Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(39)

“We’ve crossed over,” he said.

She had never been to an Other land before. Her mother refused to take her, insisting their best chance at avoiding discovery was to hide among humankind. Despite everything else going on, the feeling of the land was intoxicating.

She peered out the ruined window. Majestic old-growth trees draped with vines towered around them. There was a symmetry to the land that fed her tired spirit. Her gaze followed the thick twist of a tree trunk up until the branches spread out high overhead with the graciousness of a vaulted cathedral ceiling. Steeped with age, drenched with magic, everything looked richer, greener, and the early-morning sunlight shone more golden and bright.

Pain forced her to lie back. She whispered, “It’s beautiful.”

“I’m pretty sure it won’t be where they’re taking us,” he said.

They both looked down at the short-sleeved lemon yellow T-shirt she had worn underneath. The right shoulder was soaked red, along with an area at her waist where she had bled through the overshirt.

“Tear it off,” she said. She pushed away a panicked sense of exposure. She hoped her bra was clean.

His eyes went lava hot as he glared at the Goblins surrounding them. “Fuck if I will,” he snapped.

He shoved the wad of material into her lap and then ripped the shirt at shoulder and waist until he got all the bloodied cloth. What was left of the T-shirt was a ragged mess that left her stomach and shoulder bare but the collar was intact. She peered underneath it and sighed in relief. Her bra was unbloodied.

Last of all, he tore off his own shirt, which was dotted with red spots. He tied the bundle up in the pieces of his shirt.

Then he held it up in one hand close to the crumpled window opening. His eyes narrowed. The lava in them flared just as his Power did. The bundle burst into flame.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

He said, “We are so going to talk about this when we get home.”

She shrank against his chest, away from the flare of fire, staring as he held the ball in his fist. It burned with too much intensity, fueled by his magic. She felt the heat lick along her skin but he was unburned.

He sent a sideways glance outside, a quick evil look, then flung the flaming cloth with enough force that it slapped a nearby Goblin in the face.

“Two birds, one stone.” He shrugged when Pia stared at him. He watched with interest as the screaming started.

The Goblin ran in erratic circles, slapping at his flaming face and howling. The fire refused to die. Instead, fueled by his Power, the magic of the land and whatever was in her blood, it spread to the leather armor. Pia turned away from the gruesome sight. She covered her ears and buried her face in his chest. He cupped the back of her head and watched as the Goblin fell down and died.

Payback was a beautiful bitch. She was also a good friend of his, and they were just getting started.

There were twenty Goblins left after the two Dragos had killed. Before long they were joined by another dozen. The newcomers switched places with the ones that had been hauling the flatbed. The pace picked up.

After Dragos pushed the distorted car out in a few more carefully chosen places, they could move around a little more inside and make themselves more or less comfortable. Then he focused his attention on what was going on outside.

She had watched with wide eyes as he had bent the jagged ends of metal around her legs so she didn’t cut herself again when she moved. That was some kind of scary strength he had. She fished around in the cramped, alien area at her feet and managed to find a battered bottle of water that hadn’t been punctured. They shared half of it in sips; then she capped the rest for later.

She had no doubt that Dragos had saved her life in more ways than one. She was grateful he had been able to stop her bleeding by sealing her cuts. He told her it was a form of cauterization except he was able to keep her from feeling the pain. It was too bad that was the extent of his healing skills, because her body ached all over.

She peeked out now and then, staring around in awe at the landscape that was so like and yet unlike the part of Earth she knew. The fluid roll of hills, burgeoning blue-green foliage, shards of sunlight sparking off crystal veins in granite boulders, the scenes they passed veiled some invisible truth that was so essential, so palpable, she could swear she could almost scoop it out of the air with both hands. Some long-denied, starved part of her soul unfurled and wailed with the need to drink from it.

Was it the magic of the Other land that called to her? Was it the ancient canny wildness of forest that had seen no woodsman’s axe, no farmer’s plow, that reminded her of her deepest self, the wild creature that lived trapped within the inadequate cage of her weak, half-breed flesh?

She wanted to cut at herself to let the poor creature out. The upsurge of desperate emotion was so violent, so uncontained, the part of her that was civilized with language and culture shrank away from it. An impulse ghosted through her to try to tell Dragos about the frenzy teeming inside, but civilization and language failed her in the end. She did not understand what she felt and so she remained silent.

As powerfully as the land called to her, the Goblins freaked her out, so she didn’t look outside too often. She chose instead to lie back in her broken seat and stare in thought at the mangled roof as she tried to explore the mysterious landscape she found inside herself. She became convinced the Goblins were the source of the dread that clung to her. The feeling crawled along her skin like baby spiders.