Dragon's Challenge

by Jasmine Wylder

  Everything about her was just perfect, and Stephen closed his eyes, drowning his worries in thoughts of her.

  ***

  The prison was a stark, ugly building in the middle of a wide, unforested lot. Stephen scowled as he waited in the van parked as close to the courtyard as possible. The fence was made of several layers of chain links and barbed wire. If they managed to get through one, they’d only get to another and another. The final layer was posts of steel that were at least five inches thick in a grid pattern. Lucky for Stephen, he supposed, that it wasn’t great concrete barriers.

  And the reason for that was the flickering net of electric blue that covered the top of the courtyard. It arched, a dome of electricity that buzzed and snapped over the prisoners’ heads. It needed plenty of electricity to be brought to the things that shot the electricity from one end to the other. Evan knew what they were called, but Stephen never much cared for technology.

  His gaze quickly found Adam and Evan in the crush of prisoners. They kept to themselves at one end of the courtyard while the rest of the prisoners avoided them. Evan had a split lip, and Adam snarled and scowled at anybody who drifted too close.

  Stephen glanced at his watch. They had to time this perfectly if they were going to get out without anybody getting hurt. His wings itched to burst free and seeing that Evan, at least, had gotten beat up made him want to burst out of this van right now. But timing was everything, and he couldn’t risk blowing the plan.

  A streak of yellow caught his attention. The prisoners all shouted at one another as a leopard darted across the courtyard, dragging something in her mouth. The signal.

  Stephen jumped from the van and shifted. More shouts from the prisoners. There was chaos as the guards started to shout themselves and guns started to point toward the courtyard. Stephen sprang into the air, beating his wings hard as he rose himself above the courtyard. A turret with a machine gun swiveled toward him but they were too slow; he crashed through it, ripping the gun out of its place; he hurled it toward a second turret, cracking the glass.

  As he let loose a stream of fire toward a third, the electric field flickered out.

  Stephen threw himself toward the fine webbing of wires. He burst through, swiping an area clear in the center of the courtyard with wings and tail. The prisoners all raced away from him. Even Adam and Evan drew back, pressing themselves to the wire barrier. Stephen lifted his head, puffing out a smoke ring and then lighting it on fire.

  The signal they’d always used in the Blaze Ops. When shifted, dragons looked so similar to one another even other dragons had a hard time telling them apart.

  But on seeing the signal, Evan and Adam both gave cries of excitement. The leopard, on his other side, bounded toward him. Stephen laid his wings flat, allowing all three to clamber onto his back. The guards were rushing out to stop them now. Stephen blew a wall of fire between them and sprang up once more.

  Evan nearly fell off, but Adam grabbed him and yanked him back up. Something hard smacked against Stephen’s wings but he didn’t let himself get distracted wondering what it was.

  The wires from the electric field tried to tangle his wings as he climbed back through them, but he batted them away and ripped one stubborn one apart with his teeth. As he beat his wings, struggling to gain height with the weight on his back, a series of gunshots ripped free from below them.

  Pain blossomed over his belly, the scales impacting hard. Bullets couldn’t get through his scales, though. So it would hurt a little. It was his wings they should be aiming for.

  He used one of the turrets to throw himself higher into the air. A current caught his wings, helping him to lift higher as he left the prison behind. Triumph soared through him, and he let out a roar of laughter. Whoever Maura’s contacts were, he was going to send them a box of chocolates. That could not have gone smoother—

  A jet of fire burned over his wing. Blisters popped up on the delicate membranes. Stephen’s vision flashed to white as agony burned all through him. He jerked and stalled in the air, his own fires running dangerously low as the pain ate its way through him. He was barely aware of the cries coming from his back, barely remembered that there were people counting on him.

  Then an explosion of white. Something cool laying over his wings. More shouting but of triumph this time.

  Stephen ground his teeth. He fought through the pain and beat his wings even harder, increasing the pain to remind himself not to get cocky again. He risked one glance back to see a single dragon with a face full of white foam falling to the ground.

  ***

  Maura had him set down in the forest a few miles from the Academy. When he shifted back to human form, a mass of blistering burns ran down his side. Worse than it should be because he was already healing from burns. He growled under his breath as Adam and Evan helped him. They entered a cave and moved through the darkness before Maura flicked on a flashlight.

  “Couldn’t you have used that before?” Evan grumbled. “I stubbed my toes five times.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Maura snapped back. “And no, I won’t tell you why. Come on, there should be a door…”

  They found the door a few minutes later and Maura led them from the uneven, cramped cave to a wide tunnel. It smelled terrible, making Stephen gag, and was full of dirt. Thick dust lay on the floor. Maura laid out a blanket from the pack she’d brought from the other place they’d hidden and told him to lie down on his uninjured side.

  “I’m going to give you some more morphine here,” she said, looking through the pack. “Just enough to take the edge off. I don’t know of anybody besides me who knows this place exists, so we should be safe for a while, at least.”

  “Can’t use fire for light,” Evan said as he seated himself on the floor, his orange jumpsuit getting coated with dirt. “We’d suffocate. What is this place, anyway?”

  “It’s a passageway between the theatre and the student dorms.”

  Stephen chuckled as Maura gave him the injection. It did help take the edge off his pain. Not quite enough, though. He deliberately forced his mind to refocus. If he stopped paying attention to everything happening, he could pretend like the pain wasn’t there at all.

  “Theatre kids need a place to have their orgies, huh?” he asked.

  Maura rolled her eyes. “What is that even supposed to mean? No, this was built for… well, there was a group of people who lived down here. Inside the tunnels. Called themselves observers, but I can’t tell you more than that.”

  Adam and Evan both stared at her like she was crazy, but Stephen nodded. The only way to understand what she was going on about was to pretend like the stuff that didn’t make sense actually did make sense.

  “The Academy has a lot of secrets,” he told his teammates—former teammates. “I don’t think we’ll ever figure them all out.”

  “Okay. Whatever.” Adam stepped toward the door. “But I can’t stay here. Karey is out there, and she’s going to be crazy with worry. With her history, she’s going to think they’ll come after her next and try to kill her.”

  Maura grabbed his wrist before Stephen could. “Wait.”

  “Don’t tell me to wait! My mate needs me!”

  “And you’ll be no good to her if you end up back in jail because you were impatient. Wait until the blockers wear off and then you and Evan can go together and get her back. No,” she said as Stephen opened his mouth, without even looking at him. “You aren’t going anywhere, Stephen. Not until I’m certain you’ve healed.”

  He put his head back down. “Listen to her Adam. She’s smart.”

  Adam glared first at him, then at Maura but nodded. He slumped down and Maura sighed, patting his shoulder.

  “Good, good.” Stephen let his eyes shut, hoping the morphine would take him to Morpheus. “Listen to Maura. She knows what’s what. And that’s why I love her.”

  Chapter Eight

  The burns on Stephen’s side weren’t healing. Maura wished she knew what to do abou
t it, but her first aid supplies were rather limited. They didn’t have much morphine left and even if they did, she didn’t think it would help him to heal any faster. Rest, sure, dull the pain, for certain but it was the burns, oozing, that she was worried about. What if he got infected? Why wasn’t he healing? He shouldn’t have gotten this burned in the first place and yet here they were.

  If something was wrong, they needed someone else to take a look at it. Maura’s studies hadn’t given her enough knowledge to deal with something like this!

  Luckily, when Adam and Evan landed and shifted back to their human forms, they were successful in their mission. Karey, holding Adam’s hand tightly, gazed at Maura with poorly disguised fear and distrust.

  And beside Evan was Erica Bennet, the chief physician at the Academy.

  Maura frowned. “What did you bring her here for?”

  Evan flushed a deep red even as Erica glared at him. “Well, I thought… with everything that’s happening, that maybe it’d be good to have a doctor on our side. And since Cooper is in jail, too, and all the other teams… Well, we don’t know if Erica is going to be targeted for arrest, too!”

  “If I am,” Erica growled at him, “it’s because of what you’ve just done here. They’re going to think I’m working with you willingly. And if you think that you can just break into my office and steal a bunch of medicine and make me help you, you’re crazy. Besides, Karey is at least as medically competent as I am, the only reason she’s not a doctor is because her asshole father refused to send her to med school.”

  Here, Karey flushed deeply.

  Maura opened her mouth but swallowed down what she wanted to say. It didn’t matter why Evan had done what he did. Erica had already seen too much. She knew they were still on Academy grounds and that was all the people chasing them needed in order to take them down.

  “Well it’s too late now. Erica, I’m sorry but we’re going to have to keep you as prisoner. But,” she added quickly as Erica puffed up and started spitting like an angry cat, “it will be helpful to have both you and Karey. Stephen’s been badly burned, and he’s not healing.”

  The anger disappeared from Erica’s face, replaced by the ‘doctor mode’ that made her so good at her job. She waved them on, while Adam was murmuring comforting words to Karey. Maura led them through the darkness, although she had to repeat several times that they couldn’t have any light. There were photosensitive panels here in this tunnel, which would redirect them to an underground lake if they had any lights.

  Not that she really understood where that technology came from. But when it had been explained to her, she was told severely that if she told anybody else, the whole Academy would be destroyed. So best to just let them wonder and be mad at her for not explaining.

  Stephen was awake again when they got to him. There was a singular smell in the corridor, one that made Maura’s gut clench. She dropped to his side. Sweat slicked his brow, and he ground his teeth together.

  “What the hell?” Erica rushed to him. “What happened?”

  Maura explained the best she could, starting with Stephen’s escape from his own arrest. While she did, Erica checked his vitals and Karey started setting out supplies and cleaning the area. Evan and Adam joined her, making somewhat of a clean area for the examination at least.

  “We can’t do this here,” Erica said as she shook her head. “I need a sterile environment. What were you thinking, lighting yourself on fire?”

  Stephen grimaced. “I was thinking that a bunch of assholes were trying to unlawfully arrest me, and I needed to get the hell out of there and help my teammates. You know, so they weren’t murdered in prison and have it blamed on suicide. You know that this is the work of the Pack.”

  Karey flinched at that.

  “I don’t know that at all,” Erica spat at him. Her fists clenched, and she inhaled deeply.

  If they were in a different circumstance, Maura would have asked Erica what was wrong. This wasn’t the sort of person she was normally. However, the situation was anything but normal. The stress of it, not to mention being in a cold, musky, dark tunnel wasn’t helping at all.

  “Okay. Okay, let me see what we have.” Erica focused again. “Looks like there is an infection starting. My best guess here is that you basically killed your immune system with that other stunt you pulled and then going ahead and shifting and overexerting yourself to get these two out.” She jerked her chin at Adam and Evan. “You’re going to get yourself killed, you know that? I’ve told you dozens of times, stop jumping in head-first and—”

  “Okay, enough,” Evan said, his tone gentle but firm. “Erica, I know this is all enough to make us freak out, but yelling at Stephen isn’t going to help him.”

  Erica glared at him. “Neither is anything else. I don’t have any antibiotics. I can’t treat him here. I need to get him to a hospital, where it’s at least clean and we have water!”

  “I brought honey with me,” Karey said, digging into the pack at her side. “I used to use it all the time when I was with the Pack.” She shuddered again, no doubt remembering her time with the Pack, being treated like scum and always afraid her own father would start beating her or kill her. “It will help draw the infection out. If you’re right and his immune system is overworked, then we just need to keep it under control until his body is ready to fight again.”

  Evan and Adam sat down on the opposite side of the tunnel. Adam’s gaze was dark, something heavy clearly on his mind. Maura tried to ignore that look, focusing instead on Stephen as Erica and Karey worked on him. She held his hand, in part to keep it out of the way because Erica kept snapping at him and partly to give him comfort.

  And maybe it was partly because of the joke he’d said before she led Evan and Adam back out to go collect Karey. When he said he loved her, her heart had jumped to her throat, and for a moment she was in a full-blown panic.

  She tried to tell herself that it was only relief that she felt. She wasn’t in a place in her life to have a relationship, even if it wasn’t for the events of the government coming after them. If they weren’t dealing with being betrayed, then maybe she’d have the time and energy to consider starting to date again. Her life was always so busy, though, and she had so many irons in the fire that dealing with the emotions that came with other people wasn’t something she wanted to do.

  In this situation, it wasn’t worth thinking about at all. Even if she did think Stephen was hot as hell and she’d have liked to have things get heated between them.

  On the other hand, if he did have a crush on her, it meant that the physical aspect of things would only make it more difficult.

  Maura shook her head. There was no point in dwelling on that. It was just a joke and it wasn’t like he was in any condition to act on it even if it wasn’t. She forced herself to focus, talking to him to take his mind off the pain while Erica bound his injuries. The burns were more extensive than they’d first thought. Blisters ran down both his legs as well.

  “I still say he needs a hospital,” Erica grumbled as she taped the last bandage in place. “Honey is no replacement. And this is still a dirty place, and we need to keep him warmer than he’ll be here.”

  Adam got to his feet. “Evan and I will go get blankets and bottled water. Some food, too. We’ll be back shortly.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Maura got to her feet.

  Karey’s eyes widened. “But if you all leave—”

  She cut herself off, glancing at Erica.

  Erica snorted. “If I was going to try to run away, do you really think they’d be able to stop me? Besides, I have no idea how to get out of here, and Stephen is my patient. You’re good, Karey, but in his condition, he needs constant supervision. I’m not going to risk you leaving him to come after me. And when they get back? We’ll have to take turns sleeping because none of them know the signs to look for.”

  Maura noted the stress she put on ‘them’ and the disgust in her voice. She shook her head, not w
illing to fight about it, not right now. They needed supplies and while Evan and Adam got those, she needed to find out what she could about the others. This jailbreak wouldn’t go unnoticed, after all.

  “Go on,” Stephen panted, clearly trying not to move too much. His gaze was on Evan, who looked hesitant. “I am really cold. My fires are struggling. And could you get a pillow? This rock’s uncomfortable.”

  “Sure,” Evan replied, his voice slightly husky.

  Adam clapped him on the shoulder, promised Karey they’d be back shortly and gestured to Maura. She led them back up the tunnel. Daylight had fallen into night by this time, which would only be helpful.

  “Okay. I’m going to get into my office while you guys get your supplies. It’d be best if you both went east, put some distance between yourselves and the Academy before getting the supplies.”

  “Yeah, I figured we’d do that,” Adam said, his voice low. “There’s a store I go to frequently in Drumhammer. We’ll know exactly where to go to get what we need.”

  “Should we also get Tylenol and more bandages?” Evan asked. His face was streaked with dirt, making him look awfully young even though he wasn’t much younger than Maura. “And protein drinks. Stephen’s gonna need a lot of energy to heal. Oh, should I pick up vitamins as well?”

  “Get as much as you can without getting caught,” Maura agreed. She glanced between the two of them, her stomach twisting as she considered the risks of this. “And probably new clothes, so you can maybe blend in. Just go fast, okay?”

  Both dragons nodded and leapt into the air, shifting as they did so. Maura waited until they had disappeared before she made her way toward the campus. But instead of going to her office, she made her way to the library. She’d been saying for weeks that they needed to up their security in the building. None of the upper-level windows were wired to the alarm and security cameras were non-existent.