Dragon Blood

Chapter 27

"What, your lunatic of a king can't do it himself?" she spat, clawing at the hand at her throat.

The first female leaned into Rhia's neck and let out a rattling breath. Her fangs grazed her skin and sent jolts of fear through her. She felt a tongue lick up from her collarbone up to her ear. "If I were you," a quiet warning filled her voice. "I would refrain from speaking ill of our king. It's only a matter of time before he becomes your king as well."

"Fuck you." Rhia growled. "I will never-"

"If you want to continue seeing his lordship you will." The woman interrupted. "Every king needs his general. Lord Wes is our general. We can't have him worrying about his little human back home. He'll get us all killed." Rhia went still. The female let out a low laugh and her grip eased slightly on her throat. Her thumbed grazed the delicate skin over her jugular. "Lord Wes has a thing against turning humans. His majesty is offering to do it himself. He won't even make you sleep with him, although you'd be insane not to. Our venom gets more potent with age." A different chill ran through her as the female pressed her body completely against Rhia and rubbed sensually against her. She moved so her lips hovered over Rhia's. "You humans don't have anything that compares to what he can do." She moaned. "Who knows, maybe you'll change your mind. There's always room for one more in Constantine's bed."

The earth trembled. The female backed away enough to look over at her companions. The ground shook again. "What was-"

Before the male could finish his question, a creature longer than a double semi-trailer exploded from the trees. Enormous jaws clamped down on the second female's midriff and blood sprayed everywhere. Her scream was lost to the forest as the creature shook its head like a dog, ripping her apart.

The first female shot up to face the thing and Rhia got her first good look at it. A long body supported by four short legs coiled tightly, ready to spring forward. A large head sported glowing yellow eyes with slit-like pupils. In Asia, they were called the lung dragons. Here, they were known as serpents. "This is vampire business," the female said warningly. "It does not concern you or your kind."

The serpent responded by launching towards her, jaws open and bloodied, ready to kill again. She leapt out of the way, but just barely. The male took several paces back before tuning and vanishing into the trees. The kin wrapped itself around the tree Rhia was cowering against without crushing her and came back around to place its head and front talons between her and the vampires. Its roar sounded like a thousand screams of the damned. The female didn't need any more encouragement. She chased after the male in a fluttering of leaves.

The dragonkin turned its head towards Rhia. This was the first time she'd ever seen one of the kin in their true forms up close. The scales on its face were longer and thinner, like flattened porcupine quills. Starting at the corner of its eyes and extending alone the ridge of its spine was a mane of longer, thinner, finer spines that looked almost like fur or feathers. The rest of its body was covered in the smaller scales. While it looked like its body was soft and exposed, she imagined that those scales were harder than any substance known to man. It was beautiful.

"Thank you." She breathed, caught by the depth of the bright yellow eyes.

The scales began to recede into its body, slowly at first, then more quickly and before her eyes, the dragonkin condensed from the impossibly large serpent into a much more compact humanoid body. The male that stood before her was almost as tall as Nolan, though much bulkier. He devoid of shirt or shoes, and his ragged jeans hanging off his hips just barely covered the important bits downstairs. She swallowed audibly as he knelt in front of her. "Are you alright?" he asked in a soft Celtic accent. She nodded wordlessly, struck by the gentleness of his voice. "What are you doing here?"