by Riley Storm
“Then from there, who knows,” Vlad said, spreading his arms wide. “Just at first, that’s all.”
But he knew he’d lost him.
“Why would you go back there?” Sache said nastily. “There’s nothing for us there Vlad. Don’t you remember? That’s why we left it in the first place. That’s why we came here, to find a new home.”
Vlad growled. “This is no home for us either, Sache. You know that. This place is evil. They took advantage of us, when we were weak and hurting, and pretended like they understood. But we should never have come here.”
“I didn’t want to come here,” Sache pointed out.
Vlad sighed. “I know, Sache. I know. I should have listened to you from the start. We should have just gone to Europe. Found ourselves a new home there.”
Sache was right on many points. They should have just gone to Europe, to the ancestral homes of the dragon clans. Maybe there they could have established a new life, a new identity, without the shame that had driven them from Five Peaks.
But they hadn’t. Vlad had been too hurt, and he’d walked them both right into the arms of the Cado. Now Sache was paying the price for it.
How did he convince Sache that his plan for Five Peaks was only temporary? That he didn’t want to stay there either. It would never be home for him again. But for now it could provide shelter at least.
Vlad had nowhere else to go.
“Once she’s safe, we can move on,” Vlad said, tilting his head in Ellyn’s direction, grateful that she’d stayed silent so far, not interrupting. Sache wouldn’t react well to that. “We’ll go find a new home.”
Sache’s head came up, and the haunting look in his eyes nearly broke Vlad. “Can’t you see? I have found a home. A place that’s accepted me, Vlad. A place that’s accepted me, without caring about what I did in the past.”
Vlad’s heart sank. “They don’t accept us, Sache. Come on, think. They’re just using us. They didn’t even invite us along with this newest mission. We’re not part of them!”
The other dragon shifter just stared back at Vlad, not saying anything.
Vlad frowned. There was something about that response, the set of his friend’s jaw…
“They invited you, didn’t they?” he asked quietly. “You’re going with them.”
“I am,” Sache said quietly. “They’ve included me, Vlad. Unlike you, who’s excluded me in your little escape attempt. If I hadn’t just come back in, you would have left, leaving me here with no explanation. Abandoning me.”
Vlad had no counter to that. He’d been working by the seat of his pants so far, more concerned with getting Ellyn to safety than thinking through the ramifications of his actions. Now Sache was driving that home to him, and he felt guiltier than ever.
A wedge was forming between the two of them, and it was Vlad who was driving it ever deeper, splitting them apart.
“I’m sorry Sache,” he said quietly, quite certain the damage was, at this point, irreparable. Not that it was going to stop Vlad from trying one last time. “I’m here now, though. There’s room for you. Just get in, we can go, together. The two of us. We won’t go to Five Peaks. We’ll go somewhere else, it doesn’t matter where. You choose.”
Sache shook his head sadly. “I have chosen, Vlad. I choose here.”
Crap.
Vlad knew what had to happen next. There was only one way that he and Ellyn escaped safely now. And that path lay squarely through Sache.
Regretting every second of it, Vlad leapt forward. He wasn’t about to try talking again, to give Sache time to raise the alarm, or even prepare his defenses. He had to be vicious, and ruthless. Any prolonged fighting would alert some others.
That was why Vlad struck so quickly, and without warning. But Sache was still a dragon, and possessed a dragon’s reflexes. Even as Vlad came at him faster than a human ever could, he brought his hands up and grabbed for his older clanmate and fell backward.
The pair went down in a heap, rolling across the ground, bouncing off the tire of a Range Rover. The sleek luxury SUV rocked at the heavy impact, but thankfully no alarms went off.
Vlad got to his feet first, spinning to build momentum, and slammed an uncoordinated backfist into Sache’s chin. The blow got through, Sache being just a hair too slow with bringing an arm up, and it rocked the shifter backward.
With no time to spare, Vlad flung himself at his friend, raining blows down on him as hard and fast as he could. Each punch drove a blade into his own innards, each elbow twisting it, increasing the agony. Vlad had never wanted to fight his friend, but given the choices, he knew he had to.
And he had to win. Knocking out a dragon shifter wasn’t easy. First he had to gain the upper hand, which he had, but then he had to keep it long enough to pummel him into unconsciousness.
Frustrated at how slowly it was going, knowing that time was running out, Vlad grabbed the arm Sache was using to try and slow the blows and spun, launching his friend across the garage. Sache slammed face-first into a concrete support pillar and flopped to the ground.
Vlad’s heart stopped.
Had he just killed his friend?
“Get back here!” Ellyn hissed as he raced to Sache’s side, rolling the prone shifter onto his back. “We have to go!”
Vlad snarled wordlessly at her, the sound filling the garage.
He put a hand to Sache’s neck, and after an agonizingly long wait—in reality only a brief fraction of a second—he registered the thump of a pulse.
Sagging in relief, he got to his feet, his legs more than a little shaky. Sache was alive. He hadn’t killed him.
Though it had probably ended any remaining friendship that might have existed between the two.
Head down in self-disgust, Vlad walked back across the garage to the truck. Ellyn was watching him as he approached. He got in the cab and pointed in the back seat.
“Lay on the floor, under the blanket, until we’re clear of the property. If you’re seen, it’s all over.”
For once Ellyn didn’t argue. She simply unbuckled her seatbelt, slid into the rear and disappeared under the blanket.
Blank-faced, Vlad pulled out of the garage and headed toward the main gate.
“I sure hope you’re worth it,” he muttered to no one in particular.
Chapter Eight
Ellyn
She stayed tucked under the blanket, keeping to her own thoughts about what had happened back in the garage.
Vlad had fought his friend, in an attempt to help her escape. To protect her.
Nobody did that for someone else. Maybe in the movies, sure. But in real life? In her life? Absolutely not. It wasn’t real. There was no way Vlad should have cared more about her than about his friend.
She almost smiled at the thought, her heart warmed a little, though she couldn’t understand why. Almost. Until another thought entered her mind.
The only reason he would have done that, is if he has even bigger plans for you.
That should have been her first thought. Watching out for herself. Yet much as she tried to convince herself that Vlad was full of ulterior motives, things that were not in her best interest, she simply couldn’t. It didn’t seem right. It wasn’t him.
Vlad had her interests in mind, and that knowledge was something very new for Ellyn. Before, people had only ever cared about her well-being while she was on a job, so that she could complete it, and make them richer. Otherwise, nobody cared about her. They would have betrayed her in a hot second if someone could bring them more money than she did.
Not Vlad.
And why did that make her stomach tie itself into knots every time she thought of that, and of him?
The car pulled off the road, going over a bump and then came to a gentle stop.
She didn’t wait for him to say otherwise before flinging the blanket off and looking around. This was the first place she could potentially get away from Vlad and this whole wild escapade, return to her normal life and—
>
“Where the heck are we?” she asked, looking around, asking the first question on her mind as she climbed back into the front seat.
“Nowhere, yet.” Pause. “I just figured you would want to come out from the blanket. We’re far enough away now that you don’t have to hide anymore.”
Dozens more questions were filling her head. Where would they go, what was the plan, what was this Five Peaks place he’d talked about? Why didn’t he want to go there? There were many more questions as well, most of them relating to her, and what was going to happen to her.
“Who was that back there?”
Her first question wasn’t about herself, and that surprised Ellyn. She’d never been one to concern herself with others before, and yet here she was, asking Vlad more about himself.
There was pain on his face, and it only deepened when she asked her question. Perhaps that was why she’d asked it. Whoever it was, they obviously shared a past, and she wanted to know what it was.
Why do you care though?
That stopped her mind in its tracks so thoroughly she almost missed Vlad’s reply.
“A friend,” he said after a long pause.
I don’t care though. Do I? Why would I care? There’s no reason to care. He’s nobody to me!
“Someone I tried to look out for,” Vlad continued softly, hunching forward slightly over the steering wheel.
“I see.” Ellyn was silent, thoughtful. “You knocked him out…for me.”
She was having trouble accepting that as well.
“Well, and for me,” Vlad said dryly. “If I hadn’t, Sache would have raised the alarm. They would have come after us immediately, before we could put some distance behind us and lose them. If they caught up to us, they’d have killed us both. Eventually.”
Ellyn shivered. She had no trouble imagining what the type of men Vlad was referring to would do before killing her. It wasn’t pretty.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, still trying to process everything Vlad had done for her. And the danger he had put himself in because of her. “But Vlad, I need to know something.”
He glanced over at her, his face open, inviting her to ask her question.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you risking so much, knocking out a friend, for me?”
There was a pause. “I’m not sure,” Vlad said after a moment.
“Oh.”
“You don’t deserve what they were going to do to you, for starters,” he explained. “This was the right thing to do. I know that, and I just couldn’t ignore it. I couldn’t stay with them. Not anymore.”
So this was for both of them, like he said. Vlad needed to escape as well. It just took me to make it a reality. What was so special about me though?
“That’s what bothered you about fighting Sache,” she said, wanting to make sure she understood his motives. To figure out if she was in danger with him, or if she could, well, if not trust him then perhaps rely on him, for now. “Because he couldn’t see what was right anymore.”
Vlad looked at her sharply. “You’re very intuitive.”
“It’s what I do,” she said with a tiny smile.
“Well you’re good at it. Yes, that’s why. And also because I’m the one who failed to keep him on a path that would let him see right and wrong.”
Ellyn sat back heavily. She wasn’t used to dealing with heavy emotions, and that last sentence contained more of it than she usually handled in a year. It was still working its way through her system that she apparently cared enough to ask in the first place.
Had it been anyone in her old outfit, she would have just ignored them, figuring that they could sort out their own demons, leaving her to deal with hers.
“I’m sure you did your best,” she said, hoping that the platitude came out properly. “You seem like you’re a decent dude.”
She added the second part without thinking, the words just sort of flowing from her. So it was that she was struck with shock to realize that she actually believed what she was saying, and that she wasn’t just trying to comfort him with words he might want to hear.
Ellyn actually thought Vlad was…decent.
That’s weird.
Pushing the thought, and all associated emotions and physical responses, aside, she stated—privately, in the relative safety of her own mind—that no matter how ‘decent’ he might be, she wasn’t going to let that stop her from escaping at the first opportunity she saw.
“Thanks,” Vlad said, distracted by his own thoughts. “Anyway, let’s get going. Don’t want to give them any extra time to track us down if we can avoid it.”
The truck started up again and rolled off the paved shoulder and back onto the road, accelerating swiftly as Vlad sat straighter, focusing once more on the here and now, she assumed.
“I’m hungry.” She stopped. “Sorry, I did not mean that to come out as a whine after all you’ve done. It’s just…”
“You’re hungry,” he finished. “I get it. We’ll stop in another hour or two. After we’ve put some more distance between us and them.”
Ellyn looked over at Vlad, and around at the nicely appointed truck interior. Then she compared the digs and the company to the cell, and the loneliness that came with it.
“Yeah,” she agreed, watching his face carefully, noticing the rugged handsomeness not for the first time. “Maybe more miles isn’t the worst idea.”
More miles between his old crew, but also more miles between me and Lex. Hard to complain about that idea.
Ellyn settled back into the seat, occasionally flicking glances over at Vlad. Once or twice she was sure she caught him looking back at her.
Yeah, he would do.
Until it was time for her to make her own escape.
Chapter Nine
Vlad
He pulled into the second truck stop they came to after finally getting on the interstate. Stopping at the first would be where they would expect him to go. Not that he’d gone a direction they would expect. Hopefully he’d lost all pursuit, but it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take until they were in a much safer location.
Safer for her, at least. Maybe not for me, not after where I’ve been.
The truck came to a halt at the gas pump and he reached over to gently shake Ellyn. She’d fallen asleep not long after getting into the front seat, and had so far slept soundly.
Now he touched her shoulder and—
A hand shot out, catlike, seizing his wrist and wrenching it around as Ellyn uncoiled from her sleep and sprang across the cab at him, driving her other hand at his throat with the stiffened blade of her fingers.
Vlad’s other hand came up in a flash and he grabbed her wrist, leaning back over her, pinning both arms to her body by sheer dint of his weight. Their faces were inches apart, and he could hear her breathing hard.
“Are you done yet?” he asked quietly as she came fully awake, trying to ignore the press of her body, and the smoothness of her skin in his grip. Or the sudden brush of hair that tickled at his neck.
The sudden proximity between them was having an unexpected effect on him, but as he focused on her, Vlad noticed that Ellyn seemed to be struggling as well.
Her eyes glanced around, taking in the situation, and also perhaps how fast he’d reacted to her attack—which in itself had been blazing fast. Even as a dragon, Vlad had nearly not reacted in time.
“Yes,” she said bluntly, not apologizing.
Vlad took a slow breath, watching her eyes, noting the way her pupils were growing. He could feel her heart beating, and wondered what the roar he was hearing in his own ears was.
“Are you going to let me go?” Ellyn asked in a slightly huskier voice.
She really was quite pretty he decided, looking at her properly for the first time. Long blonde hair, and a figure beneath the skintight outfit that spoke of excellent muscle control combined with a love for pizza or pasta. Not that he was bothered, he found the entire thing…intoxicating.
Vlad
pulled back abruptly, releasing his grip on her wrist and sitting straight in his chair, eyes forward. What the heck was he thinking? Intoxicating? That wasn’t a thought he needed to be having about this woman. This very pretty, very smart woman.
“Some reaction to a simple wake-up call,” he said gruffly, trying to cover up any trace of the emotions he was feeling.
Ellyn blew air from her nose and pulled herself upright, adjusting the outfit as she did. “If you’ve spent enough time in my world, there’s no such thing as a simple wake-up call,” she told him darkly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She gave him a glare. “What do you think it means? I thought it was pretty straightforward.”
“You’re a thief, a criminal. But some of the gadgets you had in the bag can’t be cheap. You’re not a street thug, Ellyn. You’ve got money behind your craft.”
The slightly upturned eyes opened wide and then rolled up into her head. “No, Vlad, what I have is backing. Someone whose best interests are if I succeed in my job. The equipment isn’t mine. Hell, the choice of job isn’t mine either.”
“So you’ve lived a rough life, is that what you’re telling me?”
She snorted. “Something like that. Let’s just say that I learned from a young age that someone touching me in the night more often deserved a knife than anything else, okay?”
“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I go to wake you,” he retorted.
“I doubt you’ll have that issue. I’ve never seen someone move as fast as you.”
“There’s always a bigger fish in the sea,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing, never mind. So, what you’re saying is, you don’t trust anyone?”
“Exactly,” she said, crossing her arms.
“Is that why you’re planning on trying to escape while we go in and get us some food? Because you can’t trust me?”
Ellyn looked at him wide-mouthed for a moment, as if astonished that he’d already figured out her plan, then she returned to normal with a swift exhale of air.
“Of course I can’t trust you,” she said darkly. “You are far too good looking, and far too nice to me.”