“You have a choice! Hey you, Dragon bitch!” She waved her sword in the air, until the dragon stopped chewing, and eyed her. “Look! Look at what I’ve got!” She reached down, and touched the dragon’s egg with the tip of her glowing blade.
Hissing sharply, the dragon brought her head down with a quickness that was unnerving. The potion-wrought haze in her huge, amber eyes seemed to fade as her sense of alarm grew.
Shaella had to master herself. She wanted to do nothing other than turn and run as the great beast’s red-plated head loomed in close to her. The black slits in the dragon’s eyes were as long as Shaella was tall. Its bloody teeth were just as big, and as sharp, as swords. A piece of geka meat, that weighed easily as much as Shaella did, hung loosely from between two of those teeth. Heat coming from cavernous nostrils, big enough to walk into, blew her hair back like a strong wind might. The smell of its breath was sulfurous and rotten, like burnt steel and spoiled meat. Had it not been for the hope that she could still save Gerard, she thought she might crumble in her tracks.
“I have no time to waste with you, dragon,” she forced herself to say. “Either you will put on a collar, or all of your hatchlings will be born into one.”
The dragon’s plated brows narrowed between the trunks of her curving yellowed horns. Angrily, she reared back and began sucking in a vast lungful of air. Her intension was obvious. Shaella had to hold the hair back from the left side of her face, as it was being sucked back towards those massive nostrils. The dragon’s flames wouldn’t harm the egg, Shaella knew. Dragon’s used flame to incubate and hatch them. She had to speak quickly and loudly, and make sure the dragon understood.
“You might burn me to ashes, bitch! You’ll save this egg, but what about the others?” She paused, letting her bluff sink in. Pael had told her that there were three eggs. She hoped that he had been correct. “If you even try to burn me, they will be smashed to bits!”
The dragon paused, flames swirling in her big eyes, her expression overflowing with hatred and anger.
“If you refuse, then I’ll ruin this egg while you roast me!” Shaella threatened. The point of her sword rested on the egg at her feet. All it would take was a firm push to render the egg unhatchable.
“Then the Pact hasss been broken?” the dragon asked.
The thunderous hissing voice was more in Shaella’s head than anywhere else, and the sound of it was full of confused malice. When Shaella nodded that the Pact had indeed been broken, the dragon raised her head, and roared out to the heavens. The earth shook as a tower of flame shot up into the clouds. As angry as the dragon was, it knew it was beaten. Shaella knew it too. The curse of all maternal creatures had trapped the mighty beast. Her natural born instinct to protect her young allowed her only one choice in the matter.
“Bring the collar!” Shaella called out urgently.
Chapter 30
Shokin was halfway out of the Seal, held there by the binding words in the wizard’s wicked song. Pael shivered with glee. The spectral demon hadn’t expected to be bound.
With a deep, growling rumble of respect it accepted this condition of its release into the world. It knew that it could find a way to unbind itself later. The wizard Pael wasn’t as powerful as he liked to think he was. Eventually, Shokin could get rid of him. For now, the important thing was to escape the Nethers, even if it meant pledging his service to Pael.
Shokin had been trapped in the black nothingness for far too long to quibble over technicalities, not when he was this close to freedom. He wanted vengeance on he who had banished him. He had sworn it, and if he wanted to vent his wrath on Pavreal’s ancestors then, for now, he had to grant the wizard Pael his boon. He would lower himself to serve Pael for a time. After all, it was only temporary, and the wizard had worked very hard to get the Seal open for him. Yes, he would accept Pael’s binding. For now, he would obey without hesitation.