Page 42
Story: Dragon’s Mate
And then my temper gets the best of me, the outrage and the fury, and the pure fucking fire in my belly that comes from being treated so unfairly, use as a broodmare, and continuously ignored.
“Just cut them off completely if you hate me so much,” I growl, furious and ashamed. Having my wings clipped feels like being… I don’t know, imprisoned? But worse, because he’s taken one of my capabilities I’ve only recently developed.
“Don’t pout, or I’ll give you something to pout about,” he snaps.
“Fuck you.”
I run, faster than he expects, I think, and not in a direction he expects me to go. I am sure he thought I’d run for the door, but it is the window that calls me, the window with the view of the sky he tried to deny me.
A second or so after I step out, I discover that I can’t fly, but my wings do still glide. I extend their clipped span as far as it will go, and I ride the gusts and currents from the keep.
Faintly, in the distance, I hear Ornix growling and shouting, but I can’t hear what he is saying and if I am to be very honest, I do not care. He can’t tame me. Can’t stop me. Can’t punish me in the way he imagines, in a way that changes who I am. I will do what I want, with what I have.
Massive wings cast a shadow over me as he comes for me, a massive dragon hunting a little bird. It should be over in an instant, perhaps, but it is not because the gusts his wings create buffet me and make it almost impossible for me to maintain course, which also makes it hard for him to grab me.
I see the humans being brought back now, a dozen to each cage, transported like little mice awaiting a great feline feast. I feel deeply sorry for them, and I know that their capture was my fault.
I also know that sooner rather than later, they are going to realize that this isn’t a simulation, and there’s no way home anymore.
They are trapped here, prisoners like me.
They are my kin, my people, they are the ones I feel a deep responsibility for even though I know I can’t really do anything to save them.
The people in cages distract me enough for a massive claw to pluck me out of the air. Ornix has finally understood how to catch me, and now he has me right where he wants me.
He lands almost immediately on the field and the next thing I know, I am snatched up in his dragonkin form, wrestled over his knee that he has propped up on a rock, and spanked so hard my cries come in a continuous wail.
“You little brat,” he growls. “I’m not going to let you get away with these tantrums, or your disobedience. You can go down into the dungeons with the rest of your kind. You can enjoy being caged. You can learn what it means to be really disciplined.”
His scaled palm keeps whipping against my ass as he spanks me like a spoiled whelp, treating me like I’m some baby throwing a tantrum, not his mate who just had her wings clipped so she cannot escape him or make her own decisions.
“I hate you!” The words escape me before I can catch them, spurred by pain and humiliation and the sheer frustration of it all.
“Well, I love you. And I intend to keep you safe, even if that means keeping you sore, sorry, and caged. Jumping out the window like that was reckless, and proves you haven’t learned anything yet. But you will. I am going to teach you how to behave if it’s the last thing I do.”
Ornix
I do not know what has gotten into my mate. She has gone from adorably undisciplined to an absolutely nightmarish little rebel who rejects all attempts to contain her. I blame the wings.
That’s probably a mistake, however. I have a horrid feeling that even if I were to have somehow removed them entirely, she still would have walked out the damn window.
My mate’s desire for freedom outweighs her sense of self-preservation several fold, and putting her in a cage is not going to change that. Pinning her down doesn’t stop her, caging her does not contain her.
“Explain yourself,” I finally sigh. “Why are you making it so completely impossible to keep you safe?”
“Why are you making it so fucking hard,” she swears back. “They want you fucking dead. They came here to kill you. The kobolds died because they want to kill you. I’m trying to save your fucking life.”
I stare at her for a long moment, and then mirth overtakes me.
“Fuck you,” she curses as I roar with laughter, unable to stop myself.
“Sweet little human mate, there is no world in which those humans could beat me. Not in a hundred thousand years. Not if there were ten thousand of them. Not if they had every artifact in the land. Not if they brought the most horrific technology from your world, the nuclear kind, and deployed it against me. I am ancient in a way you cannot yet fathom, and they will never understand. It is sweet that you are trying to protect me, but I assure you, it is entirely unnecessary.”
“You don’t understand how strong they are,” she whimpers.
“No. You don’t understand my strength. And that is understandable because humans have made themselves the measure of all things.
But I can assure you…” I sigh, because I know she will not understand.
“Equinox’s little game has made you believe in the power of people.
Believe me, brat. Humans have very little power except the power to ruin what little they have. ”
“Harsh,” she mumbles, rubbing her ass. She must be so sore. I have thrashed her and fucked her and lectured her to the point of very nearly breaking her. Yet still she stands defiant in front of me.
I soften, I draw her into an embrace, I kiss her deeply and with passion.
“I love you, but you have to start trusting me. I am not going to be defeated. Not by my nephew, not by a human army, and certainly not by a few dozen humans. There is no way.”
“You’re too proud, and that’s how they’ll get you. They’ll come for you.”
“They’re not coming for me. And if they do, they will rue the day. Now, let’s get you to the dungeon.”
“To the dungeon? Why?”
“After all you’ve done? You’re lucky I am not having them make a whole new dungeon just for you. You’ve behaved incredibly terribly. You are going to spend some time in confinement to think about what you’ve done.”
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