Stones of Dracontias

by N. D. Jones

  Knight stepped from the closet and lowered his weapon. “Meet the Aragonite Star Dragon.” The Secret Service agent looked from Rudolph and to the immovable hand clutched around his neck. “I told him you would come. I didn’t want to make it too easy for you or you would’ve suspected something. This is the thing, Winston Rudolph, we want to know who you work for and where we can find Kya.”

  Another acidic tongue slash to his face, over his nose and around his left eye. The skin melted, and Rudolph whimpered his pain.

  “Let me tell you a secret. One I didn’t reveal on the news. Very mature dragons, like Kya’s parents and her two oldest siblings, can shift into whatever human form they wish. You get what I’m saying, asshole?”

  Yeah, he did. Every time he thought he saw a different set of agents arrive at Knight’s home they were, in truth, the same dragons in a different human form. He wondered how many times when he thought he had Knight in his sights if it was really the big beast choking the shit out of him.

  “This is the thing, you’re going to die. There’s no way of getting around that. For taking Kya, I want to beat the hell out of you until you cry her location and wet your camouflage boxers. But I won’t because the Aragonite Star Dragon gets the honors. So, this is where you stand. He can take you outside, turn into a really big gold dragon and devour you in one pitiful swallow, or...” Armstrong sat at the foot of the bed. “I just remembered, there’s no or. That’s how you’ll die. He’s going to eat you. Plain and simple.”

  “Ask again.” The dragon’s thunderous voice slammed into Rudolph.

  “Where’s our Bloodstone Dragon? Why did you take her? And who do you work for?”

  Even if he wanted to, Rudolph barely had enough air to breathe no less answer Knight’s snarled questions.

  The Secret Service agent stood and walked up to where Rudolph hung from the dragon’s debilitating grip. “Where’s our Bloodstone Dragon? Why did you take her? And who do you work for?”

  With a release of his meaty hand, the dragon dropped him to the floor. He scrambled backward until his back met a dresser. His face hurt like hell, and the last acidic lick had left him blind in his left eye. But he could breathe, which he did fast and hard.

  “Do you have the information?”

  “I do. The Circle of Drayke. They have my Kya underground, which explains my inability to scent and track her.”

  “Did you pick up anything else from his mind when I asked the questions?”

  From his what? What kind of magic was this? How had the dragon plucked those details from his head?

  “Don’t look so shocked, Rudolph. Old dragons are special in ways you can’t begin to imagine. But our human minds are predictable. You ask us a question, even one we have no intention of responding to, the answer comes unbidden to our minds. It’s the way we are. There’s no shame in being human.”

  The cold, smug gaze that had been on Rudolph switched to the dragon in human form. “Do you know where she is?”

  “Yes, but he left her in vile hands.”

  Captain Winston Rudolph, throat bruised and sore, laughed. It came out more like a desperate cough, but he didn’t care. He may be a dead man, but Knight and the Aragonite Star Dragon wouldn’t reach the Golden Fleece in time to save her from Dr. Westmore.

  So he laughed and laughed and laughed. Until he gurgled up blood, a gunshot wound to his stomach.

  “You’re going to pay for hurting my Kya.”

  Rudolph felt himself being dragged out of the master bedroom by Knight, down a flight of stairs, through a kitchen and into the backyard. He lay on his back, bleeding out and in excruciating pain. All overhead was black, not a star in the sky.

  Except one. A bright gold star that got closer the faster he blinked and the louder he screamed.

  The Aragonite Star Dragon, enormous teeth and—

  Armstrong didn’t look away when Kya’s father consumed the screaming Rudolph. For what he feared had befallen Kya, the man deserved his fate.

  You are a true diata, Armstrong Knight. I thank you for your courage and cunning.

  Armstrong didn’t deserve this magnificent dragon’s gratitude. He’d taken too long to discover Kya’s whereabouts. If she and his child lived, it would be a miracle. For two weeks, he’d sat on his roof, the way Kya used to do, and gave himself a migraine as he attempted to contact Ledisi. Kya’s oldest sister was the only member of her family he’d seen often enough that he thought he might have a chance to link with telepathically.

  When she’d first spoken in his mind, sounding so much like Kya, he’d nearly fallen from the ladder he’d been descending from the roof.

  Gold-and-green forms filled the sky over Armstrong’s house. He guessed the Aragonite Dragon had called his family. A metallic gold dragon with green flecks was all that was missing from the group of resplendent flying beasts.

  A dragon family. He should’ve never gotten between Kya and the world she loved. A world that could protect her. He’d done his best. Loved his dragon the best way he knew how. But it hadn’t been enough.

  He waved at Kya’s family and walked away. His part of the plan was done. The dragons would rescue Kya and kill whoever dared to stand in their way. They didn’t need a useless human.

  Where are you going, Kya’s diata?

  Armstrong halted at his back door and then turned around to see a huge golden tail leading from his feet and to the Aragonite Star Dragon, who watched him with reddish-brown eyes.

  I take it you know how to climb upon and ride a dragon?

  “Um, yeah. I mean, Kya showed me.”

  Then make haste, Armstrong Knight. I do not wish to keep the Bloodstone Dragon waiting any longer than she already has been.

  Running back into the house to retrieve his gun, Armstrong wasted no time climbing onto the Aragonite Star Dragon.

  The massive dragon took off, and Armstrong had never been so afraid and relieved in his life.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ARMSTRONG HAD BEEN prepared to go through anyone to get to his dragon, including an army of mercenaries. In winding tunnels underneath London, Armstrong found nothing but trashed empty rooms. Whoever had been there had left in a real hurry.

  “Kya.”

  Running from one room to the next, Armstrong yelled her name. Living quarters. Canteen. Bathrooms. He searched them all. Infirmary. He halted, and his stomach roiled at what he saw. OB/GYN Table, fetal monitor, exam lights, birthing bed.

  How long had they planned this?

  Oh, God. Dried blood stained the blue birthing bed. Swallowing hard, Armstrong approached the bed. Empty, like the underground compound of metal.

  “Kya,” he screamed again. Where in the hell was she? Had she given birth? If she had, where was their baby? “Kya.” He bolted from the room. Frantic, he clutched his gun and ran down one corridor and then the next, Kya’s name and his thudding feet the only sound on this level.

  “Kya.”

  Gasira and Ledisi, in human form, searched the second level of the compound while Jahzara and her mate scoured the sewers that led from the compound and to the street miles above them. After reaching London, Kya’s father had given each member of the search and rescue party their marching orders, including Armstrong.

  There are ten responsible for tracking and kidnapping the Bloodstone Dragon, he’d said in everyone’s mind. See their images, know their faces.

  Pictures of ten men had begun to appear in Armstrong’s mind as well as information about each man the Aragonite Star Dragon had stolen from Rudolph. The captain had known quite a lot about the group known as the Circle of Drayke. In less than three minutes, Armstrong and Kya’s family of dragons knew it too. Names, addresses, and faces.

  When most of Kya’s sisters, six of them, had nodded at their father and flew away in different directions, Armstrong knew they were on a special mission. A search and destroy mission.

  He’d left Kya’s parents topside. They would guarantee their safety from the outside, making
sure no mercenary got in or left the compound.

  Armstrong had no idea how much was left on this level. He’d gone into every room he encountered. No soldiers for hire, no baby, and no Bloodstone Dragon.

  Rushing down another sterile corridor, Armstrong skidded to a halt when he reached a closed door. Gunmetal, like all the others. This one, however, leaked blood from underneath.

  Holding his weapon steady in his right hand, he wrenched the door open with his left. He’d found the guards he’d expected to battle. Inside the small room, bloodied, twisted bodies littered the floor. Broken guns lay at their side.

  It smelled awful. The foul stench of blood and death clung to everything in the room, including the putrid frigid air. He didn’t question what happened or who had been kept in this room. A gurney, wrecked and in a corner of the room on its side, straps ripped and sidebars crushed, did that for him.

  “Kya,” he whispered her name. This had been her cell, but she’d turned it into a room of horrors for her guards.

  Holstering his sidearm, Armstrong stepped over and between dead bodies. There wasn’t much room to maneuver or light to see by. Yet, he saw them. Footprints in the blood, smaller than the men’s and with the curve and toe prints of bare feet.

  The prints traveled away from the men and to the other side of the room. Lifting his head, Armstrong saw, for the first time, a one-way wall-mirror.

  Shattered.

  Two footprints ended at the base of the wall that connected this room to the one on the other side. Taking out his gun again, Armstrong led with his gun hand, sticking it through the opening before climbing up and jumping down.

  Shards of glass crunched underneath rugged boots. More spacious than the cell the bastards had kept Kya in, this room and occupants had suffered the same fate. Dead bodies in military fatigues slouched in chairs, under tables, and over cracked monitor screens.

  Less sticky, thick crimson but the same grisly fate.

  On the floor, prone but with jasper green eyes open and staring at the ceiling amidst the corpses of her victims, was the most beautiful and wretched sight Armstrong had ever seen.

  Dried blood under fingernails, on the bottom of feet and the center of her forehead, Kya lay sprawled on the aluminum floor. Dressed in a blue-and-white print hospital gown spotted with blood and torn in various places, Kya didn’t stir when Armstrong called her name and approached.

  With caution, he knelt beside Kya and waved his hands a few inches in front of her face. She didn’t blink or otherwise acknowledge his presence.

  Unbidden, his eyes traveled from her dull, lifeless face and to her stomach. Her childless stomach. Armstrong swore, low and pain-filled. He didn’t bother to search the room. If their baby were there, Kya wouldn’t be despondent.

  Other than the blood, which was probably from the soldiers she’d killed, she didn’t appear physically harmed. Although he had a terrible feeling about the blood on Kya’s forehead and the crumpled X-rays on the metal table.

  I found Kya. I’m bringing her out.

  Lifting her into his arms, Armstrong held Kya close to him and fought the urge to curse and cry. Halfway up to street level, he encountered Gasira and Ledisi, who stared at Kya’s boneless form and vacant eyes with the same fury and sadness eating him from the inside out.

  “Is she hurt?” Armstrong asked, uncaring which of the healing dragons answered.

  Gasira stepped forward, tall and muscular like his father. Except where the Aragonite Star Dragon was bald, Gasira’s human form had shoulder-length dreadlocks. He laid his hands on the gown covering Kya’s stomach.

  “She’s healed from the forced removal of her young one.”

  Armstrong shifted Kya upward, pressing her face to his chest and his lips to the crown of her head. It was either that or breaking down and swearing a stream of fruitless curses. The man who did this to her would pay.

  Gasira’s steady hand pushed Kya’s riotous hair out of his way. He frowned at the blood on her forehead, lifted his eyes to Armstrong and then over his shoulder to his older sister.

  “It’s still there.”

  “Yes, I can see the magic within the Dracontias.”

  “What’s still there?” Armstrong had no idea what the siblings were talking about.

  Ledisi appeared by Kya’s head, face set in granite, her voice like liquid steel. “Gasira saw recent evidence of an attempt at brain surgery. So do I.” She found Kya’s limp hand and held it with a tenderness he’d seen between the sisters many times before. “She was drugged, then operated on. Drugging us is the only way to get a dragon in a state where our Stone of Dracontias can be removed.”

  “What? You’re saying someone tried to steal Kya’s Bloodstone?” He remembered the X-rays in the room. Some of them had been of a skull.

  “Yes, tried. But they didn’t succeed. Even in human form, our craniums are not easily breached, which must happen if one is to claim our healing stone.” Ledisi drew Kya’s hand to her mouth and kissed it before placing the appendage on Kya’s stomach next to her other hand. “She may have even awoken during the operation. We won’t know unless she decides to speak of it.”

  From the way Kya curled against him, tears tumbling from the corners of her eyes as her sister spoke, Armstrong didn’t think Kya would want to relay the horrors done to her in her prison and on the birthing bed.

  The way Gasira watched Armstrong as he carried Kya through the maze and out onto a busy London street, he thought he might have to fight the man for his sister. He wouldn’t win, but he’d be damned if he allowed anyone to take her from him again.

  When the Aragonite Star Dragon and the Bluestone Dragon landed in the middle of the street, stopping traffic and drawing shocked and curious onlookers, Armstrong knew his time with Kya was at an end.

  Her parents lowered their massive heads to Kya and blew wisps of magic on her from their noses. She blinked wet eyes but didn’t otherwise move.

  Kya’s mother blew again, and a blue fog of magic floated from her nose and to Armstrong and his dragon. It encircled them, lifting Armstrong off his feet and into the air. Miles of open, quiet sky stretched everywhere as the fog carried him along.

  The dragons flanked them, with the Aragonite Star Dragon, to Armstrong’s surprise, flying the closest to him, his concerned father’s eyes on his now sleeping daughter.

  At some point, Armstrong must’ve dozed as well because when he stirred, the fog was gone. He still held Kya, but they were both on the back of the gold dragon. His eyes widened when he saw acres of plush land and herds of wild elephants.

  Welcome to Buto, Kya’s diata. As the mate to the Bloodstone Dragon, you may also consider this your home and the Dracontias your family.

  Kya awoke by slow, painful degrees. Her body hurt nowhere except her heart, which had her opening her mouth and roaring her grief and loss. It wasn’t until then she realized she was in dragon form. Months she’d yearned for the familiar feel of smooth scales, fire in her belly, and claws cutting through the night sky.

  She roared again. Her mind assaulted by one horrible memory after another.

  “Kya.”

  She kept roaring, unable to express her sorrow in tears as she’d done when she was weak and vulnerable in her human form.

  “Kya, please. I’m here. You’re safe now.”

  Two hands touched her. On the side of her body and in the same location where her Kesin once dwelled. Whole and safe and not yet ready to be born.

  In a blind fury, she flipped from her side and onto her feet, strengthening her scales and knocking the human who dared to touch her on his back. Hissing, she opened her mouth. No human would ever lay hands upon her again. She would kill them first rather than let herself become a prisoner again.

  “No, Kya, it’s me. Armstrong.”

  She knew that name. That voice. But it couldn’t be. Armstrong was... Kya raised her head and looked around. The Eshe Forest. Sights and sounds came back to her. The chirping of birds in the trees above h
er head. A small family of elephants clomping through the rolling grassland downwind and to her right. The scent of damp earth and fallen leaves. The thudding heart and sweat of the human she was about to devour.

  Kya backed away. This was Buto, and the haggard man with days’ worth of stubble was Armstrong Knight.

  He stayed on the forest floor but rose to a seated position. Minutes passed, and he said nothing, which was unlike him.

  Kya also remained quiet. She didn’t know what to say to him or how to explain her powerlessness to save their offspring. Kya had tried to fight against the drug the humans kept inserting into her body. But each dose had left her drained and unable to focus her magic.

  For much of her time in the room, she hadn’t been fully unconscious, including when the man in the white coat drilled into her head. He swore when the fifth saw broke. After that, Kya recalled little until she’d awakened again, her baby and the doctor gone.

  In her rage, she’d slaughtered every human who’d entered her prison room. Then scented the ones on the other side of the wall. Smashing through the window, she’d gone after those men as well, breaking backs and necks. Collapsing to the cold, metal floor, Kya had waited for the pain in her ravaged soul to cease.

  As she settled onto the ground, her stomach on the crisp leaves, Kya realized the pain would never go away. She also admitted another truth to herself.

  Armstrong had lied to her. Worse, the weak, needy human part of Kya had known the men who’d attacked Armstrong in his home had been there for her. The same kind of men who’d tried to capture her when she’d first left Buto as the Bloodstone Dragon, the smallest of the Dracontias.

  She’d known, or rather she’d suspected the truth. But love, desire, and youth made for a lethal blend of ignorance and delusion.

  Humans don’t belong on Buto.

  “Your father brought me here. Said this was my home. You’ve been asleep for two days. I was worried when you shifted but didn’t wake up. How are you feeling?”