“Fine, but don't try to follow me. It's dangerous, and there's no road to get to where I'm going.” When she nodded, he continued, “Your van is about a half-mile east of here. It's still on my parcel of Sanctuary land, but not accessible by road. And, before you ask, my team airlifted the van to the location for safety and security."
Amber was still processing the logistics of what he said when Noran leaned in to kiss her. Before she could recuperate enough to form lingering questions, he smiled, then turned and left through the back door of the house.
Damn but that Dragon had her in a bad way.
17
Amber
Amber ignored the briars that snagged her cargo pants as she made her way through the thicket of overgrowth. She'd waited twenty of the longest minutes after Noran left before following. Using the early morning sun, she headed east, trekking through the trees on her way to find that van and put this whole thing to rest.
By her calculation, she'd make it to where Noran and his men were in less than twenty minutes if she kept a steady pace through the thicket of overgrowth. After fifteen minutes of a slow advance into the dense forest, faint sounds of movement in the distance snaked through the trees. Amber paused.
Remembering what she'd seen on one of those survival shows and her girl scout training from long ago, Amber looked up to make sure nothing lurked in the trees and then on the ground for the same. Crouching low by a pine tree, she waited and concentrated on quieting her breathing.
Muted sounds of more movement drifted toward her from her left. When no visual confirmation of movement followed, Amber moved forward, staying low and taking in her surroundings in as much of a three hundred sixty degrees view as possible.
The ground was covered with running Kudzu, making it impossible to watch where she stepped. That wouldn't deter her though. Amber had to get to that van and try to stop those men. She'd bargain, plead and try to become a diversion.
Hope in her plan bloomed and urged her forward at a quicker pace. That's when twigs breaking snatched her attention to the right of her location. Amber held her position and lowered herself to the ground. High undergrowth hid her from sight if someone approached. Another sound of movement had her swiveling around to locate the direction.
A doe stood still approximately twenty feet away in the direction of the sound and stared. It appeared the animal was on high alert as well. Amber remembered that it was also hunting season for deer. Realizing she could be easily mistaken for a deer in her cargo pants and cream-colored cotton top, her empathy for the deer's twitchiness rose. When her heart rate returned to normal, Amber began to move again, this time being even more cautious.
She walked slow and on high alert for another ten minutes until the sound of activity picked up. Ahead she could make out an open glade. No one would call her blatantly dense or stupid, but Amber was out of her league when it came to stealth reconnaissance. How she'd get from where she crouched to that clearing was anyone's guess.
Opting to stay put until a viable solution presented itself, Amber wasn't ready for what she saw. Quick as wind, a Dragon the color of slate gray flew overhead. Her eyes locked onto him as she attempted to trail his flight pattern. What she wouldn't give to have her invention right now. That baby would lock on and not lose him.
Guilt and accusation slammed into her chest, dragging out a rough exhale of air. These Dragons wouldn’t be in this predicament if not for her.
The invention. That had to be it.
A flash of knowing hit her. That must have been why BMEG was out here looking for her van.
If they'd been using her to keep tabs on her research, they would know she'd been tracking Noran's flight patterns with extreme accuracy for a week. If they got their hands on it, the Dragon's would be captured with ease.
Determined to get to the van and find her invention before the BMEG agents, Amber took off in a slow run. Slow was as fast she could go. Amber was still just as out of shape and unfamiliar with moving fast through a forest as before, but with what was at stake she gave it her best.
As she suspected, the path opened to show her van in a small clearing. One of the back doors of the van was open. From where she stood, it appeared that the inside was organized and as clean as the outside.
Above, she spotted another Dragon fly overhead. This one had a dark red, almost rust color and was smaller than the other one. Both of them weren't as large as Noran though. Looking around to spot any eyes or movement, the stillness of the forest answered. Amber continued to wait, dropping down low. When she was about to make a run for it, wisdom ancient and new to her stayed her body.
Recognizing the Dragon wisdom coursing through her, Amber waited for direction. The force kept her rooted to her spot for what seemed like hours as nothing happened.
Connected to that strong inkling to trust the wisdom, Amber knelt and continued to wait. A flock of birds erupted out of the trees on the other side of the clearing as four heavily armed men ran toward the van. Amber almost yelled out to stop them when the two Dragons from before swooped down and grabbed two of the men.
She watched in frightened fascination as one of the men's rifles dropped to the ground below.
The two remaining men on the ground would be at the van in a few minutes. She had to do something. They couldn't get their hands on her technology.
Now!
Instinct and that inner voice of wisdom propelled Amber forward as she took off with speed foreign to her body. She made it to the gun and picked it up before the other two men spotted her. Power pumped through her body, giving Amber an agility new and precise. She pivoted and ran toward her van.
Eyeing the two men not fifty feet away now, adrenaline propelled her forward as Amber found herself leaping into the back of the van. With less than a few seconds to spare she slammed the doors shut.
Never before had she thanked the quiet wisdom that had gotten her to buy a used decommissioned security and courier van. The weight of the reinforced steel in the doors and body of the van offered a little protection and time between her and the scary men with guns.
She had to locate her invention and laptop.
A quick perusal of the interior had Amber angrier than a hornet in a mannequin factory. Nothing was where she'd left it. Her van looked like a victim of one of those Pinterest pins where everything was in perfect place. There was shelving and too clever to be useful organization units filling the space.
These Dragons had managed to hide her bed, kitchen area, and clothes too. Mother-Father, give her strength, but she wanted to spit, Amber was so mad. And, where were her camera and invention? Amber looked around frantic to find the items. Angry tones of men’s voices closed in.
"Get inside. Kill that bitch when you do," she heard one of them say.
That would not be happening if she could help it. Forcing her mind to stay online and engaged, Amber stopped her search of the tracking equipment and moved to the front. If she couldn't find her invention, she'd move the van out of here.
In the front seat, realization slammed into her. Amber had no idea where the keys were. She didn't know how to hotwire anything, and heavy trees surrounded the opening. Even if she were to start the van, there was no way she could drive it out of here.
Noran had been correct. There was no road access to this place. She was trapped in an old van as a sitting duck. The vehicle rocked as one of the men yanked on the driver's side door. She heard the other trying to open the back door too.
Adrenaline flooded her being. Amber needed to fend these two off.
She had one of those guy’s gun!
Amber rushed back to the back area once again. Massive and intimidating, the mercenary’s rifle lay in the middle of the floor. She picked it up as the realization that she had no idea how to fire it lanced her thoughts. Casting off the cumbersome and dangerous weapon, Amber refused to allow her brain to stall on what to do.
Her airgun!
Again, why she hadn't remembered having h
er trusty airgun was beyond her. She just had to find it.
Determined to conquer the intimidation of Dragon engineering, ingenuity, and organization, Amber resolved to confront the fact that she knew where nothing was located. That airgun had to be in here. Sending a silent prayer to the Goddess of the Dragons for mercy, grace, and victory on finding the weapon she was familiar with, Amber scoured the numerous shelves and cleverly hidden spaces.
An organization system that might be featured on one of those clean up the hoarder's house shows had been installed. The corner where she kept the gun and other odd shaped items had been replaced with a chest. She scrambled over to the chest and opened it to see her tarp and some other things, but no gun.
Think, that gun had to be in here. Another quick prayer for help was answered by a loud shot whose sound reverberated through the cabin of the van.
Those men were shooting, at the van, with her in it. There was no way to know how long the reinforced steel shell of the vehicle would last, but Amber had to make great use of the reprieve to get a plan.
Amazed at how calm she remained, Amber willed herself to pause and think. How would a Dragon think about storing a human weapon? The question came as clear as a bell. She needed to think like the Dragons who had worked on her van.
Hidden in plain sight was a compartment attached to the side of the van beneath a new mounted workstation. She bent down to open it. Inside was the airgun, a new set of roadside assistance items including a flare gun, her first aid kit and wilderness survival kit that boasted a pop-up tent.
Noran's team had thought of everything to make sure she had no excuses for getting the hell off their land. Another shot rung her ears and got her back on the task to get that gun.
The back doors of the van didn't have windows, leaving her blind as to where the men stood. Grabbing the airgun, filling the chamber with pellets and cocking it to power the shot she'd take, Amber, moved back to the front.
She stayed low to avoid notice or getting shot—Amber didn’t put hope in the windows being bullet-proof. When she made it to squat between the driver and passenger seats, Amber spotted the guys on either side of the vehicle through the rearview mirrors. Remembering to calculate for the mirror's magnification, she guessed the one on the passenger side stood behind the workstation in the back of the van, while the other was closer to the rear doors.
The airgun wasn't powerful enough to shoot through the steel siding of the van, but it could put a hurting on them if they came in.
She heard them whispering a plan to rush the back of the vehicle. Amber scrambled back to defend herself and her work, should they make it inside. Amber sat in the middle of the van's back with the airgun in her hand and the rifle on her side. Another idea had her grabbing the flare gun for additional protection. When she came back to sit, the glint of metal caught her eye.
Hidden beneath a newly installed padded bench seat was her camera, invention, and other lose equipment she'd used to capture and interpret her data. Amber's fingers tingled as she took the device and held it. This little metal machine was her life's work in her palm. No, she took that back. If anyone were to get her laptop, that would be the end of the Dragon Clan and some other projects she had strong hunches about. That laptop was the real treasure.
Looking around the perfectly organized space, she couldn't find the laptop.
Oh, hell. Trying to find anything in a space organized by Warrior Dragons was the real torture. The whispering outside stopped. That could only mean they were making their move. Blind to what went on outside, she refused to flinch when the van rocked again. It continued to rock from side to side, and the men must have been on either side attempting to shake her to death.
As if.
Amber was Dragon mated, and she wouldn't go down that easily. As if a benevolent Dragon spirit granted her a wish, the rocking of the van caused the laptop to slide out from under the workstation. She grabbed onto her prized possession as if life itself depended on it.
Sitting in the back of the van with her laptop in one hand, the airgun in another, a rifle she couldn’t operate, a flare gun, and the tracking device in her lap, Amber had to wonder if it had been worth it. The metal siding of her van was the only thing between her and two hired guns willing to kill her for what they thought was inside. Amber had devoted her life's work to root out mysteries. In this van right now, the only thing she wanted to do was to keep her mate's true identity and location a mystery from the world.
She eyed the invention and knew what she had to do. Amber took the survival kit out and searched for the tools. When she found a little travel hammer, she placed the device on the floor of the van and began to smash it to bits. The sound was loud enough for the men to sound off.
Through the walls of the van, she could hear the men yelling at her. She kept hammering. Amber was in full upswing when the doors of the back of the van flew open from daunting gunfire. There stood two men clothed in camouflage and intimidating weapons. Two of which pointed at her.
"All right bitch, put that down and scoot away from the guns,” one of them said.
She was frozen to the spot.
"I can't." Her voice was small, and she hated how much her body didn't want to cooperate with her hope to succeed in taking them down.
"I said move! Go on, get over there," he said, waving the end of a rifle to the front corner of the van.
Amber took a moment to gather her faculties. Rising to her knees, she placed the airgun on the floor next to the smashed device, obscured her laptop from their view and sat in the corner away from her last hope of self-defense.
The other guy swung his rifle by the shoulder strap around to rest on his back as he climbed up into the van. His body filled the cabin with acrid funk and hostility. She cowered in the corner as self-hatred at her weakness ate a hole into her gut. The man ignored her as he squat down to see what she'd been working on destroying.
After he kicked the guns out of reach and examined her handy work, he told the other guy, ”Hey man, this looks like what we were sent to get.” He said and held up crushed dangling pieces of the device."
Amber’s eyes smarted with the start of tears as she took in the abused device. Destruction by her own hand had been the fitting end to the device. Her life’s work had been the evil that had her and the Dragons in this predicament.
"Shit, it looks destroyed," the other one holding the gun on her said.
"Yeah. Does this mean we don't get paid?"
The gun-toting one on the outside of the van said, "We better get paid for having to come out here and deal with a bunch of freaks and this black bitch." Then he turned his attention to Amber and asked, "How many of 'em are out here?"
She didn't know the answer, so Amber remained silent.
"Hey, cunt, I'm talking to you. How many of those freaks are out here? I only saw two that got the others. Are there any more of 'em we need to know about?"
There was no way in West Hell Amber was going to give them anything.
The outside gunman spoke again. "I swear I'll blow your brains out if you don't answer me now, you fucking whore cunt."
Why was he bent on the name calling? Amber shook off the question and remembered this was an intimidation tactic he tried to use on her. He pointed the gun at her face. Amber didn't panic or do her usual. This was definitely an enhanced side effect of being Dragon mated. She could remain calm and lucid with a gun pointed at her head.
She was about to make up something to tell him when the faint tug on the border of her conscious brushed against her mind.
Amber opened in haste to accept Noran's link.
Gratitude that he was alive washed over her.
"Hey, you crazy or something. You don't need to be smiling. You need to be answering my question before I blow your fucking head off."
Amber ignored the man. He tipped his hand that he wanted information from her. For an added show, Amber trembled and looked down. She managed to hide the laptop with her back. Her
shoulders slumped in exaggerated helplessness. They wanted submissive. She’d give them submissive primed.
Noran's voice filled her mind. Amber, why don't you feel like you're safe. What's going on? Your vitals are elevated.
Wow, she hadn't counted on him being able to monitor her from afar.
That ability was both a turn on and scary. For now, she'd use it to help her out.
Well, that's because I'm not at home.
What! Amber, where are you? Even in her head, Amber could hear the mixture of fear mixed with a tinge of frustration from Noran.
His voice exploded in her mind, causing her to duck from the force of it for real this time.
The gunman stood there looking at her as if she'd lost her mind.
Hold on; I'm a little preoccupied at the moment.
Amber, where are you?
See, that's the thing. I don't want you coming to find me.
Mate, tell me where you are, or I'll lock in through our mated connection.
Can you do that? She asked, not sure it was possible.
Yes, if I can get within a close enough range. Our bond is growing stronger every minute. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're close to where I am now.
Silence.
"Last time, bitch, answer me. How many?"
She needed to stall these buffoons and keep Noran far away until she could diffuse the situation.
"Ah, I only counted eighty or ninety from my data." Amber let the bold-faced lie take root.
The men gave each other a look. It was confirmed by how their eyes grew. They were scared.
Back to Noran, she said, Honey, are you there?
Yes, and I've found you. How did you manage to get out here? Oh, dear Goddess, no.
What's the matter? She couldn't hide her concern.
Please tell me you're not in the van. Please, Amber.
I can't tell you that.
Because?
I'm in the van.
But, there are two human men in the back of the van.
Dragon's Curvy Invader Page 13