Chapter 42 The Brother Who Did Not Believe #2
"I smell what could be deception." Pyrran's massive head swung toward them. Water dripped from his obsidian horns. "I smell what could be trickery. Witches have fooled dragons before. They take our scents. They wear our skins. They—"
"She is not a witch."
"How can you be certain?"
"Because I have tested her." Korin's voice hardened. "My fire did not burn her. Her ice brought me pleasure, not pain. She cannot lie—watch her try to deny what she is. She is a dragon, Pyrran. She is our mate."
Pyrran went still.
Those silver eyes fixed on Sol with an intensity that made her want to sink into the ground. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, and she could feel the pull of his breath from twenty feet away—strong enough to tug at her hair, to make her skin prickle.
"How can that be?" Pyrran's voice was quieter now, but no less dangerous. "The humans killed so many of our kind. We watched them fall. We burned their murderers in vengeance. For a hundred years, there has been no other dragon but us. We have been alone. So why now? Why her?"
"Sol’s egg was found, brother. Somehow it survived the Great Massacre." Korin stepped forward, positioning himself slightly in front of Sol. "Two humans discovered her egg in a forest. They had no idea what it was. They tried to cook it for food, and the heat of their oven triggered her, Becoming."
"A hundred years later?" Pyrran's laugh was a cruel, grinding sound. "You expect me to believe that a dragon egg survived for a century?"
"I do not expect you to believe anything." Korin's voice sharpened. "I expect you to use your senses. Smell her. Truly smell her. Not with suspicion, but with honesty."
Pyrran's eyes flickered.
Sol watched the massive dragon with growing terror. He was even larger than Korin, she realized now—or perhaps he just seemed that way because of the cold fury radiating from his form. Where Korin had been heat and hunger, Pyrran was ice and doubt.
"Witches can take on scents," Pyrran growled. "They can weave illusions so complete that even dragons are fooled. I have seen it. I have watched many fall to such tricks."
"She is not a witch."
"Prove it."
Korin turned to Sol. His golden eyes were softer now, almost apologetic. "Little one, tell my brother what you are."
Sol's mouth opened. “What?”
"Tell him you are not a dragon."
She blinked. "But I'm not—"
The words caught in her throat.
She tried again. "I'm not a—"
Nothing.
Her tongue refused to form the denial. Her lips moved, but the lie would not come.
Pyrran's silver eyes widened.
"Tell him you are not our mate," Korin continued. "Tell him you are not our queen."
"I'm not your—" Sol's voice cracked. "I'm not—"
She couldn't say it.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how desperately she wanted to deny this madness, the words simply would not form.
"Dragons cannot lie," Korin’s gaze locked with his brother's. "Not even to themselves. Not even when they wish to. She cannot deny what she is because she is exactly what I said. Our mate. Our queen. The one we have waited centuries to find."
Pyrran stared at Sol.
The silence stretched like a held breath.
And then, slowly, terribly, the massive dragon began to move.
Water cascaded from his body as he rose from the lake. His wings—vast, leathery, and edged with silver—unfurled from his back with a sound like thunder. His claws—each one longer than Sol's arm—sank into the rock at the water's edge.
Oh no.
He was even more magnificent than Korin.
And far more terrifying.
But it wasn't just his eyes or his size that Sol noticed.
Between his hind legs exposed an enormous dragon love sword.
Thick as a temple column and much longer than she was tall, it jutted from his body with obvious, angry arousal.
The shaft was ridged with scales that shifted from black to silver, and the massive, mushroomed head glistened with silver drops of liquid that dripped to the ground in front of him.
Korin spotted his brother’s love sword too, and a loud laugh rumbled from him. "You may question whether she is a witch, brother, but your body clearly knows she is your mate."
Pyrran's growl shook the cavern walls. His silver eyes blazed with fury—at her, at himself, at the undeniable evidence of his own desire. But even as he snarled, more of that silver essence leaked from his love sword’s bulbous tip. "Silence."
"Your cock speaks louder than your doubt." Korin's voice carried that infuriating amusement. "Look at your cock dripping for her like a hatchling in his first rut. When was the last time you were this hard, brother? A century? Two?"
Pyrran roared.
Sol shivered.
Korin laughed even more.
"Come." Pyrran remained at the edge of the lake. "If you are truly what my brother claims. . .then you will meet me. You will let me see you. Smell you. Know you."
Sol couldn't move.
Her legs had turned to stone. Her heart hammered so violently she could taste copper on her tongue. Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to run, to hide, to flee back through that doorway and never return.
But Korin's hand pressed gently against her back. "Go to him. He needs this. We both do."
"I can't—"
"You can. You are a dragon, little one. You are stronger than you know."
Sol took one step.
Then another.
The rock was warm beneath her bare feet. Gold coins crunched softly with each step. Steam curled around her ankles as she approached the water's edge, where Pyrran waited with those terrible silver eyes.
She stopped three feet away from him.
His head lowered, bringing his face close to hers. Close enough that she could see every scale. Every scar. Every ancient line carved into his obsidian hide.
He inhaled.
Sol trembled as his breath washed over her—cold somehow, despite the heat of this place.
It pulled at her hair, her skin, her very soul.
The force of it tugged at her nipples, hardening them to aching peaks.
It slid between her thighs like ghostly fingers, and she felt herself clench around nothing, desperate, empty, and wanting.
She was dripping wet between her thighs.
She could feel it now—the slick heat gathering at her core, her body preparing itself for something her mind still rejected.
The evidence of her arousal would be obvious to him. Surely dragons could smell everything. He would smell how much she wanted him. How much she wanted both of them.
Why is this happening to me?
Pyrran's growl deepened to something almost pained. His massive love sword twitched. This time a stream of silver spilled from the tip to pool on the ground beneath him.
And beneath the terror, beneath the ice of his breath and the weight of his doubt, Sol felt his heated desire.
An erotic pull.
A tempting recognition.
Her body—still warm, still aching from whatever strange fire Korin had awakened—leaned toward Pyrran too even as her mind screamed to flee.
Another dark groan left the dragon. And then something flickered in those silver eyes.
Recognition.
Hunger.
Need.
"Brother," Pyrran breathed. "She. . .smells like a dragon."
"Yes, brother. I know."
"But how could her egg have survived?"
"Does it matter?" Korin remained further behind them as if trying to give his brother and Sol space to connect. "She is here. She is ours. After all these centuries of believing we were the last. . .we have found our mate."
Pyrran's massive form shuddered.
For one breathless moment, Sol thought he might transform—might shed his scales and become a man as Korin had done. She saw the hunger in his eyes, the desperate, starving need of a creature who had waited lifetimes for something he had believed impossible.
But then his expression shifted.
Hardened.
Turned cold.
"I do not want to put my hopes in this." Those words cracked through the cavern like a whip.
Korin’s voice lowered. "Brother—"
"I do not want to be fooled." Pyrran's voice had turned to ice. "I will not fall for another witch's trick. Korin, I will not lose you to their deceptions as we lost so many others."
"She is a dragon—"
"Then let her prove it!"
Before Sol could react, Pyrran moved.
Fast.
Blurring toward her.
His jaws opened wide—revealing fangs like ivory towers, a throat that glowed faintly with silver fire—and then he had her.
"Ahhh!!!" Sol screamed as Pyrran's mouth grabbed her and those sharp teeth closed around her body.
The pressure was immediate and overwhelming—not piercing, but caging. His fangs pressed against her ribs, her hips, the soft flesh of her thighs. Each tooth was longer than her forearm, smooth as polished bone, and warm from the heat of his mouth.
She could feel his tongue beneath her—massive, wet velvet, and alive.
It shifted against her bare skin, adjusting her position like she was nothing more than a morsel to be savored.
The texture dragged across her breasts, her belly, the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs.
And then—intentionally or not—the tip of his tongue pressed between her legs.
Sol gasped. “Oh!!”
The pressure was brief but devastating. Hot, wet muscle sliding against her most sensitive flesh, tasting her arousal, feeling how slick she'd become. “Oh!!”
Her hips jerked involuntarily, grinding against that velvety wet tongue before she could stop herself.
Pyrran groaned again—a sound of tortured pleasure that vibrated through his entire jaw and straight into her core.
He had tasted her.
Truly tasted her.
And from the way his body shuddered, from the fresh spill of silver she glimpsed dripping from between his hind legs, he had liked it.
Then, his breath surrounded her in humid waves, carrying that scent of black violet and roses. The inside of his mouth glowed faintly silver, illuminating the ridged roof above her, the glistening walls of scale and flesh.
He could crush her. She knew this with absolute certainty. One flex of his jaw and her bones would splinter like dry twigs. One swallow and she would disappear into the furnace of his belly.
But he didn't bite down.
Instead, Pyrran began to take her away.
"brOTHER, NO!" Korin's roar shook the cavern. She heard him transforming behind her—the crack of bone, the hiss of scale—but it was too late.
Pyrran was already moving with her captured in his jaw.
His wings beat once, twice, and then the world tilted violently as he launched himself into the air, taking her with him.
No! No! No!
Wind screamed past Sol's ears. They rose so fast that the golden lake shrank below them. The walls of the cavern blurred into streaks of black and crystal.
Higher!
Higher!
Sol couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.
Could only scream as Pyrran carried her up through that terrible opening in the mountain's peak—through the heat and the glow.
And then they burst free.
The sky exploded around them.
OH GODS NO!!!!!!!
Sol gasped as cold air slammed into her body. Above her stretched an endless expanse of blue—so bright, so vast, so open that her mind couldn't process it.
And below. . .
Dear Goddess!!
Below her lay a chain of mountains unlike anything she had ever seen.
They rose from the ocean like the spines of sleeping giants—dozens of them, all carved hollow, all connected by bridges of black stone and rivers of gold.
Towers jutted from their peaks. Courtyards sprawled across their slopes. This wasn't just a lair.
It was a kingdom.
A dragon kingdom.
Built into the bones of the earth itself.
But Sol barely had time to marvel before Pyrran climbed higher.
Higher!
The air grew thin.
Cold.
Her lungs burned.
The mountains shrank to toys, to pebbles, to nothing. The ocean became a silver mirror. The clouds approached like a floor of white silk.
She could hear Korin roaring somewhere far below—a desperate, furious sound—but it grew fainter with every wingbeat.
With her still trapped in his jaw, Pyrran burst through more clouds.
And suddenly, Sol was floating above the world.
Nothing below but white. Nothing above but dark blue. The sun burned like a distant god, and she was so high that the curve of the planet seemed visible at the edges of her vision.
She couldn't breathe correctly.
Couldn't think.
Could only feel the terrible grip of Pyrran's jaws and the weight of gravity waiting below.
And then. . . Pyrran opened his mouth and tossed her in the air.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sol screamed as she tumbled free, her body spinning through the frozen air.
Her stomach plummeted before the rest of her did—that sickening lurch of gravity claiming her, yanking her insides upward while the world rushed down.
Her hair whipped violently above her head, a wild black halo against the endless blue.
The cold seared her naked skin like a thousand tiny blades, burning where it should have frozen.
Tears ripped sideways from her eyes, stolen by the wind before they could fall.
For one heartbeat, she saw Pyrran's silver eyes watching her from above—cold, calculating, and utterly without mercy. His voice followed her down. "If you are truly a dragon, then surely, you can fly?"
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
And then he laughed.
The sound was nothing like Korin's warm rumble. This laugh was cruel and crystalline, sharp as shattering ice, echoing off the clouds themselves as if the sky had learned to mock her. It rang in her ears long after it should have faded—cold, ancient, and utterly without pity.
The sound chased her as she fell.
Fell through the clouds.
Fell through the sky.
Fell toward the ocean, the mountains, and death itself.
Sol screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.