Rogue Warriors 1: Rebel Marie Treanor All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2008 Marie Treanor
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Rogue Warriors 1: Rebel Marie Treanor Jake Lindow has always been a rebel, but now he has a cause. A veteran of the war with the west, Jake was kicked out of the army for disobeying orders. Now he’s back in Dome City, leading a growing band of rebels who mercilessly harry the Ministry in pursuit of peace, freedom and the end of Dragul domination. Crina, daughter of Beth and Aurel (Dragul Dawn), is in the midst of her own personal rebellion. Her partly human blood means she has reached adulthood much earlier than other Dragul, yet her parents thwart her search for a sexual relationship. When Jake takes her hostage, and neutralizes her superior powers, she is forced to look beyond her own petty fears and desires, and gradually realizes that the future of the world depends on how she handles her dangerous yet disturbingly attractive captor.
Chapter One Crina hated the Dome City. Cramped, crowded, soulless, it blocked the sky and the sun, made her feel there was no air to breathe. “Was it like this below the ground?” she asked abruptly. “No wonder you left!” Her father, his gaze on the approaching Dome dignitaries, spared her a brief glance. “A little,” he confessed. “But we made use of nature. The humans built this themselves as protection from the war. It worked.” “Why don’t they take the dome down? The air is clean now.” Her father didn’t answer. He moved forward to meet the Dome ministers, and she dutifully followed. It was left to Eve to say dryly, “In case you hadn’t noticed, Crina, we are in the middle of another war. It’s why we’re here, remember?” “It might be why you’re here,” Crina retorted. “I’m here so that I can’t have sex with Rad.” That was quite satisfying. Her father’s irritation lashed her silently while he greeted the human leaders in his impressive, almost splendid way. And even Eve, her queen, gave a very human snort that was half anger and half amusement, before she pulled herself together to behave in the regal manner expected of her. While they went through their little greet-a-dignitary rituals, Crina gazed restlessly around her. They were met in front of a ugly three story building with large double doors. Above the doors, carved into the stone in unadorned lettering, a sign proclaimed The Ministry. A wide strip of fake green grass and a wire fence separated the building from the quiet street where the Dome transport had landed them. Stark iron gates, flanked by two uniformed soldiers, guarded the whole edifice.
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All around her Crina could sense people, so many that she had to shut them out completely for sanity. But she could still hear with her ears, a faint hum of human chatter and activity above the drone of the ministers’ interminable greetings. How could she spend two days here? She’d die from lack of air, from lack of movement, from sheer unutterable boredom. She wanted to spread her wings and fly far away. Crina cast her eyes upward at where the sky should be. A harsh, opaque barrier blocked her view. Tastefully lit from above, they had at least tried to give the impression of blue sky and sunlight. A dismal failure, but at least they hadn’t completely forgotten what was out there. Inside, she supposed it was like any other city -- a bit bigger, a bit more crowded than the City of the Damned where her grandparents lived. But it held the same kinds of things that humans the world over seemed still to be obsessed with: roads and paths, gardens around dwellings, shops and food-stalls, a couple of well-maintained public parks between big, unnecessarily tall buildings. The nearest building stretched almost up to the city’s ceiling. Rather to her surprise, three people stood up there on the building’s roof. They appeared to be looking down at her little group, still making polite noises at each other in front of the Ministry. From Crina’s position, it looked as if their heads brushed the fake sky. Touching the sky was an old ambition of her people. No matter how high they flew, there was nothing to touch. The idea that ingenious humanity had accomplished it by making their own sky closer to the ground made her smile. The middle figure of the three on the roof lifted his hand and waved to her. For an instant she had a glimpse of light in this dark place. Instinctively, she threw out her mind to connect with its source, and met blankness. The light, she realized, was purely visual, coming from the reflection of the man’s shock of untidy blond hair. And then that was gone too as the three figures disappeared, as if into thin air.
***
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The blond man on the roof squatted down between his two companions and grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant or a soothing grin. “Now, this is very useful!” “How?” Rose demanded, adjusting her weapon so it didn’t dig into her as she knelt. “Didn’t you recognize anything odd about these people? Like the wings? They’re Dragul!” “So?” “So, they’re important. The Ministry’s in the Dragul’s pocket and the Dragul are on a state visit. The woman with them, the one without the wings, I recognize her from pictures. I know about her. Her name is Eve. She used to live here, a darling of the Ministry, before she married a Dragul.” His eyes glinted with fierce excitement. “And not just any Dragul. She married the king himself.” “That’s Eve?” Rose stared at him. “Jake, I hate to burst your bubble, but Eve must be sixty years old by now. If that girl is thirty you can get me some spectacles.” Since Rose was acknowledged to be the sharpest shooter of them all, this was meant to be taken seriously. But Jake only smiled in a distracted sort of a way. His head was busy forming plans. “It’s Eve,” he said with quiet certainty. “The Dragul don’t age and neither, it seems, does anyone who lives with them. More to the point, who are the others? Surely not the king himself?” “Don’t wet yourself, Jake,” Zack said softly. The others glanced at him at once. He didn’t speak often but what he said was always worth listening to. “It’s not the king. But I’ve seen him before -- in the City of the Damned -- and he’s almost as good. He’s Aurel, the Keeper of the Laws -- and the winged girl with him is his daughter.” Jake began to smile, slowly. Then, before the smile was complete, he rose to his feet to peer into the street again. It was empty, save for the traffic, finally released, which approached at speed. “Excellent,” he said softly.
*** “You have stepped up your security,” Crina’s father observed.
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Of course he would notice something like that. Dragul security was his primary concern and that had grown to encompass the security of the humans they tried to protect. “Sadly, it has become necessary,” the Minister replied, his tone grim, as he took his seat opposite the Dragul delegation. Refreshments were served by discreet staff. Crina, who was thirsty, accepted a glass of water with gratitude, then nearly gagged on the taste. Recycled water, her father said inside her head -- not without enjoyment. Disgusting, isn’t it? Foul. The Minister went on, “We have a malcontent element in the Dome who would do anything to bring down the government.” “Organized malcontents?” Aurel enquired. “Very,” said the Minister ruefully. “They’ve blown holes in the Dome itself, prevented troops departing, disrupted victory celebrations, stolen arms, even organized -- and protected! -- demonstrations against the government. These rebels give no thought to the war, or to what losing it would mean to us.” “Guess life here’s so bad that they don’t care.” Everyone stared at Crina in surprise. “Sorry,” she said, without troubling to appear very convincing. “I meant to speak internally.” In fact, she thought she’d achieved exactly what she meant to, which was to show her father that she couldn’t be pushed around. Wherever he made her go, she’d still speak her mind and go her own way. And though she shut off her thoughts to him, his pale, piercing eyes revealed that he’d got the message. Until Eve observed, “The child has a point.” Crina frowned at her in annoyance, but Eve’s attention was on the Minister, who said irritably, “I am fighting a war!”
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A conveniently distant war, Crina thought cynically. It was being fought largely over the off-shore islands and had not yet penetrated the mainland, never mind the Dome itself. Eve pointed out, “You’ve made a lot of unpalatable changes in pursuit of that war. Freedom of speech, gathering, news, movement -- all casualties.” “We have done what is necessary. Sacrifices for the greater good.” “Maybe, but you haven’t sold it to the people, have you? What do your rebels want? Their freedoms back?” “The majority of people understand and approve,” the Minister said with dignity. A flash of malice crossed his face and was gone. “And one of their stated aims is, in fact, repudiation of our alliance with the Dragul.” “Well,” Aurel murmured, after a few moments of silence. “It has always been a voluntary alliance.” “And we have no intention of changing that,” the Minister assured him hastily, afraid, clearly that his jibe had backfired. “I mentioned it only to show you how impossible these people are to deal with!” “Well,” Eve suggested, “Decide what you’re willing to give and negotiate with them. It would make your life easier to have them on your side. Why not allow them more freedoms, ease their discontent? They’ll be happier then with your association with us.” “Might I remind you that these are internal matters and not subject to Dragul scrutiny?” Eve flushed slightly, much to Crina’s amusement. Clearly she hadn’t quite forgotten her old allegiance to this place, to troublesome humanity. “It’s hardly scrutiny,” Aurel objected. “The queen is merely offering advice from a depth of experience necessarily greater than your own. You are under no obligation to listen to it, far less to take it. As always, we speak as friends, no more and no less.”
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He was an impressive bastard, her father. Not for the first time, Crina was torn between resentment and admiration. It seemed impossible to best him, equally impossible to convince him that he wasn’t always right. Changing the subject, Crina asked, “So who are these rebels? How did they come together?” “Jake Lindow,” said the Minister with loathing. “Their leader?” Eve asked. The Minister nodded. “He was a soldier -- an officer in fact -- dishonorably discharged for disobeying orders in battle. He came home, presumably with a chip on his shoulder, and seems to be a magnet for other malcontents. Unfortunately he brings military precision and weapons knowledge to this ramshackle crew and they operate with an efficiency that can be worrying. So far we’ve captured none of them. We know he has his old sergeant with him -- Rose Dando. And a mutant from the City of the Damned, also an ex-soldier. A few known outlaws and a lot more unknowns who help him. He moves around the Dome, hiding out in various lofts and cellars, sewers and maintenance tunnels. We’ve found traces only after he’s moved on. But we will get him one day…” After this statement which sounded more like a prayer, the Minister seemed to pull himself together. “Anyway. He is the reason for the added security you noticed. We blocked off the roads to hide your arrival -- since they are so opposed to Dragul, extra protection for you is considered necessary.” “But our arrival wasn’t completely hidden,” Crina objected. “I think you’ll find it was,” said the Minister irritably. “The buildings around here are all secure government offices or storehouses. Trust me, from the moment you entered the Dome, no one without security clearance has seen you.” Crina wondered if the three people on top of the tall roof had security clearance. But before she could enquire, the Minister had moved on to arrangements for tomorrow’s meeting with the full Ministry. Crina stifled a yawn.
***
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Crina didn’t sleep well that night. Though the bed was comfortable enough, despite having all its edges in the wrong places, there just seemed to be too many barriers between herself and “outside.” She was in a room within a hotel within what was, to all intents and purposes, another huge building. It made her feel buried, unsafe despite the powerful presence of her father and Eve in the rooms on either side of her. Staring at the ceiling, and trying to see beyond it and all the others piled on top, Crina tried to reach with her mind for Rad, who wanted to be her lover. Or at least he had wanted that, before her father scared the wits out of him and dragged her off on his mission to the Dome. Crina sighed. She was sure Rad wasn’t so afraid of her father that he wouldn’t wait for her, fight for her -- but it was embarrassing. Her parents treated her like a child. So did everyone else. Even Eve, the queen, who was human and should have understood, had referred to her that afternoon as “the child.” It was true she was only thirty years old and Dragul didn’t normally reach puberty until after fifty, but you only had to look at Crina to see she was a fully mature female. It was her human blood. According to her mother, humans reached puberty in their teens and were considered adult before they were twenty. Well, Crina felt like an adult and had for a long time. She thought and reasoned like an adult, had always been way ahead of her fellow Dragul children who were still playing chase and hide-andseek in the woods and studying at school. No one had batted an eyelid when Crina had completed her studies years ahead of her peers. Her father had simply begun to teach her about the laws of the Dragul. And yet they all went into a flat spin because she had the sexual urges normal in a Dragul adult. No one wanted her to grow up. They wanted her to study to be Keeper of the Laws. But her father was Keeper and unlikely to give it up for centuries. Crina didn’t know what she wanted. Apart from someone to hold her and assuage her body’s hunger. Rad.
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His handsome face swam before her imagination as she called to him. She remembered the sweetness of his kisses, the warmth of his body close to hers, the sensual touch of his hands on her breast. And she wanted more, much more… And she could not reach him. Restlessly, she turned over, sent her mind shooting over the miles northward, looking for her friends, especially for Gina who alone could understand her position. Even Sorin didn’t understand the issues -- he had always spent half his time in the City of the Damned and he had been treated as an adult for years. But she and Gina, the hybrid females, the children of the two most powerful Dragul families on the island, possibly in the world, they had to be kept as children. Even when their menstrual cycles began. Even when they were fully adult. Gina was asleep. From old habit, she began to call to her mother, before she remembered she wasn’t talking to her. Beth should have stood up to Aurel, made him accept what she knew to be true: that their daughter was fully adult. She almost sent a demand to go home screaming into her father’s head. But she stopped herself in time. Aurel would use her tantrum to prove that she was still a child at heart, and she knew she would be behaving like one. Sexual frustration seemed to have that unfortunate side-effect. Something bumped above her head. Someone in the room above falling over maybe. Humans liked to drink alcohol. For an instant, she felt the presence of humans, their excitement, a confusion of fear and determination so powerful it hurt. Because they were close, much too close. There were too many people behind too many walls… Fearfully, she shut them out before they drove her insane. Her heart drummed like a rabbit’s. A trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts. At least the claustrophobia took her mind off sex. Trying to laugh at herself, she got out of bed and went into the bathroom in search of water. She tried the running water from the tap, but it was foul, not at all like fresh stream water that flowed through her own house bubbling up from fountains. So she went into the dark sitting room, onto which her own, Aurel’s, and Eve’s rooms
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opened. Shafts of pale light shone in the window from the city outside, casting shadows across the floor and the walls. It was more than enough to see by, so Crina ignored the switch that activated the harsh electrical light inside the room. She went directly to the cool cupboard where there were a few bottles of water that her father had brought with him. It was stale, but more palatable than anything they could obtain here. She drank it straight out of the bottle, a long, comforting swig. And because her eyes were turned upward as she drank, she saw the ceiling move. Her first instinctive fear was that everything above was falling in on her, but even before the terror took hold, she realized it was only a tiny part of the ceiling. The air vent shifted, lifted itself inward to reveal a black hole. And silently, through the black hole, dropped a human figure. He landed lightly, quietly, on his feet, straightening almost immediately, and she saw he had a weapon, a gun, strapped to his back, another at his hip. Raising her startled gaze to his face, she saw that it was framed by a dark hood. Then he caught sight of her, and stood very still. Their eyes locked together. The instinctive cry was swallowed in her throat. There was something familiar about him. A light outside swung round and for an instant shone directly on her visitor: almost boyish, handsome face, intense blue eyes. A lock of fair hair straggled from under the hood. “Hello,” he said softly. The man from the roof this afternoon, the one who had waved to her -- she could almost swear it. He felt the same. Security? “What are you doing here?” she asked, bewildered. He smiled. Even in the half-dark it took her breath away. “I’ve come for you.” She was still wrestling with the meaning of that when he crossed the three paces between them and took her in his arms. She lifted her hands to push, opened her mouth to tell him off and found herself silenced by a foul-smelling rag. She kicked out,
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desperately wrenching her head away from the suffocating rag but it followed her. She couldn’t breathe. She was dying. Father!
Chapter Two “Is it her?” Zack whispered as he hauled her into the air shaft. “Well, she’s got wings,” Jake hissed back, hoisting himself up after her. “Hurry, I’m sure I heard movement down there…” Rose already had the grille back over the hole. She didn’t bother re-screwing it on. By the time anyone noticed it had been moved, they would be long gone. “Go,” Jake urged, pushing Zack aside as he would have picked up the Dragul. Pulling the frail body into his own arms, he hoisted her over his shoulder and followed the others up the ladder. Though quite tall, she seemed to weigh very little. Which was fortunate since they had to move fast. Already he could hear banging doors below. Soon there would be shouting, alarms, police and soldiers everywhere… Emerging on to the roof swiftly and silently, they ran across to the far side where they had left the rope and Nick to guard it. Ignoring the rope, Zack simply ran and jumped across the impossible space between roofs. Watching him still made Jake’s stomach lurch. Quickly and efficiently, Jake tied the Dragul tightly to him, trying to ignore the soft swell of her breasts crushed into his chest. He grasped the rope and swung through the air on to the next roof. Zack caught them, helped unfasten the rope which he threw back across for Rose and Nick. Jake ran ahead, down the fire-escape stairs to ground level. Interestingly, the city was still quiet, no sign of alarm. They really did want to keep the presence of Dragul under wraps… With the ease of habit, Jake dropped quickly into the covered manhole network that got them across the city. There, he allowed himself a short rest in the dark.
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Dumping the Dragul unceremoniously at his feet, he sat without touching her or looking at her. And yet in the disorienting gloom, she seemed to loom larger than life. His risk. His prisoner. The most powerful being he had ever encountered, helpless at his feet. Even unconscious, she didn’t feel helpless. She felt… vital.
*** The rebels’ home, for now, was an old maintenance station for the Dome roof itself. Jake dropped his burden onto the designated bed mat with some relief, rubbing his aching arms as the others clustered around him, demanding to know how it went. “Like clockwork,” he said easily. “Didn’t even need to go looking for her. She came and stood obligingly under the vent as we went in. So we just grabbed her and ran. The others should be right behind me.” “Is she hurt?” someone demanded, looking down at the Dragul with mingled awe and pity. Jake barely spared their hostage a glance. “No. I drugged her. She’ll have a sore head but that’s all.” He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to see again the frail, unexpectedly vulnerable creature who had gazed at him so fearlessly when he had dropped from her ceiling. He had been prepared for beauty, power and aggression -- not for innocence, not for a woman who looked as if she didn’t know the meaning of fear, because it had never been necessary. For a moment, he had felt as if he should be protecting her, not abducting her. Only when he had grabbed her and put the drug over her nose and mouth had she fought back. That was when he had become aware of her wings, fluttering frantically at her back, against his palm. He had been so fascinated by that he had barely noticed the brutal kicks to his shins. He could feel them now though. He hadn’t expected her to be powerless. He hadn’t expected to feel like brute of the century. “Are you sure she’s all right?” one of the women said uncertainly. “She looks a bit -- dead.”
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Irritated, Jake dragged off his hood and threw himself down beside the Dragul. He found the pulse in her neck, faint but steady. Her skin was warm, smooth. Her breathing barely disturbed the flimsy yellow dress she wore. The dress that had hidden very little of her body’s curves as he’d carried her away. “She’s not dead,” he said dryly, and would have stood up, only the Dragul suddenly whimpered. Her eyes flew open, looking straight into his, and this time there was plenty fear. She scrambled into a sitting position, backing away from him into the wall. “Wow, look at her wings,” someone said with awe. A subtle shade of pale yellow, almost blending with her dress, they fluttered behind her again, a definite sign of agitation. “Can she really fly?” “Fly, shape-change, read your mind and spit it out, squash you like a bug under her elegant little feet, so do not feel sorry for her.” Jake spoke harshly, the advice as much for himself as for his followers, for the Dragul looked so hurt and frightened it was hard not to pity her. On top of which she was breathtakingly beautiful, with the sort of beauty your pants ignored your brain for. Large, mysteriously reflective blue eyes under long, dark lashes, curiously yet attractively contrasting with the golden blond hair that tumbled round her face and shoulders. Her skin was flawless, fair, almost white now with fear and trauma, her features small and delicate. Her slightly pointed little chin gave an inkling of determination, if not stubbornness, but above it, her mouth looked soft, sensual, eminently desirable. Under his gaze, her lips trembled until she dragged one between her teeth for courage. “Why do you hate me?” she whispered. Startled by the question, he looked into her eyes again. She seemed to be concentrating, jolting him. His lip curled as he rose to his feet. “Trying to read my mind?” Confusion flitted across her face. “Do you want me to?” “Why would I want that?”
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She shrugged. “It makes things easier…” “Not for us, it doesn’t, honey,” said Rose. Jake hadn’t even heard the others arrive. The Dragul had thrown him off-balance. “And for what it’s worth, hating you is nothing personal. We just want your people out of our lives.” The Dragul’s gaze flickered to Rose, then beyond her to the others who were all gawping at her as they lounged around the room, cleaning their weapons, mending boots, repacking bags. She paused for an instant at Zack, as though recognizing his difference, but she said nothing until she looked again at Jake. “You’re the rebel,” she said. “Jake Lindow.” Rose punched him in the arm. “There you are, Jake -- famous! Maybe they came here to deal with you. How ironic is that?” Jake barely troubled to curl his lip. “Get some sleep, everyone,” he said. “We’ll need to move on in the morning. Jane and Taylor, you’re on guard, and the door stays locked. No one goes out for so much as a pee. You watch her like hawks, and at the first sign of any shape-change, you shoot her. Understood?” It was meant to frighten the Dragul as much as warn his followers. But for the first time, a faint smile flickered across her face and was gone. Disconcerted, Jake turned away, pushing through to his own bed-roll and throwing himself down to sleep. Some hope. Now there was space to think, he remembered the feel of her body in his arms, her long, lithe legs under his hand and soft, swelling breasts pressed into his shoulder as he carried her. The image of her writhing under him, wrapping those gorgeous limbs around him as he thrust into her body, was one not easily shaken. Her breasts would be big enough to fill his hands, her nipples erect and elongated, begging for his touch. Her mouth would kiss with passion and abandon, feel like bliss as it closed around his angry cock… Jake forced his eyes open. There was a time he would have had willing women for nights like these. The proximity of others had never bothered him, and he was aware that in this room were one or two girls who would jump into his bed with
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alacrity. But he had long ago made the decision not to fuck his followers: it was bad for discipline. The Dragul lay on the other side of the crowded, quieting room. And yet he was as aware of her as if she slept next to him.
*** Crina lay very still, having forced herself to relax completely. She no longer felt sick, and the fuzziness seemed to have mostly worn off. Since she’d believed she would die, it had been something of a shock to wake up at all, let alone looking into the eyes of the man who had suffocated her with the gaseous rag. The fear of a repeat had been instinctive, but not half as great as the fear that came when she realized she could not change into the dragon who could have forced her way out. She could not even call out with her mind. Alone among all these hostile people who hated her, facing the young man who looked at her with such contempt, her isolation was complete. As the fear became manageable, anger took over -- what right had they to treat her like this, to hate her, knowing nothing about her or her people? They were like the humans of old, the ones who had driven the Dragul below ground thousands of years ago. It seemed nothing had changed, that the king was wrong to believe in the goodness of these evolved humans. But anger didn’t help either. She had to relax and wait… Crina! It was her father’s anxious voice in her mind. She seized at it, almost weeping with relief and joy. Father! Oh, Father, I thought I’d lost you! Are you hurt? No -- I think they drugged me, but it’s wearing off. There was a moment of silence. Crina drank in his anguished relief. In spite of everything, it was good to know he cared so much. Are you in any imminent danger, do you think? No, they’re asleep. They plan to move in the morning.
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That’s all right. I have you now. The Ministry wants to gather their troops to arrest the rebels… You know it was the rebels who took me? They left a calling card -- presumably to validate the source of their demands when they make them. Crina, I can lead the troops to you in a couple of hours -- before daybreak -- or I can come and get you right now. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place and these frightening, hatefilled people, to be home with her parents. And yet she had been demanding for so long to be treated as an adult, how could she pass up this one chance to behave like one? For the first time, she had the control of an important situation. She could make a difference. A couple of hours? I can handle that. Crina… I’m proud of you. Remember I’m here. I’ll give you warning before the attack, but you must take no chances… Warmed, she whispered, I won’t.
*** Crina. She hadn’t meant to sleep, hadn’t known she could, but her father’s voice in her head woke her instantly. Though he was angry, the thoughts he wanted to convey came through with calm clarity. Crina, they’re moving in on you. There will be shooting, so keep away from the door. If there’s another way out, take it now. They’ll soon be too occupied to care. Otherwise, lie low, very low, take what cover you can and hide until it’s over. Do you understand? Her heart drummed, but she was ready. I understand. For an instant his warmth surrounded her and she smiled. Then his attention moved and she drew in her breath to deal with what would follow. “What are you doing?”
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She opened her eyes with a jolt. Jake Lindow stood staring down at her, frowning. The roughly wired electric light cast shadows on his face, a halo around his fair head. He looked dangerous and threatening, and yet she found she was unafraid. She could have given some smart answer, revived her pride, assuaged her anger with verbal insult before the storm. Or warned him. She thought of that too. But in the end she said nothing because for some reason those hard blue eyes paralyzed her. “Jake?” The female guard stood up, coming to see what the trouble was. And then something banged against the door, making them all jump. The thud turned into demented knocking, and over it a desperate male voice cried, “Jake, they’ve found us!” “Shit.” Impatiently, he gestured to the others to let him in, but when Crina sat up, he immediately reached down and caught both arms behind her back before yanking her to her feet. “Evacuate!” he yelled. “Zack, Nick, you’re with me. Rose, get the rest of them out of here! Move it!” All the time, his hard eyes bored into Crina’s. He held her breast to breast against him, forcing her own arms to impede the spread of her wings. His arms were like steel around her. His body felt lean, hard and fit, and hers was suddenly, shockingly aware of it. For an instant, the rest of the bustling room receded. Her whole body tingled, hardening her nipples against his chest, releasing warm moisture between her legs. He said, “How did they find us so fast?” Crina found the words from somewhere. “You can’t fight what you don’t know.” An instant longer, he stared at her. Someone had thrown open a trapdoor in the ceiling, releasing a rope ladder which people were swarming up, disappearing with bags and weapons. “Move it, come on!” Rose urged them on furiously. Wild hair escaping the ponytail she normally wore, weapons hanging from her waist, she didn’t look like someone you should even consider disobeying.
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“It’s her,” Zack said, suddenly, coming to stand beside Jake. “She led them to us.” Zack was a vampire. Crina had recognized him for such as soon as she’d seen him. A human mutant, like Crina’s own mother and grandparents. But his telepathy was rudimentary. He had already tried and failed to reach her. “Go on,” he said now. “I’ll hold them off.” “Damn right you will,” said Jake grimly. He dropped Crina to draw the bigger gun from his shoulder. He must have slept with it. “Jake, I’m harder to kill. And I owe you.” “Shut up and get the bangers.” “What about her?” Nick asked, jerking his head at Crina. “Send her with Rose?” “No. She’ll just lead the Ministry straight to them again. She stays with us until I figure out how to gag her.” He realized what he’d said at the same time as she did and his eyes glinted. “No.” Crina backed away from him. Fear of the suffocating drug overwhelmed everything else. “Best be good then,” he snarled, pocketing a handful of wires and small cans that Zack silently gave him. “All right, Nick, open the door.” As Nick slowly eased the door open, Jake threw a tin cup outside. Instantly, the world was full of noise and the cup leapt under a hail of bullets. “Game on,” Jake observed, and threw himself against the wall beside the door. Kneeling in front of him Zack and Nick were already firing into the passage outside. The world was full of noise, deafening, appalling, mind-destroying. Father? They’re going to kill each other! I’m afraid that’s something humans still haven’t lost the knack for. Lie low, it’ll soon be over. Crina thought he was right. Some monstrous weapon blasted a hole through the wall. “Jesus!” Nick shouted. “Their guns are bigger than ours!”
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“But their balls aren’t,” said Jake. “They’re not going to blow the whole place with the Dragul in it. Keep firing.” The Dragul. She wasn’t a real person to him, to any of them. Just a hostage, a thing without a name, a means to an end. The Dragul. “Getting low on ammo, Jake!” Zack warned. “OK, back off, one at a time, up the ladder and go like your life depends on it. Which it does. Nick!” Nick leaped across the room, scrambled up the ladder and disappeared. Zack gave one last shot and followed. He didn’t trouble to climb the ladder, simply jumped through the hole and was gone. What in the world was up there? “Okay. Time for you and me,” Jake said grimly, seizing her by the wrist. “Don’t be a fool. I can’t go with you. I led them here, remember?” He didn’t pause, just began to push her up the ladder. “Imbecile!” she said furiously. “My father will always find me! He will always lead them to you and yours through me! Haven’t you got that yet?” “Yes, I’ve got that,” he said, shooting at the door. Human screams filled the air. He almost threw her through the hole at the top, landing half on top of her as he leaned down to cut the rope ladder. Dazed, bewildered, Crina heard -- and felt -- the room below fill up with humanity. Jake hauled the bundles of wires and cans from his pocket, fiddling with them. Then he lobbed the whole lot through the hole and dived to the left, dragging her with him. She felt herself pushed into a small, confining space, just as a succession of explosions rent the air. The piece of floor they’d been sitting on beside the trapdoor had vanished. Jake was wedged on top of her, his hands over her ears. Though he took his weight on his elbows, his body fit intimately down the length of hers. It all added to
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Crina’s confusion, but eventually the ominous silence below struggled to the front of her awareness. Staring fearfully into Jake’s eyes, she whispered, “Are they dead?” “Some of them might be,” he said without noticeable concern. “Most of them will just be unconscious. Non-lethal gas.” Father? There was no answer, but neither was there anything missing… Jake levered his body a couple of inches off her. She knew an insane urge to follow it, to arch her hips into his again. “But,” he added patiently, “they will wake up. And I would rather neither of us were still here when they do. Start crawling. You might find it easier if you turn onto your front.” That was when she realized that his head, only a couple of inches above hers, was brushing against a ceiling. Twisting her head, she looked ahead and saw nothing but the same narrow, confining tunnel disappearing into endless darkness. Panicked, she jerked her body, instinctively pushing back the way they’d just come. He stopped her promptly, pinning her in place with his own body once more. “The other way.” “I can’t! I can’t do that, I can’t breathe! Let me past -- please, I have to get out of here!” Even in the dark she could see the amazement cross his face and didn’t care. In face of this fear, she had no pride. “A claustrophobic Dragul? My God, now I’ve heard everything! Well, I’m sorry, I don’t have time to nurse you through it.” Shockingly, he brought his knee up between her legs, pushing her onwards, further into the tunnel, dragging himself after her. Now she began to thrash in earnest, dragging her hands free from between their bodies to hold on to the side of the tunnel, to beat at his head and shoulders. She drummed her feet on the floor, panicking herself further with the desperate noise it made. She pushed against him with her whole
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weight, her wings fluttering uselessly beneath her, totally determined, focused on the one, simple need to get out of there. Lost in her panic, she had no idea how long she fought against him, or how he tried to deal with it. She was vaguely aware of him swearing once, but he only pushed her further into the tunnel with his knee -- and this time for some reason, the stab of sexual pleasure penetrated her fear, made her gasp aloud. She caught his surprise, some change in his excitement that made no sense. Still she struggled on, clinging to the smooth tunnel walls, but his tactics had changed. He no longer tried to contain her thrashing, simply absorbed it in his own body, which followed hers. His hard chest scraped against her breasts. His hands, instead of grasping at hers, fisted in her hair. Something hard pressed into her thigh and her hip as he moved, and she realized with fresh shock that it was his fully erect cock, breathtakingly long and thick. His knee, still pushing between her legs, had subtly altered its purpose, stroking the softness of her naked pussy and sending exquisite thrills to her core. Through her panic, she became aware that her pussy was sodden with her arousal, that her nipples had grown hard and greedy for the rough grazing of his chest against them. And when he took his knee away, she heard her own little animal noise of distress. Bewildered, frightened anew by this sudden odd behavior of her body, she grasped wildly at his shoulders, though whether to push him off or hold him closer, she had no clear idea. He gave her no time to work it out. Without warning, he fit his body fully over hers. His big, hard cock, still covered by his clothing, now settled between her thighs, with the full, exciting weight of his body behind it. Crina moaned aloud, arching up into him from sheer instinct. And her panicked thrashing became a sudden, desperate bid for sexual release. Deliberately, he rubbed his cock into her, sliding it up and down from her pubic bone to her pussy, gyrating so that it pressed and caressed her hot, swollen clitoris. Her wild writhing no longer fought him. She moved with him, avidly staring up into his face, barely an inch from hers. His eyes, suddenly not hard at all, seemed to
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glow in the darkness. His lips curved as her hands slid down his body in wonder and confused delight, to hold his gyrating hips. Helpless in the rising tide of lust and bliss, Crina had forgotten her fear altogether. There was nothing in the world but this man plundering her body. His breath had quickened, almost rasping. One of his hands left her hair, pushing in between their bodies to cover and squeeze her breast. She moaned, bucking into him, and he took her open mouth roughly, turning it over, sucking on her tongue, her teeth. A kiss like no other. Pleasure began to soar through her. When he came up for air she reached up blindly and took his mouth back, devouring his curiously soft, hot lips, seeking his wild, exciting tongue. The rhythm of their bodies had quickened. His fingers fondled her nipple, stroking it over and over into a harder, longer peak. She writhed under him, desperate, blissful, wanting it never to end. “Oh you’re there,” he whispered into her mouth. He was panting. “You’re there. Come now, come…” She recognized the convulsions which shook her, although no man had ever brought her there before. Her dreams, her own fingers, had assuaged her body’s hungers. Rad had never got so close. But this stranger, this outlaw who had abducted her and abused her, probably killed her would-be rescuers, had brought her blinding sexual bliss without even removing their clothes. And, Goddess, it went on and on, long beyond any pleasure she had given herself, wilder, more intense than anything she had ever dreamed or imagined. He groaned something against her lips as he kissed her. It sounded anguished. She felt his arm push underneath her, crushing her shuddering wings, holding her close to him. He released her mouth, whispered, “That’s the girl. Soon be over now…” She had an instant’s warning as the remembered smell hit her. And then the rag was there again over her mouth and nose and again she was suffocated. This time, as well as the terror, it felt like betrayal.
Chapter Three The thumping in her head was familiar this time. So was the sickness of her stomach and the dizziness before she’d even opened her eyes. Like a dream, she remembered the awful fight, the gunfire and explosions, and what happened after in the narrow tunnel. Perhaps it had all been a dream, and they were still in that same room Jake had first taken her, waiting for rescue… She opened her eyes slowly, controlling the helpless lurching of her stomach. It was gloomy, dank. From somewhere came an erratic drip of water. Close to her was a lit candle flickering light over damp stone walls. Crina thought that this time she was below the street, in some sort of drain. A few feet away, a perforated beam of more natural light came from above, through some kind of manhole cover. As Crina’s eyes focused, she saw that it shone down on the golden head of Jake Lindow. He sat in the circle of light, his back to the damp wall, his knees drawn up in front of him as he carefully cleaned his gun. Bits of it, along with a neat row of ammunition, were set out in front of him. Her stomach lurched again. His tangled blond hair fell forward over his face as he concentrated. She watched his strong, deft hands do their work, remembered how they felt on her body and knew the tunnel had been no dream. The memory surged to her core, but tainted now by shame, humiliation, anger -- and a thousand other emotions she had no name for. Her headache sharpened alarmingly. She wanted it all to go away. Father? Father! Silence greeted her. She knew it would. Her inner world was empty, cold. But still she tried again. She called to her mother, gently, quirky Beth, the source of all
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comfort since childhood. She even called to Eve -- a less powerful telepath than Aurel, but more strongly linked to this city. Nothing. She was truly alone. And changed. So badly that she didn’t know if she would ever recover. Jake glanced up. “You’re back.” No, I’m not. I’m lost… He rose to his feet, the movement quick and unconsciously graceful. Yet as if making the effort not to frighten her, he walked more slowly toward her. It didn’t help, because he moved like a cat. Muscles rippling inside his clothes. For the first time, he had removed the bulky jacket, revealing his strong, thick bare arms and the broad contours of his chest and shoulders beneath a black tank. Her treacherous body remembered how that hard chest felt rubbing against her breasts, and with the fresh burst of shame her misery was complete. “How do you feel?” he asked. She looked away. There was no point in answering. He knew exactly how she felt. He loomed over her, his gaze boring into the top of her head. “Can you reach your father?” At that, her head whipped up. “You know I can’t.” Though she meant it to be contemptuous, proud, it came out in a whisper. His frown twitched. Something changed in his intense blue eyes, something she had neither energy nor ability to interpret. He crouched down in front of her, and again she looked away, attempting to hide her weakness. Unexpectedly, she felt his touch on her wet face, and jerked away from him, gasping. His full lips twisted. “So you cry too.” “Everything cries. You just have to recognize it.” There was a pause, then, “Your father isn’t dead. I saw him flying below the station when we got out of the tunnel.” “It’s hard to kill a Dragul.”
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“I don’t want to kill you.” “Just damage me beyond redemption?” “The damage is temporary,” he said impatiently. “Remember?” “You don’t know that!” “No. I’m sorry. I couldn’t risk you bringing them after me. And I had to get you through that tunnel.” Heat rose through her body. “Your therapy is novel.” He grinned. “But fun.” Suddenly he seemed boyish and charming, and she remembered her first glimpse of him in the hotel, before she had recognized him as an enemy. She remembered his quick, deliberate seduction and how easily she had succumbed. She remembered the blinding, incredible joy his closeness had brought. And the rank, terrifying suffocation that had followed. “Couldn’t you just have drugged me at the outset?” she said bitterly. “You were thrashing about too much. What’s the matter? Never defiled yourself with a human before? Take heart, sweetheart, my skin never touched you -- and you still had a good time.” He winked and rose fluidly to his feet, walking back to gather up the pieces of his gun. He put it back together quickly and efficiently and pushed the attached strap over his shoulder. His every movement, as well as his words, told her that his old contempt was back. She hadn’t even noticed its absence until it returned… She said, “What will you do?” Pulling the smaller pistol from its holster at his hip, he opened it to check, presumably, that it was loaded. “Find a way to deliver our terms before the drug wears off and you call to Daddy again.” She curled her lip, a trick she realized too late that she had picked up from him. “Believe me, if the drug wears off this time, I’ll do more than call to Daddy.” Shoving the gun back into its holster, he glanced at her with open mockery. “What, will you turn into a dragon and eat me?”
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“I wouldn’t so -- ah -- defile myself,” she retorted. “One twitch of my tail and you and all your silly little weapons will be through that wall.” A glint of something like curiosity appeared in his eyes. He walked toward her again, his doubtful gaze taking in her slight body. “Can you really turn into a dragon?” “What does it matter?” “I can’t fight what I don’t know,” he quoted. “No,” she agreed. “And you don’t know the first thing about me, do you? Not even my name.” “No, and that I don’t want to know.” He bent, reaching down for her arm and pulled her to her feet. She swayed dizzily, fighting the nausea, falling back against the wall rather than hold on to him for support. Oddly enough, he steadied her with both hands at her waist. Fighting to keep the thread, she said shakily, “Why not? Because a name ‘humanizes’ me? Makes me a real person rather than a thing, a mere Dragul? You couldn’t kill me if I resembled a human?” “On the contrary, I’ve killed many humans,” he said bleakly. “I fought in your war.” She blinked. “My war?” “Don’t quibble. You can’t deny your people set it up -- to weed out the humans by letting them kill each other so that you can more easily take over the rule of whatever’s left.” She stared up at him. He really believed that. “You,” she said with some relish, “are a total imbecile.” Something caught at his breath. It might have been laughter. As the dizziness retreated, she became aware of the heat of his hands on her waist, of his distracting closeness. One of his hands moved further round, touching the edge of her wing. “And you,” he said, stretching the wing a little, “are rather more fascinating than I bargained for. How come you’re claustrophobic when you used to live underground?” “I never lived underground. I was born in the light.”
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“So you’re not four hundred and twelve years old?” he enquired, running his finger exploratively up to the tip of her wing. She shivered, tried to keep it still under the excitement of his touch. With curiosity, he ran his finger down the soft underside of her wing, and smiled. “I’m thirty,” she got out and his gaze came back to her. Deliberately, he stroked the gossamer wing again and she couldn’t prevent her gasp, or the shudder of pleasure. His smile widened. “Me too. Would you orgasm if I kept doing this?” “No!” Recovering, she slapped his arm away. “My mother has a word for men like you.” “Asshole?” “That’s the one.” “How very human of her.” “She is human,” said Crina dryly. And when, in the act of reaching down for his jacket from the floor, he glanced at her in some surprise, she added mockingly, “Don’t worry. I’m still a Dragul. You can mistreat me with impunity.” “So far,” he observed, throwing his jacket at her, “I’ve done pretty much as I like with impunity. Put that on.” “I’m not cold,” she said disdainfully, holding it back out to him. “No, but it’s difficult to keep a low profile wandering around this city with the winged lady. Put it on or I’ll do it for you.” She put it on. It was big and baggy and looked ridiculous with her dress. Though not as ridiculous as his spare trousers and boots, which he made her put on too. He grinned. “Very fetching,” he mocked and snapped on the cuffs.
*** “Jake, it’s far too risky!” Rose protested. She was talking about his simple plan to present their demands. His mind still dwelt on the grim news of Nick’s lethal injury -- a sacrifice he would not let be in vain. Before this bleak discovery, he had been relieved to find the others in the prearranged hide-out -- a warehouse loft. For one thing, it was too distracting hauling the
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Dragul around with him in his oversized clothes. Somehow, even subdued and resembling a homeless street waif, she still managed to look sexy as hell, and the closeness of the tempting body he had begun to know was proving an unexpected torture. The price of his cynical “therapy.” “There’s no risk at all so long as we have her,” Jake said, unlocking the cuffs without looking at her. It was unbearable to think he had lost Nick for her, and yet it was a chance they’d all accepted when they began this. He added curtly, “Just watch her and keep the doors -- and the windows -- locked. Remember she flies.” Zack said uneasily, “Is she…” “Telepathic? No. You were right. The drug inhibits it. But I don’t know how long it will last, so watch her. I’ll be as quick as I can, and after that we should be safe.” Until she turns into a dragon and throws me through a stone wall with her tail… Reminded, he caught the Dragul by both shoulders and pulled the jacket down her arms. It felt like stripping her, and ridiculously he became aroused all over again. He imagined doing the same thing in privacy, pushing her backward onto a bed and falling on her, this time to explosive completion. And then he’d rub his seed all over those luscious breasts… He saw them now rising and falling under the bodice of her dress -- the rest of which was still stuffed into his baggy trousers -- as she stood passive and inert before him. She refused to meet his gaze. Hastily, he shrugged the jacket on over the strap of his rifle, hoping it also hid his arousal, and felt in the capacious pockets. The Dragul backed off, her eyes dilated, when he produced the rag. Jake looked away, threw the rag and the bottle to Zack. “Just in case.” Fuck, why did he feel like such a bastard? Because I’m behaving like the Dragul -- intimidating someone weaker. But she’s not weaker than me! Without the drug, she’d eat me for breakfast. And, Christ, I think I’d enjoy it. Concentrate, asshole!
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***
Jake made it unchallenged as far as the Ministry gates. There, as they recognized him, the guards’ eyes boggled. “Morning, lads,” he said amiably. “I’d like to see the Minister.” “That’s funny,” said the one on the left, hoisting his rifle threateningly. “The Minister wants to see you too.” “I would like to point out,” Jake added, backing away as they advanced on him with clear intent, “that a certain Dragul lady will be no more if I don’t leave here in half an hour. Go on -- take me to your leader.” The guards, after looking uncertainly from him to each other and back, offered reluctantly to take him inside without beating the shit out of him first. They did search him, removing both his guns, though they missed the knives in his boots. Once inside, a flurry of panicked activity followed, as messengers scurried about the building, hurriedly conversing and shouting at each other. Doors banged and footsteps flew about the corridors of power. Jake sat back in his chair and smiled at the petrified receptionist. He looked pointedly at his watch. Within five minutes, he was conducted to the Minister’s office. Three soldiers stood around the room, their guns levelled at him. His own weapons lay in a pile on the Minister’s desk. Behind the desk sat the Minister, shell-shocked and angry, flanked by two hangers-on. Opposite him sat the human Queen of the Dragul. And by the window stood his Dragul’s father -- Aurel, the powerful Keeper of the Laws. “Jake Lindow, state your business before I have you executed,” said the Minister coldly. “I thought you had more care for your own hide,” Jake observed. “Are you threatening me?” “Yes. But in this case, you should have more fear of him.” He nodded at the impassive Dragul by the window. He could see no trace of anxiety there, grasped onto
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that as further justification for what he was doing. It was the Dragul’s pride, not his affection, which would insist on his daughter’s return. Wasn’t it? Ignoring the sudden twist of doubt, Jake said mockingly, “I don’t think he’ll forgive you for killing his daughter. Don’t splutter. It’s unbecoming in a man of office. Now…” He reached inside his jacket and instantly heard the unmistakable sound of three weapons preparing to fire. He sighed theatrically. “I’m bringing out nothing more lethal than a piece of paper,” he explained, doing so slowly and in full view. “See?” A few swift folds turned it into a paper airplane, which, under everyone’s bemused gaze, he sent flying onto the Minister’s desk. Jake addressed himself to the Dragul. “These are our demands. When they’re met, your daughter will be returned to you.” “You’re mad,” the Minister stated. “We don’t even know if she’s alive! Her father has had no contact with her since last night.” “She’s alive.” The Dragul spoke for the first time. He had a deep, impressive voice, the sort that made people listen. He moved from the window, closer to Jake whom he scrutinized openly. He showed nothing in his face, but his very posture betrayed tension. No wonder. You abducted his daughter. “But I can’t hear her. Why is that?” “Because you’d blow my head off if you did,” Jake said bluntly. “I drugged her.” At this the Dragul’s pale eyes definitely flashed fire. Jake had made one dangerous enemy. And perversely he was glad for his prisoner. But it was the queen who suddenly snatched his attention, leaping to her feet in agitation. “But you can’t do that! She isn’t human and you can’t treat her as such! Chemicals that alter her brain signals are dangerous! You have no idea what you’re dealing with!”
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“Then you’d better hurry up and do as I ask,” Jake snarled. “Before I’m forced to do it again. But make no mistake -- if you come after her again, I will kill her.” Ignoring the guns levelled at him, he walked across to the Minister’s desk and picked up his weapons. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t stay and chat about the terms of her release. I’m a bit pushed for time if I’m to prevent my friends killing her. If you’re good, I’ll be back tomorrow.” At the door, he paused and glanced back at the soldiers following him. “Oh and if you send anyone after me -- I’ll kill them.”
*** The door shut behind him with a loud click. The Minister spoke hastily into his communicator. “Let him go,” he ordered. Then he raised his gaze rather fearfully to the Dragul Law Keeper, who was staring at the closed door without blinking. “What a very bloodthirsty young man,” Aurel observed with unexpected mildness. “Did you read him?” the queen asked. “Damn right,” was the intense answer, followed by a slightly apologetic, “As my wife would say.” “And?” “And he’s not a monster. In fact he’s at least as confused as we are. He doesn’t want to hurt her. In fact, he’s half ashamed of himself already.” “Will he kill her?” the Minister asked. “That I can’t tell you. He doesn’t want to. But he’s a very determined and very troubled young man. I think it’s time you told us his story. What exactly did he refuse to do during the war that led to his dismissal?” The Minister hesitated. Then: “He was told to send a raiding party in under heavy fire to take a particular position.” “And he didn’t? Why not?”
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“He believed it was impossible. A suicide mission. As though it was up to him to judge!” “And was it?” Eve asked curiously. “Impossible?” “For normal humans,” the Minister admitted. “Lindow commanded a troop of mutants form the City of the Damned. It was those men he was asked to send in.” “Expendable?” The queen’s voice held unutterable contempt. She too was a mutant, born in the City of the Damned, whatever her later allegiances to Dome and Dragul… Stung, the Minister protested, “Not at all! But a hell of a lot harder to kill. It was a military decision. The position needed to be taken, and it was felt that a troop of vampires and lupi was the one most capable of doing it. They’re immortal for God’s sake! Like you!” “Lupi are not necessarily immortal,” Eve said furiously. “And neither are vampires if you blow them to bits. And did I mention that we still feel pain?” “War is pain! For all of us!” “Leaving that aside,” Aurel interrupted smoothly, “did Lindow give a reason for his disobedience?” The Minister curled his lip. “As I recall, he said he wouldn’t send his men anywhere he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, go himself. So he did his time in military prison, was dishonorably discharged and came home to cause trouble here instead. Devoted to the destruction of his home and country.” “And the position he was ordered to take?” “Remains untaken,” the Minister admitted. “Although I think you have sent in many more troops against it than Lindow commanded.” For the first time the Minister considered that the Dragul already knew the whole story and was testing him. It made him angry. But then this whole situation made him angry.
Chapter Four Crina sat in her corner, her head resting against the wall behind her. Her gaze was fixed on the small window in the roof, only a few feet away from her. It was, at the moment, her only hope. They thought the window was safe, because it was locked and barred. But bars and glass were no obstacle to a Dragul. Or at least to a healthy one. Crina was not healthy. Silence, emptiness filled her. She would be damaged forever, and Jake and his friends would die… A shadow fell across her. For some reason, her heart lurched. But when she looked round, it was not Jake but Zack who stood before her. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly. Foolishly, she actually felt touched by the first care for her welfare she had encountered. Hiding it, she looked back at the window. “Thank you. I’m alive.” “It will wear off, you know. The drug. I speak from experience. It was used on me when a wound was operated upon. My mind was closed afterward for a few hours only. As yours was yesterday. I experimented later. It’s always the same.” “I am not human.” “Neither am I,” he said dryly. He sat down on the floor beside her and she turned her head to look at him. “Yes, you are. You are called a mutant, a vampire, because a recessive gene was activated by the radiation and by your own government’s countermeasures during the war -- the last war. It doesn’t make you a different species.” “So I’m told.” His voice was still dry, his gaze flickered around his companions who were all engaged on various pursuits -- reading, idly talking, interminably cleaning
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weapons. Rose and some others were clustered around a map, arguing. Someone was asleep under a blanket, and judging by his muffled groans, his dreams weren’t pleasant. It struck Crina that life for Zack was not easy here. He was one of them, but still not fully accepted by some. “You’re not from the Dome,” she said curiously. “No, I’m from the City of the Damned, of course.” “So is my mother, both my grandparents.” “I know. I’ve seen you there. It’s how we recognized you and your father. I knew your importance.” She smiled slightly at the confession. Interestingly, she felt no anger against him. But then, she had nothing but her outward senses to judge him by. “So what brought you here to the Dome?” He shrugged. “Jake.” “But Jake is not from the City…” “No, he’s a Dome dweller, born and bred. We fought together in the war -- this war. He was my captain.” “You were discharged with him?” “No.” A smile flickered across his face. “Some companions and I busted him out of prison. The dishonorable discharge was declared without his presence, but they don’t mention that.” Intrigued in spite of herself, she asked, “How did you manage to get him out of prison?” “It was run by Dome dwellers. Let’s just say superior strength of a few. Which is interesting, because that’s what got us into the mess in the first place.” “What do you mean?” He shrugged. “I was not the only mutant Jake commanded. There were a whole troop of us from the City as well as Dome soldiers. Jake was ordered to send us -- the mutants -- in to take a base that was blasting our ships out of the water. It couldn’t have been done. They’d used us as cannon fodder before, you understand -- it’s how I gained my first introduction to the anesthetic you so dislike. Partly through genuine ignorance
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of mutants’ so-called immortality, I suspect. But mostly through carelessness, a belief that mutants were expendable. “Jake didn’t believe that. He was prepared to go in against the odds. But not to send us on a suicide mission that he and the others were not even allowed to back up. So he refused. And we refused his successor, who never reported us for fear of us. But we remembered what Jake had done for us, and when they banged him up, we went and got him out. It wasn’t just mutants -- Rose and a few others helped too. “We had to go on the run, of course…” “So… you all came back here? All these people are Jake’s ex-soldiers?” “Oh no. Only me and Rose and a couple of the others. The rest went home, most melted back into the City of the Damned. The war is not -- popular. Most of the people you see here now are Dome dwellers unhappy with the government.” “Because of the war?” “And the clampdown on basic rights -- the war is used as an excuse for that. And the more unpopular the government becomes, the more it has to clamp down on those freedoms -- and so the more unpopular it becomes.” “I get it,” she assured him. “But -- do you really think killing more people is the way to achieve your goals?” “We kill rarely, and only for protection.” Under her clear gaze, his dropped and she realized with some surprise that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with what they had done to her. Intrigued, it came to her that this was also at the root of Jake’s ambiguous attitude to her. He could only justify taking her if she was part of some monstrous enemy. He had to think of her impersonally as a representative of that monstrous enemy and so he kept his distance and his hatred. Except that it was his nature to be curious, to close the distance as Zack was doing now. And neither of them had the faintest idea that not only she but the rest of the Dragul wanted what they did. Zack said, “I know your face but not your name.”
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“Crina. My name is Crina.” “Crina… no one here wants to hurt you. You are, unfortunately for you, the means to a greater end, a unique pressure we can and must apply to our governments and yours. The war is unforgivable and pointless, and it must stop.” “Funnily enough, Zack, that’s the most importance I’ve ever had in my life…” The sleeping man on the other side of the room chose that moment to groan more loudly. Crina said lightly, “Would it not be a kindness to wake him up? His dreams are hardly idyllic.” “Nor is his real life,” Zack said ruefully. “He was shot as we escaped last night. The drug can’t dull his pain enough.” As Crina stared, the woman called Jane went to the groaning man, kneeling beside him, stroking his forehead, murmuring helpless words of comfort. “He’s dying,” Zack said, in case, presumably, she hadn’t worked that much out for herself. “The real kindness would be to put him out of his misery.” Rose had left the group around the map and was also staring down at her wounded comrade, pity in her eyes. Then she lifted her head and gazed across at Zack. Though she didn’t speak, Zack rose to his feet. “That’s my job.” He was a vampire. He would drain the man of blood, let him die, finally, in the arms of a friend. Before she even meant to do it, Crina had followed him. As Zack knelt and pulled back the blanket, his hands shook. She didn’t need her lost senses to understand his pity, his mourning -- and his desperate need for living blood, a need barely kept at bay by the sanitized blood doled out in bottles in the City of the Damned. She had no idea how he coped in the Dome where mutants were not catered for at all. But she allowed a more pressing question precedence. “Where is he hurt?” Three pairs of eyes stared at her. Ignoring them, she looked at the agonized face of the injured man. In her world, such pain was never allowed for so long. Pity filled
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her. Her own need cast her to her knees, caused her to reach past Zack and touch the man’s forehead with her fingers, her palm. “Hey, get off him!” Jane exclaimed, raising her hand to swat her like a fly. But Zack caught her, and Rose said in astonishment, “Look!” The man’s breathing had eased immediately, his frown had lightened, his twisted mouth relaxed. Even Crina was surprised. The healing power alone remained with her. Aurel would be devastated: she was a Healer, not a Keeper of the Laws… “What has she done?” Rose whispered. “Has she killed him?” “No, she hasn’t,” Crina answered calmly. “I understand that was to have been Zack’s job.” She looked into the eyes of the vampire. “I might be able to save him.” And deprive you of the blood. The unspoken words hung between them. “How do you propose to do that?” Rose said harshly. “The man’s stomach is shot off! It’s a miracle he’s lived this long!” “Her people are powerful healers,” Zack said mildly, and the two human women stared at him. While their attention was occupied, Crina pulled down the blanket further and began to unravel the blood-sodden bandages. Rose said belligerently, “I never heard that! And even if it’s true, why would she help one of us?” Crina almost wept over the mess. This should never have happened, never have been allowed to continue… Desperately, she struggled for a reason they could understand. “Perhaps I hope you’ll be so pleased with me that you’ll let me live. Or even let me go.” Her voice shook. Rose stared at her. “Don’t bank on it, Dragul.” “I don’t,” said Crina, taking this for assent. As Crina laid her hands on the dreadful wound, Rose said harshly, “If she hurts him at all, shoot her! And put that poor bastard out of his misery!” And she marched away, returning to her map. Only the stiffness of her back revealed her tension.
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Crina closed her eyes. Because of the drug, she couldn’t feel the damage as strongly as she normally did. But as she slowed the blood flow from the wound, she did feel the healing energy, found herself able to direct it. Selfish relief that she wasn’t completely damaged would come later, along with the joy in discovering her purpose without doubt. For now, she needed all her concentration for the matter in hand. She felt the regrowth begin, and knew there wasn’t much more she could do. She only hoped it was enough. Bending her neck, she began to lick around the wound. “Fuck! She’s a vampire!” Jane cried, reaching for her gun, but again, Zack stopped her. “She’s not drinking!” Crina raised her head, wiping her mouth on the knee of Jake’s trousers. It gave her some satisfaction to smear them with infected blood. “Dragul saliva holds healing properties, as does our blood. He’s too weak for the latter. Later, perhaps, when he’s stronger, that will aid his recovery.” Jane stared at her. “You mean he’s going to live?” “I think so. I would be happier if I had my own preparations, but he has begun to heal and his pain has eased, if not completely vanished…” “What have you done to him?” It was Jake’s voice, quiet, yet white-hot with fury and deep, intense hatred. It withered her soul, but not her spirit. She rose to her feet without looking at him. “I’ve just said. You can re-bandage him now.” She would have walked away, back to her corner, but Jake seized her arm. “If you’ve hurt him…” “I know, you’ll kill me,” she finished wearily. His fury faltered. Surprise interrupted it. For an instant he stared down into her eyes, then slowly he let her go. “Why?” he asked abruptly. “Because I can.” “Look at the wound, Jake,” Jane said in wonder. “It’s… it’s healing!”
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“So quickly? That’s impossible.” “Not for the Dragul,” Crina said calmly. “As you would know if your medics used our medicines.” “Our medics don’t have your medicines,” Jake said dryly. And it was Crina’s turn to stare. “You know that for a fact?” “Ask Zack. He spent a torrid couple of months in a military hospital on the western island. With nothing but your favorite drug to dull the pain.” She turned to Zack. “But -- you have them in the City of the Damned, yes?” “Yes. But not in the army hospitals.” “Not in any hospitals,” said Jane with feeling. Crina looked back at Jake. She said slowly, “You really do need to change your government, don’t you?”
*** Jake stayed away from her for the rest of the afternoon. When the excitement of the saved patient had died down enough, his followers all demanded to know what had happened at the Ministry. He entertained them with a witty account of his encounter with the soldiers and the mad panic of activity that had followed his entry into the building at gunpoint. Crina, who found herself smiling surreptitiously up at the window, thought that he told a good story. Her father would like him… “So did you see the Minister himself?” someone demanded. “Sure. And a bundle of assistants, and soldiers and Dragul.” At the last, as he’d clearly known she would, she turned her head and looked at him. “Eve was there.” “Eve… is she -- well?” asked Crina. Because she didn’t know. She had no way of telling. “So far as I could tell. She’s a little pissed off that we drugged you.” “And my father?” He’d known she would ask that too.
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“He didn’t say anything about the drugs. But he knew you were alive, interestingly. You’re not having a chat with Daddy over there, are you?” Crina curled her lip. “Guess.” “By the way, I admire your father’s restraint. He clearly wanted to chew my head off and spit it into the fire.” “But did he agree to our demands?” Zack asked. “I didn’t hang around to discuss them. I left them with the Minister.” “So what now?” Jake shrugged. “Now we wait. Be prepared to move at any moment. But unless we get a warning, we’ll stay here until tomorrow at least -- give Nick a chance to heal.” As the lights of the Dome began to dim to give the illusion of evening, Jake and a few of the others began to prepare to go out. Crina found herself both frustrated and disappointed. And then, quite unexpectedly, he turned and walked across the room to her, crouching down in front of her to scan her face. She said, “You can’t tell by looking at me.” He smiled faintly. “Can’t tell what?” “If my inner senses have returned.” “Yes, I can.” She licked her lips uncertainly, wondering if it was true. Abruptly, he said, “Is that what you are among your own people? A healer?” “We all are, to some extent. Those with a greater gift study it in detail.” “As you have?” “Sort of. In my own time. My father’s family has always been Keepers of the Law. It’s what he wants for me.” She shrugged. “His family was split when he first came above the ground. Those who stayed behind eventually made a home in the south of the world, so -- as his only descendent, he wants me to succeed him.” He looked slightly taken aback by so much detail, but interestingly, he didn’t cut her short. Instead, unblinking, he watched her as she talked. A clump of blond hair had
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fallen across his face and he looked very young and very attractive. The drumming of Crina’s heart acknowledged it. So did the pooling of moisture between her legs. He said, “If you bring them here, they’ll kill Nick all over again. And God knows who else.” “I know.” He nodded and stood up. Loss washed over her in a cold tide. A step away, he paused and looked back at her. “Thank you.” And though he didn’t speak further or even glance at her as he went out, she found that suddenly she was smiling inside.
Chapter Five It had been a successful evening. Both meetings had been well attended and garnered several promising recruits. The message was spreading well that they didn’t need to go along with the government. And if they had to change the government to change the policies then so be it. It was time. And though they had a bit of a run-in with the law just at the end, they’d escaped without hurt and shaken off pursuit without too much difficulty. Jake knew things were reaching a head, that his goals were no longer an impossible dream. And yet as they returned to the warehouse loft, he felt angry, dejected, churned-up, almost -- grieved. Worse, he knew the cause. The Dragul. She was getting under his skin, not just as an unattainable object of lust but as a decent person. She had saved Nick. According to Rose, she’d done it to curry favor, but Jake didn’t believe that. He’d watched her before she even knew he was there. Her only concern was Nick. Jake hadn’t realized until now how much he had enjoyed having the moral high ground. Although he’d always been a rebel, kicking back against all authority from his parents to the police, it had been oddly euphoric to rebel in pursuit of something he actually believed to be important. From the moment he’d told the general what he could do with his orders, when all his vague discomforts and discontents had come together in one cause, Jake had known he was right. A few questionable acts for a noble cause were fine in his book. But treating a decent being as he had treated the Dragul was unbearable. Determined to go through with it, he realized he needed to take a step back. So she happened to be a kind, compassionate person -- she was still the enemy and he had to treat her as such or he would lose all the advantage he had gained.
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As they pushed their way into the loft, answering greetings and a hale of interested questions, he saw her at once. Back in her corner, staring at the window. She had taken off his bulky clothes and the skin of her delicate shoulders seemed to shine. He followed their beguiling slope with his eyes. Her clavicles looked as if they would snap under a lover’s caresses, and yet he knew they didn’t. Beneath them, the swell of her breasts disappeared into her flimsy dress, rising and falling with slow calm. Her beautiful, pale yellow wings were still. And yet he had the feeling she knew he was back. He wondered if she could feel the tug of attraction, the effort it cost him not to go to her. Perhaps she was exerting that tug, perhaps her telepathic senses had returned… But when he snapped the question at Zack, the vampire shook his head. Nick was sleeping peacefully. Jake made sure the guard was set, stated grimly that he would stand watch on the Dragul, and took the last of his stale meal across to her corner. She lay down now, huddled in a blanket. He couldn’t see her wings. She looked just like a remarkably beautiful human. His lips twisted. When had that become a just? He hauled himself into the window embrasure, settled his back to the wall, and watched her while he ate. Her eyes were closed, the dark lashes vivid against her pale cheek. She appeared to be asleep, but Jake knew she wasn’t. It was as if he could feel her presence, even without all her senses turned on. “Planning your escape?” he asked flippantly. “Or dreaming of your lover?” Without opening her eyes she said, “Neither, as it happens.” “Don’t you miss him, whoever he is?” Another thought hit him in the gut. What if she has children? She opened her eyes and regarded him. “I don’t have a lover. My parents think I am too young. Or at least my father does.” He blinked. “You told me you were thirty years old!”
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“My people are not normally sexually mature until around fifty. I’m the first hybrid, so it’s hard for them to understand me.” Though he couldn’t see much beneath the blanket, he remembered exactly how she looked in that flimsy little dress, exactly how she’d felt under him in the tunnel. “You seem pretty sexually mature to me.” Her face flushed, but she answered calmly enough. “I am. But my father -- in fact everyone from the king down -- took exception to my meeting a -- friend. Which is why I was dragged down here…” Jealousy twisted inside him, unexpected and sharp. And yet the coherent thought in his stupid mind was, Am I the first man who made you come? He curled his lip. “Unrequited love, eh? Well, when you get out of here, I hope you get your happy ever after -- little winged kids and all.” “Well, it won’t be with Rad,” she said dryly, surprising him again. “He is not my One.” “Your One?” “Life partner. You would probably say husband.” “So he was just a passing fancy?” Though he spoke with contempt, he was conscious of a fierce satisfaction. She wasn’t immune to him, he knew that, and it seemed that at least she felt no more for anyone else… She sighed. “Something like that.” “Here,” he said, dropping the bag of bread and cheese onto her blanket. “Curb your frustrated ardor with food.” “Thank you,” she said politely. “But I don’t need food for that or any other purpose.” “Dragul don’t eat?” he sneered. “No, they don’t.” Jake shut his mouth. She said, “Jane gave me water earlier. It prevents dehydration. But I will need sustenance soon.”
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“What sort of sustenance?” He began to feel well out of his depth. “What the hell to Dragul live on?” She smiled, directly into his eyes. “The natural energy of fresh air, fast-flowing steams… and warm, pumping blood.” “Bizarre.” Even as he uttered the word, he was aware of his own blood, suddenly hot and most of it pumping straight into his cock. “Go to sleep,” he said abruptly, because the conversation hadn’t gone the way he’d planned -- had, in fact, the complete opposite effect of the one he’d intended. The warm, teasing look in her beautiful eyes vanished like a light switched off. He pushed the advantage home. “And I’ll be watching you all night -- I have the drug right here.” She whispered, “I thought you were sure my father wouldn’t come, for fear you’d kill me.” “I still don’t want a dragon crashing through the loft.”
*** Crina needed his trust, and yet she couldn’t get near him. Whenever there was any real connection, he backed off. She shouldn’t have flirted. She hadn’t meant to -- it was totally inappropriate, but it had slipped out. He mustn’t think she was trying to use sex to get round him, to get out of her predicament. When he had to trust her as a sane and sensible being who was on his side… At the moment, setting the world on fire with one breath seemed easier. But -tomorrow was another day. Crina fell into a light, troubled sleep. She dreamed of home, of the wide, open skies and the tall, rolling hills. She lay on warm grass, the sun warm on her skin, the breeze stirring her hair. She could hear a bubbling stream close by, the singing of blackbirds and song thrushes. Rad lay above her, his wings spread for her caress, and she rejoiced that at last they had escaped the elders and could make love as they wanted.
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She closed her eyes, the better to savor his caresses and kisses, and instantly, the pleasure rose to feverish levels of intensity. Hands cupped her breasts, palming her nipples, stroking them into hard, blissful peaks. Her whole body was caressed to fire. His hand lay on her pussy now, and as she arched into it, his fingers slid between her wet folds, seeking and finding her aching clitoris, gliding over it to slip inside her body. Gasping, she opened her eyes and stared up not into Rad’s face but Jake’s, clouded with lust, his eyes blazing with passion as he thrust inside her, not with his finger but with his much more satisfying cock. His blond hair fell over his sweat-beaded forehead and cheeks. He smiled through his passion, whispering something she couldn’t hear. As the pleasure mounted, she closed her eyes again -- and drifted, with some distress out of the dream. Or at least she thought she did. She was lying on her side. Not grass now but warm, hard flesh pressed against her buttocks. Her wings were trapped against a clothed body. Under her dress, a hand moved languidly on her breast. Still dreaming… With a tiny moan of pleasure, she arched her breast further into the caressing hand, pushed her bottom back against the pressure of a hard shaft, and fabric-covered hips. It came to her only very gradually that she wasn’t dreaming anymore. She should have panicked. Somewhere, perhaps she did. But she twisted her head round very slowly, anticipation that amounted to dread churning her up, adding to her helpless state of arousal. Jake lay beside her, in his clothes, including the big, bulky jacket. He must have sat down closer to her, the better to see her as she’d turned away from him in her sleep. And then he’d fallen asleep himself, slumped down the wall until he lay beside her. The dim street-light streamed palely through the window, glinting in his tangled blond hair, falling across the planes and shadows of his beautiful face. And in repose it was beautiful, so beautiful it made her heart ache.
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Because all mixed up with masculine beauty was the vulnerability of a compassionate and troubled soul. Even in sleep, he frowned… His eyes were closed, his breathing short and erratic, but he was still unconscious. In sleep he had obviously discovered the warmth of her body and closed in on it. Then, aroused, he must have instinctively freed his cock, now pressing hotly into the soft, naked flesh of her bottom; explored with his hands, seeking the womanly parts he liked best. Any woman, she acknowledged. She knew she should move away, but she didn’t. Just for one more moment, she wanted to savor the touch of a man who moved her. Any man? she wondered cynically. No, this man, to whom she was merely a means to an end, a thing rather than a person, an enemy, a hated Dragul… But he didn’t hate her body. Even in sleep he caressed with sensitive, knowing fingers. Sensually, almost worshipfully, he stroked her curves, drawing her hip and thigh back against him so that he could reach round between her legs more easily. Crina closed her eyes. Pull away now before this goes any further. You are not so desperate that you need the touch of a man who despises you… Oh, Goddess, yes I am! He touched her as he had in the dream, making her wonder if it was his hand’s second visit. A faint, low growl came from his throat as he bathed his fingers in her moisture, spreading it around her folds and valleys, sliding around and over her clitoris. This was no dream pleasure. This was vitally, shockingly real, and she lay helpless in its grip. Her mouth opened silently as his finger delved inside her, stroking. Pleasure, sharp and intense, thrilled through her. She tried to grasp at the floor, to pull herself away from him at last, but his arm held her strongly, pulling her back against his rigid cock which he began to rub and gyrate against her bottom, sliding it down her crease and between her legs until it met his hand.
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With a faint sigh of satisfaction, he pushed the head of his cock inside her. For an instant, she froze, stunned by the enormity of what he was doing to her. Without even knowing… She gasped, whipping her head back round to wake him, to tell him at last to stop. But unexpectedly, her cheek, her forehead met his stubbly jaw. It pressed against her, caressing. “Crina…” And somehow that was more than anything. “You do know my name,” she whispered. His eyes opened, black with lust. Recognition and comprehension dawned slowly but inevitably. He looked confused but no less predatory. She wanted to weep. “You’re asleep,” she tried to explain. “You… I…” “Not anymore.” His hand softly cupped her pussy. “Please don’t tell me to stop.” And because he knew her name, she didn’t. Without meaning to, she’d already pushed upward into his hand and when she pulled back in shock, the action pushed his cock further inside her. She moaned, and he smiled, moving softly, gently within her, gradually sliding his cock the whole way in. She thought she would die of the pleasure. She tried to speak, to tell him, but he took her mouth in his and kissed her. He rocked her, slowly, gently on his cock while his busy, magical fingers glided over her clitoris, caressing, coaxing. And though his ragged, labored breathing gave her an inkling of the passion building inside him, he kept the pace gentle and slow and impossibly sweet. He remembers I haven’t done this before… With aching wonder, she kissed him back, as grateful for his caring as for the wild storm of pleasure breaking through her body. Even then he didn’t thrust harder, just held her face to watch her come. And gradually, his breathing turned to soft, ragged groans. Before her orgasm was finished, his began, shooting hot liquid deep inside her womb. Almost as devastated by his pleasure as her own, she caressed him with her thighs and her pussy, gazing with fascination into his bliss-contorted face.
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There was a lump in her throat, made of tears and emotion too powerful to break. She gasped, and gasped again as the truth hit her, the dawning wonder of an impossible love. He slid out of her to turn her onto her back. Then moving over her, he took her face between his hands and kissed her mouth as if he’d never stop. Don’t stop, please don’t ever stop… She held him to her fiercely, struggling to free her wings beneath her. When he released her enough, she spread them out under his fascinated gaze. He said, “These are so beautiful,” and reached out to touch them, tracing the fine veins to the edge, stroking the sensitive areas and smiling when she wriggled beneath him. Across the room, somebody muttered. Someone else giggled, and for the first time since she’d wakened, Crina remembered they were not alone. “We have all the privacy we need,” Jake said, drawing the blanket over himself. Beneath it, he drew her disordered dress completely off. Then he wriggled out of his trousers and jacket and vest, and she gasped in wonder at the feel of his naked body. She stroked down his long, wingless back, over his buttocks and hips and thighs, learning every cord of muscle and sinew, every scar, every throb of response. Her hand slid inward, with his enthusiastic co-operation, to grasp his cock. It was still big and hard and hot. She could feel the veins standing out. His eyes squeezed shut. A faint growl came from deep in his chest. He said, “Put my cock inside you again.” She squeezed it, drew back the skin, ran her thumb over the moist, velvety head. “On one condition.” “Name it,” he said at once. “Do it harder this time,” she whispered. “Do it as you want it…” She gasped as she pushed him into her wet pussy, and again when he thrust further inside. He smiled, his eyes shining with excitement as he withdrew almost all the way and drove forcefully back into her. The pleasure was intense. Reaching for her
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left wing, he began to caress it, with obsessive wonder, in between strong thrusts which quickly increased in speed. Uncaring of any wakeful companions, he rose up on his knees between her legs and pounded her furiously until orgasm crashed over both of them, and he collapsed on her with a grin of pure triumph.
*** The dimmed lights outside began to brighten. Crina supposed she should be embarrassed about what she had just done with Jake in a room full of humans who would no doubt have preferred sleep to the sounds of other people’s sexual intercourse. But her Dragul upbringing had made her too used to ritual public sex, feigned and real. Her mother had explained that human attitudes were generally very different, but since Jake had been so open, she supposed his followers were cool with it too. What worried her more was the possibility of their suspicion. Since she had helped Nick, they had begun to soften toward her, almost treating her as one of them. Had this night wrecked all that, or furthered it? And should she really care? Between her legs was dull, aching pain. She could have banished it herself, but instead she hugged it to herself like a treasure, like proof of his true lust. Like the greatest gift she could hope for right now. It had been an incredible night of sensual discoveries. She could not get enough of Jake or he of her -- it seemed the rumors that humans loved only once a night were far from true. Now he lay quiet in her arms, but still not asleep. She was glad of that. She wanted to keep the closeness of the moment, not change it. Yet as the haze of sexual fulfillment began to clear, she realized she had to use it, in order to save them all. Across the room, someone was boiling water on a small, power-driven stove. Jake sat up slowly, reaching for his trousers. But any fears she had that he might impose some distance between them vanished as he winked at her. “Hot drinks over here, if you please.” “Get it yourself, you lucky bastard!” came back the answer. “The rest of us are catching up on sleep.”
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A bout of ribald laughter greeted this. Jake put his arm round her, as if he was afraid she’d be hurt or embarrassed, but she only laughed, relieved to face no obvious hostility, and then Jane came across and laid two tin mugs in front of them. She grinned at Crina, unaware of the warmth she spread to her Dragul prisoner. “Nick’s doing great. He’s even talking sensibly.” “Good. I’m glad.” “Only -- he’s still in a lot of pain…” “I can help that.” She felt Jake’s gaze upon her as she slid her tunic over her head and crossed the room to Nick. With a quick smile, she laid one palm flat on his forehead, the other over his wound. Nick swallowed. “Wow. Dragul magic.” “It’s not magic,” she assured him seriously. “He’s kidding you,” said Jane, and Nick grinned weakly. Jake sat in the window embrasure once more, drinking from his steaming mug, gazing down at the street. When she came up to him, he glanced at her with a slightly twisted smile. “Dragul magic indeed.” “Dragul nature,” she amended. “We’re not enemies, Jake.” His head fell back against the window. “I’ve complicated all of this. You’d think I should have more sense than to sleep beside a beautiful woman when I’m randy.” It hurt. But at least he knew there was more at stake here than the two of them. At least he called her a woman. A beautiful woman. Not the Dragul. “Jake… tell me about the Dragul. Tell me why you hate us.”
Chapter Six He told her, eloquently and concisely, his voice hard and flat, like a man who had repeated the words many times in his own head. Crina watched him as he talked and knew it came from the heart. It had become a truth he genuinely believed and abhorred. As she listened, she became aware of the others drawing closer, not just to give their silent support to their leader’s views, but, she suspected, to see her own reaction. When he stopped talking, the silence was so loud it filled her ears. He held her gaze, challenging her to refute any of it. She had a feeling he wanted her to deny all knowledge, so he could acquit her alone of all her people. And yet even if she did, it still put him so much in the wrong… She sat down on the floor and took a deep breath before lifting her gaze to his. “One day I would like to tell you the history of my people. Better still, I’d like my father to tell you, so that you’d know how impossible it would be for the Dragul to have done as you believe.” Though she looked at Jake, she was addressing all of them. And the weight of her responsibility was excruciating. She smiled ruefully. “But there’s no time for all of that. I can only tell you again, the Dragul are not your enemy. And we did not start this war. It grew out of fear, as wars generally do -the west’s of your greater science and technology; yours of their greater manpower and influence. They ask for greater access, you deny it. They try to take it, you defend it, and now it’s a war for territory. Far from beginning it, we did everything in our power to prevent it, and when you went ahead anyway, we did our best to broker peace --”
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“Everything in your power?” Jake interrupted incredulously. “I thought the Dragul were this all-powerful, omnipotent race of beings! Surely everything in your power would be enough to halt a puny human war? If you don’t want it, stop it.” His anger, his contempt, battered her. It was impossible not to take it personally, but with a monumental effort, she laid all that baggage aside. She even smiled again, very faintly. “How would you like us to do that? Crush one side or the other? Both together perhaps? Because it seems to me nothing short of that would stop you. Talk to the two sides? Yes, we’ve done that, are still doing that -- but I think you know how hard it can be to make human governments listen to sense.” That went home, as it was meant to. Jake let his knee slide down until his leg dangled over the edge of the window sill. “Point,” he allowed. “So now that you have our attention, explain your insistence on curtailing our civil liberties.” “The Dragul never insisted on any such thing,” she said quietly. “In fact, I know the king himself advised against it. But your Ministry insisted it was the only way to keep the war effort going.” “Everything in your power not enough again,” Jake marvelled. “Do you even know about the Treaty signed thirty years ago between my people, the Dome and the City of the Damned? We agreed to act together in matters concerning the whole island. On internal matters, we are each totally independent.” “In fact,” said Jake, “we agreed that in matters affecting the whole island, we would all act together under Dragul leadership. Either we broke the Treaty, or the Dragul led us into war and are still leading.” “In order to exterminate humanity? Jake, trust me, we could have done that more efficiently ourselves than letting you slaughter each other. We are a peaceful people! All we ever wanted was to live in peace, preferably in isolation from humanity, whose violence and fear drove us to live underground for two thousand years…”
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With a jerk, Jake slid to the ground and stood staring down at her. “So why did you come out?” “To live in the sun,” she said simply. “I heard there was no sun when you came out. The radiation cloud still covered the sky.” “It did. My grandfather -- my human grandfather -- is the man who let the sun back. Let me rephrase. The Dragul were dying without fresh air and space. And now we’ll never leave the sun. Which is another reason we would never ever encourage humans to fight. Sooner or later, someone will rediscover nuclear weapons, and kill the light, the whole Earth…” She drew a deep breath, re-gathering her thoughts. “The medicine. That’s the other thing that worries me. From the first days of the Treaty, we gave medicines to both cities, for use all over the island. More to the City of the Damned, perhaps, which had particular problems related to changing life-spans. But also to the Dome. And when the war began we sent more, especially designed to help war wounds. Yet you tell me there is no such medicine in military hospitals? That no one in the Dome is treated with Dragul medication?” Jake shrugged. “No one that we know. Rumor says the Ministry always gets well again quickly.” “And you think it’s because we only heal those at the top, those who bow down to us?” Jake inclined his head, half-mockingly. But his eyes were serious, searching. With the beginnings of relief, she realized she was at least making him think, reassess… “So -- the Dragul started the war to exterminate humanity, forced the Ministry to curtail your freedoms so that your lives are unbearable, and to deprive ordinary people of available medicine, presumably for both the previous reasons.” “I’m glad you agree,” Rose said dryly.
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Crina spared her a quick glance. “Why do you believe that?” she demanded. “What led you to think such terrible things were true? Just fear? Ignorance of the Dragul? Or did someone let you in on a secret?” “What do you mean?” Jake had come right up to her. “I mean did you always believe that the Dragul were evil, or did it come to you with the war?” Jake glanced at Rose and the others, then back at Crina. He said slowly, “I never thought much about them until the war. They never -impinged on my life. I went to the war -- came back on leave, and the Dome had changed. People were afraid -- not so much of the war which was, after all quite distant from the Dome, but of saying the wrong thing. Freedom was curtailed. You couldn’t voice any opinion that didn’t agree with Ministry policy. I spent a night in prison just for saying I wished the Dome -- the covering itself -- had come down years ago. They only treated me leniently when it was pointed out I had been fighting away from the Dome for months and had got used to open sky.” He shrugged. “Other people weren’t so lucky. Many of my friends had disappeared. Those who were left wouldn’t talk about it. The whole city was miserable and frightened.” Rose nodded, thoughtfully, as if that was how she remembered it too. Jane said abruptly, “It was a leaflet.” Everyone turned to her and she said with a hint of defiance, “I read a leaflet, shortly after the war began, hinting that the Dragul had forced the Ministry to make the changes. It came from some secret dissent group.” “I saw that one, when I was home on leave,” Jake said. “But the one which caught my attention accused the Dragul of fostering the war in order to seize control of the whole world. I didn’t believe it at first. But when I went back to fight, it began to make sense. After all, there are Dragul in the west too -- and you talk to them, don’t you?” He swung suddenly back to Crina.
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“I believe the king does,” she said calmly. “The western Dragul also tried to stop the war, but they are fewer…” She took a deep breath. “With freedoms so curtailed, and everyone so frightened that they wouldn’t even talk dissent to their friends… how do you suppose these leaflets made it through? How come no one was arrested on account of them? Or were they?” “Not that I ever heard,” Jane admitted. Jake said, “You want us to believe the Ministry leaked the leaflets deliberately? To throw the blame on the Dragul?” “They’d already broken the Treaty. They needed an excuse. And, perhaps, they were preparing the way for their next war after the west is defeated.” Jake stared at her. “What leads you to believe such terrible things are true?” he quoted. “It’s all that makes sense, all that feels true.” “So if the Ministry isn’t afraid of the Dragul, if it’s the enemy of the Dragul, why didn’t they just shoot me yesterday and leave you to take your chance?” “I didn’t say they weren’t afraid. And they’d have to be downright stupid to shoot you and put me at risk, with my father in the same room! But the raid on the first night -- it didn’t take much care of my presence, did it? I could feel my father’s anger before you drugged me, as if -- as if it wasn’t what they’d agreed before it happened. They asked my father to wait, you see… They wanted to kill you more than save me.” She took his big hand in both of hers, squeezing his fingers. “Jake, you are right. You have to change your government. The Dragul won’t interfere, but they’ll be glad of it. Will you speak to my father?” A moment longer, he stared at her, his stormy blue eyes unreadable. His breath caught and he pulled his hand free. “We’ll talk about it later. We’ve still got this mess to see through to the end. Let’s find out what we can extract from the Ministry with your return. Rose, move everyone on now. I’ll join you there. Time for me to revisit the Ministry and see what they’ve decided.”
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He strode back to the corner where he’d so recently made love to her, and picked up his jacket. Crina panicked. “But, Jake, what if my father isn’t there this time? What if they shoot you?” “They won’t,” he said with certainty, strapping on his weapons, and checking for ammunition. All around the room, people were packing up, some in silence, some talking in low, urgent voices, no doubt about the ideas she had just made them think about. Zack wandered past her to Jake. “Perhaps I should come with you. Watch your back.” Jake gave him a quick, twisted grin. “Thanks, but I’d rather you watched hers.” He jerked his head in Crina’s direction. “I need you to spot any return of her telepathy.” Crina’s heart lurched and shriveled. She knew what he meant, as Zack did. The betrayal crushed her. Pain rose up and twisted like a knife, and she knew it would only get worse with the hours and days and years. She turned away, moving blindly toward the window in a pointless effort to escape the intolerable hurt. But abruptly, she was seized and swung hard against him. His mouth came down on hers fiercely, and without warning the tears flowed, trickling down into her hair and over their lips. “I’ll sort it out,” he whispered. “I promise.” And then she was alone. Around her, everyone was still busy.
*** It was some time before she became aware of Zack’s pain. Though handcuffed to him and shrouded in someone else’s too-large jacket, she made no effort to escape. Her mind was all on Jake’s contradictory attitude, and gradually, she realized he was still assessing, taking things in. It was harder for him to adjust to what was happening between them. And it was difficult to lose longstanding prejudices. His kiss before he left was surely testament to his feelings as well as his confusion… and his first duty was to his
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followers. She understood that, admired it, even. But it wasn’t easy to accept that he would sacrifice her for them, that he would order Zack to drug her again if her inner senses returned. Already she felt the prickle of that return. It was happening, and the relief was enormous, but the next time, she was terribly afraid they would be buried for good. She wondered if she would ever be able to forgive him for that. If he would forgive himself. Folding the warmth of her gradually returning powers around herself, she took care to hide them from Zack. It wasn’t too difficult. His telepathy was very weak compared with her own, and he was besides, distracted. She spared him a glance, allowed a gentle, empathic opening in her shield. His hunger nearly sent her to her knees. As it was, she stumbled slightly, drawing his attention back to her. The vampire needed blood. Well, she could help him there. Her own blood would make him stronger, but she believed, even before her inner senses told her, that he was a good enough person to handle it. The rebels’ next home resembled the first Crina had been introduced to: a disused maintenance station built above the rooftops and under the roof of the Dome. Zack explained as they climbed, “They built loads of these stations when the Dome first went up -- no one knew how secure or durable it would be. Turned out very on both counts. So most of the stations were abandoned, never used. But they come in very useful for us. No one in this city looks up -- nothing to see.” “Won’t they be watching the stations now, though? After they found us in one before?” “Possibly. It doesn’t matter though, does it? They won’t attack if they believe we’ll kill you right away.” “Zack, if I’m right, all the Minister would need to do is order something without my father’s knowledge and make an excuse later!” “I suspect his fear of your father goes deeper than that. While Aurel is in the Dome, and you are with us, we’re all safe.”
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“Then why move at all?”
Zack smiled faintly. “It’s not good for us to get too comfortable.”
Inevitably, Nick’s wound was aggravated by the move. If she had only had the
medicine, Crina could have healed him almost completely by now. As it was, she made him comfortable, eased his pain, and with the greater power now available to her, speeded up the regrowth of damaged tissue. That done, she accepted a cup of recycled water and took a sip without grimacing. She needed to get outside soon, refortify herself with fresh air and cool, clean water. But her need was not as great as Zack’s. He’d taken himself away from the others. Crina found him sitting curled up behind an old power generator, his head on his knees. When she sat beside him, he straightened at once.
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “I understand. You’re hungry.”
He tried to smile. “The curse of my nature. I rejoice in Nick’s recovery but you
deprived me of my dinner.” “Don’t be so bitter against yourself. It must be hard for you here. How do you manage?” “Without the neat bottles of blood doled out in the City of the Damned? You really don’t want to know. In fact, you really don’t want to be near me. I’ll go out later and take care of it. Just go…” “There’s no need,” she interrupted. “You can feed from me.” He stared at her. The blind hunger in his eyes intensified. His breathing labored. “Christ!” Abruptly, he leaped to his feet, as if to escape her temptation, but she caught his hand. “Zack, I am Dragul. Your vampiric gene is evolved from us. We drink from each other for nourishment as well as ritual -- there is great energy in warm, living blood.” “No shit.” His voice and his limbs shook. But although his body leaned away from her, his hand gripped hers strongly.
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Slowly, with her free hand, Crina pulled her jacket down over one shoulder, pushed her hair behind her back, and offered him her neck. “Crina -- don’t ask me to do this…” “It will make you stronger -- and ease your craving, possibly for good.” That caught his attention. Gradually, she drew him nearer, lifted both hands to his face, and drew his mouth down to her throat.
*** Jake wondered where the euphoria was. His risky plan had worked better than he ever truly believed it would. He had hoped to extort a couple of concessions that would make the rest easier to achieve, but the Minister had just handed him the whole lot -- or as near as made no difference -- on a plate. And all Jake felt was numb. Behind that, as he hurried through the streets, his brain was planning again. They would have to find a way to hold the Minister to his promises after the Dragul left… Although the Minister hadn’t resigned as they’d demanded, he’d already announced the first election in ten years. He’d promised to set up a commission to discover the safest way to dismantle the Dome, which would be carried out as soon as the war ended, letting the sun and the rain and the wind back into the dead streets. He’d promised to remove restrictions on meetings and freedom of the press. It would no longer be a crime to state your opinion, however contrary to the government’s. Those imprisoned for such offences would be released immediately. And most of all, he had already ordered contact with the western government to discuss a truce. Jake turned into the tall, residential building that led eventually to the old maintenance station. He pressed the buzzer button labeled 21, and said only, “It’s me.” The sympathizer resident released the lock at once and Jake was in. He knew he should stop at apartment number 21, but he couldn’t yet face that. He took the elevator. Later was time enough to apprise everyone of the news. First, he needed to update his closest followers. He needed to see Crina.
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Crina. Was she the reason he couldn’t celebrate his victory? Because in honor he now had to return her to her father? The Dragul couldn’t live in this place without any natural energy. Perhaps later, they could meet again, see if the spark was real, begin again without all this shit… If she truly gave a damn about him. Coldness clamped about his heart. In her extraordinary presence, he believed everything she said to him, however much he tried not to. Away from her, he had to ask himself why she should have given herself to the man who had abducted her, assaulted her -- what else could he call the drugging? -maybe even damaged her permanently? She was looking for a way out, she had to be… Unbidden, his memory flooded with visions of her ecstatic body writhing in his arms as he made her come over and over, of her face suffused with passion and something that was surely far greater. Or had he just wanted to believe that? As he wanted now to believe in the goodness of the Dragul, in the perfidy and corruption of his own government. Stepping on to the roof at last, Jake gazed up at the station where she should be by now. Perched at the top of tall, metallic pillars, it almost grazed the roof of the Dome. Inside one of the pillars was an elevator. Inside another, a spiral staircase -- this was the route the others should have taken. Jake decided to check out the escape route, just in case it all went horribly wrong now. A narrow shaft emerged from the top of the station, jutting out for several feet, and then dropping down to the roof he now stood on. It was the air vent, the same means by which they’d escaped from the last station. Jake walked across to it. The door wasn’t even locked. He entered the narrow shaft and steadily climbed the convenient rungs. What if it was all true? Everything she said and did. Did they have any future? Would she meet him again, somewhere in the open country, let him make amends, live with him… His throat constricted. Fuck, what sort of life could he give her? Give himself? If he had truly won, his fight was over. He had nothing to do in this God-forsaken dump,
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nothing to do anywhere. He was a soldier who’d rejected war -- a war which, if the Minister honored his word, was about to end anyway. There was nothing useful he could do. He would have to find something, something that would impress her -- and himself. You’re a sad bastard, Lindow. You should have gotten over trying to impress girls in your teens! But it wasn’t just about her approval, her admiration; it was what she deserved -- a man worthy of her… Jake pulled himself off the final rung and began to crawl through the tunnel which was, mercifully, shorter than the one he’d dragged the unconscious Crina through two days ago. The trapdoor opened easily. The familiar voices and sounds of muffled activity met his ears at once. He would miss that, he thought regretfully. He would miss all of them when the time came to go their own ways. He looked down through the hole to see what lay beneath him before he jumped. And then he’d give them all a bollocking for not noticing his arrival. Directly below him stood Crina and Zack, in a powerful clinch. Zack held her hard against his body, his hips grinding into her, his face buried in her neck. And Crina, her head thrown back as if in ecstasy, slowly opened her eyes.
Chapter Seven She saw the inevitable shock in his face, and anguish so intense that her heart began to beat strongly with hope. Without meaning to, she opened to him, just in time to receive the fury with which he could still wreck everything. His face shuttered. Pride had taken over. As he jumped down, landing lightly and surely, Crina lifted Zack’s head, detaching his teeth from her vein. Although he had already taken more than was considered polite in Dragul circles, he was reluctant to stop. Only astonishment at her strength, she suspected, prevented him trying to cling on -- before sense and manners took over, and he stepped back, gasping out an embarrassed “thank you” as he turned away to wipe his bloody lips. He met Jake’s contemptuous regard, and all the blood he had just taken from her left his face in a rush. He made an effort to steady his breathing as he said, “I’m sorry, Jake. I needed the blood.” “I didn’t realize you were so desperate as to take hers. Do you even know what it will do to you?” His voice was hard, careless. No one but Crina could have guessed at the torrent of confused emotion churning him up. He sounded as if he was simply angry at Zack for risking himself. With a calmness she was far from feeling herself, she said, “It will protect him and ease his craving.” “Amazing,” he marveled. “Is there no end to your generosity?” Like a blow in the stomach, the pain took her breath away. The implication was clear. She took a quick step toward him, but he turned away, striding into the room. “Good news, guys -- we won!”
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Among all the excited exclamations and explanations, Crina stood aside, listening with a profound feeling of dread that wasn’t due solely to her fear that Jake would send her back now without so much as a word of kindness. His victory should not have been so easy. Worse, she suspected he knew it. And somewhere she was aware of relief -- because she had done the right thing in deliberately shielding herself from her father.
*** The lights had begun to dim for evening by the time Crina again found herself before the Ministry building and its impressive, guarded gates. Once more, the street had been cleared of traffic, and three figures stood on the roof opposite, but this time their weapons were on blatant display, and this time Jake was not one of them. Jake stood beside her, handcuffed to her, his fingers gripping her wrist like a vise. And yet the distance between them might have spanned the western ocean. It had been like that since he’d come back with news of his victory and discovered Zack feeding from her. Partly, it came from his distraction, his determination to spot any Ministry betrayal before it happened, and partly it came from a very human jealousy. Well, Crina was part human, and she tried to imagine how she would feel if she found her friend Gina, for example, drinking from Jake. If it was ritual, she thought she wouldn’t care, but anything else? Her stomach twisted. Perhaps not. It smacked of too close a relationship. But Jake would not talk to her, would not let her explain that compassion and necessity had led her to nourish Zack. Preoccupied, it was possible he simply didn’t care enough to get over the hurdle. The torrent of wild, confused emotion was buried deep under strongly focused determination, and she couldn’t penetrate that shield -not without his permission, and not without giving away the rising strength of her inner senses. And that, as they walked slowly up the street to the Ministry gates, was paramount. She didn’t know what her father would do, what he would reveal to the
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Ministry forces in his fear for her safety. Until they were there and she could look him in the eye… The deal was that only Jake and Rose accompany her. No one had said Jake’s followers couldn’t watch from the opposite roof. Crina closed her mind to that. In the final few minutes of their interminable walk, she simply absorbed the feel of his body moving next to hers, his controlled strides lithe, aware, flexible as a cat. She cherished his rough grip on her wrist, memorized the feel of his fingers on her skin, in case she should never feel it again. Humans were terrifyingly frail, and he was walking into the lion’s den. The guards at the gate watched them approach, weapons trained on Jake. They only lowered the guns, holding them in a merely prepared position, when the rebels came to a halt several feet away. The Minister made them wait. Rose swore fluently. “Is he making a point or aiming all his guns?” Crina said low, “If you stand behind me, they’d have less chance of hitting you.” “True,” said Jake. “Take one step forward.” Obediently, she did, but he yanked her back immediately, muttering under his breath. “I was kidding, for Christ’s sake. You may be Dragul, but we still owe you for Nick.” The blow thudded against her heart as if he’d hit her. She closed her eyes, fighting to focus, as he did, on what mattered. But Rose, her eyes still scanning the Ministry windows, said, “Don’t be a bastard, Jake.” One day, Crina thought, she would be grateful for the other woman’s unexpected friendship, but now there wasn’t time for any further exchange. The Ministry door opened and two more soldiers came out, weapons at the ready. The Minister followed, with his entourage -- and Aurel, looking more impressive than ever. Crina’s heart lifted at the sight of him, her rock for her entire life, and she had to fight to maintain her silence for the last few moments.
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Jake’s tension flowed through his fingers and into her body. She couldn’t even soothe him without giving herself away. Besides, he needed the tension to keep his edge… Only when the government party emerged from the Ministry gates, did Crina raise her eyes to her father’s. His anxiety struck her like a wave. He didn’t even try to hide it. The Minister said to Jake, “Is she all right?” “Are you?” Aurel said aloud. Jake said impatiently, “She’s fine.” And only she heard the guilt, the shame because he knew she wasn’t, because of what he’d done. She moved her arm, deliberately touching him in comfort and felt ridiculously warmed when he didn’t pull away. Perhaps he didn’t even notice. Still gazing at her father, she nodded. Slowly, she let down the shield. I’m really fine, Father, everything’s come back. I’ve been hiding. Why? The word was sharp and clear, delivered among a more general haze of love and relief and continued anxiety. Because I didn’t want you to tell them where I was. I didn’t want another gun fight. Father, Jake is a good man. You mustn’t let them betray him. The Ministry is corrupt, it’s been lying to the people for years. Jake is right to try to change it, and he truly believed we, the Dragul, were behind all their ills. I know. Crina closed her mouth. From nowhere, hysterical laughter threatened to rise up and swallow her. Her father always surprised her. It’s a new discovery, he confessed. We haven’t kept a close enough eye on their internal matters -- too concerned with ending the war. What are they up to? Are they truly submitting to Jake’s demands? Apparently. For now. Though I suspect the Minister plans to rig the election, draw the rebels’ teeth, as it were, and then revert to the old ways.
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That didn’t sound too bad. They could counteract that… But he wants to appease me with his efforts to save you. Because he wants the Dragul to join in the war… He’s a dangerous fool! Quite. The Minister said, “Release her.” “Pass over the pardons,” Jake said. The Minister jerked his head, and one of his minions, a watchful, intelligent looking young man, handed a large sheaf of papers to Rose. “I’ve filled in your name and Captain Lindow’s. The rest are blank.” Rose rifled through them. Crina could almost hear her scanning them for errors. In the interim, Jake managed to lounge, radiating unconcern, although his eyes were never still. One of the soldiers suddenly jerked his weapon upward, saying urgently. “Sir! There are men over there on the roof -- armed!” “Just noticed them, have you?” Jake mocked before anyone else could respond. “They’re my men, and they won’t fire unless you do.” “Keep them in your sights,” the Minister said calmly. “I believe our new friends stand between us and them, but it always pays to be careful. Like Sergeant Dando.” Rose didn’t bother glancing up from her careful perusal of the documents. Silence stretched again. Rose said, “They look okay.” Jake nodded. Crina felt the faint movements of his body as he searched in his pocket. A moment later, he lifted her wrist with his and slid the key into the handcuffs. Her hand fell free and he lifted his gaze to hers. The storm of emotion was still there in his eyes, still kept rigidly under control, but over it all crept a strange tenderness. His lips curved, very slightly. “You’re the best hostage I ever had.” She tried to smile. Her mouth hurt. “You’re a terrible abductor.”
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A hint of humor touched his eyes and was gone. His blond hair had fallen across his forehead and she almost reached up to brush it back. But Aurel’s hand was heavy on her shoulder, drawing her away from Jake, away from her only chance of happiness. Jake tore his gaze free of hers. It seemed to be a wrench. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Minister, looking straight at him, spoke first, calmly and clearly. “He’s gone for his gun. Take him out.” And everything seemed to happen at once in slow motion. The Minister stepped backward. Jake shouted something and threw himself after him, at the same time reaching for the gun at his hip. Rose dropped to the ground as a gun fired, and in the midst of more gunshots, Aurel threw Crina back and leaped in front of Rose with his wings spread. But Crina was hardly aware of this momentous step from noninterference. For the first gunshot had sent Jake staggering backward. Blood spread across his shoulder and chest, yet somehow he righted himself and as the hangers-on fled for the cover of the building, Jake kept coming for the Minister, who pressed himself into the wall in terror. However, there was no gratification in that, for all four soldiers, abandoning the rooftop snipers, trained their guns on Jake. Crina knew she had only an instant, no time even to run and protect him as Aurel did Rose, for they were aiming at him from two sides. She had never changed so fast, but her need gave her strength. The dragon didn’t just grow within her, it galloped.
Among the fury was a weird sense of relief, because at last he knew where the danger was coming from. A straight-forward double-cross that showed the world the Minister’s duplicity. He knew he’d been shot. Though the pain wasn’t registering yet, he felt the dragging numbness that would drop him any minute. He knew he had to act quickly, get to the Minister before the soldiers killed him. Somewhere he knew he wouldn’t make it, that he would die trying. There was little regret. His men on the roof would
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already have gotten word out. The Ministry would be stormed. The government would change. He would have made a difference. And he had known Crina. Suddenly there was something between him and the Minister. A long, scaly neck, a huge head that swiped aside the soldiers by the door before turning its fiery eyes on him. He thought he halted, but he didn’t know, didn’t care. The astonishing creature stared at him from huge blue eyes of ice and fire. Smoke blew from its large, shapely nostrils. The world seemed to stand still. He barely heard the screams of terror all around him. More soldiers poured from the Ministry building. He thought he was probably dead already. He didn’t care. He was lost in the beauty of the dragon’s flaming eyes. “Crina,” he whispered. Come… Her head swooped down, at the end of her twisting neck, pushing him. Sheer instinct made him roll with it, leaping onto the dragon’s back just as another shot rang out. He didn’t know if it hit him. He was completely preoccupied by the rising dragon. She had already soared into the air by the time she spread her massive, scaly wings. Color and light shimmered in them, dazzling his reeling senses. The wings beat, carrying him higher and higher until he realized she was going to crash herself and him into the domed ceiling. “Crina, the roof!” he cried in a desperate attempt to save her. She did slow but not enough. Her head grazed the roof. He felt the jolt through her body, and then they were flying again, out into the night sky, just as if the Dome wasn’t there. And yet when he stared back over his shoulder, beyond her long, graceful tail, there it still was, without fault or blemish. Above him, the stars glittered, cold and beautiful and eternal. There were worse sights to die with, worse company to die in. His heart soared.
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The starlight merged, out of focus, and darkened. Jake leaned forward across the dragon’s neck, rested his cheek against the hard, scales and smiled his welcome to death.
Chapter Eight Crina hung her head further out of the window so the light breeze could catch her hair. She couldn’t get enough of the cool, fresh air in her lungs. Her skin absorbed the early morning sun like a sponge. Movement below caught her eye and she glanced down to the wide, grassy street. Two young Dragul wandered past, entwined. Crina smiled as the male lifted his face to her window. It was Rad, who had once wanted to be her lover. Clearly, he had found speedy consolation. Crina lifted her hand to him, silently sent her good wishes, and he smiled back. Behind her, in the guest room, something stirred. Turning quickly, she saw Jake propping himself on his elbow to gaze around him. His tangled hair tumbled about his pale, handsome face, catching the golden sunlight from the window. The sheet slid down his naked shoulder revealing his muscular arms and chest. Desire stirred in Crina. She wanted to touch him very badly. But he had travelled here unconscious on her back and had remained in that state while she and Dmir, their greatest healer, had repaired his wounds. She had no idea what he thought of her, what, if anything, he wanted of her. Inevitably, his searching gaze found her. There was an instant when he simply looked, and then he smiled, sudden and blinding. “Crina. I’m not dead after all.” Her heart lurched. “What makes you think so?” “Come here and I’ll show you.” Heat spread from her tingling stomach, curling lower. Yet stupidly, now that the moment was here, she was paralyzed with shyness. As if sensing it, he changed the subject. “You healed me.” “I kept you alive,” she corrected, “until our healer could treat you.”
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A frown twitched between his brows. “How did we get out? You seemed to fly right through the Dome… Or did I dream that part?” “We’re shifters,” Crina said simply. “As we can alter our own body matter, it’s a simple thing to temporarily alter the substance of other objects.” He took that in without obvious difficulty. His attention had already moved on. “And this place? I confess when I opened my eyes I thought it was the heaven my old Gran used to go on about -- all light and comfort -- but it isn’t, is it?” She shook her head, gaining courage enough to approach the round bed on which he lay. “It’s my father’s house, in the Kingdom of the Dragul. You are welcome,” she added formally, if belatedly. “Have I been here for days, completely out of it?” “One full day. And a few hours.” He closed his eyes, as if shutting out the intrusion of the real world. “And how long will it take me to go back?” “It depends how you travel,” she said calmly, trying not to let her hurt show. She got that he wanted to stay, and that duty still came first. “But your people are safe. My father stayed in the Dome.” Inevitable suspicion crossed his face and was banished with a hint of shame. “The Dragul have not taken control,” she assured him, just to clear away all possible misunderstanding. “Your people led the Dome dwellers to assault the Ministry. My father stopped them from killing each other, then stood back and let them get on with it.” Jake swallowed. “And? No one attacked him, did they?” “Strangely enough, no. Respect or fear, something kept their violence away from him. The Minister was forced to resign on the spot. One of his underlings is in temporary control -- the young one who handed the pardons over to Rose -- but elections will be held in a few weeks. They’ll be free.” Jake’s smile was a little twisted. “Then they managed it without me in the end.”
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Rogue Warriors 1: Rebel
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“They managed it because of you.” Slowly, she sat down on the side of the bed, self-consciously smoothing the soft fabric of her simple, yellow shift. She could make out the texture of his skin, the dusting of light hair across his chest. “Are you sorry I brought you away?” Something brushed her cheek, light as a butterfly wing and her gaze flew back to his. “I’d have been dead if you hadn’t. At the time I didn’t mind -- I had a feeling it would all work out as I’d planned, whether I lived or died. And I couldn’t see any way back for you and me.” She licked her lips. Her heart skipped as she saw his gaze dip and follow the movement, lingering on her lips as she spoke. “Any way back to where, Jake?” “To wherever it was that we trusted each other and made love without fear of betrayal.” Heat flooded her body. “Did you, Jake?” she whispered. “Trust you? Yes. I don’t know when. After the first time, maybe, or perhaps I always did. After all, I fell asleep beside you and something brought me closer than I should have gone.” “Lust.” “Oh yes.” The heat intensified, interfering with her breathing. Moisture flooded between her legs, into her dress and the bed beneath. If he had been Dragul he would have smelled it. Perhaps his other senses did the job just as well, for he smiled and reached for her. “I’ve been asleep for a long time. Do you know what happens to human men when they wake up in the morning?” “I think you were about to show me.” He threw off the sheet, allowing her a glimpse of his entire naked body, longlimbed, strong and lean. His big cock stood stiffly to attention, its head red and angry, its shaft laced with thick blue veins. And then he pulled her beneath him and fell on her mouth like a thirsty man finding water. With a muffled cry she threw her arms around
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him, caressing his warm, naked back, running the flat of her hand over the curve of his taut buttocks. He began to move, twisting his body on hers, searching out a home for his desperate cock as his tongue thrust into her mouth, driving her wild with lust. She wanted him deep within her, pounding her to climax. Yet she wanted this haze of excitement and desire and pleasure to last forever. The urgent couplings under her blanket, in the darkness of their hide-out was the wildest pleasure she’d ever known, but suddenly she had a glimpse of more, of a lifetime of new discoveries, of a thousand ways to give and receive pleasure. With an effort she pushed open her wings beneath her, used them to give her strength to roll him off her. But she gave him no time to fear rejection. She threw her leg over his hip and lay on him, covering him with kisses, lingering around his throat, wondering if he would ever let her drink from him, before moving over his broad chest, sucking and nibbling at his taut nipples. He groaned, thrusting his hands through her hair as she slid lower, gliding her lips down his flat, hard stomach, feeling the muscles jump under her mouth. With one finger, she traced the arrow-line downward from his navel, teasingly avoiding his eagerly twitching cock. “Take it in your hands,” he said unevenly. He was panting as if he’d climbed a mountain. “Please…” With mock docility, she obeyed, squeezing the hot shaft, slowly moving her hand up and down to feel the rib-like veins. He moaned again, so she lowered her head. He seemed not to breathe at all now. The tension coiled within him seemed about to explode. Tentatively, she dropped a kiss on the angry head, smiling at the soft, velvety texture. His trembling hands guided her mouth back to it. Wriggling with excitement now, she began to explore with her tongue, drawing the skin fully back so she could lick around the sensitive head. Encouraged by his caressing hands and grateful growls, she pushed her tongue into the slit and as he groaned again, she slid her whole mouth over the velvety tip and lower, taking as much in as she could, flicking with her tongue, sucking with a sudden strength that made him grasp
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convulsively at her hair. Duly warned, she released him, instead sliding her lips down and up the strong, throbbing shaft, only at the last moment sucking it hard into her mouth. “Jesus, Crina, I’ll come in your mouth…” I want you to. “But I want to come in your gorgeous, tight little pussy. I need it…” I can do that too. With her wings, she lifted herself up, and hovered above him. In desperation, he held his cock in one hand, stroked it once, as he gazed up at her in awed fascination. Lust blazed from his face, seemed to shriek from every pore, exciting her unbearably. Slowly, she lowered herself until she felt the blunt head of his cock between her legs. She gasped at the wonderful sensations shooting through her. Folding her wings, she fell naturally onto his shaft, burying it deep within her tight passage. She began to ride him, glorying in the pleasure, reaching for more. “Open your wings,” he whispered, and when she obeyed, he pulled himself up, reaching over her shoulder to kiss them. He caressed them with his hand, pressing his chest into her breasts, and the bliss began in earnest. With a little half-laugh of triumph, he pulled back his hips and thrust into her again and again. She hung onto him, crying out with the rapture, fucking with him, reaching with him until they fell together into orgasm. Somewhere in the haze of ecstasy, he laid her down, moving languidly within her still. As her eyes came back into focus, she found him watching her with intense pleasure, his chest still rising and falling erratically from his own climax. “You’re speaking in my head,” he observed. “Do you mind?” she gasped, as he made another, more profound movement inside her. “After all, you’re speaking inside my body.” “Fucking as a form of speech? I suppose it is,” he said thoughtfully. “Listen to this.” Slowly, still languidly and with intense sensuality, he pushed his cock in and out
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of her again, using long, deep strokes to find the places that gave her the most pleasure. Without ever increasing the pace, he brought her again to the ultimate bliss. “What did I say?” he asked, reaching down with his hand to stir her clitoris. “You said you like to bring me pleasure,” she said shakily, grasping on to him for support. She was still dizzy, shaking from the pleasure. “I can bring you lots more. I want to kiss your pussy, make you come in my mouth. Would you like that?” “Yes, but you wouldn’t come in mine…” “I will,” he promised, and moaned with her as she fell over the edge once more. “What else did I say?” he whispered into her mouth. “I don’t know…” “Can’t you hear me?” “I won’t listen until you say so. It’s not polite.” Slowly, he lifted his face and looked at her. “I was always afraid of you reading me. It made me vulnerable, the way I felt about you…” She swallowed. “And how was that?” “I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this about anyone, and I hardly know you. I wanted to do this from the moment I saw you in that hotel… I had this insane urge to protect you. How ridiculous is that? I was the one who put you in danger, assaulted you --” “Made love to me,” she added, reaching up to kiss him. “Jake -- Jake, I don’t want to scare you off, and you have to understand this binds you to nothing, but you need to know the truth. My truth. You…” She looked into his eyes, let the joy wash through her, over her, warming her without pain. If she had to, she’d deal with that later. “Jake, you are my One.” He lay very still, his eyes never leaving her. She couldn’t read his expression -there was too much going on. At last, he said, “Are you sure?”
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She nodded, once, and he let his forehead drop slowly on to hers. He was smiling, as if he couldn’t help it. “Then look. Look inside my head, my heart, wherever I keep it. Tell me what I feel.” Crina looked, and wept with joy.
*** “A father does not like to find his daughter in bed with a man who makes her cry.” At the sound of her father’s voice, Crina jumped. Jake moved, giving her space to sit up and face her parent with some dignity. He showed no sign of trying to dive under the bed or escape by the window. “Father,” she gasped. “I didn’t know you were back!” He stood in the arched doorway, splendid as always. His mind was veiled. “Clearly,” he said dryly, although interestingly, she felt no rage from him. Nor even much surprise. Taking advantage of this unexpected mildness, she said, “I’m an adult, Father. I have been for some years. You have to accept that.” “I know,” Aurel said, taking her by surprise once more. “Your mother told me so a long time ago but I refused to believe her. It’s a fault among some parents, for which I apologize.” Stunned, Crina said nothing at all. Aurel used the opportunity to turn to Jake. “We have never been formally introduced. I am Aurel, Keeper of the Laws.” “Jake Lindow, breaker of the laws.” Aurel smiled. “You are welcome in the Kingdom of the Dragul, law breaker. Believe it or not, I once broke the law too, for what I thought was the good of my people. It turned out I too was right.” “Is that approval?” “Of what you did? For what it’s worth, yes. Mostly. Kidnapping my daughter -or anyone else’s for that matter -- is hard to forgive, however.”
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“I’m not proud of it, myself. My only excuse is inexcusable: I -- dehumanized your people, if you understand me. Something I never did before, even to the enemy in the war. I don’t believe it’s a mistake I will ever repeat.” Although he spoke to Aurel, Crina knew the apology was meant for her. Aurel said, “We all have a breaking point.” “So what makes you so forgiving?” Crina demanded suddenly. “Why are you so gracious to Jake? Why do you suddenly believe in my adulthood?” “Well,” said Aurel, sitting on the bed. “Mainly the way you handled your abduction and tried to protect those who had hurt you. And so looked after the whole troubled city. You found out -- and acted on -- more in your two days of imprisonment than I had in all my dealings with the Ministry. The king and queen are also proud of you.” As Crina closed her open mouth, Jake threw a congratulatory arm around her naked shoulders. Aurel watched but said nothing. “In fact, in light of that, in light of the fact that you have proved your healing powers, and discovered your One, the king has a proposition for you both. He’ll tell you tonight…” Crina seized his arm as he made to stand. “No! You have to tell us now!” Aurel pretended to sigh. “Very well. Dragul medicine should start to get through to the front now, but we would like you to take your healing powers and more medicine and go to the war-zone. Heal where you can, on both sides. Try to make contact with the western forces, carry the peace message. There are not enough Dragul in the western lands to be much influence at all. It’s down to us.” Jake’s gaze was fixed on Aurel’s. “You would countenance this?” “Yes. I don’t like it, of course. What father would? But she is tough and smart, as she has just proved beyond doubt, and I know you will protect her with your life. I hope you don’t have to. And I hope you can make an important contribution to ending this war and bringing our world back on track. So think about it, children. Is it something you would be prepared to take on?”
Marie Treanor
Rogue Warriors 1: Rebel
Crina looked at Jake. As one, they lifted their joined hands and smiled.
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Marie Treanor Marie Treanor was born and brought up in Scotland, but for some years moved around the UK working and studying. Now she is back home and happily married with three young children. Having grown bored with city life, she lives these days in a picturesque village by the sea where she is lucky enough to enjoy herself avoiding housework and writing stories of romance and fantasy. You can find out more about Marie and her books on her website: www.marietreanor.com,
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