He followed her as she continued her exploration of the egg. His face was soft, approval and admiration for her shining in his eyes. “I won’t. Wyvern council will. The matriarchs always name the offspring. Only then are they recognized as members of the wyvern tribe.”
Hearing Alaric’s explanation of wyvern culture made her pause. She stared at him, seeing a tall, broad-shouldered man, finely made with a sublime face any human female would admire. Yet it was only an illusion—one that went deep to blood and bone, but still an illusion worked by powerful magic. Yet the heart and the spirit were the same, and it was these with whom she fell in love.
“Did the matriarchs name you as well?” she asked.
He gave her a formal bow, as if she were royalty. “I am Alaric, out of Goetia, by Caratacus.”
Elsbeth laughed and curtsied in return. “And your name means kingly.”
“Yes.”
“How very fitting.” She reached out, gliding her hand just over the egg as he’d done, noting the heat pulsing off its surface. “May I touch her?”
He pulled her hand away. “It’s too hot. You’ll burn yourself. And it will get even hotter in a few moments. Would you like to see me warm the egg?”
“Yes, I would,” she said, delighted and curious as to how he would do it.
Alaric hesitated. “I will be wyvern again, Beth.” There was something poignant about his uncertainty, as if he still found it hard to believe she accepted his shape-shifting so easily.
She shrugged. “You never stopped being wyvern, Alaric.” She eyed him with a scowl. “You have little faith in me. How is it that you, a wyvern, can love a human woman and yet doubt this same woman can love the wyvern in return?”
His arms encircled her, pulling her close. Elsbeth rested her hands on his shoulders and tilted her head back. “I prefer this form because I can embrace you, love you, and make love with you,” she said. “However, if I could turn wyvern myself for you I would. But I have no magic. So you only get this puny human.”
She pulled him down to her then, opening his mouth with her lips and sliding her tongue inside for a brief caress. He groaned at her touch, fingers massaging the muscles in her back.
“It is all I want,” he said against her lips. “You are all I want.”
They kissed again, and he filled her mouth with his tongue, stroking, sucking, imitating with leisurely thrusts what he would do to her when they returned to his lair. Elsbeth opened to him, wrapped her legs around his waist when he cupped her bottom and hoisted her higher against him. She rubbed against his cock, swollen and straining against his trousers. She wanted him again, craved the feel of him inside her, inside her mouth, the hot slide of his seed trickling down her thighs or pulsing against her throat in a salty stream.
“Mine,” he murmured against her throat and gently suckled the skin there.
Elsbeth moaned. She tilted her head back to encourage more of his nibbling and caught sight of the wyvern egg in the corner of her eye. “Alaric,” she whispered, brought back to earth.
“Hmmm?” Alaric dipped his tongue into the hollow of her throat.
“The egg, remember? You’re supposed to warm it.”
He halted his worship of her skin abruptly and lowered her to the ground. Elsbeth clutched him for a moment, trying to steady legs gone more wobbly than an old loom. “You are a dangerous distraction,” he said, his expression caught between a frown and a smile.
“And you are no less guilty of that than I am.”
He bowed once more before nudging her toward a large boulder at one side of the cavern. “Stand there. It’s protected.”
“Against what?”
“A very large fire.”
He stripped where he stood and gave her his clothing for safekeeping. As when he’d first revealed himself to her, Alaric invoked a silent magic, shape-shifting from man to wyvern. The cavern, with its canopy of stars, burst into movement as frightened birds took flight and circled the opening, protesting the wyvern’s presence with loud whistles and chirps.
Alaric arched one of the bony ridges above his eyes and favored Elsbeth with one of his odd smiles. “I’m not so welcomed here in this shape.”
Elsbeth watched as the displaced aviary settled slowly back to Maldoza, perching along the cave’s spired top. “If they only knew they are in more danger of me shooting and eating them than of you feasting on them.”
A huff of laughter was his response. “Indeed. I haven’t much use or appetite for something no bigger than a fly is to you.”
He approached the cave housing the nest, and she marveled at the grace of a creature so massive. Alaric checked to make certain she was still safely behind the rock. Satisfied with her position, he faced the cave, took a deep breath and blew hard.
“Gods’ mercy!” Elsbeth yelped as scarlet and orange fire jettisoned from Alaric’s mouth, and smoke flumed from his nostrils. Her first instinct was to scream for him to stop, that he’d literally cook his own offspring. Then she remembered a comment he’d made about wyverns. Only the male’s fire was hot enough to keep the egg warm.
He blew on it twice more, sending back drafts of scorching air into the main cavern. Elsbeth huddled behind the rock, grateful for the shelter and happy not to have her eyebrows singed off.
When he finished, his chest heaved like great bellows, and residual smoke poured from his snout and mouth. His voice, smooth and resonant, was now hoarse. “That will be enough for another day or two.” He arched his long neck, peering at her from his far height. “Are you well, Beth?”
She crept from behind the rock, clutching his clothes. “I’m fine.” She shook her head. “What madness makes men challenge creatures like you? We stand no chance against you in a fight.”
Alaric shrugged his wings and recited the spell that changed him to human form. Elsbeth wordlessly handed him his trousers.
“It is because you fight us that you lose.” He slid the trousers over his legs, pausing to leer at her as she watched him dress. “There is a recent legend amongst both dragon and wyvern kind of a dragon who took a human woman, a singer renowned among her people for her wondrous voice, as his favorite. He was killed in a territorial battle by a rival—a firedrake even larger than the greatest wyvern. In revenge, the dragon’s human lover seduced the drake with song and slew him in his sleep. We call her Irenya Firekiller.”
Elsbeth almost forgot to hand him his shirt. “What was her name?”
He pried it out of her fingers. His voice was muffled as he pulled the shirt over his head. “Irenya. She’d be an old woman now. The knights who came here to challenge me might have learned a thing or two from her on how to battle a dragon—or wyvern—and win.”
“I know a little about dragons.”
Irena’s face, care-worn and etched by the numerous lines of more than sixty years of living, rose in her mind’s eye. Elsbeth had thought her statement strange, but hadn’t dwelled on it, too caught up in the heat of her own crisis. Now, when she thought back on it, the elder had said that with a secretive smile and a distant sorrow in her gaze. Was Irena the Elder also the Irenya Firekiller dragon kind spoke of with admiration?
“Beth?” Alaric’s still hoarse voice interrupted her musings. He was fully dressed and shod. He held a hand out to her. “Are you ready? We should leave. It’s late.”
She gripped his hand and let him lead her past the nesting cave. They halted briefly so she could take another look at the egg. The cave was too hot to enter now, and the egg glowed like an enormous sapphire on its bed of heated rock. “May we come back tomorrow so I can see her?”
His gray eyes lit with a combination of delight and desire. “If you wish.”
They picked their way across the rock floor to the tunnel leading back to Alaric’s lair. Behind them, the cavern darkened until all that remained was a crimson patch of smoldering rock nestled in a cleft of cliff wall and the rush of wings as birds returned to their nests.
They made love twice, and Els
beth was reminded of her two days with Alaric in Ney. There had been an aura of desperation cast over their time, and it was here again. She didn’t fall asleep until very late and stirred restlessly on their pallet.
She awakened in the blinding dark, struggling to breathe as a strong arm slowly crushed the air out of her. Alaric twitched in his sleep next to her, muttering incoherent words until he said, “Not yet, Beth. Not yet.” He squeezed her harder.
“Alaric,” she wheezed, praying he’d awaken before he suffocated her.
His stranglehold loosened immediately. “Beth?” His voice, sleepy and confused, tickled her ear.
Elsbeth stroked his arm, troubled by his murmurs and the frantic clutching of his embrace. “You were dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
He didn’t protest, only tucked her more closely against him and slid into a restful slumber. When she next woke, he was already up and dressed. A small fire burned in one corner, and he tended a makeshift spit holding a roasted fowl.
“The birds are not as safe from me as you thought,” he said with a smile. Fat drippings from the roasting bird popped and sizzled in the fire. “There’s warm water for a quick bath there.” He pointed to a tall ewer made of beaten gold, encrusted with sapphires next to an equally priceless bowl. “After breakfast I’ll take you back to the cavern.”
She hastened to bathe, dress and eat, eager to see the egg once more. They returned to the open-air chamber. An early morning mist hung in the air, shrouding the crevices and ledges in a damp, white veil. Elsbeth made her way to the nesting cave and peeked inside.
“You can go in. It’s cool enough now.” Alaric gave her a quick nod of encouragement.
The outer cavern was cold, but inside the nesting cave she was warm enough to remove her heavy outer tunic and drape it over her arm. The egg had returned to its beryl shade. Elsbeth circled it slowly, occasionally holding her hand out over the surface to feel its warmth. A mark, different from the brown specks mottling the shell, caught her eye. She crouched near the nest of rocks for a better look.
“Alaric,” she said from her place near the egg’s tip. “Come look at this. There are two small cracks here.”
She barely had the words out before he was in the cave beside her. Unlike her, he didn’t hesitate to put his hand on the shell, nor did his palm burn from the contact. The illusion of a man, she thought. The dichotomy was brought home to her many times in small ways.
Alaric rose and made a thorough inspection, pointing out three more cracks. “She’ll hatch very soon. Maybe tonight.”
He didn’t look happy about it. His face had taken on a bleak cast. Unease trickled down her back in a thin stream. The egg. Something was wrong with the egg.
“What is it?” she asked.
He gazed at her, eyes gone dark. “Beth, you can’t come back here now, not even with my protection.”
“Why not?”
He ran a caressing hand over the shell. “When wyvern young first hatch, they are sharp-eyed, fast and ravenous. Adults won’t eat humans, but our young know no better. She’ll smell your blood and see you only as prey. I can fend her off, but she’ll only need one chance at you. And you’ll die. I’ll not risk it.”
Unease turned to disappointment. Elsbeth was drawn to the egg. It was life in the making, and this was Alaric’s child. Still, she had no wish to be someone’s first meal. If he felt it no longer safe, she’d do as he asked and stay away from the cavern. But his grave expression puzzled her.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Suddenly taciturn, he took her hand and kissed it. “Time to go,” he said. “We must return to my cave.”
“Alaric.”
“My cave, Beth.”
Elsbeth didn’t argue. They made the short journey back to his lair in silence. A good thing, as she didn’t think she could talk around the hard knot that had suddenly lodged in her throat.
She almost yelped in surprise when, reaching his lair, Alaric halted abruptly and pulled her into his arms. Taken aback by his quick actions, she didn’t immediately return his hard kiss. Like his sleeping embrace of the night before, the kiss tasted of desperation, of melancholy, of farewell. Her stomach twisted, even as she returned his ardor with her own.
He buried one hand in her hair and used the other to strip her of her tunic and trousers. He took her against the wall, with her legs around his waist and his hands cupping her bottom. He’d given her only enough time to steady herself and stumble to their pallet before he took her again.
Afterward, Elsbeth stroked his damp hair and took in her surroundings. The lair, with its soft light and the familiar scatter of her supplies and his treasure, had quickly become a second home to her. Some would be aghast at such a thought. Some would think her daft—Elsbeth Weaver, happy in the depths of haunted Maldoza with only a savage wyvern for company.
She instinctively knew what Alaric was about to tell her. Knew it in her bones and blood. The part of her worried about Angus sighed in relief. But the greater part mourned. Their time was over.
His breath cascaded over her breasts. He kissed a gentle curve and spoke against her skin. “I release you from your bargain.” She said nothing, and he raised his head to look at her. “The egg will hatch, and these cliffs will be too dangerous for you to inhabit, even if I keep her confined to the cavern.” He rose on his elbows, leaning over her so that he might see her better. His handsome face was sharp with a silent grief. “And your grandfather needs you, Beth. Almost as much as I do, but my time is not so limited.”
Truth and necessity made for pitiless companions. They demanded much and offered little in return. Elsbeth wanted to return to Angus, had fretted over her time away from him, wondering if he still lived or if Irena had overseen his burial in the village cemetery. Still, she didn’t want this too-brief time with Alaric to end. A life of loneliness and the lingering pain of missing him, was something she’d grown accustomed to over the years. No more. It would be so much harder a second time.
Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. “Fate and family separate us once more.”
Alaric kissed each tear as it fell. “You cannot stay.”
“And you cannot leave.”
The irony of those words, repeated eight years later, wasn’t lost on her.
“Merciful or not, the gods have a poor humor.” Alaric’s feeble smile only emphasized the spark of anger kindled in his eyes. “I’ll take my young to her dam in a few days.” He gripped her shoulders with hard hands. “Wait for me. I will return. Don’t leave Byderside, Beth. I’ll search the world for you this time, but I’d rather find you safe in your village.”
His insistence eased her aching heart. His promise pushed back the emptiness blossoming within her. She even teased him a little. “What if you choose to stay with your female wyvern?”
Alaric laughed, a touch of real amusement in the sound. “Then I best prepare for a bloody brawl. Damoshin is a fierce female, unwilling to share her lands. She’d challenge me if I dared stay more than an hour or so after returning our offspring to her.” He kissed her lightly. “Remember, we do not bond with each other in that way.”
Elsbeth ran her finger down his nose, stroked the curve of his cheekbone and the softness of his beard. “I’ll wait, but confess I’m afraid. I want more than another near decade of empty years, Alaric.”
He captured her hand and pressed it to his cheek. His voice was fierce, determined when he answered her. “Then you fear for nothing. I came back for you once. I’ll not lose you again.”
“If Angus were not so ill and your little one not so perilous, I’d insist you let me stay.”
“There’d be no insisting, Beth. I wouldn’t let you leave.”
They didn’t speak again, save for murmurs of encouragement and pleasure as Alaric took her again, this time leisurely. Afterward, they bathed each other with the tepid water remaining in the ewer. Elsbeth ran her cloth over Alaric’s body with the reverence of a votary. She savor
ed the feel of him, the curve of each muscle, the smoothness of his bronzed skin. Committed them to memory in case he did not return, and she had nothing more than an image that would inevitably dim with age.
He helped her pack and dress in that same silence, as if by not speaking, time would slow and give them a few more hours together. Elsbeth was the one to break it first. She shouldered her pack. “I’m ready.”
Alaric gave her a grim smile. “Then that makes one of us.” He embraced her, heedless of the cumbersome pack. “I will fly you to the farmer’s land, the one near Maldoza’s base.”
Elsbeth was tempted. Anything to prolong her time with him. But his obligations were as important as hers. Someone depended on him as well. “No. You need to be near your daughter. I’ve walked the cliffs twice now. I’ll be fine.” She stared at him, swallowing hard to hold back tears. “I love you. Be safe.”
Alaric crushed her to him, kissed her as if he would draw her soul from her body and hoard it as he did his treasure. When they came up for air, his gray eyes were turbulent. The flush of passion graced his cheekbones. “Keep faith, Beth,” he commanded in an unyielding voice. “Nothing will stop me from returning to you this time. Do you understand? Nothing.”
She almost fell off the cliffs twice. The tears she’d held at bay when saying goodbye to Alaric refused to be squelched any longer. He’d promised to return, and she believed him, but it didn’t make their parting any easier. Elsbeth smeared the tears on her cheek and admonished herself. “Foolish watering pot. No better than Annais Smith who cries over a broken fingernail.”
Her self-reproach did the trick, and the tears dried. She smiled. Annais might be the silliest, most empty-headed twit in all of Byder county, but she at least had the sense to watch where she was going. Elsbeth slowed her descent down the main cliff path.
The sun approached its midday position, and the heat was stifling, relieved only by a slightly cooler breeze from the north. Elsbeth paused to enjoy its touch. Suddenly, she heard voices, familiar ones carried on the same breeze. She searched for a place to hide and spotted a cleft in the rocks, one that offered an overhang by which she could view her fellow travelers without being seen.