STONE DRAGON
A Prison Moon Series Romance Novel
ALEXANDRA MARELL
Copyright first edition © 2019 Alexandra Marell
All rights reserved, all copyrights and registered trademarks acknowledged
Full copyright notice at end of book
Edited by Tanya Saari https://editortanya.blogspot.co.uk/
Proofed by Judicious Revisions LLC http://judiciousrevisionsllc.weebly.com/
Cover art by http://www.ctcovercreations.com/
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Created with Vellum
Contents
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Other Books by Alexandra Marell
Author Bio
About This Book
Welcome to Prison Moon One where cameras follow your every move and call it entertainment for decadent viewers sector wide. Where the innocent and guilty alike fight for survival. And where only one thing is certain.
Once here, you never get to leave.
Called by a fiery dragon, but does he offer freedom, or death?
Abducted from Earth for her gifts as a healer and seer, Claudia Galrese hears the dragon’s desperate call the moment the alien transport comes within orbit of Prison Moon One.
He needs her and she can’t rest until she finds out why.
Taken in a hunt they call the Chase, she’s nothing more than a slave, forced to bleed her talents dry for a greedy warlord.
When she realises she won’t survive another year in his camp, Claudia risks it all and makes a discovery even her powers didn’t see coming.
She’s his only hope of survival, but it might be at the cost of his saviour’s life.
After his brave but futile attempt to save the female dragons during the mining wars, General Tharius Dra’Kathis is left clinging to life. With no hope remaining, he’s laid to rest to await death and transition to the Otherworld plains.
But after two hundred years, and with his mortal dragon body turned to stone, he still awaits the pleasure of the gods. When they agree he will return, he wonders if they are playing with him yet.
One touch of a female dragon’s flesh. That’s all he needs to bring him back.
But if the females of his race are all dead, who out there is left with the power to bring this dragon back to life?
STONE DRAGON is a Prison Moon Series Romance Novel
Please note I use UK English spelling.
Chapter One
In her mind’s eye, she saw him, Powering on outspread wings across pink and blue-streaked skies, shedding rainbows in his wake. The dragon turned his head, pinning her with a glimmering, purple gaze.
“Find the fire,” he said, though his mouth never moved. “Walk with the fire…”
The last booming notes of the Dragon’s plea echoed on the wind. His rumbling growl shook the air, teasing her sensitive skin, sparking new images of hot bodies entwined as one.
You see me, you hear me, and you do nothing? The dragon’s voice boomed on in her head. Why?
The chain tethering her ankle to a stout peg, driven deep into the hard-baked dirt, clinked in answer, whispering, this is why. Claudia Galrese, seer and gifted healer, is nothing but a slave, now. And a slave does not go running across bleak plains, or scale jagged-topped mountains, to answer cryptic messages from an invisible, ghostly dragon.
She blinked, dissolving visions of the legendary creature into the glare of the midday sun. He’d plagued her dreams since the day the alien hunter’s vessel came within orbit of Prison Moon One and she still had no idea what he wanted from her. Anyway, she had more pressing matters to deal with. Another vision, looming dark and intense from somewhere in the huddle of lodges and crude tents forming the warlord’s camp.
Cold dread replaced the dragon’s singing ecstasy. In her mind, Claudia saw the warlord Othrid the Grim, storming through the settlement, two wyvern shifters on point. A camera orb flying at his back. Waves of his hot rage rolled across the camp like a thunderstorm about to break. And all of it directed at her.
He looked mad enough to kill.
Claudia built her psychic shield, throwing Othrid’s dark energy back at him. He paused in his tracks, reaching out to fan a hand in front of his nose, as if testing the air for spells and magic. The two flanking bodyguards exchanged glances and lifted their batons.
Othrid’s glare grew darker, deeper. The woman standing at Claudia’s side touched her arm, her face creased with worry as she cast a furtive glance at the empty sky.
“What’s wrong, Claudia? You blanked out for a moment. Is it the baby?”
The woman’s voice filtered through the flashing colours swirling in vortexes in Claudia’s head. Lina. Claudia anchored herself, remembering Lina and the sick baby who needed her healing. When the visions invaded her mind, she forgot everything but the pictures crowding her mind. Claudia dragged her attention to the camp and the impending confrontation with the warlord.
“No. Don’t worry. It’s not your baby. I saw something, in my head.” She stroked the cheek of the grey-skinned bundle grizzling in Lina’s arms. Times like these, she was glad she’d never be a mother. A problem with her womb, the doctor, and she’d cried so hard, at the time.
Now here, on Prison Moon One, it was one less thing to worry about.
They’d both suffer if Othrid caught her giving healing for free. But Lina was as near to a friend as she had in this godforsaken place, and Claudia refused to watch a baby die when she had the power to help.
“You had a vision?” Lina shivered. “I’d hate that. Is it as freaky as it looks?”
“Yes, and then some.” Claudia forced a wobbly smile. The visions became freakier by the day. Abducted from Earth for her healing ability and special psychic gifts, her old life was gone. Now she was just another thing for the warlord, who won her in a hunt they called the Chase, to use up and spit out when she became too spent to turn him further profit.
“You want to share?” The baby finally settled; the rough cheeks losing the fierce burn that made Lina risk asking for covert help.
“No.” The dragon, the fire, was Claudia’s secret. “I saw Othrid. He’s on his way here, and he doesn’t look happy.” When does he ever? “Lina, your baby will live. Go now, before the warlord sees you.”
Footsteps now, pounding in her head. The darker vision beat on in Claudia’s mind, like a horror movie trailer. Knowing he was coming didn’t make the confrontation any easier. And—oh, hell—there was someone else with him, walking in his shadow. The last being she needed to see today.
Serllia. Othrid’s chief seer and current bed-mate, smiling like a carnivore closing in for the kill.
Now it made sense.
Exhausted by the needs of the sick ba
by, Claudia poured her remaining energy into scraping together a mental shield of protective white light. What possible complaint could the hag have with her this time? The oldest of Othrid’s seers and mystics, the Leothan female’s jealousy and ambition knew no bounds. The day Othrid returned jubilant from the Chase, boasting he’d bagged himself a human healer and psychic, Serllia had waved her rattle, pronounced the small, Earth captive to be a fraud, and poured hate and scorn on Claudia from that day on.
As if she’d asked to be abducted by aliens and dumped here on this moon, just to be a thorn in the old seer’s side.
It didn’t help that she often used her gifts to prove the mystic woman wrong. And that she couldn’t exchange one glance or thought with Serllia without antagonising her.
“Thank you.” Lina clutched her arm, sympathy shining in her blue eyes. Human eyes. Another captive abducted for the Corporation’s sick games. “I don’t want to get you into trouble, Claudia. This is all I have in payment. Is it enough?”
The thin, outstretched palm bore a crude finger-harp made of bent twigs strung with stretched gut. A trinket Othrid might spare a cursory glance before tossing it onto the garbage pile.
“You were a musician in your old life, and I know the master will take it from you. But it’s a special gift and it might give you a few moments of pleasure. God only knows, we need those in this horrible place.”
There was nowhere to hide the small instrument. Claudia paused. Thinking of her old life as Claudia Galrese, concert pianist and social media star, brought nothing but heartache. And no one needed any more of that on Prison Moon One.
Lina meant well, so she took it and smiled. I’ll survive and make a new life, she thought. Whatever happens, I’ll survive this.
“Thank you.” The taut strings teased her fingers, tugging at her heart. Her lost music remained an empty space, never to be filled. “Lina, please, don’t tell anyone what I was. They’ve taken my healing, but I won’t give them my music. Hurry now, my guard’s returning, and Othrid has Serllia with him.”
Lina’s eyes widened in terror. “Will she realise you helped my baby?”
“I’ll clear your energy as best as I can, but go. See to your child.”
Lina nodded and hurried away, disappearing between two tented lodges. The grey-skinned baby had too much of his father in him to be certain of the healing. When things looked bleak, hope was all Claudia had to give. She was a healer, not a miracle worker.
Serllia’s cloak flapped and billowed behind her, caught by the wind twisting through the camp. In full war-paint, her face daubed with white paste painted in ancient runes, the female presented a terrifying spectacle to the uninitiated. To Claudia, she made a ridiculous figure, and the old seer felt her scorn. Claudia’s protective shield wavered. The sick baby sucked too much energy, and already the first tendrils of Serllia’s mind stretched out, seeking entry into hers.
Why did they have to come now?
Somewhere, a multi-horned crisas howled as it rattled its chain. Claudia heard echoes in her own crude leash of beaten metal links. Restraints demanded by Serllia after the new healer almost succeeded in escaping soon after her capture. The old female had the warlord’s ear and guarded her patch with lethal force.
More than once, Claudia cursed her own stubborn pride, wishing she’d just put up with the female’s gibes. Bowed her head, choked out her homage, and taken the insults. What did she care if Serllia wished to be queen of the camp? Let her have the throne. Let her moan and groan under Othrid’s bulk. Fill his head with vanities and nonsense.
Claudia shuddered. Ugh, that sweaty body and those greedy, probing fingers. He hadn’t touched her yet, convinced by a few carefully placed thoughts into his mind that her powers lay in abstinence and purity.
Serrlia would one-day convince him otherwise.
Throwing the finger-harp into her tent, Claudia turned to face them, bracing against the slamming walls of Serllia’s hostility. The female wanted blood, and this time she meant to have it.
“See the insolence in her gaze? How she pins you with the evil eye?” Serllia lifted the rattle, adorned with trailing locks of plaited hair, shaking it theatrically. Othrid took a cautious step away from the crazy seer dancing from foot to foot, almost colliding with the orb-shaped camera lurking behind him. Like many ambitious men who used magic and other means to ascend to positions of power, he was superstitious by nature. Cautious, too, and intelligent enough to realise that these seers, so-called mages and mind readers who kept him in power, might easily turn that power on him.
Dressed in full regalia of furs, a leather jerkin straining to contain his growing paunch and a dented metal headband, the green-skinned warlord had either come straight from a conference, or he meant business.
Claudia gathered her scattering thoughts. Attempt a mind-jump to find out what the old hag really wanted? No go. Serllia was too well-rested, prepared and protected for this confrontation. Claudia’s seeking mind slammed into a white fog lit only by a small, flickering flame.
A flame?
Why did Serllia allow the image she could so easily have blocked to shine through the fog?
The flame flared, taunting her.
Oh, dear heaven, no. Did Serllia know about her dreams of fire and ghostly dragons? Had the old seer cracked her biggest secret? Claudia clung to the connection, hating the pitying smile spreading across Serllia’s full lips.
“That’s right, small Earthling. I see your fire and what you have planned.”
Turning her head from left to right, every muscle tense with the effort to stop the trembling, Claudia shrugged. “What fire? I see no fire.”
“She summons fire, my lord. To burn your camp while you sleep.” Serllia leaped at her so swiftly, Claudia stumbled backwards into the tent, twisting to avoid the spiked rattle aimed at her face.
Surprisingly strong fingers for one so old twisted in her hair, pulling at the roots, tipping Claudia’s face up at the sky. Serllia’s left hand clamped Claudia’s skull, squeezing.
“This little traitor dreams of fire, my lord. She conjures dragons from their sleep. And they will burn you first, Othrid. You will scream in agony as you die. Mark me on this.”
“Is this true?” Othrid growled out words laced with real fear. For all his puffed-up bluster, he kept his distance from the Earth woman with the hate-filled eyes. “Do you plan to burn us with your fires from the black pit?”
Three women clutching baskets of reeds hurried by, dipping their faces at the sight of their warlord and his mystic about to bring down the wrath of the gods. Claudia’s bones creaked under the pressure of Serllia’s squeezing hands. Her mind screamed with the agony of the seer’s needle-sharp probing. Still, she kept her face impassive, refusing to show her pain.
“Let her speak.” Othrid motioned Serllia away with an impatient flick of his hand. Claudia dragged in a breath, sagging against the thick, animal-skin, tent wall, her thoughts jangling like a clanging cathedral bell.
“There is no fire, my lord. The cursed dragons are dead, never to return.”
No one ever dared say otherwise, in a camp where wyverns roamed freely.
And would I still be here if I commanded dragons?
That thought was for Serllia. This was a sign, then. From the moment the alien hunter ship flew within range of Prison Moon One, images of fire had blazed in Claudia’s head. She thought of fire, dreamed of embers flickering to life and growing to great plumes of flame roaring across the sky. Then the voices started commanding her to find the fire. Walk with the fire. Messages from another plane only she could hear.
Messages from dragons, so it seemed.
Counting silently, Claudia squashed the racing thoughts. Serllia shoved her away, spearing her with undisguised contempt.
“So you do not plan to slaughter us all and usurp me?” Othrid raised a cynical eyebrow. His calm demeanour didn’t fool her. One flick of his smallest finger, and she was dead. “Speak female.”
“I live only to serve you, lord.” The words almost choked her. If only he’d move closer, within touching distance and offer a peek inside that head of his. Give her a real weakness to latch onto and exploit. He wasn’t so stupid. Like Serllia, Othrid knew this Earth woman’s real worth.
“You read her, Serllia. What did you see?”
“Dragons, my lord. Terminate this female now, or she will appear in the night with dragons at her back.”
“And my wyverns will destroy them all.”
“We crave the confrontation, my lord.” The bodyguard flanking his right side glowered up at the hovering camera. “As do our great masters, the Corporation. Bring them dragons, and the rewards will be infinite.”
“No, my lord, she must die. She plots to kill us all.” A crack of anger-fuelled thunder split the air. Muscles tensed. Claudia flinched. Serllia claimed power over the forces of nature. A stray lightning bolt might easily follow and strike this Earth woman she saw as a rival dead where she stood.
No, she wouldn’t kill her in full view of Othrid. But Dio, his human healer’s days were numbered for sure.
“I’m too valuable to kill.” Appeal to Othrid’s greed. Buy time to plan another escape. Failing again meant certain death.
“You make me good rewards, yes. But do not over-think your worth, female. Confined by wards and runes, you can toil for me just as well in the pit.”
“No, my powers are useless if I’m shut in.” Untrue, but worth a try. Claudia tolerated the chains, but thoughts of confinement, where no one cared when she screamed, sent her into a tailspin of panic.
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