by Lola Gabriel
Dax crinkled his nose as he stepped through the door, and Lucinda chuckled.
“Not used to that smell, are you?”
“It’s not that. The last time I smelled that, we were attacked by a small coven, and Oryn got a scar on his face.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucinda said with an apologetical cringe.
“Don’t be. It only made him more attractive to women.”
“Chicks dig scars, right?” Lucinda scoffed.
“It also helps if you have an attractive face,” Dax pointed out. “I never figured you for an Oryn girl, though. You look more like a Nyx girl.”
“Nyx is a hottie, but he’s too much of a momma’s boy for my liking. Oryn is sensible and knows what he wants.” Lucinda shrugged her shoulders. “You are an attractive bunch.”
Dax grinned and then asked in all seriousness, “So what did you find?”
“I remember going through my grimoire a few weeks ago, after Becca met you, you know, and I came across something that I thought was nothing at first. Obviously, when I learned that you and Mira knew each other, it wasn’t nothing anymore.”
Dax clenched his jaw and followed Lucinda into what looked like a small conservatory. The glass ceiling was covered in ivy and other plants he wasn’t familiar with, and the scent of sage was heavy in the air. In the middle of the conservatory stood a large wooden table, and a thick leather-bound book lay in the middle, surrounded by small bottles in different colors, sizes, and filled with different substances.
“If I may ask, and I know this is a personal question, but how do you know Mira exactly?” Lucinda inquired, standing in front of her book.
“I’ve known her for a long time. We sort of grew up together, but we were never close. When I escaped the last war in Romania, she came along with me, and she followed me around until I settled here in Vancouver.”
“And when exactly did you start having sex with her?”
Dax tensed. “It’s been a while, but it didn’t mean anything. It was just sex, no strings attached,” he said defensively.
Lucinda nodded to herself. “She wanted more, didn’t she?”
“How did you know that?”
“It’s pretty obvious, what with the way she looked at you in the meeting room and the way you avoided her gaze at every possible occasion,” she said. “I think she knew about you and Becca. She had to. She volunteered to help with the organization—”
“And she showed up there on the day Becca left,” Dax finished. It was too much of a coincidence to be just that. “Was there someone else in the apartment beside you and Becca? Did you feel another presence, smell something strange, notice anything out of order?”
“No! Becca was really freaked out, but I didn’t sense anyone else! Well, except the baby, of course.”
A hint of a smile formed on Dax’s lips, but it was quickly replaced by a worried expression. “What if—”
“Mira got to her after she left the apartment? She drives a fancy black car, so she could have caught up to Becca.”
Dax frowned. “Wait, how do you know that?”
“It’s a black Lamborghini, Dax. It’s kind of hard to miss,” Lucinda muttered. Then she gasped with wide eyes. “Oh, my god. You drive the same one.”
Dax turned to her with an unimpressed expression and crossed his arms.
“Oh, my god,” Lucinda repeated. “What if Mira followed Becca, Becca thought it was you, and got in with her?”
“Why on Earth would she do that? The whole reason she left was because she didn’t want to be close to me so that I couldn’t hurt her or the baby,” Dax stated.
“That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love you, Dax. She’d give anything to be with you, but not her life.”
Dax exhaled as all the pieces seemed to be falling into place. “What did you find in your book, by the way?”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot. The first time Mira came into the office, she wore this amazing ring with a green stone in it. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen since the jewels of Cornylia were discovered in a shallow grave on the banks of the Seine,” she gushed.
Dax rolled his eyes at Lucinda’s dramatic tone, but he remembered the Emperor of Cornylia’s treasures. They were magnificent, just not to his personal taste. He also knew the ring Lucinda was referring to very well. It was Mira’s most valuable possession, as it had been a gift from her great-grandmother.
“Anyway, I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then I found this,” Lucinda said as she turned to book towards Dax and pointed to a sketch of the exact same ring as Mira’s. “The stone is called Variscite, and it’s a rare type of gemstone native to Germany.”
“Mira’s great-grandmother was born there.”
“Right, but did she tell you that her great-grandmother was a human?”
Dax’s eyebrows furrowed in shock. “What?”
“Yeah. She was one of the most infamous dragon hunters in the world back then.”
Dax stared at Lucinda, completely speechless at the new information.
“Doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t mention that,” she muttered in disapproval. “Anyway, she Bonded with a dragon and gave the ring to Mira because it was said to have special powers. Not only does it help with memory extraction and remembrance, it also has the ability to shift and incapacitate even the strongest dragons, plaguing them with the bad choices and mistakes they made in their lives—torturing them to their deaths with the guilt of their decisions, the things they wished they could change but can’t. It’s a cruel and disturbing way to die, but the German dragon hunters were cruel and heartless.”
“Sounds like Mira inherited more than just her grandmother’s looks,” Dax grunted. “And you’re sure that all this isn’t just folklore?”
“Dax, you’re a dragon, I’m a witch. You’re contradicting yourself right now,” Lucinda pointed out. “Plus, my grimoire has never been wrong.”
“Well, if she did take Becca—”
“Which she did, I know it,” Lucinda interjected.
“We have to find her before she tortures her to death.”
Lucinda glanced away nervously. “Becca does have a lot of bad choices and mistakes for Mira to use.”
“You know,” Dax said, glaring at her, “that right there should bother the shit out of me, but it doesn’t. I don’t care if she made a million mistakes and bad decisions. I just don’t want her to die because of them. We have to find Mira.”
“We don’t have to.” Lucinda held up her phone. “I placed a tracker on her car, so I know exactly where she is,” she said proudly. On the screen, there was a large flashing red dot.
Dax leaned in to get a better look and frowned. “Where is that?”
It took them an hour to get to the location, and they sat hunched down in the seats of Lucinda’s car. Dax’s car would have been too obvious, and Mira would know that they had found her. The building was hidden in a complex of warehouses, and it blended into its surroundings so well that no one would ever suspect anything unworldly going on there. It was about forty minutes out of the city, and it seemed pretty abandoned. Lucinda had parked around the corner, out of sight, and the pair climbed out of the car.
There were dark clouds assembling above them, but that was the least of Dax’s worries. He was determined to find Becca and put a stop to Mira once and for all. He had not ever considered the possibility of killing Mira. She was like a recurring itch to him, a thorn in his side, a pebble in his shoe, but he had never thought of actually killing her. He knew the kind of person she was, as well as her persistence to get what she wanted, no matter the cost. Now that he was aware of her family and what she was truly capable of, it was now becoming a definite possibility.
Dax and Lucinda peered around the corner of the building they were hiding behind, with a clear view of the building Mira was in.
“What now?” Dax whispered. “Do we go in?”
“No, not just yet,” Lucinda shook her head.
&
nbsp; “Why not? It’s clearly where Mira is, so what are we waiting for?”
“Dax, hold your horses, please. We have no idea how many people she has working for her, and we’re not even a hundred percent sure that Becca is in there,” she reminded him. “Maybe she’s keeping her somewhere else.”
“I’m sick of waiting!” Dax muttered, but as he moved forward, Lucinda grabbed him by the chest and slammed him against the concrete wall.
“Stop it!” Lucinda hissed. Dax’s eyes widened in surprise. “Listen to me. We have to be careful, okay? If Mira is anything like her family, we’re in for one hell of a shitstorm, and I need to know that you’ve got my back. There’s no room for renegade rebellious behavior right now. You got it? Becca’s life depends on it.”
Dax’s shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Lucinda let go of his shirt and patted his chest. “Good boy.”
“So how are we—”
“Quiet!” Lucinda whispered and shoved her back against the wall.
Dax did the same. “Is it Mira?”
Lucinda peered around the corner again. “Yeah. She came out of the building.”
“She’s leaving?”
“It seems like it.”
Dax looked around the corner, too, and watched as Mira walked to her car, glancing around her suspiciously. She climbed into her black Lamborghini and sped off.
Dax exchanged glances with Lucinda, who stood in silence for a few moments. She motioned to Dax to follow her. They crossed the walkways between the buildings and made their way to the door Mira had emerged from.
Lucinda yanked on the padlock on the door and groaned. “It’s locked.”
“Not for long,” Dax said. He grabbed the padlock and crushed it with his hand. “There.”
“I guess that’s one way to do it. I was thinking of a more subtle way.” Lucinda shrugged as Dax threw the crushed padlock on the ground and opened the door.
“Subtle went out the fucking window when she decided to kidnap Becca,” he muttered. “No one messes with a Veskovic.”
Lucinda smirked. Dax followed her inside the building.
At first glance, it looked like a large empty warehouse, completely different from what it looked like from the outside. Dax figured he shouldn’t judge anything by appearances any longer like he had with Lucinda. Here she was, risking her own life to help him find Becca, and he would never be able to thank her for that.
Lucinda cast a quick spell, creating a small orb of glowing light on the palm of her hand, while Dax’s night vision had kicked in almost immediately. They did not even attempt to find a light source, as they didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention.
“Do you see anything?” Lucinda whispered.
“Nothing yet,” he answered, feeling a little discouraged. Had they been wrong? If so, where the hell was Becca? And what was Mira doing here to begin with? There had to be something.
Dax glanced around him, trying to use his intuition to find Becca, and he suddenly stopped. He narrowed his eyes as he noticed a vague outline of some sort, and he slowly walked closer.
“Dax?” he heard Lucinda ask behind him, but he simply raised his hand, signaling to her to wait.
He approached the wall and placed his hands against it. It was definitely a door, and now he just had to find its outline. He eventually found the handle, concealed cleverly by making it look like a part of the wall, and even though he felt the urge to rip the door off, he knew he had to be quiet and careful
Mira had always had a thing for optical illusions, since she was a smoke dragon. She used to play all kind of tricks on him when they were younger, and of course, Dax had found it all very tedious and unnecessary. Even then, Mira had been up to no good.
He turned the handle, and the door opened. “Lucinda, here’s a door.”
Lucinda was beside him in an instant, and Dax glanced down into the dark. There was a spiral stone stairwell, leading to god knew where, and it was eerily quiet as Dax went down the steps. Descending down into the dark, his senses suddenly ignited.
“She’s down here,” he whispered to Lucinda, who was behind him. She didn’t reply.
It took Dax a few minutes to get to the very bottom of the stairs. There was a massive underground area, and the faint sound of dripping water could be heard. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but he followed his instincts and came across another door. He slid it open, and as he stepped inside, fragments of stone crunched under his boots. He glanced down and noticed the broken shards of the green stone Lucinda had spoken about, the same stone as on Mira’s ring.
Dax also heard soft singing coming from the darkness. Glancing up, he looked directly at Becca. She was hunched up in a corner of a large cell, her clothes torn and her eyes staring out in front of her.
“Becca,” he breathed and rushed over to her, but he found himself separated from her by a wall of steel bars. He grabbed two bars and tried to push them apart, but they would not budge.
“Dax?” Becca whispered and looked up.
“Becca, it’s me,” he said as he continued to struggle with the bars, to no avail.
Becca scrambled to her feet and ran to the steel bars. “You found me.”
“We did,” he answered and motioned to Lucinda, who hurried to his side.
“Luce,” Becca sighed in relief.
“Becca, are you okay?”
“No. Can you get me out of here, please?”
“The bars won’t budge,” Dax muttered. “Lucinda?”
“I got this.” Lucinda generated a flaming hot orb in her hand. “Stand back, Becca.”
Becca did as she was told while Dax kept his eyes on her the whole time.
“You too, Dax,” Lucinda suggested.
“I’m fireproof.”
She shot him a look. “Don’t be a hero,” she scolded him. “I need you to have my back.”
Dax stepped away, holding his hands up in defeat. When he and Becca were a safe distance away, the orb in Lucinda’s hand exploded, melting the steel bars within a matter of seconds.
“Careful, it’s hot,” she warned as Becca climbed through the opening in the bars and ran straight into Dax’s arms. Holding her close to him, feeling both her and their unborn child’s heartbeats pulsating through his veins, was the best feeling in the world.
After a moment, Becca raised her head and stared into his eyes, a thin veil of tears hovered on her lashes. “You came for me.”
“Of course I did,” Dax replied as he lovingly stroked her cheek. “Come on. Let’s get you out—”
Before he could complete his sentence, a flash of smoke filled the air, and they whirled around.
“Not so fast,” Mira called out.
“You,” Dax growled.
“Yeah, me.” Mira walked closer, swaying her hips and raising an eyebrow at him. The melted steel bars cast a wicked orange glow on her face as she approached them, and Dax’s eyes flashing viciously. “Who else did you expect?”
Lucinda came up behind her, her own eyes glowing, and with a simple motion of Mira’s hand, a whirlwind of smoke enveloped Lucinda.
“Luce! No!” Becca exclaimed. “Let go of her, you bitch!”
“You’ve got a real feisty woman there, Dax. It’s a pity I have to kill her.”
“You will do nothing of the sort, Mira,” Dax snarled. He dashed forward and grabbed Mira by the throat.
Mira raised her knee, kicking him in the groin, and his grasp faltered for a moment, long enough for her to slip out of it. When she set her sights on Becca, Dax grabbed her by the shoulder and slammed her into the ground.
“Becca, get back!” Dax ordered, and she did what she was told. He heard her racing thoughts, which weren’t all that positive, but it was understandable. She was afraid and should rather be left out of this fight between him and Mira, as he knew it was going to get ugly.
With another kick of her leg, Mira struck Dax in the face, and he fell backwards.
/> “You always sucked when it came to fighting, Dax. You were always too quick to get in the first shot, but you could never stick it out for longer,” Mira said, scrambling to her feet. “You see, this is an easy fight, because I know your weaknesses.”
“You don’t know anything about me. You just think you do.”
“Oh, tough guy talk,” she swooned. “It’s not going to work this time, Daxard.”
Dax’s eyes widened as he recalled the dream he’d had. The witch who he had thought had killed Becca in his nightmare appeared in his mind, but the face quickly morphed into Mira’s face, the hair turned from silver to black, and a deep growl rumbled in his throat.
“Oh, you think you can take me?” Mira taunted. “Well, let’s see about that.” Her eyes glowed, and she glared at Becca, who was lifted off the ground.
Becca let out a shriek before she was pinned against the wall, and as much as she struggled to free herself from the mental grasp of Mira’s mind, she couldn’t, much to Dax’s dismay. Mira was much too strong for her to overcome, as evil was initially more powerful than good.
Dax jumped up, grabbed Mira by the hair, and flung her down onto the ground. Then he wrapped his hands around her neck and hissed through his teeth.
“This brings back memories, doesn’t it, Dax?” she spluttered.
“Why, Mira? What did you think was going to happen?” Dax growled.
“A girl can dream, right?” she hissed. “But in my case, dreaming wasn’t enough.” Her eyes glowed again, as well as the green stone on her finger, and she grabbed onto his two wrists.
A searing pain erupted inside Dax’s mind, and he growled out in pain, letting go of Mira’s throat. It made his body contort painfully, and he fell down onto the ground. An array of memories which he was convinced he had forgotten played out in front of him: the tears that had been spilled because of him welled up inside of him, choking him. He remembered the pain and suffering caused by his negligent power-trips, and the sea of faces of those who had perished as a result consumed him, haunting his soul.