The pungent smell of antiseptic cleaner, an ozone-like tang from metal and cement mixed with the foul odor from a blocked drain, made my stomach turn. I wanted to cover the stench. I tried to bring my arm to cover my nose, but the pull cut into my wrists. My eyes flew open.
I was standing with my arms above my head. I lifted my head at the pipes running across the open ceiling where my wrists hung from shackles. The murmur of voices and footsteps crossing the floor overhead put me into another frenzy.
Shit! Where am I?
My eyes skidded around, searching for anything that I could use.
The outline of wooden steps was on my right and the dim lightning against the walls cast eery shadowy figures against the wall. The thumping in my chest became louder and faster.
A cement floor with mildew spider webbed led to a drain in the corner and my eyes flickered to the wooden table with various shapes of knives sprawled on top of it.
I lifted my leg, but it wasn’t long enough to even reach the table.
I didn’t want to die. I was way too young to die.
A dragon grabbing me was the last thing I remembered. He exploded and something hard connected with my temple. My lower lip vibrated as I tried to get my wrist out of the shackles, but it hurt pulling at them. Tears pricked my gaze, and a tear ran down my face.
Was Dad alive? How could he? Whatever this guy did to them made them explode into tiny pieces. A door opened, and I froze. I didn’t know what to do, and I did the cowardly thing and pretended to be asleep.
The footsteps thumped on the wooden steps, mimicking the loudness of my heartbeat.
A chuckle came from my right. “I know you are awake, princess.” Warm breath caressed my face. It was the guy from the bathroom.
My eyes flew open, and I stared at him. Long raven hair hanging in slants over his shoulders.
The bluest eyes, like the ocean, locked with mine. He smelled like an antiseptic mixed with ammonia. I coughed.
He took a few steps back. “You look a lot like your father, the one that died I mean, not the imbecile that raised you.”
“My dad is not an imbecile.”
“Well, he didn’t last that long to be honest.”
“No!” I yelled and my lower lip trembled as the sobs poured out of me.
“No, no, no, don’t be sad.” He palmed my cheek. “You are going to join him soon. I promise.”
I sniffed hard. Don’t lose it now, Elena. Be strong. “Who are you?”
His warm palm fell to his side as he laughed. “Wow, he never told you a thing, didn’t he? I see that my pathetic excuse of a brother was with him.”
“You are pure evil.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m saving you from a lot of things, sweetheart. Because what they had in store for you, there is no way you would’ve succeeded. Claiming the Rubicon in not playing house. And if you fail, he would turn you as evil as me.” His lips curved into a smile as his eyes grew. Laughter escaped his lips. “Bummer, right? Did he tell you that?”
I spit in his face. “I knew that part, you freak.”
He raised his hand and swung it down fast; it burned on my cheek and the jolt pulled at my neck muscles. Pain seared all over my face and into my head as he grunted foreign words and spit on the ground.
His footsteps walked to the table, and I lifted my head, pressing my eyes shut to get the tears from my eyes so that I could see what he was doing.
He looked at a blade, bringing it up closer to the light. It glinted and looked sharp.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“A lot of fun.” Fox turned his head toward me, and a sadistic smile sprawled on his lips.
“Don’t do this, please.” I begged.
He walked with the knife back to me and tore the lower part of my shirt. My heartbeat pounded behind my ribcage.
Fox laughed. “I love the smell of fear coming from you, Elena. The scent is so sweet.”
I wished I could get my heartbeat under control and deprived him of that.
“I’m doing you a favor, sweetheart. I do not want to know how it feels running from the Rubicon. Goran is not the only one that doesn’t like someone out there that can tame him. The alpha doesn’t like that either. He will devour you, maybe even play with you a little.”
I didn’t like what was coming out of his lips.
“He will thank me for what I’m doing for him right now.” The movements were so fast as I felt slight burns on both sides of my stomach, burning like paper cuts.
I drew in a breath as the cuts stung. I peeked at my shirt and saw how parts of the white became red and blood oozed out of the thin stripes sticking through the shirt.
Fox carried a sly grin on his lips. “I’m going to take my time with you. Let you bleed out slowly. So I’ll give you time to make peace with your destiny, Princess.”
I felt a few more burns, and I whimpered as it was a bit more than just paper cuts. Tears pricked my eyes, and I shut them tight.
I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to die, either. What did I have to do in order to survive? Something told me I would not get out of this one with my heart beating.
BLAKE
At three o’clock in the morning, a dragon crashed hard in front of the safe house that belonged to the organization.
Matt and I jumped up fast and went outside.
There was no trace of the others as he shifted into his human form and Matt grabbed him.
“Ambush, twenty-four dragons. He has the princess,” he spoke and then blew out his last breath.
His words woke me, and I didn’t think. I disrobed and darted into the air with a few of Matt’s dragons behind me.
I flew in the direction he came from and climbed higher into the air. My tendrils shook, and every scale shifted into place.
This was a stupid, stupid fucking idea. You could’ve worked on the bond behind Paegeia, not now. Fuck!
A frustrated roar escaped my throat and rumbled like thunder.
There was no sight of everyone, but I knew they were in Maryland. It was about a two-hour flight from here, but I darted faster. My scales burned as I climbed higher into the air.
When I reached the right altitude, I darted through the night air.
The dragons were way behind, but I didn’t care. Some of them were trackers themselves. They would find their way.
I needed to get to Elena faster.
I hated the next part, but I had no choice. I hit the transformer around my paw and thought about Maryland.
The pull came, and I growled as everything inside of me felt turning into mush. They should’ve come with a carriage. Then we would’ve been home a long time ago.
Everything shifted back into place as gestation in the distance with fire and lightning bolts flew in the air.
They were still trying to destroy each other.
I darted like a bolt toward the fight and smashed into the first dragon. Bones broke as I connected with a Sun-Blast. I released my fire in a second, and the dragon growled.
“Blake, we need some of them alive!” Tim yelled.
“Where is Emanual?”
“He and Jaco took a severe blow. He’s still out.”
I growled and shrieked my alpha call. It ripped through all of them and their balance faltered. I grabbed two of the other side’s dragons and clamped them in my front claws as I pushed them into the turf. Everything shook with the vibration of my force.
The others regained their balance as I trapped the two traitors with my paws. “Where is Fox?” I growled at the two under my paws.
“We don’t know.”
“That is not good enough. Where is he?”
“He is gone, you are too late.”
I knocked them unconscious and told Tim to take them back to the compound. “Safe as many as you can. I need answers.”
Tim and Roger nodded. The others that followed me only landed now, and I tried to sniff the air. Chlorine tingled my nostrils. Underneath it, Elena’s smell lingered. I ran in the direction where it was the strongest and darted back into the air. The wind blew too strong and his scent came from everywhere around me.
Fuck. I growled and flew back to the gustation and no one was in sight except for a few dismantled dragon pieces and a few dragons using ancient magic to fix the place back to its original state.
Ben reached me. “The clerk is dead. I was too late.”
“Is my father still alive?”
He nodded. “He left for the compound. There is no fucking trace of Fox, Blake.”
I wasn’t giving up. “What happened?”
“Jaco left with Elena to the ladies. We were hovering in the air. We don’t know how he got in to the toilets as Jaco looked. It was clear.
“Then Emanual smelled a dragon that wasn’t part of our fleet and he went immediately. Emanual released his fire. We don’t know why, but mixed with all the gas in this place, it caused a bit of an explosion.
“I got to them as fast as I could. They are taking Emanual back now, but Jaco is badly hurt. We might need to fly him tonight to Paegeia.”
“Do what you have to do to save his life. I’m not telling Elena her father is dead.”
He nodded as my gut pulled into knots. I didn’t like this feeling, this constant fear and worry. I left when the damaged was almost repaired and went back to the compound through the transformer.
I landed, morphed back and got handed a robe. “Where are they?” My body still felt weird, but that wasn’t important now.
“Basement,” Tim answered. “They are not talking.”
“Pack me a bag!” I pulled the robe over my body and it fell down to my ankles.
I walked down the steps to the basement and my father sat on a chair facing all four of the ones that they spared. They were all tied up with magical ropes, blocking their abilities. They were useless at the moment.
“Tell me where Malcolm is!” Dad roared.
They laughed at him as my feet touched the cold cement floor and I rushed over to them. I grabbed the first one and pulled him by his hair, forcing his head to look at me. “Where is Fox!” I didn’t even sound like me.
He laughed, and all his buddies snorted their laughter with him.
“Oh, you think it’s funny.” My lips curved upwards. “Let me show you how funny I am. Maybe your friends will talk.”
I let go of him and walked a few steps back. My father’s gaze flickered to me with a set jaw.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I turned back around. My gaze flickered back to the first guy. His shoulder dislocated, and he screamed. My eyes flickered to his other shoulder, and I ordered that shoulder to pop from his socket.
More grunts and screams filled the basement.
The restrains glided down from his shoulders, but he wouldn’t be able to move a muscle. His three buddies stared at him in horror. Their eyes flickered from him to me.
“Are you going to tell me where they are, or do I have to break all the fucking bones in your body?”
“Who are you?” the one on the end asked, but I ignored him.
“I will speak if I am you.” Dad looked at the guy.
“We don’t—”
The fire in my palm lit up, and they all stared at the hypnotic pink glow dancing in my flame.
“The Rubicon,” one hissed, and he shuffled in his chair, wanting to get out of here.
“You didn’t think I was sitting this one out, now did you? Where the fuck is Fox!” I used my alpha voice.
They all grunted and lowered their heads. Some of their noses bled.
The one at the end clamped his lips shut, but he was ready to sing. I rushed over to him.
“Speak!” I ordered in a stronger tone.
Dad and Matt both clutched their heads and tried to suppress the groans that my alpha call was piercing through their minds. Guess my emotions determine how effective it is.
“Elk Neck.” The words pushed with spit through his clenched jaws. “Fox has a cabin, but she is already dead. He doesn’t play around.”
My eyelids twitched as I stormed back up the stairs. My order left them.
I grabbed the bag that Tim held out and I pulled off my robe as I tied the magic string connected to the bag around my wrist. It will expand with my form.
I darted into the air and flew as fast as I could South-East. Fox would regret ever laying his sight on her.
A couple of dragons were on my tail, including Emanual. “Go back, you are not well.”
“I’m not sitting this one out. I can handle my fire. Jaco took a blow, though. I’m sorry, Blake.”
“Stop, we just need to get to her in time.”
I hit the transformer and darted with the force that pulled me. I tried to be faster than the pull, so that the effect lessened the blow it had on me. Elk Neck forest was the only thing in my mind. In the distance, tree tops replaced the sky. I tried to break my speed, but I was too late and crashed into a few treetops, skidding through the trees, pulling them out of the ground.
I dug my talons into the ground and skidded to a stop and got up.
Emanual waited for me at the top and all the dragons stared at the trees that I took out.
“How did you do that? I’d never seen anyone flying that speed.”
“If she dies, you might as well kill me, that is how,” I replied, and morphed back into my human form.
The shift inside of me told me that my heart was beating erratically. I opened the bag and started pulling on my clothes as the others morphed back too and flung their robes over them. I couldn’t shift into my dragon form, not in front of Elena. Herbert’s passion behind that sentence, begging me to keep the Rubicon at bay until she was more comfortable around dragons and what she had to do, imprinted on my mind. I should’ve never left her. She didn’t have to know that I was there. I could’ve stayed a few miles behind them. Fox would’ve never thought twice about doing this if I was close.
I stepped into my shoes when Emanual’s hand grabbed my shoulder. “Blake, what is your plan?”
“Do you think he’ll know I’m the Rubicon?”
Emanual shook his head. “These dragons don’t care that much for their human forms. They use it as a prop. They only know your dragon form, that’s it.”
I nodded.
“He has a ring. It affects dragons like crazy. It’s why I released my fire to break the hold it had over us. I don’t know what it might do to you.”
“A ring?”
“Why do you think his men don’t talk?”
I huffed. “We’ll see how powerful his ring is.”
They all pulled on their ropes and followed my unique tracking ability. He tried to overpower Elena’s scent with his own, but I could smell her scent underneath his pungent one.
Please, God, let her still be alive.
A Swallow Annex could bring her back, even if she was on the brink of death. But if it was too late, I’m screwed. I might as well die, too.
We walked about a mile when Elena’s erratic heartbeat filled my ears.
The relief dawned on me.
“Dragons!” a voice yelled upfront and the rustle of their footstep crunched against the leaves and twigs.
Guess it’s show time.
