by Lili Zander
Xan looks around. “Was he rescued by a Zoraken ship?”
“But we’ve been patrolling every single day,” I protest, fear stabbing my heart. “This is really close to our camp. If Zorahn soldiers were this close to us…” My voice trails off and my hand moves protectively over my stomach. I won’t let anything happen to you, little dragon, I vow silently. But cold fear continues to grip me. There’s less than fifty of us. How can we defend ourselves against an army with guns?
“Forget Beirax for the moment,” Dariux says soberly. “We need to find a place to hide.”
“They’ve been looking,” Xan replies. “It’s not easy. We have to be near water. Sheltered from the hairus and other predators. Somewhere high enough that we won’t drown in the rainy season. And above all, somewhere where the scanners won’t easily detect us.”
Dariux isn’t listening. He’s kneeling on the ground, scraping at the coarse purple grass with the handle of his knife. I move closer to Xan and Lud, who are standing in the middle of the clearing, watching Dariux with identical puzzled expressions on their faces. “I’m trying not to panic at the idea of a Zorahn ship this close to us,” I confess softly.
Lud takes a deep breath. “Me too,” he says.
Oh God. Poor Lud. Of course he’s freaking out at the idea of something happening to his child. His daughter has already been torn away from him. This has to be his worst nightmare.
I’m about to put my arm around him consolingly when Dariux shouts out. “Look at this.”
My mates hurry forward. I’m about to follow them when I trip over a stray root. I start to fall, and I put out a hand to stop myself from landing on my belly.
But as I hit the ground, it seems to give way under me. A hole opens up in the middle of the plateau. I scramble for the sides, but I can’t hold on. I scream in terror as my fingers give way.
And then I’m falling.
Time seems to slow to a halt. My life doesn’t flash in front of my eyes. I just see their faces. Lud and Xan. Against all odds, we ended up together. Against all odds, we surmounted the challenges we faced.
I’d hoped for forever. I wanted to hold the baby growing inside me. I wanted to see Lud and Xan beam with pride as they held their child for the first time. I wanted to see Lud have the second chance he so desperately craved.
Would our baby have been a dragon? Would he have been able to fly before he could walk? So many questions left unanswered.
I’ve had recurring dreams of falling all my life, and I’m plunging to my death. The universe has a really ironic sense of humor.
Then I see them. Xan and Lud, hurtling toward me, their arms extended, and their bodies shaped into arrows to pick up speed.
No! This hole, shaft, whatever it is I’m falling down, it’s not big enough for them to transform and unfurl their wings. They’ll be crushed. “Why?” I scream. “Why are you doing this?”
They don’t reply. Their expressions tight with concentration, they reach me and wrap their arms around me. “We’re never going to let you fall,” Xan whispers.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
Xan maneuvers himself so he’s underneath me. Lud puts his hands around my waist, holding me tight.
And then they do something impossible. They shift in mid-air. One moment, my mates are hugging me. The next moment, I’m shielded between two ferocious dragons.
But it’s too late for them to extend their wings and try to fly out. The ground is approaching with alarming speed. There’s nothing we can do.
Then there is a jolting, shuddering impact.
Followed by darkness.
28
Luddux
PRESENT…
Our youngling.
Consciousness slowly returns, and with it, alarm. Every inch of my body feels battered and bruised, and next to me, Xanthox’s body is bent at an angle that sends a sharp stab of fear through me. “Felicity?” I whisper, too afraid to look around, unprepared for what I might see.
“I’m here.” She sounds close to tears. “I’m fine. But Xan…”
“He’s still breathing,” I say, clinging desperately to a thin strand of hope. Xanthox took the brunt of the crash. His body had shielded Felicity from the worst of the impact. If our youngling is unhurt, it’s because of him. Because of his sacrifice.
“Please…” She holds one of Xanthox’s hands between hers, holding onto him as if her touch can anchor him to life. She’s crying openly now, and so am I. My pair-bond’s breathing is labored. I’ve seen men die; I know what death sounds like.
May your soul be judged gently in the Gardens of Caeron, I whisper to him. In that long month when Felicity wasn’t talking to us, Xanthox never once said a word of reproach to me, even though the estrangement had been my fault. Never once blamed me. Never once raised his voice in anger.
“You stupid idiots.” I hear the sound of footsteps, and then Dariux hurries up to us. “There are stairs carved into the side of the shaft. Next time, try taking them.”
He’s holding something in his hands. His med-kit. Oh, thank Caeron. A shudder of relief passes through me as the med-kit activates, glowing blue as Dariux holds it over Xanthox’s too-still body. “He broke his back in the fall,” he says softly. Turning his head to Felicity, he surveys her with concern. “Did you get hurt?”
She shakes her head. “Just jolted.”
The break is taking a long time to heal. Xanthox’s face contorts with pain as the bones knit back together. His eyes flicker open, hazy and clouded, but awareness quickly returns. “The youngling,” he rasps.
Dariux raises an eyebrow. “You’re with youngling?” he asks. His expression turns warm, and in that moment, I know with absolute certainty that Dariux has no designs on my mate. There’s no trace of envy in his eyes, no trace of sorrow. “I’m so happy for you. For all of you.”
“Dariux,” Xan says, his voice urgent. “Forget about me. Check Felicity.”
“I’m fine,” Felicity murmurs unhappily. “You’re the one who’s badly hurt.”
“Check her,” Xanthox insists.
Dariux sighs impatiently but holds the med-kit over Felicity. “She’s fine,” he says after the longest heartbeat of my life. “Your baby girl is unaffected by the fall.”
Xanthox slumps back, relief etched on his face. Dariux continues to work on him with the med-kit. This time though, I’m not watching. I’m still digesting Dariux’s words.
I’m going to have another daughter.
This isn’t just a second chance.
This is a miracle.
29
Felicity
PRESENT…
It takes Dariux a really long time to heal Xanthox. Finally, after the longest half-hour of my life, he nods at me. “Vulrux should take a look at him too, but he’s going to be okay.”
Luddux, who is totally tearing up at the thought of having a daughter, has broken his right leg in the fall, as well as his left elbow. Those are easier to fix. “You’ll be able to walk in a knur,” Dariux says to him, before turning to Xanthox with a stern expression on his face. “No exertion for a week,” he warns. “Absolutely none.”
“I’ll make sure of it,” I promise. If it means helping Xanthox get better, I’ll withhold sex without even a stab of conscience. My mate is going to be a father. He needs to be alive to watch our little dragon grow up.
If the Zorahn warships don’t destroy us first.
Now that we’re out of immediate danger, I finally register where I am. “Did I just fall into the heart of the mountain?”
“You did.” There’s a note of wild excitement in Dariux’s voice. He gets to his feet and takes a torch out of his pack and starts to walk around. Dariux would have been a Scout back on Earth. Always prepared. Thank heavens for it. If he hadn’t had his med-kit with him today… My mind shies away from that thought.
I almost lost Xan.
The same thought is going through all our minds. For a few minutes, the three of us hug eac
h other. None of us say anything, but we don’t need to.
All my life, I’ve felt like there’s something unlovable about me. Something that made Aunt Priscilla resent me, something that made Chloe mean to me. Something that made my family treat me like a servant.
I carried that insecurity to the prison planet. I had everything, but I couldn’t quite believe it was real. Deep down inside, I kept waiting for it to be torn away. And when Herrix had played on my fears and told me that Lud and Xan were going to leave me, I’d believed him, because I was never secure in their love.
Not because of anything they did. Because of me. Because I didn’t think that I deserved to be loved.
I’ve been given not just a second chance, but a third, and damn it, I’m done letting Aunt Priscilla, Uncle Fred, and Chloe define my life. I’m done letting what happened with Calder Reese influence the way I see love. Like I told Olivia, I’m done with the past. I’m ready for a fresh start.
“I love you,” I whisper. I don’t need to lower my voice—Dariux is so clearly preoccupied with what he’s seeing down here that the three of us could start to go at it on the stone floor, and he wouldn’t notice—but the moment feels quiet and intimate, just for us.
We cling to each other for a long time. Finally, reluctantly, I pull free. As much as I want to stay ensconced in their arms, too many things are happening. Beirax is missing. The others will need to know. I’m willing to bet that Arax is going to want to search through the jungle on the chance that the man had killed himself by throwing himself off the cliff.
“What are you doing?” I call to Dariux. “I don’t want to move Xanthox, but shouldn’t we head back?”
“I’m fine,” Xanthox grumbles. “The med-kit did its thing. Dariux worries for no reason.”
Dariux hears that and shoots him a sharp look. “Don’t let him move, Felicity,” he says. “He might not listen to me, but he’ll listen to you. To answer your question, I’m looking around, obviously. And so should you.”
He lifts his torch, and I gasp, because I realize what he’s noticed from the start. This isn’t some kind of freak geological formation. I’m lying on a smooth, paved stone floor in the middle of a vast underground room. Above me, five levels of balconies ring this central room. “Somebody built this,” I breathe in shock.
He nods. “For sixty-five years,” he says softly, “I’ve wondered if I was searching for something that didn’t exist. I started to doubt my sanity. I started to question myself.” He takes a deep breath. “And here we are.”
“This is what you were looking for?” Luddux asks.
Dariux shakes his head. “No. But this is proof that I’m not crazy. What I was looking for does exist.”
God, the guy can be mysterious if he wants to be. “And what is that, Dariux?” I ask, rolling my eyes a little. I’m happy for my friend, but given that Beirax’s missing, we have other, more urgent things to worry about.
“Never mind that now,” he says. “My search can wait. Don’t you see what this is?”
I have no idea. My mates, on the other hand, catch on immediately. “A place to hide,” Xanthox says, his expression clearing. “Of course. We’re inside a mountain. The rock walls will shield us from sensors. They won’t be able to find us from the air. They’ll have to approach us on foot.”
“And on the ground, we can hold our own,” Luddux adds. He brushes a kiss across my lips and rises to his feet. “I’m going to look around with Dariux. Will you be okay here?”
I nod, my fingers crossed behind my back. Until the Zorahn find Raiht’vi, we need a place to hide.
I really hope this is it.
30
Xanthox
PRESENT…
Life is precious and fragile. I could have lost Felicity today. When I saw her fall down that shaft… my heart had stopped, and breathing became impossible.
I never want to waste another day again.
Dariux insists that I lie down. Felicity sits next to me and orders me to lay my head on her lap. Part of me thinks that the two of them are fussing over me. Then again, my body feels like a herd of argangana has just run over it, so maybe they’re right about me staying still.
Luddux and Dariux disappear down a corridor, leaving me alone with my mate. I lace my fingers in hers. “When I was eight,” I say softly, “A servant took me to the vanderfields. There was a meadow there, surrounded by purple-tipped mountains, and it was covered with yellow wildflowers. It took my breath away.”
I brush a strand of hair away from her face. “I never experienced that feeling again. Until I saw you.”
“Xan,” she whispers. “I feel your love every day. You just dove down a shaft in the middle of a mountain to save me. You don’t have to say the words for me to know your heart.”
“I want to. Every morning, when I wake up next to you, I feel the same wonder I felt that day. The same sense of possibility.” I place my palm on her belly. If the other pregnant woman, Harper Boyd, is any indication, Felicity is going to start to show soon. I imagine her, soft and rounded with our child, and I’m almost blinded with joy. “I’m not good at saying the words. I’m much better at showing you how much I care through gifts. But I love you, Felicity. I adore you.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Damn it, I’m weeping all over you,” she murmurs. She bends down and kisses me, soft and sweet. “I think you’re a lot better at saying the words than you give yourself credit for,” she says. “And I love you too, Xan. I can’t even tell you how happy I am that we’re together.”
Luddux and Dariux return in a few knurs. “This place was definitely built,” Dariux says. “And by someone with advanced technology. There are apartments. Communal halls. Greenhouses. Hidden tunnels that take us outside. The doors have working sensors. The apartments have daylights and bathrooms and more.”
Felicity looks up at that. “Bathrooms? With flush toilets?”
Luddux nods. “Every room had a thick layer of dust,” he says. “Nobody has lived here for a really long time.”
“But there’s tech?” I ask them. “Is it Zorahn tech?”
Dariux shakes his head. “It looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Another mystery. Who built this structure, and why? What caused them to leave? But answering that question can wait, because I have a more immediate one. “Can we hide here?”
Both men nod. “Not just hide. We’re safe here from the hairus, from the dwals, from the rains that threaten to drown us. We can flourish here.”
Felicity puts her hand on her stomach. “Then we go into hiding,” she says. “Until it’s all over.” She takes a deep breath. “Let’s go tell the others.”
Epilogue
Felicity
Three weeks later…
Moving into the mountain was a complicated undertaking, but we managed it in record time.
This place is seriously amazing. We’re inside the mountain, but strangely, there’s technology here, one that’s so advanced that none of the Draekons recognize it. There are thirty housing units, each with a bedroom, a living/cooking area and a bathroom. The single Draekons happily volunteered to live in the smaller units, leaving the larger apartments to the trios.
Then there are the greenhouses, with lights that shine as bright as the sun. Viola, the resident botanist, was delighted when she first saw them. “It rained for three months, and I couldn’t even think about growing anything,” she said. “But I can’t wait to see what we can do.”
Bryce is already lobbying for us to grow the strange grain she found near Lake Ang. “Come on,” she says persuasively. “Admit it. My beer’s been getting better.”
The patrols have found the wreckage of three more ships. No survivors. Still, we can’t help thinking that we took cover just in time.
After a week and a half in a healing coma, the soldier that Thrax had found, the one that had started our search for a safe hideout, woke up. Arax was concerned that he might be uncooperative, but he didn’t ne
ed to worry. The soldier was quite happy to switch sides. “I’m Lowborn,” he said bluntly. “Blood status is not supposed to matter to the Zoraken, but when they rounded up troops for a suicide mission, guess who was chosen? Not a single Highborn.”
While cooperative, he didn’t know enough about what the Zorahn navy was planning. “I heard the High Emperor was furious,” he said. “That’s all I know.”
Almost by accident, he did tell us something exceedingly useful though. Every day at noon, there’s some kind of solar flare that disrupts their sensors. “The commander hates it,” the soldier, whose name is Gunnix, confides. “But there’s nothing he can do. The technicians have tried their best, but for about a knur every noon, we can’t get any readings.”
When Arax heard, he’d okayed the use of the communicator. “It’s as much for morale as anything,” I’d heard him say to Viola. “We were ripped away from our families. We haven’t talked to our loved ones for sixty years. I don’t have the heart to ban this.”
He’d actually personally handed it to Luddux. “Dariux told me why you needed it,” he’d said. “I really hope she’s doing better.”
Lud had been quite pale as he’d turned the communicator on. “I’m too nervous to look,” he’d said to Xan. “Can you do it for me?”
“Of course.”
I’m not going to lie—I was a nervous wreck as Xan scanned the messages. My heart was racing. I had my fingers and toes crossed for luck.
Then a smile had broken out on Xan’s face. “She’s alive,” he’d said. “Your message got to her in time. Read.”
I’d have read over Lud’s shoulder, but since I can’t read Zor, I had to wait patiently—okay, I was not patient at all—as Lud absorbed the note from his daughter, and then read it aloud.