The Dragon King (9 page)

Aaron

I wasn’t looking forward to today’s lesson, but after yesterday’s spanking it made sense to cover it while the memory was still fresh.

I offered her my large knife, a modern version of an integral dagger. “Stab me in the thigh.”

She put her hands behind her back and stepped away from me, her eyes big.

I pushed the handle a few inches closer to her. “You know I’ll heal. Do it.”

“It’ll still hurt.”

“Yeah, that’s the point. Stab me and tell me what you smell.”

She cautiously accepted it and looked at the bare skin below my boxer shorts. She tentatively held the knife a few inches above my leg and I said, “No, hold it higher, get some speed and strength. Sink at least half the blade into me, Soph.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know,” I told her, my voice soft, “but I’m going to do it to you later, so consider this payback ahead of time. If you’d rather I do it to you now, I can, but I’ll still have to do it later.”

She glared at me, raised her arm, and sank the blade into my thigh. I breathed out as I considered how any touch from her was pleasure, as I accepted the blade she’d put into my leg, glad she’d done as I asked. I considered it an honor she trusted me enough for these lessons, and was pleased at the bond we’d formed.

“How!” she practically screamed, and then lowered her voice to ask the same thing in a different tone of voice. “How?”

“What do you smell?”

“Pleasure! Happiness! How are you doing that?”

I pulled the knife from my leg, careful to feel happy about the removal no matter the pain, and said, “Did you feel pleasure during your spanking last night?”

Her face flamed red, but my strong, brave Sophia didn’t look down as she said, “Well, yeah, but that was different!”

“Yes, it was, but a similar principle. Once you learn to alter your body’s responses to pain and pleasure, learning to do so for a lie versus the truth makes a little more sense. Pain and pleasure are mere sensations, neither is good or bad. In a human, pain is there to warn of damage. To a lesser extent the same holds true for us, because we may be able to heal most damage, but we might not be able to fight at full capacity until we have time to heal.”

I started with a tiny needle, poking it into her leg in random spots as I talked her through convincing herself she felt pleasure. When she could manage the smallest needle, we moved up.

She’d always learned fast, but I insisted we take a break for lunch before we graduated to the largest of the needles. Her body was on sensory overload and her mind in a tumult.

Sophia

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked

I thought of two colors I liked. “I don’t have one.”

He smiled and said, “Beautiful. Again. The goal is to avoid giving me the answer you think I want, while convincing yourself you’re telling the truth.”

I nodded and he asked, “Do you have any siblings?”

I thought of the cousins always running around the royal grounds on the weekends, thought of how so many of them got on my nerves while others were a joy to have around sometimes, but not always. They’d been surrogate siblings. I focused on what I’ve read of brothers and sisters, and how our relationship had been the same as I answered. “Yeah.”

His eyebrows rose as he said, “Impressive. Okay. What is your father’s name?”

My grandfather had called him Imp, and I concentrated on hearing him say Tim instead of Imp. I took just a little longer than was probably acceptable, but when I said, “Tim,” I knew I’d pulled it off.

He nodded. “Excellent. Eventually you’ll need to learn to actually control the processes in your body, so you can emit whatever you please without tricking your mind into it, but for now this is a wonderful start. It’s about believing what you’re saying. I can smell your conflict, but in the stress of a meeting you’ll be nervous so they won’t think anything of it because the stench of the lie isn’t there.”

He showed me his knife again, and I felt the fear response. I immediately knew he smelled it and I growled in frustration.

“It’s okay, Soph. Don’t beat yourself up. You’re still learning and you’re doing great. I’ve taught people who didn’t come this far in a month of lessons, and we’re only on day three. You haven’t felt the knife yet and don’t know what to expect. Fear is natural.”

I nodded, knowing he was right, and he continued. “You’re going to accept it into your body,
welcome
it into your leg. Think about how lucky you are that, as a powerful shapeshifter, you’ll heal the cut in minutes. A human would take weeks or maybe months, depending on the angle of cut in the muscle, and a normal shapeshifter could take days or even up to a week. You’ll be fine in ten minutes, less if I funnel some power to you.”

I stopped focusing on the knife and held eye contact with Aaron. “Okay, so accept it, welcome it, be thankful I can so quickly heal. Pay attention to the sensations, don’t focus on the pain.”

I watched his eyes as the knife slid through my skin, into the muscles and sinew. I felt the entrance, thought about how his manhood would feel sliding into me, and smiled at him as he took his hand off the hilt.

“So damned
proud
of you, Soph. Pull it out, feel joy at the exit for me.”

I pulled it out, paying attention to how the flat part of the blade felt instead of the sharp edges. I’d watched him switch it from right hand to left, and when it was out of my leg I copied the motion, grasping the blade between my fingers and handing it back to him hilt first.

“Don’t let go of the blade,” he ordered, his voice intense. “Let the point stick into your palm just a little. A pin prick; it doesn’t need to go deep.”

I readjusted my grip as he took the hilt, and I felt power flowing from his right hand into my left. I looked at my thigh in time to see it miraculously close in seconds, not minutes.

I shook my head as I tried to deal with the power surge flowing through me. “Do you feel like this all the time? How did you do that?”

“Yeah, I have an abundance of power most of the time, and I’ve learned to draw even more from my environment. Dragons are pretty comfortable in caves though, so it’s especially easy for me to keep a full reserve when I’m underground.”

“Do you need to do that with a knife, or is there another way?” I’d seen my father give energy to other swans when they were sick or injured, but he’d never given any to me. He hadn’t needed to cut them, he’d only touched them, but he’d been drained and exhausted afterwards. Also, swans were connected in ways other animals couldn’t be, so I’d always assumed he could only do it because he was their King. He could compel them to do something against their will, so of course he could give them some of his energy.

However, Aaron didn’t look as if he’d done more than go to the kitchen for a glass of water. He was fine, my leg was healed, and I had more power in me than I’d ever felt.

He shook his head. “No, the knife helped for our first time — you know blood makes everything work better in our world, but I’ll be able to help you without it in the future, if necessary.” He shrugged. “It isn’t a problem for me to grow a claw and prick you, though, if I need the blood to make it work.”

Aaron

Over the next couple of days we thoroughly discussed the people Sophia might encounter and need to negotiate with, work with, or engage in battle with. When she knew everything about them I did, I quizzed her on how best to deal with them in specific situations.

I also taught her a handful of both offensive and defensive skills, though I had Duke studying a video designed to show instructors how to teach decent self-defense skills in an afternoon. He’d have that job when they joined us, but I hoped to get the video’s creator to personally teach Sophia once we were out in the open. Nathan knew her, and my friend Kirsten was good friends with her, so I should be able to arrange it.

I eyed the clock, hoping Sophia awakened soon. I knew she was exhausted, both mentally and physically, but there was so much to do before she faced her father, and I was assuming she’d have to face him on the night of the solstice.

She was going to fly when she turned this time — no way would I force her back to human as Boris had done. I so wanted to throttle both Cyrano and Boris… and Raul, too, if I found out he’d known what was happening, but I couldn’t believe he’d known. The Swan King may have his faults, but he was overprotective of his daughter and I couldn’t imagine he’d known the hell Boris had likely put her through.

I slept with her every night, gave her enough orgasms she began to get used to me touching her, and I let her watch me beat off. I’m a bit of an exhibitionist, so having her watch was a big turn on, but I also wanted to get her used to the size, the look, and at some point, the feel. She’d touched me a few times, tentatively, and I was waiting for her to take the initiative and do more.

The house was a few degrees cooler than I usually kept it first thing in the morning, but I was rationing our diesel to make sure we had enough to last until the solstice because the two hundred gallon tank would only last so long. We burned around two gallons when making a meal, and about a gallon and a half per hour when I heated the house in the mornings for her to wake up comfortably, and then for her to be warm when she returned from a bath. A few lights, the laptop, and the tablet only burned about a quarter-gallon an hour. We’d make it to the solstice, but she’d need to be quite warm for her flogging, plus I intended to wrap her in an electric blanket for fifteen minutes before we started, as that would cut down on the number of warm-up strokes needed.

I debated whether to make some noise to wake her, or go in and rouse her with kisses. I preferred the latter, but didn’t want the house to smell of arousal when the wolves arrived. They’d eventually know we’re intimate, as wolf hearing would let them hear everything said and done over the coming days, but I didn’t want them to be slammed with it before they spent the day with her.

So, I started making breakfast, and was louder than I needed to be while hoping it was subtle enough she wouldn’t figure it out.

“Oh, good,” I said as she entered the kitchen, “you’re up. I drank a protein shake earlier, so I’ll just make some extra sausage I can eat on my way out the door. The wolves have brought supplies, and they’ll be staying with us until two days before the solstice, when I’ll send them back to Atlanta.” I paused but kept busy as I asked, “I assume you want oatmeal and eggs with your sausage again? Maybe add some of the peach preserves into your oatmeal to change it up a little?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Why are you being distant?”

I stopped, turned, and smiled at her. “Sorry, I should’ve explained. I turned the ventilation system on last night to air the house out because I want the wolves to spend the day with you before they see us in each other’s arms. I don’t want to lie to them, so I’ll just be off in another part of the cave, or be busy in the storeroom, so they don’t see us interacting. I want them to have time with you on your own, without seeing you as belonging to me.”

She tilted her head as she considered the ramifications, and after a few seconds she said, “You want me to be my own person in their eyes before they see me as half of a couple?”

“Yes. Do you object?”

“No. I’ll miss you today, but we’ve spent so much time together it will probably be good to be apart a few hours.” She poured her coffee and topped it off with Eagle brand milk from the can. “What will I be doing with them, while you’re sorting through supplies?”

“Duke will teach you some self-defense, and Brain will give you a crash course in technology. He also has a status report to give you. I’ll stay close as he gives it, to be sure I’m up to date on everything, but probably in the next room.” I dumped her eggs and sausage on a plate and set the pan in the bucket. We’d do dishes later when we went to the waterfall. “Why do you think it’ll be good to be apart a few hours?”

“I think I’m taking energy off of you. Not as much as you put into me with the knife, but… like a trickle? I’ve been observing my energy levels when we’re apart and not touching, like when I’m reading or studying and you’re busy on the laptop, versus what they are when we’re with each other, and I’m convinced I’m taking from you, somehow. A day apart will tell me for sure.”

I was impressed she’d noticed but I needed to set her straight on the reason. “Soph, we’re giving each other energy every time we touch, and especially when we’re intimate. I’m getting some of yours, and you’re getting some of mine. You feel better after we’ve been touching because we balance each other out, not because you’re taking energy from me.”

I retrieved my laptop and awakened it. “Here, read this text, and make sure you’re speaking towards the mic without looking around.”

I finished preparing her oatmeal as she read the lorem ipsum paragraph, followed by the “Soft you; a word or two before you go,” soliloquy from Othello, followed by a scene from
Alice in Wonderland
where Alice is frustrated with the Cheshire Cat.

When she finished, I read the same, and then showed her the resulting graphs. I was actually pretty curious to see how we shaped up as well, and smiled as I saw the charts.

“These graphs show the notes our voices most often hit as we spoke,” I explained. “Just as red and green are on the opposite side of the color wheel, so are E flat and A in musical terms, and you’ll note I have a ton of A but almost no E flat, while you’re the exact opposite. The same goes for F sharp and C, where I have a lot of one and none of the other, your voice fills in. You’ve heard of the phrase
opposites attract
? This is what it refers to.”

“So, we were both off balance, before?”

I shook my head. “Not necessarily. There are times I do this and I’m not severely deficient in anything. I always have more D, A, and E than the other notes, but it isn’t always this off balance. I think you probably always have more of what I must unconsciously work to create, and when you’re around we can both depend on the other to provide what we don’t easily give ourselves. Whether you’re looking at auras, evaluating the electrical current in the body, or analyzing voices, the graphs will look similar. All three are assessing the same thing — our base energy levels.”

“Do you see auras?”

I nodded. “As a Dragon I see them naturally. As a human I must refocus in order to see them, and they aren’t as distinct, but it’s enough I can pick up on them, if needed.”

“I see them as a swan, but not human. Boris was always a deep, ugly red. I remember Cyrano as mostly oranges and yellows, but that was after he flogged me, and I don’t think he liked it much so maybe he doesn’t always look like a coward?”

“You’ve researched what the colors mean?” I asked.

“Yeah, there were some books about it in my father’s library. You say you have more D, A, and, E — what colors do those notes match?”

“They match the red spectrum, but my aura tends to look more purple because I also have a ton of A sharp, which is royal blue.”

She nodded. “And the blue tempers the red. There are lots of reasons so many royal dynasties use purple in their official family colors.”

As much as I’d have loved to have the time to sit and discuss which attributes made for good royalty, we didn’t have the luxury of time for philosophical conversations right now.

I kissed the top of her head and said, “We’ll pick this conversation back up in a few weeks, Soph. Eat, look over the graphs enough to satisfy your curiosity, and then close the laptop lid so we don’t use more electricity than necessary.”

She nodded and I left. The wolves and I had our work cut out for us to bring everything to the safe house. They’d bought three wheelbarrows so we could stick together and do it in one trip, but we’d need to trolley them across the river with a rope and pulley system, and then unload them and make multiple trips up the sheer cliff wall before reloading them and coming the rest of the way. Making it to the house was a challenge when not loaded down — bringing supplies had always been a pain in the ass.

There was an easier way in, but no longer a way to get a vehicle to the entrance, so this was the easiest route at the current time. There had originally been a third entrance available while in human form, but I’d long since created a cave-in to permanently block it.

It was nearly eleven when we made it to the cave, and we put the food away first. They’d brought fresh fruits and vegetables, and a variety of other food that would keep for a few days, or in some cases up to a week, in the cool fifty-two degrees of the cave.

My mouth salivated as I unwrapped the fifteen pounds of choice steak, and we immediately began cutting it into bite sized pieces in preparation for cooking. When you’re conserving energy, you cook food in small pieces so it doesn’t take as much fuel.

Sophia made herself a huge salad with three kinds of lettuce, lots of cherry tomatoes, some kale, onions, spinach, and mushrooms. She put the raspberry vinaigrette she asked for over it, and the look on her face at the first bite made me want to do other things to her to put the same look on her face. I carefully controlled my scent, though. I didn’t want to alert the wolves to my feelings about her just yet.

Duke shook his head and told me, “I take it swans need more green shit than wolves. I don’t know what you are, but it isn’t a Swan and I bet you can’t wait to sink your teeth into a steak.”

“I’ve done okay with the freeze dried stuff, but fresh meat will be a welcome change. My guess is Sophia will be happy with it, too. When we finish eating we’ll let Brain give her a tech lesson while everyone’s food digests, then you can begin with the self-defense.”

“Yeah, thanks for sending me Sam Levi’s video. She breaks defense down to an art and simplifies the shit out of it, but I’m guessing it’ll be quite effective.”

I nodded. “Yes, I have some female friends who’ve been to one of her workshops, and when they have the element of surprise even a human female can get the jump on a supernatural enough to possibly get away, assuming she doesn’t have to run more than a few dozen steps to get to a place he can’t chase her.”

I took the rest of the refrigerated items to the outside storage area while Brain cooked and Duke explored the cave around the house. Wolves couldn’t get comfortable until they were aware of their surroundings. Brain would trust Duke to know the area for the remainder of the day, but he’d likely need to do his own exploring soon, probably while Duke was working with Sophia.

Lunch was a relaxed affair, no matter we were discussing political strategy regarding how one might successfully go against the Eagles, Swans,
and
pack-Wolves and manage to survive.

We spoke theoretically, discussing specific weak points of the races and leaders, and how they might be used to an enemy’s advantage.

I went to the storage room off the kitchen while Brain and Sophia sat at the kitchen table, each on a laptop, and he taught her about Windows and the internet. They didn’t touch on email, as she couldn’t begin corresponding with anyone yet, but I wanted her to be able to do basic searches on her own, and know how to do it safely so she didn’t inadvertently bring a virus or trojan into our intranet.

When they finished the lesson and he began the status report, I focused more on their conversation.