He wished he could see her again, to be certain she was safe. He shouldn’t have brought her out here. It was selfish of him. He should have found enough strength in himself without using her the way he had, the way he would have used her again if they’d been given the chance. Regret was not an emotion he was often familiar with, but he understood it now. He regretted that he’d never feel her body beneath his again, hear her soft sighs and see the glow of passion on her face, but mostly he regretted that he’d put her in danger. She might never again feel any passion or pleasure with anyone—and it would be his fault.
Unless he could make her hear him. He reached out with his mind and groped through the cold, empty spaces. She felt so far away from him now. Could his weakened mind penetrate the distance? He would use the last of his life force to try.
Lianne…you’re in danger!
Chapter Sixteen
Lianne was staring at the faint, throbbing glow of the…thing…laid out on the floor of the cave. Why was she still seeing it? Surely once she slammed the “fairy” with her boot, that should have vanquished it from her imagination, right? It didn’t. The little wings simply crumpled and the unconscious body sprawled where it had fallen.
At least, she hoped it was merely unconscious. She would hate to have hallucinated killing the thing, even if it was scheming something against Nic and had been rather rude toward her. But why on earth would her mind fabricate this sort of thing? Why not something sensible like a warm, cozy fireplace or some practical footwear that actually kept her toes from being frostbit? No, her stupid tumor brain had gone and invented a tiny blue jackass with wings. It figured.
She blew a deep breath into her boot to warm it up inside, then stuck it back on her foot. Well, it was better than standing on the cold rock in her socks. She did the same with the second boot, stamping to make sure they were secure. The fairy didn’t flinch. He didn’t look too good. She thought about going over to see if she could help him, but something stopped her.
Lianne…
A voice was calling her name. No, not calling, actually. It was not an audible voice. It was inside her head! Oh, hell. The tumor must be getting worse.
It called again, clearer and with added information this time. Lianne…you’re in danger!
Danger? She glared at the fairy to make sure he wasn’t messing with her. He was clearly not capable of conversation right now, and she knew what she’d heard hadn’t been a fairy voice. It wasn’t some alien from a UFO, either. It was Nic’s voice. And it seemed so real! She stood still and held her breath, listening as closely as she could.
They’re coming, Lianne. You have to go. Get out of here. Hide.
The fairy had mentioned something about a shipment on its way. A dangerous shipment, maybe? It made sense that Nic’s disembodied voice would know about what the fairy had said, since it was all just some weird fabrication of her own mind, anyway. But why this? Was her subconscious trying to tell her something? Could it be that she really was in some kind of danger?
She didn’t know what was real and what was hallucination at this point. She did know that Nic was missing. What if that really was his voice and he was calling for her? The cave did seem to go deep into the mountain, much deeper than she had considered investigating in the darkness. And with the glassy-smooth walls, sound would echo and carry in odd ways…What if she hadn’t imagined Nic’s voice?
“Nic!” she called out. “Are you here somewhere, inside this mountain?”
Yes, I’m here, Lianne.
Thank heavens! He didn’t sound very good, though. Just as she’d been afraid, he was in trouble. She had to help him.
“I’m coming, Nic. Where are you?”
No, you can’t come to me. They’ll find…
“What is it? Are you injured, Nic? Keep talking and I’ll follow your voice.”
But his voice was very quiet now, nearly imperceptible. He was fading in and out and not making much sense. She caught bits of babbling about danger and hiding, and she was pretty sure he apologized at some point for something. Then he mentioned eggs, but she guessed that part actually made sense. The poor guy was probably hungry, maybe a little delirious from the cold. She needed to find him and get him out of here as soon as possible.
But he wasn’t being very helpful. How was she going to find him in the dark? One quick glance back at her wounded hallucination and she had an answer.
She scooped the little fairy up and held him in front of her, toward the darkness at the back of the cave. Sure enough, his blue glow was just enough to light up the nearest ten to fifteen feet. All right, then. She could proceed. Probably when her head was clear and things were making sense again she’d find out this was just a flashlight or something, but for now it sure as hell looked and felt like a fairy.
She dangled him by his wings and let him light the way as she moved deeper into the cave. After several yards she came to a fork. One passageway went off to the left, and one went to the right. The one on the right seemed to be larger and more heavily used, so she started toward that one.
No, take the other.
Ah, so Nic must hear her footsteps. He must be close by. She adjusted her route and followed his lead, moving carefully in the direction his voice indicated. The glowing fairy twitched in her fingers, but made no effort to escape.
Again she came to a fork, but this time there were three possible options. Nic directed her to the one on the right. She was hesitant to follow his lead this time because the passageway took an obvious downward angle and she worried about losing her footing, but she realized that could very well be what got Nic into trouble. Maybe he was just down the slope of this narrowing passage. She moved carefully along, holding her fairy out like a lantern and steadying herself by clinging to the smooth walls.
Turn to the left. Then a quick right.
She did as he said. Sure enough, after she made a sharp left into a passage that seemed to come from nowhere, there was an almost immediate intersection. She turned right. This passageway continued a gradual downward slope, but it was somewhat more twisting than the others she had been on so far. It also had quite a few other passageways leading off it, but Nic was silent, so she continued onward.
What a strange place this was! And getting warmer, too. At first she hadn’t been sure of it, assuming that maybe she simply felt warmer due to all her activity, but now she was certain. The air was definitely warm.
She also had to admit that there was no way Nic had been directing her by hearing her footsteps. It was entirely possible that he’d not been talking to her at all, that this was just more of her hallucinations and she’d led herself down into this dark, unwelcoming place. She had no idea how she was going to get herself out of here, either.
“Nic? Are you down here?” she called out just in case maybe there was some small hope she wasn’t as crazy as she worried she might be.
Stay where you are, Lianne. You’ll be safe there. Well hidden.
Hidden? What the hell was he doing, bringing her down here only to keep her hidden? No, she came down here to find him and that’s what she intended to do.
She could feel him. She knew where he was. She hadn’t felt him before, but now she did. He was close by, and he was in pain.
Her footsteps sped up as she moved through the passageway, instinctively making two more turns before she could see the warm glow of what appeared to be fire ahead of her. The air brushing her skin was hot, and very dry. She no longer needed the fairy to light up her way, but she held him carefully in her hand, just the same.
Nic was just through the next opening. She knew he was there, could sense him even though he hadn’t spoken to her for several minutes now. She burst from her passageway into a huge, bright cavern, lit by the glow of what could only be a lava pool. So this was the source of energy they had been trying to tap into—the ancient volcano was not dormant at all. No wonder their readings had been inconsistent. It was just as Nic had warned.
But how h
ad their team not discovered this? Surely they could have detected this even without a permit to come onto—or into—the mountain. And what were those oddly round boulders doing in the center of this lava pool? It struck her as very strange that they could appear to be floating there, not sinking and not being consumed by the molten rock that they rested on.
And then she noticed another strange thing in this cavern: a dragon.
At least, that’s what the giant thing looked like, stretched out on the cavern floor near the edge of the lava pool. Was it alive? No, of course not. Dragons weren’t real, so this one couldn’t possibly be alive. But then again, this wasn’t exactly Disney World, either. Who would have built a life-sized dragon in the middle of a volcano?
And this one looked an awful lot like the one she imagined in the storm, the one that had protected her from the wind and the lightning, then carried her into the cave. The one whose voice sounded just like Nic. Oddly enough, this rocky mound of incomprehensible dragon was lying exactly where her instinct had told her to find Nic.
Oh my God. Did the dragon eat Nic? No, her mind was telling her what it all meant, but she was ignoring it. No way would she even admit to herself such crazy imaginings. There were no such things as dragons, and Nic sure as hell wasn’t one of them. She had not made out with a reptile.
But she did know that whatever the thing was, it needed her. Clenching her still-groggy fairy, she hurried across the distance between them. By God, it sure as hell did look like a dragon when she reached it.
Huge, steely scales covered its long, thick body. It was hard to determine what color the beast actually was. The scales were iridescent, their color appearing bright red in some areas to accentuate his huge, muscular frame, and darkening to a deep, deep burgundy in others. Orange flickers from the burning lava pool reflected off the creature, making him appear to radiate heat. Between the scales here and there she caught sight of a deep red glow that came from inside him. It pulsated like a heartbeat, slow and labored. The body expanded and retracted with pained, shallow breathing.
Leathery bat-like wings sprouted from its back, but now they were furled helplessly against the creature’s side. It appeared to have four legs ending in digits with knife-sharp claws, those on the forelegs appearing more like hands than feet. She walked along the length of it, terrified yet fascinated.
Above the wings, a long, serpentine neck extended. It was lined with the same metallic scales that covered the rest of his large, rugged body, but these were smaller and more intricately aligned. She noticed there were black markings adorning his sides, wrapping around his muscular limbs, twining with thorny points, barbs, and symbols she could only wonder the meaning of. The markings culminated in the shape of a stylized dagger running the length of his neck. No, not a dagger. A sword—long, razor-sharp, and deadly.
It was a dragon-sized version of the tattoo she’d seen on Nic. She could no longer pretend to doubt. This truly was Nic. A dragon.
She was suddenly filled with dread. What could possibly have happened to bring him to this state? He was so weak, so helpless…there was so much pain in his body and she could do nothing to ease it. She didn’t even truly know if she could make herself face him like this.
What would she find when she looked him in the eye? And what would he find in her eyes? She hated to let him know that she feared him, this place…her own sanity.
But sanity wasn’t the issue. She reached her hand out to touch him. Warm. Moving. Alive. Yes, this was very real and she wanted to understand how.
She followed the neck until she came to the huge, arrow-shaped head. Her steps faltered. His face was angled away from her so she couldn’t see his eyes. A crest of glinting spikes lined his jaw, while his skull seemed to be formed of impenetrable plates. His appearance was something like the dragons she’d seen depicted in art and in movies, but the reality of standing next to such a creature, feeling heat radiate off his body and hearing the rush of air through his lungs, was so much more than she could have ever imagined.
Yes, she had to admit even her wildest fantasies could never have produced something like this, with or without the help of a brain tumor. He was the embodiment of danger, of power, and yet…he was beautiful.
You shouldn’t be here, Lianne. It isn’t safe.
“I think I need to be here,” she replied, moving around so she could meet his gaze. “You need me, Nic.”
His huge head shifted, his scales scraping over the rock like flint sharpening steel. She found his eyes. Nic’s eyes, dark but fiery, piercing into her soul as if he could read her very thoughts. Maybe he could.
You need to hide. Some others will be here and…What is that in your hand?
“Oh, this?” She held up the fairy. He had moved once or twice, so she knew he wasn’t dead, but for some reason he wasn’t coming around very well. Had she really nailed him that hard with her boot? She felt kind of bad for the snotty little guy.
“I found him in the mouth of the cave. He was talking to someone on a device of some sort, something about a shipment arriving soon. Then he found me and he looked like he was going to start trouble so I…well, I slammed him with my boot. He’s still alive, though. Sort of.”
The dampeners. They must be affecting him, too.
“Dampeners? What are you…Hey, you’ve got something jammed into your back. Oh my God, there are three of them!”
That’s why you have to leave. I can’t help you, Lianne. You’ve got to go before they get here.
“These weapon things are the reason you’re just kind of lying here? Will it help if I pull them out?”
There’s no time. It’s too late for me. You have to go.
“It’s not too late, damn it! What are these things doing to you, anyway? They’ve got blinking lights on them. Are they bombs or something? Are you going to explode?”
No, they’re dampeners. It’s complicated, Lianne. You won’t believe me even if I do explain.
“I’m holding a half-dead fairy in my hand and having a conversation with a giant dragon. Try me, Nic.”
The fairy is half-dead because these devices that were shot into me are dampeners. They collect magic and store it in that large console over there. I need magic to exist, Lianne, and so does that fairy. And so do the eggs incubating in the clutch here in this mountain.
She looked around. As he said, there was a large equipment console sitting nearby. The blinking lights on it roughly matched the lights on the devices wedged between Nic’s metallic scales. But eggs? Her gaze shifted to the rounded boulders cradled in the heat of the lava pool. Obviously not boulders, after all. They were dragon eggs! No wonder nothing about this project had made sense. This whole mountain was just one big nest for little dragons waiting to hatch.
Wait, did that mean Nic had kids? A whole lot of them, by the looks of things. Damn, he should have probably mentioned that at some point.
But now his body rumbled. She brought her focus back onto him—the pain he must be in. He wasn’t groaning from pain right now, though. He was laughing.
They’re not mine.
“What?”
The eggs. They’re not mine. I’m just the Guardian. Hatching takes a long time, by human standards, and a Guardian is appointed to watch over the clutch. It is unfortunate that your people decided to target this mountain so close to the time when the eggs will be ready to hatch.
“So, you don’t have forty-seven kids I need to know about?”
No, and with these damn devices, I’m worried there won’t be any hatchings at all.
“Then we have to do something! I’ll unplug them, or turn them off, or something.”
Now the fairy wriggled in her hand and she jumped. One glance at his limp form and she realized he was awake, although clearly not very energetic. Somehow he found enough strength to laugh at her, too.
“You can’t turn them off,” he warbled in a funny little voice. “They’re powered by magic, stupid human bitch.”
She pinche
d his crumpled wings and held him up so she could glare at him. “What did you just call me? And to think I was feeling bad about whacking you with my boot! I ought to just go ahead and stomp on you with it.”
No, don’t. We can use him.
She didn’t bother to tell Nic that she really had no intention of stomping a fairy. For one, it seemed a pretty cruel thing to do. For another, it would make a huge mess of her boot. Also, the fact that Nic seemed to think there was some measure of hope by keeping him alive made her extra glad she hadn’t killed the damn thing. She was sure to hold it a little bit tighter just in case it thought about limping away.
“We can use it?” she asked. “Can we make it shut off the devices?”
“I won’t do anything to help you!” the fairy snarled, sounding an awful lot like an angry Chihuahua. “My companions will be here soon and you’ll both be sorry.”
“So there is something you could do to help us, isn’t there? Well, I’m about fifty times your size, so I figure anything you can do, I can do better,” Lianne announced. “Nic, have you got enough strength to hold him under your…paw? claw? hand?…while I work on these things stuck into you?”
He rumbled another deep, steamy chuckle. I think I can manage that.
The fairy was kicking and screaming, but he was so weak it hardly counted for anything. Pitiful, really. Lianne picked up one of Nic’s huge, bony, terrifying hands and shoved the fairy under. The glinting claws flexed and the fairy was trapped. He wheezed his displeasure, but it was hardly more than the buzzing of a gnat, and Lianne easily ignored it.
The deadly projectiles poking out of Nic’s damaged body were more than enough to take up her full attention. She had no idea how much of the device was actually wedged inside. Clearly they had been shot into him with some force. Had they opened up inside with a hook to hold them in place? How on earth would she get around that? She eyed them cautiously, watching as thin trickles of dark, steaming blood traced patterns around the spade-shaped scales.
Licked by the Flame Page 18
