The Dragon's Betrayal

by Martha Woods

  “No!” I insisted. “Never! I would never profess loyalty to such traitors! Not on my life! The very implication is an insult to me! For all that I have fought for, alongside you, my brethren! My comrades!”

  Mordeos studied me deeply. I was sure he would have some retort to my profession, but he continued to stand over me in stone silence, as though seriously considering the possibility, however remote, that what I was saying might actually be true.

  “I stayed behind. It is true. In the land that is rightfully ours,” I added. “It was clear to me that Ryl's cause was loss. That the only options were to flee from the battle, or to die. But I... I chose a third option. I knew that I could be of greater use to my people than that. That giving up my life for a lost cause, or else running away, to save it in an act of supreme cowardice, would do no practical good for our people, for our Dark Ones. I chose, instead, a more dangerous path. A course of action that might easily have meant the end of me. That would test my endurance to its limits. But that, if successful, might serve our cause to a spectacular degree, and maybe, even give the Dark Ones a foothold, to mount a comeback once our forces have recovered from the recent war.”

  Mordeos stared for a long, long time. Still he said nothing, but seemed to balance on a tight rope. His reaction to these words, and the decision of whether I lived or died, seemed to me to hinge upon the next set of words that came out of my mouth.

  I knew this, and pretended not to know it. I pressed on, as unassumingly as I could manage.

  “I stayed behind. As a sleeper agent. A spy. Feigning loyalty to the new order. Pretending as though my allegiance had changed. As all the while I gleaned as much news about their plans, their efforts at reorganization, as I possibly could. They trusted me, given my father's reputation. Knowing the services I had formerly provided the Dark Ones in our time, and believing those same skilled could serve their purposes well. I learned as much as I could about them. I dedicated as much to memory as I could, not knowing when, exactly, I might put this information to good use. But trusting that the day would come. And then it did. I began to hear rumors– inside information, near to the King himself, that factions of our people were still out here somewhere. Lurking. Hiding. Waiting to return, until the time was right. Until they truly believed they might stand a chance against the Wreckers, and be able to reclaim what was stolen from them.

  “And now, you have that chance. I have as much information as you could hope for. As much as you need to take them down, once and for all. Or, in any case, enough to begin the strike. To attack while their defenses are down, and weaken their resolve.”

  Mordeos stared. And he stared. Processing all of this, slowly. It seemed as likely as not that he would reject my story as the bullshit it was, and that that would be the end of me.

  And sure enough, he finally intoned, “A compelling story... But why? Tell me, my brother... What reason do we have to believe you? To put our faith in this fantastic story of yours? You must offer more to us than that. Proof, that you remain loyal. Otherwise... I am sorry. But we cannot afford to take the risk.”

  I stared up at him, long and hard. I'd been expecting this. I feigned offense at the very notion– acting as though asking such a question was like questioning the great King Ryl himself. I furrowed my brow at him, and mustered up as much effort as I possibly could.

  My eyes, at length, flashed. Neon, vermillion, even redder than Mordeos' own.

  The unmistakable, nearly unfakeable sign of a true Dark One. A trick I had perfected years ago, through an almost inhuman effort, to seem loyal to the Dark Ones back in the day– when my need for acceptance among their kind was as great as it was now, and I'd had no choice but to blend in among them like a chameleon– or, at least, so I had told myself.

  Mordeos' own eyes widened at the sight of this. He hadn't truly been expecting proof, I could tell. The gears in his head seemed to turn quickly, as he decided whether or not I was a risk worth taking. I held his gaze indefinitely. Not looking away from him. Unwilling to draw attention to even the slightest crack, the least faltering in my resolve.

  And then, at long, long last– impossibly long, I thought– he smiled at me.

  “Very well,” he said with a nod. “I have a feeling that you may prove yourself a great service indeed to your people. Welcome home, my brother.”

  And just like that, it was as though any enmity between us had evaporated– as though my simple lip service to Ryl and the Dark Ones, in conjunction with the flashing of my red eyes, was sufficient to wipe away any and all trace of sin.

  He reached out an arm to help me up off the ground. I looked up at the angel, standing behind him, her brow now creased with a very different kind of concern, I thought. Then I looked back at him, and placed my hand in his, with what seemed at that moment a sense of ominous finality. A hot, prickling wave of sensation spread up along my arm, and burrowed deep into my chest.

  For so many years, I had sought to dig my way out of all this. To free myself from the Dark Ones' hold.

  And now, I was right back where I had started.

  The whole sad story was set to begin all over again...

  Keya

  “You're lucky to be alive,” I said, pressing a damp cloth to Iammarth's many blood red wounds. He winced slightly with each application, and I couldn't deny a certain thrill of excitement at seeing his obsidian black tattooed muscles tensing from the pain, drawing my thoughts in a direction I knew could only lead to pain.

  “Don't I know it?” he said wryly, a crooked smile spreading across his lips, promptly filled with teeth again as I once more pressed down the rag against his skin. I'd been charged by Mordeos with treating the newcomer's injuries. He or any of the other men could easily have done so themselves, but had, in the end, deemed such a task woman's work, and me being one of the only remaining women among them...

  But I didn't mind. I desired closeness with this man. I didn't know why. I knew I shouldn't. That these feelings, which I had yet to even admit to myself as feelings at all, could prove dangerous. Even deadly.

  But there was just something about him. A sense I got, whenever I looked into his eyes– which I had to force myself to do for as brief a period as possible, whenever such occurrences became inevitable.

  It wasn't just normal, physical attraction. I'd been together with Mordeos for close to a decade, and he had never made me feel this way. Nor had anyone.

  In truth, I didn't really know the first thing about the man lying on the bed in front of me– save for the story he'd told, which was admittedly farfetched. Yet I craved a greater familiarity with him. A greater intimacy. Hoping that some time spent in his company might shed some light on these strange feelings I was having, and, with any luck, might help me expel them.

  “Mordeos has been super paranoid about outsiders lately. Anyone he comes across in the forest, he thinks they're a spy. Which I can sort of understand. But to come across an actual spy, and to let him live to tell the tale...”

  “I'm as amazed as you are,” said Iammarth, still grinning a little. “But I don't blame him one bit. I understand the need for caution as well as anyone. Especially in times like this. With the fucking Wreckers trying to hunt us all down and slaughter us like dogs...”

  I winced at his mention of the Protectors, whom I heard referred to with such pure scorn on a regular basis among Mordeos and his men. Yet something about the contempt in the newcomer's voice felt wrong... Cruel, even. It bothered me, and I didn't know why.

  “Yeah... I'm sorry about the handcuffs by the way. Mordeos really does believe you, I think. He just wants to make sure before he gives you free reign...”

  As if only just remembering them, Iammarth pulled the cuffs around his wrists up from beneath the sheets, and studied them for a moment. “No, no, I get it. I would do the same thing. Be just as cautious in your position. These are– very unique cuffs, though...”

  They were wooden, painted gold, inscripted with rune-like markings around th
e edges.

  I nodded at him. “Yes. They're Earthdragon-made. Specially designed for use on dragonshifters. I think it's something about the chemical mixture they use to treat the wood. But whatever it is, it's designed so that the wearer is unable to transform while they have them on.”

  Comprehension seemed to dawn on Iammarth's face. “So that's why you don't actually have me chained up to anything...”

  I couldn't help but laugh at this. Our eyes met for an instant, but I turned away sheepishly a moment later, my brain seeming to pound against my skull like a second heartbeat.

  “I guess regularly cuffs wouldn't be much use against a dragonshifter,” he said, moving on from the awkwardness. “I could just break through them. Though, God, does that sound painful... Oh, wait– did you say these were Earthdragon made?”

  I looked inquisitively up at him, and gave a short nod, wondering what significance he saw in this.

  “So... Does that mean there are Earthdragons among you? In addition to regular Dark Ones, I mean?”

  “Oh yes,” I said matter of fact. “A large faction of the Earthdragons remain sympathetic to our cause. They view their comrades' partnership with the Protectors as the betrayal that it is.”

  “The Pr– You mean the Wreckers?” Iammarth corrected me, and I think I actually blushed at this.

  “Oh, right... Yeah, yeah... Slip of the tongue...”

  He was giving me a curious look– like all of the sudden, perhaps I was the one who should be in those handcuffs, under suspicion of being a traitor, instead of him.

  I didn't like this one bit, and I turned away from him, mad, nervous, and wondering why the fuck this idiot was having such an intense effect on me.

  I pressed on, trying to smooth out the conversation as best I could.

  “Some of them are out there now. The Earthdragons, I mean. Helping put out the fire. They have those water powers, you know. They really come in handy in situations like this...”

  “Oh, thank God,” said Iammarth, sighing. “I was actually starting to worry about that. Burning the whole damn forest down and drawing the Wreckers or the fucking humans right toward us was the last thing we needed... I was really trying my hardest not to fight back against your men. I wanted to show myself peacefully. But they just kept coming and coming, wouldn't relent. I either had to fight back or let them kill me.”

  A strange moment suddenly passed between the two of us. I'm not sure I can wholly explain it. Nothing really happened. It was more of a feeling– or a lot of feelings, all happening at once. I saw him there, lying atop the cot he'd been placed on, in the middle of the large tent we were in. My eyes fell to the handcuffs around his wrists, and a surge of intense sexual tension swept between the two of us, making me so dizzy that it nearly knocked me off my feet.

  I was acutely aware of the power I had over him in that moment, and it turned me on to a degree that made me downright ashamed of myself. Iammarth seemed to notice it too. I saw his legs shifting beneath the covers, as though in doing so he might conceal the protrusion of an erection through the surface, making his dirty thoughts plain to me.

  Promptly disgusted by myself, and by Iammarth, and my would-be infidelity, I let the feeling dissolve into contempt, coupled with suspicion.

  I gave Iammarth a serious look, and his expression fell– as though he could tell that he'd done something wrong, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out just what.

  “Look. You're alive, for now, because Mordeos let you live. He believed your story. We all do, for now. For the most part. At least until we have reason to believe otherwise... I'm not going to cast doubt on what you told us. That's not my business. It's for Mordeos and the others to decide that. But one thing you had better get through your head, right now, whatever you decide to do going forward... If Mordeos finds out that you're lying. That you're just fucking with us, and that you're secretly really working with those goddamn Wreckers...”

  A look of deep, genuine offense spread across Iammarth's face, like a cloud passing over the sun.

  “Fucking say that again,” he threatened, straining against the cuffs around his wrists.

  “I'm saying that if that happens, then you can bet your ass that the little greeting party in the forest is barely an appetizer, compared to what Mordeos has in store for you if you're lying. Or even if he just suspects you're lying. I've been his mate for a long time now. I've seen what he's capable of on a bad day. Hell, on a good day for that matter. And believe me when I tell you. You do not want to be on the business end of his anger when the shit hits the fan.”

  Iammarth's eyes softened. He gave me another long, lingering, penetrating look. “You like being mated to a man like that?” he asked. Again, I blushed scarlet, and couldn't immediately find the words to answer him. “Doesn't that scare you? I mean...”

  Finally I interrupted, bursting defensively, “Mordeos is a great man! A powerful leader! He is the salvation of our people, our redeemer, after everything was taken from us! And if your idea was to come here, and to call into question the capabilities of his leadership...”

  “No! No!” Iammarth insisted, shaking his head vigorously. “That– that was not my intention at all. I'm sorry. I... I misspoke.”

  “Yes,” I nodded, “you did.”

  Inwardly I knew, however, that the reason I'd reacted so violently, so defensively to this notion, was that I knew that Iammarth's words rang true. I simply didn't want to be reminded of those things which I already knew...

  I continued my work in silence for the next several minutes. Applying salve to his wounds. Swapping out one vial for another, working my magic on him. The previous sexual tension between the two of us had dissolved into tension of a wholly different kind, each of us a little bit afraid to speak. One glad consequence of my outburst was that the need for any boner concealment on his part seemed to have gone away, and he lay with his legs flat on the bed, watching, still wincing whenever I applied medicine directly to his wounds.

  “You're an excellent caregiver,” he said, his tone not quite apologetic, but seeming to want to pave over this awkwardness without having to acknowledge it.

  It worked, to some degree. I gave him a gentle, but uneasy smile, and applied the last slathering of salve to a tear on his shoulder. I watched as the gelatinous substance soaked into the wound, causing the bloody rip to steam. I watched the skin miraculously close again, most of the way, at least, leaving him as whole as he was going to get for the time being.

  “I do my best,” I said with a shrug. “I've done all I can do for now. You're going to be pretty damn sore for the next couple of days, but you'll live.”

  He gave me a nod. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  I nodded back, and considered him for a moment. I fought with an instinct toward tenderness– a sudden, intense desire, to lean in and kiss him on the cheek, in a way that I told myself was motherly. So revolted with myself was I at this notion, however, that I careened off in the opposite direction, responding to his gratitude with sheer, cold indifference, so far divorced from anything I genuinely felt deep down.

  “Sure thing,” I said, stopping up the last vial and sliding it back into my bag. “Just remember what I said. End up in Mordeos' way again, and there might not be anything left for me to put back together once he's done with you...”

  I turned from the patient before he had the chance to respond. I sidled haughtily toward the door, feigning a kind of gladness to be rid of him, and wholly conscious, as I strode out of the tent into the night, of his eyes lingering after me, fixated on my naked, shifting backside as it pulsed out of view.

  I breathed a deep sigh of relief once I was out in the night air, and shuddered at the thought of him. At the impulses he'd somehow managed to stir so deep from within me, which I'd only been able to resist by the very skin of my teeth.

  I'd gotten away from him this time.

  But for how much longer?

  And was getting away from this man rea
lly something I wanted in the first place?

  Iammarth

  “Well, there's the patient. All rested and cleaned up. You look like a million bucks' worth of shit.”

  Mordeos gave me a twisted smile as two of his men drew me to a seat across from him behind the firelight. A whole troupe of Dark Ones stood clustered around the flickering green flame, most of them men, but with a few women standing around as well.

  “Nice to see you too,” I said, thinking that in this case, holding my own and displaying my mettle to the Dark Ones would fare better for me in the long run than fawning subservience.

  Mordeos' smile flickered slightly, as though confirming this thought for me, and he spoke, impatiently. “You claim you have information for us. So? Talk.”

  And so I talked.

  “Since the Dark Ones were banished, the Wreckers have made short work of appropriating Ryl's former infrastructure for their own purposes. A lot of things are the same as they were before. They're still mostly isolated from the human world, for the time being. The economy is mostly the same. A lot of the higher up Dark Ones who served under Ryl, the ones who didn't flee or die during the battle, have gone on to fill similar ranks under Ynder's joke of an administration. Jathi, Movrarrie, and Grogh, just to name a few.”

  A chorus of groans rang up from the crowd.

  “Such men as they are the scum of the Earth! Traitors to their people! Undeserving even to live! To call themselves dragonshifters!”

  “I agree,” I said, more evenhandedly. “However, these may be the very sorts of men who may be of use to us should we attempt to mount a comeback. Their allegiances, though hardly loyal to Ryl and the Dark Ones, seem to me just as weak as they are now to Ynder and the Wreckers. They are less swayed by ideology, I don't think, than by the simple matter of survival. They seem to me to shift with the wind. And were a powerful enough figurehead to arrive on the scene, and to take up the mantle once belonging to Ryl and the Dark Ones...”