Page 21 of Storm of Blood and Shadow (Merciless Dragons #3)

The island I’ve chosen is one of a pair. Ages ago, there used to be one great mountain in this spot, but it split in two right down the center. Over time, the channel between the two halves of the mountain widened as the sea flowed between them. Now the islands are twins, each owning half of the mountain, their sheer brown cliffs facing each other across a foaming channel. The one I selected, East Fang, possesses a source of fresh water, a spring bubbling from the forested slope of its half of the mountain.

I circle the island several times, diving low to inspect its beaches and tidepools. Beyond the beaches it is thickly forested, and I can’t see very far into the wall of trunks, vines, and undergrowth. There never used to be much prey on these islands—some nesting sea-birds, some large lizards, a few harmless snakes—so my clan doesn’t visit often. I’ve flown over the Twin Fangs, but I’ve never landed here.

As I descend, I catch a whiff of a strange scent—something I can’t identify. It’s a sour odor like death, and yet there’s something alive about it, too. It’s faintly familiar, and yet I can’t remember ever smelling it before.

The dichotomy of the odor disturbs me. I beat my wings and bank upward again, nearly throwing Jessiva off my back.

“Easy!” she exclaims.

“Sorry.” I angle my wings and do another loop around the island.

East Fang is small… not much territory for a predator. Maybe what I’m smelling is some kind of gas released from the bowels of the earth through a crack in the mountain. Maybe it’s the carcass of something that washed up in a cove beneath the tree canopy.

“Varex, can you land?” Jessiva asks. “We’ve been flying for hours, and I have to piss.”

Reluctantly I comply, but instead of a beach, I opt for the top of the broken mountain as our landing place. Between the cliff’s edge and the forest line, there’s open grass, flecked with sunny rocks and white flowers. It’s a comfortable enough spot for Jessiva to rest and relieve herself, and if there is any kind of threat on this island, it will have to leave the cover of the trees to get to us. I’ll spot it, and I can destroy it before it touches my woman.

Unless I’m in my weak human form, of course.

Once I have a better grasp on the Mordvorren and how it will affect my life, and once Kyreagan returns with Serylla, we need to make sure that every dragon shifter learns how to fight as a human. One of the women we took is a knight—perhaps she could teach us the intricacies of combat.

Jessiva climbs down from my back and crouches beside a boulder to piss. She and I grew very comfortable with each other’s bodily functions while we were confined during the storm. The first time I had to take a shit off the ledge, amid the howling wind and the torrential rain, she watched me do it, not out of fascination, but because she was terrified I would be torn from the ledge and ripped to pieces in the gale. I remember how she stared, eyes wide, both hands clasped over her mouth, until I was safely back in the center of the cave, away from the entrance.

For my part, I won’t deny that I have a strange liking for the way the piss streams from the tiny hole near her clit. I’ve never said that to her aloud, but I think she suspects it, because I watch her closely every time, and she lets me.

I’m fascinated by the way my human cock looks, too, both when I piss and when I come. As a dragon, I looked at my cock occasionally, but its position between my back legs made it more difficult to observe, not to mention the fact that when I wasn’t pissing, it would withdraw inside my genital slit.

My human cock, though much smaller, is more exquisitely sensitive. Though I was uncertain about it at first, I like the shape and size of it now, particularly when it’s erect.

When Jessiva returns to me, her cheeks are pink. They often get that rosy look when I stare at her. Usually the blush leads to her stripping for me and inviting my tongue or my cock. But this time, judging by her serious expression, she has other matters on her mind.

“You still have a number of hours in dragon form before you’re forced to change,” she says. “If you wait, you’ll switch forms sometime during the night. But if you take human form now, you can save more dragon hours for when it’s dark, when you might need to protect us.”

“Good idea.”

“Besides, you haven’t tried shifting since you swallowed the Mordvorren. You should probably attempt that now, while there’s light.”

I prowl forward and touch my muzzle to her cheek. “I was fortunate to claim such a wise woman.”

She pushes my nose away, but she’s half-smiling, so I know it’s playful petulance. She’s still angry with me, but she cares for me too. Finally, after all this time, she cares . It’s a triumph so great it almost mitigates my fear of the entity that now shares my body.

I turn my thoughts inward, seeking my other self, my human form. Shifting at will always takes focus, but my inner landscape is in turmoil at the moment, and the longer I look within, the louder the storm becomes. Mentally I seize hold of my intent, fixing my thoughts solely on the change, willing it to happen quickly, before I fall prey to the voices.

“Varex.” Slender fingers touch my chest, and I realize my eyes are tightly shut. I open them to find Jessiva looking up at me.

“There you are.” She touches my cheek.

I look down at my arms, my hands. Relief surges through me because it worked—I managed to reclaim human form, even though it felt more dangerous this time.

Jessiva reaches inside her bag and takes out the pair of pants I’ve used occasionally during my human hours. In the cave, I didn’t mind being naked all the time, but out here with various insects in the grass, the idea of nudity is less appealing. I don’t want anything crawling on my cock or into my ass, and Jessiva knows it.

When I reach for the pants, she draws them back. “Before you put these on, you have to promise me something.”

“You’re holding my pants hostage?”

“Yes. Until you promise that from now on, you will listen when I speak. Not just hear me—really listen , and give my opinion equal weight in decisions that affect both of us.”

I hesitate, prey to a latent unease. “I want to. I don’t know if I can.”

She sucks in a deep breath and expels it slowly. I know she wants to fly into a furious tirade immediately, and she would have every right to do so. But she takes a moment to compose herself, then says, “I need to know why. I need you to delve into these emotions you’re feeling and figure out why the idea of me having an equal voice scares you so badly.”

With a swift turn on my heel, I stalk up the slope, toward the top of the cliff. “Do we have to do this now ?”

“Yes.” Jessiva leaves the pants on a rock and follows me, halting when I do, a few paces from the cliff’s edge.

I stare across the channel at West Fang, nearly the mirror image of this island, its sheer cliff a match for the one we’re standing on. The island is beautiful, with its lush, forested slopes, blue sea encircling it, and the waves foaming white at the foot of the cliff.

Jessiva gazes at the view, too, standing quietly at my side while I contemplate my own emotions.

I’ve always been more introspective than Kyreagan or Vylar, but thanks to the Mordvorren, my thoughts have been a roaring tempest of confusion lately. It’s more difficult to discern my own motives.

Eventually I speak, the words slow and methodical. “I’ve given up so much control throughout my life. Choosing you was the first major decision I’d made on my own in a long time, and it felt good. It gave me a sense of control at a time when everything was in turmoil. This sounds wicked, but… controlling you and your future offered me a feeling of security. But it wasn’t only about that.” I turn and seize her hands, searching her face for understanding, for affection. “Believe me, I always wanted to protect you.”

“I believe it,” she says. “You and I have had a strange, convoluted journey so far. But surely now you understand that we must be on equal footing, if we are to be partners. If I want to do something, if I believe it’s the right choice, you can’t forbid it.”

“And you can’t forbid me from doing the same,” I counter.

She doesn’t like that.

“Look inside yourself and tell me why that disturbs you,” I say.

She lets out a gusty, frustrated sigh. “Because I’m used to making decisions for myself without anyone’s input. Sometimes I had very few choices, and sometimes they were all terrible, but they were mine, more or less.”

“But you were never really free,” I murmur. “Tell me, darling, how do you feel with me? Do you have more or less freedom than before?”

“It’s different with you.” She pulls her hands out of mine and gestures to the island, to the sea. “Look around us. This isn’t real life. This is temporary, an interlude before I return to the drudgery of routine and expectations.”

“So you still plan to go back to them.”

“I don’t know!” Her cheeks are red, her eyes bright with tears. “I’m torn, Varex, and it hurts. I chose to come to this island with you, and I’m trying to make a choice for the future, but I have to know what a relationship between us would be like. Will you listen? Will you yield to me, sometimes? Can we agree to yield to each other, to reason it out when we disagree, to find a compromise or a solution? Can you let go of this impulse to hold onto me so tightly and dictate what I do?”

I want to say yes. But all I can manage is, “What if I yield to your will, and you do something that leads to your death?”

“You honestly think I’ll do something foolish?”

“Not foolish. Something unselfish. Kind. Compassionate.” I bite out each word. “You’ll do something for my sake, or for someone else, and you’ll die, when I could have prevented it. I have to limit the risks around you. I have to protect you, no matter what.” My voice is rising now, terror and anger threaded through my tone.

Jessiva seizes my shoulders, her nails denting my flesh. “You can’t protect me by controlling me.”

“I can try.”

“What happened?” she hisses. “What made you like this?”

I don’t respond. I know the answer, but the pain is too cruel, too deep. There are things about my mother’s death that I have not shared with another living soul.

When I don’t answer, Jessiva releases me, a pained resignation in her eyes. “Then you’ll continue to be tormented. And the Mordvorren will fester inside you, feeding on the thing you refuse to confess, until it conquers you and swallows you whole.”