She’s our mate, his bear told him as if he didn’t already know.
Thorn closed his eyes, he couldn’t just walk away. Not that he would have, even if his mate wasn’t down there in a cave.
He was left with one question. Why didn’t she shift and come out? If she knew he was here and that he was her mate, why didn’t she shift into her human form and leave her cave?
Because the other dragons are keeping her prisoner, his bear answered.
But why? Thorn asked in return.
Let’s go and find out, his bear replied eagerly.
Thorn’s senses were consumed with the nearness of his mate. His soul called out to her, his heart beat for her.
Which was why his ears didn’t hear the approach of intruders. And his brain didn’t register they were there until something hard hit him around the back of the head and the lights went out.
Chapter Two – Emilia
Dazed and confused, Emilia launched herself against the invisible barrier that stopped her from reaching her mate. He was so close. She could feel his presence and recognized him for what he was, the man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with. If only she could break free.
The force of her dragon’s attack rebounded on her and she flew backward, landing in her treasure and sending gold coins spewing up into the air like a fountain. Anger coursed through her as her dragon lay still for a moment, breathless and confused. How long had she been here? Why was she here? Who had done this to her?
Perry. She remembered him inviting her for a walk. It was a bright summer’s day when he held her hand and took her to the river where he’d arranged a picnic. All her favorite food was laid out on a blanket, sweet treats, and savory pies, more food than a poor family ate in a week.
He offered her champagne and she drank from an exquisite goblet, which was probably worth more than the cottage she had grown up in. He’d smiled at her. A sad smile filled with longing. Filled with guilt.
“Emilia.” A voice came to her. A voice she knew.
Magnus. Her dragon swung her head around and looked for her brother. There he was, she would know him anywhere, even if she could not clearly make out his features. The light he held in his hand did little to penetrate the darkness and she could not make out his expression.
Was he in on this, too? No, she would never believe it. She got up and placed one of her massive feet after another in front of her, as she moved toward him on unsteady legs.
Emilia stood as close as she dared to the barrier, not wanting to experience another shock from the forcefield surrounding her. Magnus. She could see him more clearly now and the siblings stared at each other through the invisible barrier. The face that stared back at her looked the same as she remembered, only instead of joy and excitement, his expression was filled with the same sadness and guilt that rested in her heart. Her breath left her body and she huffed at him, confused.
“Emilia. You’re awake.” His voice choked with emotion as he reached out to her, but he could not penetrate the barrier either. She was trapped.
Emilia tried to take a breath, but it was as if her throat had contracted and air could no longer reach her lungs. Did the barrier prevent air flowing in? Would she die of asphyxiation if she could not escape? Her tail swished, and her treasure spilled out across the ground.
“Emilia, calm down. We’re here, we’ll get you out.”
Why didn’t she believe his promise? Because Magnus was always such a terrible liar.
“Magnus.” A woman’s voice called to her brother and he turned away.
Do not leave me, Emilia called to him, but he could not hear. She had to shift, she had to become human again.
Her dragon closed her eyes and forced breath into her lungs. Expanding outward, she resisted the temptation to breathe fire. She had already tried that, but the barrier didn’t give, and the only result was a rise in temperature inside the dome surrounding her.
She imagined her human side, saw her smooth skin and shy eyes, felt the beat of her heart and the rise and fall of her breasts. Dragon and human were the same but different, linked together but eternally apart.
The air surrounding her shimmered and a rush of cool air hit her dragon as she faded from this world to be replaced by the curvaceous body of her human. Emilia fell to her knees, the sudden shock too much for her legs, which were stiff from lack of use. How long had she slept?
“Emilia.” Magnus was on his knees on the other side of the barrier. “Emilia, are you all right?”
Emilia lifted her head and looked at Magnus for help or an explanation. “What happened?” Her hands rested on her thighs, which were covered by the fabric of the dress she wore the day of the picnic, but the flowers had faded, and the fabric was thin and threadbare.
“I’ll explain once we get you out of here.” Magnus looked behind him to where a woman and a man were coming toward them carrying small lights in their hands. The man also wore one on his head. A wizard. Only a wizard could keep a flame on his forehead like that. But it was not a flame, it did not flicker and dance in the same way and the color was wrong. Had he conjured a small star to wear on his head?
Our mate is a wizard, Emilia told her dragon. At least he would have a love of all things magical and she truly believed her dragon was magic, born from the embers of a dying star.
She gazed at the man who approached. He looked dazed and rubbed the back of his head. “He is injured.” Her eyes darted to Magnus, who pressed his lips together tightly. “You hurt him.”
“We didn’t know he was your mate,” Magnus admitted. His speech had changed, his words no longer full and pronounced. A wave of fear overtook Emilia.
“How long have I slept?” She stepped to the side and studied her mate, who wore unfashionable clothes.
“Do you know how the barrier works?” Magnus asked, pulling her back to him. He hadn’t answered her question, which unnerved her. But he was right, the barrier was a bigger concern. All other questions could be answered afterward.
“Do you think I would still be in here if I did?” Emilia questioned her brother. Even though men expected her to be quiet and demure and need their protection, her brother knew better.
“No.” Magnus dragged his hand through his hair, which still remained long enough to brush his shoulders, while her mate’s hair was cropped shorter. Maybe he had been afflicted with lice recently and shorn it off.
Emilia’s eyes flicked irritably from Magnus to her mate and she spent a few moments appraising him. He would make a good husband and father to her children. If love blossomed between them, she would be truly blessed, but her mother had warned her that a woman often had to marry for necessity rather than for love. And a dragon’s necessity was to breed good stock.
“Hello, Emilia,” the woman who stood close to Emilia’s mate spoke.
“Who are you?” Emilia asked, sensing a closeness between her brother and this woman.
“This is Ruby, she is my mate.” Magnus smiled awkwardly as he made the introductions.
“How long?” Emilia had never seen this woman before, not in the village, or at any of the farms surrounding the town. Her eyes widened. “You are wearing pants!”
Ruby looked down at her legs and shuffled her feet. “I am.”
“Wait,” her mate began. “How long has she been asleep?”
Magnus drew a deep breath. “Our priority should be to get her out.”
“Magnus.” Emilia forced her brother to look at her. “How long?”
“Four hundred years.” He closed his eyes as shock spread across her face.
“Four hundred,” her voice was a dry whisper as if all those years had finally caught up with her, robbing her of her voice and her life. “So long.” Her fingers plucked at her dress, and the fabric fell away in small flakes like spring snow on the mountain.
“Emilia. Emilia, listen to me.” Her mate spoke, he was at the edge of the barrier, but his image swam before her eyes. Four hundred years. “Emilia,
” he barked, and her eyes snapped open. “We’re going to get you out of here. Everything will be okay.”
He lifted his hand and placed it against the barrier on his side, and she did the same. If she focused on her fingers, Emilia swore she could feel his presence. She nodded. “What do we have to do?”
“Good question.” Magnus turned to her mate as if expecting him to have the answer.
“What is your name?” Emilia asked.
“Thorn.” He smiled at her, and her insides turned to liquid fire. Her mother was wrong, love was easy between two people who were meant to be together.
“A pleasure to meet you, Thorn.” She lowered herself down into a curtsey, and after a second of hesitation, Thorn bowed his head.
“A pleasure to meet you, Emilia. Now let’s get you out of here.”
Confident and strong, if a little rough around the edges. Emilia liked him. More importantly, she trusted him. A lump formed in her throat. She had trusted Perry. Now it seems she had been mistaken. The picnic, drinking champagne, that was the last thing she remembered. He had given her a sleeping draft and she had slept for four hundred years.
“Emilia. It’s going to be all right.” Magnus sounded more confident now.
“How are you here?” Emilia asked as the next question hit her. “How are you here looking identical to the last time I saw you? Why have you not aged?”
A sad smile drifted across his lips. “Because I slept, too.”
“You were in on it?” she asked hotly. “You and Perry plotted together? Why did you want us to sleep for so long?”
“No.” Magnus raised his hands in denial. “I encountered Perry on the mountain, he said you had fallen to your death…” His voice cut off in a choked sob.
“Magnus.” She wanted to reach out and comfort him, but she was powerless. Instead, his mate, Ruby, put her arms around her brother’s shoulders.
“You can catch up when we get this barrier down.” Thorn stepped closer, looking up and down. “Do you have any idea what powers it?”
“Powers it?” Ruby released Magnus, her brow furrowed as she questioned Thorn. “What do you mean powers it?”
“The barrier was put here before your electricity was invented,” Magnus told Thorn. “It must be a spell.”
Thorn frowned. “Four hundred years is a long time for a powerful spell like this to keep working.”
“The spell that kept us asleep worked that long,” Magnus pointed out.
“I get that. But this spell is different. It would take a significant amount of power.” He pressed his hand against the barrier, and it pushed him back a step. He repeated the action several times.
“Are we going to stand here all day or are we going to figure this out?” Ruby asked hotly. “We’ve been all around the barrier, Tiberius has researched the ancient spells that might have been used to conjure this. But nothing. We also searched for an object on this side of the barrier that might be emanating outward, but we found nothing.”
“Tiberius?” Thorn inquired as he pressed his hand against the barrier once more.
“Yes, he is the mate of…” Ruby looked at Thorn with distrust.
“The mate of….” Thorn arched an eyebrow. “Let me guess, the dragon who flies in every few days?”
“You’ve been spying on us?” Ruby accused, the tension in her body evident. They didn’t trust this man who was her mate. Why? Emilia peered at him in the gloom. There was something familiar about him but unless he, too, had slept for four hundred years, they had never met before today.
“Do you blame me?” Thorn asked as he began edging his way along the outside of the barrier, pressing his fingers against it every few steps. “You walk into the museum with a man who’s been missing for hundreds of years and you expect me to shrug and accept it, no questions asked?”
“He has a point,” Magnus agreed evenly and received a glare from his mate.
“Who else did you tell?” Ruby stalked after Thorn, and Emilia, despite her lack of strength, followed, too. It was as if there was an invisible thread connecting them, pulling her along.
“No one,” Thorn answered quickly.
“And you expect us to believe you?” Magnus asked, also trailing along behind Thorn.
Thorn shrugged. “Makes no difference to me either way.”
“Wait, of course, you didn’t tell anyone. You are a treasure hunter, you thought you would find a dragon shifter’s treasure and sell it and make your fortune.” Magnus spat out his accusation. Treasure hunters had been an age-old threat to dragons. It appeared some things had not changed.
“I don’t care what you think.” Thorn’s eyes flicked up to Emilia’s face.
“But you do care what Emilia thinks.” Ruby was astute, a strong woman, not the kind to back down. A good match for Magnus, Emilia approved.
Thorn stopped. “Look, we can either stand around sharing our life stories or we can get this barrier down.”
“So, you can steal your mate’s treasure?” Ruby stood, hands on hips, glaring at Thorn.
“No!” Thorn replied in exasperation.
“That’s all we needed to know,” Magnus told him.
A mischievous glint in Thorn’s eyes told Emilia he wanted a little fun after his admission. “I wouldn’t steal from my mate. But there’s a whole heap of your treasure in the first cave.”
Emilia giggled, and Thorn looked directly at her and smiled widely. Ruby punched him in the arm. “Very funny, Thorn Manning.”
“Manning!” Emilia gasped. “You are a relative of Peregrine Manning?”
“Guilty as charged, but you need to remember he lived long before I was a twinkle in anyone’s eye. I’m not the same man who put you both here.” He pressed one hand against the barrier, removed it and then placed both hands on the forcefield about a foot apart. “But I am the man who is going to free you.”
“You know how to get the barrier down?” Magnus asked, relief flooding his face.
“I’m close to figuring it out.” Thorn pressed his hands against the barrier a couple more times and then took a step back.
“Do we need to get Tiberius up here?” Ruby asked. “He can be here in a couple of hours. If there is a spell that needs breaking, he’s our man.”
“No need.” Thorn looked around them, his magic light sending a beam out before him.
“You know the spell to take the barrier down?” Emilia asked. “You truly are a great and powerful wizard.”
“A what?” Thorn’s head jolted back. “There’s no magic in me.”
“But your light.” Emilia pointed to his head.
“This?” He reached for it and pulled it off. “This is a small flashlight that fits on a harness.”
“Flashlight?” Emilia asked. “Like lightning?”
“No, it runs off batteries.”
“Batteries?” Emilia asked. This new world would take some getting used to.
“Small power cells that make things work.” He smiled indulgently. “All stuff you can learn when we get you out of here.”
Emilia nodded. “And how soon will that be?”
“As soon as we figure out what kind of battery is powering this barrier.” He looked past her to the treasure that lay scattered across the floor. Her treasure. So, he was interested in it.
“There’s a battery in there?” Ruby asked. “Impossible, since Emilia has been here so long. They didn’t exist then.”
“No, they didn’t. But there’s something else in there that’s working the same way. A jewel or something similar. There has to be, there is no other explanation.”
“A battery that’s still working after four hundred years?” Magnus asked. “How?”
“Until Magnus woke up, no one came in here, so the power needed was very little.” He pressed his hands to the barrier. “Every time we touch the barrier, it takes a little more juice out of it.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing,” Emilia said. Her mate was impressive, even if she had no id
ea why juice was leaking from the barrier.
“Yeah. The current weakens each time I touch it. But when I touch the barrier here, there’s something even more interesting.” He placed two hands against the barrier once more. “The power grew stronger the further around we moved. But here, it’s equal.”
“Which tells us that the battery is somewhere inside there, in line with your hand.” Ruby nodded, she understood Thorn’s words, leaving Emilia feeling like a fool. Would she ever understand this modern world?
He pointed at the treasure. “Hidden away in there is the power pack.”
Emilia turned and looked at her treasure. “What does it look like?”
“That, I don’t know.” Thorn’s voice was gentle, as if coaxing a frightened pony, but she did not want to be a frightened pony. That wasn’t the woman she had once been. However, the long sleep had taken its toll and a certain fragility tugged at her body and mind.
A fragility she would overcome. With a deep breath, she forced herself to walk away from the others, into the darkness beyond the light. Normally this wouldn’t have bothered her, but she could feel her energy slipping away with each step. Perhaps she simply needed food and water. Her stomach was like a hollowed-out log and her throat was parched, but if she didn’t find the power source she would die here among her gold and jewels.
Behind her, she heard the barrier vibrate as something hit it hard, followed by a grunt. She swung her head around and saw Thorn picking himself up off the floor. “What are you doing?”
“While you look around, I’m going to try to wear down the power.” He threw himself at the barrier again. The sight of him in pain hurt Emilia as if she experienced it herself. They were linked together, joined as one by a force as strong and yet as invisible as the barrier keeping them apart.
“Will that work?” Magnus asked, watching Thorn get up once more and prepare to launch himself at the barrier.
“It should, but I have no idea how long it will take.” The tension in Thorn’s voice told her she had to hurry. Her mate would not give up his quest to unite them, but how much could his body take without causing irreparable damage?
Treasure Bear (Return to Bear Creek Book 19) Page 2
