Chapter 5 #3
He helped me dress with movements that were efficient rather than tender, finding clean clothes from a storage chest I hadn't noticed.
His hands were steady now, no trembling, no lingering.
When his fingers brushed my skin, it was incidental rather than intentional.
Through the bond, I felt him building walls—not against me but around the desperate need that still hummed between us, containing it until he could afford to let it loose again.
"I have to go." The words came out clipped, formal. "The dragon lords are planning an offensive against Solmar. I can’t help but think that Rovik is working with him. Up above.”
"Of course, Daddy.”
"Three rules while I'm gone. First—" He glanced at Pebble, who'd been watching our activities with what looked distinctly like amusement. "Pebble stays inside. His left wing is still weak from old injuries. He might think he can fly, but he can't sustain it."
Pebble chirped indignantly, and I saw him flutter the wing in question. It did look slightly off—old scar tissue making the membrane less flexible than it should be.
"Second," Garruk continued, "absolutely do not pass the singing stones. Not even one step. You stay within the boundary."
"And third?"
His expression darkened. "If anything seems wrong—anything at all—you hide in the deep chambers and wait for me. There's a passage behind the thermal pools, leads down to caverns even I haven't fully explored. Nothing will follow you there."
"You're scaring me," I admitted.
"Good." He pulled me against him once, a quick fierce embrace that reminded me of what we'd almost done. "A little fear keeps you safe. And I need you safe, little one. Need you whole and here when I return."
Through the bond came a flash of image—him returning to find me gone, taken by Solmar's men or worse. The rage that followed that thought made my knees weak, but not from arousal this time. This was the dragon's possessive fury, and it promised destruction to anything that threatened what was his.
"How long will you be gone?"
"Hours. Maybe until dawn if the Lords debate." He pressed his lips to my forehead, breathing me in. "Stay safe. Stay inside. Obey the rules."
Then he was gone, moving through the passages with purposeful strides that made the mountain itself seem to make way for him. I stood there in clothes that didn't quite fit right, body still humming with unsatisfied need, the ghost of his touch lingering on my skin.
The moment his footsteps faded, I turned to Pebble.
"Want to see something beautiful?"
The little drake tilted his head, ancient eyes curious. He'd been underground for so long—centuries, maybe longer. When was the last time he'd seen something that wasn't carved from stone? Something that lived and breathed and danced in the air?
I knew it was bad.
Daddy had just told me not to do it.
But when would I get another chance?
"Wanna go for an adventure?" I asked him. "Just to see the singing stones. Not to go past them? We can see what’s past them, though!”
Pebble chirped uncertainly, glancing toward where Garruk had vanished.
"We won’t go outside," I promised. "We’ll be safe. And I bet there’s something magical there that isn’t made of rock."
The more I thought about it, the more justified it seemed. Garruk was being overprotective—typical Daddy behavior. The singing stones were just an alarm system, not an actual barrier. And I'd survived sixteen years in the warrens by knowing when real danger was present versus imagined threats.
Besides, after centuries of loyal service to Garruk, didn't Pebble deserve a few moments of beauty?
"We'll be quick," I promised, already moving toward the entrance passages. "Just long enough to see what’s there."
Pebble followed, his excitement growing with each step. Through our strange connection—not as strong as the bond with Garruk but present nonetheless—I felt his anticipation.
The singing stones hummed as we approached, their vibration setting my teeth on edge. They were beautiful in their own way—tall pillars of some opalescent mineral that caught light and threw it back in rainbow spirals. But their song was a warning, meant to alert Garruk to any crossing.
He was miles away by now, dealing with Solmar and the council. He wouldn't know. And we'd be back inside before full dark, before anything dangerous stirred from deeper caves.
"Shall we step over?" I asked Pebble.
He looked worried.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine!”
He chirped agreement, and together we stepped past the threshold.
The change was immediate—the air grew humid, heavy with moisture from hidden springs. The stone beneath our feet went from polished smooth to naturally rough, and somewhere in the distance, I heard the musical trickle of water.
But it was the fireflies that stole my breath.
Thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands, dancing in the twilight like fallen stars.
Their cold light reflected off moisture in the air, creating halos and spirals of gold-green luminescence.
They moved in patterns that seemed choreographed—rising and falling in waves, clustering and dispersing like living constellations.
Pebble's eyes went wide with wonder, and he made a sound I'd never heard from him—something between a purr and a song, ancient and joyful. He stretched his good wing, trying to catch the light, and for a moment he looked young despite his centuries of existence.
"Beautiful," I whispered.
The fireflies danced closer, some brave enough to land on Pebble's snout. He went cross-eyed trying to look at them, and I couldn't help but laugh at his expression. This was worth it. This moment of pure joy, of beauty that asked nothing and gave everything—this was worth breaking one small rule.
We were still within sight of the singing stones. Still safe. What could possibly go wrong?
The crossbow bolt came from nowhere—a whisper of death through twilight air that ended in the wet sound of metal piercing membrane.
Pebble's scream tore through the evening like nothing I'd ever heard—not his usual chirps or rumbles but pure agony given voice.
The sound would haunt me forever, carved into memory alongside every other moment I'd failed someone who mattered.
He collapsed, his damaged wing now torn completely, the bolt lodged deep in the delicate tissue. Blood—so much blood for such a small body—pooled on the stone, black in the dying light. The fireflies scattered at his cry, their beauty transformed into chaos as they fled the violence.
Three men emerged from shadows I should have been watching.
Poachers—I recognized the type immediately from my warren days.
Desperate men who'd hunt anything that could turn a profit, wearing clothes that marked them as barely better off than me.
But their eyes held the kind of cold calculation that said they'd crossed lines I'd only skirted.
"Well, well." The leader had a voice like gravel and breath that reeked of rotgut whiskey even from ten feet away. "Dragon blood's worth its weight in gold, boys. And look—we got ourselves a bonus."
His gaze tracked over me with the kind of assessment that made my skin crawl. Not desire—just more calculation. Adding up my worth in coins.
"Two for one special," another agreed, already unslinging nets from his shoulder. "The drake for parts and the girl for bounty. Today's our lucky day."
"Leave him alone!" I threw myself over Pebble's trembling form, trying to shield as much of him as possible.
His blood soaked through my clothes immediately, hot and wrong. He was making small sounds now—not quite screams but worse somehow. Whimpers of pain from something ancient that had never deserved this.
It was all my fault.
The leader laughed. "Protective of the little monster, are you? That's sweet. Really. But dragon blood don't stay fresh long, and we got buyers waiting."
They advanced with practiced coordination that said this wasn't their first hunt.
The leader held another crossbow, already loaded.
The younger one had a blade that gleamed with some kind of coating—probably poisoned, designed to slow a drake's already sluggish healing.
The third had those nets, weighted at the edges, perfect for tangling wings and claws.
"Please," I tried, knowing it was useless but needing to try anyway. "He's not just a drake, he's—"
"Worth about three thousand in parts," the leader finished. "Wings for medicine, blood for potions, scales for armor. Even the little ones got value if you know how to harvest them right."
My hand found a rock—pathetic defense against armed men, but I'd make them work for it. I'd make them—
The temperature plummeted so fast my breath clouded in the air.
The stone behind the poachers didn't crack—it melted.
Molten rock parted like curtains as Garruk exploded through solid mountain, his fury so intense that reality itself seemed to bend around him.
The crystalline veins beneath his skin blazed like lightning, casting sharp shadows that danced and writhed.
He didn't speak. Didn't roar. Didn't announce himself.
He just moved.
The first poacher—the one with the nets—didn't even have time to scream. Garruk's hand closed on his skull, and there was a wet crunch that ended everything that man had ever been or would be. The body dropped, and Garruk was already moving, already turning to the second threat.
The younger one managed to get his blade halfway up before Garruk caught his wrist. The snap of bone was audible even over my hammering heartbeat.
But Garruk didn't stop there. He yanked the man forward and drove him into the mountain wall with enough force to leave a crater in solid stone.
The poacher slid down, leaving a red smear, and didn't move again.
The leader had managed to raise his crossbow, finger on the trigger. For a heartbeat, I thought he might get a shot off.
Garruk's hand closed on the weapon, and it crumbled—wood and metal compressing into useless chunks that fell like rain. The leader's eyes went wide, the kind of terror that came from realizing you'd threatened something so far beyond you that comparison was meaningless.
"You hurt what's mine," Garruk said, and his voice was winter given sound—no emotion, no rage, just statement of fact that somehow made it worse.
He lifted the man by the throat, fingers not quite crushing but close. The leader's feet kicked uselessly, hands clawing at Garruk's grip, but he might as well have been fighting the mountain itself.
"Please—" the man wheezed.
"Did my drake plead?" Garruk asked conversationally. "When you shot him? Did you care about his pain?"
"We didn't know—we thought—just a wild drake—"
"Everything in this mountain is mine." Still that terrible calm. "Every stone, every drop of water, every creature that makes its home here. You trespassed. You harmed what I protect. The punishment for that has been the same for a thousand years."
The crack of the man's neck was almost gentle—a precise application of force that ended everything instantly. Garruk dropped the corpse and turned to me.
The look in his eyes made my stomach drop through the stone beneath me.
Gone was the desperate lover from hours ago. Gone was even the controlled Dragon Lord who'd left to handle political threats. This was something older, colder, more absolute. The dragon without the man's mediation, and it was terrifying in its completeness.
"Bring him," he commanded, indicating Pebble.
My hands shook as I gathered the little drake as gently as possible.
He whimpered at the movement, the bolt still lodged in his wing, blood flowing too fast. Through our minor connection, I felt his pain and fear and confusion—he didn't understand what had happened, why the pretty lights had turned to agony.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to him, tears streaming down my face. "I'm so sorry, I just wanted you to see something beautiful."
Garruk turned and walked back through the melted stone passage he'd created, expecting me to follow. I did, carrying Pebble as carefully as I could, my clothes soaked with his blood and my own tears.
The singing stones hummed their alarm as we passed—too late, far too late. Inside the Sanctum's entrance, Garruk stopped and took Pebble from my arms with surprising gentleness. His hands glowed with soft light as he examined the damage, and I saw his jaw clench.
"He'll live," he said finally. "The wing might never fully heal, but he'll live."
Relief flooded through me so hard my knees buckled. But when I looked up at Garruk's face, that relief curdled into something else.
"I told you three rules," he said, voice soft in the way that preceded avalanches. "Three simple rules to keep you safe. To keep him safe."
"I just wanted—"
"What you wanted doesn't matter." The words cut like obsidian. "Your wants nearly got Pebble killed."
He passed Pebble to an elemental that had appeared, giving quiet instructions about treatment. Then he turned back to me, and the weight of his attention made me want to disappear into the stone.
"Inside. Now." Each word was carved from ice. "Your first lesson begins immediately."
My mouth went dry. "Garruk—"
"No." He stepped closer, and I felt the rage he was keeping leashed, felt it through the bond like standing next to a barely contained volcano. "You wanted to know what discipline means? You wanted to test boundaries? Push limits?"
Another step, and I backed up instinctively.
"You're about to learn exactly what happens when little girls break Daddy's rules."
The promise in those words should have terrified me. Did terrify me. But underneath the fear, in some twisted part of my psyche that the bond had awakened or maybe just revealed, I felt something else.
Anticipation.