Dragon Tear (Agents of the Crown Book 5)

by Lindsay Buroker

  As he reached his gear, he let himself look toward her. One simple look. What could it hurt? What he’d seen and his vivid imagination already ensured he would dream of her while he slept.

  Zenia stood thigh-deep in the pool, her hands still covering her chest, but her beautiful silhouette easy to see, even in the poor light. A shock of electricity went through him when he realized she was looking at him.

  She lifted a hand and waved. Was that an invitation? Did she want him to join her? Was it possible she had even waited to take her bath until she’d known he was due to come off his shift?

  Jev glanced at Hydal. His friend was looking toward the perimeter of their camp, not toward the pool. Jev bit his lip, grabbed his blanket, left his weapons, and picked his way toward the water’s edge. He followed the shoreline to where she had removed her clothing.

  She sank low into the water, covering herself to her shoulders, but he thought he detected an inviting smile on her face. Then she waved again, definitely inviting him in.

  Jev held up a finger, then grabbed her clothes, taking them and his blanket around the bend and toward the private back half of the pool. He slipped on a mossy boulder as he clambered over it and almost fell and bashed something he hoped to use soon.

  Hoping Zenia hadn’t seen the lack of agility, he found a flat spot of grass and laid out the blanket. By the time he started removing his clothing, Zenia had swum around the bend. She floated out in the water, which was deeper near where the stream trickled in, and the round swells of her breasts bobbed on the surface. Jev, in the middle of tugging off his trousers, almost fell over again. There wasn’t any slippery moss to blame that time.

  A faint giggle drifted to his ears. This time, it was Zenia’s, and he didn’t mind it one bit.

  As soon as he finished shedding his clothing, he waded into the water. It wasn’t as cold as he expected, which was good since he didn’t want any parts of his anatomy retreating to warmer ground, but it felt crisp and refreshing in contrast to the perpetual humidity of the jungle.

  Not caring if he was splashing and making more noise than he should, Jev hurried out to Zenia. She stood, wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders, and kissed him deeply, removing all doubt from his mind about what she wanted to do that night. With him.

  He relished the feel of her in his arms sans clothing for the first time and let himself explore her bare skin thoroughly. They didn’t speak as they rubbed each other down, a semblance of bathing, but Jev admitted it was more akin to groping. Only when he swept her into his arms and carried her to the blanket did he ask the question on his mind. Actually, there were a lot of questions on his mind, such as would they be wonderful? Would she enjoy herself? And would the monkeys start hooting like crazy if they made too much noise? But he asked the one his honor compelled him to ask.

  “Are you sure you want to make love to me tonight, Zenia?”

  “I’ve been hoping,” she said, her arms linked around his shoulders, “that we would get a chance to be together out here, away from the prying eyes of the city gossips, and in someplace private and romantic. This sanctuary is lovelier than anything I expected to find here. Don’t you adore the smell of those orchids? It’s so peaceful, so serene. And…” Her voice grew less dreamy as a hint of concern entered it. “I’m worried about what tomorrow will bring. I don’t want to regret not being with you.”

  “I appreciate that.” Jev settled her onto the blanket he’d laid out, glad for the warm jungle night that would ensure they didn’t grow chilled from being damp. At least until they started some vigorous and warming activity… “But we’re going to be fine tomorrow. No regrets. We’ll get to be together plenty in the future, assuming that’s what you want.” He lay down beside her and stroked her face, wanting to make sure she truly wished to do this, that it wasn’t some act of desperation or fear. His body, highly aware of her naked beauty right next to him, didn’t want him to ask questions or risk losing this chance to make love to her, but he had to be sure.

  “I hope so. I want to be with you regardless.” She laid her hand on his chest, then let it explore lower.

  He swallowed, words tipping out sideways through his ears. There’d been one other thing he’d wanted to ask. What was it?

  Oh, right. “What about… we’re not married yet. You know I want to marry you—plan to marry you if you’ll have me—but is it all right? With the promise you made to yourself?”

  She scooted closer and lifted her hand to his cheek. “I plan to marry you right back, Jev Dharrow. And I trust that if anything happens, you’ll always act honorably, as you always have.”

  His heart swelled at her faith and belief in him.

  “Besides, I’ve been drinking yarri tea, so the odds should be low of me getting pregnant before I’m ready. Before we’re ready.”

  A tea that women only drank if they were attempting to keep from conceiving a child. That meant she’d been planning for this moment. It wasn’t some whim brought on by a private pool and nice-smelling flowers. She wanted this, and she had for a while. She wanted him.

  “I love you, Zenia.”

  “I love you too.”

  He kissed her and that led to much more.

  The flowers did smell nice. Jev didn’t know what kind they were, but he liked them. He also liked lying in the soft grass on his back, with a naked Zenia dozing in his arms. He smiled, having just woken from his own doze, and kissed the top of her head.

  It was still dark, so they didn’t have to worry about dressing and hurrying back to camp before people woke and noticed they were gone. They could enjoy more of the night together, sleeping or… doing other activities. Should she wake up before dawn. A pleasant thought.

  A crunch came from the jungle behind the pool.

  Thoughts of sex disappeared from Jev’s mind. He remembered that they were, sanctuary or not, deep within a jungle full of enemies.

  He shifted onto his elbows. The noise had come from behind the stream somewhere, not from the direction of the camp. None of his comrades should have been back there. Was it some animal?

  He frowned as he gazed into the darkness, a darkness more absolute than it had been before. The faint glow from the magical elven stone must have faded. Oddly, the trickle of the stream had faded too. What could have caused it to go dry from one hour to the next?

  The scent of leather and sweat reached his nose, and fear charged through his veins. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t an animal.

  “Wake up, Zenia,” Jev whispered into her ear as he shifted her to the side.

  Foliage rustled, the noise coming from a different direction than the first noise. Founders’ scales, why had he left his sword and pistol in the camp?

  Jev reached for his clothing and his belt. At least his dagger was still sheathed there.

  A shout of surprise, followed by a shriek of pain blasted through the clearing. Was that Borti? It had come from the direction of the stone.

  Jev sprang to his feet and ripped out his dagger, no longer worrying about getting dressed. Zenia woke and lunged to her feet beside him. Her dragon tear flared with blue light, and Jev glimpsed faces all around them. Dozens and dozens of orcish faces, lips pulled back in leers that revealed tusks and fangs.

  The light shrank back, Zenia’s dragon tear going dark.

  Gunshots fired in the camp. Borti and Cutter roared battle cries that sounded anguished as well as enraged.

  Jev grabbed Zenia’s hand, intending to sprint in that direction and join the others, but it was too late.

  Orcs jumped down from the boulders he’d crossed earlier. They blocked his way. More than that, they had Zenia and Jev completely surrounded.

  “Hydal!” Jev yelled. “Cutter!”

  “Jev!” Cutter yelled, but weapons clashed, metallic clangs ringing from the trees, and nobody came to help Jev and Zenia.

  He feared they had far too much trouble of their own to handle.

  Jev brandished his dagger as the circle of orcs
stalked closer to him, but there was no point. Dozens of warriors aimed bows and spears at his chest. Their eyes glinted as they looked straight at Zenia. No, at her dragon tear. Her dark dragon tear that wasn’t using any of its magic on these orcs. She might as well have been wearing a rock around her neck.

  Jev’s grip tightened on Zenia’s wrist, and he did his best to stand in front of her.

  The orcs charged in en masse. Jev thrust with the dagger and punched, trying vainly to keep them from getting to her, but there were far too many to fight. He sliced into the forearms of a few grasping hands, but a club whizzed in from behind and struck him in the side of the head. It felt like a mountain slamming into him, and he stumbled to the side. Dozens of hands pushed him down, and a knee landed on his chest, pinning him. Someone tore his dagger out of his hand.

  “No!” Zenia cried. “It’s not—”

  “Horti!” came a distressed cry from the stone. Borti.

  Jev couldn’t see what was happening over there, couldn’t see anything except the massive orc pinning him down. He thrashed in frustration, but he might as well have been a toddler trapped under an ogre.

  “Hurry,” Rhi yelled. “Don’t let his sacrifice be for—”

  A gunshot drowned out her words. One of the orcs standing above Jev barked an order and pointed toward the stone. Several of his warriors charged in that direction. That still left twenty trapping Jev and Zenia.

  Jev hoped vainly that Cutter and the others would succeed against the odds. But the orc roars filled the night, drowning out the gunfire. The noise of the fight faded, and the clearing grew eerily quiet. Had their friends escaped? Or—Jev swallowed—had they all been killed?

  Zenia, her eyes wide, met his gaze. She had to be wondering the same thing. Two of the orcs held her arms behind her back, and she was as helpless to fight or escape as Jev.

  A faint snap sounded, heralding the return of some of the orcs that had run off. Their mission complete?

  An orc next to Zenia snatched her dragon tear from her neck, breaking its chain. The chain Jev had crafted.

  The orc thrust his hand toward the canopy and howled in victory. Tears of fury stung Jev’s eyes. He bucked, trying to knock off the bastard on top of him, trying to push away the numerous hands helping to pin him down. But the grips of those hands only tightened. The point of a sword pressed into his sternum.

  Though he wanted to fight them all—to kill them all—he forced his rational brain to start working. Fighting wasn’t getting him anywhere, and they had no reason to keep him alive. As much as he loathed the idea, he needed to try to deal with them, not irritate them until one of them skewered him.

  “They got her, Jev,” Zenia whispered. “The dragon tear. The dragon.”

  Her head hung to her chest.

  Jev wished he could reach her to hug her. He also wished he could grab their clothes and cover her. Though these orcs were too busy muttering over the dragon tear to ogle her, he well remembered the ones in the harbor town and knew orc males had few qualms about taking human females as bed slaves.

  “Do any of you speak Korvish?” Jev asked. “Or Taziir? Or the northern orc—”

  “Silence, human,” the orc with the sword prodding his sternum said. He spoke Korvish surprisingly well. At least those two words.

  The orc next to him pointed at Jev and drew a finger across his throat, then made a rude gesture at Zenia.

  Jev gritted his teeth.

  “Okgor wants to kill you,” the sword-wielder announced.

  “I have value among my people,” Jev said. “I’m zyndar—noble. My family will pay well if you save me and ransom me.” His father wouldn’t pay two krons for him right now, but all he could do was bluff and hope to survive long enough to escape. And to make sure Zenia escaped. “I’m also a friend of the king of Kor.”

  The orc spat on the ground next to Jev’s face.

  Another one leaned in, slapped the sword-wielder on the chest, and said a few words. Jev’s tormenter threw his shaggy head back and laughed.

  “Yes,” he said in Korvish. “Yes, a good idea. My cousin believes we should take you back to feed to the dragon. Dragons like live meat.”

  “That doesn’t sound appealing,” Jev said, not wanting to let on that he was relieved. This gave him time to think of something, time to find an opportunity to escape.

  Strong hands hoisted him to his feet, calloused and rough. They made him doubly aware of his nudity.

  The orcs pushed Zenia away from the blanket and toward the bamboo forest.

  “Wait,” Jev said, as he was also pushed toward the dark jungle. “Let us get dressed first. We’ll be less of a burden on you if we can walk more easily. It’s dozens of miles to your home, isn’t it?”

  “Not that far. You were fools to camp so close. But our friend made sure of that.” The sword-wielder prodded Jev’s bare side and laughed again.

  Their friend?

  Another orc must have understood Jev because he gathered up his clothes and threw them at him. Jev reacted quickly enough to grab them. The orc hesitated before picking up Zenia’s clothing, surveying her with eyes that saw better in the dark than human eyes.

  Zenia lifted her chin, her hands curling into fists.

  Fear and anger had Jev clenching his own fists. He wouldn’t be able to think logically of rescue or staying alive if one of those thugs groped her.

  But the orc tossed her clothes to her. Zenia caught them and dressed quickly while throwing glares at the orc who gripped her dragon tear. Jev also hurried into his clothes and boots, knowing it would be easier to escape if he didn’t have to run through the briars and thorns of the jungle naked.

  As the orcs pushed them in the direction of the road, Jev craned his neck, trying to see past the brutes to the camp. What had happened to his friends?

  Everything seemed different from when they had first arrived at the sanctuary. He no longer smelled the appealing floral scent that had put his mind at ease earlier. The first hint of morning light seeped through the canopy, and he could make out the pool, but it wasn’t the pool he remembered. It was no longer clear with a gurgling stream feeding it. Now, it looked like an overdeveloped mud puddle.

  Had he and Zenia swum in that? Kissed in that?

  He tripped when he spotted the elven communication stone—what remained of it. It was little more than a three-foot-high gray stump with foliage growing all over it, the vines and leaves hiding what it was—what it had been.

  Jev’s stomach sank as he realized they had been fooled with magic. An illusion. If this place had been an elven sanctuary once, that must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

  “She tricked us,” Zenia whispered, shifting to walk as close to Jev as she could with the orcs hemming them in on all sides.

  “The unicorn,” Jev said numbly.

  The orcs’ friend. He should have realized it immediately. He certainly never should have relaxed around her.

  “But why?” Zenia asked.

  “I don’t know why, but she must have been working with the orcs all along.”

  Zenia shook her head. Jev felt just as puzzled. Unicorns weren’t supposed to align with anyone, but he’d always considered them far more likely to work with humans, elves, or dwarves than orcs and trolls.

  The orcs in front shifted their route to walk around something. Jev gaped as the obstacle came into sight.

  Horti. He lay face up with an axe embedded deep in his chest. His eyes were glazed in death.

  “No,” Zenia whispered, stumbling.

  The fury simmering inside of Jev threatened to boil over again. An orc shoved him to get him moving, and he almost launched himself at them, almost forgot all rational thoughts in a desire to lash out and hurt them.

  Zenia touched his arm. Tears glistened in her eyes but wisdom as well. Wait, she seemed to say. They had to wait until they had a better chance.

  Jev hung his head and let their captors push them away from the clearing, away fr
om what he feared was the first of many dead friends.

  16

  It was almost noon when the orcs marched Zenia and Jev into their valley, through their city, and to the lake with the island mountain in the middle. It was exactly as Zenia had seen in the vision the dragon tear had shared with her, the dragon tear now being carried by a large orc with yellowed tusks that matched his yellowed hair.

  He appeared far older than the others and, instead of the swords and bows his comrades carried, wielded a staff with a human skull mounted to the top. More smaller skulls alternated with beads on a long necklace that hung to his belt. Zenia wasn’t sure what animals they had come from but guessed lizards or snakes.

  “Into the boat,” the orc who spoke their language said, shoving Jev hard.

  With his wrists now tied behind his back, he couldn’t do anything to keep himself from falling in, and he landed hard on his knees. Zenia shifted her shoulders, as if she could lift a hand to help, but she was bound in the same manner.

  Jev recovered before he tumbled into an open metal brazier burning in the bow of the craft. It seemed a strange addition to a boat. Why worry about keeping a fire burning for a short ride out to an island? Maybe it had some religious significance. Zenia remembered the orcs from the day before who had carried fire starters.

  “We don’t want to delay feeding the dragon,” the orc added. “It’s been days since it ate.”

  He snickered, as did several of his comrades, whether they understood the words or not.

  The old orc—Zenia had started to think of him as a shaman—never laughed, and he didn’t now. He merely gazed toward a cave at the top of the island mountain.

  Zenia followed that gaze, wondering if that was the one that held the dragon. She had a hard time imagining the young playful soul she’d come to know eating her or Jev, but she no longer carried the dragon tear. What if the dragon failed to recognize her without it? Or what if she simply felt nothing for Zenia without the magical link? Maybe she would now incinerate the clothing of the shaman’s enemies instead.