Stars faded from the sky as birds began to fill the forests with their musical, raucous calls. Trees lay thick upon the hills of Haedell, the wild never tamed so far east, where humans had yet to spread. The noise was enough to reach Swyena half a mile up, listening from upon her mount as Dumin beat his massive black wings against the air. She smiled as the birds began to go silent, intimidated by his dark silhouette against the blush of dawn.
She had slept in her saddle the night before, exhausted after leaving the earth of the battlegrounds soaked in blood. The king of Haedell had called for the Dragonbrides, begging the aid of their mounts against the unsurmountable hordes of rebels that had backed him into a corner, lead by his own former general. The man was as skilled in tactics and strategy as his former liege was lacking in them, and his advantage had been great. It had taken all day to lay waste to the rebel legions, thousands of former farmers given arms and training that was sufficient to lead them to victory in battle after battle against the professional soldiers of the Royal Army. They had not had a chance against Dragon Riders, but they had fought bravely until the bitter end regardless.
Such struggles always left Swyena tired, not least from how her heart had beat rapidly in terrified exhilaration during every moment of combat, despite how safe she had been from swords and lances, high upon Dumin's back. The dragon was the only real fighter of the pair, unlike some brides who prided themselves on being as dangerous on the ground as their mounts were in the air. Having to associate with her fellowship had also been tiring - there had been endless questions in every spare moment about where she had been before the call, why she had not been seen practically once since her apprenticeship had ended. Hearing them drill her on every detail, one would have thought they were a group of fretting aunts in some village, as opposed to a circle of equals flying miles above a battle. Able to slip away when it was clear the battle was concluding, Swyena had directed Dumin to fly low, then slumped against his warm, sleek neck, and the sound of his wings and heart both beating had quickly lulled her to sleep
Where they were now in relation to where she had been, she did not know. She had the training and equipment to find out, and even better, there was a talisman in her saddle bags that would simply tell her what distance and angle she was from Sunspawn, the home of the Dragonbrides and the largest dragon nest in the world. She did not bother with either. Alone with Dumin was how she liked to be.
Scanning the terrain below, Swyena took in the lay of the land. Glaciers had carved rolling hills thick into the land, and there was not a clearing of decent size to be seen. This did not trouble her much - Dragons could fly for days without landing, and Dragonbrides were given training to let them stay in the saddle for just as long. Despite spending two days and nights upon Dumin, she did not ache, her strong legs strapped against the drake's shoulders and saddlebags full of provisions resting behind her on his sturdy spine.
Idly scratching at Dumin's small scales, she took the time to eat and wash, a skin of soaped water and a cloth coming out of her bags to clean with. Going to sleep after battle meant she was still in her battle garb, a vest and chaps of thick polished leather strapped over her regular clothes, with an oval of layered steel over her chest. All they did was protect the parts of her not protected by Dumin's body, save her arms and face, from arrows and shrapnel. She took them off first, the panels of leather and steel folding up compact to fit inside her bags. Next she removed her tight linen shirt, and finally she undid the buttons down the sides of her legs that allowed her to strip off her pants without removing herself from the saddle.
Nude now, with the warming air of the new day streaming through her short brown hair and across her evenly tanned skin, she began to rub herself with the cloth after damping it with the skin of soapy water. It was cold from the night, and as she slid the rough fabric across her breasts, her pale nipples grew erect. She sighed softly, trying not to let her thoughts stray as she finished washing. Her saddle was waterproof, for riding through the rain and for washing as she was now, but Dumin was sensitive to her scent, and might try to land if she grew too excited.
It was a secret among the Dragonbrides that their name was more than a boastful title, as most outside the order assumed. The process of their recruitment was highly selective, and no girl that would spill the secrets of their position was ever chosen to become one of the few hundred in the world that could ride upon a dragon's back.
Few people in the world knew almost anything about dragons, truth be told. Only that they were unbeatable in battle by mortal men, as unbeatable as an hawk was to a mouse. They were the only natural predator of humans that anyone knew of, and their territory had been pushed back slowly as mankind's had spread, killed one by one by chance or hundreds at a time by nest raids. The last and largest nest, Sunspawn, had only survived because of a group of women who had discovered the secret of taming dragons. They directed the dragons in counterattacks against any foe that meant to kill them or their mounts, fiercely protective of the power their secret granted, power that depended on the species of dragons surviving. No army or assassin had ever made it through, and after hundreds of years of stolid defense, Sunspawn slowly became a place of power among nations, feared but respected, and the order of Dragonbrides had grown.
Swyena Ryllyn had been recruited from a village on the outskirts of a conflict between two nations that disputed the lands she lived in. The war had gone on for years, with the Dragonbrides intervening but rarely, yet she had never missed being close enough to see those powerful shapes in the sky when the battle was nearby. In place of a social life, she had taken up what few books there were in her village relating to dragons, reading them over and over, sketching the peeks of dragons she got so she could stare for longer, fantasizing about riding them one day. When the war had ended, a Dragonbride had come to her village to deliver news of what king they would now be bound to, and to ask if there were any among the girls of the village who thought they had the steel in their spines sufficient enough to join and rise in the order.
Despite a distinct lack of steel in her spine, Swyena had been practically pushed forward by her family, who had come to consider her a useless layabout with her head in the clouds. She had been awkward in her body then, an ugly duckling they thought unlikely to even marry well, and they were eager to pass her off. She had stood trembling before the cold eyed gaze of the Dragonbride, though it was more the giant dark green shape of her drake curled behind her that had weakened her knees, and with excitement instead of fear.
Her first ride had taken her breath away, strapped into a saddle attached behind the woman's own. The beauty of the land below her, the magnificent strength and power of the beast between her legs, the most dangerous animal alive tamed and held to her thrall... That first taste had been enough to make her certain she would have her own dragon whatever it took.
That eagerness had served her well in her training, where she had absorbed the ten thousand things a Dragonbride had to know with a mind like a sponge, never needing to be told a thing twice. Her fascination with the dragons had fuelled her quick rise among the ranks, and despite her lack of ability in combat, it was clear to those in charge of the training that she would be a more than sufficient rider. It had taken years, during which she had gone from awkward to passing fair, though there were no men to notice. She had hardly noticed herself, engulfed in her training, consumed by her need to have a dragon of her own, a need that burned in her bones every waking moment and filled her dreams when she slept.
It was in the last month of her training, when she had already passed every test of confidence and knowledge that a Dragonbride must submit to, her position among the ranks already assured, when she was told the final secrets a Dragonbride must know. Upon the mesa of Sunspawn, she had been taken up through the fortress carved in the rock to the sheltered flat top, where the dragons were bred and fed.
Parts of the secrets were known to her, before she saw. She had known from her training that dragons did not land, save to eat or to mate. They did not even land to sleep. She had known that the only dragons that could be ridden were males, the drakes. She had even known that most dragons were born female, but that most females died before laying eggs. She just had not put it together. No one ever had before seeing, or else the secret of the Dragonbrides would have been known.
There upon the top of Sunspawn, she had watched as female dragons only weeks old, fully grown but still no larger than a man, had been pinned to the ground and mounted by drakes as large as five horses. It seemed the females were built to take the disproportionate mating, as the shafts half as large as they were did not split them, but still many died from the rough coupling. Those few that were only injured afterward were promptly taken into the air by the male, and did not return until they were ready to lay. After laying, the male would eat them. While Swyena had watched, heart pounding as each part of the life cycle displayed by a different pair of dragons, a Dragonbride had explained.
The mating habits of the dragons were the key to taming them. Why more female dragons were hatched than males was not known, but the males ensured only the strongest females survived to bear eggs, which was truthfully their only function. Male dragons were already the perfect predator, limited only by their intelligence, which was only slightly higher than a dog's. When a female died as they mated, they seemed not to care, eating the dead female as they would eat a man. When the female survived however, the drake would become extremely protective of her, fending off other males and any threat that came near, taking her away to hunt for her and feed her. No male would ever harm a living female after mating until she laid his eggs.
This protective instict was what gave human females the ability to ride the drakes. All that had been needed was a way to consistently survive the mating, and it had been a simple matter to procure talismans that allowed a woman to temporarily grow to a size large enough to accomodate a dragon. Male dragons already preferred the largest female available, even to the point of mating with a larger female of another species instead of a female of their own kind. They would spurn a fertile female dragon without regret, in favor of a Dragonbride grown to nearly their own size. Even after they reduced themselves to normal size, the protective instinct that took hold of the drake would remain, her smell imprinted on his mind. He would protect her with his life, feed her if she grew hungry, allow him to ride him without complaint. Nothing she could do would prompt him to harm her in any way. It was simple to train a drake once those things were true.
"Of course," the Dragonbride had continued, completing her explanation to a Swyena who had weak-kneed and redfaced as she had heard all this, "It is only neccessary to mate once... since we cannot bear eggs, the protective instinct never wears off. No need to worry about being eaten." She had smiled, perhaps attempting to console Swyena, who must have looked nervous to her. Nervousness was what she would have expected, after telling a girl she had to lay down with a dragon.
Swyena had not been nervous, then or now. In truth, she had been struggling to hide a feeling of excitement she had not known before in her young life, a flush of arousal so powerful it was all she could do not to pant with eagerness. Embarrassed with herself, she had played along with the expectations shown to her, but brooked no delay in being allowed to select her drake. Her mate. Her husband.
Head swimming with thoughts of being pressed up against one of the perfect beasts, so powerful and dangerous, an animal that would be so rough in using her it would kill her at the size she was now, it was all she could do not to rub her thighs together as she had gazed upon all the dragons seeking a mate upon Sunspawn. Dragons were streamlined creatures, with every piece of their body that faced forward rounded or angular in order to split the wind, all their backward edges tapered into points or wedges. Their heads were blunt, jaws and eyes fitting into a head as rounded as a pestle, nostrils flaring as they sniffed for a female. The only part of them that wasn't aerodynamic was their cocks, two and a half feet of purple flesh as wide around as both Swyena's arms put together, flat-headed and dripping with a slick, musky precum. She trembled at the sight of them, and it was those she looked at more than shape or color in order to determine the drake she wanted.
Finally, thighs practically coated in the evidence of her arousal, she had approached the male she had chosen for her mate. The talisman was tight around her neck, and she had been marked with the scent of a female dragon so that the drake would not immediately take her for prey. Every step towards it was a risk of collapsing, the sight of the beast that she would name Dumin exciting her more than any human man she had seen, her eyes locked upon his brutal, twitching cock. She wanted to do more things with that cock than she knew how to put a name to, but in the sight of other the Dragonbrides who supervised her rise into their order, she had only done as she was told was neccessary.
The first step was to lie down, as had been emphasized many times to her by her teacher. The talisman would make her larger, but the human body was not built to be as large as a dragon. If she had remained standing, her ankles would snap under her increased weight, and her pelvis would crack when she hit the ground. Laying down she would be fine, but it was still advised she not put too much strain upon her wrists if she felt like reaching out.
Second, she had activated the talisman, slowly running her finger along a swirl inlaid into the disc that hung from her neck on a choker. She had begun to grow at once, slowly increasing in size as she peered down her body, watching the black dragon between her breasts and spread legs. When she was the same size as he, she stopped tracing the swirl, and ceased to grow.
Then it was for her dragon to approach her, interest suddenly intense in his eyes as he sniffed at the largest female he had ever seen, his dripping cock now only as large as a human man's member might be, proportional to her.
He did not waste time. As soon as she stopped growing, the drake had prowled towards her, padding on four legs thick with muscle that was sharply defined against the thin scales of its skin. His muzzle drew close to her pussy, taking the briefest sniff of her arousal before rising back up. Swyena had trembled, fingers digging into stones that had been as large as her head a moment ago, bracing herself, unable to wait.
What had almost stopped her heart, though, was the moment she had somehow missed in all her fantasizing between the time she was told what was to happen and the moment itself. When the drake had mounted her, it had crawled atop her body, laying against her as tenderly as any man. Its blunt head perched at the tip of a neck as long and sleek as a swan's, and its eyes had regarded her, meeting her own gaze. She had looked back at the drake, her nervousness suddenly gone, stilled by a growing shock in recognizing the emotion dwelling in those eyes. The drake, whatever the Dragonbrides and her teacher had told her, already loved her.
That thought filled her head as the dragon pressed its body firm against hers, the heat of its shaft against her slit making her gasp. She could not resist lifting her hands to stroke the dragon's spine, to feel its strong back and reach down to guide it inside her. It seemed surprised, but not enough to stop. The tight heat of her was enough to trigger its instincts beyond recall, and it let out a sound of pleasure as it plunged inside her, the noise twining with her own moan as the drake took her maidenhead. The pain was so sweet, the feeling of the dragon's cock so intense, that it soon seemed to her that the world had gone away except for her and her mate. Heedless of what the watching Dragonbrides would think, she had caressed every inch of that perfect, predatory body, even going so far as to kiss his muzzle before her lips broke away in a cry of orgasm. She could not lift her legs to twine them around her lover, but her toes curled and her thighs trembled as she squeezed her eyes shut, shocks of pleasure coursing up her spine as the thrusting shaft inside her set off a surge of ecstasy like she had never felt before.
The final perfection of that day was that the drake, eyes still locked upon her own, finished with her. With a roar, he had dug his claws into the ground above her shoulders, neck twined against her body, scales rubbing against her breasts. The flare at the tip of his cock swelled, and she felt more sweet pain as it stretched her just below her womb, locking itself deep inside her. The heat of the cum he filled her with was beyond anything she knew a man's could be, almost burning her inside, like hot wax filling her up. It was the most wonderful feeling, even better than her own orgasm, to know that she had made him cum. She almost cried with happiness, stroking her lover's neck over and over while the dragon panted in her ear, the dragon that was now hers for the rest of her life. It was everything she'd ever wanted, and that getting it had felt so good had only made it seem so much more right.
Kissing Dumin one last time as he had pulled out of her, she had laid there, basking in the sun and her afterglow while the dragon puzzled how to pick up a creature as large as he was, snapping at other drakes who wanted to mate with the magnificently large female they smelled. The hot cum leaked out of her, dribbling over her asshole and onto the ground, making her tremble and feel faint regret that she couldn't really carry the dragon's eggs. She loved him enough even then that she would have done it, even knowing what it meant.
It had taken an effort of will to press the spot in the center of the talisman that disabled the size-changing effect, slowly reducing her to original size until she laid upon the smooth clean stone, the furrows dug by her massive fingers as she had clutched at the ground in her pleasure scoring the ground to either side of her. After fending off one last male, the dragon had turned to her, and with the problem of her size solved, it wasted no time on wondering how or why she had shrunk before bending down to allow her to scrabble onto his back.
The cum had not shrunk with her, and hot gouts of it leaked down into her legs as she shakily stood up to climb on, her belly protruding a little from how much filled her. She liked the feeling, even though it hurt a little to be stretched full. Climbing up, working the muscles of her belly as she scrabbled onto his back, she thought she even liked how it hurt a little, as long as she knew it hurt because she had made her dragon feel good.
Seating herself against the drake's spine that first time, in the spot at the base of his neck where an impregnated female dragon would cling, she had contented herself that the rest of his cum would stay inside her as they rode away for their first flight. He would want to feed her, and she would have to eat, but after that she would return to saddle and bags packed, waiting for her to strap them on while her dragon fed. There was no waiting with a dragon - when she returned, she would have as long as it took him to finish eating to saddle him and dress, then they would be off to fly and wander the world until a call came.
As the drake beat his wings for his first flight with his bride, Swyena had laid herself against his neck, protected from the wind by the arch of his spine. Stroking his scales with her hands and holding on tight, she had closed her eyes, focusing only on the feel of her dragon, the sensation of his cum inside her and the sweet ache of their mating that remained. "Your name is Dumin," she crooned lovingly, listening to his wings beat, watching the ground fall away. "And you are mine."
Smiling with fond remembrance of that first flight, Swyena looked around again, almost dry after the bath, the sun now well above the horizon and the ground below them considerably less hilly. Despite her attempts to control her thoughts, a slight stickiness between her pussy and the saddle was obvious, and she had done enough inadvertent training that Dumin was already angling towards the ground. The place he was aiming for seemed mostly clear, though a little rough for Swyena's tastes. Still, she couldn't help but shiver a little in anticipation, already reaching back for the talisman that would allow her to change her size. She had requested it from the Dragonbrides after her first flight, and they had one on hand for her to take, though it had not been included among her provisions without her asking. Some had seemed embarrassed for her, and others had grinned wryly, but none of them criticized her. It seemed what she had enjoyed, others had as well before her. With the solitary life of a Dragonbride, it was no wonder some of them took their title and made it truth.
Just as she had unbuttoned the clasp for the bag that held the talisman, Dumin landed, almost crashing from not reducing his speed properly in his eagerness to reach the ground. Swyena yelped, kept from flying from the saddle only by the straps holding down her legs, hands flinging out to try and catch the contents of the bag as they flew out and onto the ground, clattering about some twenty feet away before coming to a rest.
Cursing, she hastily undid the straps, climbing down naked and heading towards the place she thought she had seen the talisman go. She didn't want to wait, and more than that, she didn't want to make Dumin wait. The poor creature was already rock hard, eyes following her intently, prowling behind her as she went to her knees to search around the bushes.
"Damn it," Swyena muttered in frustration, seeming to find everything from the bag except for the talisman. "Where is it.... Come on..." Whining, she rubbed her legs together, still filled with memories of that first mating. She wanted it so badly, especially some of the new things she had tried with Dumin since going their own way. The taste of him was another memory in her mind, and more and more she had been trying to make herself tighter for him by not increasing her size fully - though she had to admit she enjoyed getting stretched, enjoyed feeling pain for Dumin's pleasure.
It was hardly a minute spent searching before she felt the nudge of Dumin's head against her back, trying to nuzzle her and turn her over. She patted his head, telling him in soothing tones to wait. Another woman might have felt a spark of fear, then, but she only felt bad for telling her beloved dragon he couldn't have what he wanted right now.
It was five minutes and seven nudges later before Swyena turned around, kissing her dragon between the eyes. "Dumin," she chided, hugging his big head to her chest. "You just have to wait until I find the talisman, then I promise you can have me as much as you want."
Not understanding, Dumin huffed a hot breath against her belly, then breathed in slowly. With a simple push forward of his head, he knocked her onto her back, and her legs flew apart as she gasped. "Dumin!" she said, laughing at his playfulness. "What are you-"
That was when the drake moved forward, head gazing down at her before the huge bulk of his torso completely blocked the sky above her, his huge cock moving forward and jabbing, trying to find a target that was significantly smaller than he was used to. Instinct was guiding him though, and he was beginning to seek lower, where a normal female dragon would be. One thrust pressed against her breast, coating it in hot precum before he tried again, missing her completely this time.
A sudden realization had come over Swyena, filling her mind to the exclusion of anything else. She was just a normal female dragon to Dumin, and he would mate with her now, whether she wanted him or not. Whether it killed her or not.
She wasn't very scared, and what fear she had wasn't from the idea of dying. She would do anything for Dumin, her beloved dragon. No, that wasn't it. What scared her was admitting, to herself, that this was what she had wanted, ever since she saw dragons mating for the first time. Maybe even before then, with her obsession with the only natural predator of humankind. She wanted to be tested against that strength, to submit to it. To let a dragon have her totally. She had teased herself, shrinking a little more with each mating, doing things that hurt just so she could tell herself it was what Dumin liked. Maybe even without losing the talisman, she would have ended like this, after she had shrunk just a little bit too much during mating. She wouldn't have regretted it even then.
Spreading her legs, she reached up to take hold of Dumin's cock, crooning to him as she guided it, something he was used to now. "Dumin, my sweet drake... I couldn't let you go back in the sky like this." She shuddered as the huge cock pressed against her, jabbing against her but not even entering at all, too thick to slip in. "Press harder, my love... hard until it feels good." Her hands caressed his chest, encouraging him, legs trembling with excitement as she held them apart. Her voice was perfectly steady, despite what was about to happen. "It's okay to break me," she murmured, reaching down to hold her pussy lips apart, finally getting a little bit inside. "It's okay to... kill me... please, Dumin. Do it. I want it." Her voice became needy, pussy twitching as the dragon suddenly stopped moving, digging in his back legs.
With a jerk forward, the dragon split her, tearing through the thin separation of flesh between her pussy and asshole, Swyena's eyes going wide as she screamed. Even then, she pushed herself down against him, using all her strength to hold onto the ground she he could thrust into her instead of impaling her and jerking her around like a doll on his cock. There was so much pain already, but she welcomed it, wanted it. Tears streamed down her face, but a smile was on her lips, a twisted pleasure growing in her brain. Blood leaked down her thighs, and she helped Dumin thrust into her again, only gasping this time as the dragon tore into her abdomen, ripping apart her colon and womb, crushing them against her intestines as the flat tip of his cock buried itself in her abdominal cavity.
Still only half his length was inside her, though, and Swyena would deny her dragon nothing, and did not want him to stop regardless. The ecstasy of being destroyed had her in its grip, and she wouldn't stop until there was nothing of herself left to break. One hand was flicking at her blood-coated clit, the other feebly trying to pull Dumin deeper. She couldn't speak, but her moan was pleading, and the dragon understood well enough.
His next thrust broke a rib as it skewed sideways, but it was enough. Sobbing, Swyena had the strongest orgasm of her life, the torn remains of her inner muscles twitching as she climaxed. The next thrust redoubled her pleasure, and she suddenly stopped sobbing as she felt her heart skip a beat, the pain of destruction surrounding the precious, throbbing heat of Durin's cock inside her. She was nothing but a receptacle for his shaft, she realized. Just like the female dragons. Her body would end as nothing more than a sheath for him, filled with his cum... then digested in his belly.
Trembling from blood loss and pleasure, she stroked Durin's shaft, still with six inches left to take. "More," she begged, weakly. "More, my love. Give me all of it. We can't go back now... I'm done. Use me up." She shed a single tear, a brief sadness piercing her ecstasy. "I'm sorry... I'm too weak and small to give you eggs." It was nonsensical, but the sorrow of it filled her, right before the final thrust ran home, driving away all thoughts. Those were the last words of Swyena Ryllyn.
Dumin's cock twitched, making her belly deform, her broken ribs moving with it in a way that made her groan and touch her clit. Her fingers were weak, but she rubbed it with all she had, her undamaged mind still filled with arousal, still able to feel what was happening and loving it. She watched him pull back, gasping wetly, and spread her legs a fraction for him, all she could manage with her strength.
The flat tip of the drake's cock plunged through her, filling the path it had torn, then tearing more. Ripping up her esophagus, it came to rest, by chance, pressed against her heart. The engine of her life throbbed, stuttering at the touch of the massive intruder, and Swyena's vision flickered. She recalled suddenly a lesson from her training, words spoken by another Dragonbride. "It is the nature of a dragon to always go for the heart". She would have laughed, but instead, she only gave Dumin's chest one last loving caress.
Burning hot cum pulsed into her, coating her heart and snuffing its life like water extinguishing a hot coal. As she faded, she had a few precious seconds to feel gallons of fertile seed, almost hot enough to sear her torn flesh, filling up her body like the useless receptacle it was. With that thought, and a feeble flick of her bloody fingers across her rock-hard clit, she came. Still cumming, she died, smiling beatifically, a willing sacrifice to her lover's pleasure.
Dumin pulled away from the female, sniffing her as his shaft softened, wet with seed and blood. She had died. Sorrow filled Dumin at the realization, but no regret. It was the way of small loved females to die.
Craning his long neck, he began to clean his shaft, taking little time. He pondered how the female had survived other matings, yet never laid eggs. He had loved her very much, and would have protected her until her laying no matter how long it took, but now she had died without laying them. He was supposed to protect her, yet he had loved her again and killed her. That was strange, and confusing.
Still, he knew what he must do. Since he had not successfully mated upon this landing, he must eat. Deeper than anything, as firm as the knowledge that told him that if he did not flap his wings he would fall to the ground, he knew that he must eat or mate each time he landed. One, or the other.
Turning to the female who had been loved by him and died, he bit away her flesh from the bones, tasting his own seed in the offal. That was the way of things, and he did not regret. He ate, and took to his place in the sky, coasting and sailing, flapping his wings as he left the remains of the female who had been so strange far behind. He turned his course to the place known to men as Sunspawn, known to him as the place where he was born, the place where he might find a mate who did not die when loved.
