Page 103 of Veiled Flames
A clean strike.
The creature’s head falls, bouncing off Xendus’s scales, and the fire from its body singes my hair as it flies overhead, before falling toward the ground.
Elation floods through me, but Xendus returns our focus to the rupture in the veil. It’s much smaller now. Dull light still pours through, but I see no more demons.
The front-line dragons use their flames to seal the rupture.
When it’s done, I cheer, but I’m the only one who does. Or at least I can hear no other voices over the beating wings of the dragons as we all head back toward camp.
I can’t contain my joy. Today I mounted a dragon. I slayed my first demon, and I saved Saxon’s life.
And even better, I kissed Rosomon.
And as good as this day has already been, I plan to make the night better. The moment I house my dragon, I’ll go to her and kiss her again. She’s angry, but that’s something my charms can easily overcome.
Forty
Rosomon
Fury rages inside me as I stare at my uneaten food. My chambers are now a prison, and I’m trapped far more than I ever was in my father’s castle. The klericks placed guards at my door to keep watch.
I’ve long ago kicked off my boots, and I pace across the space, trying to burn off my anger, my fear, my frustration. Any happiness I felt for Tynan when he bonded with a dragon, was pulverized by his betrayal. Our kiss was…transformative, until I remembered we weren’t alone in that field.
Tynan promised to keep my secret and broke his pledge.
My anger toward him is massive, but pales in comparison to how I feel about Saxon. The dragon master’s betrayal was more predictable, but cuts even more deeply, because I once believed that Saxon truly cared for me.
Tynan, on the other hand, cares nothing for me. His cock is the only part of him interested. He feels lust, but he only wants todrill me to get revenge for what I did to his family. Or perhaps to exact revengeonhis family—fucking the bride meant for his grandfather. I finally understand the meaning of the word cuckolding.
Leaning against the mantel, I draw deep breaths. I need to calm down. I need to make a plan. I escaped from the fortress of my father’s castle; I can escape from here too.
The thing is, I don’twantto escape. I longed to leave that castle, but I want to be here. I want to continue my quest to ride dragons and help to defend the Seven Kingdoms. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
Shrugging off my jacket, I toss it to the floor and then stare at the lump in one of the pouches. The sphincter trainer.
Even if the dragon masters forbid me from continuing at camp, I now know where the dragons live and have already learned a great deal. Plus, according to Roule, a good part of dragon riding is based on instinct and forming a bond with the beast.
Those things can’t be taught in the classroom. And while I may not be strong at wrestling, or fist-a-cuffs, I had mastered the proper use of most of the weaponry used here, before I even came to camp.
The only thing that remains is determining whether my bum hole will accept a dragon’s pommel.
The unopened tin of bear grease, left here before my secret was revealed, sits next to my untouched meal. I fetch the trainer from my jacket and run my fingers over it, trying to imagine it being inside me. Inside a part of me I’ve always assumed was only an exit.
Last night in his room, Tynan threatened to drill ‘all my holes.’ I wasn’t sure what he meant, but his words now give me hope. Perhaps that part of one’s body isn’t as different between men and women as I thought.
Reaching behind me, I slip my fingers inside the gap in my breeches. When I first donned this uniform, I assumed these openings existed to facilitate vacating one’s bowels, but I now understand their greater purpose.
I smear a generous amount of bear grease on the polished marble object. It looks far too large to go insideanypart of me, but I remind myself that I did not believe Saxon’s rod would fit into my cleft hole—until it did.
How do I do this? I stare at the object, the grease on it glistening in the soft firelight. At its widest part, the trainer is thicker than one of Saxon’s fingers, but perhaps not as thick as two together. And it’s certainly smaller than Saxon’s rod.
When Tynan mounted his dragon, he sat back onto the pommel. Perhaps I should place the trainer on a chair?
I set the disk on the seat, the trainer’s pointed end up. Holding open my flaps, I slowly sit back.
The trainer tips over, and it merely grazes my bottom.
I turn and stare at it. A dragon’s pommel is fixed in place. This object is not.
