Chapter 50
Trewoofe
The hunt for Orfeo was not going well.
Every tunnel Trewoofe entered immediately sparked to life. The crystals upped their hum, and more flowers bloomed from his paws. Before he even got close, Orfeo would smell or hear the magic that flowed from him and bolt for another passage.
“Nature’s blessing, will you stop!” Trewoofe snarled at the sparkling flora.
Just as he rounded into another tunnel, the rich earthen walls gave way to crystallised granite, and the air was heavy with the scent of sea salt.
He heard her.
Avice.
“Trewoofe! I need you! I am at Lamorna Cove, near the sea caves!” she screamed.
Her cries came not only from the purple crystal closest to his head but echoed over the sound of crashing waves. The briars around his chest tightened, nearly squeezing the breath from his body.
He could not lose her.
“AVICE!” he roared. “I AM COMING!”
Trewoofe plunged from the sea cave and onto the sands. He was momentarily dazzled by the change in light and blinked away the glare. His blood boiled at the sight that met him. His crest – flared red – fanned out, and rage shadowed his vision.
The huge Morgowr snapped his jaws at Avice, the sound pulsing through the air with a vicious crack. She jumped to the side and stabbed her iron knife into his eye with a brutal squelch. He roared in agony and tossed his head back, knocking her from her feet.
“AVICE!”
Trewoofe thundered down the beach like a storm, kicking up sand with each furious stride.
He slammed into the other Sidhe King with the force of a tidal wave against the cliffs.
Trewoofe crunched down on Morgowr’s neck and caught the sight of Avice fleeing from the clash.
A red-headed man offered her his hand and tugged her away from the fray.
The Morgowr was half a size larger then Trewoofe and had him beaten in mass and length. But Trewoofe had much to protect. He could not lose Avice; he could not lose his future. The invasion into his Kingdom and the assault on his little witch had him intent on violence.
He was not letting this Sidhe King leave his shore alive.
The Morgowr bucked and writhed in the clamp of his jaw.
Trewoofe ragged his head, ripping scales from his flesh and tasting his sweet silver blood.
The Morgowr kicked up his webbed hind paws, thrusting into Trewoofe’s belly and knocking the air from his lungs, making him release his neck with a gasping hiss.
Before the Morgowr could crunch him, Trewoofe struck out like a snake, snapping his fangs down onto the back of his neck.
The Knucker coiled his long body around his bulk, intent on squeezing the life out of the much larger Sidhe King.
Trewoofe raked his claws down the Morgowr’s hide, tearing off his scales and cutting into his flesh.
The Morgowr shrieked and bucked beneath him, each writhe weaker than the last as Trewoofe constricted him.
His corded muscles burnt with the effort of suffocating his enemy.
Trewoofe’s ears twitched as shouts between Avice and the red-headed man down the beach reached him. They were just out of his eyeline, but he caught snippets of their words over the gasps and whimpers of the Morgowr.
“God’s cock, John!” Avice yelled. “What in the hell are you doing with a Morgowr?!”
John, Trewoofe hissed. The one Avice had mentioned; the one who had betrayed her.
He crunched harder onto the Sidhe King’s neck.
“You are one to talk! Get him off Treth!” John spat back.
“He tried to kill me!” she growled. “And you lied to me. You told me you were seeing a fisherman!”
Trewoofe tensed as the Morgowr slowed his writhing. Everything narrowed to this moment. Gone were their shouts, the smell of the sea, and the crash of the waves.
There was only the kill.
Treth’s writhing slackened to twitching, and Trewoofe released the back of the Morgowr’s neck, ready to strike the final blow with a brutal bite.
A muffled voice.
“Trewoofe!”
Another muted shout.
“STOP!”
Just as he was about to lunge and slay the invading Sidhe King, something whacked him on the side of the head.
Trewoofe snapped from his bloodlust and blinked dumbly down at the silver-stained sands.
He lowered his crest at the sight of Avice.
She was staring daggers up at him, her hands on her hips.
John stood next to her; his fingers gripped his hair and his mouth was dropped open.
“Did you just throw a boot at me?!” Trewoofe asked incredulously.
The Morgowr twitched beneath him, and Trewoofe kept his constriction tight.
“I did!” Avice replied with a stomp of her foot. “I told you to stop and you did not listen to me.”
John stepped forward and bowed at the waist. “Please. Lord of the Underneath, King Trewoofe, Well King. I beg you to let Treth go.”
Trewoofe snarled and did not loosen his grip. “You did not have to throw a boot at me!” he snapped at Avice.
While it did not hurt, he was wounded by her action. He did not mean to ignore her; he simply did not hear her. Trewoofe was focused only on protecting his soul-bound and his Kingdom from the invading Sidhe King. It was his duty and purpose to keep Avice safe.
She softened then. “I am sorry. I was just trying to get you to stop. It was like you could not hear me.”
Trewoofe looked from Avice to John and back again. He peeled his lips back in frustration, exposing his fangs, and slowly loosened his constriction on the Morgowr. Every instinct screamed at him to finish the kill, to slaughter the Sidhe King who entered his territory and hurt his little witch.
He unwound himself from the Morgowr and dashed to her.
Trewoofe looped his tail around her legs and pulled her to his flank.
While the other Dragon was still here, he had to keep her close and safe, tucked closely to his scales.
His chest tightened at the sight of a gash down her shin.
The bright scarlet stained her skin, and her blood had dribbled onto the sands.
He growled with his eyes fixated on the wound.
Avice dropped her gaze to her leg, and back to Trewoofe’s bloodied snout. “I am alright.”
Trewoofe licked up the gash, the wound stitching up in a blink, leaving a second pearlescent scar on her flesh. “You will not be ‘alright’ until he has left my Kingdom.”
John stood by the panting Morgowr’s head. “Treth?”
He opened one startling orange eye, the cut of the pupil narrowing in the light. “Are you well, fisher?”
John sobbed and ran his hands over Treth’s muscular cheek. “Am I well? Me? Look at you and your poor eye.” John reached over his muzzle and yanked the dagger free.
The squelch and shrieking roar had Trewoofe’s crest flaring bright red again. “If you do not want me to kill him” – his talons dug into the sand – “then we need to leave. Now.”
“Why do we need to—” She gasped as he scooped her up onto his snout. Her thighs straddled his muzzle, and her breasts were squashed up against his scales. Her face was lined with outrage. “Trewoofe!”
“I told you before. If Sidhe Kings meet, there is a fight and he hurt you,” he growled as he stomped up the beach in the direction of the cliffs. “If you want me to spare him then I need to be away from him.”
“Lord!” she snapped.
“Little witch?” he replied, going cross-eyed as he looked down his snout at her.
“Put me down!”
Trewoofe grumbled as he marched into the closest sea cave.
It was warm and gloomy inside. The air was heavy with the smell of wet sand and salt.
The space was large and allowed him to move reasonably encumbered.
The walls were high and ridged, and there was a deep tidal pool.
He pressed his head to closest ridge in the granite wall so Avice could dismount.
She slipped off in a tangle of skirts and sandy feet.
The peek of her tempting thighs so close to his face did absolutely nothing to calm the boiling blood pulsing through his veins.
Instinct urged him to return outside. He needed to protect his soul-bound and Kingdom from the Sidhe King on his beach.
Trewoofe snapped his head to the cave entrance, nose twitching, catching the visceral sent of Morgowr blood on the sea breeze. He dug his talons into the sand and lashed his tail. His crest was flushed and full, blaring red even in the gloom of the cave.
“Lord?” Avice asked.
He flicked his gaze from the entrance to her and back again. “Yes?”
“Do not ever do that again without asking me first!” she growled. “You do not get to control who I am with or where I go!”
It was then Trewoofe knew he had erred.
Barring the afternoon of Equinox, Avice had only spoken kindly to him, so hearing her voice laced with wrath made him recoil. What was he thinking, carrying her off the beach like some brute? He knew that Avice had horrible things done to her body without her permission.
He dropped his head in shame and his eyes widened in horror at what he saw.
His entire front was stained with Treth’s silver blood and bits of his shattered blue scales.
Trewoofe knew that not only had he behaved like a brute, but he also looked like one.
He quickly dove for the tidal pool, sluicing himself clean in the salty water as Avice watched on with a scowl.
Trewoofe sidled up to her, his ears flattened and his eyes on his paws. “I apologise. It was only out of fear for your safety.”
The ridge she was on was roughly his height, and she could look at him face on. Despite the gloom, her eyes were bright with fury, and he felt the burn of her wrath.
“I understand that you were angry and scared, that it came from a place of protectiveness and care. But you do not get to do that to me, Trewoofe.”