The ship’s masts swayed with the gentle inhale and exhale of the tide. The approaching boat seemed to have been approaching for forever.
“I’m going to get out of the car,” I said, to no one in particular.
“No, you’re not. You are going to sit here and wait, just like me, just like all of us,” Sophie said into the backseat. Though she sounded annoyed, there was no real heat in her words. Her hand was squeezed into a fist on the emergency brake, as if her hold was the only thing keeping her from exiting the car.
I ran a hand through my still damp hair. Wyvern had insisted we change since he couldn’t meet the Oceania dracons as an unrecognizable old man. I’d peeled off the prosthetics and scrubbed away the makeup as well.
“Girls, everything is going to be fine,” Annie said. “Your sisters are on that boat; you just need to wait another few minutes to see them.”
It didn’t feel fine though, it felt as if instead of a boat, a missile was heading for us. Brian and Teddy stood beside Wyvern, waiting to help Wyvern walk Sarah and Lorelei safely back to the cars from the dock.
We were parked in the middle of the mostly empty parking lot, ocean surrounding us on two sides. My gaze rechecked the parked cars for any sign of inhabitants, but still I saw no one. The park, when I rechecked, was empty as far as I could see.
“Do you see anyone?” Sophie asked, obviously noticing that I was again scanning for danger.
“No,” I said, drawing the word out.
When I returned my gaze forward, I saw that Sophie was also furiously checking our surroundings.
“Look ladies, they’re docking,” Annie said.
“Can we go meet the boat?” I said.
Sophie glared back at me but quickly turned her attention forward. “As I’ve said, twice, our organization is intentional on the part of the Rex. We don’t want to run the risk of being viewed as aggressive.”
Thankfully, Sophie had parked the car in a direct path, and I could easily see as the ferryboat’s plank lowered onto the dock.
Figures stood beside the edge of the boat, and though I could not see their details from this distance, one looked shorter than the others.
“Is it them?” I asked the were-eagles in the front seat.
“Yes, both of them, they’re unloading now,” Sophie said.
As smile spread across my face and a couple tears dropped from my eyes. Four figures walked away from the group, coming towards where we waited in the cars.
“Looks like Wyvern is boarding the boat,” Sophie said.
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“The Oceania dracons are not even supposed to be in the harbor without your uncle’s permission,” Sophie said.
“Why didn’t Wyvern get Reeves’s permission?” I asked, furrowing my brow at the absurdity.
“It’s not our place to question his decisions,” Sophie said, dismissively.
“They’re pulling out of the dock,” Annie said. “Are we supposed to wait for him to return?”
Sophie didn’t answer, but a second later a text alert beeped from her phone. “Yes, we should wait. He’s only moving a short distance out of the harbor, and it should not take long.”
I could not see the details of the three guards and my sister as they walked toward us. When they got within a hundred yards of the car, I threw open the car door despite Sophie’s protests and ran flat out for the group.
Lorelei stopped walking forward when I closed the distance and threw my arms around her. Lorelei and I constantly hugged our other sisters, but for some reason, we’d rarely ever hugged each other since we were kids. But I needed to hold her, I needed to know she was solid and alive. Unlike when we were kids, she was a little taller than me now.
“Oh my gods Dakota, you’re suffocating me,” she said as I squeezed her tightly, but I could hear the smile in her voice.
“As long as you’re alive to suffocate,” I whispered to her.
“I’m okay, I’ve been okay,” she said. Under her breath she whispered, sounding concerned, “What deal did you make to get me out?”
“I would have made any deal, but you don’t have to be worried. I just have to go to some parties in New Anglo and stuff like that,” I said.
She nodded, and I stepped away from her.
“We need to talk, I need to tell you something important,” Lorelei said.
“We need to get back into the cars,” Sophie said from directly beside me.
I looked around, suddenly becoming aware of my surroundings. All of my guards were grouped around Lorelei and me, standing in the darkness of the parking lot between the harbor and the cars.
“Sarah,” I said, spotting her standing next to her sister.
“Hey Dakota,” she smiled at me.
“We can talk about it in the car,” Sophie said.
I nodded, putting my arm around Lorelei and somewhat pushing her ahead of me. “You’re right, let’s get out of the open.”
We all turned and started walking the short distance between us and the two cars waiting in the middle of the parking lot in a loose formation. Suddenly and simultaneously the four were-eagles stopped. All four of them turned their attention to the park at one side of the parking lot. Then their attention shifted to the harbor buildings on our other side.
“Shift!” Sophie yelled.
Scraps of clothes burst off in all directions as Annie, Teddy and Brian burst outward. Twenty foot wings exploded out from giant feathered bodies. Within a minute, three birds loomed over us. The harbor lights gleamed off their long hooked beaks.
“Fly! Don’t let them get within teen feet of her!” Sophie shouted.
Immediately, the birds pushed off the ground and took to the air.
“Who?” Lorelei, Sarah and I all yelled out of sync.
“I don’t know, but there’s a lot of them and they’re coming from two directions!” Sophie typed something furiously on her phone. “I bet they took him out of cell phone range,” she growled.
“You could send one of the eagles,” Sarah said.
Sophie shouted, “No, there are too many of them. Dakota, draw your gun!”
I already was. My hand plunged into my little portal purse pinned to my back and pulled out Contingency, my little six-shooter handgun.
“Got a gun in there for me?” Lorelei asked.
“Paintball gun,” I yelled over the loud swishing sound of the eagles circling directly above our heads. I held the paintball gun out to her.
She looked at the paintball gun and questioningly at me.
“Eyes, mouth, groin,” I yelled.
“Keep it, Dakota. You’ll do more damage!” Sophie yelled, “Scream while you run! Run for the car, now!”
We all broke into a run. I screamed. We all screamed as loud as we could as we ran. I had not seen the figures approaching, it was as if there was no one, then suddenly in a blur of motion we were surrounded on three sides by hundreds of vampires. The collective cloud of their undead souls hovered around the group like a dark mist.
Sophie threw out her arms, halting our progress. She shoved her phone at Sarah. “Sarah, Lorelei, neither of you can fight! They’re after Dakota. Before they surround us completely, break for the cars! Split the group. They’ll try to mob you, but get in the cars and drive, run over as many of them as you have to. Don’t try to get to us, you won’t be able to. Call the Rex and your uncle for immediate support. Go!”
“How do you know they’re after Dakota?” Lorelei shouted, but Sarah had a hand on Lorelei’s arm and was dragging her for the break in the group where the vampires hadn’t closed in yet.
“Good call getting her out of here,” I whispered gratefully to Sophie.
“If you’re protecting her, you’ll die,” Sophie said. “She’s your weakest point.”
Lorelei and Sarah made it out before the group completely surrounded us. The crowd marched forward, closing the circle before us.
“So, how do you know they’re after me?�
�� I asked.
“The gloves and masks.”
When I looked around, I saw that they were indeed all wearing gloves. Not all, but many, of them were also wearing ski masks covering their faces. Their clothing also covered them from head to toe.
They knew about my power, they were covering themselves so I couldn’t touch them and use my power on them. Also like me, many of them were holding guns at their side.
“Don’t draw,” Sophie whispered to me.
“I won’t, I don’t have to,” I whispered back.
A man stepped into the circle they formed around us. “Dakota Kekoa! You are hereby called to answer for your crime against the Regina Imogen!” His voice sounded strange, as if he was trying to disguise his voice. In the darkness, I could not make out his face. “You have stolen her soul, and for that, your sentence is death!”
He took another step forward, and one of the eagles shot down from the sky, snatched up the vampire and dropped him onto the crowd of vampires.
“She’s been judged innocent!” Sophie said. “There are laws that govern judgment in this country!”
“Corrupt laws,” said a masked vampire with a woman’s voice, her voice also sounded off. She didn’t step forward out of the formation. “We’ll see no justice except by our own hands!”
“I am the only one that can fix the Regina!” I shouted, “You kill me, she’s dead.”
“Lies!” shouted another vampire. And the cry of ‘Lies! Lies! Dracon lies!’ went up all around the circle.
“You kill her, you’ll start a war,” Sophie yelled at the crowd.
“This country needs a war!” A vampire screamed.
Sophie turned to me. “When our wings fail, you run Dakota!” Then she burst apart.
Right as I saw the first guns draw, I started shooting, I had shot five gun hands and blinded six vampires with paintballs when talons, like steel knobby ropes wrapped around my shoulders.
The ground thrust away from my feet as a searing pain tore through my leg. I was jerked around, the flight path weaving this way and that. The loud crack, crack, crack of gunshots split the air.
The eagle above me shuddered, then their talons went slack.
The crowd of vampires beneath me kept shooting up as I tumbled from the sky toward them. With a sudden jerk that made me drop my paintball gun, another pair of talons caught me by my shoulder, and I was again heading up in a chaotic zigzagging flight.
Two other eagles flew beneath us, diving back and forth as we slowly made our assent. The eagle made a keening sound as it thrust its blood-stained wings. The burn of another bullet grazed my foot and thumped through the eagle’s wing above.
The eagle began to list to one side as we lost velocity. One of the eagles who had been circling below, beat it’s wings furiously up to me, it was also stained in blood, whether it was ours or it had been shot too, I didn’t know. That eagle talons wrapped around one of my arms, then the other as the eagle who was holding me let go.
This eagle seemed to be losing strength even before it had fully grasped me in its talons.
We were ahead of the vampire crowd now, but not by much, they were chasing us and I doubted even at full speed. Shots kept cracking out of the crowd. They reminded me of a hunting party, continuously shooting and keeping close enough behind to pick up our bodies when we’d finally succumbed to our injuries.
The eagle beneath us dropped from the sky and into the vampire crowd.
A bullet whistled past me and the eagle above me jerked, but kept flying. Beneath us, the vampire crowd started cheering. A few more gun blasts, and the eagle that held me jerked over and over again, but it kept flying.
My other leg exploded with pain.
Blood dripped on me and we were sinking, but the eagle didn’t let go. We were past the little beach park now, almost to the deserted road out of town.
Another crack of the gun and the eagle fell. It twisted its body, turning over and as we hit the grass, the eagle hit first and I on top of it. I immediately bounced off, hitting the ground with a teeth rattling impact. My vision swam.
The cheering came closer.
‘When our wings fail us, run,’ Sophie had said. I looked to my legs, they were red from blood, and I knew I’d at least been shot once in each. I looked at the eagle beside me, it’s body slowly moved up and down in breath as its eyes blinked upward at the sky. I crawled toward the eagle’s body, dragging myself forward.
I would not die crawling on my belly. I stopped, turned over and pushed myself into a sitting position. I faced the crowd of approaching vampires, they were only a hundred feet away now, walking leisurely.
I raised my gun to point at the crowd. I had one bullet left, I’d make it count.
The cheering around us hushed as a loud screeching sound pierced the air.
“Get back,” I heard a voice growl. “Back away now!”
The crowd turned from me and voices all talked at once. “Princep,” someone shouted. And, “Avenge the Regina, Princep!” A path opened in the vampires, and Harrison walked through.
He looked just as he did when I saw him last, beautiful with that dark thick midnight soul wreathing his body. This time however, he held out a sword.
I aimed my gun at him. “Stay back, I have one more bullet and perfect aim,” I rasped out.
He sheathed his sword at his side and held out hands in surrender, but didn’t stop walking toward me. “I am here to help you,” he said.
“You betrayed us!” I shouted.
In a blink of the eye, he had closed the distance between us. He knocked the gun from my hands with little effort and scooped me into his arms.
“I’ll kill you,” I told him, though I felt myself start to lean into him.
“Traitor!” the vampires started shouting, over and over.
And, then I saw him, pearlescent and massive and zooming toward us. I had forgotten how large Wyvern was in dragon form. A second later, he was all I saw, his massive body flying in at us.
The bullets started ripping through the air again, and immediately specks of red peppered his scales.
The dragon dove, one of his claws wrapping around Harrison, while the other scooped up the now motionless eagle. We were all immediately thrust into the air and the echo of the bullets were soon drowned out by the whistling of the air.
Wyvern’s claws wound tightly around Harrison, and under my body holding my weight. The only thing securing me from the hundred foot drop below, though, was Harrison’s arms around me.
I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, hugging him so tightly there was no possibility that he could let go of me. My chest seared, and I knew that I had broken a bone in my chest when I’d bounced off the eagle.
My cheek brushed against Harrison’s cheek, and I knew that if I needed to coil a piece of his soul into me to paralyze him, I could do it before he could fight me off him.
He whispered, “You’ll be okay, Dakota. When we get there, I can get you to a healer.”
“How injured is Wyvern?” I croaked out.
“I don’t know, but I can see several gunshot wounds. How injured are you?”
“I’m okay. Not too injured,” I lied.
“Your legs are soaked in blood,” Harrison said.
“The eagles were bleeding on me,” I said. That part was true. “Did you see them?”
“I ran past them, yes. Wyvern asked me to run to you while he transformed.”
“Are they alive?”
He didn’t answer.
Hot tears coursed down my face, because he didn’t have to answer. Like me, they had been shot from the sky.
Chapter Nineteen
With every weakening beat of Wyvern’s wings, the cane field came closer to us. The dark stocks swished back and forth, reflecting the moonlight. Wyvern had been losing altitude and velocity for the better part of an hour. He might have been aiming for Mabi Volcano, but we were barely at its base.
The claw under me shifted, opening
slowly.
“Brace yourself, Dakota,” Harrison said. Then nothing was holding us, and we dropped. Harrison’s fingers dug into my side, and with a sudden jerking motion, we ended our descent.
The impact reverberated through me, but the pain was so much less than I knew it should be. My eyelids fought to close.
Harrison’s body moved up and down in heavy breaths. He swayed back and forth, but stayed on his feet.
Turning my head, I saw the long road ahead of us through the cane field. With a slackening of his claws, Wyvern dropped the eagle. It thudded to the dirt directly before Wyvern plowed into the road. A dark cloud exploded outward.
Harrison ran toward Wyvern, as dirt rained down, pelting my cheek and arm. Every movement sent sharp pains throughout my body. I gritted my teeth, knowing the pain was the only thing keeping me from succumbing to the blackness that begged to swallow me.
Harrison stopped in front of Wyvern, and shouted, “Vern!”
“He’s alive, they’re both alive,” I whispered. Now that we had stopped, I could see that both Wyvern and the eagle still had souls wreathing them.
Harrison set me down next to Wyvern, and moved to check Wyvern’s face. “Asleep, that’s good. That’s probably how he heals, that’s how wyverns heal in the Dragon Kingdoms.”
He turned to where I was leaning against Wyvern’s side. Wyvern’s gigantic soul buffeted against me, as if my injuries weren’t enough to make me pass out. Lying my head against his softly scaled underbelly, I inhaled the smell of his reptilian skin. I opened my eyes, realizing that I had lost time. With a brutally quick movement, I shifted my leg, and the fresh bout of pain woke me. Unable to stop myself, I inhaled sharply.
Harrison crouched directly beside me, looking at my legs. “I knew it. You were injured.”
“Harrison,” I whispered, leaning in toward him, slowly listing sideward. As I hoped he would, Harrison reached to catch me and as he did I grabbed the hilt of his sword.
Unsheathing the sword, I drew it back over my lap, then brought it up to Harrison’s neck. Using my free hand, I grabbed his collar to stop him from just moving away from me.
Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2) Page 17