The Dragon's Queen (Dragon Lords) (14 page)

“
Come son.” The king gestured that Llyr was to follow.

“
Give me a moment,” Llyr said, trying to maintain control. “I’ll be along shortly.”

His mother gave him a soft smile. His father gruffly nodded. They both left.

Why did the Var king want to attend the Breeding Ceremony? King Auguste had been married once, but his mate had died. He wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but the Var were not like the Draig. They didn’t always mate to one woman. They could, but they could also take half mates. In theory, he supposed a Var could take a full mate, and then a half mate. The very idea was strange to Llyr. How could a man love more than one woman? How could a man marry if he wasn’t completely in love? If Llyr’s mate was to die, he’d never recover from the loss.

Llyr turned back to the village and the borde
rlands, torn worse than before. Did he risk his life to save the woman he loved, who might not even be in danger? Or did he uphold the honor of his title and do what tradition, his parents, the gods and Draig law demanded of him?

What
should he choose?

How could he choose?

Mede lifted her tunic shirt and drew the blade from her waist. She waited while Rolant and Dylan did the same. Her eyes shifted so she could see in the dim cave light. The stone was red like it was near the Draig palace. The tunnel opened up into a large cavern of crystal formations that refracted streams of light and turned them into prismatic rainbows of color. Small inlets revealed nothing but rock and dirt. Fresh footprints scuffed the dirty floor and they followed them east toward a lower subsystem of tunnels. Though there were possible turns, they kept on the worn trail. The tracks ended near a steep decline.

When Rolant hesitated, Mede jumped down first. The stone was damp and the
air musty. She carefully stepped over tiny puddles of liquid. Suddenly, she stopped, holding up her hand for the other two to do the same. A thick iron door had been built at the end of the tunnel, in a place where there should be no reason to have a door.

She placed her hand on it. The door moved at her touch
, hitting its frame before bouncing open just enough to let light spill out into the tunnel. She listened, able to detect what could have been shallow breathing.

Rolant grabbed her arm and pulled her b
ehind him with a look of warning. He leaned to peek into the light. Slowly, he opened the door. It moved soundlessly on its hinges. The man stepped into the light. Mede followed, ignoring the fear in her gut and the pounding of her heart.

They were in high
-tech laboratory. The stone of the cave floor had been lined with metal. Chairs were pushed away from tables. Papers and files were scattered over desks. Whoever had been here was gone now.

“
What is this place?” Mede asked, looking at Dylan. He moved to a computer monitor and began looking at the files.

“
Is that my sister dragon, or am I hallucinating?”

Mede stiffened
and rushed toward the voice. Cynan was locked in a cage next to a dead Owain. The almost non-existent smell of decay indicated the death was recent. Black liquid trails ran out of Owain’s nose and eyes to puddle around the floor. It was too dark to be blood and had a strange odor to it.

“
Cynan!” Mede reached for the cage door and shook it. The latch was too strong to break. To the others, she yelled, “I need a key.”

“
No, stop,” Cynan said wearily. “You must leave this place.”

“
We came for you.” Mede studied his face. He looked sick. Dark circles marred the flesh beneath his eyes. He coughed, too weak to lift his hand. A tiny rivulet of black liquid trailed over his chin. “What happened? Who did this?”

“
Var captured me. Had to be Var. They invaded my campsite, darted me with something, and the next thing I know I wake up here next to this loud, smelly bastard surrounded by four alien scientists.” Cynan’s eyes moved briefly to Owain. “At least he’s quiet now.”

“
Where did they go?” Rolant asked.

“
I don’t know.” Cynan closed his eyes. “The scientist injected us with something. When this marsh farmer started getting sick they panicked and hauled ass out of here. Couldn’t even do the decent thing and put us out of our misery.”

“
We’re taking you home,” Mede said. “Dylan, open the door.”

“
By all the gods,” Dylan whispered. His face paled as he turned away from the monitor to look at her. “I don’t think we can.”

Cynan coughed again. Black came out of his nose dripping to his chest.

“Help him!” she demanded.

“
There’s nothing he can do,” Cynan insisted. “Leave me. Seal this place behind rock.”

“
No.” Mede shook her head in denial. Tears slipped from her eyes and she didn’t care who saw them. She reached her hand into the cage, trying to touch Cynan. “Give me your hand.”

“
Mede, don’t touch the black, it’s highly contagious. He’s right. We can’t do anything for him. We have to leave him. This substance they injected him with, kills shifters. If we take him from here, we’ll kill everyone who touches the infected person. Right now it’s not airborne, but if it spreads, it’s only a matter of time before it mutates and adapts…”

Mede slumped to the floor. Her hand dropped to the bottom of the cage but she didn
’t pull it out. She pressed her face against the bars.

“
Argh!” Rolant yelled in anger, slashing his hand over the table. Little containers scattered around the laboratory. Mede ignored the tirade. Rolant only acted how she felt.

“
Keep looking, Dylan,” she whispered. “There has to be a way to stop this.”

“
Find something,” Rolant repeated the order.

A black tear trailed out of Cynan
’s eye. Mede wasn’t sure how long she stared at him, desperately wanting to comfort him and unable to reach him. She spoke in low tones, not sure what she really said to him, only that her voice seemed to bring him some comfort. She saw his pain and wanted to take it away. The shallow rise and fall of his chest was so gentle she wasn’t sure it even moved.

“
We’re going to avenge you,” she promised the man. “They won’t get away with this.”

“
He’s gone, Mede,” Rolant said, touching her shoulder.

“
I’m sorry,” Dylan stammered. “I tried. I…”

“
It was good we could at least be here with him,” Rolant stated. “No one should die alone.”

Mede turned hard eyes to
the prince. He is Draig. He was not meant to die in a cage. She shrugged off Rolant’s hand. Turning, she eyed the laboratory. Then, seeing a white jacket, she grabbed it and pulled it to her face. The scent of a doctor was there.

She turned to Dylan. “
Say the blessing. Send him to sit beside the gods. Don’t leave his spirit in this place. Then lock this chamber and bury it under so much rock no one will find it for hundreds of years. Leave everything inside.”

Dylan shifted and began chanting the ancient words of burial.

Mede couldn’t control the dragon as it came over her in a hard ripple. She shredded the jacket in anger and tossed the pieces aside. “I’m going to hunt these aliens down and rip them apart.”

She tore from the
laboratory, ran through the tunnel, and then jumped up through the hole. Rolant kept pace with her. She heard his angry breathing and knew he would not try to stop her. Sprinting, she didn’t stop until she was at the cave’s entrance in the side of the cliff.

Mede scanned the forest from her high perch. Her eyes narrowed as she focused her vision. Birds flew in the distance as if startled. With a growl, she
fell more than climbed down the rock face. The others gathered around her.

“
What happened?” Arthur demanded.

“
Dead,” Mede managed, the word barely making it out of her throat.

“
Mede?” Llyr stepped before her. The shock of seeing him froze her in place. He must have joined the group while she was in the cave. His eyes met hers in question. “What happened?”

Rolant leapt down.
“Cynan’s dead.”

Mede
breathed hard. Llyr reached for her, but she turned from him. Now was not the time for tenderness. “Dragons to arms!” she yelled, running into the forest. Without question, they followed her lead, shifting for whatever battle was to come.

Every
one of her senses had focused on her task—find the alien scientists and kill them. Rage swelled inside her, driving away all thoughts of prudence. It was easier to be angry than to admit her grief. She slashed her hand at a limb, severing it with her talons. Her body moved as if of its own accord as her brain chanted for revenge.

She heard a small laugh the same moment she picked up the
scent from the laboratory. The noise infuriated her. How dare they laugh? How dare they breathe?

“
Laugh at me all you want. We don’t deserve to live, not after what we’ve done,” a man said. He spoke the Old Star language with a thick accent she didn’t recognize. “On my home world we’d be executed for it. Death for death.”

“
This isn’t your home world, Cragen, and we’re not bound by this planet’s laws. Soon we’ll be gone and it won’t matter,” another man answered. He sounded younger than the first, with a nervous energy she could practically smell radiating through the forest. Mede followed the sound. “The stuff dies with the test subjects. No one will even know what we did. It doesn’t matter. This stupid little nowhere planet doesn’t matter.”

“
We shouldn’t have taken this job,” a woman answered. “Genetic targeting is too hard. Shifter DNA is too similar and transformative by nature. Look where they put us? There is no decent city on this primitive planet.”

“
You’re the one who said you could alter and accelerate the Black Crawl, Shann—
shh, I heard something
,” a second woman said.

“
You’re being paranoid,” the younger man scolded.

Mede burst through the trees, talons drawn.
She went directly for the scent matching the jacket she’d found. A redheaded woman screamed as Mede lunged for her. The alien’s shiny silver dress sparkled like a target.

Dr
agons sprang out of the forest. The whiz of a laser shot past her to sizzle against a tree. All of the warriors had been trained to use lasers, but they were considered a dishonorable weapon because it took little skill to point and shoot at a target. If anything, the Qurilixian preferred blades for fighting. Or talons.

“
Get him!” Llyr growled.

The rage flowed through
Mede and she found it hard to concentrate beyond anything but revenge. Her blood felt like the dragon lava of her dreams, burning beneath the skin. Mede’s fingers wrapped the redhead’s throat and she turned her captive by her neck to better see the battlefield. Another laser blast sounded. The redhead jerked as she was struck in the back. She opened her mouth to speak, but only blood came out. Mede dropped the dead weight.

Rolant and Arthur subdued a brunette by holding her arms. The woman kicked
violently but the men didn’t hurt her. Though one look at Rolant’s face told her he wanted to rip the female apart for what she’d done. Llyr faced the scientist they’d called Cragen, who held one laser blaster pointed at the prince and one aimed to the side. The younger humanoid man was next to him, reaching to take the second weapon.

Mede swept to the side to take the m
en out. Her heart pounded in worry. The laser aimed at Llyr would easily pierce the dragon’s armor. One shot would kill him. She watched the tip. If it fired, she could stop it with her body. No one else would die on her watch. Not today. Not Llyr. By all the gods, please not Llyr.

The man fired. Mede jumped in front of Llyr to take the blast. Llyr growled in anger and jerked her arm to pull
her back into his body. Her heart beat so hard and ached so badly she thought Cragen had blown a hole in her chest. Llyr tried to turn her but she fought him, using her body to shield him from another blast. She waited for the burning pain of death, but it never came. When she glanced down, she was whole.

The younger
doctor sank to his knees with a stunned look on his face. Cragen had shot his fellow scientist in the chest the moment he tried to take the blaster. The older man swung the blaster aimed at Llyr to the side and fired again, this time hitting the brunette woman subdued by Rolant and Arthur in the neck. She slumped and made a gurgling noise. The dragons dropped their hold on her.

The man was killing his own people.
Mede jerked her arm from Llyr’s tight grasp. She growled at the scientist to stop. They needed to know who’d hired him before they killed him.

“
I don’t know if you speak my language, but Shann didn’t give them the right cure,” Cragen said. He clearly didn’t understand her dragon’s voice. “The potency was all wrong. This disease is too pure in its current state and the cure wasn’t strong enough to work yet. We didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

Mede lunged at the same time Llyr did.
Llyr pushed her to the side, out of harm’s way. The scientist turned the laser on his temple and blasted himself in the head before they could stop him.

Mede looked around at the dead bodies.
She shook with unspent energy. This was not how she’d imagined her first battle going. Her head felt dizzy and she pushed at her temple. “What just happened?”

“
They turned on themselves.” Llyr’s gaze bore into hers and she had to look away. “Does someone want to explain what we’re doing here?”

“
They…” Mede took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The rage was not gone. Seeing the scientists dead did not take away her grief. She still wanted to tear something apart.

“
They killed Cynan,” Rolant finished for her. “They injected him with some kind of contagion. We can’t move the body or it will spread. We have to leave him in the Var cave. Dylan is taking care of it.” Rolant turned to Arthur and Saben. “I’ll show you the way. We need to help Dylan bury the laboratory once he’s done with the burial rites.”