Dragon Red: A Fire Unfed (The Dragonlords of Xandakar Book 2) Read online

  Dragon Red: A Fire Unfed

  The Dragonlords of Xandakar, Book 2

  by Macy Babineaux

  Copyright © 2016 Macy Babineaux. All Rights Reserved.

  Foreword

  Hello, Dear Readers! Thank you so much for picking up this copy of my book. Dragon Red: A Fire Unfed is the second installment in the 5-part series, The Dragonlords of Xandakar. The focus is on an all-new couple, Kal and Thalia, though characters from the first book Dragon Blue: A Lie That's True are a part of the story.

  If you don't already subscribe to my newsletter, please consider clicking here to sign up. Newsletter subscribers will receive an exclusive copy of my novella "Switch and Bait", about a team of shifters hired to take on jobs not cut out for regular humans. It's full of action and steam, and the only way you can get it is by signing up.

  Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy Dragon Red: A Fire Unfed.

  Macy Babineaux

  October 17th, 2016

  1: Kal

  He staggered across the sand, his scaled armor boots shifting beneath his feet with every step. He looked out before him and then back over his shoulder. The only thing to see in every direction was the desert, serene slopes of bone-white sand stretching into infinity.

  Care for a drink, brother?

  That question echoed in his head like the remnant of some long-lost conversation. He could not recognize the voice. Was it his true brother or just a friendly way of one traveler referring to another?

  Did he even have a brother? The sun stood high overhead, its harsh radiance beating down mercilessly on the barren landscape. Oddly enough, he didn’t feel the heat. Rather, he felt it, but it did not bring him discomfort. There was no sweat upon his brow, nor anywhere on his body. He felt a thirst, but it was distant, not urgent.

  He looked down at himself, his body clad in a suit of light red scales, almost like a second skin. Where was he? How had he gotten here? He couldn’t remember.

  A sudden panic gripped him, the sensation of being far from anything and anyone familiar, adrift and alone in a sea of hot sand. He was lost both in body and in mind, flailing for any familiar memory to ground him.

  Then a horrible question reared itself in his head: Who am I?

  He crouched in the sand and closed his eyes, trying to think. The answer did not come and his chest tightened.

  The only words that drifted across his consciousness were those of that ridiculous question: Care for a drink, brother?

  He felt something else rise up in his mind, an incoherent anger threatening to boil up into full-blown rage. He tried to work against it, to calm himself. What good would it do to unleash his temper at an empty desert landscape? The answer to that question didn’t seem to matter much. Whether it would do any good or not, he felt like destroying something, though there was nothing to destroy. He opened his mouth to do the next best thing, to scream in rage and frustration.

  Then a sound came, carrying across the desert sand. He heard the urgent caw of a single crow.

  It cried three times. The fire inside him subsided as he stood, trying to hone in on the direction of the sound. At first it seemed to come from every direction and none at all. His confused state of mind didn’t help. He scanned the still dunes and saw nothing. The desert was bleak and bare, not a single sprig of dry grass nor sign of any life. Even the sand itself did not stir. The air was still, without even the subtlest hint of a breeze.

  He spun in all directions, unable to tell from which direction the bird had cried. Perhaps he had imagined it. Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps he already was.

  Then it came again: caw, caw, caw.

  This time he fixed on the sound with the whole of his strained mind. There. The sounds had come from over his left shoulder. He turned and headed in that direction. As he did, he saw the footprints he had left in the sand, stretching far to the horizon. For a moment he thought of abandoning the search for the bird and retracing his steps.

  With no wind, perhaps the trail was completely intact, and he could find his way back to wherever he had come from. Besides, what did he want with a crow anyway? But he knew the answer to that. Some animal instinct, perhaps all he had left at this point, told him that where there was one life there would be more. Perhaps water and people. He did not feel the heat or thirst as he would have expected, but that didn’t mean he still could not die here. He needed to find some semblance of civilization or at least refuge. If he followed his footsteps back, who knew how far they went? Besides, somewhere along the way, all it would take was a single swift gust to wipe away the trail.

  The crow cawed again. His head snapped in its direction, sure of the way now. And perhaps it was his imagination, but the crow seemed not to be simply crying into the empty desert air, but calling specifically to him. That was insane, though, wasn’t it?

  Only one way to find out, he thought, setting off in the direction of the calls. If his own mind wanted to kill him, he was likely doomed no matter what.

  Time and distance were difficult to gauge. The sun seemed to sit still in the sky directly overhead as he walked. He seemed to cast no shadow. The white sand packed down under each step as his scaled boots rose and fell.

  He began to count his steps for want of any other measure, but soon grew bored and stopped counting once he passed a thousand. He began to convince himself that he had gone insane. He’d imagined the call of the crow, and despite his resistance to the elements he was going to die out here alone, not even knowing his own name.

  As if throwing a rope to a drowning man, the crow cawed once more in three short screeches. He looked up, and for the first time he saw something other than the white slopes, the endless sky, and the relentless sun.

  A hut sat in the distance, a small brown structure set off by itself in the ocean of pale sand. A settler? Who could possibly live in a place like this, so far from everything else?

  As he drew closer, he saw perhaps a dozen tall stakes of gnarled wood driven into the ground around the hut, bits of things hanging from their tops. For the first time he heard something else, the sound of chimes, like steel clinking against bone. But still he felt no breeze.

  He began to feel a sense of dread as he approached, his eyes focused on the hut. The place looked like a lone rotten brown tooth jutting out of the white jaw of the landscape, and the more he looked at it the more he wanted to turn around. But it was too late for that. He was committed to this path. He had to see what lay inside.

  As he drew closer, the sounds of the bone chimes grew louder, a disturbing, off-key jangling that weirdly made his teeth hurt. He looked at the assortment of trinkets atop each pole and saw fragments of skulls and tips of spears dangling from strips of reddish leather, clanking into one another in the non-existent wind.

  The hut had no door, just a misshapen rectangle of pure darkness. Even from fifteen paces away, he couldn’t see a single thing inside, even though the sun was as bright as it could be.

  He heard the crow squawk from within, so loud this time it made him stop in his tracks. The black bird fluttered from the opening into the sunlight, so black it almost soaked all the surrounding light from the area.

  Instead of landing, the bird stopped midair and transformed. Its wings became arms, its claws feet. It grew to the size and shape of a woman, the black feathers becoming pale white skin.

  She stood before him, naked and beautiful. Her hair was as black as the crow’s feathers had been, both atop her head and at the soft V where her inner thighs met. Her lips were black and shiny as well. She didn’t bother to cover her breasts, which were full and
round, the nipples large and light pink. She showed no hint of shyness at all, putting her hands on her hips and looking him up and down with a grin on her lips.

  “Greetings, wanderer,” she said, a teasing laugh in her voice. “I am Cordella. And you are?” Her tone and the wicked glint in her eye suggested that she knew he had no answer to the question. She was toying with him.

  “I…do not know,” he said.

  Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “No?” she said. “So many men wander through life, not knowing who they really are. At least you are brave enough to admit it.”

  He felt the anger rising up in his throat again. She knew something, perhaps everything. Was it possible that he had come from this hut? That he had somehow walked in a circle? She had shifted from crow to woman. She lived in the middle of a searing desert, no food or water in sight. She and her strange hut had all the trappings of witchery. And though he seemed to have all the time in the world, his patience was running thin.

  “Tell me what you know,” he said.

  She laughed, delighted, the sound mingling with the atonal dings of the chimes. She leaned against the jamb of her hut and traced a black-painted nail around one of her nipples.

  “You are in no position to make demands,” she said.

  His hands clenched into fists. The anger crept up his jaw to his temples. He didn’t know where he was or even who he was. And the not knowing made him furious. But the fact that she was right made him angriest of all.

  “You wish to harm me?” she asked, her finger still lightly tracing the edge of her areola. “You could strangle me here in front of my home. But then who would give you the answers you so desperately seek?”

  He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself, afraid he might actually do what she suggested. He felt the heat recede, if only slightly.

  “You want something from me?” he asked.

  She smiled and perked up. “Ah yes,” she said. “Even with no memory, you are still clever, are you not? Yes, wanderer. I will tell you who you are, where you are, and even where you need to go next. For a small price, I will even reveal your prophecy.”

  “I need only to know my name,” he said. “And how to get out of this forsaken place.”

  She laughed even harder at that. “This desert is very nearly as much your home as mine,” she said. “But I will tell you what you want, and much more.”

  “For what price?”

  She looked at his chest, her eyes moving downward until they rested between his legs. “You need only to lay with me,” she said. She raised her arms up over her head, stretching out, her breasts hefting upwards. “Is that even a price to be paid? Do you not desire me anyway?”

  He did. Just behind the desire to take her by the throat was the urge to push her creamy thighs apart and shove himself inside her. She was desirable, there was no doubt. But the desire was a strange, unhealthy one, like hungering for a plate of poison berries. They looked juicy and delicious, even if you knew they would make you sick. Or worse.

  Besides, he was sure of it now, even if he hadn’t been before. She was definitely a witch. Who knew if this were even what she really looked like? She had shifted from a crow into this form. Some part of him knew that witches could hide their true appearance and that they could live much longer than others. He didn’t know how he knew this, only that he did. She could be hundreds of years old, a withered hag instead of the nubile temptress standing before him, her back arched, her supple breasts offering themselves to him.

  What if, by tricking him into her bed, she meant to take something from him, some vital part of who he was? What if she changed into her true form in the middle of the act, just to mock and torment him? He knew that he should never trust a witch, even though he could not remember any specific tales, much less actually meeting one before.

  But what choice did he really have? Trudge back the way he came through the barren sands? Try to force the knowledge out of her? That seemed unlikely to be effective, especially if she truly had magical powers at her fingertips. Besides, she could always just take the shape of a crow and fly away.

  “You seem to be doing an awful lot of thinking,” Cordella said. “Is there really so much to think about?”

  No, he guessed there really wasn’t. He strode forward, putting his arms around her waist as she arched her back even more, pushing herself against him. He felt himself stiffen uncomfortably in his armor as he leaned in.

  She raised her head, exposing her neck for him to kiss. Her skin was cool and tasted like some bitter, exotic spice. He felt her breasts push up against his armored chest.

  Then she slipped out of his grasp to duck inside the hut, laughing.

  “Come,” her voice whispered from darkness.

  He took a deep breath, his stomach clenching at the thought of going inside. But in the end that’s exactly what he did.

  The interior of the hut was dark and damp, smelling of freshly-turned soil. He wondered where that smell came from in a place where all there was for miles was dry white sand. His eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly, and he saw Cordella stretched out on the dark fur of some skinned beast he couldn't recognize. She was smiling at him, her hands cupped behind her head. He saw more of those weird chimes, only these hung from the ceiling, smaller versions of the ones on the poles outside. A small clay pot hung on a hook over the smoldering gray ashes of a fire in the center of the room. Food? He felt hunger stir inside him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to eat whatever was in that pot. It could even be some poison or potion. Besides, he was hungrier to put himself inside the witch. The thought crossed his mind that she had heightened his desire with sorcery.

  “Are you going to please me?” she said. “Or just stand there and peruse my humble home?”

  He looked down at her white flesh framed by the black fur, her body lying there as if served up for him like a dish of cream. His heart pounded in his chest. He now wanted more than anything to be shed of his armor, though he saw no clasps, buckles, or hooks.

  So he merely reached up to his neck, curling his fingers under the scaly suit and pulling down. To his surprise, it slid from him like the skin of a snake being shed. He pulled it from his broad shoulders, down his powerful chest, and finally down his legs.

  His aching shaft sprung free, and Cordella let out a little “ah!” at the sight of it. As he lowered himself on top of her, he vowed to see what other noises he might bring from her throat.

  Grasping her wrists, he pushed her hard against the fur. She looked up at him, her eyes bright, and licked her lips before smiling wide.

  Her legs spread wide for him, and he settled in between them, his tip searching for her wetness. It did not take long to find it. He pushed forward, driving himself into her.

  She closed her eyes and let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan. He smiled to himself. Yes, he thought. That is what I want to hear.

  Pinning her to the skin, he slid himself as deep as he could go as she pushed herself up to meet him. She was as hungry for him as he was for her.

  His bare skin now lay atop her body, still cool despite the blistering heat outside. But here, inside the hut, they seemed to be in a different world, surrounded by the eerie tinkling of the chimes and dank, earthy smells.

  He drew back his hips then plunged into her once more, eliciting yet another groan. He squeezed her wrists as he did it again, then again, falling into a rhythm.

  She raised her head, putting her lips against his ear. “Yes,” she whispered. “Unleash yourself.”

  Her words were like a spark on dry tinder. His field of vision flashed white-orange. He felt the anger rising up to overtake him.

  He drove himself into her, a dark fury driving him. He let go of her wrists, thrusting his hands down to cup her ass, gripping her cheeks in both hands.

  As if in the distance, he heard her laughing, but all he could feel was lust and rage. He felt like an animal, incapable of rational thought, only pure, raw instinct.
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  He was not making love to her, but savaging her, taking her so completely and brutally that in the back of his mind he thought the act might kill a mortal woman, which she was clearly not.

  He could not remember ever being with another woman, though something in him knew he had. He also knew that he had never felt anything quite like this, even though his memory had failed him.

  A feeling like molten steel coursed through his shafted, all his anger and lust erupted out of him. His body tensed. He shuddered as the white heat burst out of him and into her.

  She reached around to claw his back as he released inside her. Her voice seemed far away, and it were as if her screams were victory cries.

  Finally he rolled off of her, collapsing beside her on the fur. He took a deep breath, feeling like a fissure in the earth that has spewed a great gout of hot rock before falling silent again.

  The witch held her hands atop her breasts, her chest heaving as she seemed to stare up through the ceiling. “Incredible,” she said.

  He sat up and looked down at her. “Tell me.”

  Her eyes had a faraway look, as if she were staring into infinity.

  “Tell me,” he said, raising his voice. “Witch.”

  She seemed to come back from wherever she had gone, turning her face to him and frowning. “I prefer the term sorceress,” she said. “But very well. You have more than paid the price.”

  She reached under the fur and withdrew what at first looked like a long, sharp tooth. He tensed when he realized what it was: a dagger.

  Cordella smiled at his reaction. “No need for alarm,” she said. “I only need a piece of your hair.” She waggled the dagger at him playfully. It was white and appeared to be crafted from some kind of bone. He relaxed as he realized if she had wanted to do him harm, she could easily have plunged the dagger between his shoulder blades during the act.