by Silver Milan
The man offered little resistance, still stunned from the blow, but Ariel and Michelle held him down anyway while Ked stripped him of his uniform, including the headset, glasses and pistol, and then bound the man’s hands and feet.
“You’re really a fan of that stuff aren’t you?” Michelle said softly, nodding at the duct tape.
“I am,” Ked said. “I’m just glad the witch wasn’t the one who volunteered to drive us.”
The bound guard attempted to yell through the tape, his vocal cords producing a muted wail, and Ked connected his fist to the man’s face, shutting him up.
“Help me move him,” Ked said. He wrapped the uniform around the purloined headset, glasses and pistol, and shoved the bundle under one arm.
Together the three of them carried the guard toward the SUV; Ariel glanced over her shoulder occasionally to confirm they remained out of the line of sight of the witch guard and any security cameras. When they reached the SUV, they set their burden down in the back seat.
Ked took the man’s RFID ring and then changed into his clothes.
“Why didn’t we just let him drive?” Michelle asked.
“Ariel wants to look for her dragon, who might be coming here at this very moment,” Ked said. “We can’t do that if we’re not in control of the vehicle.”
Good man, Ariel thought.
“Make sure he stays quiet back there,” Ked said as he loaded into the driver seat.
Ariel and Michelle lowered the bound and gagged guard to the floor, and sat in the seats just above him.
Ked started the vehicle and maneuvered between the lanes toward the exit. He waved at the witch guard, keeping his head turned well away.
In moments Ked was driving the vehicle up the ramp out of the parking garage and into the Tower grounds. It was night, though the inner courtyard was lit with floodlights.
Ked approached the main gate and slowed down at the checkpoint.
The gagged man underneath her started making noise again and Ariel gave him a good kick. That shut him up.
Ked rolled down the window and addressed the gate sentry. “Got some apprentices who missed the earlier shuttles.”
The black-clad sentry glanced suspiciously at Ariel and Michelle in the back seat, then he looked back at Ked. In the dim light, she thought his eyes were defocusing, maybe viewing whatever screen the small metal device attached to his right lens was projecting in front of him.
He turned his attention on Ked. “Your picture doesn’t match what we have on file.”
Ked scratched his beard. “I know, I gotta shave soon. The brass always give me shit for this.”
The guard studied him a moment longer and then nodded. He tapped the hood with the flat of his palm. “You’re good to go.”
The gate opened and Ked accelerated immediately, taking them away from the tower. He turned on his brights, as there were few road lights.
“All too easy,” Ked said.
“We’re not away yet,” Ariel said, glancing through the rear view window. The Steel Tower and the big wall that enclosed it slowly receded behind her, and then vanished entirely as a thick wall of trees enveloped the road.
The guard fidgeted underneath her, but she ignored him. She didn’t see the need to kick him, not anymore. He was suffering enough already, and was probably terrified, having no idea what these strange apprentices were going to do to him. Ariel planned to let him go when the chance arose.
Some moments later they reached another checkpoint. The prisoner remained quiet this time as Ked held up his ring; the soldiers on duty opened the red-and-white checkered boom gate and Ked drove through.
“Can I see you sat-phone?” Ariel asked when the gate was well behind them.
Ked turned in his seat and handed the phone to her. “What are you looking for?”
Ariel launched the mapping application. “Jett told me he parks his vehicle near a vineyard next to the Steel Tower grounds when he comes to visit. And then he walks the rest of the way through the woods on foot. I’m looking for that vineyard.” She reverse-pinched the map, zooming out. “There, found it.”
She activated the driving directions and handed the phone back to Ked, who set the device on the dash in front of him.
They reached the main road. He took a left at the next intersection, following the directions of the phone’s emotionless navigational voice. Dark wilderness veiled the land on either side. There were no road lights here.
Ked drove until the foliage fell away on the right, revealing a fenced-off vineyard. Ariel could make out the grapevines growing on trellises in the dim moonlight. She shook her head. Moonlight. She couldn’t believe that something as simple as that had betrayed her and Jett in the end.
Ked stopped near the entrance gate to the vineyard. That gate was low enough for Ariel to see a road leading away toward a dark chalet set amid the grapevines inside.
There was a car already parked beside the gate, just off the road. Someone sat in the driver’s seat.
“We’re just in time,” Ariel said.
She opened the door and hurried out of the SUV. She stopped as the driver side door opened. “Oh no.”
Flame stepped out of the car. The White Sword appeared confused.
“Where’s Jett?” Ariel said.
Flame looked across the road.
Ariel followed his gaze. In the distance she could see the upper half of the Steel Tower above the wilderness; a dark finger stabbing into the night sky, the light from many small windows delineating its cylindrical shape.
Ariel was too late.
Jett landed in the inner courtyard, cringing at the slight rustle of foliage around him. Though he had made this descent a hundred times, he still hadn’t found a way to completely muffle his landing. He retracted his wings and retreated into the shadows as he always did.
Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, in regards to the patrols he had observed from the top of the wall. Still, he waited a moment longer, wanting to be more careful tonight than usual. Finally he made his way deeper into the courtyard.
He moved between the hidden Strength traps and laser tripwires, knowing the locations of all of them by heart. He ducked behind a cluster of satellite dishes and waited for the scheduled patrol to pass.
He thought of the strange text Ariel had sent him earlier.
Looks like my liberty is delayed until next week. Could you meet me tonight in my room, usual time?
Something smelled off about the whole thing. The fact that Ariel should suddenly be called off liberty at the last minute, and then summon him to visit her on a night in the middle of the week, when she had been so adamant that he only come on weekends in the past? It wasn’t like her. He sent her a bunch of texts asking what was up, but she only answered with two more words.
Just come.
Yes, something definitely was up, but what, he hadn’t decided yet. He really wished Ariel hadn’t turned off the tracking app, because he had no way to confirm or deny whether she was actually still in the tower. Then again, if her phone had been confiscated, the witches could use it to make her appear wherever they wanted anyway.
He wondered if he would be captured tonight. The maneuver would have to be subtle, staged from a position of stealth, but it could be done. If he was caught, the president of the Tower, Savanna Kettleburn, would happily gift him to Yvonne, the Wayfarer queen. Jett, a dragon who had once been the queen’s chief rival on the Council of Seven, would be a great gift indeed. She would use him as leverage against his brother.
The patrol came right on schedule. Jett tensed up, ready to swing into action, but the guards passed by his position without pausing.
Jett exhaled in relief.
Maybe I’m being too paranoid about all of this.
He moved to the edge of the satellite dishes, scanned the courtyard, then dashed across the open space and into the foliage cloaking the Tower’s eastern side.
As he had done countless times before, he positioned himse
lf at the base of the Tower, extended his wings, and began the ascent. At the fifteenth floor he moved horizontally until he hovered in front of Ariel’s window.
She wasn’t there.
Confused, he pulled aside the clotheslines and landed on the sill. He peered into the room. He thought he could make out a form sleeping on the lower bunk. The top bunk, meanwhile, was empty. That meant her roommate, Michelle, had been granted liberty.
“Ariel,” Jett said softly. “Are you there? Ariel?”
No answer.
He surveyed the tiny dorm room again, searching for any possible signs of ambush, but saw only the bare walls. He couldn’t sense any hidden Strength traps with his dragon abilities. It seemed safe…
He pulled himself inside and approached the bunk bed.
He stared at the hump formed by the sheets of the lower bunk and still couldn’t tell if anyone actually slept underneath.
“Ariel?” Jett said.
He pulled back the thin comforter, revealing three pillows.
Tricked.
He noticed a flashing light on the nightstand.
It was her sat-phone. The light was the low battery indicator.
Before he could react, a collar snapped around his neck. He tried to rip it off but it was too late. His dragon strength was contained.
He spun, swinging his arm to attack whoever might be there, but an invisible vise instantly sealed around his body, trapping him.
“Hello, Dragon King,” a woman’s mocking voice came from underneath the bunk.
23
Gwendoline sat in the suite of the rundown motel. It was the best room in the place, which wasn’t saying much. The sheets and pillow cases were threadbare, paint was chipping from the walls, and the bathroom counters were covered in cigarette burns. She spotted more than a few cockroaches. But at least there weren’t any bed bugs. She hated those. And so did motel owners, because the negative reviews they’d get online could hurt them for years, which she supposed explained why a small placard attached to the back of the door indicated that the room was preemptively sprayed for bed bugs every four weeks.
Now if only they could maintain the rest of the suite every four weeks...
Though Gwendoline was used to luxury, she didn’t really mind the place. If it meant she could be with Mathis, then it was worth it. He could turn any dump into the most luxurious penthouse suite just with his presence. She could already imagine him taking her while she lay on the bed. He’d be standing up, holding her legs spread out to the sides, while he thrust into her, his ridged abs flexing with each movement.
“Mmm.” She was getting turned on just thinking about him.
It was amazing what getting away from the court and all the intrigue could do to a person. Gwendoline felt liberated. She didn’t care about power and control over others anymore. She no longer had any designs on political advancement. She was loved. And that was all she needed or wanted.
With a sigh, she returned her attention to her laptop. The collar sat heavily around her neck, reminding her of what she had given up to be here. But Mathis was worth it. And while her brother, King Gabriel, had let her go, he refused to allow her to fully relinquish her role as Treasury Security, even though before she had left she’d spent a week training her assistants to replace her. They still required the occasional management, which was something she could do remotely, usually in the form of emails and sometimes conference calls. Those emails and calls were becoming few and far between thankfully, but when they came she had to deal with them promptly. Which she did now. She wanted to have nothing to do in the evening when Mathis returned. Because when there was nothing to do...
She only just finished when her sat-phone lit up. It was a call from Mathis.
She answered eagerly. “Well hello there.”
“Gwen,” Mathis said. “I never get tired of hearing your voice.”
“How’s your day going?” Gwendoline asked.
“Pretty good,” Mathis said. “I was calling to let you know I’ll be home probably half an hour later than expected. Got a couple of recalcitrant shifters here who don’t want to let me test them all.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it sorted,” Gwendoline said.
“I will,” Mathis said. “And I’ll make it up to you. Oh, what I’m going to do to you tonight…”
“Tell me,” Gwendoline said.
“I’m going to take a bubble bath with you,” Mathis said. “I’m going to lather you all up in the liquid soap, and then I’m going to fuck you. Our humping bodies will create fresh bubbles with every thrust until the whole bathroom is filled with them.”
Gwendoline giggled. “Sounds like fun.”
“I thought you’d like that, dragon girl,” Mathis said.
“Oh I do, witch boy,” Gwendoline said. “But wait until you see what I’m going to do to you in turn.”
“Tell me,” Mathis echoed her earlier statement.
“Nope,” Gwendoline said. “You’ll just have to wait and find out.”
“You’re such a tease,” Mathis said.
“I learned from the best,” Gwendoline commented.
“I suppose you did, at that,” Mathis said. “Well, I should probably—”
Gwendoline didn’t hear the rest because her phone beeped with an incoming message. She casually put Mathis on speaker phone and examined her inbox.
“Just got a message from Flame,” Gwendoline said, slightly perplexed.
“Flame?” Mathis asked.
“One of my brother Jett’s personal guards,” Gwendoline replied.
“What does he want? Money?”
“I’m reading it now,” Gwendoline said.
As she read the message her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
“Oh no,” Gwendoline said, feeling the panic rising. “No no no.”
“What?” Mathis said. “What is it?”
“They’ve got Jett,” Gwendoline said.
“Who’s got Jett?”
“The witches,” Gwendoline said. “The Wayfarers of Steel Tower.”
24
Jett lay on the hard floor of a windowless stone room completely bereft of furniture: no bed, no chair, no nothing. There was also no door. Instead, in the empty space of the doorway was an invisible force field of Air.
In the hallway beyond, the two witches who maintained the field watched him. Their duty shifts lasted six hours, at which point they swapped out with another two so that he was under 24/7 observation. There would be no escape under a vigil like that.
There were more witches guarding the hallway on either side, just out of view. He knew they were there because of the quiet words they occasionally exchanged. At least he thought they were witches, as he doubted there would be any of those rifle-totting soldiers he had seen on the grounds outside. The Wayfarers weren’t going to take any chances with him: they knew that soldiers-for-hire with rifles were useless against a dragon.
His arms and legs were shackled with steel binds that he couldn’t break, not with the magical collar wrapped around his neck. He hadn’t eaten since the night before and he was ravenous. But he doubted any food was forthcoming. That was how dragon prisoners were usually handled: starve them first to weaken them.
He had slept fitfully, the hard stone underneath him a far cry from the luxuriously soft sheets he was used to. As far as he knew, he was on the third floor of the tower somewhere—assuming the indicators on the elevator they had used to take him here were correct, and he had no reason to believe they weren’t. The Steel Tower had a dungeon below its basement, but apparently his captors had decided to keep him closer at hand, in the more modern sections of the tower. Probably a good idea on their part, as he had heard they’d never really updated the security systems in their basement.
He thought of Ariel often. He was worried sick about her. He had asked to see her, but none of the guards would answer him. He had no idea if she was even in the Steel Tower anymore. Maybe she had gone on liberty afte
r all and this whole thing was a trick. No, if they had her sat-phone, she had to be here somewhere. Probably a prisoner like him.
He heard footsteps in the hallway, then a runt of a witch stepped into view. Dressed in the blazer and jeans of business casual, he had a blunt nose and tiny little protuberances for eyes. He wore his receding black hair slicked back in a partial mullet.
“President wants to see you, Dragon,” the witch said. “Come on then, get up. Or I’ll force you to.”
Jett felt an invisible whip strike him in the side and he glared at the man in outrage.
I am a king, little bitch-man.
Growling, Jett hardened his skin and forced himself upright until he stood on wobbly feet. He felt extremely stiff. Sleeping on a stone floor would do that.
“I want to see Ariel,” Jett intoned.
“Shut up,” the runt said.
Once more Jett felt the whip, this time directly on his buttocks. The blow had to be extremely powerful, because he felt the sting even through his hardened skin.
Jett’s eyes widened in rage and he flexed his arms, attempting to break through the shackles that fettered him. He ran at the witch at the same time, moving his legs as much as the binds allowed, and struck the Air field. He bounced off harmlessly, his behind landing squarely on the hard stone.
He stiffly clambered to his feet; when he looked at the witch once more, the futility of it all hit him and he slumped.
I was a king.
“That’s right,” the runt said. “You’re nothing. Less than a man.”
Those words riled him once again, feeding strength into his muscles, but he chose to save the energy for when he really needed it and said nothing.
The runt nodded to himself in self satisfaction, then beckoned toward the witches who maintained the field.
The invisible Weave of Air fell away. Jett emerged, and two witches escorted him on either side as the runt led the way to the elevator area.