A Ballad of the Sun and the Moon

Chapter 18

As the sun crept behind the Earth's horizon the best hunters of the tribe assembled. Dozens of men stood in a careful circle passing around one of Niva's blankets from the Dead Room. Kimber wanted to rip the head off of every man that pressed the wool to his face yet contained himself to a mere grimace. They could smell nothing of use, the sun's rays having burnt away her scent on the blanket and in the air, leaving no trace. It was the only relief, knowing that they would likely not be able to find her.

Kimber's father stood in the center and spoke. "She's likely gone South. We'll concentrate our efforts in that direction. If she's fled to London she is not to be engaged. We'll need to be cautious in the city. Like most runners, she'll likely count on us being reluctant to Turn there which we must use to our advantage."

Lord Langford spoke more of tactics and predictions on her movements. Kimber listened, if only for intel. They all expected her to move like they would. Think like they did. He couldn't blame them for their ignorance. She was truly unique and had been exceedingly careful to keep her abilities hidden. Even Kimber wasn't sure of all she could do.

The Alpha stopped talking and one by one their clothes dropped on the lawn of Chasen, smoke dispersing in all directions.

His father remained. "You should have hunted her by yourself," he said. "Questions have arisen about your suitability as Alpha. By giving other men permission, you sent the message that whoever takes her can keep her."

"No one will take her," assured Kimber.

"You best make certain of that," his father huffed. "Do you not see the tension you have created? All this waiting! Do you not hear the whispers? And how long before whispers become loud enough for them to turn to action? Theodore Henry was the first, but he won't be the last. You must find Sunniva and return with her as your mate."

And if I don't return?

"Then I best go now," said Kimber.

He noticed for the first times the lines in his father's face, creases growing deeper with age. He looked around seeing Chasen backdropped by the tips of the village peaking over patches of trees like blooming lily pads in a pond. He wanted to remember this place as he had always seen it. It was more than a home, it was the life blood of the drákon as flawed as it might be. He told himself that his brother would make a fine Alpha.

His sorrow was chased away by the spreading darkness luring him to the filament.

When Kimber Turned to smoke it felt like discarding a skin that he would never wear again. He waited till he was far in the sky before becoming dragon taking note of the location and direction of every hunter in the hoard tasked with bringing his mate home. Due to the sheer number of drakes, a few were bound to eventually stumble upon something that could tip them her way. He could not be leisurely about it.

He faked a flight path due South before covering himself in a cloak of darkness, not wishing to be followed, then swooped around to head North.

The amethyst sky was free of clouds and the stars rippled with a pure kind of clarity. Kimber had flown for only four hours when he felt her presence, a faint sort of warmth summoning him. He scanned the Earth below where an outcropping of stones stood at the base of a hill. With profound grace he landed on three feet, the fourth holding a valise carrying clothes and food. He'd stashed it all a week ago outside the borders of Darkfrith in preparation for their escape.

After carefully placing the valise on the ground he Turned to man.

"Niva?" he called out in a whisper. There came no answer though she was undoubtedly there, her aura far too revealing in such close proximity.

"Niva," he called again risking more than a whisper.

He felt her movement and then saw her head peak out from a boulder.

"Kimber," she sighed in return. Niva stepped out in full view naked. Seeing the complete curves of her body unhindered by clothing nearly stole away the fact of why they were here.

Kimber took a breath.

"I couldn't fly any further," she said embarrassed. "Certain muscles are not as strong as they once were and I had to land. You were right, we should have left earlier in the season." She kept her hand on the massive stone.

"Could you fly again now?" asked Kimber.

"I think so," she admitted with a tinge of reluctance.

Kimber gave the option a moment of thought. No one living had seen her as dragon. It wasn't a far-fetched extrapolation, considering how alluring she was as human, that she shined even brighter in the night with wings, like a flame to moths. Caution won out over desire.

He shook his head. "Best not risk it. I'm not the only one hunting you. They'd likely sense you immediately. We have to get further though," insisted Kimber, opening the valise. "If any of them chance upon us they'll be able to track you just fine as human."

He pulled out a beige pelisse and held it up by the shoulders for her to wear.

Niva stepped quickly towards him and laced her arms through. "Is it that bad? Even as human am I so-"

"Tempting?" suggested Kimber with a smirk.

"I was going for visible, detectable. Something along those lines."

"Terribly so I'm afraid. On all of the aforementioned," he said, the creases of his mouth deepening.

He risked a quick kiss on her cheek and knelt down to close the valise. "We've still got a few hours left of darkness. We need to make use of it."

He Turned to dragon and crouched down low for her to climb on. She didn't so much as climb, but rather leap on. He'd let women ride him before, but his eyes went wide when he felt the bare heat of her on his back.

"This is so embarrassing," she remarked.

He wished he could quip something in return, but all this form permitted was a teethy grin which he gave her.

"Gods, is that what we look like when we smile? No wonder even as mythology we're portrayed as demon spawn. Well, tally-hoe fearsome beast. We've got an army to escape."

She tapped her heels affectionately into his shoulders.

Kimber beat his wings twice as a warning and when he was certain she would remain on his back, beat them harder and faster until they were rising in the air.

****

They were well into the Highlands of Scotland before the morning sun even suggested an appearance.

"There," Niva said, pointing down at a large lake.

Kimber cocked his head to the glossy black stillness of the waters below and began scanning the rocky shore for a decent place to land.

He couldn't speak in this form nor make any sound to confirm he understood. But he still spoke a language she was fluent in. He tipped his wings and she knew they would descend into a wide downward spiral. Niva leaned in and tightened her legs about his neck and oh if he could he would have let out a pleasured growl.

They landed in one of the few sandy coves the lake had to offer. Kimber let the valise drop from his talons. Dawn wasn't far but they still could have flown for another half hour or so. Kimber wondered why they had stopped here.

"Did you feel it?" she asked.

Kimber cast out his senses trusting her intuition, but whatever she felt elluded him.

She slid from his back, the departure of her strong thighs from his shoulders a sudden stinging regret. With wide eyes she moved forward to his head and slid her fingers under his lower lids along a groove of fine scales running from cheek to nostril. "Here," she said, with her breath so close. Kimber closed his eyes, if only to feel this sensation. But another one took its place. It was as if the Earth whispered to him, telling him a secret that he couldn't decipher. He opened his eyes again, wide and full of wonder. Niva stepped back with an accomplished smile giving him space to Turn.

"What is that?" he asked.

Her mouth formed a deep grin as if she were privy to something untold, but then she admitted she didn't know either.

Do you want to find out?" she asked with a curious twinkle in her eye. She let the pelisse fall from her shoulders in a crumpled heap.

Kimber took an unavoidable glance at her and then a cautionary one at the sky. Once convinced they hadn't been followed said with certainty, "Absolutely."

He scrambled after her over the rocks lining most of the waters edge.

The moon was bright in the sky yet Niva didn't take advantage of it. Her glow was made all the more potent by the lack of clothes.

The drákon were by no means modest, but Kimber couldn't help his arousal at the sight of her naked body, lithe and limber spriting over the jagged rocks. Wondering if it were some sort of cruel test of his will, he focused instead on small indentions to use as footholds and protrusions of stone to grip with his hands.

They came to stand on a flat slab rising a few feet out of the water. Hindering their path was a cliff protruding high and flat-faced enough for them to require other means of scaling it. And that mysterious singing just so happened to be loudest here.

"Do you suppose it a cave?" asked Kimber.

"Likely."

Kimber Turned and spread himself thin over the face of the rocks feeling as silky smoke for any crack or cranny that might allow them entrance. He Turned to man atop the solid piece of stone, bent to his knees and offered Niva an assisting hand up.

"Do you think I cannot get up there by my own means?" she asked in jest.

"I've no doubt," confessed Kimber. "Thought I'd try for gentleman nonetheless."

She returned a smile, but made no motion to give him her hand instead looking towards the lake.

"How deep do you suppose the water is here?" She took a step towards the edge. "I bet it's very deep," she surmised with her toes already rolled around the edge.

Kimber stood and looked out over the edge into the black sheen of the still waters. Before he could answer he heard a splash and saw her disappearing feet in the center of ripples. He drifted down as smoke to the water's surface and became man, plunging into the depths after her.

She was easy to trail, despite that eerie glow, her aura called to Kimber. He thought even a blind man could track her on a clear, moonless night.

The flat-faced cliff gave way to a large opening leading in the direction of shore line. They followed a wide tunnel a good twenty meters long before they finally were able to break the water's surface.

Niva held herself out of the water propped up on her forearms and giggled between gasps for breath as Kimber emerged. He came up beside her and vaulted effortlessly out of the water.

The cave was no tangled mess of stones collapsed in on themselves, but rather a large chamber with walls covered in trillions of tiny crystals compelled to glitter by the light coming from Niva, which only became brighter as she climbed out of the pool.

Kimber could hear every drop of water falling from her body, a far more seductive symphony than the millions of tiny stones in the cave. He felt her warmth as she came to stand beside him and wondered if she knew what a maddening temptation she was.

"This is magnificent," he stuttered out, his voice catching. He cleared the faked hindrance from his throat. "When did you first discover this place?"

"I've never been here before," she said.

Kimber stepped over to the cave wall placing a hand upon it. The crystals rang louder at his touch as he ran his palm along them. "So these are the things you spent your life finding," he stated, eyes wide in awe.

He turned to find Niva gripping him with an unkown look.

"We made it Niva," said Kimber. "We got you out."

Her lips deepened into a viperous smile and she approached him like a predator with intent. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. He didn't care. If she told him she meant to maim him, he would have stayed still just the same if only to watch her moist skin glistening gold and those wild eyes shining white.

Sunniva stopped herself with a hand on his breast feeling the rise and fall of his chest. She smoothed her way up to sleek line of his shoulders, to his neck, telling with pressing fingers where she wanted him.

Kimber was willing, obliging as she commanded. He was in her kingdom, her domain and he would happily obey. Her lips parted in invitation and he craned his neck in response.

Niva closed the last space between them rising on the balls of her feet.

Her lips were like hot coals and his were the cool rain, mingling in a silky dance of fire and steam and milk-dewed stone. He'd let her take him where she wanted, flow with her at a pace of her choosing. He'd resigned himself to it long ago until he felt the primal desire in his groin growing and growing and when she pulled him close with a firm hand on his spine it poked her in the belly.

Terrified of scaring her, he jerked away. Her face twisted up.

"I'm sorry," he said, between gusts of heavy breath. It was all he could do to keep the black dragon from snatching her hard towards him and riving into her.

"Don't be," she said, with eyes cast downward at his arousal.

She reached towards him, but he took a step back keeping himself from her reach.

"Kimber?" she lamented, the simper in her voice a heartbreaking plea.

"I want...I need you to know-" he stammered. Niva reached out to him again, but he flinched away.

"I've made so many mistakes with you. I don't want to make anymore. If we do this now, I'll never be able to leave you. I'll be bound to you forever as you will be to me. Wherever you go I'll follow. If you find you don't love me then...I need you to be sure. I don't want you chained by some instinct. I want you like this. The way you are. The way you've always been."

Kimber closed his eyes and turned away, afraid to open them and find out it had all been an illusion.

*

Niva was free. Not just from that place. She knew in the depths of her soul if she told Kimber to leave her forever he would. He had no sinister plan. No elaborate schemes. No goal to trap her to him. In freeing her, he had freed himself and didn't want either of them to end up in a new prison.

He stood alone in the center of the cave, the reflected light shading his mouth into a chiseled line. She joined him there looking up at his face. Her hand became a gentle coercion on his cheek returning him to her.

"Kimber. It doesn't matter. Whether we do this now or...it doesn't matter, because we are already mated."

He opened his eyes, still with a pained expression. Niva lifted her other hand cupping his face in her palms.

"I love you, you silly man. Didn't you know?"

Kimber's soothed out of their deep crease. Niva stroked his cheek in comfort watching as he blinked away his disbelief along with a few beads of tears. She found his lips, assuring him with a sweet kiss. And when his lips parted she pulled him to her. But he was still stiff, a remoteness in his eyes that Niva couldn't comprehend.

And she realized, he was doing what he thought she wanted him to do.

It wasn't his throbbing arousal kept at a safe distance from her hips, nor was it the tension held in his fists remaining fixed at his thighs. It was that secret that he kept so well concealed, transforming the black dragon's roar into a whisper through soft skin and wisping locks and a gentleman's demeanor. They weren't creatures of just love and passion, but also of lust and violence and carnal desire.

He was afraid. Afraid to lose control, perhaps. Afraid to lose her. He was afraid to take what was his, what she wanted to give him.

Tempting he had said. So diplomatically put. But she knew what that hungry beast wanted, what Kimber had not allowed it to say or do. She knew because she contained something just as dreadful. And how could he truly know? She done her best for so long to hide it.

The black dragon whispered to her begging to roar. She needed to remind Kimber that he wasn't the only one who was a dangerous a beast. She too was drákon. It wasn't sweetness he needed nor a singular confession of love. It was up to her to break free the monster held in that rigid shell and breaking involved a fair bit of force.

She took her lips from his and lowered her lids. "Do you remember that first night in the woods when you chased me?"

"I do," he uttered, his restraint a poison needing purging.

"Do you remember what happened when you caught me?"

"I'll never forget." His voice was uneven as he dared a glance at her.

Niva touched her lips to his ear. "Good," she said with a sharp nip and then dove into the water.

Sunniva stood at the cliff's pinnacle looking down upon him when he broke the water's surface. The night's moon and the sun's first rays both peaked out over her shoulder flickering in a harmonious dance. His territory. Her territory. She shot him a challenging look and after daring smirk shot into the sky as flame.

*

Glorious, breathtaking flame.

The fire slowed fanning out into wings and talons and a creature more beautiful and terrible than the sun itself became solid matter.

She wasn't smooth and sleek like the rest of their kind. She was a studding of diamond-like scales, fine along her belly, coarse and armored along her back. The few rays of sun catching on her back prismed into rainbows dancing to the tune of her beating wings. She was absolutely exquisite.

An aching unfurled through Kimber, his blood piqued with desire.

And then she roared.

He lost control, Turning to smoke, rising as fast as he could from the water to gain some altitude. When he became dragon his wings were already beginning a downward stroke propelling him after her. His focus, his only intent now was her. And nothing would keep him from possessing her.

*

His sudden gain on her tail startled her and she beat her wings faster. Her muscles protested, still not ready for such exertion.

He snapped at her outstretched thighs so she did a clever roll to evade him. He banked hard to change course after her so she swerved in the other direction. Kimber was certainly faster so she had to rely on her smaller size and subsequent maneuverability. But when he began to predict her tricks she struggled to maintain him at a distance.

A twang of unease caught in her throat. She swallowed it as best she could. She wouldn't let him win easily. Alpha of a tribe meant nothing. He'd have to prove it.

She writhed into a quick flip to face him, opened her jaws and summoned fire from her belly. He veered just in time, closing his wings flat to his body and veered past her.

Mists began to sting her eyes and when she turned to look in Kimber's departing direction he was gone, his escape covered by an encroaching cloud.

She kept her wings in a constant flutter remaining afloat and cast out her senses. She couldn't find him. She picked a sensible direction and began an arc of fire starting from where she'd last seen him towards whence he came, cutting a crescent through the clouds. Some of the vapors burnt away, but still she could not see where he was.

She hadn't even made a full circle when her jaws were suddenly wrenched shut and her body was met by a trenchant force from below.

She tried to jerk away but his bite tightened, a warning that attempt at escape would result in his teeth deeper in her throat.

Niva couldn't breath, couldn't Turn no matter how hard she tried. They were falling fast. Perhaps she shouldn't have spurred Kimber into such a frenzy. She had thought only to give him a nudge, not drive him to insanity. Every outlet of escape she could think of he'd blocked: each leg was prisoner to his clutching talons and her wings were pressed awkwardly against her back by his in a leathery cocoon.

If he didn't release her they were sure to plunge to their deaths. Terror arrested her as they plummeted to the earth.

Hundreds of sharp-limbed trees raced closer, sure to impale them both --

Kimber opened his wings. It jerked them up, turning a sure death into a breath stealing slam. Sunniva wondered if he knew all along that they would land in the smallest of clearings avoiding the array of elms and hard-wood oak.

His grip on her throat loosened but she was far from free. She filled her lungs with her first breath since the moist thickness of the cloud in which Kimber had caught her.

He began to uncurl himself from her, even releasing his jaw's hold. When the weight of his heavy body finally lifted from hers, Niva let out low bellow from her chest. He responded with a show of teeth - a wicked smile of victory or a display of dominance, she wasn't sure. The little starbursts exploding in her vision made it hard to focus her eyes.

She heard his tail whipping at the leaves as he eyed her closely. Crouched over her he demanded without words what he had been asking for since they'd met.

She Turned to woman and lay unmoving, still too dazed and bruised to stir. She felt him Turn as well.

When he touched her as smoke gliding over her body in an ethereal caress, cooling her heated skin she opened to him, rolling on her back and letting her thighs fall open submissively.

He gathered as man, standing upright, peering down on his conquest. The sun had come up, but not a single ray found its way to Niva, that great star blotted out by the powerful black above her.

Kimber bent over and clenched her roughly by the arms, yanking her up as if she weighed not much more than a twig. It was as if her feet were barely to be found, but when she did she took a few tentative steps away.

Niva's back scratched against the rough bark of tree. He had her cornered, trapped. She'd pushed him to his limits, forced a deeply hidden carnality to emerge. He was no man. He was a beast consumed with a blood lust that she had awakened. Fear mingled with excitement as he drew nearer.

He reached up to grip her just under the chin, tipping her face to the side. Niva's eyes had adjusted now and she glanced him sidelong. He was drákon overcome by instinct, danger incarnate and she was his. Her mouth curled up at the sight of him, as she finally accepted what was to come, because he was hers as well. Niva pitied any creature that might perchance interrupt his courtship.

Kimber held her like that to his content bringing his face close to her skin, filling his lungs with her primed scent.

"Sunniva Williams."

She barely heard his voice, but managed a meager acknowledgement.

"I've won the right to be your mate. Do you yield?" Ritual words and there was nothing sweet about them.

His eyes were still the dragon's coal, dark and depthless like two eternal seas.

When she didn't answer an acute hand found her hip and then probing fingers found the juncture between her thighs. With one astute swipe he had all the confirmation he needed, his fingers now aware of what his nose already knew. She inched her feet apart, wishing he would touch her there again.

Still, he asked once more.

"Do you yield?" His voice was hardened steel, slicing through her very marrow.

Niva swallowed once. "Yes."

Starting at her collar bone, he slid his tongue up her throat grazing the puncture wounds. It was a statement, a reminder that he would soon take what he was owed. What he had rightfully earned.

His hand shifted from her tender neck up into her hair capturing her in assertive splendor.

"Lift your knee," he commanded. His breath was burning ice on her skin. Niva promptly did as she was told. Instincts or free will, she couldn't be sure. All she did know was that if she didn't have more of him she might burn up and die.

He clutched the bend of her raised leg with the forced of his palm and when he shoved into her and covered her in a devouring kiss she rewarded him with a succinct moan.

*

Kimber held there for a moment, savoring this glory, working only his lips across hers.

When Niva began to writhe begging for movement, for thirsted friction he tightened his fingers in her hair and nipped at her lips, imperative.

"Need I remind you who is breeding who?"

Niva couldn't still herself. Kimber now knew he wasn't the only one overcome by instinct.

She was so desperate, begging him with wordless whimpers and glossy eyes that Kimber could no longer deny her. She was moist and pliant and though he had never done this before his instincts showed him the way of things.

His lips curled up into something sinister and he pressed his hips forward, driving himself deeper. And when she pushed her calf up - despite his pressing hand - wrapping it tightly about his buttocks he found he could torture her no longer. Who exactly was jelly in whose hands now?

Kimber tried to keep his thrusts measured, at pace with the mellow lapping of waves on the distant lake shore.

It was one thing to see Niva, hidden in plain sight of the sun so bright you had to look away. It was another to touch the shining dragon, her burning power now completely open to him, a potent force surging through Kimber roiling with his own dreadful might.

The thought of their first touch came to mind under the strength of the sun where the sensation had only been a fraction and even then he had trouble containing himself.

The black dragon, reminded of how long it had waited, how close it had come to losing her, would exact its final reckoning.

Kimber's thrusts quickened of a volition not his own finding a rhythm that could only be qualified as frantic. He threw into her hard certain he must be hurting her, but each time she bucked her hips to meet him with equal urgency. And when she gripped his shoulders the last semblance of caution burnt away.

Niva was stretched to elation, tight and rising like the morning sun. Between the course bark at her back and the consuming blackness pressed against her, she had no choice but to cry out in climax, the only avenue of relief her mate left her with.

Kimber watched as she shuddered, felt her tremble against his chest as she flexed a second leg across his buttocks and spasmed, jerking him deeper. Her spine arched, pressing her nipples to his chest and her eyes closed and Kimber was certain he had never see anything more beautiful.

He bit her neck once more, scouring a bit of skin not yet marred, as he emptied himself into her. His shadow, his seed, his love.

Kimber didn't open his eyes until her chest heaved with its first breath since eternity. Sunniva. Gift of the Sun. His light and fire. His dragon-queen.