“I mean…it goes without saying that I need to live through this, right?”
Don’t be an idiot.
That was apparently a yes.
I released the air hold and allowed her hand to continue until it rested just over my heart.
“Boy will I feel stupid if this was all an elaborate scheme to rip my heart out,” I said.
“In that case, we’d both feel stupid. Being elaborate just wastes time.”
“You’re not real moody, are you? Just super sweet all the time, huh?”
Claws elongated from her fingers and dug into my skin.
“I’m having second thoughts,” I said, and then held my breath as the pain spiraled outward from my chest. I would’ve pushed her off if I hadn’t felt a strange stirring in my chest, like the haze on my bond with Darius was lifting slightly, letting the feeling of him seep out and into my person.
My body tensed, the world stilled, my entire being focused on him re-entering my world.
The pain in my chest increased, her claws digging in, her power amplifying.
“He has grown mighty while under your care,” she whispered, her voice strained.
Anxiety and worry bled through the bond, followed by confusion, and then a gush of love so powerful my knees weakened. He felt me as I was feeling him. Relief washed in next, and suddenly I knew exactly where to find him. I could sense his direction in relation to mine.
“Interesting. I never took you for a crier.” Ja pulled her bloody hand away from my red-stained chest. I barely felt the pounding of pain, focused as I was on the feeling of Darius within me again. Coursing through me. Filling me up. It wasn’t just the bond, which was still half muffled. I could finally let myself miss him again. Ache for him. Want him near me.
How could Lucifer ever think I could sex him away? That was a person who didn’t understand deep, soul-crushing love. He might’ve really liked my mom, but he hadn’t loved her. Not like this. Not even close.
“It’s been a rough few weeks,” I said, wiping my cheeks and not even feeling remotely embarrassed about the show of vulnerability. Something Lucifer had said popped into my mind.
Vulnerabilities aren’t something to be afraid of. They make us stronger, in the end. You cannot really hate unless you know how to love. You will never know your true strength unless you give in to your greatest weaknesses.
Ja was watching me with a tilted head.
“Come on. Stop wasting time.” I brushed past her so I could grab a different top. This one now had holes in it.
“Don’t fail,” she told me, and then she and her cronies went running across the living space and leapt out of a window that would dump them out onto a very steep incline. I didn’t have time to see if they’d tumble off.
Dress off and tank on, I tied my hair tighter and grabbed the demon whiskey and one glass from the table. I emptied most of the whiskey to look like I’d drunk it and then put the bottle on the table in the main room and the glass on the table near the window. If someone got into the main room before they should, hopefully they’d see that and my closed door and wait for my hangover to wear away. Assuming they could get in at all.
I opened the window that looked out over the darkened kingdom and sailed through it, pulling in tightly to the building and dodging windows as I made my way to Cahal’s apartment. I’d chosen it deliberately. It was a big production to get there from within the castle—you had to take stairs and go down halls. Go out the window, though, and it was very accessible. I loved it when a plan came together. Especially because I never usually planned at all.
He stood in the window with only dim light at his back. He didn’t have his sword, which would be a problem, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. I’d tried to devise a way to get down to the armory to get it back, but I’d never been allowed to go there. I wasn’t ready to see the darker parts of the kingdom, I’d been told, as though I didn’t know how torture worked. As though I hadn’t been tortured right before being brought here.
They just didn’t trust me. They thought I would try to steal the sword out from under them. They were right.
He pulled the latch and swung the heavy pane inward. He glanced down the side of the castle to the ground far below. Then back at me.
“Wanna hug?” I put out my arms.
He glanced down again before stepping up onto the ledge and reaching out for me. I cinched my hands around his big body, grabbing him beneath the pits, before wrapping my legs around his middle. While I’d discovered I could hover two entities, he could only wrap himself in shadow. Unless I was glued to him, of course.
What took you? Cahal thought.
“I had a lovely surprise meeting,” I whispered, sliding down the side slowly, working around windows great and small. “Ja showed up.”
His large slabs of muscle bulged, his arms squeezing my back uncomfortably.
“Yeah. Surprised me, too.” I tried to glance around his big arm to the ground, but no go. “How close are we?”
Half a floor. How did… It wasn’t Vlad.
“Correct. She scolded me for not having seen that. She had a lot of disparaging things to say, actually. She doesn’t think too highly of the way I’ve spent my time here.”
She was in the elves’ dungeon when I got there. She cleared the way for Lucifer, though he didn’t know it. Or need it. I don’t know what else she was doing in there, but she mentioned that you needed training. She wanted you here.
“She was going to release the hold on my bond with Darius, but she ran out of time, I guess. She just did it there, in my room. Well, halfway. It’s enough. I can get Darius’s direction. I’ll be able to find them easily this way.”
We bumped into the ground a little harder than we should’ve. Whoops.
“Let’s go, druid. Let’s see if you can keep up.”
I took off like a jet, needing to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Cahal was right beside me, hopefully close enough to impart a little magic. He wouldn’t last long at this speed, but we could slow down once we were out in the nothingness.
“I do not…get that…vampire,” I said as we went. “She told me…some of her…end game—”
I hit a rock and stumbled. Cahal braced me. The guy was like a dark guardian angel. He was dangerous and rough and deadly, but when he was helping you stay alive, no detail was too small.
Do not trust anything she says. Her mind is dizzying, and her motives are never clear.
I was glad I wasn’t the only one that thought so.
Cahal looked back and then slowed, breathing heavily.
Thank you for the air, by the way, he thought. I may not technically need it, but it is uncomfortable to live without it.
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I did it. Also, I was throwing a tantrum.”
He continued on at the slower pace, and I took that opportunity to tell him all Ja had said, repeating her plans in slow detail.
She will let them kill the spy she had with Vlad?
“It seems so.”
She must have others. She likely brought him in case the worst should happen.
“Which it clearly did if she is now asking for help.”
Yes, exactly. She is learning the hard way what it is like to enter into a situation with you and Ms. Bristol. It takes some getting used to.
“You’ve done well.”
Yes.
His delivery was deadpan. Who would’ve thought that was possible with a thought? I laughed as we reached the dragon territory. We slowed, and Cahal stepped in front of me. He bent, and I climbed onto his back so his magic would mask both of us. Most of the dragons were asleep, but the big ones would be heading out soon for the hunt.
“And here I thought you’d carry me like a bride,” I murmured as he started jogging through the trees. He’d drop me at Archion before he went back for his dragon.
Only a madman would consent to carry you like a bride and mean it.
“I’
ll tell Darius you said so.”
He is not a man.
I rolled my eyes. I’d walked into that one.
Hey, I thought as Cahal put me down next to a sleeping Archion, all curled up like a dog in a comfy, big bed. Trees and bushes closed him in on all sides but one, a setup I’d made for him over the last few days, much of it an illusion. It gave him privacy, which he deserved, but it would also keep Lucifer from noticing his absence.
Hmm? A sleepy dragon lid lifted slowly, the pale orb beneath glowing slightly. Huh.
We gotta go. It’s time. I patted him again, hard as a rock. Way prettier, though. Hurry!
His eyes snapped open now and his head came up, quickly alert. He snaked his long neck out and twisted through one of the trunks, spying what lay beyond.
Go tell Saphira that we are ready.
Who?
Saphira. The white dragon.
Oh. I turned to hurry away. I turned back. What?
She is my best mate. Our eggs hatched close together. I trust her with my life, and I told her about our journey. She wants to come. She will help carry your friends. The bond requirements will be withheld while we are running for our lives. Because if you get caught, we will all be trapped here forever, or killed. We wish to leave. With you.
I didn’t have time to argue. Or say thank you. Or ask if this was a good idea. I just listened, running toward Saphira’s hangout, using the roundabout back way so none of the other dragons would see me. This close to Tatsu, Lucifer’s dragon, we need to take the utmost care, especially since the big dragons would be getting up to hunt pretty soon.
Reaching the dragon with the lovely snow-powder scales, outlined in dusty gray, I patted her shoulder.
No reaction.
Hey!
Still nothing. Oh, right—I could only think thoughts between a dragon that accepted me as a bond mate.
“Hey.” I kicked her this time. She was a dragon. She would barely feel it.
Her eyes snapped open, and her head jerked up, smoke pouring out of her nostrils.
“No, no.” I held out my hands. “It’s me. Archion’s rider. Remember? I guess he broke my trust, blabbed to you, and you consented to be a fifth wheel?”
Those luminous eyes, the “whites” a soft blue, blinked slowly. The black slit within enlarged, and she looked in the direction of Archion.
I put my finger to my lips. “Shh. Hopefully he also told you that we can’t let Tatsu know we’re leaving…”
Her body rocked back and forth until she was pushed up into a crouch, very graceful for a dragon.
“Get out of here without people—dragons—noticing.” I took a few steps away. “Then meet us in the air. We’ll be flying high. We have no time to lose.”
Back at Archion, I belatedly remembered that I should’ve probably put up some sort of illusion to show her sleeping in her spot. Then again, if Lucifer noticed the magic, he’d know I’d deliberately set out to hide her. If he noticed she was missing, on the other hand, he might just think she was out for a fly.
Okay, let’s go. I hovered up onto his back. Cahal is probably wondering where we are.
I thought your friend chose a dragon under his power level. Archion lifted into the air and flew forward a ways, staying low to the tree line. But his magic is able to cover Coppelia perfectly. With a larger dragon, that would likely not be the case. They will be stronger as a pair with that magic able to hide them.
I nodded, because I’d wondered too, but his insight made sense. We kept moving, and a little farther out, hopefully past the notice of Tatsu, he zoomed into the sky, meeting Cahal and Coppelia. Saphira joined us a moment later.
I tapped his neck on the side to adjust our direction. I had Darius’s bond to guide me now. His location was a glowing spot in my mind, and I could barely keep from pushing Archion to hurry faster.
We’ll be going into battle, I told him. I think it is a violence sect, so they’ll be able to defend themselves. We’ll need to clear the outside of the sect so a group of untrustworthy vampires can rush in.
I have not been in battle before.
I know. Trust me, it’ll be fun. You can do a sweep and then drop me off so I can fight on foot. I’m better off if I’m participating.
I’d hate to lose you.
Then help out when the time comes. If you feel fear, just—
I am a dragon among peasants. Why should I feel fear?
He wasn’t too old in dragon terms—a hundred and fifty or so—and male. He was basically a teen boy. He probably wouldn’t feel fear, stupidly so. But in this situation, that would help instead of hurt, so I let it go.
Cahal pulled up alongside us, high above the ground. He looked over, hard to see within the darkness and his swirling shadow.
We’ll need to give it all we have, Cahal thought. This is your only chance at escape. You fooled Lucifer once. It will never happen again.
Nineteen
“I’ve got nothing.” Penny wiped her face of sweat. Or maybe they were tears.
She sat back on her haunches with her hands braced against her thighs, staring at the iron bars locking them in a windowless ten-by-fifteen-foot cell. Stone blocks surrounded them on all sides but one. Only a sparse glow filtered in from the barred opening, which faced another stone wall. They couldn’t see anyone coming and going—hadn’t seen anyone since they’d woken up, as a matter of fact.
“I have got literally nothing.” She pushed up to standing and started pacing. “How did we get into this mess?”
Emery sat on the ground in the back corner, his arms draped over his knees, sparing his energy. Darius, too, sat calmly, taking up the other corner.
“We were outnumbered, that’s what happened,” Penny said, not one ounce of calmness in her person. Not one. She didn’t know whether she should scream, cry, throw up, or pace. She’d opted for pacing, because she’d already scratched “figure out how to get out of here” and “use every real and made-up curse word known to man” off the list.
They had been put down here while they were asleep. Drugged, more like. She’d been cuddled up in a fluffy bed with Emery one minute, and facedown on a stone floor the next.
“Why would they just flip on us like that?” She rubbed her pounding head. “I mean, we were all good. I thought everything was good. They were hearing Darius out, they were giving us a nice place to sleep, a good meal…and then wham. Here we are.”
She turned right and stopped at the bars again, wrapping her fingers around the cold metal.
“There has to be a way out. Magic has to help, somehow.”
But she’d already tried everything. She could do a lot with magic, but she couldn’t bend metal. She couldn’t move it. There weren’t even enough ingredients in this godforsaken place to make a decent spell. They must’ve known how little it would take for them to wrangle up some magic to get out of here.
She sighed and leaned her head against the hard surface.
“What happens now?” she asked, at a loss.
“Lucifer shows up,” Emery said. “And we hope Reagan is with him.”
“She won’t be—” Darius cut off.
Penny turned to see if he had some miraculous great idea to get them out of this jam. If anyone could create something out of nothing and form a plan, it was this vampire. The trip into the Underworld had given her a new respect for him. More than respect, even. She might just start worshipping him as a brain god or something—he was that good at navigating dangerous situations and coming out on top.
Except for their current predicament, of course. Which was definitely his fault. She didn’t really know what had gone wrong, other than the super-violent and terrible demons had refused Darius’s trade, it had landed them in the stink, and it was his fault.
No, never mind. She would not worship him. She’d punch him. Just as soon as she wasn’t caged up with him and could quickly run away.
“What is it?” Emery asked, sitting forward.
Darius tensed, a
nd then his face and eyes softened. Penny had seen that look before—he’d worn it almost constantly on the island where he kept Reagan hidden away.
Hope surged within her. “Say it. Say what it is.” She’d become incredibly pushy from all of this.
He relaxed a little. “Our bond is…partially mended. She’s…” He bowed his head a little, clearly plugging whatever was coming through the bond into his big, fat brain. “She is eager and determined. She’s making a move. She must be.”
“Oh good.” Penny let out a relieved sigh before her thoughts caught up. “Wait, does that mean she is coming here with Lucifer after all?”
“No. If I’m not mistaken, she’s coming to our rescue.”
Penny deflated and looked back at the bars. “Dang it. Why are we always the damsels? She better not ride in on that freaking dragon. That would really push me over the edge.”
“Why don’t you have a seat, Miss Bristol?” Darius said. Penny knew that tone. It was his “you’re losing your mind and need to get a hold of yourself” tone.
Usually she ignored it. But this time, she pulled up some stone beside Emery and worked on deep breathing. If Reagan was coming, that meant she was breaking out of the castle on her own. And that meant she’d probably have the enemy hot on her heels.
* * *
In the fresh new morning, with soft light illuminating the inner kingdom, Lucifer landed in front of Tatsu’s habitat. He changed into his humanoid form and strode toward her. Going into a direct conflict, one that might get out of hand, he usually flew in himself with Tatsu on his heels, the two of them working side by side to quell the feud or uprising. But this conflict wasn’t active so much as smoldering. Riding in on the queen of the dragons would lend a little prestige to the affair.
When dealing with vampires, he wanted to convey a little prestige. Especially for the vampire Durant. That vampire needed to see why Lucifer’s daughter was so thoroughly out of his league. She was a princess. She was of higher caliber than any of the other heirs, and her unique combination of magic would make even the elves quake. She was the pride of the Underworld, and no vampire was fit to be her companion.
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