I hate that I need it. Hate that his absence causes me physical pain. Hate that I'm so dependent on my captor that I can't even bear to have him fly away for a few hours.
Is this real? Can I really sense him out there? Or is this just another symptom of my fractured mind, creating connections that don't exist to cope with the isolation?
Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Time is meaningless. But eventually, finally, I feel it. He’s back. The thread loosening. The sick feeling in my stomach easing.
Relief floods through me, so intense it's almost painful. He's wrapping around me, his tail coiling around my body, his wings folding over us both. His warm, hard cock enters me slowly. I feel each ridge as he fully seats himself, and the pull is satisfied again. The ache eases. Everything settles.
"Someday," he whispers, "I'll wake you."
I want him to wake me. I don't want him to wake me. I'm terrified of what I'll see. Of what I'll do.
So don't wake me. Please. Keep me here in the darkness where I don't have to face what I've become. Keep touching me. Keep talking to me. Keep murdering princes in the courtyard. Keep filling me with that impossible cock that I've learned to crave. Keep choking me and calling me your slut and making me feel alive.
Keep making me feel alive.
Keep me yours.
Because I don't know how to be anything else anymore. And I'm not sure I want to be.
CHAPTER 5
THE DRAGON
I leave her sleeping in our bed, the silk sheets tangled around her perfect body. My wings fold carefully against my back as I move through the castle corridors, my tail dragging behind me on the stone floor. The sound echoes in the emptiness. Just me and her, the way it should be.
My study is in the eastern tower, three floors up. I haven't been here in months. Maybe longer. There's been no need. Adelaide is everything I need, everything I want. But now...
Now I need answers.
The door creaks open, and dust motes dance in the morning light streaming through the narrow windows. Books line every wall from floor to ceiling. Grimoires, spell books, ancient tomes I've collected over centuries. Some are older than this castle. Older than most kingdoms.
Somewhere in here is the answer to waking her.
I start with the obvious ones. The leather-bound volume on curses and their breaking. The tome of sleeping spells. My claws turn the pages carefully, precisely, even though my hands want to tear through them in frustration.
Nothing.
Hours pass. The light shifts across the floor. I barely notice.
I return to check on her once, unable to stay away. She's exactly as I left her, beautiful and still. I press my nose to her throat, breathing in her scent, feeling her pulse flutter against my scales.
"I'll find it," I promise her. "I'll find a way to keep you safe."
My wings rustle as I straighten, and I force myself to leave her again. Back to the study. Back to the books.
By the fifth day, I've gone through half the library. My eyes burn. My wings ache from being folded so long in the cramped space between the shelves. I haven't eaten. Haven't slept. Can't think about anything except finding the answer to why I'm feeling so... off. Constantly agitated and on edge. Why our sex has turned ravenous and never enough.
There has to be a way. There has to be.
I find references to sleeping curses, dozens of them. But none that match what I did to Adelaide. None that were cast with a dragon's magic, with a dragon's blood, with a dragon's obsessive need to keep and protect and possess.
On the seventh day, I start on the older texts. The ones written in languages that haven't been spoken in a thousand years. My tail lashes in frustration as I translate line by line, word by word, searching for anything that might help.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I return to her that evening, climbing into bed beside her even though I should be searching. I need to feel her. Need to touch her. My clawed hand traces the curve of her hip, and I press my face against her hair.
"I'm trying," I whisper. "I'm trying so hard, my love."
