Xor made a sound that resembled a dragon laughing. The three black dragons behind him responded with similar noises.
“He finds you very amusing,” Princess said with no inflection. “I’m not exactly sure why.”
“Lucky me.”
Dean. She wanted to scream his name. Run. Please don’t let them in your head. Please don’t do it. Do something. Burn the place down. Save yourself. You’re the only good thing left in the universe. You and the kids. Go, before I don’t have even your memory to take with me into the black nothingness.
But of course he couldn’t hear her. If he could, there would be such a thing as miracles, and she’d stopped believing in those a long time ago.
“Princess, need we do this right now?” She addressed her joined dragon directly. Amanda gave it fifty-fifty odds whether she got a response. Princess spoke when she felt like it and not a moment before.
“Yes,” Princess sneered. “I want this done. Don’t interfere.”
Dean coughed into his hand. “Who are you talking to, Princess?”
“Mind your own business,” Princess snapped. “Let’s just get this done.”
Dean laughed out loud, clapping his hands together. “Have I actually made you angry? Someone record the day. Princess got really annoyed.”
Xor moved even closer, roaring but at a lower volume than he had before.
“I’m sure you understand the basic principle of it. You’re going to move your thoughts to his head. When you’re in there, cover him with you. He won’t be able to get through. Eventually they all stop trying.” Princess smiled. “You should feel warm and comfy. My impression is that what goes wrong is that the dragon tries too hard to immediately dominate. Just let your consciousness rest there.”
It bothered Amanda more than she wanted that Princess thought her such an easily conquered being. She’d tried. That was all she remembered from that time. Until finally she’d just been exhausted from the effort.
When Dean spoke, his voice had lowered several tones. “Xor. I’m going to suggest to you that you don’t give this a go. I think you might find it’s a lot harder to mind-rape me than a sixteen-year-old girl. This is fair warning. Do it and you’ll live to regret it.”
Chapter Eight
Dean had waited for Xor’s approach all day. From the moment Princess had announced he would be joined to a dragon, he’d plotted and planned how he would avoid the pairing. His black eye proved his theory correct. He grinned. Xor could try it, if he wanted to suffer, but he wouldn’t be getting into his head. Not at that moment. Not ever.
His mind buzzed. Good. Xor had decided to make the attempt anyway. Stupid dragon.
Dean pulled out the small knife he’d shoved up his sleeve and let it roll down into his palm. Xor would not be settling into his brain. Not in this or any other lifetime.
With a flick of his wrist, he gripped the weapon tightly between his fingers. He counted to three. One…two…three. Xor had moved into his mind. Good. He’d truly get to experience pain that way, which was exactly what Dean was counting on.
Under the table and away from the view of prying eyes, he jammed the knife into his palm. It burned and he bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood to stop himself from crying out.
Xor roared, staggering backward until he landed on his side. His consciousness fled Dean’s. Like ripping off a bandage that hadn’t fully stuck down, Xor disappeared from Dean’s mind.
“I don’t speak dragon but I think you didn’t care for that much.” Dean smiled, pulling his dark shirt down over his bleeding hand. He slipped the knife back up his sleeve. Not that he relished the thought, but he’d do that as much as he needed to keep the beasts out of his mind.
The black dragons took to the sky, leaving from the hole in the ceiling. Princess whirled on him. “What have you done?”
“Nothing.” He smiled. “Guess my mind isn’t a real habitable place.”
She screamed, pulling at her hair before taking off toward her room. He hoped she didn’t damage Amanda’s hair. Dean stood up. His hand throbbed, and with the adrenaline of the moment behind him, he could feel just how badly he’d injured it.
Well. He gritted his teeth. Xor wouldn’t have left if it had been minor pain.
By the time he got to the barracks, he was sweating. Zane, one of the servants who had helped him, sat him down in a chair. “I take it that your plan worked.”
Dean nodded. “It did. You know, I’ve had much worse wounds than this. And I have to say, this hurts like hell.”
“How many of your injuries were self-inflicted?” Zane pulled out a bottle of antiseptic from a closet. Dean hadn’t seen one in years. They’d run out in New Strauss. Now they did the best they could with home remedies. The healers were amazing with what they could create from herbs they harvested within the city limits.
“Other than the large bag of rocks I once dropped on my foot when I was fifteen because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing? None of them.”
“That’s the problem.” Zane grinned, showing that he was missing front two teeth. When Dean got him back to New Strauss he’d see that the older man received medical attention. Whatever they could do for him, they’d do. “Your body doesn’t like that you did this on purpose.”
Dean grinned, his hand burning from the medicine. “If you say so.”
Verve rushed into the room. “We just heard you resisted Xor. It worked.” The man shook with what Dean hoped was excitement. He couldn’t have the other man falling apart now. “This is phenomenal.”
“It is.” Dean watched as Zane put the bandage flat on his hand. “Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” The other man paled a little and stood up on wobbly feet.
Dean rose next to him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” The servant nodded. “I’m sorry. I suddenly feel so strange.”
A crowd formed in the room. Everyone wanted to see for him or herself that Dean remained dragonless. He didn’t blame them. They’d had a hell of a morning getting ready.
“Where have you been for so long? Why weren’t you with us before?” Ruby, one of the female slaves, rubbed his arm. He looked at her eyes, which watered with unshed tears as they stared up at him. When had someone last been nice to her? She wasn’t rubbing him because she desired him sexually but because she needed to connect with someone. He’d seen it a million times.
Still, he took a step back. As wrong as it might be, he would freak out if someone else touched Amanda. He wouldn’t want her to walk in and find him being stroked by some other woman even if it meant nothing.
“It’s Ruby, right? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were all here earlier. I’m glad this is going to end for all of you now.”
“Thank you.” She nodded.
They’d really attracted a crowd. He needed to get them all back to work before the dragons noticed.
“Everyone. You saw me bring the human back from the dragon’s control this morning. I punched him. It woke him up. The dragons can’t take our pain. Now, a dragon couldn’t take my head because I caused him too much discomfort. That’s how we’re getting out of here tonight. You know what is supposed to happen. Please go about your day.” He took a deep breath. “Tonight.”
Silence met his instructions. One by one, they walked out of the kitchen, reluctance showing in their slow movements. He wished he could make it all happen immediately but he couldn’t. Sunset. It had to be then.
“Dean.” Zane’s eyes glazed over. “My stomach. My bones. I feel as if I’m burning from the inside out.”
Verve joined Dean as he crossed to Zane. He’d never cured anyone of an illness except for the time Steven had gotten the stomach bug. Then he hadn’t so much cured him as waited it out by his side.
He placed his hand on the other man’s forehead. “You feel hot.”
“I’m burning,” Zane screamed, his throat gone hoarse. He pulled away from Dean, slamming into the counter and knocking off
the pot that simmered on the stove. The contents poured out onto the floor. Zane flapped around, his arms and legs unsteady messes as he screamed “I’m burning” over and over again.
Verve grabbed Zane. He called out to Dean. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Lie him down over there.” Dean pointed to the table on the other side of the room. Striding over, he stared at his feet as he crossed over the mess Zane had made when he’d hit the cooking pot. Corn, potatoes, carrots and celery had been dumped onto the tile. He stopped moving and stared down at the spilled food.
“Zane.” His feet couldn’t go fast enough to the other man’s side. “Did you eat from that food? The stuff you’re cooking. Did you eat it?”
“Burning.” Zane could barely speak.
“I’m sure he did.” Verve stared at Dean with wide eyes. “He tastes as he goes.”
Dean had checked the food supply earlier in the day when he’d encountered Princess. He’d sniffed all of it. None of it had caused him to sneeze, the only telltale sign that the vegetables had been given a dose of the poison the warriors from New Strauss had brought with them to kill the dragons. Nothing had been tampered with.
“Does the food come from the storage room where the dragons’ food comes from?” It had never occurred to him to ask that question before. One room for food containment. His heart beat fast against his ribs. But maybe not.
Verve shook his head. “No. Our food gets stored here. Why? Do you think there’s something wrong with it?”
Dean didn’t want to answer until he knew for sure. “Show me where it’s kept.”
Zane pointed to a closet. “That’s a pantry. All the way at the back.”
Dean got to the door faster than he’d ever moved before. Swinging it open, he looked inside. He hadn’t even reached the vegetables when he started to sneeze. His eyes burned. He backed up to take a deep breath. Hell, they’d have thought it was the onions and not given it a second thought.
He walked to Zane, his footsteps the only noise in the room besides the other man’s whimpering.
“Zane.” He didn’t want to speak, didn’t wish to utter a different word. Yet the whole responsibility for this tragedy fell on his shoulders. He had to speak the truth, had to own it. “You’ve been poisoned.”
“What?” Verve’s voice came out high pitched and shaky. For the moment, Dean ignored him. Zane deserved his total attention.
“Am I going to die?” His eyes were clear as he asked his question.
Dean had never lied to a warrior on a battlefield. He wouldn’t now. “Yes, you are.”
“Why?” One lone tear escaped Zane’s eye. Dean swallowed through the lump in his throat. Zane had come so close to gaining freedom from the dragons that he must have been able to taste it. Now, instead, he’d die.
“A mistake. My people tried to poison the dragons. Unfortunately it came to you instead. This is on me. They were following orders.”
Zane opened his mouth to speak but instead let out a soft groan. His eyes turned to the gaze of the unseeing.
Dean felt Zane’s death as if someone had stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach. He stared down at the fallen human who had lived under the rule of the dragons for longer than Dean could imagine. “I’m so sorry.” He placed his hand over Zane’s heart.
“You’re sorry,” Verve spat. “He’s dead and you’re sorry.”
Dean supposed he could defend himself, explain how they hadn’t known humans lived with the dragons, that their objective had been to save people from the dragons. All of it seemed ridiculous considering the fact that Zane had died only seconds earlier.
“There’s nothing I can say that is going to make any of this any better.” Dean sighed. “I take full responsibility for what happened. This was my fault. I should have known to ask about separate food supplies. There can be no forgiveness. I’ll do my best to give him a fitting tribute when we get out of here.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Dean had seen hysteria before. No one who spent time on the battlefield could claim never to have encountered it. Verve’s pupils were huge and his hands shook. The events of the last day, coupled now with Zane’s death, had pushed him over some kind of proverbial ledge.
“Verve. Let’s walk over to the side and not discuss this standing right over Zane’s dead body.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” He pointed right at Dean’s face. “You get people killed.”
Dean raised his hands as if he’d been threatened with a gun instead of a finger. Verve needed to understand that Dean took him seriously. “Sometimes I do. Leaders have to face that task. More than we would like. I wish I lived in a perfect time when no one I cared about would ever have to perish because of something I did or did not do. I can promise you, I never take these things lightly.”
“We all believed in you and you poisoned us.”
His calm words didn’t seem to be making much of a dent. “I tried to poison the dragons.”
“That’s not a good enough excuse.”
Dean lowered his arms. “I never said it was. When we lose someone we care about, there are no adequate words to say.”
“This isn’t over. You’re going to regret his death.”
“I do.”
But Verve didn’t hear his words because he had run from the room. Dean sighed. The sad truth was that he never got to mourn the dead. Time didn’t allow for it and today would prove to be no different. Something had to be done with Zane’s body before a dragon stumbled onto it, and the poisoned vegetables had to be destroyed.
Ruby staggered into the room. “Is it true? Zane is dead and you killed him?” Her voice trembled.
“No.” He took a deep breath. What he wouldn’t give for Amanda’s assistance at that moment. Just to have her with him would have gone a long way toward making the ache in his chest less hollow. “Well, yes and no. Yes, Zane is dead, but I didn’t kill him. Although I take responsibility for the fact that it happened. It’s complicated. We need to throw out all our vegetables. No one else can be allowed to eat them.”
“Look.” Ruby swallowed, the muscles in her neck clenching. “I don’t care. I really don’t. You’re getting us out of here. We can deal with who was responsible for what then. I’m afraid we can’t wait for sundown. Verve is going to Princess.”
“He’s what?” Dean had barely uttered the question before he charged out of the door. If the man told Princess what had happened, all would be lost. He stopped abruptly in his tracks, turning to Ruby. “Tell everyone to go now. Just as we discussed for tonight. Tell everyone I will explain about Zane. I will make it clear what happened. They can judge me once we’re out if they want to. It’s now.”
She nodded. “Right.”
He bolted down the corridor, banging into a joined human as he did. The man stopped and stared at him. Dean recognized him right away because of the swollen lip that had doubled in size. He was the one whom Dean had experimented on earlier.
“Do you plan to hit me again, human?”
Dean shook his head. He could answer honestly. “No. I have no intention of laying hands on you again.”
That didn’t, however, mean that someone else wouldn’t take a whack at his head. It just wouldn’t be Dean doing it.
He wanted Amanda, needed to grab her and get her with him so he could be sure she made it out with the others. Before he could do that, however, he had to start the process that would begin the revolt against the dragons.
And that meant turning out their lights.
The dragons loved their electricity, used endless amounts of it as if it took nothing to make it, use it and depend on it. Perhaps for them it didn’t. He’d bet the entire plan on the idea that they would have a minor panic when all the lights went out. After all, they had one small opening over their heads to let them see the sun. It would get mighty dark and uncomfortable without their machines to lighten up their lairs.
Flying around outside in the dark con
stituted one kind of fun. Living inside in the heat without air-conditioning or any light to see by? A whole different problem.
He’d really lucked out that the dragons were so careless with their security. Not that he blamed them. They’d never had any reason to suspect anyone would ever be capable of beating them. No one had ever tried.
Dean made it into the generator room. He stopped as he entered. The sounds of grinding from the power source reminded him of his childhood. Watching his father try to maintain the machines for New Strauss. Funny how scents and sounds could do that. One second he stood among the dragons’ electrical source, the next he was back in his childhood watching in awe as his father meticulously fixed the power shortage for their whole township.
“Dad. Why do the dragons kill us?”
His father glanced up at him before looking back down at his work. “I don’t know. You’ve heard the story, the same as I have. They came from the skies and the world that was ended. Now we make do as best we can.” He lifted his gaze, giving Dean the smile that always told him how much he loved him. “But when you grow up you’ll be able to do something about it. I just know it, son.”
Dean blinked, finding himself back in his adult body standing in the dragons’ electric room. “You’re right, Dad.”
He’d spoken to his late father as if he’d been standing in the room with him. His father had died trying to save a little girl from being eaten by the green scaly monsters they could never get away from. He’d lived as a good man, died a hero.
A million heroes.
They deserved remembrance and maybe, finally, vengeance.
He stormed forward. As he took the final two steps, he pulled the lever to turn off the electricity to the entire enclave. The power made a swishing noise before it dimmed into blackness.
He grinned as he pulled out the knife he’d stuck himself with earlier. It would come in handy again. With a swish of his wrist, he jammed it into the device, cutting every wire he could find.
Dragon Joined Page 8
