by Ruby Dixon
I fly lower, curious. Something about this feels wrong, but I do not know what. All I know is that this place will hold the answers I seek.
Zohr? Emma’s voice is full of worry. Zohr? Are you in there?
I want to answer my mate, but then I see her. The female whose face seems familiar but not. She stands atop one of the strange white Salorian pyramids, her hair flowing around her body like one of Emma’s clothing skins. The female looks up to the sky and sees me, and I descend, because I think I know her. I know who this is…
As I land atop the pyramid next to her, I change to my two-legged form and bow at her feet. I remember now.
My queen.
Her mind reaches out to touch mine, a call of greeting. Come to me, she says again.
I reach out with my mind to tell her that I am here. I connect my thoughts to hers and stand. Our eyes meet and—
Hers are gray. The gray of Salorians. The gray of mind-control. The gray of entrapment.
I remember now. I remember why seeing the queen fills me with such sadness and frustration. She is a prisoner of the Salorians, her mind corrupted by them. It is her that traps us…
And now you are mine.
Azar.
31
EMMA
Home. This is home.
Zohr’s strong, melancholy thoughts rouse me from my sleep. I sit up in bed and put a hand on his shoulder. I can’t see his face, but his mind races with flutters of images. Deserts. Mountains. Home. He jolts in bed, his body shivering.
I give him a little nudge. “Zohr? What are you doing?”
My people, he tells me. They are here. They are fine.
“You’re dreaming,” I say to him, feeling guilty. Poor guy. “Wake up.”
But his thoughts only swirl deeper and more intense. He’s seeking something, and it worries me. I watch him shift in the blankets restlessly, and when I touch his arm again, he stiffens, still caught in his dream—or nightmare. I will be back.
Back? Where does he think he’s going? “No, Zohr.” I’m worried now, especially when the images of the beautiful, sad female fill his mind. I feel a stab of jealousy at the sight of her in his thoughts, but there’s no affection there, only curiosity. She’s beckoning him.
I begin to feel uneasy. This isn’t a regular dream.
“Stay with me!” I call to him, shaking his shoulder. I don’t like this. I don’t like how his thoughts feel thick and almost…syrupy. As if they’re muddled…or being muddled by someone else.
Oh no.
Wait for me. I will return soon.
Zohr? I send. I’m panicking. This time I shake him harder, doing my best to rouse him from his unnatural sleep. Zohr? Are you in there?
His eyes fly open. There’s no warm gold, no troubled black. They’ve gone completely and utterly gray.
Fuck.
“Zohr?” I try again. “Are you awake, babe?” I touch my mind to his, waiting for the mental caress that always follows. Even in his sleep, he responds to my mental touch. It’s one of the things I find most reassuring about him, that he’s always with me.
But this time, I encounter nothing.
I choke back my panic. Somehow Azar’s gotten to him. “Zohr. Talk to me. Please.”
My dragon sits up, the vacant look on his face. He gets to his feet, ignoring my touches and paces away, only to immediately shift to dragon form. His head tilts and he studies the trap door that leads to the roof. It’s human sized and just large enough for Zohr to fit through while in two-legged form. He hesitates a moment and then slams his massive body into the roof.
A scream rips from my throat. I shield my head with my arms as debris rains down. I can hear Zohr clawing at the roof with his talons, and when I look up, he manages to squeeze his enormous body out of the hole he’s created. Then, with a swish of his tail, he leaps onto the roof and out of sight.
No! Zohr! I cry out. I can’t let him get away. If he does, I’ll never see him again. I have to stop him from leaving. I don’t know how, though. Disable his wings again? God, no, I can’t do that to him. But what if it’s the only way? Agonized, I grab my bug-out bag and sling it over my shoulder. I don’t even care that I’m naked. There’s no time to get dressed. I shove my feet into my padded slippers and then crawl over the rubble of what used to be our home.
Luckily for me, the buckets of tacks and broken glass haven’t spilled down from above. I manage to drag the tall ladder out from under the rubble and prop it up. The floor isn’t even, but I don’t care. I wobble my way up the shaking ladder and grab a piece of the broken ceiling, hauling myself onto the roof. I stumble to the edge of the building and grip the cement lip, scanning the starry sky in search of my dragon.
“ZOHR!” I scream out into the night. “Where are you?”
Instinct makes me turn around, and when I gaze to the south, I see the outline of my dragon against the night sky. He’s flying, which makes my heart race—and makes me terrified at the same time. He wobbles again, and his wings falter for a moment before he flaps awkwardly to the ground. I hold my breath, waiting to see what he does. To see if he turns around and comes to his senses. Instead, he continues plodding onward, to the south.
Toward Azar’s hideout.
“Zohr!” I bellow again, and grab my rope ladder, lowering it off the side of the building. I scramble down—well, more fall than scramble—and manage to rip all the skin off my palms. I don’t care. All I care about is getting to my dragon. I race down the street after him, as fast as my legs can carry me. I climb over the cars blockading the street, avoid the barbed wire pitfalls, and leap over the places I know I’ve set up booby-trapped wires. Tonight I’m wishing I hadn’t been so damn thorough, because it’s all slowing me down and I won’t be able to catch up if Zohr goes aloft once more.
Wait for me, I try sending. Don’t go!
There’s no response. No connection, no anything. It’s like he’s not there at all. The thought’s terrifying.
He spreads his wings and does a little hop, and all the breath leaves my lungs. He doesn’t go aloft again, though. His wings tuck against his back and he continues to pace through the broken streets, heading unerringly in the same direction.
I catch up eventually, panting and breathless, and race to his side. When he doesn’t acknowledge me, I put my hand on Zohr’s big foreleg. “Hey. Hey! Are you in there? Babe? It’s me, Emma!”
Nothing. He doesn’t even look at me.
I choke back my frustration and terror and slap him on the haunch, hard. “Yo! Earth to dragon! Come in please!”
It’s like I’m not there. I suspect if I set his wing on fire, he’d continue on, oblivious. Azar’s turned my beloved Zohr into a zombie. I…don’t know what to do. I fight back tears of frustration. I’m not giving up. I won’t lose him. I can’t.
Ignoring caution, I race ahead a few steps and fling myself in front of the dragon. I spread my arms wide, trying to make myself as big of a roadblock as possible. I’m nothing but a scrap to him, but I hope that it kicks some sort of instinct in as he lumbers ever closer.
Then, a scant inch or two before he runs me down, Zohr stops. I breathe a sigh of relief, waiting for his head to lower so he can acknowledge me. But he only pauses, moves to the side, and then goes around me. Well, fuck. I race ahead again and do the same thing, spreading my arms wide and blocking his path. This time, before he can move around me, I press my arms and my cheek to his scales, clinging to him for dear life.
“Zohr, please,” I whisper. “You have to be in there.”
The dragon stops. There’s no response, but he’s not moving, either.
I can’t help it. I feel so frustrated and helpless and alone that I start to cry. “You said you’d never leave me,” I sob at him. “You told me we were going to be together forever, remember? You can’t leave me behind. Not like this.”
I feel a tremor in his big body.
Hopeful, I reach out to him with my mind. At first there’s nothing but the blankne
ss, and then something snaps back into place, like a rubber band. The big head lowers, and the gray’s clearing from his eyes. He leans down and nuzzles my hair.
Emma?
I cry even harder. It’s me, I tell him. Is it you?
Why are we outside? He noses me, rubbing his snout along my arm and shoulder. Why do you not wear your coverings? Why do you make sad water from your eyes?
“You don’t remember what just happened?” I ask him, curious. I swipe away my tears with the heels of my hands and then cling to his front again, still worried he’s going to snap back into zombie mode again.
All I remember is sleeping with you next to me. You put your cold feet on my legs. Then…nothing.
I half laugh, half cry at that. “You were dreaming about the mountains. And then something happened in your sleep and Azar took over your brain. You ignored me and it was like you weren’t there at all when I tried to touch you with my mind.” I do it even now, just to reassure myself, and I’m relieved when his mental affirmation brushes over my mind. He’s there. “You were gone, and you started flying away. When your wings gave out, you kept walking. I didn’t think you were ever going to stop.” I can feel my throat closing up, the tears preparing again.
He rubs his nose against me one more time, and then a second later, he’s in human form and his big arms go around my shoulders, holding me tight. My Emma. I am so sorry. His thoughts are puzzled and worried all at once. I do not understand how he was able to touch my mind. He must have deceived me in my sleep.
I cling to him, pressing against his warm, comforting body. “We have to get away from here,” I whisper. “I don’t want him to try this again.” If I can’t get to him a second time…I’m terrified at the thought.
We will go away from this place, he reassures me.
“Now?”
Now, unless you wish to return and get your gear?
I shake my head. I have my bug-out bag. It has essentials and a spare change of clothing. Everything else isn’t worth the risk. It doesn’t matter that I’ve worked for weeks to make the place safe, or that I’ve got a bunch of food stored up. Fuck it all. The only thing that matters is my dragon.
It goes against everything that Jack ever taught me, but I find I no longer care. Zohr is all that matters in the end. The rest is just…stuff. Well, it’s survival supplies, but I can always find more. There will never be another Zohr.
Let’s leave right now, I tell him, and then ruin that by pressing my mouth to his and kissing him fervently.
He returns the kiss, his tongue slicking over mine, his mind touching mine with reassurance. I am here, my mate. All is well.
But there’s a hint of worry in his thoughts.
Knowing that he worries just increases my nervousness. I don’t know what we can do to stop Azar, short of killing him. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get close enough to kill him as things are. Not with Zohr vulnerable to his mind control. Not without the ability to fly. We need help.
I think of Sasha and her dragon, Dakh. I haven’t seen her—or her friend that rides a dragon—since that night that Sasha got free and Boyd died. Maybe it’s time I seek her out, though. Maybe they know how to stop Azar and his mind control.
Maybe we can’t do this alone, after all.
ZOHR
I feel the gentle press of my mate’s knees on my shoulders, her hands on my neck, and try not to be aroused by the feel of her skin against my scales. Now is not the time.
Emma yawns atop my back, and I can feel her thoughts going fuzzy with exhaustion. Dawn nears, and we have been walking for hours—or rather, I have been walking for hours through the streets of the city, heading toward the tallest buildings, the ones that stick up like spikes toward the sky. They are also close to the human hive, which I do not care for, but this is where her friends will be, my mate tells me.
So that is where we must go.
Do you want to rest? I ask my Emma when she leans forward and presses her cheek against my neck. I try to slow my movements so as not to jostle her. I can tell you are weary.
“I’m good,” she says around another yawn. “I don’t want us to stop.”
I can keep going while you sleep.
“No, I want to stay awake. I’ll keep you company.” Her thoughts grow falsely cheery and she pats my neck. “Should I tell you about the first time Jack tried to give me and Boyd math lessons?” I can sense the unease in her thoughts, despite her exhaustion. She worries if she goes to sleep, she will lose me again. That I will fall under Azar’s spell once more.
I understand her fear. I worry over this, as well. But I cannot let my mate put herself in danger over me. We must find the others, and soon. No stories are necessary, I tell her, sensing she is too tired to tell her tale anyhow. Just touch your mind to mine.
She does, sending sleepy affection to me. I caress her with my thoughts and then lift my nose, looking for scents in the air. As we get closer to the human hive, the smells grow more and more difficult to distinguish. I do not think I have come in this direction in the past. Even now, it makes my scales itch and makes me want to turn around and leave. I do not understand how other drakoni can live in such close proximity to so very many smelly humans. Perhaps the scent grows more tolerable over time.
My nose twitches at the thought.
A new scent catches on the breeze. I breathe it in at the same time that I get a mental territory warning. A mated male lives near here. We must be close, then. Only a mate can make a drakoni’s thoughts sane in this world, and so it must be the ones we seek. I smell someone on the air, I tell my Emma. He is sending out warnings. Should I greet him?
“I’m nervous about that,” she tells me, sitting up straight. All traces of sleepiness are gone and her body quivers with alertness. “We don’t know that it’s not another trick from Azar. Don’t touch your mind to anyone but me unless we know it’s okay.” Her hand pats my neck. “I’ve got a better idea.”
You do?
“Yup. Fireworks.”
32
ZOHR
A short time later, my mate stands at my side, stifling a yawn behind her hand as we watch explosions of pink, white, and blue decorate the early-morning skies. The noise they make is deafening, seemingly rattling the very air around us. She was wise to suggest this; no dragon anywhere close to here will be able to ignore such sounds.
“This should be enough to wake up the neighborhood,” she tells me. “Fingers crossed we only get the visitors we want and not the ones we don’t.”
Indeed, I feel the stirring of thoughts on the far edge of my mind. A second presence joins the first. Another male. Both are attempting to reach out to me—and simultaneously warn me away—and I ignore them. They will have to fly to us to see who we are.
A few minutes pass, and Emma chews her thumbnail worriedly. “Think they are coming? Should I set off another round?”
I sniff, and the smell of the male drakoni grows stronger. It is accompanied by that of a human—a mated female with a paired scent, like mine is paired with Emma’s. I smell someone coming, I tell my mate. They will be here soon.
To my surprise, she fluffs her hair and straightens her clothing. “Do I look okay? I don’t look like a hobo, do I?”
You look fine. Why?
“Typical man,” she mutters, and then pats my foreleg. “Because my friend is coming and I don’t want her to think I’m a disheveled mess. I want to look like I’ve got my shit together.”
What shit is together? I nose her, curious. I do not understand.
She finger-combs her hair back into place now that I’ve nosed it. “Just an expression. Should you change to human form?”
No, I tell her firmly. I can defend you better like this.
“Hopefully that won’t be necessary, but you might have a point. Maybe we should save the nakey-nakey balls-out thing for, like, the second date.”
Now she is just muttering more gibberish. Before I can comment on such things, the air grows thi
ck with scents—and sendings—and I instinctively put a protective wing over my mate, shielding her. They come. Stay at my side.
She sucks in a breath and points. “I see them.”
Against the horizon, there is a dot of gold growing steadily larger. The dragon wings closer to us, and I can see a rider on his back, covered in many of the strange skins that my Emma loves to wear on her body. This one does not just wear them on her torso, though, but all over her form, even on her head. Very strange. I study the drakoni male as he closes in, wondering if I will recognize him. If memory will return and I will see the face of a familiar warrior. But the dragon that issues a trumpeted warning is a stranger. He has a proud horned brill and a scar across his snout, evidence of past battles won. On his body, across his chest, I see what look like ropes that crisscross his scales, and when he lands a short distance away, I realize he has tied his female to his back somehow.
Very strange.
I lower my head and sound a warning growl at his challenge. I can feel his mind sweep at mine, trying to lock on to my thoughts, but I will not allow contact. His eyes narrow, whirling from a cautious mix of gold and black to near-black. He sees me as a threat. His scent changes to one of anger.
I bare my teeth, pushing ahead a bit more so I can shield Emma from his sights. I do not care how angry he gets; he is not even looking at her unless she wishes it.
My mate cups a hand to her mouth and bellows out. “Sasha, is that you?”
Stay back, I warn Emma when she tries to push forward.
“Babe, it’s cool. That’s Dakh, isn’t it? And Sasha?”
I do not know. I am not speaking to them.
“Who’s there?” calls a feminine voice. I can feel my mate’s surprise at the sound of the woman’s voice—it’s not Sasha. The female on the back of the dragon pulls off the skin on her head—the hat, Emma’s thoughts tell me—and shakes free bright red hair.
Emma pushes against the wing I have in front of her. “Babe, let me out. Seriously.”
