Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
E’kili
I’ll never get enough of such a delicious woman cumming on my fingers, twice.
My body reacts to hers, and juices drip from my thighs.
Golden light makes her red hair appear in flames.
I exchange our mana when we kiss. Her lips are healing, saving, comforting.
I thought I dreamed her, imagined her, how did my heart escape from my chest and seek refuge in hers.
After 200 years, I’ve found my heart song, my mate. And I would tear down a thousand isles, burn them to ash, just for one taste.
“Touch me,” she commands soft and breathy.
I lift her without hesitation and lay her gently into blankets. The hum of mana pulsates between us. It smells of ba’lati berries, sweet with a hint of spice. This is the strongest I’ve felt the dragon’s heart since I was thrust into the sea and forced to evolve in the great depths.
Her hips buck underneath my fingers. Her legs widen, the scent between her thighs wafting to my nose. Jasmine.
I need to taste.
Show her my gratitude for being saved by her kiss. I plant kisses down the length of her torso until my tongue greets the inside of her thighs, then her folds. She moans loudly, her hips thrusting to meet me greedily. Urging me to give her what she–I crave.
“Yes, right there.” Her back arches, her legs are shaking, her fingers thread through my hair. She pulls her body away from me as if she’s had enough.
“Oh, no. You will have enough when I say you’ve had enough.”
I wrap my hands around thick thighs, yank her into me, eat her like I’m savoring every piece of deliciously juicy tender loin.
She screams out.
That’s right, my heart song. Sing for me, as loud as you want.
No one will silence you here. I’m so slick with want.
I cum from hearing her moan. Once I’m done, I crawl on top of her.
What a beautiful mouth. She sits up, licks her cum from my lips.
Her tongue eagerly takes mine. She’s starved for touch.
I’ll fix that. Make sure her body remembers me even when we’re apart.
I don’t know how long we lie intertwined when we’re done.
She falls asleep in my arms from exhaustion.
I study her; the runes on her skin are like mine, but there aren't many. A few on her wrist and arms, the majority is on her back. It is as if the blood of the dragon has thinned. I wasn’t sure at first, I thought her runes may be a trick, painted on, but when I stripped her of her clothes, saw her body before me, I knew she was one of us.
When our people grew fins, there were only a few more sisters who came after us.
Then there was silence. We waited for more, years went by, and we thought the elders had delivered the last of our sisters to us—the ones that were still alive.
Ships attempted to leave the shore, but our sisters prevented any ships from ever leaving or coming.
We did this because we knew, one day, when we regained our strength, we would take our island back. Or at least, men would die on foreign soil, and we would crush their bones to ash.
The land and the sea fought. We grew, fought, and grew some more, died some more.
A circle of blood shed, of tears, and grief.
But the longer my sisters and I stayed away from the land, our mana began to weaken, the island turned brown, our numbers dwindled until there were only a couple of thousand left.
And even still, we have only witnessed the men. We were under the impression that maybe the spell of the dragon’s heart did something to them, too. Made them immortal somehow, slowed their aging down, like us. Why didn’t it ever occur to the remaining elders that some of our sisters lived?
Mated.
Had babes by these monsters.
I would rather have died.
She—I drag a finger over brown skin, her chest rises in falls, her nipples hard even as she sleeps—can’t be a monster. She has dragon blood; she is favored by the moon. She is someone that I never thought I would have.
Even Ooki and I couldn’t love through war. We instead became shells. Hollow drifters in the reefs, only stealing away to satisfy our most primal needs, to seek comfort with each other, becoming bodies, watching the other die slowly, pretending we somehow still existed.
We didn’t.
I will miss her fiercely, my once lover and forever friend.
And now I hold the greatest gift I could ask the moon for, my heart song. I swipe curly red hair from her face. How many other sisters walk the land? Why didn’t they come to us? I need to know what has happened to them. Centuries on land with beasts, how has it changed them?
The elder’s plan is to show no mercy. Get the dragon’s heart, bring it to the high elder, and the high elder will carry the dragon within her, use it to destroy them all.
But that can not happen. Our sisters still walk the land; this is their home, too.
We can not move forward until we know how many have survived.
How many are with us? How many will betray us?
My heart song shifts, snuggles up to my chest. I listen to her heart thrum and know I will protect her.
We must destroy the men — no — I must destroy the werewolves.
I don’t know how many live in secret, or do they walk in plain sight?
How many are there? I must reassess. Slaughtering the invaders has slightly changed.
We must save our remaining sisters, if they want to be saved.
I push my thoughts aside, tuck my song in my arms, and hold her. I listen to her breath, take in her jasmine smell, and allow myself to pretend the world doesn’t exist. Only us, only this moment — I run a finger down the length of her arm — only this touch.
She jerks awake, gasping.
I instinctively reach for my dagger at my side, realize it isn’t there, and quickly search the room, drowned in darkness.
She pulls the blanket over her body. Her eyes meet mine.
Why is she hiding under fabric? Does she feel safer that way?
I rub the grogginess out of my eyes and yawn.
I stretch too wide, my belly aches, and I brush fingers across a patch of cloth covering my wound.
“Oh, my God, forgive me. I’m so, so sorry,” she says, scrambling out of bed, searching for her clothes haphazardly thrown across the floor.
I wonder what she is apologizing for.
“Ouch!” She hits a wooden desk next to the bed.
I hear a few strikes against what sounds like bark, a little flame sparks in her hands.
She takes that flame and lights two torches on the walls.
She finds her dress, slides it on. I mourn.
The curves of her body are now hidden again under heavy black fabric.
How tragic.
“Can I help?” I ask, saddened she speaks the invaders’ tongue, and that I know it well enough for their words to replace my own.
“How—” she pauses, sliding on her gloves. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She bows repeatedly.
“I don’t know why you’re sorry. You did nothing wrong. Did I hurt you?” I wonder why her mood has suddenly changed. We have bonded; we share power. We’re safer together than separate. What is the wrong in that?
“No, I’m not hurt,” her voice trembles worse than before. “I lost track of time. This isn’t supposed to happen. I should know better.” She slides on her gloves. “This is sin, this isn’t of God. I need to believe harder,” she whispers as if she’s cursing herself.
Believe harder in what? I stop in confusion. I don’t understand this sin she speaks of, or this god she’s referring to. The way she’s using it, it seems a negative thing.
“Sin?” I search my memory for the word. How does coming into my mouth as many times as a body could allow equate to wrong? What god would not like to be worshipped in this way?
“Commandment six: Remain chaste, your sex only belonging to God,” she squeezes herself, and I rise from the bed to hold her in my arms.
She steps back, holding out her palm, stopping me in my tracks. Torch light flickers across her face, highlighting the worry—no—fear, I see in her eyes.
Who has made my heart song afraid? Is it this god? This sin she speaks of?
I tilt my head. I’m angry at this god.
“Your god is selfish,” I say.
“No. It’s—I have to … it's my duty to keep myself clean. I belong to God.” She takes more fabric, a cape of some sort, and throws it around her shoulders, and ties the ribbon around her neck.
“You belong to no gods.” I shake my head. “No man. No werewolves. Only self.”
“Werewolves?” Now she’s tilting her head in confusion.
“Yes,” I correct. “Beast wearing the flesh of men. Are they not among you?”
She goes quiet. Her lips quiver.
“How many werewolves are among you? How many sisters are left? Are you safe?” I say, unable to hold back the questions pouring from my tongue. I want her to be okay. I need to know how I can get her away from the invaders. We can use our mana and unseal the dragon’s heart together.
“Who are you?” She steps backward.
I pat my chest. “E’kili.” I also take a step back until I hit the bed. I sit to give her space.
“Where do you come from?”
I point to the walls. “The sea.”
She sucks in air. The candlelight flickers on her skin, highlighting round brown eyes.
“You’re a sea creature?”
“I’m no creature.” I fold my arms, cross my legs, wiggle toes I haven’t seen for centuries.
She balls the fabric of her clothes into a fist. “I-I got to go.”
“Why?” I want to stop her, but I think better of it. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want to be alone in this temple. “You are my sister,” I say.
“Sister?” she scoffs. “I don’t know where you’re from, but we don’t have…have—” her cheeks puff out like a puffer fish.
“Sex?” I remember that word the most. Every sister wanted sex with the werewolf each night. My stomach turns. No, what we did wasn’t sex. It was something deep and eternal. “Bond,” I correct.
She let the words die on her lips. “We don’t bond with sisters,” she says.
I try to understand her meaning. “Oh, no. Sisters are not saying we are born of the same mutah, but that we share the dragon’s blood.”
“Dragon’s blood?” she whispers, her head shaking as if she doesn’t understand a word I’m speaking. Did her mutahs not teach her our language? Our traditions? Did she not remember her blood? Our history? It’s only been two hundred years; how lost can our sisters be?
I nod, willing myself the strength to glow for her. I channel my runes, the gold brightening the walls. “You have dragon’s blood too. The runes,” I say.
She grips her wrist. “No, no, no, no.”
She’s further away now, her body pressed against the wall as if she wants to squeeze in between the cracks. I stop channeling, let my light die. The candle flickers, then stabilizes.
“I really have to go,” she shuffles to the door.
“Wait.” I jump from the bed, a slight tear cuts through my belly from the sudden movement. “What’s your name?”
She pulls her red hair in a ponytail, caging the coils, and pins yet another piece of fabric into her hair, pulling the veil over her face like a shield.
“Thessia,” she whispers.
“You come again?” I desperately ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Plee’sa.”
She didn’t speak. She wraps her arms tight around herself and briskly rushes out the door.
Thank you for reading the insert for Blessed Be the Fall.
If you’d like to follow along and read the full manuscript, please visit my future works at