Tamhas

by Ava Benton

  Not knowing what I’d been missing had been easier in many ways.

  I simply couldn’t forget her. We couldn’t forget her.

  I gave it two days before there was no choice but to make a decision. Two days of hoping to hear from her, of checking my email almost compulsively every time I managed to sneak in a few minutes alone in front of the computer.

  Two days of silence. Of wondering what happened to her. Of fearing what might have gone through her head when I’d disappeared without warning or explanation.

  Needing to explain myself, to assure her of how much she meant to me.

  Alan wouldn’t like it.

  I wasn’t even certain that I did. But it needed to be done.

  “I need to take a trip.”

  He looked up from his desk, where a thick book was lying open. “What? A trip?”

  “Yes. Just a, you know, road trip as they call it.” I leaned against the doorframe, hands in my pockets. “Nothing important, nothing terribly noteworthy.” Be casual, be casual, nothing to see here.

  He turned in his chair, his eyes darkening with concern. But he was concerned nearly all the time. I believed he was taking well to his new position, truly, but it had been thrust upon him so quickly that he hadn’t been able to adjust properly.

  Perhaps he was the one who needed a road trip.

  “Why go, then, if it isn’t terribly important that you take a trip?”

  Always one for questions, Alan. “Not important to anyone but me, I meant.”

  “Ah. I see. I think.”

  “It won’t be for long. A few weeks, perhaps.”

  “Weeks? Now, see here.”

  “Please, Alan.” I held up my hands before he could work up a head of steam and truly let loose with a tirade. “We both know that you’ll eventually give in and agree that it’s best for me to get away for a short while after everything that happened. There’s no way I’ll put myself in danger—I’m too conscientious for that.”

  He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, tenting his fingers beneath his chin. “If anything, I’d think that what happened would prevent you from taking such a risk. The possibility that someone might be out there, watching, waiting…”

  “You remember what Mary said. The group responsible for the kidnapping is no more. We have nothing to fear. And what’s the point of living if all there is to look forward to is fear?”

  That seemed to get through to him, try though he might to hide it.

  I was already packed, certain he’d see the sense in agreeing that I should go. I wasn’t one to ask for permission, but the weeks post-kidnapping had been strange, indeed. It was better to be smart, to follow some semblance of protocol, than to make waves where waves did not need to be made.

  I shared none of Alan’s fears. There were no threats to us out in the big world. He would see that in time.

  I didn’t have that sort of time to wait until I found Keira, however.

  My road trip would be a very short one: to Edinburgh Airport, where I’d purchase a ticket to JFK. I hadn’t exactly been truthful, but there wasn’t a way in hell he’d allow me to go. Like as not, he’d tell the rest of the clan, and they’d lock me in one of our cells. I’d be the first guest in hundreds of years.

  There were no direct flights available until morning, which meant taking out a room at some chain hotel attached to the airport terminals. A room with bland wallpaper, bland bedding, bland everything. Those who stayed there weren’t exactly long-term guests, I supposed as I dropped my jacket on the beige bedspread and my plane ticket on the bedside table.

  There was something to be said for freedom—even when I wasn’t in flight. Even when the only flying I’d be doing would take place in business class accommodations. Legroom was important for a man of my size. I’d learned that while on the jet from St. Lucia.

  This would work, I decided as I watched the airport activity from the hotel room’s only window. I was certain of it. No, I wasn’t sure where to begin looking for her once I reached New York, but I would find a way. Even if I had to ask for a little help from Mary—I might be able to concoct a story relating to why it was important I find Keira without any of the clan knowing about it.

  I jumped at the sound of the phone ringing. Just like Alan to break into an important stream of consciousness.

  “You miss me already?” I asked, injecting far more humor into my voice than I felt at the moment.

  He saw no humor in the situation, apparently. “We have a problem.”

  4

  Keira

  It was absolutely gorgeous. Like, take my breath away gorgeous.

  New York was beautiful, no doubt about it. I’d spent most of my childhood and adolescence on the other side of the river and had passed more nights than I could count gazing out the window of whichever foster home I was in at the time, staring at the city skyline.

  Wishing I could be there.

  Emelie and I had made a pact at a young age, promising ourselves and each other that we’d make lives for ourselves over there one day. On the other side of the river. It might as well have been Oz, it was so magical and mystical.

  We’d made it over the river, all right, but neither of us could come close to affording Manhattan rent. Emelie’s nameless, faceless clients paid out the nose for the work she did, and I was more than comfortable, but the two of us could only afford Brooklyn—and even then, the real estate market was much tougher there than in much of the rest of the country.

  I tried to remember the most beautiful the city had ever looked to me. Probably one night during a snowfall when I was around thirteen years old. I’d only been able to get a good look at the skyline from the tiny bathroom window, over the toilet. I’d stood on the closed lid for hours and just stared out as the snow fell, creating a sort of fog which the lights of the many skyscrapers had shone through.

  Even then, nothing I’d seen came close to mountains of Scotland—specifically, those outside of Edinburgh.

  I parked my rental car on the side of the road, as close as I could get to the mountain I was looking for without actually driving through the woods. It would be roughly an hour of hiking after that point. In the back of the car was a pack with water, protein bars, a flashlight just in case I ran late and wasn’t able to make it back to the car before sunset.

  Seeing as how it was only ten in the morning, however, I didn’t think that would be a problem. But it was never a bad idea to be prepared.

  Was I really doing this? I hadn’t wanted to admit it to Emelie at the time, but she was right: this wasn’t like me at all. I took my training seriously, I took my work with Hank seriously, not to mention bounty hunting whenever I got the chance.

  I wasn’t the girl who picked up and went off to Edinburgh, for God’s sake. I didn’t hike in unknown woods all by myself, either. And even if I did any of these things, I sure as hell didn’t do them for the sake of finding a man who was a virtual stranger—who I was not getting paid to find, anyway.

  Even so, I put one foot in front of the other. Again. And again. Soon, I was well into the woods and couldn’t see the rental car when I looked over my shoulder. Driving on the other side of the road was quite the challenge. I wouldn’t be taking any unnecessary road trips, that was for sure. As it was, I felt lucky to have made it to the woods alive.

  I recognized as I walked how much life in the city afforded me—and what it didn’t. Sure, there were parks here and there, and they were pretty, but there was nothing like the majesty which spread out all around me as I hiked. Towering trees that seemed to touch the sky. Instead of music pouring out of car windows and the open doors of bodegas, the singing of birds combined with the running of squirrels and the babbling of a winding brook to create a music, unlike anything I’d ever heard.

  It took me a minute to come back to my senses. A city girl could get lost in woods that thick if she didn’t pay attention. I checked my compass against the direction the map told me to take before I started up
again, pulling a water bottle from my pack as I walked.

  If Tamhas lived around here, among this, lucky him. No wonder he seemed so removed from the world, so untouched by it. Sure, the only face-to-face talking we’d ever done was via Skype. It wasn’t like he lived in a complete tech bubble.

  But he seemed to come from a different time, even if he was using technology nobody had heard of even when I was a kid. Certain words he’d use, the way he put a sentence together. It felt like talking to a character out of an old historical movie.

  I guessed that was what drew me to him even more than the physical. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time, well into our weird little friendship. I’d only had his emails and the occasional chat to go by before we suggested to use our webcams.

  God, my heart had raced just before the first call connected. What if he didn’t like me, and all that. Months of chatting about just about everything under the sun had left me feeling sort of attached. I’d look forward to hearing from him.

  Eventually, I’d started checking my email first thing, right after opening my eyes every morning. If there wasn’t one, it would sort of bring down the morning—until I heard from him. It wouldn’t even have to be all that much, just a quick note to let me know he was thinking of me and hoped I had a good day.

  And it would be a good day after that.

  If he hadn’t liked what he saw during that first video chat, I would’ve seen it right away. I had always been able to read people without trying. And it would’ve crushed me.

  That was why it mattered so much that I find out why he’d disappeared. It wasn’t like me to fall for a man I’d never met in person, so I wouldn’t have admitted it even to Emelie. But that was why. If he’d gone out of his way just to let me know he was thinking about me every single day, why would he suddenly stop?

  She didn’t know him as I did. Or like I thought I did.

  I sighed, looking around with my hands on my hips and a frown on my face. I was starting to get sweaty. I looked up over the tops of the trees, looking for the arrowhead mountain peak. Where the hell was it? It should’ve stood out over everything else.

  Or was I losing track of things? A very good chance of that. I pulled the map from the pack and sat down, intent on finding exactly where I was and how to keep going. The last thing I needed was to make myself even more lost.

  According to my compass, I was heading in the right direction. The GPS was back in the car, but judging from what it told me, I was due to hike north. I was still moving north. I’d been hiking forever, but I still hadn’t reached the mountain.

  This was all a big mistake. I was more positive of it than ever. I should never have come.

  Life went on around me in the woods. I had half a mind to tell the birds to shut up with their singing—they were making it so I could hardly hear myself think. It was practically dusk in the forest, under the trees, with just a little light coming through gaps in the branches. I cooled off pretty quickly thanks to that.

  If this were a fight, I’d tell myself to keep going. Just because things weren’t looking so great and I might have bitten off more than I could chew did mean I could give up.

  “I’ve already come too far,” I whispered to the birds, who twittered around like they were arguing with me. Let them argue.

  I got up, brushed the dirt from my pants and kept going. If I didn’t reach the mountain in another hour, I’d have to turn around and go back to the car. Maybe I wasn’t right about where I’d started off. Something. But I couldn’t keep digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole out of stubbornness. I’d have to try again, was all.

  Even if it would piss me off like crazy to admit making a mistake. Nobody needed to know but me.

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe more. I noticed the ground started sloping upward. The hike became more of a challenge. Trees started to thin a little, giving me a look at what was ahead. My heart beat faster, and not because of the extra exertion.

  There they were, in the distance.

  A string of mountains which trailed behind a larger mountain, glimpses of it available now and then as I drew closer. I could barely breathe, I was so excited. Just finding it was almost enough to make the trip worthwhile.

  When I stepped outside the tree line, three things hit me all at once: the sun, as it touched my bare shoulders and arms again, the heart-stopping majesty of an emerald green mountain I only realized in the back of my mind was covered in moss or clover or something which gave it that color…

  And dragons.

  Three of them.

  I rubbed trembling hands over my eyes. It had to be a hallucination. I was tired, I hadn’t had enough to drink, the protein bars sat uneaten in my pack. I should’ve eaten them. I should’ve…

  No.

  They were there when I opened my eyes again. Three of them, circling the peak of the emerald green arrowhead.

  I couldn’t breathe. It was like the time one of my training partners landed a kick in the center of my abdomen with just the right amount of force and knocked the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t catch a breath right away—there was a sickening moment when I hung in the middle of knowing I’d breathe again and fearing that I wouldn’t. That I would die right there on the mat, flat on my back.

  I didn’t die then, and I wouldn’t die in the shadow of the woods and the mountain and three fucking honest-to-God dragons.

  Their scales glistened in the sun. Amber, green, gold. One of each. Their wings were the thinnest membrane and sun shone through them, too.

  Did I walk into a Harry Potter movie? I looked around, half-expecting to see movie cameras, but that was stupid because dragons were CGI—as Emelie said. Computer generated images, or something like that. Not real. I was losing my mind.

  One of them roared as if it wanted to prove how very real it was. Like it could hear my thoughts as I stood there, wondering what the hell to do next.

  I was rooted to the ground as they landed, all three of them, half-hidden behind a group of boulders.

  Get the hell out of here, my instincts warned. I could almost hear a voice in my head urging me. You need to leave. Now. Before they see you.

  Only I couldn’t. Instead of turning and running like I was on fire, the way I should have, I started walking toward the boulders to get a better look. Maybe I wanted to prove that I had only imagined the dragons—if I ran without proving it was just my imagination, I’d always wonder about what I saw.

  I reached the rocks and snuck a look around them, trying to hide myself, and things just got worse from there. Instead of seeing three dragons, which would’ve been bad enough, I saw three dragons whose bodies seemed to shimmer like water, right before my very eyes.

  Leaving three humans in their place.

  I fell back a few steps. What the hell was I seeing? Two women and one man, all of them buck naked, laughing together as they slid into tees and track pants. Talking like nothing completely out of the ordinary had just happened.

  As I took another step backward, completely intent on running like the wind because no way was I about to stick around to meet these dragon people, the heel of my hiking boot caught a stone, and I tumbled backward.

  The three of them looked up at the sound of my pack hitting the ground.

  “Who are you?” the man barked, running my way with the two women behind him.

  There was nothing for me to do but defend myself against them, since they didn’t look like they were rushing over to make sure I was okay.

  All of them snarled, nostrils flaring like they smelled danger.

  I fell into a fighting stance, turning sideways with my weight on my left foot and the right behind, fists at shoulder height.

  The man—tall, hulking, but no bigger than some of the men I’d fought—lunged for me, I ducked, twisted, and threw a series of jabs into his ribs.

  He fell to his knees, gasping for air, while the two women stood on either side of me. The first came
forward to attack. I swung my right leg up and connected the toe of my boot with her jaw, sending her sprawling and cursing.

  The second came at me from behind, throwing her arms around my waist in an attempt to take me down.

  I reached behind me, locked my hands around her neck and threw her over my shoulder like a sack of flour. She landed flat on her back.

  The man got to his feet, swinging one massive fist in a slow roundhouse. I ducked, but not fast enough. He made contact with my ear, and the whole inside of my head rang like a gong. I shook it off and delivered a kick to his already sore ribs. He grimaced in pain, doubling slightly, and got an uppercut to his chin.

  I was a little dizzy from the blow he landed, but still spun in time to see the woman with the fresh cut on her jaw come at me with bloodlust in her eyes. She threw herself into me, knocking me on my back.

  I raised my legs in time to wrap them around her waist and twisted my body, throwing her to the ground.

  I sprang to my feet, ears ringing, back aching, wondering what the hell was happening even as adrenaline rushed through me and pushed me forward. The three of them exchanged looks, panting and groaning, circling me. My eyes darted back and forth, fists raised, bouncing my weight back and forth from one foot to the other in preparation for the next move.

  I could handle one at a time. I could’ve handled them all day. What I couldn’t handle was all three at once.

  They closed in on me, the women lunging in unison and the man taking advantage by grabbing hold of my arms from behind. He pinned them against my back, and I thrashed, cursing and panting. It was no use.

  The women stared at me. One of them held her jaw, where blood still trickled through her fingers, while the other held a hand to her side. Both of them were roughly as tall as me, and both built roughly the same as me.

  But their eyes…

  “What are you people?” I asked, looking from one to the other. They both had the same gold rings around their irises. So did the man holding me when I looked up at him.