He nodded once. And then she turned, and disappeared into the shadows of the cave with their children. The last thing Midas heard from them was the echo of small feet retreating into darkness.
They camein fast with the reckless, violent momentum of those who sought to destroy legends once and for all. Boots struck the once serene stones of the cave. Their shadows reflected on the walls from their torches, transforming their shapes into distorted beasts of chaos with every step closer they took.
At least thirty of them—men in iron and leather, faces painted with soot, blades drawn. Some bore crossbows, others curved axes, each one marked by fear masquerading as righteousness. They had hunted beasts before, of course. They knew what it was like to corner prey. And the sight of Midas, alone and in human form, gave them confidence.
He stood protectively with his back to the deeper tunnels of the cave where his family hid. His shoulders were square despite his trembling, and his hair was wet and matted with the sweat of anxiety.
“The dragon lives in a man’s skin,” one said, disgusted at the sight. “Let’s see how he dies in it.”
Midas didn’t give them the satisfaction of an answer. He simply stepped forward, pulling whatever will was buried in him to once again become the beast of legends that they feared.
He was slower. Weaker. The strain of exhaustion burned through his remaining fire like poison. It stirred his chest, but he could not reach it. He could not bring it forward. His dragon instincts shifted inside of him restlessly and furiously, exhausted beyond anything he had felt before. Every movement hurt—but he moved like a cornered creature, desperate and afraid and acting on pure instinct. He had chosen love over survival, over protection,and now he had naught but claws at the tips of his awkward human hands to defend his family with.
Steel rushed toward him. Cuts painted his fragile human skin. His heartbeat pounded with fear and his knuckles were torn down to the bone. Pain bloomed from every inch of his body, but he could not let them see him fall. He ducked beneath a blade, drove his fist into a jaw, elbowed a second man in the throat.
He fought without elegance or restraint or even reason. Blood slicked along the cavern floor from both man and beast.
But there were too many.
They adjusted. Observed his weak points in this man-flesh. They tightened their circle around him and fought on relentlessly until he was forced to his knees. White hot pain followed a crack of a whip, but he found his footing once more. He could not afford to fall.
Five of them slipped past to try and make their way deeper into the den. Midas snarled, lunging for them, arms closing around empty air as they vanished into the shadows as the others whipped and slashed and beat Midas back down to his knees.
Still, Midas didn’t fall to their weapons. He could not. For hiding behind him deep in the cave lay everything he loved.
But he did not know their fate had already found them.
Forty-Six
After a long,bloody few minutes, Midas stopped trying to overpower the men.
Instead, he let them hurt him—allowed them to believe they had bested him. While Midas lay on the cold, blood-slicked stones of the ground, he observed the men and found their own weaknesses to use against them.
One had a slight limp. Midas slashed at the tendon at the base of his ankle. Another has a cut in his leather from Midas’ claws, and he ripped through flesh with his teeth. A third was holding a sword too heavy for his skill, and Midas used the refined muscle of his tail to swipe it from his hand.
He slammed one man’s head into a stalactite and used the recoil to roll beneath a swinging axe that bit the flesh of his comrade. He hooked an ankle, dragged a man off balance, and stomped down on the chest.
Pain continued to scream through Midas, but pain was survivable.
A whip wrapped his forearm, but before the man couldpull, Midas yanked him forward instead, head-butting him hard enough to crack teeth. He tore the whip free and snapped it once, twice, to create space, to make them hesitate.
That hesitation saved him.
He fought on ugly and savagely. Used spit and blood and darkness. Throws rocks into eyes. Shoved torches to flammable cloth so smoke choked the air.
By the time they realized what he was doing, it was too late for them.
They came to kill a monster.
And a monster they found.
Midas stumbled down the tunnel,clawing at the stone to keep upright, vision blurred with heat and desperation. His body—still human and still wrong, now injured—dragged behind the panic screaming through his soul.
“Elowen!”
No answer.
“Kalen! Auric!”
