Fury of Affliction (Dragonfury 2.0)

Chapter 4

4

A death grip on the steering wheel, Natalie battled another round of nausea. Breathing in through her nose, she exhaled through her mouth. Mind over matter. Strength in the face of overwhelming odds. The approach should work. It usually did. But now, while driving mountain roads, the mental redirection didn’t help. Each time the two-lane highway dipped, so did her stomach.

Swallowing the nasty taste, she continued deep-breathing, determined to stay on track. To stick to her timeframe and reach Seattle before dawn, but…

Bile touched the back of her throat.

She fought the urge to gag and?—

“Damn it,” she whispered, knowing she was almost out of time.

She needed to stop. Take a break and get out of the truck if she hoped to keep her latest meal down. The baby needed it. So did she if the world turned cruel and Hamersveld refused to meet her.

Fear tightened her chest.

Grief tunneling through, tossing out worst-case scenarios.

Taking one hand from the wheel, she hit the window button. The glass pane rolled down. Crisp mountain air rushed into the cab, bringing scant relief. She drank in the reprieve anyway, scanning dark shoulders next to graying blacktop, searching for a rest stop. A sign that indicated one. A lookout along the scenic route. A slight widening of the road. Any place, no matter how small, as long it provided a safe place to pull over.

An excellent plan with an obvious problem.

She was in the middle of nowhere. In the dead of night. Driving a stretch of highway cut through the wilderness. Craggy cliffs rolled in endless waves on her right. Thick forest closed her in on the left. Nothing but two lanes of asphalt with faded yellow lines rising and falling with hilly terrain in front of her.

A sharp S-curve swung her around another blind corner.

Her headlights tunneled through the dark, washing through patchy fog. The haze messed with her vision, making her see things that couldn’t be there. Wispy swirls looked like ghosts rising in the gloom. Shifting shadows looked wild animals standing on the shoulder of the road. A closer inspection revealed nothing more than crooked tree branches and oddly shaped rocks.

Her imagination didn’t care, flagging danger everywhere she looked. The longer she drove, the more tense she became. Fighting to keep the truck on the road, she peered through the brume. Wondering. Waiting. Hoping, wishing, praying she found what she needed around the next bend.

Her stomach bucked again.

Holding on by a thread, she reached for the package of crackers sitting in the passenger seat. Without looking, she pulled three saltines from the plastic sleeve and drove up a steep hill. The truck slanted. Oversized tires hummed across pavement as the engine rumbled. Gaze glued to the top of the rise, she ignored the whining motor, and nibbling on the corner of the cracker, crested the steep hill. Turning the wheel, she swung around the corner.

Tall trees angled into shrubbery. The earth fell away on one side, opening into a specular view of the Pacific Ocean. Faint moonlight fell like raindrops, splashing across undulating waves. As light danced across the surface, painting dark water with sparkling hues, she spotted the place where the road widened ahead.

Relief hit her like a body shot.

Tears pricked the back of her throat.

Finally. A lookout. One without bathrooms but…

Who cared?

Fenced in by high guardrails, the cutout gave her a safe place to?—

Tingles swept her spine.

Awareness cut through the chaotic clang of mental noise. Her terror, all the raging uncertainty, disappeared as a low growl echoed. Butterflies took flight in her belly. Her breath caught. Her stomach settled as heightened sensation swirled across her temples, soothing frayed nerves. Disbelief dropped away. The tears she refused to let fall for weeks tipped over her bottom lashes.

This was it. It must be it. It had to be it.

Hamersveld was here. He must be close. Able to sense her and?—

A link opened up, then expanded inside her head.

“Natalie,” a deep voice murmured, aggression in the undertone. “I warned you, baby. I warned you what would happen if you returned.”

“Thank God,” she whispered, clinging to the sound of him like a lifeline. Peering out the windshield, she eased her foot off the gas pedal. “Thank God. Please…where are you? Where?—”

“Here.”

The snarl streamed over the hood.

The truck bucked as Hamersveld uncloaked overtop of the road. Blown from the clifftop, shale rumbled down the rock-face. Treetops thrashed in the blowback. The ocean reacted to the vicious vibe, kicking up in the presence of a water dragon.

Whispering his name, she took her hands from the wheel and reached for him. The backend of the truck fishtailed. She let it happened, too busy taking in the beauty of him to care where she ended up. Shark-gray scales flashed. Huge fangs gleamed in the dark. Massive talons uncurled and stretched toward her. Black eyes rimmed by bright blue met hers through the windshield.

A sob escaped her as sharp claws shrieked against steel.

The sides of the truck dimpled.

A second later, the F-150’s tires left the ground and?—

Liftoff.

She closed her eyes as relief streamed into gratefulness. He had a hold of her. After weeks spent worrying, heartsick at the thought of causing him trouble while suffering without him. And yet, just as she hoped, the second she broke through the five-hundred-mile maker, he’d flown out in search of her.

“Sveld.”

“You shouldn’t have come back, shaleima.”

Her mouth curved as he called her “water lily” in Dragonese. The endearment told her all she needed to know. Despite his words, he wasn’t angry with her. “I had to. No choice. You need to know that I’m?—”

“Fuck.” Wind whistling over his wings, he banked hard. The truck swung wide. His grip slipped. With a curse, he tightened his grip on the cab. She jumped as his claws punctured the passenger side door. “Hang on. Hold on, Natalie.”

“What?” she asked as the flight turned wild. “What is it?”

“Incoming,” he said, tone guttural, his Norwegian accent so thick she struggled to understand him. “Enemy pack. I’m going to ? —”

A streak of brown with orange flecked scales materialized out of thin air.

Hamersveld snarled as the enemy dragon hit him broadside.

Claws shrieked against metal as the brutal strike ripped her from her man-dragon’s talons. Hurtled into the open, the truck spun in mid-air. The world tilted out of control. The seatbelt slammed her against the seatback.

Unable to breathe, she yanked the nylon strap pinning her in place. No give. She went after the buckle, hitting the mechanism with the side of her fist. Locked tight. Zero movement across her hips. She looked up and caught a flash of guardrail. Panic slammed through her as she sailed over the cliff edge. Jagged snarls of rock registered. The dark expanse of blue shoreline came into view.

Trapped inside the cab.

Spinning out of control above open water.

No way for her to bail out.

Adrenaline unlocked her lungs. She screamed for Hamersveld. A snarling hiss broke through the link she shared with him. The sound of dragon claws striking scales echoed inside her head. Next, a roar. Then a grunt of pain as the man she loved fought for his life and the F-150 angled into a nosedive, on a collision course with chaotic chop of ocean below.