Page 24 of My Dragon Lovers

“You have no choice,” he said as he bore down on me, looming over me as inexorably as death itself. His hands were upon me and I couldn’t struggle against him as he shifted into a dragon again, his scaled hands encompassing my entire body rather than just my throat. I felt helpless and pathetic as I watched him change. Even this murderer, this madman could embrace the dragon within, and yet it was still something beyond my reach.

Perhaps I deserved to die.

Chapter Eighteen

Aidan

I almost choked as I dragged my body across the ground. I had braced myself against the full brunt of fiery breath from point blank range. The acrid smell of burning skin lingered in the air, and smoke continued to rise from my body. The scales had offered some measure of protection, but it had still been the worst pain I had ever endured, and the sheer blinding strength of it had left me reeling. The hue of my scales had completely been shadowed by the charred burn. I felt weak and sickly as I tried to right myself. There was a ringing in my ears and my legs swayed as I regained my balance. Brock was on the ground, his legs twitching, his eyes glazed over. The attack had been a blitz. We had been caught completely by surprise and humbled. I gritted my teeth and forced myself towards the edge of the cliff. There was still a faint cloud of dust hanging in the air, but it was not as thick as before. Below me there was a pit of rubble on the ground, and my heart broke as I thought of Kyra.

I stepped off the cliff and floated down to the rubble, using my claws and my snout to move it all away. I worked as fiercely and fastidiously as hungry boars searching for truffles, even though when I found her I knew that my world was going to end. The rocks shifted and scraped against each other, none of them offering the relief of finding her miraculously survived. There was no blood, no smears, nothing aside from the beige, blank rocks that had fallen and smashed into pieces.

I heard a roar above me. Brock had managed to pull himself to the edge of the cliff. He spread his mighty wings and soared down, landing beside me. We took the opportunity to shift back into humans, and immediately the pain became moreintense. I doubled over and held my flank, wincing at the sticky flesh that was yet to heal. There was a dark shadow around Brock’s neck, making it look as though he had been lynched.

“Well that was a fucking disaster,” he spat.

“I know. he came from nowhere. Before I could do anything he hit me with his breath.”

“I tried to get down to save her, but he pulled me back with his tail. The bastard is strong.”

I nodded and then exhaled deeply. “I don’t understand why he didn’t kill us though.”

“Or why he didn’t kill Kyra. From the look of it she’s not here, which means that either she flew away, or he took her away.”

I looked to the sky. “I hate myself for saying this, but I think only one of those options is likely.” I turned my head, embracing everything in the distance. I looked past the still lake and tried to find any blot on the horizon, anything that might have pointed to where the dragon had taken Kyra.

“You don’t think she could have shifted even when her life was in danger?”

“I think if she did then she would have done it sooner. I think he took her. Maybe he’s going to kill her there, or maybe he’s keeping her alive for some reason.”

“Either way, we have to find him. I’m not going to let him get away with this. He’s already killed too many. He’s only one dragon.”

“We should have been more prepared. We should have guarded her more carefully. I can’t believe we let this happen,” I said, kicking out at a rock, which only served to make sharp pain slam through my foot. I spat out a curse, but it still didn’t seem like a fitting punishment. Kyra had been taken because I had failed to protect her, and for that I should die.

“It’s not your fault,” Brock said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I tried to shrug it away, but he did not allow me to turn away from him. “Whoever did this had a plan. He struck quickly, and he took us out for long enough to take Kyra. If he had wanted a fair fight then we could have taken him, and we will take him out. We’ll find him. Maybe Lacey or one of the others knows who this dragon is, and if that’s the case then maybe they’ll know where we can find him. If he wanted to kill Kyra then he would have done so here, he wouldn’t have bothered to take her away. There’s a reason why he wants her alive, and that means we have time to save her,” he said.

His words were persuasive, and I hoped that he was right. But I had a terrible feeling that this was all going to end in tragedy. The dragons were supposed to be at peace, and yet we were still plagued by violence. Was there nothing that could end this tragedy?

*

We staggered back to the village with our heads hanging low, cloaked in shame. As soon as we landed, Lacey knew what had happened. It was evident that Kyra wasn’t with us.

“Where is the daughter of Ilvar?” she asked, an accusing glare coming our way. She couldn’t say anything to me that hadn’t already gone through my mind though. I felt as low as I had ever felt before.

“We were attacked,” I mumbled, and told her the whole sorry affair. “But we didn’t find Kyra’s body. We need to know who this dragon is,” I said, and described the sinuous body, the powerful tail, and the dark, coppery scales. A look of recognition came upon Lacey’s face. She turned to her bodyguard, Han.

“It’s Marr,” she said.

Brock and I gave her a quizzical look. Lacey sighed and placed her hand upon her forehead, massaging her temples. She wore a pained look and seemed to have aged a decade in a matterof a few seconds. “Not all of Ilvar’s soldiers died in the attack. Some of them managed to shield themselves and survived. There were not many, and most of those survivors realized that they had erred in their judgment and that Ilvar was wrong. They submitted themselves to the mercy of the thunder and agreed to obey whatever punishment was meted out to them. However, not all of them were like this. There was Marr, who believed that we should remain loyal to Ilvar and continue to carry out his wishes. He believed that the war was continuing, and that we should not give up after one battle was lost. He did not seem to understand that Ilvar had betrayed us all. He had spent so long worshiping Ilvar that he could not come to terms with the fact that Ilvar was less than perfect. So he got angry at us. He told us that we were frauds and traitors, and that we did not deserve to live here. He rose and he left, flying away, and we thought we would never see him again. He never darkened our village, nor did we have any encounters with him. We hoped he had found peace elsewhere. It seems as though he was just lurking and biding his time until Kyra came of age. I dread to think of how his mind has fractured in the intervening years. To kill his own kind like this… it is unfathomable.”

I glanced towards Aidan. “So what happens now?”

“We need to stop Marr. I don’t believe he will harm Kyra. She is the last piece of Ilvar that remains in the world, and she has become his new object of worship. Whatever plan he has, he will want her to be a part of it. I will have to speak to Kadie. We must work together on this. United, we will be able to stop Marr before he can do anything reckless.”

I thought that he had already done this, but I nodded anyway. She left and as soon as we were alone, I turned to Brock.

“We can’t wait for her to speak to Mom. We have to take action now,” I said.

“But how are we going to find him?” Brock asked.

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