Page 60 of Storm of Blood and Shadow

I cry out, beating my fists against my temples and bending over, trying to knock the voice out of my mind.

“God, Varex… come here.” Jessiva tows me toward the bed I made for her. “Don’t listen to it anymore. Lie down. That’s right.” She lies down on top of me and kisses my tear-soaked cheeks before her mouth merges softly with mine. “Think aboutthis. Think about me. We’ll talk later. For now, don’t worry about anything else. Justfeel. Touch me.”

She lifts my hand and places it on her breast.

With her skin, and her breath, and her voice, she purges the poisonous whisper of the storm from my mind. We fuck, and we eat a little of our food, and we sleep. Jessiva stays pressed against me, her leg and arm flung across my body as if she’s holding me down, securing me to herself. As if she’s worried, even in sleep, that I’ll slip away.

I am not myself.

I’m not sure if five days and nights have passed since the Mordvorren began, or if it has been longer. My mind is a black tide rushing back and forth between two things—the voices in the storm and Jessiva’s body, specifically the tender little womb inside her, the one that needs to be filled, over and over, with my seed, until I finally succeed in breeding her.

Sex has been our primary pastime of late. There’s not much else to do in the cave besides sleep.

The Rib Moon has come and gone, and the mating frenzy has gripped me. I don’t feel it quite as forcefully as I expected to, but I suspect that’s because whenever I’m in dragon form, the Mordvorren is so loud inside my head that it drives out all other thoughts and urges. It wants me to kill myself, to deliver my body to the tempest to be dashed in pieces. Sometimes it tries to convince me to dash my skull against the rock until I break. It’s all I can do to keep the intrusive commands from controlling my actions.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, my hunger is worsening. The urgency of the mating heat has given me a greater appetite than usual. The pig I caught is long gone, and there is only a little of the foraged food left.

Jessiva has barely been eating. She was already thin, but she’s becoming quieter, weaker. It pains me to watch her bones sharpen against her skin.

I should have spent less time seeing to the needs of the clan and the captives, and more time hunting. Not for myself—forher. I failed her, and now I’m watching her suffer. If this storm does not depart, she will starve to death right in front of me.

And I will starve alongside her before I consider tasting a mouthful of her flesh—even though the Mordvorren keeps suggesting that abomination to me as well.

When I’m in human form, I don’t feel the hunger as terribly, but in dragon form I’m ravenous. Even when my cock is buried inside Jessiva, there’s a part of my primal brain that is constantly thinking about food, about meat. That part is growing louder, more ferocious, and more unreasonable as time passes.

To minimize the pains of hunger, I’ve been spending as much time in human form as I can, but once I’ve hit the limit of eight hours, I’m forced to switch forms, and the ravenous need begins again, so strong it’s agony.

Right now I’m in human form, but I’m approaching another shift. I can sense it coming. Last time I took dragon shape, it was torture, and I anticipate it being even worse this time, since neither my mating urges nor my hunger have been satisfied.

Between the compulsion to breed and the raging emptiness in my belly, I don’t think I should risk looking at Jessiva or smelling her while I’m a dragon. I can already feel my higher thoughts slipping from my grasp, leaving behind only primal compulsions.

I refuse to harm or devour her. I will not yield to the demands of the Mordvorren. This nightmare will not be the end of my life or hers.

I sit up on the grassy bed—our nest—and place my hand over Jessiva’s shoulder, shaking her gently awake.

She blinks sleepily at me. “You want sexagain? I need a little break, Varex. I’m getting too sore, and I’m tired. And I’m…” She stops herself, but I see the way her body curls up, the way her hand slides over her stomach. She’s hungry, weary, pushed past the limits of her endurance. Her skin is flushed and chafed from tending to my cock while I’m in dragon form.

I’ve done this to her, and I hate myself for it.

“I will change soon,” I tell her. “I’m not sure how the heat will come upon me when I do. You need to go and hide in the cleft at the back of the cave. I’ve never been able to explore it asa dragon, but you could certainly fit in there. You’ll be safe from me.”

She sits up, pushing back her hair. She’s usually naked with me now, but this time she puts on some bits of pink silk. She calls it a “dance costume,” and she had it in her bag when I captured her. The clothing draws attention to her breasts, her toned stomach, and her legs. I enjoy the effect very much.

“I’m not going to hide,” she says grimly. “I won’t abandon you when you need me.”

“You need rest,” I manage to say. “My dragon won’t give you any, Jessiva. You have to claim it. Hide from me, I beg you.”

Her features tighten with pained concern. “But without me to distract you, you might…”

“What?”

“The storm, Varex,” she whispers, gripping my hands. “It talks to you all the time, more often and more loudly than you want me to know. It’s torturing you. It wants you. I won’t let it win. And if I can keep you with me by fucking you endlessly, I will.”

I extract one of my hands from hers and turn her wrist, showing her chafed forearm. “I won’t let you hurt yourself anymore for my sake.”

“You don’t get to make that choice,” she retorts.

A sad smile curves my mouth as I cup her chin. “You have a generous and passionate soul, darling. When you love someone, you sacrifice everything for them. That’s who you are. But while I still have the capacity, I will protect you, even if it’s from your own self-sacrificial kindness. Now go.” I kiss her lightly, then back away, feeling the oncoming thrum of the change deep in my bones. “Go!”

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