Titles: Earl of House Dracone. This writer calls him "the evil snake man"
Race: Quel’dorei
Age: 702
Height: 6′4.
FC: Oscar Isaac
Living Status: Undead
Romance: ??? You'll have to find out
Orientation: Bi/Pan he’s centuries old… tried it all
Profession: Spymaster, assassin for House Dracone. Priest for private consultations for hire.
Interests/Skills: Occult research, Inscriptions, Alchemy, Combat Training, all types of Vice
RP: Horror, Science, Dark Romance, Dubcon, Mature, Humor. No 'slice of life' RP, no happy endings. No babies, no children. You cannot fix this horrible man. You are welcome to try, or poke him with a stick for fun. Antagonistic.
Leonardo is a character that hasn't yet discovered many truths about himself. When he does, there will be consequences for the Dracones and unlucky victims should he ever rise to power. In the meantime, he is a fantastic Spymaster and assassin for the House Dracone.
Disciplined to use shadow magic as easily as breathing, he uses ruthless persistence in achieving his goals. Noble bred, he was raised with the other Dracone children as their cousin, about a year older than Heathcliff. He primarily lives in Silvermoon City at the inns, keeping an ear and pulse on everything Heathcliff needs to know.
Now cursed with vampirism, he combines his thirst with business, dispatching while sating his hunger with merciless efficiency. He's a playboy, a bon vivant for his own pleasure as well as networking master for information. Well known in brothels and by independent sex workers, Leonardo feigns sentimentality to get what he wants. He's an evil snake man, and you should not let him near anybody's heart you care about.
If you're crazy enough to let him near you, beware… he's a dirty, rotten bastard and he'll whisper all about it in your ear if thinks it will make you blush. He's got red flags pinned like badges, all of them dangerous and ill-advised to interact with.
Daily Writing Challenge @daily-writing-challenge Day 7
Melody's Wicked End
Melody wasn't the type of girl to sleep well. As her body erupted into the phases of womanhood, so did her restlessness. She often woke up at strange angles in bed as if her flesh wanted to join her mind in all the starry hopeful dreams that pulled her through the night. Sharing with her sibling in their family's cramped cottage was also becoming a problem. Her long legs always accidentally kicked her small sister in slumber, causing wails and sleepy fighting.
The sheets suffocated in the still humid night air. Melody scowled angrily at the black shadow of morning glory blooms hanging their bonneted heads from the stars outside her open window. They were bowed and missed the sparkling promise of ancient starlight blessing and teasing mystery no mortal could know. She wondered about other worlds and yearned for perfect hearts waiting for her eager desire to give hers.
Her mind drifted to Freddy, her father's farmhand, who just started working for them. He had a strong jaw that made her cheeks blush but with the gentleness of youth fresh on his face. His young muscles were already easily competitive enough to a grown man's. She wished he smelled better though. He didn't seem to understand good hygiene after sheering their sheep the day before. When he shook her hand and let it linger too long, the lanolin musk wouldn't wash off easily from her own. Something about this frightened and excited her. She felt violated from the careless disrespect of his stink even though the touch of his fingers filled her with wild thoughts. The urge to punish him for it rose. Angry that she was still thinking about this stinky pretty farm boy, Melody snapped the sheet off and snuck out of the warm bed.
She tripped loudly on all her books in the dark, catching herself on the wall. Books on dragons happen to be the largest in her small collection. As if their lore had to be physically larger than life too. Her favorites were the ones with drawings of handsome elves next to their dragon form. They were meant to be educational so they were anatomically correct and nude for illustration purposes. Her finger would trace the parts of men she had never seen with her own eyes in fear and look longingly at the elegant beauty of women with heavy breasts and lower secrets modest by design, barely an artist's smudge. Fantasies about one of them coming to take her away from the farm and her own troublesome heart occupied all her longing. She would be special and a vicious creature would heel at her feet because fate would bind instant devotion. Her family would see never see her fly away on the back of her beloved to leave the boring small valley. She wouldn't miss the sweet songs of pond creatures and forest bugs. The smell of wet earth and apples fermenting. These beautiful constants only taught her prisons could be beautiful.
There were other books too, all borrowed from the library. Vampires and cryptids and creatures of many types. She wanted to know it all, to know there was more than her frustrating reality. Convinced the one she would give all her love to had to be one of these otherworldly beings and had not yet appeared. Mostly because the selection around her teenage desires was grossly dismal so far.
Melody used these as steps to quietly build to their window. She slipped out letting the shock of damp on her bare legs remind her she was now a wild thing like the night. Waking Freddy would be easy. The barn walls were thin and she knew he stayed up late reading boring books on husbandry and mechanics. Her disgust at his literary tastes repelled her the most. She wondered if his mind was boring. This would have to be tested.
Following the edge of the foxglove garden, Melody tip-toed like a fae in bare feet with her long nightgown bottom bunched in her hand over her knees so the dew would not soak it.
Settling near the large oak to shadow her ghostly figure, she watched the barn door from a distance and began to trill and sing like a bird. She did not know their songs by heart but this did not matter. He should think this was odd. If she saw his confusion and frown looking outside the barn, it would be worth getting her feet wet. She grinned and suppressed audible giggles as she waited for his investigation.
To her delight, Freddy appeared almost instantly. Her mouth opened seeing him shirtless with a weapon in-hand, tense with threat. The metal on the long spear flashed in oil lamplight as she drew in a little gasp. Instantly she started running, determined to make him chase. She trailed her retreat with a few more obviously poor bird sounds.
The hedge of forest on the edge of the field hid her but blocked the moment Freddy alerted a passing Scarlet company of three other men on the nearby road. His face was serious as he conveyed his concerns of livestock thieves.
She ran breathless straight into the dark expanse of a barley field, the tickle up her leg from the plant whipping by as she brought distance between Freddy's pursuit. He would see her in the field dancing under the stars and fall in love. Her plan was working perfectly.
When she paused to wait her brow furrowed at a strange hole in the sky. It was as if a shadow blinked them out in vast swaths. Slowly this defined clearer until with terror she realized this was a huge creature descending upon her. Her mouth dropped open and a small sound escaped her watching the vague outline of a black dragon circle her lazily in curiosity. Huge red eyes narrowed as the magnificent expanse of it nearly landed. Trembling, she began to whimper with awe, unable to move. The first roar it shrieked made her scream and crumple to the ground.
Men's shouts followed and ghastly sounds of ripping flesh filled the humid dark. Melody cried while trying to make herself small. Despair had settled her to quiet when she knew the silence meant they were all dead.
The crunch was sickening. Sounds of the dragon eating had her shaking so hard she could no longer think. Looking was impossible, her eyes still squeezed shut tight. Thoughts of her own death consumed her. She screamed when she opened them and a naked elf was squatting down with her, wicked eyes observing with irritation.
He was covered in remnants of gore, with a horrible handsomeness that curled her expression into confusion. This made him look scarier and more cruel. He didn't feel alone, either. Shadows like imploring snakes curled around her body in indifferent observation. Her breath hitched into hiccups, sniveling in misery.
"Please don't hurt me!" she begged.
The elven man huffed with pissy disgust, looking at her very strangely. He spoke in common with a thick elven accent, words hissed like he still had a serpent's tongue.
"You lured me like bait. Did they see me overhead and decide to use you to lure the beast?" he accused with his teeth bared. She did not answer, grief and shock silencing. "But I am only hunting for wicked men tonight. Not little girls."
He stood slowly, hovering above her, thinking of his mate and their own seed of a child. "This is not mercy. My child will not feed on innocence. She will learn what your kind cannot." Leonardo backed away slowly to ready himself for transformation and flight but her defiance stopped him.
"No." Melody shouted after him with a sob. She knew Freddy was one of the dead. Knew that this guilt would slowly destroy her. Seeing the beautiful wicked man of her dreams look at her that way spurred her to fury. He turned, eyes flaring with narrowed waiting.
"No." she repeated, clearer despite her shaking. She stood and addressed the being with a heaving chest, unable to do anything but fight. "Dragons are all wicked. Your child will be too!" she added like a curse. It made her feel powerful, like she could lose her mind and be full of magic by wishing it so.
The red glow increased in intensity at her words. Leonardo made swift connection to her with a mean snatch and sunk his teeth into her tiny neck with efficiency. Her life drained in a rush and tasted unpleasantly unripe. She was fruit that should have grown longer and Leonardo felt only sour dissatisfaction from her kill. Nothing in his stomach settled right anymore.
He dropped her in the dew and transformed into a dragon, scanning over body parts leaking into the barley grass filling the air with sweet trampled leaf and rancid blood. His clawed weight sunk into the field as he snatched the body of the young man that threw the first spear through his leathered wing. He hung like a limp doll as he flew off back to Tristan's tower.
When Leonardo arrived and dumped him on the terrace, no one was around. His mate's proximity to Roval bothered him easily in his already ruined mood. The shower was a pout of denial. Normally he would present the blood of his hunt on his body for his mate but he didn't want her to have any of the girl's blood. It bothered him, the entire encounter. He regretted her kill in a way that unsettled him deeply.
She did not appear interested in what he brought home and he could hear laughter from Roval's room. He bared his teeth openly to no one as he walked back out to the terrace. With effort he removed the heart of the human and put it on a tray he grabbed from Tristan's wine and burst back into Roval's room again without care. His shadows conjured a tight rendering of elegant elven wear, hair curls separated still by the steam of the shower.
He sat down on an nearby lounge uninvited in a languid slouch, feasting and picking on the heart like it was a roasted chicken in a pub.
Roval was propped up in his recovery bed, sharing sandwiches Ahnariel made as a snack. Both paused with surprise at his return.
Roval grinned with amusement at his uncle. His bad moods were entertaining now. Ahnariel had warned him about the purpose of this hunt. "Is that a wicked heart?" he asked.
Leonardo glanced at Ahnariel while he licked his fingers messily. He brooded for a bit with drama before answering.
"I don't know. I'm the wicked one. And I eat whatever the fuck I want." he replied with a nasty rebuke, not offering a bite.
His deep, black eyes traced the line of the horizon, letting the wine he drank pull him into warm ease. It made his eyelids feel heavy and the dark, lacy fringe of his lashes eclipsed the coldness of his gaze, making him look like one of them…almost mortal, the wine glittering his gaze and placing roses in his cheeks.
He could hear the bright peals of children laughing as they played their party games. He heard the idle drawl of bored, drunk chatter around him that he couldn’t force himself to participate in. Tristan couldn’t pretend to care whose horse won last week or what idle gossip became meaningless scandal.
None of it could capture his attention.
But Eve Dracone did.
She was like a bracing, winter wind. A chill warning in black velvet. Severe, uncompromising beauty. They met eyes and he watched her try to place the familiarity of his face. It tugged his lips into the ghost of a grim because he *knew* she knew exactly who he was. One of her daughter’s many tutors. Her gaze lingered because wicked, powerful women had self destruction softly built into them and he had a face that inspired versions of him that didn’t exist candy coated romance where their strength and beauty and cleverness could save his soul.
He would have been delighted to let her try. But if she was here, it meant she’d brought at least one of her brats with her. One of her sons because there was nothing to gain with bringing Nesnora to a child’s birthday party.
He said nothing, riding from his seat to hurry to his sister. He had to keep her away from the Dracones. Got now at least. Her true nature couldn’t awaken to desire. She was the only one of her kind. Once triggered, she would look for her mate until the world’s obliteration. It would drive her mad.
Swiftly, dissolving walls of hedges in his path, he found Ahnarie. Leonardo Dracone, Eve Dracone’s young nephew was kissing her with the awkward passion of youth and tenderness that was the blackest poison.
He snagged the young man by the collar, making him snarl and yelp. To his ashamed, terrified sister he leveled a look boiling with panicked anger.
“Go inside the house, Ahnariel. I will deal with you later,” he said, voice deceptively mild and soft.
Ahnariel obeyed and hurried away, face streaked with tears. It pleased him she didn’t look back but this wouldn’t earn his mercy.
Leonardo had quiet dignity and eyes soft with a perpetually broken heart. He showed courage when he tried to bargain with him, offering himself as whipping boy so Ahnariel would face no punishment. He’d take it all himself.
“How noble,” Tristan deadpanned, dragging the boy by collar and cherubic curls across the lawn towards the place he intended to leave his mangled corpse.
Tristan didn’t toy with the youth and pretend he was the devil one made desks with. He didn’t threaten. He shoved Leo into the Dawnfire family crypt with grim finality.
“Do not beg. Your death will be swift though not kind. I will tell my sister you died a blubbering coward. So my mercy is the gift of dignity. No matter how you behave, you’ll be the coward because I have the last word.”
He struck the boy in wild frustration and terror born of love he wouldn’t acknowledge. He hit him because he hated himself for being so careless with her. Only a cool shadow falling over him stayed his hand.
Eve Dracone had come to bargain for her nephew. He found it curious, as he rubbed his knuckles made sore from beating Leo’s face unrecognizable, that there should be a tremor in her voice when she offered things she shouldn’t to save someone else’s child. Such desperate passion making her do beautifully vulnerable. The tease of her company though she must surely despise him…an audacious thing for her to offer even when her hate was indeed laced with heat.
These were the pleas of a mother and it formed his resolve to murder Leonardo Dracone.
He knew where Eve’s desires trembled. He understood the dark temptation of himself when, in his greedy, obsessive hate of her House and blood, he learned everything about her. Like how her marriage bed was cold. But more than the illicit, self loathing thrill of toying with him, the promise of influencing his power and making it her own and a legacy of ruin for her daughters made her eyes hungry.
Tristan pushed off the wall to loom over her, gentle as a lover and just as intimately close.
“If you knew…what I am and what I could do? You wouldn’t bargain with me, Eve. You wouldn’t beg me or cry.” He leaned in, something off about the fluid grace of him. He moved like a snake. His gaze drank in the fire in her eyes fueled by such arrogance and pride. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with her. “You wouldn’t even run,” he whispered in a crushed, velvet rasp.
Tristan studied her face, the elegant sweep of her cheekbones, her strong jaw all softened by her sensual mouth. He mmm’d in involuntary appreciation. “Do you think I’ve the scruples that compel me to spare a child? A maggot is still a buzzing fly,” he murmured in her ear. “There’s no temptation you can offer me to stay my hand. But I suspect you wouldn’t…unless it already intrigued you.”
His lips brushed the shell of her ear when he whispered so that only she could hear. She could feel his lips move on her skin as he hissed. “Brought a man in to rule your house…I always wondered why. Was it for love?” He drew a single finger lazily up her arm. “Didn’t matter. It isn’t love *now*…or this wouldn’t make you so hot.”
Her jaw tightened even as she lifted her chin, even as the truth was painted pretty pink on her cheeks, spreading down the graceful column of her throat. “I will extend your lessons with Nesnora.”
Tristan paused. She wouldn’t know it because it happened behind an affable, cool mask. His rage snarled and twisted in his guts. Anger at himself at how transparent his desire for Nesnora was.
“Very well. I accept. I will spare your maggot. But one day? He will be a fly. And I make no promises then.” He smiled as the rage buzzed behind his eyeballs.
“This reminds me of an old story,” he murmured as he hovered in the doorway of the crypt. “Once, a great army moved over the land, barbarians destined to lose. They were more a force of mortal cruelty…a sign the rot would kill the host. Good medicine for arrogant empires.” He stared at Leo’s unconscious body as if this story was for *him*.
“Barbarians took their victory with sadistic delight. They spared no one, not the stopped old man or the crying babe. All were put to crude blade or crushing hands. But because they were more than animals and very wicked, they would let their conquered believe they had a chance. Or worse, a choice.”
He flicked his gaze, bright with amusement to Eve who looked at him as though he were something foul, writhing in the muck.
She certainly was perceptive.
“The chief of the conquering horde demanded a pretty, young mother to make an impossible choice. He asked her to choose which of her two children he would end with his sword.” Tristan smiled broadly, folding his hands behind his back.
“Oh…what a thing to choose. Did she pick her favored son, the pride of her labors, the legacy her husband demanded to buy reprieve from his callous ego? Or her younger son, soft and unsuitable to lead the family line?” Tristan shrugged. “Ultimately, her choice didn’t make her a monster. So it mattered not what child she chose. It’s that she made the choice at all…even while knowing better.”
He tch’d and left them there to take his sister home where they would not speak of this. Not because he had accepted Leonardo Dracone’s plea. No magic held any contracts he made. But because Ahnariel would just fear his silence more.
Tristan had been very reluctant to let Ahnariel go to Tilly Dawnfire’s birthday party. She’d begged with tears. She promised to be good and that they could go home before midnight and she’d only have ONE glass of champagne.
Tristan’s shoulders were tensed at the flow of tears and desperate clasped hands. He grimaced in obvious discomfort. If it had gone on any longer he might have actually squirmed.
“Fine,” he snapped, jaw tight. “Cease your…blubbering. We leave at midnight. You will not…behave in any fashion unbecoming a lady of your station. The Dawnfires are not worthy of the grace of your company,” he said stiffly. “Do remember this. Darius Dawnfire will be there and he is a nasty little cunt,” Tristan hissed. “Don’t go off alone with him,” he said with a strange, soft seriousness. “He’s…a wicked boy that takes pleasure in hurting others.” He looked worried, brow crinkled.
Ahnariel couldn’t contain her excitement. She had begged to go to a hundred balls and fetes. He’d never said yes before. She took Tristan’s hands and squeezed them. “I won’t. Please don’t worry, brother. It’s just a birthday party.”
A rare, little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he withdrew his hands to ruffle her hair, messing up her curls. When she shrieked in protest, his smile spread and became warm without him realizing it. “You’re right,” he murmured with a cool narrowing of his eyes. “A little indulgence can’t hurt.”
Ahnariel had spent her sixteen years in a lonely tower with her brother. In those early days, she had been led to believe her parents had died when she was a baby, killed in a bitter battle with House Dracone. Tristan refused the details. They shared a mother and her kiss was his. His eyes, usually chips of gold flint, had held both horror and sadness. Ahnariel didn’t need the details.
Tristan had exacted vengeance on their killers and would one day kill every last remaining Dracone. She believed him and found it odd all the fairytales he’d whispered to her late at night were scare-tales about the Dracones.
Their babies were suckled on virgin’s blood. Their horses supped on elven flesh. The Dracones stole fair maidens for unspeakable acts and their young men artfully seduced Shadowglade beauties so they could devour their loving hearts. They were demons who wore the skin of angelic men,
When she’d been little, she’d been terrified. They were red eyed shadows of her childhood nightmares. But on the cusp of womanhood, dabbing perfume on her throat left vulnerable from pinned up bloody red curls. Dark rose rouge painted her lips. And thinking about these beautiful, dangerous, monstrous men became exciting rebellion against her brother’s strict and deeply resented control.
Her fantasy was that a Dracone boy her age would come to the party to devour her heart and that he would fall in love with her despite his wicked nature and black heart and he would still her away to kiss her and touch her until she was in love too.
It put roses in her cheeks and made her hazel eyes sparkle with excited mischief. She tried to play at being less excited than she was lest her sinful, naughty thoughts show on her flushed cheeks, but she couldn’t even sit still on the carriage ride to Dawnfire Estate.
Tilly Dawnfire was a minor noble girl three years her junior. She was a squat, pug nosed child and it was a child’s party. Ahnariel was the oldest girl there. Some of the other ‘ladies’ were as young as nine and all of them wanted nothing to do with the older, sour faced girl too old to give their follies a tea party.
Tristan rubbed in his mild cruelty by sitting amongst the children and sipping pretend tea as ribbons were tied in his inky hair. He smiled like a fox, cutting her a clever look. It was a brother’s prank but to Ahnariel, it was the worst day of her life!
Her brother insisted she be a good sport and play the last pastry game in the garden with the children. He knew she could not refuse him.
It was a game of hounds and foxes. The foxes hid red flags in the garden maze. The hounds hunted the flags. Whoever had the most flags won. The adults, including Tristan sat in lounge chairs and ate cheese and figs and drank cognac. Ahnariel felt she didn’t belong anywhere.
Tilly kicked the dirt with her stain slippered foot. “We need two more. The rules are six players. Three hounds and three foxes.”
She started to cry until a lanky youth with shaggy blonde hair and a black eye swaggered into the torch and lantern light. “Darius! Brother please play hounds and foxes! It’s my birthday!” Tilly cried. “Leo…you have to play too or I’ll tell Papa you gave Darius that black eye.” Tilly said this with confidence though she’d not witnessed it…as though it was something that happened often.
Ahnariel’s gaze was ensnared. Not by Darius Dawnfire, though he was a handsome boy with mean eyes. But on his…friend. Leo. He had dark, cherubic curls spilling messily over his forehead and coiling against his neck. Tall and lean, he had deepest eyes full of stinging fire and ice. He rubbed his reddened knuckles, evidence of his violence. He looked mean…wicked. But all of this was softened by his sweet, generous mouth which was pulled into a crooked grin.
“Tilly! I hit your brother defending your honor! He said you looked like a little truffle pig and I couldn’t let such an insult stand.” As zero said this, he cut his clever gaze to her, that grin sharpening.
Ahnariel ducked her head to hide her flush and delighted smile.
Darius’s face reddened. He huffed. “That’s not it! He punched me be-“
He was cut off by Leo’s elbow to his stomach. “Tilly, we would be honored to play hounds and foxes. I must insist on being a hound,” he said smoothly, his eyes holding her gaze again. “I love a good…hunt.”
“You can be a hound, Lord Dracone,” Tilly said as though she was knighting him, imperious with her chin lifted.
Ahnariel’s heart stuttered and she felt dizzy. He was a dark prince from a scare-tail come to devour her heart and he looked…so…hungry. And her tender heart felt as though it was tumbling into love as only the young can feel.
Ahnariel narrowed her eyes. “I’d like to be a hound too, Tilly,” she said with a mean smile of her own. Her pulse raced as she thought of Tristan’s fury. “I’m afraid I don’t have the temperament of a fox. I like to chase. Not run away.” She looked at Leo Dracone with challenge.
He seemed genuinely delighted. He looked so sweet it made her chest ache.
The rest of the children argued, all of them wanting to be foxes and hide the flags. Once it was decided, the game began with Tilly’s friends giggling and running, dashing into the hedge maze to hide the flags, Darius going with them. Tilly chested, sneaking behind them to see where they hid the flags.
She knew she shouldn’t be alone with him. He was the enemy. She learned magic that would someday be used against him. But oh…he was better than the fantasy. More dangerous too because he was so beautiful.
“I’m Ahnariel Shadowglade,” she told him like it was a dare. She squared her shoulders, wanting to see him try to seduce her away to carve out her heart. “I’m not scared of you,” she lied.
He laughed, brow raised. “Well,” he said, looking off towards the hedge maze, the summer evening wind playing with his dark curls. “You should be,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Because I’m going to win. You won’t even get ONE flag,” he boasted.
She huffed, incredulous.
He turned to her, looking her over. “What? Think you should win just because you’re pretty?”
Her cheeks burned hot and she felt excited and angry all at once. “No,” she snapped, defensive.
Ahnariel’s eyes narrowed with sudden inspiration. All at once, using the strange magic her brother had taught her, Ahnariel smothered the torches and snuffed the magic light of the lanterns, plunging them into cool darkness.
“I’m going to win because I’m clever,” she hissed at him, brushing past him to tease his skin with the whisper of the silk of her dress before breaking into a run. She felt like a fox then and she wanted him to chase her down.
He did just as she desired and he was fast so he caught her easily, hands snatching her by the waist. She giggled breathlessly…and let HIM win for a moment.
“Not that clever,” he said, breath hot against the shell of her ear.
“No?” She wondered airily as she made the ground under his left foot simply not exist. It crested a sudden hole in the earth so that he stumbled, releasing her.
She yanked on a midnight black curl before darting deeper into the hedge maze, chased by his growl of frustration.
She found a flag this way, rounding a corner. And because Leonardo Dracone was clever too and knew the maze well enough he could complete it with his eyes closed, he caught her again by letting her come to him.
Ahnariel dashed around another corner and nearly ran into his chest. He seized her meanly and she liked this game very much. She dangled her flag above his head as he pulled her into him.
“I got a flag,” she taunted. “And I’ll get the rest.”
“I don’t care about the flags,” he said as if bored. “I already won the prize.” His fingers at her waist tightened.
Oh…he was going to kiss her, his eyes sliding shut as he leaned in. She met him clumsily halfway, so eager to be kissed by this beautiful boy who was supposed to be her enemy, that she trembled a little.
It was a deep, slow kiss. It chased and coaxed until she melted against him and sighed and parted her lips for his tongue. It was so good. Everything she ever dreamed her first kiss would be. She was so swept away, her heart filled with such sweetness it would have given him a belly ache if he devoured it, that she didn’t feel or notice him tug the flag out of her grip.
“I win,” he murmured against her lips before pulling away to dangle the flag in her flushed face.
Before Ahnariel could protest that he was a rotten chest, a figure stepped out of the shadows behind him, his face a blank. His eyes cold with the ice of his rage.
Tristan tsk’d, leaning down to murmur in his ear. “I’m afraid you lost,” he corrected, voice lilting with sadistic amusement.
Driven by a constitution that far exceeded a mortal woman’s, Ahnariel dashed wildly into the forest. Adrenaline made the thorns and brambles painless but saw her adding her roses to the local flora. She hoped he could smell it.
She couldn’t hear him chase her because he was a clever predator, but she was certain he was. It filled her with a bizarre joy. She didn’t run with much purpose or even panic.
Because she wanted him to catch her.
Not yet, he’d said. It had stung and infuriated her. Insulted her! But she had given him his due. He would have to make it up to her.
The forest suddenly thinned to a small clearing that held a crystal clear pool fed by a waterfall. The water promised relief from burning wounds, so without further thought, she waded into the pool. The cold water made her hiss through her teeth and stung all her scratches and lacerations, but it brought the relief she’d hoped for.
And with relief from pain came exhaustion. She staggered through the water until she stood under the waterfall, gasping at the cold and the sting. Ahnariel hadn’t heard him and all the flora and fauna confused her senses so she could no longer smell him, so she ducked into the small alcove in the rock beneath the thin waterfall to further confound him. He had to be close.
She leaned back against the cold, slick rock wall and panted, dizzy and bleeding still, weak from blood loss. Her fingers went to her throat, feeling of the puncture marks on her neck, face flooding with heat from dinged pride and intense arousal. Tristan had been right about the Dracones when he’d called them monsters and blood drinkers.
But wasn’t she a monster too? She thought.
It was too complicated to even consider now as she realized there was nowhere else for her to run. The floating island was a dead end on all sides and she’d run into the edges swiftly. Him catching her was certain.
From the way her heart raced…she realized she wanted him to either actual awareness. She needed him to catch her.
To taste her kiss after her blood was a divine ritual so pleasurable he knew what she was. It confronted his cynical shield against such things with sudden, sacrilegious certainty. To fight the world his entire life, to keep love between teeth only to find it burning from within broke him and he panicked. There was only one way to be certain. He would follow the strange guiding instincts of their kind.
TW: Brief smut. Violence.
Leonardo's eyes dripped with desire but her words flashed them into defiance and a sneer. A broad, smug smile crookedly aimed at her and laughed, even as the pain throbbed beneath his back and stung all over.
"Not yet." he teased. "Go ahead and try… it will be very difficult unless you have teeth like mine."
As if to demonstrate, he pulled back his lips in a grin, exposing his sharp elegant fangs. Still blood-drunk, Leonardo's lashes were thick and heavy-lidded as his hands squeezed the cheeks of her buttocks to a point of pain.
"You poor thing, you'll say anything to fuck me right now. It hurts, doesn't it. Wanting this so badly…"
Provoking further, he reached down and slapped his cock several times rapidly on her straddled sex. The smile he had knowing her wet heat was infuriating.
This was about all she could stand, her dragon pride and frustration reaching a peak. She reached down and grabbed his stiff flesh and squeezed, eyes flaring at him dangerously. At first he looked thrilled, eager to be pleasured until she didn't stop squeezing. He grunted with alarm and squirmed, realizing she wasn't stopping. With a violent grab on her waist he flung her sideways. His teeth sank into her gorgeous, buttock delicately scraped with cuts and she cried out in fear, releasing him.
He stood up, staggering still from the injuries on his back. Her scream and charge at him was wild but he reached out to grab her by the hair roughly. Leaning down and forcing her head up, he stole a hard kiss with her pressed against him until her knee came up sharp into his groin.
Leonardo cried out and crumpled over, wavering. She had gone too far. His dangerous look leveled at her as she backed away in the ancient, strange foliage. Grunting to recover, he stood and spat on the ground before walking with determination in her direction. He watched her flee, slip between the leaves.
As she should.
At first he went slowly, as his injuries allowed. He cursed himself for not saving enough magic to heal himself. Pain like this was making everything more difficult.
He slapped the large leaves away tersely, as if each moment could be the one to reveal. A rustle of leaves behind him sent his heart racing into the hunt. He did not move until she started to run. Quick on her heels, Leonardo pursued through the forest as she fled like a nymph from fate.
There was no shout to stop. No protest to bring her to heel or obey. He would let her run, let her feel the dew in her hair and the cold shiver in her bones until she did not want to run from him anymore. Then he would find her to give her what she needed.
