He had no say in the design etched into his flesh. Watatoni’s brother, Whina Te Kanewa, was a venerable dragon with a shock of stiff white hair, plastered with some strongly scented unguent. The tohunga ta moko examined Voros’ left breast critically and spoke at length to Watatoni in their language. After a long argument and much poking and thumping of the desired spot, which Voros knew enough to endure blank faced, the tattooist picked up his stone blade and began to carve deliberately into the skin and muscle.
He rubbed dark black pigment into the still bleeding wounds and drove the dye in with brisk strokes of his mallet on the incising chisel. All around him in a ragged, enthusiastic semicircle stood Roland’s grinning men. Their eyes were avid and their mouths roared with songs of valor and laughter. Lord Te Kanewa sat impassively in the shade being cooled by a tall boy with a palm leaf fan. His great-grandson.
The procedure took nearly three hours and all the while Roland sat erect, unmoving, conversing lightly with his gracious host, while blood trickled down his chest and was wiped away by the tattooer’s assistant. The traditional operation was as much a test of manhood as a mark of distinction. Roland looked around at the tattooed faces, chests, buttocks and thighs of his men. Their bodies were a testament to their powers of endurance.
And now, when what he wanted was a couple of anti-inflammatories and a stiff drink, here he was jouncing up and down on the beach as if he truly felt no pain. His respect for these dragons increased a thousandfold. Roland roared and stuck his tongue out and shook his heavy spear and danced far into the evening, until his pain in truth vanished — vanquished by the trance induced by the rigorous ceremony.
It wasn’t until the next day that Lord Te Kanewa ordered Roland’s sword bearers into the air. “They are good boys, each and every one,” he said with the authority that characterized his every utterance. “Well trained and well endowed.” Te Kanewa surveyed his assembled descendants complacently and casually signaled to them.
Fifty pairs of wings exploded with the noise of a thousand unfurled awnings. Fifty colossal, jet black dragons rose into the air and arrayed themselves in three rows of ten, and then on Te Kanewa’s signal, five rows of ten, and ten rows of five. They split and rearranged themselves in other patterns. They wheeled and circled in the gusty air, effortlessly maintaining an equal distance from each other as they displayed their skills.
“Shall we join them, my friend?” asked the old dragon.
It was astonishing to take to the air with so many dragons. Watatoni Te Kanewa was an impressive sight in his khaki shirt and pants sitting at his ease before his house. In the air, with his wings spread wide to catch the currents, he was a formidable dragon even in his old age. His black wings spanned more than thirty feet and his massive head was so long and broad that it might as well have been the prow of some ancient vessel. His teeth were long and still razor sharp. His horns curved back two feet, and the sunlight gleamed dangerously from their blood red tips.
Roland was proud of his own twenty-six-foot wing span and his glittering silver plumage. Amongst European dragons he was immense. But he was dwarfed by the massive black Maori dragons. Their iridescent bodies were longer than his and their tail darts more elaborate. Flying in formation with these huge scaly confederates was exhilarating.
Lord Te Kanewa put his troops through their paces, training them and pushing them to their limits. And deliberately displaying their well-trained ease in the air. Roland had hired himself a squadron of disciplined, battle hardened warriors and Te Kanewa was justly proud of his grandsons’ prowess.
For Roland, who had been reared amongst mortals, long days in the air had always been impossible. His father had permitted him and his cousins to go aloft only on moonless nights and never for long. Flying for hours made his dragon feel reborn and revitalized. He scarcely felt the tug of his abused chest muscles.
He had hoped to drive all thoughts of his distracted Kayla from his mind with this visit to Te Kanewa’s island, but he had not expected this intense training session. It was a surprise to awaken on the fourth day of his sojourn on Lord Te Kanewa’s island to realize it was already Wednesday and Kayla had had her defense the day before. His cell did not work in Te Kanewa’s stronghold. The crafty old chieftain ignored his attempts to discover why.
“I do not choose to bring the world to my children.” He dismissed Roland’s complaint. “The ways of mortals are not ours.”
Roland could only nod as if he understood. He was seated cross legged before his host outside Watatoni Te Kanewa’s house. He kept his face expressionless with a great effort.
“My grandsons are strong of mind and body. They are pure of heart and soul. They will be loyal to their deaths, my friend.” Watatoni’s piercing black eyes bored into Roland’s. “I am pleased,” he continued, “That your destined bride is found. She is a powerful, chaste virgin and will bear you many mighty sons.”
For one blissful instant Roland thought the old dragon lord referred to his Kayla. But his wishful, fragile bubble burst just as rapidly as it took form. Kayla Cooper was a modern woman of the twenty-first century. She had not been sitting around for a quarter century or more with her legs crossed — in case some desperate dragon turned up to seize her.
Lord Te Kanewa was finished speaking however. Roland bowed formally to his host and kept his counsel. “Your good wishes fill me with great joy,” he said respectfully. “My duty to my dynasty requires me to breed many firelings. A virgin bride is my greatest desire.”
He concealed his hope behind the stern lines of his noble face as the old dragon replied, “Your helicopter is ready, Roland Voros. Depart now, my young friend. And may your path to your beloved be straight and true.”
Which meant exactly what?
* * *
By the time Kayla got to the lab she had decided that she was going to put her lousy love life on the back burner and concentrate on the one thing that always went well for her — research. But the long narrow room where the live specimens were housed was chaos. Water ran on the concrete floor. Dave Foster and his buddy Curt Bree were wrestling with a long gray tub half filled with water and the air was thick with their swearing.
One look was all Kayla needed to realize that one of the tanks had cracked or malfunctioned. She joined the two men in wrestling the tub against the wall. The murky water seethed with six tiny, furious octopuses.
“Those guys won’t stay put in there,” she warned.
“I know,” said Dave gloomily. “This mess is their fault. One of them got out last night and opened Tank Four.”
“Oh no.” Her eyes were enormous in her pale face. “Tell me he didn’t eat them all.”
“I can lie if you want,” Curt Bree said sardonically.
“How did the tank get broken?” she asked.
“Little bugger got into the pump system and shorted it out. Explosion cracked a panel. We had a slow leak all night and came in to find these guys flopping around barely alive.” Dave sounded more awed than angry by his octopus’s feat.
“Do we have any spare sea water?” Kayla asked.
“What do you think these guys are in?” Curt said.
“Huh.” Kayla peered in at the gray and rather limp critters. “They look a touch sickly. What do you think, Dave? You’re the expert.”
“They’re stressed. But the little buggers are resilient.” He put his hand into the water and pointed to one of the six mollusks. “This is the culprit.” He stroked it gently with a forefinger and the animal playfully wrapped two tentacles around his digit. “We need to get them into fresh water and an oxygenated tank. Curt and I were going to take a look at the shorted pump and see if we could get it going.”
“Hmm.” Kayla squeezed her eyes closed and thought. “Let’s look in the storeroom. Remember when we got Tank Eleven replaced? I fixed the motor, and the pump was working fine, it was just not big enough for the new tank. It’s in the storeroom.”
Dave and Curt were already opening the door
to the shelved area.
“It’s on the bottom shelf at the back,” Kayla said coming behind with a dolly.
“Okay,” Dave said. “Let’s get this puppy on a bench. Fill it with tap water and test it out. Anyone see the lid?”
“Is this it?” Curt picked up a flat, hinged strip of metal.
“Yeah.” Dave and Kayla both nodded.
Curt put the lid inside the tank and helped lift the heavy glass and metal object onto the wheeled dolly. It took an hour before they had the aquarium working. The pump was moving sluggishly but emitting bubbles.
“Let’s get this chlorinated water out,” Dave said. “And fill her up with sea water.”
Kayla glanced at her watch. “We need to get permission to order a new tank, or get that pump replaced,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” Curt offered. “Dr. Whitcomb should be in his office by now.”
Kayla was already carrying buckets of water to the sink. “You know we will have to make a trip to the ocean to get more sea water,” she said. “The plastic tank has only got fifty gallons in it. Not enough to fill this one, and it’s pretty stale anyway.”
“I know. And I’ve used up all my quota,” Dave said gloomily.
“I didn’t touch mine this month,” Kayla said immediately. “I’ll go with you and we can harvest up to two hundred gallons, so long as we strain it through twenty-twenty gauge.”
“We’ll head out as soon as we’ve cleaned up in here. Jesus,” Dave looked around at the chaotic muddle of equipment and water. “Who’d have thought those little guys could make such a mess?”
Kayla chuckled. “You might want to make sure you put a couple of bricks on this lid to keep them in.”
“He got out by unlatching Tank Four,” Dave was as proud as any papa.
“But did you get it on video? No evidence, no fame.” Kayla chuckled as she hoisted another pail of water out of the tank.
“Don’t I wish. But no nanny cam. I deduced it from the fact that the clips were all undone and the lid was knocked askew.” He sighed. “This would have gone viral.”
“Yup.” Kayla got a smaller container and began to bail water into her pail. “This is why I prefer crabs. They just lie there and eat and sleep and eat their fellow prisoners. Octopuses are way too smart for captivity.”
Dave beamed. “They certainly are. They keep us on our toes for sure.” He mopped up the last of the tap water from the tank. “How are we going to do this?”
“Let’s start by adding buckets of water and then put your babies in and top up,” Kayla suggested. “Just pouring the sea water from pail to tank should add a little oxygen. Once we have enough to cover the pump we can turn it on.”
Curt came back with a mop and a bucket. “Whitcomb says you can go on the launch. You can use a hundred gallons of the lab quota. No specimens. Ten by ten gauge mesh.” He started to soak up the water. “And you gotta hustle. Launch leaves in forty-two minutes.”
They barely made it to the dock in time. Their fellow grad students Petra Mallet and Julie Martingale were waiting impatiently for them. “Come on, we have to make the tide,” Petra complained. “What’s all the fuss about.”
The other grad students were sympathetic about the crisis. But of course they still needed to get their hours of observation in. The launch puttered out to the reef. The sky was blue with small fluffy white clouds and the water was barely moving today. Kayla felt peace sink into her as it always did out on the ocean. She had grabbed her scuba gear and intended to make use of this unexpected opportunity to dive.
Collecting the sea water in the special holding tanks took only minutes. The only thing they had to do was make sure the filter was set to ten millimeters by ten which was narrow enough to filter out all but the smallest critters. The ones that got through would almost certainly be eaten by the lucky octopuses. But Kayla and Dave could not return to the dock until Petra and Julie had completed their dive.
The reef was a source of endless wonder to Kayla. With no pressure today to document her observations, she had an unusual opportunity just to play tourist and calm herself. She swam slowly around her favorite sections inspecting the pink and white anemones that grew on the corals. Tiny black and yellow fish darted in and out of the stinging tentacles of the animal flowers. The purplish kelp harbored a shoal of even smaller blue striped angelfish that hovered just out of reach of the cruising predatory fish and nibbled at the algae covered fronds.
By controlling her breathing and moving slowly, Kayla knew from long experience that she could stay underwater for a full ninety minutes. She had taken only her flashlight and the knife on her belt since she was neither collecting nor recording. But habits are hard to break, and she noted where corals had been broken, perhaps by souvenir hunters, and paid a visit to the little caves where her own giant spider crabs lurked between molts.
When Julie nudged her to remind her that her time was up, Kayla had been so entirely engrossed in her underwater paradise, that she had forgotten about everything but the fascinating world around her. But on the launch heading back to shore, she came abruptly back to the real world when she took out her cell.
It wasn’t that surprising that she had forgotten to turn it back on, and she had a cluster of texts to work through. The surprise was that three of them were from Roland. She smiled grimly. He was sounding increasingly frantic. Where was she, indeed? She wasn’t important enough for him to inform her of his location, but she was supposed to be sitting handily on her shelf for his convenience. The hell she was.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rongo Te Paka was flying the helicopter. Rongo was if anything broader and more muscular than his brother Waimarie. Even in his casual shirt and slacks he looked ferocious. Dancing and drilling on the beach he had been terrifying. Roland had a new appreciation for the fortitude and endurance of his bodyguards as he looked at the blue-black tattoos on the other man’s cheeks, and forearms. He now knew Rongo was tattooed from head to toe.
His single design burned as if it had been inscribed on his heart rather than his chest.
“Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, don’t it boss,” Rongo said into his headset.
Roland took his hand away from his shirt pocket where it was resting without permission. “Not at all.”
Rongo chuckled softly. “First one is the worst. I had a fever for three days. But the pain is worth it.”
“I am honored by your grandfather’s gift,” Roland said stiffly.
Rongo chuckled harder. “Your grandfather too,” he said with a swift sideways glance from his black eyes. He adjusted his controls with easy grace.
“What do you mean?” Roland demanded.
“My grandfather has adopted you. That’s what putting his sign on your chest means.” Rongo’s voice was patient but not servile. The Maoris sword bearers all possessed an imperturbable dignity no matter how lowly the duty they were performing.
“Lord Te Kanewa said nothing about adoption,” Roland said cautiously. “Are you sure?”
“You think he always spends three hours watching a tattoo ceremony? With every dragon over puberty present? Not so much. That was your adoption ceremony. Welcome to the family.”
“I wish I had realized how deeply I was being honored. I would have been more grateful.”
Rongo shook his head. “You did good. Stoic in the face of pain — remember even Grandfather knows how much it hurts — even though his tats are decades old. And your flying was not too bad. You’re now an honorary Maori warrior of the House of Te Kanewa, cousin.”
“So what was all that stuff about my destined bride?” Roland asked.
Rongo shrugged. “Who knows? Grandfather’s prophecies are always right. It’s just they’re like the Delphic oracles — you never truly understand them till they come true.”
* * *
In the shower room back at the dock, Kayla decided it would be cowardly to break things off with Roland in a text. She would meet with him and tell him face-to-face that
she wasn’t happy being treated like a convenience. Once she had agreed to meet him, she felt a surge of happiness that made her aware of how conflicted she really was.
She wanted that big hard-bodied man even if he blew hot and cold. When she was with him she felt safe and sexy and adored. But these long, unexplained absences and the fact that he had skipped her defense were bad signs. Letting a man treat her so casually wasn’t good. On the other hand, perhaps the fact that they were still at the hand holding, good-night kiss stage of their relationship meant that she was reading far too much into it. Or was she just making excuses for him?
She had no meaningful basis for comparison. She had only her impressions of the relationships she had observed from the sidelines. Her flat mates had all had multiple relationships before they left high school. They didn’t make a big thing out of having sex. Last year, Cindy had had at least three guys who occasionally shared her bed, before settling on her current boyfriend, Josh. And of the four of them, she was the only one who had been the tiniest bit shocked.
It came from being from a small town. Ara Ma sheep station wasn’t even in town, but New Trafalgar was not far away and the schools and clinic and post office were located there. Everybody knew everybody else’s business and if you had something to be ashamed of, you had a good chance of it being the topic of conversation at the diner. As Aunt Audrey always said, if you don’t want people to talk about it, don’t do it or say it.
Well, Kayla didn’t gossip. But she did judge. She thought Cindy was being heartless towards Alan Shepherd who was madly in love with her. Josh and Bram were players themselves but Alan was sweet and serious and he had been very hurt when Cindy had basically told him that he didn’t stack up in bed. Kayla didn’t know if that was even true. But what a thing to say! Back in New Trafalgar, Cindy was the one who would have looked like a bitch, but here in Auckland, Alan’s reputation had suffered. Clearly Kayla was completely out of step with city ways.
Dragon's Successor (BBW/Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 2) Page 6
