Kiss the Dragon (Maidens Book One) (5 page)

Then Malcolm blinked out of existence, the storm disappearing with him.

“Malcolm,” Alec cried out. He ran outside while I stayed in the relative safety of the stairwell that led to the turret. Kneeling, he planted a hand where his brother had been as if hoping to grab Malcolm and bring him back, but that didn’t happen.

Alec looked over his shoulder, anguish furrowing his forehead. “Where is he?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He jumped to his feet and was in front of me before I could blink. Shaking my shoulders, he asked, “Find out.”

I pushed him away. “Don’t touch me,” I said, my voice an angry hiss.

“They were after you. Malcolm has been taken in your place. You have to tell me where he is so I can save him.” Alec’s hands dropped at his side and I could see how hard he worked to remain calm, taking deep breaths and clenching his jaw to hold his emotions in check.

Heavy steps pounded the stairs behind me. The other brothers hurtled toward us, their faces twisted with worry.

Gavin arrived first. “What happened?” he asked, not even out of breath after bounding up what I’d counted earlier as two hundred steps.

Niall came right behind his brother. “Malcolm told us to stay inside, but then we heard him yelling.” His brown eyes searched my face. “Is everything okay?”

Alec shook his head. “Nay.” He held up his hands. “Malcolm is gone.”

Gavin’s eyes went wide with shock and his mouth fell open. “What do you mean he’s gone? What about the curse?”

“How many times have we tried to destroy that bloody spell or even tunnel under it, only to find it unbreakable?” Niall asked, his lips a thin angry line as he looked from me to Alec and back.

“I donna know what happened, brothers.” Alec pointed to me. “But she is the key to fixing it.”

I edged back, eyeing the distance between me and the dragon brothers and the stairs leading to the ground floor of the castle. Given how fast Alec had moved earlier, I doubted I would make it, and the voice wasn’t helping me either, trusting in this delusion that a band of cursed dragon shifters was somehow my salvation.

Niall, catching the direction of my gaze, stepped to block the way to the stairs. “What do you know, lass?” His voice was gentle, but steel gleamed in his eyes. Fiery, red steel that would not hesitate to burn me if it became necessary.

“I don’t know anything.” I crossed my arms.

“Some maiden she is,” snorted Gavin. He looked me up and down, a little disapproving smirk on his face. First he’d wanted to bite me, now he was my judge and jury?

“Oh fuck you,” I shouted. “I never asked to be anyone’s maiden.” To Alec, I added, “You should have never brought me here or at least let me leave when I wanted to, then none of this would’ve happened.”

“That’s not how it is with a dragon and his maiden,” Alec said. “We’re destined for each other. To turn away from fate’s desire is to invite death.”

“Okay, well, maybe that’s how dating worked back in
your
day, but in the twenty-first century, we don’t believe in destiny or fate. They don’t exist.”

All three men rolled their eyes at me, which made me want to smack them in turn. I made my own fate and destiny was a word used only by fake psychics.

Not true,
sniffed the voice in my gut.

Shut up,
I growled at it. I’d been a modern woman in a modern world before it showed up. I’d never asked for this fucking magic, never wanted to lift the veil. Now I’d added a missing dragon shifter to the mix. Like I knew anything about
that.

“You see the future, right, lass?” Niall’s voice intruded on my thoughts. “Can you not look to see where Malcolm is or where he will be?”

“He has to be here. The curse wouldna let him go any further.” Gavin headed for the stairs, his stride full of purpose. “I will go search for him. If there’s magic here in Inverness beyond our own, it canna hide from us.”

A vision sucker punched me just then, coming out of nowhere. I gasped and fell to my knees as white hot pain twisted through my head. I saw women, a group of them and they were full of magic. The witches. It had to be. The energy’s flavor was the same as the storm, which now that I was focused on it, I realized it matched what I’d felt in Rome.

They gathered around their prize, but shrieked with fury when they saw it wasn’t me. Malcolm lay in a motionless heap, unaware of the stir he’d caused. The witches pawed at him, moving almost as one, like they shared some kind of hive mind or some other weirdness I could really live without learning about.

They weren’t in Inverness. Not even close, although I couldn’t pinpoint a city. I had a sense of yawning distance, a jump through time and space followed by a hard landing. Somehow their magic had circumvented the curse anchoring the dragon shifters in place. I wondered if that meant Malcolm could now shift.

Taking a cue from my thoughts, the scene changed, spinning like a whirling top before settling on another moment in the future, one where Malcolm lived in a dark stone room with a tiny slit for a window.  His clothing was tattered and his ribs ran in a raised row up and down his chest. He’d been starved.

Shift,
I thought at him.
Escape.

He stirred, raising his head and looked at me as if he could see me.
“I canna, lass. You must save me another way.”

And then the vision was gone. My consciousness returned to the turret, the floor feeling unsteady and uncertain beneath my feet. My eyes closed, I folded in on myself until I huddled on the floor, hands pressed against my temples.

Someone kneeled next to me and touched my shoulder. “What did you see, lass?” Alec asked, his voice gentle.

I whimpered. My temples throbbed, pain sizzling through me like hot fireworks. For all that the vision had cost me, I’d accomplished nothing.

“Please, lass. Tell us. He’s our brother. Our flesh and our blood.” This was Niall and the pleading sincerity in his voice twisted my heart. I remembered what it was like to have a family and I knew too well the agony of having them all ripped from you, destroyed to serve someone else’s mad whim.

“Not to mention our mage. We will lose our way out without Malcolm,” added Gavin.

I shuddered as the headache grew to include my back. Electric tingles zapped along my nervous system as if I had my own personal source of lightning. I’d seen the future, but I had no answers.

Taking a small breath, sipping at the air so as not to aggravate my head further, I searched for the voice, that coil of presence living inside me, but it was silent. I would have to force it to speak.

Raising my head, I willed my eyes to open. “I need alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.” So much for running. On this one, it looked like I was going to be all in. The thought terrified me, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I turned my back on Malcolm.

Alec nodded to Gavin who took off down the stairs. “What are you going to do?” Alec’s hazel eyes had gold flames in them now.

“I need to get drunk.”

Niall started to protest, but I cut him off.

“You don’t understand. I didn’t see enough. He’s alive. I can tell you that much, but I don’t know where or when.”

“What will the alcohol do for you?” Alec remained still while Niall began to pace back and forth.

I gestured to my head, miming an explosion. “It blows things wide open.” I reached for Alec, grasping his warm hand in my cold one. I couldn’t say why, but I chose him. Maybe it was that destiny bullshit or maybe it was simply that we’d kissed and it had been special enough for me to feel safe with him. “You have to watch me. I might go a little nuts.”

“Define nuts.” Niall paused in his pacing and peered at me.

“I might try to leave. I might…,” I closed my eyes again and remembered how the knife had slipped into my stomach. “Try to hurt myself. Someone needs to spot me.”

“I’ll do it, donna fash yourself, lass.” Alec squeezed my hand.

“And we need a safe space. A small room without too much furniture.” I pulled on Alec’s hand, trying to stand up, but my strength had evaporated with the vision. The throbbing in my head swelled until I felt like a balloon with too much air. The pressure of the pulsing inside my skull threatened to blow me apart. I sank back to the floor just as Gavin arrived, a metal flask in his hand.

“Here.” He handed it to me and then produced a second. “I filled two. If you need more I’ll go back down.”

I unscrewed the flask’s lid, my fingers fumbling so much that Alec made to swoop in and help me. I pushed him away and finished opening the dratted thing, which, apparently, had been made so long ago it no longer remembered it was supposed to open
and
close.  Tilting my head, I let the alcohol sear my throat until the flask was empty. Shoving it back toward Gavin, I said, “Give me the other one.”

This time he opened the flask for me before handing it over. I drained it faster than the first. “Do you need more?” Gavin asked, poised at the top step, ready to bolt down if I said yes.

“No.” I turned my head until Alec was in my field of vision. The world swam around me and I knew soon I would be gone, lost to the power that had decided my body was a good place to call home. “Take me somewhere safe.”

He didn’t hesitate and quickly scooped me up in his strong arms. His gait sturdy despite my added weight, he descended the staircase. His brothers trailed after us, and peeking over Alec’s broad shoulder, I noted their expressions were a mix of confusion and concern.

Well, join the club
, I thought.

The world went black around the edges. I didn’t have much time. “Hurry,” I slurred to Alec, urging him on with a pat to his shoulder.

“We’re almost there, lass. Hang on.” He rounded a corner and ran down a hallway until he reached the end. Then through a door and we were in a small room with only a bed, a chair and a small table to occupy it. Alec set me on the bed and went to shut the door, saying to his brothers, “I will stay with her. You two keep watch in case they decide to come after her again.”

What Niall and Gavin thought of this plan, I didn’t know. I was gone.

Chapter Four

First there was darkness. A sleek blackness that ate light and pressed close against my skin, soft as fur. I waited for it to transform, to mutate into what I needed to see.

Malcolm. Show me where he is.
I whispered those words over and over.

The voice unfurled, slithering through my consciousness until we were tangled into a tight knot. I lost track of the line between me and not me. We had blended into one.

I panicked.

Let me go,
I yelled into the blackness.

The voice wrapped itself even closer, speaking in complete sentences now.
I’m under your skin, in your heartbeat, nesting in your mind. I’m you.

No.
 I tried to strike out and hit the voice, but there was no gravity in my mind and nothing to push off of.

I will show you everything. I am what you need. Who you are supposed to be. You aren’t complete without me.

Then show me,
I spat.
Make yourself useful and find Malcolm or I swear, when I wake up, I will cut you out with a fucking chainsaw even if it kills me.

That must’ve impressed the voice, or maybe it just remembered the stabbing, because the darkness gave way to Malcolm’s face.  He appeared huge, as if projected onto a large movie screen and I was just an audience member.

Where is he?
I paced inside the auditorium the voice had constructed, wishing I could jump into the screen. Maybe I could be with Malcolm that way, perhaps even save him.

New York,
whispered the voice. An address flashed in my mind, a jumble of letters and numbers. I chased after them, but they dodged me, sliding away before I could put them in order. I gave up, deciding it was futile and let them fade.

I thought I was done then, thought I could walk away, but the booze must’ve hit me harder than I’d realized because the voice wasn’t finished with me. I wanted to go, but I wasn’t the one in charge. The screen flickered and the next image came up.

First, I saw Alec’s naked chest, smooth skin taut over hard muscle and his copper hair licking down his torso like a live flame. He was with someone: Me.

My breath caught in my throat.
What is this?

He is your future. Meant for you.

I shook my head back and forth, trying to shake the vision loose, but the image stayed.

Alec kissed my throat as I sighed and ran my hand over his shoulder, twining my fingers in that glorious hair. Even in my disembodied state, I felt a flush of wet desire wash over me. Alec stroked his hands along my body, teasing my breasts and then the cleft between my thighs. I echoed my own gasp, somehow feeling the sensations from the vision.

To my relief, the scene finally changed. We were even further into the future. I could tell because I had aged. Little lines crinkled around my eyes when I smiled. Alec and I stood on the castle turret, our fingers intertwined. Not only was I happy, I was older and
in the same place.