CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I dove aside as a three-clawed foot stomped down where I’d stood, causing the earth to shudder. My flight was brought to a choking halt by the red velvet cape, caught beneath the she-dragon’s heel. I should have dumped the cloak the second the damn thing had been inflicted on me. I fiddled with the collar for half a second before slicing the clasp open with the bone-handled knife. I dropped the blade as I scrambled toward the Jagged Heart. The ground was slippery with frost. I slid across ice-etched leaves, my hand outstretched. A giant claw punched into the soil in front of me, forming a scaly fence. I slammed into it, the harpoon only inches beyond my grasp.
The she-dragon leaned down, her jaws dripping sap-like spittle, the tangles of her hair dangling like vines. Bright yellow eyes stared into mine as she paused in reptilian concentration. Did she recognize me?
“Infidel!” I shouted. “It’s me, Stagger!”
Her oversized fingers wrapped around my throat as she snatched me off the ground. Her nose was merely two holes flat against her face, like the nose of a snake. The emerald green scales that glittered around her eyes were weirdly beautiful, in a terrifying, inhuman way.
“I love you!” I shouted. “You loved me!”
The creature licked her lips, her eyes twinkling with the same delighted hunger I’d seen in Infidel’s face when Tower had produced the cake. Her head tilted back as her jaws opened to an impossible angle. I flailed helplessly as she brought me toward her jagged teeth.
“Leave him alone!” a tiny voice shouted below my feet.
The she-dragon closed her mouth and looked down. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Princess Innocent with her hands on her hips.
“He’s my friend and I won’t let you hurt him,” the princess shouted, a stern look in her eyes.
A low growl rumbled from the she-dragon’s chest as she eyed the annoying creature.
The princess stomped her feet, obviously furious at the delay. “My daddy’s the king and you have to do what I say! Put him down!”
“You really should listen to her,” I squeaked.
The she-dragon responded by flinging me aside. I went flying above the canopy of trees, feeling profound deja vu as I reached the apex of my flight and began to plummet toward the blood-tangle vines far below. My re- entry was thoroughly unpleasant. If I’d truly been alive, it’s possible it would even have been fatal, as I slammed into a tree trunk hard enough to knock off bark. But, just as the wound had been clean when I pulled the bone- handled knife from my ribs, the cuts and scrapes that crosshatched my arms beneath the shredded remains of my sleeves didn’t ooze a single drop of blood.
I rose on rubbery legs as a high-pitched shriek of pain reached my ears. I struggled back up the slope, limping, my ankle twisted, though the pain I felt was muted by the same general gauziness that wreathed all my senses in death. Then, for no apparent reason, my ankle suddenly hurt like the devil. In fact, my entire body felt like I’d gone two rounds in a pit fight with No-Face. Blood bubbled up from my various cuts, though almost a minute had passed since the wounds had been inflicted.
A hundred yards ahead there was another ear-piercing scream, far louder than before.
“Infidel!” I shouted, hopping back up the slope with all the speed I could muster. “Infidel!”
At last I spotted the elephantine tree I’d hidden behind only a few minutes before. I moved to one side and saw the Jagged Heart still on the ground, near freshly fallen trees.
I hopped a little further, my heart growing cold as I realized how utterly silent the forest had become. The shrieking I’d heard earlier had stopped, and now the quietness was broken only by a wet, crunching sound, repeating every few seconds, a sound that I imagined might come from the jaws of a she-dragon devouring meat and gristle.
Braced for the worst, I stepped into the clearing.
Sitting atop one of the fallen trees, her face covered in bright green goo, was Princess Innocent. She lifted the bone-handled knife overhead and gave a solid punch down with both hands, planting it to the hilt in the tree trunk, creating the sound I’d heard. I wondered if, for some reason, my blood was pumping in my body because the knife blade was wet again, though with what looked like green slime instead of blood.
I then realized the tree trunk the princess was hacking into was covered in dark green scales and shaped like a woman. It wasn’t sap coating the knife.
I sagged, resting my hands on my knees, catching my breath, as Princess Innocent placed her mouth against the fresh wound she’d gouged in the she-dragon and sucked up the oozing blood. With every mouthful, she grew a little larger. The gown she wore tightened, then split along the seams.
After a moment the princess sat back and wiped the bright green blood from her face. She had a woman’s body now, over a foot taller than when she’d started her feast, with magnificent breasts I instantly recognized. Before me was the woman I’d known all these years, her silver hair long and gleaming, her skin pale beneath blood and shredded gown, completely free of pygmy dyes. Innocent looked like Infidel once more.
I smiled at the perfect logic of the magic unfolding before me. Infidel hadn’t been created when a dragon devoured a princess. Infidel had been born when a princess devoured a dragon.
Infidel looked slightly drunk, oblivious to her surroundings as the dragon blood settled into her belly. Yet, as she surveyed the forest with her glazed eyes, her face broke into a giant grin as her gaze reached me. She cried, “Stagger!”
“Infidel!” I answered, throwing my arms open as I hobbled toward her.
She jumped from the corpse and bounded toward me like a sprightly gazelle. I flinched as she reached me, her arms wrapping around me, braced for significant damage to my ribs. However, her hug, while robust, seemed to have only ordinary strength behind it. I bent my face down to gaze at her in wonder, but instantly closed my eyes as she pressed her lips to mine. The green blood still on her cheeks smelled like papaya. Her sticky tongue slid between my teeth. I hugged her back with all my might and kissed her till we were both dizzy.
Not metaphorically dizzy, mind you, but actual stumble-and-collapse-from-lack-of-air dizzy. We fell, landing atop the red cape that lay over the leafy earth like a bedspread. Only the impact of the ground made our lips pull apart. I was on top of her, staring down into her sea-gray eyes and all the words and wisdom and wonder that they contained. Her body beneath mine was hot as a furnace. Where our skin met through our tattered clothing, it was slippery from dragon blood and my own blood and a copious amount of sweat. Our breaths intermingled as we studied each other’s faces and for the span of several heartbeats it felt as if all was right with the universe.
Except, alas, it wasn’t.
“As much as I hate to ruin this moment, the world might come to a fiery end if we don’t go kill Greatshadow’s spirit,” I whispered.
“The world can wait,” she replied, as she placed her hand in my tangled hair and drew my mouth to hers once more.
Fortunately, she’d left the bone-handled knife in the dragon’s blood. For the events which followed, it was useful to be in full, unmuted possession of all my senses, and to have a heart free to pump blood to wherever it was needed.
As we kissed, her gentle fingers slowly pulled away the damaged rags that had once been my shirt. My own fingers slipped into the strained seams of her gown and completed the tearing, freeing her from her silken confinement.
And then…
And then…
And then…
Shall I tell you how she looked, bare beneath me, the body of an angel wearing the grin of a devil, hungry for pleasure? Shall I tell you of the noises that came from deep within her, the guttural growls, the sibilant songs,
