The hour was late. Sasha had put the dirk in a holster and left a worried Esmeralda behind. Her shoes were clicking against the street.

”How well do you know Aiden?” Elias asked.

”I know his reputation and I know Esmeralda is worried. Why shouldn’t she? He fooled me once and I´m weaker now.”

Elias looked around in the shadows, lowering his voice.

”I think I know a way to catch him”, Elias said.

”What do you have in mind, other than brute force?” she primed her lips. He had gone berserk, for nothing.

”There’s nothing wrong with brute force, my sweet little mud wrestler.” Elias put an arm around her waist. “I would love to give you another match at the graveyard.” He bent closer to her ear. “It looks like you could need it.”

“Give me a hint of how to succeed with Aaliyah, and we have a fight”, she hissed.

“If I don’t give you a hint, you would like to fight me nevertheless. I think I pass.” Elias pondered for a while, slowing down his steps as they were heading closer to the castle. “He is born in the dragon nest. That’s why he could go down to the under earth unscratched.”

”Yeah, these are some overpowering creatures.”

”Aiden is an exception, he and me.”

”You?”

”You see, the dragons only follow the queen, and the firstborn daughter of her blood. It’s an old tradition.”

“They are the keeper of the country”, Sasha recalled. “The ultimate defense and the ones that grant the leadership to our royalties.”

She had heard of it, they all had, it was bedtime stories told to the children, the sleeping dragons under the city. They were the ones that would rise when great despair was cursed at folks.

“It’s just myths. They are just living peacefully in the underground and once in a while getting fatter than normal on some stupid human flesh”, she argued. “Did seem well fed to me.”

“It’s not just stories. Believe me, I wished” Elias continued. “Since the queen didn’t get any girl, and by the witches, she has tried. Well, she had the dragons adopting me. It was a real terror.”

“You were down there? And you let him take me down?” It dawned on Sasha then. The footsteps she had heard when in the under the earth. It was his. He had seen her getting caught.

“You can believe whatever you want” Elias just shrugged. “I’m not the one in need of help.”

“Since you took my magic away and since you let Aiden hit me!” What did he want? Get the orb back and kill her? “You let him do your dirty work.”

“You mean after you threaten to kill my father and took away part of my soul?” The arm around her waist tucked hard at her, forcing her closer to his body. “Lower your voice, we are going to upset the guards” Elias hushed at her. He was dragging her close enough to give the impression of two lovebirds. “Lucky for you I happen to like you because your actions are not helping at all, princess.”

They were closing in on the castle and Sasha shuddered. She didn’t want to feel like in prison, and the castle and its inhibitors made her feel like she was. Elias nodded at the guards and probably said something polite. Sasha didn’t bother. She was just pissed off. The dinner had been a disaster, Esmeralda had been none better, and Aiden had slipped away. On top of it, Elias had played her. She didn’t want to pass through that gate.

“I think we have time for a small show before we call it a night,” Elias said and steered her towards the castle garden, pulling her past the gate. “Showing the spoiled princess some part of the real world? Should we?”

“What are you doing?”

He was going in the wrong direction and he had these wild, untamed feelings plastered over his face. Sasha couldn’t figure him out. Where Elias was going was real dark, no torches were burning casting light on the path.

“We are going to pay a visit to the dragons.”

“I’m not going down there with you.” Sasha stopped dead in her tracks. Elias pulled at her, but she didn’t want any more of it. She didn’t like the way he look.

“If I would have wanted to get you killed I would have done so by now. Just do something really uncharacteristic for you.”

“What?” she asked as she looked back at the well-lit path leading up to the castle.

“Just trust me on this one”, Elias said and started to drag her down along the side of the wall holding out one hand to feel his way along the stones.

“Stop!” This didn’t make sense. Why this sudden turnaround and the stern, lucid light in his eyes. “Tell me what you are gaining from this. Why are we going in this direction.”

“Me? Can’t I just be the good guy?”

“But you aren’t.”

“No, I am not” Elias agreed and he took hold of her shoulders. “And you are too strong-willed.”

“Give me a clue, an olive branch. What to do with Aaliyah”, Sasha said. “The keeper of men. Give me something, and I walk with you.”

“I will not give any answers”, Elias said. “This is no bargain.”

He pulled out his magic. It was sweeping around her like whirlwinds, soft strokes of dark matter. He pulled her by her shoulders, looking down at her with fire in his eyes. The yellow was shining like the sun in the dark. His magic was testing her, massaging her shoulders, begging her to go with him, to relax.

“You shouldn’t play with me little rebel”, he said and lowered his face towards hers. She could still turn away, but his yellow eyes caught her breath. They were teasing her, covering her in his magic, but still waiting, letting her know exactly what he planned.

“The kiss of torture”, she exhaled, knowing very well that she had been warned, still craving it.

He closed the distance far too slow, the touch soft, his moves deliberately punishing her for not stopping him, but she just couldn’t. Her complete body was humming in response to his. She didn´t want it to, and she never would confess it, but she craved him. She craved the torture.

“Please”, she whimpered, dragging him closer trying to have him fulfilling the promise that was building up in her body, begging him to end the spell early. Wanting to have the pleasure without the torture, asking him for the favour, seeing the gleam in his eyes, very well knowing he would be the one going winning out of their duel.

He kissed her softly, letting her taste, but not satisfying her need. Then, far too soon, he ended it, turning his head away with ragged breaths.

“Now. You will follow”, he said and let go of her, as if he couldn’t stand touching her anymore.

But she knew he could. She knew he could, and that he wanted to. Unfortunately, he wanted to show her the dragon nest even more. And he would not let her get away. The need inside her would boil until he decided to end it until he granted her another kiss. She had no choice anymore. She would follow him like a puppy, and she hated herself for it. He had given her a choice. It was she that didn’t take it. She who has gambled on him not restrain himself. She had wanted him to want her enough to disregard whose daughter she was, and whose orb she had stolen.

Elias was going down the stairs at a rapid pace, killing the last tiny hope Sasha had. No one would find them. No one would ask what they were doing. The guards were happily standing at the gate, drinking bears when no one saw them.

“It looks scarier in the middle of the night, doesn’t it?” Elias said.

He lit a torch and offered her his hand. Sasha was not afraid of entering the labyrinth neither day nor night. She had been there too often to be surprised by the monsters living there. Going yet another floor down, following Elias to where he was aiming, however, was a completely different story.

“Why are you doing this Elias?”

“You will see. And you should be happy that I care to show you. Believe me, it would be worse if it was the queen that introduced you. I will protect you, as long as you stay close to me they will do nothing, and if I am right about this…”

“About what?” she asked, hurrying after him, getting closer and closer to the second stair. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her. The need was pulsating through her body. Just the thought of losing him out of her sight freaked her out. And he very well knew that. The bastard had counted on it.

It looked crazy. She was going down the staircase to hell in a blue dress, looking like a human sacrifice on her way to the altar. A nice package of meat, a dinner snatch for the creatures she heard moving in the tunnels. She almost didn’t see Elias in the dark, the torch just putting some light to his face and the yellow eyes reflecting towards the wall of mud. Still, she felt no fear. She just felt this crazy joy, the need, as if she was walking down her aisle to her wedding.

“Now Sasha, you take my hand and don’t let go. We will go and find the mother dragon. We will be paying our visit to a real queen.”

Sasha stepped close to Elias, inhaling his scent, willingly following deeper and deeper in the tunnels. She heard the dragons move around, and she saw them looking at her, but they didn’t come any closer. They just put their heads in the next tunnels, curiously looking at the couple walking the labyrinth by night.

Suddenly the tunnel ended and they were looking into o big hall. A lot of tunnels ended up in the same big area, and there, in the middle, in a big pot of mud, she was laying. The tiniest little snake dragon that Sasha had ever seen. Not bigger than her, a creature with a green scale and light blue eyes. When she saw them she moved her head, and in an instant, she lit up the place, lightning a twenty torches with one breath.

“My queen, I have a visitor with me”, Elias bowed in front of the snake, pulling at Sasha’s hand.

She followed suit and bowed, looking at the queen underneath her lashes. Sasha didn’t know what she had thought she would look like, but these soft blue eyes, holding the wisdom of generations, were certainly not what she had in mind. The smoke coming out of her mouth suited much better.

“You. I have been waiting for you”, the queen said, her voice talking inside of Sasha’s head.

She gulped. How was this even possible?

“Me?”

The snake started to move, her small body looked to be flowing above the ground. If the rest of the dragons had moved the tunnels and had Sasha thinking they would collapse above her, this one was like air. Dignified air, with such smoothness it was hypnotizing.

“You smell like her, and still not. Just let me, be still my child”, the queen said and she let her tongue out. Sasha was used to it since last time, and she let the queen take her time. She held out her hand letting the snake taste the air around her.

“I will puncture her Elias. There are two of them, and I'm not convinced which one I want.”

Sasha snatched her hand back, taking a step back just to get enclosed by Elias.

“I will let no-one hurt you, Sasha, not really, it will be quickly over. Relax sweetheart”, he said nuzzling in her back.

Sasha’s body involuntary went limp, gooseflesh all over her.

“Elias”, she moaned. “I…”

The snake punctured her finger just then, quickly, taking Sasha by surprise. She cried, looking at the blood dripping from her fingertip. The snake's tongue savored it, tasted Sasha, the blue eyes intently looking at her. The venom cutting like glass in her finger.

“Pure, just like a baby, so helpless. I’ve never met a princess just as clean, so weak and so”, the dragon tasted the words as if she had to think long before finding the right way to describe Sasha. “Your soul. So filled with willpower”, the queen mused, the eyes suddenly filled with softness.

The snake moved backward, creating some space between herself and Sasha. Elias gently rocked Sasha, singing lullabies to her as the cut in her finger visibly started to heal.

“I like her. I like her very much”, the dragon moved closer again, looking from Elias to Sasha. “I do approve. This one, this one feels like my baby. I will care for her. I will fight for her.”

“She is the right heiress then?”, Elias concluded with a content sigh. “I thought so.”

“Yes, she is”, the queen nodded, “figured you would know.”