Page 7 of Storm of Blood and Shadow

The dragon’s brow ridges contract slightly, confusion in his gaze.

“Don’t just sit there,” I scream at him. “Do something! Help me!”

With an answering growl, the dragon snakes forward and takes Gandon’s head neatly between his jaws. With a graceful swish of his long neck, he flings the man away, and Gandon’s body careens off the roof, his cock still protruding from his pants.

The other two men bellow in shock and drop me, racing in opposite directions through the garden. The black dragon opens his jaws and launches an orb of black energy encased in flickers of purple lightning. His eyes change color when he does it, flashing purple for a second.

The orb hits one of the fleeing men. It sucks him in, implodes on itself, and disappears.

Void magic. This beast has fucking void magic.

The dragon sends a second orb at the third man, and he too is swallowed instantly.

I crumple against the greenhouse wall, gripping my bag. My limbs feel washed out, completely drained of strength.

The dragon lowers his head and prowls toward me with that same heated fascination in his eyes. He lifts one foreleg, extends a curved claw, and with the very tip, touches the red braid over my shoulder.

“What do you want?” I gasp.

His long, cloven tongue emerges, tracing his scaly lips. “You.”

3

When I was young, I failed to save my mother’s life.

She and I shared a love of flying on cool, moonless nights, under the bright eyes of the stars. We had to be careful, because our home island of Ouroskelle is home to voracious predators called the voratrix, creatures whose cores reside deep underground while their snakelike necks emerge at night to hunt prey. The voratrix have long, transparent tongues that can stretch far into the sky and entrap dragons who fly too low.

Once caught by the tongues of a voratrix, a dragon has almost no hope of escape. Tiny barbs along the tongues rip outhis scales. The creature binds him ever tighter, breaking his wings, crushing his body, and eventually dragging him down one of its many throats. He is swallowed into the monster’s stomach, deep underground, where he is slowly, agonizingly digested.

Our clan shares the knowledge of every voratrice den so we can avoid those locations after sunset. If a voratrice is young enough, we can burn it out; but once the monsters pass their first year, they become toughened, immune to dragon fire.

My mother and I thought we knew all the danger spots, the hillside dens to avoid. We were wrong, and she was ensnared, bound by dozens of tough, transparent, barbed tongues. Pulled away from me, dragged down. I clawed and screamed and slashed with my teeth, but nothing would make the monster release her. I watched as it broke her wings and swallowed her whole.

I couldn’t use my void magic—it would have destroyed her along with the creature. Half-mad with grief, I retrieved a claw of hers that ripped free during the fight, and I flew back to the cave of my father, the Bone-King. He went back out at once to search for her. But the voratrice who took her was old, cunning, and deeply buried. No matter how much fire my father and the other dragons sent down its holes, they couldn’t burn it out. No matter how deeply they dug, they could not find its core. Eventually they had to give up.

My mother was gone.

That was the worst time of my life—until the events of last night. Until the moment I saw my grandmother Grimmaw, my sister Vylar, my brother’s promised mate Mordessa, and every other female dragon fall from the sky, dead instantly, prey to a cowardly spell cast by an enemy sorcerer.

In that instant, I experienced the same horror and helplessness I felt on the night the voratrice swallowed my mother. I had hoped never to feel so powerless again.

When the females plummeted to earth, I thought Kyreagan would go mad. Of the three of us, he hatched first, and though we have shared the rule of the clan since the Bone-King’s death, he feels the responsibility most heavily. Our father made him swear to finish out this war, and in doing so he has driven himself to the brink of mental and emotional collapse. Knowing that every female dragon is gone, with mating season only one week away—I thought it might finish him.

But Kyreagan did not break. Instead, he devised a plan. A foolish one, perhaps, driven by grief and rage, yet I agreed to it, and so did the other males.

The war is practically over. Guilhorn was the last stronghold, and it fell to the armies of Vohrain just moments before the Supreme Sorcerer’s wicked curse took effect. With Guilhorn defeated, nothing can stop the King of Vohrain from conquering Elekstan, which means our pact with him is fulfilled. We served him in the war, and now he will give us the Middenwold Isles to be our new hunting grounds.

With the contract completed, we are free to return home to Ouroskelle. And by Kyreagan’s decree, each male dragon will bring with him one human female of breedable age, stolen from the Elekstan capital city. In this way we will enact vengeance upon Elekstan by taking their daughters in tribute, and we will protect our own future by securing females for mating season.

When we descended upon the royal city, resistance from the humans was weak at best. Their forces, weapons, and supplies have been depleted, and they are no match for us.

I saw Kyreagan snatch up a girl in a pink dress, and several other dragons have claimed women as well. I flew low over the buildings, looking for a place to dive down to street level and seize a female—but before I could do so, I was distracted by a piercing scream and a flurry of activity.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have descended to investigate. But I’m here now, perched on the rooftop, watching the interaction among three human males and a female. Two of them are restraining her while the other one stands a few steps away. I don’t understand what they’re doing, but something about the young woman intrigues me. Her hair is the color of flames, and her eyes are light brown, almost golden in the sunlight. She’s wearing something filmy and blue, the soft hue of a spring sky. Her arms and legs are thin as twigs, fragile and breakable. I’m concerned that the males might damage her by holding her body so tightly, especially since she keeps bucking against their grip, a defiant fire in her gaze.

One of the men howls, “If I’m going to die, I’ll do it with my cock in a cunt!”

He grabs for the filmy blue clothing of the girl. I’m not sure what he’s planning to do, but something about his manner sets my scales on edge.

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