Page 37 of The Dragon's Pet
Behind them, a sudden flash of light burst across the sky. Following it by a few seconds, a low rumble grew into a roar that threatened to deafen Aria. And then there was the wind, so strong that she could not stand up to it. So strong that she would have been blown off the side of the mountain if not for Vyktor’s arms wrapped around her, drawing her down into the winding tunnels of the dragon’s base.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Either that was the portal closing, or something just went very, very wrong,” Vyktor surmised.
Either way, something had gone very, very wrong. They were over a thousand miles from the portal. The detonation must have caused incredible damage to anything nearer it.
“It almost looked… nuclear,” she said, hoping that she was wrong.
“If they have detonated one of their nuclear weapons, they have made the greatest mistake they could possibly have made. They will have supercharged every dragon in the radius… and killed all of their own kind.”
Aria wanted to say that they wouldn’t have done that, but she wasn’t sure. So many strange and impossible things had already happened in this war. But victory was at hand. Why would anyone take aggressive action now?
Vyktor hustled her to the very heart of the hold, a room so deep in the rock that even a direct strike would not affect it. The dragons had paid close attention to weapons capabilities in their short time on Earth, and had engineered around them in many respects. Aria felt her eyes filling with tears as she sheltered in Vyktor’s arms as he pulled them both down to the floor.
They sat together in that dark place, illuminated only by a single torch.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to wait,” he said grimly. “If that was the portal closing, we may have nothing to worry about…”
They looked at one another, neither one of them believing for a second that all was well. A sense of foreboding was sinking over them, an inescapable feeling of unease that made Aria hide her face in Vyktor’s chest and hope against hope that they were wrong.
“What if the portal blew up instead of closing?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, holding her close. “Only time will tell, pet.”
They sat like that for what felt like an hour. Aria stayed buried in Vyktor’s chest, praying for the best.
He lifted his head suddenly. “Something is here. Stay.”
“Vyktor!” She called after him as he rose and left her, but he simply repeated his command.
It took everything in Aria to actually obey him. She wanted to rush up by his side and face whatever was coming, but if their suspicion of radioactive detonation was accurate, doing so would be death. She had to sit there, when every bit of her military training told her to go toward the danger. She had to wait, hoping that whatever Vyktor had sensed was not a danger.
“Aria!”
He called her by her real name, something he did so rarely it sparked her into immediate action. She pushed up from the floor and ran up the winding passages toward the sound of his voice. They met midway. Vyktor had the body of another dragon in his arms—one she did not recognize at first in his battered state.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Eldor just barely made it back here,” Vyktor growled angrily. “His wings were in shreds.”
She could see the remnants of the damage in Eldor’s human form. He was bruised, bloodied, and broken in a way Aria had never seen a dragon look. She had never much cared for Eldor, but seeing him in that state provoked a spark of protective anger.
“What the hell? Why did they do this?”
“Let’s get him to his bed,” Vyktor said. “He will regenerate over the next few hours, but it will be painful and the process will not be pleasant to watch. Check the reserves for dragon herbs and bring me everything you find. I suspect we will have more wounded.”
Aria had once resisted his every order, but now she was as motivated to follow them as he was to give them. The dragons had not always been kind to her, but she did not want to see anything suffering in the state Eldor was in. She ran to do Vyktor’s bidding, gathering all the supplies she could carry. In short order she returned with an armful of the scented branches and leaves and powders the dragons had brought with them from their world. They were all contained in dark velveteen bags, clasped with gold ties.
Vyktor tied a gag in Eldor’s mouth, both to muffle the screaming and to stop the dragon from damaging his teeth as he gnashed them together.
Aria felt hot tears of frustration as she watched the dragon suffer, feeling helpless. Vyktor took the bags and emptied several of them into a flask of water that he brought to boiling point simply by holding his finger in the water and concentrating for a few moments.
Watching Vyktor, Aria was reminded just how powerful the dragons really were. They could have done so much more damage than what they had. Vyktor had told her in the beginning that if they could not find a way to end the war peaceably, they would turn the world into a charred husk. At the time, she’d thought he was exaggerating for effect. She was no longer so sure.
He steeped the herbs and mixed in the powders, moving with a concentrated focus she respected highly. So many men fell apart when they saw their comrades injured, either erupting into emotion, or retreating into a shell-shocked haze. Vyktor worked with a calm she found almost frightening, knowing what it would surely precede. Someone would pay for this.
