Pia Saves the Day

Chapter Three

The dragon had a splitting headache, so he didn’t fly down immediately to kill the fool who approached from below. Instead he stretched out along a shelf of rock near the top of a low mountain and basked in the afternoon sunshine while he waited for the fool to hike to him.

After all, he could always slaughter the fool with a minimum of effort once she drew close enough.

He could tell she was female from the snatches of her scent that wafted toward him on the hot summer breeze.

He could tell she was a fool, because it had become clear some time ago that she climbed toward him, not by accident but with intent. She was a small, slender-looking creature, and alone, and he didn’t think she was armed with any weapons. And really, he couldn’t fathom why any lone person would approach him without weapons, so she had to be suicidal as well.

Her scent bothered him, and he shifted the bulk of his body restlessly as he drew in great breaths of air. Strange, feminine and evocative, it tugged at something deep inside. He could almost recall what kind of creature she was, almost grasp at a tantalizing something that lay just beyond his reach….

Each time he came close to it, the tantalizing something slipped away again.

She wasn’t Elven. He hated the Elves with a passion born of long-ago, shadowy memories of war. No Elf would approach him for any good reason, and if she had been Elven, blazing headache or no, he would have flown down from his perch and torn her to shreds for daring to encroach upon his space.

Flexing his talons at the murderous thoughts, he crawled forward to lap thirstily at the bubbling spring of cold water that ran down the steep mountainside beside his ledge. The spring was one of the reasons why he had chosen this place to rest. In this remote spot, the dragon had water, sunlight and a high vantage point to watch for enemies. He could rest here until his headache eased and his vision improved enough so he could hunt for food.

Windswept clouds danced overhead in the bright, aquamarine sky. It would almost be peaceful, except for the pain in his head and the nearing fool.

Who wasn’t Elven.

Who was, somehow, both like the dragon and yet dramatically unlike him at the same time.

As her scent grew nearer and stronger, it evoked images of cool, wild moonlight, a fantastic Power pouring over him like a benediction for the damned, and a sense of a unique treasure more precious than anything the dragon had ever seen before or comprehended.

So. That was more than reason enough to let the fool live for the moment. The dragon’s predatory thoughts wound like a serpent coiling on itself.

He would let her get close enough so he could discover for himself what kind of creature she was, but most importantly, so he could find out where she had hidden that fantastic, unique treasure and claim it for himself.

Still, the pain made him cranky and inclined to be vicious.

It was a good thing for her continued health and well-being that she approached him slowly, making a certain amount of polite noise—not too loud, but enough that they were both fully aware that they knew of each other’s existence.

He waited until she reached the edge of the clearing surrounding his ledge. When he heard the sound of a small rock shifting underneath one of her shoes, the dragon said, “That’s close enough.”

Dead silence, as she froze.

The dragon lifted his head and glared at the fool out of his one good eye. She wasn’t Elven, and although she looked human enough, she wasn’t human either.

Like, yet unlike him in some fundamental way.

She was suntanned and slender, with long, bare legs, and she carried a heavy-looking, sturdy pack on her back. Her hair was the color of sunshine, the color of precious gold, and her eyes… he hadn’t been prepared for the impact of her large, wary eyes. They were a beautiful rich, dark violet, and they embodied the very essence of cool, wild moonlight.

Her eyes confused and agitated him.

The dragon growled, “You disturb me.”

Ducking her golden head, the female averted her gaze. “I apologize.”

She was soft-spoken, her voice gentle. He had dreamed of such a voice whispering to him brokenly through the night. Come back. Come back to me.

The memory of the dream made him shake his head. Pain flared at the movement, and he bared his teeth in defiance against it. “Why do you dare bother me, and why should I let you survive it?”

“I brought you gifts.”

Gifts?

Nobody brought the dragon gifts. The very idea was laughable.

While there was fear in the female’s expression as she spoke, she watched him steadily without backing away, and her fear was not gratifying to him.

In fact, her fear disturbed him in a deeply profound way. He couldn’t think clearly enough to puzzle it out. Leaning his aching head against the side of a boulder, he snapped, “What kind of gifts?”

“I would be glad to show you,” she said in her soft, gentle voice. “But I’m afraid you might not be able to see them properly. It looks like you have dried blood in one of your eyes.”

As soon as she said it, he realized it was true. Raising one forepaw, he rubbed at the eye on his blind side, which made the pain worse.

“Perhaps you might be able to see better if you could rinse some of the blood away,” the female suggested. “I would be glad to help you, if you like.”

Snapping his head up, he hissed, “Stay back.”

She recoiled, the fear flaring again in her wide gaze. “Of course. I only meant to help.”

The dragon could hear the truth in her voice, and once again, her fear disturbed him at some deep level. He growled, “Stay exactly where you are. I will deal with this myself.”

“Yes, all right,” she whispered.

He shifted closer to the spring, and, craning his neck, he managed to angle the injured side of his head under running water. The icy wetness cascaded over his hide, washing away the blood. It also helped to ease the pain somewhat, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

He stayed like that for some time, until his thoughts came with more clarity, and he was able to work his eye open. Lifting his head, he shook off the water and turned back to the female.

She had eased the pack from her back and taken a seat on the ground, resting her bright head in her hands. Her posture was at once both weary and so dejected, the sight tugged at him.

Troubled by his mysterious reactions to her, his crankiness returned. He hadn’t asked for her to climb up his mountain and inflict her unwanted presence or emotions on him. “Now,” the dragon said in a silken tone of voice, “what is this nonsense about you bringing me gifts?”

Her head came up. “I did. Can I show them to you now?”

Enjoying the way her hair glinted in the sunlight, he relaxed back against the hot stone ledge. The only reason why she would have brought him anything was because she wanted something from him. The more value there was in her gift, the more she would want from him. There was something wily about this female, and he meant to get to the bottom of why she had come.

“Very well,” he told her.

He watched her from under lowered eyelids, as she opened her pack and drew out cloth-wrapped packages tied with twine. Taking the largest and clearly the heaviest, she set it on the ground, untied the twine and pulled back the cloth to reveal several bricks made of gold.

While he didn’t abandon his relaxed posture, inside the dragon grew tense. Valuable gifts, indeed. He said, “Show me the rest.”

She appeared eager now, as she did as he ordered. The next package she bared for his sharp gaze was much smaller and contained a handful of clear, shining rocks that reflected shards of light as icy as the mountain spring. Diamonds. The third package she opened held stones of such rich, deep violet-hued blue they had to be sapphires.

For a long moment, the dragon looked at the rich array of offerings spread on the ground. He could tell by the bulk of her pack that it wasn’t empty, but what she had offered him was more than enough. Gold, diamonds and sapphires, all of which he loved. She had brought his favorite things.

When at last he looked up, his gaze had turned cold and deadly. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

At one side of her tense mouth, a delicate muscle flexed. Taking a deep breath, she said with quiet deliberation, “My name is Pia Cuelebre. What’s yours?”

Cuelebre.

He knew that name. It meant winged serpent.

As soon as she said it, hot agony flared in his head again. There was a well of knowledge that lay just on the other side of that wall of fiery pain, something vital to his existence, but he couldn’t access it.

He could access her, though.

Shock flared across her face as he lunged at her and pinned her to the ground underneath one outspread forepaw. She was so fragile he could crush her with a shrug.

So fragile.

She had climbed all this way to confront him, and she lay without weaponry or defenses of any kind. Not even her cool mysterious Power had flared to strike back at him. He held the bulk of his body tense, as he stared down at her in confusion. Gripping his talons on either side of her slender neck, she stared back unwaveringly at him, her body trembling.

He hissed, “You are no winged serpent.”

“No, I’m not,” she whispered. “But that’s still my name. What’s your name—or do you have one?”

The dragon had a name. He had chosen it for himself. He reached for it and ran into that wall of fiery pain again.

The female’s gaze darkened and filled with moisture. One droplet slipped out the corner of her eye and streaked down her temple. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Be silent,” he ordered. Serpentine coils of thought writhing, he struggled to reach past the fiery wall in his head.

Agony drove him back, defeating him.

A hint of calculation flashed across her expression. She said, “I have another gift for you.”

He bared his teeth. He didn’t trust her gifts. “What?”

“Knowledge,” she told him.

Carefully, he dug the tips of his talons into the ground around her prone body. Carefully, so that his threat was clear while he didn’t hurt her. Not yet. He reserved that possibility for later.

“Why do you think your knowledge is of any use to me?” He let the possibility of her death darken his voice.

She swallowed. “Answer two questions, and I’ll try to show you.”

He paused suspiciously, suspecting a trick, but she could only trick him if he chose to answer. In the meantime, he might learn something valuable in the nature of her questions. “Ask.”

The breath shook audibly in her throat. She whispered, “How many nights have you spent on this mountain?”

His gaze narrowed. If there was some kind of trick in such a simple question, he couldn’t see what it was. “One. And your next question?”

“Where were you yesterday morning?”

Even as he tried to think back to the answer, he slammed into the fiery wall. His vision glazed. Rearing away from her, the dragon released his frustration and pain in a bellow of rage aimed at the sky.

When he could focus again, he discovered she had scrambled to the tree line at the edge of the clearing and crouched with her back pressed against the trunk of a tree.

Frankly, he was astonished she hadn’t taken off running down the mountain, and he glanced back down at the array of gold and jewels at his feet. “What do you want from me in return for all of this, along with your precious knowledge?”

She scrubbed her face with the back of one hand, leaving a smear of dirt behind. Her voice shook as she told him, “You’re the only one who can help me find my mate again.”

Drawing in a deep breath, the dragon let her scent fill his lungs, and he realized something that had lain in the back of his mind for some time.

Like, but unlike.

He didn’t know what kind of creature she was, but she was no predator. If she had been, he really might have killed her once she had dared to reach his ledge.

He realized something else, as disjointed images ran through his mind.

An explosion of pain, the first pain. Crushing weight and darkness. Shouting from a distance.

And a voice in the darkness. Her voice?

Where are you? Come on!

“Yesterday,” he said. “You were one of the people who attacked me.”

Dismay bolted across her features, and she straightened with a jerk. “No—that’s not what happened!”

The dragon regarded her cynically. Wyrm, he was called. The Great Beast. Traps had been laid for him before, and he had been attacked, but no one had ever brought him down. “It wasn’t? Then what would you call it?”

Rubbing her forehead with both hands, she said tightly, “I would call it a horrific misunderstanding.” She dropped her hands and looked at him, and either anger or desperation flashed in her eyes. Or maybe both. “If you can recall anything at all about yesterday, try to think back to what I said to you. I said, ‘It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.’ Do you remember that?”

He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. He had no recollection of what she said, only the voice in the darkness, but once again, there was no hint of a lie in her voice.

He said, “No.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I know your name,” she told him. “Your name is Dragos.”

A thread of recognition ran through him, like a jolt of electricity.

Dragos.

Yes, that was his name, but the rest of what she said… he strained to think back.

The female—she said her name was Pia—was continuing, her words tumbling rapidly over each other as she stepped forward. “You’re obviously in pain. I don’t think you realize how seriously you’re hurt, but if you will only let me look at your wound, I swear I can help you.”

She pushed him too hard, too far. The only things he could recall were the pain, being buried under a heavy weight, a heavy cloud of dust covering the scene like a shroud and people shouting.

“Stop,” Dragos said. “I’m done talking. I need to think.”

Alarm filled her expression. “No, you have to listen to me. This is more important than you can possibly understand—”

“Enough.” He growled it with such intensity, the ground behind them vibrated. “I have listened to you enough. I have never needed healing from anyone before, and I will not tolerate you trying to convince me that I need it now.”

She stared at him in astonishment and the beginnings of bitterness. “That’s not true,” she said, her voice clipped. “You’ve needed my healing before. You just don’t remember it.”

“If I don’t remember it,” the dragon said, “how can I trust you’re telling the truth?” He spread out one forepaw to indicate the gold and jewels. “You bring me convenient gifts of all my favorite things. Do you think I’ve never seen a trap baited with such as this before?”

She stared at him, breathing heavily, but remained silent. Then her chin came up. “Fine. Maybe bringing the treasure was a mistake, but I’m not leaving.”

“As you wish,” Dragos said.

He glanced dismissively once more at the treasure lying on the ground between them, then turned his back on her, gathered himself and sprang into flight.

The last thing he wanted to do was go hunting, but he needed food to heal and time to think. Either the female would be waiting for him when he returned, or she would not. If she truly wanted to find her mate again, she would wait.

If he returned.