by Eve Langlais
“What are we doing, Kay? Stand here and fight, or are we taking it outside? We need to decide. The soldiers will be making it to this floor anytime now.”
Why did she always have to make the decisions? She grimaced. “I don’t know which is better.”
“What’s your gut say?”
She respected the fact he didn’t try to sway her one way or another by stating what he thought. It shouldn’t have stunned her to know he’d support her either way, that he’d be wherever she needed him.
It was up to her to figure out which way harmed him the least. Standing their ground to face whoever came up the stairs meant no enemies at their backs for when they dealt with those outside. She glanced at the ceiling then the area toward the elevators. “We don’t want to get pinched.”
“I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t mind at all if you pinched me.” He winked as he moved away from her. “Take cover.”
“I don’t hide.” She rolled her eyes.
“It would have been rude of me not to offer.”
She snorted. “Because I’m a girl?”
“Because I’m expendable.” He said it so low, as he stepped away, she almost didn’t hear it.
How could he think he wasn’t important? He was damned important to her.
Which was why she stepped to his side, looked up at him, and said, “Don’t you dare die.”
“I’ll try not to,” was his wry reply.
“Keep up that tone and I’ll shoot you myself,” she muttered.
He chuckled. The elevator stopped, and the doors began to slide. His warning was a low, unnecessary rumble, “Here they come.”
It was only one soldier. A man she’d never seen. Which made her worry about the space behind them. She flipped and stood at Cam’s back, the echo of his gunshot ringing in the warehouse space.
There was a grunt and exhale, the sound of death, but she remained looking toward the stairs and rear of the vast room. No one snuck up behind them, but they had to have heard the gun going off. There went the element of surprise.
Cam remained facing the elevator. Instinct had her pivoting toward the small metal door opening. Someone had come up using the stairs.
The soldier who stepped up was still swinging the muzzle of his weapon when she shot him.
“Nice shooting,” Cam complimented.
“I’m better with a crossbow.” She’d been able to practice more, given bullets were hard to replenish. They’d run out some time ago. “Think there are any more?”
He turned to stand beside her. “Probably not, but I could be wrong.”
“Two less at our backs,” she remarked. “But how many up top?” She looked overhead.
The place had more soldiers than expected. All living safely and comfortably with real beds and food. The cold fact nipped her. The stray breeze floating down the stairs lifted her hair as it went on its chilly way.
“Only one way to find out.”
“I could be wrong about the dragon.” Their whole plan hinged on it.
“Whatever happens, I’m here.”
The statement helped calm her. She tilted her chin. “Let’s do this.”
They couldn’t see anything outside from the stairs, only the fact the hatch was open. Just another indication they walked into a trap. Only they knew it was a trap, which meant they might still evade it.
She stepped out first, gun low at her side. She took in the scene at a quick glance. Late afternoon with the sun still in the sky. Bright. So bright, she squinted. She felt exposed and wondered if anyone watched the skies for feral dragons.
The drake lay with his head down, eyes closed. Either truly asleep and unheeding of them all or sly and biding his time.
Are you in there watching? Do you want to be free?
No reply, not even an image.
Glancing past the dragon and purposely ignoring the countess, she checked out the barren ruins. Noted a few soldiers clad in red. None within reach of the dragon when its leash was shortened.
The countess chose to stand the closest to the drake, yet still out of harm’s way, pretending she was powerful and brave.
We can help each other.
Still nothing.
Cam emerged and stood close by, his presence steadying her.
The countess smirked. “Did you really think you could escape?”
“Who says we want to leave?” Cam drawled. “I’m thinking this place would be awesome for some kids I know. You might know them, too, since you had a hand in killing their families.”
The reminder frosted Kayda’s heart. Your enemy is my enemy. She projected the thought.
Did she feel a stirring from the giant beast?
“You’re awfully mouthy,” the countess declared. “Time we taught you some manners.” She snapped her fingers.
Two of the soldiers moved forward.
“Shoot the girl in the leg.”
“No!” Cam roared.
“Hold.” The countess held up her hand and smiled, the pleased smirk of a sociopath. “No? Then on your knees. Hands over your head. Don’t move. We wouldn’t want any accidents while they cuff you.”
“Don’t listen,” Kayda exclaimed. “They won’t hurt me. Not if the Lazuli want me.”
“The Lazuli want your reproductive and genetic ability. You don’t need legs for that.”
Cam hit the ground on his knees.
Kayda stepped forward. “What is wrong with you? Why must you hurt people like this?” A wind swept over the wall of the tower and brushed across the ruins, blowing dust.
“No one has to get hurt if you obey.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.” Kayda took another step forward, knowing the soldiers had reached Cam and thought him cowed. Which left one soldier, and with any luck, he was watching the skies for dragons. Meaning no one covered her and the countess.
Did they think her defenseless? She hadn’t survived twenty years by being useless. It might make her sad to kills dragons, but evil humans? No better than ghouls.
The countess barked, “Stop right now.”
“Or what?”
Thud. The sound of someone getting hit let her know that Cam was handling the first two soldiers.
She lunged the last few paces to the woman’s hateful face. The countess screeched, and she felt something weak scrabbling at her mind as the countess resorted to her psychic powers.
A weak power that proved easy to ignore.
“Fucking diamond whore,” spat the countess, furious she couldn’t control Kayda.
“Better than an evil cunt,” she muttered before her fist slammed into the countess’s face.
The nose snapped and gushed blood. The woman let out a yell. “How dare—”
“I dare!” Wham. Wham. Kayda punched the woman a few more times until she hit the dusty ground on her knees wheezing.
“Mercy,” the countess begged through bloody teeth.
“Mercy?”
This woman had people from the Necropolis culled. To feed a dragon she’d chained and tortured.
Her daddy always said a king couldn’t be weak. And neither could a queen. She dragged the countess to her feet and marched her a few paces before shoving her hard enough she stumbled.
Kayda looked at the dragon who had both eyes open. “Your enemy is my enemy,” she said aloud.
Then stepped back.
She did, however, turn away. She hated when people stared at her as she ate. Despite not seeing, she couldn’t block the wet, crunchy sounds or the short shriek.
The countess was no more.
The soldiers lay on the ground, motionless.
The drake finished crunching and emitted a single feeling: satisfaction.
She turned and faced the beast.
“Kay, what are you doing? Get out of reach.”
“Not yet. Give me a moment.” She moved toward the drake, keeping her gaze locked with his.
“Don’t get eaten.”
“I won’t,” she said
softly.
But the dragon must not have liked his tone. He stood and stretched his neck, turning a baleful glare on Cam.
“I don’t think he likes me,” he stated.
“I don’t think he does either.”
Another feeling stroked over her that made her think of a smirk.
She was close enough now to the drake it could decide to make her its next meal. “You’ve been here a long time,” she murmured, eyeing the collar where it was sunken into its skin. “Can I see?” She wasn’t sure how much the dragon understood.
Apparently enough. His head lowered so she didn’t have to crane. She got even closer, enough to put her hands on its scaly hide. Hot despite the cooling night. The metal collar was a jarring contrast to flesh. She ran her hand over the thick manacle that brought a shudder to the giant beast.
“You poor thing,” she crooned. She stroked the skin of its neck. “How dare they do this to you. We need to set you free.”
“Are you insane? You can’t release it,” Cam exclaimed.
The dragon turned its head, offering Cam a baleful glare and the distinctive emotion of “I don’t like you.”
“Apologize,” Kayda suggested.
“Seriously?”
“You’ve got to realize Mr. Drake here has been sorely abused by humans. Not to mention you can’t blame him for the fact he’s got a particular diet.”
Puny two-legs bitter. This tastes better. She got a sudden image of some fat animal she’d never seen.
It wasn’t hard to interpret. “Um, I think Mr. Drake here just told me he prefers food that isn’t human, but I don’t think it’s available in our kingdom.”
“Are you telling me the drake is talking to you?” Cam remarked.
“We understand each other.”
“Because of your magic.”
“I don’t think that’s what my father would have called it,” she murmured as she eyed the drake that supposedly killed her father. Or had it? If it was willing to listen to her, then shouldn’t it have listened to her father?
“You have an affinity for dragons. Axel has a similar thing with wolgars.”
“Wolgars?”
“Wild animal in the Emerald forest, now living in the marshes since a group of them splintered to form a new pack. Axel can talk to them mentally.”
She cocked her head. “What I do with Gellie isn’t talking. It’s more as if I can understand him through feelings and images.”
“What about the drake?” he asked softly. “Is he communicating with you, too?”
“Yes.” No point in denying it. The dragon should have eaten her by now yet hadn’t.
“Have you asked him how he got here?”
She looked at the drake, and before she could voice anything, she got a flurry of memories, images, feelings, a sense of dragging time.
Her brow crinkled. “They caught him early on in the apocalypse. They saw him roosting in the tower and dropped a sedative bomb on him. While he slept, they chained him.”
“Instead of killing him?”
“The first count of the tower had a sadistic bent.”
Cam’s lips flattened. “Sorry.” The heartfelt word for the dragon not her. A commiseration of pain caused by the evil of others.
“He doesn’t like it here.”
“Then maybe he should go back home.”
This time the dragon growled.
“Sorry,” Cam raised his hands. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick.”
The drake continued to stare.
“He would leave if he could, but he can’t break the chain.”
Cam sighed. “I get the hint. Guess I am helping you free a dragon.”
The dragon returned to gaze at her, and while she didn’t get the same huge flooding impression of images like she did with Gellie, she felt something. Eagerness. Fear, but the kind she understood. A fear of hope.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Cam muttered.
“Not a clue.” She ran her hand over its snout, startled by the heat. Gellie was always cool. “Call it an instinct. I don’t think he’ll hurt us.” She stroked the drake’s nose. “He’s tired of being here and just wants to go home.”
“Home being where?”
She frowned as she got a sudden flash of images of a cavern, massive in size, more than she could comprehend, with rivers and lakes of fire below it into which water fell, steaming as it hit, the mist rising and feeding an ecosystem that clung to the ceilings and walls. And there she saw the fat beast it preferred to eat.
“I think he lives in some huge underground cave.”
“Which would make sense if they emerged because of the crack in the volcano.”
She frowned. “They didn’t emerge because the ground cracked. When the volcano exploded, it affected the flow below ground. They were just following the heat.”
“Meaning maybe if we stop that volcano, they’ll go back home.”
Home. The way the dragon thought it held such nostalgia.
“First, though, he’s long due for some freedom.” She ran her hands down its cheek to its neck, over the scar, where she paused as she felt the dragon tense.
It remembered getting that wound. The pain.
She shivered. No more. She would free him.
Its skin wasn’t like Gellie’s. It was dryer for one. Cracked in spots. Crusted, too. The poor thing forced to subsist inside a small space. She knew it hated being dirty. Wanted to bathe in fire of all things.
She wanted to help him; she just wasn’t sure how. The collar wouldn’t be coming off anytime soon. It would take flesh with it if she even tried, but she could do something about the ridiculous chain.
She nudged the dragon’s head so that it would lift it, thinking what she wanted at the same time. The drake tilted and exposed its vulnerable neck.
It trusted her and was obviously intelligent. If she could communicate with it, surely her father could as well? Or did he never have a chance to try? Was he killed by soldiers first? That made no sense. Zee never said anything about Ruby soldiers. He told her it was the dragon.
I didn’t kill him.
The reply surprised as her hands closed around the metal links of its leash.
She thought back, Then who did?
The images came quickly, rewinding her into a past she’d only heard about. The moment when a bad situation turned even worse.
She watched as a large group of people entered the tower area. In daylight, she realized.
The sun shone, making it easy for her father to be seen along with his entourage. Adults she’d once known. All gone that day. There at the back, Zee.
Her father left the group behind to approach the drake, hands outstretched. She got a general impression of them greeting, coming to an agreement. Then her father walked away from the drake, unafraid, as if he trusted it. He shouldn’t have, according to the story. She waited for that moment when it happened. When the dragon attacked and killed her father and all the people with him.
Only it wasn’t the drake that killed her father.
The Ruby soldiers shifted into view, their presence concealed as if by magic. It was utter carnage. Bodies mowed down as they were caught by surprise.
Except for Zee and his daughter. He held her off to the side as she struggled.
It took her longer than it did Kayda to understand what happened. For the betrayal to sink in. For Zee to approach a Ruby soldier, hands gesturing while his daughter backed away from the traitor.
Right in the path of the dragon, who had no interest in Pelana. But she didn’t know that. She heard it move, turned, and fired.
Bullets hurt.
The drake reacted, and Pelana screamed. On that point, Zee got the story right.
But it was the only part.
Her father wasn’t dead because of the drake. He was betrayed by a man he trusted.
The same man she’d just sent back to Necropolis.
“What’s wrong?” Cam must have read her express
ion.
She pursed her lips. “The dragon doesn’t want to be here.” She tugged at the links, seeing the sturdy welds.
“That makes a bunch of us then. But that’s not why you look pissed. The dragon told you something.”
For a second, she wanted to shout that dragons couldn’t talk. But that would be a lie. It was long past time to admit that she had a gift, and now she knew the truth. “Zee is a traitor.”
“What? Isn’t that the guy we just saved?”
She nodded. “The dragon just…” She paused. How to explain?
Except she forgot he already understood better than she did. “He showed you something, didn’t he?”
“How do I know I can believe it?”
“What’s your gut say?”
Her head dipped. “It makes sense and doesn’t. Zee told me my father died fighting this dragon. But the truth is it was an ambush by Ruby soldiers who Zee appeared to have a deal with.”
“A deal that turned sour I’d bet, given he spent the time since in the Necropolis keeping to himself.”
“I just don’t understand why. How could he betray the people who trusted him?” She’d long ago cried her tears for her father, and yet they welled in her eyes.
“Ah, Kay.” Despite his distrust of the dragon, he got close enough to put a hand on her in reassurance. Luckily the drake allowed it. “There are only a few reasons why people betray their friends. Revenge and reward being the most common.”
The statement drew her gaze to the stairway. “In this case I’ll wager he was looking to escape. He tried to buy his way out by betraying my father, and I sent him back to Necropolis. We have to—”
“Keep a cool head and not rush in. Don’t forget. He’s been living for years without doing anything. Why would he start now?”
“I guess.” She tugged at the links again. “I don’t know how to break these chains.”
“You can’t. They are made of the toughest metal you can imagine.” Cam tread closer carefully, hands out to his sides. “We need a torch at the very least.”
“We can’t leave him tied up.”
“You do realize this thing will probably eat me the moment you release it.”
“It’s going to eat you now if you don’t help,” she replied sassily.
“If it eats us, I’m saying ‘told you so.’”