by Zoe Chant
That way!
But this was more than simple instinct. Journey not only knew that Lucas was in danger, she knew how to find him. She was drawn toward him like iron to a magnet: that way.
She didn’t doubt it for an instant. Lucas had already told her that because they were mates, he’d know if she was in danger. He hadn’t mentioned it working both ways— maybe Lucas himself hadn’t known that it could— but obviously it did.
Journey started to bolt that way, then stopped. All she knew was that he was in terrible danger and which way she needed to go. Her inner voice said nothing about what the danger was or how far away Lucas was. She had no idea what was going on or what she’d need to help him. And if there was one thing she’d learned as a backpacker, it was that if you were going to walk into a place you didn’t know much about, you’d better be prepared.
It almost killed her to turn her back on the call, but she made herself run into the castle rather than out the gates. Her shoes clattered over the marble floors as she dashed up the stairs. Lucas had gone to an attic to find women’s clothes, and she’d need to hide her incredibly non-Brandusan hair if she wanted to leave the castle without immediately being spotted by assassins.
To her relief, the attic wasn’t hard to find. She opened wooden chests until she found a green headscarf, like Brandusan woman often wore while doing housework, and tied it tightly around her head. Then she hunted until she found a sturdy leather backpack stashed at the bottom of a closet.
Journey checked herself in a mirror. With her hair concealed, she looked like any Brandusan woman. Thank goodness she was curvy. She’d fit right in.
Go! The voice shouted, making her jump. Go now!
“In a minute!” Journey said aloud.
She ran down to the bedroom and swept a medical kit into the backpack, started to run out again, and then remembered that the assassins had used dragonsbane on Lucas. She ran back in, grabbed the bottle of heartsease, and stuffed it into her skirt pocket.
Lucas is in danger!
“As if I don’t know,” she muttered.
Finally, Journey ran to the kitchen and flung dried fruit and several canteens of water into her pack.
Go— The voice began, then shut up as Journey hurried out the door. Once she was headed in the right direction, it seemed satisfied.
She went out the front gates and let her inner magnet lead her in the right direction. That turned out to be cutting straight through the woods, following what she’d seen of Lucas’s flight path.
She tried not to worry so much that she couldn’t think straight, but it was hard not to. What if she arrived too late? What if she arrived in time but couldn’t help him? What could a completely ordinary woman with no special skills do to rescue Lucas, when being a brilliant fighter and a dragon shifter hadn’t been enough to save himself?
Journey hurried through the woods, glad that if nothing else, she was at least used to hiking long distances. Maybe once she got to wherever he was, she could whack his enemies with the backpack.
She hiked all morning without a stop, occasionally drinking water and eating a handful of dried fruit as she walked. At mid-day, the inner voice, which had shut up for the entire hike, suddenly yelled, Here!
Journey jumped in surprise, then snuck forward until she could peek through the trees. “Here” was a castle nestled in the woods, similar to the one Lucas had left her at, but without a wall around it. No one was in sight.
Any suggestions? Journey inquired of her inner voice.
It was silent. If Lucas was in there, and presumably he was, he must be locked up. There was no sound of fighting or shouting or anything at all. The silence was eerie.
Since she didn’t have any better ideas, she snuck around to the back. With any luck, it would have a servant’s entrance. If anyone caught her, she could always claim to be a caretaker.
Journey’s heart pounded as she approached the small wooden door at the back of the castle. To her relief, it opened, though with a creak that made her nerves jitter. No one was in sight. She walked inside, stepping softly to prevent her shoes from clattering over the marble floor.
I wish I was a shapeshifter, she thought. I wish I was a bodyguard. If I get out of this alive, I’m at least going to take a martial arts class.
But though she had no training, she did have her wits. If Lucas was imprisoned here, the logical place would be the dungeon. Dungeons were underground. So she was looking for stairs down or a trap door. Hopefully, not the same stairs that his jailers were using.
Prisoners needed to be fed. If there was a separate servants’ entrance, it would probably be near the kitchen. Using the layout of Lucas’s castle as a rough guide, she searched until she found a kitchen. That had no trapdoors or stairs going down, so she opened the pantry door.
Here! Her inner voice shrieked.
Very helpful, Journey told it. She’d already spotted the door half-hidden behind a cupboard, carved with unnerving scenes of torture and imprisonment.
She had to unload everything out of the cupboard before it was light enough for her to move aside without making any telltale scraping sounds. Then she opened the door to a flight of stone steps leading down into darkness.
Journey began to tiptoe down the stairs. Soon she was in total darkness, forced to feel her way down. She expected to be stabbed in the back by assassins or grabbed around the ankle by a monster at any second. Sweat ran down her back, though the air was cool.
Then she took another turn and saw flickering orange light. Journey froze, listening. She could hear a man’s harsh breathing, but nothing else.
Here!
The steps led to a dungeon lined with barred stone cells, all empty. She crept forward until she came to the source of the light, a cell lit by burning torches.
Lucas was chained to the wall.
Journey pressed her knuckles hard into her mouth to stifle a gasp. He was unconscious, his head hanging down and his arms stretched up above him. She didn’t see any blood, but he was drenched in sweat and breathing as if pain had followed him even into sleep.
She tugged at the cell door, careful not to rattle it. The door was locked.
“Lucas,” she whispered.
He didn’t stir.
She whispered louder. “Lucas! It’s Journey!”
That didn’t wake him either, and she was afraid to speak louder. Whoever had locked him up had to be nearby.
She wanted to rip her hair out with frustration. He was hurt and in terrible danger, but though she was only six feet away from him, she couldn’t get to him or help him. She couldn’t even let him know she was there without endangering them both.
Journey forced herself to think. There had to be something she could do.
She could leave, find a telephone, and call the police. But she hated to abandon Lucas, let alone for the hours— maybe days— that would take. He could be dead by the time anyone got there.
Journey looked around the dungeon, hoping for a stray iron bar she could use to bash someone over the head. She didn’t see one, but she did see a small wooden table with a vial full of clear liquid, placed right outside Lucas’s cell. That was odd.
She glanced back into the cell, then at the table. It would be directly in his line of sight if he’d been awake. If that was deliberate, then he was supposed to look at that vial. It must have been left there to intimidate him when he woke up.
Poison? Journey thought, then guessed, Dragonsbane.
Then she heard footsteps coming down the stairs at the other end of the dungeon. She had no time to wonder if she was right. Moving as fast as she could, she opened the vial, dumped the liquid into her backpack so it wouldn’t make a telltale stain on the ground, yanked the bottle of heartsease from her pocket, poured it into the vial, capped the vial, and replaced it on the table.
By the time she was done with that, the footsteps were almost at the dungeon. Terror vibrated down every nerve as she fled for the servants’ stairs, trying to mo
ve as fast as she could without making a sound.
She could hear voices by the time she reached the stairs. Journey darted upward until she was in darkness, then sank down on the hard stone steps, her pulse thundering in her ears.
She could see nothing, but she could hear everything. Footsteps. The cell door rattling open. A hard slap. A muffled groan, quickly cut off, that pierced her to the heart.
And then a voice she didn’t recognize. “Where is Journey Jacobson?”
“That’s the wrong question.” Lucas’s voice was hoarse and stressed, but his crisp intonations were unmistakable. “You should be asking, ‘Who is Journey Jacobson?’”
“Play games with me, and I’ll have you gagged again,” snapped the other man.
Lucas went on as if the man hadn’t spoken. “Journey Jacobson is my mate. She’s the woman I love and always will. It is my honor to protect her to my dying breath.”
Journey’s heart ached to hear Lucas’s words. Even tortured and chained and threatened, with no idea that she was there to hear him, his thoughts were on her. That was what she’d always imagined love to be— always secretly believed love to be— though everyone told her fairytales weren’t real, happily ever afters didn’t exist, and love was no deeper bond than mere shared interests and sexual attraction.
If the heartsease didn’t work, Journey would run down the steps and fight to save the man she loved. She couldn’t imagine that having any outcome other than getting herself killed. But she had to try. She couldn’t leave Lucas to die alone.
Another slap echoed against the stone walls. Journey winced in sympathetic pain.
The other man spoke loudly. “You’ll change your tune soon enough. Pry his mouth open.”
Chapter Ten
Lucas
Lucas fought the men holding him, but he had little strength left. They easily forced his head back and pried his jaws apart. Even that brief struggle left him dizzy, his heart fluttering unevenly in his chest.
I won’t have to endure this for two days, he thought. A couple more doses, and my heart will give out.
Maybe one more dose will do it.
Some people might welcome death as a release from suffering, but Lucas didn’t. Instead, he was filled with bitter regrets. He’d saved Journey, but he’d never get to have a life with her. He’d never work again with the crew at Protection, Inc. Raluca would be murdered or forced into another unwilling marriage. He’d never have a chance to stand up to Grand Duke Vaclav. He’d never touch gold again or weigh a diamond in his hand. He’d never dance with Journey again or travel with her to the places she loved best.
His entire body tensed as the liquid hit his throat. But it didn’t hurt. Surprised, he swallowed automatically. And tasted the familiar tang of heartsease.
How in the world...?
Then his practiced instincts took over. If he’d learned one thing at Protection, Inc., it was that a missed opportunity might never come again. He didn’t waste time wondering how or why, but focused on using this chance before it was gone.
As soon as the men released him, he closed his eyes and slumped in the chains as if he’d passed out again. Cold water splashed into his face, but he didn’t stir. His attention was turned inward, seeking his dragon.
Despite the heartsease, the aftereffects of the poison lingered. Lucas felt dizzy and sick, his breathing labored, his heartbeat weak. His arms and shoulders burned with pain, and his bones ached with cold. It was hard to focus on anything but how terrible he felt.
Lucas had never tried to shift when he was this exhausted and ill. Nor had he ever shifted in a space too small for his dragon. He didn’t know whether he would break the cell walls or crush himself to death. But it was his only chance.
For Journey, he thought.
And then, surprising himself, For me. I want to live. And I want to have a life. If I make it out of here, I swear on my honor that I’ll tell the entire royal family to shove it.
The thought gave him strength. Lucas reached as deeply into himself as he ever had, and found a lust for gold, a love for flight, and a longing for freedom that surpassed all else.
He found his dragon.
His blood blazed with a fire that didn’t hurt. He opened his eyes and saw his captors scrambling backwards.
“Duke Constantine!” shouted the masked man. “He’s shifting!”
The three men bolted out of the cell, leaving the door open, and fled for the stairs.
His vision was hazed by a whirlwind of golden sparks. Lucas gloried in it. His wrists and ankles grew, snapping the manacles. The walls of the cell collapsed as his body expanded.
Protect Journey!
Simultaneous with his dragon’s roar, he heard Journey’s voice. “Lucas!”
Lucas stared. Impossibly, Journey was running toward him. Blocks of stone were falling from the ceiling. One smashed to the floor right in front of her, making her leap to the side with a scream.
His heart nearly stopped, but it was too late to turn back the change. Lucas lunged forward, spreading out his wings over his mate. He caught her up and pulled her close to him, sheltering her with his body as the entire castle came down on top of them with an earsplitting crash.
When the dust settled, Lucas found himself half-buried in rubble. His first thought was for Journey, but he could feel her breathing, huddled against his chest and covered by his wings.
He was bruised all over and he could feel small trickles of blood running down his body, but he didn’t seem to have any serious injuries. His dragon’s bones were strong yet flexible, and his dragon’s hide was very tough. He carefully rocked himself back and forth to dislodge the worst of rubble without dropping it on Journey, then scooped her up and sprang aloft.
The fresh air and sunlight were a delight beyond measure after that endless time in the dungeon. He recognized the surroundings as those of Castle Abur, another family retreat. The castle itself was a ruin. Lucas landed, carefully depositing Journey on the grass, and became a man again. To his immense relief, she was completely unhurt— not even scratched.
She threw her arms around him, tears gleaming in her eyes, and gave him the sweetest kiss he’d ever known. “I was so afraid for you.”
“I was afraid for you,” Lucas replied. “How did you get here?”
“I knew you were in danger.” After a beat, she added, “I walked.”
He couldn’t help smiling. The simple answer to the complicated question: that was so Journey. He could get the details later. For now, he was filled with a Journey-like uncomplicated happiness that he was alive, she was alive, and she was with him.
“Duke Constantine imprisoned me and forced me to swallow dragonsbane,” Lucas said. “He was trying to make me to tell him where you were. But just now one of his men accidentally gave me the antidote instead of the poison. Isn’t that absurd? I would not have believed such a mistake could happen if I read about it in a book.”
“That’s because it wasn’t a mistake,” Journey replied. “I found you in the cell, but I couldn’t get you out. I couldn’t even wake you up. But they had that bottle of dragonsbane outside to scare you if you came to. So I dumped it out and replaced it with heartsease.”
Lucas’s heart was warmed with love and admiration. “How clever of you! So you were the one who saved me.”
Journey indicated the ruined castle. “I just helped you save yourself.”
“As I said,” returned Lucas.
Journey followed him at a distance as he inspected the rubble. He found four masked men unconscious within it and pulled them out, laying them on the grass. He took off their masks, but didn’t recognize any of them. They must be hired criminals.
Lucas heard the tiniest rustle behind him. He spun around. Sunlight gleamed on Duke Constantine’s sword.
Lucas leaped aside. With no time to summon the concentration necessary to shift again, he snatched up a stone and hurled it at his enemy. Duke Constantine ducked. Lucas tensed, uncertain whether to pu
t his body between the duke and Journey, or to try to lure the duke away from her.
But Duke Constantine ignored Journey, though he had to have seen her, and lunged forward. Lucas barely managed to sidestep the strike, then scrambled backward. The duke was obviously planning to kill Lucas first and then go after Journey. He clearly didn’t consider her a threat.
Out of the corner of Lucas’s eye, he saw Journey scrabble in her backpack, then pull out a blanket. Lucas tried not to look at her lest he tip off the duke. He guessed that she’d try throwing it over his enemy’s head.
Good idea, Journey, he thought. He could use all the help he could get.
Duke Constantine closed in on him, slicing his sword at Lucas’s head. Lucas was again forced to jump aside. He threw another rock, but the duke dodged it easily.
Journey came up behind him and swung the blanket like a whip. The end caught the duke across the face. Duke Constantine yelped in pain. Taking advantage of his distraction, Lucas lunged forward, caught the duke’s wrist, and twisted it to force him to drop his sword. Before his enemy could recover, Lucas threw him to the ground, drove his knee into the small of his back, and pinned his wrists above his head.
“Good work, Journey,” Lucas called. “Now give me the blanket. I’ll tear it up and bind his wrists.”
“I don’t think you want to touch it,” Journey replied. “It’s where I dumped the dragonsbane.”
Lucas laughed. No wonder the duke hadn’t shifted after Lucas had disarmed him! He tore up Duke Constantine’s own shirt to tie his wrists behind his back.
His prisoner lay in still and furious silence. Lucas was content with that. He had no desire to talk to him. Lucas used the other criminals’ shirts to bind them hand and foot, for they would undoubtedly regain consciousness before the police could arrive.
“Would you like to ride on dragonback again?” Lucas asked Journey.
“Yes, of course.” She beckoned him out of the duke’s earshot and put her arm around him. “You don’t look good. You’re bruised and bleeding and you’re white as paper. And you feel cold. Can you fly?”
The adrenaline high of battle still tingled in his veins, giving him a strength that he knew wouldn’t last long. “I can fly long enough to make it back to the palace. We can’t stay here. I need to get you to safety and him to justice.”