Dragon Bound

EIGHTEEN

A Mephistophelian voice thundered in her head. It called her Name.

Use your Power, damn it. I can feel you’re there. Try hard, the imperious voice demanded. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

Everything whirled around her. It stank like oil and exhaust. She lay on something hard that vibrated, her cheek pressed against a rough carpet. She felt dizzy, sick. She breathed in shallow pants.

Someone was making a thin whining sound. Oh, it was her. Shut up, stupid.

She fought to do as the voice demanded and reached deep inside. Her training instructor would have said she reached for her chi, her energy flow, the seat of her breath.

For a terrible moment she was disoriented and rudderless in the dark. Then she connected. Power flowed up from the base of her spine and flooded her body. It didn’t dissipate all the effects of the drug, but it helped to clear her head some.

She was bound with her arms behind her, gagged and in the trunk of a car traveling at high speed. She drooped. Apparently it really did never rain but poured.

Answer me now, Dragos commanded.

Having a hell of a week, she managed to articulate. Her mental voice was thready and lacked control, but he heard her.

There’s my girl. The thunder was gone, replaced by desperate relief. Talk to me. Are you hurt?

No, some kind of drug. She struggled to find words that made sense. Tied up. In the trunk of a car. We’re traveling fast.

All right. Stay calm, said Dragos.

Bayne and Aryal. She tried to figure out how to articulate their names into a question.

We found them outside the clinic. They were drugged too. They’re okay; they’re shaking it off. Dragos sounded composed again. We finally got ahold of someone who can cast a tracking spell. I’ll be able to follow you in just a moment. How are you tied? Can you get loose?

Nausea lurked. She clenched down on it hard. She couldn’t afford to vomit with the gag in her mouth. She bent back in a bow so she could feel along her lower legs with hands that were prickling and starting to go numb.

They’re those plastic restraints. No locks. I can’t get them off.

All right, he said again. Don’t worry about it.

She had important things to tell him. What were they again? For how long would he be able to talk to her? Graydon had said something about his telepathic range being over a hundred miles. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious or how far away they were from each other.

She said. I have to tell you things in case we lose contact.

We’re not going to lose contact, he snapped. That’s it. I’ve got a tracking spell on your braid. I’m on my way.

She kept her breathing deep and regular. It seemed to help keep her stomach settled, although the exhaust fumes made her want to gag. She tried to think. Was that land magic she felt in the distance?

Will the tracking spell still work if we cross over to an Other land?

He said, I’m not going to let you get that far away.

He didn’t tell her the spell would work. She had a feeling that meant it wouldn’t.

She said, It’s two Dark Fae. They’re working with a witch from the Magic District.

His voice turned ominous. Describe her.

She’s dark-haired, a human, first name is Adela. She owns the shop Divinus. I can’t remember her last name. She struggled to think.

Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter, he said. Can you describe the Dark Fae to me?

She tried her best, but she had gotten just that brief look at them before falling unconscious. I’m sorry.

He turned gentle. None of that matters right now. Let’s just focus on getting you back.

Her sense of land magic grew stronger. Uh-oh. But I have to tell you. I’m pregnant.

His roar filled her head. WHAT!

She talked faster. I never had control over that so I had an IUD implant. When I realized what was going on this morning, I was so scared I was going to miscarry, all I could think was I had to get to the doctor fast and get the IUD removed. And I was so damn mad at you. I thought you’d done it on purpose.

Pia. My God.

I dreamed about him this morning. I think it was real. He was a white dragon, the most beautiful little boy you’ve ever seen. They went into a wide turn, picked up speed for a brief while, then slowed into another turn. She told him with enforced calm, We’re leaving a highway and slowing down. I can feel land magic close by.

Quickly, he said. He sounded more shaken than he ever had before. The car trunk has a lock. Try to push it up, and tell me what you see.

If her hands were free or bound in front of her she could just spring the catch of the trunk lock from the inside. She struggled to get her knees underneath her and push up on the trunk with her shoulder. The catch gave just as they rolled to a stop.

Why the hell not. She pushed the trunk open wider so that she could wriggle through and spilled onto pavement with a painful thud. She stared up at the front end of a Dodge Ram pickup coming straight for her. The truck slammed to a halt inches away from her face. The car she had been in pulled away from the stop and turned left.

“Hey!” a man yelled from the truck.

Shut up, you stupid man, shut up.

A truck door slammed.

She sat as a middle-aged man appeared. He knelt beside her, his face filled with shock and outrage.

“What the hell?” he said. “Oh sweet Jesus, lady, you’ve been kidnapped?”

Ya think?

Yards away, car brake lights showed. She yelled against her gag at the man.

“Just hold on, honey. You’re gonna be all right now.” The man worked to get her gag loose.

I slipped out at a stop, she said to Dragos. They noticed. They’re in a gray Lexus and they’re turning around. I’m seeing signs for . . . Highway 17 and . . . Averill Avenue or State Road 32. There’s a state park sign. I can’t see the name. It’s the same two guys, no witch.

I know where you are, he said in satisfaction. Well-done.

The man got the gag loose and pulled it over her head just as the Lexus pulled up. She screamed at the man, “Run!”

The two Fae stepped out, looking pissed. They had guns.

No, it’s not well-done. I made a bad mistake. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Dragos was trying to talk to her, but she couldn’t shut up, couldn’t run, couldn’t do anything but stare in horror as the man stood and turned around. One Fae lifted his gun and shot him.

She sobbed, I think I just got somebody killed.

Then the other Fae lifted his gun and shot her. She looked down at the pain in her chest. Another dart stuck in her T-shirt.

Fade to black.

The dragon roared in anguish as he hurtled north with every ounce of his strength and speed. He was followed by all his sentinels but one who had been left behind to deal with the witch.

He was too far, too far, and now she was gone again.

His enemies had taken his mate. His child.

She had to be alive.

Anything else was unacceptable.

A burning cold Power yanked her awake. She coughed and rolled to her side. Her gag was gone and so were her ankle and wrist restraints. Her arms and legs crawled with prickling pain as her circulation returned.

She was lying on a floor. She touched the polished hardwood. Inside then.

“There’s our thief,” said a cultured male voice overhead. “Time to rise and shine.”

Inhuman. Fae. Didn’t she just know who that was. Too bad his head was still attached to his body. She had been hoping she would meet him the other way.

“I’m asleep, then I’m awake. Then I’m asleep and now I’m awake again,” she croaked. “Make up your mind already.”

The male laughed. “Well, you have not been boring, I’ll give you that, but haven’t you been one slippery bitch to get ahold of. And apparently for Cuelebre to hold on to.”

Yes, well, let’s not talk about that. She looked at the sleek black boots near her head. They belonged to legs that went up farther than she could focus just yet. “Can I have some water?”

“Sure, why not.”

He threw cold water in her face. She was too depleted to react much other than gasp. “Alrighty,” she said after a moment. “Can I have some water to drink now, please, Your Highness?”

He laughed again. “Not boring and not dumb. That’s so much better than your boyfriend, who both bored me and was dumb. To be honest, I don’t know what you saw in him.”

“Ex. Ex-boyfriend,” she said. “I swear to God, I’m never going to live that down.”

Finally it felt like her limbs would function. She pushed herself to a sitting position. She was in a very large room that had a medieval feel. There was a large stone fireplace and a nearby cluster of chairs, a long wooden table with benches, lit sconces that gave the scene a flickering illumination she found eerie, and a high-raftered ceiling.

There were also Fae guards at long metal-hatched windows. The two who had snatched her were stationed at large double doors.

Again she had no idea how long she had been unconscious, or where she was. She hoped the drugs hadn’t hurt the peanut. Her hand slipped to her abdomen. She gave herself a surreptitious scan. She sighed in relief as she located the tiny bright life inside her. There you are. Looks like it’s just you and me, peanut. For now, anyway.

The Fae King squatted beside her. He handed her a goblet. She took a cautious sip. Cold, crisp, clear water. She sucked the contents down.

Then she looked up at Keith’s murderer. A few weeks ago she had not known there were so many people in the world to hate. Urien. The witch Adela. The two Dark Fae males at the door who had shot an innocent human without so much as a blink of an eye. Her revenge to-do list kept getting longer and longer.

The few Fae she had met had looks that ran from those who had a puckish quality, like Tricks, to those who had a strange stern beauty, like Urien. It was too bad he was such a monster. With his lean supple build, high cheekbones, white skin and raven black hair, he should have been one of nature’s miracles.

“This is one of my country retreats,” he told her, having noticed her curiosity. “No full Court in attendance, just me and my men. And now you, of course.” He gestured to the goblet. “More?”

“Yes, thank you.” She handed it to him and pushed to her feet as he refilled it from a silver pitcher sitting on the table. She drank that goblet down as well.

“Have as much as you like. The sedative can leave one with quite a thirst, or so I’m told,” said Urien. “I suspected you’d wake up thirsty since you had two doses back-to-back. Which rather surprised my men, since one dose should have been sufficient for the trip.”

“I’ve always had a high metabolism,” she said. She filled the goblet one last time and drained it. The hydration made all the difference in the world. Things stopped spinning at the edge of her vision and she felt stronger. “Local anesthesia at the dentist? Forget about it. It doesn’t take until they pump enough in me to numb an elephant.”

“I see.” The Fae King strolled to one of the high-backed chairs near the fireplace and sat. He gestured to the chair opposite him with a smile. “Please join me. We have a lot to talk about, you and I.”

The worst thing you could do with a predator was show your fear and run. She suspected dealing with the Fae King would be a similar experience. She took the chair he indicated, leaned back and crossed her legs.

Urien regarded her across steepled fingers; then he reached for the glass of wine on the table by his chair and took a sip. “What a surprise and a mystery you’ve been, Ms. Giovanni.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” she said. “Well, maybe the mystery part was, but that was supposed to go unsolved.”

He gave her a grin that didn’t reach his cold black eyes. “I knew I liked you the moment I got that penny. Now that made me chuckle.” His eyes sharpened. “There is something about you. . . .”

All these stupid old people. Had every last one of them met, heard of, gossiped about, or smelled her mom in the distance? Way to be inconspicuous. Thanks a lot, Mom.

She pinched her nose and sighed, “Yeah, I look like Greta Garbo. I get that a lot.”

“Really, and this Greta Garbo is who?”

She looked at him over her hand. “An old movie star.”

“I do not follow such newfangled human pastimes.” He dismissed the subject with a flick of his fingers. “This pissant nobody kept annoying my men, so when I heard about his preposterous claims about his girlfriend, I thought, Let’s throw a kind of finding charm out there and see what happens. You know, just to try out a prototype of a little something I’ve been cooking up in my spare time. Imagine my surprise when everything he claimed came true. Then imagine my surprise when he wouldn’t say a word about you.” He leaned forward. “Not after he was gelded, not after he was eviscerated, not after he was blinded. I didn’t think the boy had that kind of loyalty in him. I thought he would give you up in the first ten minutes.”

She covered her mouth, fighting hard to show no emotion. After a moment, she had enough control to say, “He couldn’t tell you anything. I made him take a binding oath.”

Urien snapped his fingers. “That explains it. One mystery solved. So tell me what the dragon’s hoard looked like. Was it as magnificent as legend says?” His expression had turned avaricious.

“To be honest, I was too scared to look around.” She closed her eyes, remembering the terror. How long ago that seemed. “For all I knew he was going to show up at any minute. I got in, found a coin jar by the entrance, took the penny and ran. I could have grabbed something else, but I was so damn mad at Keith I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of handing over something of real value. And I hoped that if I took only the penny, just maybe Cuelebre might not kill me if he ever caught up with me.”

“Which is a great segue into our next mystery,” said Urien. He cocked his head, studying her like she was a bug under a microscope. “Why hasn’t Cuelebre killed you yet?”

She laced her hands in front of her stomach. Hold on, peanut. If anyone has truthsense, he does. Here comes some tricky tap dancing.

“You’d have to ask him,” she said. She widened her eyes. “Because I’ve got to tell you, it has surprised the heck out of me.”

His eyes were narrowed, unblinking. She felt his cold Power drift across her skin and struggled not to shudder. “How did you escape the Goblins?”

She shook her head. “Again, you’d have to ask him. I was locked in my cell when he came for me. Taking the penny didn’t help a bit. He was in a hell of a rage when he caught me, and you have to know he’s not the forgiving type. He was determined to be the one to pass judgment on me, nobody else.” Then something occurred to her. “You know, I never thought of this before, but he also wouldn’t have wanted me to get away alive because I know where his lair is.”

The Fae King’s eyebrows lifted. “Very true.”

“Not that it matters anymore,” she added.

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “One of my guards said Cuelebre decided to move his hoard. I suppose now that the location has been compromised . . . ?” She let her voice trail away.

He shrugged as well. “I guess that’s to be expected. Too bad. He’s kept so much from me. I would have liked to have stolen more from him. Maybe I’ll have you take something from the new location.” He waved a long white hand. “But that’s a conversation for another time. What I want to know is how you did it.”

His Power enfolded her and squeezed tighter, an invisible boa constrictor coiling around her body. Goose bumps rose along her skin. She bit her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. Her mind raced, working to find and eradicate any loopholes in her story before she said them.

“You know how marmosets are little, weird and quick?” she asked.

“Marmosets,” he said.

“Didn’t Keith or someone tell you by now that I’m a half-breed Wyr?”

“Someone did mention it, yes,” he replied slowly.

“Well, I’m weird and quick. And I have a gift for getting through locks.” She raised her fingers and wiggled them. Infer, imply, don’t state. Careful now. “That’s how I was planning on getting away . . . today? Earlier, anyway. My guards don’t know I can do that. I was going to trick them into looking the other way, then slip out of the locked area where they’ve been keeping me.”

He gave her a charming smile and the chilling compression eased somewhat. “Impressive. So, my dear, you have not only humiliated Cuelebre by stealing from his hoard, but you have the ability to escape from his Tower too. I knew you would be worth tracking down.”

How lucky for us, peanut.

“This leads me to our last little mystery,” Urien said. “What happened between you and Cuelebre on that plain? You two seemed quite the team. Something happened, some kind of Power surge, and he was able to shift. We had been assured he wouldn’t be able to quite so soon.”

A chill trickle of sweat slid between her breasts. He had in so many words just confirmed an Elven accomplice. She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples. She was beginning to feel depleted and her hands trembled.

“Did you know that the Goblins beat me quite badly?” Her voice shook too. “They were trying to get a rise out of Cuelebre, which didn’t fucking happen, of course, because he watched the whole thing with this stone-cold look on his face.”

Huh, didn’t know she was still upset about that, which was mighty irrational of her, wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if Dragos had had any choice. That game face of his might have saved her life.

The Fae King sipped wine and watched her.

“Well, we faced a whole damn plain of those stinking Goblins. I would have done anything to get away. In New York I at least had some hope of survival if I could find a chance to escape. There was this white place on his shoulder where the Elves had shot him with their magic crap.” She gestured on herself. “It was right about here. So I made a last-ditch gamble. I convinced him to let me lance the wound. And apparently you were there—you must have been on the bluff? As you said, you felt his Power surge.” She let the horror of the memory show in her eyes. “He killed everything on the plain except me.”

Silence filled the room. She searched Urien’s face, which was smooth and expressionless. You think he bought it, peanut? Can’t tell. Maybe, maybe not. Don’t ever play poker with this creep.

But wasn’t what happened even more outlandish? It had all happened to her and even she had trouble believing it.

She felt the same disorientation she always did after she and Dragos had separated for a while. She told herself fiercely, he is coming after me. He said he was. We’re mates, maybe. Probably. Or now, according to Graydon, I’m his hoard. Which makes no sense. Anyway I’m pregnant with his son. He may not love us, but that’s got to matter to him. Right?

“I see,” said the Fae King at last. He finished his wine and set the glass aside. “Well, you have been through quite an adventure these last several days, haven’t you?”

“Look,” she said. She felt so hollow it hurt, and the edges of the room were too far away. “Am I a guest or a prisoner? Are you going to torture me for some strange reason I don’t understand—because just in case you’re not, I want you to know I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m not doing so well right now.”

The Fae King made a moue and tsked. “Cuelebre didn’t take care of you at all, did he? My dear, why in the world would I have any reason to torture you?”

“I don’t know.” She threw up her hands and let them fall into her lap. “It’s been a hell of a day for a couple of weeks now,” she said. There was no reason to hide the exasperated exhaustion in her voice so she didn’t try. “And I don’t understand half the things that have happened to me, not least of all why you would have your goons drug me instead of walking up to me in the street and introducing themselves.”

“That,” said the Fae King, “is a very good point. Let’s just say we were unsure how you would react and we were unwilling to let you slip away again. Since, from all reports, you were surprisingly protective of the Wyrm when talking with the Elves in South Carolina.”

She froze. She hadn’t seen that one coming. What could he have been told? How should she respond?

She said through numb lips, “If that confrontation had escalated any further, two Elder demesnes could be at war right now. If that happened, a lot of people would have gotten killed. Sure, I stole from him, but I’m not a murderer. If you had a report of that confrontation, then you know I was going to see him to the Elven border and take off, but then we had some Goblins in trucks smash into us. And somehow that event leads back to you, doesn’t it.”

He gave her a heavy-lidded smile. “Well, you see, one of these days I’m going to finally succeed in killing Cuelebre. You just got in the way. Unfortunate, but all of that is in the past now.” He waved a hand. “I think we should consider you more as a conscripted employee, rather than a guest or prisoner. I can see a lot of uses for you. So many people have so many things I want.”

“I didn’t know this was a job interview, or I would have put on a suit,” she said, fury making her reckless. Whoa, throttle back there, filly. He’s not torturing. Remember, that’s a good thing.

He threw back his head and laughed. “I do like you, Pia. This is very simple: you will do as you’re told. If you do you will have, comparatively speaking, a very comfortable life. If you don’t? Oh, I don’t recommend that one. I really don’t.” He stood. “Conversation’s over. Piran, Elulas, see her to her room and make sure she stays put. Remember to pat her down for anything she could use to pick a lock. Oh, and find her something to eat. Poor thing has purple circles under her eyes. She looks like she’s ready to pass out.”

Her kidnappers approached. Her own personal Thing One and Thing Two. She stood and went with them. What else was there to do?

They let her use the bathroom on the ground floor. She was relieved to find that the house wasn’t too medieval. At least it had running water and a flushing toilet. Then they took her up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway to a bare room with nothing in it but a narrow bed and two folded blankets and a barred window.

Then Thing One gave her an infuriatingly thorough search while Thing Two watched. The Fae felt along the seams of her clothes, ran his hands up the insides of her legs and squeezed her crotch, probed between and underneath her breasts and made her take off her shoes so he could inspect them.

She gritted her teeth and suffered through it. She was able to hold on to her rage only because it was obvious from the Fae’s flat, bored expression that the search had no sexual undertones. There was no way she could have sneaked a thin, flat lock pick in with her if she’d tried.

They locked her in the room. She shook out a blanket on the bare mattress and fell on it, listening as the two Fae spoke to each other in their Celtic-sounding language. One set of footsteps walked away, hopefully to bring her some kind of sustenance. She was going to have to choke down whatever they brought her so that she could stabilize and get ready for the next steps, whatever those were. She hoped it wasn’t meat.

It looked to be evening outside, gray and leaden with the promise of rain, which left the room shadowy. Her gaze tracked across the bare walls as she rested. Dragos? she tried. Are you there?

Nothing but a deadened silence. What did that mean? Cautiously she expanded her awareness. She couldn’t feel anything, no land magic, no other Fae, nothing but the chill heavy blanket of Urien’s Power. Was he able to suppress magic in his vicinity? If so, that was a pretty handy self-defense mechanism.

Her eyebrows rose as she looked down at herself. She wasn’t glowing. He must be able to suppress magic but not undo those spells already in place. Whatever the specifics, she was guessing he could sense any nearby upsurge in Power.

She went over her story again. Hey, peanut, get me under pressure and I rock.

But the story wouldn’t hold up for long. For one thing, she didn’t know the extent of Adela’s knowledge about her or how deeply the witch was involved with the Dark Fae. If she knew anything of the truth, sooner or later Pia had to assume she would tell Urien.

And about that Elven connection. Ferion knew of her real heritage, had spoken to the Elven High Lord and Lady and had been present at the teleconference. Did she dare hope that Urien’s Elven contact was not Ferion? He had treated her with such warmth. Did that mean he would not have spoken of her to the Fae King?

She tried to remember what Ferion had said aloud at Folly Beach and what he had said during their private telepathic conversation. She couldn’t. That was worrisome. But at least it looked logical that Ferion was not Urien’s Elven connection.

There were too many unknown variables, and not least among them was the fact that she didn’t have truthsense. Urien could well have been playing her or lying for his own reasons. So the only thing she dared hope for was that she had bought herself a little time.

Footsteps approached. She sat up as a key grated in the lock. Thing Two took a step inside. He set a tray down on the floor. He stepped out and locked the door again. She checked the contents of the tray.

Half a loaf of plain dark bread, apples and more water. Score.

She fell on the food. The bread was maybe a day old as it was just beginning to go stale, but it was still chewy and grainy and delicious. The apples were wonderful. They had a quality that made her think they were from an Other land, perhaps even this place. She ate everything, drank half the water and felt an immediate energy surge. Way better.

Now what? There were two ways out of this room. She pushed the tray against the wall so she wouldn’t knock over the last of her water. She went to inspect her window.

She stared, hardly daring to believe her luck. The bars on the window were on the outside of the glass pane. They were two simple vertical metal grills with supporting crossbars at top and bottom. They were hinged on either side of the window and secured with a padlock and metal chain wound around the end bars. What they looked like were replacements for old-fashioned window shutters. Someone had prepared this room for her arrival.

She eased the window open as quietly as she could and then paused to listen. Her two Fae guards continued to talk, undisturbed.

Urien might be able to suppress magic, but her mother had always said that magic versus intrinsic natural ability was a tricky thing to define, and in her demonstration Dragos hadn’t been able to feel her do anything. She took hold of the padlock and pulled. It fell open.

She slipped the lock off and unwound the chain. She hefted it, considering. It was nice and solid, more than a good yard in length. She doubled it, wound one end around her hand and swung it to get the feel for its weight.

It wasn’t a bad weapon for someone low on options. She dropped the padlock on the bed, drank the rest of her water and eased the metal grill open a couple of inches as she tried to peer down at the ground surrounding the house.

Either Urien or whoever was in charge of his security was clever enough to keep the area around the house free of shrubbery. The landscaping wasn’t very attractive, but it also didn’t give anyone a place to hide. She pulled back as a guard came around the corner and walked by underneath. Her luck only went so far, it seemed.

She watched for a while, counted to estimate the passage of time and kept track of the guards. The fifth guard was the original one, so there were four outside guards, one to a side, as they patrolled in a circle. Four plus Thing One and Thing Two, the inside guards at the windows in the meeting hall and no doubt some she hadn’t seen. Maybe Urien had a total of twenty men with him, a reasonable number if he wanted to move fast and quiet.

The way she looked at it, she had two choices: She could lock herself back in and bide her time, which was dicey. Or she could jump out the window, take out a guard fast and run like hell was after her. Extremely dicey.

She had no defenses or options if she stayed. She would be at the Fae King’s mercy and the story she had spun had its own built-in time bombs. And she didn’t dare come under any closer scrutiny. She couldn’t bear to think what would happen if he discovered she was pregnant with Dragos’s child.

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.