Page 59 of Dragons' Future

“I’m so sorry for this,” I say as I straddle Hauck’s leg, putting all my weight on his knee, which makes Hauck scream anew. Gathering all my love, I send it toward him through the bond. He calms, his glazed eyes meeting mine. “This will hurt, and you have to let me do it anyway,” I tell him as I grip the spike in my hands and pull it free with excruciating slow precision.

Hauck’s back arches in agony, but he never breaks eye contact with me. And he barely moves his leg at all as I start to pull the barbed lance from his thigh. I’ve no notion how he is holding still through the pain, but I’m certain he is doing it for me. To make certain that the venomous quill doesn’t accidently break in my hands.

I throw the spike across the room the moment it's free, and Hauck collapses onto the marble floor. Sweat covers his skin and his breath is ragged. Labored. I wish I could let him rest, but I can’t.

“Hauck. Look at me, please.”

He blinks his glassy eyes open and forces a smile. “Hey there turnip.”

I take his face between my hands. “Listen to me. We need to kill the priests. Will plants answer your call at a distance?”

“We should stab the priests,” Hauck muses, his eyes losing focus. He makes a stabbing motion with his hand, which looks more lewd than violent. An unfocused smile spreads over his lips. “Or just stab.”

“Get your head out of the bedroom for a bloody moment,” I tell him. “Remember what you said, that you are here if anyone needs a tree grown? Well, we need that tree now. Do you understand?” I sigh when he fails to respond and try again. “Hauck. Can you control plants outside the barrier dome?”

Hauck’s gaze narrows on my breasts. “My bedroom is outside the dome. You make me think of my bedroom. Of my bed.”

“Hauck. Focus. Please.”

“I see you on my bed,” he slurs. “So naked. So hot. Hot like your fire. Like what's between your thighs.”

“His magic won’t reach beyond the dome,” Cyril calls back to me. He is splitting his attention between three different opponents, his magic and sword moving in a deadly dance. “None of ours will.”

I squeeze my hand into a fist as I stare down at Hauck laid out and raving on the marble floor. Maybe the best I can do now is protect him. For however long we can hold the line.

Hauck hits my hand with his arm, his fingers no longer moving in enough coordination to grab me. “My bedroom,” he says, making an effort to enunciate the word. “Need my bedroom.”

“Yes, we will meet in your bedroom,” I tell him gently.

He shakes his head in violent jerks, and I can feel the toll it takes on him to keep his focus. “My bedroom,” he repeats. “Below.” Hauck puts extra effort into the words. “Below.” His hand beats the floor determinedly.

I no longer think it's the venom talking.

“Your bedroom,” I repeat back to him. “Your bedroom is below?”

A nod.

“Below. Your bedroom is below us. Below the dome,” I say, working out the details. “The dome shield has no floor.” It suddenly hits me what Hauck is trying to do. I’d asked Hauck to grow a tree, but for that he needs to connect to a sapling first. He can’t go through the dome to reach any vegetation… but he can go through the floor. Grabbing Hauck’s palms, I flatten them out on the marble for him.

Hauck closes his eyes and I feel the magic rising inside him. All that earth magic that we thought had little use in this battle. The power Hauck still has inside him.

There is a scream but for once it's on the other side of the shield. I swivel around to see thick vines erupting from between the marble tiles, upsetting the floor entirely. The vines are bright and pretty, with purple ringed spikes and tiny, blindingly vivid yellow flowers. Nothing in nature picks colors like that without a reason.

“They are venomous, aren't they?” I ask, as the tendrils rush over the floor and snare the priests’ ankles.

The first of the thorns pierces a priest’s skin. The man’s lips swell immediately, his tongue suddenly too big for his mouth. His eyes widen and, a moment later, he is no longer chanting. Or waving spells. No, he is doing nothing but clawing at his neck now, his face turning an increasingly deadly shade of red.

“Vipervinea Noctis.” Hauck pants, his eyes losing focus. “My vines. Pet vines. In my bedroom.”

I squeeze his arm, trying to keep him with me. Another voice drops off chanting. A third. We are almost there. “You have pet vines?”

“Pretty vines,” Hauck whispers. “I hoard pretty things. I want to hoard you. I will take you for my hoard.”

The air around us shifts palpably as the magical barrier, sustained by the priests' incantations, falls away. Hauck loses consciousness.

The creatures shift around, sensing more air and space and food. Another two spinecrawlers and a hog like thing have gotten through while I was focused on Hauck. Plus the piranhas. A never ending torrent of piranhas. I scrape enough power together to deflect a worm glaring my way, but Geoffrey—who has drawn a spinecrawler’s attention—is not so lucky. Or prepared. The male freezes for a split second too long.

And in that moment of indecision the creature Salazar had invited into the throne room shoots off a volley of venomous spines right into Geoffrey’s belly.

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