitly that I won't even think of forgiveness until you've proven yourself for the long run.”

  “Well, you guys can keep it up,” I say, irritation surging inside, “but why not try and work at an actual relationship and some conversation together, too? I know you feel bad for what you do, Kostya. But you're not doing any favors by keeping Tannic at a distance.”

  I watch the two shifters openly struggle with my words. I understand it's a lot to take in. Believe me, I do. But I'm finding myself tired of everything. As much as I enjoy the things we've done together, and my new lifestyle, it lacks a certain emotion. It lacks joy and warmth, because although we do sexually pleasure one another, it's still cold, somehow. It's very possible to have sex without love in it, to enjoy it without strengthening the emotions involved. Kostya wanted me because he saw the darkness inside me, knew I had the iron to go through with everything. The thing is, I got that iron by being forced into an undesirable situation. It didn't just come up out of nowhere. And it gets exhausting, constantly invoking it. I want things to be sweet as well. Kind.

  They don't answer, or confirm anything, so I instead step up to them, and gently order them to undress. After a moment's hesitation, they do, and soon they're both naked.

  I'm fully clothed, but at this point, I'm the mistress, and I'm controlling them.

  I tell them to face one another, and I tell them to kiss and caress.

  It's slow at first, but when Tannic makes the move and steps in close to Kostya's well toned body, running a tender hand through his curls, I can see electricity crackle between them. Their lips touch like a movie moment, and all they need now is torrential rain falling on them to complete the dramatic feel of the kiss. They've certainly missed one another's lips. I'm not jealous or unhappy to see this. I'm relieved. I'm relieved because I can let go of some of the darkness inside me, and feel lighter within my heart.

  Kostya closes his ice blue eyes and kisses Tannic with tenderness, and Tannic envelops his huge arms around Kostya, swallowing him up in a warm embrace. Both of them are getting turned on from the contact, and it's quite the thing to see them kissing one another, their manhoods growing from the contact of their bodies.

  I think there will be plenty of time for me to enjoy myself later. To have them inside me, to orgasm freely. But this moment is for them, and for me. Because I want them to fix themselves, and then I want to fix me, and call my parents, and let them know that I am alive and safe. I'd also inform them that maybe I'll be staying in Balteria for a while yet. After all, Kostya did save me from the wolves. And, if I'm honest, if he did send me back home after saving me, I would have struggled to adjust back to the human world. I'd have no money, my education wouldn't be completed, and I'd have five years of world news to catch up on. I'd have to adjust to society again and find new friends, and I might very well end up a victim in the way we've constructed our society.

  But here, despite me not being able to see it at first, it's somewhat of a blessing in disguise.

  It's easier to live like this. It's better for me. Maybe not for everyone else, but I don't miss technology, and the only people I really cared about were my parents, anyway.

  Quietly, I tell Tannic to take Kostya to the sofa. I know Kostya's usually the dominant one, so I'll make Tannic take that role for this act.

  Part of me is still imagining returning home, somehow, or hearing the relief in my mother's voice when she answers the phone. Thank God, I think, that I still know her phone number. She never changes the SIM card because she doesn't want to go through the process of remembering another number.

  Tannic is now on top of Kostya, and I step in closer to them to watch and to guide, telling Kostya to make sure he's thoroughly lubricated down there, and to focus on being worshipped by Tannic. For Tannic, I tell him to treat Kostya as his king, and his green eyes fixate on me for a moment, sending delightful shivers in me, before he kisses Kostya on the neck, and rubs one hand all over his body. I'm close enough now to touch them, and when Tannic slides inside Kostya, I touch Kostya around his manhood, planning to make them both come at the same time. My cheeks are just as flushed as theirs, and I'm enjoying this, enjoying the power that comes with it. It's easy to be turned on by it, and it's wonderful to see them treating each other with affection, rather than pain and lust.

  Tannic's impressive muscles flex above Kostya, and I imagine those same muscles above me for a moment, before shaking away the thought. I add suggestions here and there to make the moment stronger for them. A kiss here, a word there, a promise in one another's ears. It's like I have them under my spell as they dance to my every whim, though my whims this time are gentle.

  It's nice to not have my darkness on the outside. It's nice I don't have to resort to her, though I appreciate she's there all the same.

  Kostya's erection is hard but soft under my touch at the same time, and I help stroke Tannic's balls as well as he buries into Kostya, encouraging them both now to climax.

  The timing is near perfect – they both come with shuddering gasps, their great chests heaving, their eyes glazed over in bliss. As Tannic extracts himself, I consider leaving them alone for a moment, to share the words they must be dying to say. However, Kostya faces me with a wide smile.

  “Wow,” he says. “That was... hot.”

  “Yeah,” Tannic agrees faintly. He fans his cheeks, which are still blazing. “My heart's still faster than a machine gun at the moment.”

  “Good,” I answer, proud of them both. “I'll give you two a moment to talk alone.”

  “But don't you want pleasuring too?” Tannic asks.

  “There's plenty of time for that later,” I reply. “Right now, this is your time. That's what this was meant to be. But I'm holding you onto your promise, Kostya. I want to be able to speak to my parents.”

  “You will,” he says. “But will you stay with us? Please?”

  I take a moment to reply, making sure internally that this is what I want. “I'll stay.”

  The answering smiles on Tannic and Kostya are generous and radiant.

  I leave the room, letting them have the time. My heart's still beating fast, and excitement courses through me.

  Soon, my mother and father will hear from me. Their long wait will be over, as will mine.

  And my new life will begin.

  In time, I'm sure I'll grow to love these two shifters, and I plan to help them through the cracks of their broken relationship. I plan to drag Lucille and Kalina to more games, have camping sessions in the mountains.

  I plan to live my life to the full, with both light and darkness in me.

  Sold To The Nasty Beasts

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  A Steamy Dragon & Werewolf Shifter Menage

  Alyse Manson is a journalist, with a habit of chasing stories – particularly the kind of stories that out bad people. She considers herself a kind of hero in that aspect. A social justice warrior, though others might
mock her for that kind of thing.

  However, when she hears rumors of a trafficking ring in the shifter club, Night Vision, she goes there, and ends up snagging something bigger than she expected. A shifter watches her in the club. A man with gray eyes, wearing the tag of the creature he can transform into – a dragon.

  He’s not the only shifter she’ll meet. There’s a wolf one as well, connected to this case. And it’s not long before they’re all in the same boat together, doing things neither of them ever imagined…

  * * *

  Chapter One

  They say that some things are best left untouched. You don’t want to go near the bad stories. The ones where human suffering is rife, where the stench of the dead coats the air, where the streets are full of bombs and the children are full of tears.

  Only the brave and the stupid would risk their lives to try and grab those stories. Then you have me, who is neither brave, or stupid. Just ambitious. These are the stories people want to read. Not the ones where some celebrity got a boob job somewhere, or those scroungers who have never worked a day in their lives. No, those stories come and go like mayflies. They flit in and nip at you with their empty headlines, their filler words, and then they vanish out of sight.

  But then there are stories like the mass genocide in Rwanda. A child crying his heart out, covered in dust and blood from the bombs that wrecked his city, his eyes with that haunting, half dead stare. They grip you. It transfers you into a place of horror, and leaves you gasping at what you’ve seen.

  And as an investigative journalist, those are the kind of stories I want my hand to produce. The ones that remind us of just how fucked up our world is – and the heroes that do everything they can to clean it up. I’ve hit a few good ones in the time I’ve been working for The Sun Express. I was first on the scene when the mass shooter started popping bullets into a shopping complex, and I seized some of the footage on my phone, and interviewed the relatives of the dead, and the brave souls who tackled the gunman head on. I broke a few sex trafficking rings by going undercover as a potential prostitute, and my latest hit’s been the tale of a cancer sufferer, who had all their funds stolen by an embittered relative, who then splurged it all on drink and drugs.

  I had some good reviews for that one, and a lot of anger, too, because no one likes to imagine that someone they thought they trust would stab them in the back. But they do. Every single day. Generating thousands upon thousands of stories.

  I examine myself in the mirror, where my brown hair is tucked up into a high ponytail. My brown eyes – a boring color, honestly, but hey, not everyone’s blessed with fabulous genes, right? – stare out and flick around my untidy room. Clothes lie on the floor, and I keep meaning to get around and go to the laundrette at some point. I put it off, because I feel tired after coming back from the press office, or I’m hungry, or I want to catch up with the latest season of whatever I’m watching, or I just can’t be bothered to lift my ass off the sofa or from my laptop screen long enough to deal with the shit-pile of clothes.

  I’m already chasing another story, as well. I neaten my dark green top and black jeans, and check how my black handbag looks. I have my word app on my Samsung Galaxy f5, and an attachable keyboard so I’m not pressing with my thick fingers onto the tiny screen. I don’t look like I’m seeking a good time, but I look like the kind of person you might sit next to and enquire about their life. And I have a lie on my tongue – that I recently broke up with my boyfriend, that I’m just trying to escape from the house, and maybe talk to a friendly stranger to air out my woes.

  I don’t have a boyfriend, because the last one I had left me four years ago for a girl who had barely hit puberty. Like, you know, I’m not old. I’m twenty-five. Still in my prime. Still ambitious and climbing up the work and social ladder. But for some reason, my boyfriend turned out to be a pedophile, so I have that going for me.

  I apply incarnadine lipstick and pucker up, making sure nothing’s smudged. With a last layer of eyeliner and long lash mascara, I’m ready to go and hunt my next story.

  My plan is to hit the shifter exclusive club downtown Phoenix, and probe carefully into their lives. There’s been rumors of women disappearing, and some people, usually the racist blowhards, have been pointing their grubby fingers at the Night Vision club. Word of mouth has it that there’s an actual slave trade ring, right in the heart of this sophisticated, equality focused club. If I can tease out the roots of this story and find an element of truth in it, it could blow up relations between shifters and humans as we know it in Phoenix. If shifters – and humans, because there’s always some bastard looking to profit out of sex and child prostitution – are operating in this club, then the outrage will boil over. Just like all that shit with Backpage.com, where no matter how many lawsuits are filed against that site for advertizing and blatantly promoting child prostitution, their lawyers keep bouncing off the complaints and winning lawsuits by throwing money around like it’s unlimited. It’s disgusting, but it’s exactly how all ultra-capitalist societies work.

  You don’t have the money, you’re fucked. So it’s up to people like me to uncover the truth for them. If women and girls are being scooped up under our noses, I will discover it.

  Taking a deep breath, satisfied with what I see in the mirror, I go to my cellphone and phone up my friend, Marvin. He’s going to be my fake gay wingman. The wingman being the fake part – not the gay. He’s agreed to do so, as long as I buy all the drinks, because he gets uncomfortable around shifters. I phone my friend, and he picks up after two rings.

  “Alyse, hey. Are you done? I just need to grab some bread from the corner shop and stuff my face, then I’ll be over.”

  “Hi Marvin. And yeah, great. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Of course! Alright, laters, ho.”

  “Laters, bitch.” I grin and hang up, buoyed up and ready to go to war. There’s a story to be found. It’s in the air, and I can taste it. I visualize how the newspaper will look, with the black ink printed out. I smell the fresh, burnt aroma of it, feel the rustle of the paper under my fingertips. I imagine thousands upon thousands of people stopping to glance briefly at the headlines. Some of them scooping the paper, mouths open in astonishment, others shaking their heads, walking by, then casually relating what they saw to a friend later on.

  It excites me, to know the power my words can have. To uncover the truth. And I’ll be damned if I don’t smell something in the rumors that float around our beloved city.

  But first, I need to make sure I’m convincing enough to look like I belong there. Shifter groupies are an eccentric type. They’re the non-conformists of society, the ones who like rebelling against their parents to such a degree that they’ll flirt with danger or go to things they shouldn’t. I don’t look rebellious, and I’m slightly older than the average crowd age, but my backstory should serve the purpose.

  Meeting up with Marvin, who is all smiles and tussled dark hair and red pinstripe shirt, I leap into his car and take a ride to the Night Vision club, my heart pulsing strangely. I’m hoping I’ll be able to sell it off that I’m just looking to have a good night out. I can’t be seen writing away in there, not unless I engage well with a shifter and they’re willing to tell me more information than what I’d take for granted. Marvin cracks me some terrible puns as he drives and we wait at the red traffic lights, and I zone out and put on my Pokémon Go app, just to try and swipe some of the stops and any spawns that I might be speeding past. I don’t like the game so much myself, but it can be fun to see a new critter appear on the map. I mostly log on to get my first catch and first stop of the day.

  When we park nearby Night Vision, it takes us a few minutes to walk to the entrance. Right now, it’s still a drinking place – and in fact, it’s a little out of odds with what I’m used to, because the main focus is on drinking, on the arcade games, the pool table and the darts board, with only a small area for dancing, so it could hardly be called a club. The dance area doesn’t
open up until after ten. Marvin and I sit at the main bar, where two people are fronting – and we can’t help but notice that both of them are shifters. One wears an otter tag, and the other wears an eagle tag.

  Pretty diverse segment of shifters.

  “Can I help you?” The otter tag man says, and he gives me and Marvin a tentative smile. He doesn’t have a name sewn onto him, so I can’t address him by it.

  “Can we try the house drink?” I ask, rewarding a smile back. “It’s my first time here. I like seeing the cocktails places like this come up with.”

  “Coming right up,” the otter shifter confirms. “Want it on tab or to pay upfront?”

  I purse my lips. “Pay upfront. I’m terrible at tracking my money otherwise.”

  The otter shifter nods, and he scoops up two small bottles, both labelled with something in a different language, and hands them over. “We prepare a few of the drink on hand. It’s a type of cherry flavored beer grown in the monasteries of western Belgium. Not the strongest we have to offer, but we’re not trying to get you drunk in one glass.” He flashes a charming smile, and I laugh and pay him five dollars, which strikes me as a reasonable price for something exported from so far away.

  Marvin examines the pinkish drink distastefully, unsure if he wants to try it out, but I insist, winking, even as I scout the current crowd. We came here at around nine in the evening, and the crowd isn’t what I expect at all. I mean, I suppose I kind of have this image of shifters in my head looking like the animals they turn into, though I know it’s hard to distinguish shifters unless they’re wearing the tags that display their animal identity. The otter bartender doesn’t look like an otter at all, no droopy face or sort of dignified, noble expression, or a whiskery mustache.

  I do notice, however, by tracking the tags in the room, that there’s a lot of predatory shifters in this establishment. Lion. Tiger. Wolf. My eyes almost pop out of my skull when I spot a dragon shifter, and a lindworm. The dragon’s a four legged, winged, snappy beast. The lindworm’s a two legged, wingless, serpentine beast, possessing a similar kind of body to eastern mythology dragons. The faces the tags are attached to aren’t bad, either. If anything, most of the shifters have something appealing to them. I don’t know if it’s some kind of animal lure, or just a hardwired fascination built in the human brain, but I find it hard to take my eyes off most of them.