Page 17 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Rorsyd

Venin recedes behind us.

Leaving so early was not our plan. Luckily, we bought supplies, clothes, and the horses yesterday.

A messenger bearing a warning from Hunder, banging on our door, woke us an hour before dawn. Enforcers are spreading out across Zardrake, bringing posters and stories of us with them. Staying longer is not worth the risk, even with the disguises. If this were simply me, I’d barely care.

But it is not just me, it is her…

In profile, she sits too stiffly, too high on the mare, not relaxed enough, but a few more days in the saddle may cure that. The tightness of her gray leggings across the tops of her thighs, her curves above, it’s too much stimulation for me, this early.

I’m smiling though, as I swipe across my mouth. If only I could fly us.

We could.

And risk being seen if I land near Langordin? I’ve already paid for new mounts.

Disguise or no disguise, her figure attracts me. I wonder if the effects are the same for her because she gave me hints that I looked plain. Being a dragonshifter I’m either immune to magik or it has a lesser effect. It could be that.

Two new horses carry us, a dun mare for Wyntre, a black gelding for me. I reach forward and rub between his ears. The traffic in and out of Venin is finally thinning, the last crowd of farmers with their carts piled with produce was five minutes ago. The land descends toward a thick belt of forest, after which it rises slowly into the hills to the north.

My gold satchel is lighter, and I feel the loss of every coin like a child has been snatched from me.

Then I see Wyntre, riding beside me, sharing this life, and I’m good.

Except…one day, no matter how we handle this Aos Sin affair, I know she will die. The lifespan of lesser fae is a hundred to a hundred and fifty, but her death will occur long before I die. If I ever die. I’d need to fall into a vat of acid or drink myself to death as I was once trying to.

Then I will be alone again. It will be a loneliness of an appalling depth I have never felt before. I’m unsure I can take that blow without disintegrating into dust, scales, and blood. How has this day turned sad?

I stare up the road.

A trio of men escorting a wagon piled with various boxes approaches, heading to Venin.

“Let’s sidle to the edge to let them get past.”

Wyntre nods and ambles her mare to where I wait, hands crossed on the pommel.

Men and wagon driver assess us as they trot by then keep going, clearly unimpressed and certain we aren’t a problem.

“The disguises are working. A pity we couldn’t stay in Venin longer?” I prompt Wyntre, teasing her.

“You know I hated that place.” She leans over to poke at my ribs with her black-gloved finger, and I catch her hand, kiss her knuckles.

At her scent, I bite back a groan. “Kissing you, smelling you…” I inhale loudly, making her laugh. “It’s my favorite hobby.”

You dirty old dragon.

My own thought shocks me. I am old, however. Old, but not normally lewd in thought. Only in the middle of sex.

And now we are.

That we has been slipping into my thoughts now and then.

Then I remember how she gave me permission to make love to her when I catch her asleep, if I feel so inclined. The last traces of sadness over the differences in our mortality lift, leaving only sunshine.

“Let’s rest and eat when we get through the forest.”

“And we can take off our crystals,” Wyntre says. “The forest looks dense.”

“It does. Once we reach Langordin, there will be few opportunities to be ourselves, unless in our rooms.”

“I know.” Her mouth twists with dismay. “I will miss seeing your hot dragonshifter body. You know I stare at your ass too?” Then she grins at me, for her words shock me. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you looking.”

When we get in the trees, we should fuck her against one.

What am I thinking? No! Though it would be fun.

“I noticed.” I’m lying just a little.

“ Hmmm .”

When the road enters the forest, I’ve lost impetus and choose not to do bad things to my girl necromancer. Though just imagining it is interesting. Another time. Travelers do ride or walk past us still.

“This place reminds me of the ambush.” She shudders. “Is there any way to detect one?”

“An ambush? No. Not of a certainty. We should be wary, but if anyone does try to attack, it won’t be due to your identity.”

“Most of the others are riding in large groups. Is that due to bandits, do you think?”

I nod, shift in the saddle. I’m watching for signs while we talk. Noises. Flashes of color. She’s put me on alert. We have three days of riding, and maybe I’m being too jumpy. I’m far stronger than anything we will encounter.

And I cannot shake this unease that has risen.

“Perhaps in the next town,” I suggest, “we can find someone to travel with. It is difficult to say who is trustworthy, however.”

We ride deeper into the forest. Thankfully, our only true companions seem to be our mounts, while the many creatures moving about are doing their normal creature business—eating, killing, reproducing, pecking at other creatures that steal their food, and making twittery songs.

It’s a relief when we ride around a curve in the road and see the country opening out ahead, the silhouette of a few low hills.

“Midday? Shall we stop here?” I’m dismounting as I ask that, but I guess I know her answer.

Wyntre also dismounts, and we lead the horses off the roadway. Go too far, and the trees close in, become too dense to take horses through. Although we remove our pendants, we keep them nearby as we eat and drink.

Profusions of tiny purple flowers hang from stems in clumps of clover. The grass here is sparse but we’re in the shade, shielded from others who ride by, and the horses love it. They’re already cropping at the grass.

The quiet shadows encourage peace, and Wyntre lies down after we finish eating, puts her head in my lap. I tussle her hair a little until she protests, then comb out the tangles.

This soothes her, and her eyes drift closed. With my back against a tree, I’m tempted to go to sleep for a while. I shouldn’t but…

Psst!

The noise startles me, and I’m jarred fully awake.

To see a blood hawk resting on a branch of a higher tree.

There is only one answer I have to this spying magik. Kill it quick or we will be discovered. I place Wyntre aside, hissing at her, “Wake! Alarm! Blood hawk. I must shift!” Then I sprint to the road.

Here, it must happen, though it may disrupt the trees. Wyntre has already fled further, dragging the horses as far as she can. The blood hawk has launched and flies above me, scanning me for life. If the mage that made it is aware, we are already undone.

With a roar, I reach inside for that other me, and I…

SHIFT.

Before I’m halfway through the change I feel the crack in this shifting, the errors, the failings.

Discarding the despair, the anger that I may be losing this again, discarding that sheer terror, I force myself through, feel my body draw on the etharum, the swell of my flesh.

The power surges, and my cells are roiling and extending, rippling, bursting to claw, to wing to the endless ravening, to the lash of tail, to myself as the beast that rules the heavens.

Ponderously, I raise my weighty neck and run my forked tongue across the seething air, feel the long line of vicious fangs in my jaw. I have erupted into the majesty of dragon, despite the dark flaw propagating within, and pray I will have time to fry that bastard blood hawk.

It circles me and then, as if sensing my deadliness, makes for a new direction, angling across my vision as I spring skyward. I spew flames that cross the gulf between us, torching treetops, singeing one blood-colored wing. And the flaw inside me fails with a fatal and unseemly crunching that deafens and blinds me for an instant.

Even as I fall, spinning, I’m shriveling into man shape, fae shape, rolling, screaming.

I whip past the upper trees.

Going down, fast.

The earth jumps up to meet me, though smoke clouds the last few yards.

When I hit…

A blackness sweeps in.

Through the last shreds of consciousness, through the ringing, I see a blur, and I blink to resolve it into my warrior girl. She runs from the forest with the weapon from the box in her hand.