by Lucas, Naomi
Sharks swim away; octopus scurry from the budding cracks. My creatures flee because the merfolk sought to contain me.
Part of me is sad for the loss of my home, my treasures and jewels, for the space I hoped would one day become a nest to share with my mate, but the other part is dead set on one thing: finding the femdragon in need and making her mine.
My shaft emerges from my body, rigid and ready—and large, my potent seed brewing forth, ready to fertilize.
Feeling it drag beneath where my tail meets my body, my eyes focus through the light I am not used to—not anymore—and scan the blue waters of my home for mermaid traitors. They have fled, I notice, seeing none around me. Good.
Taking no time to hunt for them, I swim toward the direction my femdragon’s sounds came from, picking up speed as the dappled sunlight and glow of the cursed comet disappears in the waters. Everything moves out of my way.
Days, I realize, I have lost days escaping from my caves.
And then I hear it again, my femdragon. Heat grows in my belly all over again.
The water is gray and dark when I emerge. Clouds fill the sky overhead. I inhale air. Rain falls upon me when I glimpse the shore and the edges of my territory.
Kaos’s territory. Now I know who my adversary is. A jungle dragon bred from a water and earth dragon long ago. Like I was. We are similar in age, he and I. We respect our borders and have never had a need to fight.
All these thoughts fall from my head as his and my femdragon’s pheromones fill my nostrils.
Not even a storm could remove them from the air.
Hot, mossy, potent, and rich. Subtle in the winds but I smell them, hating Kaos’s scent as much as loving the femdragon’s. My large body contracts with need, my talons descend, my wings strain and seize. I dip my head beneath the water to cleanse the chaos in my mind, only to reemerge to scream at the world, my eyes on Kaos’s jungle.
FIGHT ME! All the power of my soul erupts in the air, louder than thunder and higher than the crashing waves. Meet me and fight for mating rights! Smoke plumes from my mouth, saying as much in challenge.
My eyes go to the jungle’s edge as rage builds, where a lone figure is standing on the shore. A human. Throwing all my intensity her way, she retreats back into the shadows of the trees.
“FACE ME, KAOS!” I bellow in dragon. “Come to the edge!”
I do not want my future mate near us when we battle. Blood will spray.
But minutes pass, and Kaos does not show. He does not answer, and my mind grows curious in its chaos. Seeking him out with my senses, I find I no longer feel him.
My opponent is no more, though his pheromones remain on the wind.
It cannot be. My nostrils flare. Tearing my eyes from the shore, I look ahead of me down the coast, straining my sensitive ears for a telltale sign of my brethren. He cannot be dead. I would smell that as well… But the femdragon comes back to mind, and all thoughts of Kaos fade.
And then I realize it.
Humans. Distant screams flood my ears. Human shouts.
Protect my female at all cost. Slipping back into the water, I follow the noises down the coast, to the source of the damning yells.
If they have touched Kaos, then my mate is in jeopardy. I will not lose her, I vow. Not after losing everything else.
I will not.
4
Facing an Alpha Dragon
Stilling, I feel the blood rush from my face. My heart nearly jumps from my chest, and my throat closes off as my mouth opens. Rain hits my face, falling over my brows and into my eyes. I reach up and wipe them only to lose sight of the giant beast swimming toward me. And when they clear… he’s just that much closer.
Hazy gray swathes of rain are all that lies between us, and without looking, I know there’s no place for me to hide. The lift wouldn’t help me escape. Only the beach spans out before me, and the rocky cliff-face behind me has no outcroppings or rocks for me to hide behind.
The jungle is far above, and so are the giant broken-off land masses my village rests upon.
I’m stuck. Out in the open, exposed. And though my body screams for me to run, I can’t move.
I can’t lead him to my people, who are surely in the caves by now. Delina, Leith, and Milaye are probably just as exposed as I am as they head there.
No… I swallow hard. I can’t run. My hands clench at my sides.
The dragon heading straight for me is nothing like the beast the messenger spoke of. Her story depicted an enormous brown and bronze dragon, with leathery wings, deep amber eyes, and scales covering its huge body from tail-tip to snout.
She said it looked like it belonged in the wastes, colored by the terrain it slumbered in.
No, this one is nothing like that dragon at all. I gape.
This water draconid is something straight from the colorful reefs and the turquoise ocean on a clear, calm day. And with each second, it gets closer, and more of its details appear. Awe and terror hit me all at once. My fingers twitch at my sides. I stiffen further, muscles locking.
A long serpentine body slips in and out of the waves, making waves pound upon the shores violently. A tail that goes on and on follows and sways behind the body, getting lost in the riotous water as much as its causing it to be that way. Sapphire-like scales cover whole sections of its body, and deep ridges ascend from its brow to crown its head in a myriad of opaline colors.
A dangerous, sharp-edged jewel of a dragon is before me, so beautiful and terrifying all at once that it could make me cry if numbing adrenaline hadn’t already taken me over first.
It lifts its head to the sky and bellows, and I’m finally able to move, stumbling back. Flinching, I cover my ears with my hands. A walloping shriek tears from its throat and two massive silver-blue wings snap from its body, shooting upward as its body rears back to rise from the waters.
Like its long tail, the dragon’s wings are so large they could destroy my entire village in one thrust. They fill the sky, the horizon, and one gust from them is strong enough to lay me flat.
My butt strikes the sandy ground as a wave careens over me. Gasping, I scramble up and backward, blinking out salty tears to the higher ground on the beach.
Making it to semi-dry land, a fallen spear washes up next to me. Grabbing it before it’s lost, I pull it close, turning back to face the dragon.
Glowing blue eyes pin me to the spot. My once thundering heart stops. The dragon’s long head is forward, pointed in my direction. And those eyes…
A soft cry of fear tears from my throat. His eyes are on me.
I’m going to die.
How did I ever think going after a dragon was a good idea?
But even as I’m thinking these things, other, more primal sensations course through me. The word fate hits me, making me shake.
I watch open-mouthed as its body lowers, its webbed toes and talons—which will soon shred me in half—dropping back below the waves. But it’s not until it rushes straight for me that I turn and run, making it a dozen feet before a hot gust of wind slams my back. My wet hair flies forward as I catch myself before I fall. Another breath, and a growl sounds in my ears.
Gripping my spear tight, I pivot to face the sea-jewel dragon and face my fate head-on.
Long, sharp, glistening teeth meet my eyes, baring at me, shielding a forked tongue behind them that swishes from side to side. Smoke bursts from between its teeth to rise into the air, flooding my nose with brimstone and ash.
He’s not more than several arm-lengths away from me, my mind reels. Why doesn’t it attack?
The dragon’s jaw snaps closed, and my gaze shifts to his bright, glowing eyes. The saliva in my mouth dries up. Small blue pupils stare daggers back at me, surrounded by brilliant blue light.
The dragon exhales another breathy gust. Its heat washes over me, and for a moment, the rain is gone from my flesh; my eyes dry up—I blink—it’s gone, and I’m drenched again.
“Go on with it!” I yell. “Kill me al
ready!” I take a step forward.
Thunder slices the air, lightning flashes across my periphery, and somewhere far off, I hear the cracking and destruction of trees.
Yet the dragon just stares at me.
But then a thought pops into my head.
I don’t have to die.
I’ll live if I can touch it.
The rain beats down hard between us as I assess the space between us, as I wonder if I’m fast enough.
My toes curl. Suddenly, everything in me wants to touch this amazing creature, enough that it nearly hurts. My hands are twitching again.
Does he feel this too?
“Dragon,” I whisper, having no idea if he’ll hear me or even understand me. There’s so much I want to say, so much running through my mind, more sensations crashing through me than I can understand. All that comes out is, “I need you.”
Not, “Please don’t hurt me.” Not, “Make it quick.”
Not, “I don’t want to die.”
I need you.
I take another step forward.
A noise emanates from the dragon’s throat, and it’s nothing like I’ve ever heard. Ancient and thick, and it falls over me like the heat of his breaths. A whipping sound hits my ears, and his giant silver-blue wings span out to cover the sky above my head.
My lips part as I begin to raise my hand into the air between us.
And right before I close the distance, nearly touching the sapphire scales of its sharp jaw, a familiar shriek assaults me, and rage darkens my dragon’s bright eyes. Falling back with a scream, he rises, lightening his backdrop, as he swivels his head to the left.
The ground shakes, and I twist onto my hands and knees and crawl away. Another, much smaller, dragon lands; it’s black and wet and glistening. It sees me and yowls, clawing its way straight for me before its front legs even touch the ground.
Chaos erupts as I scramble to my feet, preparing to run, but the large dragon jumps onto the smaller one, pinning it down before its jowls touch my flesh. Wings, tails, claws, and limbs slash the sand near me.
I dodge and fall, zig-zagging between, trying to get away. Every time I’m about to be crushed or hit though, I’m not, and begin to realize the larger dragon is shielding me.
My feet sink into the sand and waves crawl over my flesh, as I aim for the ocean, hoping to swim away. Then—hearing it more than seeing—one of the dragons slams into the cliffside of my home.
A tail stops me and I pivot to the side, forced to back up onto the rocks, using my spear as leverage to keep me upright.
Twisting further, I thrust my spear toward the fight, toward the water dragon’s wings and its back, its tail lashing the air above my head. The smaller dragon flaps higher into the air, claws elongated and stretched, and latches onto my dragon, curling its long tail around the bigger dragon’s body. The black dragon’s eyes catch mine—there is only hate there—and its jaw opens, thrusting its head over the larger one’s shoulder and biting down on its wing.
Red blood sprays everywhere.
A cacophony of sounds joins the constant thunder and my blue dragon rears up and drops down on the smaller one. The black one tries to climb out but is stopped, grabbed by something I can’t see, and pushed to the sand. It doesn’t try to escape.
I don’t see the smaller dragon at all.
This is your chance! I glance to either side of me but only see the storm’s waves to my left and falling rocks to my right. With no other exit, I give into the chaos, the inevitability, and stumble forward, raising my free hand to place it on the large dragon’s back.
An electric shock rips through me, pushing my eyes to the back into my head. Dropping my spear, I place my other hand on the dragon, suddenly needing more contact, finding a ridge on his wing to clutch. Without deciding what I should do, I press my whole body against him, shaking with bliss.
It’s the last thing I know before I’m shoved to the ground and my world goes dark.
5
Zaeyr Loses All
Pinning the femdragon to the ground, my mind roils with mating heat. She sinks her talons into my hide, through my scales, and rends my chest, my shoulders. “Submit,” I demand, growling down at her, snapping my jaw.
But her eyes are wild and all she wants is the human woman behind me. Her pheromones surge off of her in devastating plumes, only to be swept away by the wind and rain. Though they fill my nose, I retain clarity.
I do not want her to hurt the mortal woman, I realize as I continue to keep the femdragon away. At first, I thought I did not want her to touch the human, for fear of losing her, but the longer I protect the woman… now I do not know.
It is the human woman in my head, the way she stood up and faced me, the dark of her eyes as she looked at me head-on with nothing but a stick in her hand.
The femdragon screeches and a lick of fire hits my neck. “Submit!” I order, needing time to understand what is happening.
Why am I not satisfied to have the femdragon beneath me? Why am I not biting her flesh, laying my claim, and turning her over to mount her from behind?
“They stole my mate. A human stole my mate—she stole my mate!” the femdragon hisses and screams.
“I am your mate,” I growl.
“My mate,” the femdragon cries, slashing and twisting to get out from beneath me. “I burn! She stole him from me!”
My anger turns to fury, jealousy.
The human female is Kaos’s? It cannot be. I did not smell him on her.
Anger builds within me. It is the human female with long, dark hair—wet and curling in the rain—blustering in the wind that steals my thoughts. I did not move when she reached for me. I did not swallow her whole or burn her with fire…
He is not even here! Has he taken all from me before I even escaped my watery cave? Blood red thoughts rip through my mind. I thrust the femdragon down with one claw as she tears back into me.
Flaring my nostrils, I do not even smell him on the femdragon.
Nothing is stopping me from laying my claim…
I allow the mating heat and her pheromones to build, to take over the rest of my thoughts—forgetting all else—even Kaos… when something touches my wing.
Leaning over, I open my jaw, ready to force the femdragon to finally submit, thinking nothing of the touch. Instead, I focus on the feel of her serpentine body loosening.
Yes. This is right. This is my prize.
But the touch on my wing grows almost immediately, stopping me right before my teeth descend. Something presses on me like a warm sea flower.
My body stills, my talons curl. The femdragon beneath me begins to fight again, wailing her anger.
I no longer care. Not certain I ever cared.
My wings tighten, I shake them, and my tail lashes out to remove the thing on my wing, dislodging it in one swoop. The feeling remains. And to my shock, it spreads up the nerves of my wings, to my spine, down it and over my tail. Every muscle clenches, stimulated by the strange sensation.
Hot and cold, zips of fire and threads of ice. I try to shake that off too but my body disobeys, weakening. Devastating pain slices through me, everywhere, from my soul outward, from my slashed chest to my head drumming with electric shocks.
Lifting my head to the stormy sky, I bellow as lightning rains down around me. It strikes me, igniting my insides with world-fire.
Losing my hold on the femdragon, she swipes at my neck and hisses, getting out from underneath me, and ascends into the sky.
With one last bout of strength, I slam my wing into her and slam her into the cliffside. Howling in pain, she quickly rights herself and flees from the spears of lightning trying to zap her down like a bug. I lose sight of the femdragon in the clouds and collapse to my side.
Thoughts of the human woman return.
And it is with those thoughts my body begins to twist and break.
My spines fall off, falling out of my skin like needles, leaving holes in my flesh. My hide shrinks and my
bones splinter, popping out, only to diminish and fall from me. I cannot roar anymore; my throat is closed. I try and flap my wings, but they are cinched and weak.
My head hangs heavy, and I drop to the sandy beach, paralyzed with shock as the ocean crashes over me.
I remain awake, forcing it, as the world grows bigger, all while a picture of the woman with dark hair, her hand almost upon my face, remains with me. It is that image that keeps me from darkness.
Revenge, the idea of vengeance, clouds that moment. It is because of her that I am breaking… It is because of this human my curiosity was driven to the brink. I have destroyed my cave for a femdragon I didn’t mate. I have lost everything I waited for. Wanted dearly.
Soon, a single wave drenches me wholly, completely, and the salt of the water finally loosens a growl of torment from my throat. It leaks into my wounds, stinging.
I have new hands and long legs; I am cold and wet. So much pain, I squint the water out of my eyes, and rising, stumbling on hands and knees, I try to brace myself on soft, weak feet. But waves rush me again and again and I’m forced to crawl farther onto the shore. Only when I reach the sand do I peer down at the place on my chest that burns. Blood trails from deep wounds that have yet to close.
Thunder rumbles, and it is quieter now in my new ears. Wiping my eyes, I find my sharp draconid vision gone.
But I notice a shape on the sand ahead of me, moving stiffly, using the cliff face to stand. It stumbles but rises again.
The human.
She is turned away from me. Long, wet black hair is plastered down the curves of her back, her rump.
“You,” I growl. My anger builds, seeing her.
She does not seem to hear me. I claw my way toward her without her noticing. “You,” my voice lowers. I feel this human to my very core. I am privy to her struggles and the bruising on her flesh.
It hurts, but I ignore her aches.
