“Deus!” Her voice fills my ears. “Help!”
I use the slack I have for this moment to buck myself free, claws at the ready as I grasp a nearby branch and shift my wings away. A pair of terrified eyes stare up at me. I can hardly see my little mate for the vines wrapped around her, and she is in imminent danger of being swallowed whole by the plant.
“I am here,” I growl and spit several fire balls at the base of the konyov. It’s enough to burst the belly of the thing, the enzyme juices spilling out everywhere.
Instantly the vines unwrap from my female. I reach out and grab at her, catching her arm in my hand.
“Hold on,” I growl, swinging her upwards onto the branch above me.
Her eyes are wide, her teeth chattering. She doesn’t take hold of it, instead swaying as if she’s about to fall. I take her hand and place it on the rough surface. Finally, she grips it.
“I need to burn it out,” I tell her. “If not, it will send out tendrils and more will grow.”
She nods briefly, her face a stark pale mask in the dark vegetation.
I release my grip on the tree and slide down it, allowing my claws to slow me before I reach the ground. Already the tendrils are moving, and I let several short bursts of flame out in order to stop them getting any further before sucking down as much accelerant as I can into my sacs and then letting out a sheet of flame as hot as I can make it. The konyov’s sap boils, and it makes a screaming sound as if the thing is in pain, only it is not.
It is a predator, but it feels nothing. For a time, when I was here in my sector, before Darax took me away, I felt a kinship with the plant.
Today there is nothing of the sort. Today it tried to hurt my mate. Today it has been ended.
In the next nova days, I will seek out every specimen, and they will suffer the same fate. No matter I thought they would be useful once. Now they are simply a danger to my female.
I climb back up the tree to where she sits, staring down at the fire below us which is slowly waning as the fuel burns out. The light flickers in her eyes.
“I am sorry, little mate,” I say, reaching out to her, gathering her in my arms, and unfurling my wings. “I should have never left you.”
“It’s Lydia,” she says, her voice only a whisper.
“What is?”
“My name.” She looks up at me. “My name is Lydia.”
LYDIA
Despite the humid air, I am absolutely freezing. I simply cannot stop shivering, no matter what I do. Even clutched tight to Deus as he flies us back to the cabin, his heat does nothing for me.
My legs are like jelly as he puts me down. I’m unable to let him go, even though I’m shaking back and forward, my teeth chattering.
“Come.” Deus lifts me up once more and strides through to the sleeping area, where he walks down into the pit. “Let me. You have had a shock.” He lifts one of the cushions and pulls out a silvery blanket, which gets wrapped around my body. “You need my heat.”
“I’d rather you didn’t burn me like the tree thing,” I manage to say through a clenched, chattering jaw.
“No need for such a show,” Deus says, lifting a lip to reveal a fang.
In that weird twisting way of the Sarkarnii, he transforms into his dragon. I have a flicker of primeval fear for a brief second until he walks around the sides of the pit, tramping like a cat before he settles down around me.
“My Lydia,” he rumbles. “Take from me what you need.” He curls his tail around me, and I slide into the crease between his abdomen and the huge appendage.
It is incredibly warm. He is incredibly warm. I am still shivering, but as the minutes pass, I’m beginning to feel less like I’m close to death and more like I’m in the middle of a marshmallow which is being gently toasted.
“Better?” Deus asks.
“Better,” I respond.
“I have not been able to shift into my Sarkarnii form until tonight,” he says quietly. “I do not remember the last time I was Sarkarnii.”
“So when you were on the second continent?”
