Page 52 of Dragon's Flame
“A dragon?” Sarah asked, her voice rising.
“No. Just...mine.” A human with a piece of an immortal dragon’s soul, however. Tarian felt the reasons for their current circumstances slowly sliding into place.
45
KENNA
Kenna used most of her time in the air trying to turn herself into a beacon.
She could still feel the connection between her and Tarian; distance hadn’t severed it. So she visualized herself pushing hope into it now, willing him to find her.
She decided to see herself as one of the many lighthouses that dotted the coast and tried to time her pulses with her breath, which had the added benefit of keeping her calm while she was beginning to feel part-ingested.
Then the helicopter set down in a clearing at the top of a mountain, in front of a big cement cube, interrupting her zen. Thethingthat she was now a part of slid out after the men exited. She twisted to look behind her, saw Rocky tagging along in the distance, and was so relieved to see his furry face.
Not that there was much he could currently do. She didn’t want him getting stuck inside this disgusting...whatever-it-was.
And then he zigged right—hopefully going to check out the rest of the building’s circumference—before coming back to her later.
Good dog.
The creature that was holding her slimed into the dark building—and lights came on.
She wished they hadn’t, because nothing looked any better inside.
“What the fuck?” she demanded, but she didn’t really want answers, because what she could see was bad enough.
Most of the center of the structure was taken up by an insect-y looking maggot-thing, weaving a cocoon.
“Hello Kenna,” said a familiar voice from her side.
She tore her eyes away from what was happening in front of her to find Cliff, his clothing still in shreds, but otherwise looking entirely unharmed.
“Fuck you,” she whispered, and he gave a short laugh.
“That’s about what I thought. Still, though, here we are.”
“You can spare me your villain monologue,” she said, sounding braver than she felt.
“It’s only a monologue if I don’t expect a response, but I do. This,” he said, gesturing towards the rhythmically moving creature in the center of the room, “is what’s going to end you. Again.”
Kenna’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been doing this to you for eight hundred years.”
Seris.Kenna knew he was talking aboutSeris.
And every other version of her that’d lived in the meantime, inheriting a piece of Tarian’s soul, only for it to doom them.
“We hunt you down, and then stalk you. Tag you so you can never escape, manipulate your life so we can get you alone...and then patiently wait for you to ripen.”
She desperately wanted him tostopusing that word. “Why?”
“So we can harvest your life for ourselves,” he said, gesturing outwards at the other men, who were busy either erecting what looked like anti-tank armaments, or tending to the creature. “I’m six hundred and three.”
“Hmm,” she said, giving him a glance of disdain. “You don’t look a day over asshole-and-five.”
Cliff laughed. It would’ve been menacing enough without everything she knew now—but with the knowledge she’d just gained, it curdled things inside her.
