Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

So, in reality, she had no choice at all.

She watched the guards rotate again. Which one looked the sleepiest, the slowest, the most incompetent? Damn, they all looked good.

Well, dying just wasn’t an option. She was fighting for two now. “Hang on, peanut,” she whispered, bracing her foot on the windowsill.

As the next guard walked by, she pushed open the metal grill and leaped out. The thud as she hit the ground had the guard raising his crossbow even as he turned around.

He was fast.

She was faster.

She spun and used every ounce of centrifugal force she could muster as she lashed at him with the chain. She could tell by how it struck him in the temple that he was dead as he hit the ground.

She felt nothing, no mercy, no remorse, as she watched his body crumple. Huh. So this is what a killer instinct feels like.

Alrighty.

She snatched up his crossbow and assessed it at a glance. It was already loaded, a modern compound bow, light and sleek, with a telescopic sight and a quiver mounted to the main arm that held half a dozen bolts. She knew this weapon.

Hey.

Heart pounding, she sprinted for the corner of the house where the next guard would appear in just a few seconds. She pressed her back against the wall, took a deep breath and waited with the crossbow up.

She came face-to-face with the next Fae guard as he rounded the corner. His eyes went wide. She shot him point-blank and peeked fast around the corner.

From the glimpse she had of that section of the house it was longer, and there was part of another building visible nearby. Perhaps that was a stable? Where would they keep those dragonfly thingies, inside a building or outside?

She pulled back, reloaded the crossbow and counted.

Four ten thousand, three ten thousand, two ten thousand . . .

She couldn’t hear him but the guard had to be there. She rolled around the corner, shot him and yanked his body around, piling it on top of the other guard. She reloaded and counted.

She couldn’t believe it when the last guard dropped. She stared at his body, grateful that she was still numb. She had just killed four people in as many minutes, all so she could get more than just a few seconds’ head start.

Better make their lives count for something.

She dropped her bow, snatched up the last dead guard’s crossbow with a full load of ammunition and ran.

Ahalf hour had passed since Dragos had lost the connection with Pia through the tracking spell. Then he and his sentinels arrived at the junction of Highway 17 and Averill Avenue. They found police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck surrounding a black Dodge Ram pickup. He sent Tiago, Rune and Grym winging southeast into the Harriman State Park to look for a gray Lexus.

At almost forty seven thousand acres in size, the park was the second largest in New York and had over thirty lakes and a couple hundred miles of hiking trails. It also had a passageway to a large area of Other land.

Still shielding their presence from human sight, Dragos arrowed to the ground, followed by Graydon, Bayne and Constantine. After shifting, he raced toward the emergency response vehicles, flanked by the gryphons.

Graydon walked up to a policewoman and introduced himself. “What happened?”

“There was a shooting,” said the woman, glancing from Dragos to the gryphons with wide eyes. “The victim’s a middle-aged guy who was gunned down in the street. Couple kids found him—”

Dragos ignored the rest. He strode past the truck. There was one pool of blood. Bayne stopped to inspect the spot. The ambulance doors were open. He looked inside. Two EMTs were working over a man.

“He conscious?” he asked one of the EMTs.

“You can’t be here right now,” said the man, without looking up.

He reached inside, grabbed the man and threw him out of the ambulance. He said to the other EMT, “This man conscious?”

He nodded, eyes wide. “We’re working to stabilize him. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

Dragos climbed in and crouched by the stretcher. The victim’s eyes were glazed with shock. Dragos pulled the oxygen mask down. He demanded, “Was she alive when they took her?”

The man’s mouth worked. He was panting in short, shallow breaths and his color wasn’t good. “What . . .”

Dragos leaned closer. “The woman who was kidnapped. Was she alive when they took her? ”

“Y-yes, I think so . . .” managed the man between gasps. “Shot her . . . shot her—”

The EMT’s hand came over his to take hold of the oxygen mask and ease it back into place. “Please,” he said to Dragos. “He’s already arrested once. You’ve got to go.”

Constantine released the EMT he had evicted as he climbed out of the ambulance. He stood, face white and hands clenched, as Graydon and Bayne jogged over. He said through white lips, “He thinks she was alive. He said they shot her.”

“Ah shit,” said Graydon as he blanched.

Constantine gripped Dragos’s arm hard. “Don’t go making her all dead in your head,” he said. “Remember, they drugged and kidnapped her the first time—they didn’t kill her. They want her alive.”

“You’re right,” he said. He looked at them, his eyes bloodshot. For the first time he managed to articulate what she had told him earlier. “She’s pregnant. Urien has my pregnant mate.”

The gryphons stared at him in equal measures of horror and dismay.

Then Tiago said, We found the Lexus. They crossed over in here.

Galvanized, the four raced away from the human scene and took to the air to join the others. Good news: the Lexus didn’t have any traces of blood. The constriction in his chest eased. He started to breathe again.

They located the passageway and crossed over to the Other land. Dragos had hoped against hope, but the tracking spell laid on her braid didn’t survive the disconnect and crossover. They would have to track her and her kidnappers by land.

Good thing they had one of the best trackers of any species on their side. Tiago loped across the ground in wide arcs, studying the ground, until he took off running in one direction. Rune and Graydon scouted farther afield while the others kept to the ground with Tiago.

Dragos kept to the air, shielding his presence as he scouted in circles, projecting ahead of Tiago’s trajectory.

Death was another good friend of his and flew in his shadow.

Pia had no idea where she was or where she was going. Story of her life, apparently. She had one goal: to run as far away from Urien as fast as she could get. She hoped he didn’t have any of those dragonfly thingies with him. If it came down to a ground race, she had a good fighting chance.

The rolling countryside was carpeted with thick clusters of forest and open areas carpeted with riotous profusions of wildflowers. She paused at the edge of a wood and ran her gaze quickly over the scene behind her. No sight or sound of pursuit.

Gold and purple and scarlet dusted the emerald green field she had just traversed. Her gaze landed on a brilliant purple flower with fluted petals like a lily as it spat out a long, feathery, stamenlike stalk, whip fast, and it caught a buzzing insect on the sticky end, which then retracted into the flower with its prey.

She recoiled. Let’s not consider that a metaphor for anything.

She slung the crossbow on her back and plunged into a forested area for ground cover. She avoided anything that looked like a path. If she managed to get far enough away, she would start thinking about how to hide her trail better, but right now she didn’t have time to consider finesse.

A light rain started to patter in the treetops, the occasional drop making it far enough to land on her. Maybe she’d get lucky and it would start to pour. A heavy rain would help to dissipate her scent.