1

In silence I fell to my knees. Silent tears of terror and sorrow drew lines down my dusty cheeks. My stone was plucked from the sack, I was chosen. My mother and father clung to each other and wailed. My brother stood stoic. My betrothed seethed behind them, then shouted, “Draw another, anyone else!”

Our Liege Lord shook his head sadly and proffered the stone to me between thumb and two fingers. It was smooth and round, a good skipping stone, a river stone. In it the symbol of my name had been etched, a dusty white upon dark blue-gray. My trembling hand rose and took it. Cold and heavy as my palms came together with it between.

My head bowed as I listened to my Liege Lord’s words, “You will do this for your people, you will negotiate our salvation.” Unlike the other one, the betrayer. Jola… Jola who had been chosen the day before. Jola who had shamed us all.

“Yes m’lord. I will do this,” I replied with a halting voice. I would, I had to. I was chosen in her place, I would not bring shame upon myself or them.

“No!” Damarc cried, “Adrieth, no!” I did not look back at him, only clutched the stone to my breast and silently prayed.

2

Upon the high bluff, at the meeting point, I stood alone with torch in hand and lit the pyre. It was a new moon and the clouds were dark. Beyond the firelight there was nothing but the rush of wind. Even the torches of the village had been put out that night so as not to draw the beast’s eye nor the invaders across the river.

My heart was as stone, my mind cool and fearless. For endless generations our people had lived upon the bank under the shadow of the mountain. Under the shadow of the beast. He had simple wants which we fulfilled when we were compelled. Simple sacrifices we made to ensure the survival of our people. Others saw us as little more than chattel, domesticated animals to satiate the beast, penned by our own fear.

As I stood there with brand held to the fat soaked logs, I knew better. My stomach churned with queasy fear, my mind ran panicked circles, and my knees shook, but I did not flee. The flames caught, the fire blazed to life, and the signal was set. Even if I tried to run, my scent would be strewn across the bluff top. He would find me. I had eaten nothing, drank nothing, and cleansed myself ritually in the river before my ascent. The nausea and terror held back simply by being empty.

I waited upon trembling legs, afraid to sit. I doubted I could rise again if I did and one did not face their fear upon their rump. Cold stiff wind curled around me, tossed my gown, and left me uncertain whether I shivered from the chill—or fear.

The minutes stretched as the logs blackened under the bite of flame. Coals formed, ash drifted down, sparks rose, the fire settled. I stared into it as a distraction, it mesmerized and compelled but I did not forget. My back cooled, my front roasted, but I dared not turn away and look into the inky black.

There came a sound not heard within my short life. It brought to my mind a sheet caught in the wind against a tree, but so much larger. Then another flap of wings followed, closer, a third. The back wind struck the pyre and sent ashes, sparks, and coals scattering toward me. The logs tumbled and scattered apart. Pinpricks of flame stung my arms, legs, and face or burned holes in my gown. I did not flinch away though my eyes burned from smoke and ash.

The ground shook under my feet suddenly. The light of the fire died to a ruddy ember glow. That glow reflected back off the belly scales of the beast, a bare hint of illumination. He stepped forward, over the scattered pyre, and stooped. A large head dipped to meet mine. Green eyes shimmered with an inner illumination around deep dark diamond slit pupils.

I stood my ground before him, stared back into those eyes and thought of the heroes of old. Stories told over and over before camp fires in the dead of winter. The men and women who gave themselves to the beast so the others might live. Stories would be told of me, my name would be remembered long past the passing of everyone I’d ever known.

“You seek death, daughter of the river?” He inquired, his voice a silky sensation that penetrated my mind like water in a sponge. His words did not exist beyond the confine of my mind, no lips moved, no tongue curled to syllables that vast muzzle could never speak.

His words were ritual, known to me by rote. Some sought the release of death. The old, the infirm, the sick of heart or mind. He did not satiate himself with corpses, only the living. Those who knew they would die, or who balanced the weight of life against the release of death, they came to him in surrender.

I did not. “No great one. I come in seek of life. I come in service of my people, in a time of great need. I am young, full of life, full of potential, betrothed. Before me is a future of comfort, pleasure, and work of great value. I am a potter trained, clay forms beauty and utility under my deft fingers. I have wide hips and a fertile depth from which a dozen sons might be born. I am swift upon land and water and have won many races. No, great one, I do not seek death.” Truly, my pottery was nothing miraculous or valuable, but it could hold water and wine. I must boast however, so the stories told. I must raise the value of my person as high as truth could stretch.

“No? Then why have you come to this dread peak sister of death?” The words sank into my thoughts, almost my own inner voice, almost, but subtly wrong. There was a heat behind them, a hunger like fire upon thatch. They were no longer ritual, simply curious. My value had been accepted and his interest piqued.

I stared back up into those vast green eyes, my fear gone and in its place a deep sense of peace. “A hoard has come to our shore. They are from a distant land and know nothing of you, or us. They see our fields, our flocks, our women and know desire. We met with them upon the far shore in sight of the village. Five of our elders departed in a fine canoe, one returned, spared, with a demand. Twice the sun would rise and set, upon the third, they would come and take us from our homes. Should we fight, we would die, should we come out and meet them in surrender, they would keep us as the chattel we are.” I finished my recitation, then added as an afterthought, “when the sun rises again, it will be the third.”

“Then you have little time to spare, sister of death. Already the breath of morning stirs the birds to waking. You should have come the prior night, what delayed you?”

I had feared this question and the shame it spilled across my heart. “Another was chosen, great one. She departed to bathe in the river, then fled while she was given privacy. Her shame burns deep now, her betrayal unthinkable.”

I felt his fury, hotter than the pyre had been, it raged through my thoughts and left me blank, empty, scoured. No words came with that emotion, no sense, only a mind obliterating intensity. When it subsided, I found myself upon the hard stone, sprawled in an awkward position. I had wet myself, the front of my gown damp and cold against my waist. I tried to rise again, but my arms and legs did not function, they twitched and jerked but did not obey.

One word reached me then, a scorching brand against my recovering thoughts. An imprint left like a footprint in sand or the blackened ground under a cook fire. “Wait,” was all he said, and I did. It was all I did. I could no more have disobeyed than I could have willed the sun to rise in the west and set in the east. I waited, cold, damp, and blank upon the dark peak of the bluff, the dreadful sacrifice delayed. Around me the smoldering logs crackled and cooled in the stiff night wind and the sun began to rise. I hadn’t even heard him leave, but I was alone.

3

I woke with the tremble of massive feat upon stone. For a moment I forgot where I was, who I was, there was only the pressure of the command within my mind. I waited until another thought leaked up to the surface of my mind and popped free, like a bubble in mud. It was day. In fact, the sun was high, beyond noon even. I felt well rested, though my body ached, stiff and bruised. I had not moved at all from the awkward position I had fallen into.

This time, my limbs obeyed, albeit with a tremendous stiffness that suggested I would be sore for weeks—had I been likely to live for weeks. The flap of wings and scrape of scales focused my mind as the great beast folded his wings and peered down to me. I managed, barely, to climb to my hands and knees, then sit back upon my heels and look upon him in the glory of day. Beyond him the far bank smoked and fire yet burned in the distant forests.

“It is done, sister of death. Your people will live. You will live.” The slippery, mind bending words wormed their way into my thoughts, like a key in a lock. The command snapped, I felt free, more free than I ever had before, like a bird loosed from it’s cage.

It took a moment for the words to sink beyond emotion into understanding. “I will live, great one? I, as in, this sacrifice to you?”

“You will, yes, but with a single condition.”

I swallowed, new fear welled. “W-what condition?”

That rage returned, restrained and controlled, but no less intense. It felt like my own rage, but larger and greater than anything I might have ever managed. I gasped breaths, hyperventilated, my mouth agape and eyes wide. I was a animal in a trap, or pinned by the arrow to a tree, or a mouse in the cat’s claws. Panic was all I knew, yet his words reached me no less, they etched themselves upon my soul like my name symbol upon the river stone. “Find the betrayer and bring her to me. Until you do, you may not seek a future, nor live your life. She and you are linked, bound by ties of shame. Bring her to me so that you may be free and that I may feast.” His tone shifted, dark and possessive, the feel of him within was like a fish hook in flesh, painful and impossible to ignore. “They were right, in a way, you, your people are chattel, my flock of precious sheep. One of the flock has turned on me and must be culled.”

I managed to gasp out a hasty, “Yes great one!”

The rage faded into a crackling smolder behind my thoughts. Not his, mine. Something else burned behind his green eyes, something fierce and hungry. “I would not, however, send you away untasted or untested, sister of death. Remove your clothes, you will not need them.”

It took only a moment for the stunning compulsion to fade into the back of my mind and settle. I began to think again, to reason of my own volition. His words were a command, but they did not compel. There was no question that I would obey, but he did not force. I slowly rose to my feet and brushed the ruined gown from my shoulders. It fell and pooled about my feet. My dusky skin was exposed to the warmth of the sun. There were a dozen speckles of pink, marks where the coals had burned. I pulled at my underclothes until the loose knot came undone and the still damp cloth fell from my wide hips.

My eyes rose to his again. I felt no discomfort being naked before him. It was what he desired, it was his right. I was his property, his… his ewe. I was his, and he wanted me exposed, shorn of clothes. His pupils narrowed to tight slits as they explored my form. I might have wondered what he saw in me, but I did not need to ask. His emotions spilled over upon me, shared, nearly my own. I felt desire, lust. It was a confusion of sensations, alien yet familiar. I was no dragon, nor man. His desire was aggressive and powerful, a thing of force and thrusts, of staking claims and passions received.

I looked upon him, his sun gleaming bronze scales, uneven and mismatched at their seams. Muscles bunched and rolled under them, without the fat a human might have built up. Sleek and smooth, his body designed to fly, to cut the wind. He was majestic to behold, and in the influence of his emotions upon me; I desired him.

Between his hind legs, an hidden seam—just another amongst thousands—parted. His inner, brick red flesh swelled beyond the scales, like lips pursed. Those lips parted as something like a narrow pointed tongue emerged. I’d seen men of the village a number of times, sheaths of flesh and fur hung over wrinkled sacks. They were nothing like this, nothing like that glistening flesh as it unsheathed into the daylight.

I knew, by tales of winter, that I was not the first woman of my people to witness this. All of our heroes had come to him, satisfied him, and died in the exchange. It was a woman’s duty to spread her legs for her people, a known truth. I would had given myself to my betrothed upon our wedding bed and brought in the next generation as was my duty. Perhaps I would have died in childbirth, or perhaps I would have lived. It was a woman’s place to guard the gates of life and death after all, and a man’s place to tempt death to bring forth life. The heroes though, those who sacrificed themselves to the great beast, there was only death. The gate torn wide.

I trembled, but did not fear. I would live, I would bring forth the betrayer to take her place. She, not I, would feed the beast’s hunger, but I… I it seemed would satisfy his lust, and live. Silently I apologized to my betrothed as I approached. I could stand fully below his vast form without brushing his stomach with my head. I approached until that protruding slit swelled above my head and the masculine flesh hung like a stalactite before my breasts. I would live, I reminded myself, but had trouble believing it.

The smell of him was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I’d helped mate the horses, bovines, and sheep. I’d held their issuance in my cupped hands and plunged the salty, pungent milk into mare, cow, and ewe. He was utterly alien. Salty yes, and pungent, but sweet and sour as well. There was also an undertone of dark, tilled earth and bitter herb, and death. A constant rivulet of dark fluid ran from his slit, drooled down his length, and splashed upon my feet. It smelled coppery like blood, and foul like wintered fertilizer.

More of him emerged, thick as my thigh but tapered to a tip as narrow as my thumb. His shaft was lined with woven ridges that flexed and shifted as muscle clenched within. He curled forward, up, and angled that tapered tip toward my face from about waist height. The underside held a long teardrop shaped slit, that opened slightly to spill a milky green down the upturned shaft.

His desire filled me, dominated me, and controlled me. He did not need to speak, no question or demand made. I fell to my knees before him and reached forth toward his lust. He curled further, muscles bunched and shifted under that slippery hide, and reached for my grasp. When his damp tip slipped between my palms, I clasped it just as I had the stone, and drew it to my bare breast. I held his hot flesh to me, cherished it. I could feel the throb of blood in his veins and the slower throb of lust. His urethra gaped again and another splatter of milky green rushed forth. My throat was coated, it pooled in the valley of my breasts, and the pungent odor cleared my sinuses while my eyes watered. It burned.

I felt my own touch through him, his emotions spiked, his lust swelled along with his erection. He could have spit me from end to end upon it as he had so many women before. I could imagine it, the agony of surrender, the sacrifice of my life to his pleasure. My sex clenched and my own moisture drooled. I was sister to death, it held no fear for me, I wanted completion!

His narrow head rose, a long diamond shape, slit by his urethra. It rose and pressed against my face. Lips already opened, he slid between and my tongue met him for the first time. I tasted him, tasted his foul lust, felt my tongue and lips burn with it. I moaned aloud and closed my lips, not in rejection but in acceptance; I drew him in, deeper.

That act loosed his self control, sent his lust beyond understanding. He was so much more than me, so much larger in all possible ways. His emotions went beyond the petty human feelings. I felt him shudder above me, felt him recoil and tense. His urethral slit gaped against my tongue. He growled low and deep. His searing lust poured forth across my tongue, filled my mouth, blasted against the back of my throat and both up into my sinuses and down my throat. green milk shot in twin streams from my nostrils and welled in my eyes, clouding my vision.

The rush ended again as quickly as it had come. My throat burned, my stomach ached, my sinuses, eyes, and nose were on fire. I sucked in a deep, desperate breath, then coughed my throat free, just in time for him to force himself down. His hips above me flexed, I could hear the muscles and tendons tighten, feel his body lower toward me. His head slipped into my throat, past my tonsils, and down. My eyes were wide, but saw only a vague green-stained light. His urethra gaped again somewhere behind my breast bone. His phallus throbbed against tongue and teeth, stretched my jaw to their limit. My stomach bloated as he ejaculated once more. I felt like I might vomit, but nothing passed the seal of his spire within.

I closed my eyes at last, and felt seminal tears drool down my upturned cheeks. His hips lowered further, his phallus sank deeper, my jaw popped but did not yet break. I would live, I told myself, again and again, I would live, he’d said so! His growl rose from it’s low rumble, another throb nearly split my head and neck. My guts gurgled and squelched as he forced the fluid in, used me for his intense pleasure.

I was in agony, yet I was in bliss. I felt his climax approach like a floodwater rising upon the river. My own depths clenched and oozed, throbbed and twitched in utter pleasure. He shared heart to heart with me, let me feel what no human could ever experience or even dream of. I felt his bliss as he let another throb loose his seed into me, a tiny shudder before the incredible release that was pending.

Tension built within him, within me, within our minds. I wanted to scream. I felt like I would explode, physically and otherwise. My hips jerked violently back and forth in sympathy to the intense pleasure he experienced. Then, he began to crest. The tension reached and reached and reached until… His phallus ripped from my throat, gaped urethra already beginning to leak. His whole penis swelled and curled upward against my stomach and breasts. His hips lowered, trembling, until he sat upon me, mashed his genital slit into my hips with the long length of his erection curled between thighs, up belly, and pointed at my face.

The flood reached us then at last, the tension broke, the river swelled in his urethra let loose. Hot, nearly scalding, the valley of my breasts filled and bathed my throat. Pleasure crashed upon us, violent and mind searing. I came in sympathy, my orgasm a pale imitation to the radiant fury and bliss beyond me. His seed sprayed and sprayed, nearly drowned me in place. I accepted it, tasted him, savored him, and welcomed his violence into the peaceful depths of my heart and mind. To his thoughts I whispered the words I would have spoken to my husband upon the climax of our wedding bed, a precious gift of the heart reserved, only for him now.

The violence faded into lethargy. He slumped upon all fours, knelt over me, his tail drooped beyond the edge of the bluff, hips heavy upon mine. Between us, his member twitched and spit. Within us, the exhausted post-release bliss warmed and soothed. Would I have lived to share this with him? I did not know, but I was thankful I had. Within me I felt his love, as intense as his fury, as intense as his lust. He had spared me at the last, his climax would have killed me as surely as his jaws. I curled my limp arms around his member and hugged it, him, and projected as much of my own affection and appreciation as I could.

Hours we laid together, basking in the afterglow, sharing our intimate mental braid. Where he ended and I began was impossible to know. I was his, his in so many ways, ways our people could never understand. Chattel, yes, but more, oh so much more. I would have happily laid upon his tongue and curled into his jaws at that moment, even welcomed the sharp points of his teeth into my flesh with love and joy! I could feel his hunger, and he knew my offer, but that fate was not to be mine. At least, not yet. Someday when I was old and gray perhaps, or sick with fever.

As the sun set, he rose again. My flesh was caked with gummy clots and crusty patches of semen. I felt honored to wear his messy release. My stomach was still bloated and bladder beyond full. His phallus had retreated hours ago, and his slit had sealed itself against my pelvis leaving only a sticky brown stain from knee to navel. I looked up at him, at his filthy slit, and felt his own desire mirror mine. Or was my desire his? I could not answer that.

As one, we gave in. I sighed, he sighed. Before my eyes his slit parted downward to expose the dark red inner flesh, and a sharply defined passage. It emerged, not unlike his penis had, but short and wide. Urine spilled from me, from semen clotted folds. It splattered against my thighs, knees, and the stone below. His own desperate need for release peaked, and cloudy yellow-green urine rained down upon me like water from a falls. It burned my eyes as I stared up into him, but I did not close them. So bitter it made me cringe, but my lips did not close. I drank from his hot and filthy flow, bathed in it, ran fingers through my hair to rinse knots of sperm from strands in his shower. I scrubbed at breasts, belly, sex, cupped my fingers and let it pool in between the folds of my sex.

He drained himself, but it took so very long. My scalp and other tender skin itched and burned. My eyes, nose, mouth, nipples, sex, and anus swelled and ached. I loved it, every pain a gift, every irritation, a marking upon my thoughts of him. Within, his relief was nearly as complete as the aftermath of his climax. He had fed well upon the enemy that morning, devoured thousands, burned the rest, and washed them down with river water. This was the result of my surrender and I worshiped his gift as the last dribble and squirt rained upon my upturned face.

At last, empty and sated, he stood to his full height and stretched. Bones popped like firecrackers along his spine. Another, but final, pleasurable sensation he let me share in. At last, he was finished with me. “Your duty awaits sister of death. Do not return until you have her in hand. When you do I will take you home to my lair, to a life of purpose beyond death.” The words imprinted themselves upon my mind, fingers in clay, then suddenly baked to stone.

“Beyond death?” I asked. The command took root and I backed away, but my confusion was evident, “I do not understand.”

He smiled, though his lips only curled into something of a snarl and his eyes narrowed, I felt it within our rapidly dwindling link. “Nor should you,” he told me, and then he was gone from my mind as his wings spread. I felt diminished, small, and so very exhausted. As he flew up into the twilight, I realized how much I wanted him, how desperate I was to live within his dominating mind. Now I had only thoughts of my own, petty and stupid. Emotions as dull and limited as an ewe’s.

“Jola,” I said, quietly to myself. “I am coming for you.” The vicious fury in my voice would have made grown men quaver and knees weak, but it was a pitiful thing compared to the great beast.

4

My skin burned, my face ached, my vision distorted, and a pounding headache kept time with my racing heart. Only duty kept me going, only the scent in my nose reminded me of my purpose, of my prey. It was a waning crescent moon, the second since the night of sacrifice. I’d descended from the bluff top, a living sacrifice. Naked, scalded, and bruised black and blue, but alive.

Mother, bless her, had rushed to me with a blanket, sobbing. I had refused to cover myself. He wanted me bare, he wanted me exposed, I was proud to obey. They did not understand, my mother, my father, my people. I walked through the town, bare and reeking of waste, but with head held high and eyes full of conviction. I’d gone to the smithy and pounded upon the door until old Garl had struggled from his bed, half naked himself.

He’d started to speak, shock evident in his face, but I interjected, “A sword, short and thin, light enough for me to carry at a run. Have it done by morning.” Then I’d turned away and stalked toward the smokehouse and began collecting cured meats and cheeses.

By that point the whole town was roused and shouting confused questions. I answered no one, the fury in my heart the only thing that mattered. That, and a return to the heaven I’d only glimpsed under the great beast. Those doors were closed until I returned, nothing else mattered. My furious desire, my furious hate, my fury. They saw it in my eyes and obeyed without hesitation. I was denied nothing, but took little. Some food, a sword, a bow and six arrows. The last thing I did that night, was go to Jola’s home and fall asleep in her bed, the smell of her soaking into me, her pillow, her blanket, her clothes.

The food was gone now, all but one arrow spent, the sword remained in my hand, the belt that had once held it torn off. But I still smelled her and I ran. I ran until I dropped. Sleep was not a choice, only a necessity. I ran all day and night, then another day and night until I collapsed, and slept until my body recovered. I ate what I could forage; berries, nuts, insects, small animals, even the inner bark of trees. Sometimes it made me sick, yet I continued to run. It was no illusion either, no figment. Some times when the wind shifted, I could catch her scent on it. Some times I’d find sign of her in the wilderness, where she had camped, her blood upon a stick, where she had relieved herself.

My prey was close now, I’d found her last camp with coals still warm under the earth and fallen leaves still wet with urine. I yawned wide, tongue up, and her scent filled my senses. My tongue flicked, tip now forked and so very sensitive. My jaw popped, it popped frequently now, this time when it popped, I felt a relief as it settled into a new position. The change overcoming me didn’t matter, I didn’t think about it, I didn’t fear it or welcome it.

The sun was began to set and stretched shadows long, the terrain became treacherous underfoot. I leaped from fallen log to boulder to tree branch to ground without thought. I moved through the forest like a window between the trees. I was close, so close, the taste of her filled me, made my mouth water and loins ache. Not for her did my body react, but for the result of her. I’d drag her home, broken yet alive, and give her to my beloved beast, my world. He would thank me, appreciate me, and satisfy himself with me. He promised me, I would spend the rest of my life with him.

Those fantasies, those thoughts, those were allowed. Those dreams drove me harder, pushed me to go faster. I had a duty, and anything that helped me fulfill that duty was good and right. I grinned wide and flicked my tongue into the dim twilight. So close, so very close. Smoke and unwashed body dominated.

I leaped from branch to branch as I climbed the hill. Only the faint rustle of the tree top announced my approach. My hands and feet curled and claws sank into bark silently between leaps. Higher and higher I rushed. The flicker of flame reflected off leaves, a faint yellow glow glimpsed between thick boughs. She was there, at last, I would have her, I would enter heaven!

The final tree caught. I stared down into a small clearing with a ring of stones and a cook fire. She was crouched over it in tattered clothes, her hair a snarl, her face hidden. I dropped behind her with a soft patter of thuds onto all four, then stood. She screamed and tried to rise, tried to turn, and only managed to fall face first into the fire ring. Her clay pot broke under her, boiling water spilled, fire sizzled and quenched the flames. She screamed and darkness fell, complete.

My hands found that tangled mess of hair and twisted. I dragged her bodily from the sputtering coals and thrust her backward against a large oak. She screamed again and thrashed in my grasp, slapped at my arms. Hulking muscles flexed under her fingers, nails scrabbled over rough scaly hide. All I said was, “I have you at last!”

She halted her frantic movement and stared up at my shadowed form. I could see her wide eyes reflected in the dim light of the crescent moon, the terror in pleased me. I tasted it upon the air around her, the fear like the scent of roast meat while hungry or hot tea in frigid winter. I felt lust, a pale imitation of the great beast’s lust, but it was his. He had wanted her, wanted to take her life upon his lust, then devour her. I wanted him to as well, the desire burned greater than even my need for heaven.

“Adrieth?” she sputtered between terrified sobs.

I dragged my forked tongue across her cheek, tasted her sweat, grime, and tears. I wondered if she would scream when he entered her? I wanted to enter her now, wanted so very badly to bury myself in her folds and hear her screams as she tore. I did not respond to her inquiry, barely even knew that she spoke. Words were not part of my world anymore, not really. I felt my desire peak, then forced her down, onto her knees in the underbrush and pressed her face up, between my thighs.

She gagged and struggled, but my grip was firm and she was so small now. Once, she had been head to head with me, slightly taller even perhaps, now I towered over her. I imagined her choking upon his penis, imagined her throat bulge and stretch, her eyes wide and terrified. No screams, only struggles and thrashes. I tried, clenched and pushed, my hairless slit mashed into her lips and flesh parted, waste filled her nose and mouth, but I had no penis, nothing to force down her throat. It was not my duty anyway, that would belong to him!

Instead, I relieved myself against her face. She choked as urine filled her nose and eyes, then when I mashed between her lips, she was forced to swallow or drown. She swallowed. I felt my power over her like a physical thing, a chain binding us together. Her suffering was all deserved, and I would give her as much as I could before she returned to fulfill her sacrifice!

5

Dawn broke at last and I dragged the legless body onto my shoulders. She woke with a sob, her wide eyes rolled back and forth in disoriented agony. It had taken another cycle of the moon to return, and I’d lost all resemblance of humanity in that time. That night after she’d seen the bluff in the failing sunlight, she had tried to run. It wasn’t the first time she had tried, but it felt like a betrayal all over again.

Once I’d dragged her back to the camp fire, I’d tossed the blade of my sword in the fire and pinned her to the ground. She’d kicked and screamed when my jaw closed upon her calf, but my neck muscles were far stronger than her legs. I’d shattered her leg bone in that bite, then tore everything below her knee away and eaten it before her eyes. Bite by bite, I’d taken her legs as she bled out. She would never run again. Then, before the end, I’d cauterized her stumps and fallen into a deep, happy sleep atop of her sobbing form.

Now, it was time. Today at last, today I would gift upon the great beast the sacrifice that was due! With her much lighter body draped over my shoulders, I ran in great bounding leaps across the floodplain toward the town and the bluff above it. I cleared what should have been a half day hike in less than an hour, then climbed the stairs cut in the cliff all the way to the top.

I had been noticed, bells had run, people shouted, but I cared for none of it. People were knocked out of the way, swords clattered against scales and did not cut. Their fear gave way to confusion as I stopped before the well, then knelt to drop the bucket. Around me the crowd gathered, nervous, cautious, weapons drawn, eyes wide.

Jola moaned and lifted her head. What she saw in those around her I cannot be sure, but she wailed a sound of utter shame. She begged forgiveness between snot filled blubbers. I however just drew the bucket back up and poured the fresh clean water into my muzzle and drank deep.

“Adrieth, is that you?” Someone asked, a familiar voice. I looked up and found a familiar woman aside a familiar man. I could not remember their names, but lost emotions began to churn in the back of my mind. Family. Home. I shook my head, more at myself than their words. I had no family and no home, nothing but the great beast to return to.

I rose from my knees and stretched. My spine popped, calves creaked, and powerful muscles flexed. Then I settled the helpless form upon my other shoulder and looked down upon my people. Down. I was near twice the height of the tallest man, as if they were all children. I smiled to myself, exposed sharp, glassy fangs. They stepped back in fear but I did not strike, only lifted my nose toward the bluff and focused. It seemed closer, smaller than I remembered. Everything did in more ways than one. Home, I was going home.

I began to move again, casual and slow. The crowd parted, then followed behind me. I reached the steps and began to climb again. Jola wailed herself sick, but she was nothing now, a pathetic cripple, a shameful coward. I did not think of her as a person, not like those unnamed people who had spoken my name, nor like the glorious being that was the beast.

At last I crested the top, my long trek at its end. There he basked in the warm light of the mid day sun, bronze scales gleamed. His eyes were open and upon me, his lips curled open and forked tongue protruding. I felt a flutter of a touch, then his words penetrated my thoughts sharp and violent yet intensely welcome. “You have returned, sister of death, and you have brought the betrayer to cleanse your shame.”

I returned, thought to thought, lips motionless, “No, Beast, I have no shame to be cleansed.” It was true, I’d shucked any sense of shame with my humanity and regretted none of it. I stood before him renewed.

Upon my shoulder the coward begged and pleaded aloud, “no nono, please, don’t eat me, don’t! I don’t want to die!” I carried her forward and laid her to the stone below, stained by soot from the fire I’d lit. She stared up, helpless, and looked between him and I.

“No shame? None?” his voice within me was amused, playful. I shook my head and grinned as I caught the direction of his thoughts. “Shall we dispose of this wretched filth at our feet?” he asked then, and both of our gazes turned toward the sobbing woman. Immediately I felt her open up within my mind, felt her fear, tangible, like clay between my fingers. He on the other hand burned with lust, a lust so intense that it made Jola’s terror shrink into the background. His lust though was fixated upon me.

His hips flexed and body rolled. Waste spilled upon the stone below as his erection emerged with a sharp jerk. He’d been so slow and gentle with me, so careful. He took no care now. He rolled onto all fours and stepped forward. His penis dragged across the stone and left a glistening green trail, then curled up and forward. He dropped his hips as he approached and squatted over us. I’d dreamed of this every day and night for so long! The sight of his vent open wide, the reach of his erection! My mouth watered, my sex followed suit, and the burn of his lust left me breathless.

I knew his needs as well as if they were my own. I dropped to my knees, straddled the cowering woman, and reached out to take his mighty phallus in hand. It was so warm against my scaled claws, each flex so strong! I gave him a slow caress, then helped press his diamond head against Jola’s genital slit. No legs to get in the way, her mound jutted up, exposed. It seemed strangely beautiful, the blackened scars of her pelvis flexed and twitched to either side, scabs cracked and blood dribbled. The sight of her vulnerability filled me, filled him. The feel of her vulnerability and helplessness echoed it, she screamed, he thrust, I guided.

Her virgin sex stretched wide around his head and under my fingers. I stroked him, pulled on him, and savored the feel of her parting. He would break her, pierce through her, destroy her. He would do this while I held him. I stared with eyes wide as he sank slowly deeper. I could feel it, actually feel it as if her body were mine. I shuddered hard, it felt so good, the fullness, the heat of him, the twitches and throbs. I wished desperately that it was I and not her receiving the gift of his lust, she did not appreciate it, did not know how wonderful it was!

Aloud I hissed with an inhuman voice, “Yess great one! Destroy her!”

She wailed, “No! Please stop!” She couldn’t feel his pleasure, nor mine. He did not share with her, only take. The terror that rolled off her was breathtaking and delicious. She squirmed like prey below us, her mind a frantic whirl of desperation, a need to escape the trap.

Between my fingers his urethra swelled. The rise of the floodwaters a distant but inevitable thing. His urethra within her gaped, then a deluge of cloudy green fluid rushed in and sputtered out. She screamed again, a wordless terror that made my womb clench. Urine sprayed from her folds into my hands and upon his penis. I mocked, “The prey wet herself in fright!” then nestled my rear down upon her face as I had done every night since I’d caught her. She turned her head away, barely a thought in her head, I didn’t care. My own urine rained down from my vent as my tail tucked under her head and forced it up. She just wept.

He throbbed again and loosed another flood into her shallow vagina. Her labia were swollen and red, scalded by his release and irritated. I remembered how I’d felt as his semen burned against my tongue, filled my sinuses, and left me blind. I grinned. She would never know how precious this gift he gave her was!

Tension built within him, within me. She felt it and struggled all that much harder to no avail. His hips lowered, his member flexed, I felt him press between my palms. At first he sank just a little deeper and stopped, then the pressure built until at last, with a high pitched scream of agony, her flesh parted. It was a wet sound deep inside, a faint squelch and rip. Her stomach bunched up as the pain washed over, as the beast’s diamond head sank in between her intestines. His third release hit him, each larger than the previous, her stomach swelled as the hot irritating issuance bathed her organs from within.

I felt her pain like a sharp heat radiating from my stomach. A penetration that passed beyond deep into disorienting unease. I threw my head back then and moaned. He had begun to break her, and I relished it, longed for it to be me! Thicker and thicker his shaft became as he slid between my hands. Her entrance stretched to it’s limit, beyond, then skin tore, muscle tore, blood soaked my fingers, and the prey only writhed below us.

There was a tension in Jola now, a sort of dreadful climax building, a cresting wave of terror, agony, and futility. The rhythmic flexes in her pelvis, the strain her in bloated gut, and the thrash of her weak arms against my backside. It was a delicious counterpoint to his turgid river of lust. Each time he sank deeper, his issuance bloated her further, and he stretched her bloody entrance wider. Then he bottomed out against her diaphragm.

The wind left her lungs in a harsh cough sound and her body arched. I reached down under me and grabbed her matted hair and twisted until her face was pressed straight into my entrance. Still sopping wet, and so lusty I could have mounted a thorn bush, her breathless mouth was delicious enough as I felt her writhe and he peak again. Her belly swelled further, bloated and distended. It sloshed with every struggle.

He thrust again, bones snapped muted and muddy, no scream passed her breathless lips as her pelvis shifted open. He sank further in, deeper, penis curled slightly and pushed against the right side of her gut to produce a huge lump. Then he shifted and the lump moved under her skin. I watched, fascinated. It felt incredible, her organs tore, her bones parted, and he pleasured himself with her agony, pleasured me as well. It was his gift to me, and I loved every fleeting second of the end of her life.

Her diaphragm gave way with a deep pop, a rib cracked between my knees. She heaved up helplessly as he speared her. His hips fell, her crotch tore, he pushed his vent to her open wound as the diamond head wormed it’s way up through her body. Her neck bulged below me, her head twisted against my grasp. Blood splattered from her lips against my undertail, and then…

I climaxed as he struck, it was like lightning, and my howl the thunder. From her lips his spire burst and entered me. My hips rolled, crushed down, and let as much of him inside as I could. What she felt was a pale imitation to the intense and violent pleasure that wracked my body. He was inside of me, my sex, my belly. It was a world of difference between her echo and the true experience!

My climax rolled through him, a shock of hot water that added to his flood. Another jet released, this time it swelled through her body along the length of his shaft. Her neck tore, her jaw popped, another few inches slid free to penetrate me. Deep within I felt his urethra gape and his issuance release for the first time into my depths.

A second release followed, then a third. His vent sealed against the stump of her ruined body, fleshy sword hilted in the sheath he made of her. I crushed down on her face, would have smothered her had she been capable of breathing. I felt so full, so stretched, even as I felt the intense fullness he had put through her, impaled end to end and still yet alive, even aware!

Then it came at last, the crest of the flood, the intense pleasure that dwarfed the warmth of the sun and the heat of a forge. Bones crunched and flesh tore as his hips bucked, as he pierced her, and into me. His member swelled hard, the diamond flared, and his urethra gaped wide for a long still moment. Then he roared and his true ejaculate blasted into my bowels under high pressure.

I filled, hot, pungent seed reached every inch of my sex, up through my intestines, into my womb, and even sprayed free around his erection onto the still living face between my thighs. My stomach bloated as hers had, worse than it had when I’d pleasured him with my mouth. I ached, but it was a good, happy ache as my sense of self was obliterated in the blinding pleasure. I lost track of time, of reality, of anything other than satisfied lust. My purpose was fulfilled.

6

It was night when I woke. I ached something fierce, but I was alive and self aware again. I lay heavily upon the ground in a sticky puddle. My vent hurt badly, bruised, stretched, and rubbed raw. My mouth ached too, and a clotted mixture of urine and semen coated every inch of me inside and out.

I was disoriented and confused, but my body responded when I rose to my knees and tried to take stock. My stomach was engorged still, so heavy as to make me unsteady. The puddle I laid in reached my elbow when I touched the floor, and the mixture of fluids were unmistakable. The volume far greater than a single one of his ejaculations, or the entire contents of his bladder… how long?

“Thirteen moons,” the words reached my thoughts. He was awake, he was watching me. I felt a thrill of… it was indescribable, something between purpose, belonging, love, and terror. Yet it was so so much more than that, so much greater, so much more intense. “I am satisfied,” he explained, drowsy and happy emotions washed over me like waves upon the shore of a pond.

“I did good?” I asked quietly, out loud.

“You did good, mother of filth.” The name he used sent another version of that thrill down my spine. Vivid emotions came from distorted memories. I had done things, served in depraved and humiliating ways. The cold puddle of piss and cum were an obvious example of what I had done, but there were other things, things that would have made me recoil in horror as a human.

As a human… “What am I?” I asked, his mind quiet and still like nothing I’d ever felt from him before. In the silence, I felt something shift within my stomach, something alive.

He leaned forward, his green eyes open again and fixed upon me. The compulsion came then, writ upon the clay of my mind, scored like lightning upon a tree. I crawled forward through the pool, to the shore, to where he lay upon the bones of thousands. A skull crunched under my knee as I reached his forelegs. His jaws opened and his long forked tongue slipped free to caress my upturned face. I began to cry, joyful and sorrowful all at once.

At last he answered, the words a yawn within my mind as he yawned before me, “Dinner.” He said simply, then sank into my thoughts and uprooted them. I felt nothing, thought nothing, was nothing. My eyes were open, but saw only darkness as the moist heat of his mouth descended. His jaws closed, teeth scraped my knees and nearly bit off a foot, then he drew his head back and let me fall face first towards the back of his gullet.

7

Blankness gave way to confusion. I had just climbed the bluff, and… what had happened? I lit the fire, yes, I had lit the fire and… and… powerful muscles closed on my head and shoulders. Yes, right, I was sacrifice, I had to save my people. I began to weep then, for a life unlived, for my betrothed who I would never be able to speak the sacred words to, nor open the gates of life and death for. I wept until the throat crushed down and the air rushed from my lungs, and ribs were crushed.

The pain, the destruction was so complete. I could think of nothing but the agony and the loss. But my people would be saved, that much I knew, the beast, the best would never let us perish, for who would satisfy his hunger then? My purpose was here at last. Another gulp, another, my pelvis cracked, thighs crushed together, arms smashed into my stomach. Why was my stomach so huge? What was moving inside of it? His tongue? No…

Another swallow. I fell free into the tight confines of his stomach, into the scalding acid pool. The air around me was humid and putrid. He belched, a sound that rang my ears, and the air vanished, the walls closed in. I began to burn. A smile slid across my face, a sense of deep satisfaction radiated from my breast. I had saved them, I had served a purpose greater than any other. I would be remembered for all time as a hero. Deep in the gut of a sleeping dragon, I felt my last thought drift away as I suffocated. The pain faded, the fear was gone. In my womb, the unborn children stilled at last, would never have a chance to compete with their father.

END

02/2/2020

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