Tharius, your hoard might have been looted. I can’t tell. Will your dragon…
“His rage will be terrible, yes.” He was shaking even as he spoke of it and quickened his step, ushering Claudia ahead of him. Steadying her when she stumbled. He’d have picked her up, the quicker to see what havoc the cursed invaders made of his lair, but in the narrow confine, he might easily hit her head on the craggy stone in his haste to get up to the dragon chamber.
Breathe. It’s not as if there’s a local shopping mall to go spend it in.
“A dragon accumulates, he does not spend his hoard.” Their voices soared upwards, filling the high stairwell with echoing whispers. Their feet made barely a sound on the cold stone. As they climbed, the humid heat at the bottom of the stairwell gave way to a fresher breeze blowing in from the larger opening his dragon form used to enter its own special domain.
Big dragon, big door, huh? Claudia stopped to lean her back against the stone, catching her breath, her hair caught by the breeze, caressing her cheek.
“There was once a hide curtain to pull across in the event of inclement weather, but dragons are generally immune to extremes of climate.”
She tipped back her head, studying the high, chimney-like well containing the quarter-turn stairs that existed long before he did. I sense your grandfather. He’s coming in very strong as we climb. Was this his lair?
“The son and heir inherits from the grandfather patriarch in our culture. He gave way to me when I came into my prime. I sense him, too.” A not entirely comfortable feeling as the great patriarch’s stern and unsmiling face loomed in his memory. With a start, Tharius realised he might be looking at his own face when he reached his dotage. And his poor Ekala had to look at that face every day and live in hope for an elusive smile.
“I need to make apology.” How could he, with her final resting place unreachable, and obscured by tragedy?
I don’t think she ever blamed you. Claudia disappeared around the turn of the steps. He leaped after her, reluctant to have her out of his sight for even a moment.
“When you live through a war, there’s no time for frivolity.” Blood surged wildly in his veins, and not only from the climb. His own hair flapped around his face in the strengthening wind funnelling down the shaft. Two more turns, and he’d once more stand in his secret den. He would learn if his hoard endured. He’d have Claudia all to himself, absent the watching eyes.
Did Ekala ever come up here?
“Occasionally, when landing in dragon form. She preferred to arrive as a female. Complained the shift always left her with bad hair.” His mouth flattened in a sad smile at the memory of Ekala shifting and fluffing at her hair, grumbling that she could not appear before the staff looking as if her hair was a seara-heap. Claudia’s mind tangled with his, feeding him images of a male ruffling a female’s hair, his eyes gleaming with humour. The female shrieking out her protests.
You had your lighter moments, Tharius. Don’t forget them.
Even my lighter moments scared her. We were not made for each other.
“Let me go ahead, now. It’s quiet, and I smell no wyvern intruders. But I have no idea what masks the wyverns wear now. Occupying a dragon lair was an act of conquest for them.” The steps widened onto a square landing at the last turn, so he could easily squeeze by as Claudia flattened herself against the wall. How quickly he’d become used to their seamless communication in voice and mind. Like it was always meant to be.
I don’t sense anything living but a few birds and smaller creatures. No large predators or wyverns. Would Ekala mind if I borrowed some of her clothes? If anything survived.
“We kept a small wardrobe of cloaks and gowns up here to garb ourselves after the shift. I bade my mage extend the protection of the wards and spells to everything within the chambers, should we ever return, but it’s likely they will have rotted by now.”
I hope not. You need clothes. Thoughts of clothes, his naked form following her, touching her on the steps, had obviously sparked lurid images in her mind that immediately jumped to his. How would they ever keep secrets from one another, with the connection this strong?
“Eventually.” He was beset by an uncharacteristic urge to tease her, and a much baser urge to take her now, against that wall, hard and swift until she cried mercy. He kissed her instead, his good hand cradling and protecting her fragile skull from the hard stones, his knee nudging apart her thighs. Claudia’s arms circled his neck, pulling him down to her.
Do you have a bed in your dragon cave? Her urgently whispered plea went straight to his cock, stealing all his reason. He wished to be reckless and take this pleasure, with no thought to the watchers, the looming confrontation when their dark window expired on them. He must claim her in the proper dragon way so she belonged to him without dispute.
And by the way she was virtually climbing his body, opening for him like a flower blooming after a storm, Claudia would not say him nay.
“It’s a bed befitting a high-born dragon in his male form.” He growled the words against the skin where her neck curved into her shoulder, making her shudder and squirm. Pouring fuel onto the ember, the secret dragon part of her that with every moment, was awakening and remembering its origins.
Claudia broke off to breathe in a few desperate breaths. He made a mental note to remember that these Earth females needed more breath than a Draegon in shift. He might so easily crush her with his superior strength, suffocate her with a single kiss. If not for this mind connection they shared, he might even be afraid to touch her, lest she break.
Earth females are hard to break. Claudia gave him a little shove, inclining her head to the opening leading to the great dragon chamber. He let her go, touching two fingers to her moist lips and then doing the same to his. A formal gesture he remembered from his days of courting, and a way of telling a female that what was his, was hers, too.
Did humans have such rituals? He wished to know more of her people. Tharius approached the opening and the shadows beyond with a flutter of apprehension tingling the pit of his stomach. The dragon roared silently, urging that he make all haste to check the hoard. Only when it saw and touched the precious show would it temper the rage it had been holding for two hundred years.
“Come with me. I would have us see it together.” He held out his hand without looking back. Knowing Claudia would take it. Wanting her there for this important moment.
This was who he was. The creature sailing the skies on rising thermals, causing trees to bend in supplication when he beat his mighty wings. A beast able to pull back those wings and land his powerful feet on the ledge with the precision of a dancer.
A space full of whispers and memories of his dragon alighting at the ledge. Pounding the solid floor on four great feet. First, he’d check on the hoard hidden from prying eyes behind another secret door. When all was well, he might rest awhile, or shift seamlessly to male form and descend to the house to take some ale, or meet with the other generals and senior members of his troop.
How quickly had his marital abode transformed into a battle headquarters.
Claudia gasped, gazing in wonder at the walls, shimmering with iridescent seams of blue, yellow, and orange ores.
I knew it would be beautiful. She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes, focussing on the vast opening in one wall, where winds buffeted the tattered rags of the hide curtains still hanging from their pole. I see no cameras, or sense no viewers, but they’re good at hiding.
And they left your bed.
The massive, carved bed dominated the chamber. Too ungainly and heavy to remove via the opening, he supposed. Covered now with a thick layer of grime and dust.
Claudia turned her attention to a cleft in the rock, tilting her head as if listening.
“Do the wards remain locked? The spells still stand?” He’d known seers who mind-dipped for gold. A valuable service they sold to prospectors, or reluctantly gave under torture to the more unscrupulous of his kind.
Yes,
but they’re faint. Claudia moved with purpose, skirting the great carved bed and walking straight for the door guarding his hoard.
There were no secrets to one such as her. She looked back at him while he remained rooted to the spot, knowing that if she so easily unlocked the protected wards with her powers, then others could, too.
This time, she extended her hand to him, and he was glad of the contact. Not only his treasure, but his pride, lay beyond that door. With no show of treasure to offer her, how could he claim her? She didn’t need it, but he did. This one ritual went to the heart of all he was.
Endow her with his gold. Then throw her down on that bed and seal it with his cock inside her. And if the eyes watched, then so be it. In the taking, he’d give them a message they could not fail to understand.
She was his, and the Draegon always fought for what was theirs.
Chapter Nineteen
Claudia had rules concerning tears. Especially since her abduction when she learned not to waste them on trivia. Unlike most of her Italian relatives, she seemed to have missed out on the gene that had them weeping rivers for every occasion. Happy tears, sad tears, just-because tears. But now, she couldn’t seem to stop the stinging in her eyes.
Did Tharius truly want her that much?
The den’s shimmering half-light, the seams of coloured ore striping the walls, blurred through tears that might be worth shedding. She’d have died before admitting to needing a man’s strong arm for anything more pressing than unscrewing a stubborn jar. Here, on Prison Moon One, the strongest males at least managed to keep hold of their captives for a decent length of time.
That she’d found one who wished her no harm… Claudia wiped her eyes, dragging her attention to the door guarding the hoard. The treasure wasn’t in there. It was standing right behind her.
“You’re sad. Why so?” Tharius pressed in, leaning over to seek out her expression. He wiped at a stray tear and held up his fingers. Touched the salty moisture to his tongue.
Happy tears. Claudia enjoyed his warmth, taking a moment of pure indulgence all for herself. You don’t see many of those on this moon.
“We will change that.” He nuzzled at her ear, whispering hot breath onto her skin. “You will teach me to laugh. Give me a reason to cry these happy tears.”
Laughter. Another precious commodity. She wriggled away from him, shaking out the hair flattened by his attention.
Your architect was also the mystic who set the wards. I can almost see him, standing over there in that corner. She made out a shape, tall and thin as a cord, but with eyes so sharp they might cut right through her. A personality so strong, it lived on here in the space he designed and protected.
Tharius followed her gaze, eyes narrowed as he tried to puzzle out what she saw. “He was so slender in male form, a light breeze might have taken him, but for his strength of will. Little wonder his energy lives on in this place.”
He died in the war, didn’t he?
“Early on, like many. Tharius contemplated the sturdy wood hiding his hoard. No key, the door opened by a series of codes tapped onto the door in strategic sequences. But to open safely first the extra wards, set for protection during the war, must recognise him.
Claudia took a step, leaning her forehead against wood scraped and smoothed to an undulating shine by some instrument like a plane. Massive, of course, to accommodate the dragon in full shift, but somehow giving the illusion of a door so narrow that his male side could barely squeeze inside. When she looked closer, the dents were blows to the wood, not decoration. A black burn mark marred one corner.
“It folds twice, inwards on hidden hinges, taking the wall with it.”
As he spoke, the door opened in her mind, just as he described. It would take a strong man to move such a heavy structure.
Or a dragon.
I don’t really dabble in spells or witchy things. But if I really do have dragon in me, then God only knows what else there is. Give me the codes. Let me try to open it.
“No.” Tharius yanked her away from the door so abruptly, she almost fell. He held her steady, glowering at her as if she’d gone completely insane. “Can you not feel that it is designed to kill the first intruder who applies force, or makes one mistake with the codes? Can you not see the marks where they tried and failed? The invaders may have been happy to expend their drones that way, but I will not risk you.”
He pushed his face so close, she could see the flecks of lighter purples and mauves in his jewel-like eyes. He had a very stern general-face. She’d give him that. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on her.
Tharius, I want to help. Let me.
“I know, but this is something I must do alone.”
Tharius rolled his broken shoulder, grimacing slightly at the cracking pop of the joint.
“Even without the spells, it must be I, opening my treasure to you. Do you understand?”
Just don’t get yourself killed. Claudia put her hands behind her back to stop herself reaching out again.
“If my memory serves me with the correct codes, we will both survive this. Tharius positioned himself at the midpoint of the door, reaching out a tentative hand to tap three times in the centre. His fingers slid to the left.
Claudia swallowed, her throat suddenly very dry. Be careful. I don’t want to lose you, dragon-man.
“You won’t.” His smile was a little grim. “Now, stay there and let me concentrate.”
* * *
Tharius’s nape prickled as he tapped with light fingertips and slid his hands to the next point on the door. He thought he remembered the code, but now in the doing, he wondered if time had not muddled the complicated sequence in his head.
The extra codes, set so that only he and his seer might unlock. He must not falter with those. Tharius braced and moved on, aware that Claudia had almost stopped breathing.
Every muscle tensed, he continued tapping in the complicated sequence until the wards and invisible locks gave way. He glared at the opening door,
The wards are very weak, Tharius. The codes hardly working. It’s opening.
“Yes, and too easily. We were barely in time before the invaders breached this place.” They’d monitored his stone form for many years; they would not have give up on a dragon hoard. Had they arrived any later than this, he had no doubts his hoard would have been compromised.
But they didn’t, Tharius. That’s what’s important.
“You speak wisely, little one.” He reached out for Claudia’s hand, pulling her hard against him. He must honour her with the full ritual of entering and presenting. And a few other things, of course. A zing of energy passed between them as she read the images forming in his mind.
So soft against his hard body. Smooth to his roughened scales and sun-toughened skin. Tharius held her in place, letting her see the promise in his eyes.
“Yes.” A word learned from her lips, but her mind spun with a jumble of incoherent thoughts, mostly centred on the size of him, and what he could do with it.
“You haven’t begun to know what I’m capable of in congress.” A dragon might stand there all day, simply gazing into the depths of his female’s green eyes. Then he’d spend the whole night, tumbling her in that bed, had they time.
In truth, he could only imagine the pleasures awaiting them in the great bed embellished with carvings and symbols of his and Ekala’s house. Meant to be a place of privacy and sanctuary from their ever-present servants and retainers, it had never seen the use he envisaged.
Claudia rested on him, lending a sympathetic ear to his thoughts. He let go his tight hold. What good lay in wallowing in past hurts?
“Ekala thought me dour, a keeper of rules who required few comforts, so I decided to surprise her with this bed. What I imagined might be a spontaneous act. She was so scandalised by thoughts of congress anywhere but in the official bed of union, I suffered her cold silence for a full phase of the moons, before I assured her this was merely for my sleeping off a long flig
ht.”
And she told her body maid all about it?
By Dramis, he did not wish to relive that humiliation.
The anger, the feeling of having been made to look foolish in front of servants by such soft thoughts, made sure he rarely smiled again.
“Smile,” Claudia said aloud and pointed to her upturned mouth. “Tonight, I’ll make you smile.”
He had no need of an interpreter for that. “And I will make you scream.”
Enough of the past; here was his chance to rewrite a future he once believed already written in the stars.
“Holding you to that, soldier.” He had no idea what she said, but it sounded affirmative. Claudia turned to stand next to him, studying the unlocked door. Her thoughts ran on to treasure and gold while his hammering heart tried in vain to catch up. Not only his treasure, if intact, here lay security, the means to barter and rebuild his army.
“Do you sense any of the eyes? You said one lurked in the trees out there. I would have you reseal this place and keep my hoard hidden forever before letting them see it.” He moved his hips, seeking the friction only she could give. “And I want you without them watching. What do you feel?”
“Safe.” I feel safe, as if they’re keeping their distance for now, but planning to sneak up on us. It won’t last for long. Open the door.
“Stand back and cover your eyes. There will be two hundred years of dust.”
“Hurry.” I want to see it.
The urgency in her tone surprised him. Pleased him.
“You feel it, too?”
Claudia clenched her fists. As if having to restrain herself from pushing him aside and opening the door herself.
Yes, but I think the dragon in me feels it more.
Chapter Twenty
Claudia stepped into the space, blinking against the brilliance of treasure piled so high she had to tip back her head to take it all in. Beside her, Tharius stood silent, completely at odds with the emotions surging through every fibre of his body. Claudia felt it all. His joy and relief. The sadness and anger of his lost life.
STONE DRAGON: A Prison Moon Series Romance Novel Page 18