To Love a Dragon - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,53

afforded them little of his attention.

He glanced at Serek. Fortunately, the baby had kept his hold on the wedge of sunfruit he’d been eating before the ambush and was gnawing upon it presently. Sticky juice ran down Serek’s chin, over his hands, and dripped on Arysteon’s shoulder.

The innocent, oblivious baby had been unbothered by Arysteon’s headlong flight from the camp. Arysteon was thankful Serek was yet too young to be scarred by the events he’d been forced to endure.

Keeping low, Arysteon increased his pace. Echoes of Leyloni’s pain, fear, and anger pulsed within his spark, making it stronger, hotter, and more volatile. Leyloni needed him. He refused to acknowledge what she’d meant for him to do.

Leyloni was his. He would not move on without her.

Another of those whistles pierced the sky, a cold, malicious mockery of the bird songs that usually added soft beauty to the forest’s ambient sounds. What were the humans communicating with those whistles?

What did they intend for his mate?

Those mortals will pay for what they have done to her.

Somehow, the thought only further amplified his spark. Lightning coursed beneath his scales, making his body thrum, and charged the air around him.

Serek cooed softly, calling Arysteon’s attention. The baby’s dark hair was standing up in all directions like the quills of an agitated porcupine.

Arysteon clenched his jaw, forcing back the power churning within him. He could not allow himself to be a danger to Serek. He could not carry a human baby into battle.

Voices drifted to him from downriver—human voices, female voices, none of them Leyloni’s. Their words grew more distinct as he neared.

“…now. She deserves no less!”

“Enough! She is of no use to us dead until we have the menfolk.”

“I will spill her entrails on this very ground, as is my right,” the first female growled. “It is the vengeance Onu deserves.”

“I am not yet dead, Tekal,” said a third female, her weakened voice barely audible over the river’s flow.

“Save your strength, Onu,” the second female said gently. “You will not yet walk the Bone Wastes.”

Only the baby in his arms stopped Arysteon from charging at those females blindly and releasing all his fury in the form of merciless lightning. Muscles stiff with that unspent energy, he pushed forward a little farther, stopping at the low rise that led down to the river. He peered through the vegetation.

He counted four of the bone-clad females just downriver—one sitting on the ground, her back against a boulder and a blood-soaked cloth around her thigh, another seated atop the same boulder with one leg stretched out and her face battered and bloodied, and two more standing over a fifth human who was lying on the ground.

Arysteon’s heart stuttered. The fifth human was unmistakable, though her coppery hair was wet and dirty.

Leyloni.

Keeping one arm around Serek, he dropped a hand to the ground, sinking his claws deep into the dirt. Lightning coursed down his arm and dissipated in the earth, but it did not diminish the still building power inside him.

He’d wasted too much time already. He would not allow his clan to be broken, would not allow anyone or anything to take his mate away.

A second group of bone clad females emerged from the foliage near the first—four more of them.

“Where are the males?” demanded Tekal, stepping toward the newcomers. She was the only bone clad human with no mask.

“Fled. The adult…he is not human,” replied one of the newly arrived women.

Arysteon turned away from them, scanning his surroundings. Serek reached up with a sticky hand to take hold of one of Arysteon’s horns, keeping the other hand—and the mostly mushed sunfruit in its grasp—at his mouth.

Arysteon’s chest tightened, and electric heat skittered along his back scales. Something buried deep within him railed against taking his eyes off Leyloni, especially now.

“We will kill her now and go on the hunt,” Tekal said. “She will only slow us down, and the males are the true prize. You know this, Aklai.”

A flash of pain pierced Arysteon’s chest—Leyloni’s pain. His body trembled with the exertion of preventing himself from going to her, his every muscle screaming in agony.

Aklai—the female who Tekal had been arguing with—said, “And what of Onu? She will slow us down on the hunt. Are we to leave her here, as well?”

“We will leave one behind to tend her,” Tekal replied tightly.

“The poison will not last much longer regardless,” said Onu, her voice even more diminished than before. “Bind the lamb or kill her, but either way be done