Page 19 of Thauglor
I feelthe spike of adrenaline shoot through Mina like a hot branding iron searing my flesh. The sensation burns through our bond, making my confined muscles clench with sympathetic tension. She’s on edge, waiting for something that tastes like impending violence. This must be the attack. There’s a shift in her energy—the predator uncoiling like a serpent awakening from long slumber. Power coils beneath her skin like electricity before a storm.
Sharp pain lances through our connection—she’s been struck. The agony hits me like a physical blow to the chest. I can feel the moment she loses consciousness, her awareness dimming like a candle flame guttering in the wind. She is alive and mostly uninjured for now, but the silence where her thoughts should be makes my scales crawl with dread.
I feel as though I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down over a landscape shrouded in fog. My connection to Mina dims, like she warned me it would. They just drugged her to keep her from shifting, stealing her greatest weapon. I can’t sense her thoughts, but I can feel where Klauth is—his presenceburns steady and familiar in my consciousness. We’ve worked in tandem so many times we have what the elders call a battle bond. Our drakes will seek each other out in times of danger to help the other survive.
I can sense my old friend keeping the nest under control, his authority radiating like heat from forged steel. It’s not being able to sense Mina that grates on my nerves like claws on stone. She warned me this would happen, but it doesn’t make the separation any easier to endure. Time becomes an illusion in this hellscape of a prison. It could be minutes or hours since she last held my egg—the cursed shell distorts everything.
What I do notice is spiderweb cracks spreading across the shell’s surface. I examine them with growing excitement, pressing my talons against the cursed barrier. For once, the shell flexes but doesn’t completely give yet. Hope burns like hellfire deep in my gut, every heartbeat feeling like an eternity of anticipation.
Suddenly, I can feel Mina again! My mate shoves as much of her power toward me as she can, the energy flowing through our bond like molten gold. The ember that is our connection burns to life with painful intensity. I swear I hear her call for me—a soft, sultry“come to me”that echoes down the bond like a siren’s song.
That’s all the invitation I need. My mate, my reason for living, calls for me. I ram my horned head against the walls of my prison with desperate fury. After the first impact, a chunk of shell breaks away, and I breathe in fresh air for the first time in centuries. The taste of freedom fills my lungs—crisp mountain air mixed with the scent of stone and growing things.
Reaching out, I use my talons to rip chunks of the cursed shell away until the next time I strike, my prison shatters completely.Fragments scatter like broken glass, each piece carrying the weight of centuries lost.
My body tumbles through the air until I right myself with powerful wingbeats. My roar escapes my maw for the first time in ages—a sound that carries centuries of rage, longing, and triumph. The sound reverberates off mountain peaks, and stones rattle free from the cliffs, cascading down the mountainside like tears of joy.
In the distance, I can see Klauth’s enormous red dragon standing where his castle should be. His scales catch the fading light like polished rubies, magnificent and terrible. I land near my old friend with bone-jarring force and bump shoulders with him before tilting my head to the side. The contact feels like coming home after endless exile. My mate is under us—I feel her below me like a pull in my very bones.
Without hesitation, I claw at the earth, digging down to my mate with desperate efficiency.I will save her. She will not die today.With each claw full I scoop out, Klauth moves away, giving me room to work. He knows how important this moment is for me—my chance to prove to my mate that I am worthy of her.
Klauth rumbles he can feel Mina, and he’s going to force her shift. It’s an ancient ability—a drake lending his strength to his mate in her time of need. I feel what he’s doing and shove my own strength down the bond to Mina, pouring centuries of accumulated power into her exhausted form.
I roar at the mud and stone separating me from my mate before I dig harder and faster. The earth gives way as if it fears my fury. I stick part of my maw down into the catacombs, and familiar scents hit me like a physical blow. Jasmine and sea salt, mixed with something that screams“mine”in every cell of my body.Drawing in a deep breath, I can smell decay and two males down there with my mate.
“Balor!” I hear a female voice yell before the cracking of bones echoes up from below. The shift overtakes my mate, power flooding through her like a dam bursting. She can defend herself now. It’s finally time for me to dispatch that awful headmaster who stole her.
My black heart pounds hard as if I’ve been fighting for hours. The powerful roar of my mate is music to my ears as I rip more earth up and out of my way. The minute I’m able, I shove my face down into the hole I’ve created.
Klauth’s dragon rumbles to remind me about the evil basilisk down there. I slam my eyes shut tight and reach for that tether with Mina. She’s shared her sight with me once before—we can do it again. The connection sparks to life like lightning.
From her perspective, I see the interior of the catacombs. Stone walls slick with moisture, shadows dancing in torchlight. From this angle, I know she’s slightly behind my maw but has the basilisk in her line of sight. I open my mouth as I feel acid racing up my throat, burning like liquid fire. My tongue curls just as the torrent of acid comes rocketing out of my maw.
The initial hiss of acid burning his body is music to my ears—his death knell a symphony of justice. Steam rises from dissolving flesh as my breath weapon does its work. I watch through my mate’s eyes long enough to make sure the threat is neutralized before I pull my head back and out of the way.
The wait to see her has my scales on edge, every nerve ending crackling with anticipation. Klauth rumbles, telling me about the other males present. Their mere presence stokes my rage likebellows feeding a forge. I’ve waited a thousand lifetimes to have my mate, and no one will come between me and her.
I tilt my head to the side and back up when I hear talons sinking into the dirt of the tunnel I created. Every scrape makes my heart pound harder, the sound like thunder in my ears. Every moment it takes for her to ascend, I flex my talons, sinking them into earth made soft by my impatience and anxiety. Klauth tries to wrangle my wild energy, but he’s failing epically. I want my mate, and that’s all that matters. I need to see with my own eyes that she’s unharmed.
A heavily armored, slender female maw emerges from the hole. Her silver and emerald scales glisten in the fading light like precious gems scattered across steel. Thick, proud horns curve from the top over her head and arch backward majestically. Golden eyes blink once, and I take another step back to give her room.
When my mate emerges, she doesn’t give me her back—a sign of trust I haven’t earned yet. Instead, she faces me head-on, her scales screaming iron dragon with their sharp edges and raised ridges. Her coloration speaks of both bloodlines, silver, and green clear in equal measure. She’s absolutely magnificent.
When Mina lifts her wing and a male slips free to join the others, rage burns in my chest again like molten metal. I am unbonded to them—other than Klauth; I do not trust the others near my mate. A deep growl escapes my lips before I can stop it, and she tilts her head and moves to block my line of sight on the males.
She growls low in her chest like rolling thunder and raises her scales as she spreads her wings. It’s a typical stance of a female guarding a nest—protective and absolutely deadly. The scent of ozone fills the air like the moment before lightning strikes.I watch small crackles of electricity move over her scales like living things. She raises her head slightly, baring her teeth at me, and roars loud enough that it impacts my chest like a physical blow.
It’s the lightning that follows—striking the ground in front of me with explosive force—that makes me jump back quickly. The smell of burned earth fills my nostrils.
Klauth shifts back to human form, but I’m pissed. I don’t want any males near my mate, period. “Settle. He doesn’t mean any harm. He has no solid bond with you, and another male threatens him,” his voice is calm but firm, a steadying presence in the chaos. Klauth, always the mediator, even now.
She snaps at the air, clacking her jaws in threat. The sound is like stone striking stone, echoing across the clearing with deadly promise. This I cannot stand to allow. An unsettled female is more dangerous than any drake—unpredictable and lethal. I rush forward, prepared to force her into submission, but she has other plans.
Like shoving her horns into the roof of my mouth. I pull back, the pain far worse than I expected. Sharp agony shoots through my skull, and I taste blood on my tongue. Then again, I’ve never met a female as strong-willed as my mate. If I didn’t already love her, I’d be falling head over heels for her right now.
She growls again and clacks her jaws once more, the sound decisive and threatening. She doesn’t raise her head to appear dominant, but she holds her ground, protecting what’s hers. Her tail lashes behind her, sending dirt and small rocks flying like shrapnel. I admire the hell out of my mate. I’ve waited what feels like forever for a female of worth, and she found me.
My body and soul are hers. My heart and life will be placed in her hands. It takes some doing, but my dragon finally relents and allows me to shift back to human form. My bones crack and reshape with familiar agony, muscles contracting as I compress into a more manageable size.
