by Denise Lynn
Visions of Sean’s death circled in her mind with the rotating wildness of a tornado. The same gruesome scene played over and over as she watched helplessly. Her body was frozen in place, unable to go to his aid.
He was naked, chained to Nathan’s altar. She heard nothing as if suddenly deaf, but she could see the anger in his furrowed brow and blazing eyes. His lips parted in a soundless shout—a yell of rage that was met with Nathan’s vile laugh. The evil, humorless laughter ended as the wizard thrust the tip of Ascalon through Sean’s chest.
In distorted, slow-motion frames, Sean fell to the stone floor. His life blood flowing from him along with his soul. A curling fog streamed from his body, and Nathan gleefully pulled the departing energy into himself.
“No.” Caitlin threw off the covers. She couldn’t let that happen. What she was about to do would enrage Sean, but she’d much rather endure his anger than lose him forever.
Regardless of what he would think, or say later, she knew this was the right thing to do. Hadn’t they both witnessed the grimoire drawing the same horrible image of his death? This wasn’t the first time she’d had this dream—it had haunted her before his family’s book had put her nightmare into pictures.
She had to trust her instinct on this. These images were more than just pictures or vague warnings, and far more than simple worry on her part. They were portents of the future—omens that she could no longer ignore.
Caitlin quickly tossed on the first clothes she grabbed and tied her hair back with a stretchy band. Knowing she would need something to carry everything in, she rooted around in the closet, snagged her long duffel bag and then left the bedroom. As quietly as possible, in case Sean had returned from wherever he’d headed after she’d gone to bed, she stayed against the wall while she crept down the hall and peered around the corner.
Her soft whoosh of the breath she’d been holding rushed into the darkness of the empty living room. She approached the door to his office with her fingers crossed. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be locked. He’d be angry enough without her breaking into his office.
To her relief, the door opened at her touch. She flipped on the desk lamp and held out a hand, calling Ascalon to her grip. After sliding the weapon into the bag, Caitlin swept the grimoire on top of the sword.
Since she’d already practiced earlier, picking the lock to his desk was easy enough to accomplish after a couple tries. Once she had possession of the two dragon pendants that Nathan had demanded, she dropped them into the bag, too.
She felt the front pocket of her jeans to ensure the amethyst pendant was still there. Nathan hadn’t asked for it, nor did she have any intention of giving it to him, but as far as she was concerned, since it responded to her—it belonged to her.
Now she just needed to get out of this apartment and to the dock where Hoffel waited for her as planned. Earlier in the afternoon, she’d realized that he actually had had a good point about mediating. He had met the Learned, and he might prove as useful as he thought he could be, so she’d approached him. Her selling point had mirrored his—rescuing the baby so they could get on with their lives.
And the man had bought it.
Right now she didn’t care. She’d willingly use whomever she had to use to get her child back where he belonged.
Once Caitlin exited the apartment, she rushed down the hallway to the stairs where she thought she’d have less of a chance of being caught.
To her relief she encountered no one on the stairs and saw no one when she peered down and out into the Great Hall. After taking a deep breath, she raced across the hall, wincing as her footsteps seemed to echo off the stone of the walls.
But thankfully, her moves had all been well planned so far because she made it outside into the night air without mishap.
She hugged the castle wall as she skirted around to the side, avoiding the lights before darting out into the open expanse of ground between the castle and the beach area.
Halfway across the open ground she felt rather than heard or saw someone fall into step alongside her.
“Going somewhere?”
The sound of Sean’s voice made her heart stutter and stomach turn.
He took the bag from her hand, flung it into the air where it disappeared, then grasped her upper arm and steered her back toward the castle. “I’m afraid your lover’s already been detained.”
Between gritted teeth she said, “He is not my lover.”
“Really? You might want to fill him in on that.”
She ignored his dig to ask, “What did you do with my bag?”
“Put everything back where it belongs.”
“You really didn’t expect me to just sit around and do nothing like the rest of you have been, did you?”
When he didn’t respond, she continued, “He is my son. My son! I can’t just leave him to die at Nathan’s hands. Why can’t you understand that?”
Again, he kept walking without saying a word.
“Damn you, Drake! What is wrong with you? How can you not care about your own son?”
He came to an abrupt stop, swung her around before him and slapped his hand over her mouth. Standing nose to nose with her, he shouted, “Shut up. Just. Stop. Talking.”
Caitlin flinched at the gravelly tone of his voice—more growl than anything. She leaned away from the brilliant emerald shimmer emanating from around his elongated pupils.
Yes, she feared the beast evident in every fiber of Sean’s being. But she refused to back down.
She tore her face away from his hand. “No! I will not shut up.” She poked a finger into his chest. “Why don’t you act like the beast you claim to be and save our son!”
Before she fully knew what was happening, he shifted, quickly—almost instantaneously from man, to misty dragon, to strong, solid beast. An angry, muscular beast, who grasped her by the nape of the neck as if she were nothing more than a piece of paper before taking to the sky.
Caitlin’s scream followed them into the nighttime clouds.
Chapter 10
Sean’s beast flew low over the choppy waters, letting the icy cold spray cool him and hopefully the woman still clutched securely in his talons. Her screams hadn’t lessened, but they were borne of anger, of rage, having nothing to do with fear. She was mad because her plans had been thwarted.
Too bad.
Didn’t she realize that her plans would have gotten her killed? He longed to shake some sense into her. But the human part of his mind knew that if he started, he’d be unable to stop, and harming her would serve no purpose.
So for now they would soar until her ire abated enough to hear reason and his anger eased over the fact that in the end, she’d chosen to go to Hoffel. That stung.
It wasn’t as if he and Caitlin had a relationship; they didn’t. Outside of the child she bore, they shared nothing other than over-the-top sex.
He understood his dragon’s rage—the beast was jealous, plain and simple. Somehow he’d have to get over it and learn to live with the fact that he and his mate were never going to share a life.
His own anger confused him—oh, sure, the mere thought of being passed over for that weaselly, snot-nosed bully Hoffel was a huge slap in the face as far as his ego was concerned, and there’d be no getting over that.
But why did it feel like more than just a bruised ego?
He hadn’t been sitting around all day doing nothing like she’d suggested. He’d spent most of the day with his brothers and some of Mirabilus’s men, devising a way to rescue the child and kill the Learned without the loss of too many lives.
He and Cam had flown at least half a dozen missions, scouting every speck of the Learned’s stronghold. They’d charted each and every weakness, while noting in detail the strengths that would prove difficult to overcome.
He’d even seen their son.
The boy was fine. He’d been screaming his lungs out, but he hadn’t appeared harmed, just throwing a fine temper—like his mother. The nurse had fret
ted over him as if she’d actually cared about his distress and was doing everything within her power to ease it.
At one point Sean swore the child looked directly at him. But that must have been wishful thinking because his beast had been nothing more than a sliver of fog weaving in and out of the mist.
It had been all he could do not to slip in through the narrow window opening and take the child from the castle ruins. But how? In solid form he wouldn’t have fit through the opening—he was unable to control his size in solid form; he would always be a big, lumbering hulk. And in smoke form, he had no way to physically carry the boy.
He would have told Caitlin all of this. For that matter, she could have helped with the plotting and planning, but she’d been in a snit because she thought they’d laughed at her over Danielle. Had she let him explain, she’d have known that they’d been laughing at Danielle’s antics, not Caitlin’s gullibility. But she’d stomped off.
And when he’d gone to the suite to talk to her, she’d stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door closed. He could have forced his way in and made her listen, but instead, he’d done his own storming off.
Sean rolled his eyes. Anyone watching them would think they were a couple of hormonal teenagers instead of adults at times.
When he’d gone back up for dinner, the chill in the suite had been too cold to bear for long. So again, he’d left her alone, thinking that was the easiest option.
Finally, when he’d realized that the ignoring routine was getting them nowhere, he’d gone up to talk to her, only to find her, the grimoire, the pendants and Ascalon gone.
While searching for her, Cam had called to inform him that Hoffel was on the beach with a boat, waiting for Caitlin. Sean tracked down Caitlin, leaving his brothers to deal with Hoffel. At least they wouldn’t kill the fool.
“Sean, are you in there?”
He shook himself out of his woolgathering and noticed she wasn’t screaming anymore. He dipped his head to peer down at her. She was seated on the pad of his...foot with her back resting against one of his curled talons.
“Ah, you do hear me.”
Of course he heard her. But his first instinct was to keep ignoring her, even though he knew that would get them nowhere. The problem was that he was in beast form, and he wouldn’t be able to keep the dragon’s feelings out of any conversation he had with her. And the human side of him feared that in this short amount of time the beast had become far more attached to the woman than was good for either of them.
She stroked her hand down a smooth talon and then leaned over to rest her forehead against it. “I just needed to do something to get our son back. Surely you can understand that, can’t you?”
Wonderful. She was going to appeal directly to the dragon. He couldn’t allow that. Sean focused his energy on her. He might not be able to speak out loud, but he could still get his thoughts across.
“Leave him alone, Caitlin.”
“I’m just explaining myself.”
“There’s no need. We aren’t confused in the least. You chose Hoffel.”
The dragon huffed and soared higher.
She wrapped her arms around the talon she’d been leaning against. “Only because you and I weren’t speaking.”
“Bull.”
“You can’t seriously believe I’d ever choose the baron for anything, can you? You met him. He’s a vicious coward.”
Maybe it was time she was confronted with the truth Braeden had discovered about her fiancé and perhaps her family. “He’s the Learned’s henchman. How do you think he found his way here? It was no accident. So, tell me again how neither you, nor your family, are involved with Nathan.”
“What? No.”
“Don’t play dumb, Caitlin. I know better. Isn’t that why you came to me in the first place? So that I’d get myself and my brothers killed trying to save our son?”
“Sean, I swear, I would never do that. I don’t believe my family would do such a thing.”
He wanted to believe her, but he’d be risking far too much to do so. And he wasn’t willing to risk everything for her. “Really? You don’t believe your kind, loving, blood-sucking family would ever do anything to harm another person?”
“It’s not like they’re out there slaughtering the villagers.”
“No. They’re just out there roasting dragons on a spit.”
She sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”
“No kidding. Why don’t you just tell me the truth and be done with it?”
“I have told you the truth.”
“Your truth has too many holes in it.”
He strengthened his focus, determined to discover the truth on his own and reached out to touch her mind. To his surprise, she let him in with little resistance. Sean shivered against the pain he met. This time it wasn’t her hunger that threatened to tear him apart—it was the cold, twisting ache of what could only be a mother’s loss.
Since her immediate, basic needs had been met—she’d been fed and was no longer starving—her nurturing and maternal needs had rushed in to fill the void. There existed an ache inside her that could only be soothed by the return of her child.
Yes, he was angry that the Learned had his offspring. He was horrified that the St. Georges had done their best to kill the child before it came into the world. When he’d seen his son, he had been filled with overwhelming awe and a warmth inside like nothing he’d ever felt before. And if the child died, he would be angry, sad, beside himself with grief.
But it would be nothing compared to Caitlin’s pain. Hers would be unbearable.
Through no choice of his own, he’d not yet had the chance to imprint with his son. He would mourn the loss of something he never got the chance to know.
Caitlin would mourn the loss of a part of herself.
Sean’s beast crooned, soft and low, seeking a way to provide Caitlin with temporary solace. He would never be able to convince the dragon that its efforts were a waste of time. Nothing it did would help. But the animal acted on instinct, and right now its mate was in pain, and it would seek a way to somehow ease that agony.
Sean let him be and pushed deeper, past the pain, reaching for memories that would give him the answers he sought.
He hadn’t doubted her claims that her parents had locked her away, leaving her to starve—he’d seen the proof of that—he just hadn’t given any thought to the hurt and anguish such a spiteful, unkind act had caused her. She might be an adult, but they were still her parents and they’d sought her death, or at the very least the death of their own grandchild.
Nor had he doubted that Hoffel had attacked her; the grimoire had clearly shown him that.
But neither of those were the memories or thoughts he was looking to find. So he poked around a little more.
And there, the memory he sought came into focus. Yes, just as he’d thought, her parents had directed her to come to him. That whole scene with her mother back in his bedroom at the Lair had been nothing more than one of her mother’s orchestrated shows meant to manipulate him so he’d believe that she had come to him on her own.
When in truth they’d ordered her to bring Ascalon with her so that if Nathan didn’t succeed in killing him and his brothers, she could.
However, she’d come to him with the firm intention of ignoring their orders. She was set on getting her child back and then leaving—everyone. Caitlin wasn’t going back to the St. George family home. She’d lied to her parents, Hoffel and the High Council. She wasn’t going to marry Hoffel.
But she wasn’t staying with Sean, either, and she wasn’t leaving her child behind.
His anger that she would blithely disregard everything he’d told her about being mated and raising the child sparked to life.
Before that spark could flare to a full-blown inferno, he stopped. Could he blame her? After everything she’d been through, could he really fault her for wanting to run away, to disappear? Hadn’t he run away for less?
That was
most likely why she’d gone to Hoffel tonight. She’d mistakenly believed that with his help, she would get her child back and then she would just disappear without anyone being the wiser.
Little did she know that Hoffel would have delighted in helping the Learned kill her, or at the very least watched the event with glee.
He eased out of her mind and directed the dragon back to Mirabilus.
“Sean.”
“No. Just be quiet.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to hear your explanation. I just want you to be quiet.”
The last thing he wanted was for his dragon to discover what she’d planned. It was going to be hard enough to keep the beast out of that part of his mind; he didn’t want it to overhear a conversation. They could talk later if she insisted, after his beast was fast asleep and not tuned in to its human part. Until then, she just needed to keep her explanations to herself.
Sean circled the beach, landing alongside an old work shed. He set her down gently, and with the curve of a talon pushed her into the shed before shifting back to human form and then following her inside.
* * *
Aelthed shook off the regret and sadness swirling around him. The cursed changeling was upset, but being pure Drake, he wasn’t about to give voice to his sense of loss or the confusion he felt because of it.
Stretching out his legs, seated in the corner of his cube, Aelthed could empathize with the changeling. It had taken him a good many months to finally understand his own sense of loss over something he’d never really had.
As a man, a human man—or as close to human as he’d ever been—he was dead. Even if he found a way out of the cube he would exist as nothing more than a disembodied soul. No matter what he did, he would never feel Danielle Drake’s arms around him, never taste the sweetness of her kiss, never experience the pain or pure joy of her love.