39. Aurora
AURORA
The horns woke me in the middle of the night.
At first, I couldn’t understand what I was hearing. It sounded like the hunting horns I heard sometimes when one of the Dukes or Barons went out to chase a fox. But they were blowing and blowing—echoing through the great stone chambers of the Academy.
Suddenly someone was shaking my shoulder.
“What…who…?” I looked up sleepily to see Jorn-o standing over my bed with a wild look in his eyes.
“Auri, it’s the horns!” He whispered, his eyes wide with fright. “It’s a Mating Flight—we have to hide!”
“Hide?” I still didn’t understand him but somehow the words broke through to me. A Mating Flight! Exactly what I had been warned about!
I sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. Jorn-o still looked wild.
“The dragons are rising to mate—can’t you feel them?” he asked, his voice trembling.
I closed my eyes for a moment and yes, I could feel them. Usually I only felt a dragon’s emotions when I was in physical proximity to it. But now I felt all of them—all the dragons, all their emotions—rising like a hurricane around me.
And what I felt was lust.
It was a word I’d hardly ever had occasion to think of before. I had to admit that I had fantasies—many of them involving Ryse—and I sometimes touched myself under the covers at night when everyone else was asleep. But I had never felt anything like this before.
It was the lust of five hundred dragons pouring into me all at once.
My nipples were suddenly so hard they could cut glass, and I was throbbing between my legs—aching for something I had never had and couldn’t even name.
“Oh my God and Goddess,” I gasped, stumbling out of bed. I understood instinctively that this wasn’t good. Everyone in the dorm was up and several of the boys were already doing…things I wouldn’t have believed they wanted to do together.
“What…what’s going on? What’s happening?” I demanded.
Jorn-o shook his head miserably.
“The dragons all project their emotions during a Mating Flight. I told you things get crazy around here.”
“Yes, but…” I gestured at two cadets who were doing things which were strictly and specifically disallowed by the dorm rules.
“I know—it’s crazy. All you can do is try to resist.” Jorn-o squared his shoulders. “I won’t give in. I’m not that way,” I heard him muttering to himself.
Ignoring him, I went staggering out of the dorm, looking for I don’t know what—some normalcy somewhere, I suppose.
I didn’t find it. Everywhere cadets were doing things they shouldn’t. I saw them on their knees, sucking each other and doing worse things, too.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered to myself. This can’t be real.”
Every place I went, I saw cadets entangled with each other. Every second I felt the dragon lust pouring into me. From every direction I heard the wet sounds of sucking, of bodies slapping together, of hoarse male voices moaning and begging for more.
The naked acts of lust surprised and frightened me.
Though my own body was throbbing with the need of a multitude of dragons, I didn’t want anything to do with any of the men I saw.
It wasn’t until several of the upperclassmen started giving me predatory looks that I realized I was making myself a target just by being out in the hallway.
“Hey, look at that—pretty as a girl,” one of them muttered, eyeing me.
“Yeah—bet his arsehole’s nice and tight. First-years are always virgins,” the other replied.
That was all I had to hear. It wasn’t safe out here!
Turning, I ran as quickly as I could through the dimly lit corridors, finally making it back to Dorm A.
When I got inside, however, an insane sight greeted my eyes.
Jorn-o was down on his knees eagerly sucking a Second-year cadet I knew only as “Greer.” He was stroking my friend’s face and murmuring,
“That’s right—take me nice and deep.”
Jorn-o looked up at me and I saw shame and need mixed in his eyes. He pulled away with a noise I knew I would hear forever in my dreams.
“I tried,” he said, his voice hoarse and needy. “Tried to resist. But I’ve always wanted him.”
“I’ve always wanted you, too. Pretty little First-year.” Greer ran his hands through Jorn-o’s hair almost lovingly. “How about if you stop talking and start sucking again?”
Jorn-o nodded and was about to start servicing the older boy again when his eyes suddenly widened.
I saw that he was looking not at me, but at something over my shoulder.
“Auri,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Run!”
Instead, I turned and saw Chud Larson standing in the doorway of the dorm.