She’d read about the dragons and what their colors meant. Everyone had. The more colors, the higher up the chain the dragon was in terms of intellectual ability. This all green one was pretty non-talkative. Although it roared a lot. She had no idea what it said. Although, he and she thought it was a he from the way it had lifted his leg to pee, understood her perfectly well.
And who was she to judge? She couldn’t speak or understand dragon. It seemed the dragons could make better sense of them than they could of the dragons.
“So, I don’t know exactly what to make of you.” She shook her head. “I know you don’t hurt my head like the other one did. I’m making a mental note of this. If I had a notebook I’d write about you. Colored dragons hurt my head more.”
He stared at her and she back at him. “What are you doing this far inland?”
The dragon roared again.
Gods, she had to give it a name. Something for her to think of other than the dragon or the green one. “Well, it’s a beautiful day out here and there’s a slight wind in the air. So, I’m going to call your Breezy. How about that? Might be a little girlie only it’s not like you can object.”
Breezy didn’t move, not that she’d expected him to. She’d told him to stay.
“Dougal would want me to kill you. He’d think you were a risk to me. I imagine he’s probably right.” She sighed. “Maybe I can learn some things about you first. So let’s start with some things no one gets to do to you creatures while you’re alive.” She stepped toward it. Even though she knew Breezy wasn’t going to move, her hands still shook. A lifetime of being afraid didn’t stop in a moment.
“Like for example, how many beats per minute your heart goes.” Be specific, Dougal had warned her the last time. “You aren’t going to do anything to harm, hurt of kill me when I check you out. Not anything.”
Her head itched. She’d come to associate the feeling with the dragon understanding her. Good. Maybe she’d live through this foolishness.
“Here we go Breezy.”
****
She needed more food. If she was going to continue to keep the dragon for experiments, she had to keep feeding it. Two months and she finally felt she might be getting a hold of what made Breezy tick. Four months into her pregnancy, exactly as long since she’d seen Dougal.
Caitlyn kept her head lowered and her hair tucked away as she tried to barter with the store owner for enough food. Her father’s gold watch, the one thing she’d managed to keep her younger addicted sister from stealing would have to feed her, and Breezy, for a month.
The few bits of bread, meat—she didn’t ask what kind—cheese, milk and canned vegetables she got would have to do. If she got really hungry, she’d either fish or shift and hunt game. She wouldn’t starve or risk the baby. Her hand went to her stomach. The baby had moved. Sometimes the little pup fluttered around so much she wondered if it was trying to communicate. Tell her something.
Breezy had started nudging the small mound which was her stomach. Caitlyn had started to wonder if the dragon knew about pregnancy. It would be weird if he did. Dragons laid eggs. They didn’t keep them in their bodies to grow them.
Another something for her to ponder at night when she lay on her makeshift bed on the floor and wondered what the fuck she was doing.
Dougal didn’t know she was pregnant. Would he have sent her away still, if he’d known? She had to face the facts soon, she couldn’t do this alone.
The urge to shift was on her hard. Pregnancy could be damaged by the shift of the mother. Kind of a ha-ha by mother-nature. Almost a year of not being able to change. Pack helped to quiet the Female’s sudden cravings to walk on four legs. So far she’d been maintaining with lots of deep breathing and obsessing over Breezy.
It was time to let the dragon go.
“Real shame, isn’t it, ma’am? I don’t know what any of us are going to do.” The old man who owned the store sniffed loudly. Male Werewolves almost never cried and she certainly wouldn’t categorize what this one was doing as outright weeping. But, he’d certainly gotten worked up. She could smell his sadness.
Keeping the burned side of her face hidden from view as best she could using the hoodie, she addressed the older Male.
“I’m sorry?”
“Surely you’ve heard. About what happened?” He stared right at her only she had the feeling he didn’t really see her. His eyes were glazed over and she wondered about whether or not he’d been sleeping.
“I’m afraid not.” He touched her hand. “Are you okay?”
“None of us are going to be okay. Not since the front line fell.” His voice hitched.
“Since the what?” She stumbled back a few steps.
He showed her the newspaper. Television had long since stopped broadcasting. Paper news was slow; however, it was all they had.
“Last week, the dragons surged.” He pounded on the paper with his pointer finger like he could force her to see what was written there. She grasped his hand harder to make him stop. No way could she read the story as it shook in his hand.
Finally, the story came into focus. Front line falls.
She grabbed for her stomach as the baby moved violently. Years of doing research had taught her how to digest lots of information very quickly. The dragons had surged and the wolves, after a gallant fight, had fallen. Many had been taken prisoner but how many and who? No one knew the exact number or names.
Caitlyn cried out and dropped the paper. Dougal, are you dead?
Had the universe already taken him from her and not given her some kind of sign? Why hadn’t the sky turned purple or the ground shifted beneath her feet. Tears streamed the length of her face and she wiped them away.
“We’re all doomed.” The man shook his head. “The dragons will all be coming.”
“Thank you for the trade.” She couldn’t seem to get any other words out. With her hands shaking, she grabbed her stuff and made her way outside. It was a four-mile walk back to her fishing shack.
She’d brought an old wheelbarrow to cart the supplies she’d traded for. Each step felt like a mile, every minute an hour. By the time she got home, she sweated and shook. She’d spent all her energy and collapsed on the ground outside of the house.
Breezy made a moaning sound and trotted over to her. He opened his mouth and for a moment she believed he was going to bite her, chomp on her until he tore her to shreds.
She cried out only it wasn’t his teeth which made contact with her skin but his tongue. He licked the side of her cheek, drinking in her tears.
Caitlyn laughed. What else was she supposed to do? “Do you like the salt?”
Dougal’s absence pounded on her head. They had two days together and she would have to live with forty-eight hours to sustain her.
She rubbed her belly. “I guess I’m not allowed to fall apart.”
Still, knowing she couldn’t didn’t seem to stop her from doing so. Caitlyn gave in to the need and pressed her head on the ground. With total abandon, and no one around to see her except Breezy, she cried. She wept for a lifetime of pain and the sheer unfairness because she found her mate and lost him so fast.
He would have loved her. She knew it. Everything had been too fast. Yet, given their brief time together, she believed Dougal would have adored her every day of his life. And he would have loved the surprise, which maybe shouldn’t have been such a surprise, they’d made together.
She stood. Breezy stared at the sky and she let herself stare at the clouds with him.
“Someone has to be punished for this.”
He stared at her and, for a change, she knew what he thought. Was she going to harm him?
“Dougal would want me to kill you. You’re a risk, not only to me. Also to the one I’m growing, too.”
Silence held a sound. Caitlyn had been left alone so long with her own thoughts she could recognize the buzzing in the wind, the way her breathe came in and out of her lungs. “Here’s the thing. I’m not going to
punish you for what happened. I’m going to let you go. I release you, Breezy.” She pointed to the food. “Have anything you want and be on your way. It won’t matter if you tell anyone about me. I’m not going to be here when you get back.”
Everyone had talents. Hers was going to be to burn eggs.
Chapter Nine
Dougal shivered in the dark. How many times had they hurt him and then thrown him back into his small cell? He could shift to ease the pain but, really, what was the point? The sooner he recovered, the faster he’d be dragged out again. Why make it any easier on the Dragon Queen bitch?
He’d never seen a dragon like her before. She was taller than the others by at least a foot. At his full height, Dougal had to strain his neck to look at her. She was multicolored, like a purple sunset, her huge eyes filled with intellect.
Right then, at least as far as her interest in him went, she wanted to know the location of his mate. Well, she could keep fucking wondering, because he didn’t know. The best advice he’d given her was to go where he had to find her the same as everyone else. Caitlyn could be lodged right outside the door to the prison, and he wouldn’t fucking know.
They could ask all they wanted. He didn’t have an answer to give them.
His mind shifted, the way it seemed to do when he was enduring the healing from the torture. Caitlyn. He had so few memories to draw upon. Yet, he thought he could spend a lifetime remembering them over and over again. He’d never get bored.
She’d hummed when she’d been drugged. What was the song? He tried to remember the exact sound, the way she’d sounded when she’d laid in his arms.
The dragons busted in through the door. He looked toward them. His eyes weren’t working perfectly, another side effect of not having healed entirely from being beaten. Not that he cared, he’d probably rather not see what was about to be done to him. At least he had eyes to see. Most of his fellow Werewolves, the Males he had served with for sixteen years, were dead.
Slaughtered. Chewed. Burned to a crisp.
Brett, who he had shoved into a fire right before the lizards showed, had been among the perished. One of the first. Probably the fact he’d been so weakened by the flames and drunk off his ass had made his death easier on the dragons. Dougal couldn’t bring himself to feel too badly for Brett.
He’d lay money on the families of the drug addicted Werewolves not caring too much about Brett’s death either.
“Back for more already?”
One of the dragon guards, the one he thought of as Blue because of the color on his wings, dragged him out. “Oh, we’re going for a run. Good, I’m so glad. I’ve been feeling a little cooped up.”
The dragon dumped him on the floor in what he thought of as the Queen’s room. Why dragons needed housing he didn’t understand. Still, the place resembled some kind of palace. How and when they had built it was a mystery he was probably not going to solve. The Queen wasn’t interested in chatting with him, other than her incessant battering about Caitlyn’s location.
Dougal stared at the sunset Queen. Did Dragons have names? He had no idea. Colors would have to serve.
“Hello again.”
The Queen hissed, gliding over the floor in a serpentine fashion. Slithering like the lizard she was.
“We’ve found her.”
Dougal tried to steel his expression. Dragons lied. They did so all the time. Face peace accords, talks of peace to simply kill the negotiators. If they had Caitlyn, they’d have her out for display before they killed them both.
Caitlyn was fine.
“Is that so?” He made a big show of looking around the room. “I don’t see her.”
“I didn’t say I had her here. Don’t be obnoxious, Wolf. You’re lady love has kept one of my scouts with her for months. Somehow, she managed to do more than temporarily bespell him to do what she wanted. Instead, she managed to convince him we shouldn’t hurt her. I had to torture her location out of him. Not to worry, he’s dead. He won’t be filling anyone’s head with his nonsense.”
“Because I was terribly worried.” He rolled his eyes. Caitlyn had befriended and kept a dragon?
“She seems to have run off in the time it took him to get home. We will find her. We have a path, an idea of where to look.” The dragon hissed loudly. “I will not allow any of the abominations who can control us to live. I will not allow them to get to us.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” He waved his hand in the air. “I’ve been listening to this for weeks. Some of the Werewolves can make you do what you don’t want to do. You don’t know why. It’s like nature’s trick on you. Or maybe a way to keep things balanced. You’re hand’s down better at battle. We happen to have a few outstanding individuals who can make you roll over and beg.”
“You know what? I think we need to find a better way to motivate you to tell us where she might have gone.”
“If I knew, and I don’t, there’s no possible way you could get me to tell you. Burn me. Beat me. Torture me for the next fifty years. I’ll die before I let you know.”
“Interesting. You certainly do bluster, I’ll give you that.” The queen said something in dragon he couldn’t understand. It sounded like gurgles and growls. “The dragon who I had to kill did give me one piece of information, you might be interested in. I’m afraid it’s upped the ante on your mate.”
“I couldn’t be less interested in anything you have to tell me.” He looked out the window. “Oh, is it afternoon? Tea time? How about a cookie?”
“Act blasé, Werewolf. When I kill Caitlyn, I’ll be killing your baby too.”
“I don’t have a baby. Check your intel.”
The dragon bent over, extending her long tongue until it poked him in the gut. “The one she’s carrying around in her belly. Making her bigger by the day.”
His heart fell into his stomach. What? He tried to keep himself steeled only he could feel his body start to vibrate. Was it possible? They’d taken no steps to prevent conception. The thought hadn’t dawned on him. Gods.
Baby?
“And like I said. You need motivation. I’ll tell you what? You tell me where she would have gone, and I’ll let her live long enough to produce your offspring.”
“Sorry, not interested.”
“I bet I can make you interested.” The dragon hauled him to his feet. “One body part at a time.”
****
One digit every week and today they had finally taken his hand. Dougal shook on the floor of his cell. He had no choice. Each time they did it, he had to shift to stop the bleeding. Otherwise he would die.
The change didn’t regrow the limb, it never would. What would the medics have called what was happening to him? Shock. Yes, he was fairly certain he was going into whatever shock was.
Things felt distant, far away. He hit the ground with his one and only hand to wake himself. Anger was good, it kept him alive.
Dougal rolled over onto his back. He took deep breaths. No more. Gods, be damned. He wouldn’t exist like this anymore.
Five weeks of losing his body piece by piece. Next week he would start to lose the fingers on the other hand. At this point, he really didn’t think they expected him to tell them anything. The Queen was getting off on the pain she inflicted.
He really had no other choices left. They pushed him his food through a hole once a day. There would be no chance then. When they came to grab him, to take him for his weekly pain, he would either escape or he’d die trying.
Staying alive might have bought Caitlyn some time. Or maybe he’d fooled himself into thinking he’d done any good holding out as long as he had. Keeping the Queen distracted by him...
He stared at the stump where his hand had once been. One last stand before the long goodnight. Pain wrecked his body and he closed his eyes. Stoic Dougal. He wouldn’t let them see him cry out. One more week. That was all it would take.
****
Caitlyn rapped on the door of her childhood home. Funny, since it was no longer her
parents’ home, but Devon and Lena’s, she wasn’t going to go storming through the door like she owned the place. Besides, she wasn’t certain they still lived there. A huge amount of the population had run off.
Who could blame them? The dragon raids destroyed homes, businesses, and ended lives every day. They moved more and more inland. Caitlyn gritted her teeth. There was no point. The further the Wolves ran, the easier they made it on the dragons to find them. With no front line by the sea, the dragons could go anywhere.
The door swung open with a bang. Her younger sister, Lena, the baby stood in front of her. No longer a baby. A grown, mated woman in her twenties.
Lena stared at her, eyes wide. “Caitlyn?” Her sister looked her over. “You’re pregnant.”
“I am.” And she needed to get off the street. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” Lena let her through the door and then pulled her into a hug. She’d been sixteen, Lean four, when they’d last lived together. Caitlyn had been pursuing her own dreams—trying to figure out how to live in a world which disdained her—when Lena had been growing to adulthood.
Her baby sister had become a beautiful woman. She had the Knox look. Blonde, blue-eyed and perfectly pert features which were not too big or too small for her face. Lovely, and it seemed from the times they been together recently, kind and strong at the same time. She’d held their parents together during their father’s Decline.
Caitlyn hadn’t been there enough. And here she was needing a favor.
Lena pulled back. Lena put her hand on Caitlyn’s stomach. “Who did this to you?”
“My mate.”
“Your what?”
“Lena.” Devon stood at the top of the stares. She turned at the sound of his voice. He shared Dougal’s deep baritone. “Is that Caitlyn I scented?”
“It’s me,” she called to him.
Devon walked slowly down the stairs, his eyes narrowing. “Who did that to you? Is he still in the vicinity? Or did he run off? Doesn’t matter, I’ll kill him.”
“It might be really difficult for you to kill your own brother.”