Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The air is thick with smoke, the charred burn of various dried herbs mixing with the scent of magic. I taste more than smell it, feel it more than hear it, hear it more than smell it.
A thin electric line of buzzing power arcs over my senses, tingling on my skin. It is an indescribable sensation, one that is wholly mine.
Well, I'm sure Riders can sense it. They can actually use magic, unlike me. Not that I have ever had the chance to ask them; everyone I have met is far more interested in filling my mouth with things other than words.
"Kira. That rider is here; make sure you look after him." Madam says, looking at me pointedly from where she sits by the bar. She is old, yet she still holds her beauty, perfect makeup, and long flowing gowns. Legs dressed in silk press through a slit so high it's more a promise than a suggestion.
"Yes, Madam." I say instead, pushing off the wall I had been doing my best to blend into, and curtsying to her politely. The boys and girls who heard giggle, making no effort to hide the gleeful grins as I pass, with swaying hips and small elegant steps none of them can hope to match.
They are jealous, jealous of the special treatment I get. While they get beat, I get drowned; when they get branded, I sleep outside. Anything to avoid marking my skin and lowering my value.
They know exactly what he will do to me, has done to me. Many of them have been put to work cleaning up the blood and cum that splatters the walls and ceiling after a night of looking after him.
They don't care. They enjoy what he does to me. Talk about it, laugh about it.
Laughed while I cried and shook with dread, woke in the night screaming and begging for my life.
Like begging has ever worked in my life. It didn't stop me from being put on the market after my first blood, and it has not stopped him from hurting me in the months since he showed up in the city and started using me.
I don't even know his name. He makes me call him Sir. I try to think of him only as The Rider.
Ignoring the giggles and poorly hidden insults, I find the rider in the crowd. The moment I find him, I have to fight the grip tightening in my chest. I want to run, to flee, to be anywhere but where he can see me. But I dare not say no. The last time I tried to suggest anyone else entertain him, I spent my night being drowned in ice water over and over till I was nothing but panic and terror. Head screaming in icy agony, like he plunged a knife into it again.
He's on the other side of the parlor, tucked around a corner and hidden away in an alcove of drapes and fabrics that hide him away from prying eyes unless you know where to look, were to find the hidden mirrors, and between the cracks.
He is, in every sense of the word, regal. Broad shoulders, toned muscles, bronze skin. Draped in the finest silks, the purest gold. A gleaming golden jewel-encrusted dagger at his hip marks him as a rider recognized by the king himself.
He always enchants the room and has the boys and girls alike parading for his attention. I can't help the shudder that runs through me at the memory, his sickly sweet smile and silky voice, light gentle touches, feigned respect, asking them if he can touch them. Like any of us are free. Like we can say no.
They don't see the glee in his eyes as you turn cold, twitching and shivering on the floor desperately trying to keep the blood in just a little longer. Live just a moment more.
They don't know him like I do. They see only his fine silk shirts and pretty smile.
Swooned over the striking tattoo of a golden dragon that dominates his arms and shoulder, tail wound down his left arm, head turned, eyes glaring back at me from his shoulder blade.
I walk silently, but he knows I'm coming. He always knows I'm coming. He watches, or senses, or hears my every move. It unnerves me, makes me feel off-balance, hunted, cornered like a rabbit by the fox. He turns to face me the moment I am within reach, hand reaching up to stroke my cheek.
"You are always so pretty for me." Honeyed words, making the snap of the fox's jaws around the rabbit's neck palatable to the watchful eyes.
His well-shaped jaw and bright blue eyes hide the horrible creature that lurks beneath his skin well. The one who grins and laughs in manic glee as he splits the skin of my hands and peels it back like a peach while I scream and thrash.
"Just how you like me." I say, lilting my words and fluttering my eyelashes up at him, his other hand curling around my waist, lifting my short dress to run fingertips over the fine smooth skin of my hip to cup my ass.
He laughs, pulling me flush against him. I gasp, a sweet, practiced sound of desire. A small, dainty sound to make me look like the meek little thing he paid for.
"I think you look much prettier covered in blood and screaming." His words are daggers, slipping between my ribs in a deep throbbing pain that sends my heart crashing into my rib cage and my throat to swallow dryly.
A reminder that this was all pretense, a dance for the audience—the main performance would be my agony.
"If that is what you wish." The words are just as sensual as all the others—silky, spoken without even the slightest tremble or whisper of the raging fear and panic within.
Of course they are. I was beaten until they were; taught to speak clearly and sensually while being beaten to the edge of death from the moment I could first speak. From the moment I could walk.
He squeezes my ass tight and then uses his nails to scratch trails from my hips to breasts, which he grabs without hesitation, pinching painfully.
I gasp softly, pushing forward into him and wrapping my own hands around his waist, fingers slipping into the hem of his pants, tugging softly in a gesture of desire.
My heart thunders in my chest. The dress was useless at this point, pulled so far up it exposed my bare backside to anyone who could see.
But my heart races for another reason. He seems different tonight. Bold and aggressive when before he would be so slow, calculating and methodical. Never letting me touch him without carefully positioning me to do so first.
Is it a chance, an opportunity? Has he taken something stronger than he expected? He always has that stupid, sold gold dagger on his hip. He never takes it off unless he's cutting me with it.
But tonight, tonight my fingers are so close I can feel the magic wafting off it onto my fingertips. I just need to take it, and ram it into his chest.
Or tonight will be when he finally kills me, carved me up like a sheep in a butcher shop. The night he decides not to use his magic to put me back together again. Perhaps this is a celebration, a final dance before death.
"I said, On your knees!" he says.
I yelp. His hand, that only moments before had been gently resting at my neck and stroking my cheeks, is now digging fingers into the nerves in my shoulder, shoving me to the ground. My knees hit the wooden floor hard.
"I'm sorry, Sir." I say, words still smooth, not a syllable out of place.
"Don't worry," he laughs. "I know you will be." He strikes me, open hand clean across my face. One moment I was looking at him, the next my head is turned, vision blackening for an instant, flicking with stars.
Madam will be furious when he kills me. I wasn't a cheap investment, not a girl sold to pay her debts, or a boy dragged in off the streets.
I was chosen, planned, bred. The product of a forced pregnancy of the two most prized slaves the house ever produced.
Raised to be perfect, to speak and prance like nobility, to carry the modesty of a queen, and the depraved appetites of a whore behind closed doors.
"I do so enjoy breaking that facade, dragging out the scared little girl you are, kicking and screaming."
I look up at him, towering over me, his eyes glinting with an urgency that makes me quiver.
When he finally kills me, he will pay for every client I never got to take. Madam will be delighted at that; a lifetime worth of gold and all it cost her was one slave?
"Now what should I do with you tonight?" He coos at me as if I am a child. Stroking my cheek.
"Whatever you desire, Sir." I say, pressing into his touch, slowly turning the hands on my thighs palms-up.
Behind my practiced, perfect facade, I can only think of the way he cut deeper and faster with every meeting, the hunger in his eyes as he took longer and longer to make me whole again, leaving me gasping and gurgling my own blood on the floor each time spoke to how much he wanted to watch me die, to take my life. To control me so completely.
I am going to die tonight, either by his hand or my own; it presses in at the back of my mind. Madam may not have noticed it, or maybe she did and just didn't care. But I know he is going to be the death of me.
He yanks my head back by my hair, making me yelp. "Open your mouth." He orders, and I do. I let it fall open and stick out my tongue as I keep my eyes on his.
He spits into it. I want to gag—a vile mix of cheap alcohol, tobacco, and an utter lack of hygiene. I want to spit it out, wash it out, burn it, anything but close my mouth and swallow it.
"Thank you, Sir." I say, lacing the words with the right amount of awe and devotion. To make him feel big, important, and strong. Like anything from his grotesque existence could ever be a gift.
His grip tightens, pulling at my scalp. I whine, wiggle on my knees. Pretend that he has any kind of effect on me beyond disgust.
His lips split in a wide grin, chuckling softly and shaking my head gently. He was so fucking simple.
"Soon, my little whore. Don't worry." He says, letting of my hair. I whine, chasing his hand in mock-longing. "Now, be good while you wait."
Waiting is the worst. I sit there on my knees, legs going numb while he talks to what feels like the entire city comes to chat—Or at least the part of the city that likes to pay to fuck cheap slaves—just to say they spoke with the prestigious dragon rider.
The worst part is needing to press close to him, nuzzle his leg and chase his hand. Acting like I enjoy the way he would scratch at my head, running his fingers through my hair.
It feels like an eternity before he finally pulls me to my feet and leads me to his room for the night. It's brightly lit, with cream walls and white bedding. A silver tray sits on the bed, covered with an assortment of knives, hammers, and saws. A mix of medical and farm equipment.
My heart races at the sight. No matter how often he has butchered me, I've never gotten used to it. I built a tolerance of everything else. Madam had to keep getting more creative with punishments as they stopped bothering me, or worse, became something I enjoyed.
But this? I could never get used to it. Maybe it was the magic, making my flesh forget when my head couldn't. I don't know; I try not to think of the worst option. That I can never get used to it because I don't want to.
Let's ignore how wet I already am just looking at the instruments.
His chuckle makes me jump. I have subconsciously started backing into the corner of the room. In a single step, he catches up to me, grabbing my chin and pulling me towards him.
"I love when you are like this. This is real." He says quietly, dipping his head to whisper into my ear while pulling me up onto my tiptoes.
"I-I dont know what you mean." I say, my act breaking ever so slightly with my mounting terror.
In response, he slams me into the wall, making the glasses on the wardrobe shake and rattle together. My heart crashes into my ribs, desperate to escape before he cuts it, rips it, tears it, drags it out of me again.
"You are good; I give you that." He says, hand now around my neck squeezing tight enough to make spots appear in my vision. "But I know it's all fake words and pretend devotion." He growls, squeezing harder.
I try to push him off, hands shoving uselessly at his chest, legs kicking at any part of him they can find as they dangle off the floor. I can't even gasp for breath anymore. Already feeling the lightheaded numbness chasing my struggling thoughts.
"But this? This is real. Pure."
I open my mouth trying to speak, to say something. My head is buzzing with so much static I don't even know what I am trying to say, but I need to say something. I need to try.
Only nothing comes out, just an open gaping mouth bobbing up and down with my mounting panic. He laughs, dropping me. My legs buckle the moment they hit the ground, and I collapse into a gasping, twitching heap on the floor.
"Like this, you're mine. Your perfect. Nothing is fake here; you suffer for me. And it's real." He towers over me, grinning. All I can do is stare at him, dragging in ragged breaths and twitching as I watch him turn towards the bed, unbuttoning his shirt and letting it fall from his shoulders.
And there it is, his golden dagger on his right hip, glinting in the room's lamplight. All I need to do is reach out and take it, stab it into him. It doesn't even matter where, anywhere. I just want to hurt him in the same way he hurts me.
But I can't; all I do is twitch on the floor, limp and breathless. Useless, I am utterly useless. What if this is all I'm good for? A toy to play with and hurt and then discard when they're done.
I hope he doesn't bring me back this time. It's a startling thought. The first time I have wished for my demise over his. It makes me giggle, small, broken little sounds breaking from my aching throat as energy seeps back into my muscles.
"Patience, I'll have you screaming soon enough." He says without turning to look at me, inspecting the instruments on the bed.
I try to get a foot under me, lift myself up, but the stupid heels just slide uselessly across the hardwood. I growl, kicking at them, trying to get the stupid things off.
Finaly I get the toe of my heel under the back of the other and pry the offending thing off. Grabbing the edge of the dresser, I force myself to my feet. Shaking with the effort, cold sweat runs in rivulets down my skin.
The room spins. I close my eyes, leaning against the wall and swallowing, whimpering as the panicked asphyxiation surges through my veins. When I open them, he is looking at me, holding a rusty, dull-looking jagged saw.
"I think we will start with this one tonight." He says, his arousal already apparent. I hiccup, tears staining my cheeks.
"Pl-please," I beg, "not again. I can—" I sob, hiccup. Not even able to finish speaking as he only smiles wider at my pathetic begging.
"You are so pretty when you—" He doesn't finish, head snapping to the corner of the room and taking a step away from me as if something is there.
I rub at my eyes, trying clear the tears, to see what it he's looking at, but all I can see is a blurry corner.
And his knife.
"How?!" He growls, and I step forward. Legs shaking but steadier than moments earlier. It's just there, and something other than me had his attention.
I'm panting. One more step, trembling hand reaching for the golden hilt. Fingers curled around the cold metal. Magic arcing up my arm, it tastes putrid, rotten meat and sick. He jerks forward, knife gliding from its hilt.
He turns his head to look back at me. "What are you—" I stab it into his back, tripping over my single-heeled foot. He cries out angrily, reaching back to the knife stuck in his shoulder blade as I fell against the bed, kicking angrily at the offending footwear.
I was so close; an inch higher and it would have been his neck. An inch lower his heart. My hands scrabble blindly at the tools, half of them spilling to the floor in my panic.
"You ungrateful fucking bitch!" He swears, whirling on me, bloody knife now in his hand, red dragged across his shoulder and cheek.
An awful screech sounds in the distance, followed by the rumbling boom of an explosion. I can only half make it out, blood pounding in my ears.
"After everything I did for you!" he screams, stomping towards me, his eyes blazing with anger. I can feel it rolling off him in waves. Fury, rage. I brandish the first thing my bloody fingers could wrap around as a weapon.
A corkscrew. "Fuck you!" I yell back, broken by my sobs. At least I'll die hurting him. He didn't break me; I will not let him.
I stab at his hand as he reaches towards me, jabbing it into the flesh of his arm. He cries out; a roar rings in the distance. Fingers grab my shoulder, and I feel myself leave the support of the bed with a loud pop from my shoulder, thrown to the other side of the room to crash into the window.
Glass shatters, raining around me, warm blood following the sharp sting. I'm dizzy, head throbbing. I push myself up and look at him, angry, panting, hair fallen from the ponytail spilling into my vision.
"You should have begged me to hurt you. That someone like me would pay any attention to someone like you." He sneers at me, pulling the corkscrew from his arm in an arch of red.
I can hear screaming all around now, the broken window allowing the sounds outside into the room. More roaring and screeching comes through when the door bursts open.
"Sir, there is— you need to—" Madam says, standing in the doorway. Panic drags across her face, her makeup smeared, and the tape that made her look like her skin was still tight and young flaps in the breeze.
I giggle. I think I am going crazy. What else could it be?
"What?" she finally says, gaping at the room and me on the floor. Her face turns red with rising anger. At least, the parts of it not covered in makeup do.
I giggle at that too.
"Leave," Sir says, turning to Madam, who just looks between him and me, mouth opening and closing several times before she closes the door. I can hear her feet hitting the floor as she runs down the hall.
"And here I was, planning to make you part of my personal collection." He sighs, shaking his head in mock disappointment. I watch his anger being replaced with a sick, manic glee.
"I guess this will be the last time we play. Oh, I am going to enjoy this. Maybe I will put your head on my bedroom wall." His laugh sends shivers down my spine. Like I just stepped in a puddle of cum with socks on.
"Gross." I say, laughing at his frown.
He kicks me in the ribs for that. I cough, bucking forward as he kicks me again, lower, in my abdomen. I scream then, my head rocking back into the wall.
"You fucking whore!" He yells, and kicks me again. "You thought you could kill me!" I whimper, sob, wrap my arms around my head and curl into a tight ball. Just like I always have.
"Imsorryimsorryimosorry!" I scream, babble, beg, anything to make him stop. I know it will never stop. The next kick is to my face; my vision lights up with sparks, mouth filling with copper as I sputter on blood.
But he just kept kicking; my ears ring, all I can see is a kaleidoscope of colors and stars swimming in a pot of ink.
Still, I beg, "Please-I'lldo-don't hurt me!"
He laughs.
And then he screams.
A beat.
A pause.
Silence.
I feel as if my body is made of lead. Everything aches, and in that instant, that moment of stillness, I open my eyes to the most blinding light. It fills the room, a dazzling bright glow as the dark edges of my vision subside.
I must be dead. He's not moving, hands pressed to his face, palms dug into his eyes, bent double in a moment of agonizing pain. Fingers clawing at his scalp, pinpricks of red blossoming across his copper skin.
Then reality slams into me, the light vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and an ear-piercing scream and a deafening chest-filling roar drown out the chaotic sounds spilling through the broken window.
The roof disappears, a tearing crush of wood, and an enormous golden dragon rips through it like paper, wings tearing on the jagged edges caused by its passing, painting the room crimson.
Sir is bent double, clutching at his arm, face contorting into a landscape of agony, the dragon coming to a stop where the parlour once was.
It thrashes, and I lay frozen, propped half on what's left of the wall and an arm that I can no longer feel. A golden flail of a tail swings overhead, smashing through brick and glass, making me cower lower.
But I can't take my eyes off her, the shimmering turquoise dragon tangled with the brute of gold, fangs burrowed in the crook where wing meets back, claws dragging angry red lines across golden scales.
She's growling.
She's mangnificent.
She's splattered in crimson, war paint earned in primal rage.
The much larger golden dragon roars, tries to swing at the smaller dragon, forcing it to avoid the massive claws that instead crater what remains of the parlour floor with an earth-shaking explosion.
"You insolent…" Sir growls, snapping my attention from two dragons, the gold one rolling over and catching the smaller dragon's tail with a claw, making it screech in pain.
He is panting, pushing himself back to standing on shaky legs, golden dagger clutched in his fingers, white-knuckled in shaking fist.
The floor is littered with his instruments of my torment, most scattered to the floor by me, the rest when the dragons crashed into it. A long, thin carving knife catches my attention. It's right there. I just need to reach out and take it.
But I'm broken.
I'm tired. My arm hangs loosely, not moving when I try telling it to, fingers twitching with useless agony, legs trembling, shivering. The world spins around me.
The dragon's roar, the ground trembles.
"Kill the fucking thing then!" Sir screams.
Then the room is bathed in orange and red, yellow and gold, heat blooming across my face and drawing my attention to the great beast, wings flared, back arched, muzzle to the ground, jaw wide as it unleashes a stream of burning fire that makes my sweat sizzle, steaming off my flesh.
The air is full of sulfur and brimstone, charred meat and burnt flesh twisting with the metallic tang of blood.
The little turquoise dragon is pressing itself flat to the ground, legs desperately skittering out, trying to force itself lower, its scales glowing red, racked by flame.
It's silent. Some distant part of me is aware that there still is sound, that the flame is a roar, drowning out the laughter of Sir, back arched, head thrown back in glee at the suffering before him.
But all I hear is the whine, a screeching agony of the smaller dragon, the whimpered cries. It is pain; it's hatred.
It's determination.
I glance at the knife again, at Sir, neck so nicely exposed. I can see it, feel it—the blade dragging across the expanse of his neck, the warm trickle then gush of his blood, the subtle catch, the drag, then the give of his flesh.
I shiver at the thought. And then I move, good arm reaching towards the blade, closer while I try to clutch the useless floppy other limb close to me.
I'm unsteady. I fall, half crawl, my hand spans the distance to the weapon, wraps fingers around the still cool wood and, planting my fist with the knife on the floorboards, I push myself up to shaky, wobbly legs.
It's not far. He is right there; I could fall and still bury the knife in his back. But I want to make sure I do it right this time. This time. This time I want him dead.
So I take a step, half step, a shuffle, another. I can smell the sweat and copper spilling off him in waves, I raise the knife.
I swing.
It all happens at once. The golden dragon closes its maw with an echoing snap, turning its head, eyes locked on me. Sir spins, grabbing my wrist in a bruising grip, shoving it to my chest and forcing me to the ground.
He looms over me, face split in a bloody scowl. "No," I whisper, as he forces the knife towards my neck. "Please," I beg, fighting the twisting pain in my wrist.
And the small dragon lunges, fangs sharp and burrowing into the neck of the larger golden dragon. Sir screams, letting go of my hand, letting me jerk the blade from my neck as both his hands clutch at his own neck as if it was him the dragon had bitten.
And he falls.
Knife nails his hands to his neck, his full weight forcing the blade through and out the back of his neck in a spurt of blood. A jerk. A gargle. The loud thud of the golden dragon falling to the ground, the pair of them drooling red from their mouths, eyes wide in shock.
Dead.
Reality slams back into me, hot blood pouring over me that for once is not my own. I can't breathe; all of him is on top of me, driven into my chest, and I am too broken to get him off.
I don't want to die here, not now, not when he is finally dead. I whine, and push, push with all I have in a desperate plea for freedom. It never comes; he just rocks back into me, knocking more air from my lungs.
I sob, hot tears running down my face, and close my eyes. "Help." I say, it's a whisper, a croak; the crackling fire is louder than my pathetic cry for help. I shake, shudder, sob. There is nothing I can do; I am already too broken.
I just need to wait. It will be over soon.
Breath slams back into me, the body falling off me, and I gasp, eyes flying open to meet the large sapphire orbs of the turquoise dragon. Head lowered to look at me, one of her legs is lifted off the ground, tucked into her side, her back a smoking charred mess of burnt scales, blood and other fluid leaking between the cracks.
She closes her eyes and presses her forehead to mine. It breaks me. I throw my mostly-good arm over her neck and wail, a broken, jagged sound as I hold tighter to that dragon than anything ever before, crying into her neck.
She pushes back into me, a rumbling emanating from her chest. "Thank you," I whisper, cry, anything. "Thank you… for saving me." Because she did.
The fire has spread; I can feel it at my back, hear it crackle as it climbs the wood. She growls softly, lifting her head, nudging at me.
"You-" I try to speak, only to gag and cough on all the smoke. "You-should go." I try again, panting, eyes stinging, tears running down my cheeks.
She growls, pressing into me hard and trying to stand up, only for my arm to slip from her neck. She ducks again, quickly pressing herself flat to the floor as I fall to my knees, coughing and sputtering.
"Le-leave me. I—" I swallow, panting shallow. "I can't. I'm so tired." The fire burns around me, hotter and heavier. Clinging to my skin and crawling down my throat.
I'm going to die here, but I don't want her to die with me. Because of me. I open my eyes, meeting one of hers for a moment before she closes them, turns her head and pushes her muzzle into my chest. Her head is as big as I am, and I wrap my arms around her as best I can.
She growls, soft and low, a rumble emanating from her chest and fluttering through her scales, clinking softly with her slight tremor. My back feels hot, a crawling warmth that builds and builds in intensity until it's hot pinpricks clawing up my back.
I gasp, hugging her tighter, whimpering with the heat. The fire is right there, finally engulfing the room. I need to try. Not for me, but for her.
"Okay…" I whisper, soft and quiet into the top of her head. Then I try to stand, and she follows, lifting me as much with her head as I do with my own feet, mostly carrying me as we limp from the ruined brothel.
I have never set foot outside these walls, never expected to do so as anything but fancy decoration on someone's arm.
I suppose I am on someone's arm, or neck, rather.
I expected more from the outside world, but it's just a moment like any other. We finally get to the still-intact wall, and I push against the door. It feels like it should mean something to step out onto the ruined street that I've only ever seen through windows.
But I don't, there is nothing. Just… emptiness, wrong. I'm limping away from the only home I ever knew until I can't make it any further, collapsing in the middle of the street.
She catches me, dropping quickly and letting me rest across her neck. My chest aches, my abdomen pulsing and angry.
"Thank you," I whisper, because I am thankful. I could spend an entire lifetime thanking her and still not have enough time. She helps me sit up, and I turn. Just watching the rest of it burn.
"Good." It's the last thing I think for minutes, hours, days. I don't know how long, but long enough, just resting against a turquoise dragon four times my size.
Watching what was my life burn.
I startle, looking at the still-smoking remains of the parlour, then up and down the parts of the street I can see around the dragon, and listen.
Nothing.
The dragon has curled around me, wing half over me, tail tucked to my back and head resting half in my lap and half on her own thigh.
Silence.
Just the slow rush of air as she breathes long slow breaths. The soft rumble from her chest that never stopped. And yet, something feels wrong.
An itch at the back of my spine, crawling on my skin, a taste. New. Wrong.
Magic.
The dragon moves before I can, head snapping up and tail shoving me to roll across the street just as a massive pure-black dragon drops out of the just-lightening morning sky.
A single foot bigger than the little dragon herself crashes down. Claws form a cage around her as she rages, growls and shrieks, gnawing at the exposed scales entrapping her. Dust and rock rains all around the impact.
I thought the gold dragon was big, but he was nothing compared to this. She towers over everything, and I am stunned, frozen, just at the sight of her, large yellow eyes turning and locking on me.
The little dragon forgotten in her claws. I take a shuddering breath; it hurts, and I cough. It frees me from the paralyzing gaze as I fall to my knees coughing.
It's wet.
My chest rattles with each shudder.
It's red.
I stare at my hand, the metallic tang of blood filling my senses, an ache deep and guttural. Panting, catching my breath, I look at the little dragon, its clawed cage getting smaller as the black dragon pins her to the ground, a slow inevitable press.
"Let her go." I whisper, voice hoarse and broken. Ragged. I have little left, but I'll give it all for her. The black dragon tilts its head, leaning towards me with a huff. Like it heard me.
I try to stand, concentrating on just pushing, putting my legs beneath me. Up.
It half works. I sway on the spot, needing to place my legs wide in a feeble attempt to balance.
Still I stand, and look at the dragon again, its yellow eyes narrowing at me.
"I said," taking one shaky step forward that nearly sends me back to the ground. "Let," another fumbling step, voice rising. "Her go—".
I don't get to finish; a hand grabs the back of my tattered dress, yanking me roughly and slamming me down on my back. I gasp, cough blood, spitting up like a fountain to fall back on me. It's cold in a way that isn't right.
Yellow eyes. Not the dragon's this time, a woman's. She is dressed in a way that makes my heart stutter in my rib cage, steals the air from my lungs.
Or maybe I am just dying.
Her hair is short, black, framing her face but never getting in her eyes. Tan skin and muscular. Biceps filling out the leather.
And she looks furious, growling, teeth bared at me as her hand closes around my neck. Big enough to fit, to wrap around half my neck, to tuck into the space between my collarbones.
Like it belongs.
I groan, whimpering as it tightens.
"Did you kill him?" Careful, level, measured. Cold. She doesn't shout; her voice is at a casual volume. Still, it demands attention, spoken over the shrieking dragon with a practiced ease.
It makes my hair stand on end, skin tingling under her attention. Heart clenching in my chest. I want to run, to hide.
She eases the pressure on my throat and I gasp, a shuddering wet thing that makes me cough more blood. I let it spill down my chin and seep between her fingers.
A beat. A moment, then: "Was it you?" A reminder, no louder, no different. Spoken with the perfect controlled inflection as before, yet it is colder. Anrgier.
"Wh-who?" I sputter, wheezing with the pressure still on my throat.
"The rider, who killed him?" Her fingers tighten a fraction with the words; her voice betrays nothing. Her fingers betray everything.
"M-me," I gasp; it's harder to talk. I can feel the blood pooling at the back of my throat, drowning me. "So-can let her go."
Then I can't breathe, her hand suddenly crushing my throat, pressing me into the ground under her weight. Her eyes narrow at me, and she grows.
"You… you killed him?" The control is gone this time, voice trembling, grip barely held back from crushing my windpipe and finally ending me.
I nod because I can't speak, because every fiber of my being is on edge, trembling beneath her. Lying would be worse than a death sentence.
And just as suddenly she is up, marching away from me while I gasp for air and gurgle on my blood, twitching on the ground.
I want to lie there, to wait for the abyss.
For me to end.
But I can't, not yet, not till I know the little dragon will be okay. So I force myself to roll over, to cough up the phlegm and congealing dark crimson. To at least not drown before all the other wounds I have to kill me.
"Please-please let her go." Feeble, voice quivering and so low I can't hear it through the sap-thick blood sloshing in my veins. If she hears me, she makes no sign. Just walks to the dragon, who lowers its head, twenty times her size, and she pets its muzzle, leaning her own head into it.
Her dragon. It's a slow realization. Of course, it's her dragon.
And I just killed a rider.
"It—she didn't do anything." I pant, trying to push myself up, barely managing to crawl a fingertip closer to her. "Please, please. I'll—" I slip, dirt and rock skidding from under my hands, and I crash into the ground.
I sob then, tears I don't have, but the sobs wreck my body all the same. "I'll do anything. Just don't-don't hurt her." I hiccup, broken, bleeding, dying, into the dirt.
Begging.
Not for my life, but hers. The turquoise dragon. My dragon. The thought should mean more. But everything is getting dark, and I am just so cold, so tired. I need to help her.
That's it.
Then I can rest.
Lifting my chin, I look at her. She is no longer fighting, crushed near flat to the ground by the clawed fist of the black dragon. Whimpering and watching me. My eyes meet hers, and I smile; it's going to be okay, I think. I can't say it. My mouth has stopped working, and my tongue won't move.
She must understand, because she looks sad, kicking at the dirt trying to get to me.
It's the last thing I see before a heavy boot kicks me onto my back and I am again looking up at the woman. She glows. Crawling with magic that tastes like cinnamon on my tongue, a bright presence as darkness presses in all around me. Blonde hair, a golden halo framing her face, sharp features and piercing eyes.
She crouches next to me, looking, inspecting, running her fingers over my cheek and jaw, down my neck and across my collarbones.
My dress lifts, pulling up to my chest to expose my stomach and everything else.
Assessing.
I have been inspected countless times; it's nothing new. But no one has ever made me feel more like a product, an object, a thing than her eyes do.
Finally, she places a finger at my chin and looks me in the eye. "If you want to save her, then become mine." I pant, fighting my heavy eyelids to keep watching her. To keep looking. But I don't say anything. I don't know what to say.
She sighs, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then opens them. There is a certainty about them. An inevitability that makes me shiver.
"Bind yourself to me. Mind. Body. Soul. From now, forever. Mine." She growls at that, leaning in towards me, fingers again wrapping around my throat, for now just holding, just waiting, a threat, a promise. "If you do, I'll save that dragon of yours."
"H-how?" I ask. I don't even know if I say the words or mouth them. I can't hear anything but her now, and I'm numb. If it weren't for the heat of her touch, I wouldn't feel anything.
She reaches to her back and brings her hand back with a thin silver blade. Twists it in her hand and holds it out to me, handle first.
"Slit your throat." I stare; maybe my eyes go wide, maybe my mouth falls open. Maybe I flinch. I don't know; if I do, I can't feel it. Is that really it? She just wants to heap one last humiliation on me at the end? To watch me take my own life to pay for the life of the little dragon?
Or punishment for killing the rider?
It feels wrong; that can't be it. But for her, for my little dragon, I would do anything. So I don't hesitate, I try to reach for the knife but all I do is twitch. The rider watches, then reaches down and places the blade in my fingers.
They curl around the cool handle, slow, twiching, and she helps guide the knife. She is tremebeling, the smallest quiver. If I could feel anything else I would never of felt it, but I can't, so I do.
Once the edge rests against my throat, she lets me go. Rocking back just to watch.
The point is clear; she won't help any more than that. I need to do this myself.
I fight, concentrate on my arm, and drag the silver across the expanse of my neck. Pressure. Pushing down. It's agonizing slow, and the blackens encroaches with every twitch, every hard-fought inch of sliced flesh. I feel it the moment it pops through the skin, hear the shuddering glide of it against my bones. Buzzing in my head.
It is cold. Blood, thick and dark. I am empty. But I do it. I finish with a gurgle, a bubble of thick sticky red, the last of the air I have to give. My arm falls limp on the ground next to me.
And she watches, head tilted, appraising my efforts. Was it enough? My life hardly seems a good trade.
Finally, when I feel I have nothing left, the moment when cold stops being cold and starts being nothing, when it's dark and I no longer see anything but her glowing radiance. I feel her lean over me, hand by my head, lowering until her lips brush the shell of my ear.
"Pledge yourself to me, all of you. Everything. The words don't matter. You just have to mean them."
My mind is thick syrup, cold and slow. Sludge, blackened and burnt. But I follow the command, lips cracking with dried blood. I try to talk.
I give you my everything. All I am, do with me as you will. Nothing comes out, no sound, lips little more than a flutter, a hint of motion, a twitch.
And as the dark eclipses even her glow, she kisses my neck, sucking at the insignificant life I have left.
Then, lips stained with my blood, she kisses mine. I groan at the touch, pressing into her, wanting, needing, chasing.
Then I am no more.