I wiped one with my sweaty hand, still flushed from the earth-shattering orgasm Titus had just given me. Beneath the filth, a crystalline blue sphere lay hidden. “Titus! I think I found them!” I shouted.
He rushed over.
“They fit the description,” he said, relief in his tone. “Great job, Delilah.”
We locked eyes, and the moment felt odd and foreign. His praise caught me off guard, simple kindness I wasn’t used to receiving from him.
The look on his face said he felt it too.
His hand grazed mine as he picked up two melon-sized crystals. I carried the last one.
We turned to exit the cavern, and the ground trembled again—this time far, far worse.
The ceiling and walls cracked. Chunks fell. Dust swept up, stinging my eyes.
We ran.
The very real possibility of being trapped or buried down here forever made my pulse surge.
“Hurry—this way!” he shouted ahead of me.
Then my body went paralyzed with fear at the most nightmarish roar. Deafening. Like an avalanche of train cars.
My ears rang. I coughed violently through the dust, still clutching the crystal.
Just beside the opening where we had entered, a massive object tore itself free from a jagged rock wall.
Out of the darkness, a giant dragon made of sharp rock for scales took form.
“Delilah, RUN!” Titus shouted. It charged.
We fled—only getting a short distance before it cornered us in an alcove.
A Lithovore.
The crunching roar echoed through the entire mine.
The beast was a thing of nightmares—its body a brutal mosaic of obsidian-like rock and raw, unrefined ore. It was so colossal it nearly filled the entire chamber.
A plume of hot, sulfurous vapor hissed from fissures in its chest. The steam blistered my skin.
It stared at us with recessed geode eyes as it approached. “Uh, Titus… do something!” I cried frantically.
“I don’t have any power down here, remember?!” he barked.
The Lithovore looked at the crystals in our arms and roared again. This time, it made my ears bleed.
I couldn’t hear Titus well over the ringing, but I could read his lips:"But you do."
“What? No, I don’t. I’m just a weak, pathetic mortal, remember?” I shot back, shaking my head.
The ringing sharpened like a knife, then suddenly eased, and I heard him clearly.
“Delilah, listen to me. I need you to trust me. Try to communicate with the Lithovore. I know you can. I believe in you.”
“No!” I panicked. “I can’t, Titus. I’m not even sure that’s a dragon!”
“It is,” he insisted. “And you can. Your ability—it isn’t of this realm. This mine won’t affect you like it does me. I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
