Dragon Bound

Chapter 13

“What are you thinking about my love?” a beautiful white haired woman asked her companion in bed, she wasn’t just beautiful though, she was like a goddess, her pale skin seemed to give off a luminous glow that throbbed along with her feelings.

Her face had perfect features that is only used to describe elegant queens, well she is a princess, originally next in line to the throne, but that doesn’t matter now, the throne exists no more, only this prison of a life does.

She had just made love with the only person she considered to be the love of her life, to her, without him, there was no reason to exist in this cruel world, especially taking into consideration the kind of life they were forced to live.

“Nothing you need to worry about” the man answered, he had dark hair highlighted with grey, and was a perfect compliment to the princess, he had rugged and tough features, handsome nonetheless but stern and focused unlike the dreamy appeal of the princess.

“Oh c’mon Dante, you know I won’t be able to get it off my mind, I worry about everything including the fact that you don’t want to tell me what is bothering you right now” she said in a soft silky voice.

She was his superior, in every way, she could just command him to spill and he would have to be it the truth or not, but their relationship wasn’t like that, it was a well guarded affectionate symbiosis where a princess and a captain found peace within each other.

“It is for the very fact that you worry a lot that I am unwilling to tell you this, but since now you’d worry about me not telling you, I guess I have no choice but to tell you” the man she called Dante said.

“I want to leave” he said after a brief pause and paused again not saying anything more, just letting those four words sink into her mind well enough for her to know the actual meaning and implication.

“When?” she asked, her soft voice now grew sad and if he could see her face, he knows well enough that she would look the way she sounded.

“As soon as my plans all click in place, I have set up all I need to go far and remain out of their reach for as long as possible” he answered her, he hasn’t gotten to the part that was actually bothering him.

“Ok, I guess I can’t convince you otherwise now can I? You seem to have made up your mind” she said, she sounded different now, still very much sad but with a defiant tone.

“No, you can’t, I can’t hold it in anymore, I can’t keep doing their bidding, I need control over my own life, I need to take that control out of their hands” he replied with reason.

“I thought you do their bidding so you can do more good out there and try to stop their bad as much as you can, if you leave now who will continue that? Who will save those that needs to be saved from them? Besides they will come after you, they will chase you, they will look to get you back or kill you if they can’t have you back, do you want to keep running for the rest of your life?” she asked him with the same tone as earlier, deep down though she just wanted to tell him to just stay, and he shouldn’t leave her.

“I will still work against them to do more good to counter their bad even from outside, I’ll as well leave the job to those I trust to always do what is right, those that are still here, and we’ll work together to bring them down, as for the chase, I have a plan like I have said, they won’t find me” Dante answered.

After he explained like that, she turned and faced away from him, she was really sad, should she tell him or not? She doesn’t want to be selfish, but at the same time if he leaves without knowing then later finds out, he might come to hate her for as long as she lives.

She has lived long though, almost six centuries now, never did she for once think she would become subjugated like this, she never thought she could be made so docile, and by who? those who had only barely scratched their first century, the thought of this always angered her, the serum be damned.

“Come with me” she heard Dante say from behind her, those three words melted her heart and she started to cry, now she really has to tell him.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong? Did I say something wrong? I only asked you to come with me because I really can’t imagine a life without you, I can’t bear to think of you here in captivity while I’m out there, it only makes sense when it is the two of us, please don’t cry, just think about it” Dante said, he had misread the reason behind her crying.

“Oh Dante, I am not crying because I don’t want to leave, I want nothing more than to always be with you, either here or out there, but then there are two things that won’t allow me to be able to follow you no matter how much I want it” she said to him and faced him sitting up on the bed, ready to tell him.

“The first is the serum, you know this is what they use to control us, and while I thank you for the blocker pills you and your team were able to develop to counter the serum effects for some time, I just don’t think it can be enough for the escape and staying free, I’ll have to always be on them for that to happen, and you know how bad the side effects can be” she explained to him.

“Besides I can’t keep taking the blockers, not anymore for now and that leads me to the second reason, I can’t take the blocker pills anymore because I am pregnant, I am with child, your child, our child” she said to him.

His jaws dropped and tears welled up in his eyes, “Really? Do you mean this?” he asked with so much sweet sorrow dripping in his voice along with the tears in his eyes.

She took his hand and placed it on her tummy, after the barest of seconds he started to feel a faint heartbeat, soft and strong, thumping in a different rhythm to that of the mother.

His tears flowed all the more and he bent and kissed her tummy where she had placed his hands, of course she was hiding it, she was an elder so she has mastered the shifting ability enough to hide what he believed to be at least six months pregnancy.

“Oh Laura, I am not going anywhere, I can’t leave you both, I must be foolish for even thinking about it, you need me here with you both, to keep both of you safe especially from them” he said to her while speaking above her tummy.

He can’t leave anymore now, he has to make sure that while she hides it using her abilities, he as well has to make sure that any test they try on her wouldn’t expose her, he has to be there to sabotage anything they might do that will show them she is pregnant, for as long as she would carry the baby till she gives birth, the WIC must not know that their most prized dragon is pregnant for their best soldier.

*

“Give it up, this isn’t a fair fight, just come peacefully and maybe, just maybe it will be overlooked and your punishment will be mild” brown haired man dressed in military tights said to Dante.

They were five in total, their hair colors ranged from reddish brown to deep brown, he knew them all, and he knew them to be bronze-backs naturally they weren’t a match for him except when they are in numbers, like they are now.

He had sent Laura ahead with their baby as soon as she was strong enough to make the trip, they were going to leave here together, no matter what, that is why he was bringing the rear, stopping all those who would chase after them.

The first thing he had done was to disable all the automated security protocols, that would have posed a big problem for them, but now that that was out of it, all that is left are the people security protocol.

“You are right, this isn’t a fair fight, for you though not me, you still have time, call more of you to come because just the few of you can’t take me” Dante said defiantly.

He knew there was no means for them to communicate with the rest though, so all this served was to intimidate them, he was as well stalling for time, the farther Laura could get the better.

“We are not scared of you, we are in a tunnel, none if us can shift while in here and we all know you are fiercest in your dragon form” one of them said confidently although Dante could still hear the fear in his voice which made him smirk.

“Oh, whoever told you that totally has it wrong, you have been fed with deception, I am called the dark fury, do you think it is just because of my dark scales, no, it is because of my ferocity especially when it is dark” Dante answered and right on cue an explosion sounded far away and the lights went off, leaving the tunnel dark as night.

The only thing the five of them had time to do was to be scared, because right after the lights went out, Dante pounced on them all, knocking them all out within seconds.

Time was not on his side though, he ought to have made it farther than that before the bomb he placed in the power station exploded, he had timed it all to cause the highest possible chaos so as to give him and his new family the chance to make their getaway.

He ran like a spooked deer through the tunnel and out to the field of long grasses where the exit and stashed getaway car was, Laura should be there by now.

Getting there though, he found not just Laura but her cousin as well, the current dragon queen’s sister, total bad news, because that could only mean one thing.

And right on cue a couple of cars switched on their headlights, illuminating them all, then from one of the cars, the white one, came Scarface, a white haired man dressed in all white three-piece suit, wearing white framed glasses, holding a white cane and wearing a white glove on one hand, the hand on the side of his scarred face, which earned him the nickname amongst his workers and servants.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk” the man ticked “You should know better than this, Dante, so why are you doing this? Is it love or just plain foolishness, stop this at once and I’ll try to forget about it all” he said to them.

Dante, who had already decided on not going back, stepped in front if his wife and newborn child as if to keep them from the gaze of the evil one.

He had never thought Scarface himself would bother to be here, but then it is only natural, Laura was his most treasured possession out of all the original Eldrian they had managed to capture especially those of the royal lineage and now she had just given birth to a prospect that might yet still be even more valuable to him.

The man took off his glasses and brought out a soft little white piece of cloth to clean it’s lens then he returned both items as they were.

“If that is how you want it then” the man said and snapped his fingers, after which two others joined Laura’s cousin where she was standing opposite the family.

Dante’s eyes widened as he saw them, this wasn’t going to end well, that much he knew but he wasn’t about to back down, if anything he will at least make sure that both Laura and their baby escape.

“Renee, you don’t have to do this” Laura called to her cousin.

“We don’t all have your resilience and resistance to them and their serum, I’m sorry cousin but I have no choice” Renee said.

Of course they are under the influence of the serum already, that is the only way these guys are able to control the originals, Dante thought.

Looking at the odds, there were three originals, Renee who was a Dark froth, Castor and Pollux who were Braemen (also known as blue moon dragons).

Dante knew he couldn’t take them all, not with the ash breathing Dark froth royalty amongst them, if it were just the blue flamed dragons, his scales are tough enough to an extent for their flames, so surely he would battle them out.

Nevertheless though, he has to face all three of them if Laura is going to have a chance to escape, he thought but then he felt Laura touch him lightly on the back.

He faced her and from the tears in her eyes and expression on her face, he knew she had come to a decision, one he was not going to like but has to go along with because he had never seen her looking this angry before.

“Take her, when we shift, fly far away, raise her well, raise her to be strong, raise her to be able to take care of herself, let her know she is of a very powerful and proud origin” Laura said to him.

She would handle the fighting, while he would escape, that was her decision, of course she is the only one amongst them both that can handle those three regardless of the Dark froth that is her cousin.

The world has probably never seen a more fierce and powerful Rouran like Laura, ordinarily she can take these three without breaking a sweat, but then she had just gone through the labor of giving birth so she couldn’t possibly be at her peak, she can’t be as strong as she normally is.

Dante nodded though, tears in his own eyes now as well, he silently made a vow to come back for her as he took the child from her.

“What will you name her though? Tell me now” Laura asked.

“She is the ever burning flame of our love and the evidence of our existence, Ryoka, that’s her name” Dante said remembering his origin which also gave him the idea of where he would go first to raise her.

“Ryoka, I love it, it’s perfect, just like her” Laura said then she turned to their foes who were about to start shifting then she as well joined them in attaining the shift.

In the dark of the night, four dragons flew into the air in battle mode, one grey mixed with black, one dull blue and another bright blue, and one pure white.

The white dragon with her large streams of fire held back the other three, out of which there were two who blew blue flames and one who blew ash before igniting it.

No fireworks could have been as beautiful as the one these four original Eldrians made, it lit up the sky and illuminated the earth, bathing it in orange and blue and red light and even the resulting colors of the mixture.

Those on the ground at that point were suddenly aware that there was a missing man, he was supposed to be holding a child, they scattered about and started to search for him using their lights and the illumination from the fire of the dragons above.

But he was long gone, in dragon form, holding the swaddling gently in his gigantic paws.

*

A cold splash of water woke Dante from his memories, the sting of the water and the pain from the shackles on his wrist, ankles and body reminded him of where he was.

He missed his wife, his daughter as well and could only pray that his daughter should never be captured by these evil white wearing demons.