Breathing Fire (Drakonian Chronicles Book 1)

by B. D. Snowden

  “It just feels kind of weird to suddenly have you believe me.”

  Ladon sighed. “I’m sorry, Alexis. I should have believed you, especially after Ryuu tried to tell me that there was something going on. I was an idiot. In all fairness, I will probably be an idiot again at some point.”

  Alexis smiled and stood on her tip toes, expectantly. When Ladon just stood there, she waved him down until she could grab his face to pull him down into a kiss.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  Ladon was stunned speechless. The wall between them seemed to crumble in an instant. He rested his hand on the small of Alexis’s back and guided her towards the sled. A much as he wanted to take advantage of the renewed connection, they needed to hurry.

  All three were bundled up, though, if necessary their nanos would regulate their body temperature to keep them alive. That just expended more energy and Ladon felt it prudent to conserve energy until they had a better idea of what they were dealing with.

  Ryuu and Ladon would take turns driving the team, resting only when absolutely necessary. If they could keep up the brutal pace, they should be able to reach the facility in a little less than three days.

  Ryuu handed a bottle of pills to Alexis as she crawled into the sled.

  “What is that?”

  “I had the pilot pick up a prescription for Ritalin before he came to get us.”

  “Why?”

  Ryuu shrugged. “I knew that Alexis didn’t want to sleep because that was when the nightmares came. This is basically speed. It will help to keep her awake for a few days. Not a long-term solution, but it will hopefully get us to Tugarin’s place.”

  “I wonder if Tugarin is still there,” Ladon said as he crawled in beside Alexis.

  Ryuu cinched the couple into the sled, “It would be helpful if he is. He knows more about the nano technology than I ever will.”

  Ladon called over his shoulder as Ryuu set the team in motion. “Didn’t he have a mate?”

  “I thought mates were removed from the planet,” Alexis said.

  Ladon answered, “They were supposed to be, but Tugarin refused to go, and their pairing had produced numerous offspring, including a daughter, which was kind of a miracle in itself. The government came to a compromise. Tugarin would study why his mating was so fertile with a single woman when others rarely had children despite spreading their seed far and wide.”

  “So what was his mate’s name?” Alexis asked.

  “Zoya,” Ryuu offered. “It would be great if she is there as well. That woman was the best cook in the universe. She could make anything taste like heaven.”

  Alexis chuckled, “I guess the adage of ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ crosses species.”

  “You don’t understand; what Zoya could do with food was an art form.”

  Ryuu encouraged the dog team to go faster. Alexis raised her face to the wind rushing by. The air here smelled clear. The vast expanse of ice and snow surrounding them made everything feel brand new—a clean slate, like the world was waiting to be formed. It felt like a new beginning. It may have been giddiness from lack of sleep, but for the first time in days, Alexis had hope.

  “Onward to Zoya and her magical kitchen,” Alexis laughed.

  *****

  The third day on the trail was dawning. They were far enough north that, despite the time denoting day, the sun would only actually rise for a few hours around noon. The aurora in the night sky still danced. Ryuu was at the helm until Ladon woke up. The men had taken turns napping.

  Alexis really wished she could nap. Her body was desperately crying out for sleep. She didn’t understand why the two dragons didn’t seem to be connected, since as far as she could tell it wasn’t just bloodlines connected now. She could feel a connection to the rest of dragon kind, both past and present, through the white dragon. The researcher in her knew that was a significant fact, but her sleep-deprived brain was having difficulty figuring out what the implications were.

  Her head really hurt. She had been able to keep Fafnir out as long as she was awake. Ryuu and Ladon assured her that at some point the nanos would automatically shield her mind, but she wasn’t so sure. If constant vigilance for days wasn’t enough to train them to the task, then perhaps it was beyond their scope. Despite the debilitating exhaustion, there was an advantage to the foul connection. Each time Fafnir beat against the mental fortress of her mind, she caught glimpses of his own mind. The white dragon either didn’t realize that was happening or didn’t care because he never took steps to block her.

  She felt the now familiar push of Fafnir trying to enter her mind. Part of her wanted to close her eyes and concentrate to pull as much information as she could, but she was afraid that she would fall asleep in her exhausted state, so she had to content herself with the flashes of information that came to her.

  Fafnir was trying to determine where on the planet she was. He was so certain that Ladon wouldn’t be far from her, yet at the same time he was angry that he couldn’t follow her connection to Ladon to get to him directly.

  Alexis knew through both Ladon’s and Fafnir’s memories that Ladon was the only person to successfully stand in Fafnir’s way. That made Ladon a man to be eliminated in his eyes.

  She caught a glimpse of a group of soldiers loading a futuristic ship and sighed. She shook Ladon to wake him up. Ladon just grumbled and turned away from her to continue sleeping. Alexis frowned and cocked her elbow as far as the confines of the furs they were bundled in would allow her. She planted her elbow in Ladon’s side. He gave a satisfying yelp.

  “What the hell?” Ladon was awake now.

  “I saw something this last time Fafnir tried to enter my mind,” Alexis stated.

  “Fuck. Alexis, we told you to keep him out of your mind. That means don’t enter his either,” Ladon growled at her.

  Alexis just glared at him. “What do you think I have been trying to do for the last three days?” Her voice raised in pitch and Ladon was taken aback by her vehemence. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m cracking under the strain here. I don’t want to be in his head. I don’t want him in mine. But it appears that I don’t have a choice until we figure out what the hell is up with my nano machines. And might add that I got the defective little bastards from you.” She poked Ladon’s chest with her finger hard enough to make him wince. “So instead of barking at me, why don’t you try to listen for a change.”

  Ladon grabbed Alexis and pulled her into a bear hug. He held on to her anger-stiffened body until her muscles relaxed.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an ass,” Ladon said.

  “You are always an ass.” Alexis’s voice was muffled by the thick material of Ladon’s coat.

  His lip quirked at that proclamation, though he returned to seriousness quickly. “I just don’t want that bastard anywhere near you—not even mentally. It doesn’t excuse my yelling at you, but I just feel so helpless and I don’t know how to act when I feel like that.” He heaved a big sigh, “Go ahead and tell us what you know. I’ll shut up and listen.”

  “I saw a ship like nothing I had ever seen before. It was like something Hollywood would dream up. I can only assume that I was seeing things through Fafnir’s eyes. There was a squad of soldiers being loaded into the ship. I don’t know how, but I know that they are heading for Earth and are looking for me and hopefully Ladon.” Alexis turned her head towards Ryuu. “He doesn’t really see you as a threat, but he is afraid of Ladon. And I feel his need for vengeance.”

  Ladon’s hand reached out and cupped Alexis’s chin. He turned her head so her eyes were looking at him.

  “How many soldiers did you see, Alexis? Can you tell if they are Drakonian?”

  Alexis shook her head, “I don’t know if they are Drakonian or not. They all looked like large human men to me. I didn’t see any dragons in my brief vision.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “I saw at least a dozen lined up to enter the ship, but I couldn’t te
ll you if there were more already inside or not.” She sighed, “I’m not being much help, am I?”

  Ladon gave her a squeeze. “You are doing fine. We know they are coming and we know we will be considerably outnumbered. That gives us a starting point.”

  Ryuu stopped the sled so they could feed the dogs and give them an hour or so of rest. Everyone agreed that from this point on they would push straight through until they reached the Drakonian research facility.

  33

  “Are you sure this is where the facility is?”

  Alexis looked around. In all directions, there was nothing but a sea of white. Not even mountains were there to break up the desolate landscape. The colors of the dancing aurora reflected off the sparkling ice expanse.

  Ryuu consulted the satellite GPS device they had brought with them.

  “These are the correct coordinates. If Tugarin is still in stasis, it is possible that the entrance is buried in the glacier.”

  Ryuu pulled another device from the packs they brought with them on the plane. It was a crystal cylinder about the size of a man’s palm. When Ryuu concentrated on the device, it began to glow a faint blue color.

  “What is that?” Alexis asked.

  Ladon answered, “It’s a nano tracker. Normally it would be tuned to a certain dragon’s nano machines so we could use it to locate them. They were used in combat to find missing soldiers or to track criminals once their whereabouts were traced to a specific geographic area.”

  “Then don’t you need Tugarin’s frequencies to find him?” Alexis questioned.

  Ryuu shrugged. “Possibly, but I have set this thing to find any nano machines except for the three of us. So hopefully it will lead us to the research facility.”

  Ryuu started spiraling further and further out from the dog sled. Alexis watched him as she bounced, trying to keep her body temperature up. Ladon had said that her nanos could regulate her temperature, but all her small reserves of energy were being utilized to keep Fafnir out of her mind. The dragon was pushing harder and harder against her defenses. If they couldn’t sever his connection soon, Alexis was going to go insane.

  Suddenly Ryuu stopped about a hundred yards away from the sled and called Ladon and Alexis over. His tracker was blinking bright red.

  “I think the entrance is below this ice somewhere.” Ryuu grinned at his success.

  “That’s nice and all, but unless you somehow packed some heavy equipment into that small sled, how are we going to get through this massive sheet of ice?”

  Both Ryuu and Ladon laughed at loud.

  “You are still thinking in human terms, Alexis.” Ladon gave her a squeeze. “I’m a fire dragon, remember?”

  He stepped away from Alexis and started stripping. Ladon handed her his bundle of clothes as she marveled at the fact that he didn’t even have goose bumps from the cold. Her eyes briefly drifted down…damn! No shrinkage either.

  “Ryuu, take Alexis back to the sled team. I have no idea how the dogs will react when I transform. Hopefully they won’t take off since I should smell the same in either form, but you never know how an animal will react to a massive fire.”

  Ladon transformed into the massive red dragon Alexis first found in Wales. His jewel-like hide sparkled in the colors of the night. He really was a beautiful piece of art in this form. When she and Ryuu reached the sled team, Alexis sat in the sled to watch Ladon.

  Ladon flapped his massive wings to hover in the air a few meters above the frozen ground. The red dragon gave a loud bellow, and the dogs started howling. The cacophony was deafening. Ryuu finally got the team back under control as Ladon opened his mouth wide. Alexis could see the air shimmering around Ladon’s mouth as the temperature began to rise.

  She had expected to see flames licking the ground, but there was no visible flame. The air just shimmered like the mirage of heat over the desert sands and the ice on the ground turned to steam almost instantly. Alexis couldn’t see anything but the shadowed silhouette of Ladon hovering in the warm mist.

  Melting through a glacier turned out to be a rather monotonous task. Hollywood magic often made such ventures seem instantaneous, but the reality was Ladon had to take several breaks to let the steam disperse and to recharge his nanos with food. After several hours, Ladon finally called them over.

  Nearly a hundred yards down in the glacier, a metallic door appeared. Ladon had graciously sloped the cuts into the ice so they could travel down on the dog sled. It was a good thing that the dogs were used to crossing frozen rivers and lakes, as the newly cut entrance had almost a mirror finish.

  Ladon redressed and climbed into the sled next to Alexis. It was slow going because of the dangerously slick surface. A few of the dogs lost purchase on the slippery ice and would have continued to slide if they hadn’t been tied into their harness.

  At the end of the tunnel, Ryuu applied the brake on the sled, but they didn’t stop. Ryuu pulled the leads on the dogs until they were sliding perpendicular to the metal door. A couple of dogs yelped in pain as they slammed against the metal wall of the facility. The sled was jerked hard enough that it tipped to one side, hitting the wall runners first. The impact jarred every bone in Alexis body, but nothing seemed to be damaged. The same couldn’t be said for the sled.

  Ryuu was the first to recover, since he had rolled away from the crashing sled. He went down the line to examine the dogs and remove them from their harnesses. Ladon helped Alexis up after he crawled out of the sled. Alexis looked down. The sled was mostly intact, but the runners had buckled and broken at impact. They wouldn’t be using it to get out of here anytime soon.

  “A few of the dogs have some scrapes and sprains, but as far as I can tell, no broken bones.” Ryuu joined the pair.

  Alexis looked at the sealed door. “Okay, what now?”

  Ladon smiled as he walked towards the door. “This is the easy part.” He laid his hand on a section near the door and closed his eyes. In a matter of moments, different circuits lit up, and the pressurized door disengaged with a hiss and quietly slid open.

  “There are benefits to being an Imperial Hunter.”

  34

  Ladon led while Ryuu took up the rear. Alexis knew the men put her in the middle for her protection, but looking around the facility, she wasn’t sure it was needed. It had the same feeling of abandonment that Ladon’s complex had when she had discovered it. The difference here was that instead of stone, she was surrounded by a metal substance that was curiously free from corrosion.

  Their steps echoed along the long corridor. As they passed, the facility started to come to life. Evidently Ladon had sent his nanos slightly ahead of them. After a while Ladon stopped at a console. He tapped a few controls.

  “Computer, scan for Drakonian life signs.” He spoke in English for Alexis’s benefit. In that moment Ladon sounded very much like the general he had once been. The longer Alexis was around Ladon, the more complicated the man became.

  “Four sets of active nanos detected,” The computer replied in monotone English.

  Alexis frowned. That number didn’t sound right.

  “Display locations,” Ladon barked.

  A projected image of the facility schematic appeared in front of the console. On the display, three blips were clustered close together, while deep in the structure a lone blip appeared.

  “Let’s go.” Ladon turned and marched off before Alexis could question anything. If anyone had been here, there should have been two Drakonian life signs; Tugarin and his mate Zoya. The fact that there was only one was disturbing. So many scenarios ran through Alexis’s mind. Her companions had obviously already gone to the worst-case scenario because they tightened their guard around her.

  The trio moved in silence as the lights blinked on slightly ahead of them. They came to a door that didn’t automatically open for them. Ladon had to use an emergency override code to get in. They stepped into a space that had obviously been a living area at one time.

  Alexis ran her ha
nd along a dust-covered side table. The hand-carved wood seemed strangely comfortable placed against the metallic wall. She picked up a hunk of crystal and nearly dropped it when the image of a handsome, scholarly looking man with his arm wrapped around a petite blonde beauty appeared. Alexis knew without asking that this was an image of Tugarin and Zoya. She could also tell the pair was deeply in love. They had eyes only for each other and ignored the individual taking the picture entirely.

  That look, there in that image, was what every woman dreamed about finding. It was the look that had sold centuries of romance stories, made billions for the entertainment industry. Alexis was beginning to hope that the Drakonian they found was some lab assistant or invader.

  The group ventured further into the living space until they came to what was obviously a sleeping chamber. What they found broke Alexis’s heart. Centered on a large bed was the statue-like form of a sleeping blue dragon. Pinned under the front leg with its wings wrapped protectively around her was the mummified remains of a woman.

  Amazingly, the beautiful gown she wore was still mostly intact. Her blonde hair still lay in a halo around her head. Her arms were wrapped lovingly around the massive fore leg of the dragon cradling her.

  Tears rolled down Alexis’s cheeks. “Dear god, Ladon….”

  Ladon wrapped an arm protectively around Alexis. Everyone understood that even though Zoya’s death had happened eons ago, the dragon sleeping next to her would wake for the first time to face a world without his mate.

  “It seems cruel to wake him now,” Alexis whispered. “Maybe we should just let him sleep.”

  Ladon hugged her close and she heard Ryuu sigh.

  “It’s too late now. As soon as we started disturbing this area in earnest, the process of him waking was already started.”

  Even as Ryuu spoke, the blue dragon’s wing twitched.

  “Ryuu, take Alexis to one of the common rooms,” Ladon ordered.

  Without a word, Ryuu started to take Alexis out of the room.