And here we have lots and lots of...blood.

MINE.

~Angel~

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“Bad blood? Between us? Never,” Magnus growled in warning as his head arched down, teeth exposed.

“Oh, please. Stop that, its a little sad you would still be angry at me,” Xipil said plainly from the darkness. “Its not like those little books meant the world to you.”

“That was MY WORK!” Magnus roared at her, tail blade slashing the air and ground behind him.

“It was taking too much of your time from me,” she replied in a bored manner, the eyes inside looking away from his and possibly at her own claw, it was hard to tell. “You know I desire much attention.”

“And what is your big conquest this time? What have you come to impress me and somehow make me adore you through and through?” Magnus growled with a hint of sarcasm. “The head of my father perhaps? No, that I would actually appreciate. It must be something else.”

“TELL ME of this...She,” Xipil ignored him completely, her tail blade beginning to scratch into the walls of his cavern with a painful noise. “I saw the little room where something has been living...a mortal? Is that what Dracen said? Well I've been all over your cavern and I have to say I didn't find the snack anywhere. You know I don't like mortals, Magnus, besides in my teeth.”

“What mortal?” Magnus asked in a droll manner.

“Her scent is around here in patches...but not very strong,” Xipil stated as she began to edge out of the cave, red scales glowing in the night as purple guards scales shined. Her mane was thick, reds and purples mixed together in a burgundy mess of hairs, five horns atop her head. “But...Then you landed...And suddenly the little scent became VERY strong. What does that lead me to believe hm?”

“I'm sure you will tell me,” Magnus stated as she crawled down in front of him. Although she was female she was slightly bulky, giving her strength over her slightly smaller size. She rested her head in front of his, tilting it slightly to expose her neck to him with soft eyes, an easy invitation.

“That you are playing with things you shouldn't be...” she purred at him, swinging herself around and running the length of her tail across his chest. “Your brother looked quite disturbed before you arrived.”

“My brother worries over little things,” Magnus growled and swatted her tail away. “Its his way, although its not very practical.”

“Always have the answer, don't you?” Xipil questioned, eyes upon him as her playful patience seemed to be waning. “I would like to make sure my lair is not inhabited by little mortal pets.”

“I would like to ensure MY lair isn't inhabited by crazed females,” Magnus replied. “Sometimes we don't get what we want. You need to come to terms with that, NOW.”

“I can follow her scent now you know,” Xipil stated in a far too calm manner. “I can follow yours all the way from where ever you've hidden her. I wouldn't be so quick to...brush me off or I might find something better to do with my time.”

Magnus' eyes grew large as his pupils shrank almost into nothing. The rage beginning to get the better of him as the threat to Rayne's life struck an instinct he wasn't even aware he had. Xipil's face changed with the difference, her stance becoming defensive and aggressive as his territorial instinct triggered them both into snarling and circling each other.

His mane prickled up along his neck and head, his tail blades swishing back and forth and his wings expanded to make himself look more intimidating.

“Stand DOWN,” he growled, sending Xipil's mane prickling along her own neck. “This is MY TERRITORY. ONLY MINE. I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T LEAVE NOW!”

“You dare growl at ME?” Xipil fumed, her wings and tail matching his stance. “YOUR TERRITORY—and YOU ARE MINE! I WILL HAVE YOU BY FORCE!”

All at once Magnus roared and charged Xipil! Tense muscles exploding with his rage and tearing up the prairie ground under his claws! Xipil roared back and waited for the male to come in closer, before swinging her tail around and striking Magnus in the jaw! His body turning with the impact but he regained his footing and head butted her hard in her side!

Dragons were ancient beings, between the intelligent and the beast of the world. The bull in Magnus was showing as he would keep his territory as his own no matter who stood in front of him. There would be no reasoning now, the dragons were far beyond their words. One would submit or die before the battle was over.

The air was knocked out of Xipil for a moment as she sought to steady her footing, flapping her wings to keep from rolling over and coiling her body back like a snake. She sprung forward as her jaw chomped down on part of his ear and horn, her claws reaching for his eyes to tear them clean out of his skull! Thrashing on his head as he tried to toss her off! He reared up and back and with a strong motion smacked her hard with the slapping of his wings! Beginning to be blinded by the blood from the female's clawing of his face! She cried out as Magnus did it a second time and Magnus sprung off his back legs and pinned her to the ground harshly!

Jaws agape he sank his teeth around her neck, into the tender areas as well as the thicker guard scales and began pinching, waiting for the cracking, the snapping, the writhing body under him to submit or stop moving. He felt the taste of blood pool in his mouth before the pain on his collar bone and muscle made his mouth jerk back! Xipil's tail blade digging into the groove between bone, muscles and scales and shoving further to push him off! Magnus bellowed in pain as Xipil reared back on her haunches and swung her front claw around! Slashing his face and knocking him back into the rock wall! Her tail blade pulling free of his flesh as she prepared for another attack. Magnus rolled back onto his feet as best he could, his rage now fueling his muscles as Xipil's tail blade hung over her form like a scorpion poised for the strike.

”SUBMIT TO ME DRAGON!” Xipil roared, spitting blood atop blood out of her jaws. Magnus roared back defiantly, the sound shaking the ground! Xipil charged and pierced the air with her tail blade! Aiming for his eye when Magnus shifted and turned his head! Grasping the muscled flesh behind the blade in his teeth and biting to the breaking point!

Xipil screamed and jerked her tail, but the blade did not come with. The tip of her tail hung loosely in Magnus' mouth as her once defined weapon was torn from flesh. Magnus enraged kept crunching on the bone and flesh, eyes locked with Xipil's and for the first time saw fear in her.

The fear fueled him, wings expanding outwards as he spat her tail out. He charged her and pounced, wings wrapping around the red dragoness as they tumbled and destroyed several acres of trees in his forest. Xipil and Magnus clawed and dug into the flesh where they could until Magnus tossed her easily into more trees, watching her stop and breath hard but not stand. Magnus arched his neck down, putting his chest out and expanding his wings.

“MY TERRITORY!” he bellowed and sent a stream of flame at Xipil for good measure. She wouldn't be burned, being a fire breather herself but it was a warning. Xipil stood up on weak limbs, looking at her once wonderful armed tail before flaring her wings, and making a hasty exit.

His territory, his mortal, his. His blood boiled with satisfaction and rage, and the taste of blood only made the feeling grow. The beast was triumphant in him, letting out such a roar that he could watch the waves of sound scream through his own magics. He was dragon and every dragon nearby would know who had won this night. He never noticed the painful wound bleeding profusely, his adrenaline too high to process that fact.

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Rayne woke in a heady sweat, her heart racing in her chest as the scale sent surges of sensation through her body. She closed her eyes to try to calm herself but the surges were pulsing and intoxicating. After a minute or so it stopped, leaving her cold, damp and confused. Was that Magnus' call for her to return? When he had sent the magic through her before it hadn't felt so chaotic and energized. She panted a few times, gripping her shirt where the scale lay and trying to make her heart stop thumping so hard. She rubbed her paw over one of her eyes, wiping her brow with her shirt and pulling herself to sit up in her bed. It was still dark out, easily the middle of the night but something had happened. Something had changed.

She swung her legs over the edge of her bed frame and went to stand but her legs felt wobbly and weak and sat back down before she fell back. She gave herself a few moments to recover, her legs getting their strength back as her heart slowed to normal before standing up again. He was too far away if he was back at his lair to get to tonight, if that was his signal he would have to wait until daybreak. She still had a long list of words to yell at him, and needed to get rest. She opened her door and saw the stillness of the village, only the music from the pub a few blocks away was heard in the calm darkness. The horizon yielded no answer for her, the darkness encompassing everything beyond a few yards anyway.

“One night of peace, can I have at least one night of peace? A break? No dragons pretending to be slayers, no...whatever just happened,” Rayne muttered to herself, closing the door and crawling back under her blankets. “This dragon is going to kill me.”

Sleep did not come easily after that for her. Everything seemed to have an unfamiliar sound and stirred her from her light slumber.

She woke to a loud knocking at her door, eyes groggy but opening to bright early morning. She grumbled and rolled out of bed, wrapping her blanket around her and wondering who was there at this hour. If it was one of her tenants she was going to give them some of the pent up anger she'd accumulated in the night.

"My lady? Are you there?" the voice sounded familiar and worried. She thought better of snapping at who ever was there.

What stood before her in her doorway was not one of her tenants. A tall cloaked male with silver eyes peered at her carefully. The body was mostly covered like a monk or priest in a cloak that still seemed too small for his frame. The scent of blood was prominent and made her far more nervous about the stranger before her.

"Do...I know you sir?" Rayne asked in a raspy, tired voice, blinking at him to try to let her eyes adjust in the sunlight.

"This—I need to come in before I tell you," the male voice came from the cloaked head. Rayne's eyes grew as she saw a glimpse of blue fur...BLUE fur.

"Dracen? L-lord Dracen?" she whispered as she tried to remain calm, "Come in, quickly."

Dracen, mortal in a cloak Dracen ducked under the door frame as Rayne stepped aside. She pulled the door closed behind her and locked it before turning to the dragon in tiger form. He took the hood off of his head and the scent of blood increased. His hair matched Gaerwn—or Magnus' in the transformed state, but he was taller and—of course there was the whole blue tiger thing.

"Lady morsel...How did you know it was me?" Dracen asked with the same little head tilt he had done before although dragon. "Nevermind, I don't think we have time for explanations. I need you to come with me now. Magnus said to get you."

Magnus, Rayne's face scowled at Dracen. What was Magnus up to? Sending Dracen to fetch her like this? Was this his casual way of telling her that he and Gaerwn were one and the same? Because it was a piss poor way of doing it.

"You can tell Magnus to shove his tail up his—"

"He said to drag you if you were titchy about it. He also said to tell you he was stabbed by Xipil and he needs help and that would be the only reason he would send me," he pointed to himself, "In this form to get you."

Rayne blanched, staring at Dracen for a long few moments, unable to say anything. The gods were toying with her, they must have been.

"...Lady Morsel he's bleeding very heavily," Dracen stated in far too calm a manner for Rayne's liking. "We need to get out of town so I can get out of this little form and fly us back to his lair."

"Am I dreaming?" she asked in a small voice, her face turning more sickly than anything as her paws shook and her legs felt like they were going to let her fall at any moment.

"No, lady morsel," Dracen answered, "Please. My brother may be dying. You have to help..."

With far more courage than she thought she had left in her body, she nodded and put away her anger, resentment and fear for now. She grabbed a few things and stuffed them into her pack, flinging it on as Dracen replaced the cloak over his head to cover said blue fur.

"Explain to me everything you know on the way," she stated as they exited her apartment, her steps far faster than normal and it took a few tries for Dracen to really keep pace.

Dracen explained as they headed far out of town away from the roads about how he confronted his brother outside Magnus' lair and the sudden appearance of Xipil. He told Rayne what little Magnus had told him of the fight between the two and how Dracen returned after feeling his brother's territorial roaring to see Magnus collapsed and bleeding heavily from the gaping wound on his chest. Dracen did what he could to get Magnus into the safety of his lair and when Magnus came to, told him to get Rayne, where he could find her and how to use the transfiguration band before passing out again. When Dracen stripped himself down the amount of blood on his fur was evident, and when he changed into the dragon it made her sick to her stomach.

It was all too much for Rayne to really take in, she understood the words coming from the dragon's mouth but she couldn't comprehend them. Even as she flew in the grip of Dracen, it seemed numb. She had never flown in her life, so she assumed it should have been either terrifying, or exciting. At the moment it was more nauseating than anything, but that may have been the feeling that when they arrived it would be too late to save Magnus. Dracen seemed to see her discontent and sickened face because he covered her head and torso with his other paw, giving her a small safe haven without seeing the height of where they were.

It was anguish sitting in the darkened space, not knowing how much time was passing, how far they were, but she was less queasy that way even with the scent of blood on his claws. Had she felt his pain in the middle of the night? No...it wasn't painful...but was it the only way he could get word to her that something was amiss? Time was passing, but it felt far too slow for her liking. The dreading, the not knowing, that was killing her. Magnus may have been an egotistical, short tempered, conniving know it all, but he was hers. She swallowed that statement, held onto it and felt Dracen begin to descend. Her heart raced as she struggled in his grip, he calling to her as he raised his paw to show her the edge of the lair but she didn't listen. She didn't care about her feet sticking in the blood drying like tree sap along the floor, her vision tunneling on the inside of the lair where the white dragon, battered and bruised and covered in speckles of blood lay.

He was breathing, that was a start.

“Dracen!” Rayne called out loudly as her vision expanded to the real world again. “I need the ring! Put it on him and show me how to change him!”

Dracen tread carefully inside the lair before slipping off the band and placing it on his brother's finger. He twisted it three times as his brother told him and Magnus' form rushed from dragon to tiger in seconds, the white fur lying in a pool of dragon blood.

Rayne moved quickly to roll him over and look at the wound, dear gods how deep had it gone? It hadn't hit his lung...she hoped since his breathing was shallow but steady. The wound itself had clotted but he had lost a lot of blood, making his gums too pale. He was too pale. His face and chest had slashes and scratches, what had the she-dragon done to him?

“I need to clean the wound,” she announced before turning to the tall form behind her. “Dracen, fetch me water, lots of it, and hay.”

“Water—water—and hay,” Dracen nodded a bit before skirting out of the lair far quicker than he had entered. Rayne ran through the lair and fetched her blanket from her cart bed, running back in and covering Magnus in it to keep him warm.

“You live through this, you hear me?!” Rayne yelled at him, unable to hold her tears back any longer as they streamed down her face. “I have so much to yell at you for, and by the gods death won't stop me from yelling it!”