Zonaton

by Mooney, Linda

  He wiped blood from his nose. "Why do you continue to fight us? Why don't you give up? You know you can't win. Even if you get lucky enough to get the best of me, which you won't, there's more of us, and we'll eventually take you into custody."

  "Leave us alone," Emmala called out. "We had nothing to do with the attack. And you're crazy if you think we did!"

  Hawse didn't respond. Instead, he casually strolled over to the opposite side of the cave. Too late, she realized he had gone there to retrieve his knife from the floor. Straightening, Hawse kept his head bowed, his face averted, and flipped the knife over and over in his good hand—blade, handle, blade, handle, blade.

  The knife came straight at them, thrown without forewarning of what he was going to do. The blade slammed into Zonaton's chest, and he was knocked backwards from the force.

  Emmala screamed a split-second before the knife found its target. When Zonaton fell against her, she slipped and tumbled sideways, and he landed across her legs.

  "Zonaton! Zonaton, no!" She fought to free her legs so she could go to him. It couldn't be happening again! It couldn't happen again! He didn't have a third life. This was his last one, and if he died, she would lose him forever.

  Crying, she somehow managed to crawl out from underneath his unconscious weight and threw herself over him, vaguely aware of the crowd advancing toward them until a voice noncommittally said, "Why the fuck are you calling him by that crazy-ass name?"

  Anger, black and thick and filled with impossible pain, ballooned inside her. Emmala shrieked in fury, and rose up on her knees, the blade from Zonaton's chest in her hand. Turning, she plunged it to the hilt into the only part of Hawse she could reach at that level.

  His groin.

  The man screamed and his body went rigid. Emmala moved away and tried to return to Zonaton, but his body had moved. In shock, she stared into his crystalline eyes, now a bright, burning red.

  He sat up, pushing her away from him, shoving her behind him and out of the reach of the villagers, who had momentarily turned their attention away from the couple to the young man cupping himself, who stood squealing at the top of his lungs as copious amounts of blood gushing from his genitals.

  Slowly, inexplicably, Zonaton got to his feet as his own bright pink blood oozed from the knife wound, but not as fast or as much as the wound Emmala had inflicted on their tormentor. "Go. Leave us. Go now," he ordered them in a thick, deep voice. A voice that sounded nothing like himself.

  Kell looked at the man and her daughter. "Forget it. We won't. Not now. Not after you've done this to him," she tersely replied and glanced at Emmala. "You'll keep killing. You'll keep destroying. And you'll keep sending those damn gerons to keep us in line as long as you live. You don't deserve a trial! You don't deserve to live!" The woman yelled and pointed a bloodied hand toward the couple. "Get them!"

  The crowd started to surge toward Zonaton in an attempt overtake them both by sheer force and numbers, when Zonaton suddenly stiffened. His body jerked to an unnatural stance, and his arms rose outward, until they were perpendicular to his body. His fiery red eyes widened, and some people in the crowd halted, shrieking and pointing overhead.

  Stunned, afraid, and confused, Emmala chanced a glance behind her to see what they were pointing at. There, on the wall, an immense shadow grew larger until it seemed to fill the cavern. Once it reached the ceiling, the dark mass gradually lifted its serpentine neck, and its wings opened, spreading up and outward to shadow the cave from entrance to pool. The serpentine-like tail whipped back and forth with growing frenzy.

  Emmala looked back at Zonaton, then again at the shadow. His posture matched the shadow exactly, which couldn't happen. He wasn't a geron anymore. How was it possible?

  He hiccupped, opening his mouth slightly. Lowering his chin, he belched. And then, lifting his chin, he opened his mouth as wide as he could.

  The stream of pure white heat shot from his throat, hitting Hawse and several of the villagers. Hawse's screams of pain were abruptly cut off as he and the others exploded into flames.

  The villagers scattered, running for the cave entrance in terror. Emmala watched as one man, his entire back from his head to his feet lit with white flames, careened into her mother. The woman tried to avoid him, but he nearly trampled her. A split-second later, both the burning man and her mother were swept outside with the crowd as they tried to escape.

  Emmala backed away, too horrified at what was happening, but Zonaton didn't let go with a second spout of fire. Instead, he carefully lowered his arms, until his body finally slumped to his knees. Behind him, the shadow on the wall slowly shrank until it vanished altogether. Then, he pitched forward and fell onto the rock face first.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Future

  Emmala ran to him. She knew he was dead. She knew that for the second time, for the final time, he had given his life to save hers. Her heart was caving in, squeezing out all the blood left in her body, leaving her cold as ice.

  Tears momentarily blurred her eyes as she reached for him with trembling hands, and somehow managed to roll him onto his back. His expression was serene, despite the cuts and abrasions on his face. One cheekbone was already puffing up and going dark, threatening to cut off sight from that eye. The slit in his chest continued to bleed, but it didn't appear to be oozing as much blood as it had.

  Leaning over him, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face to his, and sobbed. "This can't be happening. I can't lose you twice! Zonaton, why? Why did you do such a stupid thing? Again! You did it again! And I will hate you for the rest of my life for leaving me alone."

  Distraught and lost in her grief, she was unaware of the movement, oblivious to the of feel her hair being lifted until it repeated. Gasping, she turned her face to see his hand where it rested on the floor and lightly threaded its fingers through the long locks covering it.

  Emmala sat up to stare into his one good eye, now a bright blue. She sniffed, and tried to wipe her face on her arms.

  "You need...to wipe your...nose," he softly told her. The effort cost him, and he winced, clutching his chest with the same hand that had been stroking her.

  "Oh, God!" She pressed her cheek to his bloodied and scratched one, too overwhelmed to believe what was happening. "I don't understand, Zon. What did I see? What did you do? I thought you were human."

  A sound, a movement behind them distracted her. She reared back to see four bodies still burning in the sunlight. One shifted slightly as the fire continued to eat away at the corpse. Ignoring them, she got to her feet to retrieve the blanket and her clothing, dipping her shirt into the pool first to wet it before returning to where Zonaton remained sprawled on the floor.

  After covering him with the blanket, she blew her nose on her pants legs, tossing it away, then used her wet top to being cleaning the blood and dirt from his face and chest, taking care to bypass the knife wound. "Are you dying?" she ventured to ask in a soft voice.

  "I am in intense pain, and it will take me some time to recover, but no, Emmala. I am not dying."

  The admission was enough to make her burst out crying again. Burying her face in the blanket, she sobbed as the horror from the past half hour drained out of her. All the while, Zonaton continued to caress her hair, her shoulder, and her arm.

  When she was able to regain some self-control, she looked back at him, and laid her hand to his bruised jaw. "I love you."

  He placed his hand against hers. "I will always love you, my Emmala."

  "Tell me what to do. How can I help you?"

  "Bring me some water?"

  "I meant for your wound. Do you want me to bind it?"

  "No. Not yet. Let me rest here for a moment longer. I dare not move."

  Nodding, she went to fetch a small bowl from the fire pit and dipped it into the pool, returning to help him take a few sips. While she was away, she noticed him eyeing the burning remains. "Think they'll come back to exact revenge again?" she asked, cros
sing her legs as she sat beside him.

  "I do not believe they will. But, to be safe, perhaps we should find another cave elsewhere."

  "I think we should, too."

  She clasped his hand and kissed it. As she watched him resting, the cave grew quiet, peaceful, despite the tragedy that had occurred.

  "Should I dispose of the bodies?"

  "Wait until the flames die away," he advised. "Wait until they are cooled. No. On second thought, leave them."

  Peering directly into his eyes, Emmala took a deep breath. "Explain what happened. What did you do?"

  "My essence."

  "Yes?"

  He gave her an unsteady smile. "That is how."

  "I still don't understand. You're human now. How could you do that? Only a geron can do that."

  "I am not human, Em. I have taken human form, but my essence is and will always be geron."

  She frowned at him. "Are you saying you're still a geron inside?"

  The memory of his bright pink blood coming from the knife wound leaped into her mind, and she nodded. "That's why the knife didn't kill you. Hawse thought you were human, and he aimed for where your heart would be if you were human. But your heart, it's lower, where it is in a geron."

  Rather than answer, he nodded. His eyes traveled to the cup of water in a silent request, and she held it to his lips so he could take a few more sips.

  "You didn't see what I saw," she told him.

  He gave her a puzzled glance. "What did you see?"

  Emmala pointed to the wall behind them. "I saw a huge shadow of a geron lift its wings before it blew its fire at the crowd. It was your shadow, Zon. You may look like a human to my eyes, to every human's eye, but I bet gerons will see you as one of them."

  He nodded slightly again. "If I frightened you, forgive me."

  "I was frightened," she admitted. "But not of you. I was frightened for you."

  "You were brave, the way you tried to attack the villagers. The way you tried to defend me. You knew the odds were against us, yet you didn't let that stop you from trying." He spoke haltingly, stopping to gasp for breath every few words.

  "I was scared out of my wits," she said, giving him a small smile. "I was terrified of losing you. Again."

  Lying beside him, she snuggled next to his side. The cave grew tranquil once more. After a while, Emmala lifted her mouth to murmur in his ear, knowing he was still awake. "I don't want to leave here. It's been my home. But I agree with you that we must look for a new place."

  "The villagers who escaped know the way," he reminded her. "Somehow they found out how to reach us. They discovered the trail."

  "I know."

  More silence followed until Zonaton reached over the blanket to touch her hair once more. "Go outside and summon a geron. We will ask him to fly us to some place safe, and other gerons will arrive to tend to me. We cannot stay here. Maybe a few hours more, but no longer. The villagers could come back today, or they may not. We do not know for certain, but we cannot take that chance, either."

  "I know."

  Without further urging, Emmala stood and started toward the cave entrance, but stopped midway there and turned to look back at him. A wistful smile played across her lips. "Zon? Will we have baby humans or baby gerons?"

  She saw him think on it. "I do not know. Does it matter?"

  She laughed softly. "No. I guess it doesn't." She turned to continue making her way outside when he stopped her.

  "Em? Our world will be forever changed because of this. The humans' and the gerons'."

  "I understand."

  "I am sorry."

  "No." She shook her head. "Don't be. I'm not."

  "Are you sure?"

  Turning her head to look back at him, she firmly answered. "Yes, and do you know why? Because I have you. I love you, you love me, and we're together. And that's all I ever really wanted."

  This time she walked out of the cave and into the bright morning sunlight. The temperature was cool, reminding her she needed to put on some clothes and gather up Zonaton's before they left. That, plus a few other things.

  Shielding her eyes, she peered overhead, searching. Far in the distance a dark-colored geron soared above the mountain peaks. She thought she recognized him, but it wasn't important. Closing her eyes, she mentally sent out a call, the way Zonaton had taught her. When she opened them, the geron was making a circle to come her way.

  Yes, the villagers would return, if for no other reason than to gather the dead and take them back to Genesis. They would come back to the cave. When that would be, she couldn't begin to guess, but they would return. But when they did, it wouldn't matter. By that time, she and Zonaton would be gone, taken to a new home where they wouldn't be found, wouldn't be seen unless they chose to be.

  Yes, the townspeople would come back to the cave. She knew it with the same amount of certainty as she knew she and Zonaton would have a future.

  They were together, she and her silver-haired lover. Finally together. Forever together. He would live, and they would be able to have a life they could share. Somewhere. Anywhere. She didn't care if it was near a village, or far away from one.

  Wherever they decided to live, they would be happy, and that was all she had ever wanted.

  About the Author:

  Linda loves to write sensuously erotic romance with a fantasy, paranormal, or science fiction flair. Her technique is often described as being as visual as a motion picture or graphic novel.

  A wife, mother, and retired Kindergarten and music teacher, she lives in a small south Texas town near the Gulf coast where she delves into other worlds filled with daring exploits, adventure, and intense love.

  She has numerous best sellers, including 10 consecutive #1s. In 2009, she was named Whiskey Creek Press Torrid's Author of the Year, and her book MY STRENGTH, MY POWER, MY LOVE was named the 2009 WCPT Book of the Year. In 2011, her book LORD OF THUNDER was named the Epic Ebook "Eppie" Award Winner for Best Erotic Sci-Fi Romance.

  http://www.LindaMooney.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One - The Walk

  Chapter Two - The Pairing

  Eimiss

  Chapter Four - The Miners

  Chapter Five - The Joy

  Crotirum

  Chapter Seven - The Meeting

  Chapter Eight - The Truth

  Abisod

  Chapter Ten - The Stranger

  Chapter Eleven - The Observation

  Chapter Twelve - The Questioning

  Chapter Thirteen - The Plan

  Chapter Fourteen - The Conversation

  Akrim

  Chapter Sixteen - The Attempt

  Chapter Seventeen - The Reveal

  Chapter Eighteen - The Confession

  Divoll

  Chapter Twenty - The Lies

  Chapter Twenty-One - The Resolution

  Borin

  Chapter Twenty-Three - The Decision

  Chapter Twenty-Four - The Attack

  Vlase

  Chapter Twenty-Six - The Destruction

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - The Result

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Return

  Baragas

  Chapter Thirty - The Revelation

  Chapter Thirty-One - The Promise

  Chapter Thirty-Two - The Mob

  Chapter Thirty-Three - The Essence

  Chapter Thirty-Four - The Future

  About the Author