Mingling with the Dragon #2
Half a year. Long enough to feel long, short enough to feel short — yet more than enough time for a mind to change.
Even when the other party was that Evil Dragon herself.
Adonis sat on the bed with his eyes quietly closed, fighting to smother the lust boiling up inside him.
It had been about a month and a half ago, he thought, and sighed as the memory surfaced — the first time he had felt desire since coming to the lair.
Once the dangerous stretch was behind them and the days had settled into something almost ordinary, the hunger he had kept crushed down had lifted its head again.
The cause needed no explaining. It was Semiramis.
Her body overflowed with sensuality; merely looking at her was enough to set him on fire. And from the third month onward she had begun treating him without the slightest reserve, which only made it worse.
Conversations held face-to-face at close range. The soft give of her flesh and the scent of her every time she steadied him. A voice that grew gentler with every passing day.
All of it was stimulation.
"Nngh."
Through meditation he finally forced his mind quiet, then collapsed onto the bed with a low groan of suffering. The drowsiness that came with the meditation claimed him the moment he lay down; his eyes fell shut at once.
And sleep took him.
Somewhere, someone was wasting away. Somewhere else, someone still wallowed gladly in pleasure. And somewhere else again, someone sharpened a blade on the single-minded vow of revenge.
And Adonis — who had decided, since things had come to this, that he would have his revenge — now stood on the threshold of what might prove the most important matter of all.
The price Semiramis meant to claim.
She had chosen today to collect it, and Adonis waited with a dry swallow of nerves.
"Have you been waiting?"
The door opened and Semiramis stepped in. Adonis rose at once. He could hardly greet his mistress while still sitting.
She regarded his stiff, tension-locked face for a long moment, then let out a soft snort of laughter.
"You are far too rigid. Sit, for now. I will not stand on ceremony — I mean to come straight to the point."
"Yes."
Obediently taking his seat was well enough. The trouble was where Semiramis chose to sit.
Not across from him. Directly beside him.
Adonis could not hide his considerable fluster.
How amusing.
Semiramis watched his shoulders hunch with nerves and found him endearing, looking on with eyes full of fondness.
An ordinary dragon would not have grown deeply attached after half a year of living together — or even after far longer. But Semiramis was different.
She was a mother who still carried the wound of a lost child, and she was also a woman.
That did not mean every dragon was barren of feeling. Still, there was no denying that Semiramis was singular.
Singular.
And because she was singular, she named the price she wanted without the least hesitation.
"The price I desire is one thing only. Become my child. That is all."
Child. At the word, Adonis's eyes went round and he turned his head aside.
Tilt it even slightly and their lips would have met — that close.
Had the word not struck him so hard, his cheeks would have been burning with pure embarrassment by now.
"Your child? Me?"
"Who else is here but you?"
Semiramis grinned and poked his cheek with a fingertip; his head tipped sideways under the pressure. He recovered himself a moment later, straightened his posture, and asked,
"What made you decide you wanted to take me as your child?"
"I simply found myself wishing it, quite naturally. While I was raising you on a whim of mine, I felt something very like what one feels raising a child."
Every time his strength grew, it had been like watching a fetus thrive and swell. Once the thought took hold, attachment to Adonis only deepened — until she arrived at the conclusion that she wanted him as her own.
Hearing it laid out, he supposed it made a certain sense.
Adonis nodded as if conceding the logic, and still something snagged in him; he could not simply accept.
"I am truly grateful that you care for me so. And it is an honor."
"Is that so? Then at once—"
But.
She had begun to rise in delight when a negative note cut into her ear, and Semiramis froze like a plaster cast.
She barely seemed to breathe.
To be taken as a child — as a dragon's adopted son, no less — was an immense honor. Even if that dragon was the being history books recorded as the Evil Dragon.
Adonis believed that with all his heart. What held him back was simply this: he could not look at Semiramis as a mother without reservation.
That was why he had broken the flow.
This is mortifying, but I still have to say it.
Buying himself a little room had been fine. Actually naming the reason, though, stuck his lips shut. Explaining why he had been NTR'd in the first place would have been easier.
And yet.
The moment he saw Semiramis's eyes growing emptier and emptier in her frozen stillness, the lips that had been glued shut came free as if by a miracle.
"I— I… masturbated to you, Semiramis. What kind of son could look at his parent that way?"
"…Hm?"
Not a simple rejection. He had looked at her like that.
The answer she had never imagined struck her; she blinked. Light returned to the hollow of her eyes. She loosened her locked body and moved to sit across from him instead.
She had meant to let it pass as a phase and move on. She had never expected him to put it into words himself.
Semiramis — who had, whenever she had idle time, peeped on Adonis and known perfectly well what he was doing — gazed at him with tender eyes as he forced out his own shame.
His face burning with humiliation was almost painful to watch.
And yet, on another level, that was exactly why her heart leaned toward him all the more.
The wish to do anything for him swelled past anything she could contain — even herself.
"Mmm. So that is how it was. In your eyes, I appeared that way."
She pretended ignorance, yet a faint curve found its way to her lips without her noticing.
Was it from so long spent polymorphed in human shape? Or had she always been this emotional by nature?
She had no answer. What was certain was the affection she held for Adonis — enough that she could brush aside even the words he had just spoken.
He had his head bowed and could not see it; had he looked up at her face just then, he would have blinked in a daze.
"Come. Lift your head. Go on."
At her urging Adonis reluctantly, slowly raised his face. Shame still clung thick when he first looked up — then he saw Semiramis smiling, and the mortification slipped away as he blinked at her.
She's just… letting this go?
He had expected fury, magic hurled at him. Instead she was utterly at ease.
Adonis tilted his head at the expression so completely unlike anything he had imagined.
"You're… not angry?"
"Angry? Me? Why should I be angry? I am only pleased to think my child has reached that stage. When a human male goes into heat, it means he is ready to make children."
My child?
Adonis dug a finger in his ear, half-convinced he had misheard — then realized he had heard perfectly and looked thoroughly aghast.
She might speak that way because he still owed her a price, but my child?
While he remained stuck in the shock of it, Semiramis spoke again. The curve still sat on her mouth, yet a hint of bashfulness showed through.
"Still, I understand your feelings well enough. So — what if you served as my mate as well?"
"Pardon? Your mate…?"
Mate. Meaning husband and wife.
The unexpected proposal set his heart hammering. How many times had he pleasured himself to the imagined sight of rolling with Semiramis? The thought that fantasy might become reality sent a full-body shudder through him.
Being her child as well sat a little oddly — but for Adonis as he was now, that was a trivial concern.
"Yes. Become both my mate and my child. You touched yourself thinking of me. Does that not mean you already hold such feelings toward me?"
When she drove the point home so cleanly, Adonis clenched his fists tight. He wanted nothing more than to nod at once — and held himself back for fear of looking too eager.
"Of course I do, but… are you truly all right with this?"
"There you go again. Have I not said it is fine? Another human might be different, but you are special. Whatever the reason, you were the first guest ever to come to this lair — and though human, you understood me in earnest, did you not? Besides, after half a year spent this close, how could a different sort of feeling fail to take root?"
As Semiramis poured out such shameless confessions so freely, Adonis could endure no longer and shoved back from his seat — driven by the greed to have this woman, even if she was far above his station.
And then, just as quickly, he remembered his place and sank back down, limp.
"Then I will gratefully accept. But… I worry whether I could ever satisfy you, Semiramis."
She knew full well the inferiority he carried over the gulf between them as males. The half-risen, half-collapsed posture, the powerless way he spoke — all of it came from that.
Which was precisely why she had made every preparation in the bath the night before.
For her child.
Semiramis rose slowly, already picturing how Adonis would leap with joy before long.
"As you know, dragons make children through magic and essence, through blood and flesh. It is not the same as with humans. But I have prepared something for you. Stand up."
She drew near and held out her hand.
Confused though he was, Adonis took it, and let her lead him into the bath chamber.
"Wh…?"
It was dark crimson.
Instead of clear water, something thick and black-red filled the tub to the brim.
Like a pool made of blood, Adonis thought.
Semiramis watched him make that dazed little sound without meaning to, then turned her gaze to the tub.
"I know perfectly well how you suffer, thinking that he has what you lack. So today I wish to ease that suffering."
A soft rustle.
She released Adonis's hand and slowly undid her clothes.
White, flawless skin. Curves so lush they threatened to burst the dress. A beautiful body, firmness showing through at belly and thighs and arms, laid bare without a scrap of concealment.
Adonis, watching, started and flushed scarlet —
"You undress as well. From this moment I will make you into a male more gallant and dependable than any other."
— and, ensnared by the heat in Semiramis's breath, by her flushed face and her scent, he found his own clothes coming undone before he knew what he was doing.