Chapter 27 Burn
BURN
My drakes’ and my bones thunder with battle-drums, as the music from the Sanctum of Mystery inundates us.
Our blood boils from the clarity of war-horns blaring through them, lighting us up from the inside out.
It’s an impossible symphony, full of power and love as we draw together now, mouths kissing as tongues lick and bodies touch.
Someone bites my nape, and I recognize Bjorn’s strong dominance, as someone else bites my shoulder, the gentle firmness of Baldur. Strom’s singing ceases as he kisses me; but that sound is inside us all now, rushing like a cyclone around the space.
It goes higher with each moan we make. As Mikkel slips his fingers inside me, I gasp, and that gasp echoes a brilliant resonance through us all, making everyone cry out.
This music of love building between us is too much; hands are everywhere already, gripping and stroking, pushing and sliding, making us writhe as a group as we touch each other and shake.
Bjorn scoops me up into a straddle around his strong waist now.
As he sinks into me, heaving me down upon himself with his big hands, Strom wrangles Mikkel, seizing him by the hair and thrusting into him from behind.
Mikkel and I both cry out as Baldur goes to his knees, taking Mikkel into his mouth.
We fuck, we heave and rut like wild animals now, as the sounds of our lovemaking roar around the space. That sighing, screaming, elevated music is everywhere now, pouring all through my blood and bones, throughout my entire body, as we take each other and are taken, at once.
As Bjorn pounds into me, and Strom takes Mikkel, while Baldur does Mikkel, too, our roaring voices become one. We’re united in this incredible space, as Strom switches with Bjorn, cleansing himself with a quick wave of his hand, then seizing me in his arms and fucking me next.
Bjorn goes to Baldur now as Mikkel and Baldur switch. Bjorn takes Baldur in a way that has Baldur roaring with delight as his cosmic light unites with Bjorn’s, blazing in a firestorm through us all.
Mikkel is down on his knees now, sucking Baldur’s cock as Bjorn takes Baldur and Strom takes me. Everyone shines with an impossibly bright light, and that light illuminates us as the music roars.
Every-color sigils cascade through our bodies now, as we celebrate being one. That majesty fills us, bursting from us in towering waves of auric fire as it goes rushing around the glade to the power of our music, and fucking.
As Mikkel takes me now, and Baldur switches with Bjorn, taking him instead, Strom comes to my back. As Strom sinks into me from behind, him and Mikkel holding me up between them as they do me in tandem, a roaring wildfire takes me.
And as Bjorn snarls and hauls Mikkel away, thrusting himself deep into me as Strom takes my ass, something about that energy is just so perfect. Mikkel takes Baldur now, as heat cascades through us all in the most towering wildfire I’ve ever felt.
All my drakes’ scents inundate me, pouring into me in a whitewater river of burning brimstone, peat whiskey, exotic bitters, and sunlit paint as our wildfire explodes us up together into the cosmos.
I feel it as we enter the Void, as one. We’ve found the place where my power becomes theirs and theirs becomes mine.
All my drakes’ abilities rush through me now, a part of me, completely.
As my Bloodwalker power becomes theirs, finally—forever.
Something combusts between us, then—an immense tightening of our Ouroboros, far out in the endless skies. Like a reverse bomb, it sucks us together so tight we fall into a writhing heap upon the cracked flagstones, crushing the field flowers as we roar and rut all together.
We no longer care who does whom, or in what way, as we take each other in a writhing, rutting, animal group now, switching and switching again. We’re in twos, then threes, then back to a group, as none of it makes sense anymore.
Our wild fucking makes our Ouroboros crash together harder, tighter, into that infinitesimal, pinpoint dot. As Bjorn and Strom make it back to me, taking me together again, as Mikkel takes Baldur and I have my lips locked around Baldur’s cock, I feel that true unity pour through me in a tirade.
I scream as I cry out in an endless, passionate love to the universe, as all my drakes’ hands touch me all at once now, while we fuck.
My power rushes through us completely now; like roaring lightning, my inner Blood and Bone magics have united so hard they’ve smelted into one burning dragon of light, unstoppable.
As my drakes and even Laerke scream now, feeling what I’m feeling through our bond, we all roar to the ancient skies with the power of love we’ve found.
That endless brightness explodes through all of us, as we suddenly come—joining our entire Bloodbond to each other in a massive endlessness of love.
We’re all Bloodwalkers now, as all our powers flow through every other, unlocked for each other’s use. As we hit that pinnacle, I feel that those powers will never go back home again.
We’ve hit some kind of ultra-massive unity, where everything we are is now shared between every other. My Bloodwalker power is shared, as well; I feel how each of my drakes is a Bloodwalker now, and will always be, even after this ritual ends.
As all our powers amalgamate with that endless, universe-expanding, explosive high, I feel us get thrust into a vast vision together. United forever now, our five Bloodwalker auras hone in on something important happening far back down upon the earth.
Even as we remain in the Sanctum, our auric bodies are thrust right back down into the black cavern of the Rift, just as they were a few times now when we’ve been brought out into the stars all together like this.
Just as before, we see Lithava getting it on with her drakes, as they complete the last part of Hedda’s second ceremony with the Black Dragon.
King Huttr’s limp form lies off to one side, and I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive.
I watch Lithava and her drakes hit their climax, Hedda’s black soul boiling up out of Lithava’s ring as it abandons her completely now, and dives into her beast.
But as Hedda’s ruined soul returns to her creature at last, Lithava and her drakes suddenly cannot access Hedda and her mates’ power anymore. The Black Dragon roars in insane torment now as Hedda’s malevolent spirit becomes one with it.
Devoured by its own insanity, the Usurper bashes its head against the cavern walls, unhinged. Flailing, the Black Dragon demolishes columns as even more of the broken ceiling comes caving down.
The creature has achieved its complete power now—and its complete madness—as it roars its heart-stopping curses everywhere, just like it did in the battle of Stockholm.
As I watch, I understand that returning the Black Dragon Five to it has given the creature full access to the hundreds of thousands of souls trapped inside it now.
And full access to their insanity, as they scream inside its diabolical Void; as the Black Dragon bursts with ruinous dark fire in a roaring cyclone, filling the cavern, Lithava and her drakes are endangered.
No longer channeling the power of Hedda and her drakes, they heave up a shield of black fire all around themselves, to protect their exhausted human bodies from the Black Dragon’s devastation.
But there is no protecting anyone from this. The Usurper goes wild now, swinging its head like a battering ram and roaring in utter insanity now inside its cyclone of power.
I watch in horror as Lithava and her drakes’ small shield gets hit square-on by the creature’s all-consuming roar. It shatters; there is no withstanding the Black Dragon’s fullest might, even for those who reawakened it.
As that blast makes black sigils spiral all through Lithava and her drakes now, it dives in to curse their hearts. I feel energy suddenly get hauled out of me in a riptide, then.
Me, and all my drakes.
Power is torn out of us in an ocean of insanity now, as we fall out of the cosmos. My drakes and I plummet back into our bodies, writhing and gasping upon the cracked flagstones. We roar, not in bliss now from what’s happening, but in utter agony from how terribly we’re all being drained.
Because we still wear our silver rings from Aesa, resonating with the black. And Hedda’s rings are draining us to death now, as they resonate with the ones we’re wearing.
The Two Rings, ever the unmaker of such high-level magics.
Laerke is the only one who does not wear a ring. She heaves in now, ripping Aesa’s silver rings from our fingers as we fight to stop being drained to death by how hard the black rings have pulled from us, to keep Lithava and her drakes alive.
I gasp as my ring is liberated. I can think again, breathe again, as Laerke rushes to get Strom’s next.
But our mistake in waiting too long to get rid of our rings has been made.
We’ve been drained nearly to death to keep Lithava and her drakes alive after the Usurper’s heart-curse hit them, thanks to the Two Rings’ resonance.
All our power with our Bloodwalking ritual snapped out.
As we gasp and writhe upon the stones, in torturous pain from what’s happened, I hear braying laughter crash through my mind. It’s Hedda’s, coming from the Black Dragon’s Void, to which I am still somewhat tethered, as I hear her now laughing at us.
She’s laughing at the vast mistake we made, keeping those rings on to unite our Bloodbond, while avoiding the truth. The truth that we’ve not just been protecting ourselves with them, but protecting our enemies, too.
And have resurrected our enemies now, keeping them alive when they would have perished from the Black Dragon’s blast.
Laughing at us, Hedda’s thoughts are crystal clear as they reach me now from within the beast.