Page 6 of Daghel

“Don’t ‘now, darling’ me. That woman is absolute filth, and I refuse to have her anywhere near me. Oh, here’s the conductor now.”

My lips twist in a grimace as I yank the car door open and step through. I’m not the sort to linger or have regrets, but I still feel shaken as I make my way to an empty seat and allow myself to collapse into it. I am immediately gladdened because there is no one seated across from me to share this small space with me. Pulling out a book, I busily open it to the marked page as the train squeals on its tracks and lunges forward.

Now to enjoy what small measure of peace I can get—and pretend that the domes over the cities are not in place for a very good reason.

I shiver despite myself and turn the page.

Rumor is that the accounts of orcs raiding from the nearby mountains are grossly exaggerated, and most of them may even be fabrications for insurance claims. No doubt there’s nothing to be afraid of at all.

Chapter

Three

DAGHEL

Ilean forward on the padded leather seat attached to Drisk’s harness as the wyvern drops lower through the sky, the jagged Fang Peaks reaching for us. These peaks are just one segment of the larger Cold Mountains that are inhabited by numerous orc clans, but it is the place that I, and others of the Cold Fang Clan, call home.

Drisk’s head cranes back toward me, his golden eyes glittering with the glow of our symbiotic union that allows speech between us mid-flight. I much prefer discoursing with him in a far more natural fashion on the ground, especially when I don’t have his tendrils invading my body from the sensitive tissue at the base of his neck, but this is effective and Drisk is not a male who floods my mind with too much input all at once.

I shift on his back, feeling the tug of his tendrils rippling through me from where they have burrowed into the anal and penile tissue after slipping into me and forming connections with my internal nervous system. My cock jerks in response, and I growl softly. Perhaps it is time that I capture a female. Many of my brethren have hunted for their mates in the wreckage ofour conquests and have found a successful way to satisfy their primal desire to bury their aching cocks in a tight cunt, beyond allowing our wyvern brothers to plow us until we are both brutally spent.

“It’s about time. I ache too,” Drisk complains. “It is tiresome to always fight against your dominance to pin you in place for rutting. We would both benefit from a soft female to distract us.”

I grunt in agreement, and while he cannot hear such a subtle sound at the speed that we are flying, I know he can feel it echoing through me. Symbiotic connection or not, I never could get out of the habit of responding aloud.

“Your cock is not always a joy to take either,” I inform him.

“You enjoy it well enough or else you would not repeatedly bathe the stone with your seed. And she will enjoy it too. I have a magnificent cock.”

I cannot entirely deny that. It is as he says… I need a distraction. I need a hot little cunt to tug on my cock and milk my seed to tolerate Drisk’s dominance as he pins me from behind for our safety. I also look forward to taking her mouth, getting me ready while I watch the wyvern’s cock stretch and fill her little hole, preparing her for the brutish size of my prick. Despite Drisk’s large size, wyverns’ reproductive organs are proportionately small compared to the rest of them, on average equal to that of an orc. But he is not wrong—it is magnificent, its length bulging and heavily studded with bumps that extend into small tendrils to kiss the insides as they fuck. I know any mate of ours will enjoy it.

And as I’m even larger than most orcs, I look forward to his seed dripping from her hole and making it possible for me to work my cock into her without her screaming in pain and terror like so many of the captives have done. Sadly, wyverns are fussy about fucking and will only mount their bonded brother and amate—mostly because they are highly fertile and would likely breed indiscriminately if not for mingling their blood with orcs for so many generations. Because of that, they feel the same drive for a mating bond and now require orc genetic material for breeding, which slows down reproduction considerably. That we must prepare our mates for bearing orc and wyvern young is an entirely different challenge since, by the laws of our matriarchs, we cannot force pregnancy on any female in our keeping.

Which is fine with me. I’m not certain if I ever want offspring of my own. There is too much chance of my sons or daughters inheriting my ghostly coloring and its curse. It is an uncomfortable burden for anyone to bear. But that doesn’t mean I cannot take a mate as long as I make sure that she takes a medicinal draught to keep our seed from quickening inside of her.

None of my offspring should know that feeling of the darkness slowly invading them, whispering to them while they stand alone in the snow. I am convinced that Drisk saved me. I don’t know how he found me at that moment.

The landscape below blurs and fades as the snowy mountains shift and I am standing in my village, young and powerless against what was crawling through me in my isolation. I shiver in the cold in a way I have not since I was heated by the wyvern’s spark deep within me. The darkness of the sky is cut by the snowfall. It turns heavier, the fat flakes whirling chaotically with the force of the bitter air. The shadows thicken with it, growing and condensing like something monstrous at its heart. It was never a wyvern. It was not Drisk that I saw at first. Whatever this is, it haunts me—a wraith of snow and darkness.

Durethikal, the devourer, the son of Vepra whom she bred from the corpse of Ishugor, the divine king of the earth. The hapless son of Vepra was born for destruction, and we dare not say his name, for he was chained and contained within theforbidden depths of the Fang Peaks by the great ancestors of the Cold Mountain clans. To say his name is to court doom. To say his name is to bring his black night eyes open to you. I can’t see his eyes, but there is an impression of greater darkness where they might be, and I feel their weight upon me. Tall and powerful, he seems to shift forward, moving far too fast. He did not move this fast before. He?—

“Wake up,” Drisk growls, and my body jerks hard, my mouth gaping open as I drag in a ragged gasp of air.

I blink down at the white-capped peaks below me and, at a distance, the snow-covered landscape stretches out from below the foothills. It shimmers in the light as the shadows withdraw, and I relax as the sense of deep pressure leaves me, though I can feel an empty hole where it had been. That hole has always been present, and not even Drisk made it go away. Perhaps a mate could finally fill it and bring me some measure of peace. Clenching my jaw, I straighten my shoulders and squint at the distant shadow moving of a steam and cog-train moving swiftly over the snow. We were nearing our prey and yet I had begun to drift unawares? I draw in a steadying breath and glance warily at the gathol, the hunter-warriors mounted on their wyverns flying at either side of us. It seems that no one noticed except Drisk. Good. I did not need anyone from among my clan questioning my sanity and whether I am fit to be a hunter-warrior.

“Thank you,” I mutter as I adjust my grip on the atherium sword clasped tightly in my hand. A bright shimmer arcs over it from the liska crystal in the central point of the sword’s hilt, resting beneath my palm. The magic within the crystal pulses with a comforting familiarity that swiftly stabilizes me. “How long was it this time?”

“Not long. But I sensed its presence. I believe it is stalking us now, though it has retreated. It felt very close to overtaking us, however.”

My gut tightens at Drisk’s observation, but I numbly nod. If it is Durethikal, he is becoming bolder, stalking through the mountains on his ghostly mounts, waiting to descend upon us again. If he is going so far as to pursue us through the mountain shadows in the middle of the day, then there is a reason to worry.

“You should tell them,”Drisk grumbles, but I huff in annoyance as I continue to scan our surroundings to determine the best direction to approach the train.

“What good has that done me?” I reply bitterly. “They did nothing but assure me that he was anchored with dozens of enchanted chains and guarded by innumerous seals. They trust me with nothing but this—the one thing my kind is good for. Destruction and terror.”

Drisk hisses disdainfully, clearly communicating his thoughts about the matter.“You cling unnecessarily to your clan. There are those who appreciate you—clans that dwell deeper in the mountains.”

I grunt in acknowledgement but refrain from responding. This is not a new turn of conversation between us. Although Drisk rarely speaks of the frigid white peaks in the depths of the Cold Mountains or the clans that linger dangerously close to the forbidden tower upon the highest peak, I’m certain he comes from this place. I wrestle with that knowledge since the Cold Fang Clan views those who linger too close to the tower to be corrupted by its power. I know Drisk is not connected to that evil, but I do not wish to contemplate it too closely. It is far easier to focus on the train carrying goods and supplies that will benefit the clan in the depths of the winter. The humans refuse to trade with us and actively cut off access routes, trapping us within the mountains as much as they can, so we will simply take what we desire.

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