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She ran her eyes over him in morbid fascination. He had five claws curved like blades on his hands. Scales covered his feet and claws sprouted from where his nails should be. Muscles that had been sleek before now bulged and contracted, and massive wings sprouted from his back. They spanned more than seven feet and were a weapon themselves. The edges were sharpened blades with several jutted edges meant for impaling. A tail ran from his back and curved deadly at his feet.
Saieke…
Dread danced up her spine.
There was a rush of wind and energy and Tehdra appeared and rushed to Cullen’s.
Saieke whimpered and crawled over to them, trusting Drac to ensure that she came to no further harm. There was a low melodious laughter from the Mevians that vibrated through her battered body. They sped towards Tehdra and Cullen.
Drac simply appeared between them.
Wings uncoiled with speed and he impaled one of them with its sharp edges through the Mevian’s throat. Blood spewed; he gurgled, thrashed and then slid lifelessly to the ground. Massive clawed hands reached out and lifted the other and flung him high and far. Saieke moaned weakly when the hydra lunged and disappeared in the direction Drac had flung the Mevian. Teeth chomped and it devoured the Mevian.
The other Mevian started to flash away but was stopped as Drac’s tail reached out and speared him in the shoulder. He opened his mouth and released a scream of destruction. The ground shook, and Saieke rolled with it toward Cullen and Chedra. The sound was choked off abruptly and she turned to see him lying limply impaled on Drac’s tail.
“Help me,” she rasped out to Tehdra.
Tehdra glanced at her with very pain-filled eyes.
“I can help him,” Saieke whispered. She gasped in raw anguish as she was lifted and shiktred away. She was placed gently on the ground, still in the jungle but some miles away from Drac and the elder.
“How can you help?” Tehdra growled.
She turned slightly as Tzar appeared beside her in a rustle of wind with Chedra and Cullen in his arms. His face ravaged by pain and despair.
Saieke raised her hands and pulled the necklace with the vial from her neck. There was only enough for two. She sobbed and spilled some of her elixir down Cullen’s throat that Tehdra held open. She then switched to Chedra and poured the remainder down her throat. Her hand trembled, and exhausted and weak from pain Saieke slid into oblivion.
***
Coldness swept through Drac. They had harmed his princess, and even now he could not feel her though their lei.
All who brought her harm must die…we will hunt and annihilate them all.
He was surprised at the calm promise from his beast. He had always believed further harm to the princess would have him once again fighting for dominion. Was it because he had acknowledged she was theirs? Would it be the same if she was killed?
His skull almost splintered from the rage that wrapped around his will and tested the bonds of his dominion.
No…his demon was only calm because she lived.
The elder crouched and Drac tracked his movements. He was a traitor to their king and people. The law said he should be judged by the council.
&nbs
p; He has touched what is ours…only death. And Drac accorded.
The elder’s beast, a fearsome hydra, screamed its challenge. Drac could not hope to take the elder alive for interrogation. He would not succumb. The beast inside would sing in triumph if pain were to be inflicted on it. It would love any torture Drac dealt.
Drac snarled as elder and summoned beast barreled at him with speed. He rushed forward and met their blows. His claws swiped and cut slashed deep into the elder’s chest. The elder had slammed his poisonous claws into him and raked down with the intention to gut him. The scales that covered his body acted like armor, but the blow took him several feet off the ground and he was flung backward.
He snapped his wings open and shot into the air in time to dodge the attack from the hydra that had come up under his flank. He spun in the air and shot down with speed, his claws opened and came together at the hydra. His claws ripped and two of the hydra’s heads came off. He plummeted down, then came up with claws swinging under the belly of the beast. He was met with snapping heads that uncoiled and bit deeply into his hand.
The razor sharp teeth crunched through bones. Drac roared and slashed with his other clawed hand to be met with the other heads that uncoiled around the body to protect it. Pain raked at his wings as the elder came behind him and tried to rip them off his back. Drac unsnapped his wings and the sharp edges and spikes sliced and his tail lashed up and impaled the elder from behind.
He flexed his wings, throwing him off, propelling himself back sharply. Heads roiled and the hydra rushed at him with a speed that he almost could not track. Drac launched himself in the air as heads spewed deadly venom in unison into the air. He pushed down with his great wings and shot further into the sky, landing on a large branch of a tree that stood more than two hundred feet above the ground.
Drac perched, serpentine eyes glowing as he watched the hydra and elder below. Pain coiled through his hand where the beast had crushed bones with its teeth, and his blood ran in rivulets dripping to the earth. Chakra snaked around him in churning blackness. Evil reared as his darkness absorbed the pain he was feeling and luxuriated in it. He felt the vile evil that leaked from the elder and his beast and Drac’s chakra contracted to meet it.
Instead of five heads undulating from the hydra there now stood nine. For each head he sliced off, two grew in its place. Drac’s beast howled inside as its rage grew and its need to destroy and kill consumed them both. His psychic barrier collapsed as he summoned his beast to corporeal form. His skin stretched and the tattoo slid sinuously along his body, and a clawed foot stepped off his skin, then a head, and in a final stretch, the beast fully came alive and leapt from his skin.
