Elliot, page 18
part #3 of Anarock Shifters Series
A red dragon struck his shoulder and knocked him sideways. In a second, another one pounced on his back. It sank its talons through his scales and a razor tooth slashed down his ribs. He whipped around and caught sight of Exos inching toward the portal. Now that Elliot and the sisters got entangled with the dragons, the wizard was making his escape.
Without thinking twice, Elliot let loose a jet of flame. He fired it between the Exos and the portal. Exos staggered back. His mouth fell open in surprise, but the next second, he burst into a wicked grin. Elliot hardened his heart against the little bastard. Elliot should have expected this from him. Exos was NightRage. He would sell the party down the river the first chance he got.
Gianna reared on her hind legs roaring to the heavens. She shook her burly bear frame and flung dragons in all directions. She spun around and dove for Exos. She plunged into his path and swiped her enormous paw at him. She sent him sprawling across the ground, but before she could do anything, dragons came streaming at her in droves.
Elliot lost sight of her. Fangs punctured his hip. Pain distracted him from keeping track of the sisters. He wrenched his neck around and tried to snatch one of the creatures off his back. He caught something by the leg and yanked.
Blood stung his tongue and he exploded in catastrophic wrath. He ripped and the leg came away in his mouth. Some poor creature shrieked up on his shoulders. He couldn’t keep doing this. He hopped up on his hind legs and dragons hung off every part of him. They clamped their jaws into his flesh and dangled when he moved.
He flailed right and left bellowing his pain and desperation. Where was Aria? Were these dragons killing all three sisters? How could he live with that?
A dragon screamed in his ear. Through the cloud of his own mindless fury, he recognized that voice. It was Chimo. That asshole must have organized this attack on Aria. Elliot shrank into stone-cold ferocious madness. If he died right here, he would take that false friend with him. Attacking Aria would be the absolute last mistake Chimo ever made.
Elliot blocked out every other bite plaguing him. He craned his head around and aimed for that piercing shriek. When he did, he spotted the young dragon crouching on his shoulder. Elliot squinted through the chaos and lunged.
He caught Chimo by the shoulder and his fangs punctured the young dragon’s scales. He grabbed a mouthful of the tough muscle holding Chimo’s forelimb to his chest. Elliot felt his jaws strike bone. Man, it felt good to crush and destroy.
He unwound the sinews of his neck and tossed Chimo off with hardly any effort at all. He whipped Chimo around and slammed the young dragon to the ground at his feet. He stepped his paw on the dragon’s neck and pinned him there.
The others redoubled their efforts trying to fight Elliot off. He completely ignored them. The pain didn’t touch him. He was going to kill Chimo. He didn’t give a flying fuck about anything else.
Chimo’s eyes widened down there on the blue stone. He stared up at the bear looming over him. Oh, hell yeah, that sudden fear of death looked so immaculately good in his victim’s eyes.
Elliot stiffened his core against Chimo’s struggling, wriggling efforts. He clenched his claws against the sturdy scales. He dove his snout at Chimo’s face and crunched. He caught the young dragon by the nose. No scales, no bone, no amount of fighting could stand against the dragon’s powerful bite.
Elliot crushed Chimo’s skull in one chomp. The slippery flesh squished between his teeth and the pathetic movements died to nothing. The creature sank back and Chimo’s wings flapped flat on the ground.
At that moment, a brutal cut slashed Elliot’s side. It sliced through the muscle along his abdomen and a horrible sensation of death seeped into his bones. One after the other, the dragons attacked his most vulnerable spots. Agony shattered his resolve and he felt himself falling under their collective assault.
He toppled onto one knee. Dragons landed on him from all sides. He couldn’t rise. Just when he thought he was finished, an awful rumbling bellow burst into his brain. A dragon holding onto his neck ripped off and tore his shoulder. For some reason he couldn’t understand, their weight lifted up and left him lighter.
Nothing stopped him from picking up his head. He looked around to see a bear leaping at him. It cracked its vicious jaws and pulled another dragon off his back. It snapped the creature sideways and pitched it away. The dragon slumped twitching in its death throes, but the bear didn’t stop. It kept pouncing up and snatching dragons off Elliot’s back. His heart contracted. It was Aria. She was saving him. She wouldn’t let him fall here.
She made one last dive and he was free. She pranced a few paces toward the portal. When he turned around, he saw Gianna and Amaya still inundated with dragons. His heart sank when he spotted more and more of them streaming up from the Halcyon Coast. They headed for the battle in clouds. They would be here any second.
Gianna still stood on her hind legs by the portal. She rotated right and left thundering in rage. Dragons flailed from her every limb. They weighed down her legs while others attacked her unprotected midsection. The mayhem of bodies blocked anyone from getting near the portal.
Amaya suffered the same fate not far away. Elliot glanced around for any way to get the party out of here now that he had Aria with him.
Exos scrambled to his feet a few feet away where Gianna pushed him. He got on his hands and knees, but he crawled away from the portal. Going toward it would only put him in more danger. Even so, he only managed to get himself nearer to Amaya and her assailants.
Beyond the portal toward the Halcyon Coast, pointed reptilian bodies shot through the water on an intercept course for the battle. Malfie led the charge. If he reached them before they escaped, Elliot and the Slaughter sisters could hang it up and forget it. Not all of them working together could defeat Malfie on his own, much less all the other Blood Kin.
Elliot took a running dive and caught Exos by the shirt. He hoisted the wizard off the ground and worked his way toward the portal. The dwarf exploded in a convulsion of struggles. He twisted every way trying to weasel out of Elliot’s jaws.
Elliot launched off the ground and spread his wings aiming for the portal. He streaked toward Gianna intending to knock her backward into Anarock. Once she got there, they could get rid of these pesky dragons without the Blood Kin intervening.
To Elliot’s right, Amaya staggered a few steps under her blanket of dragons. She headed for the portal, too. Elliot had to get the sisters through it to safety. Nothing else mattered.
He got two feet away from Gianna when the portal itself skidded around her. Elliot couldn’t understand at first what was happening. The ring of light skated sideways and zipped around Gianna between her and Elliot.
Elliot couldn’t stop himself in time. He tried to adjust his course, but his own momentum carried him straight into the opening. At the same time, the portal rushed at him and caught Aria in its vortex.
He dove through it and crashed against something solid. His jaws snapped open and Exos fell out. Silence descended around Elliot’s ears. He blinked. He wasn’t in the water anymore. He could move freely in the empty air.
He raised his head and saw Aria climbing to her feet. Her long hair trailed around her face and scattered over her denim jacket. She heaved upright and glanced at Elliot. A few paces off, Exos went through the same routine of rotating onto his hands and knees before clambering to stand up.
Elliot gaped all around him. Trees rose to the starry sky and he smelled the distinct musky aroma of the deep Quag. Insects chirped out of sight. In a fraction of a second, he understood where he was. No gleaming portal disturbed the darkness. He and Aria were all alone in the Quag with that stinking fucking wizard.
Elliot shot out a hand and caught the dwarf by the hair. He yanked back Exos’s head snarling. “You son of a bitch! Bring them back! Bring them back this instant or you can kiss your money goodbye.”
“Money!” Exos cackled his high-pitched laughter. “Do you think I give a damn about any money? I have more money than I know what to do with, you stupid fucking shifter. All you shifters are too stupid to think straight. Do you think I would let those bitches shoot me up with their drugs and drag me off to their rotten basement? Do you think I would let some fucking skank whore tempt me and then turn on me without taking my revenge? Those two bitches will rot down there if the dragons don’t kill them first. They deserve it for what they did to me. What are you complaining about? You got what you wanted. Now go home and don’t let me see your faces in Hoffman again if you value your lives. I would stick around long enough to let you kiss my fat ass, but you would probably botch that, too. See you around, dipshits!”
In front of Elliot’s shocked eyes, the wizard blinked out and disappeared. No portal opened to let him pass through. He just vanished. He ceased to exist and left Elliot cold and trembling in dread.
Aria stumbled to his side. She rested her hand on his shoulder, but when he dared to look at her, he saw tears streaming down her cheeks. He wanted to cry himself thinking about Gianna and Amaya trapped under the water. What would the dragons do to them? They might be dead already.
Elliot’s shoulders slumped. His throat ached so he could barely speak. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! This is all my fault.”
Aria put her arms around him and her body convulsed. She spasmed in sobs and her voice cracked. “You didn’t know he would betray you. You did it to save me. I’m grateful.”
Elliot wanted to die hearing those words. “What are we going to do? What will we tell your family?”
She wormed under his arm and supported him. She made him stand on his own two feet. She never let him fall apart before and she wouldn’t do it now. “We’ll tell them the truth. We’ll tell Victor the truth.”
“He won’t do anything. He refused to help you. He won’t put Anarock in danger for one person—or even two people.”
“It’s all right.” She succumbed to another fit of sobbing. “Come on. We’re going home.”
19
Aria guided Elliot into the Quag, but his knees buckled. Aria couldn’t stop crying. She couldn’t survive this. She thought she was going to die down on the Halcyon Coast. She never hoped anyone would come to rescue her, but she never would have dreamed her sisters would put themselves in danger for her sake. She certainly never thought they would take her place.
She couldn’t face the future with this on her shoulders. She couldn’t go back to Anarock with this hanging over her head. She dreaded explaining it to her parents, but it must be so much worse for Elliot.
He stumbled at her side. She couldn’t see him through her tears. She kept seeing Gianna fighting all those dragons. She kept seeing Malfie rocketing toward them glaring in murderous fury.
Elliot’s weight bent her spine until it hurt, but she couldn’t let him go. She clung to him for her life. Twice he saved her. He came back for her when she was lost. Her sisters were gone. He was all she had left.
Not even Anarock could soothe this ache. The Prometheus Crest couldn’t comfort her from this devastation. She would have to explain everything to Victor. She had to. She knew exactly what she had to do no matter what Elliot decided to do.
She kept it up for more than three hours. She came to yet another nameless marsh. The trees opened out. The smooth, glassy surface extended to the eastern horizon. The water reflected the stars. The faraway lights of New Orleans glowed into the dark.
Her strength failed and Elliot slumped out of her grasp. He collapsed at her feet. He groaned and whimpered turning away from her. She stood still and stared across the water at her home. Could she still call it home? She never craved Anarock more than now. All the weeks she spent on the Halcyon Coast couldn’t rob her of her longing to return to it.
Now she couldn’t decide what she felt about it. Tears kept welling up in her eyes. They blurred her vision so she saw things all wrong. Part of her didn’t want to go home. Even as she yearned to see her family and her friends again, even when she longed more than anything to be safe and comfortable where she belonged, part of her wanted to go back to the Halcyon Coast. She would always have to go back there as long as her sisters were there.
The view across the Quag to the city never hurt the way it did now. It tortured her soul until she couldn’t stand it, but she couldn’t look away.
A choking groan wrenched her eyes to Elliot. He cowered in a ball a few yards away. He hugged his arms around his knees and rocked staring into the dark. “This is my fault. It’s all my fault. I never should have come back. I should have stayed down there with you. Then none of this would have happened. We weren’t in danger. They were going to accept us. We could have lived down there. Then they would be safe. They would be home. They would go about their business.”
She couldn’t stay away from him. She leaped to him and crouched in front of him. “You have to stop this, Elliot. You saved my life. You came back for me.”
He shook his head. “I have to tell Victor. I’ll have to let him discipline me. He said I could do what I wanted until I made my choice. I have to let him do what he wants to me. I have to tell him I want to belong to the Prometheus Crest and that means he’ll probably throw me out. I’ll be lucky if he does.”
Aria froze. “You didn’t join the Crest?”
He shook his head. “I tried to get NightRage to send me back but they wouldn’t. They said I was Prometheus. Can you believe that?” He burst into hysterical giggles. “They said I belonged to the Prometheus Crest and my dad said I belonged to NightRage. None of them would help me get you back.”
“So how did you? How did you get my sisters to help you?”
“It was their idea to kidnap Exos. They tempted him and drugged him and took him to your house. They offered to pay him off for sending us to the Halcyon Coast, but he….” He broke off.
Aria stared at him. She couldn’t cry anymore. She should have known her sisters would do something like this. Once they found out what happened to Aria, they would never quit. They would hazard any danger to bring her home. That was the way they were.
She studied Elliot’s contorted face. He never gave up, either. He risked Victor’s displeasure a second time to canvas NightRage for help. When that didn’t work, he hooked up with the only other people with the spine to do what had to be done—her sisters.
Gianna and Amaya would come up with an idea like this. They would use their bodies to snatch a NightRage wizard. They would risk everything, even themselves, to help Aria.
She sank onto her heels, but she couldn’t stop blinking at Elliot. So he wanted to go back to the Prometheus Crest. After everything that happened, he finally discovered where he really belonged. He knew where his loyalties lay and he would do what he had to do. He would pledge himself to Victor.
He raised his head and his mouth twisted in all the wrong ways. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I didn’t…..”
She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear he was sorry for saving her life. She dove in and kissed him. Pain and hardship sealed her mouth to his. He was real to her. He was the only thing real to her. She wanted him in the depth of her anguish. She didn’t want to be anywhere else.
He tore his lips away. “I can’t…..”
Not even that stopped her from wanting him. Whatever he did, she would never turn away from him again. For the first time in living memory, she knew without any doubt that they would go back to Anarock together. They would talk to Tom and Hilda Slaughter together. They would weather all the tears and the accusations.
Then they would go to Ogru-Kuche. They would tell their story, but she didn’t worry about Victor punishing Elliot. He did what he had to do and he didn’t do it against any vow of allegiance to the Crest. He was a free agent.
No one could accuse Elliot of putting Gianna and Amaya in danger. They did that all by themselves. They were big girls who knew what they were doing. They could put themselves in jeopardy as well as any other New Breed. Christ knew no one could talk them out of it once they made up their minds to do something.
Aria rose to her feet. She threaded her fingers through Elliot’s hand. He didn’t fight her. He stood up and they started the long road back to Anarock.
They walked all night without stopping. They didn’t speak. New Orleans loomed huge and mysterious before their eyes. It suggested so many hidden realities under its many-faceted surface. What would they find there?
Dawn streaked across the sky. The sun leaped up over the horizon and set the Quag on fire. Aria settled into a deeper silence inside herself. Whatever horrors awaited her in there, she accepted them. She and Elliot would overcome them all. Then they would go home…. somewhere. She would never let anyone part them again.
He clamped his fingers around her arm and pulled her to a stop. His haunted black eyes bored into her, but did he really see her? He traced some unseen vision beyond her. “Do you really want to do this, baby? Do you really want to go in there?”
“We have to. We have to face this. No more running away, Elliot. We belong in there.”
He nodded. “I know I have to, but you don’t. You don’t have to answer for things you didn’t do.”
“But you’re going to answer, aren’t you? You’re going in there to answer.”
He nodded again and his gaze drifted toward the city. “I have to. I want to somehow. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want whatever they can give me. I want the…..” He hesitated. “I want the responsibility. I never thought I’d say that, but I do.”
“Then we’re going.” She tightened her grip on him. “We’re going together.”
He spun around and his eyes widened. “Baby?”
She raised her hand and touched his lips. “Don’t say it.”
His lips twitched. He still wanted to say it. He wanted to say a lot of things, but she couldn’t stand that. She wanted only his silence, the silence in his heart that made him certain in his decision.
