Finius made a sign with his middle finger that she’d never seen anyone use before, but she figured it had something to do with sex. She blinked. Their filthy talk didn’t offend, but it surprised her. Such joviality when the world around them fell apart bit by bit?
“You must deliver a friend to Magonia.” Minilos said this with a straight face, but Finius’ grin faded.
“What? You did not say anything about delivery of a package.”
“She’s not a package. She’s Dane Charger’s mate.”
“What?”
“Stop saying that, damn it. She’s precious cargo to Charger, and she needs to return to Magonia.”
She waited, practically holding her breath as Ugly stayed silent. Finally the man sat with a thud in a small chair, and she heard the wood groan. She expected the tiny seat to break, but it didn’t.
“Charger’s mate, eh? What is her name?”
“Ketera Aldrancos. Pretty little thing. Anyway, she’ll be here soon.”
Ugly looked around. “Through this fight outside?”
“She’ll be here.”
Finius scratched his chin. “Magonia? Why does she have to go back to that shithole of a country?”
She winced.
Minilos shook his head. “It’s none of your business. Just deliver her after we get out of this battle, and you will be richly rewarded.”
As the two men continued to banter, with Finius sprinkling profane language like salt on food, Ketera contemplated her choices. She could run from this situation and rush to Dane’s quarters and hope that no one would break into his room any more than they already had. Or she could take her chances with Ugly and hope she survived to see her father again.
Then the choices were taken from her.
“What was that noise?” Finius said, his strange face curling into a dark mask of suspicion. He walked toward the closet.
She held her breath.
Minilos turned and drew his dagger again.
With her heart in her throat, she called from inside the closet, “Minilos, it’s Ketera.”
Minilos smiled and moved toward the closet. As she swung it open, he put his hand in to take hers and help her. “My lady, how good it is to see you. How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to hear your colorful language,” she said, only half joking.
Finius the Ugly came toward her, graceful on his big feet. “You are Dane Charger’s mate?”
Ketera guessed that a positive answer was important. “Yes.”
He nodded and smiled, even though she didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. “You’re welcome to my assistance then. I’m a great admirer of your Daryk One.”
She knew the answer to her question but asked it anyway. “Are you a Daryk One?”
The big man’s chuckle rumbled loudly. “Never. I’m a pirate.” He tilted his lopsided head. “Didn’t your man tell you?”
Attempting a smile didn’t feel natural, but she did anyway. From this point forward, she knew speaking with deceit in mind could save her life. “He did.”
“And you have no moral disgust for my profession?”
“Are these questions necessary?” Minilos asked.
She contemplated her answer, unused to skullduggery in the quantities these men were used to. “It’s all right, Minilos. The man wants to know what he’s getting into, I imagine.”
Finius’ face wrinkled up in surprise. Good. Keep him wondering.
“That’s right, my lady,” the big man said. “You have no bad feelings about my profession?”
She shrugged. “Does it matter? My mate told me I could trust Minilos and you, Mr…Dow. Can I?”
She’d almost called him Ugly.
Finius chuckled, and the sound was as disconcerting as his face. “Of course.” He tapped his chest. “I am the most trustworthy pirate you’ve ever met.”
“I’ve only met one.” She didn’t plan on telling him who, that she’d met Rayder Tyrus. Somehow it didn’t seem like a good idea. “He did not seem trustworthy.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” For a minute she thought she saw good-heartedness showing from those brilliant green, rather normal-looking eyes. “I’ll deliver you to Magonia, no questions asked, for the right price.”
“Half when I get on the ship. The other half upon my delivery to Magonia.”
“It won’t be an easy ride.” Minilos spoke up. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Screams echoed outside, nearby. She jerked her head that direction. “I do. And soon.”
The big man held out his hand. “Shall I carry your pack?”
She smiled. “It fits me quite well, sir. I don’t plan to take it off.”
“She is a smart woman, Finius. Do not think you can mess with her.” Minilos’ warning sounded sharp.
Finius’ eyebrows, dark slashes on his face, shot up. “Me? I would never.”
Minilos grunted. “Right.” He turned to her, his eyes serious. “May I have a word with you in private?” More shouts came from outside the room. “There’s not much time to lose.”
She nodded. He took her into the next room and closed the door. She glanced around at the small place with a bed and dresser, chairs and the normal accoutrements of a bedroom.
Before she could speak, he said, “Have a care with this one.”
“Are you saying I can’t trust him?”
“You can trust him better than most. But no pirate is worthy of one hundred percent trust.”
“What about Rayder Tyrus? Could he take me instead? He helped Dane rescue me from one of Drakus’ minions. I would trust him more.”
One side of Minilos’ mouth turned up. “We don’t know where he is, and Rayder is even less trustworthy than the big lug,” he pointed his thumb back toward the closed door, “in the next room.”
Indecision had never been a part of her personality until she shipwrecked on Dragonia. She longed for the more placid, predictable life on Magonia for all of one moment. “All right. What choice do I have?”
“You could stay here and take your chances, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” His mouth twisted somewhere between sarcasm and more humor. “Or you can go out there and take your chances.”
She decided colorful language was in order. “Either way…how do you say it? I’m fucked?”
Minilos’ eyes widened then he burst out laughing. “I think I shall miss you. Come back to Dragonia when you’ve saved your father and it’s safe.”
“Why?”
He pressed her shoulder, his touch fatherly rather than familiar. “Because Dane will be inconsolable if you don’t, and I shall have to listen to his pissing and moaning for a decade.”
“Only a decade?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps very much longer. The rest of his life. He needs you, Ketera.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she took a deep breath and buried them so they couldn’t interfere with the next minute, the next hour or the next day. She gestured to the door. “I will take that under advisement.”
They left the room and she headed straight for Finius. “Sir, we should proceed. I think the battle is getting closer.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ketera and Finius slipped out a back door of the tavern, and she followed him into the jungle’s gathering gloom. Thank the god none of the fighting concentrated around the town outside the castle. Other concerns assaulted her. What would she do if one of those vines tried to attack her once more? Or any other animal, for that matter? She didn’t have Dane’s protective kiss available.
She didn’t take the time to ask Finius what she’d do. She followed his bulk closely, not wanting to lose him in the gloom.
In the distance, she heard the unmistakable roar of an animal. “A dragon?”
“Sounds like it. I heard a rumor the rogue Daryk Ones were bringing a desert dragon.”
She’d read about them. The deadliest dragon was also the most likely to be tamed if trained from birth. “Magon! You mean
a sithmyan from the Ithycan desert?”
“I do.” She saw him glance back but couldn’t detect his expression in the gloom. “The very same.”
Her mind whirled with fear. “Will it come this way?”
“Hardly. They’ll have it restrained.”
“I won’t ask what they plan to do with it.”
“Help them take down the drawbridge and destroy everything it can inside the castle.”
“Burn it?”
“No. They do not shoot fire from their mouths as so many other dragons.”
He sounded unconcerned and cold.
She shivered, even though the night temperature stayed warm. She didn’t say anything more on the subject, her intuition telling her to keep quiet.
“How are we going to see in this?” she asked.
“I can see in it. Just as your Daryk One can.”
“You’re not a Daryk One.”
“Only because I failed the test when I was younger. You see I have all the markers of it. I’m extra strong. I can kill dragons and see in the dark. But they told me I wasn’t intelligent enough.”
She heard bitterness in his voice and couldn’t exactly blame him. “Do you resent Daryk Ones because of it?”
“Sometimes. Their high status among the people irks me. It’s as if the only good man is a Daryk One. The Daryk Ones are so highly revered that they take all the women. Like you.”
She laughed. “Really? That is hard to believe.”
“It shouldn’t be. Women are drawn to their virility. It is said they can fuck for hours without stopping.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Where is it said?”
“You should know. You are bound to a Daryk One.”
Dane had made love to her with a virility and strength she believed remarkable, but since she’d never made love with any other man, she couldn’t be certain about the rumors. “It is not appropriate to talk like this. Let us stick to the facts at hand.”
He took her to heart, not saying another word on it.
As the jungle wrapped them, she worked hard to keep fear from rising inside her. “How long will it take to reach the ship?”
“A few hours. Not to worry. Your Daryk One carried you through the jungle to reach the castle.”
Why was he so intent about talking about Dane? “All right then. I cannot wait to get there and on my way.”
“Best you be quiet then. We must be on the lookout for poachers, thieves or rogue Daryk Ones before we get there.”
Time seemed to pass forever, especially because they didn’t talk. She needed all her concentration to navigate. The jungle at night proved even more frightening than it had during the day, and she wished to the god she could dream her way out of this situation. Her life had been a nightmare of danger since she arrived in Dragonia with its awful beasts and equally awful men.
No. Dane wasn’t like that. He was the best of men.
Her heart ached thinking of her last kiss with him, the last glance of heat from his eyes as he left her. Though he hadn’t declared love for her in so many words, he’d said and done enough to prove it to her.
I would die for you.
His declaration rang in her mind, as well as his vow to find her no matter where she went. A man just didn’t make those vows unless he loved a woman, yes?
She also worried about his safety, a sense of doom nagging her. She ignored it, concentrating again on placing one foot in front of the other. All she had to do was survive another step. One more hour.
At the end of two hours, she gasped, her lungs burning and heart pounding from the relentless pace. “Sir, we must stop.”
He relented, and she almost ran into the back end of his enormous body. “I suppose we should. You’ll need water and food.”
Breathing hard, she nodded and managed, “Yes. Please.”
“Sit here. This is a safe rock.”
She blinked, feeling dazed. “What? There are dangerous rocks?”
“If you sit just anywhere on a rock out here, you could sit on the lair of a ludius.”
“Dare I ask what that is?”
“A spider. Very large. About a foot across.”
Once more she shivered, but she sat on the rock slowly. Tentatively. “If you say so.”
Finius sat on another rock beside her and removed food and water from his pack. He handed a package of mystery meat to her and water. “Let us eat. Here. Save your food. If anything happens to me, you’ll need your food and water to get by.”
She refused to think of anything happening to this large man. “Hardly seems likely you could be taken down.”
“Nothing is impossible, my lady.”
Though he didn’t seem to want to talk, her curiosity got the better of her. “Finius…may I call you that, or do you prefer Dow?”
“Most of my friends call me Finius, and since you are a friend of Minilos, so you may also call me Finius.”
She smiled, catching a glimpse of his strange face. “Good. Finius, may I ask how your face was…” She drifted off, realizing she hadn’t worded her question well at all.
He chuckled. “I wondered if you would mention that.”
She waved one hand. “I’m sorry. I should never have asked.”
“Never you mind. I am well used to people asking. They think it was some horrible accident. But any accident that would have made me look like this would have killed me.” He took a swig of water. “I was born this way.”
“I see.”
“Do you? What do people in Magonia think of deformed children?”
“Deformity is happening more often.” She munched on some bread, her stomach growling as if she hadn’t eaten in hours. “People are generally kind to those with deformity, thank goodness. The scribes and our religious leaders say we have deformity because we sin too much. If we worshiped Magon as we should, it wouldn’t happen.”
Finius snorted. “Do you believe that bollocks?”
“No, of course not. Based on what I’ve seen of Dragonia, I think the problem is twofold. People in Magonia are not well mixed. We need…Dragonian blood. Dragonians are becoming sterile and need Magonian blood.”
Finius grunted. “On Draconus’ cock. Is that so?”
She shrugged, afraid she’d said way too much. “I do not know for certain. It’s only a theory.”
He went silent for a while then finally said, his gruff voice soft, “You may be right, my lady. I think perhaps Charger has found himself a fine, intelligent mate.”
Heat rose in her face. “Thank you.”
“Why do you need to return to Magonia?”
She hesitated. “It is imperative I keep my journey a secret.”
In the darkness she saw him nod. “Very well. If it wasn’t a secret, Minilos wouldn’t have asked me, and you wouldn’t travel at night.”
When he didn’t ask another thing about it, she breathed a sigh of relief.
After they ate, he insisted they continue. She felt stronger and her eagerness to leave the jungle meant she quickened her pace. Time seemed to lengthen, to take an eon with each step. She tried to concentrate on her goal, to reach her father and not think about what lurked in the jungle around her.
When they reached the beach without incident, accomplishment and heavy euphoria started to pour through her. They’d almost made it, and soon she’d sail away on a ship back to Magonia and to her father. Waves rolled against the sands, and the cool wind blowing across her face held the scent of water. Happiness made her more buoyant than she could remember—only Dane’s lovemaking had brought her higher. Six moons came out from behind the cloud cover, turning the blackness into a silvery day that made it so much easier to see.
Finius suddenly turned and she almost ran into him.
“Stop,” he whispered. “Quiet.”
She glanced around, heart in throat. What—?
Figures walked out of the darkness. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
“Finius, who are these people?”
He didn
’t speak as he put his big body in front of her and drew his sword. She knew then it was trouble. She’d kept Dane’s dagger in the long folds of her tunic and pants, and she didn’t hesitate to reach in her pocket and grab it. She peeked around Finius’ massive arm. The men coming toward them didn’t slacken their pace.
“Get them!” An unfamiliar voice echoed in the night, guttural and harsh.
“Stay behind me.” Finius brandished his sword while standing in a half crouch.
Before she could do as he requested, she saw something come over him she’d never seen happen before.
It was utterly frightening.
Though she’d seen Dane’s eyes turn red with passion and anger, this was different. Finius threw his head back, a roar leaving his throat that sounded more as if it belonged to a ravenous, deadly animal. She stumbled back a step as Finius’ muscles bulged with power, and the untamed ferocity within him seemed to burst out in a wave.
The twenty men yelled at once, their combined voices sending up a charge that chilled her to the bone. Rushing forward, the men continued their warbling war cry as their eyes glowed as red as animals.
Her heart slammed in her chest as fear crashed into her. Dane had taken down men and she’d taken down two. There was no way she could escape twenty men, even with Finius’ help. Who were they? Frustration made her angry. Damn it all, she’d had enough of this. She was tired of being roughed up, chased, poisoned by vines, stalked by dragons—
Six men came after her, skirting past Finius as the remaining men charged him. They bashed at him and he countered with strike after strike of his sword, his cry ragged and filled with rage. He tried to disarm them, but one grabbed his sword and managed to wrest it away. One man fell upon Finius and threw him to the ground.
Finius roared and threw the man off him.
She slashed with her knife, aiming for arms, groins, necks, anything she could manage. She half expected to feel the sharp edge of a sword cutting her flesh. Stumbling, she fell on her butt, and the men fell upon her.
Ketera’s fighting instinct didn’t matter in this case. She was down for the count and knew it. These men weren’t like the poachers who’d attacked her and Dane. They were fast. So fast. She slashed at one man and the next, growling as she rammed all her strength into her attack. One man groaned as her knife sliced deep into his biceps.
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