Treasure Ch. 08

"I think we have a visitor," Henry finally said, his voice dripping with delight. She bit her lip and hunched her shoulders in frustration. "Little Catherine," he sang. "Come out, come out..." To her horror, his voice seemed to be coming closer. Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, Catherine shot to her feet, an arrow nocked and ready in her bow. She quickly turned it towards Henry's face, which was an evil, flickering portrait of orange and black from the torch he was carrying. "Oh, heavens!" he cried in mock-terror, clasping his hands to his chest. "She's armed!"

"No!" a familiar voice roared, and her gaze flitted down to the middle of the clearing. Adeon was stooped over in front of a thick, iron post that had been bent into an arch. Both sides were hammered deep into the ground. Around both of his wrists were twin manacles that glittered gold in the firelight, and Catherine stared at them in surprise. Unless she was incredibly mistaken, those were...

"King Irithen's golden chains," Henry laughed. "You know, we heard the stories, but we weren't quite sure they would work until we got our hands on 'em. They're pliant and brittle otherwise, but the bonds can't be broken by the wearer. Convenient, wouldn't you say?" He flashed her a wolfish grin that looked utterly terrifying in the light of the flame, and Catherine swallowed, keeping the point of the arrow trained on his face. He was still just a little too far away, and for a horrible moment, she wondered what would happen if she missed. "Don't think the beast knew what he had in that blasted lair of his. We've got another pair waiting for you. It'll be like old times, trussing you up for a dragon..."

"You don't touch her," Adeon snarled wildly, lurching against his bonds. The metal clanged and sparked as it ground against the iron post, but the chains wouldn't yield. He let out a frustrated growl, and the points of his teeth sparked furiously in the firelight as he bared them in anger.

"How sweet. He sounds so concerned." Henry raised his eyebrows. "You know, if it was a good tumble you wanted, I would have been happy to oblige. I never thought you could sink so low, dallying with a monster---"

"He isn't half the monster you are," Catherine whispered hoarsely, her fingers quivering on her bow. "Kidnapping, murder, treason...you're...you're evil, Henry..."

"No more evil than a dragon-fucking little witch," Henry hissed. She glared furiously at him, and his eyes seemed to widen at her silence. "Well, I'll be damned. You really did fuck him."

Catherine felt her cheeks grow hot. "You let him go," she snapped. "Or I'll shoot you right in---" She was cut off as he keeled over amidst gales of incredulous laughter, and her grip tightened on her bow. The rest of his men chortled nervously behind him. "I mean it!" she demanded, and he finally straightened up to wipe the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes.

"I'll tell you what," he chuckled. "If you can hit me, I'll release your abominable lover. I won't even lift a finger when the two of you try to escape." His eyes glittered. "Of course, I can't promise the same from my men. Who knows what they might do to you...?"

"Run, Catherine," Adeon pleaded in a strained voice, still pulling frantically at his chains. "Please. I...I can't---"

"Shut him up," Henry ordered, and Catherine let out a cry of anguish as one of the men slammed the hilt of his sword in between Adeon's broad shoulders. Adeon trailed off with a groan, his green eyes screwing shut in agony.

"Stop it!" she screamed. Henry spread his arms wide, his lips still tautened into an enormous, mocking grin.

"You've only one shot, sweetheart," he said. "Better make it count." Catherine bit her lip and pulled the arrow back, willing her arms to relax. The men behind Henry were suddenly shifting anxiously.

"I don't think---" one of them began, but Henry shot him a look of deep disgust from over his shoulder.

"Be quiet and let the lady shoot," he snapped. "Or are you afraid of being beaten by a little girl?" Catherine suddenly straightened up, her eyes flashing with determination.

"I'm not a little fucking girl," she whispered viciously, and she let the arrow fly.

With a loud rattling noise, the arrow found its home, and she watched tentatively as Henry's eyes opened wide. Then, he smiled.

"What did I tell you?" he crowed, and the laughter of the men behind him seemed relieved. "She always was a lousy shot." Catherine offered him a polite smile.

"I wasn't aiming for you," she told him sweetly. Henry stared at her dubiously, and then whirled around to follow her gaze. Behind him, Adeon was straightening up and shaking his wrists. He regarded the broken chains trailing from the manacles with a sort of frantic disbelief, and his eyes flitted down towards the ground to stare at the shattered remnants of Catherine's arrow. Then, he grinned. It was the most horrible expression Catherine had ever seen. The other men's hands twitched over the hilts of their swords, and he turned his gaze calmly towards her.

"My love," he purred, and his long fingers clenched into wicked claws. "I don't suppose you're particularly fond of any of these foul creatures?"

"No, Adeon," she replied shakily. "I don't have any love for them at all."

"Oh, good," he said, and he shot towards Henry in a silvery blur.

Catherine screwed her eyes shut at the resulting screams and horrible, wet noises and ducked down to retrieve her sword from her hip. Then, with a hoarse cry, she dove into the fray. Absentmindedly, she wished she still had the skillet. She hadn't ever trained much with swords.

One of the men lurched towards Adeon, his broadsword glinting in the dim light of the torches, and she quickly knelt down and thrust upwards to bury the point of her sword in his ribs. As he toppled down with a cry, Adeon whirled to face her and buried his claws into the neck of a man who had been approaching from behind. With some difficulty, she freed her sword from its hold in the man's chest, and Adeon drew his hands back with a ripping noise. A couple of warm spatters showered across her back, and she heard a gurgle right before the man collapsed in a heap behind her.

"How lovely to fight again," Adeon sighed gleefully, dancing forward to disarm another soldier. "Like the war of the Walls, but so much smaller..."

"The war of the Wa---" Catherine began incredulously, but a soldier was sprinting towards her, and she quickly darted out of the way. With a flick of his wrists, Adeon sent the man's head spinning from his shoulders and towards the snow. Blood spurted from the severed parts in a strange, glistening arc. "One of these days, you're really going to have to tell me more about yourself!" she shouted.

"Perhaps I'll simply leave it to your imagination," he retorted. One of the downed men suddenly brandished his sword and made to swing it towards Adeon's ankles, and Catherine plunged her blade downwards in between his shoulders. The metal pierced flesh and ground against a series of bones, and her stomach lurched. "I'm sure you could come up with something much more exciting," he added.

"I really doubt that," Catherine said weakly. The clearing had suddenly gone very quiet. Adeon straightened and shook his silver mane of hair back from his face, but then his eyes flitted towards a figure who was crawling jerkily away from the carnage. In a few even steps, Adeon had caught up to him and wrenched him to his feet by the straps of his chestplate.

"I remember you," he said cheerfully, watching his futile thrashing. "You're the one who wanted to put out my eyes. I suppose they should have listened to you."

"Wait, wait!" the man croaked. As Catherine approached, she caught a glimpse of a pair of wide brown eyes that were glinting pleadingly. Her heart sank. He looked to be only a year older than she was. "I have the key to your bonds! I can---" Adeon abruptly snatched the tiny metal instrument from his fumbling hands, glowering moodily at him, and the man struggled momentarily for words. "Information, then! If you were to spare me---"

"That would depend entirely on the nature of the information," Adeon said in a husky voice. He sounded so excited. For a moment, Catherine saw Adeon in his entirety, as if for the first time: sinew and lethal muscle and razor sharp points; a grin that could send armies running for their mothers; wild, burning eyes. A hunter. A predator.

A dragon.

"It's about the Whispering Mountains!" the man rasped, and Adeon seemed to falter. "They know---they all know---"

"They know what?" Adeon said in a dangerous whisper.

"About the dragons! There are tens of thousands marching from the east as we speak, and their numbers are only growing." Adeon frowned, and for a moment, the man looked hopeful. "They should be there within four days," he added breathlessly. "Perhaps...perhaps I could help you thwart them. I could be useful..."

"Oh, you've been very useful," Adeon reassured him, bringing his face very close to the man, who cracked a weak little smile. "At least you died proving your worth." His smile quickly waned.

"But you promised---" he whispered frantically, and Adeon lifted his lip in a snarl.

"I promised nothing," he hissed, and he swiftly opened the soldier's throat with a flash of his claws. He tossed the gurgling figure into a writhing heap on the ground, and Catherine swallowed hard. His fingers worked momentarily with the manacles on his wrists, and she watched as the chains went tumbling to the ground, singing as they fell. As if he had only just remembered she was there, Adeon turned slowly to face her. "Catherine," he said softly, and her quivering fingers dropped her sword. "Are you alright?" he continued, and she nodded jerkily. His voice was muffled through a strange roaring in her ears. There was an odd expression playing at his pointed features, and it looked as if wildfires had ignited behind his eyes. Every motion he made seemed careful, like he was trying to suppress something.

And, in a moment of mad clarity, Catherine realized she didn't want him to.

In two long strides, she was directly in front of him, and she looped her arms around his neck and pressed the length of her body against him. She stood high up on her tiptoes to crush her mouth against his, and the hard, almost violent way she was kissing him seemed to stoke his ferocity. His hand gripped her thigh savagely before he tugged up the hem of her dress, allowing him to raise her leg and wrap it around his hip. She groaned as his nails dragged over her newly-bared skin, and his bloodstained hand left a trail of carnage in its wake. A feverish heat was spreading from her cheeks to the pit of her stomach.

"I want you," she begged against his lips, lowering her hands and fumbling with his belt. "I want you right this second, and I don't really understand why..."

"It's the rush of battle," he growled as she slid her hips against his longingly, and he let out a ragged moan as she bit his lip, hard. He tasted salty with sweat, exquisitely so. "It tends to---oh---oh, Catherine," he groaned, his grip growing tighter on her leg as she finished unfastening his trousers and began to explore his erection, wrapping her fingers around its width, her thumb caressing the tip in long strokes. She stared at him pleadingly as she stroked him, her mouth slightly open against his, and he met her gaze with burning eyes. He suddenly pushed her away and began to jerk her dress over her head, and she hastily assisted him, tossing it to the side once she was bared to him. Her panties went next, torn from her hips with a flick of his wrists, and then he had taken her in his arms and was lowering them both onto the ground with her on his lap. She took him in her hand again and guided his tip into her passage, and his open lips curved into a slack grin that made Catherine shiver. It was all violence and laziness and twisted, blackened, wicked want, that smile. People were beheaded for smiling like that.

She slowly lowered herself down onto him, gasping as she felt him slide into her, and he took in a hiss of a breath as she enveloped him entirely. She began to work her hips in hard thrusts, clinging to his shoulders for leverage, and he captured her lips with his, snaking his tongue into her mouth. She coaxed him on, caressing his tongue, tracing the tips of his sharp teeth. His hands moved to her ass, squeezing and maneuvering her to deepen her thrusts. They moved together, desperate and greedy for each other, and Catherine lurched forward to nip his throat when he leaned his head back in ecstasy. Nothing else in the whole world mattered---just this, just him---and she moaned as he began to move her a little harder with his hands, plunging himself deeper into her.

"Thank the gods for the rush of battle," he said breathlessly, grinning, and she gathered a fistful of his hair as she finally found her release. As she twitched and writhed senselessly in his lap, he pushed her roughly onto her back and began to thrust urgently into her, prolonging her pleasure until she felt as if she was going to go insane. Maybe she already was insane. Because this---this was what insanity had to feel like. She was barely aware that she was crying out loudly with every slam of his hips and that her fingers were clawing patterns into his back. His breath in her ear was ragged and punctured with low, guttural moans that were turning her spine into liquid, and she was lost in the primal roughness of the way that they took each other. It was decadence, it was sin, it was something illegal and immoral. It was love and cruelty all at the same time, like they both wanted to tear each other apart in the most tender way.

After what seemed like an eternity of burning, fervent intensity, Adeon caught the skin of her shoulder hard in between his teeth and exhaled heavily. Her legs trembled as she felt him pulse inside of her. His hands traveled lazily up her body to trace the line of her jaw, and then he was crooning soft, soothing noises in her ear and smoothing her hair back from her forehead, and she felt herself go limp underneath him. The skin he had bitten stung, but in a wonderful sort of way; like a reminder of his teeth.

"Oh, Adeon," she whispered shakily, her eyes brimming with tears. He let out a quiet little moan as she gave him a desperate squeeze. When she spoke again, her voice cracked weakly. "I'm so glad you're alright. I thought...I thought that maybe..."

"Sweet, sweet girl," he sighed into her ear, and she closed her eyes as his voice sent a wave of tranquility crashing through her. A fat tear tumbled down her cheek, displaced by her fluttering lashes. "I would never abandon you like that."

"Do you promise?" she begged, squinting her eyes shut again as more cool, wet tears welled up.

He kissed the ridge of her brow, then the soft curve beside the corner of her eye, and then the flushed swell of her cheek. "I promise," he murmured.

"Dragons don't lie," she reminded him earnestly, and he laughed.

"They certainly don't." After seemingly waging an invisible sort of struggle, he finally slid out of her and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. All around them were the limp silhouettes of dead soldiers, and she shivered. Only a month earlier, she had been learning needlework in the confines of House Bastion, and now she had just made savage love to her forbidden beau in the middle of a bloody battlefield. Oh, how quickly the world could change... "Do you think he was telling the truth?" he asked quietly, tearing her from her thoughts. "About the scores of men marching towards the mountains?"

"It seems like a strange thing to lie about," she admitted, bowing her head gratefully as he found her discarded dress and pressed it into her arms. With a shaky breath, she mopped up the residual tears from below her eyelids. She was suddenly grateful he hadn't torn off her bodice like he had her panties; without that, she'd be utterly naked beneath her dress. "The other dragons---are we going to warn them?"

"We have to," he said darkly, standing and pulling off his tattered shirt. "If they were to face the army blind, it would be a slaughter. Ordinarily I wouldn't worry, but the sheer recklessness of it implies that they've devised a strategy of some sort."

"And I'm coming with you?" she implored as she tugged her dress over her head. He grinned.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight," he assured her. His features began to grow and twist, and within moments, there was a great, green dragon crouched over her. "Not when I've finally won you." She wriggled onto her knees and kissed his scaly nose. At the touch of her lips, his eyelids drooped blissfully. Suddenly, a dismal thought wormed its way into her skull.

"I'm going to have to ride you, aren't I?" she sighed, and his reptilian lips curved into an amused smile.

"I'm afraid so."

"Liar. I know you take some sick sort of pleasure in frightening the daylights out of me."

"Perhaps," he chuckled. His laughter coursed over her body in a warm flood, and he nudged her insistently with his snout until she rose to her feet. "Climb on. I can't wait to hear those lovely screams of yours," he teased, and she made a face before swinging her bag and her quiver over her shoulder.

"I won't give you the satisfaction," she retorted, slinging herself up onto his shoulders and hooking her heels under his wings.

"You're utterly adorable, thinking you'll be able to help yourself." He turned and lifted his wings slowly, and she sucked in one last, frantic breath before he leapt up into the clouds.

---

Catherine screwed her eyes shut as Adeon began his descent, her arms constricting even tighter around his neck. Finally, with a bone-rattling thud, his talons raked into the rocky ground beneath them. She shuddered. She could still feel the ghost of the cool air coursing past them like an icy river.

Aside from the quick night they had spent sleeping beneath a towering pine on the outskirts of the Black Forest, they had been flying almost nonstop. The ground felt like something foreign under her feet. All around them were massive boulders and sharp cliff walls, the surfaces riddled with smooth holes. The wind groaned and whistled in a wide range of notes as it flooded through the tunnels, and she smiled despite her waning anxiety. The Whispering Mountains had always been high on the list of places she'd hoped to see.

"It's so beautiful up here," she said cheerfully, her fingers flitting over a stream of silver ivy that was winding through a series of little holes in a nearby boulder. Its tender leaves were soft against her fingertips. Spiraling ghosts of mist pooled around her feet, and her smile widened as she disturbed their winding tendrils with her boots. "Like we're up in the clouds and they're singing to us." Adeon appeared near her shoulder, back in his humanoid form and pulling his shirt over his head.

"Singing clouds," he mused, smirking. "How charming." She rolled her eyes.

"I know it sounds silly," she admitted, and he rumpled her already windswept hair. "But it really is lovely. I've heard so many stories about this place, and it's always been a dream of mine to visit."

"Then come along," he told her with a smile, capturing her hand and pulling her forward. "There's more to see." She hurried along behind him, slinging her back and the quiver back over her shoulder. The misty path before them wound and ascended at a sharp angle, and the greenery seemed to grow more and more sparse as they climbed. Suddenly, he drew them off the path and to the left, and she stepped carefully as he helped her cross a ledge. The world loomed dizzily far beneath them, shrouded by thin clouds. "I won't let you fall," he assured her gently, and she swallowed hard as she shifted slowly across the narrow ledge behind him. "Even if you do...well, as good fortune would have it, I happen to have wings..."