The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

Sharp. Barbed. Impossible to remove once it caught on meat. The meat of Jack’s mind.
    The hot sweat of pain turned icy on his back. The burn of scraped skin beneath the manacles numbed. All discomfort gathered in his brain, a concentrated mass of terror.
    “This will only hurt for a little while, boy,” Rejiia cooed. The lines of her face softened into sensuous pleasure. Her breasts strained against the rich fabric of her gown. Her body radiated seduction. “Give me your thoughts. Join your mind with my mind, your body into my body. Share with me the ultimate intimacy.”
    Jack’s breathing deepened against his will, until it matched Rejiia’s heavy rhythm of passion. His heart pounded in his ears and his body strained to fulfill her promise of the sexual delights.
    His thoughts returned to Katrina and the few moments of openness they’d shared within the shelter of his armor. Sweet, innocent, honest. Reluctant to give herself to any man without love, with less than total commitment from both of them. A sweetness he’d never know.
    Rejiia had offered herself to him once before. Not from passion, but in payment. She was a whore. A filthy, amoral, spiteful, selfish whore.
    Sickened by her, Jack’s body and mind lost all interest in Rejiia. But he continued the litany of her vile attributes. “Incestuous bitch! Adulteress. Traitor. I will kill myself before I betray my Commune. The transport spell dies with me as it should have died with the passing of the Stargods.”
    “I love to rape innocent boys, ” Rejiia sighed with pleasure as she blew the pulsing probe from her hand as if sending a lover’s kiss. “They learn to revel in the pain! ”
    Jack slammed his eyelids closed, praying that the probe wouldn’t gain entrance to his mind through a vulnerable eye.
    A slight whirring sound circled his head. Pressure built, squeezing his skull, demanding he open himself. More pressure until he thought his head would explode with it. His eyes seemed to bulge and his ears filled with a roar of unnatural sound. He fought the urge to cry out, to open any part of himself.
    Think of quiet. Peace. Solitude. A gentle brook babbling down a mountain side. Hot springs filling a pool with enough warmth to bathe. Calubra ferns screening the path . . . the path back to the clearing.
    “The clearing . . .” he heard himself say. “Brevelan’s clearing.”
     
    Katrina watched in fascinated horror as Jack twisted and writhed as much as his bonds would allow. He fought the slimy black arrow of magic with eyes closed and muscled hunched.
    She knew the moment Rejiia’s spell penetrated Jack’s defenses. His body relaxed, his face lost all expression and he began to speak. Incoherent words, gibberish, or a foreign language.
    Rejiia flushed with embarrassment at this failure in communication. Then she screwed up her face into ugly contortions, concentrating her will on her victim. His words finally made sense.
    “To find the clearing, take the path behind the pub, up hill to a large boulder split in two. The path seems to go around the boulder. You must step through the broken halves . . .” Jack recited in a monotone.
    “Yes, yes, but what pub? Where?” Rejiia stamped her foot in frustration.
    “Fishing village of no name. Step through the two broken halves of the boulder, under the fallen tree and onto a game trail . . .”
    “Where is the fishing village?” Rejiia screamed. Her hands reached for her perfect hair as if to tear it from her scalp. At the last second she thought better of her actions. “Fetch me some Tambootie, Simeon. I must press him harder.”
    “No name village south of the capital. The game trail ends at a creek. Wait for the opening. Brevelan opens the path to those in need of her healing.” Jack sagged against his chains as if unconscious. Sweat ran in rivulets down his cheeks and chest.
    Katrina hoped he’d passed beyond the pain and guilt of succumbing to the spell. When he awoke, he’d be chilled and she wouldn’t be able to comfort him.
    In frustration she yanked at her chains. Simeon glared at her for quiet. His lips curled in a feral snarl, exactly like the expression on the face of the tin weasel. Katrina ceased her struggle.
    “We will come back to Brevelan’s clearing, boy. Give me the transport spell,” Rejiia demanded. A fat oily leaf as broad as her palm appeared out of nowhere and drifted into her outstretched hand. She nibbled the tip of the leaf and licked droplets of oil