Dark Highland Fire

Jagrin shook his head slowly, though there was no sympathy in his eyes. "The Andrakkar are fools. The bloodline seems to have been tainted with madness somewhere along the way. And yet they're the best the dragons have to offer at present. No wonder they're in such decline."

"You sound so disappointed about it," Gabriel returned, earning him a grating laugh from his captor.

"It will be centuries before the damned things die out completely. And we do need them, at least until the Orinn stop sending their little bands of crusaders to kill us off while we sleep. But if we could discover the secret... your secret... come up with just the right way to harness your essence ... we would have everything we required. We could leave the Blighted Kingdom and walk in daylight."

"Rule the world," Gabriel added, only half joking. But he'd apparently said the wrong thing, as Jagrin's smirk laded and his hunger returned.

"You should not speak of things about which you know nothing," Jagrin said flatly. "Coracin cannot be ruled. But it has many treasures for the Drakkyn, should they be bold enough to grasp them. And ah, you're afraid again, aren't you? That's much better. You're diverting, shifter, I give you that, but I have better things to do than waste my time talking to you."

Gabriel clenched his jaw, cursing this thing that could sniff out his emotions so easily. He was glad for the information Jagrin had provided, yes, but in his current situation it did him no good whatsoever. Not liking the look on the daemon's face, he grasped at straws.

"Wait. Isn't there going to be some, ah, god or goddess angry about your making me a pet?"

Jagrin's patience for the conversation was apparently at an end. "They've been gone a long time, shifter. One measly arukhin isn't going to bother anyone, least of all Ronan ... not when there are so many nymphs and the wine flows so freely in the Higher Kingdom." His eyes moved over Gabriel's biceps, the meat of his calves. "No, a small bite won't hurt you at all, I think. Not compared to what's coming. And I'm so ... hungry."

Gabriel swallowed hard, and all he tasted was the metallic tang of rising panic. There was only one choice, and he knew it. It was just going to take most of his strength to do it. Still, he knew he had to Change if he was going to have any chance of escaping this abomination's teeth. There was a burning sensation as his limbs stretched to legs and paws, as fur burst through skin to cover and protect and his muzzle lengthened. His mind cleared, always a pleasant side effect of embracing his animal side. And as a Wolf there were only two things he was focused on:

Escape.

Find Rowan.

Jagrin sneered as he looked at him, but the hunger in his expression had been joined by what might have been jealousy. Gabriel growled, a low warning sound that echoed across the desolation around him. He lowered his massive head, crouched low to the ground, ready to attack at the slightest provocation.

"Foolish beast. Even if you could escape me ... which you can't... night has fallen on the Blighted Kingdom. You'll be eaten alive, consumed while you can still watch. I can protect you. I have powers you know nothing of. Or I can drag your half-eaten yet still-breathing carcass back to the castle after I've joined in the feast. Your choice."

Gabriel took a step back, then another, still growling. Jagrin narrowed his eyes to red slits.

"Last chance, arukhin. Let me show you how unwise this choice would be. Ness'eth!"

Jagrin raised his arms, and Gabriel felt himself being Idled as well, paws working helplessly in the air that was suddenly beneath him. He rose high above the daemon, dangling between earth and sky. Jagrin watched him for a moment, then gave a guttural cry and threw his arms forward. Gabriel, too, shot through the air, slamming into the ground with crushing force as sand hissed up into a cloud around the divot he had made.

He felt his rear leg snap, and the pain made the world go as gray as the sand for a few seconds. It would heal... hopefully quickly, since the daemon hadn't done it with his own hands ... but it wouldn't heal in time to save him from this. He struggled back to his three good feet, ready to fight to the end. He thought of his family, of Gideon and Duncan, Carly and Malcolm, in bright bursts of images that brought him some small comfort. But mostly he thought of Rowan. The hair as bold as her mouth, the way she moved, as though she were always dancing. The way she had looked at him when she had finally said "I love you." He loved her too, with all the .strength he had. But it had not been enough. And for that he had oceans of regret.

As the darkness deepened, Gabriel saw more of those creeping shadows slink into the open. The smell that accompanied them, foul and rotting, increased until Gabriel's eyes were watering. The noise they made, a throaty moan that turned delighted as one by one they spotted him, made him want to put his paws over his ears and bury himself deeply in the sand. It was awful, and at last fear unfurled its black petals deep in his chest. Jagrin approached him slowly, red eyes brimming with terrible glee. Still, Gabriel stood his ground.

"Desert dwellers," he purred. "Scavengers. Do you hear them? Feel them? They are without mercy, shifter. Without conscience. They are daemon in the most ancient and raw form, and they will eat you while you beg for death. You cannot fight me, for the darkness is my power, and the light is gone. What will you choose? Be quick. I won't hold them back forever."

The moaning grew louder, and Gabriel's eyes darted to and fro in the near-blackness. There was sandy shuffling all around him, and his sharp eyes could make out over a dozen figures approaching quickly. God, maybe he could have run were it not for his stupid leg. But there was a sharp twist of pain each time he jostled it, and he could barely even put it down.

So this was it. He would not be taken. Ideally, it would all be over with quickly, but he had no intention of going down without a fight. Despite the fact that his vision began to gray once again, he lowered his back leg to the ground, throwing out his chest, ears forward and alert.

A MacInnes Wolf, even at the end.

He tipped his head back to give his battle cry, one final act of defiance and pride. His howl rose into the dark and star-studded sky and echoed across this waste-land, rising to a high and mournful crescendo before falling, falling back to the desert floor. The sound was beautiful and wild, giving pause even to the things that stalked him as the last of it faded away. But all too quickly the shuffling resumed, and Jagrin's voice sliced through the night like a blood-encrusted blade.

"So be it. I'll let them have your limbs, arukhin, before I return you to the king. I'm not going to let you die just yet. There are things you're going to assist us with before you go ... and you can't escape without legs, now, can you?" He laughed, the most evil sound Gabriel had ever heard. And he began to worry that he might not die after all. He was going to have to try.

But I want to live so badly ...

There was a sudden flash of blinding light and terrible screaming as the white and malformed creatures who had come for him threw up their arms to shield themselves from the burning poison of it. Jagrin himself cowered, throwing himself to the ground and curling into a ball. But Gabriel only caught a quick glimpse before he had to shut his eyes against the glare himself, which was why he didn't know how to respond to the arms that wrapped around his midsection and pulled him backward with a force no human could possibly have.

"It's Bastian," rasped a familiar voice behind him. "We're leaving."

Gabriel growled in agreement, the only sound he could muster. He hoped it sounded grateful.

"No!" Jagrin was shrieking as Gabriel was pulled into the light. "Damn you, damn all of you, someone stop them before they..."

But his words faded into the tortured wails of the wretched daemon still cowering, some beginning to smoke and catch fire from the heated glow. Gabriel had only time for a brief instant of vicious satisfaction at the scene.

Then he was in the light, and they were gone.

"I warn you, Rowan. Do not mention to my father where I found you. His obsession with crossing into Earth knows no bounds, and he would torture you into revealing how you came to be there. With me, that secret and your brother are safe. With him, what is left of the Dyadd Morgaine is wiped from Coracin forever. And the rest of your precious arukhin will burn."

She had been smuggled into the depths of the mountain the dragons called home, had been commanded to wash Gabriel's scent from her skin and abandon the comforting armor of Gabriel's shirt for a maiden's gown of soft emerald green. She did it all with tears in her eyes, since it felt like washing away all traces of her bond to him. Still, she did it, heeding Lucien's warning. For whatever reason, the son only wanted her. The father would want everything else she held dear, and more.

Though it was difficult right now, she tried to be grateful for the small blessings that had been given. Even if she would have to count Lucien's unwanted devotion among them.

Now Rowan stood before the dragon king, locking her secrets tightly away inside and trying to conceal her shock at what he had become.

Once tall and proud, Mordred Andrakkar sat slumped on a massive throne carved into the stone of the mountain wall itself. His handsome features were sunken, his fair skin marred by shadows. Around his neck was wound a dark strip of fabric, beneath which Rowan could see black fluid oozing continuously. Only his eyes were the same as she remembered—glowing violet coals devoid of anything but a cold and ruthless self-interest.

This was still, despite everything, a dangerous man.

Other dragons milled around the great hall, with its soaring ceiling and ornate stonework. It looked, she thought with bleak amusement, like a human church in a way. Though she doubted any Earth priest would find much to celebrate here. The pile of bones in the corner, for instance. Probably not left there for any sort of religious reason. And the dragons, some rangy, some muscular, most male, and all looking ready for a fight, would have scared off the most intrepid human explorer—explorers who probably would have been roasted or eaten before they ever got out the doors. Doors that had just slammed shut behind her.