Free Serpentine Tongue by Kayden McLeod

Chapter One
     
    Fallon pumped his legs, racing across the meadow under a halo of arrows poised for his back. The Seelie Queen’s archers claimed to be the strongest, fastest, the best.
    He was stronger, faster.
    The Queen had no one to blame but herself. She cursed him for his “serpentine tongue,” or so she’d once referred to the organ dominating his mouth. Once, she’d used the term as an endearment. Now, she cursed him. Once upon a time, when they’d met in what he’d mistaken for love, turned out to be lust. Lust for power, greed and good, hard sex. No more.
    Her loss, his gain. The truth had come out. For the better, anyway. Next time they’d meet, he’d kill her. He possessed no other choice. His serpentine tongue had spoken the words proclaiming her impending death. Failure to keep his promise was to be foresworn from court, if not killed for being an oathbreaker by powers much greater than he.
    The first mattered little to him. The second, well, he wasn’t so sure.
    The Queen’s Knights, his brothers in arms, wove through the archers on their winged steeds, some of them attempting to ensure the latter option.
    “Fallon, halt!” Garbhan, Captain of the Queen’s Knights, barreled ahead of the others. He cried his plea over the thunderous legion of hooves. “If you stop this flight, I could speak to Druantia about a pardon.”
    Fallon tossed his blue-black hair over one bare shoulder. He sneered. “Do not make promises you cannot keep. You might be fucking her royal highness, but she will not forgive this.”
    Garbhan growled something lost to the wind. No matter. Fallon was disinterested in empty promises.
    His lungs burned, his thighs screamed, tossing the shredded material of his breeches that hung precariously over his hips. He’d never cross the meadow, into the lush undergrowth of the forest. They’d catch him on their magickal steeds long before.
    One way out for the likes of him.
    He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. He hated his enforced ability, but he’d have to use his other form. He jackknifed in mid-leap, snarling at the horses. Garbhan’s reared, kicking out his front legs. Fallon dodged the sharp slashes aimed for his chest.
    “Where is Dearg?” Garbhan spat on the ground, as if to rid himself of the distaste of Fallon’s best friend. Nervously, he glanced at archers, who fell back while their Captain conversed. “At least let us bring him back, and I will allow you a full day’s head start.”
    Fallon struggled to calm himself. The shift tearing through his body took far longer than it had last time, wasting precious seconds. “I do not know where he went after we left the castle. We went our separate ways.” Too close to a lie. The truth, they’d been forced apart.
    Maghnus, always an overzealous guard, dropped from his Pegasus. “Silver tongued beast, tell the Captain of the Queen’s Knights where your friend ran with his tail between his legs.”
    “I cannot tell you what I do not know,” Fallon wheezed through the burning fury inside his belly that knew no end. Oh, for Goddess’ sake! Why would the change not come upon him?
    Maghnus swung his sword, slicing through Fallon’s ribs. His flesh split, a ripe melon under the blistering sun. He threw his head back and roared, the noise gaining volume and momentum, bleeding into a bellow that shook the trees ringing the meadow.
    His eyes burned as his face elongated. His back arched, cracked. Size tripled, then that quadrupled. He towered above them, half man, half beast as the minute changes reformed his body. At last, it was done.
    His snout billowed steam. The Knights fell back, not knowing the secret of his form. Let them think he could blow fire.
    “A dragon!” an archer squealed.
    The Queen’s secret, for good or bad, had come to light. Fallon startled that the rumors had not yet filled every ear at the Seelie court. For he had been cursed in front of all the nobility. Gossipers and liars, the lot of