“Told you,” Sterran said as Jaspar ran towards the hovercraft, at full speed, with his clan mates following him.
“The meeting will start soon,” Loren said as they leaped into the craft. “If you go after Liza, you may miss the meeting. The Regis must lead the negotiations. You would forfeit.”
“I know that, but she is my heart,” Jaspar said. He pointed at two of his men, Ragnar and Fevganian. “You, stay with Loren. Go to the meeting and wait for me there.”
Jaspar’s mother hurried up to the craft, and climbed in just as the door was sealing closed.
“What?” she said at Jaspar’s surprised look. “When have you known me to miss a good blood-bath?”
“Never,” Jaspar admitted as the hovercraft zoomed towards the cave.
They landed nearby and hurried to the cave opening. The snow was still falling hard. As soon as they entered the cave, Jaspar saw footprints leading to the back of the cave system.
A shred of white fake fur had snagged on a stalactite that jutted up from the floor.
“Liza,” Jaspar snarled. He went scaly, and his fangs descended. He felt his wings itching to unfurl, but there was no room to shift in here.
As they rushed towards the tunnel opening in the back of the cavern, they were greeted by half a dozen Harbingers. Valeria the Bloody was with them, and Fabian’s older brother Vangar.
“You are not at the meeting? You will lose,” Vangar sneered.
“You know where my heart-mate is,” Jaspar snarled back. “Tell me now, or you will die.”
Valeria hissed, exposing her fangs, and lunged at Jaspar. She never reached him, though. Karmelite spun quickly into her path and hit her with a backhand so powerful that the younger female was thrown against the stone of the cavern with a sickening crack. The back of her head left a thick trail of dark blood as she slid down the wall.
“Weak,” Karmelite spat, and turned to grapple with one of Fabian’s henchmen. The male was much taller than the Balthazar matriarch, and rippling with muscle, but she attacked with such bloodthirsty savagery that it was clear at once that she would win.
Sterran and the others joined the fray, but everyone knew Vangar was Jaspar’s to kill.
They stood face to face. The air crackled with testosterone and anger.
“Tell me now what you have done with my clan mates and my heart,” Jaspar said. “Or I will kill you in a way more terrible than you can possibly imagine.”
Vangar sneered. “I have slaughtered thousands,” he boasted. “I have ripped the spines from my living enemies and drunk their blood. Death in battle does not frighten me, Balthazar scum.”
Almost too fast for the eye to follow, Jaspar lashed out and knocked the Harbinger to the ground. He kicked him viciously in the side, and Vangar rolled onto his hands and knees, shaking his head muzzily as he tried to regain his feet.
Claws sliced from the ends of Jaspar’s fingers, and he gouged them into the backs of Vangar’s legs, ripping his hamstrings.
With a howl, the Harbinger collapsed back to the ground, blood pumping from the wounds. He’d never walk again, let alone fight. One who would keep a Drakken’s heart-mate from him did not deserve an honorable death.
“You can lie here and bleed to death like a weakling,” Jaspar said. “Or you can crawl to your clan mates and be put out of your misery. But you will never die a glorious death in battle.”
He watched the horrified realization creep into the other Drakken’s eyes, then nodded and turned his back on him contemptuously.
The rest of theHarbingers lay sprawled at the feet of his mother and his clan mates.
They hurried down the tunnel. Sterran used his scanner to lead them through several more branches of the cave system, following the heat signature of recent footprints.
“Do you feel that?” Jaspar asked him.
There was an odd crackling sensation now. The air felt like static electricity and tasted like metal.
As if…as if they were near a portal.
They burst out into a large underground cavern. In the center of it, about thirty feet wide and ten feet tall, was a huge, swirling void.
Sterran hurried over to it.
