Chapter 1: A Dragon's Bargain
The air in the courtyard tasted of soot and spent magic. Princess Rosalind Thornewood stood in the center of it, the tattered hem of her favorite pink gown—the one with the lace overlays and the little embroidered roses—stirring in the hot, ashy breeze. A massive, clawed footprint was scorched into the flagstones beside her, each talon-mark deeper than her own body. She took a delicate, practiced step to the side, ensuring the ruin of her dress was perfectly visible.
Across the courtyard, a section of the outer wall was just… gone. Through the gap, she could see the dark, tangled line of the Whispering Woods.Perfect.“Princess! To me!”
The voice was a familiar rumble, a sound that never failed to make her toes curl inside her silk slippers. Brunhilda Ironheart stood twenty yards away, her greatsword gleaming in the dull light, her armor scuffed and smeared with dragon’s-blood resin from the previous skirmish.She looked, as always, magnificently worried. Her dark braids were pulled back severely from her face, which was currently a mask of protective ferocity.
Rose allowed a tremble to touch her lower lip. She lifted a hand, not toward her knight, but in a gesture of warning.“No, Brunhilda!Stay back! It’s too dangerous!”
This was the fun part.From beyond the shattered wall, a shadow bloomed, swallowing the late afternoon sun. The ground trembled. Agmar, the Elder Wyrm of the Cinderpeak, was a breathtaking spectacle of scale and sinew. His horned head, the size of a merchant’s cart, eased through the gap in the wall, his sulfur-yellow eyes fixing on the tiny, pink-clad figure. He opened his maw, and a deep, furnace-like heat washed over the courtyard, making the remnants of the banners flutter.Rose didn’t scream. She looked over her shoulder at Brunhilda, whose expression had shifted from worry to outright panic.This was the moment. Rose made sure her knight had her full attention.She winked.
Then, with a flourish that sent her honey-blonde curls bouncing, she turned back to the dragon, hoisted her skirts, and shook her chest at him.It was less a gesture of surrender and more a taunt. A promise.“Take me, you overgrown lizard!” she shouted, her voice ringing with bizarre cheer. “Take me to your damp, dismal lair and chain me up or whatever it is you do!”
Agmar, who had been paid a considerable sum from the royal treasury for this performance, blinked slowly. With a gentleness that belied his terrible form, he extended one clawed forelimb, the talons each as long as Rose’s arm, and laid it flat on the stones before her.“Rose!Don’t!” Brunhilda’s roar was pure anguish. She took a step forward, but Rose shot her another look—a wide-eyed, ‘this-is-all-going-to-plan’ look that only seemed to deepen the knight’s confusion.
“Remember, my brave knight!” Rose called out, placing one slipper on the dragon’s scaled knuckle. “A true love’s kiss breaks any curse! I’ll be waiting!” She blew a dramatic kiss, then scrambled up onto the claw with surprising grace.
Agmar lifted her, the princess standing regally on his fist like a bizarre living statue. She waved, the picture of damselly distress if you ignored the triumphant grin on her face. Then, with a thunderous beat of wings that kicked up a stinging whirlwind of ash and debris, the dragon turned and vanished into the sky, heading for the distant mountains.
Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of a dying fire and Brunhilda’s ragged breathing.
She stood there for a full minute, sword hanging limply at her side, staring at the empty sky. The panic cooled, hardened into a thick, leaden dread in her gut.Rose’s wink replayed in her mind.The shake of her… assets. The specific instruction.
“A true love’s kiss.” Brunhilda muttered the words, tasting their absurdity.She was a knight.A warrior.She served and protected. The princess was a… a job.A profoundly annoying, deeply manipulative, stunningly pretty job.
Who had just gotten herself kidnapped by a dragon on purpose.
Brunhilda heaved a sigh that came from the soles of her boots. “Gods damn it, Rose.”
She turned, intending to head to the stables to saddle her warhorse, when a figure melted from the shadows near the ruined fountain. It was old Morwen, the castle’s… gardener was the polite term. Herbs of questionable purpose grew in her plots.
“She’ll be wanting the classic rescue, I expect,” Morwen croaked, her eyes like chips of flint.“Dragon’s lair.Treasure. Virgin sacrifice schtick.”
“Obviously,” Brunhilda grumbled, sheathing her sword. “I’ll mobilize the guard. We leave at dawn.”
Morwen chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “With all due respect, Dame Ironheart, a squadron of men in clanking metal won’t do what needs doing.That dragon’s real, even if the kidnapping was theater. Agmar won’t hand her over without a fight. And your princess… she’ll be expecting a spectacle. A fairy tale.” The old woman’s eyes traveled up and down Brunhilda’s formidable frame.“You’re impressive.For a human. But you’re not legendary.”
Brunhilda’s jaw tightened. “What are you suggesting?”
“A potion.” Morwen pulled a small, clay vial from her robes. It swirled with a viscous, iridescent purple liquid.“My own brew. It’ll give you what you need to turn a fight into a legend.Strength, speed, size. Enough to go toe-to-claw with an Elder Wyrm and look good doing it.”
Suspicion flared. “At what cost?”
Morwen’s smile was all crooked teeth.“It’s temporary. A few days.A week at most.But the changes are… thorough. You’ll feel them.In every part of you.”
Brunhilda took the vial.It was warm. “Thorough how?”
“You’re an Amazon, girl. You know how your kind is built.The potion enhances everything. It makes you more of what you already are.” Morwen shrugged.“It’ll be uncomfortable.Possibly overwhelming. But you’ll get your princess.”
The knight stared at the little bottle. She thought of Rose, alone in a cave with a dragon, even a compliant one. She thought of the expectant, romantic gleam in the princess’s eyes.She thought of failure.
Without another word, Brunhilda uncorked the vial and drank it.It tasted like copper and lightning.For a second, nothing happened. Then the heat hit. It wasn’t the surface burn of a fire, but a deep, cellular expansion, starting in her core and rushing outward.Her armor became instantly, agonizingly tight. She fumbled at the straps with suddenly clumsy fingers, gasping as the breastplate popped free.
She watched, disbelieving, as her own chest swelled. Her modest, muscular breasts pushed outward, rounding, heavy and full, straining against her padded gambeson. The feeling spread, a surge of raw power flooding her limbs.She heard her joints pop, felt her spine lengthen. The courtyard shrank around her.The fountain, once level with her chest, was now at her waist.
She looked down at her hands.They were massive, powerful, each finger thick as a sausage. Her thighs strained against her leather breeches, the muscle hardening, curving, her rear stretching the material taut. A deep, aching throb began in her groin, a familiar pressure but magnified a hundredfold. She felt a weight between her legs that was new and profound, a formidable, insistent presence sheathed within her that now felt painfully confined, demanding space.Her gambeson ripped at the shoulders. Her height kept increasing until she stood easily half again her original size, a giantess looking down at a now-tiny Morwen.
“Ah,” said Morwen, unabashedly looking her up and down.“Yes.That should do it. The, ah, libido boost is a side effect.Try to keep your head.”
Brunhilda’s head was swimming. Every scent was sharper—the ozone, the ash, Rose’s fading perfume.Every sound was clearer. And a relentless, hungry pulse beat through her, centering low in her gigantic belly. The thought of Rose—her smile, the scent of her hair, the curve of her neck—now sparked not just fond exasperation, but a wave of sheer, possessive want so intense it made her dizzy.
She was a mountain of muscle and desperate need.And she had a princess to fetch.
With a groan that was half fury, half desire, Brunhilda turned toward the gap in the wall. She left her discarded armor where it lay.She wouldn’t need it. The forest awaited, and every massive, thunderous step she took towards it shook the ground.