by Alexis Davie
“Stay away from me!” Ellie yelled at her. Run! Run, run, run! She ordered her body to do it, but all she could do was move backwards until her back pressed up against the rough bark of one of the trees. “I’m warning you!” The princess didn’t stop moving towards her at an alarmingly quick pace. “Please?”
The princess’s husk hissed back and picked up the pace. Freaky monster translation: you’re fucked.
Ellie’s hands shook with adrenaline as she pulled her arms up and pointed them at the creature now only a dozen feet away. In the current situation, she could only think of one spell: the literal translation of destroy. No try and save it or show some mercy. Just destroy.
“Iren khau!” Ellie yelled, still being pulled around by the storm that had effectively obliterated her ability to think, see, or move. Thanks to the fog and the winds that circled her, she could be five feet away from a cliff or in the middle of a field. Obviously, that was the least of her problems at the current moment. She might be a relative novice to the whole psychopath and violence arena, but something told her that she probably should focus on the princess.
As soon as the spell broke through her lips, she felt her magic rush though her body like a tidal wave. A brief crimson symbol flashed in front of her hands, and the hidden tattoos on her normally bare forearms exploded into full view in a glorious scarlet color. This was going to hurt. Blood magic was never easy, but it was especially not easy when the user was panicking and putting entirely too much power into it. For a diminutive twenty-eight-year-old who had turned eighteen before she was tall enough to ride on a roller coaster, it was the equivalent of detonating dynamite inside a soup can.
Raw, explosive power shot from her palms. It slammed into the princess like a runaway 18-wheeler, which was great, but the less great part was that it also turned on Ellie the same way. She didn’t have time to blink before she got jettisoned from the magical version of a catapult, sending her crashing through some of the dried branches.
Luckily, her fall was slowed by landing in some vines that hung from one of the larger trees in the orchard, vines that she promptly got tangled in like a true professional. They wrapped around her legs and ribs as she came to a slow and embarrassing halt halfway up the tree, suspended like a piñata that the princess wanted to bust open. For a second, she hung there, not quite believing that she’d been caught in a tree, much less in such a cartoony way. It was funny, in a dark humor sort of way.
It became significantly less funny when she tried to escape and found that the vines had completely outplayed her. Every wriggle she tried to make only got her more and more stuck. The princess’s creepy body emerged from the fog again, looking concerningly healthy for someone who should be dead several times over.
“Oh, God,” Ellie muttered under her breath, fighting with the blasted vines. She kept her eyes locked on the approaching menace. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” Her movements became increasingly frantic as the princess got ever closer. “Can’t we talk about this?” Ellie pleaded halfheartedly, knowing damn well that there wasn’t anything alive past that cobwebby, creepy, disgusting husk of a human being, and even if there was, it wasn’t willing to negotiate. Ellie’s eyes once again locked in on the spike jutting out from her forehead, and in a random moment, she wondered how and why it was in there. Had a tent-making camper stumbled upon her? But, like she always did, whenever she got nervous, she started chattering. Normally, it was around attractive guys, but 250-year-old corpses bent on her destruction also got the same reaction out of her, which probably said a lot about her in general.
“Stay away from me,” she hissed, still fighting with the damn vines. “I have a business card to a funeral home, and I’m not afraid to use it! I’ll let you use my Spotify account!” Why were the vines so strong? She grasped two of them firmly and spit out the spell she finally remembered: “Nanu aragitian!”
Most spells sounded like complete gibberish, but they did the trick. The same runes on her forearms glowed, snaking up her pale skin and igniting a power inside her. Her hands glowed with tremendous heat, as though she was made of lava, burning through the thick coils of vegetation. “Haha!” she shouted victoriously.
When the vines snapped, Ellie finally realized that she hadn’t thought this through too much; the moment the vines couldn’t support her, she flopped to the ground like a beached marlin at the feet of the corpse. A bolt of fear shot through her, and she scrambled away as the monster grabbed for her with long, yellowed fingernails, planting the heels of her tennis shoe into the black soil and propelling herself away by scooting away on her butt. Glorious? No. But effective, and in that kind of scenario, she’d kiss her ego goodbye if she didn’t die a horrible death. She’d rather ruin the seat on her favorite blue jeans than end up in the grave, or worse, and if there was anything that this cursed island had taught her, it was that there were many fates worse than death.
She ducked backward, narrowly missing a swipe of the princess’s claws. Based on a very basic guesstimate, she’d assume the princess wasn’t that strong. They were similarly built—petite, athletic bodies, but not overwhelmingly powerful. Then again, Ellie was fairly certain that getting a spike driven through her forehead would probably do her in, and the princess had walked it off. She was willing to bet that getting caught by the claws would not be as harmless as it would appear.
The buffeting winds tossed her from side to side, blowing her short hair more into her face than she’d previously thought possible. The leaves weren’t too bad, but then a full-size stick came out of nowhere and railed her in the side of the head, and she found herself rethinking the potential danger of the storm.
“Iren khau!” The same spell for destruction, but with none of the reaction. The runes on her arms glowed weakly, then sputtered out of existence like a crappy old work truck that wouldn’t turn on. Fear rushed through her body, and she kicked even harder. Fuck. She was on cooldown. For all intents and purposes, she was human. Right foot, left foot, she kept kicking away and dodging all the wild swings. The princess had closed the distance and now, every strike grew yet closer.
“Sebastian!” Ellie howled into the darkness created by the unholy storm that surrounded her. “Teneha! Even shit for brains! I could use some help!”
If anyone heard her, there was no answer.
12
Ellie reached the undeniable conclusion that it was now time to bend over and kiss her ass goodbye.
Watching the monster princess in front of her flail at her, with no idea where any help was or even if anyone would come to help her, without her magic at her disposal, facing something ancient and cursed and much stronger than her… All signs pointed to this being the end of the road. In a strangely logical way, her brain accepted it. This was happening. Though physically, she kept kicking, her brain settled in on the realization that she was about to die with a remarkably calm sense, with the same sort of reaction that she might have when someone introduced themselves to her: huh. Interesting. Nothing more. Her adrenaline and fear pumped through her body with wild abandon, but her mind achieved a placid, calm state.
Her placid, calm mind bore full witness to the dragon claws coming out of nowhere, grabbing her by the shoulder, and jerking her straight up like the claw grabbing the toy out of an arcade game. In a quarter of a second, her world changed completely as she was whisked away, not majestically and not without any problems. She’d barely had time to realize what had happened before she collided with some branches flying along, which proceeded to maul and scratch her like the larger, more overwhelming but no less terrifying version of the time she’d tried to play with her neighbor’s cat and learned a valuable lesson about personal space with cats. Leaves, twigs, and full on branches whacked her senselessly for a second before she was, abruptly, out of the tree line. The moment she was able to open her eyes and see how high up she was, a new kind of terror hit her, the kind of terror one got from being dangled a hundred feet above tall trees, held only by the
claws of a large predator. For that moment, she felt she could understand what a fish might go through when a bald eager scooped it out of the water. She heard screaming. It took her a second to realize that it was her. The wind zipped through her hair, blinding her as they flew haphazardly through the sky. She could catch a few, wild glimpses of everything around her. Most of it was just flashes of green and blue, but she thought she saw another dragon following them a ways back. Hopefully Teneha.
She found out on the trip towards the portal that she apparently had a terrible, terrible fear of heights. Every muscle in her body locked up, and half of her ordered her to fight off the claws, even knowing that they belonged to Sebastian, because of the whole “not liking being carried by a gigantic predator” instinct, and even knowing that if she successfully escaped, she’d just fall to her death. The other half of her screamed the exact opposite instinct, which was that she needed to hold onto the big scary dragon for all she was worth, creating a confusing, terribly conflicting couple of deep-rooted instincts.
They made a jagged, stair-stepping descent towards the portal that rapidly approached from the distance. Somehow, it seemed to be coming at them very, very slowly and incredibly quickly at the exact same time.
And then, they got there. And Sebastian let her go.
Ellie sailed through the sky for less than a second and then slammed into the earth a few feet in front of the Hummer that had brought her there. She landed like a ragdoll, painfully and without any skill or ability whatsoever. She skipped across the ground a few times, which probably should have hurt, but her brain was pumping enough adrenaline through her for her to get shot and not notice. She tried to stumble to her feet but was entirely too dizzy and flopped back to the ground, retching with a spinning, disorienting world.
“Get the other pillar!” she heard Sebastian order, followed by a loud cracking sound. Though not quite able to get up, she managed to tilt her head up enough to watch Teneha jump back from the crumbling left obelisk. Huge chunks of the enchanted stone tumbled away, bouncing through the portal itself into the waters on the other side. Ellie whipped her head around just in time to watch Sebastian shatter the other one. She, intellectually, knew what was going to happen.
Magic spells were fickle, and the older they were, the fickler they were. You could break a spell that had been made ten minutes ago, and it would probably not do any damage. Fifty years old, and it might make a loud pop. A spell that large, a spell that old, a spell that massive… Her eyes widened, and she turned away in time to hear it blow.
When she came to, Ellie found that her headache had not only survived the journey but was back better than ever. She was laid across a rock that dug into her ribcage uncomfortably. Her hair, resting on the dusty earth, brought clumps of dry vegetation with her when she leaned her head up and surveyed what she saw before her.
There, where the portal had once been, where earlier that day had been an ocean, was nothing. Just the continuation of the land they were on then. The broken obelisks laid in various hunks around the road, no longer glowing and no longer emitting any kind of energy, though it still gave off a strong electrical scent. For all intents and purposes, they were standing in the middle of nowhere, with nothing exciting about it.
Sebastian, over to the side, let out a low groan and forced himself to his feet. His clothes were tattered and torn, with blood stains ruining the fine, soft materials all over him. He’d been injured, and based on the stumbling he did after he stood, it had been severely.
“Fucking…” came the eloquent words out of his mouth as he sat down heavily, cradling his chest. He rolled his eyes over to her. “You okay?”
Ellie somehow found the ability to speak. “You’re hurt!”
“I’m a dragon.” He coughed up a bit of blood. “It’s fine.”
“You look like you have internal bleeding!”
“That’s where all the blood is supposed to be,” he replied with a funny, bloodied grin. “I’ll heal. Ajax won’t.”
Even hearing the name brought back a fresh wave of worry for Ellie. “Did he—”
“Nope.” Sebastian spit the blood. “Guess I’m stronger.”
Teneha stirred over by the other side of the former portal, moaning and getting to a seated position.
“Sir, are… you okay?”
Sebastian waved her off with an exhausted motion. “Fine. Fine. We’re all fine.”
For a few moments, they all sat in silence, not ready to believe what had just happened. One second, they’d been in the thick of it, and Ellie had seen her life flash before her eyes. Now, no more than five minutes later, they were worlds away from the island. Nothing was even remotely close to attacking them. They were essentially just three normal people sitting in the forest near a Hummer out to have a picnic.
Ellie massaged her temples, praying to the headache gods to give her some relief. “Okay, I’ll say it. What the fuck?”
Sebastian snorted with amusement.
“Sounds about right.” He wiped his face off, still sitting. “Well, I think we found out why that place was abandoned.”
The group shared a quiet, pained chuckle. There wasn’t much else to do. The threats were gone. Ajax, if he somehow was alive, was stuck at the island. They were safe. The only thing left to do was laugh about what had happened and try to figure out what to do next.
Ellie resituated herself. “You know… I think I deserve a raise.”
Sebastian smirked. “I’ll make that my top priority.”
She scooted herself over to the Hummer and leaned against one of the fat tires to get some protection from the sun. “What now?”
“Now?” Sebastian thought about standing up but instantly seemed to realize he needed to mend some more. “Now I sit here until I feel better. Next? Well, I have some other properties left behind that I could use some help investigating. Ellie?”
Ellie didn’t even laugh. “That’s a mega no from my end.”
Sebastian nodded, spitting to the side. “That’s what I figured. How about dinner?”
She slowly tilted her head over to look at the dragon king. “What?”
“How about dinner?” He smiled at her, and even bloodied and grimy, even with everything they’d just gone through, even with all the chaos and the confusion and the lack of knowledge of what even could come next, Ellie couldn’t help but smile back.
“Absolutely.”
Alpha’s Hostage
Alpha’s Hostage
Text Copyright © 2019 by Alexis Davie
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing, 2019
Publisher
Secret Woods Books
[email protected]
www.SecretWoodsBooks.com
1
The loud clinking sounds of empty bottles being thrown in the trash might not have sounded like something good to most people, but to Farrah, it meant the sweet relief of her shift at the bar coming to an end. Although she loved her job as a bartender at The Avenue Pub and wouldn’t trade it for the world, she felt exhausted. Granted it was after two in the morning, and their regulars were particularly rowdy. It was football season, and clearly, the Saints weren’t up to par during their game against the Rams, which made all their loyal fans drink even more. Out of sorrow, or just to forget, no one was really sure.
Luckily, they didn’t cause any trouble, even though Farrah and the other two bartenders knew how to handle them at their worst. Though she looked as if she couldn’t hurt a fly, Farrah Walker, who was a petite blonde and only twenty-four years of a
ge, knew how to hold her own. Amongst her colleagues, she was considered a little badass. She didn’t allow anyone to walk all over her, and her razor-sharp tongue and quick wit made up for what she lacked in size and brawn.
Farrah knew what it was like to have people underestimate her, which was why she was so incredibly grateful she grew up the way she did.
Farrah Walker was born in Detroit, and her mother left when she was just a small child. Farrah never really knew much about her mother, aside from the one or two photographs that used to lie around their house in Detroit. She was raised by her father, along with her older brother, Owen, and they ensured that she was well taken care of and kept safe, but also gave her the necessary life skills to not be taken advantage of. It was only at the age of eighteen when Farrah had to apply those skills to her everyday life. Her father was gunned down by a drug dealer and left for dead, and she couldn’t live in the same house any longer, so she took off, as far away from Detroit as she could manage. With her gray Toyota, she managed the drive down to New Orleans and had never looked back. Although she missed her brother, Owen, she was pretty sure he was involved in the same kind of trouble as her father, and she wanted no part in that. She wasn’t even sure if he was alive or not. Farrah figured that she had gotten away at the right time without being dragged into their mess.