by E. A. James
She crossed her arms and bit her tongue, her glare deepening. “You doubted me once before, you know.”
“Doubt is healthy. It’s a means to separate reality from fiction.”
“It sounds more like a means to deny things that you would not like to accept.”
He rolled his eyes, shifting to his left—toward the rows of little homes rather than toward the main market street.
Her stomach growled, feebleness spiking through her limbs and up her neck. Leonie placed a palm over her stomach and frowned. “Maybe no one will recognize me if we buy food from one of the merchants. And water.”
“If they do, perhaps they’ll offer their goods to the prophetess for free.”
She lightly hit his arm and smirked. “I would never take free goods from a hard-working merchant.”
Adrik smirked back. “I would.”
She huffed, shaking her head and keeping her hand on his arm. Then she turned back to the markets and bit her lip. “Really, though, it should be fine, right?”
“Are you asking me if the village will turn into a mob upon seeing you?”
“Well…yes.”
“I don’t know. But if they did,” he wrapped his arm around her shoulders—a light yet reassuring pressure.
Blushing, she patted the hand on her shoulder. “While I appreciate that, I’m more concerned about disappointing them. Mathsus only visited me twice, and he was nearly unintelligible both times. What if people need to hear more?”
“Then that’s their problem, not yours.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but then her stomach growled again.
“Come,” Adrik said, guiding her to the main street. “Let’s get some food and see what happens.”
“You’re the prophetess!” an elderly merchant said almost instantly as she entered the fray of the market. Leonie’s eyes bulged and her hands fluttering over her mouth. “Praise to the gods!”
Leonie forced herself to smile and keep eye-contact with the woman, though the sweet pastries covering the woman’s table tormented Leonie with temptations. Her mouth water, her stomach growling. “I wouldn’t—”
“I’m honored to be in your presence,” the merchant breathed. She waved out a wrinkled hand over her food. “However I may be of service to the prophetess, I shall be that.”
Leonie sighed. Then, seeing Adrik reach for one of the pastries, she slapped his fingers while keeping her attention to the old merchant. “I appreciate the sentiment, my lady, but I desire to offer you fair coin for your products. I’m but a young woman. Mathsus granted me brief attention and nothing else.”
“That is more attention than he has ever given me. Please—take anything and everything!”
Leonie swallowed back another sigh and took out her small bag. “I must insist I pay for ‘anything and everything.’” She glanced over the money she scooped up in her hand, hidden in her purse. “How much does it cost for two slices of this dessert?”
Adrik leaned closer to her and whispered, “Four.”
Leonie snapped her widened eyes to him. “Four slices? Really?”
“My stomach is much larger than yours. My body, in general, is much larger than yours and requires, well, more.”
It was a fair point. Shrugging, Leonie turned back to the merchant—but then a dark shadow caught her eye. She glanced back to Adrik—to behind Adrik—and in the distance, a towering figure stood at the mouth of an alley, his or her entire being covered by a massive black cloak. Leonie couldn’t even make out a face.
Leonie frowned.
The figure didn’t move. Leonie swore that he or she stared at Leonie, but there was no way to be sure.
Adrik nudged her. “Leonie?”
Shaking her head, she smiled at the merchant and gave her money for four slices. “My apologies. I was distracted.”
The merchant flinched at the money. “At least let me offer the prophetess a discount!”
“The prophetess?” a bystander whispered, getting out of line in the adjacent shop and walking up to Leonie. “By the gods, it is true!”
Leonie’s smile wavered, her eyes snapping back to the cloaked figure—one who remained frozen in his or her spot, like a bleak statue. Her skin crawled, anxiety jittering through her veins.
It didn’t help when more bystanders crowded Leonie, all of them whispering praises of her and Mathsus. The gentle voices roared into mass nonsense, their warm bodies pressing closer and closer to Leonie and Adrik.
Leonie ground her teeth behind her waning smile. Quickly, she lowered the coins to a small space on the table before snatching few slices of whatever pastry she could grab. Then she spun to Adrik and handed him all of the food. “Here, just—just eat it all. I can’t even breathe right now.”
“Prophetess!” a woman cried. “Prophetess, we honor your presence!”
Others loudly agreed.
“Thank you,” Leonie said, but her voice was drowned out by several others giving her praise.
Adrik motioned his head toward her, making her furrow her brow. He handed her back the pastries, and with a tight frown, she gathered them in her arms. As icing sank into the fibers of her clothes, Adrik bent down and scooped her up.
She giggled in surprise, pastries tumbling over her gut as she wiggled in Adrik’s loose grip. “Adrik!”
“Pardon us,” Adrik announced to the crowd, gawking at him. “The prophetess has a lot of traveling to do today, so I’m afraid we must take our leave.” He took a small step forward and cleared his throat.
The bystanders shuffled back.
He took another step, a bit bigger.
The bystanders shuffled back more.
Leonie bit her lip to tame her grin as she glanced at Adrik. “My hero.”
He shrugged, eyes glinting with pride and amusement.
She glanced over at all the pastries before grabbing one that seemed relatively intact—and without any of her clothes’ fibers on it—and offered it to him. “Want a bite?”
He cocked an eyebrow at the sugary bread held in front of his mouth. Then he leaned forward and took a bite, his lips grazing the edge of her pointer finger.
She giggled again, cradling the dessert. Her stomach released a high-pitched whine, encouraging her to take a large bite, herself. As she did so—raspberries and sugar coated her mouth—she looked back at the dispersing bystanders.
There, down the street walked the cloaked figure. It seemed to follow her and Adrik. The figure—like a lanky phantom—weaved around people while keeping his or her face fixed at Leonie. The movement struck Leonie as unnatural.
Leonie’s heart thudded quicker. “Uh, Adrik?” she whispered, moving to hide part of her face behind his shoulder.
“Yes?” he said around his bite of food. Then he swallowed.
“We’re being followed.”
“Of course we are. You’re the prophetess. Can I get another bite?”
“No,” she hissed, “I mean someone is stalking us right now. Look.”
Adrik glanced over his shoulder. He stiffened, steps faltering a little as he faced forward again. His lips pressed together in a thin frown.
“Never seen anyone that tall before.” He swerved, picking up his pace and pushed past several people to get off the main road and back onto the smaller road, behind the shops. “Is he still following us?”
She craned her neck to peer over his arm.
The dusty road was bare, save for the few bystanders who peered around buildings to watch her leave. She released a long breath, body relaxing.
And then the dark figure soared above the bystanders blocking their view, his feet thudding against the dirt road a few meters away from them. As he rose, he quickened his pace toward Leonie and Adrik.
Leonie nearly choked on her fear. “Adrik,” she wheezed.
He glanced over his shoulder again and cursed. He quickened his pace even more and his grip on her tightened.
The cloaked figure moved faster. His bony knees pushed agai
nst the dark cloth that covered him. His strides were long—longer than they should be.
“Adrik, I don’t know what that thing is,” she whispered to him. “It’s getting closer.”
Adrik ran.
Leonie gasped, the pastries bouncing out of her lap and crashing to the ground. She gripped Adrik’s arm and gawked at the figure, increasing its speed, as well—so fast that it's blurred, angled frame aimed like an arrow at Adrik’s back.
“He’s a demon or a Fader or something,” she rambled, quivering and clawing into Adrik’s arm. “He’s going to catch us. We have to do something.”
She reached for the pack on her back, but it was pinned between herself and Adrik’s arms. She tugged on the top of it in a desperate attempt to free some kind of weapon.
Adrik turned, sprinting past the rows of homes.
The figure dashed after them, its cloak flapping in the air with each swift step.
Leonie squirmed and pulled harder at her pack. She had not needed her dagger or bow in several days—forgotten in its storage—and the moment she needed them the most—she growled, “Adrik!”
Adrik jumped over a ditch, the ground beneath his feet feeling harder as sharper tremors shot up his limbs and rumbled into her.
The figure was meters away from them.
Splashing water graced Leonie’s ears and she faced forward again.
A river. Massive in width and flat in appearance, it was almost difficult to tell just how rapidly the water rushed by. It was only because of a small twig floating on the surface that Leonie saw the true intensity of the river’s might.
“Adrik!” she said warningly, but it was too late.
Adrik’s feet landed on the edge of the river—on a sharp edge of firm dirt and dying grass—before he pushed off the ground and dove into the water, Leonie clung to his back.
EPILOGUE
The Gargan protector—with the prophetess in his arms—had the gall to jump into the river, the dark waters concealing him and the young woman completely from sight.
Growling, he stopped at the river’s edge, his cloak rustling against the gentle breeze that followed the river onward. He stared at the rapid water for several moments in search of the prophetess, but she never broke the river’s surface.
He released a long sigh. His wings trembled and ached within their tight confinement, and he stretched his back and long limbs in hopes of alleviating the discomfort. The gears in his legs whirled loudly until he relaxed his posture yet again.
The prophetess must’ve been carried farther down the river—much farther, though this was assuming that the man of rock wasn’t anchoring her.
He cracked his jaw. If she died because of such idiocy…
Shaking his head, he walked alongside the river—one long stride after another—in search of the one who could alter fate.
Taken by the Alien Dragon
CHAPTER ONE
The space ship shuddered as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Keep it steady,” Bane said, putting his hand on Hocus’s shoulder. The pilot was good at handling the ship but they hadn’t been sure what they would find. Earth had looked like a good option. The readings had told them that the air was breathable and the atmosphere was similar to PAX217.
Bane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His fingers felt numb. His stomach was hollow even though he’d been taking in what his body needed. Space ship food, the stuff that tasted like cardboard, just wasn’t the same as a good meal.
Bane turned his attention back to the window of the space craft and Hocus’s steering. The planet was rich, green and browns splattered across a canvas of ethereal blue. He was scared it was a dream. Since PAX217 had been destroyed he’d had so many dreams about homes that could give him what he’d lost. Give him a place to belong.
“There,” Bane said, pointing. Hocus shifted direction and they headed for a medium patch of Earth compared to the others. The US of America, the Internet had told him. They’d made an effort to tap into the Earth’s resource system to learn more about the place they hoped to call home.
The flight down to the surface was quick. Compared to the time they spent in hyper sleep when they’d traveled through space, their time awake felt surreal. The space ship touched down and the door opened with a suction sound and warm air rushed in. It was the first time Bane had felt anything other than the constant room-temperature interior they’d existed in on their quest to find the new world.
“What do you think?” Mage said, coming up next to Bane. Her hair was long and blond, hanging well past her hips. She would stand out in a place like this. He’d seen the pictures. Females seemed to have lost their classic look about a hundred of their years ago.
“I think that this might just work,” Bane said. He looked over the vast stretch of yellow sand, the formation in the distance that created a jagged line between the sky and the horizon. “One we establish that this is the place we can send for the others.”
Bane stepped out of the ship and his feet sank a little into the sand. It was warm, baked by the sun that sat high in the sky. Just past noon according to the daylight cycle on Earth. He walked a couple of steps and then his feet hit a harder surface. He knelt down and inspected it. Hard, it seemed to be formed out of many tiny rocks. A road, he believed it was called. He’d downloaded so much into his system that it was hard to sift through it all in one go.
He got up and turned around, waving to Mage.
“This will do,” he called out.
“Watch out!” Her voice was accompanied by a humming that started up, loud and intimidating. The sound of rubber on this road, spinning faster than fast. The wind whistled around the iron beast coming at him at lightning speed. White, with eyes that looked angered and a broad black mouth, tilted in a grimace.
Bane jumped out of the way, just in time. The beast made a whining sound and then charged on; leaving Bane behind in a cloud of dust that made him cough and heave for air.
“What was that?” Mage asked.
Bane leaned down on his knees. Hocus appeared in the doorway and raised his eyebrows. He had brown hair, slicked back against his scalp and curling around his ears.
“Their mode of transportation, I believe,” he said.
Bane nodded. “Stay off the narrow strips of tar. They run on them.”
It was strange being on Earth. The planet felt like home, but it was alive with energies that hadn’t existed on PAX217. Their planet had been a peaceful one. This one felt like it was constantly moving, spinning not just around the sun, but with a power of its own, something that drove the humans onward.
It was unsettling and addictive, all at the same time.
“We shall camp toward the north,” Bane said and pointed. Mage and Hocus both turned and looked. Bane had chosen a spot some distance from this road that spelled out his death.
They moved the ship. It wasn’t easy moving over the land that had a stronger gravitational pull than their home planet. Bane felt tired quicker. He would have to adjust if they were going to survive here. Fight here. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but they had to be prepared.
They barely had their living spaces erected when a thunderous noise sounded from above. It didn’t stretch along the vast skies as it did at home. Instead it came from a singular spot in the heavens, a machine with blades that sliced the atmosphere into pieces of tension.
“They’ve noticed our arrival,” Hocus said. “Perhaps we could—”
A spray of bullets came from the flying machine – helicopter right? – And bit into the earth all around them. Bane ducked for cover.
“They’re shooting at us!”
Mage screamed. Hocus swore and then a crack sounded like lightning had hit rock. It was the sound of Bane’s own temper, taking over. They were here in peace, dammit! They didn’t ask for war. They had not done anything to instigate it.
There was no time to think as the beast ripped out of him. Anger, fear, possession, they all had the
same effect. They set the beast free.
Bane felt as the animal rose out of him. His skin hardened, stretched across his growing body in a thick span of scales. He heard a roar and another pop to his side. Hocus had lost it, too. Only Mage held onto her humanity. Maybe it would be better for her that way. The males could take care of the war.