It should be driving me too, but it’s not. My veins are full of the lightning that’s in the sky, of wild adrenaline, and not even the aching pain in my wrenched muscles can overpower the thrill surging through me.
A dragon made that sound. I steal a glance back to the horizon.
I see a shift, a giant shadow.
Before the lift hits the beach, Milaye jumps off and runs toward the cave, vanishing around the rocky outcropping that makes up the base of our home. I take a step to follow but stop, staring down the coast. I cannot resist.
Something dark moves in the rainfall, something large, menacing, and far more astounding than anything I could’ve imagined. It’s not coming from the sky or the land, but from the water, emerging like a tidal wave to curve downward and disappear a moment later.
Water rushes over my feet, the waves building higher and crashing, moving farther inland than any storm has taken them before. Still, I’m rooted to the spot. But the shadow vanishes and it’s enough to bring my senses back.
Run! My body urges me suddenly. Go!
I pivot to the lever and yank it until the lift is above my head.
And when I turn back around, the shadow is no longer a shadow, but a dragon in all its beautiful, frightening glory coming straight for me.
3
Zaeyr Surfaces
Yes.
The hollow cry resounding in my watery cave makes me alert. A femdragon is in heat, is in need. And she’s close to my abyssal territory where I horde my treasures. I hear her, though she is above the surface, crying for a male to seed her and give her a dragonling.
It is what I have been waiting for. A female to bring to my nest, to covet and protect. Offspring to raise and expand my domain.
Though listening to her cries, so far away, I soon realize they are from above the surface, and not the yowls of another water dragon like me. I had always planned to breed with another of my kind, to share my sapphire and pearl caves with her, but no matter, a rare female is nearby, and she will be mine.
Mine. The word is strange in my mind. Mine…
Slipping through my underwater system, seeking one of the exits to the sandy bottom, another, more infuriating cry reaches my sensitive ears.
A male roaring in response to my female. A male who does not know better. I am an alpha water dragon! An alpha of ancients, king of this trench, ruler of the turquoise depths, and guardian of the deep! Any alpha or beta male within miles will know of my stirring, as I sense theirs. They should be afraid.
This femdragon is mine. I have claimed her. Even if the other alpha dragon gets to her first, I will fight him off her—slice him open with my talons, and take his place mounting. I have waited too long for a femdragon in heat to enter these lands just to lose her to another!
Clawing my way from my glittery caverns, my patience flees, discovering cave-ins where I have failed to maintain the area over the years. A serpent like me does not leave his home on a whim, I snarl, baring sharpened teeth at the rocks.
The male’s roar echoes, fueling my frustration, my longing to breach the surface and inhale the femdragon’s mating pheromones that are sure to bloom the air for miles in every direction.
I wonder what she smells like…
Turning my head to the side, I peer through one of the many holes from which light streaks from far above into my caves, contemplating the barrier holding me back. My tail overturns shells, rocks, and jewels as it scours the bottom of my deep cavern. A low growl escapes me, releasing stores of oxygen in my gut and forcing bubbles up through the hole. Watching them rise, I see a shadow swim overhead, and then another, and another.
Mermaids.
More bubbles escape me in surprise as a boulder is moved over the opening, right before my very eyes.
Quiet accompanies my shock, as one by one, all the holes that give my dwelling light are closed off. I twist around, making the ground tremble. I peer up through the last one left until that too closes off.
The mermaids are trying to trap me in!
Sea snakes, villainous wretches!
This is how they repay me? For leaving them alone, allowing them to settle within my coral reefs and valleys? For protecting them from vicious, hungry deep-sea monsters that would love to dine on their flesh?
Worst of all, the echoing yowls of my future mate and my competitor are gone. I’ve waited centuries for this. Loss hits me harder than it should. Loss and anger—rage ignites.
How dare they? I dig my talons into the stony floor of my domain and pull my wings inward, upward, shelling my back. They think they can keep me trapped?
My body fills with lava-like heat, erupting with my quaking emotions.
Nothing will keep me from what is mine. NOTHING!
I ram my back upward.
The ceiling cracks and stones and dust falls around me, polluting my cherished home. I ram my back again, and more gives way. Terrible, hollow sounds fill my ears, eclipsing even the thunder of my furied heart.
I do not stop, and even when the rocks and sand bury me within, I keep hitting the cave ceiling with all the might of my body. Pain tears through me. The weakest parts of my wings scrape and rip as my body becomes compressed. But each time I thrust up, cracks form—it is working. The trench terra shifts, and slowly, far too slowly for my liking, the pressure on me gives way.
Hours turn to days, and my body is nearly empty of all its oxygen stores. My limbs are numb with exhaustion. I need to surface soon. Desperate, giving a final shove, the
