Chapter Twenty-Three
Corde
“Hey! Ugly!” he shouted, tossing little fireballs at the Outsider. “Over here!”
It ignored everything, its efforts focused on getting at Kylie instead of him. Big mistake. That told Corde something it probably didn’t want him to know, or maybe hadn’t even figured out for itself yet. He had no idea how sentient they were.
But it was scared. He’d obviously hurt it far worse than it seemed with his fire. Otherwise it would come at him now, seeking to end him. Corde had little left, his energy reserves nearly depleted. Like a battery, he was starting to run low.
Instead of taking advantage of this though, the creature was ignoring him, trying to get an easy meal. To get Kylie’s lifeforce, which it figured it needed to defeat him. If Corde was out of tricks, it might work. Fortunately for him, Kylie, and anybody else in the nearby area, he wasn’t.
Pulling his thoughts inward, he focused on the change, letting it rush through him. With it came the feeling of power. Sheer, unabashed supremacy flowed through him. It was over in an instant, but the testosterone-laden rush left him heady nonetheless.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called, the booming, rolling voice of his dragon filling the loading zone as it bounced off every building, rattling walls and causing already-broken glass to shake free.
His head darted forward into the entrance to the tunnel, teeth snapping closed around a leg of the Outsider just as its last blow collapsed the door. A loud gong sounded as the thick steel fell to the floor, bent and warped beyond recognition.
Corde grunted as the Outsider smacked him in the jaw as it flailed. A flick of his neck sent it hurtling through the side of a smokestack, the concrete crumbling down on top of it in a pile of dust and debris.
“Are you okay?” he asked, lowering his head to ground level so he could peer inside the safehouse Colonel Mara had had built at some point.
“Fine,” she growled nervously, shuffling backward, eyes wide at the sight of the massive dragon snout just hanging in midair in front of her. “Now just go finish this thing, will you?”
Corde tried not to be hurt by the way she didn’t want to be near him in this form. It wasn’t her fault; there was just too much going on.
“With pleasure.” He withdrew, facing the pile of rubble as it started to shiver.
Corde inhaled, but just as he did, his energy reserves failed him. He staggered to the side drunkenly, unable to control his muscles as overwhelming fatigued settled in. Triple eyelids started to close around his yellow cat-like eyes.
“Kyyllugh,” he slurred, his voice not working properly either.
Behind them concrete started to tumble aside as the Outsider worked its way free.
“Corde?” She came forward slowly, double-visions of her dancing in front of him as he sagged woozily to the concrete. “Corde, what’s happening?”
“Low. Power.” It took him several tries to get the words out intelligibly, so busy was he fighting off the insistent urge for sleep.
Too much fire. He’d used too much fire earlier. Now he didn’t have enough to use it when it really mattered.
Just like before.
Corde was going to let them down again. Everyone was going to hate him. Maybe sleep was the answer. Beautiful, blissful, sleep. A happy smile worked the pseudo-lips of his dragon maw, producing a horrifying visage for anyone who happened to be watching.
He felt a sliver of anger at himself spark into being, and a distant corner of his mind tried to harness that, to pull energy from the fury like he had so many times in the past. But the tiny spark refused to catch, going out in a puff of smoke. Corde was done. Finished. He had no more reserves to pull from.
“Corde, you need to get up.” Kylie was pleading with him. He could hear the concrete as it ground against each other, the noise getting louder. The Outsider must be getting nearer to the surface now.
“Can’t.”
“Please,” she begged, finally emerging from the safety of the low tunnel she’d entered into the bunker-like building. Too nervous to do so at first, she now came to his side, resting a hand on the side of his snout, standing right in front of his eye. “Corde, I need you. Please.”
He managed to get the orb and its vertical cat-like pupil to focus on her. Her eyebrows were knotted together, forehead wrinkled as she pleaded with him to get up. But beyond the fear and the pain, in the back of her beautiful purple-blue eyes was something he’d forgotten.
Care. She cared for him. And that might one day even blossom into love. It came not from anger or pain, but from the heart. The knowledge that a person cared about you was a wonderful feeling.
A powerful feeling.
Corde went looking in his heart, knowing that Kylie cared for him. Him. He could use that knowledge. Knowledge was power as well. Perhaps he had more power in him than he thought.
Energy surged through his body as he realized that he had untapped wells of power just waiting for him to use. The beat of his huge dragon heart intensified until it was audible to those around him as it swelled with the reminder that she cared. Each rapid-fire beat sent energy pulsing into his limbs. Into the massive wings. It practically shot across his crimson scales, invigorating him.
“Oh,” he grunted, his body coming alive around him. “Oh yes. YES!” The final words came out as a roar. Corde shot to his feet at the same moment the Outsider burst free.
Flame erupted from his mouth in an eye-searing display, so loud it shrieked of its own accord as he unleashed a titanic demonstration of power. Buildings nearby reflected the light, turning the loading dock into a brightly lit arena.
Corde started forward, wings spread wide as he gently fanned the flames with them. The Outsider was pushed back one step. Then another. The concrete beneath its feet began to melt as Corde continued to blast it with a never-ending stream of fire. He’d never felt such power as this!
He advanced on the creature that dared threaten his mate, renewed anger flickering into life. Bits and pieces of it started to mix with the slowly-flowing concrete, black spots of tar-like substance that floated in the superheated river of stone.
The creature was pushed back across the loading bay, until it stumbled into a pile of stacked metal. Corde smiled internally. Maybe he could melt the metal around it, trapping it. He poured on the fire.
His only warning of danger was when the first superheated lance of metal came flying up through his fire. Dodging to the side, he narrowly missed eating the projectile. Several more came after him swiftly, but he dodged them, and hit the Outsider with another beam of fire, driving it back some more.
A spinning metal pipe as thick as his human torso hurtled up at him, catching his lower jaw and wrenching his head to the side. Corde howled in pain, spitting out the nearly molten metal and lunging after the Outsider as he suddenly spied where it had been going this entire time.
The matte-black creature picked up the manhole cover and tossed it right at the tip of his snout, forcing Corde to dodge. Then it dropped into the sewer hole and disappeared. He went after it, shifting as he moved, intending to pursue it in human form.
Almost as soon as he took his first step though, the last of his energy finally ran out. He’d given it his all, but dragonfire took far more out of him than simply tossing it around in his human form.
“Kylie,” he said weakly, falling to the ground.
She rushed over to him, screaming his name. Behind her a vehicle screeched to a halt, Kallore and Vanek emerging swiftly, both of them moving apart until they were able to shift.
Corde stared up at Kallore’s carmine-colored dragon for a second before wrenching his eyes back to Kylie.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “You did it. You saved the day.”
She shook her head, tears of…joy? He hoped joy, pouring down her face.
“No, Corde. You saved the day. And you saved me. You did it.”
The world went black as he passed out.