Lion Conquers All by Krystal Shannan

25

AARAV

Aarav trudged through the snow. It’d been hours now and he was at least halfway up the eastern face of the mountain. No sign of the kids. Nothing.

Cold bit at his paws. At his nose.

He was warm enough, but only if he kept moving.

The storm had finally cleared off about thirty minutes ago. The Robert’s were keeping their word. Not a helicopter or search crew in sight.

A long howl breached the cold quiet morning. Then another howl.

Aarav hurried out from the trees into a clearing, watching the sky. Sure enough two streaks of orange light shot up from the south side of the mountain. The boys had found them.

But then a third streak. Another flare sailed through the clear grey sky.

They’d shot off all three?

Trouble? Kids in trouble?

His lion plunged through the drifts. He pushed his muscles until they burned. Trees blurred by. The shadow of Col’s dragon crossed over his head too. Col would get there first for sure, but they were all coming.

Something was wrong.

He leapt over a fallen tree and landed in a snowbank that swallowed him whole. He floundered and climbed and sank some more. It took precious minutes to climb out of the hole and continue toward the where the flares had originated.

Brush and twigs snapped behind him. His lion whirled to defend himself. An enormous bear came barreling out of the trees with a Reylean wolf running next to him. The size of their animals left no room for misinterpretation.

Aarav chuffed out a short greeting and then continued running.

The other two animals responded in kind, and they charged through the underbrush and snow together from there.

Ten minutes later they stopped.

His brothers, Veer and Ivann were there. Shenn as well. All three of the young wolves had shifted. They looked younger than Aarav remembered, but they didn’t shift often and he’d only seen them in human form once before. He thought Knox had said they were nineteen. If they were, it was barely. All three of them had long black hair, slender chests, not quite grown warriors yet. Knox was standing behind Aarav with Owen.

Col put a hand on a big rock and pushed gently, watching the mountain above the pile of boulders carefully.

Aarav instinctively took a step back. What the hell was he thinking? There was a pile of rocks a hundred feet high at the base of this slab of mountain. He couldn’t push a rock at the bottom and not expect more to come tumbling down around their heads.

Then it hit him. The faint smell of the children. They’d been here for sure. He knew it.

It wasn’t strong, but it was here. Which way did the trail lead?

He shifted from his animal and joined the standing crowd. “Someone sent up flares. Where are they?”

“We did.” Rhal, one of the young wolves answered. “There used to be a cave there. We’ve slept there many times. The kids had to have been using it as shelter from the storm.”

Aarav’s eyes drifted back to the halfway buried landslide of rocks.

Dalmeck.

No. Dalmeck wasn’t enough. This situation was fucked.

“The whole face of the mountain looks like it slid down. How far back do you think it goes?”

Rhal cracked his neck to the right and then the left. “The cave is a decent size. They shouldn’t be out of air yet. But there had to be at least fifty feet of rock blocking the entrance.” He pointed to a pine tree poking out of the rock pile. “That tree stands next to the mouth of the cave. Or it used to.”

Col shoved on another rock at the base of the pile and the ground shuddered a warning.

“This is why I couldn’t see them. No matter how many times I flew around the mountain. There was no heat signature to find because they were under the mountain.” Col growled and fisted his hands.

“It’s also why it took so long to track them. Their scent has been fading since they got trapped. There was no fresh trail to find.” Owen stepped closer to Col and put a hand on their chief’s shoulder.

“I can’t hear them.” The pain in Col’s voice ripped a hole in Aarav’s heart. “We should’ve come sooner. If we had come out right away—”

“Col. You can’t blame yourself. These are children, yes, but they ran away. They chose to hide from the people that cared for them and loved them. Some of the blame rests on their shoulders. Now we’ve found them. How do we get them out?” Knox stepped up next to Owen but didn’t touch the dragon.

“All of you need to back away. My dragon has the strength to dig them out, but all the rocks above us are going to fall too. There’s no way to stop them. This landslide is going to be even bigger before I get to the bottom of it.”

Aarav stared at the broken mountain face. Even if he could manage to dig through all the rocks, what about the kids below. What if the cave had already… Pain hit Aarav like someone had reached into his chest and made a fist around his heart. He pushed down the heavy boulder of dread and breathed through the sticky sick feeling in his stomach.

“Let’s go, brother.” Shenn tugged at Aarav’s arm. “We need to let him try. He’s not going to give up until he knows for sure. And we can’t go back to their parents until we have something definitive to tell them. You know that. They are waiting on us. Depending on us. Everything rides on us being able to find these kids.”

Aarav turned to face his brother. “Do you think they’re still alive? I can’t hear them. But it’s so much rock.”

Shenn’s countenance darkened. “If they were far enough back in the cave, I think it’s possible…as long as the cave itself didn’t collapse in the slide.”

Fuck.He hadn’t even thought of that.

What if they were digging the kids out of a grave?

Shenn tugged again. Veers joined him and they both moved Aarav away from Col. Everyone was moving to the south, away from the ridge and the path of the rocks.

The group climbed a bluff not too far away, but high enough they could see over the tree line. And high enough they could see Col. He’d already shifted, and the big black dragon was meticulously pulling away some of the higher boulders and sending them rolling down the hill away from the mountain.

Only time would reveal the secrets the mountain had buried.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and texted Connie. Aarav: Col is digging out a landslide. We think the children holed up in a cave, but the entrance is blocked. It’s going to be hours before we know anything.

His phone chirped back a few seconds later. Connie: Thank you for letting us know. I’m here at the cabin with Sarah Roberts. Please be careful.

The mother was at the cabin waiting.

Aarav: We are safe. How is my brother? Aarav texted again.

Connie: Dyna and Mira are healing him. I’ve been told he will be good as new soon.

He breathed deeply and little of the knot in his stomach came unwound. He stared at her message and almost put the phone away when the three little dots appeared that meant she was typing again.

Then the dots disappeared.

Then they came back.

Gone again.

He squeezed the phone in frustration.

Connie: I need you to kiss me again when you get back.

Aarav’s hand shook and he had to consciously squeeze the phone to keep from dropping it. Kiss her. By the gods he wanted to run straight to her right this second. She wanted him to kiss her. Asked for it in writing.

“What are you over there grinning about like a horny teenager who got laid?” Shenn bumped his shoulder and leaned against him, peeking over at the phone.

“Shut up.” Aarav typed a reply on his phone and checked it twice. Then re-read her text twice.

Aarav: I can do that.

“Veer, Ivann, Aarav’s patience is paying off.” His other two brothers strolled over and crowded around him.

Ivann chuckled low in his chest. “We thought your dick might fall off before she came around to liking you.”

Aarav growled and showed his fangs. “If that’s what it took, I would’ve still endured for my soul match.”

“Raj wins the pool though. Shit. It’s August. He had August.” Veer sighed. “I was hoping to win back that beer money.” He smiled at Aarav. “Glad Connie’s coming around. For real.”

“You had a pool?”

Ivann clapped Aarav on the shoulder. “If she had held out one more month, I would’ve won. I had September. See I had faith in you. Shenn over there had his money on next January.”

“I don’t appreciate any of this.” Aarav rubbed a hand over his face and put the phone back into his pocket. A rumble shook the ground a little. Boulders were rolling down the mountain face. Col was in the air, just high enough to allow them to roll past him.

Col’s dragon roared, reverberating through the calm of the mountain air. The storm had ceased. The sky was clear.

Col was angry and frustrated. The mountain was winning. Every time he removed boulders more rocks fell to replace them. It didn’t appear that they were any closer to the cave. If anything, there were more rocks to dig through now, not less.

“There has to be something we can do.” Knox ran his hands through his hair and paced back and forth at the edge of the bluff where they were standing clear of the avalanching rocks.

“One of those boulders catches us unaware and nothing more than a red stain on the ground. A boulder hits Vraka there and he cusses it out and keeps digging.” Veer pointed to a large boulder coming straight at the dragon’s front leg. Col lifted his leg before it hit and then kicked it away like it was a child’s soccer ball. “See.”

They all had. There wasn’t anything they could do. Eventually the mountain would stop collapsing. Eventually they would get to the cave.

Aarav just hoped when they finally got there it wouldn’t be too late.