Dark Fangs: Forbidden Fugitives

Chapter Forty-Four

On this section of Sanctuary Island, the beach was scored with claw-slices and talonprints. Every time the tide rolled over the deep scribbles in the sandy stretch and smoothed out the surface, almost as if healing the ground's wounds, it didn't last more than a half-minute before the Indominus was barging over the newly restored shore again. 

     Her manic pacing had been relentless for days.  

     She was violently bored.

     In her scanning scarlet orbs, she stared intensely at the small island where her Bonded had escaped to, and the distance and obstruction of deep water made her snow-scaled hide quake with ire. How could he survive on a key so small? He couldn't! He needed food. 

     And water. Urgently. She could smell the sick amount of salt in both the air and water surrounding them all. Undrinkable. 

     A brazen roll of thunder echoed off the bones of her rib cage and quickly swelled in her throat to rupture through her monstrous jaws. This was going to be ear-splitting, as she was seething with exasperation. 

     An intensely shattering roar, charged with agitation, rocketed through her wide-spread jaws, so forceful that the water at her talons was blown backwards in a mizzle of splattering droplets and sand. Birds exploded out of the jungle behind her, and larger mammals in the vicinity could be heard remotely crashing through the brush to flee to the center of the Island, terror driving their strides. As the blare died down, the muscled structure of the I-Rex shook with the power her maw had unleashed, and a burning sensation filled her lungs as the roar finally expired. 

     She was wasting energy like this.

     Panting, her raggedly toothed muzzle shivered with soft growls of exhaustion from the roar, and irritation anew. Angry as she was, she could either pace around all day again, or try to find someway to aid her boy. She had to. He couldn't survive on a resource-deficient island! And not with the mass of injuries his body was beset by. She recalled very vividly detecting the strong scent of blood and pain all over him, from his head to his ankles. That human was wounded, like a deer slashed through the gut.

     He wouldn't live much longer. Not there. He needed help, and he needed it now.

     Releasing yet another breath of frustration, she kicked the sand again and buried her hind claws in in vigorously, giving the air a shallow and snorting screech in the direction of the islet. How could she protect him? If she tried swimming across, she'd sink and drown. 

     And what a hideous way to go.

     Giving a dissatisfied grunt, the I-Rex let her gaze roam across the skyline where it met the ocean. She sifted through intuitive plots and plans in her strong, spiny skull, devising a way to reach Drake, or aid him in someway. As her mind roved through the ideas and options, the island waters peacefully lapped at her claws as she ceased pacing for once in days. The muted breeze caressed her pale sand-speckled scales and whistled through the quill-like spikes on her cranium and spine. Birds finally began singing again, as silence from the colossal huntress set into the air. 

     When she thought, she was quiet, as her focus went directly to the contemplation working through her precocious mind.

     In a lower corner of her vision, she suddenly glimpsed a flash of movement in the waves a few good lengths out. Her head snapped downwards at an angle, nostrils flaring to catch some scent. What was that? A shark? A dolphin? A whale?

     No. No way a whale was in this shallow of water. 

     Indominus curiously took a pace forward into the tide, and a rumble released through her teeth as the temperate water licked at her tough scales, removing sand. The soft, yielding sand under the water was something to get used to as a creature as massive as her, but it felt soothing on her feet and the water was fairly warm.

     A flickering silver shape dashed through the water a few yards away once more, and Indominus's head whipped around, eyes finding the movement and fixating, like a missile locking onto a target. She blinked in surprise when suddenly her talons were swarmed by a glimmering school of some kind of fish, nibbling at her deadly claws and hard scales. As her eyes took in the phenomenon, her brows raised in consideration.

     Now, she had an idea. 

     SNAP!

     Her jaws closed around a mouthful of fish and salty water that made her nose curl in distaste. Then, blood began pooling against her tongue as the small, slippery bodies were crushed against her tongue and the roof of her jaws. Her bloody jaws rumbled a happy grunt, content with her catch. Her gaze was diverted to the island far out, where she planned on flinging the fish, for Drake. That was the only way she felt she could get food to him, so she began marching through the surf, a determined hop in her step. 

     The white Rex trudged through the soothing waves, all the way up to her chest, and that is where she halted, fearful of being dragged under by her sheer weight and lack of buoyancy. The water here was slightly darker, all this way out, and nervousness tingled through her scales and spines. What if she couldn't make it? What if he was too far out...?

     She had to try, anyway.

     Inhaling intensely through her nostrils, Indominus straightened herself, lifting her head as high as she could before curling it around to her ribs, muscles coiled and ready to fling forward with all the power she could muster. Her massive tongue adapted to adjust the fish in a more secure center point in her mouth, and then she launched forward, jaws open, slinging the mouthful of freshly butchered fish across the sea with tumultuous aim.

     Glittering silver scales flew through the air; Indominus's eyes were fiercely trained on them as they rocketed through the salty sky...and fell just a hundred yards short of the island beach. She snorted crossly at the waves lapping at her flanks, discouragement making her head reel.

     There was going to be a lot of blood in the water before she was done here.