Sacrifice: A Reverse Harem Dragon Fantasy Read online

  Where am I?

  I’m somewhere warm. Somewhere soft. A bed, a bed larger than my bedchamber at home. The posts that support it are carved with strange, ornate symbols. I look down at my arms, my legs.

  I am not dead.

  But I am naked.

  I reach for a blanket, and just as I pull it to my chest, he comes into view — the largest man I’ve ever seen. He is standing halfway across the room, watching me. His stance is purposeful, his eye intense under his dark brows. His beard, black as coal, is plaited into a point. His hair, black as his beard, hangs in a thick plait down his muscular back.

  His chest is broad and bare. He wears only a leather skirt. The men in my village were modest, and wore long linen shirts and pants perpetually stained by ash. I should be insulted that he has walked in, so under-clothed, to gaze upon my nakedness. But I am too grateful to be indignant.

  “Are you the one who saved me?” I ask.

  “Saved you?”

  “From the dragon.”

  He smiles. His lips are full, his teeth white in his tanned face.

  “Yes, the dragon. As fearsome a beast as ever lived.” He walks to the bed and puts a hand on one of the posts. “Were you afraid, little one? When you first saw it, what went through your mind?”

  I clutch the cover to my chest. The man is staring at me. Something about his eyes ring familiar. But that’s impossible. I’ve never seen him before. I struggle to answer his question.

  “First, that my life was over. Then…” I summon the memory of the moment the dragon’s massive head rose above the lip of the ledge, the sheer size of it. “And then, I thought it was the most terrible, beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

  The corner of his mouth curves into a smile.

  “You are a brave girl. What do they call you?”

  “Lyla.

  “Lyla.” He repeats my name, as if tasting it.

  “Did you save me?” I ask again. “What happened? It took me…in its claw…” I curl my hand, subconsciously mimicking it. I close my eyes, trying to recall more. “I do not know what happened next.”

  “And you do not need to.” His voice is deep. It seems to rumble from within. His accent is strange to my ears. “All that matters is that you are safe. And mine.”

  “Yours?” I twist my hands into the sheet I clutch at my breast.

  “Why, yes, little one.” He moves to the side of the bed. By the gods, he is huge! His thighs, smooth and brown, bulge with muscles as he walks. My heart begins to flutter in my chest at his approach. “You are here, unscathed,” he says. “Do you not think I deserve a boon for that?”

  “A boon?” I try to swallow my nervousness. I’d planned for death, but not for this. My mind races as it sinks in what he wants. “My mother,” I begin. “She will be so glad to know that I’m alive. She could give you…” My voice falters and I look around. What could my poor mother give this man whose bed is larger than a room in my house. My gaze falls on the rich tapestries on the wall, the sumptuous furs on the stone floor.

  He leans over, puts a finger under my chin. His eyes lock onto mine. The irises are green, then gray, then gold. “You are the boon.” The words are carried on hot breath scented with spiced wine. I am transfixed, unable to look away.

  He wants me. I look wildly around this huge room, wondering how I went from a dragon’s grip to these soft sheets, naked before a man boldly announcing his intention to deflower me. I want answers, but the eyes looking at me are stern, demanding.

  “Am I to have no say?”

  He cups my chin in his hand, continuing to stare me in the eye as he shakes his head. “Tell me, little one. Do you not even want to know the name of the man who will take your innocence?”

  I don’t immediately answer. I know that life is often unfair to women. In my village, marriages are arranged. Had I stayed, and not entered the order, I would have ended up the wife of a laborer or a farmer. I went to the Altar Rock prepared to meet my fate. I expected to die. I am alive. If it is my fate to lie beneath this stranger rather than die in the mouth of a dragon, I must accept it, for I know I can no more fight this man than fight the dragon. I will be brave. But I will know who is taking my virginity.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I am Lord Drorgros of Fra’hir, firstborn son of Rymoth the Great, blessed be his spirit.” He puts his huge hand on his chest. “You are in the Drakoryan Empire.”

  This means nothing to me. A lord? I thought him to be a warrior.

  He climbs onto the bed. He’s on his knees, and in my seated position my head barely comes above his navel. I feel like a child next to him. His hand moves to the cover I’m using to shield my body. I watch as his huge fingers curl over the top of it. I try to clutch the cover tighter, but I know I can’t stop him from pulling it away. I’m right. Lord Drorgros rips it from me so roughly that I fall forward. When I start to cross my arms over my chest, he catches my wrists.

  “No,” he says, pulling my arms away from my body. “I will look upon my prize.”

  “Prize?” I’m puzzling at the word as his gaze caresses my body. He moves the back of his hand across my shoulder, pushing aside my hair. I’ve never been touched by a man. I freeze, feeling a shiver run through my body as he slides the hand down, watching its trajectory as it moves over the swell of my breast. The breath catches in my throat as the backs of his fingers stop just above the ruddy circle surrounding my nipple. I look up to see him studying my reaction.

  “I’m going to fuck you, Lyla. Do you know what that means?”

  “It means…” I start to tell him what I know of fucking, but it isn’t much and I don’t know how to put it into words. He reaches for his leather skirt and pulls it aside, revealing a huge, hard appendage jutting from his body.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “It’s a cock.” I say the word quietly, the utterance sending a flush of embarrassment into my face.

  I’ve heard the word whispered among women, often accompanied by sighs or tittering giggles. I know it goes between a woman’s legs, to plant a man’s seed. It’s how babies are made. I’ve always wondered at how a baby could come out of such a small hole, but now I’m just as mystified as I watch his cock rise from a nest of dark curls, bobbing like a living thing. It seems equally impossible that such a thing could fit there, either.

  “I’m afraid,” I say.

  He ruffles my hair as one might a child and chuckles. “Sweet little innocent. You take wonder in a dragon that could cause you hurt and fear the thing that can bring you pleasure?”

  I drag my eyes away from the mighty cock jutting from his muscular loins.

  “Pleasure?”

  He reaches down, swooping me up in his arms. “Yes, pleasure.”

  Drorgros lifted me as if I were light as a feather. Now he lays me down as gently.

  He reaches out with his huge hands, covering my breasts and I gasp again as I feel my nipples harden into peaks under his palms. He kneads the flesh of my left breast, softly at first, then with more pressure as his fingers find my right nipple, pinching it.

  “Aaahhh!” My eyes widen in surprise. The pinch hurts, but is accompanied by what feels like a tug in that untouched place between my legs, where a soft throb, like a heartbeat, begins to pulse. I wriggle against it, squeeze my thighs together instinctively, and then gasp again when I realize my inner thighs are wet. All the while the huge man is looking down at me, a half-smile on his handsome, bearded face.

  “Good,” he says. “Very good.”

  “What?” I ask. “What is good?” My voice is high. I’m puzzled and scared. I try to rise, but his hand presses into my belly, keeping me prone as he stretches out beside me.

  “I can smell your sweet pussy,” he says. “Your virgin body is ready, aroused, giving up its first nectar. I would taste it…”

  Taste it? What does he mean? I cry out. His large hands have wrenched my legs apart. His head is between them. He laps at the slickness coati
ng my inner thighs and the throbbing in my core becomes nearly unbearable. I feel his beard, wiry and rough, against my tender skin. I feel his hot breath against the mound of my pussy. I bite my lip, trying to stifle a whimper.

  What is happening to me? What magic is this man working that my body should act of its own accord? I try to will the throbbing to stop. It won’t. I tell myself to close my legs; instead, I feel my thighs fall open, feel the air of the room caress the inner folds of my pussy, wet and exposed to his gaze and his touch.

  And then his mouth finds my most secret spot and I scream as pleasure cuts through me like a knife blade. My body quakes, the unexpected sensation rushing through me in wave after delicious wave. His huge hands are under my bottom cheeks, squeezing. I grasp the cover, twisting it in my fists. What is he doing to me? I want to ask, but can only moan in a voice that doesn’t sound like my own.

  The man called Lord Drorgros slides his huge body up over mine, lightly pinning me to the bed. He moves his hand between us. I feel his fingers between my legs, touching, probing. There’s a look of concentration on his face.

  “Lyla,” he says. “Sweet Lyla, who faced the dragon without fear. Will she be brave again?”

  How does he know that I faced the dragon? The question is in the back of my mind, but is driven out by a surge of apprehension as he positions himself between my legs. I feel the bulb of his mighty cock pressing, replacing his fingers. He takes my face between his hands and looks me in the eye.

  “Lyla,” he says. “Look at me.” It’s not a request. It’s an order. I stare into his eyes. Such unusual eyes, green and amber and then – as he shoves into me – gold with pupils deep as chasms. I scream, and he absorbs the sound with his mouth, swallowing it as he makes me his.

  DRORGROS

  Gentleness is not a Drakoryan trait. The smell of this human, the taste of her…she will never know how hard it was to restrain myself, to keep from wrenching her thighs apart and shoving my cock into her. But I was gentle, for her sake. The first mating sets the tone. I fought for virgin rights not just because I longed to enjoy her first fruits of passion, but because the first mating should be handled carefully. Soon enough she will be in the beds of my brothers. They will not be so gentle.

  She was unconscious when she arrived. She has fainted again, this time from reaching a different altitude. She peaked so quickly, and the shock of her passion was second only to the shock of the affect it had on me. I reflect on it now, marveling at the strength of her orgasm, the sweet rhythmic pressure as her pussy clenched the length of my cock.

  I could have kept going. Having never been with a man of her kind, Lyla does not know that while human males need time to recover, Drakoryan males have no such limitations. Our cocks stay hard for as long as we like, and are as personal as our swords. And like our swords, we can wield them differently from men. She will learn this, too, in time.

  Her eyes begin to flutter open. They are blue, like water, and large, giving her a look of perpetual innocence. Her hair, the same gold color as summer wheat, spreads around her like a flaxen halo. My gaze moves downward, past her sweet breasts and soft belly to where my seed has mixed with her virgin blood, staining the ivory skin of her inner thighs a light pink. She stares at me, her expression unreadable.

  “I’m ruined now,” she says with quiet resignation. “When I go home, no man will have me.”

  Her words remind me of how unaware she is of her situation. She thinks I’m her savior, and now that I’ve extracted carnal payment, will take her back. She does not know how wrong she is. She worries that she will have no mate now. She does not know that instead, she will have mates.

  I could explain, but decide it might be easier to simply show her. I rise and dip a cloth in the bowl by the bed. She flinches as I dab away the blood and seed from her legs, her still tender pussy.

  “Are you too sore to walk?” I ask once I’ve cleaned her. I help her up from the bed. She reaches for the sheet, looks at me, flushes, and drops it.

  “I’m sore, but not too sore to walk.”

  I walk to a trunk at the foot of the bed and open it. Inside is her first gown. My color is green. I take it from the chest. When she enters the hall wearing it, all will know that I have claimed her.

  “Lift your arms,” I say.

  She complies and I position the gown over her head. The fabric, spun from the finest, shimmering thread, skims her curves as it slides over her like water. It clings to her as she moves, emphasizing a shapely thigh, a round buttock, a firm breast. Over the next few days she will earn other dresses, each marking her the property of a different son of Rymoth.

  But she doesn’t know this yet. She only knows she is in a strange place, and has just lost her virginity. She thinks her innocence was payment for her life. She thinks she is going home. She has much to learn. I hold out my hand.

  “Come,” I say, and she looks at me with skepticism before laying her hand in mine. It is so small, so slim, so delicate. I clasp it gently and lead her from the bedroom. I guide her slowly, letting her take in the first glimpse of the castle beyond the bedchamber.

  I know it must be an overwhelming sight. There are a dozen castles in the Drakoryan empire, all carved into mountains. Ours, House Fra’hir, is among the oldest, existing nearly as long as the record of our kind. Its pinnacle houses a watchtower. From there, we can see across the great plains to the mountains that separate us from the humans we rule through fire and fear.

  The southern plains, hemmed in by craggy mountain ranges, are peppered with villages inhabited by the first humans we conquered when we took this place. They were miners once, making their homes in the warrens and cave systems of these mighty mountains. We smoked them out, subjugated them, and pressed them into service on our houses and land. They offered little objection, and over the years have evolved from the stooped, small-eyed stock to become fairer and taller. They are loyal without question, a sturdy lot, the wenches good-natured and always up for a tumble. But they are not breeding stock; the witches have warned against mixing Drakoryan blood with those who serve us.

  To the east and west are homes of other lords, all in castles overshadowing villages holding those who serve those houses. To the north is the largest castle belonging to King Vukurcis, who knighted my father. He rules us all from the tallest peak, which stands just to the left of the Mystic Mount, where we only go when in need of counsel from the Wyrd, a sisterhood of witches whose power is tied to our own. Here is also the forest edge. We hunt here on occasion, but for the most part concede rule of the forest realm to beings best able to navigate the tangle of trees. A forest is no place for a dragon.

  In the bottom of our mountain castle are dungeons, with chambers large enough to hold an enemy whose fire cannot prevail against the thickest walls.

  In between the pinnacle and dungeon are rooms – bedchambers and libraries, kitchens and bath houses, halls for banquets and council meetings.

  I watch Lyla as we head down the carved stairs. She is observant, curious. This is a sign of a quick mind, and I am encouraged. The hardships of her village have made her kind resourceful. She is strong, a quality she will pass on to our sons.

  When we leave the staircase we enter a long passage that is solid on one side and an open archway on the other. This archway overlooks a huge river that leads to the base of the mountain and under it to an inland sea. The solid side is painted with a mural. Lyla’s eyes widen as she looks at the dragons depicted in the massive image, and now she stops and speaks for the first time since leaving the bedchamber.

  She’s staring at one dragon in particular — one with scales the same shade of green as the dress she wears. Lyla points at it with a shaking finger. “That’s him,” she says. “That’s the dragon that took me.” She turns to me. “Did you kill it? Is it gone?”

  “It won’t frighten you ever again,” I reply, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I promise.”

  She glances at the mural, then up at me, worrying her p
lump bottom lip with her teeth. I ponder pulling her into an alcove, lifting her gown and fucking her once more before we reach the hall. She’s still so innocent, still so unaware of how one small, feminine gesture can send hot blood coursing to my loins.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive, my little one.”

  I lead her on past the mural. The passage turns to dark again, illuminated now by huge candles that sputter and hiss. Up ahead I can hear sounds of merriment. The celebratory feast that began when Lyla arrived is in full swing. I take her hand, ready to reassure her, to help her absorb the surprise of what comes next.

  And she is indeed surprised when we walk into a platform overlooking the hall. We enter to a roar of cries and thunderous applause from the revelers below who raise tankards and drinking horns. Some begin to slam their fists or cups onto the massive wood tables that line the length of the room, the steady beat rising to the ceiling above.

  Lyla looks at me, puzzled.

  “What do they celebrate?” she asks.

  “You,” I say. “They celebrate you.”

  “Me?”

  I don’t respond, instead directing her towards a flight of stairs that takes us down into the hall. It’s the largest room in the castle; the fireplace along one wall holding entire burning trees. Rushes cover the flagstones under our feet. Massive hounds dart between tables, plucking dropped food from the floors. With all the lords and soldiers from the empire in attendance, save the reclusive king, the banners of every house hang along the walls in their honor.

  The cheers have turned into a cacophony. A new mate is always a cause for celebration, especially when a female is claimed into a family such as ours. Our friends celebrate not only our good fortune, but knowledge that the line of Rymoth the Great will continue now through his sons.

  Hands clamp down on my back as we walk the gauntlet of celebrators, who rise from their benches as we pass. Lyla edges towards me, and I pull her close. I can only imagine how overwhelmed she still must be, how many questions she must have. Then the crowd parts and there they are. My brothers. Tythos, second oldest and arguably the bravest fighter among us. He’s the most taciturn and if village wenches are to be believed, the most insatiable. There’s Imryth, third-born, and the scholar of the group, the strategist. And then Zelki, the youngest, who often forgets his place. He’s grown taller than I am, which worries me sometimes. He is a hothead, and a savage lover by reputation. In the fight for Lyla’s favor, I prevailed – barely. He bested his other brothers and will be next to take her. I pray he will exercise some restraint for this small female so new to the carnal arts.