Page 129 of Conspirators' Kingdom

He didn’t turn around, despite the quaking of the earth, not until he saw the resigned acceptance on the faces of Radjedef’s soldiers. As they obeyed, their limbs were freed.

Mereruka turned around as the dragon lifted its head out from under the sands.

“Gods below,” he gasped.

The dragon’s head was as large as his barge. It snapped one of his fleeing soldiers from the air, swallowing him. Feral, then. There would be no reasoning with this creature. Mereruka dragged his eyes from the dragon and looked up to where Taisiya should be. Her red hair still tossed to and fro.

Until she was enveloped by foul magic, and her red hair disappeared.

Mereruka watched, helpless, as a red and purple winged creature fell from the soldier’s summoned beast and plummeted, straight down towards the hungry gaze of the dragon.

Taisiya managed to turn, facing the quickly approaching dragon’s head. As blood coursed through this strange body and the wind nearly deafened her as it whistled past, she reached for her magic. Father, ever the visionary, had prepared her for the event of freefall. A rather notorious teleportation mage had once made it his gruesome habit to drag his victims into the sky and then watch from a distance as they met the ground. Grigori had been determined that his children could survive such a thing.

Taisiya spread out her arms and legs, such that they were, as she felt the crackle of electricity humming through her body. But as her arms snapped wide, her muscles screamed in pain, as though she might be torn apart by the wind. Instead of slowing, her fall was nearly halted. She turned her head on a neck that was far too long to see that she possessed a pair of wings. Not feathered, but leathery, like Uncle Vadik’s. Her shock didn’t last long. Even from the sky, she heard the rumble of the ground as the dragon below caught sight of her.

Height!

She needed height. Taisiya flapped her arms—wings—desperately. She flew higher, riding the currents Uncle Vadik talked about, but it wouldn’t be enough. The dragon tasted the air as a snake might, eying her. She gathered her magic on the tip of her nose. As she felt the air current swirling in advance of the dragon’s strike, pushing her up but not fast enough, she turned around and let loose as powerful a lightning strike as she was able. Gaping jaws missed her by a hair.

The gold and black dragon shrieked, falling back to the ground, breaking rock and throwing up sand and dust in an enormous cloud. Taisiya struggled to ascend, gathering her magic to her once again. She thanked the gods that this transformation hadn’t stolen her lightning entirely.

The dragon slithered from its burrow, furious black eyes locked on her. It wound its way up to the top of the surrounding cliffs, gaining at least as much height as she in a fraction of the time. Taisiya’s heart constricted with terror. The next strike would reach her.

Her pounding heart and the whipping winds almost drowned out a set of thunderous quakes from the ground below. She kept the dragon below in the corner of her eye. Whatever the fae on the ground were doing was distracting the creature. Taisiya wouldn’t let those precious seconds go to waste, even as the air in her lungs burned with cold.

A mighty roar drew her attention, and she readied her lightning to strike. Yet the dragon’s head was not rearing up, about to strike. Instead, it was subdued, head held still by the tip of a giant spear—one that had failed to pierce its scales. At the end of that spear was Mereruka, looming larger than even the dragon.

The dragon’s tail gripped Mereruka’s leg. Attempting to destabilize him, it dragged his ankle through the desert floor, creating valleys and hills as he tried to keep his balance. As he struggled, Mereruka shrunk. The dragon must have sensed it as well. It thrashed its long, serpentine body, nearly knocking him off his feet. Heart hammering in her chest, Taisiya turned and sped downward. While the dragon’s head was still pinned, she aimed her lightning, praying its eyes would prove more vulnerable than its impenetrable scales.

No one would take her husband from her, not even a feral dragon.

Chapter 50

WhatevermadnesshadconvincedMereruka that he could take on a dragon had been extinguished the moment his spear failed to pierce its scales. Fear for his transformed wife had driven sense from him in an instant. As the spell that made him the size of a titan ate through the magical reserves of the soldiers powering it, Mereruka found he was fast running out of options for survival. The beast flailed its long, coiling, muscular body, becoming stronger the more he shrank. He wouldn’t be able to pin its head much longer.

If Khety’s machinations lead to Mereruka’s death, he would lay a death curse, consequences be damned.

The dragon bucked his spear tip’s hold on its head. From the corner of his eye, something sped towards him. His heart constricted.

Taisiya.

Mereruka redoubled his efforts to pin the wily dragon, its hateful black eyes focused solely on him.Yes, he thought,I’m the one you want to eat, not her. The dragon lunged at Mereruka and tore the spear from his grip, crushing it between its teeth with a hiss. Mereruka readied a spell, knowing it would be hopeless. Dragon scales repelled sword and magic alike.

The dragon reared back, ready to strike, when a high-pitched screech from above distracted it. Mereruka launched an immobility spell that only slowed the dragon as it moved its gold and black-scaled head to face Taisiya. Before he could blink, a blinding flash and the crack of thunder dazzled Mereruka, and the sound of the dragon’s pained roar nearly left him deaf. Mereruka blinked furiously, trying to regain his vision. The dragon flailed wildly as it roared, sweeping his legs out from under him. He fell with a resounding crash, fracturing rock and sending shock waves across the desert.

When he recovered, Mereruka found he was now only half the size of the serpentine dragon. Despair and terror threatened to overwhelm him when he spotted bright red blood flowing from the destroyed eye of the dragon. Mereruka had been entirely forgotten by the beast as it hissed and searched the skies for Taisiya. Mereruka found her first, beating her wings furiously as she tried to retreat into the skies where the dragon couldn’t follow.

The dragon spotted Taisiya soon enough and began to slither up to the highest point in the hills. Mereruka picked himself up and rushed the dragon, determined to keep it from lunging up at her. As it readied to strike, Mereruka threw himself on the dragon, pinning it with his body. The dragon roared and wriggled. It took all Mereruka’s strength to grip it behind the skull to spare himself a bite. Even so, its thrashing left deep gashes as the fan of sharp horns slashed across his face and neck. Enraged, it began coiling around his ever-shrinking body.

The pressure of its unyielding scales snapped bones. A dull, reverberating crack accompanied his screams of pain. Yet still he would not release the dragon. If it crushed every bone in his body, he would not yield. Taisiya must survive.

Another screech had the dragon lessening the crushing pressure on Mereruka’s battered lungs and redoubling its efforts to throw him off its body instead. It would soon succeed, for he was only a quarter the size of the dragon now, his arms only just encircling its thick throat.

The deep crackle of thunder and the dragon's agonized roars signalled Taisiya’s second success against the beast. Panicked, it began rolling, nearly crushing Mereruka beneath it. The last vestiges of his strength left him, and he released the creature. It slithered back into its great, dark hole, fleeing until not even the rumbling of its movement beneath the sand and rock could be felt or heard.

The last thing he saw before he feared himself consigned to the afterlife was the graceless, hard landing of Taisiya in her dragon form, and her awkward, bat-like crawl to his side. He had to admit, she made a beautiful dragoness.

Taisiya watched, hidden under a broken slab of rock, Mereruka tucked under her… wing, as the soldiers picked their way through the torn-up landscape of the battleground of giants. Always, she kept an eye out for the soldier who had transformed her. If that fae bastard came within zapping distance, she planned to shoot first, questions and consequences be damned.

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