| |
It was full night now and the silver moon was no longer above the clearing. But they didn’t need light where Mal planned to take them.
He stepped away from Scarlet, wading through knee-deep flowers that whispered against his legs and smelled like paradise. When he had enough space, he shifted and his dragon arched his neck in pleasure at his mate’s admiring eyes.
He was a large dragon, in shimmering golden earth colors muted by the darkness. In sunlight, he was like tiger’s eye gemstone.
I’m an earth dragon, he told Scarlet, and he felt her delight in the brush of his mind.
You’re beautiful. Her mental voice had layers that spoken voices couldn’t hold: admiration, wonder, curiosity.
His dragon spread his wings and sat up to turn and share a new angle.
Don’t let it go to your head, Mal snorted privately. To Scarlet, he cautioned, I cannot go deep without risking waking the wyrm. But I can take you under.
Under the island? Scarlet looked down curiously. Is there a cave?
I don’t need caves, Mal scoffed. He regarded her form thoughtfully. She was standing now, her pale, lithe form dressed only in her wild hair. Your form, it is solid?
You tell me, Scarlet teased, brushing her hair back over her shoulder.
Certainly she had been plenty to hold onto just moments before. Mal gave a huff of a dragon laugh and vowed to do further experimentation with the solidity of her form at the first available opportunity.
He crouched. Hold onto me and don’t let go. I can take you with me, but I cannot protect you if I lose contact. It’s a little like Saina’s ability to allow others to breathe underwater when she’s touching them, but it would be much more painful than drowning.
Where are you taking me? Scarlet asked, walking fearlessly between his forelegs and putting her hand on one of his front feet. Mal closed his claws around her waist gently and then folded his wings around them both.
Down.
He fell forward into the earth, keeping his dive shallow and quiet. Even so, the island trembled as he passed the top levels of the dirt, sliding into the bedrock that lay below. He could feel it flow through him as he sank, carefully, not too far. He could sense the creature further down and he stayed well away, near the surface. They were near the peak of the island; hundreds of feet of rock separated them.
Scarlet was alarmed at first, then Mal felt her curiosity and wonder blossom.
It’s not dark, she observed in surprise.
It’s not really sight, Mal tried to explain. Not with eyes.
The different kinds of rock were rainbows of colors, patterns of earth energy. The soil at the top was a soup of mineral hues. The stone roots of the world stretched below them in glowing tones, and the surface of the earth was like the surface of water, reflecting back a distorted view.
The threads of rock snagged and caught on him as he swam through the slabs and they made a ringing song that wasn’t really sound as they dove.
Mal moved carefully, slipping through the rock gently. Even so, the resort would be getting a good tremor; Scarlet would undoubtedly bill him for the broken glassware.
He drew them back up into the clearing and as they approached the surface, they caught a glimpse of Scarlet’s roots, gleaming with life and power.
You are as beautiful from below as you are from above, Mal told her.
Her laughter was flattered.
Then, not wanting to disrupt more than he had to, or risk disturbing the wyrm’s slumber, Mal reluctantly returned to the air.
The ground was still resettling as he broke the surface and Scarlet nearly lost her balance on the heaving moss as he set her down again, shifting to catch her.
He needn’t have bothered; it steadied at once, but the feeling of her in his arms was intoxicating, so he didn’t let go.
“Did you... like it?”
Scarlet regarded him seriously. “I can’t say it was comfortable,” she confessed. “But it was beautiful.”
“There aren’t many places I can go deep without risking innocent surface casualties,” Mal said regretfully. “Only a few of the stronger seams of the earth, or land where no one lives.”
“You planned to fight the wyrm like that, from inside the rock?” Scarlet didn’t seem to be in a hurry to be free of his embrace, letting her hands wander up his arms to his shoulders.
“We would be evenly matched on neutral ground,” Mal conceded, trying to concentrate on problems that didn’t involve her clever fingers and their dearth of clothing. “And if he gains the sky, my chances of success start to plummet. I don’t particularly want to give up my advantage... but that was just a skim into upper bedrock. Our battle will shake the pillars of the island itself. There may not even be an island at the end of it.” He did not have to add that with no island, there would be no Scarlet.
We cannot let her be destroyed, his dragon creeled.
There’s a way, Mal insisted. He didn’t know what it was, yet, but he was used to solving insurmountable problems and they had time before the storms crept in.
“You don’t seem all that worried,” Scarlet observed skeptically.
“We’ve got days before the storms arrive,” Mal pointed out. “And your power is not to be discounted. I cannot believe that I will not be able to figure out a way to either protect your clearing from an underground battle, or fight the creature above. I’ll fix this,” he said confidently. “I will protect you, and I will fulfill my destiny.”
Scarlet shook her head at him. “I want you to try another word in that sentence.”
Mal was puzzled. “Fate?” he suggested, wondering if she had a problem with the word destiny.
“We,” Scarlet corrected. “We’ll fix it, we’ll figure it out. It’s my life at risk and I have no intention of sitting aside wringing my hands while you try to save me.”
Mal felt something in his chest shift unexpectedly.
He’d never had a partner. He’d always relied on his own cleverness, his dragon, and his power. He had clients, and business associates, and plenty of people who were desperate to claim him as a friend to their own advantage. But wealth and magic were better allies and he’d never acknowledged the empty place that lay like a cave in the stone of his heart, or the walls that he’d built to protect it after the last of his family had died.
Those walls had cracked at the first sight of Scarlet... or maybe even before, as he had investigated her and built an impression of who she was from her selfless actions. And now she was here, with him: his soulmate, his partner.
He traced the edge of her face in wonder. “Scarlet...”
“Mal,” she said warmly, and it was a thousand times more beautiful than Mr. Moore had ever been. Her arms were around his neck and her slim, strong body was against his. “Did I warn you about the lusty part?” she purred, her mouth near his. “We have a few hours before I can do anything about the evacuation... and I don’t need sleep.”
Mal could only growl in reply and catch her in his arms and kiss her. He laid her down in the mossy flowers of the clearing and the earth rose up to meet them. They were two of a kind, isolated by their strength, sharing powers of earth. He felt like every moment of loneliness was swept away at the touch of her mouth and the stroke of her fingers.
Show her, his dragon begged. Show her that she is our mate, that there is no room for doubt between us, that we are hers.
Mal could feel it, that bright, unbreakable bond, streaked with need and longing and joy. “I love you,” he murmured between kisses, knowing that it was pitiful compared to the strength and the beauty of what they shared. “I will love you to the end of the world and I give you everything that I am and everything I have and everything I will ever be.”
She gave a small wordless keen of pleasure and surrender and Mal set himself to satisfying the needs of her nature.