Endangered Ch. 07

Those thoughts focused inwards, on himself. Concentrating single-mindedly, he tried feeding energy into them. He was met with fierce resistance. Unsure what to do, he foolishly reached for more power. It was no use. He only felt the resistance flex or perhaps bend a little but ultimately hold firm.

The energy he'd gathered vibrated angrily, nothing grounded it.

He tried again, suddenly frightened at the sensation of his magic, failing him for the first time. It felt like a swarm of angry bees had taken up residence in his chest. Worse, he had no easy outlet. This was exactly what Immi had warned him about.

Why wasn't it working? Could he not change himself? He had to do something with the energy soon! The first true embers of panic began to smoulder and glow in his mind.

An errant, fleeting thought popped into existence. Annabel. It was crazy, it was stupid but at that point, Chris was grasping for any lifeline. All that magic had to go somewhere, and quickly.

His hand slipped down her soft tummy and into her short curls, cupping her puffy mons. What did he want? Wonderful, slippery, hot, satisfying, sex. He wanted to slip deep inside her and have her love every second, not hurt her. He hoped she would be resilient and ever eager for more.

He could sense the remnant of his freshly deposited cum inside her. There was a well of power there and the unstable energy he'd called upon leapt eagerly towards it like lightning to a grounding rod. It was working! He quickly tempered his intentions, infusing the enchantment with patience and painlessness. Hurting her now with his hastily prepared spell would be inexcusable.

The magic slowed in response, but the draw increased, becoming a steady stream towards her sex rather than a mad rush. The enchantment demanded more, and he happily called upon that unknown trickle as his reserves well and truly ran dry. He spent more than ten minutes feeding the spell as much as it needed, chanting his intentions like a mantra all the while. He felt it churn lazily, anchored to her body by the thick semen still filling her vagina.

Finally, it was done. The magic broke contact on its own, leaving him light headed and bone tired. He'd never felt that truly drained in all his life, not even after a full day of stacking hay bales by hand in Jethry's barn.

First Petra, healing the were-boy, and now this? What was he thinking? He shook his head at his own eager foolishness, praying for the best. He hoped like hell this was going to work. She'd be mad enough as it was that he'd been experimenting on her in her sleep like some sort of pervert.

A further wave of unrelenting tiredness swept through him. It couldn't be denied. His head lolled back onto the soft pillow. Eyes fluttering closed, he nestled into the unruly river of her still damp hair, scenting her. Sleep quickly embraced him with its gentle ardour.

***

Chris became aware of the presence as soon as he slipped into the Ether. Something alien brushed momentarily against his consciousness, questing, seeking. It felt like the disturbing, fleeting touch of a fish against a leg in murky water.

Everything appeared how he'd come to expect it to, grey-toned and insubstantial. Still, there was no doubt he was being observed closely. A shiver of apprehension ran up his spine. He sat up cautiously, head on a swivel as he looked for the source of the disturbance.

When he looked at Annabel's slumbering form he paused. She was not the ghostly form he had thought to find. Instead, she had far more substance to her Ether presence than normal. Resting on her side, he could see that although her extremities seemed 'normal,' the area around her groin and tummy were more present in the Ether. The area was giving off a tell-tale purple hued shimmer that instantly placed the blame for the irregularity squarely on his shoulders.

Before Chris could begin to wonder if that might mean his enchantment had been successful, the presence returned in force. It seized him, he was helpless to resist. He gasped aloud, his bulky body crashing to its knees on the nearby floor.

The presence was vast. It encircled his consciousness and laid him bare like an open book. Chris looked on with enforced detachment as it read everything that he knew, everything that he was. It understood him completely in mere seconds. There was no option for resistance or struggle, only to wait as it took from him what it willed.

When it was done, the presence somehow loosened its grip on his mind and he began to feel again. He wished it hadn't. Tears welled unbidden in his eyes and a wrenching sense of violation settled deep in his gut. Throat thickening painfully, he should have felt anger. Instead he somehow knew it would be pointless. The presence was simply observing on a level he couldn't understand with a simple term like curiosity. Whatever it was, this thing could crush him like an offending insect if it chose.

That was not its choice as his body stiffened a few moments later. The sensation was reversed and it started feeding him information instead.

Chris' stomach churned as the first blurry images entered his consciousness. This was almost worse than before, his stomach now wriggled dangerously, and a nagging pain grew at the base of his skull. He groaned aloud as an image flashed into his mind. Perhaps image was the wrong word, impression would be more accurate.

Half of his awareness saw pure darkness, the other half, light. It wasn't as simple as that though. It wasn't black vs white, it was presence and absence. It was opposed forces. It was balance.

Chris could sense frustration coming down the line. Evidently, he hadn't comprehended the message correctly.

Next, he saw a light so blinding that from his limp kneeling position, he instantly shut his eyes. It made no difference of course. His eyes had nothing to do with what he was seeing. However, after a moment or two the impression was mercifully dimming anyway, fading into darkness. For a while, there was a pleasant balance but ever the darkness grew. Finally, the light was no more. Darkness was all there was. It was as terrifying and empty as the light had been blinding. All he wanted was to shut his eyes and look away.

The presence knew he didn't understand. Chris could feel it's frustration. It could have made him understand in an instant but such contact would utterly destroy him. His thoughts were too simplistic. The entity weighed its next move carefully.

A woman Chris instantly recognised from forgotten childhood memories flashed into his mind. His mother.

She lay naked on a white stone floor, breast heaving, sweat on her brow. Her body was flushed beautifully and seed dripped between her thighs. His father was there, lying beside her, his member slick and softening against her warm skin. Around them, symbolic rings of various construction nestled in expanding layers on the floor. Some looked wooden, a few metal, and there was even one that was clearly liquid, somehow contained into the outline of a perfect sphere. To Chris, it was obviously part of some spell or ritual.

The presence was there too, hidden from sight but blindingly bright in his mind's eye nonetheless.

His parents kissed lovingly, pride and happiness evident in their expressions. The presence descends into his mother, sparking what Chris instinctively knew was his own life.

What did it mean? His dragon was just as confused. The presence had tampered with his conception?

"You did something to me?" Chris asked, suddenly finding his unsteady voice.

Affirmation. He felt the response immediately, though it was followed by the sense that he grasped only the most basic aspect of what he was being shown.

The presence changed topic again, encouraged by the recent success. It brought forward all Chris knew of magic. So began a review of every time he'd used it, intentionally or not. He saw from the dragon's perspective for the first time. Felt how he used iron-willed intention to direct energy. It was so instinctual, so ingrained. Suddenly he grasped that the dragon had no understanding of the process, only that he had the ability to do it.

What then is magic? How does it work?

Next, memories from his high school textbooks flashed into mind. Pages of text and colourful images depicting things like molecules, atoms, and waveforms. He'd never been much of a science buff, though he had found the subjects interesting enough. His knowledge there was also sadly lacking by the entity's estimation but Chris still managed to draw a tenuous connection.

How the hell could science explain magic? Wasn't that the whole point, that it defied scientific logic?

A resounding yes echoed back at him as the presence read his confused thoughts. Chris knew he was asking the right questions, but God damn his head was really starting to feel like it was being split in two.

The presence began withdrawing reluctantly. It sensed an approaching threshold, a limit to his feeble endurance. It didn't want to damage him.

"Wait! What am I supposed to do?" Chris asked as it slipped away from him.

The only response was a faint glimpse of that first image, half darkness, half light.

He slumped onto the incorporeal floor, staring up at the grey ceiling. He lay there for a long time, muscles occasionally twitching as his headache gradually faded. Eventually he got up and made a start on getting his life back on track.

***

The sound of chirping night insects filled the muggy air and created a relaxing melody. It soothed the man in the cheap suit as he considered the news that had been trickling in all day. Denver was abuzz, the dragon grew powerful.

The heat didn't seem to bother him one bit as he sat on edge of the old wooden porch, a dilapidated mansion behind him. Every now and then, a deep red glow bloomed around the tip of his cigar. With it, thick smoke would cling near his face before dissipating reluctantly into the moist night air.

Radek sighed, faced with a difficult decision. He always had struggled letting go of things. He'd been held back by this flaw of character before. He had that nagging sensation that it was about to do so again if he wasn't careful. Still, he knew only one of the paths before him tickled his cold heart to the utmost.

He lay back on the rickety boards, stared at the stars, and let himself fall into fantasy. He followed that devious path, frolicking with childlike glee, a huge smile on his face. Yes, this was the path to take. Up ahead, as if seen through a shimmering haze of possibility, he bathed in a pool of rich gore, triumphant, and once again master of his true form.

He saw the pool ripple and twitch near the centre, something grew within. His heart soared as he recognised her by only the tips of her spiral horns, watching in awe as her resplendent form breached the thick surface. Her eyes were open even as she rose through the blood. The pleasure on her usually terrifying countenance told him instantly that he had indeed earned her favour. That she would sully her perfection by taking physical form was a temptation calling to him like a siren.

Those eyes. Those all seeing, lidless eyes were the most beautiful thing he would ever behold.

Behind him, the great purple beast keened his death note, the last of his lifeblood gurgling richly down into the pool to mingle with that of the insignificant others. How fitting that a glimpse of her perfection was the last thing he would see.

Radek smiled wistfully as he found himself back on the porch, an incessant erection tenting his suit pants.

He chuckled. The bright presence he'd detected earlier, that tell-tale trace of the enemy, was cause for caution. It had disappeared so quickly that he was inclined to disregard it for now. Besides, the reward he'd seen down that wonderful path would have had him swimming through acid if he'd thought it would bring him an inch closer to fulfilling his goal.

He looked down at his crotch again, still tented and not showing any sign of going away. Who could blame it after catching a glimpse of her. Perhaps it could be put to use though, he did enjoy the effect his enthusiastic attentions had on these pitiful human creatures. Their screams were music to his ears and their life force would provide him rich sustenance, prepare him for what was to come. Besides, it was time he started collecting.

It was delightful to once again bask in his true nature. The careful tiptoeing he'd been forced to for the past two years disgusted him.

He picked himself up and brushed the dust off his back. Briefcase in hand, he snubbed the cigar on the desiccated wood of the porch and turned towards the faint lights of the small town just a few miles away.

***

Lillian was back the very next morning, dragging Chris' bulky frame to the gym and putting him through his paces over and over. She didn't volunteer where she'd been and Chris took that as a sign to not ask. Her glee in punishing him out on the practice mats seemed to have grown if anything.

His ill-fitting clothes distracted him, making him an easy target for her blows. A couple t-shirts still fit, the ones with elastic materials integrated into the fabric, like the one he wore now. The rest of his clothes looked comical, if he could even get them on. Damn, he was going to have to buy more shit today.

"Pay attention," the full-bodied vampire landed a smarting blow against the side of his head, sending his ear ringing. She'd missed seeing him change back into this larger human form and was interested to assess his new limits.

"Sorry, there's a lot rattling around in here this morning," Chris replied, tapping his head and recovering his stance just outside her range.

She lunged forward immediately with a wicked knee and Chris barely recognised her intention to grapple him. His training took over. He stepped slightly to the side, absorbing part of the impact with his thigh, turning her aside. He slipped away from her grasping, deadly fingers and managed to find a firm grip on the back of her neck. As she sailed by, he added his strength to her momentum and rode her down onto the floor, hard. He landed on top of her, a knee in her lower back and his other hand locking one of her fingers threateningly in a hold she'd taught him.

Lillian was surprised to find her face pressed firmly into the mat, it's plastic, sweaty scent smothering her senses. Her breasts throbbed painfully, having received much of the impact. She ignored the discomfort and quickly attempted to throw him off with a powerful buck of her hips before he had a chance to secure his position. Unfortunately, her strength didn't avail her this time. Instead his grip simply got tighter.

Interesting. She drew more strength, digging deep enough to feel her inner beast stir and rumble dangerously. She wriggled powerfully, attempting to get one of her knees under her. All it got her was a warning growl and a very sore finger. If she'd been fighting for her life, embracing that darkness and sacrificing her finger would have been the natural choice.

Locked in such a compromising position, Lillian might have conceded the dragon a point and reset their practice bout. The very Idea chafed her, a frustrated grunt escaping her as she struggled vainly. Perhaps it was his obviously increased strength and her own answering draw of vampiric power which drove her to it but silently, a twenty-kilo weight ring from the stack servicing the bench press in the adjoining gym room rose into the air. It was heavy, at the limits of her ability in both weight and distance. She pulled it to her roughly with a mental jerk.

"Give it up, Lillian," he chuckled maddeningly. "I've got you trussed like a..."

The weigh struck his shoulder, thankfully flat face first before it grazed over the top of his head to clatter into the opposite wall. The impact sent him sprawling across the matts, stunned, the breath whooshing from his lungs.

She was on him in a flash, straddling his chest then wrapping her entire body around his arm and falling next to him on the floor. Her lithe form contorted, tugging his limb in way the left his foggy mind no doubt she could and probably would break it if he didn't submit. Still, it wasn't all bad. The luscious skin of her bared thighs almost smothered his face. He could smell her sweat and excitement, she was getting off on their mock battle. Even better, his forearm was lodged snugly in a plush valley of cleavage, separated only by the sweat-moist grey cotton of her sportswear tank top. What a way to lose an arm.

"Who's trussed up now, young one?" she panted.

"Me, I guess. That was dirty, Lillian," he accused groggily. He hadn't seen what had hit him like a freight train, his head was still wringing, but he was sure it wasn't part of a fair fight.

"Yeah? What are you going to do about it?" she laughed at his accusation and flexed her torso up to contort his arm a little more.

Chris let out a hiss of pain and thought back to what she'd taught him about getting out of such a hold. It wasn't going to work, she had him good and was his equal in strength. That left... he smiled.

Whilst his arm was painfully immobilised, his hand still had a little wiggle room. He pinched the soft upper swell of her left breast, eliciting an indignant screech from the voluptuous vampire. He'd never been that bold with before and it clearly startled her. Her grip loosened, and he used the opportunity to vanish into the Ether.

Lillian looked around the now empty room, a bemused little smile on her lips. The air was still thick with his heady scent and she could feel his muted presence lingering nearby, stalking her from his mysterious realm. Her body quivered almost imperceptibly, this was a man who could match her.

"I can fight dirty too," he said with amusement from directly behind her.

She whirled to find him ready, in a fighting stance, a snarl on her face. They stared at each other for a few moments, two deadly Beings squaring off; to fight or fuck neither were sure in that moment.

Lillian was about to spring at him when she recognised the feral instincts coursing through her for what they were. The vampiric beast inside her was dangerously unchained and taking hold of her body. She began fighting a fierce internal battle, forcing the writhing, screaming, dark entity back into its prison deep within her. Her body slackened with the effort but she was ultimately triumphant. It was a frightening experience, reminding her that she must always be in control around the temptations of the dragon.

The boy had a worried look on his face, he'd obviously seen something of her internal struggle. His concern both touched and shamed her. Good thing she'd indulged in fresh blood last night, borrowing one of her few friend's familiars to quell her cravings with the gluttony of fresh blood. Without it, who knows what she might have done a few moments ago.

"Sink slightly lower on your legs, Chris, and pull that left elbow in a little," she critiqued his stance harshly to distract him. "No more abilities for today, I got a little carried away there."

"Okay," Chris agreed a little confused with his vampire instructor but letting it go. There was something else going on, he could see it in her eyes.

"Good. Your strength has obviously improved but that's to be expected I guess," She paused, cocking her head as if to assess him in a new light. The boy, no, the man was almost as broad as Oslo across the chest. Oslo was a god-damn werebear. Chris was taller now too, meaning his muscles had increased in both length and volume. This body of his was her canvas and she was going to paint a masterpiece of combat. She smiled viciously, the tiniest hint of her Russian heritage seeping into her voice. "Okay then, let's see how you handle my speed!"