Protected by the Dragon

by Kayla Wolf

  To hurt her, of course. The grim certainty flourished in her chest like a weed. He wanted her to suffer—he wanted her to know that wherever she went, even if she escaped the village, he had something close to her and he could do what he liked with it. The thought of that man alone with her baby sister made her want to throw up. Yes, Angela was a grown woman—but she didn’t have Jessica’s stubborn streak. All she wanted was to make her father happy and to be a good member of the pack—Jessica had caught her in tears more than once, tears of sheer anxiety that she wasn’t doing what the pack wanted her to do. She meant so well—and her father never let her know that she was worthy, that she was good enough. He just kept criticizing her for her weaknesses, her shyness, her lack of grit, her discomfort with her wolf form… of course, he’d offer Angela to the Alpha. He knew how badly it would hurt Jessica.

  Badly enough to bring her home.

  Again, her mind seemed to clear of thoughts. Methodically, she packed her things up. As she was stuffing her phone deep into the side pocket, she saw the screen light up—sure enough, it was the unsaved number. Samuel, calling her back, just like he’d promised. She felt a pang of regret as she rejected the call—a stronger feeling than she’d expected. Then she shifted form, the bag sitting easily on her back—it was the same color as her fur, so even if a human spotted her, they wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary—like a wolf with a backpack.

  What was it about home that just drew her like a magnet? Somehow, though she was in a part of the country she’d never seen before, she just knew which way to go. As though her mind had kept notes, even during her fugue-state wanderings, of where she’d gone, and was now just reversing that as easily as breathing. It was only an hour or two of running before she had crested a ridge and saw the village spread out below her, nestled in the arm of a hill. It made her feel sick. But she swallowed hard and kept moving, dropping to a trot from the long, loping, ground-eating stride that a wolf could keep up for two days solid without needing to rest. She was hardly out of breath. She may have been fast in her human form, but as a wolf, nobody could best her. She could probably outrun a dragon in the air, even.

  A shame she’d never find out. She hardened her heart to thoughts of Samuel, her mind flicking just briefly to the phone in her backpack. Still on. Had he called her yet? Had her phone died? It didn’t matter. She was never going to be allowed to speak to him again. Not once she was married to the Alpha. Thomas. Her lip curled as she thought of him. He was behind this, she just knew it. He and her father, conspiring to bring her back home, to trap her. She supposed she should feel flattered that they were even willing to accept her back. After all, most wolves who left Fallhurst were never accepted back. She was one of the lucky ones.

  Yeah, this definitely felt like luck.

  A gray wolf with a scar across its face was keeping pace with her—she recognized her father in a heartbeat, a few hundred yards away, close enough for her to see it, but not close enough for telepathic contact. That was fine by her. She didn’t want him in her head any more than she wanted to be back in this horrible village. The strength of her hatred surprised her—she’d barely been gone two days, and yet so much in her had changed. But had it? The village had always chafed and needled her—but she’d never known anything else, never understood that things actually lay beyond the confines of their territory. Even a brief glimpse of another life had turned the smoldering ember of resentment into a bonfire.

  Could she escape? Could she lie low, bide her time, get herself and Angela out of the village again?

  That hope was dashed when she arrived home. Taking a deep breath, she shifted—and within minutes, her father was at her side, his jaw tight and his eyes staring into the middle distance. There was no need to speak. He took her by the arm, his fist clenched around her upper arm hard enough to bruise, and frog marched her up the stairs. The house was deserted—no sign of her mother, or (her heart skipped a beat) Angela.

  “Where’s my sister?” she asked levelly, not wanting to risk saying her sister’s name in case her voice cracked and betrayed her weakness.

  “Traitors don’t get small talk,” her father said in a voice like ice. The door to her bedroom had been tampered with—she stared in dismay at the sleek new lock that had been installed beneath the handle, and at the small flap—like a doggy flap—that had been put at the bottom of it. She realized almost immediately what it meant. She wasn’t going to be let out of this room any time soon.

  The door slammed behind her, and she heard her father’s footsteps retreating up the hallway. Hopelessly, she tried the door—sure enough, the lock was solid. A cursory inspection of the frame revealed that that had been updated, too. It was made of some kind of sleek metal and was bolted into the wall. Even her wolf form wouldn’t be able to bodyslam its way out of that. The window was unchanged, though. She took the few steps over to it, peering hopefully out at the horizon—it was a steep drop, yes, but in her wolf form she should be able to take the impact if she rolled when she landed. She could shift form here, then leap through the window and head for the hills. She could outrun anyone in town, they’d never catch her. Especially if she waited until nightfall…

  But those hopes faded the minute she looked down into the yard. There stood two huge white wolves, one with a black stripe down its spine. She knew those two—they’d been in the same class at school, she’d even had a brief but extremely awkward romance with one of them in tenth grade. Brady and Mark. Keeping guard over her room. It seemed a lot had gone on while she was out of town.

  Brady caught her looking, and she saw his lip raise in a warning snarl. Well, there were some advantages of the human form over the wolf one. She looked him dead in the eye and raised her middle finger, feeling a flare of satisfaction at the way he tossed his head. That had aggravated him. Was he going to shift forms to flip her off in return? No—she remembered with a grin. He’d never gotten the hang of shifting clothing when he changed. If he shifted back to human form, he’d be stark naked. Pathetic.

  She came away from the window and sat on her bed, staring into the distance. Well, she was well and truly trapped. On the plus side, at least Angela wouldn’t be forced to marry Thomas. No, she thought, feeling her stomach sink towards her toes, but soon enough she’d be forced to marry someone else. Maybe even one of the idiots outside of Jessica’s window right now. Wolves weren’t big on choice. That was what had been so refreshing about Samuel—he’d actually cared about what she wanted, what she thought. Despite his clear attraction to her, he hadn’t been resentful when she left, hadn’t tried to convince her or bully her into staying with him. He just wanted her to be safe, and happy. A tear dripped from her face and splashed onto the bed, startling her—she hadn’t even realized she’d started crying.

  Samuel. It was after midday—he’d said he’d call. She pulled her backpack off her back, rummaged through it to find her phone—then groaned in irritation, realizing the battery was flat. It would have been flat almost since she’d left the valley where she’d stayed. A pang of grief hit her as she realized she’d never see her human friends again. Hopefully, they got home safely, to whatever fascinating human life it was that they led. She wondered if they’d known what an impact they’d had on her, how important they had been in her life. The first humans she’d ever met. Kind, thoughtful, welcoming. Not evil monsters who killed for fun and hated anything and anyone different to them.

  It didn’t take long to plug her phone in—she waited impatiently for it to switch on. Sure enough, there was a missed call from Samuel. Jessica remembered as she stared down at her phone, that there had been a series of messages from Angela. Well, it didn’t seem like she was going to be allowed to see her sister, but nobody had said anything about texting her. She opened the conversation for the first time since she’d left, and felt her heart sink as she scrolled back up to the top of the series of messages her sister had sent her.

  Hey wake up mom says breakfast in 10

 
; don’t make me come into ur room bitch

  where are you????

  Jess seriously dad’s so mad. If you’re hiding somewhere, it’s not funny. Please just come home.

  Jessica come home

  WHERE ARE YOU

  Jess, you know what happens to wolves who leave. I can’t believe you’re doing this. Thomas isn’t that bad, please come home

  Please

  Please please please please please

  Dad’s meeting with Thomas they’re both so mad, please Jess if you read this come home, or call them, or something, please I’m scared

  Jess Dad says I have to marry him instead of u if u don’t come home plz pls at least CALL me jess

  Jessica, please

  Why didn’t you take me with you

  That last one had been sent at four am. Jessica dashed tears away from her face, furious with herself and full of grief. How could she have just walked out of town like that? She should’ve turned around the minute she stepped out of the door and taken Angela with her. She hadn’t thought, that was the problem. She’d been so worried about her own problems that she hadn’t considered what leaving would do to her sister. Of course without Jessica, the full force of her father’s anger would have fallen on Angela. And Angela wasn’t strong enough to take it. She was sweet and kind, and loving—qualities that even a lifetime under Jack’s roof hadn’t managed to beat out of her. And now she was God knew where, miserable, believing that her only friend in the world—her older sister—didn’t even care about her enough to say goodbye when she left town.

  There was a gentle tap on the door, and Jessica looked up, eyes bleary with tears. She left her phone on the nightstand and moved to the door, curious—was it her father? Would he open the door for her, or was she doomed to never see another face? But the voice that whispered through the door was her mother’s, not her father’s—and a plate of food slid through the flap at the bottom of the door. Lasagna—her favorite. Unexpectedly, more tears sprang to her eyes. Her mother. She’d left her mother, too.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry,” she whispered through the door.

  “I understand, my darling. I’m sorry, too. I—” An unusual hesitation. “You aren’t the only young woman who left, then returned. You came back for Angela. I came back for Rhys.”

  Jessica blinked. The name was unfamiliar.

  “He would have been your uncle, darling. But he made his escape a few days after I returned to save his life.”

  Jessica was reeling. “You had a brother?”

  “When I ran away, I made it all the way to a human village. I called home to tell them I was never coming back. My mother told me the Alpha would kill Rhys if I wasn’t home within the week. So I came home, and here I stayed. A few days after, he escaped—but what could they do to me to bring him home? I think about him every day. I hope he’s happy, wherever he ended up.”

  “Why—why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because I wanted to protect you. My darling, you aren’t alone. And I’m so, so sorry. There will be a tribunal in the morning.” The heaviness in her mother’s voice was disturbing. “Please, get some rest.”

  She took the plate of food back to her bed and sat to eat it, mechanical, hardly tasting anything. Her mind was going a mile a minute, but she could hardly keep track of the thoughts. Her mother had run away like she had? She’d always seemed so devoted, so obedient, so happy here. How many wolves of Fallhurst nursed a secret desire to leave? And how many had been tied down, forced to stay for fear of their loved ones being hurt?

  She curled up in bed when she’d finished eating, feeling sick to her stomach. What on earth was she going to do now?

  Chapter 10 – Samuel

  He could hardly sleep, he was so full of adrenalin from talking to Jessica on Lisa’s phone. His sister-in-law had sidled back into the room when she’d heard the conversation wind up and he’d filled her in on what Jessica had said, trying to mask his excitement at least a little. She wanted to keep talking to him—she wanted to continue their relationship, whatever that meant, whatever it actually represented. It was something. It was enough to go on, at any rate. Lisa had cautioned him not to get too carried away, but he could tell by the way she was smiling that she was a little bit carried away with the romance of the situation too.

  Samuel spent the night dreaming about her, though they were troubling dreams, fraught with violence and confusion—in one, he was fighting off a whole pack of wolves to defend Jessica from them. In another, he was watching a dozen dragons corner her, smoke curling from their nostrils as they prepared to eradicate the threat to their homeland. In yet another, he was desperately trying to find her in a landscape that kept shifting and changing around them both. But in between the chaotic snatches of fear dreams, there were moments of stillness, of peace. Moments that brought to mind the short time they’d spent together in the crevasse. The feeling of her in his arms, the soft touch of her lips on his. When he woke, he didn’t feel especially rested, but he did feel resolved. Whatever was going on with Jessica—and it sounded like she had a lot of family- and pack-related problems to work through—he was going to do what he could to help her.

  He wandered the passageways, a familiar habit, waiting a little impatiently for Lisa to wake up so he could use her phone again. He was almost familiar enough with the strange little rectangle now to simply make the call himself, but he didn’t want to overstep. Lisa was doing him a huge favor by helping him stay in contact with Jessica—it was the least he could do to respect her privacy. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before she found him pacing up and down outside her office. She only teased him a little for his enthusiasm, too.

  This time, Samuel was able to enter the number all by himself—Lisa gave him a congratulatory pat on the arm, but the smile on her face suggested that this wasn’t that impressive a feat. Still, he was happy with himself. Perhaps if he got good enough with Lisa’s phone, he could get one of his own, and call Jessica whenever he wanted to. Lisa had told him a little about text messaging—it was like letter writing in miniature, and messages went through instantly. Perhaps he and Jessica could text message one another. The idea of receiving short messages from her all the time filled him with indescribable joy.

  But something was wrong. The phone rang, once, twice—then cut off abruptly, as though Jessica had hung up on him. The frown on Lisa’s face revealed that something was out of the ordinary.

  “Maybe her phone was off? To save power?” Samuel guessed hopefully. He understood a little about the way phones stored electricity—Lisa had explained that many of the strange rectangles around her office were power storage devices, which stored enough energy to recharge devices many times over. But Jessica only had what battery power was left in her phone until she could find a place to replenish it.

  “No—if it rang, the phone was on.” Lisa was still frowning. “That means she saw the phone ringing and rejected your call.”

  Samuel felt a pang of sadness. “Maybe she doesn’t want to speak to me?”

  “Maybe.” Lisa hesitated, her eyes darting to her desk, where another device was resting. “Or maybe something’s wrong. Didn’t you say she had family troubles? Could they have tracked her down?”

  Samuel felt an icy hand clutch at his chest. Jessica had said that her family was angry with her, that she’d left home to escape an unpleasant situation—could her family have tracked her down, captured her? Perhaps they had taken her phone away from her. He imagined her desperately reaching for her phone as it rang, trying to answer it—then having it taken from her, his call rejected. There was a possibility, of course, that all of that was nonsense, and that she’d simply been too busy to answer his call. But what could he do about it, either way? He wasn’t going to know if she was safe unless she answered her phone.

  “What can I do?” he asked Lisa, holding the phone hopelessly. “How can I make sure she’s okay?”

  “Look—I wasn’t going to suggest this,” Lisa said r
eluctantly, “because it’s kind of an invasion of privacy… but phones aren’t just for making calls any more. They have a thing called GPS—they basically talk to satellites in the sky and triangulate their position…” She looked up into his face, then seemed to give up. “Never mind. It’s very complicated. But basically—your phone knows where you are, all the time.”

  Samuel stared down at the device in his hand, suddenly suspicious of it. “It—knows where I am?”

  “Well, not that one. I’ve disabled the GPS on that one. But with her phone number… I might be able to find out where she is.”

  He thought about it. “You’re right. That is an invasion of privacy.” Jessica had clearly said she didn’t want him to come to her—he’d heard the way her voice became defensive when he asked where she was.

  “I definitely agree. But—like you said, she might be in danger. Good people use GPS too, you know. The police have a whole cyber security division now—people who specialize in stuff like this, using it to prevent crimes. Hell, when I lived in New York, I had an app on my phone that would call the police and tell them my location if I hit a distress button. Made me feel safer walking alone at night.”

  Samuel rubbed his forehead. Shakespeare was a lot easier to understand than human technology.

  “Anyway,” Lisa continued. “The wolves that Alexander and I dealt with last year—they found me using my phone’s GPS. I felt awful about that, so when we moved up here, I installed a bunch of software on my laptop to make sure I was in control of that information, not anyone else. And I’m pretty sure I can use that software to find Jessica—but only if you’re okay with it.”