by Abella Ward
The passageway was dark. Arana turned on the flashlight as she descended the stairs. At the end of the staircase was a door she prayed would not be locked. Luckily, it was open, so she pushed through and stepped into the dimly lit hallway. It was cold down here, and she saw the cells with their locked doors. Most of them were empty except for a few gladiator slaves her brother had kept for his blood sport – warrior slaves who fought in the Death-pit during the day. There were no guards there as the security system was powerful and prisoners were securely chained and locked. There was no escape.
The cold didn’t bother her, and she wasn’t scared. It was better down here as it was quiet and she could stay hidden away from Lorcan’s wrath for a while. She knew Lorcan was drunk when he gave the orders and he wouldn’t remember a thing the next day. So in the morning, she would be back in her room and nobody would dare say a thing. Meanwhile, she could think of a way of getting out of the castle.
She slowly made her way toward the far end of the hall. Her stomach knotted again. Since their father’s death, she could no longer go out into the city to heal the sick and wounded as Lorcan had restricted her leaving the castle. She had to find a way to get out.
Arana took a deep breath and was about to turn back and find a place to sit when she noticed the door to the cell on her left was slightly ajar.
Strange that it wasn’t locked... The hall was silent except for the distant grunts from the cells at the other end. She held the flashlight higher and peeped inside the cell.
At first, she couldn’t see anything in the dim light. She heard heavy breathing, and the stench of blood mixed with the smell of mold on the dank walls welcomed her.
And then she saw him... the prisoner.
His arms and ankles were in shackles as he was almost suspended in the air, half-conscious. Long chains linked to his manacles were attached to the ceiling and wall behind him. His silver-white hair matted to a handsome face that was marred with wounds. And the horns that grew out of his forehead and elegantly twisted back caught her attention. He wasn’t human.
He wore only leather pants and her heart skipped a beat as her eyes wandered over the taut sinew of his bare chest, his olive skin, and the way his pants hung over his hips. Beneath the several wounds inflicted upon him, she could see how strong he was, even after the torture he had endured.
She held the lamp up and walked toward him. And then she saw the dark leathery wings at his back and gasped, stopping short.
She brought the light nearer to take a closer look at his face.
His head hung to one side and, with his shallow breathing, he seemed to be in pain. The breathing clip he wore on his nostrils didn’t help. He had a translator fixed behind his ear. An iron collar dug into his neck. She winced, as she saw the deep gashes on his muscular chest. The deep cut at his rib was already beginning to rot.
Arana let out a ragged sigh. She felt sorry for this man. Her brother was a monster. Instinctively, she reached up and her fingers lightly brushed his brow.
Suddenly, the skin of her neck grew warm and the stone she wore glowed bright green. Arana gasped and staggered backward as the stone continued to glow. The warmth she had felt seeped into her skin and a surge of energy rushed through her. Her heart was thudding in her chest.
What was happening to her? That surge of energy had made her feel alive. Who was this stranger and what was he doing to her? Suddenly scared, Arana wanted to run away, but something held her back. She looked at his wounds again. The man would not survive another day in the Pit. She couldn’t leave him here.
She must heal him.
Chapter 3
Find the woman who wears the stone of Huzosh...
Once you find her, you must protect her, for she will be your mate...
He was dreaming again, and this time he heard her... He was banging on the glass of the pod as his mother’s voice faded into darkness.
***
Arana didn’t know why she wanted to heal this alien. There was something about him that made her heart go out to him. She walked up toward the wall behind him and punched in a few commands. She heard the chains moving and extending further in length so the prisoner was released from his suspended position and fell to the floor, face-down. Quickly, she moved toward him. She struggled to turn him on his back. He was quite heavy. She gently placed both hands on the deepest cut near his heart. The wound that could kill him. His skin felt damp and cold. She willed him to heal. It took some time, but then the wound started to heal and the gash filled up, leaving nothing, not even a scar, behind. The rest of the wounds started healing too, till none were left. And after a while, his breathing normalized and his eyes fluttered open.
She gasped as she looked into those intense gray eyes. He silently gazed at her for a while. His eyes roved over her beautiful face and neck and he noticed the chain she wore with the green stone.
“You are a Magi,” he said in a low voice. He moved to sit up and she slid away a little, wary of him. She sat at some distance from him with her legs tucked beneath her.
“What?” she gasped, confused.
“A witch... a rare kind,” he explained as his steady gaze bore into her very soul – as if she were some kind of rare treasure.
“No. I... I’m not. You are mistaken.” Arana’s mouth went dry.
“You healed me,” he said and she heard gratitude in his voice. “Thank you.”
“That’s just a gift I have had since I was thirteen,” Arana explained.
“A wonderful gift, Princess,” he said in his mesmerizing voice.
“I... I should go...,” she said, backing away a little, and stared at his collar. His intense gaze was unnerving her.
“Wait... I could help you.”
“You could help me?” she said, gesturing toward his shackles. “I don’t think you can.” She couldn’t unchain him. If she did, the alarms would go off.
“Then why did you heal me, Princess?”
“Don’t call me that. I am Arana... just Arana,” she said quietly. She hated the title. It was meaningless and empty, because she was just a bastard child of the old king.
“Okay, Arana. Why did you heal me?”
“I...I... You were dying...” She faltered, unsure of what to say.
“Why do you care?” He said, eyes blazing embers as he gazed at her ever so fiercely. She was sure his eyes had been gray before. “You could have let me die tonight, spared me the torture of the Pit. I’m your prisoner, your enemy. I could kill you.”
“You’re my brother’s prisoner, not mine.”
“All the more reason to ask why you care.” His voice was low and cold and his gaze pierced her soul.
“I’m a healer, and I couldn’t leave you to die when I had the chance to heal you,” she said. “I know that’s not enough. They will throw you back in the Pit tomorrow. Unless... I let you escape.”
“Then I owe you my life. And if you let me out of here, I will help you awaken your power,” he said. His eyes returned to their steely gray color. Calm and cool.
Awaken her powers? “Who are you?” she asked, softly narrowing her eyes at him.
“I’m a Slazaryn,” he gazed at her, his face an expressionless mask now. “In your tongue, they call us Dragon.”
The man was totally insane. A dragon? They were creatures of ancient times. She had read stories about dragons in thousand-year-old history volumes. They were extinct, and she had never seen one in her life or even heard about them from the travelers who came to the court.
“I thought dragons were extinct,” she said skeptically. His chuckle made her frown. She was suddenly annoyed at him. “I can’t trust you to help me if you don’t tell me the truth. You are definitely not human, but dragons don’t exist.”
“I told you. I am a Slazaryn,” he said, amused, as a smile tugged at his perfectly chiseled lips.
“Okay, Slay-ZarHin. Can you help me escape?”
“I’m Arathor. Please call me Arathor,” he said, gazi
ng at her earnestly.
“Arathor...” She paused, savoring the name on her tongue. “Can you help me get out of the castle?”
“Yes. But first, you need to get this collar off me. It weakens me and binds my powers. I cannot shift to full dragon form while this thing is around my neck,” he said, tilting his head to one side so she could get a clear view of his collar. “As you can see, I can only shift halfway. That is, to the basic level,” he said, gesturing toward his horns and wings.
She picked the lamp up and brought it near his neck. “I’ll just need to unlock it, I guess?” she said. There was a circular beam of light on the upper rim of the collar – a sensor of some sort. “I have seen this before. It is the kind they used to put on serial killers and assassins when my father was alive,” she said, getting closer to peer at the collar. “If you try to take it off forcefully by hacking the unlocking system, it will self-destruct and kill you.”
Arathor winced as Arana stared at the collar. He was an assassin, a murderer. He shifted uneasily and rested one elbow on his knee as he gazed at her. His jaw clenched at the thought. Why did it bother him now? It was who he was, had always been. Nothing could change that. And then his senses were assailed by her intoxicating scent. It reminded him of wildflowers in a lush garden. His breathing suddenly got heavier. The warm light of the lamp caught the red streaks in her hair, setting them on fire, and she looked ethereal in that white dress of hers. She sat close to him now. He could almost bury his nose in that fiery red hair and taste the softness of her ivory white skin.
The moment he saw her, he knew she was not an ordinary human. Her skin gave off a subtle luminance and she wore the stone of Huzosh. He knew about the ancient stone of Huzosh. He had read about it, and now that he saw her wearing it, he knew what his mother had been talking about. The stone could only be worn by a Magi. And in that moment, he realized the woman who had just healed him was his mate. He could see the subtle aura surrounding her. The kind that witches had and only dragons could see. And her aura was different, too. She was a Magi – a woman with a pure soul; a beautiful woman with kind eyes.
She is the one, whispered his dragon.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, concern obvious in her clear blue eyes.
“I’m fine,” he said, gazing at her.
She is the one, whispered his dragon again. He ignored it.
She got up and started pacing the floor. “I’ll try to get the real key code that unlocks this collar. But it will take time. Maybe a few days, even.” She gazed at him and he could see how worried she was. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to get back to the Pit tomorrow. But we can’t risk anybody getting suspicious.”
“Why don’t you just unlock these chains and we can escape in a ship? You can keep working on unlocking the collar as we travel,” he suggested.
“It doesn’t work that way. First, we need to get past the security system here. And even if we make it that far, the moment we are off this planet, the sensors will trigger the self-destruct mechanism.” She looked at him apologetically, as if it were her fault the collar was at his neck.
“I’ll have to sneak into the security control room and hack into the system’s database to look for the key code of this particular collar. I have memorized the number engraved on it, and all I need is the key that matches.” Arana bit her lip, obviously thinking hard.
“Arana?” he said gently in a low voice that brought her out of her reverie.
“Yes?”
“The castle is your home. May I ask why you want to run away?” He gazed deep into her blue depths.
“My brother is a paranoid psychopath. He despises me. I’m sick of him and his paranoia. He has been trying to sell me off to some tribal lord ever since our father died. You must have heard about the wedding party from the guards, no?” she said bitterly, looking away. He caught tears glistening in her eyes. His chest constricted and he grew uncomfortable. He didn’t like the way he was reacting to this woman.
“And tonight was one of those nights. The guests never made it to the castle and he blamed me again. He ordered his men to lock me up. And you have no idea what that means,” she said.
“He fears you,” Arathor said.
She turned around and pulled her beautiful long locks over her shoulder, revealing her bare back and the brutal scars. His eyes roved over her slender back. The ivory skin marred by the whiplash marks made his stomach churn. His dragon snarled within him, angered by the sight. Suddenly, he wanted to reach out and touch her – ease the pain she must have felt with every lash.
“This is how he punishes me... for crimes I have not committed,” she said as her voice choked and tears threatened to spill out. The wounds on her back might have healed, but her heart hadn’t. He could see it was still bleeding.
What was she doing to him? He had seen people being tortured before. Why was this sight so disconcerting to him?
Arathor had seen the King and he knew the man was cruel to the core. The way he loved watching the gladiators fight to the death in the Pit and the way he tortured them when they weren’t fighting clearly told him the man loved inflicting pain. But punishing his sister for no apparent reason was something he could never have guessed. She was right. The man was a total psychopath.
“Arana?” he spoke to her after a while.
She turned around to face him, throwing her hair back over her shoulders. “I think my crime is that I am a bastard child of our father. And he thinks I am a witch of some sort who performs dark magic – a bad omen for him.”
“Arana, he fears you because he does not understand you or your power,” he said gently, cautiously, as he gazed intently into her eyes.
“I have a harmless gift. How does healing others make me powerful?” she asked him as confusion and exasperation flitted across her eyes.
“I’m a Slazaryn, Arana. I have abilities that humans don’t have. I can tell when I see a witch or a Magi who has magic in their blood. The Slazaryn have healing powers too, but mine have been weakened by this damned collar so I can’t heal on my own.” He paused as she stared at him. He saw fear in those blue eyes. She really didn’t know who she was. “I can see your powers have not been fully awakened. Once they do, you will fully experience the strength of your gift.”
Arana shifted uncomfortably and stood up. She started wringing her hands and paced the length of the cell in front of him. She took a deep breath and sat down on the floor facing him once again. What he was saying wasn’t making much sense, and it scared her that he, too, thought she was some kind of witch. Her eyes would stray over his horns and then his wings that hung limply behind his back. The conversation had unnerved her to no end. Yet, strangely, she did not fear him. He could have been lying to her, luring her to let him escape. But somehow, she wasn’t scared of him. And she had a very strong feeling he wouldn’t harm her. It was weird, but her instincts told her he was safe. And she was very much aware of him and the way he looked at her. His intense gray eyes seared into her very soul. And she would catch herself staring at him, her eyes straying over his rather handsome features: strong jawline, perfectly arched brows, a straight nose and chiseled lips. And that stark silver-white hair that was neither too short nor too long as it almost touched his shoulders made her want to run her fingers through it. And she was consciously aware of his bare muscular torso, too. Something deep inside her uncoiled, and she wanted to run her hands all over his chest.
“I...I have to go,” she said suddenly, getting up. Her mind had started to wander places she was not ready to go. “It’s getting late, and I don’t want my handmaids freaking out and alarming the whole castle that I am missing,” she said explaining. She needed to think things over. And clear her head.
He silently gazed at her, head tilted to one side as he watched her walk gracefully toward the door, her long hair flowing down her back. She turned and looked at him for the last time. “I’ll come back tomorrow, hopefully with the key code. Till then, try not to get killed.”
And then she was gone. He let out a ragged breath and hoped to live another day.
She is the one, the dragon whispered. It was strange that a Magi would be his mate, for his clan had never mated with other clans in order to keep the bloodline pure. Mating with a Magi was a grave sin amongst his people. And since he was the last of his kind, he must mate to save his bloodline.
Arathor could see it now. His mother had known all those years ago. Among the Slazaryn, she possessed a rare gift. She could see glimpses of future, and she could see death would be inevitable for the Darthoridan clan. So, she had decided to save her only son.
Chapter 4
Arathor swung his sword at the giant in front of him and missed. In return, he was rewarded with a painful blow to his face. He fell hard on the sand-filled floor of the pit and spat out dark blue blood. The glare from the two suns blinded him momentarily. He fought in his full human form, and his strength was failing him every minute. Rage surged inside him, coursing through his blood. The collar had really weakened him. Dragons could heal themselves pretty well on their own, but with the collar on, it had become impossible. He needed to get rid of it soon or else it would be the death of him.
Arana’s face flashed through his mind: her kind blue eyes, ivory skin, long red locks... He knew he could trust her even before he had seen any evidence or known her reason for getting out of this place.