STONE DRAGON: A Prison Moon Series Romance Novel

by Marell, Alexandra

  You don’t want him to win? I thought you had a deal. Hell, the seer still wanted Tharius as her grand prize. Claudia’s head spun. Serllia might be strong enough to save him. But at what cost?

  That’s up to you, Claudia. Next up are the wyverns. So easy to control they might be mere babes fighting your dragon. Veton is the real danger here, and I hold his leash.

  And I get to decide who lives or dies?

  Precisely. See how your dragon wavers. How slow is his arm? Disabled like that, he can’t possibly take two wyverns and survive.

  If you save him, he’ll kill you.

  He’ll be too weak to resist my thrall. I was there, Claudia. During the wars. This is how I know dragons. This is how I will control him.

  It hurt to force a brave smile for the camera. They’d been quiet for long enough, and the viewers liked words, actions and reactions. Serllia knew it, too. Feed them enough to keep them on the edge of their seats, voting buttons in hand.

  Tharius was breathing hard, unable to wipe away the blood seeping from a cut at his temple, running into his eyes and blurring his vision. He needed that fist to punch, to grapple and throttle. Veton fought on, like a puppet at Serllia’s command.

  The dragon might kill me, the seer mused. But for the possibility of greater reward, I’m willing to take that chance.

  He’ll never abandon me for you. Claudia winced at the crack of Veton’s fist smashing into Tharius’s skull. You’re crazy if you think that.

  The viewers want an end to this bout. Who shall we let win, Claudia? Veton or Tharius? It’s entirely in our hands, but surely you can wish for only one outcome?

  Was Tharius picking all this up? Or was he too intent on his stalemate with Veton? Neither looked ready to yield before their restless invisible audience.

  Claudia’s mind whirled. She had the power to end it. And if Serllia spoke the truth, whichever she chose, she lost.

  * * *

  He’d never really feared fighting the war-band. None had looked capable of taking on a dragon in half-shift, and he’d despatched them easily enough, until this fourth warrior who took blows that should have felled him, and fought on with a strangely detached air. Like a child’s toy, jerking at its owner’s command.

  Or a male controlled by Serllia.

  Tharius circled him, wary of the warrior’s vicious right hook that had already found its mark more than once. This round had gone on too long. Both of them tiring, but still the cursed warrior would not yield.

  No, Claudia. Stay out of my head. Work on the seer, instead.

  He could not have her distracting him now. While she moved seamlessly in the mind of another, for him it took effort and concentration. And he had none to spare right now.

  “You think you can trust that hag?” Tharius threw the taunt instead of a punch, giving himself a much needed breather. “You’ll be her puppet, just as your warlord is.”

  “Leave her to me, dragon. Your task is only to die and win me rewards.”

  The bloody tips of the warrior’s hair slapped around his shoulders and back. A threat, no doubt, in the staccato sounds coming from the warrior’s mouth. Tharius charged him, head down, impeded more than he’d imagined by his mangled arm that needed effort to hold tight to his body, or risk breaking and twisting the bones. It threw him off balance, hurt like the stab of the eternal blades, and though he hated to admit such a vanity, it embarrassed and humiliated him.

  “They once sang of dragons as creatures of beauty and might.” Veton bobbed on his toes, beckoning with bent fingers for him to engage. “Seems the song-bards are not the only ones filled with hot air.”

  “Your power derives from a woman’s skirts.” While the creature talked, they rested. Were the watchers laughing at their exchange, or merely huffing and demanding they get on with it? Slow death was for the execution of the foulest of miscreants. Fighting for entertainment, the audience usually liked a swift victory.

  Veton paused momentarily, head cocked, listening to an invisible voice. Claudia’s fears filled his own head, leaving both fighters hampered by outside forces. Let Claudia’s thoughts come. Fighting for her and the child, he could not lose. Tharius flung himself back into the fight with renewed vigour.

  Veton slipped, a look of mild alarm clouding his features. When he tried to rise, his arms buckled under him. He turned his gaze to the seer in wild appeal, his lips forming a word that sounded like an accusation.

  The seer stood impassive. Claudia, suddenly bereft, as if she’d already lost him. Veton made a puny attempt to entangle his legs, only succeeding in offering his neck for snapping. After him, two wyverns to fight, and hope the Corporation stood by their deal. Tharius averted his eyes from the warrior’s face as he hooked his neck in the crook of his arm and squeezed with a savage crunching of bones. Weary of battle and death, his ama, what Claudia called a soul, yearned only for peace.

  “Subscribers logging on almost faster than we can process, dragon. Rewards stacking up. Bring on the first wyvern.”

  Now the real fighting started. Was that why Claudia looked so stricken? Her fear for him had amplified to almost a physical thing between them.

  I fought the wyvern hand-to-hand and always prevailed. Send me your courage, Claudia, not your fear.

  More like claw-to-claw. Few wyverns or dragons fought as males when their hybrid form was stronger, more nimble. Typically, the waiting wyverns spent time disputing precedence. Tharius used the pause to clear his head and centre himself. To acknowledge the pain and ask it to step back until the fight was done. Then he would indulge it.

  This must command all his concentration.

  I’m sorry. Claudia’s voice broke into his thoughts. Not her fault. He’d tell her that when they walked away to the safety of Dra’lera. How could she think otherwise?

  “The younger will go first.” The eye intervened eventually, breaking up the wyverns’ standoff. The younger shucked off his tunic with an insolent swagger and spat on his hands. He lifted his palms in insult at the wyvern who’d been denied the fight and stepped into the clearing.

  Tharius curled back his lip in a sneer. No discipline, and still the cursed wyverns had managed to emerge from the war on the winning side.

  The wyvern cracked his neck, shifting as far towards its beast is it dared without incurring a penalty. Still the same boastful, duplicitous creatures as he remembered.

  “Will you engage? Or am I to die of old age waiting for you to find your courage?”

  “I’ve courage aplenty,” it said, two spots of green tinting the brown scales covering its face. “But what need have I of courage, when faced with a broken-down corpse?”

  So easy to insult the creatures. And they dared to mock the dragon for their vanity? The wyvern turned to the hovering eyes, no doubt seeking laughter for his retort. If the audience found that amusing, none in the clearing heard it. All that happened somewhere up there in the stars.

  Tharius eyed Claudia. Was she crying? Poor Claudia. Even the bravest found their limits. Didn’t she realise that merely gazing on her lovely face, thinking of the child growing inside her, doubled his strength and resolve?

  The wyvern made first contact, a glancing blow to his broken shoulder. The creature paused to grin at the eye. Tharius delivered him two blows to the head, felling him like a rotten tree. The creature crashed sideways into the dirt and lay unmoving.

  Tharius blinked and flexed his knuckles, split at the nobbled joints from contact with the wyvern’s hard skin. Had the turn-coats grown so soft in his absence?

  Just a little helping hand, dragon mine. The seer’s voice clanged in his head.

  What magic was this?

  I made a deal with Claudia, here. We bartered hers and the unborn child’s life, for yours. Only I intend to keep you very much alive.

  Claudia? His chest rose and fell. She did this to protect the child? She would not sell him out.

  She gave me no choice. Claudia’s voice, heavy with anguish. Veton would have
killed you.

  No. He was beaten. I had him.

  Serllia is too powerful. Tharius, listen. She’s going to…

  The thought cut off abruptly. He ignored the last contender strutting for the hovering eyes. The hag’s long fingers wrapped around Claudia’s temples like the suckered tentacles of a river-coyt. With determined stride, Tharius walked towards them.

  “Halt.” An eye swung into his path. Lifting his arm, he sought to brush it aside, and found himself lying flat, his ears buzzing. “You against the seer is another contest entirely. Return to the fray, dragon. You have one more chance.”

  A stuttering jarred his head. Claudia trying to warn him of something with sounds he did not understand.

  You did this for our child, I know this. He pushed up on his elbow, no longer connected in thought with her. He studied Serllia as he rose, her bulging face red with the effort of blocking and holding Claudia’s mind at bay. How much energy had she already expended controlling the contenders?

  She stood with her back to him, more intent on Claudia than the fight. The wyvern paced, pumping muscle. Likely already unwittingly in her thrall. Slowly, Tharius dipped his head, touching his chin to his chest. Hoping Claudia saw that he understood what was going on. The foolish seer thought to control him once he gained victory? A vain hope.

  But she had Claudia and his child.

  And you would do well to remember that, dragon.

  Your thrall does not work on me, old hag. It is you who is in thrall to me.

  She turned to him, one hand holding Claudia at bay. Are you sure about that?

  He closed his eyes, suddenly beset by a lancing needle of pain threading into his brain. Serllia’s dark thoughts melted into his, seductive, overpowering.

  I can bring back your dragon. Mend that useless arm. You want that. Oh, how you want that.

  By all the pantheon of gods, he did. To soar again, to hold the mother of his child with both arms. This powerful seer could give him that. Fight the wyvern, win this small war, and take what she offered. Were the simplest plans not the best?

  That’s right, Serllia crooned. Too full of her own importance to catch the dark smile tilting his lips. She thought he smiled for her? That she knew dragons? She knew nothing.

  “See?” Serllia shoved Claudia away. Claudia coughed and pressed a flat palm on her heaving chest. “How easy it was?”

  Tharius turned to face the wyvern and almost felt sorry for the creature. Claudia called out in vain, too weak now to be more than a sweet noise in his head. He dared not think. Dared not reassure her. Her task now was to further deplete the seer’s powers with her defiance, and his to encourage Serllia to waste more on taming this stronger wyvern, who intended to win at all cost.

  He may even have to kiss the old hag and more before this day was done. That thought he sent loud and clear. Claudia would forgive him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  You better be play-acting, Tharius. Claudia rubbed her sore temple, desperate to rid herself of Serllia’s touch.

  Tharius couldn’t hear her. Not through the fog Serllia sent swirling into her mind. The seer used a mighty blast of energy in silencing her, spent more on putting the final wyvern in thrall for Tharius to kill. Not much left in reserve for taming a dragon.

  Please let this be how the story goes. She tried to move. Serllia jumped into her head.

  Stay right there. Move, and I’ll give you to him. She nodded at the wyvern, sulking and glowering in his role as reluctant guard. He squinted and then stuck out his tongue to lick at his thick lips. You know how malleable his mind is. They’ll kill him if he attacks you, but he’ll do it at my command.

  All right. What have you done to Tharius? You know he’s not that easy.

  Oh, I know it. The seed is planted. His dragon is roaring for release.

  His dragon will kill you, stupid woman. Go back to your warlord. Let us go free. What is it to you?

  Serllia studied Tharius’s flexing back muscles, her head tilted to one side. He took another blow, deliberately allowing the wyvern to hit home. He thinks to make me waste energy on taming that wyvern. Pah, it’s what you humans call child’s play for one such as me.

  Is it working? Goad her. Make her waste more. Clouds rolled in overhead, readying for anther brutal storm, as if the elements wanted in on this grand finale, too.

  Or was that Serllia playing tricks on the weather?

  “You really have the hots for my man, don’t you?” Claudia laughed at her little joke. Flames, burning. Find the fire. That’s where it all started. And it ended here, on the sacred mountain of fire. She longed to be up there, sailing over the crater, her arms tight around her dragon’s neck. Claudia blinked away the thoughts, glaring at Serllia.

  Dio, such a seductively wonderful thought. She’d almost begged Serllia to make the transformation happen.

  Smile for the cameras, Claudia. The viewers are getting bored.

  “Oh, really? Well how about some action?” Claudia flung back her hand, swung and cracked Serllia across the cheek, jerking the seer’s head to the side. Waves of approval flooded the air between the viewers and Prison Moon One. “What shall we offer next? Mud wrestling? There’s enough of it after the storm. That’s what usually happens in soap operas on Earth.”

  “I would not demean myself.”

  “Coward.” Claudia contemplated taking her down. Rubbing the old seer’s face in thick, squidgy mud. Drowning her in it. Tharius and the wyvern faced each other, barely breaking a sweat.

  Give him a fight, or they’ll know it’s rigged and call it null, Tharius Dio, if that happened they might have to do this all over again. And Dra’lera was calling. The ember burrowing safely deep in her core for its long journey to life. She had places to be, with him.

  “You give birth in the pit. I’ve seen it, Claudia.”

  “You’ve seen shit.” Her fogged brain cleared, as Serllia wrestled with the wyvern’s will, directing his fist, holding him back. They both saw the moment Tharius snapped and gave in to the frustration. A swift one-two, and the wyvern staggered, shaking his head. Tharius kicked him in the stomach, doubling him over. Swift, efficient. The mind-hobbled beast didn’t stand a chance.

  Claudia dropped her gaze. She didn’t need to see Tharius stamping the life out of the creature’s eyes. No clean neck-break for this finale. He seemed to have finally realised that gore equalled votes, and votes, rewards.

  Or was it Serllia making him finish the beast with such cruelty? She certainly seemed to be enjoying the spectacle.

  Tharius lifted his arms, roaring out his triumph.

  That’s right. Claudia sent him the thoughts. He gave no indication she was getting through. They love a swaggering victor.

  Oh, Dio, he was kneeling at the creature’s side. Please don’t take his head. She’d seen that more than once, and she didn’t want a memory of Tharius parading a severed head haunting her nightmares.

  He spent a long moment fixed on the creature’s mashed face before reaching out to close what remained of the eyes. Claudia almost wept with gratitude. Tharius rose and faced the cameras.

  “Calibrate audience response.” He stood, one arm hanging loose, the maimed arm clenched tight into his side. What wouldn’t he give to have that working again? Nothing for a skilled surgical team and a pile of titanium rods, but out here, the healers and growing herbs and plants were the best they had.

  “Calibrating.”

  What was it Serllia said about the other blue’s escape? He traded his fire for a collar? Did that for the woman he loved. And now she was asking Tharius to give up his dragon for her. Suddenly it seemed too much for such a noble race. But she wanted it anyway.

  “The beast is stuck in half-shift.” Serllia glided forward, taking her place next to Tharius. He stood very still, paying her no heed. “Vote to see his full dragon. Send in a protective energy cage, and I will shift him here, right before your viewer’s eyes.”

  Barely a muscle twitched in Th
arius’s strong back. No protest at the energy cage, capable of holding a fully shifted wyvern with paralysing rays. No reaction to the seer stealing his moment of glory.

  Did he actually want this? An orb slid between her and the two who were now the main focus. No audience would resist the chance to watch a dragon shift, live on air.

  “And you, dragon. What do you ask?”

  Claudia leaned on the rock face. Her legs refused to hold her up. If he was going for his dragon and her, he was gambling high stakes. But then she knew nothing of the man or the dragon he once was. She’d heard the beast roaring inside him, demanding release from its cage. Flown on its back for those few glorious moments they remained airborne after that heart-stopping leap from the temple precipice.

  Dio, that seemed so long ago.

  “My dragon seeks release. Make it so.”

  “No.” Okay, she wasn’t standing by and watching this. Claudia pushed off the wall, a fireball of indignation. Tharius of Dra’Kathis, you have a child to consider. Don’t you dare abandon us now.

  Nothing. No mind link, no movement of that rock-still body. Serllia circled his bare arm with her long fingers, squeezing as if she owned him already.

  “What about me?” Claudia yelled at the camera. “I found the dragon. Released him. Technically, he’s mine. Go vote on that.”

  She squished through the mud, slipping and sliding in Ekala’s boots, aiming for Serllia and Tharius’s reaction. Damn them all.

  “No.” A spiny claw enclosed her arm, stopping her so abruptly, she toppled and landed knees-down in the dirt. Soft muddy rain seeped through her gown, and vain tears pricked her eyes. She’d never be clean again. Not if Tharius decided he loved his dragon more than her, and condemned her to a life in the pit. She blinked the tears away, realising how foolish that sounded.

  He must have a plan. If only the mists would clear so she had a clue, too. Was he freezing her out in order to block Serllia? Dio, she hoped so.

  “You stay right here. No one interested in you.” The wyvern licked her ear, filling it with gooey drool. “You really think any dragon give up his beast for you?”