She’d picked up a huge rock, her breath puffing out as if she’d run a hundred miles with a dragon on her heels. “Stay away from me, you filth!”
Before Dane could come to her aid, she tossed the large rock. He expected it to miss its mark. Instead, it clonked the bandit between the eyes and he flew backward and lay still with his eyes wide open. She’d killed two men. Surprise made him stagger. Then he remembered his wound and his hand went to his side. Blood stained his fingers. Damn the hells.
“Ketera.” He went to her, dragged her into his arms and held her close.
She buried her face in his neck, her breathing hard, almost sounding like sobs. “Dane. Thank the god.” She lifted her face to his, the horror mirrored in her eyes something he’d never seen on her before. “Dane, I killed those men. I killed them.”
“You had no choice. I’m proud of you.”
She jerked back out of his arms. “Proud? Proud? It’s the most awful feeling I can imagine.”
Anger replaced his concern. “You know the worst feeling I can imagine? That you’d kept your damn morals intact and those men killed you. That’s the worst feeling imaginable to me.”
Looking stunned and ready to retort, she glanced down and noticed the blood on his tunic. Worry stamped her face. “You’re hurt.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Damn breast plate shifted and the poacher cut me. We need to hide. We can’t get to the castle in time, and there are more poachers out there. They’re going to look for their friends. When they find them dead, all hells will break loose.” Her face was still unusually pale and she trembled violently. He closed the distance between them and cupped her face in both hands. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I can’t stop shaking.”
Worry slammed him. “Could be the fight, or the poison is still working on you.” He released her. “There’s a cave not far from here. We need to go there.” His vision wavered in and out, and pain started to surface. For him and for her, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Let’s go.”
He took her hand and they ran into the jungle once more.
They ran until they couldn’t and the cave entrance came into view. It was high enough on a hill that it commanded a decent view of the area below. Still, it was covered in vines. At least none of them were carnivorous.
“We’re going up there?” she asked, breath still coming fast.
“Yes. Follow me.”
Without hesitation he plunged forward, his side aching and stinging. It wasn’t the worst injury he’d encountered, but it still hurt like the blazes. He kept a hold on her hand, and she staggered up the hill easier than he expected. He felt like dragon dung, and that wasn’t a good sign. Maybe the poachers had used Magonian poison on their swords? Why hadn’t he thought of that before? If they had, one thing needed to be accomplished.
He stopped halfway up the hill. “Do you know what a feralax weed is?”
“No.”
“I’ll point it out.” He saw some. The stringy weeds were plentiful on this hill, thank the god. “There.” He snagged one of the innocuous-looking plants from the ground in the hillside. “We need this for both of us.” He took her hand again and continued up the hill.
“We don’t have supplies,” she said. “No water or food.”
“We can live without the food for a day or two. The cave has a fresh water source.”
Pain flashed like a white-hot poker to his injured side. He couldn’t stifle a groan as he automatically reached for the offended flesh. His hand came away crimson.
“Dane.” Her voice was ragged, eyes filled with concern.
“Never mind. I’ll be all right.”
As they encroached on the cave mouth, he noted that nothing about it had changed. Not only was the mouth wide, the ceiling soared a good fifteen to twenty feet above their heads.
She swung around and scanned the jungle trees. “Can’t they see us up here?”
“If we stand here too long, maybe. Let’s go in.”
They hurried through the opening. “Don’t tell me that strange creatures inhabit this place.”
“All right. I won’t tell you.”
She made a slight snorting noise and kept her tight grip on his hand. “Sir, you are no gentleman.”
“Never said I was. I’m a Daryk One. Not a fine and dandy man like a Magonian.”
She laughed softly, and the gentle female quality somehow eased his pain.
The continued toward the back until the left side of the cave curved and flattened into a wall.
She nodded toward the gloom beyond in the narrower tunnel. “Where does that go?”
“No one ventures back there. Too easy to get lost.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No ugly creatures ready to devour us when we’re defenseless?”
“None that I know of.”
“That you know of?” She tossed him a half smile. “Wonderful.”
He returned her grin with a weary grunt of derision. “Like I told you back at the castle, our world is dangerous and wild. Most things here would sooner kill you as look at you.”
She covered her eyes for a moment with both her hands. “On Magonia you’re more likely to be killed by the murdering heat than any man or beast.”
“A gentle place to live then.”
“Ha! Hardly.” She didn’t explain, but asked instead, “Will the poachers look for us here?”
Before he could manage a reply, a searing heat filled his side and stole his breath. He gasped for breath, reached out for her and the world went black.
Chapter Ten
Dane hit the cave floor like a ton of rocks, lying silent and still on his back, legs sprawled open, arms at his sides. His mouth was slightly open, his lips pale, his face a waxy white. Though he was fairly light skinned anyway, this paleness spoke of true illness, and it scared her to death. He’d said the wound wasn’t that bad.
Ketera thought her heart would stop. Simply curl up and die right in her chest. Paralyzed, she stared at his inert body. For a moment the weight of all Croan came down upon her, and a million thoughts raced through her. Horror that the big Daryk One lay before her, seemingly helpless. Feral terror that she could be left alone in this unspeakably dangerous place. Dread threatened to overtake her senses, and the cave ceiling felt as if it were lowering inch by inch, ready to crush her.
Then her mind jolted her into action. Dane needs your help.
Fear galvanized her reaction, her concern for him so powerful she instinctively knew what to do. The weed he’d picked on the hill. He’d meant they needed it for poison. She didn’t feel poisoned, but even if poison from the vicious vine still lingered in her body, it couldn’t be as potent as the wound in Dane’s side.
He’s immune to poison, isn’t he? That’s what he’d said, but something told her to use the weed anyway. Just because he was immune to poisons didn’t mean he couldn’t contract an infection. She didn’t have anything to clean the wound, so she’d have to make do. She struggled with his breastplate but managed to work the side of it open enough to reach the wound. He weighed far too much for her to lift him, so he’d have to lie where he’d fallen. She tore the tunic open then reached for the bottom of her own tunic and worked to tear off a strip at the bottom. A few furious yanks separated the fabric from the bottom of her tunic. She balled it up, took the weed and ran to an indent in the rock near the cave opening. She soaked the weed and rag in cold water. Ketera hadn’t a clue if this would hurt or help, but what choice did she have? By the god, she wished she’d taken that medical course her father had suggested. Her hand shook as she lifted his tunic enough to see the wound more clearly. The wound wasn’t bleeding.
“How can this be?”
It made no sense, but the bleeding had stopped. The gash, about eight inches long, looked considerably deeper than she expected. That’s when she noticed something that took her off guard. The wound had already started to close, to heal.
“Magon,” she whispered in
astonishment.
Jerking herself out of the stupor, she placed the weed over the wound and then applied the cloth as a way to hold the slippery plant.
She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer to Magon. “Please, Magon, preserve him. Heal him.”
Dane jerked, startling her. She opened her eyes and found his eyes open as well.
“You think a prayer to Magon will work on me? Shouldn’t your god hate me? Consider me an infidel?”
Tears sprouted in her eyes, but she forced them away. “Dane.”
He placed his hand over hers where it rested on the wound. “Thank you, Ketera. Without this, I might not have made it.”
“You’re healing so fast.”
“That’s normal. It’s the damn poison on the poacher’s sword.”
His raspy, weak voice worried her. “Why? I thought you were immune to poison.”
“Poison’s from Magonia, not Dragonia.”
She couldn’t speak, immobile with worry. “Dane, what if…”
“If I die,” he swallowed hard around his words, “if I die, I will see you in the next life. You will still be my mate then, as you have in every life before, as you will in every life from now on.”
With that his hand went limp, and he fell into unconsciousness once again.
Fear hadn’t left her, and as he lay silent, it refused to relent. She couldn’t let anything happen to him. She refused. Poison from Magonia? It made sense. The people here wouldn’t have built up immunity. She held the weed to his side, hoping that it would cure him, prevent him from leaving this life. The only one he had, if the scribes and the god Magon were right. She closed her eyes and willed strength into her body. She had to do whatever it took to save him.
Something angry snapped inside her. She kept the weed against his wound but shook his shoulder with her other hand. “Wake up, Dane. Wake up. Isn’t there anything else I can do to save you? Anything?”
His eyes barely opened, but his lips parted and the words came so softly she had to lean close to his mouth to hear. “Kiss me.”
Once more his eyes closed, and she couldn’t awaken him no matter how often she called his name. She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. Tears poured into her eyes and she indulged them, allowing them to run down her face.
Exhaustion claimed her and she fell into a deep sleep. How long it lasted, she couldn’t say, but when she awakened, she saw she’d kept her hand with the moistened weed against his side. How had she done that? Sheer will perhaps. She felt his brow and found it cool, and when she looked at his wound, it had completely closed. A miracle. It was as if he’d never been stabbed. She allowed the cloth and weed to fall to the ground, and that’s when she saw it. The weed had withered and dried to a dead brown. The white tunic material was red and blackened. Still weary, she looked around the cave and realized they needed warmth. Sunlight had dropped away in the high jungle canopy, and not even the clearing before this cave allowed much sun to intrude. Before long, sunlight would disappear. They’d be left in this jungle with no protection from elements or beast. She’d slept far too long.
She slipped his sword from the scabbard and held it aloft. Heavy. She almost dropped it. Instead she walked to the edge of the cave and scanned the deepening shadows. Time to find firewood. But where? Where could she go without losing her way? She inhaled deeply to calm her nerves. She’d do it. What choice did she have?
Purposefully she eased down the slope, intent on any wood she could locate. Inside the jungle numerous animals called, their deadly intent singing in their voices. Fronds swayed, leaves whispered, the trees seemed to call to her with a drunken, almost sibilant whisper. Asking her to come to them. To be an evening meal.
She pulled her stare from the haunting forest and continued to stack wood around the base of the hill. It didn’t take her long, but carrying the sword and gathering wood wouldn’t work. She returned to the cave and placed his sword at Dane’s side. Returning to the wood at the base of the hill, she made three trips until she’d piled a stack far enough inside the cave it wouldn’t get wet.
Once she’d gathered the wood, she set about building the fire. Thank Magon some of the wood was dry. It took quite some time, but the flames started to flicker, catch, build. She sighed with relief, hoping for heat and protection. As darkness started to descend, a thousand thoughts raced through her head. Worry stayed chief among those concerns. When would Dane wake up? She couldn’t succumb to fear or exhaustion with Dane unconscious. Only he understood this jungle. She could escape the jungle on sheer will, but how much more fraught with peril would it be if Dane wasn’t with her? Fear crept higher. She sucked in a deep breath as she tried to reduce her heart’s crazy pounding.
That’s when she heard the noise. The strange chortling, howling laugh sounded like a demented human. The fire. Damn. Had she made it easy for the poachers to find them?
A bark, a weird and feral noise, came from the front of the cave beyond the fire’s reach. At first she froze. What now? She held her breath, her throat tight. What if the creature wasn’t afraid of fire? She jumped to her feet, bent down to grab a large stick, and hurried toward the fire. If she tried to light the stick to use as a weapon or torch, it would burn down too quickly. She stared into the pattern of light created by the large fire and shivered as she peered into the gloom beyond. Listening intently, she tried to see who, or more likely what, lurked in the darkness. Her heartbeat quickened. Her breath came short. Nothing in her experience on Magonia prepared her for this fear, for uncertainty as biting and sharp as what she felt in her skin, her bones, her heart right this moment. She swallowed hard.
Get me through this and I promise not to complain about my situation for the next hundred years.
She listened intently.
Was that a twig breaking? The sound of a stealthy creature moving closer, stalking with intent to kill? Sweat broke out on her body, chilling her despite the humidity. Once more the crackling of brush, a twitter of sound, both human and beast.
She wanted to scream out, to demand the creature show itself so she could fight. A little voice murmured in her mind. Or die trying.
Then she saw it, less than twenty feet away, peering around a bush.
Brilliant red eyes, as bloodthirsty as any creature she’d witnessed in a nightmare.
Her mouth went as dry as the inhospitable deserts near her home on Magonia. She longed for the safety of her underground home where temperatures both hot and cold were kept at bay and strange beings didn’t approach without a warning system sending up an alarm. She swallowed hard again, her heartbeat feeling as erratic as an injured bird’s wings. She went so still she thought she could hear everything, feel everything, an urge to run screaming through her body.
The creature blinked and moved forward. Slowly it revealed itself.
An abomination of awful proportions.
With a long, skinny head, the animal looked gray, almost reptilian. The snout reminded her of insect-eating animals that roamed the deserts on Magonia. She didn’t see any ears, and the mouth was so small she couldn’t be sure it had one. Four legs and a torso came into view. If given to describe it, she’d make a poor witness. It was hard to describe something so hideous and twisted without wanting to vomit. The appendage hanging between its legs said it might be a male. The front legs were longer than the back and ended in hooves. The mottled skin along the shoulders featured green, red and brown splotches. Aha. A mouth indeed. Her skin crawled.
It moved so fast she didn’t get a chance to scream.
Glad she held the sword in her right hand, she drew it back and made a slicing motion as she yelled in rage and terror.
The sword flew from her hand and found its mark, lodging in the creature’s chest. Growling, the creature kept coming.
She backed up, tripped and fell. The creature stumbled, roared and landed within ten feet of her. Panting in terror, she scrambled backward on all fours.
Something touched her from behind. She scre
amed.
“It’s all right.” Dane’s voice came as he clutched her shoulders. He squatted next to her, heat a welcome feeling.
“Dane?” Her voice shook. “Is it dead?”
“Dead. It can’t hurt us.”
He drew Ketera to her feet and she turned into his arms. For one sweet moment she buried her face against him, her arms around his neck.
Clinging, she gasped out her next words, “You’re all right?” She drew back slightly and saw his smile, his face no longer pale. “The plant really did its work?”
“Very well thanks to you.”
She sighed in relief and looked at the creature. “What is that…that thing?”
“A branax. Half lizard, half cat, half who knows what. An aberration against even nature. Very deadly. You, on the other hand, are obviously much more lethal.” His face reflected sincere surprise and pride. “You’re a warrior, sprite.”
Her body was racked with shivers. “I do not feel warriorlike. I can’t believe I killed it.”
“You’re sorry?”
She shook her head vehemently. “No.”
Awe entered his eyes and he cupped her face. “You’re a wonderful marvel to me.”
“Why?”
“All Dragonian women are strong, but so are Magonian women apparently.”
She grunted softly. “Only some of us.”
His laugh was soft, amused and teasing. “You’re a beautiful, intelligent, warm woman. But you have the heart of a cellidon.”
She laughed softly and eyeballed the branax with wary attention. “Cellidon? I hope you’re not comparing me to another ghastly creature.”
His laugh was softer still, a husky sound that soothed as well as aroused. “A cellidon is a feathered animal that sails our skies. A rare beauty with a gentle heart. It will defend all human life, even at the cost of its own. Some people even own them for pets because of their loyalty and bravery.”
Tears suddenly filled her eyes as she looked up at him. “Are you trying to own me too?”
He frowned as he brushed the tears from her cheeks. He kissed her nose and his arms tightened. “Never. I would never own you. But you are mine to protect.” He slipped one hand into her hair. “Then again, perhaps it is me who is owned. You’ve saved my life today. Twice, I think. For that you have my undying loyalty forever.”
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