“Don’t be frightened, I want to help you,” she said quickly. The boy continued to stare at her silently.
Beth crouched down. “Are you hurt?” Even as she spoke, she saw his leg was bent under him at an angle that hurt her just to look at. “Oh dear, your poor leg! You must come out of there, and then I should be able to make it a bit more comfortable. Put your arms round my neck and I’ll lift you…”
With fresh alarm, the boy shook his head. He seemed to shrink into himself as if trying to escape her. Beth sat back on her heels. “OK… where should I go to find help? Where are your parents?”
At that, something happened. She wasn’t quite sure what, but some barrier slipped in his mind, allowing a blast of his personality to hit her. For a child’s, it was overwhelming -- strong, emotional. She heard no words spoken in her mind, as her parents occasionally did, just felt a rush of understanding.
She said slowly, “You’re further away from home than you should be. And you’re going to be in deep trouble when you get back.”
For the first time, a rueful grin passed across his white face. He was an extraordinarily handsome child, even-featured, with gorgeous clear grey eyes. And, surely, an aura that was almost visible -- peaceful and yet curious, oddly exciting for a child…
“Well, I think you’ll just have to grin and bear that -- it won’t be worse than a broken leg, trust me. And to be honest, your family will be so glad to have you safe home that you’re more likely to be spoiled than punished. Especially with a broken leg.”
That’s what you think.
Beth smiled. The words went clear into her head. “Can you not speak aloud?”
I don’t know… I’ve never tried.
“Wow…” Questions began to burst inside her, but she squashed them down. The first thing was to try and give the child some relief from his pain. And to do that, she’d have to hurt him worse first.
“Will you let me help you now? Together, we can get you out of that wedge, and make you a bit more comfortable.”
He looked uncertain. She had a feeling he was about to reject her again, only then words burst out of him. I’m cold, so cold!
Instinctively, she reached down, putting both arms around him for comfort as well as warmth. No wonder he was so cold -- his coat was dragged open and he seemed to be wearing only a thin shirt underneath it. Still at least the coat she could feel at his back was made of some strong leather…
“Come on, my son, help me here. We’ll get you out of this hole and nice and warm again. Just be brave, hold on to me tight…”
To her surprise, he clasped his hands around her neck, and she lifted him easily in her arms. The blast of pain from his brain was harder to deal with, but she managed to lift him out and lay him on a flat hillock, sitting upright. When she laid his leg straight, his mouth opened in a silent scream. His coat began to move behind him like…
Like wings.
Took all sorts to make a world. Although it was rare to find mutants outside the city. Even inside it, she’d never come across wings before…
“All right?” she asked, rubbing his arms and shoulders. He nodded shakily, the movement of his wings slowly calming. “OK. I’ve got a blanket in my backpack. We can put that round you while we decide what to do next.”
But as she delved into her bag, another bolt of his fear pierced her.
“What is it?” she said quickly, and at once followed his gaze upward into the sky. Something was flying toward them. Something large and graceful and fast.
An old memory stirred in Beth. A shadow outside her window that solidified inside… She remembered this morning’s imagined sighting of the winged man -- why had she not connected this child with him? And then all the old, half-forgotten dreams rushed at her, paralyzing her…
The figure swooped down against the backdrop of the hills, like some monstrous golden eagle, heading straight for them.
Oh Jesus… could this really be him?
Aurel! Finally, the child’s despairing word of recognition broke through her disarray. Past dreams of sensuality shattered in the face of present reality, which was a frightened child who needed her protection.
“Don’t worry,” she said grimly, rising to her feet as the creature swooped overhead. She wondered what kind of being could cause such fear in a child, but only vaguely. Nothing excused it. “No one will hurt you.”
Deliberately, Beth stepped in front of the boy. In the same movement, she reached down and took the knife from its hidden sheath in her jeans. She hadn’t grown up in the City for nothing…
Behind her, she was aware of the child’s wings fluttering in agitation. In front of her, the creature landed fluidly on his feet. Bare feet, bare legs, long and strong, his body covered by a kind of black shift similar in shape to the one the boy wore. His arms, partially covered by the same garment, bulged with muscle. He held them loosely by his sides.
Slowly, the huge, bat-like wings folded in behind him like a cloak. They were the wings from her dreams, she could swear it… Power radiated from him, and menace. It wasn’t just his physical appearance which was awesome, it was his very presence -- big, certain, overwhelming. Golden-fair hair tied behind his head, all-consuming grey eyes that had looked at her with lust and passion as he thrust repeatedly into her body… Recognition hit her like a blow, and yet she couldn’t go there -- it left her weak and vulnerable.
Beth stared at him grimly, forcing memory aside. If it came to a physical fight with this creature, her only chance lay in surprise. She knew she was quick, and her frail-looking body held unexpected strength. She would need all of it to protect the child from this…
“Aurel. My name is Aurel. And why should you imagine you have to protect him?”
Chapter Two
Beth nearly dropped the knife. Like the child, the adult spoke inside her head. But this was no mere impression of thought -- the words arrived fully formed, voiced and unmistakable. She heard only what he wanted her to hear -- and yet he had no trouble extracting her own thoughts. She hadn’t even felt him in her head. Worse, his deep, low voice was that of her dream, threatening to set her blood on fire.
Panicked, she stared at him, tried to block her mind -- and yet surely it was already closed? Had she left some chink in her barrier by trying to communicate with the boy?
He met her gaze with quiet amusement in his own deep, grey eyes. Like the child, he was incredibly handsome, though why she should concentrate on such trivia in this fraught situation was beyond her. Perhaps to keep from admitting to herself that she’d met him before, in those distant, paralyzingly sexy dreams…
The adult moved, and she took an involuntary step backward. Then, angry with herself, she said aggressively, “He’s hurt and he’s afraid of you -- they seem good reasons to me!”
“I’m not surprised he’s afraid. He knows he’s done wrong.”
“Stop where you are,” Beth warned, but the man just curled his lip and kept coming.
“What are you planning on doing with that?” he asked, nodding casually at the knife as he brushed past her. And somehow, without meaning to, she had let him at the boy. Appalled by her own failure at the outset, she fell back, keeping his front in view -- she had no idea if the knife could penetrate his wings.
But he didn’t touch the boy. He stood for a moment looking down at him. To her surprise, the child’s agitation calmed. “Your leg is broken,” Aurel observed. The boy nodded. Beth got a flash of further communication, understanding, even as Aurel continued to speak the words in her head as well as the boy’s. “And you hurt your wing when you fell.”
He crouched down, reaching for the boy.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Beth demanded, dropping beside them, determined to intervene.
It’s all right, came through the boy’s jumbled thoughts, rueful, resigned. Aurel touched the injured leg, his long, tapering fingers closing around the knee and moving downwards. The child’s breath caught, and released in a sigh. The sense o
f his pain faded, flooding Beth with his relief.
Aurel reached behind the boy, his hand moving over the left wing, apparently discovering unerringly the wounded portion. The pain was almost gone completely now. So was the cold.
Beth stared at the adult. “You are a healer?” she asked incredulously.
His gaze moved to her. “Hardly. I’m the Keeper of the Laws.”
“But his leg is straight, you took away his pain…!”
“His leg is straight but not healed. I have helped him deal with his pain until he gets home.”
Aurel rose to his feet once more. Her eyes followed him. Very conscious of her heart beating inside her breast, she felt she was fighting a rearguard action not to appear foolish to this awesome being. “Why was he afraid of you?”
Aurel cast her a look of patient amusement. “Were you never afraid of being caught in the wrong?”
Beth swallowed. Slowly, she rose to her feet. “You are his father.”
“I think that assumption says more about your culture than his. As does your protective instinct.”
“Oh. Well, if that’s what you think, it must be right.”
“Sarcasm is not becoming in one so beautiful.”
“Nor is flattery,” she retorted, but annoyingly, a flush had begun to rise up into her face and neck. She couldn’t even turn away to hide it without acknowledging the weakness, so she simply stared back at him with a defiance that no doubt resembled the child’s. After all, she was battling a dream-memory that she would have died rather than reveal to this man, its very embodiment. This was so weird…
He smiled. A devastating move that neither softened his face nor reassured her. Instead, it seemed to hit her somewhere below her stomach, spreading heat to her very core.
Worse, he had smiled at her like that before, his head above her while he did unspeakably pleasurable things to her body, massaging that ache she could feel now rising between her legs…
Catching her breath, she spun away from his gaze, appalled that the memory should surface so vividly now, when she wasn’t even sure he couldn’t read it. With relief, she focused on the boy, who was regarding her a little sheepishly.
I misled you, I think. I’m a coward, not a liar. Aurel won’t hurt me as you seemed to imagine… but no one wants to be discovered breaking the law -- not by him.
“Then don’t break the law,” Aurel advised.
Like you never did? Beth didn’t speak aloud either, but he heard her anyway.
“When I was young and foolish, who knows? I can’t remember that far back.” Unexpectedly, he caught her wrist in one hand, plucking the knife from her fingers with the other. She should have been angry -- with herself as much as with him -- yet the shock of his cool touch drove it from her mind. The firm, casual strength was terrifying, the feel of his fingers on her wrist electric. She wished it was shame that flooded her body with heat.
“Before you hurt yourself,” he explained mildly, releasing her, and crouching down to put the knife in her backpack. His garment hung tantalizingly loose around his brown, muscled thighs. Beth tried not to look, tried to think of something -- anything! -- else.
Aurel paused, his gaze on the jars inside her bag. “You are a collector of soil and water,” he observed. “And -- er -- leaves. Do you eat them?”
“You know I don’t,” she said with frosty certainty. Something told her too that he knew exactly what she did with them. He wasn’t even surprised to find them there.
Unabashed by her discovery, he only smiled. His teeth were very white, strong. The sun glinted off his golden head as he gazed up at her. Infuriatingly, her heart lurched. It wasn’t just memory. It was reaction to the present.
“It’s been a long time since a human scientist passed our way,” he observed. He rose fluidly to his feet, maintaining eye contact. “But then, you’re a little more than human.”
More than human. She’d never heard it called that before. In fact, without her own admission, she couldn’t recall anyone ever spotting it before either.
“You’re a little more than human yourself,” she retorted.
He smiled again with genuine amusement. “That’s different. I’m not human at all.”
“Because you have wings? I’ll admit it’s a rarity, but you’ve obviously been away from the City too long. We discovered years ago that mutants are still human.”
“Ah yes, the famous ‘City of the Damned.’ A place I would like to visit…”
Was that the source of the dreams? Had she seen him once in the City, a strange, devastatingly attractive man who caught her imagination and managed to bury himself in her subconscious?
She said curiously, “How long since you left?”
“I’ve never lived there.”
“You were born up here?”
“Oh no -- much further south.”
Beth frowned. Something wasn’t right. She had never heard of any mutants outside the City -- or at least outside the old range of its water supply.
He watched her, radiating superior amusement at her thought processes.
She said slowly, “How many of you are there?”
“In the world, or in these hills?”
“Hell, both!”
“A few thousand all together. Here…” He regarded her, head to one side. “You could come and see, if you like.”
Did he think she was stupid? There was a faint glint in his intense eyes that told her he was not completely unaware of his physical effect on her. It’s only memory, only a stupid dream! And he would never know how tempting his offer was.
“Thank you,” she said dryly. “I’m working.”
“So I see.” Bending from the waist, he picked up her backpack and began to fasten the straps. Beth had to blink away an intrusive flashback to those deft fingers working on her body. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“Radioactive contamination mainly.”
“Why?”
“To see if it’s possible to farm up here. We need our own food source.” Just in case the Dome chose to cut off the City’s contacts with shared suppliers in the south…
He nodded, as if this wasn’t news to him, and held the bag out to her. As she took it from him, his gaze held hers. “You want new communities here?”
“If possible, yes.”
“And is it? Possible?”
She gave a smile that was more a twist of the lips. “Who knows? My instruments appear to be faulty.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because they’re detecting no contamination at all!”
“Which is good for your proposed community.”
“Which is impossible,” she corrected. She regarded him thoughtfully. “And your community… does it grow food?”
He shrugged. “Not as such.”
“Is your soil contaminated?”
“You can come and check, if you like.”
“Maybe I will. When I meet up with my colleagues.”
His lips curled into a faint smile of amusement. “You don’t need to be afraid of us, you know. We never bite without permission.”
Turning away from her, he caught the boy staring and said something that made him blush before he stepped over and picked him up as easily as if he were a baby.
Realizing he was about to go, Beth felt panic rise. Was she really about to let this embodiment of her dream walk away? What else could she do? Walk with him into a trap? Oh, no. He might set her blood on fire with a look -- but that was the dream memory playing tricks. She wasn’t desperate enough to deliver herself into what she suspected was his considerable power. Keeper of the Laws…
“Who is ‘we’?” she blurted. “Who are your people? Where did you come from?”
The winged man smiled. Behind him, his wings spread and began to move in slow, graceful beats until his bare feet actually lifted off the ground. “We are the Dragul. And we come from the Earth.”
The wings beat more powerfully, faster, and he soared up into the sky
with his burden clinging round his neck. He flew high, soaring over her head and off over the hill and the green valley she had glimpsed already, disappearing quickly into the distance.
Well, at least I know which way to go to find him. Them…
* * *
Beth’s tent was a little spring-up affair.
Aurel, Keeper of the Laws, watched her pitch it with practiced efficiency while her fire warmed. She was cooking something in a little pot and seemed quite un-fazed by her solitude -- rare in humans.
But then, he reflected as he sat back against a boulder to observe in greater comfort, she was rare in several ways. In her unusual mix of species, in her pale, piquant beauty with those incongruously dark eyes… and in her reaction to him. He definitely bothered her. And it wasn’t a race thing -- Rad she had helped and talked to as she would anyone. It wasn’t the Dragul she feared. It was him, Aurel.
Interesting. There was a jumble of frantic emotion and memory locked up behind her desperate mind block. It had been tempting just to brush that feeble block aside -- except that to do so would have admitted her importance. And he didn’t want her to be important. Only the samples she carried -- the means of destroying the newly planted Dragul kingdom -- only they were important here.
On the other hand, she wasn’t indifferent to him. It might have been fun to explore that aspect too. He wouldn’t have minded a taste of that delicious little body, to lose himself for a little in its hot, wet depths…
Below, in the valley, Beth poured the contents of the pot into a large mug and sprawled against her backpack to watch the hazy sun set. It was a sight Aurel himself never tired of. Centuries of darkness, and years more of perpetual twilight, had made the rising and setting of the sun daily miracles of beauty. Yet tonight, he found his eyes riveted to a different kind of loveliness: the changing light and shadows that fell across the pale skin of her face, the soft curves of her cheek and lips, the natural poise of her relaxed body.
Without warning she turned her head, seemed to look right at him. His heart gave an unexpected leap -- a fear of discovery maybe. Or an elusive recognition. Frowning, Aurel tried to catch at the memory. He had felt it before, when she first stood between him and the boy, glaring at him with fear and excitement and some unreadable confusion blazing in her dark eyes.
Dragul Dawn Page 2
