It occurred to her as she sat down that she might need food and water. She was fairly confident that she could find her way back to the area where the tunnel lay. If nothing else, it seemed likely the carnage Damien had left in their wake was bound to attract scavengers who would mark the spot. They had flown, however, and she had no idea how long it might take to hike the distance.
After a quick mental calculation, she took the quantity of food she might reasonably be expected to consume and divided it in half. When she’d eaten half, she wrapped the remainder and found a cool, dark spot near the floor to hide it, then returned to her task.
Her internal clock told her it was very late before she was finally satisfied that she’d done all that could be done. Smoothing the suit, she took it into the bedroom and looked around. She could put it in the armoire, she supposed, but she rather thought that, despite the quantity of clothing inside, the black would contrast sharply enough to stick out. After a few moments, she folded the suit and tucked it under the edge of the mattress, then crawled into the bed as she was, pulled the covers up to her chin and, within moments, slept.
She discovered when she woke that her ‘granny had come to visit’. For some unfathomable reason, that made her feel like weeping. The feminine products awaiting her in the bath surprised her, embarrassed her and finally threw her into a rage. By the time she’d called Damien every foul word she’d ever been privileged to hear, it dawned upon her that he hadn’t lied or exaggerated when he’d claimed he knew she was ripe for breeding. Without a doubt, he had the ability to sense the subtle hormonal changes the finest doctors of her world couldn’t detect with all of their science. And obviously, before she’d even known it herself, he had detected the end of her cycle.
It was beyond embarrassing.
When she’d bathed and wept herself dry, she dressed and went into the living room. There she found a breakfast tray awaited her.
She was tempted to pick the whole tray up and throw it across the room. Instead, she comported herself like the lady she had worked so hard to become. When she’d finished, she retired to the couch to entertain herself with her mother’s needlework and her thoughts.
She couldn’t understand why she felt so morose, or so tense and on edge. The moment she’d been awaiting had arrived. She hadn’t really believed Damien. More accurately, maybe, she hadn’t wanted to believe him, but she’d known she didn’t have much chance of escaping if there was even the slimmest chance that what he said was true. Even if Damien didn’t come after her, she would’ve had to worry about other male dragons finding her, but, if it was true, then this period in her cycle would be the safest to attempt a flight for freedom.
When Damien appeared with her luncheon and then left again, just as he had with her dinner the night before and her breakfast that morning, Khalia decided that she had as much freedom from observation as she was going to get.
When she’d finished her luncheon, she decided to try the door to the suite. To her relief, it opened to her command just as it had Damien’s. After glancing up and down the corridor, she hurried down the hall toward the stairs and rushed down them. She had to stop for several moments when she reached the ground floor to catch her breath.
There had to be some way out of the fortress on this floor. Damien and the guards had flown in over the ramparts, but Damien had said the females didn’t have the ability to fully shift. It was possible, of course, that they still had the ability of flight, but it seemed logical that supplies, at least, would be moved via the surface of their world in some sort of conveyance. The fortress was enormous. Fully occupied, it must hold hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people and that translated into a great deal of supplies.
Moving directly toward the outermost walls, Khalia searched, room by room, hall by hall. By the time she’d explored the circumference, she estimated that she’d been talking to walls for at least three hours. She hadn’t seen anything that even remotely resembled a door. “Open” had opened a lot of doors, but none that led beyond the fortress.
Disheartened, she turned toward the stairs. She doubted Damien would bring her dinner for another hour at least, but she didn’t want to chance being outside the room when he did arrive.
She discovered she’d misjudged the elapsed time. She was still panting for breath when the door opened and Damien stepped into the room with her dinner tray. Holding her breath, she stared at him wide eyed for several moments, ducking her head toward the needlework in her lap when she saw that he would glance her way.
Instead of leaving as he had each time before, he paused, studying her. Khalia thought she would pass out with the effort to regulate her heart rate and breathing. Finally, without a word, he turned and vanished through the door once more.
Khalia let out the breath she’d been holding and got to her feet shakily, wondering just how acute his senses were. Could he hear and smell things that no human could, like some of the beasts on her world? Or was his hypersensitive awareness limited to the reproductive process?
Despite all he’d told her and all she’d learned, she still knew very little about this world or the inhabitants of it.
He could not have known she was out searching the fortress for an escape route, however. Surely, if he had, he would have come in search of her … unless he knew that flying was the only way out and she didn’t have that ability?
She shook her head. She was allowing her imagination to run wild with her. If he suspected anything at all, it was because she’d behaved so guilty--stared at him and attracted his attention--been breathing so heavily he would’ve had to have been deaf not to notice.
He’d left, though, without commenting on it. How was she to take that? Would he be laying in wait for her the next time she ventured forth? Or had she been right to begin with? He wasn’t worried because there was no way out.
She was exhausted, emotionally and physically and by the time she’d eaten, it took an effort to stay awake. She went into the bath and splashed cold water on her face. She didn’t have time to pamper herself. Her courses never lasted more than a few days and that left a narrow enough window of opportunity as it was. She had to find a way out, fast, or she might lose any chance of returning to Earth.
Her reproductive situation aside, Damien was bound to think it would be safe to move her and was probably making arrangements even now.
When she decided she had waited long enough that Damien was probably settled in his own suite for the night, she went to the door and cautiously checked the corridor. To her relief it was empty. Hurrying now, she rushed to the stairs and down them once more. She paused when she reached the ground floor, wondering if she should try checking it one more time. Finally, she decided to check the basement level. It seemed doubtful that she would find anything, but it was possible that there was a subterranean entrance to the place, perhaps a tunnel leading through the mountain the fortress hugged.
The stairs ended at a corridor that led, she discovered, directly to the exit she’d been searching for.
Chapter Seven
Khalia was tired and she hadn’t even found the end of the tunnel. It was just as well that she hadn’t spared the time to explore the exit even a little before she’d returned to the suite and prepared to leave. She wasn’t certain if she had that she would’ve been willing to face the prospect.
Instead, as soon as she’d found the exit, she’d hurried back upstairs, changed into her mended suit and gathered the food and water she’d hoarded for her trek. As nearly as she could tell, the tunnel was straight, and aligned due north--or, at least what she thought of as north. Who knew what was what on this strange world? The desert lay south of the fortress and thus the tunnel to her own world. It was a setback, particularly when she had no idea of how far out of her way this tunnel would lead her, but she’d found no other route.
She couldn’t fly, and even if she was desperate enough to try to climb down the almost smooth outer wall from the ramparts, she doubted she would’ve be
en able to find rope to aid her in the climb. The basement and tunnel could be nothing but a service entrance. It was too poorly lit to be anything else. These lights functioned in the same way as most of the lights she’d seen since her arrival--they illuminated in the presence of a living being, or perhaps movements--and they went off again when that person left the area. In the tunnel, however, there was no broad illumination. Instead, single globes, widely spaced, lined the ceiling of the tunnel. Once she’d walked for a time, both ends lay in darkness, not just the one before her.
Shivering uneasily, Khalia increased her pace. She’d been walking for nearly an hour when she came upon a cavernous room. Although the illumination was somewhat better, the room was filled with shelves that were in turn filled with boxes and barrels of every size and shape, and the towering shelves cut off a good bit of light. She continued straight and discovered that, in roughly the center of the room, was a sort of cross road. Standing in the center, she could see at each end of the room a tunnel like the one she’d been following, these branching east and west.
Without debating the matter, she turned east, certain that it would take her somewhat closer to her destination than the west bound tunnel. She had not been following the east bound tunnel long when she heard a sound from behind her. Instantly, the hair along her nape prickled. She halted abruptly, whirling to look behind her. Blackness greeted her and another shiver traveled along her spine.
She’d almost decided her imagination was playing tricks on her when she heard another faint sound. “Damien?” she called shakily.
There was no answer. Instead, she saw a form moving through the darkness toward her. Her heart leapt into her throat. She was suddenly certain that it wasn’t Damien.
Whirling, she raced down the tunnel. She had a head start on whoever it was. Moreover, the tunnel wasn’t big enough for a shifter--she didn’t think. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it was something.
The boots she’d borrowed had high heels and weren’t designed for running. They weren’t particularly comfortable for walking for that matter, but she’d arrived barefoot. She hadn’t worn shoes since. It hadn’t seemed to matter since she’d been confined to the fortress, primarily the suite, and the floors were carpeted. She hadn’t wanted to be forced to walk barefoot through the desert, however.
Now, she was almost sorry she’d decided to wear the boots instead of carrying them. She thought she might have been able to run faster without them. On the other hand, the skirt of her suit restricted her movements, as well. She knew from the sounds behind her that whoever, or whatever, it was, it was gaining on her, but she didn’t dare spare the time to look back to see how much.
She’d begun to despair of her chances of escaping it when, dimly, ahead of her, the lights illuminated a door. If it was an exit, and not simply a door to another room, or another corridor, she might have chance. It occurred to her, though, that if it was an outer door, it would almost certainly be locked for security. As she raced toward it, she frantically searched it with her gaze. There was no sign of a knob or lever and no sign of the sort of locks she was familiar with. It might open when she neared it and it might not. It was possible that, like the door to the suite, it required a voice to open it. She began yelling ‘open’ before she reached it. Nothing happened. “Princess Khalia! Open!” she yelled breathlessly.
The door remained stubbornly closed and she had a bad feeling it wasn’t going to open when she reached it.
It didn’t.
She slammed into it and bounced back. When she hit the floor, she spared a glance back at last to see what it was behind her and how imminent it was. The thing behind her was far more terrifying than a dragon. It had the barrel chest of a bull, but neither of the two heads protruding at the ends of the snake-like necks looked bull-like. One looked like some sort of prehistoric cat, the other vaguely resembled a dog. Both heads sported wide, slathering jaws full of long, spiky teeth.
Scrambling to her feet, Khalia launched herself at the door again, clawing at the edges while she babbled every combination of ‘Open up, Damn it to Hell’ that she could think of. It opened so abruptly, she sprawled outside. Someone, or something, grabbed her. She screamed, trying to fight it off.
It grunted, a sound of satisfaction rather than pain or exertion, as it lifted her off the ground, wrapping two huge, hairy arms around her. Mindless with fear by now and expecting that thing that had been behind her to land on both her and her captor any second, she clawed at the arms and finally reached behind her to claw at her captor’s face. He released her abruptly, but before she’d managed to take three steps, he caught the cloth of her suit, jerking her to a halt. She twisted, trying to pull free, but a meaty fist connected with her head. The shock of terror prevented her from feeling a great deal of pain. Instead, like the distorted sound from beneath water, she heard a smacking, meaty sound, felt her head ricochet off of something immovable and then blackness welled around her as she recoiled backward and hit the ground again.
* * * *
Damien had been pacing the ramparts for hours, as he had nightly, and much of his days, as well, since he had been sent to meet the princess Khalia, daughter of Rheaia and take her to safety. He was all too aware of the source of most of his restlessness.
Unfortunately, Khalia was also.
It would have been easier to bear, he thought, if she found his touch distasteful.
He was likely to lose his head, literally, over her before this was done.
He was a noble and of superior blood lines, but his position was not elevated enough for him to be seriously considered by the council as a prospective mate for a royal. It seemed more than likely that any attempt to place himself on the list would be considered an act of aggression if not outright treason.
And yet he feared he could not remain by her side to protect her, knowing he would never be allowed anything more without losing all sense of honor--without losing all sense of self-preservation.
The fact that she was no longer fertile and therefore the danger of siring a child on her had passed should have brought him some ease. It hadn’t. In truth, he hadn’t been able to think much beyond the fact that he could slake his lust for her without the disastrous consequence of siring an unacceptable heir upon her royal highness, Princess Khalia. It meant that he could avoid the slow, painful death reserved for those guilty of highest treason. It meant that he might have her as his lover for a year without having to give her up to another.
It meant that he would be condemning himself to a life of watching his place usurped by another male once a consort was selected for her and he knew he would not be able to endure it.
Now, he was desperate enough to consider a year of joy worth a lifetime of agony, but he yet retained enough honor, and enough of a sense of self-preservation to resist the impulse. That resistance was failing fast, however, and he had begun to look forward to relinquishing sole responsibility for Princess Khalia as a possibility of deliverance.
He was not comfortable about abandoning her to learn her way around strangers, but in truth he was no fit mentor for her and little more than a stranger himself. It would be for the best, he was certain, for both of them. Once she was in her uncle’s care, her days would be filled with learning the ways of government and the customs of her people. She must be prepared for coronation and begin to review those males deemed fit to rule beside her.
She was young yet, but she could not have more than four or five breeding seasons left and she would not be allowed long to settle on a consort.
If he had had even a remote tie to one of the royal houses, he might have been chosen for his skills as soldier and tactician. If her own line had not been despoiled by her mother’s unfortunate choice as a human as mate, he might still have been considered.
He felt certain, however, that neither the people nor the council would consider it acceptable for a princess, whose own lines were corrupted, to wed a male who was merely a noble.
After a
time, he shook those thoughts off. His blood had cooled--somewhat--enough at any rate that he could think more clearly, and he’d begun to realize that a part of his restlessness was the sense that something was not quite right.
When the Tear had alerted them that Khalia had passed through the barrier, there had been no time to lose, and none for any sort of concrete plans. The land where the portal lay was no longer a part of Atar, but held now by their enemies, the Baklen. It had been understood, however, that he would return at once with the princess. Under the circumstances, he had not been able to, nor had he had any way to send word explaining the delay until they had reached the fortress.
He had sent a man with word, however, as soon as he had the princess secured within the fortress.
The outpost he’d chosen was the closest to the portal, but it was a remote one and had not been used since King Caracus’ time. Regardless, it was not so remote as to preclude sending an entourage for the future queen. For nearly a week, they had been holed up in the fortress. A contingent of soldiers should have arrived by now even if not the princess’ household.
There were many possibilities to explain it and not all of them meant that there was a threat, but he’d begun to wonder if his messenger had gotten through at all--and why, if the messenger had not was there not an army currently crawling over the landscape in search of them?
Regent Maurkis, Princess Khalia’s uncle, was a weak male far more interested in his pleasure than the needs of the realm, and not particularly clever, but even so it seemed his advisors would have taken action by now.
He had been debating for the past two days whether to try to send another messenger. They were dangerously undermanned as it was, however, and if a second messenger failed to return without a regiment, he would’ve given up two more men than he could afford to lose.
It had not been safe to try to move the princess before because of her condition and, since they had been forced to linger so long that her enemies almost certainly knew of her arrival and quite possibly her vulnerability, it was equally dangerous, or perhaps even more dangerous to try to move her now than it had been before.
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