Chapter 42
TARIAN
S omehow, now free from the Gate, Tarian was still reliving his worst nightmare.
“NO!” he shouted, at the men and the sky—he couldn’t burn his opponents without endangering Kenna, but he would rather die than let her leave his sight.
He ignored the nuisances of their puny weapons, snaking forward, ready to rip and bite—but the foul presence that had trapped Sarah had partially engulfed Kenna and was crawling her towards their strange machine, with Rocky barking after her.
The machine itself had slicing blades upon it. He hauled himself to a stop and paused, unsure how to disarm the thing, while the menacing creature crawled underneath the blades, hauling her in through a door, with Rocky at its heels—and then the machine itself took off.
Tarian watched in horror and disbelief.
He could fly after it—but to swat it out of the sky was to risk injuring her. And if he gave chase, and it made some foolish maneuver, the danger was probably the same.
Which meant he had to watch as his mate, the woman that he loved—and that he could still feel loved him, across their bond—was carried away from him.
Again.
His dragon shrieked his rage at the moon, hearing it echo from all around him. He did it again, and again, till his sanity returned, and he looked down at the quaking female human he’d been left with below.
But in addition to her—there were still enemy combatants on the battlefield—and not all of them were dead.
He returned to his human form instantly and walked over to where one of the men left behind appeared to be bleeding out from a dragon-claw gash.
“Where did they go?” Tarian demanded, hoisting the man aloft. Blood poured out of the man, along with a bit of intestine.
“I don’t know!” the man cried, quickly followed by, “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me!”
“What is happening to her?” Tarian asked, carefully setting the man back down so he wouldn’t die too quickly.
Tarian crouched beside the man, gripping his collar and shaking him hard enough to rattle bone.
“What is happening to her?” he demanded, his voice still edged with the growl of his dragon.
The man gasped, clutching at his stomach where his insides were trying to escape him. “I—I don’t?—”
Tarian slammed him back against the rock. “Wrong answer.”
“I don't know !” the man wheezed, tears leaking from his eyes. “They don't tell us everything, they just— augh! ”
His whole body spasmed suddenly, his back arching as if something was pulling at him from the inside. His mouth opened in a silent scream, and then—movement.
Tarian reared back as something slithered out from beneath the man's skin.
It had the same reek that had clung to Kenna’s tracker—only this one was alive.
The flesh around the man’s wounds convulsed, the gashes in his body widening—not from injury, but as if something inside him was forcing its way out. The rot-stink of magic fouled the air as white, segmented shapes, slick with blood and bile, peeled themselves free from his torn skin.
Tarian’s stomach turned.
The man’s eyes bulged, mouth working in wordless horror as more of the grotesque parasites wriggled free—six of them, seven—crawling from beneath his flesh like insects abandoning a dying host. They hit the ground with wet plaps , and started crawling away, seeking something new to burrow into.
Tarian didn’t give them the chance.
With a guttural roar, he pulled fire into his palms and burned .
The creatures shrieked—an unnatural, high-pitched keening—as they blackened and shriveled, curling into themselves. The man beneath them spasmed violently, choking on his own breath.
And then he stilled.
Tarian exhaled hard through his nose, watching the last of the parasites burn to ash.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
And then, without another glance at the body, he turned toward Sarah, who’d managed to stand.
“Can you walk? “ he asked, and she nodded quickly.
“You’re—you’re that guy,” she whispered to herself, and then looked down at her own body. She was covered in small piercing wounds. “I don’t have any of those in me, do I?”
It was a valid question. He stalked over to her and watched her brace. He was downwind of her, which meant the prior stench was behind him—and there was nothing, scent or magical or otherwise, that said her personal integrity had been broken.
It was as if all of the puncture words she’d been given were to draw something out rather than put something in .
“You are clear,” he said, and watched her sway—he picked her up without a second thought, and started running for the car, against her feeble protests.
Speed was of the essence. Kenna was getting further away, and he could feel it.