“Audience have voted in your favour. The ratings please us.”
“So call off the pursuers.”
“You earned a respite.”
“I want two days without the eyes following. Or I will no longer play your game.” Always negotiate for more than you expect to win. His old tutor’s advice sounded loud in his mind. The eye remained silent. As if thinking. Claudia sent him waves of approval.
“That was not in our original contract.”
“It is now. If we pleased your viewers, we hold the advantage.”
Tell them to make it a game, Tharius. We go off air for the night, they vote on how long it takes the cameras to find us in the morning. Do it, Tharius.
She had the makings of a good military commander. The suggestion was genius.
“Then make it a game. We will go silent. Then the eyes must seek us out. Your watchers will derive enjoyment from that, I think.”
“You have until the sun rises.”
They’ll cheat, Tharius. The Corporation will keep tabs on us, but keeping the audience in the dark and then making a show of finding us, well that’s show biz.
The orb slowly backed away, meeting its evil twin outside the enclave. They attached like magnets to the side of the angular box and moved off.
They have others watching?
You can count on it. They’ll be watching from space, too. Hell, on Earth we can pick out someone walking along a street on a satellite feed, I can’t begin to imagine what they can see.
Is it safe for me to speak aloud? You need the energy to make heat. I feel you shivering.
I think so. Could you…hold me, Tharius? You’re so much warmer than me.
“Come near to the fire. We don’t have much time.” He felt each weary tread of her feet, the grateful lean of her body against his. He enclosed her with his working arm, taking her down to sit before the meagre flames. Rubbing at her pimpled flesh, he hunched over her, the better to give her his heat.
She fit like a lost part of him, and when he held her, their minds fell into a strangely beguiling contentment. He could sit there all night, holding her while she slept and small creatures cried out their alarms and screamed out their dying breaths. The clovix sank soft beneath them, promising a relatively comfortable bed for the night. They would awake refreshed, perhaps after another rutting or two, and then prepare for the next stage of their journey.
They did not have that luxury.
“I can get us to my lair by daybreak, if I run with you. I have treasure there. Funds we can use to barter for weapons, food, and clothing.”
You’re exhausted, Tharius. And so am I. Claudia burrowed into his side, sighed and sat upright. Let me give you more healing, first. I want to work on your damaged arm.
“You believe you can return it to use?”
I don’t know. Was it broken and set twisted while you were in the stone? It will be a slow process, but I’ll at least give you some mobility back.
“Then do so. The time is well invested.” He let her go reluctantly. Demeaning to discuss his weakness like this, but with her he didn’t mind so much. No need for a show, with her.
Claudia stretched. I sent you healing while you held me. Just in case you had some macho ideas about not needing it. You didn’t feel it?
“I felt only you because you and the healing are one.” He flexed his good arm. Tried the same with the other, so twisted and stiff with only a little movement at the shoulder joint. Claudia’s gaze immediately went there. Her hands followed, cupping both sides of the joint. This time a tiny prickle, the merest hint of heat warmed his flesh.
That’s all I have for now. Should we leave? She was seated with space between them now, arms huddled about her chest. Tharius rose, pulling the cloak from his hips.
Claudia shook her head. She lifted her hands, waving them back and forth. No, Tharius. You need that.
“In daylight, perhaps. But who is there to see me in the dark?”
She tilted her chin at the dark space outside the enclave. Any number of felons wandering about. We’ve been lucky not to encounter rogues so far. Though that’s courtesy of the Corporation.
“I will continue to indulge in carnal thoughts of you to facilitate this link with our minds. But you must begin to learn the Draegon tongue so we may speak out loud.” He glanced down his cock, still hard and ready. She only had to touch him to induce a cock-stand so strong, its demand for satisfaction threatened to cloud his better judgement.
“Oh, Dio.” Claudia averted her eyes. How does he walk with that thing going on?
“It impedes my speed, yes. Tell me, who is this Dio you invoke? Is he one of your gods?” He stamped on the fire, his dragon side enjoying the searing flame-bath to his feet. How long since he indulged in one of those? Bowing to his more tender male side, he used a branch to scatter the charcoal.
It’s Italian for God. In my religion, we have only one.
“Only one God?” Tharius sniffed. Nothing he could do about the scent of arousal and possession making the air in the enclave thick with their lust. “He must be a busy male.”
Or she. Claudia smiled, as if at some jest he wouldn’t understand. Dio, God. Say it, Tharius.
“Di-o. Ours have many names. Dramis is prime in the pantheon. In Draegon the word God is Dra’heen. You must learn my tongue.”
My powers help me hear the words, but I’m fighting the translation chip all the way. Easier if you learn mine.
“It renders all my words into your tongue?” He thought about it, and decided that yes, he could make this compromise. Pandering to others did not come easy to the Draegon. Claudia watched him sniffing the air, a question forming in her mind as she worked out what he was doing. At full strength, they would be communicating with one mind.
Half the felons on this moon can sniff out arousal, or a female in heat. They’re always so desperate for sex. Sex and blood.
Claudia’s shoulders drooped, like one carrying the weight of the whole moon. So jaded and sad. He bent and touched his lips to hers, relishing the response of a female who did not shrink from his advances.
Poor Ekala. Had he intimidated her so much?
“This was a place of grace and beauty, once. It can be again.” He pressed his ridged forehead gently to hers. “Build your strength and help me to master my shift. I would have my dragon and my full male return, the better to protect you.”
Will you show me Dra’lera? Her lips formed a pout, searching. Claudia opened her mouth and pushed her tongue against his. It felt like a question. The only answer he had for her was yes, though his good sense told him that should be a secret from everyone, for now. Even her.
What she did not know, could not be tortured or blackmailed out of her.
I’ll find out anyway, when near. But keep your secrets, Tharius. There are precious few on this moon.
Did you say they seek it in vain? Tell me Dra’lera, at least, is safe. He spoke in her mind, thinking it energy well spent to keep his beloved Dra’lera safe.
They have all this technology, but they don’t have magic, or whatever protects it. I think it’s safe.
Tharius let out a long, shuddering breath, and breathed in hope. They may take his blood, his broken body, but they would never take the sacred birthplace of dragons. The mystics did well with their incantations and chants designed to mask it from intruders when the visitors turned invader.
If my brother Toren truly lives, then he will make for Dra’lera. It will be our rallying point. Come, we’ve wasted enough time.
Claudia evaded him when he bent to scoop her up. Not yet. I’ll ask when I need you.
“As you wish.” The choppy words said she was already tired, but energy used on argument was just as easily used for walking. Watch her carefully and take charge when needed.
Lifting his head, Tharius tested the air for the deadly scents of predators and other living beings. Lacking practice with the skill, he picked up too many individual markers to sort familiar pr
edators from the felons Claudia said now inhabited his moon. They came from all over the sector, all species, and many of them foreign to him.
He had a lot of catching up to do.
Out there, Tharius. Always. But I don’t sense the war-band or any wyverns. It’s very faint, likely they already passed this way or they’re too far away to cross paths with us. When they get near, I’ll know.
“Do you sense every being on this moon? How reliable is this gift of yours?” He’d decided to trust her word as a fellow warrior. No advantage in questioning over a matter of male pride. But yet, he could not comprehend her species being so far advanced of his own that her senses superseded his.
Not all. But two of us, now. Good advantage...
“Speak aloud to me, Claudia, so I may start learning your tongue.” We will make for my lair and hope we arrive before the sun rises. If my hoard is still intact, we must move it to a safer place. The moment he thought the words, he realised the foolishness. A typical dragon hoard, or Show, as they liked to call it, his treasure pile was easily as tall and broad as his full dragon form.
As the hostilities escalated, he moved all of his treasure to the secret chambers above his lair. No mere sparkly baubles; to a dragon, the hoard was a part of them. A psychological security, and something to be defended with their lives.
To steal a dragon hoard was to steal a piece of the dragon himself.
You know that’s probably already happened? Claudia wrapped the cloak about her body and kept her eyes front to avoid gazing on his naked form. Her coyness perplexed him. Did the males on her planet not display themselves with pride to their female counterparts? It seemed not.
On our planet Earth, if a man walked around naked, he’d be arrested as a flasher.
Claudia paused then waved him on. He listened too, re-learning the sounds of the valley he’d explored as a youngling dragon. Where he built his first lair, and then moved on to the more elaborate dwelling as befitting a mated, high-born Draegon. Echoing with bittersweet memories, the place almost deceived him into believing nothing had changed.
If only.
He took Claudia’s hand to anchor her to him, and steered them off the path into the long, swaying bell reeds, moving the well-trodden trails by instinct.
“I think you’re helping with the shift,” he said, his voice more male, less of a growl.
You are looking a little more…male. “Male, say it.”
“May-al” His teeth no longer cut into his bottom lip. The night air felt cooler on his skin. Where before they made hardly an impression, now stones and thorns pricked the soles of his feet.
Claudia hugged his side, tense and alert. He wondered if her gifts ever allowed any peace in that constantly churning mind of hers. How strong she must be, to withstand the onslaught without falling into insanity.
They moved across the valley in silence, skirting moonlit pools and shadowed hollows. Claudia’s thoughts ran on in amazement at the dark beauty unfolding in the twisted trees hung with creepers and vines, opening up to smaller plains where moonlight pooled on pale rock and silent water.
Straining his eyes in the dim shade, Tharius sought out the bent and gnarled tree he’d climbed as a boy, the flat rock he scaled and used to pretend he was the king of dragons. Claudia’s steps slowed, but she kept on walking, the thoughts in her head telling him she’d ask when she needed help.
He didn’t believe that for one moment. Besides, nearing his lair there was a ritual to enact. As a dragon who lost his mate, he was at liberty to find another. But only after invoking permission from the first.
Claudia looked at him curiously. Will Ekala’s spirit mind you taking me there?
“She was ever generous to others. She would not wish me to languish alone.”
It’s not as if I’m your new mate, or anything.
“Claudia…” Her name softened on a weary sigh. As if this might be an ongoing argument. He’d naturally assumed she’d take the role. That given the circumstances of their meeting, formality might be set aside.
With a man, an Earth girl never assumes. She slipped off a moccasin and shook out a stone. Things can go horribly wrong that way.
He steadied her while she pushed it back onto her foot. His talons had straightened out, the fingers less knotted. Being fully in one state of shift or the other required less energy than the half-shift, where each side warred with the other for dominance. Without this Earth woman’s help, he might remain in this half-shift for the rest of his life.
“We will go through the formalities when we arrive. I would do right by you, Claudia.”
She hooked her flapping hair behind her ears. A heavy, grey cloud sailed over the moons, sending elongated shadows racing across the valley. Casting her face in darkness. I have to point out that though we’ve already met, this is all a bit sudden. She laughed at some jest he did not understand.
“I’ve awaited you for long enough. It is not so for me.”
And I came looking for a dragon and found…
“A mate.” There, he’d said the words. “In my culture, those are never words said lightly.”
Sadly in mine, they don’t always mean a lot. It took me a while to realise that groupies don’t make for meaningful relationships. Her mouth flattened. Like one jaded by past hurts.
“Grou-pee?” He tested the alien word on his tongue, feeling the cynicism imbued within the sound.
When you’re even a bit famous, everyone wants to be your friend. Male groupies would give me gifts, sometimes spend the night.
“You had lived a life before me. I accept that.” He blocked her progress, allowing a lumbering, six-legged chadwe to undulate across their path. The beasts never troubled others who left them in peace. Sour-tasting, too, so not worth the kill.
“It was all getting a little crazy. You thought about a harp, back there in the enclave. When you pictured your lair. Will it still be there?”
“If the looters came, unlikely.” A string of musical notes tumbled through his head, the memory of Crilla, the golden harp inlaid with the most precious of jewels he’d furnished for Ekala to play and entertain him in the evenings when they rested. “Our females are taught the gentler skills of music and art. Ekala had a way of making Crilla weep.”
Only now did he realise those strings wept for the lost future looming for all of them.
Claudia shook her head sadly. If they’ve been anywhere near your lair, then Crilla will be gracing some warlord camp now. I’m sorry.
“If it’s still there, will you play for me?” Again, he took stock of the journey she’d taken to his side. All Draegon mates knew music. Forged on another world, yet it still seemed Claudia had been made for him.
She gave him a side-eye. Was…music…important?
This serious talk dimmed the chatter of their minds, each to the other. Though thinking of his lair, a return to thoughts of the precious moments alone with her immediately brought the lustful images to the fore. With his male in dominance, he would take her slow and easy, and see to her pleasure, first. So much to learn about this Earth female’s body and mind.
“It is a part of the ritual, yes. The male presents the harp, or whichever instrument his mate is proficient in, and she plays to honour their union.
The connection sharpened once more, and Claudia smiled. Like a siren song? I warn you, I sing, too.
“And written in that ember you have inside of you, are the words to our songs.”
She made a sceptical sound. Perhaps. No, I don’t need carrying. Save your strength for a full shift. You can pick me up when we get there.
Wise words, as he was coming to expect from her. Shifting towards his male, he should not tire the muscles without cause. Though the valley whispered only with sounds he knew, they may yet be taken by stealth. As Claudia pointed out, the Corporation had no interest in honouring this temporary silence.
Claudia patted his arm, a touch he was learning meant, well done. The old Tharius might have bristled
at the patronising nature of such a gesture. The impatient and arrogant General Tharius who believed he always knew best.
A trait most dragons shared, to their detriment.
I want to walk to your lair. That’s a part of the ritual, too, isn’t it?
“It is, but rain is coming, and I do not wish for you to take a chill. I have other plans for tonight.”
Dutifully, the cloud let go its load with a pattering of raindrops that quickly turned into a sheeting deluge. Nowhere to shelter but the scattered trees, which would likely attract stray charges of the lightning arcing in bursts across the night sky.
As younglings, they’d race about in the storms, trying to catch the lightning strikes that made their skin sizzle and glow. And if they hit lucky, sent ripples of covert pleasure below the belt.
It’s dangerous for humans to stand under trees in storms. Claudia wiped rain from her eyes. I know it’s not quite the same electric charge as Earth lightning, but I’ve seen it strike humans here and stop their hearts or burn them to a crisp.
“The ember will protect you.”
She shook her head. Need to learn more about that before I test it standing under lightning bolts. Let’s keep walking. How much farther?
The stinging rain pelted his exposed skin. Moulded the sleek sheath of his hair to his shoulders and back. The wars left no time for grooming so he sheared it close to his head, the better to fit a helmet in male form and to keep the parasites at bay. Head hair continued to grow on the corpses of the dead, so no surprise his had grown beneath his stone shell.
He’d been more alive than he realised.
“The moons will have set by the time we reach it. I do not know how that translates to the time you use on Earth.”
Another hour, or two then. Claudia studied the veiling storm like one of their own Draegon mystics, who even blind, read the position of the sun and moon.
“It’s taking too long. We are wasting precious time.” Gathering her in the crook of his biceps and forearm, he lifted her, ignoring her soft squeak, the pull and protest of his male muscles weakened by his long sleep. “Your weight will aid in training the muscle to its former strength.”
STONE DRAGON: A Prison Moon Series Romance Novel Page 16
