by Bobbie Rayne
He found a bench, so we sat down and Bo hopped in his lap. Christian pulled his gem out of the bag and held it out to Bo. “This is for you.”
My eyebrows went up, and Bo said, Me?
“She wants to know if you mean her,” I said.
He scratched behind Bo’s ear. “Yes, silly girl, I mean you. Since my mom used to buy them for me, I thought it might be nice to buy one for you since you’re family now. It’s okay if you don’t want it, I know it’s not one of your pretties, but—”
Bo gently pulled it out of his hand with her mouth, then sat back on her haunches and set it on Christian’s lap to stare at it with inimitable focus. It’s beautiful. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’d never heard her voice so awed.
“She loves it,” I said, running my fingers through his hair.
Bo looked Christian in the eyes and said, Thank you, ma’cordhe, I will treasure it always.
I told Christian she thanked him, and he smiled, then gave her a huge hug.
Once they were finished hugging, Bo looked at me and asked, Can we look at more pretties?
Where?
In the gem store. She sounded exasperated with me.
My eyebrows went up. “Are you… you want to collect gems?”
I want more pretties.
I leaned over and whispered to Christian, “I think you just solved our trash problem.”
He grinned. “That’s awesome. Are we going back in?” Bo started hopping around on his lap, and he laughed as we stood up and he held a very excited dragon in his arms.
As soon as we re-entered the store, Bo hopped out of his arms and scurried through the store to where the gems were. Luckily, the other customers were mainly on the opposite side of the store and no one was near the gem display, but I still hurried after her so she didn’t knock anything over and I could keep track of everything she took to be sure I left enough money.
Christian’s cell phone rang, and he said, “I’ll be right over. My sister’s calling me.”
“Okay, hold on a sec,” I said, but he turned around to answer his call while I chased the dragon down.
I caught up with Bo and sighed because she’d already taken several gems, and as I scooped her up, I turned to see Christian stepping back outside with the phone to his ear. “Shit.” I headed toward the door, but I needed to pay for the things she’d stolen, so I pulled out my wallet while trying to keep an eye on my mate. I could only see his elbow in the side of the window because he’d moved to lean against the wall there—or that was what it looked like. I couldn’t get a good angle to see him. I sighed because someone was in line at the register and having Christian out there by himself wasn’t okay with me.
Me either, Bo said.
Without bothering to check out, I threw more than enough money on the counter and headed toward the front of the store with the cashier yelling after me.
A couple walked in front of me, blocking the whole damn aisle, and when they didn’t move, I said, “Excuse me.”
The guy glanced my way before taking the tiniest step known to mankind and making me scoot around him—jerk.
Glancing around the woman, I couldn’t see Christian’s elbow anymore, so I loudly said, “Excuse me,” again, and luckily, she moved to the side, so I rushed to the door.
Coming through the door, I looked to where I’d last seen Christian, and my heart stopped. He wasn’t there. I looked farther down the street, not seeing him, then turned to check down the other sidewalk, but he wasn’t there, either. “Christian!” I yelled.
No one responded.
I don’t see him. Eeli, I don’t see him!
Her panic was riling mine up. “Christian!”
I ran to look around the side of the building, not finding him, then walked the whole perimeter, but he wasn’t there. Tell the others we can’t find him.
I already did. They’re on their way. Her panic was turning to anger, made obvious by the smoke puffing from her nose. If we didn’t find him soon, something was going to end up covered in her lava flames and burned to the ground. I walked to the end of the street, but there was no sign of him.
“Christian! Where are you? Answer me!” Oh god, oh god, oh god. “Christian! Christian!”
I ran aimlessly, screaming his name, but he didn’t respond. Bo leapt from my shoulder to fly overhead for a better look, but I kept running. “Christian! Christian!”
I don’t see him, Eeli! Someone took our mate!
We have to find him, Bo. We have to find him. Tears were filling my eyes as my heart felt like it was being ripped out. “Christian! Christian!”
“Eeli!”
I whipped around at the sound of my name to find my brothers running toward me.
“He’s gone. He’s gone. Someone took him.” I grabbed onto Malachite since he was the closest. “We have to find him, Kite! Please, we have to find him!”
Eeli!
What?
I smell wraiths.
“No!” I screamed.
Bo beelined for me and grew to her warrior size right there in the middle of the street while the rest of my brothers yelled at us because while she was cloaked in magic, I was still visible to humans, and as soon as I hopped on her back, I’d turn invisible, too. Disappearing in the middle of the street wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t care even a little bit. So I climbed onto her back, and she immediately took off.
Bo roared loudly, and I was afraid some of her lava breath would come out, but it didn’t.
“Eeli! Wait!” Azaran yelled.
Follow that scent, Bo.
We will get our mate back. Smoke was pouring from her nose and mouth as she tried to keep her temper under control.
I held onto my anger so the panic and worry wouldn’t take control. I checked to be sure the knife I always carried was in my pocket. Whoever took Christian will be sorry because we will show no mercy.
19
Christian
“Hello,” I answered when my sister called.
“Hey, Christian, I wanted to call and check on you. How’s it going?” she asked with an unmistakable edge of sadness in her voice. I knew it had to be hard on her not coming with us to revisit our family home, so I went outside so I could talk to her more privately than being in the small shop allowed.
“Um… it’s harder than I expected. Honestly, I don’t know how I thought I’d feel, but being in the house without Mom and Dad there, or you, it wasn’t the same.”
“Maybe I could come with you guys next time.”
“Oh, Kyla, I don’t know.”
“Once you know it’s safe, I mean.” There was a pleading in her voice that I hadn’t heard since we first moved in with my uncle, and we’d realized that things would never be the same. The safety net our parents had provided that allowed us to just be kids, coupled with what we had witnessed when our parents had died, had stolen part of her childhood. I smiled knowing that Eeli and his family were filling a void that was giving a piece of that back to her.
“Okay, we can talk—” I cut off when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder, jerking me back toward the alley. I dropped the phone from my ear as I asked, “What the hell? Who are you?” A man the size of Azaran had a firm grip on me, with another two men standing behind him.
“Christian… Christian… Christian…” I could hear my sister’s voice faintly, but then steadily getting louder as she yelled into the phone when I didn’t answer.
Quickly remembering the lessons Eeli had been giving me, I stepped in toward the stranger, wrapping my right hand around his neck and yanking him toward me. Using his own forward momentum, I jerked his upper body into me while raising my left knee. The crack of his nose as it hit my knee cap was satisfying until the suffocating pressure of a cloth covered my nose and mouth, gagging me. As I tried to move away, the world slowed down into—
Beginning to wake up, I couldn’t understand why I was sleeping sitting straight up on something hard. As the fog in my head began to clear, I
tensed remembering the three men outside of the candle shop I’d left Eeli and Bo in while I talked to my sister. My eyelids were like weights covering my eyes as I tried to open them and see where I was. It occurred to me I may have to use my fingers to peel them open when finally, they began to slowly lift. Then it was like my brain rebooted and came online all at once. I noticed that my hands were bound with rope behind a wooden, kitchen-like chair, and my shins were tied to the legs of it; I was in a dark, dingy room with the only light spilling in through the half-opened door of the room I was in.
Eeli! Oh god, where was Eeli? What if they’d taken him, too? And Bodhi, my poor girl. Frantically, I turned my head from side to side to make sure he wasn’t with me. The relief of it being only me was quickly followed by fear. My heart began to pound in my chest making it hard to breathe. Those men had taken me, brought me with them. But where? Why? I tried moving my arms and legs to see how tight the bindings were, if I could slip out of them, but they felt like dead weight. The same lethargy that had kept me from opening my eyes was still bogging my body down. The rope chafing at my wrists unnecessary with how unresponsive my body was being to my brain’s commands to move. Escape. I had to get out of here; Kyla couldn’t take losing me, too. It would break her heart if I didn’t get home to her.
Panic set in, making me unable to draw in air, and tightness clawed at my chest. Were those men going to kill me? Was this about my parents? Had they actually seen us? “Ah, the young dragon rider is awake,” a voice said as the door opened all the way and the room flooded with light. My eyelids fluttered wanting to block the glare, but I fought it to find Eeli. He said young dragon rider, so I pushed my head to turn farther, expecting to see Eeli bound behind me, but I was right, it was only me. “Why so confused, Eeli Ormarr? You and your brothers think you’re invincible, but we proved today you’re not.” The tall, beefy man’s smug laughter filled the room as he stood over me, arms crossed over his chest as he glared down at me. It was the same guy who’d initially yanked me back into the alley, and I was happy to see that my knee had done damage judging by how swollen his nose was.
“Wh-what?”
He hollered out toward the hallway, “I think you used too much stuff to knock him out. The kid doesn’t even know who he is.”
Another man came striding into the room, but he wasn’t one of the three from the alley. However, recognition slammed into me at the same instant it hit him, his body tensing. I would never forget this man’s face if I lived to be one hundred. There was nothing remarkable about it, other than the jagged scar that ran down under his cold, dead eyes. But it was the face of the man who’d nonchalantly destroyed my family after stabbing my mother in the gut. I carefully kept my expression neutral as he narrowed his eyes. “What the hell? Why did you take this kid?”
The cocky grin fell from the first man’s face. “What are you talking about? We were told to get the youngest of the Ormarr brothers. We followed them from their property earlier to Shimmerside, and I grabbed him as soon as he was alone.”
“This isn’t an Ormarr,” the killer yelled.
“What?” Beefy Guy scoffed. “The dragon didn’t get off this guy; it was playing on him and shit. This is definitely the right kid.”
“Oh yeah?” Killer stalked over to me and pulled the arms of my shirt sleeves up, exposing my skin. “Do you see the outline of a tattoo here? For that matter, did you guys have to fight off a dragon at any point?”
A dread that rivaled my own flashed across Beefy’s face. “I thought—”
“You didn’t think. But I know who this kid belongs to, or at least who he belonged to.”
In that moment, I wished that Eeli and I had mated already so that Bo could use her magick and appear on my arm and rescue me, but I was positive that Eeli and his brothers would show up, and I’d tell them who this guy was. He knew me, but what he didn’t realize was I also knew him. Not saying a word, I raised my brows at him defiantly and cocked my head. He threw his head back, laughing. “Oh man, this one’s like his parents. They were rebellious right up to the end, too. All they had to do was tell us where all their calma plants were, and where any extra seeds were hidden, who else was growing them, and what clans they were selling oil to and we would’ve left them alive, but they weren’t talking—so they had to go. The only thing I regretted about killing them was I know they had seeds stashed somewhere, and I couldn’t get it out of them, but all of the calma plant growers we’ve found so far have had a backup supply of seeds so they can keep producing oil for the clans. Oh well.” It became hard to get air into my lungs again listening to this man talk so ruthlessly about slaying my parents.
“Is that the lady you found a couple years ago because her drunk brother talked too much? The one who was spouting about being important because his sister saw dragons?” Beefy asked. Obviously, trying to steer the conversation away from his own error of grabbing the wrong kid.
“Yeah. People were mocking the guy for being a drunk, but I plied him with more alcohol to keep him talking. It was such dumb luck. We’d been in Dargum’s Cove tracking Azaran Ormarr, trying to get a feel for his life and figure out how to nab him, when that idiot started spewing all kinds of secret information while sitting at the bar. The bartender said the guy was always going on about how people should treat him with more respect because his family was important, helped dragons.” Killer was looking at Beefy while he bragged, but he swung back around to me, leaning down to sneer in my face. “You know, kid. Your uncle changed my life that day. I got that piece of crap so drunk he probably couldn’t even remember talking to me the next day, but I got him to spill all the family secrets. The most important one being where to find your mom. Her death made me a star in the Order. But tell me, kid, why were you with an Ormarr brother?”
Not saying a word, I tilted my head at him, pissing him off enough that he shoved my chair with enough force to knock it off its legs and push me on my back. Knocking the wind out of me further as I hit the ground, my arms squashed between the chair back and the ground and pain shot up through my wrists straight to my shoulders. As the small charm on my leather bracelet dug into my wrist, I felt a crack in the charm and had an epiphany, one I should have had days ago. The silver bubble charms my parents had given my sister and I as soon as we’d turned five, both of them always on a braided leather bracelet or necklace; the way my mother had always assured us that we carried more with us than we knew; the time my mother had spent teaching Kyla how to love and nurture the dragonfly flower; the surety of my parents’ murderers that they’d had seeds stashed somewhere else—and they did. My parents had left two seeds of the calma plant with their own offspring inside our charms. I’d bet on that fact, and it renewed my conviction that I had to get out of here so I could check our charms and give the seeds to Eeli and his family.
Killer distracted me from my revelation when he stepped over the chair, planting his large feet on either side of my chest. “Don’t make me ask you again. Why were with you them?”
Deciding to trust the Ormarr brothers, how hard they trained, and how much Eeli said I meant to him, I said, “Eeli’s a friend from school.” Pissing this guy off more and him killing me before they could rescue me wouldn’t do me any good and it would cripple my sister emotionally if I was dead. I had to do whatever it took to stay alive. I’d already seen this guy commit murder, and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, too.
He hefted me and my attached chair off the ground, slamming it back onto all four legs, then said to Beefy, “Come on. We’re gonna have to call up the chain to fix this clusterfuck you created.”
Beefy whined as he followed him out of the room, “You’re the one who just told him all about his parents dying. We could’ve let him go.”
Killer screeched to a halt, whirling on his partner. “Are you an idiot? Eeli Ormarr’s kidnapping was supposed to start a war. In all our observations, Eeli Ormarr’s barely left the house without his brothers and isn’t known to have friends outsid
e of school. Now he’s hanging out with the son of a deceased oil dealer? Nah, we’re not letting this kid go. We’re gonna figure out how to use this.” Then he cackled, not a joyous sound, but one filled with malevolence and hate.
As the door swung closed behind them, I fluctuated between hoping Eeli and Bodhi found me soon, and praying they’d stay away. The darkness of the room as the door clicked shut was nothing compared to the blackness of the souls of the men on the other side of it.
20
Eeli
As Bodhi flew through the sky, puffs of smoke made it hard for me to see—she was so pissed-off, her lava breath was leaking. We’d been flying for over three hours and I hadn’t seen anything, but Bo was still following the wraith’s trail. My heart had been pounding with adrenaline and fear the entire time and my body was shaking in a mixture of terror and rage.
We will kill them.
Yes. We will, I agreed without hesitation.
My brothers were behind us by a few hundred feet because Bo and I wouldn’t waste even a second to slow down so they could catch up. Azaran had yelled for me for the first ten minutes, but had since given up.
The scent is stronger.
Good. That means we’re gaining on them.
What weapons do you have?
Only my knife. It’ll be enough.
She didn’t respond, but she didn’t slow down, either, so I took that to mean she trusted me. I was pissed off enough that my bare hands were plenty to take out our enemies.
Bo veered to the right and began lowering in the sky.
Is it still getting stronger?
Yes. We’re close.
As she flew toward an industrial park, I scanned the area for any wraiths or signs of which building he could possibly be in, but they all looked the same.