Treasure Ch. 08

"Don't you dare talk like that," she squeaked, her eyes fixed determinedly on the other end of the ledge and not the shrinking abyss below.

"We're almost there," he laughed. Catherine exhaled the breath she had been holding as the path widened again, and she paused for a moment to appreciate the ground under her feet. Suddenly, she frowned. The top of the mountain had come into view, and on either side of a gaping cavern entrance stood an oddly-dressed, tall individual. They both had hair like polished copper and wore black, baggy robes tied with shabby lengths of leather. One was slightly taller than the other, but their features were incredibly similar. As they approached, two identical pairs of intensely violet eyes watched them suspiciously. The black slitted pupils followed their steps with a rather eerie precision.

"Adeon," the one on the left---the taller one---intoned. His companion on the right said nothing, but now that Catherine was closer, she noticed features that were daintier and a little less angular than the other's. It was hard to tell with the waves of fabric that covered her frame, but she seemed to be a female.

"Hello, Shax," Adeon said cheerfully. "Sher. Lovely to see you again. Catherine, meet Shax, and this is his sister---" As he moved to indicate to the female dragon, however, the two drew closer together, barring them from the entrance. Adeon's expression darkened, and he reached out to pull Catherine behind his arm. "Is there a problem?" he asked softly, and the points of his teeth were just a touch more prominent than they had been earlier.

"She's a human," the female, (Sher, Catherine assumed), said. Her voice was quiet but authoritative, and she seemed to speak in a consistent dark mutter. "Grindel doesn't---"

"Then why don't you go fetch him?" Adeon said through gritted teeth, glowering down at her. She returned his glare challengingly and stayed silent for several minutes, but then turned sharply on her heel and strode down the corridor in a flurry of billowing robes and long, streaming copper hair. Adeon arched an eyebrow and turned to Shax, who raised his hands defensively as if to deflect the blame that Adeon was projecting through his stare.

"Sorry," he said in a defeated sort of voice. "It isn't my place to decide."

"Oh, the fault is mine," Adeon replied scathingly. "I was quite unaware that we had established a monarchy..."

"Don't be ridiculous. It's a matter of safety."

"Yes, she looks frightfully dangerous, doesn't she?" Adeon snarled. Catherine's gaze snapped up to regard him with righteous indignation. Yesterday she had killed two people---possibly more---and she had felt quite dangerous indeed until Adeon's remark. However, after seeing the way that the two dragons had eyed her warily, she decided to keep her mouth shut.

"What's a Grindel?" she whispered instead, tugging on Adeon's green sleeve, and his jaw seemed to set with annoyance.

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered.

"If it isn't our good friend Adeon, returned at last," a voice sighed, echoing richly off the walls of the cavern. It was a slow, precise voice, almost like Adeon's but deeper, smoother, like sugar and cream. Catherine looked towards the noise with a start and tried to ignore the layer of gooseflesh that had cropped up on her arms.

Emerging from the gloom of the cavern behind Sher was an enormous man with a jaw-length crop of shaggy black hair and sun-kissed skin the hue of tarnished brass. He was wearing a battered pair of dark trousers but no shirt, and Catherine, (who could still count the number of shirtless men she had seen throughout her entire life on one hand), resisted the urge to look away out of modesty. He was just as tall as Adeon, but the thick, hard muscles that ran under his skin made him seem...larger. His shoulders were broad and taut and lazily stooped, and he had his fingers tucked casually into his pockets. When he sauntered out into the daylight, the sun caught a pair of eyes that were like twin pits of amber. Sher seemed to give him a wide berth and keep her gaze low as she moved quickly to join her brother's side.

"And what's this?" he continued delightedly, dropping down onto one knee so he was eye-high with Catherine and only inches away. His fierce grin exposed a mouthful of strong white teeth, and his canines seemed much larger and more plentiful than they should have been. "Tasty little thing, isn't she? Entertainment? A snack? Surely she's too dainty to make a good meal..." Panic squeezed at Catherine's ribcage as he regarded her hungrily, and Adeon's arm, the only thing separating the two of them, rose warily to push her back a little more.

"This is Catherine," Adeon said in a slow, dangerous voice. "She's...a friend."

"New friends. How wonderful," he gushed in a way that might have implied exactly the opposite, although Catherine couldn't quite tell. He had an air of clever confidence about him that seemed to made detecting his sarcasm difficult. When he spoke again, he stared levelly at her from over Adeon's arm like a tiger watching a tiny mouse cower in a cage. "Well, Catherine, you may call me Grindel, since Adeon doesn't seem willing to introduce me. Very rude of him, really."

"Are you going to tell me why I'm being denied admittance?" Adeon interjected moodily, glaring daggers at Grindel, who finally tore his eyes from Catherine to fix him with a calm stare. He finally straightened up and arched his bare torso in a leisurely stretch. Every inch of him radiated magnificent indifference.

"Perhaps there are those who disagree, but I find it wise to keep our numbers separate from the beings who mean to kill us. Man is a conniving creature." His gaze flitted briefly back to Catherine. "Although this one seems far too small to be a proper spy..."

"I'm not a spy," Catherine said dully, trying to look as unperturbed as she could. The reality of her situation was beginning to hit her hard: she had essentially wandered into a pit of carnivorous creatures who were very capable of swallowing her whole, and some of them seemed rather eager to do so. "I don't even know how to use a sword properly."

Grindel's eyes seemed to light up as she spoke, and his smirk accentuated the sharp slant of his cheekbones. "Helplessness is rather exciting to dragons, darling. It would be wise of you not to emphasize yours." Unable to manage anything else, Catherine only stared at him. Adeon's shoulders tensed, and Grindel raised an eyebrow when he saw the other dragon's hands clench into fists. "Or perhaps it's why Adeon here finds you so endearing."

"May we enter, or shall I go?" Adeon asked stiffly. Grindel heaved a rather melodramatic sigh and gazed skywards in resignation.

"Your friends are my friends, dear Adeon. I shall defer to your judgement," he finally said, his long fingers flitting through the air as he waved his hand vaguely. Then he bent into a parody of a bow, and the other two dragons sidled away from the entrance. "Please, come inside." Adeon glanced back at her from over his shoulder, and she swallowed before taking his hand and following him towards the entrance. Will you walk into my parlour? "Watch your step," Grindel told Catherine, dipping down to smile widely at her. The movement brought his face incredibly close, and she kept her eyes fixed on the ground as she scuttled hastily past him.

As they walked, Catherine gave Adeon's hand a hopeful squeeze. "That wasn't nearly as terrifying as it could have been," she offered, and he only shook his head. "Is he...is he like a king, or something...?"

"Just as there are no dragon armies, there are no dragon kings," he said dryly. "Although I'm sure Grindel fancies himself one..."

"Did he really want to eat me?" she asked quietly, and when he glanced down at her, his expression seemed to soften.

"Grindel is a rather mischievous individual, and frightening people is something he takes great pleasure in. I'm sure he was only toying with you." He suddenly flashed her a smile that boasted a dangerous amount of teeth. "But on the off-chance that he wasn't, I'd like you to know that I would turn the whole world to ash before I let him touch you." Catherine's lips parted in near-awe at the promise in his words, but then she offered him a sly smile.

"And I would be right next to you with one of the swords I don't know how to use," she told him. Heat stung her cheeks as he promptly burst into gales of loud, sincere laughter that rippled off of the rock walls and echoed in her ears. He stooped down and kissed the area behind her jaw once his mirth had subsided; uttering a low, amused sort of growl as his lips brushed her earlobe.

"My little warrior," he sighed against her skin. She shivered and grinned. Something about his voice always seemed to turn her blood into something hot and heavy, and her legs felt weak until she glanced over her shoulder and saw Grindel's silhouette striding purposefully towards them.

"He's coming," she hissed, tugging insistently at his hand. He looped his arm around her waist and drew her further and further into the dimly-lit cave until it opened abruptly into an enormous, bowl-shaped cavern.

And it was brimming with scores upon scores of dragons.

The majority of them were in bipedal forms and dressed in a motley assortment of clothes, but there were some that had donned their scales and were curled up in corners. The room was filled with a riotous spectrum of hair colors and skin tones and scales, as well as fervently muttering voices. Catherine stopped next to Adeon and gripped his arm, surveying her surroundings with a weak sort of awe.

"Impressive, isn't it?" he murmured.

"Very. Are they all---"

"Dragons? Oh, yes. Most of them, anyway. I'm afraid I had to bend the rules for one other dragon as well." Catherine stiffened as Grindel strode calmly into her peripheral vision, and he smiled brightly at the look of trepidation on her face. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. From the corner of her eye, Catherine thought she saw Adeon frown. "The elders have even arrived, although they certainly didn't hurry. I suppose time becomes irrelevant when you've been alive for close to a millennia," Grindel continued, his honey-hued eyes making a lazy trek across the room before resting on her face. Before he spoke again, he offered her a crooked smile that she did not return. "Welcome to the dragon councils, sweet Catherine. I do hope you enjoy your stay."

---

((Hi, everyone! Wow, sorry for the wait on this, but I've been super busy with just about everything. Plus this chapter wound up being a lot longer than I thought, and I became a bit obsessed with a certain character and wanted to write more about them. I have nearly fifteen pages written for the next two chapters. Oops.

Anyway, I have some really spectacular news that I'm super excited about. I've been writing all of these in different documents so that they're easier to edit before submitting, and the other day, I got a wild hair and decided to copy and paste every single chapter into a single Google Docs document. In double-spaced, 10-point Verdana font, Treasure is now over 150 pages long, which takes the record for the longest story I've ever written. Add in the fact that I have the ending figured out, and it will also be the longest story I've ever finished. Which is a big deal. I'm pretty horrible at ending stuff. As of now, there should only be three chapters left.

I'd really like to thank everyone who's been reading all of these submissions. You've been so kind and supportive throughout this whole process, and in doing so, you helped me write a story. A real story, with conflicts and resolutions and character development and long, awesome chapters that are twenty pages long instead of ten. I'll probably go back and edit the living hell out of it once it's finished, (recently, I've been looking back at the earlier submissions and cringing), and maybe make it into an ebook, if that's something you would all be interested in.

I love you guys. And the next chapter should be out soon, because, well, it's half-finished. I'm so all over the place with this. Talk to you all soon!))