Dragon Mated: Supernatural Prison #3

by Jaymin Eve

  Claws attached to the spiked crown which ran down my spine, and I was jerked back, painfully, as a handful of hair caught in that hold and ripped out in chunks.

  I flipped over, flinching as more flesh and hair tore from my body, but I didn’t let that stop me from clawing out. I was too close to freedom to give up now. The light was at its brightest about twenty yards from where we fought. My dragon could cross that in seconds. I just needed a distraction or something.

  My claws dug in deeply. The belly was about the only soft place on the crimson beast, and I didn’t hesitate to tear free masses of flesh. Blood rained across me. Larky bellowed again, but didn’t fight. He was only trying to contain me.

  Maybe that was my advantage.

  I lunged for his throat, my claws again finding traction in the soft belly, my teeth slicing through scales to rip into his flesh. The dragon king could do nothing but hold me. I was too close to his body for him to defend against my attack. He was bellowing, feeling the pain, but not enough for his grip to loosen. I clamped my jaws harder and tore in a clean jerk. Bone crunched, flesh tore, a rain of deep, rich blood almost black in color washed across me.

  Larky swayed then, and I knew that this time I’d hurt him. He wouldn’t die, but maybe it was enough to escape. His hold on me felt precarious, and even though I knew it was going to hurt like hell when I tore myself from him, I didn’t hesitate. I thrust my wings sideways and propelled myself away. Sure enough, pain cut through me like a knife, sharp and burning, rending away chunks of hair and flesh, one or two of those large spines ripping from my body.

  The pain was excruciating, but I’d been hurt before – I could do this. I continued flapping, my rainbow vision growing tunnel-like. My movements were like a swimmer trying to backpedal in a lake to escape an alligator, desperate and uncoordinated, but I was making distance. I heard movement behind and knew Larky had started to recover, his dragon body repairing. His beast was damn strong.

  But I was almost free.

  Black dots danced in my vision. I managed to hold on until the light was so blinding that it was impossible to see anything else but the white of the land. As my mind went all gray, the world blurring, I realized I’d made it. I was out of the labyrinth.

  With that thought the world went dark.

  Chapter 6

  The first thing that registered through my haze was the snarling. A multitude of angry howls seemed to be shaking the land on which I lay. I had no problem recalling the last few moments before the blackout. I’d been trying to escape, hoping to lead the dragon king from Jacob…

  “Jessa babe…”

  The low, harshly-uttered words wrapped around me. Familiar. Safe. Family and pack all in one.

  “You better fucking repair every ounce of damage, Louis, or I’m going to enjoy the taste of sorcerer blood.”

  The guttural nature of Maximus’s voice deepened and my heart started this strange pitter-pattering, even though I was struggling to rise from the last of my unconscious. Pain was there, in these wave-like jabs, but much of that was dulled in my half-aware state.

  “I am fixing her. I’m starting to find it less amusing the way you Compasses continue to threaten me when you know very well that I love Jessa too. I’m a goddamn level ten sorcerer. I have entire supernatural races cowering at my feet, but not you four hotheads.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we get it. You’re all amazing and powerful, but you can add dead to that list if you don’t start healing her. Oh, and shut the fuck up while you’re at it.” That was Tyson, my wizard quad. They were all here with me. My heart swelled and the pattering increased to some sort of gallop.

  The boys’ advanced hearing would be picking that up, hopefully reassuring them that I was okay.

  As much as I was ecstatic to be with my pack, where the heck was Braxton? Of any of them, he would have been the first at my side, so something must be wrong. It was this thought, teamed with another ground-shaking roar, that gave my body the kick-start it needed to clear the last of the fogginess. The pain hit me harder, sharp and biting, no longer dulled by my mental state. I was hurting – not the worst I’d had, but enough to give me more than a moment’s pause.

  My eyes fluttered open. The brightness of the world overwhelmed me and I was blinded for a few seconds. Heat washed over me. I’d been healed enough times to recognize the sensation.

  “Holy shit, thank the freakin’ gods,” Tyson said as his strong arms wrapped under me and lifted me into his body. “Dammit it, Jess, I’m starting to think Maximus was right all those years ago.”

  “I’m always right,” Maximus said from somewhere to the side, “but for the record, if you’re talking about not being friends with girls, I might make an exception for Jessa. Life wouldn’t be quite the same without her.”

  I shook my head against the hard shoulder it was pressed to. Wrapped in Tyson’s arms, my body started to relax, and I barely noticed as Louis finished the last of his healing. I could see the handsome, aristocratic features of the sorcerer from the corner of my eye. He gave me a wink, and I flipped up the edge of my lips in a semblance of a smile. A quick glance down assured me that not only was Louis healing the holes in my body, but he’d also clothed me in jeans, a tank and nice ass-kicking boots. I loved magic – except when it was used against me, then I hated it. It was a complicated relationship.

  I finally pulled back to see Tyson clearly. His auburn hair was quite short at the moment, spiked up in a mini-mohawk style. I’d never seen it like that, and for a second something hurt inside of me. Okay, it was a stupid thing to get upset about after everything that had happened in the past month, but to feel that even a small part of these boys was unfamiliar to me, well, it was a slippery slope to a division in our pack. I would never accept that. Never.

  His honeysuckle eyes, which had just the slightest threads of gold through them, brightened as we continued to stare, memorizing each other. I desperately wanted to ask where Braxton was but I was afraid to hear the answer. I could see nothing in the vicinity around me, though those roars had come from somewhere.

  “My turn,” Maximus demanded, shoving his brother to the side and wrenching me into him. The vampire Compass’s strong body trembled as he held me, and I found myself wrapping my arms as tightly around him as I could, offering comfort, warmth, and the knowledge that I was here. I was safe. They had finally found me.

  Eventually, I couldn’t wait any longer. “Did Jacob make it out? And where is Brax?”

  Maximus set me on my feet, and after a quick hug from Louis, I was soon in the center of a man sandwich. The three massive males made me look positively petite, which I freaking hated. Someone get me a goddamn ladder, I was getting out alpha’d here by a stupid quirk of genetics.

  “We haven’t seen Jake since he followed you into the labyrinth.” Maximus looked more than a little worried about his fey brother.

  “I left him in there after I made sure Larky followed me,” I said in a hurry. “I’m going to kick his scrawny ass so bad. When the dragon dick attacked us, he decided to be a freaking sacrifice and took off.”

  My attitude came out in full force when I was freaked out. Jacob better be okay.

  “Who the hell are you calling scrawny?”

  A surge of relief just about dropped me to my knees. I swung around to find Jacob and Jonathon, my father, striding out of the darkness near the end of the maze. My feet started to move then and I sprinted to reach them. I threw myself at Jonathon. He caught me with ease. We hugged for a long time before eventually I pulled back to stare into his comforting face.

  His blond hair was extra bright here, but I was surprised to see that his eyes, dark blue like my own, were sunken, with some very fine lines visible around them. My father was not old for a shifter, only a few hundred years, so he still looked early thirties, but clearly the stress of recent times had taken its toll. I had a brief worry that maybe something else back home had happened. I really hoped Lienda and Mischa were okay.

  M
y twin was never far from my thoughts; I could always feel her in my head and heart. We had been bonded from the moment she’d unlocked her powers; a part of me was irrevocably linked to her, very faint now with the distance between us, but I believed I’d know if there was anything serious going on with her.

  Jonathon’s strong hands remained on my biceps, holding me in place. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Jess. It’s been hell the last few weeks, absolute hell, and I know that it’s not over yet, but with all of us back together I believe we can beat him. We can finish this. There is no other choice.”

  I had so much to tell them, all the things I’d learned in the castle, but that would have to wait until I found my mate.

  I swiveled a glare on Jacob. He opened his mouth but I cut him right off. “Don’t say a mutha-effing word. I will deal with you later. For now we have bigger problems.”

  The asshat didn’t even have the decency to look worried. If anything, his eyes were sparkling as he tried not to laugh.

  “Hey, Jess, Jake, Jonathon…” shouted Maximus. “Come on, we have to help Brax.”

  Spinning around I saw that the other boys had not followed me across to my father. I spotted their backs before they disappeared into the brightness.

  Braxton needing help had my feet scrambling and my heart racing. I headed in their direction even though I couldn’t see them any longer. Jacob and Jonathon caught up to me within a few strides, and we moved in a single-file line across this land of white and light. I guessed this was the center of Faerie, the place that would lead us to the Isle of the Gods.

  I was trying to remember what Rose had said about this area. Could Larky have followed me here? I was pretty sure Rose had told me he was able to be in this center place. With Braxton? Holy shit!

  My feet were slamming against the white ground, my eyes cataloguing everything. There were no defining features here, just the darkness of the labyrinth behind us and the blinding white in front. I couldn’t really see more than about five feet in front of me.

  As we ran Jonathon reached out to take my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I’ve dreamed about hearing your voice again, Jess. I really missed your snark. Your mom and sister have been beside themselves with worry. Mischa especially. Your sister is fading away without you. We need to let them know you’re safe as soon as possible.”

  “Hopefully we’ll be back with them soon,” I said, giving my father a smile, relieved to hear that my family had been alive and well the last time he saw them. I wanted to ask him more, but now just wasn’t the time. I needed to focus on this place, and Braxton.

  From what Rose had said, this was the center of Faerie, the area where we would find the path to the Isle of the Gods, but it was almost a nothing space. Just as I was wondering if we’d be lost in this land of white forever, I realized the landscape was changing. As if a fog were lifting from the space beyond us, I could now make out some mountainous shapes. Very odd mountains. They almost looked like large mounds of coral, the sort of coral which was dead, leached of all life.

  “What the hell is this place?” I murmured as my boots crunched on the coral pieces littering the path. I was starting to really panic about the fact that Larky had most probably followed me out of the labyrinth. I’d been trying to protect Jacob, and had instead put the rest of my pack in danger. Especially Braxton.

  “Brax…” I breathed, having a very good idea now of what that thumping and bellowing had been when I first awoke.

  I ran harder, a scattering of white raining around us as I scrabbled through the now-rocky terrain. We were climbing higher, and something told me at the top of the coral hill I’d find not only the doorway to the four lands, but also my mate battling against the supe who had taken me from him. I never had any doubt that I belonged to Braxton, just the same as he belonged to me. That was how true mateship worked. You didn’t own the other. No, that was for cars and houses. It was more that you couldn’t exist without the other. In the same way that my heart and lungs belonged to me, were part of me, were essential to my survival, Braxton was that and more. He was my soul.

  Something shifted in my body, heat licking along me, and that sensation which always sat at the nape of my neck when Braxton was near started to increase. Another piece of our bond had sealed, but still a dissension remained. Whatever choice I still had to make was keeping the bond from completing. The fates had told me that I would face a choice, a sacrifice, one that might cost the supernatural world everything. I was starting to see that for Braxton I just might not give a shit about the rest of the world.

  My frantic pace had separated me from Jonathon and Jacob, but the steepness of the terrain soon slowed me and they caught up. Together the three of us managed to keep balance as we climbed. My dragon lifted her head a few times, asking if I needed her help, but I gave her a quick pat and she soon settled. It was nice to know she was there now if I needed her, easily in reach, no barrier between us.

  As I leaned over to stabilize myself on the very steep incline, I was hit with that dull ache in my back again. It gave me a moment’s pause as I recalled the chipmunk attack in the labyrinth.

  Jonathon must have noticed my expression; he reached out and captured my forearm.

  “Is everything okay, Jess?”

  I swallowed, wiggling my lower half to try and relieve the pain. “I got hurt when we were fighting in the labyrinth, and every now and then I’m hit with this dull spasm of pain across my lower back.”

  Jacob’s hand pressed against my lumbar area then, gently, in a light massage of sorts. “You shouldn’t still be in pain,” he said. “Not only did you shift, but Louis healed you, and he would never miss an injury.”

  I shrugged, before sort of arching away from Jacob’s hand. The fey looked confused and then worried, his brows drawing together as he examined me closer. Generally, I loved massages. I was the queen of relaxation, and rub downs were the shit, but right now it was not a pleasant sensation.

  “It’s like my body doesn’t want to be touched,” I said, feeling my own brows drawing in closer. “It’s pain, but it’s dull and deep. Maybe I have some sort of internal damage and Louis didn’t realize, so it’s still healing.”

  I was clutching at straws here. We all knew that the moment I shifted into my dragon just after the attack, all wounds would have healed. Dammit, we had enough to deal with without me having some kind of body breakdown.

  “Well, just take it easy until we can get you checked out, Jess.” Jonathon’s hug was very gentle, as if he sensed how much I didn’t want to be touched. Odd, considering that I was a pack animal; we loved hugs and touching, and all the men had hugged me just before and it hadn’t bothered me. Maybe it wasn’t a body breakdown. Maybe it was mental.

  We continued our trek, both men shooting me worried glances, but no one said anything, and thankfully they didn’t offer to carry me the rest of the way or something. I was lucky it was Jonathon and Jacob, the least pushy of our pack. Even though my father was an alpha, he was always content to let me be my own alpha chick. Maximus and Braxton wouldn’t even have given me a choice. I’d be getting carried up this mountain whether I liked it or not.

  “Almost there,” Jacob said, not an ounce of fatigue in his voice, even though I knew he had to be as tired as I was. He’d expelled all that elemental energy in the labyrinth. “I can see the peak of this mountain, and there looks to be blue sky above.”

  Wow. About freaking time color showed its face.

  I’d just started catching flashes of this blue when a rumbling thump hit the land close to us. It shook the entire side of our range, and if we hadn’t dived to the ground, all of us would have fallen off the side. I decided to crawl the rest of the way; the aftershocks were too strong for us to stand yet, but I was getting up there one way or another.

  The dead coral bit into my skin, but the cuts soon healed. Finally, the spark of blue sky came into full effect. The whiteness around us receded and I was able to see the true scope of our surroundings.
Unlike the last time we’d been in Faerie, where the sky had been green, it was now the brightest of blue I had ever seen, a true sapphire color.

  “Your eyes look incredible, Jess.” Jacob was at my right shoulder, both of us still half crouch-climbing, trying to make it onto the peak. “They’re a perfect match to the sky. I wish you could see the way the reflection enhances their shine and color.”

  My reply was cut off by another rocking thud into the side of the mountain. More crumbling trails of stone littered around us. With all three of us helping each other, we found enough foot and handholds to haul ourselves safely to the top.

  I had to blink a few times to truly comprehend what lay before me.

  The land of white coral was gone, replaced by fields of green, the lush grasses bordered on one side by sparkling water. Yep, this was what I scented in the labyrinth: sunshine, beauty, nature. To top off this splendor, on the far side of the meadow were four golden bridges, long and ornate, glittering in the light sparkling across the sapphire sky. There was no visible sun, but just like the last time in Faerie, everything was lit by a magical light. The majesty of those bridges held me captive as I got to my feet – the gateways of Faerie. Even from this distance I could see they were ancient, hand-built, each section lovingly crafted by the most skilled of artist, heavily inlaid with swirling arcs on each side, lavishly tapering down to a paved road wide enough only for single file foot traffic.

  The bridges spanned off into the open sky, cut off by some sort of smoky ash hovering in the distance, a deep rich charcoal color that hid everything below the bridge. I wondered if anybody had ever fallen into those depths. What lay below?

  Another roar shook the land and I tore my eyes from the paths to focus on my pack, and then, without hesitation, I ran toward the broad, muscled backs which were across the meadow, my boots crushing the beautiful flowers and grass. There were more shouts and roars, and as I closed in on the group I counted five massive figures. Larky was no longer in dragon form.