My hands began to shake.
I hated being confined.
I forced myself to breathe and remain in control. If I let my new animal instincts overwhelm my human mind, I was going to become soup.
Dragon Ladies have a hard time thinking when their scales were showing. That was how I beat Claire when she attacked me.
Thinking about Claire helped.
I remembered making love to her.
Memories of how her skin felt wrapped around mine forced the charms moaning wails away.
I wasn’t a man anymore.
Maxwell was dead and gone.
But, he was my foundation, the base that had formed me.
Marcellina.
His memories were mine because right now, I had very few of my own. As I grew, he would become distant and almost forgotten. But, for right now, what he loved…
I loved.
Claire’s moans of passion, filled my ears, as we made love in a bathtub.
I imagined that she was with me.
Floating, I enjoyed the sexual sensations that were bubbling around me, as I blocked out the curses commands.
In a lucid daze, I dreamt of Claire.
Suddenly, I could see her.
She was curled up in a corner, mumbling in her sleep. A man…
Caiden… was massaging her muscles and rubbing an ointment into them.
It smelled like demon spices.
As I watched, the cream seeped into her skin and disappeared.
Claire moaned in agony… but I could also smell pleasure.
Caiden chuckled.
He hadn’t noticed me yet.
As I watched, he rubbed the concoction into every inch of her skin. The bastard especially enjoyed massaging her enormous breasts as she slept.
Strike that. Claire wasn’t sleeping.
She was being held under by a spell.
I could feel her fighting to awaken.
But, he wouldn’t let her.
Flipping her onto her stomach, Caiden continued.
Then… the demon did something strange. He began braiding her hair.
It seemed almost… sensually… compassionate.
Emotions leaked out of his unshielded mind.
Love.
Joy.
Happiness.
I was dumbfounded.
Caiden loved Claire.
It was a sick, twisted love… but he did love her. She was his plaything, but this demon protected and cherished his toys.
I opened my eyes, feeling heartsick.
Then… I noticed the water roaring all around me in a roiling boil. Steam filled the air, making the pot lid tremble as it fought to escape.
My flesh should have been cooking.
Fuck. Boiling water kills.
But… I wasn’t melting. My skin wasn’t peeling away from my bones.
I didn’t even feel hot.
Joy filled my heart, as I realized that this body was resistant against heat. Every dragon had innate, instinctual powers that they used as a magical muscle.
My black serpent had given me control over rock and stone to a fantastic degree. I had been able to flow through the earth like an… earthworm, I thought with a chuckle.
But, Marcellina was a new person, a dragon with different powers.
And… apparently, heat, and possibly fire, didn’t bother her.
I smiled. I wasn’t going to boil to death.
At least, not today.
- 16 -
I lay in the water, floating, as I tried to figure out how to get out.
The Lightning Rune was still active on the pot lid.
If I tried to force it, I would activate the magic. I could see claw marks and burns from dragon fire on the insides of the pot. Dozens, if not hundreds, of abominations and fallen dragons, had perished inside this death trap.
The Rune was designed to stun and kill dragons so that the bubbling water would drown and boil them like lobsters.
Someone liked dragon meat.
Think. I ordered my mind. Think.
Be better than the others that had come before you.
Queens… Empresses… Don’t die in a soup pot.
Pillaging Maxwell’s memories, I searched for a solution.
Maxwell had used a key to open doors to new locations, walking through the opening and covering thousands of miles in a single step.
But, I didn’t have a door or a key.
Adalisia didn’t need a key to teleport. She could mystically change her location, moving herself and others to a place that she had been to in the past, or to people that she knew.
But… I wasn’t a Liche, like Adalisia.
Devonika didn’t need a key either. She could walk through shadows to places that she had sex before or to former lovers.
And… I wasn’t a succubus like Devonika, at least, I didn’t think that I was.
I needed to teleport, or I was going to die. Sooner or later, my host would open the top.
If I were them, I would have spears ready to skewer any dragons who had somehow survived their crawfish boil.
I began to sweat profusely.
Jump, I told myself.
Focus on Adalisia.
Focus on Moli.
Focus on Catherine.
Focus on the Citadel in Azhadon, or any of my dozens of safe houses.
Nothing.
Not a spark, not a shimmer. Not a fucking glimmer of magical power.
Finally, I stopped trying. This body couldn’t do what I was asking of it.
Marcellina couldn’t teleport, at least, not yet.
Scowling, I realized that I needed to wait, and to plan, how I was going to get out.
The pot top rattled, startling me.
I had dozed off in the heat.
The top shot upward and hundreds of green goblin faces peered down into the soup.
“She’s alive!” one of them shouted.
Cursing, I transformed, changing into my draconic self.
Bunching my muscles, I threw myself upward, shooting for the opening.
The lid went clanging to the side, as I forced my way out, onto a ledge that surrounded the pot.
I scattered goblins like toys, knocking them away, as I tried to clamber out of the soup.
The lid swung back towards me. It was hanging from sturdy chains attached to a winch.
Then… the fucking rune… touched my tail.
The lightning storm exploded all around me. The lid was tipped upwards, so the storm ripped into my scales…
And… the goblins around me… exploded like pieces of popcorn in a fire.
And, so did I.
The lightning threw me forward, slamming my bulk into a wall on the other side of the room.
Dazed, I watched as the lid continued to swing back and forth, raining electricity down on the unsuspecting goblins.
It would have been funny, watching them explode if I wasn’t so fucking hurt.
Huge gouges of skin and scales were gone, and blood was pouring down my backside in a torrent.
Leaning back, I screamed in agony. If their own trap weren’t busy exterminating them, I would have been defenseless. Moaning, I instinctively drew on my magic. Turning, I breathed on myself. Emerald flames flowed out of my mouth.
But, instead of burning… they healed.
Hot fucking damn! I could heal!
I was so excited that I almost stopped breathing out the strange green flames. Focusing, I made myself continue. The fire licked at my broken body, and suddenly, coolness filled my burns and contentment filled my nerves, stopping all the pain and agony.
Slowly, I fought to my feet. My legs were trembling, as my healing powers continued to regenerate my wounds. I could feel my flesh filling back in. Scales snapped back into place, protecting my wounds. Cracking my neck, I turned and blew more healing flames over my tattered wings.
Cartilage grew back in place, healing my beautiful…
“Stop that,” I hissed at mys
elf, feeling the urge to preen and praise my own beauty.
Instead, I focused on the elation of healing. Maxwell’s most significant deficit, his inability to heal himself quickly, was gone. He had never been able to regenerate well, and he had always needed it.
Smiling, I licked at my new scales.
That helped, as well, which surprised me.
My kiss could heal, I discovered with glee.
Sitting up, I contorted myself like a cat, licking and cleaning any wounds that I had missed with my fire.
“Stop her!” I heard a loud voice scream from behind me.
- 17 -
A massive Hobgoblin strode into the room, surrounded by smaller goblins. Her skin was the color of charcoal, as black as soot. Massive breasts poked out of her chest in defiance of her ruby red hair that blazed like the flames under the pot.
Her cooter was red as well, like a baboon female’s butt. It blazed with a lust that didn’t attract me at all.
Thank God, Maxwell was no longer in control.
Somehow, he would have tried valiantly to fuck her.
We were in a large cave. A waterfall roared on the other side of the pot, and a huge bonfire burned underneath of it.
There were hundreds, if not thousands of angry goblins flowing into the cavern behind her.
Twisting my head, looking for a way out, I saw that on the other side of me was a cliff.
God Damn.
It wasn’t a small drop.
Arrows slammed into my scales bouncing off, but some of them hurt.
A deep and abiding rage flowed over my mind.
Fucking goblins.
How dare they attack me!
Pride filled my breast.
Followed by hatred.
I blew more emerald fire. But, instead of healing the goblins, it blew them to pieces. The fire flowed out of my mouth in a liquid stream that clung to their skin, their spears, and yes, their bows.
Screaming and melting, the little buggers collapsed in agony.
My flames continued roaring around me.
They--like Maxwell’s--would burn for a good long time... days, if not weeks.
The Hobgoblin shook off the fire like it was water. She strode through it with a scowl.
“Fucking dragon,” she hissed. “How dare you burn my children.”
I recalled her voice. Earlier, she had entreated me to hold still, so that she could whack me on the head and throw me into her big pot.
“Fuck you,” I hissed back at her. She had tried to eat me. I didn’t fuck care what she thought.
Then, the Hob snapped her fingers.
And… a staff appeared in her hands. It was made from pale ivory and engraved with golden runes. The tip was shaped like a dragon who was clutching a raw, uncut black diamond the size of my fist.
I recognized it instantly.
How had she gotten…
A ray of ebony light shot out of the tip of the ivory staff.
Somehow, thank God, it missed me. Maybe my flames had distracted her, or the dying screams of the goblins.
It didn’t matter why. The only thing that mattered was that she didn’t hit me.
The wall behind my body disappeared.
It just disintegrated.
The Hobgoblin was wielding the Staff of the Domina-Tyrannos.
Fuck.
The stone began to whine and squeal as it sucked in the death-force of the dying goblins. It had gone pure white after discharging. Streams of black, corrupt souls flowed up out of the goblin’s corpses staining the rock with their darkness.
The bitch was charging it again.
And… she wouldn’t miss twice.
I turned and threw myself over the cliff.
I didn’t know how to fly, but staying in that cavern was death.
No known magic could block that strike. It was designed to pierce any defense, allowing the Domina to be the biggest, baddest, bitch in the Empire.
Too bad the Empress that had commissioned the weapon hadn’t made a defense to protect herself.
That was stupid.
What was even stupider was trying to learn how to fly from a thousand feet up in the air.
I plummeted like a rock, twisting and turning in an almost instant tailspin.
“Fuck!” I screamed as I plunged toward the rocks below.
I knew exactly how they would feel as they impaled my body.
Tears flowed out of my eyes, as I totally panicked, flapping like a madwoman.
- 18 -
Grandfather’s words plunged into my mind, shooting out of Maxwell’s memories like a comet.
“Just open your wings--fool--and catch the winds,” I heard him grumble at my cousin, Jothan when he was teaching the boy how to fly.
Jothan had jumped off of the tower in Icehold hundreds of times, smashing into the snowy drifts below, before Grandfather had cussed him out, instructing Jothan with the words that I had just remembered.
I didn’t have a dozen times to get this right.
I thrust out my wings and tried to catch the wind. It was way harder than I thought. I careened to the left and to the right, but then, slowly, I righted my course, as I imagined Jothan flying next to me.
The ground grazed my tail, but I didn’t die. I cruised along, barely ten feet above the ground.
I was flying.
Holy fuck.
Hope and elation rushed into my mind like a drug.
Flying was better than anything.
It was close to sex, but not quite.
I swooped through the canyons outside Nagon, shrieking in glee, as the ground sped by underneath my wings. I was so close that I was kicking up a trail of dirt that shot up into the sky.
It felt like I was announcing my life to the world, and it felt wonderful.
My overconfidence caused me to crash into a pillar of rock that I didn’t notice, rebounding off of it with a furious explosion of noise. I rolled head over tail for hundreds of feet, until I landed mangled at the bottom of the cliffs, at the foot of the plains.
Screaming, I tried to heal myself, but the pain was too intense. My left-wing was gone, ripped from the socket by the impact with the ground.
I looked at the nub, as everything went numb.
In the background, I could hear myself shrieking in agony, but it felt… distant and unreal.
I couldn’t have crashed, my mind moaned.
I had been flying.
Stars began to edge my vision.
I knew that I was in shock, but thinking was becoming very difficult.
Blood splattered the ground as I flipped and flopped, as my body tried to escape the pain while my mind felt… stoned.
Whimpering, I finally turned over onto my stomach, and I transformed back to my human shape, hoping that the process would heal me.
My left arm was a mess of blood and misplaced bones. It was hanging from my shoulder, and the elbow was on the wrong side of my arm.
My mind seized up, as I sat and stared at it.
Blood began dripping down my face. I slowly touched my head as the numbness spread.
Pulling my hand down, I found it covered in blood.
“Oh,” I mumbled. It was all I could think.
I was going to die.
Inside, I felt… wrong.
Coughing, I tilted over and vomited blood onto the ground.
Moving, I attempted to stumble away but only succeeded in crashing back to the ground face first.
My arm twisted further.
Unspeakable agony rained down on my mind, as blood continued to seep from my lips.
My Lady of Bones Page 6
