Aeria pushed a branch out of the way as she asked, “How far are we from the edge of the park?”

Draven pointed to the side. “The wall should be in that direction. We are three-quarters of the way there.”

The trees were starting to grow further apart, and the forest wasn’t as dense as before, which was a relief. I still didn’t see anything stalking us, although I was more than a bit doubtful about the chances of it just going away.

“Tasha has calmed down some, so that is a good sign.” Aeria commented.

Draven lightly retorted, “The wind has also disappeared, so don’t let your guard down.”

Aeria frowned slightly. “I wasn’t about to.” She checked her wrist comm. “Still no signal… I can’t believe it. We are inside the city walls; there is no reason that we shouldn’t be able to get a signal.”

Draven checked his wrist comm, tapping it in frustration. “Not sure, but we had better make some distance. Perhaps rub some lobster flower plant on the bottom of our shoes, if we can find any out here. I can’t imagine anything wanting to track that smell.”

Aeria gave him a confused look. “What does it look like?”

“It grows in clumps, often with purple flowers... Ummm... Taureen had a clump in the corner of his backyard.”

“Oh! That one.”

I also realized which plant he was talking about as well. It smelled like nasty gym socks if you brushed against it or disturbed it. If it hadn’t been in the very back corner, hidden in the middle of some decorative stones, I would have asked Taureen to remove it.

Aeria quickly scanned the area for the plant, but, of course, none was in sight at the moment. She paused. “No, I must be thinking of the purple flower in the front yard. You can’t see the one in the backyard unless you come inside the fence.” Her eyes furrowed in confusion as she trailed off. “But the one in the front has no scent...”

Draven stiffened as Aeria swung her head towards him with a sudden suspicious frown. I inhaled in shock as I realized that Draven had been in the backyard at some point – and one very notable occasion stood out.

She narrowed her eyes as she backed a few steps away from him. “You were the one who broke the lock on the gate...”

He focused on her as his gaze hardened and became rather calculating. “No one else has discovered that, and I’m quite surprised that you made the connection. The fire lizard was supposed to take off and never return, leaving Taureen as a regular, low-ranking guard. I didn’t learn until afterwards that she had already been licensed as a bond animal, but that won’t stop them from making an example out of me. Well, I guess that leaves you with two choices.”

Aeria tensed up, and I also watched Draven with sharp eyes; both of us were wary of this armed fighter who had just admitted to the crime.

He took a couple of slow footsteps forward while talking. “One, you pretend that you didn’t make that connection; it was only a broken lock, after all. My plan wasn’t supposed to move this fast, and I had intended to court you in the traditional fashion, but accept my courtship instead. I will make sure that you live like a queen. You know how wealthy and well-regarded my family is. Option two, I’m sure I won’t have any difficulty disposing of your body.”

I hissed at his words. Taureen was relatively poor in the Kymari world, at least until I had been made his bond animal, although he never had lacked anything. Had I not known Aeria as well as I did, I would have been more worried. Kymari often put a lot of emphasis on pride and prestige – and Draven had just offered that to her on a platter. As far as most of the Kymari were concerned, it would be a powerful and valuable family alliance for her family.

To join a powerful family, with unlimited access to their wealth, all she had to do was forget about a broken lock – and forget about a man whom she had begun to care about. Draven was forgetting one important detail though; Kymari were intensely loyal, and Aeria did care about Taureen, even if it wasn’t quite true love yet.

I could tell that Aeria was mad, although she was hiding it well. She tried reasoning with him. “How about we get out of this park before that sicora shows up, I will forget about the lock, and we both go our separate ways?”

He started to chuckle deeply. “At first, I thought Tasha detected a sicora since they have been turning up occasionally, but I just realized exactly what scent your little friend was reacting to.”

He gave two sharp whistles, and I heard tree branches breaking as something big came closer. My ear tufts pinned back in alarm as three black raptors squeezed out from between the trees. They wore harnesses, and even worse, Draven wasn’t surprised by their presence.

They looked a lot like a t-rex, just a bit slimmer with longer arms. Their black skin had some lighter grey dappling, and they stood at least three times taller than the Kymari. These were the creatures I had scented – and they clearly belonged to Draven.

Aeria took another slow step backward, carefully asking, “Why do you have black raptors out here?”

Draven remained where he was as the three raptors stopped behind him. “You were always interested in those who handled animals, so I trained these three to impress you. My plans were in motion years before Taureen found that fire lizard. You only began to show interest in him once he became a handler. I hadn’t anticipated your interest in him since it didn’t occur to me that someone in our age group might be designated as a bond animal handler. These three aren’t quite fully grown or trained yet, but are they not more impressive than that tiny thing tethered to your shoulder?”

My mind was circling round and round as my Blood Memories kept telling me that this sort of behavior wasn’t something seen among Kymari. The males didn’t take out competition deceitfully or in such an under-handed manner; it wasn’t honorable, and it just wasn’t done. They tried to impress the lady, often going to great lengths to do so, but they never tried to undermine any rivals.

Something was seriously wrong, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. The faintly wild look in his eyes didn’t exactly reassure me of his sanity.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Aeria hesitated, trying to find a way out of this situation that didn’t involve ending up as raptor chow.

“You should come with me and forget about him.” Draven spoke coaxingly, still trying to win her over.

She stiffened and narrowed her eyes. “No.”

I saw her subtly try her wrist comm again, but Draven also spotted it. He started laughing cruelly. “Thought you could call for help and report me, huh? I have blockers in this area. They will stop all frequencies. Nice try, but now I know I can’t trust you.”

His laughing ceased rather suddenly as he extended his spear. He watched Aeria through narrowed eyes as his body posture shifted to something more dangerous. I tensed up on Aeria’s shoulder as she slowly took a few more steps back. Draven suddenly charged, and Aeria turned to run, knowing that her belt knife wouldn’t be able to stop the fighter’s longer weapons.

I dug my claws into her shoulder pad to avoid falling off as I whipped my head around and spat a fireball across the short distance between us. His eyes widened as he spun to the side to avoid the fiery missile. It missed him, but it bought Aeria enough time to get into the thicker underbrush.

Our saving grace was the fact that the raptors were too large to move quickly between the trees. A glance back didn’t show the raptors or Draven. Aeria would be able to outrun the raptors in a heavily-treed forest like this, but I wasn’t sure how fast Draven was...

One thing was certain though; he wouldn’t give up – his life was on the line.

Aeria darted between trees, weaving through the dense shrubs as she attempted to be swift and silent. She slid to a stop as she came out in a clearing that was surrounded by the low sandy bluffs at the end of the ravine. Aeria turned around to run back into the sheltering forest but stopped and backed up as Draven appeared on the trail.

He had a murderous expression on his face, and it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to bluff our way out of this one. It didn’t take the raptors long to find a path through the trees and catch up to their master.

Growling lowly, I built up the heat in my throat. I could feel the flammable mucus coating my throat as I readied my fireball. I knew from past experience that raptors could be deterred with enough fire. The amount of fire I might need for trained ones was debatable, though.

Draven looked up at the raptors and spoke a command that I didn’t understand. They bared their teeth at us as they lowered their heads aggressively. I took a deep breath and spat the fireball with a torrent of fire propelling it. Draven turned back just in time to see it and try to dodge the fiery missile. It still hit his shoulder and neck, causing serious burns to any exposed skin.

His scream distracted his raptors, who turned to see what was attacking him.

I looked at Aeria. “Unclip my leash!”

She turned her head to gawk at me in surprise, not comprehending my words in her disbelieving shock.

“My leash! Unclip it now!”

With shaking hands, she unclipped my leash, and I threw myself into the sky. I dove down at Draven, who was on his knees trying to put out the sputtering flames as the burning gel now clung to his hands as well. I spread my wings and used the momentum of my dive to streak behind his head. I lashed out with my front claws, aiming for an exposed spot on the side of his neck. My strike connected just below the jawline.

He turned to strike at me with his spear, but I was already out of range. I heard a sickening thud and glanced back. Draven stared at the heavy knife buried in his stomach in disbelieving shock. I looked to the side to see Aeria in a fighting crouch, with her knife no longer on her. She must have thrown it.

I regained height as the raptors milled about uncertainly, confused by their master’s blood and pain. Draven looked at the raptors and shouted a command at them. They turned as one and started to advance rapidly on Aeria.

While he was distracted, I dove again and once more slashed the side of his neck as I passed behind him. I dodged his strike with a wingover before heading towards Aeria. I flew between the raptors and Aeria, leaving a long line of fire in the grass with my fiery breath.

They hesitated at the sight of the fire, but the green grass didn’t want to burn, and the flames flickered out moments later. I glanced back to see Aeria trying to climb the vertical bluff; her handholds kept collapsing, unable to get a good grip on the crumbling sandy cliffs.

“There is a cave on your right side; it’s too small for the raptors to get in.”

She turned and ran along the cliff before crouching over to enter the small black tunnel. I quickly swooped into the opening after her, pulling to a hover just inside the entrance. I peered into the darkness, trying to get my eyes to adjust quicker.

My night sight wasn’t that good, but the cave was small enough that it didn’t matter. I landed on a rocky outcrop just inside the entrance. Aeria watched me as I quickly examined our hiding place. The tunnel didn’t go far; in theory, the raptors’ arms were just long enough to reach us, although they simply couldn’t angle their arms to the side to reach in.

I turned around as something snuffled at the tunnel entrance. With a screech, I spat a fireball at the giant nose filling the entrance. With a surprised and pained snort, it swiftly withdrew its head, leaving us with the putrid smell of raptor breath. I stood guard just inside the entrance, ready to flame anything that tried to enter that narrow space.

I glanced back to see Aeria fiddling with her wrist comm again. She saw my look and spoke in frustration. “It still isn’t working.”

I nodded my understanding as I turned back to face the opening again.

I concentrated on Taureen’s face and kept my voice calm. “I have no idea if you can hear me, but you might want to check your wrist comm. I got off-leash, and I’m not too sure exactly where we are. Please send someone to check on us.”

I wasn’t sure if he could hear me, but it didn’t have that hollow echo that it did when he was unconscious. I purposefully didn’t mention that we were hiding in a cave from raptors and an insane Kymari; otherwise, his reaction might give our silent conversation away. Hopefully, a strayed bond animal with its handler offworld would get a swift response.

I doubted he would hear me though; he was in a different solar system, and the range was far too great. Another large black nose approached the entrance, and I hissed fiercely, causing it to back up. At least they seem to have gotten the hint the first time around.

I jumped down to the ground and slunk with my belly to the ground as I approached the entrance. I was ready to leap back into the safety of the small tunnel at a moment’s notice as I peered above the rocks near the edge of the entrance.

The three raptors were eyeing up the entrance and didn’t seem to know what to make of my small form as I snaked my way through the loose rock rubble. I glanced past their long legs to see Draven slumped on the ground, his back to us. He had some blood streaking down his armor, making it look like he had collapsed.

I narrowed my eyes. Not likely, and I’m not buying your ploy. It took a lot to take down a Kymari, especially a guard. They were sturdy and used to fighting. Besides, there is still the small problem of three rather large carnivorous beasts between him and us.

I crawled back into the tunnel before resuming my perch on the outcropping.

“He is still waiting out there for us to come out,” I informed Aeria. “The raptors are also still there. Our best route is to try to hole up in here and wait them out. How long will it be until someone misses us?”

Aeria regarded me in confusion. “It is you talking. I wasn’t sure at first. How are you doing that?”

I sighed. “Yes, it is me. Please don’t mention it to anyone. Taureen knows I can do it, but if others find out, it could put the lives of all fire lizards on the line. I’m not sure how I do it. Let’s get back on track. How long will it be until we are missed?”

She blinked and glanced at her comm. “I’m not sure. No one was expecting me. Taureen will likely be the first to come looking for us.”

She glanced at the cave entrance nervously. I didn’t blame her; we were like rabbits in a tunnel, and the weasel could easily come in as well.

“I can flame anything that comes in the entrance. It will buy us some time, and Draven won’t be up to fighting speed with the injuries we gave him. Any ideas or thoughts on what we can do to stop him if he tries to come in?”

Aeria and I began to discuss our rather limited options.