by Mandy Rosko
The serene smile never left Bell’s lips. She brushed Devon’s scruffy hair out of his face with her fingers. “And what happened that brought you off of your mountain, Devon?”
More tears came. He wiped them away before Bell could do it for him, fighting the pain and his show of weakness. “Was t-trying t-to fly. Papa said…w-wasn’t ready. Tried anyway.”
“That explains the wings,” Aaron said. “They are much too small to hold his weight. They must have snapped while he was in the air. The landing would have done the rest.”
In a move that shocked the hell out of Dawn, he stepped forward and got onto his knees in front of the boy as well. Then he put his gloved hand on Devon’s shoulder, squeezing in a show of manly support. “Ye will be all right, child. We will return ye to yer parents.”
The way he said it and the way his heart beat in his chest, as though he were sharing the boy’s pain…
Aaron’s earlier words rushed to her. “I can never bed you like a proper husband, even should you wish it, or offer you comfort or children.”
Dawn sucked in a breath. Oh shit. Maybe that last part was a stronger regret than she’d initially thought. Did Aaron want children? Did it hurt him that, while he was cursed, he could not have them? She’d shown him that he could still have some physical pleasure without actual skin-to-skin touch, but babies were definitely out of the picture for him no matter what she did. One of many hurts she could never take away.
Kehn came back with more of those leaves with the red berries growing on them, and with three elves tending to the boy, Dawn figured it was safe enough for her to take a walk.
By keeping her visor up and sniffing out the blood, Dawn found its trail. She didn’t bother following it. The scent seemed to go on for a long while, and she didn’t want to get separated from her party. The boy must’ve crash-landed several miles from here. He must have walked before his wounds, hunger, and exhaustion got the better of him.
The trail was old, at least a couple of days, which meant he’d been out here for all that time, surviving alone before keeling over. He’d been walking toward something. Safety.
Dawn passed by another mossy boulder and kept on going. After five minutes, the trees began to thin as the rocks overtook the plants. She stopped, having gone as far as she could safely allow herself.
Her body was directly under the sun now, and she started to itch. Dawn lowered her helmet’s visor, lifted her head, and gazed at the mountain above. It was so close. Just another mile or two from its base. The pointed top was capped off with snow and a misty blue fog rolling down the rocks.
It didn’t look like the kind of environment that warranted a red tank top and shorts. Poor kid probably thought he’d only be flying in a warmer climate for a few minutes before heading back.
The boy had almost made it home and probably would have eventually without their help. He seemed like a little survivor—had to be with all those giant snakes slithering around and him trickling blood like he was.
Finding more than what she came for, she went back to her group. Devon was sleeping in Bell’s arms, his wings looking much cleaner, though still in shreds. Kehn stood above them, crushing the little berries between his fingers and dripping the juices into the gory open wounds on his back. In several places, the leaves themselves served as little bandages, having been wrapped around the arch of the wings, the blood acting as an adhesive.
Aaron approached her quickly, took her hand, and pulled her under the heavy shade of a nearby tree that she couldn’t name, with plenty of drooping branches to keep their privacy. She held still as he lifted her helmet away. They both hissed. Her as the soft inner padding rubbed the burn, him as he saw it for a second time.
She didn’t want to know how bad it looked.
Aaron bit his lower lip and shook his head. “I should have seen to ye first.”
“You had other things on your mind,” she said, recalling how he’d run over to the boulder that hid Devon, thinking his father might be behind it. Everything else really had taken precedence. “I have some sun lotion,” she said.
He shook his head, already pulling more of those odd-looking leaves from a pouch at his belt. He crushed the berries on one of the leaves, then gently set it against her burning face.
There was a half second of stinging pain that made her neck clench up before it disappeared, replaced by a cool tingling that made her sigh.
“Better than your lotion?”
“Much. Where do you find those things?” she asked as he prepared another leaf. “I haven’t seen any tree with those growing on it.”
He chuckled as she moaned again under the leafy goodness he applied, higher up this time, nearer to her eyebrow. “Ye have seen the tree, as a matter of fact. Many times. These leaves only grow on the highest branches, where the sun cooks the nectar inside the leaf until it bubbles out into this useful little berry here.”
That explained that. She sighed as he put the third leaf, with its amazing healing juice, over the last of her uncovered burn. The irony that such a medicine was brought on by sunlight was not lost on her. Nor could she quite put it out of her mind how messed up she must look with dirty hair and leaves sticking to the corner of her burned face. She hoped her eyebrow wasn’t completely singed off.
“Can the snakes here smell dragon blood?” she asked.
“Of course they can,” Aaron said, his gloved hands still on her face, even though there was no longer a need for it.
She could tell when he understood what she was really asking by the light that seemed to blink on behind his eyes. “’Tis what drew the Titanboas from their territory. They’ve been scenting that child’s blood and hunting him.”
“I think your father was attacked in the place where Devon first crashed. The snake scented the blood and was out looking for a dragon to eat when it came across him, and he was rescued by Devon’s father, who was also looking for him. It would explain why a dragon would take him.”
“But not why they have not returned him,” Aaron muttered, though he did seem to be considering the possibilities of her theory.
“Why could ye not scent this before?” Kehn demanded. Dawn spun her head around, as did Aaron. Kehn had left Devon to Bell’s care and had come into their hiding place uninvited. The fact that he didn’t have a sword in his hand must have meant that he was slowly coming to accept her, at the very least.
“There was enough blood in that spot already from one giant snake. It must’ve masked the kid’s from me. If we’d taken the same path the boy originally had, I probably would’ve noticed it then. Likely Devon had gotten himself lost, zigzagging through the trees to avoid predators before finding his way here.”
Aaron swore, his head turning to gaze back where Bell watched the dragon boy. “If those serpents have been leaving their territory for dragon’s blood, there could be another within striking distance at this moment.”
“How many of those things even live on the island?” Dawn asked.
“Not enough to concern anybody with,” Kehn answered.
Dawn stared hard at him.
“Under normal circumstances,” he clarified, face warming. “They are rare, and ’tis rarer that they grow so large. There could not be more than one or two left on the island of that size.”
One or two too many, Dawn thought.
“We shall take the boy with us into the Blue Mountains. We shall not stop until we arrive. If the snakes are hunting him, then he will not be safe until he is home,” Aaron said.
Dawn’s chest swelled with love. “They won’t go on the mountain?”
“There are too many of the dragons living there. Even blood’s fury cannot make them risk such a battle. When it next rains and washes away the scent of the boy, whatever serpents are still roaming outside of their territory will return to their nests.”
Kehn’s eyes flashed. “We shall simply walk into dragon territory, with one of their children, who is injured? Then what? Shall we pray they do no
t kill us on sight?”
Right. She’d forgotten. Peace there may be for the dragons and the elves, but they still weren’t on much better terms than the elves and vampires themselves.
Aaron shook his head, a lighthearted smile putting a crease under his eyes. “We shall hope they are willing to perform a trade.”
Chapter Nine
The sun shone brightly and chased away much of the fog that had clouded the mountainside by the time they were halfway up. Never had the sky looked so large to Dawn, giving off the impression of a sun that was inches away.
It made her nervous, and she sweated like crazy.
Kehn carried the boy in his arms, having taken him from Bell, who grew tired from the weight about an hour earlier. He still slept soundly, as though his wings weren’t hanging on by a small strip of skin and dripping blood along the smooth rocks at their feet.
Dawn carried the wings to keep them from falling right off. Though it appeared only one was in danger of having that happen and the other grotesquely broken at the angular joint, she still handled both with care. She doubted he’d ever fly after this.
Aaron walked ahead of them at the protest of both Bell and Kehn, but he’d insisted, in his princely way that demanded no arguments. He tested the rocks at his feet as he walked, warning Dawn and Kehn should there be any spot where the stones were too jagged or at risk of falling down the sharp face of the mountain.
There was a path up the mountain, and while they dutifully stayed to it, the higher they climbed, the clearer it became that, after a certain point, no one traveled on this route. At least on foot.
The jagged edges of the rocks, some as sharp as knives, poked and prodded under her feet, no matter how gracefully Dawn avoided the worst. After so long of it, her soles were killing her. She wished she could fly up the mountain.
“How much farther do we have to go?” She hated to ask, but her feet needed the answer.
“We are only halfway there. These edges are not steep enough to provide the lift the dragons need for flight,” Bell answered, keeping her bow in hand, arrow strung and ready in case of an attack.
Dawn thought they were steep enough, but she wasn’t about to argue. “Won’t they see us walking up to their front porch?”
Neither Aaron nor Bell answered. The sudden appearance of a teeming mass of muscled bodies above them was answer enough.
Dawn almost didn’t sense their arrival, and who knew? She probably had missed it for the first couple of minutes until the men above them decided to make themselves known.
“Guys,” she said, halting abruptly.
Kehn jerked to a stop, annoyance flashing on his face until his eyes turned up in the direction Dawn stared. Bell and Aaron followed suit. Everyone in their party held stock-still, and Dawn sensed their hearts coming to shocked halts for a full second as several pairs of angry eyes stared down at them.
They appeared like ninja assassins, one minute nothing, just the gray rock and their own footsteps, and the next, there they were.
A dozen or so men, all of whom looked like they could compete in the Mr. Universe competition and win, stood on top of the highest and heaviest of rocks and boulders. In every monster-sized fist, thick and immensely jeweled swords with golden hilts were held.
So apparently dragons did carry around their swords when not in dragon form, and when they were on their own turf.
Of the several pairs of red eyes that glared down at the elves, all turned to Kehn and Dawn in particular.
“Do not move,” Aaron said, eyes watching the warriors above intently.
As one, the wings of the dragon men spread, like hands unclenching from a fist and reaching out to grab at them. Most of them had the same red and veiny look that Devon’s wings had, all large enough to nearly block out the sun. On any other day, Dawn would’ve been grateful for the sudden shade.
Not good. Not good.
One dragon, the largest of the group, jumped from his perch and landed directly in front of Aaron. He came down flawlessly, with only a slight bend of his knees, but the mountain shook under the pressure of his enormous body.
Dawn clenched her teeth as she felt the rumble travel up her legs. She kept her hold on Devon’s wings as gentle as possible until the mini-earthquake passed.
The dragon folded his wings behind his back and stepped right into Aaron’s personal bubble. Seeing one in front of the other really gave Dawn an idea of the true size difference. The dragon was more than twice his width, not to mention being at least a foot taller.
To Aaron’s credit, he didn’t back away from the dragon who was—without much effort on his part—looking ready to snap him in half. Bell remained at his side, expression stoic, though she wasn’t fooling Dawn with that erratic heartbeat of hers. She’d been smart enough to put away her bow. Even if she got a hit on one of them, basic logic said she would never be fast enough to take them all out, or even half, before they swooped down on the entire party.
The dragon’s eyes, flickering from Aaron to the unconscious Devon, blazed the same color red as his hair. “What did ye do with my son?”
So, despite the semi-modern clothes—there were animal skins on some of them, jeans on others—they all still spoke like it was 1399. Devon’s father wore an animal skin loincloth and leather boots with a fur trim. A small, red dragon tattoo swirled around his right eye. His missing eyebrow on that side allowed the little dragon to sit comfortably there. The matching colors only made him look that much fiercer.
Aaron cleared his throat, half turned, and gestured that she and Kehn come forward with Devon. They did, Kehn impatient and moving quickly, while Dawn struggled to keep up without jarring the wings.
“I am Prince Aaron, son of King Aelmon of the elf lands. This is my wife, Princess Dawn, and our two travelling companions, Bell and Kehn.”
Despite the introduction of two other people, Dawn felt all eyes shift to her. Even with the helmet muffling everything, her ears picked up the curious whispers. She didn’t miss the quirky looks either.
She couldn’t blame them. The prince of elves just introduced a woman in biker gear, who wasn’t showing her face to top it off, as his wife. A princess. Probably way out in left field of what they thought an elf princess should look like.
“We were traveling through the forest, searching for my father, who has disappeared, when we found Devon,” Aaron said, his voice strong despite the group of angry dragons who were still fingering the handles of their various blades. Most didn’t bother with even that as their hands took on a reptilian, claw-like form that could no doubt slash through the toughest hide.
The rage-red did not leave the father’s eyes. “I am Anata, and I am the king of the land on which ye stand.”
Aaron bowed at the waist. Bell followed suit. Kehn shifted his feet, uncomfortable with the whole thing. Likely the only reason he and Bell would even do such a thing was because their prince had done it first, but with the boy in his arms, he couldn’t show the respect owed to a king. There was no way he was all that broken up about it anyway.
“Forgive me, milord,” said Aaron. “We simply wished to bring him home.”
Anata did not hesitate. He half turned, snapped his fingers, and two more men leapt from their advantageous positions on top of the rocks. They rushed toward Dawn and Kehn.
Kehn’s muscles bunched up like he was waiting for a fight. Dawn hissed at him, putting his attention on her. If he dropped the boy, she would kill him.
The two giant men did not draw their swords and start swinging or bring out their talons. Gently, they took Devon into their arms, shifting the weight of his wings and body from the vampire and elf to themselves with the care one would give an injured bird.
“Take him to his mother,” Anata barked. Though his voice was commanding and sharp, his eyes were soft with worry as they walked away with his son. Flying, it seemed, was out of the question even for them under the circumstances.
Dawn looked up and around. The rest of th
e dragons did not disperse. Most still kept their swords in their meaty hands. Even through her helmet, she smelled the testosterone rising.
“I hope ye have a good healer,” Aaron said, his eyes still looking in Devon’s direction. “’Tis what he needs.”
“My queen is the best of healers,” Anata replied tersely. “But that is no concern of yours. I expect you, of all people, shall want payment?” His face was screwed up as he said it, as though expecting no better of an elf.
Or maybe just Aaron in general.
Dawn recalled how Aaron had received his curse, and she was insulted on his behalf.
Aaron nodded, color rising up his neck. “Aye, but not in gold. I assume ye were the one who rescued my father after the serpent attacked?”
Anata nodded. “The king of elves is recovering well.”
Dawn’s mouth dropped. He…didn’t deny it.
“Why did ye not send a messenger to inform us that he was in yer care?” Kehn demanded, stepping forward, all clenched fists and snarling teeth now that his hands were no longer full.
To their credit, the dragons didn’t throw a spear into Kehn’s chest for the show he was putting on. They didn’t need to. Bell was smart enough to get in his way, keeping at least ten feet between the two men by pulling her longbow and pointing an arrow directly in Kehn’s face.
Kehn halted, shocked into sputtering. “I—what are ye—”
“Threatening him threatens our prince. Bring yerself under control.”
Dawn suddenly had a whoooooole lot more respect for her.
“Aye! Control yerself, elf!” one of the dragons above crowed. The others broke out laughing.
Dawn waited for Kehn to pop a vein. What would that look like? But he blew out a breath and walked away instead.
“I thought to bide my time,” Anata said, going back to Aaron’s question. “Yer king claimed to know naught of my son’s disappearance. I wished to keep him in relative comfort until it could be proven otherwise.”
Which was pretty much the same thing that was happening with Blake and Nox.
