by Willa Hart
I’d kill them. I had no idea how, but I would. I’d make it my life’s mission.
“No, not really,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. “They did take great pleasure in tormenting me though. The smallest one kept turning into a dragon, just to watch me scream in terror.”
I squeezed her again, holding her as tight as a mother would a frightened child. I wanted to take away the pain, the memories of something so unimaginable it could crack a person’s mind. But there was no going back at this point, especially since they had us both now. I still held out hope they’d keep their end of the bargain. Dragons tended to be an ethical bunch, true to their word, but who knew with this lot.
“I’m sorry they did that to you, Zoe. I really should have told you all of this sooner so it wouldn’t be a total shock.”
She settled her head back on my shoulder. “It wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have believed you. Couldn’t have without seeing it with my own eyes.”
“Listen,” I said, wanting to fill her in on as much as possible before Titus or one of his cronies came back, “these guys are evil, no sense in hiding that. Sounds like you already know it. But what you don’t know is that we’ve beat them more than once, and we’ll do it again.”
“We?” she asked, tilting her head to glance up at me.
My face flamed red. So much she didn’t know, and no time to give her every sordid detail.
“Max’s nephews, plus some other…” I hesitated to use the word “dragon” in case it triggered her again. “They and some other folks are trying to find us right this second. Don’t you worry.”
I couldn't admit I was only guessing at that, since I'd blocked the guys out of my head this whole time. I had no doubt they wanted to search for me, despite my behavior, but probably had no idea where. It was tempting to reach out to them at that moment, show them exactly where we were in the world, but I needed to make sure Zoe got out safe first. If the guys attacked now, Titus would surely kill her first, if only to spite me.
She blinked a few times, then nodded. “They’re all…?”
I nodded. “Max too.”
We sat there quietly for a second, simply happy the other was alive and kicking.
“What do they want?” she finally asked.
Best to tread lightly. No sense feeding her information they could later torture out of her.
“Did they mention anything to you?”
“They wanted to know where Max was, but how the hell should I know? Guess they realized I was a big, fat nobody who knew nothing of interest to them. After that, they shoved a rag in my mouth and treated me like a bag of garbage.”
My nostrils flared with anger, but I kept tight control on my feelings. I still had no idea what Titus could glean from my emotional state, as meagerly trained as I was. He obviously had sensed my presence in the other house, and my guess was that he knew I hadn’t been followed to this delightful hovel.
“First of all, you are far from a big, fat nobody, okay?” That won me a glimmer of a smile. “Second of all, they either want Max or something Max has. Maybe both. Too bad for them, because I don’t know anything either.”
“So if they don’t get what they want, what are they going to do with us?”
I slipped my hand into hers and held on for dear life. The time for deception and lies had passed. Zoe deserved the truth.
“They’re going to let you go. That was the deal.”
She pulled away again, her eyes wide. “What deal?”
“Me for you. Straight trade.”
“What?” she asked, blanching.
I took both of her moist hands in mine and gave her my most comforting smile. “They only kidnapped you to get to me. They think I’ll lead them to Max, which makes me much more valuable than you. They won’t hurt me, Zoe. They need me.”
“No no no,” she said, her eyes wild.
“It’ll be okay, Zoe. In a few minutes, they’ll let you go. You’ll be free.”
“Are you shitting me right now, Favor? No fucking way am I leaving you in the clutches of these motherfuckers!”
Ah, my old sassy Zoe was back with a spark in her eyes. A profound sense of love filled my heart, but I wasn’t about to let her steamroll me. Not now.
“This is how it’s going to go down, Zoe. When they let you go, you’re going to run outside, jump in the SUV parked out front, and you’re going to drive as fast and as far as you can away from this place. Got it? The tank’s almost full, so you can get a long way, but what I want you to do when the tank gets low is fuel up and keep on driving. I don’t care which direction, just do it, okay?”
“I can’t leave you like that, Favor. No fucking way.”
I summoned up every ounce of authority I could muster and gave her the hardest look I’d ever managed in my life. “You are and you’re not going to argue with me about it. They need me, Zoe. They don’t need you, not anymore. Which makes you dead weight. And what do you think guys like them do with dead weight?”
Understanding flickered in her eyes.
“You’re going to do exactly as I say, got it?”
A shudder wracked her frame, then she nodded miserably. I pulled her into another hug, desperate to hold her for as long as possible, despite the heat. I wasn’t lying when I said they needed me, but I couldn’t help wondering what they had planned for me once they got their hands on Max. I could only hope it wouldn’t come to that.
The door slammed open, making us both jump nearly out of our skin. Titus and one of his goons strode in. Titus grabbed my arm while the goon grabbed Zoe’s, then dragged us out of the room so fast we could barely keep our footing. They threw us to the floor in the middle of the room and surrounded us. I pulled Zoe back into my arms and she ducked her head into the crook of my neck. The desire — no, need — to kill them all for tormenting my friend blasted through me like a lightning bolt.
Titus paced in front of us, his eyes sliding over our bodies as if sizing us up. More likely just me. The other dragons hung back and let Titus do the talking, but all eyes remained fixed on us. I’d never felt more like prey in my life.
“Vee start simple,” Titus said in a low, menacing tone, his accent so heavy it was hard to understand him. “Ver ees eet?”
“Where’s what?”
“Zee guli,” he snarled, stepping closer. “Do not play stupeed vis me!”
“Can’t play stupid if I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shot back.
Titus narrowed his eyes at me and cracked his knuckles. Zoe trembled in my arms, but I maintained solid eye contact with him, letting him know he didn’t scare me. Of course, if it hadn’t been for Zoe, I would have been wetting myself, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Maximus,” he snarled. “Ver ees he?”
I shrugged. “No clue. I’ve been trying to track him down for days.”
Titus shot one of his subordinates a look, and the man nodded. When he spoke, he used Balaur, presumably so Zoe and I wouldn’t understand them.
“I sense no deception from her, sir.”
Another one clucked. “Too bad, I was hoping to see how much a fragile body like hers could take.”
Zoe slapped her hands to her ears and moaned, as if the sound of Balaur caused her physical pain. I held her tighter and listened even harder, though I adopted an expression of confusion so they wouldn’t know I could understand them.
“I agree,” Titus said, nodding at the first guy. “She’s telling us the truth. But Maximus will learn we have her sooner or later. Best to keep her healthy and uninjured until we have him, in case he requires proof.”
The second one sniffed his irritation at his boss’s logic but didn’t object.
“What about the other one?” a third guy asked, his eyes a little too eager for my taste.
“She’s of no use to us anymore,” the fourth thug pointed out.
The first one shook his head. “That one won’t cooperate if we harm her friend.”
> “Well, we can’t let her go,” argued the second. “She knows too much already.”
They all turned to Titus, who rubbed his scruffy chin as he thought. He finally shrugged. “Let her go.”
Relief nearly overwhelmed me. I’d been worried for a minute there, but apparently even jerk dragons kept their word.
“Let her get a few miles away,” he continued, “then blast her to ashes. The girl need never know.”
White hot rage blinded me, and I jumped to my feet, surprising the goons who staggered back a step or two. “We had a deal, you son of a bitch!”
Titus remained unmoved, both physically and emotionally. A small smile twitched at his lips, as if he’d suspected I could understand Balaur all along.
“What kind of self-respecting dragon breaks deals like a two-bit piece-of-shit scumbag? You promised to set her free if I took her place!”
“W-what’s happening?” Zoe mewled from the floor, her terrified gaze bouncing around the room.
Shit! She hadn’t understood them, but I’d spoken in English, mainly because I had no idea how to speak Balaur. Now she was freaking out.
“We’re dragons,” Titus gloated in Balaur, as if I was no more than an ant to his kind. “Lying to humans is in our nature. Didn’t Maximus tell you that?”
All the frustration and fear and rage over the last week or two built into a head of steam I couldn’t control. Much like when the club guy had drugged Zoe, I sort of hovered outside my body as it attacked.
Channeling every ounce of my strength, I flung myself at Titus, kicking and punching and screaming and biting, hard as I could. My frenzy was so complete, it took several seconds to realize Titus hadn’t even moved. Only when I felt an odd pressure on my forehead did I slow down enough to figure out where I went wrong.
Titus smirked down at me, one hand held straight out from his body. His big palm pressed against my forehead, holding me at bay like some bad Three Stooges bit.
“Motherfucker!” I screeched, flailing again but making no more headway against the hand on my forehead.
The others laughed, then Zoe cried out and I stopped fighting. Two of them held her arms between them, even as she struggled against them. Moments later, they shoved us into the back room, and we stumbled onto the mattress, clutching each other. I pushed myself in front of Zoe and seethed at Titus.
“We had a deal!”
He sighed heavily as if I was starting to get on his last nerve.
“You have two options,” he said, grabbing the doorknob in his massive fist. “She can join you on an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe” — he paused a beat, letting his words sink in — “or not.”
Chapter Nineteen
The door slammed, leaving Zoe and me to contemplate our fate in the overheated gloom of the boarded-up room. I turned to her as her knees gave out and she collapsed against me. Her body shook with great wracking sobs as I lowered us both to the nasty mattress. It was only marginally better than the even nastier floor.
I cradled her there, rocking her gently and trying to soothe her while she clung to me as if I were a piece of flotsam after her ship went down. I stroked her hair gently, combing through the snarls and tangles to give my hands something to do while I tried to figure a way out of this mess I’d created.
No, I wasn’t at fault here, Titus was. He’d made all the decisions that led to this point, and it made no sense — and certainly didn’t help — to take the blame for his bad behavior. It’s not as if I could have predicted I’d end up captured alongside Zoe. Sure, sometimes I could sense things, but I never imagined this. Didn’t matter though. The guilt clung to me as tightly as Zoe.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured into her hair. “I won’t let them hurt you, I promise you that.”
She pulled away, wiping her face dry. “I don’t really think you have a choice in the matter.”
Her voice wavered, thick with emotion, but even after who knows how long crying, she looked as gorgeous as ever. I couldn’t stop a smile from tweaking my lips.
“What’s there to smile about?” she asked, dragging her forearm across her nose, ruining the image and making me chuckle.
“Well, before you did that, I was thinking how impossibly pretty you are. Even when you cry. You’re going to be famous one day, Zoe, I know it in my heart.”
Hope flashed in her eyes for the briefest moment, then her gaze drifted to the door and all hope faded. Damn Titus! Try as he might, I refused to allow him to steal that one priceless jewel that would always be out of his reach. If I wanted us to survive this, I had to keep hope alive, burning in both of our hearts, like a lantern to guide the way. Escape seemed impossible at the moment, but I wasn’t remotely ready to give up.
“Don’t worry, Zoe. We’ll make it out of here, I promise.”
She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “How?”
Wish I knew.
Raucous laughter erupted from the other room. Titus and his gang were relaxed in their position of power, confident they’d already succeeded. I couldn’t catch everything they said, but the gist was that they were gloating.
Zoe flinched next to me, going ashen and covering her ears again. “What is that horrible noise?”
“It’s called Balaur, the ancient dragon language. It hurts you?”
“For fuck’s sake, yes! It’s like a thousand fingernails screeching down a chalkboard. How can you stand it?”
My tolerance for the language — not to mention the ability to understand it — obviously had to do with my status as a dragon keeper. Another perk was the Favor Fiske Emergency Broadcast System. I'd done it before, and I'd spent the last hour trying to keep the guys out of my head. Now I wanted to contact them, but I still had no clue how I did it last time.
Closing my eyes, I did my best to ignore all the distractions — except my heart. It was beating fast enough that blood rushed in my ears. Focusing on the guys as a group, I simply shouted HELP! in my head and envisioned the last address that had popped up on my phone. Would that do the trick? Somehow, I doubted it, so I brought up Kellum’s face in my mind, then Danic’s. Their warm smiles shone through the hazy darkness, reassuring me everything would be okay. I reached for them, but my fingers just missed.
I tried to connect with Kellum first, as we’d done once before. Surely it would work again. But it felt a little like a phone without voicemail, a one-way call trying to connect but failing. Nothing but blankness and silence. Same happened when I tried connecting with Danic. Nothing.
Panic gripped me. I couldn’t harness the connection that had come so naturally before, which either meant the cavalry had no clue where I was, or they were pushing me out of their heads as I’d done earlier.
I’d come here to save Zoe, and now I’d failed her. I’d been too reckless, too stubborn, too independent. It hadn't even dawned on me that we both might end up as dragon kibble. Titus had known exactly what it would take to lure me away from my protectors and I’d walked right into his trap, dooming us both.
With a gasp of understanding, my eyes flew open and I slumped against the wall, completely drained and totally devoid of hope. I was too weak, too helpless, too late. My body trembled like a leaf in a heavy wind.
“Is that a fucking earthquake?” Zoe said, watching dust drift down from the wood slats that had once served as a ceiling. “That’s just great. Because of course we’d have an earthquake.”
I followed her sightline. Sure enough, tendrils of dust floated through the hot air as if someone was stomping overhead. Only there was no overhead in this house, only an attic. The plywood covering the broken window rattled against the frame. The floor under us vibrated. Zoe and I huddled with our backs to the walls, praying the structure wouldn’t collapse on us, when I heard a strange yet familiar sound.
The whoosh of leathery wings on the wind, growing closer and louder. I gasped, not daring to allow hope to ignite in my heart.
“Impossible,” I breathed.
The world explode
d with noise, shaking the house and my very essence. Zoe shrieked and curled up into a ball with her arms around her head at the sound of the dragon’s roar. It was joined by another roar, then another. All different, all familiar.
My boys.
Then came more dragon screams I didn’t recognize. I lost count at twelve, and still more came. Gusts of wind from their wings shuddered the plywood on the window, more dust sprinkled down from the ceiling, and the air took on the scent of a recent campfire.
The hope that had deserted me moments before swarmed inside me like happy bees buzzing around their queen. The boys must have pulled together the attack team they’d been talking about when I slipped away, but how the hell did they find us so quickly? I’d only called out to them a few seconds earlier.
The whys and hows of the situation ran away when the door slammed open and two of the jadokari ran in. Fury had turned Titus’s eyes solid yellow, while the other guy simply looked panicked. Titus yanked me up by my arm, wrenching it behind my back. Zoe screamed when the other guy copied Titus. I threw my head back hard, aiming for his nose, but thumped uselessly against his chest. Damn tall-ass dragons! Kicking backward, my heel connected with his shin, but it reverberated through my body as if I’d kicked a lamppost.
Zoe went wild, scratching and biting like a wildcat, but the guy holding her jerked her arm a little and she settled down, realizing she was no match for a strong dragon. Best to comply…for the moment.
They hustled us out of the room and Titus turned toward the living room. Maybe he’d use me as a hostage to negotiate for his own life. Whatever, as long as Zoe got out of here safely.
“Favor!” she cried, sounding much farther away than she should have been.
Straining to see around Titus’s great bulk, I watched as her captor dragged her away from me, toward the very back of the house.
“Zoe!”
I strained against Titus but couldn’t break free. Zoe struggled too, reaching out to me, her face twisted in terror.
“No! Favor! Favor!”
Then she was gone, out the back door I hadn’t even noticed before. That white-hot rage surged in me again, but I couldn’t do a damn thing to help her. Titus was too strong.
