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He was back, sliding through the cold air in great swooping circles with me at their centre. Balanced on two great wings, he lit the night sky with ostentatious jets of fire from his throat, the flame glittering off his vivid red scales.

A part of me wanted to spread my wings and leap up to join my suitor in the air, but I repressed it: a fire dragon had to act with a little dignity, a queen more so than a drake. Instead I lay motionless in the mouth of my den, my snug basalt cave atop my great mountain, and pretended not to notice as he soared and spun and shone across the sky for my enjoyment.

Twelve times already he'd come to flash his wings at me, and twelve times I'd driven him away, my teeth snapping at his tail. It wouldn't do to seem desperate, after all. But at the same time, I didn't want him giving up and trying his luck elsewhere. Perhaps tonight was the night?

I shouted up to him in my loudest, most roaring voice. "Are you going to flap around out there all night, pirouetting like a sky drake in a dancing contest?"

It was an invitation, and as soon as he heard it he started spinning towards me in a shrinking spiral, until with a spread of his broad leathery wings he came to alight neatly on the broad shoulder of stone in front of my cave, claws clattering on the rock.

He was big for a drake - perhaps two-thirds my own size - his long, lithe body armoured in a vibrant coat of blood red scales. A rippling row of blades ran down his spine, all the way from the twisted horns on his head to the menacing curl of his tail, each one as long and dangerous as the curving claws on his toes. Two evil yellow eyes stared at me intently from a face caught in a leering snarl, a rich and varied mouthful of blood-bleached fangs bared.

I thought he was cute.

But more important than the way he looked was the way he smelt. He carried a potent reek, sharp and acrid and alluring, a smell of fire and sulphur that seemed almost corrosive. I inhaled deeply, savouring the caustic odour, finding it to my liking. And I saw him sniff the air, tasting my own scent, the sour and stagnant death-stench I worked so hard to maintain.

"Well?" I used my bluntest, heaviest tone, and accompanied it with my best glare, sitting down on the rock with exaggerated nonchalance.

"I gaze at long last on Soursedge, vile fiend of the Pike, bane of the northern clefts." He spoke in a voice like molten gravel, piercing me with his eyes. "I was drawn by the legends born in the wake of your desecration, that tell of your loathsome heart, of your cunning and merciless mind, of your thundering roar which fills hearts with quaking terror for miles in all directions. Of your dread deeds, of the death and destruction you wreak with your sundering talons, your snithing teeth, your infernal all-consuming fire. And yet, I realise now that the legends did you no justice, for you are truly a more gruesome, despicable and terrible monster than ever they imagined."

Well. He certainly knew how to talk to a girl. "Go on..."

"Such wings! They could block out the very sun and wither the land. Such talons! They could slash open the very rocks and reduce them to dust. Such eyes! They could pierce the very hearts of the sternest queens and reduce them to thralls. Such a stench! It could penetrate into the very earth and leave it barren and lifeless. Surely no creature as repugnant and catastrophic as yourself has ever before crawled out of the dark recesses of the abyss."

His words caressed me, making my heart pump a little faster and my blood run a little warmer. "And who might you be, who flatters so insidiously?"

Before he could answer we were both distracted by the booming rustle of oncoming wings. Even before Marmondwike came into view I knew her by a stray whiff of her scent: a distinctively rich putrid foulness. She landed easily on the rock beside the drake, her charcoal black-scaled bulk overshadowing him as surely as her cloying fetor, blacker than her scales, overpowered his volcanic reek. He looked up at her in some confusion, unsure what to make of this new arrival.

"Why hello there, Sedge, who's your little friend?"

Marmondwike never talked in a manner befitting a fire queen. It was part of the reason I hated her: not only was she bigger than me, stronger than me and had a more evil stench, but I could never shake the impression that she was somehow more fearsome and terrible than I was, despite the fact that I'd never seen her intimidate or defile anything, and never once heard her say a harsh word to anybody.

"My name is _Sour_sedge. And he was just complimenting me on my loathsomeness."

"Ooh! Flirting! Mind if I stay and watch?"

"Yes, I do mind!" I shot her a scalding stare, but she just sprawled down comfortably and gave me a look of friendly innocence. I turned back to the drake. "This is my insufferable neighbour, Marmondwike, a white-hearted worm beneath our consideration. Just ignore her and maybe she'll go away." These last two words I spat at herwith vehemence.

"I don't think I caught your name, darling," she said to the drake.

"Um... hello,nice to meet you, I'm Pontefax," he replied, looking somewhat put out. "I mean," he said remembering himself, turning back to me and recovering his earlier poise, "I introduce myself, _Pontefax_the Sly, despicable devourer from the eastern vales." He unfurled his great red wings, stretching them to their full extent to show himself to full advantage. "And I come to offer myself as your mate."

"Good choice," said Marmondwike. Pontefax folded back his wings and looked at her. "A fine queen, dear Sedge. You won't find another dragon anywhere in the northern clefts with such a fiery heart or such fetid breath. To be completely frank she makes me wish I were a drake so she'd take _me_as her mate."

"My nameis _Sour_sedge!" I rose to my feet and stepped over to the drake, who looked up at me with an endearingly arrogant leer.I needed to be closer to him, to fill my nostrils with his reek, to drown out the stench of Marmondwike."If I were todemean myself so far as to take a snittering scrap like you as my mate, I'd give you eggs and protect you from harm with tooth and talon and searing flame. What could youpossibly offer me in return?"

"Devotion." He didn't speak any quieter now that I was right next to him. "I would devote myself to your dark glory, to your sordid heart, to your behemothic body. I would go out into the world and fight and fly and bite and burn for you, and bring back food to feed you, all while you sleep. I would dote on you."

I wanted him. He was everything a drake should be: silver tongued, vile bodied, evil breathed and mine. I fancied lying curled close with him, one wing draped over him, feeling him pressed hotagainst my belly as I drifted to sleep.

"If you were to do any less," I growled, "I wouldeviscerate you. Slowly. With a single talon."

"Oh get to the good bit," interrupted Marmondwike. "What about sex?"

I gave her a look to suggest that the threat of evisceration applied to her too. Pontefax, however, barely hesitated. "Such a queen as you must burn with all-consuming lusts. With me as your mate, no matter how searing your heat, how unslakable your need, how depraved your sexual whim, whenever, wherever, however often, I'll be there for you. Ready to satisfy you completely with the power and fury of a volcanic eruption that births a mountain, and the stamina and endurance of the wind wearing it back down into dust."

I prodded my "all-consuming lusts" with a mental talon, my mind turning over thoughts of Pontefax mounting me roughly, his talons digging into the scales of my back, his hot horrible breath on my neck... his tail rubbing against mine... his drakehood questing between my legs... Marmondwike watching voyeuristically from the mouth of the cave...

I hurled the thought away. Damn that queen! She was even invading my privatemost thoughts now! I focused on Pontefax, deciding to try a little flirting of my own.

"I'd never allow you to mount me, Pontefax the Sly." He looked crestfallen. "Not until I'd laid your foul body down and run my tongue and talons over it, until you screamed in rapture for me to stop."

He stared at me longingly, his forked tongue flickering between his teeth in anticipation.

"I'd use the tip of my tail."

We both turned to stare at Marmondwike.

"If you were my mate, little Pontefax, I could get you screaming in rapture with nothing but the tip of my tail."

She stood and moved to stand close besides the drake, swishing the tip of her black-scaled tail slowly back and forth through the air in front of his face.

"Marmondwike! What do you think you're doing?"

She ignored me and carried on talking in a quiet, rumbling voice. "And only then, when I heard you scream out loud, only then would I bring in my tongue." She placed her head a mere whisper in front of Pontefax's, snout nearly touching snout, gazing down into his staring yellow eyes. "I'd run it all over you. All over you. Every... little... bit. I'd find all the secret and sensitive places. Sometimes it'd be long, rasping strokes, sometimes quick and maddening little circles, and every single touch," here she flicked out her tongue to dance briefly across the tip of his nose, "would drive... you... wild."

I should have screamed and slashed at her, but like Pontefax I was stunned into silence.

"Only when you at last begged me to stop, begged me to end the unendurable pleasure, only then would I start working you with my talons. Just imagine what I could do with one of these." She raised a forepaw with four gleaming claws in front of his snout. "What torments I could inflict on your helpless flesh. I could have you shaking and writhing in degenerative ecstasy, and that would just be the beginning. Now." She stroked his chin with a single claw. "Imagine what I could do with _four_of them."

Pontefax wasn't moving, wasn't even breathing, just staring into her eyes, completely absorbed in her words.

"When I'd finally engulf you inside me, you'd realise that everything before was merely a pale prelude. I'd take it unendurably slowly, each movement making you weep. In, and out. In... and out. In... and... out. I'd milk every moment of your rapture as surely as I'd milk every drop of juice from your swollen glands. And when it was over you'd fall into an exhausted sleep, your body entwined with mine, and sleep longer and deeper than ever before. And when you'd wake up... I'd start all over again. With the tip of my tail."

He gulped. I finally regained control of my voice. "Marmondwike! Worthless soft-skinned soil sucker! You insufferable pastel-perfumed bee-feeding flower tender! Get away from him, he's mine!" I tried to ignore the way her words had left me tingling and damp.

Pontefax looked at Marmondwike. And he looked at me. I could see the quick mental calculation taking place in his head.

He turned back to her. "Marmondwike... uh... Marmondwike with scales as black as ashes at midnight, and heart even blacker. Whose foul fetor hangs about her like a second shadow, dark and dire and delectable. I introduce myself, _Pontefax_the Sly, despicable devourer from the..."

"Yes, dear, I heard you say that bit the first time."

"Oh. Well... um... I'd like to be_your_ mate. Please."

I shrieked in rage. "How dare_you propose to _her outside my cave!"

Marmondwike gestured to me. "What about Sedge here? Not so long ago you wanted to be her mate."

"I did. But then I noticed what a vile and formidable monstrosity you are, next to which she," he nodded in my direction without looking at me, "is a mere bloated butterfly throwing tantrums."

"You can both get off my mountain right now!" I spat.

Marmondwike paused as if considering. "Hmm. You make a tempting offer, darling, but, no, no I don't think I really do want to take you as my mate. Especially not after you just called my dear Sedge a tantrum-throwing butterfly."

"What do you mean, your dear Sedge?" I hissed.

She ignored me. "Goodbye, Pontefax, better luck next time." She leapt into the night sky and with a thrust of her wings was gone.

Pontefax turned back to me, trying to slip back into the confident and fierce manner he'd worn so easily before events had started sliding so confoundingly through his claws, but an understandable nervousness showed through. "Great Sedge, malevolent matron of the mountain, repulsive reptile of the rocks, your powerful and pernicious mind must realise that the words spoken to that cotton-hearted cloud hugger meant nothing, and my devotion to you remains absolute?"

"It's _Sour_sedge." I lay down on my ashen bed, too weary to shout or curse, my back turned to him. "I'd strongly advise your next move to be flying away, very fast. Talking to you any longer is beneath my dignity."

He didn't fly away but edged closer, too stubborn or stupid to give up. "I'm curious to know what a true fire fiend such as you could do with the tip of your tail..."

Pontefax flew away very fast, yelping in pain and fear. He left behind only the tip of his tail, which I still held between my jaws, chewing with a grim satisfaction.

* * *

My belly full, I lifted into the air with a downward beat of my wings and pushed towards home, a hunk of charred meat clutched in my talons. Beneath me, thick and ancient forest thinned and became more patchy as I climbed, until I was flying over scrubby and extensive moorland, a patchwork of purple heather and spiky green gorse. Ahead rose the Pike, an unsightly extrusion of grey rock and patchy scrub, thrusting austerely above the moorland. My mountain.

Or at least, it had been my mountain. Before Marmondwike had arrogantly settled on the opposite flank, and despite all my threats and bitter wrath, steadfastly refused to move. Why had I tolerated her for so long without challenging her? Surely it couldn't be that I was afraid? No. I wasn't afraid of anything, I told myself. Especially not of a florid flittering thing like her. Next time I saw her, I'd have it out with her, and drive her away from my home.

As I swooped in towards the dark maw of my cave I noticed the smell. Black, clinging, putrid... Marmondwike. She was in my lair!

I screamed in rage and landed fast and fierce on the rock, a torch of flame lighting the darkness. She lay stretched languidly on the broad mound of ashes on which I made my bed, yellow eyes regarding me casually.

"Morning, Sedge. Good night's hunting?"

I dropped the charred remnants of my prey on the ground and advanced on her, seething.

"You! You... child-cuddling cud chewer! What are you doing in my cave?"

"I just thought I'd come to welcome you home."

"You what?"

"Welcome home, Sedge, dear."

"Shut up! You cost me a perfectly good mate last night!"

She stared at nothing for a moment, as though struggling to remember. "Oh, you mean Pontefax? Really, I don't think he was good enough for a queen as dire as you."

"How dare you try and run my life, you preening, posing, pansy-scented claw polisher!" She grinned and closed her eyes, as though the insult gave her pleasure. "I despise you! Ever since you violated my mountain you have done nothing but antagonise me!"

"Ah, Sedge dear, if you weren't so cute when you're angry, I wouldn't be so tempted."

I spluttered. Then I growled, a deep menacing throb from the back of my throat. "Tree-tending, tickle-breathed, treacle hearted tadpole! I'm not putting up with you a moment longer! I challenge you to a trial of combat!" I let out a great gush of fire to reinforce the message.

"Very well," she shrugged, "if you like. It might be fun."

"Fun?" I blinked. "It will definitely not be fun. This is a battle of honour. When I defeat you, I demand that you leave the Pike and never come within sight of it again!"

"Agreed." I didn't need her agreement. In a trial of combat, each laid out their opponent's forfeit, and the loser was honour-bound to abide by it.

"And when I beat you," she said, rising to her feet, "I'll take you as my mate."

I paused, speechless. What? No respectable fire queen would have suggested a forfeit like that. Something so utterly humiliating, lasting a whole lifetime... I had a new respect for the sick depravity of her mind.

"Agreed." As humiliating as her terms were, to back out of them, admitting that I feared defeat, would be unthinkable. Besides, in my anger and spite I did not imagine that I could fail to win.

* * *

There was only one rule to a trial of combat. The first dragon to place their claws around their opponent's neck was the winner.

We faced each other on the wide, flat rocky ledge outside my cave, the Pike rising grey and stern to my left, and dropping away to reveal a bleak landscape of dull greens and dirty browns to my right. I hissed and growled at Marmondwike, circling slowly at a safe distance, sizing up my nemesis. She was a little larger than I was, and probably stronger, but did she know how to fight? She showed no signs of being ready for one, having begun the encounter by sitting casually regarding me, apparently enjoying the feeble morning sunshine illuminating her flank; only after I had protested at her insolence had she risen almost reluctantly to her feet and faced me like a dragon.

Talons clicked on rock. Two pairs of yellow eyes augered into each other, unblinking.Wings poised half-raised, tails swishing threateningly. I roared and let out a jet of scorching flame; Marmondwike just smiled knowingly back at me.

Suddenly, with no warning, we were both hurtling towards each other, fangs bared, powerful legs and broad wings working in tandem to send us shooting forwards like a snapped spring. We met in a crunch of scale and sinew. With our front legs we tore and wrestled, muscles straining against muscles, talons ripping in futility against nearly impenetrable scales, our back legs thrusting, trying to push the other off balance. I snapped my teeth angrily at her neck; she dodged me nimbly, and as suddenly as we were together we were apart, back to cautious circling.

I'd always prided myself on my ability to outfight anything, and Marmondwike wouldn't be the first queen I'd beaten in combat. But I'd had trouble gaining an advantage. As much as I'd strained left and right, pushed and pulled, feinted and heaved, she'd seemed to anticipate it and had moved easily to keep her balance, without ever trying too hard to topple me. Almost as if she were deliberately prolonging the fight.

"You never told me you fight like a ravishing inferno!" she called. "Wild and fierce and unpredictable! Tell me Sedge, do you make love the same way you fight?"

I roared and spouted a jet of flame at her head, which to my chagrin seemed to please her immensely. Her fanged grin filled my eyes, my skin throbbed from her shredding talons, her putrid scent clogged my nostrils. Fire queens rarely got this close to one another and the gaunt blackness of her remarkable odour - an air so foul it seemed living things must wilt in it - filled my lungs; an irresistible perfume which, emanating from a drake, might have fostered in me a barely containable lust. As it was, with Marmondwike at its centre, I used it to fuel my rage.

"We should have done this a long time ago, Sedge, my dear."

"Yes," I hissed, "then all I'd have of you would be memories; memories which I'd try to forget as soon as possible!"

"The caress of your claws against my scales, the full foul potency of your reek... mmm, this is really turning me on. How about you?"

I shot forwards and slightly to the left, trying to take her from the side, but she turned to meet me head to head. I snapped at her throat and missed. With my claws I lashed out viciously, but she caught them in an unbreakable grip with her own talons. I squirmed to try and break free, bracing myself for pain... but it didn't come. Where I expected her to be holding me roughly, claws digging in sharply, instead it was somehow more gentle, yet still too firm for me to break free, squeezing and kneading my paws in just the right way, her claws moving across my scales in surprising little stroking circles. It was intoxicating, and so unexpected that before I knew what had happened the violence had ebbed out of me...

"This is how I'll touch you when you're my mate."

Suddenly I remembered myself. Snapping myself back with a snarl of fury I lunged forwards and to the side with my full weight, and to my satisfaction and slight surprise felt her give way and topple onto her side. I leapt on top of her, aiming for her throat, but she intercepted me and after a brief but furious struggle we ended up rolling, face to face, each with all four limbs wrapped around the other, wings flat against our backs. I pulled and tore at her armour with my talons, but she simply squeezed, drawing us closer together until I could feel her heart beating fast and strong against my chest.

"This is how I'll hold you once we are one."

I snarled and bared my teeth, struggling to remind myself that I loathed her and that her touch was hateful.

"And this is how I'll kiss you."

She pushed her mouth in front of mine and shot out her long forked tongue to lick me on the snout, a gentle tickling sensation. Without thinking about what I was doing I let out my own tongue to meet it and they intertwined, a damp and delicate dance, a feeling so immense that it pushed the fight straight out of my mind. When it was over, after just a few tantalising moments, I noticed that we were closely entwined, our limbs quite still. I felt that I should be fighting, that I should be angry, but for that brief second I was unable to remember why.

It all came back as Marmondwike, seizing the advantage, rolled me sharply onto my back and jumped to stand triumphantly on top of me, pinning me helplessly under her black bulk. I waited for the cold touch of claws around my throat, but it didn't come. Instead, I felt a single claw trace tender zig-zags across the scales of my belly, moving down towards my tail until...

"Well well, Sedge my dear, it looks as though you've enjoyed this almost as much as I have."

I hadn't realised, until that moment, how wet I had become down there. It was seeping out across my scales. And as soon as I noticed, I felt my bloodlust deepen and flower, completing its inexorable metamorphosis into a different, even stronger kind of lust. I needed, I yearned for fulfilment. Marmondwike's claw traced an ellipse around and around my queenhood, tormenting the already sensitive flesh. I desperately wanted her to slide the claw inside but part of me rebelled, insisting, hazily, that she was my sworn enemy and that I despised her.

"Why haven't you claimed your victory?" I said weakly.

She glanced up at my neck, exposed and vulnerable. "Because I never intended to win that way."

I was confused for a moment, but then thought I understood. Forming a temporary alliance between the part of me that wanted her and the part of me that hated her, I lunged upwards, leaping up as she let herself be pushed back, until we lay in exactly reversed positions. My claws stood poised over her neck. One simple motion, and she'd be out of my life forever. I stood motionless, precisely balanced at the apex of the decision, hatred pushing against desire, until finally I dropped my neck into her outstretched talons and felt them clasp gently around it.

* * *

The first time I'd met Marmondwike was when she'd dropped out of the night sky to land in front of my cave. I'd emerged from my home, hissing and spitting fire, trying but failing to intimidate the unwelcome new arrival.

She'd said, "hello stranger."

Fire queens don't visit each other. We don't socialise, except perhaps to scream insults from a distance, and never meet face to face, except to fight over territory. That one should pay me a house call was unprecedented and baffling. I reacted in the only way I knew how.

"Miserable writhing worm! I am Soursedge, dire queen of the Pike." I gestured all around me. "This mountain is mine. If you don't leave it now, I shall..."

"Mountain?" She looked amused. "It's a mere hill!"

I shrieked. "It's a mountain!My mountain! Get off it right now or..."

She interrupted me again. "No, you're right, it's a mountain. I see it now. With a queen as dreadful, as loathsome, as delectably rank-scented as you sat astride it, you _make_it a mountain. I'm Marmondwike, your new neighbour."

Everything about the big black dragon impressed me. Her great rippling body bristling with midnight scales, her penetrating saffron eyes, the strong roar of her voice, her overwhelmingly dark and rich reek... but perhaps most of all her calm, outrageous self-assurance. Here was a queen so ferocious she didn't need to shout and burn and intimidate.

A fire queen has only two instincts that let her deal with something she admires: she can either claim it as her own or set herself against it. If Marmondwike had been a drake, I might have let my admiration turn to desire: the desire to hold her close, to protect her, to be close to her, to mate with her, to consider her mine. But instead I forced it to turn to loathing. Her qualities marked her as a threat to my own superiority, and thus she was my mortal enemy.

"Fangless flameless fog-fearing fairy!" I screamed. "Begone! If I see you again, I'll sink my talons deep into your flesh!"

"Ooh, I'll look forward to that," she said, winking. "Until next time, Sedge."

"It's _Sour_sedge!" I'd shouted as she flew into the darkness. My mind seethed, cursing her name a thousand times. I hated her, but it was a hatred born of deep admiration, that also forms the basis for love. And one can easily turn into the other.

* * *

We lay quiet and still for a minute while our lives reconfigured themselves around us. Her claws played gentle patterns on my neck as I stared into her bewitching yellow eyes.

"Hello lover," she said.

"Hello," I replied, unsure what to say.

My mind spun. I was Marmondwike's mate. I didn't know what to make of a fact like that. Why had I just done what I'd done? I ran it through my head again, trying to make sense of it. I was Marmondwike's mate. Fire queens didn't let people take them as mates. They took people as their_mates. There was a difference. I tried reversing the sentence._Marmondwike was my mate. That was better. I could deal with that.

She was mine.

Suddenly the new reality of things clicked into place. She was mine! That big, beautiful dragon, with her loathsome body and fetid rancour and magnificent coat of scales as black as the void between the stars, she was mine. True, I was at the same time hers, but that side of things was for her to enjoy.

She lay there on her back, wings spread to either side, legs in the air, one set of talons curled around my throat and her eyes gazing hungrily into mine. I ran the back of a single claw over her belly, feeling it clatter over the black scales, reminding myself that she was real and she was mine and she was lying there beneath me, and... and that I wanted her. All the lust that had arisen unbidden during the fight now poured back into me. I had to touch her. I ran my claws over her body, all over, needing to touch every part of her, sliding and stroking and gripping, relishing the feel of her. Now I was stroking the leathery folds of her outstretched wings. Now I was brushing the strong curve of her jaw, now running my feet down the great sweep of her tail. She closed her eyes and moaned in delight.

There seemed an enormous amount of her to touch, and I felt suddenly that I didn't have enough paws. Shaking my head loose from her grip I brought it down to rake my tongue across her scaly armour, loving the rasp, the pleasingly foul taste. I paused to stare once again into her eyes. "This is how I touch you now you're my mate."

She shrieked in joy, and then she was touching me as desperately and comprehensively as I'd been touching her. We became a confusion of pawing limbs and flashing claws, roaring and bellowing, a wild frenzy of motion that, to anybody watching, was barely distinguishable from the combat we'd so recently been entangled in.

Without speaking we somehow both knew at once the moment to stop pawing at each other and to draw each other close. Legs wrapped around flanks, tails entwined. Closer, I had to have her closer to me. Our wings folded around one another, our long necks hooked around each other's shoulders; a living knot, squeezed tightly together. I could feel her great warmth, her searing breath on my back, her racing heartbeat. I luxuriated in the world-filling bleakness of her scent, letting it flow into my lungs, losing myself in it. I squeezed harder, feeling her respond in kind, trying to meld us into a single dragon.

"This is how I hold you now we are one," I said. "And this is how I kiss you."

Unfurling only slightly to face each other, we stuck out our long, slender tongues and let the tips touch, just gently, before hooking them over one another and letting them dance, lapping and twisting and looping and playing, every spark of my concentration focused on that shimmering and intricate and glorious overlap of tongues. I almost didn't notice the rippling pressure of her talons on my scales, the low throbbing of her chest against mine, the squirming and grinding of her tail and hips against my own. Deep within me, the heat in my loins grew more and more intense, until I became conscious of my juices streaming out of me, trickling wetly down my leg. And then I noticed that it wasn't just_my_ juices.

Marmondwike, breaking from the kiss, stared into my eyes. "Now show me how you fuck me."

My heart raced. My lust pounded at the centre of my mind, shouting: yes! We'd bring each other to a gasping orgasm; sating ourselves on pleasure. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, I wanted more right at that moment than to fuck that odious, gorgeous creature until she screamed.

"No," I told her.

She stared at me despondently as I extricated myself from her. "No?"

I yearned to drop myself back onto her and lose myself in her, but I was too much of a fire queen. I _had_to show her that she didn't dominate me, that I could deprive her of what she most wanted on a whim. With Marmondwike bigger, stronger, more repulsive and more cunning than I was, I had to do something to stop myself from slipping into the role of a submissive little drake sheltered under her wing. There'd be plenty of time for sex later.

"No. I just don't feel like it right now," I lied, trying to sound casual. She glanced at my streaming pussy and gave me a look to say she didn't believe me, but said nothing. Instead she spread her legs a little, giving me an unobstructed view of her own queenhood: a parting in the slick black scales; a deep and alluring cleft into her innermost recesses, shining wet with juices overflowing and dripping over her armoured hip...

I tore my eyes away. "I'll be sleeping in my lair; come join me when you've finished yourself off."

Turning my tail I swept as regally as I could into my little cave and lay down on my side atop my soft ashen bed. Marmondwike, rather than follow my suggestion, followed close behind me; I raised a wing in front of me in invitation to slip herself under it, but instead she laid herself behind me and folded her own wing over my belly, her talons resting on my back, as though I were a favourite drake. I chose not to protest. The feeling of being blanketed by her was far too pleasant for that.

If I'd guessed that, like me, she was resigned to swallowing her lust and letting it burn itself out, I was wrong. No sooner were we laid down together than I felt her shift and wriggle behind me, and she settled into a rhythmic pulsing quiver, accompanied by quiet wet noises and soft gasps in my ear. Gritting my teeth I managed to resist the temptation to sink my talons into my own crying queenhood and join in. As she came to a moaning climax her claws tightened and squeezed on my shoulders, and then she was still.

"Sleep well, Wike. Dream dreams of glory and desecration."

"Sleep well, Soursedge. Dream dreams of me."

* * *

I dreamed.

I dreamed that I awoke to the sweet sound of birdsong, soft sunlight filtering in through the mouth of the cave. The scent of flowers and newly-cut grass greeted my nostrils. I smiled.

Marmondwike wasn't beside me. She must have gotten up early to watch the sunrise again, without wishing to disturb me. Bless her sweet heart. I got to my feet and stretched, leaving our feather bed to join her outside the cave.

It was a magnificent morning. The moorland bloomed in green verdancy, and vibrant green shoots were springing into life all over the Pike. It had been raining but now the sun was out, causing wisps of moisture to curl up from the land, and arching over the whole landscape was a breathtaking rainbow. But I had eyes for none of that. I was interested only in my Marmondwike.

She sat on the edge of the rock, her black scales shimmering in the sunlight. Her spotless claws, her perfect tail, her flawless wings, all formed a kind of living, breathing poem to the beauty of the draconic form. She carried a scent suggestive of autumn leaves and bonfires.

"Good morning, my angel," she called to me. "Care to join me? I was meditating on the beauty and bounty of Mother Nature."

"That sounds wonderful, my peppermint cream," I said as I sat down beside her, our tongues flashing out to share a brief and tender kiss...

"AAAAAAAARGHHH!" I woke up with a mighty roar, my whole body shaking.

"What? What? What is it?" said the voice of Marmondwike in my ear, alarmed by my sudden outburst.

I took a moment to calm my nerves. I breathed in deeply. My cave smelled the way it always had and always would: dreadful, perhaps even more dreadful now that it contained two death-scented fire queens instead of just the one.

"I... nothing. Just a nightmare. A nightmare about you."

"Ooh, you're having nightmares about me now are you?" Her tongue rasped against my neck. "Well don't keep it to yourself. What exactly was I doing in your nightmare to get you waking up with such a ghastly scream? Is it something I could try again now you're awake?"

"No, not a good nightmare. A_bad_ nightmare. You - and my cave - and the Pike - you were all... well... nice." I shuddered as I said the word.

"Nice?" I felt her drape her leathery wing over my still-trembling body in sympathy and dig her claws reassuringly into my back. "Don't worry Sedge, it was all a dream. The Pike is barren and blasted. Your cave is an abomination. And I'm a devious black-hearted monstrosity."

I snorted. "Psss! Black-hearted? You? You're a frivolous, flamboyant, frolicking feather fancier. A cowering, clawless cloudspotter, that's what you are."

Marmondwike gave me a little nibble at the base of my wing. "Mmm, I love it when you talk dirty."

I smiled to myself. "You're nothing but a meditating, moralising rock balancer!"

"Yes!" Marmondwike leapt on top of me, straddling me, pinning me on my back with her forepaws pressing down on my wings. She leered down at me with her evil yellow eyes, her tail swishing eagerly. "Tell me more, my gruesome queen," she said in a voice like rusty knives.

I hissed up at her and narrowed my eyes, feeling arousal build within me once again.

"You mediocre, monkey-massaging melon sucker!"

She kissed me forcefully, her tongue lapping liberally all over my snout. "More!" She insisted.

"You pathetic, petal-covered, pollen-spreading photosynthesiser!" I roared up at her, spraying her with acrid spittle. In response she kissed me again, dropping her hips to grind industriously against my own, her scales rubbing insistently against my tender queenhood.

"You, Marmondwike, are nothing but a galloping, grey-minded grass eater!"

"Oh, my queen! My ravishing, filthy-minded, vermin-bodied queen!"

Marmondwike spun around on top of me, still pinning me legs-up against the bed but with her head now poised above my seeping slit. She stuck out her tongue and licked heartily around the opening in my scales, making me squirm. I stared up at her hind quarters and tail, oscillating intriguingly close in front of my eyes. Her gaping queenhood caught my eye, a slit in the black scales leading into a damp and deeper blackness beyond. I licked my lips.

"Marmondwike you mushroom-collecting, milk-drinking ground crawler! Get you dainty lady parts out of my face!"

"Dainty? You despicable creature, Sedge!" She dropped her hips, her loins descending to smother my face, her queenhood slobbering its indescribable putrid wetness over my snout. I shook in barely containable lust, and thrust my tongue deep inside that vile unspeakable orifice, lapping in and out, feeding my unquenchable thirst for her acrid juices. At the same time I felt her own foul tongue thrust itself deep inside my body.

We drank from each other, gripping each other with our claws as we tortured each other with our tongues. The pleasure built inside me, like a fierce belly fully of fire but somehow even hotter, demanding to burst free. But it was Marmondwike who came first. I felt her insides clench and she screamed, a sound like tortured steel being wrenched asunder, and she let out a great jet of flame from her mouth. The feeling of the hot fire tickling over my pussy sent me over the edge and I added my own ear-splitting scream to the air as my whole body throbbed and writhed with pure, unbearable ecstasy.

* * *

"Breakfast."

Marmondwike placed the hunk of charred meat ceremoniously in front of me as I stepped outside. She'd cooked it herself, roasting it with her flame. I leaned down to sniff it, and prodded it with a claw. It was burnt to a black crisp, resembling a lump of charcoal more than a piece of flesh.

I glared at her. "It's barely cooked, you vapid vacillating vegetarian!" I hissed.

She shrugged her wings. "What can I say? I like my meat rare. Take it or leave it."

I took it. We ate together in contented silence, devouring the meat wolfishly, occasionally spitting pieces of bone or gristle over the edge of the rock. In truth, she'd cooked it to perfection, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

"What now, darling?" she asked me when we'd both finished eating. "How do you fancy flying out with me and finding something pretty to burn? I could use a stretch of my wings."

The moorland spread out below where we sat, brutal and austere. The sky was a beautiful damp shade of grey, thick and oppressive. The kind of day that made me want to leap into the air and soar.

"Let's do that," I agreed. "Later. But first, I have a better idea."

"Oh?"

I leered at her. "Yes. First, you're going to mount me like a good little drake."

She curled her tail and arched her spine in mock offence. "A good little drake?!"

"That's right." I stuck out my tongue at her. "My obedient, timorous little mate, ready to submit herself to my every need at a click of my talons. That's you."

I turned to present my rear to her, raising my tail to ensure she had an exquisite view of my inviting queenhood. She stared at me hungrily, her forked tongue flashing out in anticipation.

I clicked my talons, once.

Marmondwike mounted me obediently.

She didn't clamber on top of me; rather she leapt on top of me in a great bound, all four feet landing hard on top of my back and hips with such force that my legs were almost knocked flat under me. She snarled, smoke billowing from her nostrils as she rubbed her muzzle against my neck, four sets of claws digging deep into my scales, her outspread wings darkening the sky like stormclouds.

"Yes, my little drake, that's it!" I hissed encouragingly. "Now pleasure your dreadful mistress! Satisfy her burning needs!"

"Yes, my queen," she said in a meek voice, and began to massage me with her claws. They scratched across my flanks in cruel lines that made me cry out in delight, and her tongue slobbered hot and wet across the back of my neck. I whimpered, breathing in her indescribable reek and letting out a little puff of fire in satisfaction.

Her long neck entwined around my own and she began licking and nibbling under my chin. Entwining a little further I suddenly sank my teeth into the back of her neck, gripping her tight in the spot just behind and between her horns, and held her there.

"Do you need me to fuck you, my loathsome queen?" she asked, her body relaxing into a submissive attitude. I couldn't speak with my teeth gripping her neck, so I just nodded vigorously. Moments later I felt her tail curl around to brush between my hind legs, its tip nudging wonderfully against my tender slit.

"Is this what you want, my queen?" she asked, every bit as though she was terrified that she wasn't fully satisfying me. I nodded again as her tail pushed very slightly inside me, teasingly, the tapered tip stroking me where I needed it the most, becoming slick with my juices. I thought of Marmondwike's tail with its ridge of jutting spiny scales along its whole length and shivered at the thought of it plunging inside me. I could feel the first and smallest spine nudging in and out of me, an irresistible tickle that I wanted to feel much more of.

"May I tell you a secret, my queen?" she asked, a fearful tremor in her voice. I nodded.

"I'm not a good little drake." The submissive tremble was suddenly gone from her voice. "I'm a very big, very bad, fire queen." She pulled her tail from my queenhood, the tip feeling cool and wet as it meandered upwards across my scales, and came to a stop nudging against my anus. Before my brain had time to catch up and realise what was happening, Marmondwike thrust her long, spiny tail deep into my rear in a single brutal thrust.

"AAAAaaaayyyyyyyaaaaaaAAAAAWWW!!!!!"

I screamed in shock as I felt myself completely and comprehensively penetrated, more so than I'd ever felt before or imagined possible. My sphincter had cried out in pain as her broad and spiky tail had forced itself roughly through at high speed with only the little lubrication she'd picked up from my queenhood. But strangely, once it was inside, it felt weirdly compelling having her inside there.

"Marmondwike, you... you..." I struggled to find the words adequate to fully describe the sordid depths of impertinence and depravity she'd just demonstrated. "...You magnificent fire queen!"

"Of course, my love." Her teeth closed around the back of my neck, holding me down as she began to fuck me. At first the grating of her spiny tail against my soft insides as she pushed in and out of me was painful, but I soon realised that it was a flavour of pain which also carried a strange and immense pleasure. And then she twisted her tail slightly so that her spines were rubbing against a very particular spot inside me, and the sensation was enough to make me gasp and squirm, desperate for more.

I could have reached a climax from that attention alone, but I felt her pull her tail out from my anus and slide back down towards my lower opening. At the same time, desiring to inflict torments of pleasure instead of just receive them, I curled my own tail up to meet her damp and demanding queenhood. We both penetrated each other at the same moment, her ridge-endowed tail thrusting itself deep inside my tender passage just as I pushed my own monstrous appendage forcefully inside her depths as far as I physically could.

Marmondwike's teeth didn't once detach from the back of my neck as we fucked each other mercilessly, racing each other to be the first to tip our mate into an orgasm. I cried out again and again in pleasure as she surged in and out of me, her claws digging into my back as I let my tail inflict cruel delights on the big black dragon in return, giving her just as thorough a pounding as I was receiving. We came at the same exact moment, clenching and pulsing around each other's tails in ecstatic delight, Marmondwike releasing my neck as we both screamed our satisfaction into the empty sky.

* * *

Two years later, I sat beside Marmondwike on the rocky ledge outside our cave, looking out over the blasted moorland. There was a strange feeling inside my loins. It was something more than the usual warm glow of satisfaction which follows any really good sex.

"Marmondwike, it worked. I'm pregnant."

My mate smiled at me knowingly. "Then I guess there'll be two little abominations hatching out next autumn..."

"Two? You mean, you're also..."

"Pregnant, yes." She patted her black-scaled belly contentedly, where soon an egg would be taking shape. "That dear little drake of yours did a thorough job."

"I never would've guessed such a wretched little creature would have the stamina to last three rounds with us both."

We both looked back into the cave where Pontefax lay curled up on our bed, sleeping a sleep of utter exhaustion, a look of devilish contentment written across his face.

"Now we're done with him we should drive him from our territory with our flame at his tail," I suggested.

"Ooh, that does sound fun. But let him sleep first. He's earned it, after all."

"He's a pathetically shallow, evil-minded little wretch, isn't he?"

"Yes, dear. That's why I thought he'd make a good father to our children."

"I think he would have made a most satisfactory mate for me, if you hadn't interfered that night."

She gave me a curious look. "Oh?"

"Well as we've just found out, he has a remarkably depraved sexual imagination."

"But not as depraved as mine, surely?"

I gave her a reassuring pat on her paw. "Not even close. Still, I can't believe you actually got him screaming in rapture with just the tip of your tail."

She laughed. "Did you think that was just words?"

"Yes! And now I'm wondering: why have you never done that to me, you uptight spawn of an upholsterer?"

"Perhaps I was just waiting for the right moment?"

"And when's that going to be?"

She flicked the tip of her tail through the air coquettishly. "How about right now?"

Pontefax must have been sleeping exceptionally deeply. He didn't wake when my scream of rapture split the morning air like the dying shriek of a thunder god, brought about by no more than the tip of Marmondwike's tail.