Suddenly, Nadine was done with this conversation. She was in a position of weakness; they both knew it. She’d lost yet another round to a simple barbarian.
One round doesn’t win the war.
She raised her chin. “Let’s get it over with.”
Magnus extended his hand toward her. “Oh, kandiri, we’re just getting started.”
5
Being with Beasts
Nadine ignored Magnus’s offered hand, then pushed past him toward the slumbering brown wyvern in the distance. Magnus scoffed at her back, but her attention was fixed on the glorious creature ahead.
She’d thought them dragons at first, but had since learned that they were actually wyverns, winged serpents with two legs that preferred the harsh gales of the mountains to the sweltering climate of the desert. Even so, Nadine could excuse the lack of hardiness in light of their incredible beauty and power. That the barbarians had managed to bring them to heel told Nadine one thing: if they could do it, so could she. The idea had kept her up dreaming on more than one late night.
She was more than halfway to the beast now. The creature finally seemed to stir from its listless state. Its neck popped up, and its horned head turned in Nadine’s direction. Eyes of viridian green locked on her, and its body went rigid as a bowstring. It stood up from the sand and hissed a forked tongue past two rows of jagged white teeth.
Nadine stopped.
Magnus pushed past her, kicking up sand in his hurry. He held open fingers up to his beast and muttered something in his Dokiri language clearly meant to placate the irritable creature.
Nadine’s hand went instinctively to her lancet. She unhooked it from her belt and held it low at her side. Yudvir, the wyvern was larger than any animal she’d ever seen. Larger than the elephant she’d ridden during her deployment to the coastal jungles. Nadine could really appreciate the wyvern’s size now that she was standing so close and with Magnus there for comparison.
The savage continued muttering in his language and waving his hands in a pattern that seemed to charm the wyvern. In a submissive, though not quite docile gesture, the beast lowered its head enough for Magnus to take hold of its jaw. Nadine held her breath as Magnus pulled his mount’s nose into his chest and kept it there. Its skull was nearly as big as his torso. Did the creature realize it could probably fit him in its jaw? Instead, it allowed Magnus to rub against its fearsome maw, trilling for him like a docile songbird ready to drool liquid gold.
Some of the tension eased from Nadine’s shoulders. She took a hesitant step forward.
The wyvern’s eyes, which had gone half-slitted, cracked open and resettled on Nadine. The beast jerked its head, and one of Magnus’s hands fell away. An angry hiss replaced the contented trilling.
Nadine’s thumb flipped the switch at the side of her lancet, causing the weapon to shoot apart and expand like a telescope into two bladed ends. She’d been mad to imagine ever taming one of these fearsome creatures.
Magnus cast a pointed grin at her lancet. He chuckled lowly. “Compensating for something, woman?”
Nadine shot only a quick glare to the Dokiri before her eyes went back to watch the movements of the wyvern.
Magnus turned back toward his mount and reached to regrip the other side of the wyvern’s jaw. “Put that away unless your aim is good enough to pierce her eye. Else you’ll just make her angry.”
Nadine made no move to obey. Instead she watched as Magnus’s massage turned into what could only be described as affectionate petting. The beast eventually lost interest in Nadine. Soon after, her trilling resumed and her belly eased back down into the sand.
Nadine took a deep breath and flipped the switch on her lancet. The weapon collapsed in on itself, and she brought it back to her belt in one fluid motion. Swallowing her trepidation, Nadine grasped for the wonder which had propelled her forward in the first place.
She approached, forcing herself to stay upright.
Her gaze fell on the curve of one mighty talon peeked out from beneath the monster’s massive body. It was black as onyx and longer than Nadine’s arm. It could impale her with the slightest flick. Nadine’s eyes traveled the length of its body to its tail. A pair of barbs swished lines in the sand. Venomous? She’d have to find out. Nadine turned her boots toward the head where Magnus stood. Now she was creeping.
“The first rule of being around the gegatu is to never let them see your fear.”
“And the second rule?”
Magnus released one side of the wyvern’s face to offer Nadine a hand. “Always be afraid of the gegatu.”
Nadine stared at his fingers but made no move to take them, even when he curled them toward himself, beckoning her to approach.
“I know you’re dying to touch,” he said.
Just as she was about to tell him to get lanced he added, “I promise not to keep hold of you when you’re done.”
Nadine rolled her eyes and slapped her palm into his. He grinned and yanked her forward until she stood between him and the beast. Instinct told her this was too close, while curiosity told her this is exactly where she wanted to be. Magnus set her palm down on the flat between the wyvern’s nostrils. Nadine sucked in a breath that felt like her last. Or her first.
The slitted nostrils flared and warmed beneath her touch as those emerald eyes locked upon her. They sparkled like gemstones and narrowed with an astute intelligence absent in most creatures. Its scales didn’t feel like skin. It was living rock. It moved, and breathed, and blood rushed beneath it like the life-giving water that fed a desert oasis. Nadine’s lips parted on a sigh of thrilled awe.
Magnus leaned down to whisper into Nadine’s ear. His breath tickled her as he said, “She likes your scent.”
Nadine didn’t take her eyes off the wyvern. “What’s your name?”
“Yrsa. I named her for the lazy, gluttonous bear that she is,” Magnus said.
Magnus’s voice had held more pride than censure, and Nadine could see why as her eyes followed Magnus’s gaze over the wyvern’s broad, deep brown colored body. Nadine leaned up toward the wyvern’s dazzling eyes.
“Don’t let him cow you.”
Magnus chuckled. “She says women like a firm hand. Prefer it, even.”
Nadine glanced over her shoulder and arched a brow. “You barbarians make a sport of speaking for your women, don’t you?”
“She’d do it herself, but she doesn’t speak trade tongue.” He shrugged. “Being a wyvern.”
Nadine turned back to Yrsa and gave her another long stroke up the center of her glorious face. Her doubts were gone. She was definitely going to tame one of these creatures. Someday. “Take me to your mountain.”
“You’re going to want more clothes than that. Here.” Magnus released his mount’s jaw and bumped Nadine’s wrist with his own before guiding her toward Yrsa’s reclining body. He started to undo the laces of the pack which was strapped into the bizarre-looking gegatu saddle. “I brought you things to wear while we’re up there.”
“No,” she said, then begrudgingly added, “thanks.” She’d already chosen her warmest clothes.
To her surprise, he said not a word. He merely tightened the straps of the pack he’d been about to open, then glanced at her. “Do you want help getting on?”