The Dragon Hunter's Son, page 12
Philip stood, the lantern held high, not daring to say anything, until finally Ejoler lifted his head and looked toward him. He rose up in a single smooth movement, like his joints were made of more fluid stuff. His sharp-featured face was unreadable.
Ejoler made a sharp motion with his hand and even though Philip was on the other side of the cavern, he flinched.
“Go away,” Ejoler said.
Philip made himself step forward. “I saw you.”
“I doubt it. I have been here all day since you left.”
“I saw you on the peak.”
“You are making utterly no sense.” Maybe it was the uneven floor of the cavern, but Ejoler seemed even taller than before. “Leave me now. I am tired. Do you understand? I have grown tired of you.”
Philip shook his head. “I know it was you.”
“You know nothing about me. You think because I let you sweat and moan and spend all over me that you can comprehend any part of my life? GO AWAY!”
His deep voice boomed through the cavern. A piece of crystal fell and shattered somewhere with a tinkling sound that contrasted with Ejoler’s guttural roar.
Philip realized that he was terribly afraid, but he stood his ground, even as Ejoler advanced toward him.
Ejoler continued, his voice turned soft and poison-sweet with contempt, eyes sharp on him. “You know why I first took an interest in you? Everywhere I went there you were — hiding in corners, scurrying about like a mouse, watching me. Always watching me. I took pity on you. But that is at an end. No more pity. No mercy. Do you understand, Philip?”
“I do.”
“If you did, you would be gone by now.”
Philip raised his head. “I saw you,” he repeated stubbornly. “I saved you.”
“You saved me?” His mocking laughter was like rocks dropping deep down a well. “A sad little thing like you?”
“It was you. You were different, but I could see your eyes — and I knew.”
“My eyes? Do you understand how mad you sound right now?”
“Yes, I do, but I’m sure.”
Ejoler’s voice was low, not quite a whisper, more of a hiss. “Of what, Philip?”
There was silence, broken only by a steady drip drip drip of water in the cavern.
“Of the monster I saw today. Of you.”
Ejoler looked at him with a steady gaze. He never blinked, but for an instant Philip saw a flash of gold and he finally breathed out the word that stretched out unsaid between them.
“Dragon.”
CHAPTER TEN
There was a ripple over Ejoler’s body.
It was like a shimmer, or perhaps Philip’s eyes blurred. Ejoler seemed to grow taller, wider, filling up more space. A wind pushed back Philip’s hair as the air itself moved out of Ejoler’s way. As his body ... changed.
How it worked, Philip couldn’t say — perhaps it was too much for his mind to grasp — but in one instant there was Ejoler and in the next instance there was the dragon and somehow they were one and the same.
The creature reared up, wings spread wide, filling Philip’s vision. The dragon threw back his head and roared, and Philip cried out and fell back to the cave floor, covering his head as shards of crystal rained down from above.
Philip crawled backward, breaths coming in ragged gasps, until he could go no farther, with his back against a wall or a rock — he didn’t dare look away from the dragon to see. The dragon stretched out his massive head toward him, flat lips curling back from the snout to reveal long, sharply pointed teeth.
Philip squeezed his eyes shut. At the same time he stretched out his hand. Not to beg — he had been told to expect no mercy — but he thought if this was the end he at least wanted to know how the dragon — Ejoler — felt. He wanted to touch him one last time.
The scales were dry and warm under his hand. As warm as Ejoler’s skin.
Philip opened his eyes. The dragon hadn’t moved, and Philip saw that his hand rested on the side of his snout. Those golden eyes with black slits for pupils were focused on him. They blinked, once, twice and then the dragon jerked back from Philip.
There was that ripple again — this time a contraction instead of an expansion. Suddenly, Ejoler was there again — or the dragon wore the shape of the man Philip thought he knew. Ejoler’s rage, though, was the same as the dragon’s.
“You,” he snarled. “Damn you.”
Philip realized that Ejoler was naked. He wondered how that worked — were the clothes part of the magic of the shifting? Or did Ejoler have to constantly replace them?
He had no time to ask because Ejoler was upon him, his hands rough as he shoved Philip to the ground and pinned his wrists down on either side of his head. Ejoler stared down with eyes of blazing gold, his black hair loose and sweeping over Philip’s face.
“I could kill you,” he spat. His lips — full and soft now, drew back to show white teeth, ones that despite their smaller size seemed just as deadly as the dragon’s. “Rip you open with my claws and watch you bleed.”
“Yes,” Philip said.
“It would be so easy. One snap of my teeth. Or I could crush you and your bones would snap like twigs beneath me.”
“Yes,” Philip whispered.
“You think I would not do it?” Ejoler’s anger was causing his breath to come in harsh pants that Philip felt against his face. “I want to. I want to taste your blood, your flesh. I want to devour you whole.”
Philip pushed up. Not to break the tight grip, but to feel more of the hard body pressing against his. Ejoler’s flesh radiated heat, as always, but Philip could feel warmth growing within himself too.
“I want to do it, Philip.” Ejoler’s growling voice grew ragged and desperate. “I want to. I want — I want you.”
Philip’s lips parted. “Yes.”
Philip surged up and Ejoler dropped down and their lips met in a wild mess of teeth and spit and tongues. Ejoler let go of his wrists to yank him close and Philip wrapped his legs around Ejoler’s waist.
They rolled over the rocky floor, Philip not caring about all the stones that jabbed at him — he just wanted to taste more of Ejoler’s mouth and touch more of his skin.
Ejoler shoved him back again and tore at him but Philip’s clothes instead of his flesh. He ripped what he could and yanked off the rest, flinging each item aside as though it personally offended him for getting in the way of his conquest of Philip’s body. He fell back upon Philip, licking and sucking and squeezing.
Philip, who loved to talk during sex, could only babble, “yes, yes,” and, when Ejoler sucked his cock into the heat of his mouth, he cried out and drummed his heels against the stone floor.
Ejoler licked him with wet, sloppy strokes and then slid back up Philip’s body. He took a fistful of Philip’s hair and used it to pull his head back, causing his neck to arch, vulnerable and exposed. Ejoler licked Philip’s throat the same messy way he had licked his cock and sucked hard beneath his jaw, on the pulse that beat with his life’s blood. Philip writhed beneath him, consumed with a desire greater than anything he had ever felt.
Finally, Ejoler lifted his head and stared into Philip’s eyes.
“I hate that I want you more than anything else.”
Philip tried to gather his wits to say something to that, but then Ejoler began to move, rutting up against him and rubbing their cocks together, and Philip groaned out loud instead. Ejoler drove him down into the ground, his movements gone frantic with need, until Philip managed to reach down between them to clasp their two cocks more firmly. He found some kind of rhythm in all the friction and wild pleasure and Ejoler steadied and moved to match it.
Their voices rose and echoed through the cavern. Ejoler’s deep voice sounding torn from his throat as he called Philip’s name. Philip kissed him and felt Ejoler’s blunt teeth break the skin of his bottom lip. As he tasted Philip’s blood at last, Ejoler cried out and his release shot out hotly between them. Philip pulled quickly at his own cock and came too, his body shaking all over and his mind knowing nothing but pleasure.
Philip gasped against Ejoler’s shoulder, feeling disconnected and at peace, until reality came rushing back — or whatever was passing for reality now.
Awareness brought pain — rocks under his back, Ejoler’s hand tight in his hair, pressure on his too-sensitive cock, and beyond that, something deeper and more stinging.
Philip brought his hands up and shoved Ejoler away. “You lied.” Ejoler hadn’t quite dropped out of his blissful haze yet and he stared at Philip in confusion. “Everything you told me was a lie. What are you?”
Ejoler sat up, his eyes narrowing. “You named what I was. You saw me shift forms.”
Philip flung up his hands. “But — but are you a man who turns into a dragon? Or a dragon who turns into a man?”
“That is truly your concern right now?” Philip felt foolish, but he folded his arms and glared. Ejoler drew himself up haughtily. “I am a dragon who occasionally takes on the shape of a man.”
“But how? I mean you’re so much smaller now than when you’re ... that. Where does the rest of you go? And how exactly do you change?”
“I am a magical being, Philip,” Ejoler snapped. “It is just something we can do.” Philip had more he wanted to ask, but Ejoler was looking angry again. “And what are you, Philip Durandus? A killer of my kind. One who raids our dens, skins our flesh and takes our teeth as trophies.”
Philip grew very still. “That’s not me. It’s him. Jaxon.”
“Yes, your father.” Ejoler’s voice dripped with scorn. “The man you follow around like an obedient dog. The one you stood beside on the mountain as he tried to fling cold steel at me.”
“I spoiled his shot!” Philip insisted. “I helped you.”
“So you say. But what if you had not recognized me? You would be celebrating my death in that accursed inn right now.”
“Maybe,” Philip said miserably. “But dragons kill people. They burn down homes and...”
He fell silent, staring down at his hands, hands that had just been touching a dragon. He heard Ejoler sigh softly, as though the anger was leaving in that one breath. Ejoler moved so that he sat across from Philip, with his back braced against a large rock. Philip met Ejoler’s eyes — they weren’t touching but they faced each other squarely.
“I do not know the truth of what happened to your mother,” he said. “But I am sorry for your loss. I have never killed a human, but I know dragons who have. Your kind chases us down and gives us no peace. Our old ones have been killed while they slept and our eggs stolen from their nests. Dragons have been hunted for treasure, for sport, or because we ate too many sheep. Most of us have left this land entirely, or dwell in such remote places it might as well be an exile. I can understand why some dragons take the hunt to your towns and villages and indiscriminately kill all they find. I understand because the same desire burns in me.”
“Do you still want to kill me?”
It was Ejoler’s turn to stare at his hands. “Not at the moment.”
Philip shivered as he reached for his torn shirt and draped it over his shoulders. He was chilled, but not afraid. He mostly felt tired.
“You’re here for the egg, right?” Ejoler’s face quickly shuttered, and Philip gestured sharply. “Please, no more lying. There’s a dragon’s egg inside the keep. I’ve seen it.”
Ejoler looked at him with a kind of pleading. “Some weeks ago, though I was very far from here, I suddenly felt a calling in the nighttime, like I had never known. That is what brought me to this valley. But I cannot sense it clearly anymore. Except — sometimes I believed I could smell the presence of the egg on you. I suspected the keep housed the egg, but I could not be certain.”
Philip ran a finger over his lips. The bitten one was sore, but the pain helped him focus. “I touched it. The Earl says he uses magic somehow to shield the egg. But before you came here I looked at it in the moonlight. It felt different somehow then. Alive.”
“Under the light of the moon,” Ejoler said. “Yes, that makes sense.”
Philip almost laughed, because he couldn’t think of anything that made less sense. But he sobered quickly. “The dragon who lived here, the one who ... died. That was her egg?” Ejoler nodded. “And you? Ejoler, are you the father?”
“I am not. She — Ejderha was her name — we were from the same clutch, though we hatched at different times. We shared the same parents.”
“Your sister,” Philip said. “She was your sister.”
“Yes, she was.”
“I’m sorry,” Philip said. He didn’t know what else to say, though there was still so much hanging between them. “For your loss.”
They sat silently, neither of them looking at each other.
“All right,” Philip said briskly. He tried to do up the torn shirt and stood to look around for the rest of his clothes. “Can you get dressed somehow? Like with magic? We should really get going.”
Ejoler didn’t move. “Back to the inn? To pretend among all those stinking people? To look at your father and find the will to resist the urge to tear out his throat?”
“Shut up,” Philip said, and Ejoler looked at him in surprise. “No, I’m not taking you back.” Philip swallowed as the other meaning of those words hit him, but he raised his chin and spoke with as much determination as he could manage. “I’m going to help you get your egg.”
Philip’s shirt was in shreds, but his coat and trousers were serviceable. Ejoler helped him locate his left boot which had been thrown clear across the cavern, but otherwise they said nothing to each other.
For his part, Ejoler gestured at himself almost absently and then he was dressed again in his usual clothes. Philip tried to watch closely, but there was nothing to see. One instant there was naked Ejoler, the next, clothed.
Despite himself, Philip reached out to touch the sleeve of Ejoler’s coat. Ejoler, who had been braiding back his hair with swift fingers, looked up questioningly.
“It feels real,” Philip said. “The cloth.”
“It is real.”
“But a second ago it didn’t exist! Or did you snatch it out of some other place?”
“No,” Ejoler said, though Philip got the feeling he wasn’t entirely sure. “Years ago, I saw clothing like this on a man in a marketplace. So when it came time to conjure something suitable to wear, I remembered it and then there it was.”
“So could you make anything out of magic?” Philip picked up the lantern and looked toward the dark cave openings. “Like another lantern maybe?”
“No. Just the clothing.”
“Hmm, that seems less useful.” Philip headed to an opening that seemed in the direction of the keep.
“And I can transform myself.” Ejoler sounded stung. “I assure you that is not an easy skill to master among my kind.”
“Can you turn into something else? Could you be a horse?”
“Why would I ever want to be a horse?” he asked indignantly.
“I don’t know.” Philip went into the narrow tunnel, Ejoler following behind. “Why become a man?”
“It is useful,” Ejoler said. “We can move among you undetected. Learn your ways and customs. It is a way to protect ourselves. And,” Ejoler admitted reluctantly, “it is far easier to visit gem merchants and goldsmiths looking like this. The things you humans make are ... pretty.”
Philip glanced back over his shoulder. “So the stories about dragons gathering treasure are true?”
“You have nothing but questions. It is very trying.”
“I just have one more.” Philip stopped and swung around to face him. “Why start up with me? Was it all part of some plan to get the egg?”
Ejoler glared. “It was you who first kissed me—” He stopped and closed his eyes briefly. “I wanted to find out what you knew about the egg. Why you smelled of it. But the experience of spending time with you — touching you — it was unexpected. But not unwelcome. In fact, it was glorious.”
“Oh,” Philip said.
“Then when I found out about your father, I considered kidnapping you. To make an exchange for the egg.” Philip stared, and Ejoler added, “But I did not.”
Philip turned and continued down the tunnel, his feet hitting the stone floor with a heavier step than necessary. “That doesn’t help. I didn’t expect much from you, Ejoler, but I never thought you would make me feel like this. Like a thing to be used.”
The tunnel had widened enough that they could walk side by side. Philip would have preferred to walk ahead, but Ejoler’s long legs matched his stride easily.
“And what am I to you now?” Ejoler demanded. “A passing dalliance? Or a monster to be killed?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this now and just focus on sneaking into a castle with armed guards.”
“Fine,” Ejoler huffed. But a few minutes later, he stopped abruptly. “I cannot go any farther.”
“What?” Philip whirled around. “I’m trying to help you—”
“It has nothing to do with you. Something is stopping me.” In the lantern’s light, Philip could see that Ejoler was trembling. “The sensation is ... quite strong.”
“Is this magic? Is that what it is?”
“Likely the Earl has set wards of some kind.”
Philip peered around. It was very ordinary as cave tunnels went. “Magic is nothing like what I imagined. It’s sort of disappointing, actually.”
Ejoler took a few steps back and shook his head at Philip. “You watched me change into my natural form and back to human again and that was disappointing?”
Philip shrugged. “I guess I was expecting magic to be more ... sparkly.”
Even in the dim light of the lantern Philip could see Ejoler roll his eyes.
“I’m going to see how far this tunnel goes,” Philip said. “But I don’t want to leave you in the dark.”
“I can see quite well in the dark,” Ejoler said.
“Of course you can,” Philip sighed and started to turn away.
