The Source: Book III of the Holding Kate Series (44 page)

“Heheh, whoa now, hon, that’s gonna be hot.”

Kate’s eyes watered and she sucked air in around her tongue. She stood up and walked over to her horse, bouncing the hot meat around in her mouth. She pulled out her flask and downed the contents, then turned and the old man was gone.

“Doc?” She called and looked around. “Doc?” She searched around the boulder and lake. There was no sign of him. He didn’t have a horse. She scanned the lake for a boat, but saw nothing in the ample light of the full moon.

“Okay, now I’m freaked out,” she said and ran to the ring of light around the campfire and put her back to the wall of stone.

The next morning she rose, finished the rabbit meat and drank two flasks of lake water. When she returned to the camp site her eye fell on the boulder she had fallen asleep on after the jackal attack. She walked to it and found an enormous amount of dried blood had spilled from the wounds on her arm. If Doc hadn’t come when he did, she would have died on that rock.

She tamped out the embers of the fire and searched the ground for clues to Doc’s disappearance. A hodgepodge of footprints marked the site. She saw her prints leading from the boulder and to the horse and then back to the lake. She saw Doc’s prints leading to the boulder, around the campfire, and away into the plain. She followed them to about a hundred feet and saw that he had paused there. There were no other prints, though the dirt was soft and where there should have been a continued trail, there was not. It was as though he was abducted by aliens.

She sighed and looked into the sky. “No time for mysteries.” She packed up the horse, secured her knife at her belt, mounted, and galloped north along the lakeshore.

“I HAVE TO
hear it from her!” Corey insisted for the fifth time. He dropped his head to his hands and balanced his elbows on his knees.

“Corey, why do that to yourself? She has chosen. Let it rest,” Tara pled.

“I can’t, Tara.” He lifted his desperate eyes to hers. “You know me. She’s my wife. I won’t just give up without hearing it straight from her.”

“Is there anything I can say that will convince you to drop this idea and just take us home?” she pressed, her aged voice crackling out the pity she felt at his sorrow.

“No, Tara. Nothing.” The soft skin under his eyes twitched and waves of desperation emanated from him.

“Very well.” Her voice carried finality and frail acceptance. She rose from the breakfast table and walked to the veranda. Straightening her spine, she looked up into the sky. Within minutes the roar of a dragon greeted them and the massive gold settled on the veranda beside her.

“Volkomar, inform the riders the King and I will lead them on one more quest. Have them prepared to leave in half an hour.” The dragon dipped his colossal head for a scratch along his eye ridges, and then leapt from the balcony, his wings causing whirlwinds of leaves and flower petals to spin across the veranda.

Trip grunted as he struggled to push himself out of the chair.

Tara turned and gave him a teasing quirk. “Old man, are you up for this adventure?”

He stretched, flexed his frail arm, and sent her a cocky grin.

She shook her head, and then turned to Corey. “We will go by dragonback. It’ll be much quicker that way and we’ll have the element of surprise.”

“Thank you, Tara.”

“Don’t thank me, Corey. I just hope you get what you’re looking for and not a broken heart for your trouble.” Tara’s aged voice matched the resignation etched in her wrinkled face. “So gather what you need. We leave in a half hour.”

She tottered into her bed chamber and closed the door.

Donnie and Corey raced to their chambers, retrieved their weapons, and returned quickly. When they arrived, the room was full of leather clad men and women in hooded jackets with goggles hanging around their necks.

“Corey, Donnie, meet the Dragon Riders of Lumisfere,” Trip introduced proudly, his fatherly gaze taking in the whole assembly.

Corey surveyed the young people standing proudly at attention around him. “Thank you, all.”

They nodded. Tara exited her chambers clad from head to toe in fleece-lined leather. She carried hooded jackets and goggles. “Put these on. We have a long ride ahead of us and you’ll need this equipment.”

“We’ll fly straight to the bend. They will have at least gone that far. Then we’ll follow the channel until we catch the ship,” Trip instructed the dragon riders. “Dragon Riders Fly!”

“To guard from the sky!” they chorused.

An enormous shadow darted across the floor and Corey jerked his head up in time to catch a beautiful blue dragon cut a sharp curve and fly back by the window. One of the dragon riders ran and somersaulted from the balcony, landing on his feet on the back of the blue beauty and they flew out of sight.

Corey and Donnie gaped at each other in astonishment. It was Tara’s characteristic move. They had seen her use it in battle numerous times, though not off a tower more than one hundred feet in the air.

Another dragon whizzed by and his rider made the spinning jump. One by one, all the riders made the death defying leap of faith as their bonded dragon flew by.

Tara called. “Donnie, with me!” She moved toward the veranda.

“I, uh, I am
not
jumping off that balcony!” Donnie stepped back and raised his hands in protest.

Tara laughed. “No, Volkomar will land for us. My days of flying off into the blue are over, for now.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively to Trip, and he chortled.

Just as she finished her sentence the great golden dragon touched a talon down on the balcony and extended his leg. “Better,” Donnie sighed, pulling on his jacket.

“Corey, you will be with me, of course.” Trip reached out his hand and Corey shook it. “Shall we go rescue our Kate once more?”

“Thanks, Trip.” Corey squeezed the old man’s hand and didn’t even mind the possessive pronoun.

A deafening roar parted his hair and he jerked his head around to gawp at the largest creature he had ever seen. It back-winged and landed on the veranda with an earth moving quake. His jet black hide glistened, and his wingspan neared the length of three buses end to end. His eyes whirred a reddish fire, and he rumbled deep inside his chest.

“Rockwood is pleased to meet the White Healer.” Trip stretched out his withered hand and stroked the black monster as though he were a kitten. The look of affection in his eyes spoke of the deep bond he shared with the black dragon.

“Yeah, heh. Me too, uh, Rockwood.” Corey laughed nervously and shifted his feet, never taking his eye off the enormous beast and his ancient rider.

“Up you go.” Trip pointed to Rockwood’s hind leg and Corey climbed.

When he got to the top, Trip sat at the base of the dragon’s neck, waiting for him. Corey sat down, frowning. “How did you—”

“Hang on!”

“To what?” Corey bellowed before his teeth clamped shut at the upthrust of the great dragon’s leap. He grabbed at the riding straps and held on, wriggling down between the ridges for security.

They spiraled up into the sky and took their position at the head of the dragon formation. Tara and Volkomar flew at their right flank.

Dragon flight registered as the best ride Corey had ever experienced. Complete freedom rang as the defining feeling. He hooted into the sky and all the dragon riders gave answering calls.

An invincible army!
Corey thought.
What magnificent creatures, so gentle and strong.
His mind imagined the future that people and dragons could carve out, and then he remembered the coming Dragon Wars and the resulting Plague of Sleeping Death.

How did things go so wrong between them?

They covered an amazing amount of terrain and it seemed no time at all to Corey before Volkomar trumpeted. Trip called back to him. “They’ve spotted the ship. We’re going down.”

They began their descent. The crew gawked at the sight of a host of dragons approaching. The Captain came to the upper deck and waited for them to arrive. The dragons encircled the ship and hovered. Rockwood hovered closer.

The Captain bellowed. “Good Day, King Taraj. It is good to see you and Rockwood in the sky once more.” He offered a genuine smile, lifting his hand to shade his eyes.

“Thank you, Captain.” Trip dipped his head. “My friend would like a word with one of your passengers.”

“Who would that be?”

“Kate Chastain.”

The Captain cocked his head to the side. “Kate Chastain? I don’t have a passenger by that name. I have a Kate Matthews. Would that be the same person?”

Corey ground his teeth and his jaw bulged.

“Yes, that would be the same person.” Trip’s voice conveyed the same fury that Corey felt.

The Captain’s face grew concerned and he turned and spoke to a crewman who bolted down into the ship’s core. A few minutes later the red hair of Gregory Matthews appeared.

“Gregorvitch!” Corey seethed.

“Hello Mr. Chastain. I see.” He gazed around at the dragons hovering in a perfect circle around the ship. “This is all starting to make sense to me now. These dragon riders are friends of yours, I suppose. Perhaps they are old friends.” He pinged Tara with a glare and cocked his head, squinting his eyes as though trying to see the young woman who had killed his wife.

“Bring Kate out here, Mattovdzky!” Corey demanded.

“I am sorry to inform you, Mr. Chastain, that Kate does not wish to see you. I believe her words were something to the effect of ‘tell that cheating excuse for a man’— well I won’t finish her sentence. I think we all know where it ends up.”

The Captain shifted nervously and dropped his head as though embarrassed.

Corey’s face fell. “I want to talk to her myself, Mattovdzky.” His voice had lost some of its rage.

Tara frowned, worry drenched her eyes.

“That is just out of the question, Mr. Chastain. She has been ill the past few mornings. Some women have a terrible time in their first trimester, you know.”

Corey reeled back at the news. His heart fractured into shards. “She’s, she’s…aht.” His voice broke. “…with you. I see.”

“She did ask me to give you this, though.” Greg tossed a small case into the air and Corey leaned over to catch it.

He opened it and saw nestled into a black velvet cradle, the wheat stem ring that had been her wedding band. Corey slammed the case shut and quakes rocked his whole frame.
It is true! Kate has rejected me completely. She’s going to be a mother. She was going to have this despicable man’s spawn! She’d never leave him now.

He tucked the case into his jacket, his face burning with shame and loss and anger. “Tell her, tell her I said goodbye, and I give her my blessing.”

Gregory’s expression flinched for a fraction of a second. He looked down and said, “I will tell her Mr. Chastain. Thank you, from both of us.”

“Just go, Trip, get out of here,” Corey choked out. As Rockwood turned away from the ship, Corey searched the window, hoping for one last look at the face of his love. But she didn’t even care enough to catch a glimpse of him, evidently, because the windows were as empty as his soul.