The flight was brutally fast in her dragon form. Leon lay flat against her back, the wind screaming past his ears. His weakened body couldn't handle the velocity; soon after takeoff, his lungs fought for air. Just as his vision began to spot, Rossweise seemed to take pity—or perhaps she simply didn't want her toy broken prematurely. A shimmering protective shield enveloped him, muting the wind to a dull roar and allowing him to breathe.
"Heh... humans are so fragile," the silver dragon beneath him rumbled, her voice thick with scorn.
Under normal circumstances, Leon would have fired back a sharp retort. But exhaustion and ache weighted his tongue into silence. When he had recovered enough to speak, his voice was low and wary. "What is your game, taking me back to the Empire?"
"Didn't you say you missed home?" Rossweise replied, her tone deceptively light. "I'm letting you have a look." The calmness in her voice was a thin veil over something far more sinister.
Leon's sense of dread intensified. There was a trap here, he was certain of it. Yet, trapped and helpless, he had no choice but to let her carry him toward the homeland he hadn't seen in two years. Fear coiled in his gut, but beneath it, a tiny, stubborn hope flickered—perhaps the sight of home would rekindle his fighting spirit.
He had a guess about her plan. She would force him to look upon his home from a distance, to yearn for it while being utterly unable to return. It was a psychological torture designed to break him, to twist the knife of homesickness into a fatal wound.
He braced himself for the humiliation. But if it meant seeing his homeland, even from afar, he would endure it. The Empire was his whole life—where he was raised, where he fought, where his friends had died. Even a distant glimpse would be a painful reminder of what he was fighting for.
Once they crossed into human territory, Rossweise cloaked them in an invisibility spell, flying relentlessly toward the heart of the Empire. Even at her incredible speed, the journey from the Silver Dragon Temple took over three hours. Time stretched and warped for Leon, his mind a chaotic whirl of memories and anxieties.
He knew of Rossweise's reputation for speed and agility. Other dragon breeds would have taken much longer. Dragons rarely ventured this deep into human lands, despite being able to bypass border defenses with ease. This was why the war had always been fought on the frontiers, never here, in the Empire's core.
Two years ago, his dragon-slaying team had been the exception, pushing all the way to the Silver Dragon Temple in a desperate, near-successful assault. The betrayal that followed still stung. He didn't know who had stabbed him in the back, but if he ever got free, he vowed to find the traitor and make them pay a price worse than death. He shook his head, forcing the vengeful thoughts away. He needed to focus on the present.
For the entire flight, Rossweise did not speak another word to him. Leon, for his part, had nothing to say to the mother dragon. If he had a blade in his hand, he would have driven it between her scales without a second thought. It was a professional hazard for a dragon slayer—the sight of a dragon ignited a primal, murderous fire in the blood.
After roughly three hours, they arrived at a high peak overlooking the imperial city. Rossweise shifted back into her human form, her tail coiling around Leon's waist as they floated down to land on the thick, broad branch of a massive tree.
With a soft thud and the creak of wood, she deposited him on the trunk, forcing him to face the glittering expanse of the Empire spread out below. She lifted her chin toward it.
"There. Your home," she stated, her voice dripping with mockery.
Leon slowly pushed himself to his feet, his heart constricting in his chest.
The Empire was a tapestry of light below, like a field of fallen stars. The Royal Spire, the ultimate symbol of Imperial power, pierced the skyline, standing proud and immovable as a sentinel.
He couldn't make out the details of the streets or buildings, but the mere sight of it filled him with a profound, aching fullness. The desire to return home was a fundamental pull in every living creature. For humans, it was called homesickness—a deep, soul-level yearning.
So, this wasn't just mockery. Rossweise understood his deepest longing, and she was using it as a weapon, mingling his joy with excruciating pain. Leon turned slowly, intending to demand what she truly wanted, but the words died in his throat.
He watched, stunned into silence, as the Silver Dragon Queen began to disrobe, until she wore only her minimal undergarments. Her silver tail swayed behind her like a seductive metronome. She walked toward him with fluid, confident steps, her bare feet impervious to the rough texture of the tree bark.
Leon stumbled backward instinctively. "You don't mean to... do it here—" he stammered, his voice a mix of horror and rage.
"Swish—"
Her tail was a blur. Leon tried to block it, but she effortlessly tripped him with the practiced motion. Before he could recover, she was standing over him, her feet planted on either side of his ribs. Her tail deftly undid his belt with an unsettling familiarity.
"Rossweise, I'm warning you, don't go too far! I won't be as easy to control as I was when I first woke up!" he growled, trying to summon his former authority.
Rossweise only responded with a cruel smile. She ran her fingers over the dragon mark on his chest. The silver pattern now glowed with a soft, suggestive purple light, pulsing with a heat that was far from innocent. It was a lure, stirring something deep and unwanted within him.
"When two marked individuals desire each other, the other's mark reacts," she explained, her eyes locked on his. "It itches, it burns, it becomes unbearable."
She slowly lowered herself to sit on his stomach. "Humans are truly the basest of creatures, unable to control their breeding instincts. Isn't that right, my dragon-slaying hero?" Her words were designed to demean, to reduce him to his most animalistic self.
Before he could retort, her hand shot out. She didn't choke him, but she gripped his throat firmly, forcing his chin up, making him look directly at the distant Empire.
At this moment, the Empire looked different to Leon. It seemed like a magnificent, unattainable city in the sky, a dream just beyond his reach.
"Look at your hometown, Leon Cosmodeous. Look at it. I am going to make you lose your dignity all over again, right in front of it," Rossweise whispered, her voice vibrating with dark triumph.
She began her torment anew. As she had said, even a disciplined dragon slayer could not fully fight the fundamental urges of life. For a male, the impulse was powerful, a biological imperative hard to override.
"Creak—creak—creak—"
With each of her movements, the branch beneath them let out a rhythmic groan that grated on Leon's soul. The lights of the far-off Empire glittered in his vision, but their beauty could not pierce the deadening shame clouding his eyes. Humiliation settled over him like a physical weight, crushing his spirit.
"No blinking, Leon. Look at your home."
"Yes, look~~ Mmm—look at it!" Her commands were interspersed with her own sounds of pleasure.
"All your honor, your dignity, comes from that place. Everything you ever did was for it." She twisted the reminder, making his devotion a source of his agony.
"Hiss~—but now tell me, what are we doing? Hmm!"
"Speak, Leon! What are we doing? What are we doing in front of the Empire you swore to protect!" Her questions were lashing, each one a strike against his identity.
When Rossweise lost herself in the throes of passion, a wildness took over. It was unclear if this was her true nature or simply the intoxicating thrill of dragon-style revenge. Her eyes blazed with a feral light, her movements becoming more possessive, more destructive.
Leon was powerless to resist. Held fast by her silver tail, he was utterly at her mercy. Rossweise was a beautiful, deadly serpent, drawing him into her coils and systematically destroying him. She reveled in her victorious revenge, stripping away the last vestiges of his pride layer by layer. He felt hollowed out, a broken man beneath her.
"See, Leon? You bear this shame for your Empire. You are being used and played with by me."
"But what has your Empire ever done for you in return?"
"Now, you can only endure this humiliation while watching the land you fought for so desperately. Neither of you can save the other." Her words painted a picture of his profound isolation, of a hero abandoned.
"Do you want to hold onto your last shred of dignity, great dragon slayer?"
"Then hold it. Hold it, hold it, do you understand? Hahaha—" Her laughter echoed through the night, unhinged and triumphant.
"Creak, creak, creak, creak, creak—"
The groaning of the branch grew louder, threatening to splinter. Rossweise threw her head back, and the light from the dragon mark on her chest flared into a solid, vibrant purple.
In that moment, she felt a genuine, draconic urge to break the ribs of the man beneath her. For dragons, peak excitement often involved simple, violent destruction. But Rossweise exercised control. She held back, not going too far. She needed him alive, functional, for the long game ahead.
For dragons, conception was only guaranteed the first time, when the spell demanded it. After that, they possessed the magical ability to prevent pregnancy for a full day following the act, with near-perfect success. As the warmth of her revenge settled, she closed her eyes and silently cast the necessary spell, eliminating any risk. There would be no more unexpected consequences.
After a long moment, she laughed softly. "You failed, Leon. As the Empire's famous dragon slayer, you, right next to it, have defiled yourself with an evil dragon queen."
"How does it feel? Hmm!"
"Answer me, Leon!"
Answer?
How could he answer?
Leon felt less than human, lower than the mud on the ground, for even mud would not be subjected to such degradation. His body ached, his mind was numb.
"Your dignity and pride are scraps now, do you understand? From this day forward, you are only my prisoner, bound to me like a pet on a leash, do you get it?" She leaned in close, her breath hot against his ear.
"Shall we come here every month, Leon? What do you think?"
"This way, you can see your hometown regularly." The suggestion was exquisitely cruel, a monthly ritual of humiliation.
She laughed again, the sound twisted and close to madness, a storm of dark emotion.
"Rossweise." The man's voice, deep and ragged, cut through her wild laughter.
In his eyes, which had seemed like still, dead water, a final ember glowed—a spark of unkillable fire.
"You can insult me. You can step on me. You can carve your mark into my skin and treat my dignity like trash. But—"
He erupted with sudden, furious strength, his hands gripping her shoulders like a vice. His gaze was diamond-hard, burning with defiant hatred.
"You can never kill the heart of a dragon slayer!"
"I will wait. I will wait patiently for my chance to come."
"And then, I will repay you double for everything you've done to me!" It was a vow, forged in fury and hate.
Rossweise was momentarily taken aback that this man still had any fight left in him. But it was only a flicker of surprise. Her hand shot out, pinning his neck, and she shoved him back down onto the rough bark.
"All right," she said, her eyes meeting his in a challenge that sealed their fates. "I will wait for you, Leon Cosmodeous. We—will not stop until death!"
The game was far from over. They were bound now, not just by magic or a child, but by a hatred so profound it felt like its own kind of intimacy. The cold night wind swept over them, carrying the echo of their pledge into the darkness.