"Now," he said, moving closer to me, sliding his hands around to grab my ass and pull me near, "where were we when we last left off?"
I licked my lips and brought my hands up to the stubble along his jaw. "I believe we were kissing like our lives depended on it."
“Mmm,” he moaned against my lips, “that’s right. Let’s pick up there, shall we?”
I rocked forward, smashing our lips together in response to his ridiculous question. Of course, we were going to start there. Hell, I’d even be okay with starting much further down the timeline.
We kissed until my body went from warm to smoldering. Until my touch went from curious to demanding. Until my pulse went from erratic to frenzied.
He moved one of his hands up the front of my body, slowly passing my stomach to cup my breast with a tantalizing gentleness that drove me insane. I was already in mind-numbing sensory overload, so I needed it harder, rougher, and rawer. I needed his tongue pushing deeper into my mouth, and I needed his other hand to slip between my legs and light my body on fire.
And that's the position I was in when I heard the first terrifying scream pierce the night.
Chapter 16
I froze. Icy fear clashing with the molten desire in my veins.
"What the hell was that?" Cruz groaned, quickly moving his hands to my waist.
"One of my dragons," I whispered, listening intently. I was pretty sure it'd been Feroz. He was usually the leader.
Then a voice rang out like a bell in the night. "Somebody help me!"
It wasn't a plea for rescue, but a demand for backup.
"Alanza!" I shouted, sloshing from the tub and quickly yanking my skinsuit back on. It was a difficult feat, considering I was soaking wet and in a hurry.
Cruz followed my lead, diving from the tub and tripping over his own two feet as he scrambled to re-dress.
I rushed to a nearby window and peered through the glass. Mutants swarmed the circumference of the tiny village. Huge beasts with gleaming teeth bigger than my head. They were almost dragon-like in structure, but with no wings, and much smaller arms. When they opened their jaws to roar, the sound came out as more of a hissing gobble. It was so freaking weird.
I rushed downstairs with Cruz at my heels, whipping a baton off my belt and popping it into a full-length trident. By the time I was out the door, the trident was out of my hand, launched high into the air and careening down onto an unsuspecting mutant's head. It dropped him instantly, spraying his terrifying comrades with smoking blood.
Why the hell was it smoking?
"Acid," Cruz muttered, inadvertently answering my question. "We can't let the blood touch us, or it'll burn a hole right through our skin."
Great. Just fucking great.
"Don't let the blood touch you!" I shouted his command to the others, who had already gathered in opposition of the beasts. They were smart enough to keep their eyes on the mutants while simultaneously nodding their understanding to me.
Feroz and Bravo screeched, doing a low flyby while spewing a burst of scorching flames at the mutants. As they rose back into the air, a wake of fire roared behind them in the undergrowth, but the mutants had remained untouched. Apparently, the bastards were fireproof.
I removed another baton, realizing I was getting low in ammo. I’d have to start collecting my tridents at the end of these battles, or I’d be down to nothing more than my sword. Quickly popping another baton into a trident, I whipped it into the nearest mutant’s face. The stupid thing turned at the last second and my weapon merely skidded off its thick-scaled skin.
A low growl escaped my throat. I hadn’t gone through years of training to be outdone by a brainless mutant.
"Tridents at the ready!" Arlo shouted, taking charge like the captain he was.
Everyone reared back and prepared to launch. Even I followed his order. I passed my weapon to Cruz and quickly extended my second-to-last baton.
"Aim!"
I found a target closest to me and kept my eyes locked on tight.
The mutants snarled, apparently sensing our impending attack.
Okay, so maybe they weren't as brainless as I'd hoped.
They charged at us, rushing across the dirt roads of the little village, kicking up dust and shaking the ground like another earthquake. It rattled my teeth, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the vibrations or sheer terror. The trident slipped in my clammy palm, so I squeezed it even tighter.
"Release!" Arlo cried, and at least half a dozen shimmering gold staffs soared through the air, almost all of them reaching their targets. Virtually every last one of us had had some form of fighting experience.
Even the pirate, who had no doubt engaged in plenty of hand-to-hand combat while looting villages, or simply getting into drunken pub brawls. He’d been given a spear to launch, probably thanks to Alanza. She's lucky he didn't stab her, then run for the hills.
"Second wave!" Arlo shouted, and we all equipped another trident or spear.
I was officially down to my last trident. I needed to make it count.
The mutants moved closer. The front line consisted of about ten massive, dinosaur-like beasts, but the remaining lines were packed full of mutants of all shapes and sizes. At least a hundred of them. The wolf-lizards slithered to the front, breaking free of the others because they were somehow much faster.
"Aim!"
Of course, aiming was nearly impossible as the wolf-lizards were now swerving back and forth and skittering closer at an alarming rate.
"Release!"
I threw my trident, somehow stabbing one of the mutants in the lower back
"Nice shot," Cruz said, as his trident sailed to the ground, missing any mutants completely. "I can't do this shit."
He quickly lit up a ball of magical energy in his palm, then launched it at the incoming creatures. Finally, he hit something, bursting a little dog-lizard into flames. At least they were still flammable.
Speaking of flames...
Feroz and Bravo swooped down for another round of fire. They unintentionally lit the grass and undergrowth on fire but totally fried a few of the smaller mutants. The bigger beasts snapped at my dragons, flinging themselves off the ground a few feet in an attempt to catch a bite of dragon thigh. Feroz and Bravo screeched, darting back into the sky before the dino-mutants could latch on.
"We need to take those bastards down," I muttered to Cruz and anyone else who was listening. I glowered as I watched them, trying to pinpoint any weaknesses. They were cutting it too fucking close for my comfort.
"They're immune to fire," Cruz said, stating the obvious, "but with those tiny little arms, I bet it'd be easy to go for the heart."
"If they even have one," I muttered.
Suddenly Catalina was there, with Alex right behind her, firing shots from his gun to protect their backs.
"Come on Cruz," she said, grabbing his shoulder. "Long-range weapons on the roof."
"What about Liliana?" he asked, spinning around to keep me in his line of sight.
Catalina snickered and handed me the Legacy Stone she’d been guarding. "She'll be fine, pretty boy. She can take care of herself much better than you could down here."
I stashed the stone in my skinsuit and gave him a confident wink. I might not have been in many actual fights, but Catalina was right. I'd been training with weapons my whole life, preparing for events such as this. I physically knew how to kill, even if I wasn't entirely prepared for it emotionally.
I tried to rustle up some bravery. After all, I’d killed countless mutants before this. Hell, I’d even killed a few pirates. I could sure as hell take these mutants out...even if they were absolutely massive.
Alex scoffed, continuing the previous conversation as he reloaded his gun. "He's not that pretty."
I laughed right out loud. "Are you jealous, ranger?"
He glared at me. "Why don't you go kill something, Queenie?"
I pulled out my trusty double-sided sword from my belt and spun it ar
ound in my hands.
"I think I will."
"Be careful, Liliana," Cruz managed to say before getting dragged back into the house.
I grinned and ran over to Arlo, Kayo, Malisa, Alanza, and Danny.
They had each taken on a smaller target while managing to deftly dodge the bigger dino-mutants. I kept running, skidding along the ground between the legs of one of the big ones, and scraping it's inner thighs with my sword, sending it into a fit of angry gobbles. When I came out behind it, I jumped to my feet and slammed my sword into a smaller mutant on my right, then jabbed left, stabbing one on the other side.
With his legs probably in some serious pain, the big guy flopped to the ground and thrashed around, catching my knees with his tail and knocking me off balance. As soon as my ass hit the ground, I quickly leaped back up, but I wasn't in time to stop the mutant that had launched at me. All I had was instinct to protect me, so I threw my arm up to cover my face and braced myself for the impact.
But it never came. A burst of magic exploded before my eyes and the little mutant splintered into a hundred smoldering pieces.
My eyes shot to the roof where Cruz stood between Catalina and Alex, a new magic ball already formed and ready in his palm.
I grinned at him. Yep, I was definitely glad he had my back.
But I couldn’t let it distract me for long. I rushed back into the fight, focusing on the bigger mutants, while Feroz and Bravo did sweep-after-sweep of incinerating the smaller ones. After a while, all that was left were the big ones.
Of course, by that point, I was panting and sweating profusely. My lungs still weren’t used to the dry air—even though I’d been assured, repeated, that it was actually quite humid—and every inhale burned. I took a moment to catch my breath, watching as Catalina launched tridents and spears, and Alex fired shot after shot, and Cruz let loose as much magic as he could muster. I watched Arlo and Kayo taking on a dino-mutant together, with Malisa, Alanza, and Danny doing the same. Through all of our combined efforts, we were finally down to the last two.
Thank Poseidon.
I straightened back up, ending my little breather, and rushed around gathering as many tridents and spears as I could find. Catalina would need the recycled ammo. I tossed the small pile up to her, then sprinted over to the nearest giant.
It was about three times my height, with black skin and dark green stripes. It was also focused on Arlo and Kayo at the moment, not me, so it didn't notice my approach from behind. I ran and jumped as high as I could, landing on its back and promptly stabbing it in the meat of its neck. I must've connected with some nerves and spinal tissue because it instantly dropped as if it’d been paralyzed. Arlo and Kayo took that opportunity to finish it off.
Malisa, Alanza, and Danny had the last mutant cornered. They formed a triangle around it making it virtually impossible for the beast to concentrate on all three of them at once.
Knowing they'd take him down soon, I took another moment to catch my breath. My side was burning, and the muscles in my arms and legs were about to give out.
It was almost over. I took a few huge gulps of air. This was the last one.
But the consolation didn’t help much. I knew the closer we got to Yaxchilan, the harder things were going to become. Which meant tomorrow and the next day were going to be even worse than this. I had no real idea how to deal with that fact. The sooner we got there, the sooner we could help the sirens and the sea life, but if we didn't take some adequate time to rest after all of this, we’d be going into that battle as good as dead. If we die, the sea dies. If the sea dies, the land dies. End of the world. End of story.
I couldn't let that happen.
"Liliana, run!" Cruz’s shout echoed from the roof. A magic ball soared over my head and crashed into a giant dino-mutant that had only just emerged from the trees. A straggler, I hoped. If this was a second wave, I didn’t know if we could survive it.
The magic didn't stop the big brute, though. It just kept charging right at me, as if it somehow knew the stone was pressed against my chest, and it had every intention of ripping it away. I couldn't run. If I did, I'd be giving the beast my back, and I didn't trust that shit one bit. So I stood my ground, bent my knees, and waiting for him to get close enough to cut him down as I'd done before.
But this one was different. Smarter. Possibly more evolved than the others already. He slowed, eyeing me with calculating eyes rather than stupidly charging to his death.
Shit.
"Run!" Cruz shouted again, and this time, I had a notion to listen to him. Doing battle with a creature that big was iffy enough. But battling one that was big and actually came equipped with intelligence? That would be suicide.
I started to sprint, and it took off after me, catching me far faster than I'd hoped. It leaned its big head down, opened his jaws, and prepared to take a giant bite of my head, when suddenly Feroz swooped down and attacked—not with fire, but with teeth and claws. The dino beast gobbled ferociously and thrashed its head against the pain no doubt radiating from Feroz's bite into his back.
The blue dragon got some height and swooped down again, but this time the dino-mutant was ready. His arms were too small to claw at Feroz, but his legs were huge, and he was apparently able to jump quite high. Higher than the ones before him. He launched at Feroz and pierced his wing with a row of razor-sharp teeth that sent my fierce boy plummeting to the ground. The screech that left his mouth as he crashed had my heart shredding into a thousand pieces.
"No!" I shrieked, running to him. I didn't even care that the dino bastard was still alive and kicking, all I cared about was getting to my sea dragon. I needed to make sure he was all right, and protect him somehow.
Bravo apparently had the same idea. He roared so ferociously I feared my ears might bleed. The hairs at the nape of my neck stood on end, and my insides clenched. Even the dino-mutant's eyes went wide. I think he knew at that point that his life was just about over. He should have never messed with big brother.
Bravo dove, gaining more and more speed to the point where I couldn't tell if he was screaming or if it was the wind coming off his wings. When he smashed the mutant into the ground, the impact shook the whole area. Trees trembled, houses rattled, the ground thundered beneath my feet. Feroz spread a wing out and covered my body with it, as chunks of dino-mutant fell from the sky.
A few of those chunks hit his wing and bounced off, but the acidic blood burned a hole right through the skin there, and Feroz cried out again.
Bravo screamed and cried out, too. He had literally exploded the toxic creature with full-body force and now had the painful, smoking blood all over him.
Tears streamed down my face. My heart had shattered and the pieces were slicing through my body like broken glass.
"Someone get some water!" I choked out through strangled vocal cords. "Get the blood off of them!"
Please Poseidon, please. I pleaded pitifully as the tears flooded out. Help them...
Chapter 17
Everyone on the ground rushed off to find buckets or containers of some sort, while Cruz burst from the front door of the house and sprinted over.
He ran to Bravo first, who was covered in the most blood and clearly in the most pain. He opened his palms and his magic suddenly morphed into... I didn't even know. It was difficult to make out anything more than a bleed of color through the tears in my eyes. All I know is that it was like a waterfall. He doused Bravo in it, and the blood of the beast dripped off, soaking into the ground and eating away at the grass instead. Bravo's screams calmed into a whimper.
Cruz then ran over to me and Feroz. He hesitated for only a moment before running his hands across my dragon's scaly skin. An overlay of magic followed his touch, spreading out along Feroz’s entire body. It highlighted the massive holes in his left wing and skated around the edges.
Feroz whimpered in agony, and my teeth and muscles clenched tight.
"It's okay, boy," he said softly. "You're gonna be okay."
>
I blinked a few times, doing my best to clear my eyes. "Is he really?"
Cruz to turned to me and nodded. "He'll live. But he won't be able to fly until that wing is healed."
A new wave of tears threatened to spill, but I forced myself to wipe them away. Feroz would live. It was more than I could have hoped for.
"And Bravo?"
Cruz gave me a tiny smile. "He'll be fine, too. His wings didn’t take the brunt of the hit. There were a few tiny burn marks, of course, but the magic cleared them up pretty well. His mouth and feet, on the other hand, are going to be sore for a little while. He should be good to fly again soon. I'll keep giving them magical treatments, and that should help speed up the healing process."
I wiped my eyes once more and realized that Cruz was shaking, little beads of sweat prickling along his hairline.
"You've already used too much magic," I said, shaking my head. "You can't afford to use any more."
He turned away from me, and focused on Feroz, running his quavering hand along the dragon's thick neck. "I'll be fine."
"Cruz..."
"I'll be fine, Liliana. These two are incredible, and I can see how much they mean to you. I promised I'd do what I could to replace the healer, and I'm going to keep that promise."
That's about the time I realized the others had returned. They each had an odd assortment of containers, filled to the brim with water, which they poured onto my injured dragons. The beasts seemed to soak the water up like a healing potion, and as sea dragons, water very well could have had a healing effect on them. I know I was always much more content with water on my skin.
Then I glimpsed them, my team, and my heart sank further.
Their aquatic skinsuits were slashed into ribbons in places, revealing nasty gashes beneath. Streams of blood spilled down the fabric. Dirt and bruises littered their hands and faces, and exhaustion appeared to have settled into their very bones.
"My god," I muttered, rising to get a better look.
They carried themselves with the air of true siren warriors, forbidding their shoulders to slump, refusing to let anything other than a grimace pass over their faces.
Siren Awakened (The Cursed Seas Collection) Page 14