Title: Serpentine Tongue
Author: Kayden McLeod
Genre: Fantasy Menage (Dragon shifters, fae)
Publisher: New Dawning
Release: January 2013 in the second annual
Threesomed Anthology, and later released as a single title
Summary:
Life is full of choices. Siobhan thought she’d never
see another Sidhe. Until a blue dragon the size of a small mountain falls into
her life, wounded and ailing. When the beast turns into a man, Siobhan has a
choice: heal him at the cost of exposing her greatest secret, or let him die.
Fallon and Dearg thought they’d spend their lives as Seelie Knights, but
treachery of the heart brings a reviled fate crashing upon them. They’ve become
the first dragon shifters in fae existence, and they have to trust Siobhan in
order to survive. Now, she has to choose: Fallon, Dearg…or both?
Excerpt:
Fallon pumped his legs, racing across the meadow
under a halo of arrows poised for his back. The Seelie Queen’s archers claimed
to be the strongest, fastest, the best.
He was stronger, faster.
The Queen had no one to blame but herself. She
cursed him for his “serpentine tongue,” or so she’d once referred to the organ dominating
his mouth. Once, she’d used the term as an endearment. Now, she cursed him. Once upon a time, when
they’d met in what he’d mistaken for love, turned out to be lust. Lust for
power, greed and good, hard sex. No more.
Her loss, his gain. The truth had come out. For the
better, anyway. Next time they’d meet, he’d kill her. He possessed no other
choice. His serpentine tongue had spoken the words proclaiming her impending
death. Failure to keep his promise was to be foresworn from court, if not
killed for being an oathbreaker by powers much greater than he.
The first mattered little to him. The second, well,
he wasn’t so sure.
The Queen’s Knights, his brothers in arms, wove
through the archers on their winged steeds, some of them attempting to ensure
the latter option.
“Fallon, halt!” Garbhan, Captain of the Queen’s
Knights, barreled ahead of the others. He cried his plea over the thunderous
legion of hooves. “If you stop this flight, I could speak to Druantia about a
pardon.”
Fallon tossed his blue-black hair over one bare
shoulder. He sneered. “Do not make promises you cannot keep. You might be
fucking her royal highness, but she will not forgive this.”
Garbhan growled something lost to the wind. No
matter. Fallon was disinterested in empty promises.
His lungs burned, his thighs screamed, tossing the
shredded material of his breeches that hung precariously over his hips. He’d
never cross the meadow, into the lush undergrowth of the forest. They’d catch
him on their magickal steeds long before.
One way out for the likes of him.
He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. He
hated his enforced ability, but he’d have to use his other form. He jackknifed
in mid-leap, snarling at the horses. Garbhan’s reared, kicking out his front
legs. Fallon dodged the sharp slashes aimed for his chest.
“Where is Dearg?” Garbhan spat on the ground, as if
to rid himself of the distaste of Fallon’s best friend. Nervously, he glanced
at archers, who fell back while their Captain conversed. “At least let us bring
him back, and I will allow you a full day’s head start.”
Fallon struggled to calm himself. The shift tearing
through his body took far longer than it had last time, wasting precious
seconds. “I do not know where he went after we left the castle. We went our
separate ways.” Too close to a lie. The truth, they’d been forced apart.
Maghnus, always an overzealous guard, dropped from
his Pegasus. “Silver tongued beast, tell the Captain of the Queen’s Knights
where your friend ran with his tail between his legs.”
“I cannot tell you what I do not know,” Fallon
wheezed through the burning fury inside his belly that knew no end. Oh, for
Goddess’ sake! Why would the change not come upon him?
Maghnus swung his sword, slicing through Fallon’s
ribs. His flesh split, a ripe melon under the blistering sun. He threw his head
back and roared, the noise gaining volume and momentum, bleeding into a bellow
that shook the trees ringing the meadow.
His eyes burned as his face elongated. His back
arched, cracked. Size tripled, then that quadrupled. He towered above them, half man, half beast
as the minute changes reformed his body. At last, it was done.
His snout billowed steam. The Knights fell back, not
knowing the secret of his form. Let them think he could blow fire.
“A dragon!” An archer squealed.
The Queen’s secret, for good or bad, had come to
light. Fallon startled that the rumors had not yet filled every ear at the
Seelie court. For he had been cursed in front of all the nobility. Gossipers
and liars, the lot of them.
Garbhan cut the air with his sword, toward Maghnus.
He showed not a care. Unlike the others, the Captain knew Fallon kept his wits,
even as a dragon. “Have not a fear! This cretin had angered him.”
Fallon hesitated to kill his fellow Knights. They’d
grown and trained together, fought for one another. The archers mattered not to
him.
“That is a Sidhe no longer!” Maghnus stumbled back,
as Fallon rose on his muscled hind legs. “This is what the Queen has done to
him?”
“You were there, Maghnus.”
“He did not do this at court!”
Fallon spread his wings across the meadow. His long,
thick neck curled over Maghnus, cutting him off from his peers. One crystalline
triple iris complete with slit pupil caught the Knight’s.
He didn’t bother to perform a communication charm.
His face said it all.
Cut
me again, dullard. I shall bite your head clean from your shoulders.
The Knight shuddered, his sword falling to the
ground. He’d wet himself, the reek pungent to his oversensitive sense of smell.
Inside, Fallon wondered how he’d ever stomached the wretch. His death would be
a mercy to his brothers. A true Knight hath no fear of any man or beast.
Blood gushed between them, running down Fallon’s
metallic green chest. The shift had ripped open the wound, enlarged the serrated
edges. Not the first time he’d been wounded in battle. Not the last either.
He’d see this to be true.
Fallon whipped his barbed tail, colliding with
Maghnus’ side, tearing through his armor. Maghnus tumbled through the air into
three horses, including his own. Fallon uttered a shattering roar, a gust of
steam. The warriors scrambled, screaming “fire.”
How little they knew. Not even the Captain
understood. Fallon was a water dragon. Ice, to the fire that was Dearg.
He leapt, and damned near fell back to the ground.
Perhaps, his wounds surpassed his previous assessment. His limbs deadened, the
bone structure of his wings threatened not to keep him airborne for longer than
a minute or two. That’s all he needed.
The knights made no move to follow him, as they
calmed their steeds.
Arrows flew, tiny sticks to a beast such as him. The
beast barely felt them enter his hide.
The man was altogether a different story.
