The Dracons' Woman (36 page)

He looked up as Val and Trey arrived, their faces revealing the same mix of feelings he felt.  Shock.  Rage.  Fear. 

“How in the hell did this piece of garbage get here?” Trey demanded, his voice rough, more dracon than man.  “I thought he was kicked off the planet weeks ago.”

“I don’t know yet,” Garen responded.  “I think that there is a lot more to this than it appears.  Faron will figure it out.  Doc is on his way.  Call Riata and tell her we need her here as fast as she can possibly make it.”

Trey stepped back as he activated his vox and began snapping orders to whoever was handling the council’s vox center. 

“That’s Pater’s ground-truck out front, and his hat on the ground,” Val pointed out.

Garen nodded, his fingers lightly stroking Lariah’s temples.  “He called down to the barn a while ago, said he was going in to pick up some flowers he’d ordered for Lariah.  Said they came in early.  I’m afraid he’s either dead or injured.  Ask Faron if he can get someone to go try and find him.”

Val nodded and bent down to stroke Tiny’s head.  “Good boy Tiny,” he said softly.  “Don’t worry, we won’t let her go.”  Val stood and turned toward the door, barely avoiding a collision with Doc who came bursting in at the same time, a black satchel in his hands. 

Doc froze for a long moment as he took in the scene. “Ah hell,” he said softly as he stepped around Tiny, passed behind Garen and knelt on the floor on Lariah’s other side, knowing that neither the dog nor the man would move for anyone or anything.  He opened his satchel, pulled out a few instruments and began examining Lariah.  Val and Trey came back inside, and all three of them waited impatiently, but quietly, until Doc finished and sat back on his heels.

Doc looked at Garen and jerked his head toward the door before standing up and stepping around Lariah’s motionless form.

“Val, Trey, take our places here,” Garen said as he reluctantly rose to his feet to follow Doc outside.  Doc paused in the doorway and pinned Val and Trey with a hard stare.  “Don’t you let her move, not one single bit,” he told them sternly.  He waited for both men to acknowledge his warning before stepping outside, Garen right behind him.

Garen was mildly surprised to see several figures milling around the body on the ground just outside the door.  He didn’t bother to stop or try to identify any of them.  He was too intent on Doc and what he had to say to care about anything else at the moment.  Doc walked far enough away that they at least at a semblance of privacy before he turned to face Garen and spoke without preamble.

“The knife is embedded in her brachial artery.  It’s almost completely severed.  She’s losing blood internally around the blade, but the blade itself is blocking it enough to keep her from bleeding out.  If we remove the knife, she will bleed to death before I can get in there and repair the artery.  She’s already lost too much blood to risk it.  I can’t open her up here to fix it.  It’s not sterile and I’m no surgeon and I don’t have the equipment.  Even if I could, there is no time.  There sure as heck isn’t enough time to get her to a Healer, even if I wasn’t afraid that moving her the slightest bit would jostle that knife enough to finish the job.”

“We have to save her Doc,” Garen said.  “There is no choice in this.”

Doc sighed and nodded his head.  “I know, but there is only one thing I can think of that might work, and I’m sorry, but even that is a mighty big might.”

“Tell me,” Garen ordered.

Doc met Garen’s eyes straight on.  “I gotta ask you a personal question,” Doc said.  “You know my history, know I’m aware of many things about your people that most are not.”

Garen bowed his head solemnly, placing his right hand over his heart without conscious thought. 

Doc acknowledged the gesture with a short nod and gruffly cleared his throat. 

“I have seen the three of you with Lariah, and I know you all care for her.  My question is, do you love her, and if you do, do you intend to make her your wife?”

Garen was surprised.  If anyone other than Doc had asked that question at this time, in this situation, he would have been furious.  But he knew Doc, and he knew the man would have a good reason for the question.

“We love her, and she will always be ours,” he replied, not exactly answering the question.  Doc studied him shrewdly.  After a long moment he nodded his head. 

“If you intend to make her your wife, then I’m hoping that you have some of that potion here that will kick start the mating ritual, because honestly, that is the only thing I can think of that will save her.  And Garen, that little lady in there is worth saving.”

Garen blinked in surprise.  “Explain please,” he said shortly.

“If that was you in there with that knife in that position, I would very slowly, very carefully slide the knife out, bit by bit.  And it would work because you are Jasani.  You have an extremely high rate of tissue regeneration.  So long as I moved the knife slowly enough, in small enough increments, your body would heal the artery within moments of the blade being moved out of the way.  The blood loss wouldn’t matter as your body would regenerate what you needed almost as quickly as it was lost.”

Garen stilled, his mind racing, assimilating the information Doc had given him, examining and discarding possible solutions at lightening speed.  In seconds he determined that Doc was correct. 

“What you don’t know is that she is our Arima,” Garen said softly.  “And we do not need the potion as our mating fangs descended the moment we first scented her.”

Doc thought about that for a moment, his brain working nearly as quickly as Garen’s.  “Damn,” he said.  “Well, that certainly explains why you’ve waited.”  Doc hung his head for a moment in thought. When he looked back up at Garen there was sympathy in his eyes.

“I don’t think there is a choice now,” he said.  “It’s the only chance she has.”

Garen nodded slowly.  “We can’t let her die,” he said.

“No, you can’t,” Doc agreed.

“We will need to complete the ritual within 24 hours of completing the first stage,” Garen said.  “Will she be strong enough for that?”

“If this works as we hope, I believe so.  But either way, there is no other choice.”

“Thank you Doc,” Garen said. 

Doc shook his head.  “Don’t thank me yet son,” he said.  ‘Let’s see if this will work first.”

Garen put one hand on the man’s shoulder and looked into his eyes.  “Thank you Doc, for loving Lariah.  Thank you for finding a way to save her life.   Even if it does not work, it at least is a chance.”

Doc swallowed hard and patted Garen’s hand.  “Let’s do this, and let’s make this work.”

Garen turned and went back into the house.  He explained the situation to Trey and Val quickly.  They did not like it any more than he did, but they also recognized it was their only chance to save Lariah.  Trey knelt beside Tiny and reached for Lariah’s left hand, not even trying to move the dog from her side.  He raised Lariah’s wrist to his mouth and kissed it tenderly.  Val knelt on the other side of her and lifted her right wrist to his mouth and, like Trey, kissed it gently.  Garen lay down so that his head was next to Lariah’s.  He pulled her long hair away from her neck, whispered his love for her softly into her ear, and then positioned his mouth.

 He focused a moment, eyes closed, until he felt his mating fangs extend.  He opened his eyes and glanced at his brothers.  They nodded to him, their fangs extended, their mouths ready at the tender skin of Lariah’s wrists.  Garen closed his eyes again, and, as gently as he could, he sank his mating fangs into Lariah’s neck and began injecting her with his serum.  Val and Trey sank their mating fangs into her wrists at the exact same moment, injecting their serum at the same time.  They waited motionless, patient, until instinct told them enough.  At the exact same moment, without even thinking about it, they all removed their fangs and licked the tiny wounds in her skin, their saliva primed to heal for those first few seconds after their serum was injected. 

Then they waited.

Faron stood over the remains of Frith Yanger, deep in thought.  Several men stood quietly nearby, keeping their distance from the body as he had ordered.  Faron had been surprised to learn that the human ranch hands had immediately called his brothers on the vox to inform them of a problem at the main house.  Several of them had then jumped into a ground-truck and raced to the house themselves.  For some reason it had not occurred to him that they would display such loyalty.  Now he realized that many of them had lived and worked for the Dracons for most of their lives, and he chastised himself for not giving them due credit.

He shook his head.  He needed to focus.  The truth was, he was so shocked and confused by what he had seen on Frith Yanger’s body that his mind was actually shying away from it.  The implications were too huge for his mind to encompass.  One thing he knew for certain was that he needed more information.  He turned to his brothers.

“Dav, transform and backtrack this man.  There were two people in a car that was stolen from the spaceport this morning and tracked up to the main gate.  I think this man was one of them.  I want the other one, alive if possible.  Also, keep an eye out for Pater. 

“Ric, take a couple of men and follow Dav.  Be sure to stay behind him so you don’t interfere with the scent trail.  It’s going to be tricky tracking Pater’s vehicle since it’s been all over this place.  Leave a man here with a vox so you can keep us informed.”

Dav was shifting into his loboenca before Faron was finished speaking.  Ric tossed his vox to a young man named Billy, indicating he was to stay behind with Faron before hurrying to the nearest ground-truck with the rest of the men.

Faron turned to his youngest brother.  “Ban, run down to the iso barn and grab me a couple of stasis bags.”  The isolation barn was where any livestock with signs of illness was taken.  The stasis bags were designed for use on animals that died of illness, allowing the carcass to be held without decomposition until it could be tested and the illness identified.  Those designed for use on humans and humanoids were not as big, and were a little better made, but essentially they served the same purpose.  He needed to preserve Frith’s body as soon as possible for later examination by the council scientists.

He watched Ban shift and race away, leaving himself and Billy alone with Frith’s remains.  Faron once more thought about the strange markings he had discovered on Frith’s abdomen, wondering how they had been placed there.  Frith’s skin was a pale, dingy flesh tone, but the markings were ashy green with an oddly rough texture.  Just looking at them made his loboenca want to howl.  And they smelled wrong.  Like they were not actually a part of Frith’s body, but someone, or something else embedded into his flesh.  That thought led to another, and Faron frowned. 

“Billy, let me borrow your vox,” he said.  The young man unhooked the device from his ear and handed it over without hesitation.  A couple of minutes later Faron was talking to Jackson Bearen.  He explained the situation as quickly as he could, then came to his question.

“This man, Frith Yanger, was banished by the Prince a few weeks ago.  How did he get back on the planet?  Weren’t his scans and prints taken?”

Faron waited patiently while Bearen checked the system.  It didn’t take long.  “Yes,” Bearen replied.  “They were taken and according to the records, he left several days later on a ship to Rondo.  That’s the last time he shows up.”

Faron had been afraid of that. 

“Do you believe this man was one of those who stole the ground-car?” Bearen asked.

“I don’t know for sure yet,” Faron replied, “but I think so.”

“We pulled all the vids tracing the thieves going back all the way to when they boarded the skyport,” Bearen told him.  “I’m looking at the best image we have and it shows a middle aged male and an elderly female.  The male seems to look a bit like this Frith Yanger, but he’s much thinner.”

“That’s him,” Faron said.  “The man was fat a few weeks ago, but he’s not now.  It’s the same man though, I can tell by the scent.”  Faron hesitated briefly and added, “The part of the scent that is Yanger anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bearen asked.

Faron explained the markings on Frith’s body and the way they smelled.  Bearen swore softly in the ancient tongue. 

“What is it?” Faron demanded.  Bearen quickly told Faron about his search of the skyport and the strange scents he had come across.  Faron was very disturbed by Bearen’s story, particularly his description of the scent he had encountered in the store room.

“Something tells me that the elderly woman accompanying Frith on the security vid is not, in reality, an elderly woman at all,” Faron said.

There was a short heavy silence before Bearen released a long, low hiss.  “Do you suspect what I think?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

 Faron hesitated.  He didn’t want to start a panic, but he couldn’t ignore the growing evidence either.  “Maybe,” he said finally.  “I don’t know enough yet.  But it makes sense Jackson.  You smelled a guard that changed into something else.  There is an elderly woman on the security vid, Yanger smells wrong.  Its starting to sound like an adinare to me.”

Bearen swore.  “A Narrasti shape changer,” he said in a harsh whisper.  “Damn that’s hard to wrap my brain around.”

Faron understood completely.  “I don’t know anything for certain yet, so keep this quiet for now,” he warned.