Mating the Dragon (Dragon Ruins Book 6) (9 page)

If he had been planning this mating, he would have scouted some possible spots earlier in the week. As it was, he was flying blind. And he had to be careful not to be spotted by the humans.

Below him, he startled a group of kangaroos, who had been resting in the shade of a tree. His heart sang and the thrill of the hunt flooded his veins as they sped away, their long hops moving them quickly. 

But not as quickly as his wings did. Taurian swooped, aiming for a middle sized female. The other’s scattered in all directions as he came in. Keeping his eye on the female, Taurian swooped low, his claws reaching out.

She darted sideways at the last minute. Taurian was so low he had to flap frantically to bring himself back up before he crashed into a tree.

The roos were scattered, the female he had aimed for was gone. Taurian growled in frustration, then saw a young male, smaller than all the others, frantically hopping towards some dense scrub. 

Darting low, Taurian stretched out his claws. The young buck was so intent on his escape, he didn’t even see it coming. Taurian’s claws closed around his back, snapping it for an instant death.

Victory welled up in him, and he tamped it down. He hadn’t won yet. He still needed to beat all the others back to the lair.

His wings carried him swiftly up and he swung around, orientating himself, finding his lair.

There. And he couldn’t see any sign of Ultrima. Good. He was due a victory. This one would be sweet. Bringing the food for the feast was always looked on favourably. 

He still couldn’t see any sign of his rival dragon as he swooped down, depositing the kangaroo at Mesrian’s feet.

Her face was wreathed in smiles. “Well done, Prince Taurian. You have won this round.”

Wayrian stepped forwards to give him a kiss, as was to be expected. The thrill of victory was so sweet, it almost overpowered the pang in his heart that it wasn’t Karla.

Though he suspected she wouldn’t have been impressed at the gift of a dead kangaroo.

Wings beat the air behind him and he turned. Ultrima lowered himself into second place.

He laid a fully grown cow at Mesrian’s feet.

Taurian ground his teeth. The larger offering didn’t mean he’d won, but it would score him extra points in the complicated ritual.

Damn.

Where on earth had Ultrima found a cow?

Taurian took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. He’d won this round. 

He looked to Mesrian, waiting for the next game to be announced. 

“This will be a team game,” Mesrian declared. “Since we have two dragons with wins, you can both select your team of three and report back here.”

The elders all stared at Taurian, obviously waiting to be chosen. Taurian grimaced. He couldn’t really ignore all of them, could he? Even though they were all old and feeble. Then again, the challenge may be a challenge of wills, not strength. 

“Kyrian,” he said, beckoning the old man. At least this one didn’t challenge him.

He looked around. Who else? He barely knew these dragons. He certainly didn’t know which would do best in any kind of challenge. 

His eyes fell on Jayrian, whose face had been downcast since his mate, Gretchen, had left with Karla. The young dragon would soon learn that her departure had been for the best, for her at least. 

“Jayrian,” he said next. 

The young dragon’s eyes widened, but he stepped forwards readily.

One more. 

Taurian’s eyes scanned the dragons. Who? Who could he pick?

He was just about to point to a random dragon when he felt it. The ground rumbling through his feet.

Cars.

Was it Karla? Had she returned? 

His heart sank even as it soared. Didn’t she know this was a lost cause? Didn’t she have the sense to stay away?

All the faces, dragon and human form, turned towards the path through the trees.

Karla’s ute led the way, some sort of contraption made of great metal tubes on its back, followed by two other vehicles with metal cages.

She hadn’t returned alone. She’d brought others. Other humans.

Taurian didn’t even care that the elders were going to have a fit. Her help might just save them.

Taurian hardly dared to hope. Even after he’d rejected her, she was still willing to put her life on the line for him. 

He didn’t deserve her.

Chase gave a soft gasp of surprise next to Karla. “You weren’t kidding. They really are dragons,” he breathed.

“Of course they’re dragons,” Gretchen snapped next to him. “Why else would we go to all this hassle?”

Karla pulled to the left, parking the ute at an angle to the dragons staring at them in bemusement. “Now that you’ve seen them, do you think this is going to work?” she asked, trying to stop her voice shaking.

“It better,” Chase said. “Or else we’re all in trouble.”

He didn’t sound worried though. Karla could almost see the adrenalin flowing through him. He was ready to fight. 

Karla though, stared at the scene in front of them, trying to take it all in. Taurian stood next to two other dragons, and Ultrima was in a similar group of three. Had they been about to fight? Had she arrived just in time? 

The other two cars pulled in at an angle, keeping their cabs behind hers for cover. Hopefully they all remembered the plans they’d made before they left. 

Chase gave her a grin and a thumbs up, grabbing his controller, which looked like a box covered in little red switches, and jumping out of the ute on the opposite side to the dragons. Gretchen followed him.

Karla took a deep breath. Her turn.

She pushed open the door on the dragon’s side, hoping that their shock of her fearlessness would be enough to buy her time. Or rather, buy the other’s time to get ready. 

Her heart pounded. This was a crazy idea. She didn’t even have a weapon. And she was pretty sure that the gumboots Aunt Mary had insisted on buying wouldn’t do a thing. But she only needed a few moments. Once everyone was safe in the cages, she could retreat, hopefully under cover fire.

Karla hoped the cages Chase had welded to the back of the other two utes would do their job. Everything she’d read said that they should dissipate any electrical charge safely away from the occupants inside. In theory anyway. She suspected they were going to find out for real how they worked soon. 

Would it be enough? Did they have any hope of winning?

Ultrima roared, the sound shaking the cars. Karla heard a few sharp breaths and curses, but no one backed down. 

“You don’t scare us,” Lisa called out bravely, from the safety of the cage, surrounded by the farmers’ guns.

Karla winced. Somehow, she was sure that Ultrima’s next move would be to unleash his lightning straight at her. 

To her surprise, he didn’t. In fact, he did something surprising. 

He transformed back into his human form. 

Not that it was really that great a risk, since the other dragons next to him didn’t.

He strode towards Karla and the others, unafraid.

Karla could feel all eyes on her. The other humans waited for her orders. The other dragons wondering what she was going to do.

Her heart thumped and her blood roared in her ears. She’d been prepared for a fight. Not for a discussion. What was Ultrima planning? Was it a threat?

Should she take this chance to take him out? A couple of shots from the back of the ute and their fight could be over. 

But she couldn’t ask that of anyone. Shooting an attacking dragon was one thing, a human who was just walking up to them was a completely different thing.

She held up her hand to indicate to the others to hold their fire. Perhaps he wanted to surrender.

Somehow, she didn’t think so.

“I should have been prepared for the fact that you wouldn’t run.” Ultrima’s raised voice was amused. He didn’t even seem to care that he was completely naked. “Oh, wait a second, I was.”

He waved his hand in the air, and for a moment, nothing happened.

Then every hair on Karla’s head rose until she was sure they were all standing completely upright. Fear flooded her body, and instantly, she knew what was happening, even before the snow white dragon appeared out of thin air between her and the rest of the clan.

The farmers switched their aim to the white dragon. 

Even though every bone in her body was screaming for her to run, Karla stood her ground. “It’s just fear,” she called out to the others. “If you don’t react, it will fade away, just like the fear we felt as we drove in. This is no different.”

“Actually, it is,” Ultrima said smoothly. “It’s quite different. You see, Estrima here isn’t a Rian life dragon. She’ll have no problems using her life power to send you all completely crazy.”

“I bet she won’t do too good a job of that with some bullet holes in her,” Gretchen’s father said boldly.

Ultrima’s eyes shifted to him. “True.” His eyes scanned the old man as though trying to evaluate how likely he was to carry out his threat. Then he turned back to Karla. “So it seems we are at a standoff. Bravo. The one error in my planning was not seeing that you would bring other humans and, more importantly, human weapons.”

He eyed the utes with their cages, his expression deliberately disdainful. 

“We can’t all be perfect,” Karla said sweetly.

Ultrima barked a short laugh. “No, it would seem not. I have just one question for you.”

Karla raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“Why?” Ultrima asked. He waved back at Taurian, who had remained in dragon form, and was thus silent. “The man you love has cast you aside for another. Why are you risking your own life to save him?”

Karla looked over at Taurian. Somehow, she suspected that the answer to this question was important. 

Not that there was any doubt as to her reasons. She turned back to Ultrima, her back straight. “Because I love him. And I’d rather he was alive and with someone else than dead. Love isn’t about ownership, or even jealousy. When you really love someone, it transcends all that.”

Concepts she suspected Ultrima could never understand, given his history.

“Do you think he would do the same?” Ultrima jerked his head in Taurian’s direction, not even turning to look at his rival. 

“Does it matter?” Karla challenged. “I’m here, standing up to you. The question I want to know the answer to is, ‘What are you going to do?’”

Ultrima stared at her for a moment then threw back his head and laughed. “I came for a fight. Let’s fight.”

Right in front of Karla’s eyes, his body began to transform, silver scales bursting from his skin, his neck and tail elongating.

She heard Chase’s gasp from the back of the ute behind her, and realised she’d waited too long. Ultrima was too close. Chase’s fireworks had been set to aim for dragons in the air, not on the ground. He couldn’t let them off while she was standing right beside the ute anyway.

There was nothing to protect her from Ultrima’s lightning. 

Karla dropped to the ground and rolled desperately under the ute. Not the best place to be, but better than out in the open. It would be hard for Ultrima to hit her under here, wouldn’t it?

Luckily, he didn’t even try. His wings stirred up dust, sending a wave of it under the ute to where Karla lay, as he lifted into the air. Karla heard a volley of shots, but since Ultrima didn’t fall back to the ground, they either missed, or didn’t injure him significantly.

Ultrima’s dragon laugh split the air. 

“Try harder, little human,”
his voice crowed in her head. 

Karla breathed a sigh of relief. She’d sidestepped the first danger at least.

Fear still coursed through her, but given the situation, it was hard to tell what was real, sensible fear, and what was caused by the life dragon hovering overhead. Either way, the solution was to fight. 

Maybe Ultrima hadn’t been prepared for that. Maybe it hadn’t even occurred to him that the fear would just make the humans fight harder and more desperately.

Karla rolled out the other side of the ute and rose to a crouch. Cautiously, she stood up, using the side window to get a feel for where the other dragons were. 

Ultrima flew back to gather his dragons, who were already lifting into the air above the lair. Good, just where they wanted them.

“Aim at the white dragon,” Karla called out, pointing into the sky, where the life dragon still hovered. While the dragons were regrouping, she took a chance and ran to the nearest cage, where Chase, Bruce, Gretchen, Gretchen’s father, and one of his farmer friends stood. 

Guns moved, poking through the bars of the cages on the back of the ute, and another round flashed off. 

And missed. 

Bruce reached for the door to let her in and Karla scrambled up. She heaved a sigh of relief as the door closed behind her. But it was only momentary.

“I can’t…” Gretchen’s father, Jake said. Karla stared at him in horror as his gun wavered, then slowly moved towards her, until it was pointing directly at her. Beads of sweat broke out on the man’s forehead. “I can’t control it,” he gasped out.

Karla’s heart hammered in her chest. The life dragon. 

It could do more than just cause fear. It could actually control their actions.