Page 8 of The Dragon 2 (Tokyo Empire #2)
Chapter seven
The Lowly Who Dared
Sol
I did it! I scared the mighty Korin away! A girl with no name just rewrote legend. Let them choke on that.
She stood in the half-burnt skeleton of a tavern once called The Shimmering Thistle , her figure cloaked by smoke and soot-stained beams.
Around her, the kingdom screamed.
Bodies lay like discarded dolls across the cobbled street—some half-burned, others cradled by sobbing kin.
The air trembled with grief and disbelief, a chorus of death that licked the charred stones and rose into the fire-dark sky.
And yet, in this sea of sorrow, she stood untouched. Not because the flames hadn’t tried. But because they couldn’t.
Her name was Sol.
A name only her parents dared whisper in the privacy of their shack at the edge of Lowly village.
In the Kingdom of Hareef, Lowlys had no name.
No rights.
No history.
No future.
In the rest of the kingdom lived the Nobles—pale skinned people with golden silky hair and blue eyes. Anyone that appeared different from that, was considered a Lowly.
Pale skin, yet dark hair—Lowly.
Golden hair, but dark skin—Lowly.
And she was the very opposite of all—dark brown, brown eyes, thick curly black hair.
To the Nobles, she was nothing.
But tonight. . .the nothing had stopped a god and saved them.
I really did! I just wish. . .I knew how to do it again. . .
Sol flicked her eyes to the sky.
Above her, the heavens had begun to clear—dark velvet stretching wide, punctuated with a scattering of stars.
The moon hung low and bruised, haloed in ash.
But not all was still.
The dragon had left his mark.
A trail of glowing orange vapor arched high across the stars.
It was an enchanting slash in the sky—the last breath of his fire lingering in the upper winds.
Wisps of black smoke drifted through the glow, twisting like serpents around the embers, refusing to vanish completely.
Where the stars should have gleamed clean and cold, some pulsed behind the haze—dimmed, shivering beneath the heat Korin had carved through the atmosphere.
She stared at that molten streak— his path —still fresh, still crackling with memory.
Her breath caught, the cold of her magic curling inside her chest as her pulse rose again.
Korin had flown there, and now the image of him lingered behind her eyelids—a creature so vast he swallowed the stars. His body had shimmered with layered black and gold, each scale a weapon of beauty, each wingbeat bending the heavens to his will.
She remembered the way his claws sliced through the clouds-like knives through silk, the way his fangs gleamed like ivory spears.
He had been terrifying, yes, but also. . .magnificent.
A god of fire.
A beast of ancient hunger.
Where others had ignored and avoided her, Korin had seen her.
That thought alone made her shiver.
She hadn’t run.
She’d shot at him, and he hadn’t destroyed her.
Why didn’t he truly fight back?
He’d just hovered—watching.
Breathing her in.
Choosing not to end her.
Why?
She’d been more than prepared to die to save her family.
Power vibrated through her body.
And why me, of all people, should ever think a dragon is. . .magnificent?
Knees trembling, Sol pressed her back against the scorched timber beam. Her breaths came out fast and shallow.
What is this feeling?
Her skin—dark as tempered bronze—began to tingle beneath her tattered white dress. It felt like being kissed from the inside out, a thousand silk-tongued flames licking across her nerves.
Sol blinked.
Her fingers twitched and still sparkled with frost.
No. . .not frost.
This was magic that was older than her. Magic that shimmered with hues of silver and pale blue. That power still swirled at her fingertips.
Now. . .how do I turn this off?
She flexed her fingers and tiny fractals of ice bloomed from her palms, curling like vines before vanishing into the night air.
I pushed it too far. Will I be able to stop it now?
Then, a sudden shock of need surged through her core.
Sol widened her eyes.
And then her knees gave.
She didn’t fall, but her thighs clamped together.
Oh!
She arched her spine as pleasure shimmered down her back.
What is this?
Ribbons of bliss unraveled inside her.
Oh no.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, just above her navel, as if to still the tremor building in her lower belly.
It didn’t stop the bliss.
It grew and it was divine.
Mmmm.
Her nipples hardened, straining against the thin fabric of her dress. The linen stuck to her sweat-slicked brown skin, and she realized—mortified and awestruck—that she was wet between her legs.
Something that never happened often.
She had never lain with a man.
Never been kissed.
Never even dared to dream of such things.
But this?
This feeling had to be what they meant when they talked about pleasure. This was euphoric bliss—not taken or stolen, not granted by a lover’s hand—but somehow made by her magic.
Oh my. . .
She parted her lips and darted her tongue out, tasting the soot and cold that still clung to her lips.
More ribbons of bliss moved up her core.
A moan nearly escaped.
Control yourself.
She began to breathe through her nose, trying to ground herself as the high of magic roared through her body.
And yet. . .
She also didn’t want to come down.
She wanted more.
Was it because my power met Korin’s power? Is that the difference?
The memory of it—of the moment her power surged, tore free, and struck that dragon—lit her from the inside out.
She had touched something ancient and divine.
And gods help her, Korin had somehow touched her back.
Her skin still hummed from him. Her thighs pressed tighter. Her hands shook with restraint as she lifted them again, watching silver veins pulse beneath her skin like river paths across a moonlit map.
The Lowly girl no one saw. . .
Had made a god shudder.
Had stopped flame with ice.
Had felt more alive than ever before.
And oh, it was dangerous.
Because now she craved it.
From what she had understood about magic, this sort of power was supposed to be a quiet thing, bound in scrolls and incantations. Cold and clinical in the hands of the King’s elite mages.
But Sol’s power didn’t ask permission.
It didn’t follow rules.
It burst.
It claimed .
And it left her trembling with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.
I must get control of myself before I go home.
She dropped to a crouch, pressing her palm to the ground as if the soil might soothe her or steady her—but instead, a trail of frost bloomed beneath her fingers, spiderwebbing along the rocks, sticks, and dirt.
No. No. Someone could see.
She pulled her hand back quickly and the frost began to fade, melting.
That was too close.
Again, she checked the sky to make sure Korin did not come back.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
The cinder clouds had begun to thin, stars peeking through the veil of smoke. But no mighty wings cut the air. No treacherous roar trembled the sky. No massive threatening shadow loomed in wait.
Still, her breath caught.
What if he returns? Would I have the strength to stop him again?
The memory of the moment their powers touched—his fire dying under her frost, her core lighting under his gaze—made her thighs tense with a now-familiar ache.
She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to contain it, but the chill of her own power still crackled at her fingertips.
She could still feel him.
Still smell him—wild jasmine, stormwater, and flames.
Still see the gold-lit hunger in his huge dragon eyes.
Yes. He was scary, but. . .he was so. . .magnificent too. . .Is it wrong to think this way?
She curled her hands into fists, fighting the urge to touch herself, to chase that strange, unbearable wave of satisfaction to its peak. But her body still ached, still glowed, still wanted.
It terrified her.
The pleasure.
The hunger.
Because what if this was the beginning of losing herself?
She bit her bottom lip, teeth sinking in until she tasted copper.
Breathe. Control. Hide.
Her father’s words came back again, laced in dread and love.
“If they ever find out about your magic, Sol. . .if they truly see what you are, they’ll take you. You’ll never come home again.”
She didn’t doubt her father.
The King’s court had been known to cage even Nobles who showed wild or unapproved forms of magic.
But what would they do to a Lowly girl whose power wasn’t just strong, but seductive?
The kind of power that made even a dragon pause in midflight.
The kind of power that made her body cry out with craving.
The kind of power that tasted like joy on the tongue and left her soaked between the thighs.
She rose and looked up again—bolder now—and remembered the vision that she could not unsee. That moment. . .right before he flew away, he had shifted midair. She had thought it was just another pass over the city, but then she’d seen it.
All of him.
She hadn’t understood what she was seeing at first—a thick, scaled bulging length pressing against his underbelly, heavy and impossibly hard.
Did I imagine some of it? Was that his. . .love blade?
She’d never seen a human man’s love blade, but there’d been pictures in a book that her mother had kept hidden in the back of her sewing desk.
I think it was Korin’s love blade. What else could it have been?
The image of it burned in her mind—massive, dark-gold, veined with molten lines, glistening at the tip like it ached for her cold wetness.
A bolt of heat shot through her abdomen, down to the slick center of her body.
But the way Korin had turned, the way his wings had arched just enough to frame his form, as if saying see me —that surely had not been an accident.
It must have been a display.
No. Surely Korin wasn’t trying to show me his love blade.
Dragons could not feel desire.
Much less reveal it.
Still, she licked her lips, and her breath quickened.
Why did he do it? And why can’t I stop imagining it in my mind?
Soon she gathered her strength, calmed herself enough, and walked off.