The following is a deleted scene out of Vampire's Forbidden Territory, released 10/17/12.
Take note, if you haven't read the book, you will find spoilers! (Scene was not edited.)
Chapter - Fire!
Clarabelle flew
silently, passing over the Basilisk Preserve, an area deep within the Sídhí
forest.
Snarling, her gray lips
curled tight above dagger-sized teeth. She knew her long, beautiful snout bore
little resemblance to its normal elegant appearance, but she couldn't help it.
Her throat ached to release pent-up dragonfire. The deadly fire bubbled deep in
the pit of her gullet, a special side-pocket connected to her throat.
She didn't dare release
the tinniest wisp of her deadly fire. A single lick of her potent flame and the
rubber containers filled with fairy water would burst before she was ready.
She had wanted Harry to
fix his own mess and hopefully learn a much-needed lesson, but quenching the
forest fire, before one of the interfering guardians showed up, was more
important than training her younger brother. How he managed to live to be a
hundred twenty years old was beyond her understanding.
She was cutting the
rescue of her bumbling brother much too close, but it had taken time to snatch
several containers of the expensive fire retardant. During the summer months,
the large rubber balloons containing fairy-water were stacked three deep at the
forest rangers storage facility located near Basilisk Pass. She thought she got
in and out of the facility before anyone noticed her. Trying to explain why she
was not at the Peace Camp and doing her assigned duty would be irritating.
Not that anyone would
connect her sleek gray body with the traitorous member of the Khr'Vurr who
kidnapped and tortured Guardian Alexander. To put it simply, she was hiding in
plain sight. A trick easily accomplished since she was a throwback to the
powerful Vürst dragons, a dragon clan thought to be extinct long before Sídhí
appeared on Earth. The only way other dragons might guess her true heritage was
by the strength of her dragonfire, but that wasn't something she could control.
Anyway, people only noticed her elegant gray scales.
Clarabelle was a true
Vürst dragon. A Vürst dragon of Sídhí lore who could tap into the synth crystal
of her blood, extending her lovely back and tail spikes any time she wanted.
Only her mate knew the truth of her bloodline and he would never betray her. He
had been the one to encourage her current plan of action as they soaked in the
hot springs beneath his castle.
She snorted in derision,
remembering the conversation. Certain members of the Khr'Vurr were becoming too
chummy with non-dragon members. The non-dragon members had been added for two
reasons, a way to extend the Khr'Vurr's power into the other valleys and a way
to search for Ancient ruins. She chuckled evilly. Non-dragon members were also
a way to create scapegoats among the Khr'Vurr. Yes, she had a lovely supply of
disposable members.
She sighed disgustedly,
knowing she would soon hand over several dragon members of the Khr'Vurr to the
guardians. She didn’t regret her decisions. A few prissy – modern thinking –
dragons needed to be culled from active duty. They'd forgotten the true purpose
of the Khr'Vurr.
In a way, the modern
thinkers were worse than the stagnate Dragon Council.
The Dragon Council
thought they were so smart, gathering hundreds of dragon together, dragons who
were suspected members of the Khr'Vurr, a righteous group of freedom fighters.
The council and guardians had stumbled happily along with Clarabelle’s plans as
they hosted the Peace Camp in an attempt to hunt down the members of the
Khr'Vurr.
Ha! She loved it! The
council was actually making her job easier. It helped that her own beloved mate
was a member of the council.
Hiding under the
guardian's snouts, keeping them in the dark was highly entertaining. She hadn't
felt this alive in hundreds of years. Yes, she walked a very fine wire, where
one wrong move and years of planning would blow-up in her face.
She wasn't concerned.
A member of the Fore’Syth
clan (a clan gifted with foresight) had 'seen' Clarabelle’s success. Failure
was not an option. She was assured a victory against the council.
With one exception, her
plans were perking along nicely and her rise to power was slowly falling into
place. She growled deep in her throat and a tiny lick of flame curled around
her snout as her mind centered on the one disaster. No, not everything was
going as planned.
It would take the
wrinkly, little gnomes several weeks of digging to reach her sister. Fury
engulfed her. For the past few days, she had grieved for her dead sister.
Once Clarabelle healed
from her serious chest injuries (and once she calmed down), she remembered one
simple fact of life: Dragons were incredibly tough, nearly impossible to kill,
even among the other Sídhí races.
The guardians never
searched the collapsed cavern, assuming her sister was dead. But until
Clarabelle held her sister's lifeless body, she wouldn't believe it. Her sister
was twelve hundred years old. And old Sídhí were nearly impossible to kill. Her
body could've been crushed and mangled, but as long as Ella’s head stayed
attached, she might be alive.
A thrill of anticipation
raced through her sleek body, running from her head to tail. Clarabelle had a
special reception planned for Guardian Alexander and those two wretched
teenagers responsible for her sister’s untimely accident. The fact that the
teens were now bonded lifeMates would intensify her pleasure each time one of
them screamed in agony.
The pungent smell of
burning furble needles pulled Clarabelle from her enjoyable dreams of
retribution.
Good thing Harry
mentally called for help the moment the fire started.
Her sharp eyes searched
the treetops, looking for the telltale plume of smoke. There. Of course, the
doofus had picked the meeting area in plain view of any dragon passing
overhead, right smack on the crest of a hill.
She grimaced as smoke
spiraled beyond the tops of furble and pine trees. The entire area was littered
with last year's pine needles. Add in the – highly flammable – furble needles
and it was a firebug's dream.
Sending Harry to set-up
the next step in her plan had been foolish. She knew it, but she kept thinking
her younger brother would grow-out of his weird affliction. Sídhí were not
perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but Harry was sadly lacking in
every area. Whoever heard of a dragon choking on his own smoke? Maybe once in a
while, but not every day.
She angled downward,
skimming past blue and green treetops. Harry appeared below her, hopping up and
down like a hibbet in heat, dashing from one blossoming blaze to the next. His
flapping wings sent gusts of oxygen to the greedy flames, increasing the size
of the burning area.
She flew lower,
preparing to drop the six desk-sized balloons of fairy-water. One by one she
staggered the balloons down the length of the grassy area. The moment the fairy
enhanced rubber detected the warmth of fire its molecular structure changed,
disintegrating the thick red rubber like a drip of water hitting a hot iron
skillet.
Once the fairy water
touched air, the synth enhanced water expanded until the nasty liquid
quadrupled its original mass.
A high pitched wail
erupted from below. The furious shrieking nearly drowned the sound of Harry's
antics. Clarisse, the traitorous Clan vampire, dashed from her hiding spot
behind a cluster of large furble trees, shaking her fist in the air and
screaming obscenities at Clarabelle.
The young vampire’s
threats came out spluttered as Clarabelle dropped her last balloon. The foul
smelling liquid crashed around Clarisse, soaking the angry vampire. Under a
face full of fairy water the girl shrieked in fury.
The horrid fairy-water,
laced with synth crystal, smelled nasty and tasted worse. The compressed liquid
filled balloon-like spheres that helicopters and dragons dropped on forest
fires that plagued the area during the dry season. The horrific smell was
something out of a nightmare, crossing spoiled milk, dog crap, and sulfur.
Whatever the twisted fairies actually did to the altered water was anyone's
best guess.
The murky water clung to
Clarisse like slime, turning her fair colored skin a sickly yellow and her
brilliant red hair into a rather splotchy orange color.
Clarabelle circled the
open area between the trees, assuring herself all the fires had been put out.
She landed. One clawed foot crunched in hot, blackened grass while the other
sank in an area drenched in fairy-water.
Harry ducked his head,
refusing to meet her angry glare.
Clarisse stomped up.
“Look at me! I'll never get this slimy mess out of my hair. It's horrid!”
“Silence,” Clarabelle
said, snapping her jaws a hair's length from the girl's short orange hair that
lay matted around her head.
“But...”
Clarabelle hissed at the
girl, throwing scorching heat in the girl's face without expelling any
dragonfire.
The girl shrieked and
stumbled backward, squalling that she could've died.
Clarabelle ignored the
teenager's foot stomping temper tantrum and turned to Harry. “Did you give her
all the instructions?”
Harry quickly nodded his
head, his mottled frog green scales not looking any worse for being drenched in
the fairy water.
“You,” Clarabelle said,
turning to the girl, “leave before I decide to add a little flame. A few holes
in your body certainly wouldn't kill you, but it would teach you not to
question your betters.”
“You aren't my boss,”
Clarisse said, shaking her finger at the gray dragon. “You can be sure that my
father will hear of this atrocity.”
Clarabelle snorted. “He
has been paid for your troubles, but your continued wellbeing, as well as that
of your sister's, relies on a job well done. Now leave!”
Clarabelle watched the
girl flounce away, stomping through the surrounding forest as if she owned the
place. The girl had an attitude, a snotty attitude that reminded Clarabelle of
her younger self. Given enough time, the hateful little teenager might grow on
Clarabelle.
