You may be wondering why this is so long. I honestly couldn't tell you the reason, other than I had fun writing this despite how long it took. Sometimes you just have to let a story take you for a ride and not ask where it's going or why.

My heartfelt thanks goes to the one who put up with reading all my drafts and edits across the many months and helped me out immensely along the way. You know who you are. I love you to bits.

My (late) birthday gift to you all. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

All the characters in this belong to me.

Note: This story greatly exceeds the limits FA can display in the description panel. I strongly urge you to download the file and read that instead of the preview here.

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Traes had never been what you would call a heavy sleeper. Sleep was a function that eluded him for his brief thirty-three years of existence, dreams that hallucinogenic trip he’d never know the joy of having. There was little loss, he believed until today, in not longing for a fleeting thing like sleep, wasting hours, years, in bed on a tedious maintenance routine. He didn’t need it. Not much, anyway. He’d always be up hours before his alarm ever thought of going off the rare week he did, brimming with some sort of restless energy when dawn couldn’t muster the strength to paint its daily portrait. It didn’t matter if it was work, or a lazy Sunday at home with his mate, Calli – there was just something in him that’d never let him sleep. High metabolism, the doctors figured. Well, whatever it was, he never had a problem with this peculiar quirk of his, until now, of course. How the dragon hated it all the more. Already he could feel the haze of stillness lifting from his stiff red limbs, like a thick blanket being pulled off of him, life stirring in the claws that held Calli in his embrace, hard black nails scratching the golden scales of her bare back between her furled wings. The rumbling purr of her throat accompanied the swell of brown scales, her chest, smooth against his coarse, blunt snout, before it fell with her soft sigh and snore. Warmth, the gentle breeze of her breath, poured over him, rustling the black spines of his hair as though they were grass. Discomfort wormed its way across his once serene face as she held him tighter; her breath smelled of sweet and sour, her breasts smelled of lavender, of sweat from a late summer’s night of love making. She smelled wonderful. Another sense warning him that he would soon awaken. He wished he could will himself to sleep forever, cradled in the embrace of his love so he wouldn’t have to face today, her body eternally entwined with his, head on her chest, so her calm heartbeat could tell him that everything was all right, would be all right. But that energy told him to get up. A sudden chill raked his rough scales, numbed his face and fingers as tear streaked eyes fluttered open, dull gold peering into the darkness at Calli. Traes had always been an early riser, and for the first time in thirty-three years he wished he wasn’t. Today was test day. Today was the day he would die.

He pulled his head away from her chest and lay there for a moment breathing hard, pleading silently with himself to calm down. Just trying made him shudder. ‘Don’t let it be in bed,’ he begged himself not to say. “Here goes,” came out instead.

His claws clutched the sheets as though grasping for his wits before he summoned the courage to peer cautiously over his shoulder. His head wouldn’t turn any further than that, least something in the room had been rigged to impale him if any part of his body moved too far the wrong way. Over before it began. The dragon closed his eyes and tried to recall exactly how everything looked when they went to bed: where their clothes lie shed and scattered on the carpet; where their belongings should be on the dressers, whether they were standing, or on their sides, which way their labels were facing. Then he opened his eyes, and spotted his first trial: a lone wire thinner than the tip of his claw, inches away from his head and glittering ominously in the moonlight. It wound around the ivory posts on his side of the bed, a slim strand running between them like the first thread of a spider’s web, low enough to catch any part of him that could’ve rolled out. And around the post by his tufted tail, it climbed to a small hook in the ceiling that didn’t exist five hours ago, directing his worried gaze to ten inches of spring-loaded steel eager for his skull.

A sigh of dread. And relief. ‘Figures. What else?’

He pulled his eyes off the blade and scanned their bedroom for more threats. They quickly fixated on something far more innocent: the plate of sweet and sour chicken on his nightstand. They were watching a movie last night, he recalled; Calli had left it on her side of the bed, within easy reach of her fingers. Low growling filled his throat as his face twisted into a snarl, white sharpness rivaling the metal suspended over his head. Anger turned inward on its source as heat licking his throat, as a growing headache festering at the edges of his vision. The sinister implication that they went through her things, touched her belongings, upset him more than the weapon or the wire. They told him she wouldn’t be involved. He was a fool to take them at their word when he knew they would bend the letter to suit their motives: moving it wasn’t doing her a kindness. It was warning him to be careful, or she’ll be punished for his mistakes. A sudden, sad pang welled up in him. Grim realization dampened the embers of his rage, it made him deflate and put away the fangs.

‘I’m so stupid.’ Of course she was involved – he got her involved the day they met. Five years and one marriage later, not once he considered telling her about the second life that was prepared for him, the identity conceived on his birth that would one day dismantle all he had built for himself. He danced around the dreaded date for just as long, dressing the occasion in something harmless; an audition at first, then later a contest. The current disguise was a black belt test. Anything other than what was to occur, what he was meant to become – an assassin. If he succeeded. No matter how often he begged her to take an overnight trip, stay over at a friend’s place, her parents’, anywhere, she insisted on staying home for the fateful day, because it was her birthday, and she didn’t want to spend it with anyone else. Well, today was the day and their bedroom was trying to kill them.

‘It’s too late. Don’t dwell on it now. Go.’

Their bedding ritual the redscale performed in reverse. He let go of Calli’s back, uncoiled his legs and tail from hers. His chest hummed with her snoring, his strong thighs sliding against hers under the covers, rugged red on smooth gold then blue cotton as he untangled himself from the warmth of her body and the sheets, then stood on the bed. The length of his tail wound around his ankles and toes, coiling up like a serpent so it wouldn’t trip the trap lurking inches away. Then he rose, slowly, hands outstretched above him, until the blade’s hilt fit his grip perfectly, cold as death. A free claw was ready to cut the cord when something warm touched his tail. Wide eyes shot down and saw Calli’s hand grab his foot. Her snout pressed against it, shoving his tail aside to reach it. She was still asleep when she muttered, “Gimme that hot dog, I’m starving.”

Then she bit him. Hard.

Traes bit his tongue so he wouldn’t scream at the rows of needle razors slicing through scale and flesh. He could taste blood as he shook his leg to pry her off, gently at first, harder when her strong jaws wouldn’t relent. Her head and neck flopped loosely with his pained flailing, her snoring and salivating maw refusing to release his foot even as he thrashed her about like a fish on the hook.

“Let go, you idiot!” he snarled at her through red, grit teeth.

She didn’t. Hopping around on one leg unbalanced him, threatened to topple him and set off the trap before he could disarm it. Teetering closer to the edge, the wire; try as he might, he couldn’t right himself in time. He fell and the line snapped. His heel or his tail cut the line, he didn’t know which. But a lucky swipe caught the blade and brought it down with the dragon as he dropped off of bed with a yell, nearly taking his mate when him when he crashed on the floor.

Traes’ hard landing woke Calli. Half of her hung over the edge of the bed when he hit the ground, still holding her mate’s foot between her teeth when the impact made her spit it out. Bleary eyed and mush-tongued, she yawned and opened her blue eyes, wet sapphires taking in the blurry sight of his sole in her hand, then him.

“What are you doing down there, Traes?” she mumbled, her words slurred and faint. The back of her hand rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she licked her lips. She didn’t notice his blood on her tongue, or the blade his other foot kicked under the bed. He was lucky it didn’t slice him up on the way down.

He rubbed the back of his throbbing head and winced. It stung at the touch. “I, uh, was going to go to the bathroom, but you were feeling frisky?”

Calli gathered the sheets and slid back into bed, covering her breasts and back, her folded wings. The goldscale frowned and squeezed his foot, fingers sinking into warm, firm sole. “Honey, you know feet really aren’t my thing. That’s your thing.”

Four red toes grazed her face. His broad span thumped her gently from the chin to the top of her horned head, careful to keep the blood away from her. He didn’t think about the wound until then, or how she’d react if she noticed her handiwork. So he allowed himself to smile along with this flimsy lie. “Says the pretty lady that’s got the taste of my foot in her mouth. But I still need to go to the bathroom.” He didn’t see her lick her lips in confusion; he was nodding to the closed door on the other side of the room. “So, mind letting me go?” His big toe stroked her forehead, trying its best to butter her up. “Pretty please?”

Calli smiled, and her grip on his foot tightened. Her long tail picked up behind her, its ridge of short brown spines pulled the blanket from her body, exposing her back and unfurling wings to him as though she were undressing. Riding the air, it swayed like a prowling cat’s, her eyes of midnight blue more interested in the dragon on the floor than the part of him she held. She started from the legs, her moonlit view of vermillion landscape tip-toeing along those long limbs, the bulge of muscle obvious under his scales even in the dark. The same went for his crotch, she decided. The dragoness watched her lover shift uncomfortably under her wink and widening smirk, before climbing the russet hills of a lean stomach and chest molded through years of ceaseless work. She knew her mate had a sleep problem, and lot of pent up energy. He put the former to work around the house and in the gym, and they remedied the latter issue together in bed. How his effort shone those sculpted shoulders and arms. He was a modest height, just over six feet. Even though she was half a foot taller, she still liked to rest her head on him sometimes, on the middle of his chest, just to feel him rise and fall so she could swoon like a schoolgirl. The sweep of an angular snout and the upward curve of four black horns directed her to his golden gaze, eyes she greedily drank in. Nervousness pulled them away, but her smile drew them back. They were guarded, and a little awkward. Just like him.

She kissed Traes’ sole, then released him. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Calli made space for her mate as he clawed the bedding to pull himself up. Halfway into bed, all too eager to oblige his mate, his brain chastised him for trying. ‘Focus, dammit!’ Hunched over her, he snorted, pursed his lips, and put a hand on his stomach. He looked at the chicken sitting on his nightstand, then her. “I don’t know about that. That sweet and sour did a number on me. Must be going bad.”

Her tail drooped. So did her smile. “I had a bunch last night and I feel fine. You didn’t eat a bite.”

“That’s why it’s on my side of the bed now. I had some after you feel asleep.”

Her brow furrowed. “You fell asleep before I did.”

‘…Crap.’

Calli did a double take when she saw her mate bend over in pain. He slid out of bed and lurched toward his nightstand. He reached for the plate; she lunged for the food. “H-Hey, that’s mine!” But his body was faster. Were it not for the solid leg that caught her stomach halfway out of the bed, she would’ve fell from it.

Traes put on an apologetic smile. His feet rushed for the bathroom, mouth sprinting through words. “Can’t talk, food didn’t agree with me. I’ll toss it, don’t worry!”

“But we got it last” –with nothing to hold her up, she tumbled out of the bed and onto the floor, head over heels, a sprawling mess– “I didn’t finish it, Traes!”

Her protests fell on the hard slam of the bathroom door. Traes flipped the light switch and leaned against the door, its cold wood unpleasant to his bare back and wings. His naked reflection in the mirror breathed hard and winced under the harsh fluorescent light. In that moment of sober clarity that only dawned on him after the fact, he realized that they were very fortunate to still be alive. In his carelessness to remove one danger, his actions could’ve set off so many more. He had no idea the number of hazards he dodged between the bed and the bathroom, their method of dispensing death, nor could he have noticed in his haste; he didn’t think about the potential for poison on the doorknob, for knives that could fly with the flip of a switch. He’d hoped to deal with everything while she slept, blissfully ignorant of all the ways they could die. If she started to move now…

The chicken in his hands was shaking. His reflection took in a ragged breath. ‘One disaster at a time.’

First thing’s first, the food: it didn’t look discolored. He pushed tangy, golden-brown goodness closer to his snout to catch a careful whiff for any obvious odors. Nothing out of the ordinary – or the peppery aroma of orange sweet and sour sauce, still going strong after so many hours of sitting out in the open, masked any trace of toxins. He thought about trying one. After all, if he was supposed to die, at least he wouldn’t go down hungry. But he pushed the urge, and the plate, aside. They had all night to tamper with it. They could have tainted a piece, the sauce, or left it untouched – just to delay and distract him, to plague him with fear and doubt. That, too, was part of the test. He wasn’t about to call their bluff.

Calli clawed the carpet, untangling her limbs from the floor and one another as she rose, then stomped to his dresser in a huff. Smoke was curling from her flared nostrils, snout smoldering like a chimney and getting in her eyes. Fumbling in the fumes and the dark and being too pissed off at him, she didn’t feel the tug of resistance from a loose thread of cotton on the arm of the white t-shirt she grabbed, thread wound around a tiny spring-loaded needle, just under the lip of the open drawer. She pulled. Her pace was too fast, heading for the wrong direction; the spine screamed past her head and embedded itself in the wall on the other end of the room. Its passing sounded like the buzz of a fly in her ear as she slipped his shirt on mid-stride, the bubbling spittle of acid peeling paint from the wall the faint rustling of leaves in the breeze outside. Her fist was inches from the door when she heard something like pained grunting from the other side, that took the fight out of her. The noise that followed after that made her shiver with revulsion: the sound of something falling into the toilet.

Plop. “Ngh.” Splash. “This is – ugh – real bad.” Chicken hitting water. Strained groans; the scrape of something hard, metallic – claws raking plate. “Just go” –he cut himself off with a loud raspberry– “back to bed!” Scrape. Plop. Splash.

Calli buried her ears in her palms and snarled at him. “You’re so immature, Traes! Next time you get something nice, I’ll just flush it down the toilet, too! We’ll see how you like that!” Traes drew in air and paused mid-rake, waiting for the swift thumps of her feet to fade. They ended with the loud creak of the mattress and a flurry of blankets.

“Sorry, Cal,” he whispered under his breath, more to himself than her. He set the empty plate down on the sink, wiped his sauce-stained claws on his bare leg. No flushing. No faucet. No towel. Not yet. Now he had to work on the bathroom, the one room he hoped to avoid wasting what precious little time he had left on. Their tubes of toothpaste lay next to one another, labels up, caps facing the mirror, just like he’d left them; her lavender body wash was on its side and leaking into the tub, just as she’d left it; their toothbrushes, red and yellow, were in their usual perch, their usual orientation, no discoloration – he would have to check for scent later; mouthwash… it was supposed to be light blue. This was much too deep, nearly the midnight shade of his mate’s eyes. He picked it up. Mint flooded the bathroom when he screwed it open. The potency made his eyes water. Tempting fate was out of the question, but as he swirled liquid around in his hand, he thought of another way to satisfy the siren call of curiosity. He took his red toothbrush, held it over the sink, then poured a capful of mouthwash over the bristles.

It hissed on contact, liquid boiling into blue foam that crawled up the handle. The startled dragon didn’t know if it was his toothbrush or his own hand that trembled, he dropped it before the foam could touch his claws. Plastic clacked in the sink, where he watched it squirm and hiss like some enraged creature, blue and lumpy and ravenous, devouring itself smaller and smaller until all that slipped out of the froth was his toothbrush, barely the size of a pea. Traes’ golden eyes bulged all the while, jaw agape, claws clutching sink and bottle, powerless as foam and toothbrush flowed down the drain. It took him a moment to gather himself after that, to work his lips into a single expletive. “Fuck.”

He didn’t need any more reasons to be worried shitless. Now one was almost slipping out of his fingers. Poison was an unfortunate and all too familiar object of his youth, seeing it again brought on an unsettling chill. Ever the pragmatists, they exposed him to toxins early, taught him to treat them as though they were spiders or math, something to be domesticated and trained. Like someone who’d learned how to cope with chronic illness, he learned to stomach what they made him swallow, to better appreciate their fatal workings, the non-lethal intricacies, find beauty in their ugly functions, so he’d have no reason to fear them. The same school of thought applied to traps, the improvised tools of mayhem and malice – how to assemble his own, how to spot, avoid, and disarm the ones being used against him. They never taught him about shrinking mouthwash. Then again, they never told him what to expect for this test, other than he was to reach headquarters within five hours of waking, and that they would try and kill him before he got there.

He hated calling them they. The ones behind his suffering had names he knew by heart. Some desperate part of him wanted to call them out loud, to make them tangible, material, to grant these unseen phantoms shapes he could control. The rest of his reptile brain stopped him before he could start, as though uttering a syllable would complete some occult incantation, as though summoning them would lift the veil from their faceless shadows and grant them power over him. More than they already possessed. Losing the little control he had left was the last thing he needed. So they it was.

Traes didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at his mirror-world self. His legs ached when he finally willed them to move. He poured the mouthwash down the sink, tossed the bottle in the trash, then flushed the slurry of food down the toilet, traps be damned. He needed to get his gear, get Calli someplace safe, then get out. If he could get that far. The clock was ticking.

A sliver of light seeped into the bedroom when he poked his head out and saw Calli still in bed, the blue sheets piled on top of her in a big cotton mound, no trace of her gold or brown to be found. It rose and fell with her feigned sleep as he cut off the light and gently closed the door behind him. Seeing her like this, knowing that this was his doing, made him feel worse for what was happening, for what he did. The redscale moved to her side of the bed. His approach was a soundless glide, the carpet soft under his soles, the floorboards beneath them silent. He knew which ones creaked.

“Calli?” he whispered.

The pile froze. She said nothing.

He was by her side now. He wasn’t putting her life in any danger by standing there if they kept their word. He would’ve gone anyway even if they had not. She was worth the risk. Traes got down on one knee, wrung the blanket in his nervous hands. “I’m sorry. When this is all over I’ll explain everything.”

The bed squeaked with the shifting mound. Now Calli was staring at him. Wet streaks on her cheeks. “What are you talking about?”

‘Come clean.’ “I want you to be safe, Cal. I know this sounds strange, and you’d be right to say I’m coming off as paranoid—”

Her furrowed brow and confused look cut him off. The red dragon sighed. How could he convey the truth to her, parse it in such a way that she wouldn’t freak out, or worse, endanger herself by dismissing the threat of death as nonsense? She deserved the truth more than anyone else. He owed it to his mate for keeping her lost and rudderless in the dark for five long years, shielding her with ignorance, keeping her blind to the once far-off perils now lurking inside their home, the very same peril he was putting her through right now. But how? Claws graced her chin, tilting it ever so slightly up so he could see her eyes. Her warm breath was unsteady, nervous. “I love you,” he told her. “More than you’ll ever know.” He put his lips to hers. Warmth filled his mouth when she accepted his kiss. “That’s… That’s why I can’t wait to tell you about your surprise.”

“Surprise?”

‘Goddammit, Traes…’ “Well, today’s your birthday. I want to do something special. Just for you.”

Squeaking filled the room as he pushed sheets aside and climbed into bed with her, and then on top of her, heavy red palms on her shoulders. Under the covers, white claw tips grasped him by the waist, urging him lower. “And what would that be?”

He stroked the brown quills of her hair, his gold drinking in her blue, his breath on her scales warm, then hot. “Everything.”

Something inside him melted, swept through him like a flood that suddenly bursts through a dam, carrying him into her body, her purring chest. His intentions of quietly talking were swept away when he kissed her hungrily. He could taste embers licking her throat and his. It seemed like months rather than hours when they were last together like this, the last time that they could be so intimate, among the glittering webs of wires and knives. He could feel her hands, her smoothness, roaming his chest, his back, pulling him into her arms, her tail coiling itself around his, her chest rising and falling faster to match his quickening breaths.

Calli broke the kiss suddenly. “I have everything I want right here. How can you give me more than that?”

Traes squeezed her flanks. She was soft, yielding. “I’ll find a way. After I’m done with this stupid test. Think about it, then tell me. Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

She pursed her lips and closed her eyes, trying to look serious as he kissed her cheek, her head bobbing as through deep in concentration. Blue eyes popped open seconds later. “More of you,” she answered, smiling. “That’s all I really want. All I’ve always wanted.”

“More of me? That’s what you screamed last night.” His grin broadened to a toothy smile at that. His lungs ached to fill with her scent, with lavender and sweat, to suffocate the little screaming voice in his head. He shouldn’t be doing this. He needed to go. Now. But he was committed to his newest lie, to her. This last chance to indulge in nocturnal sweetness. She was so beautiful, so worth the risk. “I’ll give you more of me right now, my mate. I’m yours.”

“That’s right,” she exhaled in a near breathless whisper. Teeth nipped her neck, she threw her head back and moaned. Red wings unfurled in the budding throes of ecstasy; the black talons of his feet clawed and clenched at the sheets, his hands blindly groped for her hips. Calli brushed them aside, touched his stomach, and tickled him. “You’re mine.”

Traes curled in on her and bust out laughing. Like a spider ready to feast upon its victim, her limbs ensnared him, wound him into an ever-tightening embrace of skittering hands and wiggling toes and tail and chest to prey upon his weakness. “N-No-hahahahaha! No fair, Cal! St-hahahaha! Stop! Stop!” Tears streamed down his face, pelting the bed and her chest like beads of sweat, blind hysterics and his howling roars deafened her mirth and the pitched buckling of the mattress triggered by his flailing, but her larger frame and deft digits wouldn’t relent. Nails flew across his heaving stomach and curling soles, all of her curling inward, bent on smothering her smaller mate with herself, her toes raking his, her tail and thighs twisting around him, so he couldn’t escape, so no inch would go without her touch. White talons climbed higher, so did his shrieking.

“Who’s screaming now? You! Yes, you are!” she cooed to him as if he were her pet. “Who’s a good mate? Who’s the best mate? My Trae, that’s who!” She rolled over to her side, and took Traes with her. And he was going light-headed, in the best way possible. With nowhere else to fall, his snout buried itself in her cleavage, making her tits jiggle with his muffled and dying laugher. What little air he could take in, her fingers and feet and breasts and his aching lungs found a way to push out. It hurt to scream, he couldn’t feel his hands anymore, and he was seeing spots at the edges of his dimming vision. He earned a reprieve when she rolled too far and tipped off her side of the bed, taking him with her. Whatever air he took in on the way down her body pressed out of him when her weight landed on top. Tangled together, the pair a panting mess in that narrow strip of carpet between the bed and her dresser, they kissed, and then lay there, breathing hard.

“I know you’re stressed out about this silly test of yours. I just wanted to loosen you up before you go.” Now it was her turn to kiss him on the lips. “You’ll be fine. If my little man can handle me, he can handle whatever gets thrown at him.”

Still catching his breath, he wasn’t prepared for little. Hearing her say it made him pause and stumble over the rolling wave of memory. With it, the bathroom, the mouthwash. ‘Little… H-Haha…’ But gazing into her eyes, her welcoming smile, feeling her soft lips and body on his, she pulled him back before his murky thoughts before they could swallow him. She was good at that, rescuing him from himself with her sweetness, her sense of humor. “I love you so much.”

Calli reached for the dresser to help herself up. Traes scooped her into his arms and rose with her. She felt the sandpaper roughness of his scales against her, the bulge of his arms and chest as they carried her back to bed. And there, he placed her, gently, head on pillow, as though she were a sacred relic that demanded great care. Then he tucked her in, pulling the covers over her waist, her breasts, up to her neck. The rest he smoothed out. A gift he could unwrap later. If later ever came. “Go back to bed, honey. I’ll be back before you know it. More of me, right? That’s your wish, don’t forget.”

She nodded. Her pleasant sigh filled the air. “I love you, Traes.”

“I love you too, Calli.”