by Kayle Wolf
She tried to calm herself. Panic was rising, and there was no sense getting carried away—that was what had led her to be knocked out three times in a row. It definitely wasn’t good for her. So, she’d been captured. That wasn’t unheard of. Women especially were often kidnapped—she knew that not only from the human news but from the horror movies that Jessica was inexplicably obsessed with. There was a common theme of abduction, often for nefarious purposes. Sexual purposes. She felt a thrill of anger run down her spine at the very idea. Had they tried to touch her while she was unconscious? No—from what she could tell, her clothing was still intact, and her body didn’t feel like it had been violated beyond the chemical that had knocked her unconscious. Let them try it. She’d love to tear a few wandering hands from their limbs.
That was an important question, though. Helena was not one of the helpless victims in Jessica’s human horror movies. She was a dragon—a proud and ancient warrior, seasoned by battle and blood. Three men should not have been able to take her down. The instant she sensed danger, she should have transformed, her huge wings blotting out the sky, her teeth and claws rending their insolent flesh for daring to interfere with her. Helena wasn’t a violent woman, but when what she loved was threatened, she was as deadly as anything. And she loved her freedom. So she’d invited in the change, readied herself to explode into the twenty-foot killing machine that was her other life… and nothing had happened. Had it been stress? It had been a long time since she’d spent long in her draconic form, it was true… perhaps she was out of practice.
Well, there was no time like the presence. Transforming in the back of this van would almost certainly kill everyone in the vehicle except her, but they’d chosen their fate when they kidnapped a dragon. She only wished she could see the looks on their foolish faces when she transformed. So she gathered her energy, gathered her focus, and unleashed the magic—
“Ah!”
She’d almost forgotten about the metal collar that was bound hard around her throat—but it was impossible to ignore it as it burned, red-hot against her skin. She heard low, ugly laughter as she halted the transformation, breathing hard—but nothing had changed. No scales had spread, no shifting of her limbs, no savage teeth or wicked curved claws erupting from her flesh. No power, in fact, whatsoever. Grim certainty settled into the pit of her stomach. These men didn’t believe they’d kidnapped a human woman. They knew what she was. They’d known all along—that was why they’d come to such an isolated area. And that was why they’d brought this terrible collar along with them. It was stopping her from transforming—keeping her trapped in her much weaker human form so they could do what they wished with her.
For the first time in her life, Helena felt real hatred bubble up in her chest—hatred for the human body she was now so completely trapped in.
“Do you think she’s figured it out?” came one of the men’s voices. She opened her eyes, the charade of still being unconscious well and truly ruined by her exclamation earlier—but thankfully, nobody clamped a cloth over her mouth. Perhaps they’d accepted that she was defeated.
“Seems like it.”
“Take this off me,” she growled, low and deadly, trying to muster some of the dignity she’d lost as she sat up. Her hands were bound in front of her, and she tugged at the tight cloth that was holding them. In her dragon form, it would have shredded like tissue paper. But even the muscles that bulged under her skin weren’t powerful enough to tear it. Not in this form. Not for a human woman. “Take this off me, and I’ll let you live.”
“Oh, tempting,” the first man said. She recognized him and his friend as the first two men who she’d met by the river. They were both sitting in the back of the van with her, in seats that were secured into the wall of the van. Belted, too, saving them from the worst of the swaying and lurching of the van as it trekked its way to wherever it was going. She shifted herself to sit with her back leaning against the wall opposite, her golden eyes fixed on her captors.
“Alternatively, we could leave you exactly where you are and survive anyway. How’s that sound, Danny?”
“Sounds good to me, Jack.”
So they had names. Ridiculous, anonymous names, names that told her nothing about them. Perfect. She ground her teeth, trying to stay focused, trying to stay on top of her anger and—increasingly—her panic.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Helena said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “You don’t know who I am—the kind of retribution you’re bringing down on your pack.”
“Pack?” The one called Danny glanced sideways at the other one. From their body language, she gleaned that Jack was in charge—unless the driver outranked him, of course. “Oh, she thinks we’re wolves!”
“How insulting.” Jack leaned down, giving her a good look at his face under the cap that he’d been keeping pulled low over his eyes. She met his gaze without fear—but then started back in surprise. His eyes were white. Not the blue-white of ice, but the creamy, rich shade of milk. They stood in stark contrast to his black pupils—and they shone, just slightly iridescent in the low light. As though they possessed their own interior light source. The way her family’s eyes glowed. The way her own eyes glowed.
“You’re dragons,” she breathed. “You’re—dragons! Like us!” She was so shocked by the revelation that she almost forgot where she was—forgot that she’d been brought here by force, imprisoned and bound. “Where are you from? Are there others? Do you—”
“Enough,” Jack said, sounding bored. “You mountain hicks are all the same. Shocked to realize that there’s more to life than your inbred little communities. We’re from Mossley, Montana, and soon you will be too.”
“What do you mean?” Montana—that was miles north. How long had they been in this van? “Wait—Mossley?” That rang a bell. “The festival?”
“Oh, you know it? Not so backwards after all,” Danny chuckled. “Yeah, the festival. I’m glad you’re so excited about it. You’ll be a small but important part of the main event. What do you reckon, Jack? Should I tell her about the auction? Or should we let it be a surprise?”
“Auction.” Grim certainty crystallized. “You’re selling me.”
“She’s clever,” Danny crowed. “Yeah, we are.”
“That’s barbaric.”
“It’s an ancient tradition,” Danny countered, clearly enjoying the conversation. Helena didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but she felt sick to her stomach. “The auction, then the ritual combat. It brings the combatants luck. Not that you’d know, being from one of those overgrown metallic-eyed isolationist clans, of course, but we normal dragons? We’ve been doing this for centuries.”
“What, trading in slaves? Even humans have stopped doing that. How pathetic. Tell me, is it just women you sell into slavery? Is it because no woman would willingly touch any of you with a ten foot pole?”
Quick as lightning, Jack lashed out, and struck her so quickly and so hard across the face that she almost didn’t realize it had happened until the pain hit her. She recoiled, hissing despite her determination to be strong in the face of their taunts.
“You’ll be quiet,” Jack said in a low voice quite unlike the one he’d used when he joked with Danny. “You’ll do as you’re told. You’ll respect the outcome of the auction, and you’ll take on your new master with enthusiasm. Or you’ll be killed. Slowly. You’re here for the amusement of whoever buys you, you hear? And that can go any number of ways. Myself, I’d rather be the kind of slave my owner wants to keep around. But by all means, keep acting up. Be insolent. Be rude. We’ll see how smart your tongue is when it’s cut out inch by inch with a rusty blade.”
The rest of the ride was silent. She tried to goad more information from the men, but some unspoken signal had passed between them, and they refused to give her any more information. All she knew was the fragments of information they’d let slip—Montana, other dragons, the shifter festival. She knew the collar wouldn’t come off�
�there was a hinge, she could feel it, but it was locked tightly around her neck with no sign of a key. So she was trapped, powerless, and outnumbered. And she was to be auctioned off like a piece of property.
There was one glimpse of hope, though. Just one. Mossley, Montana was the site of a festival to which her family had been invited. Whether that invitation had come courtesy of scum like these dragons, she wasn’t sure—but she did know that they knew where she was going. So at the very least, there was a chance Alexander or Samuel would be there. They’d find her. They’d set her free. She ground her teeth—in her human form, she couldn’t reach them telepathically, so she’d just have to hope that they happened to come upon her. Surely they’d realize she was missing soon, and be on their guard. Perhaps they’d even make the connection between the festival and her disappearance? There were so many unanswered questions—and nothing she could do about any part of her situation. Not with her hands bound and her power taken from her. All she could do was wait until they arrived at their destination—and hope that she could find a way, somehow, to get free.
Gods, she’d never thought that all her practice in her human body would lead her to this. The rocking of the van was strangely soothing, despite her mental state, and after a few hours of silence from her captors, she could feel herself nodding off. They didn’t seem inclined to feed her, and at any rate, she’d have felt too unwell to eat even if they’d offered. So she dozed for what could have been minutes, or hours, or days. How far was Montana? How long had she been unconscious? Had Alexander or Samuel noticed that she was missing yet? She did tend to keep to herself… it might be a day or two before anyone got suspicious, she knew, worry gnawing at her stomach. But they’d notice. They’d notice, and they’d come to find her.
They had to.
Before she knew it, she was being shaken roughly awake and dragged to her feet, stumbling a little on the rough floor of the van. The shaking and rocking had stopped—they must have arrived at their destination. The sky was dark, but was it Sunday or Monday night? Impossible to tell, and none of her captors would say a word to her anyway. Jack and Danny pulled her roughly along by the elbows, and the man who’d been driving the van walked behind her, making sure there was no avenue of escape left open to her. Helena craned her neck around the space, trying to make out as much as possible before she was imprisoned again, but it was so dark that it was hard to see anything. They were on some kind of cobblestone path, she could tell that much, and buildings rose up around them. Small buildings, more like cottages than full houses. There was something about it that almost felt like a summer camp—low cabins, then some kind of central hall that they walked past, lit by a couple of lights that did very little to banish the gloom.
She resorted to her other senses for information. At least she had that advantage in her human body. There was a chill in the air that was more pronounced than it ever was at home—they were definitely further north than she was used to. The air smelled crisp and clean, and there was no sound of traffic, just birds and wild creatures in the woods. So they were well outside of human civilization. That made sense. Shifters tended to congregate in the unexplored wilds, with few exceptions. Humans didn’t know about them yet (with a few isolated exceptions, Lisa and her family being among them) and humans had a history of reacting rather poorly to things they didn’t understand. Any story about what humans called ‘werewolves’ would make that clear in a heartbeat—they were invariably framed as savage animals to be hunted and killed. Even dragons tended to be figures of interest purely for the sake of hunting and killing them. If humans knew that they were beings among them who belonged to that ancient species… well, nobody trusted that an all-out war wouldn’t take place. And shifters were outnumbered, as well as poorly organized.
Not that they needed humans to know about shifters for harm to befall them, Helena reflected sourly as she was marched down the dark path towards whatever horrible hole they were planning to trap her in. Shifters seemed to do an excellent job of destroying one another without ever needing to involve humans. The long war between her family and Jessica and Angela’s wolf pack was only one example. Would there be wolves at this festival at all, Helena wondered? She knew there was a neutral pack somewhere between her family’s home and this place. They’d been the source of the invitation about the Festival, after all. Were they aware of the despicable things that took place here?
Questions for another time. For now, she owed it to herself to scrutinize the land. Maybe there was some advantage to be gleaned from the landscape. She couldn’t see much, though, as they turned her towards one of the low cabins that lined the path. Further down, there was some kind of structure that was much taller than the rest, a huge, hulking thing—what could that be? It was round in shape, almost like… a drawing from an old history book suddenly leaped into her mind. A colosseum. Could that be the site of the ritual combat that Danny had mentioned in the van? She felt a thrill of fear, tempered by rage. He’d said that women were sold, like animals, as a way of bringing luck to the combatants. What a barbaric practice. She was all for sparring practice—she and her brothers would often fight one another to keep their wits sharp and their technique strong—but there was something about these men that suggested that these ritual battles didn’t end at submission.
To her horror, the cabin they entered was empty, save for a trapdoor in the floor with steps that led deep into the earth beneath it. Danny began to shove her towards it, and despite her determination to be strong, a little of her resolve faltered.
“Seriously? Underground?”
“What, not your kind of cave? Get moving,” he snarked and jabbed her hard in the ribs. Her breath catching, she lowered her head and continued, her mind working furiously. What could she do? How could she best shore up her chances of escape? The element of surprise kept returning to her as a strategy. Perhaps she could convince them they’d broken her will—play the part of a mute, helpless woman. It was clearly what they expected of her anyway, and there was nothing more useful than playing on someone’s expectations.
That being said, it wasn’t hard to summon some real anxiety at the room she found herself in after descending a couple of flights of stairs. It seemed to have been hollowed out of the rock, this space, and it was sizable, clearly expanding widely beneath the settlement of Mossley. Dank, claustrophobic, and poorly lit, the space was lined with what Helena could only call cages. Thick steel bars separated each space—they were barely large enough to take three steps in, and each contained nothing but a hard, flat cot and a crude-looking toilet. Better than a bucket, she supposed, feeling faint. And to her horror, many of the cages were full. As Danny marched her down one row, she saw woman after woman hunkered in the cages, some on the cots and some curled beneath them. All miserable, all terrified. Some of them looked up at her with despair in their eyes, pity to see that yet another was joining them, but most ignored her presence completely, lost to their own grief. And every single one of them wore a collar, just like hers. Shifters, trapped in their human shape like she was. She even saw a few pairs of silver eyes that reminded her strongly of Jessica and Angela—wolves, hunkered miserably in the dark. Had they been taken from their families, too? Wolves set so much store by family, by togetherness—she could only imagine what they were feeling, alone and restrained, awaiting a barbaric ‘sale’ to some evil ‘owner.’
Helena felt a burst of shame. For so long, she and her family had hidden away in their mountaintop home, oblivious to the fact that this kind of barbarism was going on underneath their noses. How could they have been so isolationist for so long? They could have stopped this. They could have intervened years ago, prevented this misery.
Well, it was never too late. Helena set her jaw. If it was the last thing she did, she would destroy this place and free every last one of these women.
“Be good, and you’ll get fed. Be bad and see what happens.” Jack shoved her into a cage towards the end of the row, and she watched with her e
yes narrowed as he extracted a ring of keys and locked the cage door behind her. Irritably, she shoved her bound wrists through the bars, and he looked down at them then up at her quizzically. “What’s that?”
“Are you going to untie me?”
His white eyes gleamed unsettlingly in the low light of the room. “That’s not how you speak to me.”
The acting challenge of a lifetime. Helena took a deep breath. “Could I trouble you to unbind my hands?” She gritted her teeth. “Sir?”
“Much better,” he said with satisfaction, then pulled a knife from his belt and cut the fabric from her wrists. Before she could yank them back into the cage, he seized one and dragged it to his lips as she recoiled from his touch. She shuddered as he pressed a damp kiss to the back of her hand—but she didn’t pull away.
“Good girl.”
And then he was gone, leaving her alone in her tiny little cell. She stared around it, feeling lost. Each cell surrounding hers was empty. There was no way to talk to any of the other women, to plan an escape attempt… and besides, on her way in she’d seen a handful of guards who’d quickly put a stop to any unarmed uprising they could attempt. So she sat down. The cot, as expected, was hard as a rock, and offered very little comfort to her six-foot frame—she had to curl her legs up to even fit her entire body onto it. Irritated, she lay down on the floor instead, grateful that the cold stone beneath her was at least clean.
What on earth was the morning going to bring?
Chapter 4
Art set out on the drive at dawn. The place he was headed wasn’t far, but he wanted to get there as soon as possible, spend some time scoping it out. The settlement was easy enough to locate, and he spent a little time driving around it, seeing where the roads went, where the various points of entry and exit were. There weren’t many. Just one long road that branched off the main one and disappeared into the woods, winding and twisting through the wilderness on the way to Mossley. No signs at all. The only thing that clued him in to this being his turn-off was a big old dead tree that had been split down the middle with lightning at some point in its long history. It stood just before the turn-off, and even then Art almost missed it. This wasn’t a place that its owners wanted to be found.