Stealing the Dragon’s Heart by Kiersten Fay

41

Onnika cupped Caryn’s pale, sweat-damp face between her hands and felt a disturbing heat emanating from her skin. “She’s burning up! What has caused this change?”

Just then, Lear rushed in with a damp cloth and placed it over Caryn’s forehead, assuring, “The doctor should be here shortly.”

“But what’s wrong?” she demanded. “She was getting better.”

“We do no’ know,” Lear replied. “One minute she seemed fine, the next…” With a deep crease in his brow, he gestured as if to find the words, but had none to give.

Clasping Caryn’s hand between hers, she begged her sister to wake up, but her eyes only fluted as her body was racked with shivers.

It seemed to take forever for the doctor to arrive. When he did, he ordered them all out of the room. Reluctantly, Onnika joined Aidan and the crew in the mess hall to wait, everyone taking turns pacing along the cold grated floor.

“What is taking so long?” she complained after about ten minutes.

Aidan wrapped her in his embrace. “I’m sure it’s just a fever,” he soothed, and she desperately wanted to believe him, but it was clear he wished only to alleviate her worry.

When the doctor finally emerged to address them, his dour expression heralded bad news. “I found evidence of poison in her blood.”

“Poison? But how?” Priya asked.

Onnika dropped to her knees. “No,” she breathed, though her brain had already accepted the devastating realization.

Aidan knelt beside her at a loss for how to comfort her.

“Do you know what kind of poison it is?” the doctor asked. “If so, I may be able to scrounge up an antidote.”

Onnika shook her head, grief wreaking havoc on her heart, squeezing the wretched organ until she thought it might implode from the crushing pressure. “Rice tips his blade with poison. She didn’t cut herself getting sucked from the ship…” She glanced at Aidan. “There’s no cure.”

Everyone remained silent as they digested her words. Asher sank to his knees and placed his big hand on Caryn’s clammy cheek. Lear leaned against the wall as though he were having trouble staying upright, then slid to the floor, his gaze distant and broken. A darkness settled over the room, saturating it, making Onnika want to crumble to the ground and never get up. Only the doctor questioned her.

“Do you know the name of the poison? Does it stem from animal or plant? There may be something I can do to reverse the effects if I have all the information.”

Onnika choked the next words out, her voice quavering. “All I know is that it kills slowly and painfully. She’ll die screaming in the end.” Her whole body began to shake, and Aidan pulled her against him, wrapping his brawny arms around her. She was like a limp rag doll in his embrace, unable to accept the comfort.

“The way I see it,” the doctor said with the remote detachment of a man who has been at his profession a long while, desensitized to the many faces of death and grief, “you have two options. You could either end her suffering yourselves—”

He took a step back under the weight of several murderous glares before hastily continuing. “Or, you could make your way to the end of the race, where a Serakian healer awaits to attend every contestant who crosses the finish line. Get there before your friend expires and the Serakian’s mystic arts may be enough to save her.”

Onnika’s head jerked up. “A Serakian?” From what she recalled of their kind, they were magic users of some sort…advanced and elusive creatures who could not be found unless they wanted to be. Wherever their home world resided, no one knew.

“Our ship is grounded,” Aidan growled. “Damaged beyond repair. And we will not be given the final coordinates unless we leave this station as contestants.”

The doctor just pursed his lips, then replied, “You may be able to bribe a race-hopper to sell you their ship. I do not recall there being any rules about finishing the race in an alternate conveyance.”

“I’m afraid money is a little scarce,” Lear murmured, still staring off into space, “what with all the upgrades we’ve made to this vessel.”

“Why is there a Serakian at the end of the race?” Aidan asked. “There has never been one before.”

“Clearly you didn’t follow last year’s race. The winner died of his many wounds shortly after crossing the finish line, and the award was bestowed upon the runner-up. To say the least, the fans were outraged. The commissioners do not want a repeat of that fiasco.”

Asher spoke up next. “What if we simply catch a ride with a race-hopper? They get direct coordinates instead of having to follow a set track.”

The doctor shook his head. “The Serakian is there for the express purpose of healing contestants. If you arrive as anything else, they likely will not help you. Serakians are prideful and obstinate creatures. I hear there was a heavy price to have just one of them on hand.”

“Maybe I can fix the ship,” Vin piped in. “We don’t have to win. We just have to get there in one piece.”

“Yes, but we have to get there quickly. How long do you wager it would take to fix all that has been damaged?” Aidan asked.

Uncertainty laced Vin’s reply. “If we can find all the parts? Maybe forty or fifty hours just to get us to the bare minimum of operational.

“Caryn has half that time…at best,” Onnika dejectedly replied.

Several expletives bounced around the room.

“I apologize,” the doctor said. “But I can be of no further use here. I’ll leave you to ponder your options.”

As he left, fat tears dropped from Onnika’s eyes, drenching her cheeks.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Aidan promised. “We won’t lose her. We won’t.” It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. Their choices were bleak.

“We’ll convince a race-hopper to lend us their ship in the promise of payment later,” Asher declared. “Or we’ll steal a ship.”

At that, Priya chimed in. “Do you know the kind of hell the commissioners would rain down on us if we set that precedent?”

“Who gives a shit,” Asher shot back. “They can disqualify us, for all I care. As long as we get Caryn there in time.”

“They’d do more than disqualify us,” she insisted. “Could you imagine if Phase Nine contestants just decided to start stealing from the fans? The commissioners will make an example of us. A terrible example, so no one would ever try it again. And besides, if the Serakian is there for contestants only, he or she may not help us if we get ourselves disqualified.”

Their desperation was dark and muddy, arduous, just as Onnika felt on the inside. Grief was crawling its way through her, making her body sluggish and heavy. Somewhere in the back of her mind she couldn’t believe Asher had suggested stealing a ship. She’d have laughed if she wasn’t trying so hard not to sob. Sadly, they couldn’t steal a ship, and no one was going to just hand one over…

Hope exploded in her so swiftly that she could barely catch her breath from the power of it.

“What is it?” Aidan asked.

She shot to her feet. “Come with me.” With that, she raced out of the ship, across the hangar’s polished floor.

“Where are we going?” Lear demanded, coming up beside her.

Asher flanked her other side. “What about Caryn?”

“She’s safe on Dragoon now that Tag and his goons are dead, and I’m going to need everyone’s help.” Onnika took a quick glance behind her and was heartened to see they had all followed. When they entered the huge arena, she was momentarily stunned by its size and opulence. It looked like a massive beehive with several stories stacked up to a domed ceiling and was decorated by maroon and gold tapestries and draperies that clung to the walls and decorated high arched doorways.

But there was no time to take in the beauty of her surroundings. She turned to face the group. “There’s a man who might be willing to help us. An older man. He’s about Zeek’s height. He has a beard and grayish-brown hair. He wears a hat, a dusty brown thing, and talks with a strange accent.”

Aidan shared a look with the others. “Sounds like a fellow we met in the pub,” he said. “We’ll check there first.”

“I think we should split up and search,” she said. When Aidan gave her a look that said like hell, she explained, “He might not be there any longer. He does odd jobs to get by. For all I know he could be working as a janitor or a boot polisher. But someone should definitely check the pub anyway. If he is there, just explain our situation and take him back to the ship until I return.”

“If we split up,” Zeek asked, already glancing around and scanning individuals. “how will we know for sure that we’ve found the right guy?”

“Ask him about our first meeting on the Armina spaceport. He’ll tell you I gave him a few chips so he could get something to eat.”

“We’re not bloody splitting up,” Aidan declared, his gaze hard and unwavering.

“Please,” she urged. “We have to find him before he leaves. He wanted to make it to the finish as badly as any contestant here. He could already be gone. I’m safe now. Tag is gone. So are the others. No one is hunting me.” She gazed up at Aidan with beseeching eyes. “He could be our only chance.”

He folded. “Fine, but you and I will stick together. We’ll look for one hour. After which I’m taking you back to Dragoon, you hear me?”

Before she could agree, Asher darted off, calling back, “I’ll check the pub.”

That cued the others to dash off as well. Lear would check the upper floors, Vin and Priya would split the middle, while she and Aidan would search the lower levels. Zeek would sift through the many shops and markets that branched off the main arena.

As she and Aidan crammed into an elevator filled with wide-eyed fans, she braced for a sudden onslaught of uninvited attention.

“By the gods, it’s you,” one man said, scanning her with an awed and openly interested expression. “You’re amazing. I love you. Can I touch your hair?” He reached out to finger a lock before she could decline. “It’s so soft.”

“Hands off,” Aidan growled, his eyes flashing green with the threat of transformation. Sufficiently spooked, the man held up his hands and backed away.

A trio of women surrounded Aidan next, sighing and commenting on his handsome appearance and how they loved seeing him transform into a dragon and asking if they could ride him sometime. The last was said with a little more innuendo than Onnika could abide, and a shocking sense of possessiveness took over. “Back off, ladies. He bites. And if he doesn’t, I do.”

Their giggles were one part glee and two parts envy, tinged by the excitement of having been so close to—what Onnika and Aidan would later be dubbed as—the power couple of Phase Nine. Aidan looped his arm around her waist and pulled her protectively against him. She caught a spark of humor playing along the corners of his lips.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he guided her out and toward an empty alcove, where he placed a swift heated kiss over her lips. “You were about to tear those poor lasses apart,” he stated with a lopsided grin.

“I was not. Don’t be ridiculous.” Though she had taken a couple of threatening steps closer to them before Aidan had pulled her back.

“It’s all right. I find the sight of your jealousy quite adorable.”

She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t jealous.” I was totally jealous. “We don’t have time for your ego boost,” she said as she scanned passersby for a familiar brown hat. Though she couldn’t help but add, “What about you? You were ready to transform and chomp that guy to bits.”

He simply shrugged, glancing around. “A man who touches you without permission courts his own death. Especially after everything we’ve just endured. He’s lucky I didn’t break his hand.”

Noticing the tension in his body, she put her palm over his heart. “Everything’s all right now. The danger to my life is over. But it’s not over for Caryn.”

He gave a curt nod. “All right. I’ll go this way, you go that way. Be careful, and for the sake of my sanity, try to stay out of trouble.”

She rolled her eyes and then left him with one last lingering kiss. As she darted off, she heard him call after her, “Oh, and try not to maim any of my adoring fans.”

“You, too.”

A deep, masculine laugh rumbled through the air, and the sound shimmied through her like a caress. “Remember, no trouble.”

Another retort lingered on the tip of her tongue, but when she glanced back, he was gone, and she could only stew at his words. They were looking for a sweet old man. What sort of trouble could she possibly get into?