Devoured: Brides of the Kindred 11 (40 page)

Chapter
Thirty-nine

“I can’t believe she snuck away
like that!” Becca said for the hundredth time as they drove down the rutted
dirt road. “Is the girl crazy? Does she have a death wish?”

“We don’t know for a
fact
that she went to look for Garron’s
dr’gin,”
Truth pointed out, but inside
he didn’t have much hope. He had seen the look in Tess’s eyes when she said
that Garron was still there, inside the beast that had consumed him. She hadn’t
been ready to give up yet. Love and pain had made her reckless.

“Oh yes we do,” Becca said
grimly. “You heard her, saying he was still in there.”

Her words mirrored his thoughts
so exactly that Truth felt a surge of guilt.

“You’re right, Rebecca. We
should have done more to stop her.
I
should
have done more.”

“It’s not your fault, honey!”
Becca put a hand on his arm. “I just wish we could find that damn cabin they
were staying at. I just…”

“You’re
close—almost there,”
came the
voice of Far through the mental link all Kindred share with their mates.
“I can feel you getting closer.”

“Far?”
Truth sent, frowning.
“Where are you? I thought we were out of
range of the Mother Ship, even for our bonded link.”

“Which
is why I came down to Earth,”
the
light twin said.
“But I made a stop in Tampa first, to speak to
Tess’s friend, Di.”

“The
one who called to tell us about Tess and Garron in the first place?”
Truth sent back.

“Exactly.
The females working at the Tampa
HKR told me where I could find her. She was badly beaten but she’s awake and
responsive now and she was able to give me the coordinates to the cabin. Take
the next left, Brother, and then drive a little further and look to your
right.”

Truth did as he said and soon
enough they saw a small, rustic dwelling with two vehicles parked in front of
it. One was a large, lumbering thing that stunk of fossil fuels. Truth believed
the humans called it a “truck.” The other was a small, sleek car which was
clearly a converted Kindred shuttle. Far stood just outside it, his long blond
hair glimmering in the last rays of the setting sun.

Truth parked his own converted
shuttle on the side of the road and jumped out to greet his brother. Far went
to him with open arms and Truth felt some of the tension he’d been carrying
since they got the awful news that Garron had gone
D’fex
ease just a little as his twin enfolded him in a firm
embrace.

“Gods, Brother,” he murmured as
strong arms held him tight. “I’m so glad you came. It’s good to see you.”

“I second that.” Becca stepped
in to make it a three way embrace. They all hugged each other in silence for a
moment, drawing strength from their bond.

Finally Truth stepped back, his
eyes stinging a little. “Garron…”

“I
know,”
Far sent gently
through their link.
“I’m here for you,
Brother. Here to help you bear the pain.”

“Thank
you.”
Truth cleared his
throat and took a deep breath. “Right now, though, we need to find Tess. Have
you been here long?”

Far shook his head.

“I just pulled up a moment
before you.”

“So you haven’t seen anything?”
Becca asked.

The light twin shook his head
again.

“No, but I thought I
heard
something a minute ago. It was so
far I couldn’t be certain but it sounded like snarling and thrashing. That
way.” He pointed into the deep undergrowth that surrounded the cabin. “I was
going to check it out but then I felt the two of you and called to you.”

“I suppose it might have just
been some wild animals fighting,” Becca said doubtfully.

“Or it might have been Garron’s
dr’gin
making a meal of Tess,” Truth
said darkly.

“Let’s check the cabin first,
before we jump to conclusions,” Far said reasonably. “After all, we don’t
know—she might be just inside and too upset to come out.”

“I could certainly understand
that,” Becca said softly. “She just lost the man she loves forever—that makes
you crazy.”

“
Mi’now…”
Far put an arm around her shoulders at the same time Truth
slipped an arm around her waist. She had lost both of them at different times
and though they had managed to come back and be together, the experience had
deeply affected the female he and Far both loved.

They made their way to the cabin
but when Becca raised her hand to knock, the front door creaked open at the
first blow of her fist to its wood panel.

“Hmm,
that
doesn’t seem good,” Becca murmured.

“Not at all.” Truth pushed the
door open wide and was about to step in when the smell of blood hit him in the
face. He stepped back, wincing.

“Ugh.” Far made a face. “This
place reeks of death.”

“And look at the carpet.” Becca
motioned. There was just enough light to see the dark, sodden stain in the
middle of the living area, right in front of the couch.

“This must be where Garron’s
dr’gin
devoured Tess’s ex-mate,” Truth
said. “Let’s just hope he didn’t come back and eat her as well.”

“I don’t think so.” Far sniffed
the air. “I only smell one kind of blood here. My nose may not be as sensitive
as a Rai’ku’s but I can tell that much.”

Truth sniffed the air and
nodded. “I agree. Let’s search the cabin and try to avoid the blood. Tess may still
be in the back, too filled with grief to move or care what happens to her.”

But a search of the small cabin
revealed no signs of Tess other than her clothes. Clearly the place was
deserted.

“What are we going to do?” Becca
asked when they converged outside the cabin again. None of them really wanted
to be inside where the stench of blood and death still lingered. “If she’s not
here, where is she?”

“I think we all know the answer
to that,” Far said quietly. “Her vehicle is here but she’s not in the cabin.”

“She went looking for
him—looking for Garron,” Becca put a hand to her throat.

“She must have.” Truth felt
another surge of guilt. He should have kept an eye on the human girl instead of
letting his own grief blind him. “But I greatly fear that all she is going to
find is her own death.”

Chapter
Forty

Tess thought later that she
would never forget her first flight on a
dr’gin’s
back. As the long, lithe body rose high in the air she clung to him,
leaning down to wrap her arms around his neck, afraid she would fall off. She
still had no idea how the
dr’gin
was
able to fly. Maybe he was filled with some lighter-than-air substance inside?
Whatever it was, the huge beast seemed to have no trouble at all rising higher
and higher, right above the tree tops as it flew up the side of the mountain.

At first Tess—who had never
liked heights—was afraid to look. But the
dr’gin
flew so smoothly she finally dared to open her eyes a crack. The sight took
her breath away.

Flying high above the forest,
she could see the last burning orange and crimson red vestiges of the sunset
bleeding across the landscape. The dying light threw the trees into stark
relief, turning them into tall, black shadows and filling the forest with
danger and mystery.

“Oh…” Tess whispered, sitting up
a little, though she made sure to keep her fingers tightly clenched in the
dr’gin’s
silky feather-fur. She’d been
on airplanes before and seen such sights from the window but never had she felt
so enveloped by the view.

She could see in every direction
for one thing, not just a tiny square presented by a plane window. For another,
there was nothing separating her from the vast space around her and nothing to
distract her from its beauty. There was no noise of the airplane engines, no
coughing or shifting from other passengers or a bored stewardess reciting
safety instructions by rote. The
dr’gin
flew in absolute silence—there was nothing but the soft whistle of the wind in
her ears and the cry of an occasional bird.

Even the smells were different
up here—the air was fresher,
cleaner
.
It was colder too. Tess shivered and lowered herself a little, resting her
forearms on the
dr’gin’s
broad back
to soak up some of its heat. His soft white feather-fur was warm of course, but
his body also seemed to be a very high temperature. Under the silky white
mantle of fur, she could feel something like hard, overlapping scales. From
these radiated an immense heat which almost might have burned her if the wind
wasn’t so chilly.

As it was, she felt just right.
Floating along on the
dr’gin
was like
riding in a warm car on a crisp fall day and putting down the windows to enjoy
the cool autumn air in her face.

Well,
no, it’s not exactly like a car ride,
Tess
corrected herself. It was more like what she imagined a magic carpet ride would
be like. The smooth, flowing of the
dr’gin
beneath her, the panoramic view of the natural beauty all around, the soft
whistling of the wind…despite her continued anxiety about her fate, Tess found
it enchanting. Seduced by the beauty of the moment, she almost felt like if she
had to die, she was glad to have this as her last memory.

Then the
dr’gin
made for a dark opening in the side of the mountain. Tess
ducked her head just in time as they soared over the steep lip of a cliff and
then went directly into a very big, very black cave.

The
dr’gin
came to a halt at last, his long claws scrabbling against
the rocky cave floor. Then it just sat there.

“Um…” Tess wasn’t sure what to
do. Should she thank him? Could he understand her? And when had she started
thinking of the
dr’gin
as “he”
instead of “it?” She didn’t know but it seemed right, somehow.

The
dr’gin
shook impatiently, like a horse twitching to get rid of a
fly.

Oh
right—and I’m the fly.

Tess took the hint and got off
quickly. It was easy since the
dr’gin
was
low to the ground. It wasn’t like sliding off a horse—more like simply standing
up and stepping over his broad back to stand on the stone floor beside him.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said
and winced when her own voice echoed unnaturally in the stone space. How big
was this cave anyway? She’d been to Natural Caverns in Virginia and she knew that some cave systems
could extend for miles and miles of convoluted, twisting tunnels and vast
grottos inside the mountain. Just the idea of all that black, empty space at
her back made Tess extremely nervous.

She looked around but the light
of the setting sun was almost completely gone and the darkness gathering around
her was thick and impenetrable. In fact, she realized, she couldn’t see much of
anything except the
dr’gin’s
eyes
glowing hungrily right beside her.

The euphoria she’d felt during
the beautiful, silent ride abruptly leaked away to be replaced by a numbing
fear. The
dr’gin
took a step towards
her, its claws scratching on the stones, its eyes wide and glowing a brilliant
turquoise.

“Please…” Tess took a step back.
“If you brought me here just to eat me…”

The
dr’gin
cocked its head to one side, for all the world like someone
trying to understand something spoken in a foreign language. Then it started to
come toward her again.

“Please…” Tess took another step
back and nearly fell. Her breath was coming short now as panic took over. Maybe
the
dr’gin had
brought her here just
to eat her. She’d thought he was rescuing her from the wolves but maybe he was
just making sure his dinner didn’t have any pieces out of it. “Don’t!” she
begged as the huge beast flowed toward her. “Please,
don’t.”

The
dr’gin
gave her a long look and then, to Tess’s confusion and
relief, he retreated swiftly to the opposite side of the cave. There he curled
into a circle and turned his face to the stone wall. The gesture was strangely
familiar and suddenly she realized that the
dr’gin
was very deliberately giving her space.

Tess watched him for a while
uncertainly. What was going on? Why had he stopped moving in on her and left so
abruptly? Was he trying to tell her something? Was he really giving her space
the way a person would or was he simply saving his supper for later?

It was all too confusing to
understand. Sighing, she sat down and leaned back against the opposite wall of
the cave. A cold wind whistled in through the cave mouth but she drew her knees
up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs, trying to ignore it. After
awhile she closed her eyes and fell into a light, uneasy sleep.

She was wakened an unknowable
period of time later by a chorus of high, mournful howling coming from just
outside the cave. Gasping, she sat bolt upright, her hands clutched to her
chest. How had the wolves managed to find her way up here on the side of the
mountain? Was the whole pack out there? Were they—?

Suddenly a long, lithe white
shadow flowed past her and out the cave mouth. Tess got a brief glimpse of the
moonlight sparkling on its flowing fur and then the
dr’gin’s
unearthly claxon alarm-roar split the night air.

Tess clapped her hands over her
ears but not before she noticed that the howling had abruptly stopped. Had
Garron’s
dr’gin
chased away the pack?
Had he killed any more of them? Would he be in a mood for more killing when he
came back into the cave?

The screaming roar was not
repeated but her heart was still pounding minutes later when the
dr’gin
came back into the cave. He took
a look at Tess, shivering with a combination of fear and cold, started to go
back to his place on the opposite wall, and then stopped.

“H-hey,” Tess whispered, her
voice breaking on the word no matter how hard she tried to keep it steady. “Uh,
did you scare them all off? Are they gone?”

The
dr’gin
gave her another look and came towards her purposefully,
flowing over the ground like a river of white silk.

“No,” Tess begged softly, as she
had before. “No, please…”

But this time the
dr’gin
didn’t stop. Instead, he flowed
around her, encircling her body with his own long form and nestled her securely
in the curve of his side.

At first she didn’t dare to move
or even breathe. But the
dr’gin
didn’t
seem to be offering her any harm—it was more like he was protecting her.
Keeping her warm. His actions reminded her of what Garron had told her several
times—that his
dr’gin
liked her and
felt protective of her. Maybe he
wasn’t
saving
her to eat later. Maybe he genuinely wanted to keep her safe.

“Okay,” Tess murmured. “Okay, I
guess this is all right.”

Little by little, she allowed
herself to relax. The
dr’gin’s
side
was surprisingly comfortable and very warm. It molded itself to the shape of
her body, reminding her of a high end armchair filled with memory foam or some
similar material. Only memory foam didn’t breathe and it wasn’t covered in
silky fur.

Tess sighed and turned on her
side, pressing her cold cheek to the warm hide beneath her. Unfortunately, it
was the cheek Pierce had sliced open with his knife. Rubbing it against the
dr’gin’s
hard scales reopened the wound
and shot a bolt of pain through her face.

“Ouch!” She winced and sat up,
her fingers going to her hurt cheek. They came away warm and wet. Was she
bleeding again?

Suddenly she became aware that
the
dr’gin
had curved around to face
her, so close that his huge head was almost in her lap. He sniffed her bloody
fingers, his hot breath blowing across her hand. Then he licked her, his long
tongue curling around each digit in turn, as though it was trying to get every
last trace of blood from her hand.

Tess froze.

Oh
my God, I’ve done it now. Now he’s tasted my blood he’ll eat me for sure!

Sure enough, the huge, leonine
head rose up, drawing close to her own until they were eye-to-eye.

“Garron,” she whispered, looking
into those glowing, turquoise orbs. “Garron, please…please,
no.”

The huge mouth opened and she
closed her eyes tight, not wanting to see when the final bite was going to
happen.
Please,
she prayed silently.
Please, just let it be quick! Don’t make it
long and drawn out and painful like it was with Pierce. Let it be qu—

Her prayer was cut off when the
dr’gin’s
hot, wet tongue swiped over the
side of her face. Oh God, it was tasting her! Getting the blood right from the
source. The next thing she would feel was those massive jaws closing over her
head and his fangs sinking into her neck, severing her carotids…

But there was no final, fatal
bite. Instead, the
dr’gin
just kept
gently licking, bathing her face with its tongue.

Gradually, her heart stopped
pounding so frantically and the tension left her body. The
dr’gin’s
breath had the same wild, almost-cinnamon scent that
Garron’s had. As it licked her, she felt the familiar tingle and knew what was
happening.

“You…you’re healing me, aren’t
you?” she asked softly, daring to open her eyes at last. “You’re doing just
what you did that first time, back in the hotel room.” She shivered,
remembering the pleasure of his mouth on her then, his gentle touch, his
comforting words that put her at ease and aroused her at the same time.
“Garron,” she whispered. “Oh, Garron, if only you could come back to me,
really
come back to me…”

And a voice inside her head
whispered,
He will, child…if you are brave.