Dragon Desire. Lisette Ashton

Now was not the time to be distracted by the siren call of her constant sexual excitement.

      For this moment she had to remain focused.

      There was enough twilight lingering in the sky to keep the room well-lit. She guessed that the windows in the east and west walls kept the tower room bright from dawn until dusk. Through the east window she could see the oncoming night sky as sable as the cloaks worn by the castellan’s Order of Dark Knights. The tower room’s formidable height allowed her to see the glow and flicker of torches lighting cottage windows up to the fiefdom’s walls and beyond. If there had been a glimpse of Jack-o’-Lantern or Jenny-Burnt-Tale in the Howling Forest to the east of the fiefdom, Caitrin knew she would have seen both of those spectres from this vantage point.

      The west window stared out to the silvered waves that rippled on the Last Sea. The day’s sinking sun sizzled into the horizon beyond. She could see the silhouette masts and sails of knörr, cogs and hulc idling in the harbour. She could see a faraway crew were working on furling the sail of a large birlinn that dominated the port this evening. The west window showed the taverns and trading square of Blackheath’s commercial streets. But it was the distant harbour with the glittering seas and the lazily pitching and yawing boats where her gaze lingered.

      The sky through this window was a blaze of brilliant yellows, fading up through a spectrum of darkening peaches and lowering reds. Caitrin was struck by a sudden and stinging certainty that her destiny lay in the direction of the harbour.

      The idea caused a prickle of icy foreboding to tickle down her spine.

      Shaking her head, knowing there was no time to be wasted admiring the view from the mage’s offices and speculating on the uncertainties of tomorrow, Caitrin hurried to the shelves on the north wall and studied the jars that were kept there.

      A faraway noise made her hesitate.

      It was a heavy clatter that sounded like boots on stone steps.

      She swallowed down the rising taste of panic and told herself that the guard had not woken and he was not making a patrol of the rooms under his charge. Even if such a catastrophic situation was occurring, Caitrin knew the guard would not enter the mage’s offices. It was only her dread of discovery that was causing her to tremble with apprehension.

      Inwardly she cursed the fact that her body was becoming excited by the idea of being caught. Her stiffening nipples pressed tight against the cotton of her red and gold kirtles. The muscles deep within her sex tingled through a greedy desire for satisfaction. She supposed the responses were all residual effects of the dragon horn that lingered in her blood. But rationalising those responses did not soften the urgency of her needs.

      Ignoring the threat of faraway sounds, convinced they were nothing more than echoes from her imagination, she stepped up to the shelves and considered the rows upon rows of stoppered glass jars.

      The jars gleamed in the dusk light as though they had all been recently polished. Caitrin could see the contents in each one. Some contained murky liquids, moving ominously of their own volition. Others were filled with disconcerting items such as eyeballs, tongues or locks of hair. All of them were labelled on white card written with the painstaking precision of the mage’s exact hand. The labels, Caitrin noted, were in the same order in which she’d been taught her letters as a girl.

      That would make things easier, she supposed. She traced her finger along the shelves in search of the cards beginning with the letter D.

      Demon Claws. Diamond Milk. Dodo Feathers.

      Dog Hairs were stored next to Duck Feet.

      From what she recalled of her letters, dragon horn should have sat between those two jars. But there was no jar labelled dragon horn. There wasn’t even an empty space where a jar should have been.

      ‘Fie,’ she muttered.

      She turned to the H section of the jars and her hopes were briefly raised. There was a section dedicated solely to animal horn.

      Horn: Buffalo.

      Horn: Chameleon.

      Horn: Griffin.

      ‘Fie!’

      If there had been a jar labelled ‘Horn: Dragon’ Caitrin knew it would have sat between Chameleon and Griffin. She stamped her foot angrily on the floor, annoyed that she had risked so much in stealing into the mage’s office and all without achieving any gain.

      ‘Fie! Fie! Fie!’

      ‘Quite the foul-mouthed little trespasser, aren’t you?’

      Caitrin glanced toward the sound of the voice.

      She hadn’t seen the door open and she hadn’t seen the mage enter the room. Now she realised that Nihal stood blocking the doorway. There was no way to escape. She clutched one small hand over her mouth to contain the squeal of surprise that wanted to escape.

      ‘Who are you and what are you doing in my offices?’

      ‘I’m sorry, Nihal,’ Caitrin began. ‘I was trespassing. Please forgive –’

      ‘You’re not sorry yet.’ Nihal’s voice rang from the stone walls of the tower. The words were not shouted but there was no denying the authority with which they were spoken. ‘You’re not sorry yet. But you will be sorry if you don’t tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.’

      The mage looked resplendent in a crimson cowled robe tied at the waist with a ceremonial gold cord. Youngest of the castellan’s household wizards, a migrant from the southernmost borders of the North Ridings, Nihal was a mage with a deserved reputation as the most powerful master of magicks in the whole of Blackheath. Nihal cast spells to end the cold cruelty of the long winter nights. Nihal made the first flowers bloom in spring. And, Caitrin had heard it said, Nihal could draw the truth from reluctant lips as effortlessly as the farm maids drew milk from the cows.

      Goosebumps prickled her flesh.

      Her nipples stiffened.

      ‘Nihal,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me, Caitrin. Don’t you recognise me?’

      ‘A shape-changer would likely visit my offices in Caitrin’s form,’ Nihal growled. ‘It’s known I have a tenderness for the castellan’s dark-haired daughter.’

      She touched a hand to her coal-black tresses.

      ‘You have a tenderness for me?’

      Caitrin could not stop the smile from sitting on her lips. She had never realised Nihal had a tenderness for her. The thought was warming and made her suddenly yearn for the mage. Her heartbeat quickened.

      ‘You should have said something,’ she began. ‘Perhaps you and I –’

      ‘Stand up straight,’ the mage barked.

      Her body reacted instantaneously to the command. She stood stiff, as though her backbone had been replaced by a pikestaff. The idea that Nihal was controlling her actions and movements inspired a thrill of helpless excitement.

      Standing rigid, Caitrin felt as though it was only her eyes that could move.

      Her gaze scoured the room for some hope of salvation.

      She studied Nihal and tried to silently beg for leniency.

      It was impossible to see the wizard’s face. The hood of the ceremonial cowl was drawn forward to throw shadows over the mage’s features. In the dwindling light of the offices, Caitrin caught only the occasional flash of bright almond eyes and dazzling teeth fixed into a cruel smile. It was a combination she found unsettling and yet deeply and darkly attractive.

      ‘You do look like Caitrin, the castellan’s daughter,’ Nihal admitted. ‘So you’re either her, or you’re a very skilled shape-changer. I’m curious to discover which.’

      ‘I am her,’ Caitrin insisted. ‘Why would a shape-changer visit your offices?’

      A wand appeared in the mage’s