by Kayla Wolf
Chapter 10
Angela’s first instinct was to shift.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. She’d spent a lot of time in human shape, after all, so her first instinct was to scream. And scream she did—loudly, breathlessly, but the sound was too quiet. It was swallowed up by the trees, by the river, by the huge expanse of uninhabited wilderness that lay between their home and the rest of the world. And she knew from grim experience that a voice wasn’t loud enough to carry through the stone walls of the palace, into the caves within. The soundproofing—if it was intentional and not just a feature of the stone, she’d never been sure—was top notch in their rocky home. Nothing pierced the windowless walls. You might get a little bit of birdsong through the windows that did exist, but those were mostly in the other wall of the palace, not the side they were on. Was that why he’d brought her out here? Did he know she was going to scream—had he deliberately brought her to where her family wouldn’t hear her? It made sense, she supposed—only it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Once the options associated with screaming were exhausted, it was her wolf form that came to mind. In human shape, she couldn’t reach out to her family—and in her frightened state, lurching higher and higher above the treetops, where no wolf was ever supposed to go, it was her family in the wolf sense that she thought of. That was just Jessica—but Jessica was enough. If she could shift to her wolf form, she might still be in range. Might be able to mind-share, the way they did in battle—transfer all her memories of the last ten minutes to her sister, who might be able to come to her rescue, somehow.
But as the fur rippled across her body and she began to change shape, she felt it—the sharp edges of the dragon’s claws. (She couldn’t think of him as Owen. Not yet. As far as she was concerned, for now, this huge gray monster was a stranger.) They dug into her sharper and sharper as her body swelled, beginning to hurt, beginning to cut into her skin… and she realized with a sick lurch of horror that he didn’t intend to adjust his grip at all. His talons were wrapped around her slender human body, and she could feel the strength of them, could feel that he wasn’t going to be forced to let up by the swelling of her body. If she kept shifting, those claws were going to slice deep into her body.
Could she call his bluff? Keep shifting—would he give up, adjust his grip to hold her wolf form? Could he even carry her added weight, or would he drop her? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything at all at the moment, in fact. And she wasn’t far enough gone that she could reach out to her sister mentally—even if there was still time. The gray dragon was terrifyingly fast. Already, they were up above the clouds, the freezing air whipping against her body, the clouds scudding past and touching her with cold, wet fingers. So with a sound that was half-scream, half-growl, she shifted back, shivering as the fur retreated from her skin. The claws that were wrapped around her held her secure, but she stared down at the retreating earth with a new terror.
”Owen!” she screamed, the air whipping her voice away as soon as it left her mouth. But she knew he could hear her. Dragons were telepathic. Unlike wolves, they could broadcast their mental voices to anyone—communicate without mind sharing. At least, the ones she knew could. Californian dragons might be different, she had no idea. “Owen, what the hell are you doing?”
No response. Somehow, she got the sense he’d shut her out. Wolves did that, sometimes, when they were angry with someone, or trying to teach them a lesson. It was a horrible thing to be on the receiving end of. Jessica had occasionally done it to her when they were young girls, squabbling over something or other in their wolf shapes—a sudden wall of ice, impenetrable, where before a friendly consciousness had been brushing against your own. Perhaps dragons could do it as well. Owen certainly did have a habit of putting walls up.
“Where are we going?” she screamed. Still nothing. Radio silence.
Part of her didn’t even understand what was happening. It had a dreamlike quality, all of this—or maybe it was more like a nightmare. She felt so utterly powerless, like those dreams where you’re running desperately but never making any progress, or trying to swim through a bog that’s slowly claiming you. The dreams she’d had for years, where she screamed and screamed without anyone being able to hear her. All of it was manifest here, screaming into the rushing wind, clutched tightly in the talons of a dragon.
She’d had her fair share of nightmares like this. Ever since she’d left her old home town… the dramatic day her sister had left the town, then come back to free her too. That had been the day she’d met Samuel. He’d been the first dragon she’d even seen in real life, not in the memories her pack passed down from generation to generation through their ancestral memory, and he’d been magnificent. They’d fought off the Alpha, and he’d seized both Jessica and Angela in his talons and flown them away, over the mountains and back to the palace. It had been terrifying. Angela had never left Fallhurst before, let alone by air, and the dragon had been bleeding heavily. Only her sister’s presence had comforted her. She’d had nightmares for a few weeks, but sooner or later they’d eased off. She’d almost forgotten that fear.
It was well and truly back now. Because for all that that trip had been terrifying, it had been necessary. She had understood what it was, where they were going, that she was safe. That they were going somewhere better than they’d been. And though she’d only just met him, she’d known that Samuel was a friend. Now? She had no idea where she was going. No idea why she’d been snatched from the ground and carried into the air. She’d been safe, and now she was flying into danger. And as for the dragon who had her clutched in his talons…
Who the hell was he?
He was even bigger than the dragons of the valley—even bigger than Alexander, Samuel, and Helena, even bigger than Stephen, who was understood to be the largest dragon any of them had ever met. No wonder he’d approached her in his human form first, she thought dizzily. She’d have run screaming if she’d seen this monstrosity come lurching out of the forest towards her.
Could it truly be that Owen was kidnapping her? Try as she might, she couldn’t think of a better explanation. She desperately wanted one. She tried for a while—perhaps there’d been a mountain lion in the woods, about to spring out at her, and he’d shifted and grabbed her like this to keep her safe? Could there be something wrong in the Palace that she didn’t know about, something he’d decided to grab her and carry her away from? Maybe he’d had some kind of psychotic break? Nothing made any sense. All she could think about was what Helena had said, about that horrible time a few years ago when she’d been kidnapped, when the palace had been full of misery and worry and dread for weeks. About the men who’d simply stepped out of the woods, grabbed her, and taken her away.
But this was Owen, her mind kept howling, digging its heels in like a dog being dragged towards a bath. This was Owen! Her Owen! The man she—
She shut her eyes, tears dripping freely down her face and away into the dark oblivion beneath them. Angela was a smart girl, everyone had always told her that. She wished desperately that she wasn’t smart. Because then, she could keep believing that this was all a misunderstanding and that Owen was still a good guy. She could keep that farce up all the way to whatever hellhole he was taking her to, and maybe even a little longer. A less clever girl would be able to find some comfort over the next few minutes or hours, or however long this journey would take. But Angela, unfortunately, was a clever girl. And she knew a kidnapping when she saw one.
He’d been so clever. Such a skilled liar, such a manipulator. He’d even managed to fool Helena, and Alexander, Samuel, her sister, Lisa… everyone, it seemed, except Art, who had sensed something was off, and Stephen, who was too old to be taken in too easily. She should have listened, she thought dully, feeling herself shutting off all the emotions that knowledge seemed to summon in her chest. It was too hard, it was too painful to think those thoughts.
Better to make a plan. There wasn’t a lot else she could do
right now—Owen had made it clear that if she shifted form, he was going to tear her into ribbons with his claws, and she knew from the feeling of them against her arms that they were razor-sharp. She’d bleed out before they landed, and then what good would she be to anyone? No—she had to bide her time. Stay human until they landed, then she could think about shifting. But then what? A wolf’s strength was in the pack, not in the wolf. A dozen of them working together could bring down a dragon like this, she was sure, but her alone? Absolutely not. She squinted through the freezing air, trying to figure out where they were, where they were likely to land. She could make out the occasional settlement below them, bright lights shining through the darkness, but Owen didn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. If they landed in thick woods, she might have a shot at running. He was big, in this form, much bigger than her—if she got away into the trees, there was a chance he’d lose track of her. And she could run for days, especially in her wolf form. Run as far as she could, find a settlement, find a phone… but she didn’t have anyone’s phone number committed to memory. Would she be able to figure out where she was, then find a way back to the dragon palace? She didn’t even know where it was. Somewhere in Colorado, like Fallhurst, but it wasn’t on the maps… that was the whole point.
God, she was underprepared for this.
And what if he was taking her somewhere where there were others? She had to face that possibility. Helena had been kidnapped for some kind of horrible shifter virgin auction, as far as she’d been able to tell from the hushed way everyone talked about it. She was a shifter, and she was… well, she wasn’t any more, she thought, heat coming to her cheeks and shame chasing it. Shame, and fury. How dare he win her trust like that? How dare he make love to her, take advantage so utterly of her innocence and her willingness to let him into her heart? And confusion chased that, too. That hadn’t been necessary. If he was some cold-hearted kidnapper, why bother seducing her? Why not just rely on the fact that she was clearly infatuated with him (she knew that now, in retrospect—knew how obvious she’d been about her crush on him) to get her outside? That was all he’d needed, in the end—to get her outside, in an isolated enough spot to shift form and grab her. Why, he could have simply kidnapped her the first day he’d met her. There must have been something else, she thought dully. Something about all of this just didn’t add up.
But it was hard to think about it too carefully—she was rapidly becoming so cold that it was a problem. Her whole body was shaking hard, her teeth chattering uncontrollably, and she could feel the tears on her face threatening to freeze in the cold night air. Maybe she’d just freeze to death before they landed and he did whatever terrible thing he was planning to do with her. That startled a strange, hysterical little laugh out of her. That’d serve him right, her just dying here and now. What are you going to do with a wolfsicle, you kidnapping bastard?
Calling him names made her feel a little better, but not much.
She had no idea how long they were in the air. An hour, maybe more—she couldn’t figure out where they were, because looking down at the ground for too long threatened to make her airsick, and she didn’t much want to throw up down her front. It would lack a certain dignity, she felt, to be covered in sick. But when they were above a particularly dark spot of countryside, she felt him begin to descend. Montana, maybe, if they truly had been heading north? Or even further? He flew fast, that was for sure. Much faster than Samuel had, that day he’d carried her and Jessica home. She felt a lump in her throat. She wished desperately her brother-in-law would appear, suddenly, and take her home again.
But there was precious little chance of that. It was likely that nobody even knew she was gone. She tended to keep to herself in the evenings, and besides, everyone knew about the relationship she had with Owen… if someone happened to notice her missing from her room, they’d just assume she was with Owen. A sick jolt hit her—Art would be able to confirm that. After all, he’d seen them going for a walk. But would that help, perhaps? If she still wasn’t home in the morning, would Art put the pieces together, realize something was wrong? She desperately hoped he would. The bear was starting to look like he was her only hope. And hadn’t he seemed a little strange, a little suspicious when he’d seen them both? Then again, he was a strange guy. She shouldn’t get her hopes up that he was going to come crashing in to save her. She’d need to save herself first.
The dragon who had her in his clutches now circled a few times above what looked like complete wilderness—but then she caught a couple of lights, and realized to her surprise that there was some kind of settlement out here. Not a big settlement. It looked more like a summer camp, like the kind she’d seen in movies as a kid… only a few buildings around a central square, a small lake just behind the square.
He landed in the square, his great wings beating hard as he controlled the descent. His huge bulk was awkward, and she almost wanted to laugh at him—before she realized that he was trying to land just on his hind legs, to avoid crushing her completely. Well, good. It was the least he could do, under the circumstances. He sat on his great haunches, still clutching her, and she blinked hard, trying to shake the feeling that her body was still moving with the motion of his wingbeats. It was like the feeling of stepping onto dry land after spending time on a boat, the phantom movement of the water following you.
”Are you going to put me down?” she demanded, her voice hoarse from screaming at him in the air. Her body was still shaking hard. A good sign, she remembered distantly. The symptoms of hypothermia included shivering, but the very serious sign was when the body stopped shaking. That was an indicator that it had given up, and was trying to preserve energy to keep only the essential functions going. Fingers and toes weren’t often on that list, and Angela very much wanted to keep her fingers and toes.
He ignored her. She stared up at him—there was enough light from lights on the outsides of the buildings that she could see his great head swiveling about as if searching for something in the courtyard. And sure enough, as if on cue, the double doors in the largest building swung open, and a couple of men burst out, shouting excitedly at one another. One of them was holding something—the other tore off down the line of houses, yelling something about going to wake ‘her.’ Whoever ‘her’ was. Maybe ‘she’ would talk some sense into the dragon who’d kidnapped Angela… but something about the look on the remaining man’s face didn’t fill her with confidence.
”We weren’t expecting you for another week,” the man yelled up at Owen. Now that he was closer, Jessica could see what he was holding—it was a band of silver metal, and she recoiled in instinctive horror. She knew what silver did to wolves—it burned like fire and kept them so uncomfortable that they could hardly move, let alone shift or fight. But Owen’s talons tightened around her, and she screamed as she felt the sharp edges cut into her arms, drawing just a trickle of blood. The message was clear—behave yourself. Wear your collar.
Like a dog, she thought, tears of impotent rage pouring down her cheeks as the man approached with the collar. It snapped open, some kind of joint on its back allowing it to open like a pair of jaws. The man reached up to where she was and, though she leaned away from him as much as she could, Owen’s talons held her prisoner. The metal collar snapped shut hard around her neck, and she shuddered, feeling the numbing, stinging, dragging sensation settle into her bones. Not pure silver, she realized. As a girl, she’d worn a silver necklace for ten minutes—it was part of a wolf’s initiation, to know what silver could do to you, how it could hinder your faculties. This was nowhere near as bad as that, so the collar must have been some kind of alloy. But she had a suspicion she knew what it was for—and the suspicion was confirmed when Owen’s talons released her.
She hit the ground and started running, desperate, blind. She summoned up the power that was usually at her disposal, invited the wolf into her limbs, begged it—but it didn’t heed her call. It was gone, lost, buried by the silver collar that was pre
ssed against her neck. She couldn’t shift. All she had was her human form—and it wasn’t fast enough. There was a chorus of laughter from more people who’d come out of the houses that surrounded the square, clearly interested to see what was going on. Angela kept running, but within seconds there were rough arms around her, dragging her to a halt, pulling her back to Owen.
”Are you going to stay like that forever?” she shouted up at him as the man dragged her back. “Too scared to face me?”
”God, can we put a muzzle on her?” sneered the man who had his arms around her. He was in his thirties at least, lean and wiry with sandy blonde hair—and when she looked into his eyes, she recoiled with horrified recognition. White—pure, creamy white. These were the very same dragons who had taken Helena prisoner. Angela clutched at the collar she was wearing in shock, remembering how Helena had complained about the way they’d prevented her from shifting.
“Is Violet awake yet?” her captor asked one of the men who was waiting outside the biggest building in the square. He had white eyes, too, she saw, sick to her stomach. How many of them were there? How many had survived Art’s attack on their old settlement? They’d burned the place to the ground, she’d been there when it happened… they must have found each other in the aftermath, formed a new settlement.
”Ready for her,” the man at the door said, after conferring with someone inside. They all looked so hideously normal—wearing jeans and shirts, parkas and jumpers to guard against the cold, for all the world like regular country-dwelling people. But they were murderers. Slave-traders. Who knew what else? She was about to find out. Her heart pounded sickly in her chest, and though she wished desperately that she could be brave, there were tears running down her face, dripping onto the ugly silver collar as her captor dragged her towards the doors by the elbow.