The dragon's harem

Ramy laid Lucia on her bed and watched her for a few minutes after Arad left. To her eyes, she seemed a bit paler, but that might’ve been just due to the moonlight drizzling through the tent’s thin walls.

The night had become suddenly quitter, and not even bugs could be heard. The vicious mosquitos of this warm jungle have all but ceased to exist. A dreadful silence filled the air, and Ramy could hear water droplets falling outside.

Ramy could feel a strange dryness in her throat, like a stone stuck in her neck. She massaged her neck and looked at Lucia’s ripped clothes, getting a shiver down her spine upon thinking how gruesome the injury was. Her lips shook in awe and fear, thinking how Arad had witnessed that and still acted calmly.

With shaking fingers, she searched Lucia’s belongings and pulled her clothes out, quickly changing her before putting her back in bed to sleep. The guard duty of this hot and stuffy night would only burden her shoulders, Lucia can’t do her part.

“Rest well, old friend,” She closed the tent and went to sit by the campfire, looking at the dancing flames, unable to stop imagining how badly Lucia had been injured. Just an hour ago, they were sitting here on the flames joking, and in that short time, she got gouged and mauled to near death. Ramy couldn’t stop her knees from shaking and her hands from shivering, the thought that such misfortune could come precipitous just like that.

Humans are unfortunate creatures, too fragile for the world they live in. Fate always laughs at them, giggling at their pain. Ramy’s fears almost came true just seconds later, her eyes paled upon seeing it.

The three tiger men from before came back, now that Arad had left, and Lucia was bedridden, Ramy alone was left to fend for herself. Seeing the large three people approaching her with vicious smiles, her mind couldn’t help but race with the thought of her near future.

On a silent night, she could hear her inner voice crying, begging for mercy. As a sense of dread washed over her body, her hands naturally moved to her hips…and she pulled down…two guns.

Taking a strange stance, she pointed the guns forward at the three beast men, her eyes stern and focused. Fear wasn’t a sin, but a blessing, letting her know when she was in danger, and when she should stop shivering and get ready for blood.

With loaded guns and a brave soul prepared for the worst, her hands stopped shivering and her knees held firm. “Three on one, I’ll take lives.” She said in a calm voice, glaring at them with sharp eyes.

The moment one of the tigers took a step forth, she blasted his right ear and eye out, her guns automatically loading in a fraction of a second. “Last warning, back down.”

The beast-man growled, blood dripping across his face and teeth. Her orange fur had turned red, and his one left eye flashed yellow in rage, reflecting the moonlight as a deep growl escaped his throat. This little prey bites back, like cubs testing their luck against a porcupine, those youngsters were fools, unable to gauge the threat ahead of them. With the stern courage of a human, facing the foolish boldness of beastmen, their standoff only lasted a second.

Two of the tigers rushed at her, she shot them both in the chest, but the third managed to sneak past, smacking Ramy on the back, and knocking her to the ground. She coughed blood as her ribs shattered from the impact, the bones piercing her lung. All white the two tigers she shot seemed fine, the dense muscles and bones had managed to absorb the bullets’ damage.

Ramy lay on the ground, staring at the dancing grass, painted with her blood. She could smell it deep in her head as her vision slowly faded, sending sparks of dull pain across her spine and feet. This seemed to be the end, “I wish…I gave Mira the plans…” All she could feel was the regret, of not giving Mira the schematic for the automatic reloading gun, as that was a weapon.

Lucia was in the tent, seemingly asleep. A courageous mosquito flew across from her bed, almost reaching the walls. The bug’s body quickly expanded and burst into a rose of blood, painting a red trail on the tent’s walls as Lucia’s eyes shot open, smelling food. The rancid blood of beasts, and the sweet and intoxicating scent of a friend’s pure blood. freeweɓnøvel.com

Her body gently floated from the bed, her arms extended to the sides as she took a deep breath, magic rushing through her body. Arad’s grasp on her soul came quickly, clenching down on her chest, pushing her blood magic back to sleep. She gently floated to the ground, and her frozen cold feet landed on the ground, not uttering a single sound.

The tigers outside laughed at Ramy as they drank potions, healing their wound as they stared at her dying body with amused grins. From the walls, Arad watched in silence. To Ramy, he was indifferent. Unlike Lucia, the one who taught him a lot, and the woman he had almost driven to insanity, she was but another human, drowning in the back of his mind.

Ramy hadn’t called for help, and neither did Mira tell him any stories about her. If she had gotten even a bit of praise from his wife, even a good word, he might’ve thought of acting. It would’ve only taken one word to get Arad to move, a call for help is all it needed. But, for a dragon to help another who didn’t ask for aid is an insult to their pride.

Ramy had gathered the courage to face her fate and fight, he’ll be stepping on that pride by butting in. That’s how dragons think, and it’s engraved in their nature. To him, that was like seeing a knight wanting to die with honor.

Lucia’s tent door slowly opened and a cold gust of wind slowly rushed out, sending shivers in the tigers. They went silent, staring in shock and awe at the dreadful presence approaching. One bare foot stepped on the dirt from Lucia, and they could smell their own blood plaguing their noses.

One small step after another, she approached them as if in a trance. Standing right beside the bleeding Ramy. Staring blankly forth, still half asleep. Like a hungry human waking at midnight looking for a snack, she was still trying to understand the hunger in her belly.

“You’re back!” One of the tigers roared with a smile, swinging his claw, and slashed Lucia across her face, cutting her eyes.

Lucia’s eyes had already healed before he could even finish slashing them, she calmly took the hit without moving an inch, fully waking up as her blood dripped across her lips. She lifted her hand slowly up, and brushed the blood to her mouth with her thumb, tasting it.

With red lips painted with her own blood, Lucia finally woke up to her new self, a beast of the night. Those tigers are nothing but mere food, an annoying one that still moves and talks.

Confused as to how his slash didn’t blind her eyes, the tiger went for a second attack. But this time, Lucia had already tasted blood, her own blood, but still got her woken up. Even with Arad sealing her blood magic, the unhuman nature of her body took hold, and the tiger’s blazing-fast attack seemed as slow as a turtle, slowly approaching her face.

Lucia opened her palm and her wand teleported between her thin fingers, sparking with magic as she drew a circle in the blink of an eye on the tiger’s chest, blasting him into the nearest building with a loud blast. All of that happened between the tiger and his second attack

starting and it reaching the halfway point toward Lucia.

A horrifying cast speed, only heard of in horror stories. Still not a fraction of Arad’s speed, but to the poor tigers, Lucia seemed like a monster they shouldn’t have messed with.

The students rushed out of their tents in panic, saw the scene, and immediately cried, “Are we under attack?!” One girl screamed.

“The bastards got teacher Ramy?!!!!” A guy roared, pointing a dagger at the tigers. “Make a rug from those cats!”

The two remaining tigers didn’t even have time to listen or notice the students. One of them immediately lunged to attack Lucia, thinking he was on mana burnout after casting such a powerful spell. Most normal wizards must rest for white after casting powerful magic, as not doing so could knock them out, like how an athlete shouldn’t do two extreme exercises above his own limit back-to-back.

With a single swing from her wand, the tiger floated up into the air and she swung him at the third tiger with magic. The third tiger dodged his friend, letting him hit the ground unsteady. But Lucia wasn’t stopping, she kept swinging the poor tiger, trying to hit the third one, even though the one she was swinging was already begging for mercy, his bones all cracked.

The last remaining tiger turned to run away; this woman didn’t seem like something he could hope to defeat. She’s casting extremely powerful magic at an inhuman speed, making it impossible for him to get close.

With a heartless cold, Lucia threw the weeping tiger at the running one, following that with a powerful lightning bolt to char their skin in a flash, almost blinding all of the students watching. The poor kids hadn’t seen their teacher fight seriously before, they knew she was strong, but they didn’t expect to see such an oppressive and unfiltered raw power and magic.

Lucia took a step forward, aiming to suck the tiger’s blood. But Arad appeared sitting beside Ramy. He looked at Lucia as he poured a healing potion on Ramy’s back. “Sit and calm.” Those words jolted Lucia back to her senses, pulling her mind out of her blood rage and she sat down, looking at the blood pouring on the ground beside her toes.