Daryk Warrior

Dedication

As always, to my hubby Terry, who always supports me
in my writing career.

To Lena, the best critique partner a writer could ever
have.

You guys rock!

Chapter One

Planet Croan

Supercontinent Dragonia

Near the Protican Ocean

Sand shifted under Mia Griffi’s feet and she stumbled and
fell on her knees. Her palms sank into the sand. Head hanging down, she
shivered with exhaustion. She expected to feel terror but numbness and disorientation
settled into her mind.

She’d awakened earlier in the day on the beach, hot sun
beating down, clothes crusted with sand, mouth dry and head aching. She’d spent
too much time struggling in the ocean, hoping to save her own life. When she’d
collapsed on the beach she must have slept for hours. After she’d awakened, she
realized she was parched. She’d located a plant with leaves that held water and
had taken the chance the liquid wouldn’t kill her. Thankfully it had quenched
her thirst and given her strength for whatever might happen next.

Maybe all your reading about Dragonia won’t help you
survive.

Without finding another healer, you are doomed.

Fear tickled at the back of her neck and reminded her that
coming to Dragonia, to a totally alien way of life, was her idea. The way she’d
arrived here wasn’t but she’d planned to escape to Dragonia and make her new
life. Discover all the freedoms she couldn’t have on Magonia and find another
healer who could free her from disease.

Well she’d pay the consequences if she was wrong about
Dragonia, wouldn’t she?

A groan left her mouth. Water hadn’t cured her headache. She
was so tired. So very tired. She thought she’d walked for a couple of hours but
couldn’t say for certain.

Sticky heat pounded her body. She wasn’t used to the
humidity and the air felt thick and hard to breathe.

Get up. Get up.

She struggled to her feet and reached for the high-neck
collar on her long-sleeved tunic. Damn these garments. They were always too
hot, too restrictive, too everything. She unbuttoned the collar until it gaped
open to the top of her breasts. She supposed she should be grateful the
Magonian garment kept the sun from burning her skin. Thank goodness her long
hair was braided or it would act as a mantle around her shoulders and make her
even hotter. Even so, it was crusted with sand.

Dragonia. She was finally here. She’d escaped Magonia and
all its traps and rules. On this continent the Truth and Order Police couldn’t
locate her, and even if they did, they had no authority. Now that she was here
though, the land threatened to kill her before she could enjoy freedom.

Thick sand sucked at her feet, threatening to pull off her
sodden shoes. Glaring light off the blue waters dazzled her eyes and she
squinted. She hoped to feel something, any sort of guidance from her inner self
on which way to walk and where to find salvation. Her mind was a scramble of
details, most of it spotty. She hadn’t lost her memory, not really. Perhaps the
throb at her temples made it hard to remember. She recalled the furious storm
that battered the passenger ship
Hydrasoseles
, the giant wave tearing
her from her friends. She recalled her name and her mission.

To escape.

To find anywhere far away from Magonia and the lies.

The lies she’d been a party to and the great shame that went
with them.

Humiliation mixed with regret. She couldn’t relive these
emotions and accomplish her goal.

She was on dreaded Dragonia, the sworn enemy of Magonia, the
one place she should not want to be. Instead she relished the desire to run
from a sinking ship. Not the one the rogue wave had destroyed, but the sinking
ship of her life.

Perhaps in Dragonia, where she heard women had far more
freedom, she could find a new path and purpose. Perhaps her abilities wouldn’t
be mocked or forbidden on this wild continent.

She continued walking, determination fueling where physical
strength threatened collapse. She glanced around, hoping for inspiration.
Strange birds tweeted and called from the jungle to her left. Huge plants she’d
seen in drawings loomed thick and hostile. She wished her supply pack had
survived. Her compass, her map and the details on how to reach Grimnald Castle,
where she hoped to find shelter, had gone to the bottom of the ocean.

She had a vague notion she walked south but her orientation
had scrambled as badly as the rest of her ability to think straight. Hunger
gnawed her stomach. Her last meal, yesterday, she thought, had long worn away.

More than all that, her fear for her friends tore her inside
out.

“My friends, where are you?” Her voice sounded scratchy to
her own ears. “Please, God Magon, please let them be alive.”

Tears flooded her eyes at the thought of Ketera and Xandra,
her shipmates and newfound friends. They must have drowned. She hadn’t seen a
sign of them since waking up on this beach. Their bond had grown in the short
time they’d been on board the ship together. Each had reason to escape their
lives on Magonia. Each had secrets they wouldn’t reveal to each other.
Still…her bond with them had formed swiftly. She felt they understood her.

Mia fought tears and lost. She walked toward the ocean, for
a moment allowing her despair to overwhelm all sense. Tired and overwhelmed,
she waded into the ocean. Her body itched and she had to remove a little sand
before she tried to find civilization. She didn’t care if she was wet again.
She sagged as the water enveloped her to the knees. She splashed the water over
her arms. One step more. Two. It was up to her waist when a wave of dizziness
threw her off balance. She splashed into the ocean as darkness swept her under.

She choked, sputtered as water washed over her head.

Too bad she couldn’t heal herself.

No.

No.

She refused to die. Not when so many must understand and
know the truth about Magonia. If she died, she couldn’t spread the truth. She
held her breath. Thought she heard a shout.

Powerful arms drew her up and out of the water but her legs
had no strength. She tried to lash out. Everything spun, her mind a whirling
circle, and everything went black.

* * * * *

Mia felt tossed around, her body jolted as she dangled.

Dangled?

What had happened? Panic surged upward with fire-bright
intensity. She could hardly breathe. Something pressed on her stomach. It took
her a few moments to realize she lay over a man’s broad shoulder. One of his
hands spread over her butt, the other behind her thighs as he walked. Despite
her situation, her cheeks heated violently. A man had never, ever touched her
so intimately. Certainly no man had ever carried her. She dared open her eyes
and regretted it. The ground loomed up and danced around. Huge fronds crunched
under the man’s feet. He’d taken her into the jungle.

She heard his breathing, smelled a musk that wasn’t
unpleasant. He was man and rough. She closed her eyes again as shock jolted her.
Was he a slaver? She’d heard they roamed Dragonia, determined to use Magonian
women as slaves and breeders for their dying race.

“No!” She kicked and wriggled.

A string of pithy, precise curses left the man’s throat as
he struggled to keep her on his shoulder. “By all that is feckin’ holy and
right! Woman, stop it!”

Rough and filled with gravel, his harsh, deep voice struck a
chord in her that demanded instant obedience. Old habits died very hard. She
almost did as he said. But new resolve refused to die. She was done with men
ordering her about.
Done.

“Put me down, you filthy cretin!” She whacked at the first
thing she could reach. His ass.

He grunted and cursed again. “Feck!”

It got her the result she wanted. Sort of.

She slipped off his shoulder onto her feet.

What she saw stunned her into silence, mouth hanging open
and breath seized. The man who’d carried her was the most glorious male
specimen she’d ever seen. A riot of black hair perhaps a shade darker than hers
tumbled around his wide shoulders in thick, disordered waves. His thunderous
brown eyes bored into her. A long, crooked nose kept his features from
perfection, as did a fresh wound above his right eyebrow. The cut, stitched
tightly, ran from one side of his eyebrow to the other, as if an enemy had
drawn a knife with slow purpose across his flesh. His mouth was a tight slash
of anger. He wore a sleeveless muddy brown tunic belted at the waist with
breeches tucked into thick black boots that ended low on his leg. At his waist
a wide belt held a sword, a water bladder and a pack that no doubt held
supplies.

Dizziness threw her sideways. He moved fast and caught her
in his arms. She pressed along miles of hard, immovable male sinew. She sucked
in a breath and looked up and up. He was the biggest male she’d encountered in
her limited experience. As his arms braced her against him, every disturbing
inch let her know he was all male. Fierce determination sparked from those dark
eyes. Her mind whirled as much from his musky scent as it did from the man’s
obvious power. Primal urgings tugged sharply in her lower belly. She knew and
understood the feelings but old training made her shove them to the
background—or try to. A woman wasn’t allowed to have carnal feelings for a man.
With female lust came sin and evil.

She’d heard this, learned this, and at one point had tried
to believe it.

No more.

Everything about this man screamed lustful. Powerful.
Strong. A prickle at the back of her neck signaled her foreknowledge. She
understood several things about him without doubt.

He is highly sexed.

He knows how to please a woman.

He wants me.

At this last piece of understanding, she sucked in a breath.

Scribe Head Janto Ribboner had wanted her. Her scorn for his
ways, for his immorality, for his hypocrisy, had drowned any chance she would
reciprocate Janto’s lust.

With this stranger her inhibitions wavered and rippled like
water in a pond.

Conflicting thoughts warred inside her. She wanted to
understand what it would feel like to experience a lover’s touch, to enjoy a
carnal tie to a man. Oh she knew a man’s penis filled a woman’s body—even
Scribes possessed that knowledge. She’d seen drawings and imagined what it
might feel like. Yet she feared intimacy, nakedness and vulnerability.

Somehow she knew this man could show her pleasure. Dark,
hard, unrelenting pleasure.

It scared her to death.

She kept the foreknowledge to herself, understanding that
telling him these things could hurt her chances for survival. If she was wrong
about him in any way, he could harm or kill her.

Male sinew tightened and flexed under her touch. The throb
in her lower stomach gathered strength and raced upward to her breasts. Her
nipples tingled. Horrified at her body’s unrestrained reaction, she tried to
draw back. He held fast. His arms were rock solid—there was no way she’d escape
if he wanted to keep her here. She cursed her physical weakness.

His nostrils flared, a big animal on the hunt and smelling
prey. “Woman, do not fight me.”

Fear made her heart stagger and thump but showing apprehension
would make things worse. Anger pushed her to shove at his chest with both
hands. “Let me go, you mangy lout.”

He laughed. Not the cold, evil laugh of the man who’d driven
her to leave Magonia, but pure, appreciative humor. He released her but didn’t
move away.

Stunned at his compliance, she didn’t try to run. Men never
did what she asked.

They stared at each other. A stalemate.

He planted his big hands on his hips. His gaze traced over
her from head to toe, a mix of curiosity and what she interpreted to be genuine
male appreciation. His attention seared her.

“I won’t harm you.” His voice rumbled softly, so deep and
rich.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Eryk Gauth.” He removed the water bladder from his waist
and held it out to her. “Drink. You look as if you’ve been out here a long
time. What happened to you?”

She opened the water container and drank deeply. The water
was cold, delicious and refreshing. She sighed. “My ship was wrecked.”

One of his dark brows twitched up and he scrubbed one hand
over his chin. “I heard rumor a Magonian passenger ship sank in a storm. Are
you the only survivor?”

She swallowed hard and looked through the trees. She
couldn’t see beach through the thick plants. “I hope not. Two of my friends
were on the ship.”

“How long have you walked?”

“I woke up on the beach but I don’t know how long I’ve
walked.”

Mia’s head throbbed. She closed her eyes. Weakness
threatened her legs but she stiffened her spine and opened her eyes. She
couldn’t afford to show this man how close she was to falling on her face
again.

She handed the water back to him. After he returned it to
his waist, he crossed his arms and tilted that arrogant head to one side.
“You’re a Magonian Scribe.”

Startled that he knew, she touched her collar. “What?”

“Don’t even think of hiding it.”

“How do you know about Scribes?”

She saw something like anger flicker through his eyes.

“Long story.” He held out his hand. “Let us go.”

She took a step back. “You’re a stranger. I would have to be
insane to walk into the jungle with you.”

He crossed his arms again, a smile flirting with the corners
of his lips. “You’re already in the jungle.”

Heat filled her face at her misstep. All around her the
evidence proved it. Birds squawked in the high canopy. Insects buzzed and Magon
only knew what other creatures slid and skulked in the thick greenery
surrounding them. She’d studied what little she could find on this forbidden
continent, and had heard of the many animals that could kill. Still, she feared
the men far more than any animal.