The dragon made a sudden jerk to the left, screeching as it flew. She shuddered at the sound. Panic must have caught up with her, because all of a sudden she couldn’t breathe. Tightness tugged at her chest. With one more look she realized they were so far up in the clouds that the ground was no longer visible at all.
Tears swam from her eyes and, like the dragon, which screeched, she let out a wail she thought might bring down the sun and the stars. When she felt spent from her worthless yelling and her general ineptitude, she closed her eyes. They were traveling too far up for her to see anything. If she didn’t look down, perhaps she could pretend she wasn’t about to become dragon feed.
Chapter Two
Six Years Later
Dean Andrews brushed a branch out of his face as he stomped through the godforsaken jungle behind Jane Dickerson. Pinpricks from the branches bit at his skin. He’d long since stopped trying to avoid the plant attacks. If cuts and scrapes were the worst thing to happen to him on this trek to find the dragons, he’d be lucky.
Jane cursed eloquently, wiping her dirty hand on the back of her white khakis. A part-bloody, part-muddy handprint covered her rear end. He snickered into his hand both at the mark, which in his current state of mind seemed really amusing, and at her choice of language. He’d known the fifty-year-old Enforcer for his whole life. She’d babysat for him when he’d been a kid. In all that time, he had never, ever heard her swear.
She whirled around, her face roughly the same color as the marking on her behind. “This is amusing to you?”
He shrugged, trying to keep his face neutral. “It’s not unamusing.”
She pointed a finger at him, her gray hair swaying over her shoulders. He hated to tell her, so he probably wouldn’t, that she had some really disgusting-looking spider-webs attached to the top of her scalp.
“Don’t laugh at me, Dean, you’re going to be my age before you know it. Then you see how you like tromping through jungles in this humidity, looking for flying beasts we should be slaughtering, not searching for.”
He nodded. On the age part, at least, she spoke the truth. Nine years from now he’d be fifty years old. How had that happened? Forty-one years had passed by in the blink of an eye, and the last six years the fastest of them all.
“It’s not your meandering through the jungle that I find funny. It’s your colorful choice of language.”
“I hate this place.”
He pushed her shoulder, moving her forward. She’d taught him how to fight, how to endure. No way would he let her be weak now. She whacked at his hand and continued in the straight line they’d formed before leaving their campsite that morning. Three people in front of her, four behind him. Eight fighters and a guide to take out an entire dragons’ nest. A long shot, for sure, but the only chance they’d get. He couldn’t risk taking more guardians from New Strausson a mission they probably shouldn’t be undertaking at all.
“Me too. But if we have to be a little uncomfortable to kill the beasts, it’ll all be worth it.”
She yelled over her shoulder. “I’ve heard that speech before.”
It had been six short years since Dean had decided he couldn’t take the dragon assaults anymore. Watching that green beast fly off with sixteen-year-old Amanda Sugar in its talons had been more than he could handle. He’d failed her family for the last time.
The moment he’d pulled Lily and Steven out of their hiding place in the barn where Amanda had left them, he’d promised the two starving six-year-olds that Amanda’s death would not be in vain. One day he’d kill the monsters and now that day rapidly approached. Every step he took in the cursed jungle and up the mountain where the winged creatures made their nest led him to fulfilling his promise.
No more would they run from monsters that should be dead, that never should have existed on the planet to begin with.
“Dean,” Robert, his second in command, called from the front of the line. The other man spoke with a hoarse voice, having damaged his vocal cords years earlier in a fight with another township. Now he sounded perpetually gruff, which suited Robert’s personality perfectly.
Speeding up, Dean passed his comrades in arms until he reached the front of the line. “What’s going on?”
“Minriki says he won’t take us any farther.”
Dean looked at their guide. Shorter than the average citizen of New Strauss, Minriki barely reached Dean’s shoulder. Blond-haired and blue-eyed like all his tribe, Minriki had been willing to take them this far and no farther. Even then, they’d had to pay out fifty gold pieces for the trip, ten times more than Dean had expected to dish out.
Minriki said something Dean couldn’t understand, gesturing wildly with his hands. Rob nodded before turning back to Dean.
He swatted away a large insect. “He’s serious. No farther. Any closer and he will have broken some kind of treaty his people have with the dragons. But he says if we just keep going straight, we’ll get there. Two days more. Maybe less.”
“A treaty with the dragons.” Dean rubbed at his face. Would wonders never cease? “How can they have a treaty with the monsters?”
Rob answered Minriki in the tribe member’s language. They spoke back and forth for a moment before Rob turned back to Dean. “His ancestors made an agreement with the dragons when they first came to the planet. They don’t bring people past this point and the dragons seek their food elsewhere.”
“Yes, they come to us. They take us to eat, instead.” His blood pounded at the thought and a headache formed between his eyes. “Fine. Thank him for his help. We’ll find our way from here.”
Rob spoke a few more words and their guide nodded at him before taking off in the opposite direction. Dean ran his hands through his hair. Every single inch of him felt sticky, down to the follicles at the top of his scalp.
“Thank God you could speak with him.”
Rob shrugged. “It’s not that hard. Kind of reminded me of the way the people in Paling spoke that time. Do you remember that, Dean?”
He did. All the years he’d run New Strauss had led to an amazing number of adventures, an incredible plethora of memories he could call upon if he wanted to. The problem lately was that he didn’t care to think about any of it. When he went home, he’d be Dean, the leader who could take care of everybody’s problems, and no one there would care for one minute about how he’d done it.
Hell.
He shook his head. When had he gotten so soft? He had no one waiting for him at home because he didn’t want to put up with nonsense. Sure, it would be nice to have a woman care about him—he just wasn’t sure he could care one bit about her needs when he had to worry about the requirements of every single person living in New Strauss. He didn’t like emotional entanglements—he never had.
“I remember all the times your trick of learning languages instantly has saved our asses, Rob.” He patted his second in command on the back.
“It’s weird. I’m glad I could help, that’s all.”
“Right.” Dean nodded. “So I guess we’re all on our own now. That’s okay. I wouldn’t want anyone else with us to do what we have to do.”
He stared into the eyes of his seven remaining colleagues. “If this works, we’ll never have to fight these dragons again and it will put the other nests on notice. If you fuck with us, we will take you out.”
“And you still want to poison them?” Jane flicked a bug off her arm.
“Seems the best way. We know they eat meat from the humans they take. But they have a supply of greens too. Our doctors have seen the remains of the vegetation in the stomachs of the ones we’ve dissected. We’ll get in, poison the fuckers and get out. Then we’ll sit back and watch them die.”
Dougal, one of his best warriors even though he was decades younger than some of the others at only twenty years old, shrugged. His long black hair moved with the action. The kid looked really dumb. Dougal needed to trim his locks in the worst possible way. The long hair got in the way when he fought bat
tles. But Dean would never tell him. He preferred to keep his internal organs inside his body instead of laid out on a table in front of him, which was what would happen if he tried to give the hothead a piece of advice.
“You have something to say, Dougal?”
“Yeah.” The other man didn’t seem to notice that there were tiny mosquito-like creatures sucking at his arms. “I think it would be much more fun to blow them away.”
“I agree.” Dean looked at the sky. The clouds were getting the heavy, low look they took on whenever rain was imminent. “But we take what we can get. Eight of us. We’d be slaughtered. Poison isn’t glamorous but it will get the job done.”
“Right.”
Dean’s head hurt—it had for days. He probably hadn’t drunk enough water but he had no time to figure it out, not when they needed to keep walking.
“Everyone ready or do you need a few minutes before we get going? It looks like rain, so it’ll be slow for a while.”
It would also be sticky and soul-sucking, and the downpour would certainly bring out even more bugs than the ones currently looming around them.
I really miss the desert.
He jumped when the first clap of thunder filled the air around them. He’d never thought of weather as being particularly ominous before. Not that they got many strong meteoric events where he came from. Still, he couldn’t help feeling that with every dark cloud that moved through the air, a certain amount of dark dread filled his soul.
Come on, Dean. You’ve fought many battles before. No need to get so worked up now. This isn’t any different than the time you invaded Copeland.
“Everybody move out. Nothing good is going to come of standing still. We’ll just get wetter.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Jane called over her shoulder. He didn’t need to see her face to know she rolled her eyes. He smiled at the image in his mind even as he pulled the hood of his windbreaker closer around his head. Almost everything in his life changed regularly but Jane’s eye rolling could be counted on to occur on a regular basis.
Another roar of thunder sounded and shivers traveled up his spine.
“You okay, boss?”
Dean gave Dougal a thumbs-up as he trudged forward, the ground turning to mud around his feet. How did anyone live here? Why would anyone choose this? And how the hell had the local people managed to make a deal with monsters?
He should slaughter the whole tribe. Their deal meant the dragons moved elsewhere to feed, to his people. Humans shouldn’t be dealing with the flying beasts. They should be united in destroying the creatures.
Traitors.
“Dean!” Jane whirled around, pointing to the sky as she screamed his name.
He jolted as he followed the direction of her arm. Dragons. They whirled in a circle above his head. Three of them staring down at them over the trees. The eight of them must look like fish in a bowl. Easy pickings, and he’d bet gold that their so-called guide had used his alliance with the winged vermin to tell the green death bringers where they could be found.
Slaughtering the village sounded better and better.
“Everybody scatter.”
They couldn’t be more vulnerable than they were, lined up like some sort of trapped animals. At home, they’d take shelter and fire back with cannons. In the jungle, they had fewer choices for weapons.
Just the ones they carried on their backs.
As his people ran for cover, Dean stood, still staring upward. His vision narrowed. He’d get those sons of bitches if he had to claw their green scaly skin from their bodies.
Dean pulled the bow and arrow off his back. The arrows would pierce the beast’s skin but not cause much pain on their own. Fortunately, he didn’t intend to use only the point of his arrows to defend himself.
“Boss, are you crazy?” Dougal screamed at him from across the path. Why hadn’t the idiot run like the others? Jane and Robert knew enough to heed his warning and get their butts hidden.
“I’ve got it. Don’t let them get you, kid.”
Dougal shouted something else but Dean couldn’t make out what he’d said over the claps of thunder and the pounding of the dragon wings above their heads. Brilliant of the dragons to try to hide the sounds of their comings and goings behind the claps of the rainstorm.
Wetness pounding down on his head, Dean pulled matches out his pocket. Using his coat to block the matches from getting drenched, he struck a small fire. In two seconds, he’d transferred the flame to the oil-soaked tip of his trusty arrow.
Fire would hurt the dragons. Dean smiled. They deserved whatever pain he inflicted. Hundreds dead. More than that in the first invasion.
With a rapid jerk of his arm, he used the move he’d practiced a million times and used in battle more than once. The flaming arrow ripped from the bow and zoomed skyward, toward the moving target.
The weapon pierced the beast’s wing. It roared, darting left and right in the air before falling toward the ground. In its descent, it hit the top of a tree, groaning loudly before tangling up in branches. The tree swayed under the creature’s weight.
Dean grinned, watching the green beast. Sometimes getting out his aggression just felt really damn good.
Claws dug into his back, wrenching him skyward.
“Shit.” He struggled against the restraint of the creature’s nails pressing into his skin.
No. No. No. He had no intention of going out like this.
“Fuck.” He swung his leg upward, kicking at the dragon. If he could make the son of a bitch drop him, he’d be thrilled. Plummeting to his death seemed preferable to being chowed down on.
The dragon growled loudly, not a noise he’d heard the creatures make before. Good. If they could make so-called treaties with local tribes, then they could think logically. Maybe he’d upset his captor when he’d shot its buddy with the damn arrow.
“Drop me, you green beast. I’m not coming willingly. If you eat me, I won’t digest well. I promise, I will make you sick.”
He could have sworn the dragon laughed. Or maybe it was more of a snort. But in any case, the fucker understood him perfectly.
“I said, put me down.”
No.
Dean jolted. He’d heard the “no” perfectly well and he’d heard it inside his own head. The dragon had…spoken to him. Goose bumps appeared all over his body, coming out like sharp pinpricks exploding on his skin.
How was that possible? Dragons didn’t talk. They ate, they killed, they attacked. No one had ever reported—outside the crazy guide who had some kind of treaty with the creatures—having a conversation with a dragon.
No one who has ever come back to you could speak to us. But you, surprisingly, can.
He couldn’t move—every limb in his body had gone stiff. His mind couldn’t process the events taking place around him. Maybe he’d gone completely nuts. The last-ditch resort of his subconscious to handle the fact that he’d been caught by the dragons and would sooner or later become food for the fuckers.
Such disgusting language. The dragon harrumphed. I’m going to leave your head for a while.
Dean shuddered with relief as a pressure left his head. Damn it. The dragon had really been in there. He hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing.
They jerked left and Dean’s legs swung wildly in flight. “Is it necessary for you to be so rough about this?”
He didn’t get an answer. Cold air whipped him in the face. Below, on the ground, he’d practically been sweating to death. How high up were they? He looked down and wished he hadn’t. They were really high up. He couldn’t see the jungle anymore, just the approaching mountain peak where the dragons resided. The trip that would have taken days by foot, the dragon had accomplished in mere minutes.
Dean gulped. His people would never have made it inside such an imposing structure. It looked like a castle. Why the hell did those beasts need such a place? They should be perching in trees or living in barns. Something fit for an animal, not a person. New
Strauss wasn’t as nice as this. Or as impenetrable. Marble stone lined the outside of the building, making tall walls that looked unscalable.
He would have hated to have climbed all the way up there only to have to turn around. Hopefully his people wouldn’t be making the trip now that he’d been taken. They needed to turn around and go back home. Maybe it would be possible to get some sort of message to them.
They dropped to the ground fast and he had to close his eyes as moisture hit him so hard that it threatened to blind him. Each droplet hit with enough force that it felt as if daggers assaulted his face. Fury pounded through his veins.
How dare this creature take him against his will and bring him to this place? He wouldn’t go easily. Before he met death, he would make every dragon he encountered pay for the pain they caused his people. Dean wrenched his lids apart. He would meet his death with both eyes open.
The dragon swished down through an opening at the top of the castle. A person would have to be above the structure to see the small hole. God knew, humans couldn’t fly—that feat belonged solely to the dragons—and he wouldn’t have known it even existed if he hadn’t entered the way he had.
His captor rushed to a stop, skidding to a sudden halt on the ground. Dean fell forward, hitting the dirt with a thud.
The world spun and although he had never fainted in his life, he thought for a moment that he might black out.
“Come on.” He spoke aloud to himself, hoping that the sound of his own voice would make his head clear. Seconds felt like minutes until finally the world righted itself again.
The dragon that had brought him to this new stage of hell in his life leaped upward, perching upside down like a bat on a tree branch. His captor’s support, however, appeared to be the same marble that lined the outside of the building.
“What the hell?” He stood up, feeling as if his legs weighed a thousand pounds. The asshole had brought him here and simply dumped him on the ground? Didn’t seem like a great way to contain food. All he needed now was to find a weapon and fight his way out…or up, as the case happened to be.
Dragon Joined Page 2
