Captive Fire (6 page)

“Prince, we must go,” Zinan said urgently, looking
worried.

“We both must do our duty, Drakon. We are helpless
before our fate,” Ryuu said harshly. He pivoted and strode out of the room.

Svana gave Drakon a sympathetic look before she and
her fellow guard followed Ryuu into the corridor.

Drakon stared as the doors boomed shut, hardly able to
believe that Ryuu had left him chained to the wall after their night together.
“But then, I am his slave. He could break all of my bones and no one would say
a word,” he muttered bitterly. He
thunked
his head
back against the headboard, debating whether he should shift to dragon form and
try to escape despite the drawbacks. He could investigate the citadel and
perhaps find a place near the emperor’s chambers to hide. He could figure out a
way to kill Midian, he was sure of it. Unbidden, the image of Ryuu looking at
the nightstand rose in his mind.

“Dammit,” he muttered, rolling over. The chains were
fairly generous and he could sit up on the side of the bed easily. He reached
for the drawer of the lacquered cabinet and pulled it out. Nestled among hair
ornaments and a few spare knives was a small metal box, the sort a boy would
use to store childhood treasures. No one would look twice at such a box, but
for some reason, his senses tingled when he saw it. He lifted the box from the
drawer, not sure what he thought he would find. When he opened it, he gasped.
Nestled within the battered metal lay the key to everything he desired.

Chapter Four

Ryuu wiped his face with a cloth and tossed it to the
ground. The blood splattered across his forehead and armor angered him almost
beyond reason. The evil done by his father’s special shock troops made him want
to kill them all where they stood, but he couldn’t afford to give away his true
feelings. Not yet. The time would come, however. He knew that most of his
people despised his father’s desire for war, but the emperor’s special warriors
were completely loyal. He swallowed his rage and made certain his face looked
unconcerned when he turned to his guards.

“The girls are dead, Sire,” Zinan said, bowing low.

Relief cooled some of Ryuu’s fury. His plan had
worked. He wanted to scream his triumph to the skies. “How?” he barked, as if
upset with his man. In reality, he knew that Svana and Zinan had managed to get
his cousins away to the Soutx. He’d been smuggling people out of his father’s
clutches for years with their help, and they knew what to do now without
direction.
It’s a pity we couldn’t save all of the Mirai, though,
he
thought, looking around at the devastation of his mother’s people.

“When we found their dwelling, it was abandoned,”
Svana said, gaze lowered as she, too, bowed.

Ryuu knew he owed her his life. She was the one who’d
figured out how to get his cousins and their mother, his aunt, to safety. The
rest of the Mirai were not so lucky, but the bloodline his father wanted was
out of his greedy reach. “You know that the emperor sent us here for them
specifically,” he growled, making sure his father’s troops could hear.

“I know, Sire,” Svana said, going to her knees.

“We found blood on the walls,” Zinan told him. “I took
samples. The analysis shows that they were killed by a shredder grenade.” He
held out the small computer.

Ryuu snatched it from his guard and scrolled through
the results. “The emperor will not be happy.”

“They weren’t in the house we were informed was their
dwelling,” Zinan explained. “The troops stormed the village and when they
reached the leader’s place, it was empty.” He shrugged. “I had to analyze each
hut before I found their genetic markers.”

From the corner of his eye, Ryuu could see one of the
troopers speaking into a handheld communicator instead of his earpiece.
One
of my father’s spies, reporting in,
he thought bitterly. He raised his face
and looked out at the sea. The cool breeze dried the blood streaked on his neck
and made him feel like the barbarian their enemies called his father. His
stomach roiled and he swallowed back the bile.

“Forgive us, Sire. We did our best,” Svana said,
prodding him back into character.

Ryuu turned to her. “How could this have happened?” he
demanded, as if enraged. “They didn’t know we were coming! They were vassals of
my father, and there was no warning, so they shouldn’t have suspected us. Now
the bloodline my father wanted is dead, save for that which flows in my body.”
Feigning a tantrum, Ryuu yanked one of his knives free of his harness and flung
it past the spy with the extra communicator. The blade clipped the man’s ear
and landed in the wall of the hut just beyond him and his group of soldiers.
The man groaned, dropping his communicator,
then
abruptly quieted when Ryuu glared at him. He strode over and yanked his knife
from the pre-fab wall, cleaning it before he returned it to its sheath.

“Pull out. It is time to return to the citadel,” he
said, striding past the synthetic stone huts. The flitters sat in a neat row
just beyond the carnage, mocking him with their gleaming tidiness.

“Your father is still on campaign at the northern
encampment of the Mirai,” Svana said, hurrying to keep up with him.

“Does he want us to join him there, instead?” Ryuu
asked, frustrated.

She nodded.

“Very well.
Pass the orders to the troops,” he said to Zinan.

Zinan put his fist to his chest.
“As
you will, Sire.”
He tapped his ear and relayed Ryuu’s commands to the
rest of the warriors.

Ryuu reached his flitter and keyed open the hatch.
I
wonder if Drakon found my finger-key.
He’d known the man for less than a
day, but his instincts told him he could be trusted. And given Ryuu’s
precarious situation in his father’s citadel and within Arethuza society, he’d
learned to always trust his instincts. They hadn’t been wrong yet.
Maybe my
father’s belief that mother’s people carry dragon blood within them isn’t as
far-fetched as I’d thought. The stories say that a dragon’s instincts are far
sharper than a human’s.
He sighed as he began the startup sequence for the
flitter.
And my instincts have saved my life on more than one occasion.

“The troops are ready,” Zinan reported once Ryuu had
sealed the hatch.

Ryuu automatically ran the sensor check for listening
devices. When his screens turned up nothing, he sighed. “If the troops are
ready, I guess it is time to find my father and tell him the terrible news.”

Svana snorted. “Surely he already knows?”

Ryuu’s lips twisted.
“Of course.
But I must pretend that I don’t know he already knows.”

“Spies,” Zinan spat.

“Indeed,” Ryuu said, easing the flitter up into the
dusty atmosphere. As he banked over the encampment, smoke wafted up across the
front of the cockpit. He flicked the controls to infrared and radar, and
pointed the flitter north. “What a damn waste,” he murmured. His mother would
be devastated to hear of her family’s murder. He rubbed his chest, trying to
ease the ache in his heart.

“You did what you could,” Svana said quietly. “She
will understand that.”

Ryuu nodded, thinking of his cousins. She’d got them
out with an old flitter he’d been saving for just such an emergency. With any luck,
they’d make it to the mountains where the Soutx would hopefully take them in.
Drakon’s
people,
Ryuu thought, wondering if the man knew how very ill-suited he was
to being a slave. If anyone else had bought him, he would already be dead. He
recalled the anger on Drakon’s face as he’d left this morning.
Let us hope
he can control himself enough so that he doesn’t die before I get back.

****

Drakon slipped the silver sheath onto his finger,
tensing as the metal immediately conformed to his skin. It warmed up, and
camouflage nanites embedded into the material mimicked his skin tone, rendering
the device invisible.
He
could feel it on his finger, but no one else
would be able to see it.

A finger-key, a device with Ryuu’s genetic code
encapsulated in the metal, and he leaves it sitting in his nightstand inside an
old box,
he thought, horrified all
over again. What he held on his finger unlocked everything Ryuu had access to,
including the chains on his wrists. He set his finger to the keypad and almost
flinched when the manacles clicked open. “Dragon’s teeth,” he cursed, shaking
as he shoved the chains aside.

On some level, Ryuu must certainly recognize the bond
between them. After all, the prince had trusted him with his genetic key,
despite their having met less than twenty-four hours ago.
It’s because he
isn’t fully human, though I doubt he knows it.
Drakon thought of the
empress. When they’d met, he hadn’t known she was of the Mirai. Her small tribe
was an offshoot of the Soutx, and they had gone to the west many centuries ago
to explore the land near the sea. One family that had gone with them had the
rare ability to shift into dragon form.
Ryuu’s family,
he thought,
swallowing.
Ryuu may very well have a dragon inside of him.
He wasn’t
sure how he felt about that.
I should be happy, but if I grow to care for
him too much, it will compromise my task here.

Drakon sighed, then stood up and put the chains on the
nightstand. The bond would force his emotions whether he wanted it to or not.
So
I will not complete the bond,
he vowed, putting aside his worries. He had
other things to worry about and he would
not
repay Ryuu’s trust with
impetuousness. He would wash, and eat, and if Ryuu hadn’t yet returned, he
would start investigating the computer network that formed the backbone of the
citadel. Ryuu had given him the key. Drakon would use it, but very, very
carefully.

****

Twelve hours later, Drakon stood up from the
communication console and stretched. He’d washed, finished the food on the
platter that had been brought the night before, and familiarized
himself
with the citadel’s computer network. He’d discovered
that he and Ryuu wore the same sized clothing, so he was dressed all in black.
Surprisingly, he found he liked the way he looked in that color.
Maybe
because your dragon is black,
he thought, amused with
himself
.
Unfortunately, what he’d discovered in the citadel’s system wasn’t nearly so
entertaining.

The so-called “Desert Dragon” was a ghost. He could
find no trace of him anywhere in the Arethuza’s network, which meant he had no
hope of finding him and offering his services and thanks. He also discovered
that Ryuu’s explanation of the plight of women had only scratched the surface.
Ryuu’s father had taken away all their rights and reduced them to mere chattel.
Men bought and sold their daughters, sisters, and sometimes their wives. Those
who tried to avoid the bartering were killed. Many tried to escape and were put
to death. Others bartered with trusted friends, but too many women were forced
into serving as chattel for the bulk of the emperor’s shock troops, his
loyalists.

How can he run an empire like this?
Drakon wondered. The emperor spent as many resources
controlling his own people as he spent on battle.

An alert Drakon had set up in the system to let him
know when Ryuu returned beeped, and he shook his head. He was out of time.
You
will find a way to stop this, but first you must survive.
He powered down
the console, quickly stripped off his clothes, and retrieved the chains. By the
time he’d snapped them back onto his wrists, he heard boots in the corridor
outside the prince’s chambers. His hair pulled uncomfortably from under his
hips because he’d forgotten to move it out of the way, but it was too late now
to fix it.

“Enough! It is your fault that my cousins were killed,
Father, and you know it,” Ryuu shouted, flinging open his chamber doors. His
gaze flicked to Drakon and a flash of relief passed over his face before he
schooled his expression back into anger. “Your troops acted before I could stop
them, and they had faulty information. Where could that mistake possibly have
originated?” He strode into the chamber and flung his gauntlets down on the
table. His two personal guards, Zinan and Svana, followed him closely. “I
certainly don’t control the security or intelligence of your troops, Father.”

Drakon clenched his fists under the blankets. Clearly
Ryuu had begun shouting so that he would have some warning before he reached
the rooms.
Even in this we are attuned,
he thought, worried all over
again about the fledgling bond he felt with the prince.

“You dare accuse me?” the emperor said, storming in
after his son. “I will have your head for this!” A dozen red-armored soldiers
followed him, crowding into the chamber.

Ryuu whirled on his father. “If you kill me, you lose
your precious bloodline and your hope for a dragon you can control disappears
like so much smoke.” He glared at the men surrounding the emperor. “Get out of
my rooms,” he told the guards.

They ignored him.

“You will fuck a woman. You will fuck ten women! I
don’t care how many or how long it takes, but you will give me what I want.”
Emperor Midian strode over to his son, gesturing to two of his men. They
grabbed Ryuu’s arms and stretched him back over the table. “You will fuck and
you will spread your seed, or I will tear it from your corpse,” Midian hissed.

The empty platter went flying as Ryuu struggled. His
bodyguards tensed, obviously torn over what to do. They couldn’t disobey their
emperor, but their first loyalty was to the prince. Drakon knew well the
torment they suffered. He’d felt the same when he’d had to defy his father and
come here. As the only Soutx blessed with a dragon form, he was the only one
who could cross the desert without being detected. His people didn’t have the
ability to construct flitters because the materials needed to build them lay
deep in the desert controlled by the emperor. That’s why Midian won most of the
battles between the Arethuza and Soutx.
If I shift now, I could flame them
all,
he thought darkly.

“I refuse,” Ryuu said, still struggling.

The emperor backhanded him. Ryuu’s head snapped to the
side. When he turned back to his father, blood dripped down from a cut on his
cheekbone.

“You will do as I tell you, boy.” Midian straightened
up and nodded to his guards. They released Ryuu.

The emperor’s gaze flicked to Drakon and an expression
of distaste twisted his face. “Get him out of here,” he commanded his soldiers.

Drakon froze as they moved toward the bed. Should he
change? Should he try and fight? He clenched his fists, getting ready to use
the finger-key, but before the warriors reached him, Ryuu’s voice rang out.