Page 47

Jaz

I sat on the floor of the engineering bay, mentally linked to my Drakes.

Coarse dust pelted the two flying forms and they struggled with the wind as they slammed into the starhopper that held Zyair. Xandros had sunk his talons into the metal to slow its decent. My pulse accelerated as fighters dropped in around him—and one lined him up in its sights.

I sent him an image of it shooting, and he managed to dodge enough that the beam scored his shoulder rather than his head. But even disguised as they were by the gusting dust, he was a sitting duck out there.

Then through Xandros’s eyes, I saw Rhodes’s dragon as it banked away from the ship—and a figure clung to the spikes on his neck. My heart leaped—they had Zyair.

I wasn’t the only one to notice. The land-based fighters came after them as Xandros dropped the starhopper and followed his brothers into the storm.

I was with them, seeing through three sets of eyes at once.

Zyair was caught in the grips of the extra dose of venom, and the pain radiating from him threatened to overwhelm me.

He barely clung to Rhodes with his manacled hands while I helped both flying dragons avoid the stun-net missiles from the fighters.

Another wave of them arrived through the blasting dust, firing more of the nets. My gut clenched—they weren’t using phasers. Brentoq clearly wanted the Drakes alive.

When another sticky missile almost nabbed Xandros, both dragons folded their wings and dove deeper into the dust cloud above the city. It hid them from the landfighters, but also from any ability to navigate.

When they continued to drop, I realized what they intended. They were abandoning Plan A, which was to fly to the Stardrifter, and were going for Plan B—to land, and take their chances in the city below.

Without warning, I was flooded with conflict. Nothing concrete that I could latch onto, no useful imagery at all, just a deep sense of foreboding.

I pushed myself to my feet.

“Where are you going?” Yani looked up from where she was calibrating the actuator.

“To get my Drakes.”

She measured me with her level gaze, and then sighed. “I’ll have the ship ready for you. Please be careful.”

I nodded to her and hurried through the ship, stopping to collect the navcube from the bridge, as well as a hand phaser, and my extra knife in its forearm sheath from my quarters.

Our link showed me that my Drakes had now landed. Disguised by the storm, they were making their way across rooftops to where they’d stashed the cloaks. Then they planned to cross the city to get to the dockyard.

None of the three wanted me to come to them.

But my instincts, or whatever you wanted to call them, were going off like the fourth of July.

I had no idea why I thought my wussy human body could be of any assistance—even if it decided to sprout black scales—but it didn’t matter.

I was compelled to race down the ramp and into the storm.

Xalcim was a large city, but I knew where the brothers had planned to leave their cloaks while they waited for the battlecruiser.

I examined the holograph from the navcube as I pulled up my hood and my scarf.

The storm had abated somewhat, but the blowing sand continued to obscure landmarks.

Once I got my bearings, I turned away from the market and hurried along the dust-filled streets.

Forms appeared and disappeared through the swirling sand.

My dread increased as I moved along, but the only image that flashed across my mind was of Brentoq.

I’d seen her through Zyair’s eyes—but was it just suspicion, or premonition?

I had no way to know for sure. My pace picked up to a jog, relying on the poor visibility to disguise my angst from others.

It helped me, but also complicated things—navigation was difficult. Twice, I missed the street I was aiming for, and had to reverse course.

The brothers had their work cut out for them hopping across rooftops to make it to the one where they’d stashed their cloaks. But there was no way they could walk the streets naked and uncovered, even in this dust. I caught images of them navigating to the right spot?—

My pulse was bounding like a panicked hare. Something was very wrong.

They were cloaked, now. Shunning the boots as too slow to put on, they helped a stumbling Zyair down to street level.

According to the navcube’s projection, I was almost there…

Rhodes stiffened. Through his eyes, I saw movement in the blowing sand—and Nirzks stepped through it. More than I could count.

No.

No time to wonder how they’d found the Drakes so fast. I was running now, driven to get there, even though I was one sporadically scaly human against monsters …

Rhodes and Xandros dropped Zyair and sprang into action, starting to shift through their cloaks, but the Nirzks fired the nets at point blank range.

There was no escaping the sticky strands.

The electric current zapped my Drakes until they dropped to their knees, lips peeled from teeth as they struggled to stay conscious.

Their pain slowed my run to a stagger. I came around a corner and skidded to a stop—the Nirzks looked up from the nets. My Drakes’ horror permeated me as I raised my chin and glared into the surprised gazes of the manticores.

At that moment, from the swirling sand, strode Brentoq.

She was even scarier in real life than she’d been through Zyair’s eyes. Taller than a Drake, with muscles bulging beneath her fur. My eyes burned at the stench that the blowing wind whirled my way—and I sneezed, before I lowered my hood.

“Well, well, what have we here? A puny human female,” she stated in a heavily accented version of Primal.

Her squeaky voice was raised to carry over the wind, and I understood it, but only barely.

There was not one ounce of compassion in those cold, yellow orbs.

When one of the males raised his phaser, aiming it at me, she reached out to push it back down, her lip curled in derision.

“Move along, little worm. We have things to do.”

I straightened as I faced up to her, and called through the gusting wind. “You have something that belongs to me.”

I caught the first gleam of interest in her eyes.

“You mean nothing to us, human.” Zyair was on his knees beneath the net, and every muscle shook. His expression was cold, but I saw the gleam of horror in his eyes as they moved from me, to Brentoq. And a twisted, tormented mixture of pain and lust pulsed from him.

I forced myself to push past it. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Brentoq. The wind had turned foul with her gaseous scent, it couldn’t blow hard or fast enough to dispel it.

I gagged. “Did you just fart?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is a fart? ”

“That smell.” I wrinkled my nose and blinked sand from my eyes.

“Yes, my regular pheromonal expulsions are most alluring,” she agreed absently as she scanned all three Drakes. “What are these Drakes to you?”

I glared at her. “They are mine. They are allowed to smell me. And only me.”

“They most definitely are not,” Brentoq stated. “I went to a lot of trouble to lure his brothers into this trap. That makes them mine.” She grinned, revealing glistening fangs. “And I am going to enjoy sucking them dry, in every way imaginable.”

“They. Are. Mine,” I insisted.

“She is delusional,” Rhodes growled. The Nirzk controlling his net sent another pulse of electricity through it, and the dark Drake’s lips peeled back in a snarl as he was driven to the ground.

I raised my chin and met Brentoq’s puzzled gaze. “I challenge you for them.”

“No,” Zyair groaned.

Brentoq eyed me. “You’d fight me, for them?”

As I stood there with my cloak blowing in the wind, I couldn’t have looked like less of a match for her. She was three times my size, and armed with muscles, claws, knives, and a phaser. As well as farts that could clear a battlefield.

But I was the only chance my Drakes had.

“What have you got to lose?” I dared her.

My pulse was leaping like a startled deer, and my skin prickled beneath my wind-whipped cloak.

I hoped that meant what I needed it to mean.

Just in case, I rolled my arms against the blasting wind to drape the fabric over them, but managed to drop my knife from the forearm sheath to my hand, and let her see the gleam of the blade.

Her eyes ignited, and she tossed aside the phaser. “This should be entertaining,” she said, her grin revealing her wicked fangs. “Think I’ll drain you dry in front of your Drakes. It will be fun to see them squirm.”

Xandros surged forward, but the Nirzk with the net controls zapped him. He fought it with everything he had, muscles quivering through his torn cloak, but the net won. His legs collapsed beneath him. His face matched Zyair’s for sheer desperation.

Not far from me, Rhodes lay crouched within his net, the deep garnet gleaming from his eyes. I twisted away from Brentoq and slid one arm out from beneath the flapping cloak, revealing the sheath of glimmering black scales to the row of netted Drakes.

All three went very still as shock reverberated along the link, and with it came faint stirrings of hope.

As long as they were encased in those electric nets, they were helpless to do anything…

But as I faced up to Brentoq, my Drakes reached out to me.

And Zyair sent images of Rhodes fighting the manticore.

Yes. It just might work—I took a deep breath, and embraced the dark Drake’s presence like a cold drink on a desert day.

Rhodes looked through my eyes as Brentoq began to circle me. He clenched and unclenched my hand—but there was a delay. I was unconsciously resisting him, and I struggled to relax into the bond. We had only one shot at this, and we needed to time it perfectly.

I struggled to lower the walls. To give my dark Drake free access…

“Watch her tail, little drifter,” Xandros growled aloud.