Chapter 3
Carwyn had always been a light sleeper.
A pat on the head from her mother as a child could jerk her awake, as skin upon skin jarred her with emotions that were sometimes better left unshared.
Then there were the nightmares instilled in her from a young age after her sister, Aldora, was taken from their nearby town by dark witches. She and Valerie had come too late to save her body from abuse and pain, but just in time to save her from a sacrificial death.
Her nightmares involved her being the one upon the sacrificial slab, with men and women leering at her body as she wept, and her travels had only exacerbated her fear.
Now, any noise could rouse her, no matter if it was as quiet as a mouse. So all it took this time was a huff of hot breath whispering over her.
When her eyes flew open and she swiftly sat up, the dying campfire she lay huddled next to did little to illuminate the world around her. It did, however, inform her that it was not the dimness of night that blocked her vision.
The orange flames flickered as they licked at her firewood, glinting off sharp-edged black scales that appeared deeper than the darkest shade of ink.
Carwyn sucked in a frightened gasp and slapped her hands on the ground behind her before scrambling back a short distance.
Blocking out the moon, the stars, and the beauty that was the navy sky, a hulking creature with two huge ruby-red eyes leered down at her from several metres above.
The pupils, slitted downwards like a snake’s, flared and then narrowed into tight pinstripes in obvious hate.
A dragon? she thought, unable to tear her eyes off the frightfully magnificent being towering over her on all fours.
Her camp was situated against a rock cliff that aided in shielding the wind. There were few trees here, but the colossal intruder had managed to curl their tail around a couple.
She didn’t know what to do. Any movement could be misconstrued as an attack from her side, and she’d never harm one of their kind. She was awestruck, frozen in place. She never thought she’d see a dragon, let alone be given this momentous chance at meeting one.
“What do you want?” she whispered, never breaking their gaze. “I mean you no harm.”
Although she was uncertain whether she was safe herself or not.
Did I wander into their territory? If so, why had they never attacked Valerie during her travels through here? Did I go off the path? No, this spot was one that had a marker to show it was correct and, supposedly, safe.
Scaled lips twitched before sharp white fangs peeked through the gap of their mouth as they sneered.
“You killed my prey,” he answered, his voice deep, booming, and mingled with a stomach-tightening growl.
She found it disconcertingly pleasant.
Her brows came together in her confusion over what he meant. She hadn’t hunted for her meal this night, as she’d obtained fresh ingredients from the village.
The only things she’d killed this day were...
Before she could truly put it together, he lifted a paw and shoved it down on her entire body. Her arms collapsed under his mighty weight, and she was too slow to react. Her scream was cut short when he crushed her against her bedding and the ground.
She fought him, shoving up on his nimble digits uselessly. But his smallest one – his pinkie? – was the size of one of her legs. She had no strength or leverage to free herself, and no ability to reach for her satchel or weapons.
Once she was pinned, he lowered himself, twisting as he did to get closer. Then he was right above her and entirely blocking out the world, the fiery redness of his eyes giving her a bone-chilling shiver.
“So you will have to do.”
He snapped his giant, clawed fist around her, plucking her from the ground, and squeezed. She felt weightless as her limbs slid across hard dirt and rocks.
“Wait!” she rasped, before her lungs compressed under the pressure.
Oh gods. Dear heavens. Please wait!
She fought for breath, sucking in barely a sip’s worth of air, and on her exhale he squeezed her even more.
Tighter and tighter until her chest was forced still, until black dots swirled in her vision, mixing in with the depth of his scales.
Until she feared he’d break her ribcage and pierce her heart and lungs with her own bones.
Until her eyes rolled back and unconsciousness frolicked at the edges of her vision, gradually taking hold.
Oh blasted. This wasn’t how she envisioned the end of her journey, nor her life.
“Blast this day,” Kier growled, landing on wet, cold stone an hour later.
He shook his body of excess rainwater, his large wings and tail jiggling with the force of it, then he stepped deeper within his cliffside cave.
The ocean many metres below the entrance frothed and gurgled with cloudy, grey waters, the sediment of the storm discolouring it into one of his favourite shades.
He enjoyed the melodic, often calming rhythm of the waves crashing against the cliff wall – and how difficult it was for someone to enter his home without wings. But the rain had been unpleasant as he’d flown into it, pelting against his scales and weighing him down during his flight.
He was also just angry, blowing out a larger ball of fire than necessary, and it split apart to light multiple wall sconces. The flame moved with him, bouncing from lit to unlit torch as shadows followed his steps and light greeted him.
“A white witch,” he complained, unceremoniously settling his captive on a bed of straw in the main area that he often used to lie down on. “Will she be able to do what I need? Only the gods know.”
In dragon form, small and hidden, Kier had waited for witches to make themselves known while he was in Coldbourne, a town about an hour’s flight from his home. He’d approached her in human form to know if she would be useful, but he’d disregarded her due to her pure magic scent.
For three days, dark witches had been absent, many refusing to travel in these colder months – just when he needed them to crawl about like the inhabitants of an anthill that couldn’t be eradicated.
“Just as some dark witches turn up”—he bared his teeth, turning to the female with a lethal, fiery glare, and pointed a sharp claw at her unconscious form—“you fucking kill them. You. Some kind of master with a sword and bow, and your weak, pure magic. You bested three on your own.”
Although he could appreciate great marksmanship when he saw it, she’d been an irksome pest!
He’d been planning to corner them while they slept and simply pluck them from their resting places and squeeze them like he had her. Two or three heads were better than one, and it may have elicited a faster result.
“It would’ve been better if you’d let them kill you,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Now I’m out of time and you will have to suffice.”
Kier approached the woman sprawled on his lounging straw and bumped her with the back of his claw. She jostled to the side but remained limp.
“Wake up, foul creature,” he commanded. “You may rest once you’re dead.”
She didn’t stir.
“I said, wake up!” he roared.
She didn’t open her eyes. They didn’t even flicker at his loudness.
His scaled lips tightened as his spiked brows drew together. Then he rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me I killed her already.”
Shrinking to a more compatible size with her, he sneered in disgust at having to touch her when he laid the side of his head between her ample breasts. A tiny heart fluttered and small lungs drew breath.
Okay. She breathes. Then what seems to be the problem?
He prodded her chest a little.
“Nothing appears broken.” Her ribs were solidly in place and accounted for.
When he poked the side of a breast just to make sure, she gasped, sat up – incidentally knocking him out of the way – and swung out wildly with her fisted hand.
She bashed the top of his head, sending it hurtling down into the top of her upright knee.
His jaw snapped shut, then he let out a bellowing roar of anguish.
She made me bite my tongue! His own blood coated the wounded appendage. How dare she make one such as I bleed! If he didn’t need her so badly, he might’ve ripped her head from her shoulders for the audacity of doing so!
Her long eyelashes fluttered at the roar he produced, and her complexion grew ashen. Her eyes were dark, like onyx, and they grew wide as she backed up on her arse.
“What were you doing to me?” she yelled, covering her chest with both arms. “You pervert!”
“Checking if you were wounded,” he retorted, smacking his tongue within his mouth to rid himself of the coppery taste. His head snapped back. “Did you just call me a pervert?”
“After fondling my breasts?!” she shrieked. “What else should I call you then?!”
He rolled his eyes so hard they fluttered in disbelief. “Fondling? Heavens, witch, the last chest I want to fondle is one of your kind’s.”
He glowered when she didn’t appear convinced, but she didn’t respond as her gaze scanned the area. Her dishevelled appearance from being flown across the sky somehow became wearier at the grey sandstone walls of his home.
“Am I in your lair?” she asked, before squinting into the dimness the sparse firelight provided.
“No. You are at the bottom of the sea,” he answered in irritation. “Of course it’s my lair.”
Like her fear had been swallowed up, her eyes narrowed into a glare, which landed on his face.
She tsked. “What a sarcastic dragon you are,” she answered snidely, swiping back tousled curls that had fallen from her braid. “Yes, I can see it’s your lair, but I wanted to double-check because I’d barely call this empty hovel a home.”
Empty?! He spun his head around, intending to show her the beauty of his home – only to remember that this was his quiet place.
A spot in his lair that was close enough to hear the ocean, and empty of décor to ensure there were no distractions.
Also, to reduce potential theft from his fellow dragonkin, like the female below the sea waves who liked to come pester him out of boredom.
This was his entry room, if anything.
He turned his gaze to her, just as she was getting to her feet. “Don’t speak to me that way,” he demanded.
“Or what?” she bit back with a snarky tone. “You steal me from my resting place, when I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve obviously taken me captive and left behind my supplies.” Then her expression fell as her voice lowered to a mutter. “I need my gloves.”
“Your bag is right there,” he argued, pointing to the satchel just behind her.
She spun to it, snatched it from the ground, and immediately went through it. Then she nodded, seemingly pleased with the contents, and gave Kier her attention once more. Curling her fist around the strap, she placed her hands on her hips.
“Now pray tell, why have you taken me?”
He slitted his eyes. Deciding that he didn’t like how she stood over him, he mentally muttered the incantation that would bring him back to his true size. Rather than be afraid, she cocked a brow as she watched him grow taller and larger, as if she found it irksome.
She gave him singular snort of mocking laughter.
Why? He didn’t know, nor care.
His voice lifted in tone as he pointed a claw at her. “I think you are forgetting, witch, that you’re in the presence of a dragon. One that sees little issue in crushing your puny bones properly next time.”
The diminutive female stamped her foot. “Get to the point, oh great and mighty dragon!” She gestured towards the ground with both hands.
“If it helps, I will kneel and bow to you! But I’d like to be returned to my resting place soon.
As I explained before, I have done nothing wrong to you or your kind.
Unless you are lacking in intelligence and the might of dragoncraft to see that I only cast white magic! ”
Her impudent tone and words were enraging, and Kier mustered every shred of willpower to halt himself from burning her to a crisp where she stood.
It’d incinerate his straw lounge, and he didn’t much like carting straw around.
The pieces broke apart in his grasp as he travelled through the sky and often made him sneeze when disturbed.
He also needed her.
Patience, Kier. His eyes closed as he drew in a calming breath, then let it out as he opened them once more. You surely won’t need to deal with her long.
“Fine,” he bit out, darting his hand out to her. “I will show you why I have brought you here.”
The witch screamed when he grabbed her entire leg and lifted her off the ground to hang upside down – only because he could. To show her that he was large and she was tiny, that he was strong in form and she was easily crushable.
“Put me down!” she screamed, shoving the multiple layers of her dress back over her thighs to stop him from seeing anything he didn’t wish to see anyway.
Kier shook her, jolting her body back and forth until she grew too dizzy to speak. Her head lolled as her eyes grew dazed, and she ceased that pestering back chatter.
“You’re my captive,” he told her, walking deeper into his lair. “You’ll do as I demand, or I’ll find horrible ways to torture you until you do – and then I might give you the mercy of a quick death. I also might not.”
He entered one of the first hand-carved alcoves he hadn’t shaped with his very own claws. He plopped her onto the hard, stone ground, albeit not from too high, as he didn’t wish to truly injure her. Just knock her around a bit.
She took a moment to recover, her face flushed from the blood having rushed to it, then her eyes regained focus. They cut to him.
“And what is it you want?” she asked, rolling onto her hands and knees before lifting her head and turning it to the right to look upon him in the entryway.
“The length of your life will be dictated by hers.” Kier nodded his snout to the one he spoke of. “If she dies, you will perish alongside her.”
The witch turned her head the other way. He couldn’t see her expression, not with his view of the back of her head, but her gasp was loud enough to echo within the small alcove.
Kier shifted his gaze to the naked female who lay upon a healing altar with a blanket of furs covering her.
Her lips were cracked, pale, and nearly blue, and her skin lacked the true warmth of the light tan that should be there.
Even her black hair, long and pooling around her head, appeared duller than normal.
His heart stirred with both worry and pity for her, and the cold pang of it settled deep within the pit of his belly.
How dare a strong and mighty dragon be reduced to such a state?
And how pathetic it was that he couldn’t save her.