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Damien
He looked around wildly, but none of the others had any answer. Focusing for a moment, he returned to his human form. Rane took his own pants off, tossing them to the naked Damien, who wisely ignored the wide-eyed stares from the witches.
He needed to find Anna. It was at that point, as he finished doing up the pants, that the third witch appeared.
“Where’s Anna?” Damien demanded before the woman could get a word in. “Where did she go?”
The young woman, clearly frightened by what had just happened didn’t answer, her eyes wide.
“What happened? Did you see her?” he shouted, barely restraining himself from shaking the poor girl in his panic.
“She pulled me from the snow. After the, after, the dragon attacked. Then the snow moved, and the white dragon was there. She pushed me away. I ran. The dragon went after her.” The witch sagged. “I’m sorry. I just ran. I should have fought. I should have helped her, but I was so scared, it was so big and strong.”
The woman was in shock, clearly babbling and unable to realize it, but the important details were coming out.
“Where!” Damien snapped, fear bubbling higher in him at every moment.
Anna was a strong woman, but that strength unfortunately didn’t translate directly into an ability to defend herself from an infected dragon. None of these witches could handle one of his kind alone. They simply lacked the strength of their magic to do so. If the dragon had cornered Anna alone...
He shook his head, fearing for the worst.
“Behind that building,” the witch said, pointing off to her right at the largest of the little cluster of structures.
Damien dashed off without waiting, his heart thundering in his chest, spurred by adrenaline-based fear. They couldn’t have gotten her. Not now, not after they’d broken through yet another barrier, exploring whatever it was that was growing between them. She had to be safe. He had to save her!
He raced around the corner, but there was no sign of her.
“Anna!” he bellowed, looking this way and that. Where was she?
He looked down at the ground, noting melted snow. The fire dragon hadn’t come this way, he was positive of that. Which meant...
“Anna,” he breathed. She had fought back!
He followed the tracks, jogging down the length of the building, then out back and into the forest. The footsteps were spaced fairly far apart in the snow, he noticed, his worry rising again. Wherever it was she’d been going, Anna had been running. Fast.
His long legs carried him forward. Ignoring the branches that slapped against his upper body, Damien dove into the forest, noting the trees that had been blasted apart, half the time following what could only be the path of the ice dragon. He picked up Anna’s footprints again as she went left, and the dragon went right.
“Anna! I’m here! Where are you?” he called, turning to the left and right as he went.
She had to be okay. Had to be fine. If Damien had lost her, he didn’t know what he would do. The idea of facing his own kind in battle was one thing but having to fight someone he cared for someone he...even his mind shied away from the word, but not for the reason he thought.
It would be easier if she were gone, to not acknowledge the way his feelings had evolved for her. Not now, at least. Not until there was at least some sort of closure, as horrible as that was to think about.
That’s enough brain. Anna is alive, I can feel it. We’re going to find her. Now.
“Anna!” he called again, still following the trail. How far had she gone? He didn’t think his fight with the fire dragon had lasted that long...
All at once, he came to a stop. All around him the snow was melted and even the pine needles on some of the evergreen trees had met the same fate.
“What did this?” he asked, looking around, noting the diameter of the heat blast. “What other foul creature was here?”
“It wasn’t a creature that did this,” a voice said from off to his left.
Damien whirled to see Anna leaning against a tree trunk, staring at the opening, the scorched marks on the ground, with a blank spot in the center of them. Damien did some quick thinking and realized the not-quite-burned area was about the size of a dragon.
Had...
“Are you saying you did this?” he asked, approaching the shell-shocked woman cautiously.
It was hard to restrain himself from rushing over and picking her up, but something had occurred here, something that had left Anna not quite all there.
“Yes,” she said, looking up, a tiny smile forming on half her face. “Can you believe that, Damien?”
“I...I did not think you had such power,” he admitted. “To unleash this much fire...” he waved his hands around the clearing. “How?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know, Damien.”
Her legs started to wobble, and he raced in close, catching her swiftly before she had a chance to hit the ground, lowering her into his lap, holding her close to his chest. With one hand he gently pulled her staff free, laying it on the ground next to him.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Completely and totally fine. Except...Damien, I hurt it. Bad. I burned a huge hole in its chest with a blast of fire unlike anything I’ve ever been able to summon before.”
“Are your powers evolving?” Damien wasn’t sure how that worked with humans.
“No. No that’s not how it works. I can learn more complicated spells, but the amount of magic I can call, that I can control, that’s finite. Nobody has ever increased their magic before.” She paused, eyes unfocused, distant. “But I did, Damien. I did.”
“How?”
She turned her head, looking at him with those same vacant eyes. “I thought of you,” she said. “Of losing you. All my fears, my dreams, they all focused and when I attacked, just before it ate me, I had more power available to me than I ever did before.” She shrugged, bouncing his arms as he held her tight. “So, I attacked that nasty thing and beat the shit out of it.”
Damien gaped as Anna began to giggle. “I did it. I, Anna Sturgis, beat the crap out of a dragon with my magic! I did it!” she threw her head back and howled with laughter.
He didn’t even get a chance to ask if she was okay again before the laughter turned to tears and Anna flung herself at him. “Oh Damien,” she gasped, fingers digging into the muscles on his back, holding on for dear life. “I thought I was never going to get to see you again.”
“I’m here,” he said calmly, stroking the back of her head, dragging his fingers through her hair, the black strands smooth and soft to his touch. “I’m here, Anna. I’m here.”
He repeated that over and over again as she shook with tears, though the sobs slowly faded. The sounds of her struggling to get her breathing under control and to regain her composure reached his ears, but he ignored them, just continuing to hold her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, noting at last the large gash on his opposite shoulder from where her head was tucked in, dried blood reaching down to his waist.
“Yeah, I will be,” he said. “It’ll heal fast enough.”
“Are they...are they gone?”
“For now.”
“But they aren’t dead, are they?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“No,” he said quietly. “And that’s why we need to get back to the outpost. As much as I want nothing more than to hold you in my arms forever, we must be going. Soon.”
He didn’t want to put this weight on Anna, but there was no choice.
“We have to kill these creatures now. Before they can replicate. Or else there will be no stopping them, and your world will fall, just as mine did.”
Anna sniffled loudly before sitting up straight in his arms. “Okay. Let’s go,” she said, extracting herself from his grip, much to Damien’s dismay. He liked having her so close.
“Here.” He handed her the staff from the ground.
It surprised him to note how tentatively she reached for the magical implement. That wasn’t good. Damien needed her to be in full control, to be trusting of her powers.
“Anna, are you going to be okay?” he asked. “I need to know now.”
“I think so,” she admitted, giving him a look that was less than confident. “I just...what if I can’t do it again Damien? What if I need to use that kind of power, and it doesn’t come to me?”
He nodded. “I don’t really know how to give you any sort of advice on this. I’m not familiar with your magic, not yet. Though I hope to be in time,” he added with a little smile that he hoped was reassuring. “But if it came to you when you needed it most, then I suspect it came to you for a reason, Anna. A good reason. Believe in yourself, and you will always have the power you need.”
She smiled up at him, then surprised him by grabbing his neck and pulling him in for a quick kiss.
“Thank you,” she said after they reluctantly broke apart, neither wanting it to end, but both of them knowing that bigger, more important things awaited them now.
The Infected were here on Earth, and Damien intended to ensure they never got away. No other planet would suffer like his people’s had. No matter what it demanded of him.
