As if he were too ignorant to know what it was and what it would do. Or maybe they simply had no care for his sensibilities. Because no one wanted to birth a monster, which was what they called him in whispers when they thought he couldn’t hear.
And yet, he still fucked every woman who tapped on his cottage door, still muffled their screams as he pounded into their softness, as he left the marks of his teeth on their necks, bruises on their skin. Because these secret assignations, these couplings in the darkness, were the only time he touched another human being, other than the men he sent to their deaths. The warmth of the women’s embrace, the hot wetness between their thighs . . . it was the only caress of a soft hand he could remember in his entire life.
Turning at the sound of footsteps, he opened the cottage door even before the knock came, ignoring the town elder who had to stumble back or be run over, as he relayed the horn’s inevitable message to Dragan. Invaders were on their shores, too many for the town’s defenders to handle, and they were in danger of being overrun by the greater force. Dragan could have repeated the message by rote, he’d heard it so many times. Most times, it wasn’t even true, but simply the reaction of a panicked guard force. But he responded just the same. It was his duty. His only purpose. The reason he’d been born.
Mounting the fierce warhorse he’d trained himself, he set the animal to a gallop and stormed through the village, flinging mud in his wake. He heard and ignored the outraged cries behind him. If the fools didn’t know better than to stand in the mud, it was no duty of his to warn them. Maybe they’d know better next time.
Where a fully-loaded wagon would have taken half a day to reach the coast, Dragan, atop his war-trained stallion and moving at an urgent pace, covered the same distance in a fraction of the time. Over the final league, he met fighters retreating at a fast pace, backing away from the road at his approach, lowering their eyes in shame for their cowardice. They were abandoning the field, leaving him to defend their families and shops, to fight the battle that should have been theirs.
He barely noticed them, the scene one that had played out time and again. These people weren’t his friends. They shared a village, but not a life. He wasn’t invited to supper or asked to sponsor a child to his father the king. They didn’t even seek him out for battle training, though his skill was by far the best on the entire isle. No, he only lived in this village because it was closest to the isle’s vulnerable shore.
Topping the final low hill, he stared at the battleground. Men from both sides lay wounded, many of them belonging to his father. Those who could limped after their retreating fellows, a straggling line that Dragan passed without note. Those unable to rise were being summarily executed by the invaders as they moved across the rocky sand of the battleground and prepared to advance inland. When the first enemy saw him standing on the hilltop, a black-armored warrior on a great black stallion, a shout went up, traveling back through the invaders to their leader who stood a full head’s height over every other man on the field.
The leader’s laughter rose above the rock-strewn ground, the sound echoed by his fighters as it rolled up the grassy hill to where Dragan waited. He paid it little note. Great warriors like this one looked at him and saw only a lone warrior. Brave enough to defend his land, skilled or wealthy enough to own a battle stallion, but in the end, a solitary man who would bleed as red as every other.
Dragan shrugged and let his magic flow. Wings sprang from his back with a clap of displaced air . . . and a shredding agony that he barely noticed anymore. Arching high over his head, blood dripping from every talon as they tore through his skin, they were the wings of a dragon, designed to stalk and kill.
The invading leader’s step faltered, his eyes going wide when they met the twin flames of Dragan’s own, their orange light flickering in the shadows as the sun dropped behind the hill. But the man was brave. He hesitated for no more than a moment before opening his mouth in a roar of defiance, his blades crashing together as his men cheered.
Dragan dismounted to walk down the hill. He wouldn’t need the horse for a single foe. And if the others found their courage after the warrior died—and he would die—Dragan could always summon the stallion to his side to expedite their deaths, so that they might accompany their leader into the afterlife.
The invader’s long legs ate up the muddy ground until, by the time Dragan reached the bottom of the hill, the two of them stood a sword’s length apart. He was taller than Dragan, though not by much, his blue eyes glittering with triumph, despite the magic swirling like winter ice when Dragan mantled his wings like a great bird of prey. The warrior lifted his broadsword, his mouth open to roar a challenge, but Dragan was already moving. His blade sliced through the enemy fighter with a thrumming beat, as if pulsing in time with his heart. An instant later, the huge warrior coughed, choking on the blood pouring from his mouth as his body toppled to the muddy ground, cleaved in two so neatly that it took a moment for his torso to roll away from his legs.
Dragan didn’t need to watch. He knew the power of his arm and his blade, knew the magic racing like fire through muscle and bone until he was a creature of purest sorcery. He lifted his gaze to the men who’d gathered to cheer on their leader, the ones who’d be next to die if they chose to fight. For every warrior Dragan faced met death. There could be no other outcome. Dragan was his magic. It made his heart beat and his chest swell. It was his gift from the goddess, to safeguard her realm.
The enemy fighters lingered for no more than an instant longer. It was one thing to face Dragan in the light of day, with their staunch leader heading the charge. It was another to challenge a flame-eyed demon with wings as black as the night settling around them, while their leader lay dead.
They fled, shoving at each other in their desperation to escape the gods’ own nightmare.
Dragan followed their retreat to the shore, close enough that they knew he was watching, but distant enough that none would feel the need to prove their courage and challenge him. He might be the goddess’s chosen, the scourge of any who thought to invade her isle, the pitiless defender of her people. But he didn’t have to enjoy it.
His own mother had abandoned him to the priests at the moment of his birth. He’d been suckled by goats and raised to the blade, living under the priests’ pitiless care and never knowing a kind word or gentle hand. That had changed the first time the goddess’s magic had manifested his wings. The priests had prostrated themselves before him then, their faces buried against the dirt.
He’d lived all alone from that day forward. Honing his skills in battle, his victory never in doubt, the only question how many he would kill on the day.
But he was tired. He hadn’t volunteered for this life of blood and loneliness. A life that had no reward at its end, no quiet withdrawal from the fight as his grandchildren played nearby. His only reward would be death. And then the next king’s second son would be blessed by the goddess.