Chapter Nineteen
The days went by, and Aria felt a fluttering begin low in her stomach. It was stronger than she had expected, and it reminded her that she was not alone anymore. They had imprisoned her singly, trying to break her will, but a part of Vyktor was still with her, and it was bringing something new, something she could already feel would not go without a fight.
There was no word on her case. No doubt her pregnancy had changed matters. She knew she would be the last to find out what her fate would be. The days went by and though she had every reason to lose hope, the movement in her belly reminded her that there was someone out there who cared for her more deeply than these people holding her captive could possibly understand.
One all too well lit ‘night,’ Aria was doing her best to sleep in her perpetually lit cell. She had asked for the day/night cycle to be restored in aid of her pregnancy, but there didn’t seem to be any concern for her or her offspring. In spite of their torture by denying her any sense of time, it had become apparent through the semi-frequent monitoring that weeks were passing. Weeks in which her stomach began to grow, and the dragon within her became more powerful.
Click.
Somewhere in the middle of what she thought was probably the night, Aria heard the door of her cell unlock. She knew that soft click that usually heralded some asshole coming to take her somewhere. She sat bolt upright, her hands protectively over her belly and waited for the soldier to come and take her away.
It didn’t happen. Nobody was there. She got up and tiptoed to the door and tried the handle. To her supreme surprise, it opened.
She looked into the hall and saw nobody there. What was going on? Had her cell been unlocked by accident? Someone leaned on something in the control panel? Was that even possible? Was it a trap? She didn’t know. All she knew was that fate, or something else, had given her a possible chance at escape, and she was going to take it.
Aria hugged the wall and sidled toward the guard station. She knew where at least one of them was located—and the likely location of an arsenal. All the guards were armed. She was mystified as to why she was yet to be detected. Every part of the building was under constant surveillance, but somehow she made it to the guard station without being caught. The door there was open too.
“Psst!”
She turned to see a shadowy figure approaching her from the rear. He was a prisoner, a fact made obvious by his pale skin and ugly jumpsuit. She wore the same.
“Everything’s been deactivated,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “But I’m getting the hell out of here, I was just doing a sweep to make sure we got everybody. There’s five other guys on the unit, holed up above us. The guards are above ground. Some kind of attack. Someone wants someone in here out of here really fucking badly.”
She didn’t know who this man was, but she knew she shared the look in his eyes. They were both ready to do anything to see the light of true day again, and to have the world go dark around them as night fell. They were ready for the wind on their face, the simple luxury of a breeze. He could have done anything, this man Aria suddenly felt a strong kinship with. The worst of the worst found their way to these prisons, but Aria was beyond judging.
Together, they ran up to the next level, where, as he had said, a cluster of prisoners had formed. They all looked pale and desperate, just like her. The six of them were strangers to one another, but they shared a single purpose: escape.
They had armed themselves as best they could. One had a plunger, another a stapler. One particularly brutal-looking mass of a man was holding what looked like the leg of a metal chair. None of their weapons would do a thing against a single man with a gun, but they didn’t let that stop them.
It soon turned out to be that every door in the facility was unlocked. Every electrical system was down. And every soldier was absent.
“EMP,” somebody muttered. “Must have been a massive attack.”
They came out into the light of a bright afternoon—and walked straight into a fierce battle.
“Holy fuck, dragons!”
Aria gasped, her eyes drawn upward to the furious gray storm above the facility. A portal! From it, winged creatures were sweeping to and fro above panicked soldiers with firearms that were far too small to have any real effect. There had to be two dozen of them, swooping back and forth, throwing the place into utter chaos.
“Vyktor!” Aria screamed her lover’s name. “Vyktor!”
She called again and a great red dragon with dark markings swept low over their heads, wheeled about and landed under fire, knocking several soldiers over as his heavy body made the earth beneath him vibrate. It lowered its great head toward her and sniffed her gently with its scaled nose.
Aria let out a sob and wrapped her arms around the scaly face. She could only hug a very small portion of him in this form, but she had so yearned for his touch that she would take what she could get—and even in the leviathan form of a dragon, she knew it was him. Those great golden eyes did not lie.
She felt clawed hands wrap around her, holding her with a gentle touch as she was plucked from the Earth and lifted into the heavens on dragon’s wings. Aria and her dragon ascended to the portal together and passed on through to the other side.
* * *
“My love. My pet.”
Aria looked into a golden gaze that she had once been sure she would never see again. Vyktor was sitting next to her, his lips brushing over her mouth. She could not believe it at first. The room they were in did not seem real. He had flown with her across a great ocean to a cliff-side village where homes were carved into the faces of the tall, craggy bluffs. It was the same scene she had seen in his word-working, but much more vivid and grand in scale for being real.
There he had transformed before her and led her into a home more stunningly palatial than anything she had seen on Earth. Now they sat together on a soft bed, Aria entirely naked. The first thing she had done upon setting foot on solid ground was shed the ugly jumpsuit that had marked her imprisonment. It lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, a dark reminder of the world she had escaped.
“Is this real? Am I dreaming?” With tear-fogged eyes, she asked the question over and over again.
“You’re not dreaming,” he said, his voice a soft rumble against her. “I’ve got you, my pet. I’ve got you.”
She ran her hands over his face, touched and tasted him with her lips and tongue, smelled his scent. It was him. Not a dream. Not a mirage. Him. She burst into tears of sheer relief and utter joy.
“Shhhh, pet,” Vyktor murmured, wrapping his arms around her, holding her so tight she could barely breathe. “I have you. I am sorry I was gone so long. I have you now, pet. And I will not let you go.”
“Vyktor,” she whimpered when she could control her words once more. “There’s something you have to know…”
He stopped her whimper with a kiss.
“I know, Aria,” he said. “I know you have had to be too brave for too long. I know what they have put you through. Before the portal was fully activated, there was a time when we had a partial view. Enough to see through. I know they kept you in a small cage all alone. I know they were cruel to you. I know what they said, and did, and…” His hand smoothed over her lower belly. “I know what grows inside you. I did not know such a thing was possible when we mated, but this, my love, is our salvation.”
“They were going to take it…” she said. “When it was born. Will I live long enough here to save it?” She knew what being brought to the dragon realm meant. She knew that she would die in Vyktor’s world, but maybe her child would not. Maybe she could hang on long enough to at least see…
“Shh, pet,” Vyktor said. “You are already doing much better than the man who came before you. I see no signs of sickness on your skin. Our physicians believe that the fact you have dragon blood in you, your cells and mine mixing to make new life… it means that we are not so very different. It means that we share the same essential elements of creation, and they believe that our child may have imparted a resistance to you. You are changed, Aria, though you might not know it. You may never grow wings. You may never take to the skies without one of your little machines, but you are stronger than you know. You can survive in our realm. You are no longer earthbound.”
Aria stared at him, not knowing if it was true, and not caring either. She would rather live one day with Vyktor than whatever existence she had left on Earth.
“I just hope it’s okay,” she said as he stroked her belly.
“He’s fine.”
“He?”
“Mhm.” Vyktor nodded. “It is a male child.”
“Do your magic hands have sonographers in them too?” Aria smiled through the remnants of her tears.
“No,” Vyktor admitted, kissing her head. He pulled her into his lap and held her close. “I am so sorry, pet,” he repeated for what had to be the thousandth time.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she reminded him. “I knew what would happen to me if they caught me helping you.”
“I remember at the beginning, telling you that you were not as strong as you thought you were,” Vyktor said. “I was wrong. You are much stronger than I ever could have imagined.”
“Well, I did tell you,” she said with a little smile.
“I wish you had not had to prove it that way,” he murmured, placing little kisses all over her face. “You deserved so much better, pet. From me, and from your own people. I am going to spend the rest of my days spoiling you, my love. You will have the best of everything, and you will want for nothing. I promise you that.”
“I don’t need the best of everything,” Aria said through his kisses. “I just need you.”
“And you will have me, pet. Always.”