Kidnapped by the Dragon

by Kayla Wolf

  ”They train assassins, bounty hunters, bad people.” He shut his eyes. “I’m not proud, of what I am.”

  ”The white dragons. They hired you for revenge. And to steal this,” she added, pulling the little dragon out of her pocket with a sudden drowsy remembrance. He was still holding her—she was half-lying in his arms. It was comfortable. She figured he could hold her up for a few minutes at least. The least he could do, really.

  “Yes. They did.”

  ”Why this?”

  ”Not sure. It’s magical, somehow. Has a property that gives strength and size to the creatures around it.”

  She chuckled, a little weakly. “They wanted to be big. That’s funny.” She stared up at him for a moment, a little humbled by the memory of how he’d gone through them like a blade through wheat. The way he’d almost killed Violet with his bare hands, her in dragon shape, him in human. Owen was—deeply, deeply frightening. So why did she feel so safe in his arms, now? Because he hadn’t sold her to the white dragons in the end. Because he’d all but killed himself to get her out of there. She looked up at him, wondering, reached out to touch the side of his face, and he flinched away from her caress as though it had burned him.

  ”You changed your mind,” she said thoughtfully, staring at him, pieces clicking together. “They paid you to come kidnap me and steal the little dragon, but you changed your mind.”

  ”Not soon enough,” he whispered. “I should have thrown away my allegiance to them the minute I met you.”

  ”Well,” she said. “You always have been a bit slow.”

  That startled a laugh out of him, and she smiled too—but the world was starting to go strange around the edges, the way it did when she was falling asleep. Her mind felt like it was melting, folding in on itself. He was looking down at her, and she couldn’t quite read the expression in his eyes… but he didn’t seem frightened that she seemed like she was about to pass out, so she didn’t worry either.

  ”I just got abducted and nearly sold into slavery,” she mumbled. “Why am I so ready for a nap?”

  ”The magic,” he said softly. “It’s very draining. You need rest—and a good meal, ideally.”

  ”We could hunt something down,” she said, struggling to sit up a little. “Probably some sleepy deer in that forest over there.”

  ”I’m taking you back home,” he said forcefully. “You healed me—I’m okay to carry you again.”

  ”Don’t want to go home.” She shut her eyes. She’d been avoiding thinking about home—about what waited for them there, the chaos that was going to erupt when he brought her inside. Too much to hope for, she thought, that nobody had noticed her missing. What was the future, of all of this? He would leave, that was the future. She’d been trying not to think about it, but that was the only logical outcome… he had to be banished, didn’t he? He’d kidnapped her. True, he’d brought her back, but he’d—he’d kidnapped her. She should feel more angry about that than she did. Chalk it up to the exhaustion, she thought… but there was more to it than that, she knew.

  ”We have to,” he said softly.

  ”They’re going to hurt you.”

  ”They have every right.”

  ”I have every right,” she said fiercely. “They don’t. You better…” A yawn caught her. “You better explain really good,” she warned him, with the last of her fading strength. “You can’t fight your way out of this one. That’s over now.”

  He settled her down, half-asleep on the rocky ground, and she watched him through half-shut eyes as he stepped back away from her, clearing enough space for his dragon shape to manifest. Completely healed, she thought with wonder. Who would have thought her blood had so much power in it? But power with a cost. She knew now why Stephen had cautioned her against experimenting willy-nilly… she didn’t regret what she’d done, but she could feel by the hollow feeling in the center of her just how much this kind of magic took out of its practitioners. But still—she couldn’t help but feel giddy. She’d done it. She’d done something amazing—something nobody else had ever done, as far as she knew. This was going to make reading those dusty old books a whole lot more interesting.

  She watched as he shifted form, marveling at the huge gray dragon that he became. Then he was above her, his wickedly sharp talons moving with unbelievable care as they gently curled around her body. Angela had considered offering to ride on his back—but the risk was too high that she’d pass out mid-flight. He was very careful with his claws, but somehow she felt she might sustain more than minor injuries if he was forced to snatch her out of mid-air as she fell.

  And though it was a strange way to travel, and fairly uncomfortable, and despite the roaring of her chaotic thoughts, and despite the adrenalin of the last twelve hours, Owen had barely cleared the tree line before Angela was fast asleep, held safe and close in his talons.

  Chapter 13

  The flight was long enough to clear his head. Not completely, of course—he was beginning to understand that clearing his head in the proper sense was probably the work of decades, not minutes. But he was at least able to work through what was going to happen to him in the immediate future, and what he needed to ensure.

  First of all, Angela’s safety. He felt like she was made of glass—he cringed with each beat of his wings, so frightened he was of jarring her body as he flew, of doing any more damage to her fragile flesh. He’d almost wanted to suggest she shift form before they took off, but she’d been all but unconscious in the last few moments of their conversation, and he didn’t want to overstress her. Injuries and weaknesses, as he well knew, tended to be magnified when shifting away from your human form. It had certainly nearly killed him.

  There had been darkness, that was what he remembered. But not that darkness that he’d always been frightened of, even as a child—this was the dark behind your eyes when you rested, this was the peaceful embrace of sleep. He’d been sinking, deeper and deeper into that darkness, with the strangest sense that he was losing his grip on something. As though a rope held him, tethered to the bright world above, and with every moment that passed, the weight of his body was fraying at that rope and threatening to tear it. But he hung on to the rope with his fingernails, clutched at it, knowing there was some reason he needed to stay. Amends to make. A very important apology he hadn’t given voice to. And then suddenly there’d been a bright silver light all around him, and he’d been rising, rising from the grave it felt like. And there she’d been, holding him against her body for all the world as though he hadn’t betrayed her as terribly as he had.

  Why hadn’t she turned and run? It was the only thing that would have made sense. She had no idea who he was, in the end—so much of what he’d said to her when they’d been getting to know each other at the palace had been a lie. Not all of it, of course. He’d told her more true things than was safe. And that had been part of what had made him snap. For all his strength, all his training, all his work at the College… he hadn’t been strong enough to endure a single moment of harm coming to Angela.

  The College. That was a question he was going to have to ask himself. He wondered if they knew, already, how badly he’d failed his mission? Would they send agents after him? He didn’t know what happened to rogue agents. There wasn’t a policy for it. It was a mark of how much store the College set by its own training. Agents like him were sent out into the world with absolute trust that their training—their programming, he couldn’t help but think, their brainwashing—would bring them home again. Or get them killed in the pursuit of their duties, of course. That was an option as well. Maybe that was his best option. Get word back, somehow, that he’d died.

  After all, it wasn’t far from the truth.

  But then what? Do what after that? He realized with some amusement that he was going to wind up living the life he’d lied about—drifting from place to place, nowhere to be, nothing to do. He couldn’t go back to the College, that was for certain. That part of his life had died the minute his res
olve had given way, and he’d gone through all those dragons like the merciless killing machine they’d turned him into—in defense of the very target he’d done everything he could to harden his heart against. No—something about Angela had broken him. He wasn’t a good weapon any more. But what else could he be?

  He’d be lucky to get out of the palace with his life, of course. The smart move—the move of a dragon who wanted a life that lasted longer than a few hours—would be to drop Angela at the doorway, then fly away as fast as his wings could carry him. Maybe head south, see what was going on in Mexico this time of year. Some time in the sun would do him good. It was cold in Colorado. But the image of leaving Angela behind… it just wasn’t an option. It was as unthinkable as it had been back in that hall when he’d turned to see the white-eyed dragon strike Angela across the face. He couldn’t leave her. Not again.

  So he’d take her into the palace. He’d find Alexander, find the whole family. The whole community, if necessary. He’d give them a complete list of his sins… though he had a suspicion Stephen knew enough already. Art, too. Well, he’d come clean. Tell them everything. Let them kill him if they wanted. He had no idea how they punished wrongdoing in the rest of the world. Owen had never been afraid of death. But now, with Angela’s sleeping body resting in his talons, something about the idea of leaving the world for good made him hesitate. He didn’t want to die. But he didn’t want to leave, either. All he wanted in the world was to be with her.

  But you couldn’t always get what you wanted. Wasn’t that what they’d taught him? He was too badly damaged to be any good at all for her. It would be unbelievably selfish of him to even try to stay in her life after what he’d done… what he’d almost let her suffer at the hands of the clan who’d kidnapped her sister-in-law. Who knew what unspeakable torments he’d risked letting her suffer? And besides all that—he’d lied to her since the minute they’d met. He’d let her fall for him, let her develop feelings for a person who didn’t exist, a person who was deliberately and manipulatively invented to get behind her defenses. It was a mark of what a pure, beautiful spirit she was that she’d done what she’d done back there, used the magic of her blood to heal him when he was on death’s door. But it was no indicator that he should stay in her life—that he should be so arrogant, so cruel as to believe that they had a future together.

  His heart was heavy when he landed in the valley, the wind blown up by his great wings sending dust scattering across the heights. He hadn’t landed by the river where they’d met this time—there was another entrance to the Palace on the other side, much steeper and all but inaccessible to anyone on foot, but much closer to her quarters, and to where the royal family would be. He wondered if they’d noticed she was missing. The sun was well and truly up by now—it was getting close to midday. Surely they’d have realized. Had they put the pieces together yet, that his room was empty too?

  It didn’t matter, he told himself resolutely. Either way, he was going in there to tell them the truth. The whole truth. Everything. If he was going to be killed, he’d do as much as he could to reverse the damages he’d done in the name of the College first. If that took the form of warning this isolated little community about the damages a shifter with black eyes could do, then that would have to be enough. It wasn’t enough, he knew. It could never be enough. But it would be something. The truth was the only weapon he had left to him now.

  He lowered Angela carefully to the rocky floor, letting her find her feet before he released her, then shifted back to human shape as well. She still looked exhausted, but she was awake, looking at him with weariness—but a kind of resolve, too. He’d get her into the arms of her family first. Then he’d see about what information he could get to them before they doled out whatever punishment they saw fit.

  ”I can walk,” Angela snapped at him when he went to support her into the palace. He recoiled at the sting in her voice. He’d been through more pain than most shifters would experience in a lifetime over the last few hours, but somehow the venom in her voice hurt more than any of it. That was to be expected, he thought, trying to harden himself against the ache in his chest. Now that she was safe, the anger and betrayal she’d put on lockdown would probably start asserting themselves. He realized with disgust that a part of him had been hoping she’d forgive him—that the gesture of healing him with her blood meant that she somehow still cared about him, that there was a chance—however slight—of a future with her. Stupid, he thought blankly as they headed for the rocky doorway that led into the palace. Stupid thing to believe. She’d healed him because she needed him to fly her home. That was all. She’d done what she needed to do to survive. She was strong and tough, and smart, and for him to even think that he had a chance of keeping her in his life was an insult to her. He tried to shake it off. It was hard. His body might have been repaired, but his reserves of mental strength were still standing empty.

  ”Angela?”

  As they rounded the corner that led to the hallway outside Angela’s room, Owen saw Jessica, standing in the doorway. So Angela’s disappearance had been noted, he thought heavily as the wolf sisters hugged each other, Jessica hauling her little sister off the ground and spinning her around, clearly desperately relieved. He took a few steps back, leaving them to it. Jessica grabbed Angela’s forearm, scrutinizing a shallow cut there. He recognized it as coming from his talons and winced. He really had done his best not to hurt her—at least with his claws.

  ”What happened? Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick, all of us—Art told us you’d gone out last night, so we were waiting for you to come home, and you never did, and Stephen’s been saying the most ridiculous stuff, and—Owen? Did you two elope, or something? What’s going on?”

  He cleared his throat. Angela was looking at him, clearly at a loss for how to begin explaining everything that had happened to them. Somehow, he wished that he was still injured, wished he still bore the marks of what he’d been through with the white dragons. He wanted Jessica to know that he’d suffered for what he was about to tell her he’d done.

  ”I need to talk to you,” he said, his heart pounding in his chest. “All of you. It’s important.”

  ”About what? Is something wrong? A threat to the community?” Jessica had the mind of a soldier, he thought with some amusement. He could see her getting ready to fight.

  “I haven’t told any of you the truth about where I’m from or what I was doing here,” Owen said. It felt incredibly hard to speak—his tongue felt like lead in his mouth, all the old instincts the College had drilled into him screaming in self-defense. The truth had never been an ally, the truth was nothing but a tool to manipulate. One more weapon in the arsenal. You never used it unless it would help you, improve your tactical position somehow. At the moment, he was still in a position to talk his way out of this. He could lie—say he’d been brainwashed, or mind-controlled, claim that he’d fought his way free of the conditioning just in time to save Angela. He could still spin this to make him the hero. Or, he could leave. Angela was home safe, now—he could just turn on his heel and walk away, run if he had to, take off flying and never come back. Both of these options were better than the truth, would put him in a better position.

  But he knew he couldn’t live like that anymore. Even if it meant risking his life. Even if it meant losing the respect of this strange little family—this group of people who’d taken him in, who’d given him hospitality, who’d trusted him. This family he’d betrayed. It was going to hurt… it was going to hurt in ways he wasn’t used to, in ways he hadn’t hardened himself against. But he had to do it.

  ”What does he mean?” Jessica was asking Angela, looking at her little sister with a frown beginning to spread across her face.

  ”You should get Alexander and everyone,” Angela said softly.

  ”You’re scaring me, Ange. What’s going on?”

  ”It’s fine. Everything’s fine, now. We just—have to talk to you all.”

 
; ”We?” Owen blinked at her. For some reason, he’d imagined facing the family on his own—standing solitary as he spoke his truth then faced their wrath. In his imaginings, Angela had been somewhere else, resting. Kept safe from him. But that wasn’t what was going to happen, he realized. He’d been an idiot to think that Angela would be kept out of any meeting that concerned her.

  ”Yeah, we. I want to hear what you’ve got to say,” she said, her eyes cold.

  ”You need to eat something. You’re still weakened from—”

  ”That’s my business, not yours,” she snapped. Owen saw Jessica’s eyes widen a little at the unusual ferocity in Angela’s voice. He raised his hands, apologetic, surrendering.

  ”Okay. Okay.”

  ”I’ll get everyone,” Jessica promised, turning down the hallway. “Meet us in the council room?”

  ”Be careful,” Angela said to him when Jessica was gone. “No more lies, okay?”

  ”No more lies,” he said simply. What else could he say? And for that matter—why did she care? Curiosity, he supposed. Angela had always wanted to know what was happening, know the full story. It was part of her wit, her intelligence, that drive for the truth. It had been part of what had gotten in under his defenses, dropped his guard even as it challenged it… ever since their first conversation, when she’d called him out for what had turned out to be only a surface-level lie. Ever since then, he’d known she was special. God, he wished…

  It didn’t matter what he wished, he told himself firmly. All that mattered now was speaking his piece, then accepting his punishment. This might be his last day alive. He was going to use it to prevent as much damage as possible to these people. He could get a warning in about the College, that would be valuable to them, especially if they were looking at rejoining shifter society after their long stretch of isolation.

  Angela led the way down the hallways of the palace. He followed her in penitent silence, feeling strangely like a prisoner in this place, even though he was—theoretically, at least—still free to go. Would they stop him, if he turned and ran? All his training was screaming at him that he should turn on his heel and flee. It wasn’t too late, yet. He could go back—beg for forgiveness from the College, take whatever punishment they saw fit to inflict, try to worm his way back into their good graces. Be a weapon again. Be a good soldier, be a good cog in the machine.