Page 13 of Klauth
Two more months. Then I’ll be free—and nothing will stand between me and my dragoness ever again.
Chapter Twelve
I pressmy palm against the smooth interior of this cursed egg prison, my claws scraping uselessly against the shell. The confined space feels humid, thick with the scent of stale air. My breath echoes back at me, a hollow sound that makes my scales prickle. I hate how powerless I am in here, cut off from my mate, left to watch her through the fragments of our bond.
When Mina reaches out to us again, her memories crash into me like a surge of molten lava. Her fertile period is upon us, a fierce heat I can almost taste on the tip of my tongue. I’m helpless, sealed away in this chamber of stone and magic. Through her eyes, I witness Abraxis flying with her human form clenched in his talons. The moment I see it, my blood boils. Her dragoness rages, too, thrashing against the constraint of her mind. How dare he handle her so carelessly?
Her vantage point shifts, and I see the fight unfold. She is nearly Abraxis’s equal in size, but she’s stronger—fiercer. The clash of their talons rings out, metal scraping metal, even though they’re living flesh. I can sense her fury, hot and electric, fueling each strike. She almost overpowers him until he calls for his father’shelp—“Daddy,” of all things. The sound makes my stomach twist with disgust. Some drake he is, needing his father to subdue his own mate. I would be ashamed to share his lineage.
Mina’s memories intensify, showing how even Abraxis’s father struggles against her. She’s inches from overpowering them both when, suddenly, a basilisk appears—dropped from the sky by a displacer beast. I feel the phantom squeeze of its coils around my neck, and I realize I’m shaking inside this egg. My breath comes in ragged spurts. Dragon kind has forgotten the simple truth that a strong dragoness hunts and chooses who will father her young. A male who can be so easily subdued is not fit to sire her clutch.
The memories shift, swirling like a storm in my head. I sense the passing of days as each of her mates and nest mates takes turns—drugging her, keeping her sedated so she won’t break free and unleash her power. The sharp tang of chemicals in the air clings to her senses, a bitter taste at the back of her throat. To them, this is the solution: knock out your mate since she can kick your ass. It’s disgusting. She deserves freedom. She deserves the choice to do what she wishes with her body.
I see flashes of archaic knowledge—dragons laying eggs in human form, waiting until their mid-twenties for their first clutch. The loss of ancient instincts grates on me. It’s such a glaring act of ignorance. Absurd, all of it.
Someone removes us—my egg—from Mina’s side. My prison sways with the movement, jolting me. An intense weariness seeps into my bones, but I fight it, forcing my mind to remain sharp. I hear the displacer beast’s low snarl nearby, sense the metallic tang of its breath. Then Mina’s voice, groggy yet full of concern, slips into the bond. Her mates are updating her, and I catch fragments about the new additions to her nest—dominantdrakes. Yes, that will certainly make her more dangerous. A grin tugs at my lips, though no one can see it.
Then a woman’s voice floats through the haze. My mate, Mina, was conceived when her parents were in their dragon forms, not human. The implications ignite a spark of excitement in my chest. If that’s true, she is destined to be the most powerful dragoness on the continent. And she’s mine—my fierce, unyielding queen.
I rest my forehead against the egg’s shell, letting out a low growl that vibrates through my confinement. They may keep me locked away, but I will return to her. I will make certain she is never caged or subdued again. A dragoness like Mina cannot—will not—be contained. Not by these fools … and certainly not by an egg.
The days blurinto each other again, like a murky haze drifting across my vision from inside this shell. I can’t see much—only faint shadows dancing when the light shifts—but I feel every subtle change in temperature, every tremor of movement outside my cursed egg. Mina’s classes, her training...it’s the same repetitive rhythm day in and day out. I catch muffled snippets of conversation whenever her mates pick up my carrier—low voices, the rustle of clothing, the scrape of their boots against stone floors. Their footsteps vibrate through the shell, reverberating in my cramped sanctuary.
The border attacks worsen, or so they say. Abraxis and Callan are days from being called away again, and I hear them concoct a plan to tire her out before they drop whatever news they have. Ridiculous. They’re so focused on distracting her physically, as if mating can solve every issue. Stupid drake, too. A proven drake should be defending a nest, not getting torn up on the front lines. The thickness of the egg constricts me, making my talons itch against the inner wall. If I weren’t imprisoned here, I’d shake them all by the scruffs of their necks.
I close my eyes—though in this dark it makes little difference—and think about the lunacy of forcing females to carry eggs in a human form. The shell around me hums with life when Mina touches it, but even that comforting vibration can’t dull my exasperation. These young males … always quick to use sex as a distraction. They forget there are more meaningful ways to engage a clever female—take her somewhere interesting, let her solve a puzzle that challenges her intellect.
Mina straps the carrier to her body again, and a warm pulse spreads through the thick membrane separating us. Her body heat seeps in, an almost liquid sensation against my cramped limbs. My breath hitches with a flicker of relief I can’t fully explain. She is near—I can smell the faintest trace of her skin, a comforting mixture of sweat and something sweet, maybe soap or perfume. That gentle aroma calms the restlessness stirring within me.
I pick up on the purring sound of the displacer beast, Ziggy, lulling in and out of hearing range. Someone mentions Mina had sex with three out of four mates in five hours. My claws tighten, scraping the egg’s interior. They don’t build males like they used to, I suppose. The shell echoes my dry scoff, a dull thud that only I can hear. Despite everything, I feel a curious kind of affectionfor her—an amused exasperation with the lot of them. If only they knew how fleeting these bodily pursuits can be. My breath fogs the inside of the shell, and I rest my taloned hand against the smooth surface, wondering if she can feel me there, straining to break free from this cursed prison.
I press my claws against the inner curve of this cursed shell, feeling the faint reverberations of voices outside. A rancid, coppery taste clings to the air I breathe in here—if it can even be called air. It’s more like a thick, stagnant fog trapped within the egg, carrying the tang of old blood and lingering malice. The shell itself is slick against my scales, pulsating whenever Mina’s emotions spike through our bond.
Through this muffled haze, I hear her rejoin the others, their conversation drifting in and out like distant thunder. They’re talking about her laying eggs—what a pathetic notion, risking a female’s life by forcing her to do it in a human form. Her society’s ignorance and arrogance would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating. I sense a spike of curiosity from her, aimed at that foreign object in her forearm. Whatever it is, it’s keeping her from laying eggs properly.
I let out a low chuckle, though the sound is swallowed by the thick membrane around me. The young hatchling’s attempts at explaining dragon biology to his nest mates amuses me. He knows nothing. If he did, our mate wouldn’t be tearing him apart every time they mate. Suddenly, something jolts Mina’s mind. I feel her pulse accelerate—her heart goes from steady to hammering in mere moments. The vibrations echo along the shell, rattling my senses.
“Cora…” she says, and her voice sharpens as fear stabs down the bond like a lightning strike. The taste of her terror coats my tongue—bitter and metallic. She asks about this female, andher fear surges into terror. The moment the gargoyle speaks, offering his help, that terror morphs into something hotter—rage.
Pure, unfiltered fury roars through our connection, scalding me from the inside out. I can almost taste the raw adrenaline humming in her veins. She’s growling low, a dangerous rumble that sends tremors through my shell. Her dragoness bristles with power, and for an instant, it’s like she barrels right past me, a force of nature I can barely contain. Mina is out for blood, naming her father and some female as targets. But it’s the mention of wyverns that makes my throat tighten. Thauglor and I nearly wiped them out long ago—yet they persist like a stubborn disease.
Mina grapples with her dragoness, trying to leash the fury beneath her skin. I sense it in the trembling tension of her muscles, the ragged edge of her breath. But the dragoness doesn’t respect the male at the head of her nest. That, I will change. Soon. The darkness of the egg seems to press in on me, drawn to my own rising anticipation. Once I am free, I’ll restore order to her nest and soothe the seething rage in her young dragoness.
Inside this cursed egg, my world is cramped shadow and distant echoes, but my resolve is crystal clear. The shell quivers under my claws, as though the malice sealing me in senses what I plan to do next. Let it tremble. My time is coming. And when it does, I will make them all remember the true power of a dragon unleashed.
Chapter Thirteen
I can feelthe shift of air around us, even through the confining darkness of this cursed shell. Each thunderous beat of Mina’s wings thrums through my prison, reverberating against my scales and stirring the thick, warm fluid that envelops me. Her rage pulses like a living thing, fueling every stroke of her dragoness’s wings. It’s almost suffocating in here, the heat of her fury mingling with my breath until I’m practically choking on it.
When the hatchling rumbles to her, I sense a brush of movement outside—Mina mentions her frill, pressing it against her body. Her tone is clipped, distracted. She’s not fully focused on the hatchling’s small comfort, but on the knowledge swirling in her head. I catch rapid flickers of her thoughts—field medic training, frantic recollections of birthing procedures in human form. I remember her voice as she read those books aloud for Thauglor and me, the rustle of pages and the smell of old parchment lingering in the air. She’d questioned why she couldn’t just birth in her dragon form. Smart mate.
A roar tears out of her, echoing like an earthquake through my shell. My entire world trembles. She’s announcing our arrival tothe hatchling’s family nest. The warmth intensifies as she lands; I hear the scrape of claws against stone and the whoosh of air as she folds her wings. The female answering her has a sharper cry—likely the hatchling’s mother. There’s a moment of tension so taut I can taste it: the metallic tang of Mina’s disdain. She lets the male place his head over hers in a display of dominance, and I can feel the coil of her muscles, the subtle shift that tells me she’s fighting every urge to rip his throat out. The gryphon holding us also quivers with unease—he knows I’m here, and he doesn’t like it.
Mina’s anxiety slams into me next, like an icy wind cutting through the suffocating heat. She’s worried about a female named Cora. My vision blurs with a sudden stab of fear; her heart’s pounding so fiercely that my shell vibrates with each beat. One moment, she’s sobbing into the arms of the woman she calls Mom. The next, her rage roars back, scorching my senses, hotter than my own flames. It’s all for her friend—Cora is in trouble, and my mate is prepared to kill the male called Warwick.
Her threat against him surges through our bond like molten lava. I feel her blood ignite, adrenaline spiking so powerfully that my scales prick with static energy. She all but purrs as she describes how she’ll gut him, strangle him with his own entrails, then strike his manhood with lightning. Her growl snakes through me, a low rumble of fury that makes the egg around me quake. She is magnificent and terrifying at once.
Without warning, her attention shifts. She moves us closer to Cora, and I sense the temperature around us drop as sadness replaces the wildfire anger. It settles in my gut like heavy ash. “I need to set you two down so I can get in the water with Cora,” she whispers, her voice trembling at the edges with concern.Warmth presses against my shell—her lips, gentle despite the fury still echoing in my mind.
