Captive Fire (9 page)

“The spikes are just ahead,” Svana murmured.

“Thank you,” Drakon said, slowing.

Ryuu shook himself. He needed to pay attention or he
would get them all killed. “The flitter hangar is just beyond,” he said,
stopping at the last trap.
“Step where I do.
Be careful.”

Drakon touched his arm.
“Always.”

Ryuu smiled despite himself and led them across. “The
door is here.” He glanced back. In the dim light, Drakon’s green eyes looked
black. He noticed his lover had managed to braid his long hair during the walk
through the tunnels. “We’ll need to run. I don’t know what’s happening beyond
the door. The wall is thick and there’s no way to look ahead without a computer
tablet.”

“We will manage,” Drakon replied.

Svana nodded.

Ryuu swallowed, and put his hand on the door. “Let’s
do this.”

He pushed open the stone. Chaos greeted them. He
flinched as the spray from a plasma weapon sparked past his head. He eased out,
then
began to run along the wall, trusting Drakon and
Svana to follow him.

May the dragon save us,
he thought, horrified at the
carnage.
Men in red armor shot plasma from the balcony while his loyalists hijacked
flitters and fought them off. Far too many black-clad warriors lay on the
floor. Among them, here and there, Ryuu could see the smaller bodies of teens.
He’d known that people of all ages supported him, but he hadn’t wanted to be
responsible for the deaths of children. Bile rose in his throat.

“Steady,” Drakon said, gripping his arm. “I see an
empty flitter.” He pointed. “There.”

Ryuu nodded. Svana sprinted into the battle, helping
clear a path for them. Ryuu followed her with Drakon on his heels. When a
cluster of red soldiers broke through the melee, Drakon whirled, swinging his
chains like a flail. Men fell in a splatter of flesh and bone. Ryuu smiled grimly.
He’d known Drakon was a warrior, but he hadn’t realized how impressive he could
be.

“Hurry,” Svana said. The blade in her hand dripped
red. Ryuu knew the fighting now was too close for plasma weapons.

“Almost there,” Ryuu told her as they broke through
the last of the resistance. He slapped a hand to the silver metal and it
flashed. The hatch opened. “Thank the dragon my father didn’t change the
network access.”

“I released a virus into the system a week ago. That
should keep the network open for at least a few more days,” Drakon said,
climbing into the copilot’s seat.

Ryuu stared at his lover,
then
grunted. “I should have known.”

“I had to do something besides loll around.” Drakon
shoved the mass of chains down toward his feet and buckled in as Svana settled
in the back. “No need to thank me, Ryuu.” He flashed a smile that almost made
Ryuu forget all the death that surrounded them.

“Liftoff in five,” he said, flicking switches.

“Where’s Zinan?” Drakon twisted around. He grabbed
Ryuu’s sidearm and started squeezing off judicious shots. Plasma flared just
beyond the flitter.

“There.” Svana pointed to the east wall.

Ryuu frowned, still trying to get through the
pre-check test. “I’ll leave the hatch down.”

“He’ll make it,” Svana said. She grabbed a shredder grenade,
popped the safety, and tossed it. The explosion rocked the flitter, but Ryuu
saw Zinan take advantage of the distraction and sprint across the floor.

“Three, two, one,” Ryuu counted, just as Zinan leapt
for the cockpit.

“I’ve got him,” Svana told them as she hauled him
inside.

“The rest of our warriors have already gone.” The
warrior wiped blood from his face. “We need to follow, quickly.”

Ryuu punched the throttle and the flitter whined as
the anti-grav stabilizers fought the hangar bay’s locking pads. “Someone locked
the pads!” He closed the hatch and cursed, trying to wiggle the vehicle free.

“I’ve got it, Ryuu,” Drakon said, fingers flying over
the console. “Okay, try again.”

Ryuu pushed the throttle and the flitter zoomed up. He
sped for the shaft that opened to the surface. “Hang on!”

Drakon tightened his restraints,
then
braced his feet over the chains. “I’m really glad I was wearing pants when your
father went berserk,” he muttered.

Ryuu bared his teeth,
then
banked hard, trying to avoid fire from a plasma cannon. “Almost there,” he
panted, gently steering to the right. He pulled back, and the flitter went
vertical. Five seconds later, they shot out of the shaft and into the
Whispering Desert.

And I’m finally free,
Ryuu thought triumphantly. After all the years of
planning and plotting, he’d finally broken out of the citadel and away from his
father’s bloody dominion.
It’ll take death to get me back there.

Chapter Seven

Four weeks
later
…

Drakon held on as Ryuu swerved, driving the flitter up
into the higher atmosphere. They’d had a squadron of shock troops on their tail
for the past hour, and Ryuu’s loyalists were slowly losing ground. After
several weeks of the hide-and-seek tactics they’d been successfully using, Ryuu
had committed his forces to a bigger battle, believing the emperor was losing
resources. Instead, his father had surprised them all with additional soldiers.

“May his corpse rot in the desert,” Ryuu hissed,
easing into a dive. “Where did he get those reserves?”

“There was nothing on the nets,” Drakon said, angry
with himself. He’d spent hours poring through the emperor’s computer networks
and hadn’t found even an inkling of the additional airpower.

“It’s not your fault,” Ryuu said, diving again. “It’s
not the end of the resistance. These are the last of his reserves and we’ll
find a way to destroy them, Drakon. I already told the other fighters to
reconnoiter at the beta site. We can go over our options tomorrow. We just need
to lose this last fighter and cover our tracks.”

“Still, I should have seen the deception. Those last
messages about troop movements were fakes.” Drakon rubbed his face, wishing he
weren’t strapped down inside a metal box. He would’ve preferred flying in
dragon form, but Ryuu still didn’t know. They’d been too busy since the escape
to sleep more than a few hours at a time, and he’d had no opportunity to tell
his mate about his dragon. “I can ask for more fighters,” he offered, tapping
the command that would open the net to the Soutx’s comm system.

“Your people helped us enough,” Ryuu gritted out.
“There. Two o’clock.”

Drakon saw the shot. He pressed the trigger, and the
enemy flitter exploded. He sighed as relief swept through him. “Was it a kill?”

Ryuu nodded. “I believe so. Be alert, regardless.”

“Of course,” Drakon said, flipping the display to
cycle through radar and echo modes. As he did so, he asked himself yet again
what he thought he was doing. He was no longer Ryuu’s slave.
Why not go
back?
he
wondered. Even if his people weren’t
thrilled with his return, they wouldn’t turn him away. He would be home. He
could fly.
But Ryuu would not be there.

“I don’t know why you won’t let me tell your people
you’re alive,” Ryuu said, unconsciously echoing Drakon’s thoughts.

Drakon froze,
then
blurted
out the truth.
“Because they won’t welcome me back.”

Ryuu glanced at him, frowning. “You’re their leader’s
son.”

Drakon snorted.
“As if that means
anything.”
He pressed his hand to his chest, wishing it didn’t hurt so
much. “And I don’t wish to leave you.”

“You could visit. You don’t hate your father as I do
mine.” Ryuu turned to him, silver eyes flashing. “And he’s not a mass murderer,
like my foul sire.”

Drakon smiled sadly. “My people are superstitious.”

“You’ve said that before.” Ryuu frowned.

Because it’s true,
Drakon thought, wishing he could explain his people’s fear of black
dragons.
Perhaps I should try.
He took a deep breath. “A long time ago,
my people went into the mountains to find a new home.”

Ryuu lifted an eyebrow. “You’re giving me a history
lesson?”

“Pay attention,” Drakon admonished, smiling despite
his nerves. He looked out over the horizon. Blue sky touched golden desert, and
his eyes pricked. He longed to feel the air against his wings.

“I’m listening.” Ryuu tapped the stick and the flitter
gained altitude.

“When the people reached the second plateau in the
Dragon’s Teeth Mountains, a fearsome creature blew fire upon them. Many died.
Others fled into the wilderness, never to be seen again. My father’s ancestor,
however, confronted the beast. She walked—”

“She?”
Ryuu interrupted.

Drakon smiled at his mate’s surprise. “Yes.
She
walked through forests burned to ash and found the creature sleeping inside an
obsidian cave.”

“Why do I sense this story is one told to
schoolchildren?”

“Because it is,” Drakon said, exasperated. “That
doesn’t make it meaningless.” He flicked through the sensor screens again,
searching for enemy fighters. Since all was clear, he continued. “She woke him
and asked him why he made war on her people.”

“Brave woman, but let me guess. He said he liked the
taste of blood,” Ryuu said, a hint of bitterness in his tone.

Drakon shook his head. “No. The beast thought they
wanted his treasure. He was merely defending his home.”

“He could have asked before he killed half of them.”

Drakon laughed softly. “Then there would be no story,
would there?”

Ryuu gave him a testy look.

Amused, Drakon flipped through the screens again,
then
continued. “She stayed with the beast for many days,
teaching him of her people’s customs. When it was finally time for her to go,
the creature realized he would be terribly lonely when she left. He was the
last of his kind and didn’t want to die alone. He refused to let her return to
her people. In retaliation, she cursed him.” Drakon’s voice trembled. The
thought of what his ancestor’s “curse” had wrought, even though he’d learned
the story as a child, still had the power to frighten him.

“This is about dragons, isn’t it?” Ryuu asked.

Drakon nodded, watching Ryuu’s expression closely.
“You knew that, all along.”

Ryuu shook his head. “I don’t know what dragons have
to do with you.”

Drakon looked outside again. The dark smudge of the
Dragon’s Teeth Mountains hunched along the edge of the world. “She cursed him
with humanity. She used her magic and gave him the ability to shift into human
form. When she left, he went with her, and they eventually married, but he
never flew again. He died as a man.”

“Her magic…” Ryuu trailed off.

“Was not magic at all, of course,” Drakon whispered,
touching the glass of the hatch. They were high enough that the cold burned his
fingers, and he snatched them away, blowing on them to warm his skin.

“Technology.
Genetic tinkering,” Ryuu muttered.

Drakon shrugged. “My people didn’t realize what she’d
done for several generations. Tinkering with their new planet’s last sentient
life-form was truly abhorrent to them. When the first boy shifted into dragon
form, they struck her name from the generational lists in horror. Her name was
never spoken again.”

Ryuu stared at Drakon. “Dragons are a myth.”

“No.” Drakon willed his mate to understand what he was
saying. “They’re real. And if my ancestor hadn’t changed the first one into a
human, threading our genetics together, dragons would have gone extinct a
millennia ago.” He took a deep breath. “Even now, they’re still extremely
rare.”

Ryuu’s eyes flashed with anger. “After all this time
together, you’re telling me that you can’t go home because of a stupid story?”
He shook his head violently. “No. I don’t believe you. Even if dragons are
real, in all the stories they’re celebrated.
Honored.
Not outcast. You’re making excuses, but I don’t know why.”

Drakon clenched his fists. “Not all dragons are
celebrated. Not black dragons.” Anger coursed through him: his own, his mate’s.
“Besides, what does it matter to you? I love you. I am loyal to you. I don’t
need to go home.”

“How can you abandon your people?” Ryuu asked him.

Drakon stared,
then
looked
away, frustrated and hurt.
That’s the crux of it, isn’t it?
he
asked himself.
This is why I was afraid to tell him
about my dragon form.
Ryuu had sacrificed everything to lead his people
against a dictator. Drakon had run from his people, because they hated what he
was. “Your people don’t hate you, as mine do me,” he whispered. Even now, he
could tell Ryuu didn’t truly understand what Drakon had just told him. He would
have to say it, outright. “You’re not a—”

The flitter rocked as fire splashed across the hatch.
Ryuu cried out, struggling with the throttle, and another explosion ripped
through the vehicle. Drakon whipped his head around just in time to see the
back end of the flitter disintegrate into flaming gobbets of metal. Even as the
enemy banked around them for another shot, he ripped off his restraints.

“Drakon!
No, use your emergency—” Ryuu started to say, but
then another blast disintegrated the nose and he choked as gravity pulled the
remnants of the vehicle down with the prince still strapped to the debris and
Drakon clinging to the console.

It’s a miracle we’re still alive,
Drakon thought, gaze locked on Ryuu. Then he shifted,
letting his dragon half take over. His wings unfurled against his flanks. He
reached out a claw and raked through his mate’s straps, freeing him from the
wreckage. He grabbed him and tossed him up over his shoulder as they fell,
afraid to open his wings fully until Ryuu was anchored against his neck. The
moment he felt his mate grab onto his neck spines and hook his feet down, he
let himself fly.

****

Ryuu held tight onto Drakon’s spines. His mind moved
sluggishly, playing the moment he saw his lover’s human features transform into
a black dragon’s enormous head over and over again.

His eyes are the same,
he told himself, gripping tighter as Drakon flared
his wings and let loose a roar that rattled his bones. The enemy flitter
vanished in
a gout
of blue flame. The spines under his
hand felt flexible.
Sturdy.

Ryuu leaned down and put his forehead against the warm
scales of his former slave.
I can still feel him in my mind
. For some
reason, that helped. The bond they’d formed was intact.
It could only have
happened because he’s not human,
he realized. All along he’d assumed it had
something to do with his mother’s blood running through him, but it wasn’t his
genetic legacy at all. It was
Drakon’s.
His lover wasn’t human.
Or not completely human.
This is what he was
trying to tell me.

He swallowed a yell as Drakon dropped them several
thousand feet, and readjusted his feet around the lower spines near where
Drakon’s shoulders should be.
This is why he won’t go home.
He dragged a
thumb over the tiny black scales that covered the spine in his hand.
He’s a
black dragon.
Feared.
A myth.

Drakon circled around. Three flitters zoomed by—more
of his father’s reserves. Drakon let out a blast and one of them caught fire,
then
spiraled down to the desert below. It disintegrated on
impact and Drakon wheeled away, avoiding the mushroom cloud that bloomed from
the explosion.

“My father will go crazy when he hears that a black
dragon destroyed the last of his troops,” Ryuu muttered, thinking it through.
Slowly, a smile broke across his face, even as the wind tore at his skin. “He
will lose his mind entirely.” He laughed, imagining the moment his father’s
soldiers told him about Drakon. The irony of it made him grin. For so long his
father’s obsession had ruled Ryuu’s life, even unto killing his mother’s
people. He’d discounted Ryuu’s slave as being worthless, but instead, Drakon
was the very creature his father had sought for so long. Drakon’s dragon form
was elegant justice.

An answering sense of glee nudged at his mind. “Yes,”
he said. “You know it, Drakon.” He leaned down, crouching over his lover’s
head. “Let’s kill all but one, hmm? We need someone to carry a message back to
the citadel.”

Drakon dove, coming up behind another flitter. One
quick flame took care of it. Only two were left. Ryuu yelled, pointing, and
Drakon followed his lead. Triumph surged through him. Flying like this felt
right. This was what he was meant to do. He and Drakon would lead the people to
victory and his father would be vanquished. The blood war ended.

This is why we bonded,
Ryuu thought. Wind pushed at his face and he lifted
his chin, flirting with the pull of the planet’s gravity. Drakon’s scales
glittered in the sun like the sharpest obsidian. Ryuu shouted again, catching a
glimpse of the last flitter over his shoulder. Drakon banked hard, but then a
plasma flare came from nowhere and hit his wing. All thoughts of winning left
Ryuu’s mind as they began to fall.

“No!” he cried, grabbing on tightly as blood spattered
his face. He choked, horrified by the amount.
No, no, Drakon. Don’t let go,
he cried into the silence of his mind, but the bond was already fading. They
began to spiral. The desert below them shimmered like a sea of broken glass and
Ryuu realized they were directly above the crystal fields. They were going to
crash into the citadel.

“No,” he whispered. As if from a long distance, he
sensed Drakon’s agony through the remnants of the bond. His nerves tightened as
he tried to reach out to his lover. The bond faded away. Ryuu screamed, and
Drakon’s spines suddenly went limp, slipping from his fingers, though he tried
to hold on.