“Anna! Keep calling, we’re coming!”
“Here! Here! Here!” her voice is cut off by coughing.
I wave my free arm in front of myself hoping to make contact with her. When I touch flesh I grab on and pull it closer.
“Hey,” Calista says when we’re close enough to see each other.
“I apologize,” I say, guiding her over to Ladon.
“Khabri!” Anna cries out, throwing herself around me.
Her lips pressing to mine. Explosions fire through every cell of my body as I wrap my arms around her. She wraps her legs around my waist, her arms around my neck, and we give ourselves to each other.
The other females find their mates but that is happening distantly. Beyond what matters. She is in my arms. She is alive.
I knew it but feared it otherwise still. She is my mate. My treasure. She is all that I will ever need, and if I lose her I would not be able to go on.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she says, gasping air when she breaks our kiss.
“Never,” I say. “I am yours.”
Tears stream down her face drawing lines through the dirt on her cheeks.
“I’m yours,” she sobs. “I love you.”
My dragon bellows, and I can’t hold it within myself. Throwing my head back, I roar. No words, raw emotion, ripping out of my heart and challenging the universe if it would dare to take her from my arms.
“I love you!” I follow up my bellow. “My treasure! Mine!”
“Yes,” she sobs, kissing me repeatedly. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
She accents each yes with a kiss on my lips.
“We need to move,” Rosalind’s voice cuts into the reunions.
The dust cloud is clearing, slowly still, but the sky and those close to hand are visible. The Zmaj males of the City are reunited with their mates. Calista and Ladon stand hand in hand, their child on Ladon’s hip. Ladon and I lock eyes and he nods.
“Yes,” I agree with Rosalind.
Ships whiz over our heads. Fresh troops will be landing and we are in no condition to fight. The humans didn’t make it to the bunker but we must make it there now.
“Brethren!” I yell to be heard and the males of the Order snap to attention, no matter their injuries. “Help the humans. This isn’t over. We must reach the bunker.”
No one questions my commands. I look at Rosalind who is barking more orders. I’m sure we lost some people but we have one chance at survival. We make the bunker, or we die out here on the sands.
We set to our tasks.
“There,” Amara says pointing. “That will get us inside.”
The doors to the military bunker open for her and we herd our mob of survivors inside.
Anna stays at my side and I never want her to go from it again. We assist the humans inside while the Zmaj form lines to either side to give aid as needed. Once the flow of people is going, I climb the nearest dune so I can survey what we left behind. Anna walks with me, her arm around my waist.
“They killed their own people,” she says.
“No, not their people,” I say. “The Invaders, as you call them, aren’t ‘their’ people. Those are clones, created for one purpose. To die.”
“That’s horrible,” she says. “They’re still people.”
“Perhaps,” I say. “But not so in the eyes of those behind this invasion. Their masters, if you will, care only about controlling the epis. That’s why we have to stop them.”
“How can anyone be so callous?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
She shields her eyes from the suns as we study the wreckage. The city is gone. A dark silhouette of shadows is all that remains. A handful of building infrastructure that looks like the bones of a giant reaching for the sky. Even from here I can see that the metal frames are bent and twisted by the force of the blast.
Those are only in the center of what was the city. Past them, which looks like six or seven blocks, is a crater. It scars the surface of Tajss where the blast rolled out on its path of destruction. The dome is destroyed and effectively every building too. The debris of their remains litters all the way to the horizon.
“Oh,” Anna gasps.
The massive ship still hangs in the sky over the crater. Doors open on its sides and troop ships pour out. They haven’t even dented their forces.
“We need to get inside,” I say, turning back to the bunker.
When we get back to the door most everyone has entered the bunker so Anna and I do the same. I’ve never been in here before but I heard rumors of it. Even before the Devastation it was a story to scare people. Terrifying experiments done on living subjects.
I didn’t believe it, until I joined the Order. Only then did the truth of my people become known, at least some of it. There is no time for exploration now, we need to figure out any weapons there are to hand and how to use them.
“This way,” Amara and Shidan say in unison.
I follow them while the other Zmaj and their mates follow suit.
“Everyone else,” Rosalind says, her voice echoing off the walls. “Stay together and work to create a temporary home. Set up kitchens, sleeping quarters, and everything we’ll need to survive in here for a while.”
The crowd murmurs and whispers. It’s loud in this enclosed space but no one argues with her or the points she makes. Slow, almost reluctantly, they set to work while the rest of us follow Amara.
She leads the way through the bunker with ease until we’re in a massive room. Yellow rails surround a huge hole in the ground.
“That’s it,” Amara says.
A bank of dead computers, covered in dust, line one wall. I walk over to the railing and look down into the darkness. I can barely see what looks like a metallic sheen down there. Lights come on then flicker fitfully, not helping to see deeper into the hole but I have a good idea what is in there.
The missiles Ladon wants to fire. I study the ceiling and it does appear to have a seam, so I think he is right.
“Anyone know how to operate this control board?” Rosalind asks.
The males of the Order have gathered close around my position. I look over my surviving members.
“Vae,” I order. “Attend the computers.”
Vae nods as he rushes over. His hands fly deftly over the crystal controls. In moments they’ve come to life and he is studying the read outs. Rosalind and the Zmaj of the City and Tribe look at me but I watch Vae, ignoring them.
“They’re all staring,” Anna whispers.
“They are,” I agree.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“No,” I say. “They were not ready for this knowledge.”
“Oh,” she says, but something in her voice pulls my attention to her.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Is there things you aren’t telling me because you don’t think I’m ready?”
“Or there hasn’t been time,” I say.
“Not an answer,” she says. “Look, if we’re going to be together, I don’t want to have to wonder. I want to know you. Know what you know. I want us to be working together, not hiding things from each other. That’s a deal breaker, got it?”
I smile. “I do.”