Lucan Page 6

  Cael swore and then softly began to pray to the Goddess.

  He couldn’t let her die.

  It was hot. So hot. They didn’t have time to cut their way out. The heat was cooking his brain. He reached for Cael. His arm wouldn’t respond. “Sor… ry.”

  He couldn’t save Cael.

  He couldn’t bring home the Grail.

  Sorry. So… Sorry.

  Lucan collapsed. He heard a distant crash. A roar. Fire blasted through the wall. Hot enough to melt it? He must be hallucinating.

  And if that wasn’t strange enough, he was scooped up and flung through the air.

  Lucan awakened slowly. Why was he so groggy? Where was he? His head was pillowed in a soft lap, gentle fingers caressed his brow, and warm languor spread through his body.

  Uncertain what had happened, or how much time had passed, he opened his eyes.

  “Welcome back.”

  Had he died and gone to heaven? Was he dreaming? Was a blond-haired, violet-eyed angel hovering over him?

  Angels didn’t have dirt smudges on their cheeks, did they? Half awake, he reached up and brushed the soot from her face. Her skin was soft, satiny, smooth, and he found himself caressing the same spot even though the dirt was gone.

  Their eyes locked.

  Cael blushed, and she pulled away from his touch, then poured water between his lips. He swallowed, his eyes searching hers. Her pupils had become a golden inferno surrounded by dark purple irises that didn’t look so human anymore.

  His gaze moved past her to the incinerator room. The cinderblock wall had been reduced to rubble, and garbage smoldered within the ruins. How had they survived? Had the blast flung him through the wall and out of the garbage heap? Was that why he’d blacked out?

  Although he hated to question their good fortune, he frowned. What had caused the explosion just when they most needed to escape? Seemed like a huge coincidence. Cael had carried water from a nearby fountain in a cup-shaped piece of plastic. He drank more and looked around. “What happened?”

  Her neck was dark with soot: she wore her now tattered and dirty pink tunic backward. When she turned to get more water, he saw that her tunic pocket, which had held Shaw’s papers, was burned away, the pages lost. But from the gaping hole in her clothing, he understood that modesty had required a readjustment.

  He shouldn’t stare. But damn, she had a sexy back. The hollows of her shoulder blades called to him. And the sensual purple markings down her spine made him want to explore her with his tongue. A purple tattoo? Of some kind of vine?

  She looked from the demolished wall to him, raised her chin, and squared her shoulders, almost as if bracing her body against an expected attack. “I broke the wall.”

  She’d broken through the wall? With what? “You broke through…”

  “Who are you?” she asked, eyes wide with curiosity. “Why don’t you know who I am?”

  Her first question rattled him, and he ignored it. He had to choose his words with care. “I know you’re the High Priestess.” He breathed out a sigh of frustration. “But that’s all I know. It’s not like I can go to the library and look you up.”

  “My privacy’s protected by law.” She fidgeted, and he could tell there was something she wasn’t saying.

  He searched her face—for answers. “What are you hiding?”

  “I-it’s forbidden to write or speak about me without special, preapproved permission through government channels.”

  No wonder his research hadn’t scratched the surface when it came to the High Priestess.

  Perhaps she’d attribute his ignorance to confusion due the blast. His gaze moved to the giant hole she’d created, and he raised a singed eyebrow. “So how’d you break the wall?”

  Unease flickered in her eyes. “I hear engines circling. They may be hunting us. We need to leave.” She gestured to the parked vehicles in the garage. “Unfortunately, those skimmers are all locked.”

  Standing on shaky legs, he tucked his question away to ask later. He also relegated to the back of his mind the alien vision of her purple irises and her slender back with its enticing curves and taunting hollows entwined in that tantalizing vine. He would savor the memory later, along with the memory of their short but sensual kiss. Right now, he needed to get them out of here. Squatting, he opened the compartment in the heel of his boot. The hidden multi-tool and circuit rerouter had saved him on more than one occasion.

  He staggered to the nearest skimmer, a flying vehicle that the Dragonians used for transportation, and slapped the device on the lock. After an audible click, he opened the door.

  With a sigh, she slid into the passenger seat. “I’ve never stolen anything before.”

  “We’re borrowing. Not stealing.” He sat behind the controls, revved the motor, and grinned. “This baby has some juice.”

  “Try not to crash.”

  He dialed in the Dragonian equivalent of pop rock and grinned. “I’m a very good driver. Made it halfway across the city last week with only three or four fender benders.”

  She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Focus on getting us out of here.”

  “No back-seat driving,” he replied.

  She turned down the music and cast him a puzzled glance. “This skimmer doesn’t have a back seat.”

  Damn. He needed to be careful. Sure, he’d become fluent in Dragonian, but some idioms didn’t translate well.

  “Hold on.” To distract her, he stepped on the gas, slid out through the exit, and lifted them straight up into the night sky.

  She braced a hand against the dash. “I don’t have to worry about the military killing us. Your driving’s going to do that for them.”

  He laughed, careened upward through the garage exit, and steered through thick black smoke. To avoid crashing, he relied on the sensors, veering right, then left, making steep banking turns and several dives.

  She peered over her shoulder. “The military’s going to pick us up on radar.”

  Once clear of the smoke, he could merge into one of the lanes in the traffic grid above the city. But first, he had to fly there undetected.

  Lucan reached under the dash and ripped out a few wires. “There.”

  “What have you done?” Cael’s eyes widened.

  “No one can track us now.” He banked the skimmer sideways and joined the high-speed lane. Zigzagging past the other skimmers, he poured on more acceleration.

  “Were you a thief or a racer in your last life?” she asked.

  Survival was exhilarating. He laughed. “Two of my three favorite things are tinkering and fast driving.”

  “And your third favorite thing?” she asked innocently.

  He tried for a devastating grin. “Hot sex.”

  She blanched but finally found her voice. “I played right into that, didn’t I?”

  Damn it. What was it about her that kept making him forget his cover? Maybe it was the shared danger. Or that she’d kissed him back before he’d dropped her down the trash chute. Or the fact that it had been way too long since he’d been with a woman.

  After several sharp turns and two level changes, a glance at his GPS revealed clear skies behind him and no sign of military ships following.

  He gave her a sideways glance. “So how did you blast us out of there?”

  Cael frowned, then leaned back in her seat, a resigned look in her eyes. “When you were a child, what schools did you attend?”

  “What does that have to do with you blasting us out?” he asked.

  “I’ll get there. Just answer me, please.”

  “Fine.” He kicked the cruiser into the stratosphere, where there was little traffic this late at night, and set the controls to autopilot. He’d eat fuel, but he really needed to concentrate on his cover story. Most of his false Dragonian identity focused on his adult years. Who would have thought anyone would ask details about his childhood? He decided to stick to the truth, modify it only when he had to. “I was home schooled.”

  �
��By your father?”

  “Mom and Dad shared the task, and my aunt and uncle had a hand in my education, too. I also hit the computers pretty heavily. Why?”

  “Because you’re a nonbeliever.”

  “I am?”

  “Your parents never took you to the Icons?”

  Oh, Lord. What were the Icons? She must have read the blank look on his face.

  “Religion?” she prodded.

  Oh. “My parents believe that good and evil comes from within—although they do pray to a higher power.”

  “So they don’t honor the dragonshapers?” she asked as they flew into a dense cloud that wrapped them in white fog.

  Honor dragonshapers? That would be difficult, since they’d never heard of dragonshapers. He couched his reply in the most polite tone he could muster. “My folks never mentioned them. And although I’ve heard legends—”

  “It’s more than a legend.”

  “Really? You’ve seen a dragonshaper like in the Book of Jede?”

  She laughed. “Actually I haven’t seen a live dragon. But other people have.”

  At least she hadn’t been insulted by his question. Religion was a touchy subject on most worlds.

  “You should do that more often.” Her face lit up when she grinned, making her look relaxed and carefree. Sometimes Cael appeared to carry the weight of the world on her slender shoulders.

  “Do what more often?”

  “Laugh.”

  “Really?” She turned toward him, her purple irises dark with a flicker of golden heat.

  Damn, he could drown in those eyes. He wondered what color they’d turn if he kissed her again. Made love to her. “Oh, yeah. When you laugh, you don’t sound like a High Priestess or a healer.”

  “But that’s who I am.”

  “No, that’s what you do.” He shrugged. “There’s a woman hiding behind those titles. And I like her.”

  At his compliment, he could have sworn her eyes glowed a soft golden color, but it could have been a glint of starlight coming through the fog.

  “We were talking about dragonshaping,” she prompted, but her tone was softer, relaxed.

  Why did she insist on changing the subject? “I’d rather talk about our brush with death.”

  “I’m trying, but you keep interrupting.” Her eyes narrowed again. “Are you going to let me continue?”

  “Are you saying a dragonshaper miraculously knocked down that wall?” He eyed her curiously. In his experience, religion was often invoked to explain the inexplicable. Gitata, a lover he’d met on the primitive world Dron during his journey to Pendragon, had believed his spaceship was a god. And why not? Her world had not yet discovered electricity.

  “I don’t know about the miracle part, but yes, that’s what I’m—”

  The sound of the windshield cracking cut off her reply. Cael peered over her shoulder. “It’s the military. They’re shooting at us!”

  “They don’t give up, do they?” he muttered, wondering how many were on their tail and if he’d have to land to evade them.

  The skimmer shuddered. Wind roared through the craft. The engine stalled. Lucan kicked off the autopilot and pitched the nose down, sending the vehicle into a steep glide to pick up speed. Beneath his hands the controls vibrated.

  The military ship that slid in behind them fired off another shot. Their engines sputtered and died, plunging them into an uncontrolled spiral.

  “Our wing broke off!” Cael had to yell to be heard over the roaring wind filling the skimmer.

  “We’re going down.”

  Wind whipped his face. Hot metal peppered them. Pain seared his shoulder.

  The craft began to break apart, disintegrating in the night sky. He reached for Cael’s hand. If they were to die, he wanted to leave this existence holding her tight.

  But the exploding craft shot him one way and her another. He fell endlessly, tumbling through traffic, miraculously missing a skimmer by inches, close enough to see the wide eyes of the driver staring at him in disbelief.

  Falling, he searched the sky for Cael. A piece of burning debris seared his leg. Another piece of metal pierced his chest and agony lit up his nervous system.

  The military aircraft moved in, their bright lights blinding him. From below, the Pendragon landscape rushed up at him.

  He squinted against the light and tearing wind and searched for Cael, wanting to see her one last time. For a second, he thought he spied her falling amid the wreckage, but her image was swallowed whole by a massive shadow.

  Draw now together to guard the realm.

  —MERLIN

  5

  Unlike the confines of the garbage pit where Cael had managed her dangerous partial shift, the sky gave her ample maneuvering room. Her brain altered, her body expanded twentyfold, her arms extended into wings, her spine into a huge tail. Her skin thickened, turning dark purple like her flesh marks, and her bones actually became lighter, allowing her to fly.

  She no longer possessed her higher powers of reasoning, but she remembered the human male. Her keen eyes picked him out amid the falling debris. With a giant flap of her wings, she soared toward him. Smelled his blood.

  Too much blood. Was he already dead? She timed her drop and swoop to come up beneath him and settled his weight on her back. Hold. Hold on.

  His hand gripped her neck. Who are you?

  His thoughts resounded in her brain. She almost bucked him off. Never had anyone put a thought in her head. Spoken to her mind to mind. But the man was important. Injured. Needed to rest and heal. And her dragon brain had not the words to answer his question.

  Instead, she flew to safety. Hang on.

  The shiny metal markings in the sky flew closer. They fired blasts that stung her flesh. Annoyed, she turned her head, roared her fury and rage, and incinerated the machines in one searing blast of fire.

  Where are we going?

  To the nest.

  A beach image entered her mind. The man wanted to go to that beach. She’d flown there once. Too remote. Too hot. No.

  Yes. He sounded weak.

  She shook her head and flew to the nest. It had been too long. Much too long. She needed to go home.

  During the flight, the man’s grip on her back weakened. Expending much energy, she spread her wingspan and increased her speed, until the rush of wind made her hearts beat faster. The cold, thin air at the high altitude invigorated her, as did the reappearance of her old friend Merlin.

  The owl had appeared out of nowhere and now flew at her wing, his presence lending her strength and reminding her that, like the owl, she was born for this climate and night flying. But the man was fragile. She must fly him to warmth. To the nest.

  Hours later, Merlin still at her wingtip, she spied the nest in a remote mountain ridge, high and steep. She circled the nest twice in search of danger. Sometimes men with guns climbed here. So far none had ascended high enough to invade the nest. But now men hunted her and the human male. She had to make certain not to fly into a trap.

  Exhausted from the long trip, knowing she still had much work to do, she landed in a gentle glide, careful not to spill the man from her back. Only after landing did she shrug her wings, tilting the human until he slumped to one side and tumbled into the snow. Then she humanshaped.

  Naked in the freezing air, Cael did a cursory examination of Lucan’s injuries. The sight of the snow, stained with blood from his wounds, filled her with despair, and her fear for his survival escalated. He was in critical condition, badly wounded in several places and close to death. Her feminine instincts urged her to care for him first, but as a doctor she knew he was better left outside. Outdoors, the cold would slow his heart rate and blood flow, protecting his body from massive trauma. And experience had taught her that if she didn’t attend to her own icy extremities, she wouldn’t have enough feeling left in her numbed fingers to sew his wounds. As badly as she ached to stay with him, she forced herself to enter the nest, slipped her feet into fur-lin
ed boots, her hands into heavy gloves, and shrugged into the warm cloak she always left waiting for her. Then, pulse racing with urgency, she hurried back outside with a blanket.

  While Merlin watched from his perch on a ledge above the nest, she spread the blanket over the snow beside Lucan, then rolled his body onto it. In her dragon form, his weight had been insignificant, but to her human shape, he was a heavy, muscled male, his mass difficult but not impossible to move. Praying he was still alive, alarmed that she sensed no consciousness, she dragged him indoors.

  During her short time outside, her flesh had come close to frostbite from the biting cold. Lucan’s body temperature had lowered even more than hers, from his time in the snow as well as the flight in the high-altitude cold. She prayed that the exposure wouldn’t cause permanent damage.

  But that decrease in temperature appeared to be working in his favor. The freezing chill may have helped keep him alive, and now that he was warming, he was in the most danger. Cold blood in his fingers and toes rushed back to his organs, and the severe temperature change could cause a heart attack.

  She couldn’t do anything for his heart, but she could staunch his wounds to stop the bleeding.

  She cringed at the deep and painful wounds to his beautiful chest and broad shoulders. But she shut down the female part of her and let the physician take over. Now was not the time to fall apart, nor the time to think about how she might have made a fatal mistake in flying here. To save him, she had to focus all her skills on healing.

  After tugging him into the main area, which was warmed naturally by volcanic hot springs, she slipped off her boots and gloves, then cut away his clothing. The wound on his shoulder, ragged and nasty, looked the worst. From the massive loss of blood, she suspected a nicked artery. Up here, she didn’t have surgical tools to operate in the nest. Hoping he could recover on his own, praying the metal fragments had gone in his chest and out his back without damaging an organ, she cleaned and cauterized the torn flesh. The nick at his neck she covered with a bandage. The gashes on his shoulder and leg she sewed. If his heart seized or if he had severe internal bleeding, he wouldn’t survive.