Headstrong Prince

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “Galen of the Draig?” Ivar stated more than asked. “I know your name. You were among some of the first to sneak through the portal. You and your brother, Seanan. Is that who is with you?”

  The dragons didn’t answer.

  “I know who you are,” Ivar said. “Why did you leave? By all accounts, you were a loyal and trusted member of the Draig guard.”

  “It’s Galen Flaherty now. My brother did not sneak through. He was the first to go through and was stranded. I came to find him when the royals failed to do so.”

  “And is that your brother with you?” Ivar asked.

  “Sean is not here,” Galen said. “Leave him alone. He’s happy where he is, and I’ll never tell you where to find him.”

  “Who is with you?” Ivar narrowed his eyes.

  There was a pause, before someone answered, “You may call me Jerry.”

  “Are you Draig?” Ivar frowned. Jerry of the Draig didn’t sound like a name he’d ever heard of.

  “We make our own lives here,” Jerry answered. “I am Cajun now.”

  “Cajun?” Ivar tried to place where he might have heard that word before.

  “Ursa performed the ceremony to welcome us,” Jerry said. “We are Cajun now, not Draig.”

  Ivar had no idea what they were talking about. Had time on Earth driven them mad? Ivar could understand if it had.

  “We make our own tribe,” Galen said, “and no longer live under the rule of Draig.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Ivar continued down the hall, following the sound of the voices.

  “You’re one of the cat-shifter princes. I saw you visit with your family when I worked at the palace.” Galen stepped out of the shadows. “But this is not your dominion, and we are not your royal subjects even if it was. What are you doing on Earth?”

  Ivar heard movement behind him and didn’t answer. He willed whoever it was to go back into their apartment.

  “We don’t recognize your authority,” Jerry stepped from the shadows. Whereas Galen appeared almost puzzled, Jerry was aggressive. “You should not have come to the city of plague.”

  “What is the city of plague?” Ivar dared a step closer. He wanted to lead them away from Beth’s door.

  “You have seen the streets out there, have you not?” Jerry motioned around as if to encompass the city. “Surely you have witnessed the trials the humans face here. They are most horrible.”

  “Ursa said they are not plagued,” Galen corrected. “They are lost.”

  “Call it what you will,” Jerry said, “but I have seen them dancing in the streets, screaming and running, laughing as they watch their friends spill their insides onto the sidewalks.”

  “Where are your guards?” Galen demanded, turning the conversation back to Ivar. He lifted his hand as if to calm his friend. “We know they would not send you alone.”

  “You’re right. They would not.” Ivar wasn’t about to tell them his situation, not with this rude welcome he was receiving.

  “Where are they hiding? We’ve been following you for months.” Jerry took a hostile step forward.

  “I’ve been searching for you.” There was no point in lying. If they had indeed been following him, they knew he was alone. He did not live like a prince on Earth. And he could use their help to get home. They knew where the New Orleans portal was and when it might open—that is if the Draig guards didn’t block travel that night.

  Galen held Jerry back. “Has something happened on Qurilixen, prince? Is that why you are here?”

  “Your leaving has caused significant controversy,” Ivar said. “The elders have been threatening to close the portals permanently. We are trying to stop them. You must return with me and tell the others they are not to come here without guidance. They must see that you are alive and that you chose to come home over staying here. Travel must be regulated so that others do not end up in cities of plague.”

  “It is as we feared,” Jerry stated. “He’s here to force us to go back.”

  Ivar heard movement behind him and turned to the side to see both directions down the hall. Dragons appeared from behind a corner, filling the space to block off his escape. He growled in warning. Jerry and Galen charged forward. Ivar put up his fists, not expecting the attack. The narrow passage did not offer a way to escape. He spun, automatically making contact with Jerry’s jaw. Fur sprouted over his arms, and the shift gave strength to the blow. Jerry flew backward only to right his footing and come back for him.

  “Ivar!” Beth opened her door, waving at him to enter.

  Ivar pushed one dragon and punched another. They did not go down easily as they struck him in the shoulder and back. Beth screamed in fright. Ivar dove inside her apartment, not so much as to escape but to protect her. He tried to slam the door, but the dragons managed to push their way in.

  “This way,” Beth yelled.

  The panic in her voice caused the beast inside him to fight harder. He felt his claws meet flesh. A dragon cried out. Furniture crashed. Glass broke. One of Beth’s paintings of him flew past. It struck one of the dragons on the head.

  “Come on,” she ordered.

  He followed her into a bathroom where she shoved the door closed behind her and pushed the lock.

  “Go to the window, there’s a ladder.” Beth gestured toward the wall behind the claw foot bathtub. She didn’t wait for him to go first as she climbed inside and pulled the latch to force open the window. The dragons pounded at the door, causing the wooden frame to groan, as the door seemed to warp with each strike.

  Beth braced her foot on the edge of the bathtub and tried to put herself through the window feet first. Ivar braced her waist to help her. She found footing on the other side and motioned that he should follow.

  “Come on,” she shouted.

  It was a tighter fit for him, but he went through head first, using the tub for leverage. He watched her climb down the side of the building to a platform. When she hit the grated walkway and darted to the next level of steps to reach the alley below, he grabbed a ladder rung and held tight. His heart hammered violently, partially from the chase but mostly for fear that something could happen to her. Jumping, he flipped out of the window, swung around, and then released his hands so that he landed at the bottom of the ladder. The sound of breaking wood exploded above them. The dragons were in the bathroom.

  “Hurry,” she cried, scurrying down a small, rusty stairwell. “My car is this way.”

  Beth turned back to look at him. Her worried eyes met his for the shortest of moments before her entire body jerked and she began to shake. A strange crackling noise burst over the alley for a few seconds.

  Tension left Beth’s body, and she collapsed. He darted to catch her, but she never made it to the ground. Hands came from behind to hold her up. Beth moaned.

  “Keep her quiet,” a man ordered. “We’ll take her with us and sort this out later.”

  Ivar growled. He surged forward to rescue his mate. Two sharp bites hit his back. He tried to go forward, but electrical current flowed through him. Two more bites hit him on the side. He stumbled and collapsed forward onto his hands and knees. Beth moaned lightly.

  “He’s a strong bastard. Inject him and get him into the truck,” the same voice ordered. “We can’t do this here.”

  Ivar growled, fighting through the strange, helpless sensation. A different kind of sharp jab hit his neck. He swiped to stop it but missed. His vision blurred. He tried to block his fall, but the pavement was coming too fast for his face, and his hands were useless.

  10

  Beth felt her body being bounced around. The hum of an engine and tires against a dirt road were unmistakable. Her hazed mind made it hard to focus on what was happening. Lights streaked in a blur, but she couldn’t tell where they came from. Her hand brushed up against warmth, and it took all her energy to turn her head from one side to the other.

  Ivar lay next to her. They were in the back of some vehicle, bouncing on thin blankets l
ike luggage. She moaned softly when she tried to say his name. It was the only sound she could manage. His eyes were closed, but she felt the soft exhale of his breath to her cheek. Very little about this situation made sense, but looking at him made her feel safe. Her hand bumped against his. She was unable to hold him, but the contact was enough for now.

  She tried to keep her eyes open, but her vision would not stay focused. Her lids drooped. Maybe she could just rest for a second.

  Beth focused on the wall as she tried to reason where she was. Her muscles were sore as if she’d run a marathon, and her mind was in a drugged haze as if she’d been injected with a tranquilizer. In fact, she was pretty sure that’s exactly what had happened. Well, not the marathon part, but definitely drugged.

  Framed photographs hung on the wall, showcasing images of a swamp. Spanish moss covered the trees. Alligators peeked out from the murky water. The last picture looked like what could only be a backwater Santa Claus posing on an airboat mid-jolly laugh. Planked walls appeared to be the inside of a log cabin.

  Beth sat on a bed with a blue blanket. A silver dragon was embroidered on the center of it. Beth instantly stood.

  “Dragon?” she whispered, grasping memories as they tried to flood in. “Dragon-shifters are coming. We have to run.”

  Beth stumbled through the door. She had to do something. She needed to find someone.

  “Ivar.” Her voice croaked. The cabin only had a few pieces of furniture. It looked more like a hideout than someone’s actual home. She listened, hearing only the hum of an old refrigerator.

  Nothing about this felt right. She vaguely recalled being in a vehicle, seeing the dim lights streaking over Ivar’s still face. The reality of her situation began pressing in on her. She was attacked in her apartment. Men came. She jumped out of the window. No. They jumped out of the bathroom window. The men had been after Ivar, and she had been trying to help him.

  Beth looked at her shaking hand. An angry red wound throbbed on her palm. She’d cut it on the way down the ladder outside her window.

  The dragons had found them in the alley. The last thing she remembered was staring at Ivar’s half-shifted face as electricity coursed through her body. The stun gun shouldn’t have knocked her out, as that was just some kind of myth from Hollywood movies, but something happened, and her world had gone dark. She felt her head, not feeling a bump that would have knocked her unconscious. Maybe that’s when they used the drugs?

  “What did I tell you?” a woman yelled in anger. It came from outside. Beth gasped, covering her mouth to try to hide the panting sound of fear. She held very still as a strange murmuring answered the woman. When no one else came into the cabin, she inched toward the front door.

  “What? I can’t hear you? What are our rules?” the woman demanded.

  Beth pressed close to the front door of the cabin. She leaned to look out a small window to take a peek outside. She moved slowly, worried about what she might find. Trees formed a fence on the left edge of a large yard that ran down to the water. In the far right-hand corner, an airboat was moored to a rickety dock with a fishing platform on the end. Where in the world was she?

  “Women get to make their own choices,” a drone of male voices said, sounding very much like scolded children.

  “And…?” the woman insisted.

  Beth inched over a little more, finding a woman on the lawn in front of a dozen men. She stood with her feet wide apart as if she were the leader of the group. The men kept their heads bowed before her, glancing up a few times as if worried about becoming the focus of her rage.

  Beth recognized a few of the men. These were the dragon men who attacked them. Her mind continued to clear by small degrees but with clarity, came fear. She’d been kidnapped and taken to the swamps by dragon-shifters. What did they want with her? Where was Ivar? How could she escape?

  The woman speaking looked about Beth’s age and appeared human enough, but what woman bossed around an army of dragon men in the middle of swamp country?

  There was a long silence before one of the scolded dragons hesitantly offered, “Wear clothes outside except when Ursa is performing the Cajun ceremony, or we are swimming in the swamp?”

  Beth pulled back so they wouldn’t see her through the window. They weren’t guarding her. Maybe they hadn’t expected her to wake up yet. This might be her only chance at escape.

  “Don’t shift in public?” another man sounded as if he merely guessed at his answer.

  “Don’t tell people we’re from another planet.” The new voice had more confidence than the first two.

  “This is the South. We are Cajun.”

  The responses came faster, almost overlapping each other.

  “Poisonous snakes aren’t good gifts when courting a female.”

  “Alligators are not shifters.”

  “Don’t eat the wrapper.”

  “Don’t start a conversation with, I would like you to have my twenty sons.”

  “We don’t need to fear the zealots anymore.”

  “No, we should fear the zealots,” someone corrected. “They want to kill us.”

  “No one should say the words dragon and seed together in a sentence, even if we want to fill a woman with our dragon seed. You don’t like it, Lori.”

  “People aren’t trying to kill us when they point their fingers.”

  “Bar fights are bad and—”

  “Yes,” the woman broke through the barrage of male voices. “All that is true. But we also don’t kidnap potential brides.”

  “But, Lori, she saw—” one man tried to defend.

  “No,” Lori stated firmly.

  “But, she—” he tried again.

  “Just no,” Lori said, louder.

  Beth slowly backed away from the strange turn of the lecture. Grumbles started which sounded like they might be apologies. Maybe the drugs hadn’t worn off, and she was hearing things? This hardly seemed like a fierce band of kidnappers.

  She moved through the cabin toward the sound of the refrigerator. Her throat was parched, but she didn’t stop to drink. A narrow door in the back might be her only chance. She tested the handle, finding it unlocked. Light from outside streamed underneath the bottom edge.

  “Please don’t be anyone there,” she whispered, unable to see outside. She had no idea what she was walking into.

  Her mind kept flashing images of Ivar lying next to her in the vehicle as if she was supposed to remember something. Or was she just remembering him, that feeling she’d had while being next to him, the whisper of his breath against her cheek as they lay unmoving? Suddenly, finding him felt like the most important thing. What were they doing to him? What did they want with him? She had to find him. She had to save him.

  With that goal in mind, she forced herself to open the door. She held it cracked for several seconds, listening for movement on the other side. No one shouted in warning at her escape, so she finally dared to look. A long row of small shacks spread out behind the house she was in like a tiny commune. Is that where the dragons lived? Is that where they were keeping Ivar?

  Beth slowly stepped down the wooden steps to the back lawn. She kept to the shadows, hugging close to the cabin as she tried to catch her breath. The small shacks looked newly constructed. The aroma of fresh cut wood was strong as was the smell of the swamps wafting on the breeze.

  There were too many shacks to search before being caught. She looked at each one she could see, trying to find movement in the small windows. There was nothing. She tried listening, but all she heard was the faint voices from the front lawn. Beth was sure her heart had never pounded so hard in her life. She inched to one side of the cabin, away from the voices, and peeked around the corner. A truck was parked close to the house, but it looked like it had seen better days. Apprehension filled her. Too bad she didn’t know how to hotwire a vehicle. Even if she did, there was no telling if the old thing would even run.

  “Are you safe?” Ivar’s words whispered in her
mind, the memory surely coming only to tease her with the past.

  “Heck, no, I’m not safe,” she muttered to herself. She hurried to search inside the vehicle and pressed her face to the glass window. She was worried the old door might creak if she opened it. There were no keys in the ignition, so she rushed back to the cabin. Beth thought about running to the trees and going for help, but something stopped her. Ivar had to be here somewhere. If she ran, they might move him. If she ran, she might never find him again.

  Beth didn’t allow herself to succumb to fear though it would have been so easy in the given circumstance. No one knew where she was or that she was missing. Her job might report her gone, or they might have thought she was a no-show and didn’t want to tell them she quit. Waitressing was a high turn over job.

  Beth tried to make her way toward the nearest shack. She kept her eyes on the side lawn. A half constructed barn appeared from behind the corner of the house. In order to get to the shacks, she’d have to make a run for it and hope no one saw her.

  Lori paced within her field of vision. Beth froze as the woman pointed toward the barn and ordered the men, “Now go back to work. The barracks aren’t going to build themselves.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the dragons said. They moved toward the structure, looking more to the ground than at Lori as they went to do as she bid. Apparently, the lecture was over.

  A few of them glanced up and saw Beth. She remained very still, holding her breath to see what they would do. Eyes flashed with gold, but after a small pause, they looked at Lori and then moved to go back to work building the barracks. The sound of hammering and saws soon inundated the quiet swamps.

  Lori turned and stumbled a little when she saw Beth. “Oh, hey, good you’re awake. How are you feeling? Can I get you something to eat?”

  Beth looked around the yard. There was nowhere to run. She should have stayed hidden behind the cabin.

  “Maybe I should start with, I’m sorry if they frightened you.” Lori came closer as if scared Beth would make a run for it and she’d be forced to chase her down.