1
Rain plummeted to the earth around Beck like a monsoon as he headed south, soaked to the bone from rivers of water that trailed down his shoulders and arms while he rode atop his horse.
As the water reached his chest and back, a deep red intermixed with it, turning it an opaque maroon that dripped down his legs and boots and onto the muddy ground.
Maybe this is it, Beck thought to himself.
This storm, like so many before, had come out of nowhere, heralded by only thick clouds and ominous lightning. Lightning that continued to shatter the dull roar of the heavy precipitation at uneven intervals, making the far-off mesas in the distance loom like stony guardians over the quiet Texas range Beck called home.
He wasn’t sure where he was right now. He and Clive, his trusty Clydesdale, were far beyond the borders of Dragonclaw Ranch at the moment.
And the bleeding just wasn’t stopping as quickly as it usually did.
It had all happened too fast. He’d been at the far western border of Dragonclaw, checking on some drainage ditches and making adjustments for the early summer rainfall they’d all been anticipating for next week.
Then the rain had come.
And one of those evil bastards had risen from the earth, looking for vengeance. A basilisk, all teeth and claws and spikes and gigantic fury. The kind of fight Beck was always itching for even if the damn thing had caught him by surprise.
Now that he was back in his human form, Beck wasn’t sure how long the fighting had gone for. He just knew he’d been able to get a good chunk out of the beast before it slunk back into the earth where it belonged.
Even if it had left him bleeding and nearly dying out on the middle of a rain-soaked prairie with nothing but his horse and barely enough strength to ride.
Beck wasn’t going to get caught off guard like that ever again.
Assuming he made it through the next hour.
A jolt of pain slashed his insides. The basilisk’s poison was working through his veins as Beck tried to fight it off. He’d felt their poison before, knew it stung like a bitch and kept his dragon healing from repairing all the damage easily, which normally wasn’t a problem when he was close to home.
But now? Everything seemed to blur together beneath the torrential rainfall.
So he just kept Clive moving south. South-ish, by his directions.
Beck knew there were spreads both big and small that neighbored Dragonclaw’s humongous territory. He’d just never been the neighborly type and, as such, had no clue who any of them were. But with no way to contact Harrison and the others and no strength to make the long ride back or shift and fly back to the safety of the ranch, all he could do was ride on and hope he ran into something.
A part of him hoped he didn’t find whoever—or whatever—he was currently looking for.
He looked down at the mud as his horse pressed on, even as Beck’s feet were starting to go numb. He couldn’t feel the reins in his hands either. The cold of the rain and the encroaching world around him was almost… welcoming.
The smell of wet earth and waterlogged grass filled his nostrils as Beck took in a deep breath, trying to steady himself on Clive’s back.
Out in the distance in front of him, it looked like he could see something, a dark shadow made blurry by the rain. Maybe a house. Or a person on a saddle. Or maybe just a single tree. But when he sat up too fast, overcorrecting for the uneven ground, the poison in him decided to hit his chest extra hard at the same time, and Beck felt himself fall to one side.
He didn’t even feel the fall, just squishy, cold soil on his left side where he’d landed. The elements were starting to take their toll, and bad luck had already crossed him once today.
Clive, the obedient cuss he always was, just stood at Beck’s side, nuzzling his shoulder. But Beck couldn’t really be bothered right now. Not to get up at least.
He reached into his back pocket and felt the small, tarnished silver coin he kept there. On one side, there was the faded depiction of some person he never knew. On the other, the mark of his dragon.
How ironic that after refusing to ever let another person have the coin, now it would probably be Beck’s grave marker.
A fitting end for a monster like him.
To his surprise, he heard the sound of wet footsteps in mud, distant at first but quickly getting closer.
“Hey, mister!” The voice was hard to make out through the rain and his dulling senses. It sounded worried, he thought.
A human.
Normally, Beck would try to scare it off because it wasn’t safe for them to be around him. But today, all he needed was someone to mark his grave.
And tell his friends.
Beck’s fingers wrapped around the coin he’d sworn he was never going to give to another living person. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled it from his pocket, shoving his hand up toward the looming shadow above him that wore a raincoat and muck boots.
“Take this,” he growled. The dragon in him, though wounded, wasn’t giving up the fight, but Beck felt he knew better.
“What happened? Why is there so much blood?” The person’s voice was higher pitched than what he’d been accustomed to at Dragonclaw. Much nicer.
Beck felt what seemed like a hand brush his knuckles, and he thrust the coin into the person’s palm, glad when he felt the other person take it.
“Get this to Harrison at Dragonclaw Ranch,” he said with a rasp.
“But what about you? We should get you help.” The person, which was still just a vague shape to Beck’s eyes, kneeled over him, and he tried to focus. Tried to see who he was looking at. But his eyes just weren’t working right now.
The rain didn’t help either, covering them both in a heavy, unstopping blanket of cold wetness.
“Tell Harrison… Tell him… Beck ain’t coming back this time.” With that, Beck’s outstretched arm went limp, and he collapsed back into the mud. He heard pacing footsteps, then the person’s hands shoving him, trying to rouse him.
But Beck had already accepted his fate. He wasn’t really made like the others at Dragonclaw anyway. He was dangerous. Everyone else knew it, and he knew it too.
Sometimes dangerous things needed to just go back into the earth.
It would be better like this, probably.
At least he’d gotten a bigger piece out of the basilisk than it had gotten from him; that was for sure.
More talking and movement around him. And as the rain started to slowly clear in the heavens above, Beck’s senses finally slipped into the unknowing blackness he’d been waiting for.
The last thing he heard was, “Don’t you die on me!”
2
He was alive. Thank heaven almighty, he was alive.
The huge man lying on the bed in front of Sierra was still unconscious, his face in tense repose. But his immense, muscled chest was rising and falling despite the blood soaking his clothing and skin.
The rain had made it look worse than it was, thankfully. In fact, what had seemed to be huge gashes on his arms and chest were already healing as his friend looked him over carefully.
“You say you found him out on the range?” Harrison, a tall cowboy with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, was eyeing her suspiciously.
She didn’t blame him. She hadn’t ever met her neighbors, so he couldn’t know they’d lived bordering each other’s land for a long time.