Reluctant Prince

by Dani-Lyn Alexander

  A scream brought him up short.

  He whirled around to find Daygan advancing toward the girls, his maniacal grin firmly in place.

  Chapter 5

  Mia screamed. “Ryleigh!”

  Not even Mia’s terror could break the paralysis gripping Ryleigh. Her gaze jumped wildly between the lunatic moving toward her and the three monsters apparently under his control. Fear clutched her heart, squeezed her lungs.

  The beasts were huge, tall, and more muscular than any man she’d ever seen. They all had the same long, stringy, dark hair, bushy eyebrows, full beards and thick heavy brows. They couldn’t possibly be real. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Ryleigh, go. Now!”

  Jackson’s voice finally penetrated the trance.

  He slammed his elbow back into a creature’s head. The thing lurched to the side, leaving a narrow opening between it and the wall.

  Ryleigh grabbed Mia’s arm and shoved her through the opening then followed right on her heels. They ran through Ryleigh’s bedroom and scrambled out the open window into the darkness of the yard.

  “Go. Over the fence.” Jackson caught up to them as they crossed the yard. He grabbed Mia and helped her over. “Run.”

  Ryleigh landed behind her.

  Jackson vaulted over. “You have to open a portal, Ryleigh.” He didn’t even sound winded. How was that possible?

  Ryleigh couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were on fire, and the stitch in her side would soon incapacitate her.

  Snorts and grunts filled the night, moving ever closer in the darkness.

  They couldn’t outrun these things.

  Her heart was about to burst.

  “Hurry, Ryleigh. I’m scared.” Mia’s sobs tore through Ryleigh’s soul.

  She weaved through a neighbor’s yard, hopped a split rail fence, and tripped over a sandbox. She stumbled but managed to stay on her feet.

  The strange sounds grew louder.

  Ryleigh risked a quick glance over her shoulder. Two savages were almost on them. She had to do something.

  Jackson stopped, turned, and braced himself to fight. “Keep running, get Mia out of here.”

  Ryleigh stopped a few feet past him. There was no point in running. She bent over and put her hands on her knees, struggled to regulate her breathing.

  They couldn’t outrun these things. There was no way.

  The savages were big, clumsy, and probably stupid, but they were also fast, extremely fast. They had to be from another world. No other explanation made sense.

  They were almost on Jackson.

  He stood his ground, ready to fight these things to defend her and Mia, give them a chance to get away.

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and struggled to focus on the image of Cymmera she’d formed in her mind.

  The sounds of battle reached her, interfered with her attempts to concentrate. She forced them ruthlessly aside.

  Dead trees, barren land, dark, dreary, bleak. She clasped her hands together. Raised them above her head. A tingle, like static electricity, inundated her system. It began in her chest then arced down her arms and into her hands. When the prickle reached her fingertips, and she could no longer restrain the energy she held there, she ripped her hands apart and tore a hole in the air before her.

  She froze, shocked. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes wide. She couldn’t even blink.

  “Go, go, go.” The urgency in Jackson’s voice broke the spell.

  He grabbed Mia around the waist and ran toward the portal with her. He grabbed Ryleigh’s arm and pulled her through with them then shoved her to the ground. They went down in a heap, but he managed to roll backward with Mia, dragging Ryleigh behind them, and plunging them into complete blackness.

  Ryleigh struggled.

  Jackson held her in an iron grip. He lay atop the two girls as the sound of a stampede thundered above them.

  “Get them, you morons.” Daygan’s irate command thundered through the portal, drowning out the sound of a dozen or more savages pounding into Cymmera.

  Then, silence.

  Ryleigh stopped fighting and peeked out from beneath Jackson’s arm.

  The savages continued to run full speed without ever looking back.

  “Burn it to the ground.” Daygan’s voice drifted to them from what sounded like a great distance, followed by the smell of smoke.

  Horror clenched Ryleigh’s gut. No.

  Jackson sat up. “Are you all right?” A dim light returned to the world as the portal closed above them. “Are you hurt?” He frantically examined Mia, who sobbed uncontrollably. Apparently satisfied she was just upset, not hurt, he turned to Ryleigh.

  “I just need to sit a minute and breathe.” She inched closer to Mia, pulled the younger girl into an embrace. “It’s over now.” She looked to Jackson for confirmation.

  “Don’t worry. They won’t come back. Savages are strong, fast, and obedient. Geniuses they’re not. They’ll keep running after us until Cymmeran soldiers stop them or Daygan calls them back.”

  “Why didn’t they see us?” Ryleigh rubbed circles on Mia’s back, tried to soothe her.

  “When my brother and I were kids, we used to play hide and seek between the realms. One day I tripped going through the portal and fell. Chayce jumped through and kept on going. He never saw me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “When the doorway opens it casts a shadow directly beneath it. I used to hide in the shadow, wait for Chayce to pass through, and then jump up and follow him. It took him a long time to figure out how I was doing it, but eventually he did.” Jackson stopped talking and stared off into the distance, perhaps caught up in the memory from so long ago.

  “W…W….” Mia sobbed, sniffed, sucked in a breath. “Will they really burn our house down?”

  Jackson looked over her head at Ryleigh and nodded once in affirmation.

  Ryleigh bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Everything they owned was in that house. Not to mention all the photos and memories of their parents and grandmother. Unable to reassure her sister, she lowered her cheek to the top of Mia’s head and wept with her. The pain of losing her family, the fear of losing Mia, and the bizarre events of the past day weighed heavily. Rage heated her blood, boiled through her veins. She had to vent in some way before it crushed her.

  “I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do.” Jackson spoke softly, his words obviously sincere.

  Ryleigh untangled herself from Mia and stood. She brushed off her jeans then pinned her gaze on Jackson. “Sorry? You’re sorry? What good does that do us?” She tried to bite back the fury. No use. “If you wanted to do something for us, you would have stayed out of our lives and not involved us in this mess.”

  Jackson held her stare and waited for her to finish.

  That only aggravated her more. Her voice grew louder as she moved toward him. “What are we supposed to do now?” She scrubbed her hands over her face then gave up and dropped them in disgust.

  “Why don’t we get Mia somewhere warmer, and we’ll figure it out? Everything will be all right, Ryleigh. I’m sorry about the house, but we’ll help you rebuild it.”

  What could she say? Better to just move on. Mia wrapped her arms around her middle, clutching her stomach. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, teeth chattering. “Just a little cold.”

  Hmm, weird. They stood in an empty field, bordered on three sides by woods. A thin layer of snow and ice covered everything.

  Mia was shivering.

  Why wasn’t Ryleigh cold? Maybe the rage had warmed her. She shrugged off a thin trickle of unease. There would be time to worry about everything else later. Right now, her first concern had to be Mia. “Where do we go from here?” She rubbed her hands up and down Mia’s arms in an attempt to warm her a little.

  “Here, put this on.” Jackson stripped off his shirt and the scrub shirt and helped Mia pull them over her head. “They’re not much, but
at least one has long sleeves.”

  Mia gasped. “Oh my gosh, are you hurt?”

  What now? Ryleigh had already reached her limit for the moment. She couldn’t deal with anything else. “What’s wrong?”

  Jackson turned to face her. “Nothing, it’s fine.” A circular burn covered the center of his chest and stomach.

  Her heart stuttered. “You’re hurt. Oh man, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, really, it’s no big deal. I heal fast.” He smiled his customary, cocky grin.

  Ryleigh huffed.

  “Now, come on let’s get out of here.”

  “And go where?” Though most of her anger had fizzled out, some sarcasm still remained.

  “I must return home and go before the King. The fact that we’re here when I was unable to open the portal is proof my theory was correct.”

  “Do you live far from here?”

  He looked around, seemed to contemplate his surroundings then pointed through the trees. “We have to head that way.”

  They started walking through the mess of snow and mud the savages had churned up. Once they’d crossed the clearing and reached the edge of the woods, the trails the creatures had created separated, moved off in different directions.

  “Wow.” Mia used the sleeve of Jackson’s shirt to swipe at her eyes. “It looks a lot different here than I expected.”

  “What do you mean, what’s different?” Jackson looked around as if trying to envision his home from Mia’s point of view.

  “It’s beautiful.” Mia turned in a circle, eyes wide, and took everything in. “It’s not dead…it’s more like…” She cocked her head. “Waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” Discomfort crawled up Ryleigh’s spine.

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel dead to me.” She shrugged and started to walk.

  Jackson fell into step beside Ryleigh as they followed behind Mia.

  Bare trees stretched as far as she could see. A thin layer of snow, encased in ice, covered each branch and tree trunk. A blanket of pristine, ice-encrusted snow, unmarked by any underbrush poking through, crunched beneath their feet. She thought fleetingly of how beautiful it would look if sunshine peeked through the thick cloud cover and reflected off the ice, envisioned the entire forest coming alive with rainbows of shimmering light. A chill ran through her and she shivered, but not from the cold.

  “Are you still cold, Mia?”

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Even with the long sleeves of Jackson’s shirt tucked down around her hands, she still shivered. “It’s better now that I’m walking, but my feet are cold.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you ran out of the house in only slippers.” Even though they had hard soles, the snow had already soaked them partway up the sides. “Here let’s stop and we can trade shoes.”

  With Jackson’s rejection fresh in her mind and feelings of vulnerability tugging at her as she’d emerged from the shower, Ryleigh had wanted to be fully dressed. She’d put on her most comfortable beat up, faded jeans and her softest sweater then stepped into her Uggs.

  Mia had simply thrown on sweats, a t-shirt, and her slippers.

  “But then you’ll be cold.”

  “Actually, I’m not cold at all.” She leaned against a tree, tugged off one of the boots and handed it to Mia. “We can switch again in a little bit if my feet get cold.”

  Mia relented and took off a slipper.

  “If you get too cold, let me know, and I’ll carry you for a bit.” Jackson stood beside them surveying the forest, but spared a quick glance at Mia.

  “Why aren’t you cold?” Mia watched Jackson as she pulled on the boot and offered Ryleigh her other slipper.

  “We can regulate our body temperatures to a certain degree.” He glanced pointedly at Ryleigh. “If it got too cold, I’d need to put on a coat to be completely comfortable, but this is fine.”

  Ryleigh ignored his insinuation. “How can you carry Mia with that burn on your chest?”

  He shrugged it off. “I told you, I heal fast.” Here. He took Ryleigh’s hand, touched her fingertips to the edge of the wound.

  Instead of the rough, raw feel she expected as she brushed her fingers across the center of the puckered mark, the skin beneath her hand was smooth to the touch.

  “See. I’m fine.”

  The huskiness in his voice grabbed her attention. When her eyes met the longing in his, they held for a moment. Heat flooded her fingertips, and she snatched her hand away. “Come on let’s go, Mia.”

  His chuckle surrounded her, soothed her, as it echoed through the forest.

  She checked her watch. Four-fifteen. What? She tapped the face. Still four-fifteen. Could it be possible only fifteen minutes had passed since the ringing of the doorbell had changed their lives forever?

  “It won’t work here.”

  “What do you mean? Why not?”

  “None of your technology works here. Cymmerans transfer freely between the realms and learn to use all sorts of electronics, computers…weapons. All Death Dealers train in your realm for extended periods of time. We must know how to use your technology, or we’d be eliminated while trying to acquire our targets.” A sheepish grin appeared, and he looked away. “Anyway, some have tried to bring things back, but everything simply stops working as they transfer through the portal. Teams have even been assembled to try and re-create the objects here, using materials natural to our world, all to no avail.”

  “So you’re saying you have no modern technology here at all?” Mia’s trailed her hand through the snow encasing the trees.

  “Nope, nothing.”

  “No TV’s, or computers…or cell phones?” A look of sheer horror crossed the young girl’s face.

  Ryleigh couldn’t suppress a laugh.

  “Not even electricity.”

  “Why do you stay here? Why not just go live in our realm?”

  Jackson laughed. “When we enter your realm, we age as you do, grow old, and eventually die. Some have chosen that path, but I hold out hope that one day Cymmera will return to the grandeur it once held. We may not have had technology, but I still have some wonderful memories of my childhood.” He fell silent, the only sound the crunch of their feet in the snow.

  A pang of grief hit Ryleigh. Things could be replaced, but the reminders of her family couldn’t. And even the most amazing memories faded with time, although Jackson’s memories of his childhood and his mother had survived hundreds of years. The knowledge comforted her somewhat. She took a deep breath and tried to shake off the sadness smothering her. She filled her lungs a second time. The cool air was so crisp and clean, soothing as it filled her lungs. Maybe there was something to be said for the lack of technology and pollution.

  They trudged through the snow, each lost in their own thoughts. Even the overcast, gray sky couldn’t dim the beauty surrounding them.

  “Are there animals here?” Mia chewed on her lower lip as she scanned the woods and the deepening shadows.

  “Sure, lots of them.” He answered absently, apparently not realizing Mia’s concern.

  Ryleigh reached for her hand.

  “Will they hurt us?”

  The tremor in Mia’s voice must have caught his attention then, because he moved close to her other side. “I won’t let anything hurt you, I promise.”

  Mia squeezed Ryleigh’s hand. “Do you think we could stop and rest for a few minutes?”

  “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you climb on my back and I’ll carry you for a bit. We’re not far from the city, and I’d like to reach the King as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll be too heavy for you to carry. I can walk.”

  Dark circles ringed Mia’s eyes. Her face too pale, eyes puffy and swollen from crying, shoulders hunched against the cold wind.

  “You’re tired, Mia. It’ll be all right. Jackson can carry you for a bit.”

  She dragged her feet thro
ugh the snow, slowing her pace.

  Ryleigh changed tactics. “My feet are getting kind of wet anyway. If Jackson carries you, you can pull your sweats down over your feet, and I can wear the boots for a while.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot.” Mia’s face reddened.

  A twinge of guilt tried to surface, but Ryleigh quickly tamped it down. She really wasn’t uncomfortable with the cold or the wet slippers, but she couldn’t watch Mia trudge through the snow and ice any longer. It seemed like years ago she’d left her sitting in the lobby of Jacobs & McClain’s offices, looking small and lost in the oversized chair. So much had happened in less than twenty-four hours, plus they’d been up all night now.

  The poor kid had to be exhausted beyond belief.

  “No big deal. I’m not cold or anything. But if Jackson’s well enough to carry you, I wouldn’t mind having dry feet for a little while.” She tried to tame the wild mass of curls, push it behind Mia’s ear, but it just popped out again.

  Jackson squatted down against a tree.

  Ryleigh helped Mia climb onto his back. She took the boots and tucked Mia’s sweat pants around her feet as best she could. “Are you warm enough?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Jackson stood, and they started forward again.

  “It just feels so good to be off my feet.” Mia’s eyelids began to droop as soon as Jackson took his first few steps. The rhythmic movement would most likely rock her to sleep in no time.

  “Are you holding her tight enough? I think she’s going to fall asleep up there.”

  Jackson’s laughter filled the forest. “Don’t worry, I’ve got her.”

  “I’m not asleep, just resting.” Mia sat up straighter, strained to keep her eyes open. “What kinds of animal are here?”

  “Do you want to hear about my pets?”

  Ryleigh breathed a sigh of relief, grateful he’d decided to tell her about something tame rather than some wild creature that could be stalking them. She shivered, her gaze darting to the encroaching shadows.