“Go,” he said, and gripped the spindly stick tighter in his palm. A swift despatch required a keen eye and two sharp stabs to the underbelly, severing the coronic nerve, disabling the communication between body and brain.
His training came back to him; his dexterity had yet to catch up. Legs pumping with only half the speed he remembered, heart battering his chest in protest at being pushed so hard so soon.
And Claudia was running the wrong way. Foolish woman, leading it away from him, not toward, so he could send it to its maker.
Stones rattled beneath his bare feet. Tharius slipped and pushed off his good arm. He meant to take it hand-to-hand, with only one arm and fangs. Shift, he ordered his brain. Shift, to the dragon screaming inside of him for blood.
The dragon beat at the chains holding it in vain. The command rattled in his head without connecting to source, as it did when he was Tharius, general and warrior who shifted at will.
He ignored the flying eye zipping back and forth, zooming close then rising out of his reach. When the eye appeared, the enemy were never far behind. Here, on this flat plain, the gentle rise of the land, it might choose to engage. He spared a swift glance for the trees, sensing no others hiding in wait. That meant nothing, in his depleted state. There might be an army in there and he’d miss it.
“Claudia, hold. Let me at it.”
She yelled something back at him and turned to face the panting creature square on. Not swift of foot, but with legs so long the beast would outpace her by simply walking. Peeling back its lips, the creature raised a blade and made a clumsy swipe at her. Claudia dodged, and then he saw her mouth move, her hands lift toward it, palms forward. The creature roared and charged.
Chapter Twelve
Claudia held her nerve, aware of Tharius thundering up the shallow slope, the orb circling around them.
Please don’t shift to full dragon. Oh Dio, they’ve seen him try to fly. Now, they’ll hound us without mercy.
“Claudia, hold. Let me take it.”
“I will, but let me try something first.”
Waves of frustration radiated from the angry male who’d likely reach the creature before she had a chance to put it in thrall. She didn’t blame Tharius’s lack of trust in her. He knew nothing of her true powers. Still, he was going to run into the mother of all fights if she failed to get a hold of that creature’s mind before they engaged.
Find a door to its mind, open and jump inside. She’d imagined an unsophisticated being with few thoughts circulating its brain. How wrong. This close, she saw the shrewd narrowing of the eyes, the calculating, fixed stare.
She visualised a wall. The creature faltered, thoughts tripping one over the other. A high wall circled by imaginary razor wire and superglue holding it in place. The creature frowned and slowly lowered the blade.
“Now. Take it now while I have its mind.” She called out to Tharius, hoping he’d hear the urgency in her words. He was trying to shift. No, don’t do that. She couldn’t hold it for very long. Use the energy for this instead.
The creature swung his gaze from her to him in an almost comical bewilderment at the creature invading its thoughts and the naked dragon-man thundering across the plain. Tharius leaped at its back, stabbing the stick into the thick neck. The stick snapped, leaving him holding the stump. Thick, transparent blood spurted from the wound. Claudia gagged on the stench, struggling to hold its will.
“Whatever you’re doing, let go and run.” Tharius stabbed again with the blunt stump, ducking and rolling away from the creature’s weak attempts to cut him with the blade.
“Fight, don’t distract me.” She couldn’t keep her attention on them both. Above them, the brooding storm released the first drops of rain, beating out an erratic staccato on the grass, the rocks, and soil. A sharp dagger of lightning sliced through the cloud and hit ground a few metres from where she stood. The sizzling crack of igniting vegetation made her duck and throw her arms over her head. The connection between her and the creature snapped. She’d done all she could.
Time to run. Tharius tossed what was left of the stick aside and dived for the creature’s thigh, his mouth stretched wide. The orb above recorded the creature’s agonised howl ringing across the plain.
Claudia’s stomach lurched.
The coronic nerve. Absent in humans, but a real weakness shared by many of the creatures of the outer systems. A weakness exploited in the arena fights, and by wyverns on the hunt. Some used the sword, others their bare teeth. It made no difference. Take out the nerve, and the creature fell.
The orb ignored her horror, too intent on capturing the gory kill.
Tharius growled, a rumbling roar trapped deep in his throat. Twisting his neck, he wrenched his head away, a chunk of the creature’s thigh dangling from his jaws. Claudia heaved and placed a stern hand on her belly.
He’s a dragon, for God’s sake. They eat fresh maidens for breakfast. She flopped to the damp ground, utterly spent, face turned away. Too exhausted to throw up, or yell that the camera was capturing it all and would surely return for more.
The sound of vigorous chewing, the wrenching crack of bones snapping left her in no doubt as to what she’d unleashed.
“Eat, you must be hungry.”
“Not raw. Humans don’t do that...” Claudia risked another peek, aware the camera was filming it all. Tharius made an appreciative groan deep in his throat. Her stomach did another flip.
“When did you last eat? Here, take this, it will give you strength.” He pushed the bloody flesh at her. Frantically, Claudia flapped him away.
“No, I can’t.” Not even if he cooks it, she thought, as the strength of his will collided with hers. If he thought she needed the energy, he would hold her down and force-feed it to her. Though nowhere near displaying his full strength, this male was used to issuing orders and being obeyed.
“The flesh of this creature spoils too quickly in this season to take with us. Eat now, while you can.”
“I’ll pass.”
He eyed her with an expression that said, later. Now was not the time. Tharius wiped his blooded palms on the cloak and extended his hand to her.
“You have delicate sensibilities, I understand. But you will eat the berries in your pack. You are a precious thing to me, Claudia and in my care now. I will not see you fade and die.”
She twined her fingers with his, ignoring the sticky stains in the creases and around his claws. Stiff skin with little give, though more human than dragon, now. His hand was warm, the grip strong enough for her to relax for a while and let him take charge. Her gift set her apart in life, blighted her relationships when men realised she was privy to their thoughts and always one step ahead of them. None of that seemed to bother Tharius. He welcomed their connection.
She kind of liked that.
“The eye used my tongue to speak of another blue.” Tharius hauled her upright, pulling her against him for a deep study of her own eyes. “Your ancestor was a Viridi or a Verdant. They were close cousins, displaying hues of green. Do you comprehend?”
“If there are other dragons out there, then they’ve only just been found.” How did she get that through to him? A small, scattered population on this moon, but by late spring, and with more people on the move, news travelled. And news of a dragon sighting would definitely travel.
“I had a brother, Toren. We were separated during the war. His fate is unknown to me.”
“You have blood on your face.” Stop talking, Tharius. Don’t give anything away.
Tharius’s leathery brow creased in question. His eyes moved to the floating camera. Claudia rose onto her toes, barely able to reach the cheek smeared with the pale slime of the creature’s blood. Her fingers hovered over the stain. Slid to cover his lips, in a gesture she hoped urged caution.
“Those cameras can pick up the smallest of sounds. Don’t give anything away.”
He’d want to find his brother, his family. Wouldn’t she do the same, given the cha
nce? The stubborn cast to his jaw said he’d do it, regardless.
“If he lives, I will find him.” His scrutiny of the camera turned to a glare. “Together we will avenge our line, our race.”
“Okay, but this needs proper planning. We both need rest.” She let her knees wobble a little. Tharius caught her in a lightning move, his hands grasping at her shoulders to steady her. She could only wonder at the power contained in his full strength.
“I told you to eat. I cannot trust my wings and it is a long walk to my lair.” He tempered his tone with a visible effort. “You bid me caution before the eyes that follow, but hear this, Claudia. The time for hiding is over. I will face every challenge they bring, and I will defy anyone to take you from me.”
“I know.” Their biggest problem was his appearance. If he could at least hide his dragon side from casual encounters, they might make his lair in one piece.
She’d seen his dragon in her dreams. His male form would be equally magnificent. Thick hanks of blue-black hair hung in silky ropes over his shoulders and back. Grown to that length in stasis, or did the dragons always wear their hair in Viking style? Thick dragon skin ran seamlessly into his bronze-coloured, male skin. And those eyes - glowing a deep purple like some rare jewel.
“You’re beautiful,” she said, unable to stop herself. No male wanted to be called beautiful. Tharius only stood a little prouder, a hint of a smile on his lips.
“We were certainly dealt the better hand when the creators chose where to endow the gifts. Come, Claudia. You are also strangely alluring to me.” He ran a razor-sharp claw over her cheek so lightly, she felt only the ghost of a touch. “I should revile my ancestor for taking congress with an alien. How did they even make that journey? It goes against everything we, the Draegon, stand for. Yet, looking at you, feeling the velvet of your skin, the vital pulse of your fluttering heart, I see why he might have succumbed.”
“It might have been a she.” Claudia blinked, lowering her gaze. She thought she knew the power of thrall? Nothing compared to the mesmerising hold of his eyes on hers. Dangerous, letting this male in. He would take without mercy. Protect her at the cost of his own life. Through him, she might stay at liberty long enough to join up with other renegades, who refused to play the Corporation’s games.
“Our females did not possess the courage of your female race, little Claudia.”
“Did you even let them try?”
“Only the greatest of males would have made the journey across the stars to your world. Our females hardly ventured across the compounds. They are taught from birth that their rightful place lies behind a strong male.”
“And I bet they just lay down and obeyed.” She shouldn’t tease him, not with the camera watching for his reaction. The audience at the end of that hovering camera understood her replies even if Tharius didn’t.
“Your tone tells me you scoff at that notion, little Claudia. We sought only to keep the guardians of our future race safe. They accepted our protection willingly.”
At the cost of their own freedom? Tharius sniffed the air and crouched to inspect the creature’s discarded short blade. Crudely beaten metal, fastened to a branch with twine. It was the best they had.
Tharius snatched up the discarded cloak, swirling it around his hips, drawing her attention to the V of muscle angling at his groin. He caught her looking and tilted his hips in blatant offering.
A game he obviously remembered well. Too bad she’d promised to never let a man control her through sex, or she’d be a drooling puddle at his feet, begging him to take her.
A slow smile lit his face. A predator’s smile.
“Though your words are a mystery, your body speaks to me in a universal tongue, and when we reach my lair, mine will answer, I promise you that. We go.”
“You think?” Her body hummed, each promised word caressing her skin. Tharius started walking with no more invitation, supremely sure she’d follow. He searched out her pack as if he realised familiar things gave comfort in trying times. The blade fit inside. Though his claws were of more use than such a dull instrument.
He noticed the dragon scale. Of course he did. Such treasure called to his dragon’s very essence? Twisting it in his fingers, he held it in the pack, out of the camera’s view, inspecting the flashes of yellow and orange. A question evident on his furrowed brow.
Claudia quickened her step. Explain now, before he accused her of being a looter, like the others.
“I’m following because you need a female to make sure you take proper rest and don’t undo all the healing I nearly killed myself giving you. And the scale?” She touched it, wondering how to get him to understand. “I stole it from the wyvern.”
“Wyvern?” Tharius considered the word aloud, placing the accents with deliberate care. Good at picking out the nuances, if not the actual meaning, he was at least trying to communicate.
“The wyvern coveted our glorious scales in their avarice. Some even fastened them to their own to steal our beauty. You follow because your heart sees our joint destiny, Claudia. I am tasked with bringing the Draegon race to their former glory, and whatever path you walked to reach my final resting place, you were always walking towards me and this fate. I would not ask you to fight, but for this particular task, there must be two of us.”
Dragon babies? The image formed so strongly, Claudia stopped dead, breathing hard through the familiar ache in her chest. She’d never hold a soft, squirming bundle of life to call her own. Anger, that he could be so crass, so cruel as to even think about babies, bubbled up.
That’s unfair. How can he even guess my shameful secret?
Tharius’s feelings tangled with her own, sensing her roiling emotions with no real understanding of the turmoil inside.
Visions of babies with fangs and gleaming scales gave way to pictures of musty old caves dripping slimy water from cavernous roofs. Ha. A dragon lair was as likely to be a luxury penthouse sitting atop the highest peak.
“Where’s your lair?” Claudia lifted her palms in question, taking in the new life sprouting across the sweep of the valley below his temple. A short season of green, and then this sector of the moon slid into the time of high sun and searing heat, burning the landscape brown.
“Is it that way?” Instinct told her to follow the sun until the valley skirted a scorched forest, and rose again to another mountain that spouted fire, like the volcanoes on Earth.
Tharius mirrored her gesture. As if trying to fathom what she meant. Then he wiped absently at the creature’s blood drying on his cheek. He handed her the pack. “If you will not eat, then at least drink. I do not recall you taking water, and without water you will die.”
“Tougher than I look,” she reassured him. Sometimes, in the grip of a particularly tenacious vision, her body went into a kind of stasis, where she forgot to eat and drink with no lasting damage. She extracted the waterskin that had leaked into her bundle, soaking and plumping the few remaining berries, and drank to please him.
Thirstier than she realised, she almost emptied the skin before remembering he needed water, too.
“Finish it,” she said, and thrust it at him. “This works both ways.”
No argument. Tharius tipped the skin over his open mouth, revealing a neat row of spiked incisors, a matched pair of curling canines, and blunt, back teeth capable of crushing her with one bite.
“Now you eat, Claudia. I would see to your welfare.”
“I’m glad you’re on my side, Tharius. I have to warn you, there’s a wyvern aching to write his name with my blood, and that’s only if Serllia and the war-band don’t get to me, first.”
“Wyvern?” Tharius’s jaws twisted into a sneer. “Wyvern scum are nothing but cowards hiding behind the invader’s might. I welcome the confrontation.”
“And it will come. That’s the only reason this place exists.”
The only reason they still walked free, instead of being surrounded by armed wyverns and angry war-bands. She was dra
gging her feet after the encounter with the predatory creature. After nearly dying bringing back a two-hundred-year-old dragon. Tharius hooked her into the crook of his elbow, pressing her to the scratchy patchwork of his skin scattered with hide and the occasional tarnished scale. The rhythmic whoosh of his blood lulled her into unsuspecting sleep.
We have to lose those cameras, she thought. The Corporation have one dragon on their radar, and now they have another. They won’t rest until he’s fighting in their games.
Tharius paused again to take his bearings, frowning, as if paths he should have recognised no longer existed as he remembered them. “Joined like this, skin to skin, your turmoil is also mine, Claudia. Would that I could offer you the peace you crave.” He made a quarter turn, choosing a path overgrown with stout, tangled branches, belonging to shrubs she didn’t recognise. The thorns and spines made no impression on the thick hide of his dragon-man feet.
I should get down and walk before he decides I’m a soft touch, like those poor dragon females. The thought flitted through Claudia’s mind. She might have even struggled and argued the point. Or she might have imagined that. The need for sleep and a recharge was fast becoming the priority.
“Peace is for times long past, am I right, Claudia?”
“I guess. But there’s still hope, Tharius. Don’t give up on that.”
She heard bitterness in his laugh and drifted further into his embrace and the teasing tendrils of welcoming sleep. Hope was the last casualty of war, and they hadn’t lost the war yet—not with the dragons awakening.
“I fear I will not like this new order I have returned to. We have both lost what we held dear, and perhaps may yet have more to lose. But you and me, we have a greater destiny than our own happiness, Claudia. If the female dragons are truly extinct, then hope yet remains. You were not only sent to awaken me. Do you understand?”
“Dragon babies? You’re talking about dragon babies? Tharius, I…”
STONE DRAGON: A Prison Moon Series Romance Novel Page 12
