In an instant, Zinc’s attention snapped to the side, and he waved his hand with a swift flick in the wolf’s direction. Suddenly, the iron bars melted into a metallic mass, warping and twisting as they caught the man by the arms, the waist, the legs like silver tentacles. Then they froze solid, returning to regular metal once more, leaving the man struggling helplessly against the metal restraints.
“Not a chance, vermin,” Zinc said with a frown, stepping toward the wolf and knocking him out cold with a single blow.
Leanne just stood there watching in wonder, almost forgetting the world around her as she watched the man she’d been tending to for days fight like some untouchable monster.
“It’s clear. Let’s go,” Zinc said, turning to Leanne and motioning for her to come. She did, suddenly remembering what they were doing, trying to make her steps lighter as if sneaking could somehow detract from the fact that Zinc had singlehandedly taken care of more than half a dozen wolves as though they were nothing.
She followed close behind him as they went up the long staircase that led out into a great hallway of the castle. When they finally reached the top, Zinc looked around, quickly taking stock of the situation.
“Do you remember the way out?” he asked. Thankfully, there was no one to be seen yet, but not too far off, noise could be heard that likely signaled danger.
“No. They brought me inside when it was dark, and that was weeks ago. The only places I’ve been are the dungeon and Hora’s office. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. I have an idea,” he said, looking at the end of the hallway a couple dozen feet away on their right. He quickly strode toward a small window that was barred, showing nothing but black midnight through it, and took a quick look before backing away from it.
Were they going to escape through that tiny window?
“Stand back,” he said abruptly, and she did so. The sounds at the other end of the hallway getting louder by the second started to make her nervous.
Zinc cracked his knuckles, then lunged forward with a single fist and punched the wall before them. Like cardboard, the solid, heavy stones erupted outward, splitting into pieces and flying away from them, creating a sizable hole in the wall.
Leanne would have stared agape if she’d had time. But his gaze on hers reminded her to hurry.
Zinc stood at the opening where a wall once had been, ushering her outside, then following behind her. Her eyes took a second to acclimate to the darkness before she got a better look at the surrounding terrain.
“Where are we?” Zinc asked, jogging behind her as they went down a hill. Leanne just wanted as much distance between her and this wretched castle as she could manage right now.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said, glancing around the landscape, looking for a city, a mountain, anything that could be remotely recognizable. But the foreboding darkness was silent in its response to her searching.
And between having sex with Zinc, escaping, and not having been able to be outside or work out in weeks (maybe longer), Leanne’s legs were already starting to fail her.
The siren of a klaxon blaring from the castle only made things worse, and Zinc and Leanne turned to see lights starting to turn on in the castle windows, the noise from inside becoming louder and louder.
There was still a hundred or so feet to clear before they reached the forest that surrounded the oddly placed castle that sat atop a small hill behind them. Maybe if they reached the woods, they could sneak away under the cover of darkness. But even that sounded like a stretch as far as plans went. Neither of them had any clue where to go or how to get home.
“I have an idea,” Zinc said, and Leanne stopped to face him as he looked down at her, those beautiful steel eyes bright even in the darkness.
“What do you mean?”
“Give me your hand,” he said. She’d barely raised it when he grasped it gently, and his hand closed over the metal band on her finger.
She’d almost forgotten it was there. So much had happened in so little time.
He closed his eyes for a moment, whispering something unintelligible. Then a black doorway opened in front of them, not much larger than a regular door.
She looked inside and saw an endless, swirling void that looked like space. Suddenly, stars and constellations and nebulas flew by at blinding speeds within the doorway, and Leanne almost lost her balance. Everything was moving so fast within the black mass, though she hadn’t moved an inch.
And then it stopped, a planet showing before her through the portal, swathed in greens and purples and other colors, unlike anything she’d ever seen.
What was this? Where was this?
But before Leanne could turn to Zinc and ask, an ear-splitting roar boomed from behind them, shaking Leanne’s entire body and interrupting all conscious thought. She whirled around and saw a gigantic dragon, black with iridescent purple scales and long horns, charging at them from the castle. The ground thundered around Leanne, groaning at each step of the creature.
Leanne glanced up to see Zinc looking in the direction of the dragon with surprising confidence.
“I can transform, but I don’t want you caught in a fight between two dragons. I won’t risk your safety,” Zinc said, his gaze coming to meet hers.
“What other options do we have?” Leanne replied, watching in horror as the humongous beast covered the space between them with shocking speed.
“Do you trust me?” Zinc asked, the calm in his voice a stark contrast to the imminent sound of roaring and crashing steps.
Leanne’s throat was so tight with fear she could barely talk. So instead, she grabbed Zinc’s hand and nodded quickly. The dragon was so close she could see the bright, glowing red of its eyes as it barreled toward them.
Zinc faced the doorway, and together they jumped into swirling, infinite blackness.
And the entire world behind them disappeared into nothingness. She held her breath as cold wild swirled around them, and the next thing she knew, she felt hard ground underneath her as she and Zinc tumbled together out of the portal, which closed behind them.
She separated from him shakily, still remembering the terrifying form of the dragon that had been thundering after them, death in its eyes.
They hadn’t had a choice but to come here.
And where was here, exactly?
Her heart couldn’t seem to stop racing as she looked all around her. Faces were swirling as people came closer. She looked at the floor to see sparkling material, something like granite, only more metallic.
The feel of it was so cool, so foreign. She stared at Zinc, who was climbing to his feet and brushing himself off, standing between her and the approaching crowd.
Everyone was elegantly attired, as if they had interrupted some kind of party. The women wore shimmering gowns and the men different colors of tunics with matching pants.
And everyone was huge.
She looked at one of the windows in the enormous, glittering ballroom and saw a pink moon that was completely unlike anything she’d seen on Earth. She slowly turned to Zinc as he took her by the hands and helped her to her feet, pulling her in against him.
A woman pushed through the crowd. She was old with lines around her eyes, dark-gray hair shot through with white, and sparkling silver eyes.
“Oh, Zinc, you’re home. It is so good to see you. You look well.” She put a hand out toward Leanne. “And who is this?”
“My mate, Leanne,” Zinc said, pulling her in against his side. “She saved my life.”
Leanne’s brain was trying to catch up with everything that was happening. Had she died when she came through the portal and this was her new heaven? Was she hallucinating from hitting her head on something? Or was it actually possible that they’d travelled through space?
Zinc looked into her eyes worriedly, as if he could hear her thoughts. “It’s going to be okay, Leanne. I’m here to protect you.”
She tightened her hand on his arm and leaned against h
im because she felt dizzy. Perhaps she should have eaten dinner before they left, because she wasn’t feeling good at all. “I don’t understand. Where are we? What’s going on? So many people…”
“Drakkaris,” he said, keeping an arm around her waist tightly. “My planet. Where I am to be the future king.”
“Oh,” she remarked softly as her body gave up on trying to deal with everything that was happening and ran out of energy altogether.
She fainted in his arms.
Chapter 9
“So what exactly is going on here?”
Zinc looked up in surprise as his mother, the queen, entered the room where he’d been waiting at Leanne’s bedside.
“What do you mean what is going on?” He kept his tone neutral, his gaze focused on Leanne’s peaceful expression as she slept.
“It’s not what we expected,” the queen said quietly, taking a seat on one of the chairs next to the bed. “It truly is good to see you, but when you brought your mate back, I wasn’t expecting her to faint. Or for you both to be dressed so… interestingly.” She gestured at the dirty tunic and pants he was wearing, that he’d been wearing in the dungeon.
He still didn’t know what to tell his mother, and he kept his thoughts blocked so she couldn’t see them.
She didn’t really need to know that her son had been kidnapped while on Earth and held by a crazy she-dragon who wanted to rape him. Or that his mate was a human who had been imprisoned and mated him only to save his life.
Or that his mate didn’t think they were permanently mated.
He hadn’t meant to trick anyone, he thought, stroking his thumb over Leanne’s knuckles as he held her fingers in his hand. He couldn’t have lied to her even to save his own life.
He’d simply been delirious and misunderstood her question.
That was all.
He let out a deep breath. “It has been a difficult couple of weeks for us, but luckily, we are both fine now.”
“Hm.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs regally. She was tall, like all the dragons in Drakkaris, and could be quite a formidable presence, even without the crown that currently rested on her perfectly coiffed, gray-haired head. “We did contact the oracle and your friends, as you requested.”
“And?”
“They are relieved to hear that you are okay. Apparently, they lost contact with you. Although, the oracle couldn’t tell me anything else.”
“I see,” Zinc answered noncommittally.
His mother stared at him intently. “It seems it was good that I negotiated with the oracle to put a portal in your ring so you could come back when you found a mate.”
Zinc nodded. It was all his mother had requested when Zinc and the rest of the dragon guard had left to find mates.
“Of course, I am a bit worried about how you were faring on Earth. Though, I can see you don’t wish to talk about it.”
“I’m still figuring it out,” he said. “Our arrival was a little… sudden.”
“I could tell that by the way your mate fainted.”
“It’s been… a hard day for her. I’m sure she’ll feel better when she wakes.”
The queen stood and walked to the bed, looking down at her. “I’m sure.” She smiled warmly. “She seems to be a wonderful woman. I can’t wait to properly meet her.”
He stood to give his mother a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. For understanding. For being patient.”
His mother drew back, holding his hands in hers. “I only want what’s best for you.” Then she released him. “I’m going to head downstairs to see your father. Unless there’s anything else you want to talk about.”
Zinc hesitated. A part of him wanted desperately to tell someone exactly what had happened, how complicated things were between him and Leanne.
But he couldn’t tell his mother that he’d been mated in a desperate moment to be saved from imminent rape or death. That reduced what he had with Leanne, what he felt for her, to simple necessity, and that wasn’t the truth at all.
“No. I’m fine,” he said, giving her a little wave and turning back to the bedside. “Nothing to talk about.”
“That’s too bad,” she said. “Because I think a friend of yours had hoped otherwise.”
He jerked his gaze back to the door as she closed it, and he wondered for a moment what she meant.
Then the door swung open, and a very welcome face appeared in his doorway.
Tall, broad shoulders, blue-gray hair, deep-blue eyes. Reading glasses perched on a slim nose.
“Cobalt.”
The man swept a bow. “At your service, Your Majesty.”
Zinc crossed the room in a few steps and closed Cobalt in his arms, clasping him in a manly hug that made the quiet man grunt slightly.
When they separated, Cobalt held Zinc at arm’s length and looked him over. “It is good to see you well, Your Highness.”
“Just Zinc for now,” Zinc said. “After all, I’m not taking the throne yet.”
“But you will now that you’ve found your mate,” Cobalt said, walking over to the bed and looking down at it. “She is beautiful.”
Zinc suppressed jealousy at another dragon even looking at his mate and took a seat in the chair he’d been in before, gesturing for Cobalt to take the other.
“So where have you been? What has happened to you? We have been trying every day to find you. Completely panicked.” Cobalt pushed the glasses up on his nose, a habit acquired from constantly spending time reading human books on Earth.
“I was kidnapped, as you know,” Zinc said. “I can’t say a lot about it because I was fairly delirious, but apparently, the lady dragon was planning to mate me.”
“That evil bitch. To gain access to Drakkaris?”
“Perhaps,” Zinc said. “Not that I ever would have gone along with it.”
Cobalt looked at Leanne again, puzzled. “If you were in captivity, how did you end up mated?”
“Uh, well, that’s kind of a long story.”
Cobalt crossed one leg over the other. “I’m here to help you. If all I can do is listen, that’s what I’m here for.” He grinned slightly. “And you know I love a good story.”
Zinc sighed but knew Cobalt was probably the best person to talk to about something like this. No matter the situation, he could see it logically.
As he explained the situation, he saw Cobalt’s expression turn more and more amazed, and by the time he’d gotten to them leaving through the portal and coming here to Drakkaris, he was sitting back in the chair, looking slightly dazed.
“So she did all that just to save you?”
“Yes.”
Cobalt shook his head. “That is incredible. She is an amazing person.” He smiled. “As deserving of our king.”
“She didn’t know I was a king. Or believe I was from a different planet, apparently.”
“Well, she must have known enough about you from those few days if she was willing to make such a permanent choice with you.”
“Uh…”
“What?”
“She didn’t exactly know it was permanent.” Somehow, Zinc seemed to have left that out.
“How?”
“Because she asked when I was delirious if it could be reversed, and as I wasn’t lucid, I gave some nonsense answer about being the king and being able to do anything I wanted.”
“Oh.” Cobalt sat back. “That is quite a pickle, as the humans would say.”
Zinc laughed hoarsely. “Humans. I am mated to a human.” He looked at her tenderly. “Truly, I could never have chosen a more perfect human, even if I had been given a choice.”
Cobalt was quiet. “Do you think she wants to reverse the mating? What will you do if that’s the case?”
Zinc shrugged. “No idea. What do you suggest?”
Cobalt thought it over for a moment, gray eyebrows furrowed. “I suppose you just have to win her over the same way you would have won her if you’d met her outside a dungeon. Get to kn
ow her better. You know, like the other dragons did with their humans.”
“That makes sense,” Zinc said, giving Cobalt a pat on the back. “It’s good to have you here. Speaking of which, was Chromium angry?”
“No, of course not. Like all of us, he was worried about you. Worried we had failed you. That your poison would take you…”
“Thanks to Leanne, it didn’t.”
“Right,” Cobalt said. “Because of that, I’m completely committed to helping the both of you however I can.”
Zinc heard a knock on the door and sat up abruptly. “Who is it?”
“A servant. Your father is asking for you, Your Highness.”
Zinc shook his head. “Don’t know why they insist on calling me that. I’m not king yet.”
“But you will be. At least, most of them have grown up thinking as much.”
“Leanne may not want to stay here.”
Cobalt put a hand on Zinc’s shoulder. “Your life has been spared. Why not take this one step at a time from here on out? Be grateful for the gift you’ve been given and find out more about the woman who gave it to you.”
Zinc relaxed slightly. “You’re right.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I wanted to wait for her to wake up, but if the king is calling me…”
“I will go with you to meet the king, and we will ask the queen to wait here for your mate so she doesn’t wake up alone.”
Zinc nodded. “That’s actually a great idea.”
“And when she does wake, I will help you teach her our customs, help you figure out ways to win her.” Cobalt wiggled his eyebrows. “You can learn a lot of things from books, Zinc.”
Zinc felt blood rush into his neck and cheeks and exhaled harshly. “I’m sure you can. Now let’s go before the king has to call again. You know he hates that.”
Cobalt barked out a laugh. “Yes, sir.”
Chapter 10
When Leanne woke, she had the distinct feeling that the dungeon was warmer than usual. The covers around her were so silky and soft, and the mattress beneath her felt like an actual mattress.
She pushed herself up and blinked as she looked around the room, realizing quickly that she wasn’t in the dungeon anymore.
Zinc Dragon (Dragon Guard of Drakkaris Book 4) Page 6
