A Shade of Dragon 2(20)

The back room of the place had a cot.

“Here we are,” I announced. “I will lie down. I know it must be uncomfortable… to be an Earth woman in these conditions.”

Michelle gave me a stormy look, but didn’t comment, and the two of us lowered gingerly onto the paper-thin mattress. “Oh, my God, these people live in total poverty,” she moaned.

“They have rich and prosperous lives. It is you who live in obscene wealth.”

“No more obscene than a castle, Theon!” she snapped. “Just… shut up.” Michelle wiggled closer to me, until our sides touched. “Can I put my head on your shoulder?” she asked. I glanced down at her and saw, in the darkness, how she nibbled her lower lip. “Please?”

“You don’t need to do that… with your face,” I told her, smirking slightly in spite of myself. “You can put your head on my shoulder. I know of our temperatures compared to yours.”

“Yep, that’s the reason,” she agreed, curling against me with the familiarity of a former lover. She threw one of her thighs over mine and laid her hand across my chest.

I had a lot on my mind. I couldn’t be distracted by the nonsensical patterns she was drawing on my chest.

“Sorry about your friend,” Michelle whispered, drawing my eyes back to her. “Really. I am.”

I hesitated, genuinely surprised. I summoned a smile, however unconvincing. I couldn’t think of what exactly to say. “Thank you.” There it was. The only thing one could say.

“I have to tell you that I admire your strength,” she went on. “I mean, this night has been hell for you, hasn’t it? I would be an utter wreck, if I was you.”

Grim tidings.

“Thank you again, I suppose,” I said. “But I was once told that an Earth man gained fame for the insight that war is hell.”

“I didn’t even mean that,” Michelle murmured.

I propped myself onto my elbow, stealing from Michelle her pillow shoulder, and looked at her. She blinked up at me, innocent. It was nigh impossible to differentiate between glimpses of her inner child and masterful manipulation.

“You meant Penelope, didn’t you?” I asked her.

“I did mean Penelope. I mean, I was there, Theon. I… saw it, too.”

It wasn’t the kind of sight one could soon forget; the throes of erotic passion, even between total strangers, could be hypnotic. But when it was your own lover, that same expression could become gut-wrenching…

“Maybe that’s why that oracle told you that she wasn’t the one for you,” Michelle went on softly. She was biting her plush lower lip again, her eyes disguised beneath a fringe of lashes. “I never would have done that to you.” Now her eyelashes flashed upward, and her eyes caught mine with a beseeching shimmer. She raised one hand in the air and snaked it along my shoulders, playing with the hair at the nape of my neck. It felt wrong, and my skin crawled, urging me to reject her touch.

But why? Why bother being fair, being noble? Was it not equivalent with being a joke to an Earth woman? My heart was flooded, and if there had been a fire on the hearth, it would have burnt this establishment to the ground.

“Theon.” Michelle had leaned closer. “It’s not too late. You can still be with the woman you were meant for.”

With the woman for whom you were meant, I opened my mouth to correct her, but Michelle slid her lips against my own, the gesture possessing an unexpected gentleness.

For a moment, I was torn. Where she touched went numb, became a pit. I did not want to be touched. I wanted to mourn my lost love, Penelope.

But, at the same time, the hell with Penelope.

One of my hands carved powerfully through Michelle’s thick curls, and the other clawed along her hip, dragging her on top of me. Her response was immediate, her body moving over mine with both fury and passion. Usually, such aggression would be wholly unsettling, but in this scenario, I found it paired well with my emotions. Like her, I was determined to ravage something, but unlike her, I felt completely cold.





Nell





I had been manacled against the dungeon wall for hours now. What time was it? No windows. No clocks. But it felt like sometime between two and four in the morning—the portion of the clock reserved for true despair.

I wanted to sleep, but I could not. The height of the manacles forced me to stay standing, or else slowly break my own shoulders. My arms went numb from the lack of blood flow. My wrists were rubbed raw by the drag of gravity alone. I hadn’t even been struggling. And my head spun with sickness. The human body wasn’t designed to endure such stress. I needed a drink, but no one had been down for hours, save an occasional glimpse of a guard in the changing of shifts. It was too late in the night for any of the other prisoners to be talking amongst themselves—I had been brought in while they slept. For many, the new girl would be a morning surprise.