The first notes of his heartsong, his song for Leyloni, built within him. He made no effort to hold them back, allowing the song to rise freely in a gentle hum. It came as naturally to him as breathing.
Leyloni added her own voice to it, humming along in bits and pieces in her own pitch, her own tone, weaving her notes with his to create something even lovelier, even more moving. When their humming ceased, he felt that song resonating in his heart, in his spark—and he knew it was in hers, as well.
The wind picked up, making the sound of rustling leaves overhead reminiscent of the sound of the sea against the shore.
Breathing slow and steady, Arysteon cast his memory back over the long years, over the many things he’d witnessed during his travels with his kin. He’d not seen the ocean in centuries—not since he’d been considered a youngling himself—and his mate had never laid eyes upon it.
Perhaps, if the Snow Tree tribe truly dwelled near the coast…
“I shall take you to the sea someday, Leyloni,” he said softly, “that we may walk—”
A roar boomed across the heavens and reverberated between the trees, bristling with fury, hunger, and challenge.
Arysteon’s spark flared and buzzed, pouring crackling energy into his limbs, and his heart quickened anew. He sat up abruptly, drawing Leyloni along with him. She clung to him, her blunt fingernails scraping his scales.
In his little nest nearby, Serek awoke with a startled cry. The sound seemed pathetic and insignificant compared to that roar.
“What was that?” Leyloni asked in a small voice, her words tinged with concern and fear.
Pressure built in Arysteon’s chest, charged by his spark, threatening to tear him apart from within. His instincts—all stained red by the accursed Heat—were just as wild and overwhelming as his spark and even more demanding than the comet’s influence.
Protect my mate and our youngling.
Face this challenge.
Destroy this rival.
“Another dragon,” he replied as he stood up, hauling Leyloni onto her feet.
Serek’s continued cries were groggy, confused, and frightened.
Leyloni glanced at the baby and back at Arysteon, brow creased with worry. “There is another dragon?”
Arysteon clenched his jaw against another surge in his spark, which was already roiling like a bolt of lightning ready to strike. It tingled just beneath his scales, thrummed in his bones, sizzled through his veins. He would not be able to contain it.
He would not be able to prevent the change.
“Gather our things. We must leave immediately.” Just speaking those words felt like it was enough to shred his mind; he needed to fight, to eliminate the threat. To assert his dominance over anything in his path.
Leyloni nodded and stepped away from him. Arysteon did not miss the slight trembling in her hands as she hurriedly dressed and packed the few belongings they’d taken out during their stop, but her voice was calm and steady when she soothed Serek, assuring him of her presence, of his safety, promising all would be well.
Somehow, Arysteon’s boundless admiration for her grew in those moments—as did his immense protectiveness and possessiveness.
A battle between two dragons was far too dangerous for humans to be near, especially when those dragons were in the throes of Heat.
Another roar sounded, even closer than the last. The spines along Arysteon’s back and tail stood up, and his muscles twitched as his spark again flared. He curled his hands into fists and stalked away from his humans. He could not guess how much time they had, but a feeling in his gut suggested it was not enough.
The instant he was far enough away from his humans, Arysteon released his tenuous hold on his spark. Arcs of lightning crackled across his scales, tracing erratic paths of burning, thrilling energy. That lightning burst outward all at once.
He was blind, deaf, incorporeal, blasted into nothingness, transformed into raw, uncontained power. And then—faster than any time before—he was a dragon, his massive body brimming with the fury of ten thousand storms.
Before the white flash had fully faded from his eyes, before the ringing had faded from his ears, he was turning toward Leyloni and Serek. His body crashed into trees and vegetation, but he scarcely noticed the splintering and snapping branches.
The other dragon roared with renewed fury, making the nearby boughs shake.
Fight me, that call said. The female is mine.
Arysteon clamped his teeth together to hold back an answering roar and forced his spines flat. A single stride brought him to Leyloni, who already had her bags slung over her shoulders. She bent down and scooped up Serek, clutching the baby close. Before she could straighten, Arysteon extended a hand, picked her up from behind, and lifted her toward his neck.
He heard her startled gasp, but she wasted no time in climbing onto him, settling in her usual place at the base of his neck. Any other time, he would have gladly paused to appreciate the feel of her bare legs against his scales.
The moment he felt her grasp one of his spines, he darted into motion, running with speed and urgency like he’d never achieved. Leyloni tightened her grip and threw her weight forward, holding herself and Serek firmly against his neck.
“Face me, coward!” the other dragon bellowed from somewhere behind Arysteon.
The words had been spoken in the tongue of dragons, a language Arysteon had known since his earliest memories, a language as ancient as the mountains and seas, a language he’d not heard spoken aloud in over two hundred years. He had sometimes dreamed of encountering another dragon just to be able to converse in his native tongue, just for the familiarity and comfort it would bring.
He’d known for a long while how foolish a dream that had been. Most dragons were not interested in conversation or camaraderie with one another.
“The female is in my domain,” the other dragon called. “I smell her heat. She is mine!”
A growl clawed out of Arysteon’s throat, and small arcs of lightning forked through his teeth. His talons tore the earth, roots, and brush beneath them. Trees flitted past on all sides, reduced to blurs by his speed. His heart pounded, his breath was ragged, and his spark thrummed with enough excess power to blast half the forest into ash.
Even now, his instincts were torn. Part of him needed to turn around and face this hostile dragon, to assert his claim on Leyloni, to seize a claim on this territory. Another part of him needed only to get his clan as far away from danger as possible.
Those conflicting instincts only seemed to clash harder in response to the fear Arysteon sensed through his bond with Leyloni. That she was afraid but composed was the only thing that kept him moving, was the only reason he’d been able to maintain his own shred of composure.
He reached deep inside himself, drawing upon his spark’s core, and ran even faster, using his body to shield his riders as he plowed through these unfamiliar woods. Only Leyloni and Serek’s safety mattered; nothing else was important. His pain and exertion were meaningless compared to that goal.
Though the sounds of his body smashing through the forest, his crackling spark, and pounding heart drowned out most other noise, one sound stood out from all the rest—not because it was louder or more prominent, but because it was so different, so subtle.
Because, in its own way, it was terrifyingly familiar.
It was the beating of huge wings in the air.
Prickling heat coursed down Arysteon’s back, just beneath his scales. He’d experienced that alarming sensation before—it was the instinctual recognition of hostile eyes glaring down upon him, just as so many other dragons had looked down upon Arysteon and his kin in the past.
That prickling sensation intensified suddenly. Growling, Arysteon abruptly altered his course, drawing his legs inward as he leapt through the gap between two huge tree trunks. The other dragon roared immediately behind him.
The forest canopy shook violently, and dozens of branches snapped almost simultaneously
. Something hard and sharp raked down Arysteon’s back, rending his scales and producing a flare of pain just before the pair of trees shook with an immense impact. Wood cracked, boughs broke and fell, and the other dragon howled in pain and anger.
Somewhere in the cacophony, Leyloni cried out Arysteon’s name.
Though the pain was distant, Arysteon knew in that moment what Leyloni must have realized the first day he’d seen her, when she was being chased by the monster she’d called a treelurker—there would be no escape. He could not outrun this foe, not when he was so disadvantaged by being stuck on the ground.
He pumped his legs harder, putting more distance between himself and his temporarily grounded pursuer. A fury unlike any he’d ever known blazed at his core, pushing his spark to impossible intensity, further building the pressure within him.
The other dragon had clawed Arysteon’s back. Had the attack come a moment sooner, it would have been Serek and Leyloni beneath those claws, it would have been their blood spilled rather than Arysteon’s.
Arysteon snarled.
The open wound on his back grew unbearably hot, and he felt his lightning sparking from it, felt that power crackling out over his scales, smelled it burning the air. There would be no more running. There was only one resolution to this situation.
Arysteon spun to face his foe. The other dragon was larger than Arysteon, and his body was wedged between the trees. He was clawing his way out from between them, shredding the trunks in the process. His bronze scales gleamed in the sunlight, and his eyes—intense, glowing amber—blazed, fixing on Arysteon with all the rage and hunger that had been evident in his roars.
“Slide off,” Arysteon growled as he dropped onto his belly and glanced back at Leyloni and Serek.
Leyloni lifted her head, meeting his gaze with wide, fearful, uncertain eyes.
“You must go! Now!” Arysteon’s voice bore a hint of rumbling thunder. Time was short; he could not have her nearby when he clashed with his foe.
Face paling, Leyloni swallowed and nodded. She clutched Serek closer, scrambled off Arysteon’s back, and dropped to the forest floor, barely maintaining her balance under her burden.
“Flee, my heartsong, as fast as you can.” Arysteon returned his attention to the bronze dragon. “I will find you soon.”
He felt the brief touch of her fingers on his scales, and then she was gone.
With a snarl, the bronze dragon burst through the trees that had caught him, crashing heavily on his belly. He raked his claws over the ground to drag his hindquarters through the gap.
Arysteon felt Leyloni—felt her portion of their shared spark—moving away from him. Despite everything, part of him was desperate to chase her. That part was brimming with Heat, but his desire for her ran far, far deeper than that. She was his, plain and simple. Her place was at his side.
And he would destroy anything that tried to take her from him.
Gritting his teeth, he coiled the muscles of his legs and curled his tail, bracing it on the ground. A lightning storm of rage blazed in his chest, threatening to consume him.
He did not resist it.
“You face Pavoss, groundling,” the bronze dragon barked as he raised himself on all fours, spreading his wings. “Lord of the Northern Woodlands, the Inferno of—”
“You face Arysteon, Lord of Lightning,” Arysteon roared, launching himself at the larger dragon. He crashed into his foe head on, knocking Pavoss backward in a tumble of claws and gnashing teeth.
The dragons crashed into the pair of damaged trees, one of which snapped beneath the combined weight and force of the battling beasts.
Pavoss’s claws bit into Arysteon’s sides, and his tail lashed Arysteon’s back, but the pain was far away and unimportant, lost in the thickening crimson haze that had fallen over Arysteon’s mind.
Arysteon gave back what he received and more, mercilessly slashing with his talons and clubbing his foe with his tail as lightning pulsed over his scales. The scent of Pavoss’s blood filled his nostrils and urged him to greater ferocity. He was barely aware of the trees and undergrowth being crushed by the struggling draconic bodies. His mind could only comprehend two things—Leyloni’s presence, which was moving ever farther away, and his enemy.
Pavoss clamped his jaws around Arysteon’s neck. Growling, Arysteon forced the bony spikes along his spine fully upright. He felt two of them sink into the fleshy roof of Pavoss’s mouth. Pavoss had barely growled in pain before Arysteon forced his spark outward, willing it to course over his scales with new intensity.
For an instant, Pavoss’s jaw locked tighter, forcing those spikes even deeper. Then the larger dragon tore his head away. Blood—both his own and Arysteon’s—sprayed from his mouth as he snapped his head from side to side, trailing wisps of smoke.
Warm blood trickled down Arysteon’s neck scales, and the wounds pulsed dully, but he did not hesitate. His head darted forward, jaws parted—ready to tear a chunk out of Pavoss’s throat. He would taste the blood of any creature that dared endanger his mate and youngling.
Pavoss scrambled backward, swinging his neck to evade Arysteon’s jaws. The bronze dragon’s body heat suddenly flared. He opened his own mouth wide, and fire roiled in the back of his throat.
Arysteon had time enough only to squeeze his eyes shut before that fire erupted from Pavoss’s maw. He shoved himself backward as the flames lashed the scales of his snout, hotter than anything he’d ever felt. He landed heavily on his side, shaking his head wildly as though it could eliminate the pain or reverse the damage that had been done.
Pavoss’s weight crashed down upon Arysteon. The bronze dragon slammed his claws on Arysteon’s front legs, pinning them to the ground.
“You are no dragon,” snarled Pavoss. “You are a worm, forever slithering in the dirt. You are nothing—and your female is mine.”
The memory of the clanmates Arysteon had lost to aggressive dragons like this, of the hardships and tragedy he and his kin had faced because of such attacks, raced through his mind, but they were not his focus. That was on Leyloni—his Leyloni. His mate. His love, his purpose, his everything.
Arysteon growled, the sound growing into a roar that tore up his throat. His every scale buzzed with power, as though his spark was drawing it in from the air all around.
“I am Arysteon!” he bellowed, unleashing the full fury of his spark.
The flash of lightning was so bright that Arysteon’s vision went white even through his closed eyelids. His entire being thrummed for an instant, so overwhelmed, so overcharged, that it could not possibly hold itself together.
He felt the blast down to his bones, felt its aftermath rumble through him like a thousand peals of thunder. Pavoss’s weight was abruptly lifted away.
Arysteon opened his eyes and righted himself, pushing up onto his feet. His vision cleared slowly. A thin haze hung in the air, spreading that crisp, after-lightning smell—and the stench of burned flesh.
Pavoss lay on his side nearby, propped up against a fallen tree. He stirred slowly and struggled to rise. Tendrils of smoke wafted from scorched patches on his scales.
Arysteon felt Leyloni’s retreat slowing, felt the invisible tether that bound them together pull taut. But she couldn’t stop—not yet. Not while Pavoss remained a threat.
Arysteon advanced on his enemy.
The bronze dragon bared his teeth and swung his head toward Arysteon. His chest swelled with a deep breath, and again his jaws gaped. Orange light flared in his throat.
Faster than conscious thought could have allowed, Arysteon forced a bolt of lightning out from his spark. It flashed through the air in a dancing fork, striking Pavoss in the mouth. For an instant, the two dragons were bridged by that energy.
Pavoss’s head snapped back, and he released an agonized, sputtering grunt. A cloud of fire burst from his mouth and nostrils, briefly engulfing his head, and a puff of black smoke billowed over him.
“I am the lightning and the thunder!” Arysteon
declared, charging forward.
He slammed into Pavoss, knocking the larger dragon onto his back. The crimson fog over Arysteon’s vision only deepened as he sank his claws into Pavoss’s ribs.
Pavoss thrashed wildly, his movements granted strength by his desperation. Arysteon’s claws were dislodged as a result, but not before tearing chunks of bloody flesh from the bronze dragon’s sides. Snarling and howling in pain, Pavoss scrambled away, dragging himself through the undergrowth.
Arysteon rolled onto his feet and stalked toward his enemy. “I am the last of my kin, but I will not be the last of my line. I am master of this forest and all its creatures.”
He leapt forward, coming down with his front talons on Pavoss’s wings. “Even the worms slithering through the dirt.”
Fire spouted from Pavoss’s mouth as he struggled; whether he meant to escape or turn his fire on Arysteon made little difference. Arysteon forced his full weight upon Pavoss and clamped the claws of one hand around the back of the bronze dragon’s neck, slamming Pavoss’s head on the ground.
“I am mate to Leyloni, daughter of Sahara and Havil,” Arysteon snarled, tightening his grip to force his claws through Pavoss’s tough scales. “I am father to Serek, son of Leyloni. And I am their guardian, their provider. The female is forever mine.”
Arysteon’s spark crackled with increasing intensity as he spoke, creating heat beneath his scales to rival that of his foe’s fire.
“I yield,” Pavoss rasped. “I yield!”
“When it comes to what is mine, I refuse to yield.” Arysteon wrenched Pavoss’s head aside and clamped his jaws on the bronze dragon’s exposed throat, burying his teeth deep. Hot blood flowed over his tongue, tasting of iron and sulfur.
Pavoss growled and gurgled, and his neck filled with heat as he struggled to release more fire.
Arysteon unleashed his spark.
The power that flowed from his mouth blasted directly into Pavoss, buzzing and sizzling. Smoke and the stench of burning flesh filled the air as the bronze dragon thrashed and spasmed uncontrollably. Arysteon simply roared and forced more of his spark into his foe, his vision consumed by flashes of white and red, his mind consumed by hatred, by love—by the need to protect, to avenge. His body thrummed with power, flooded with unbearable heat.
To Love A Dragon; Venys Needs Men Page 19
