Lost Princess (12 page)

“You’re safe now.” Jackson smoothed the dark curls back from her face. “What was the message, Hannah?”

Her eyes filled with pain. “Don’t go.”

Ryleigh loosened her grip on Kalayah. This wasn’t so bad. She forced her tense muscles to unknot. It was almost like riding on Nahara. Almost. Snuggling down into Nahara’s soft fur brought a sense of comfort and security the sleek dragon did not.

Kalayah undulated beneath her.

Ryleigh tightened her grip just before the dragon banked toward the right. The shift in position cast a rainbow of opalescence as the multicolored stars reflected beautifully from Kalayah’s scales. The effect bordered on hypnotic. May even have been, if Ryleigh wasn’t so preoccupied with the need to find the Divination Stone.

Kalayah turned again.

Bitter cold wind slapped Ryleigh’s face, tore through her hair, and she risked releasing her hold for a quick second and pulled the sweatshirt hood over her head. The biting cold didn’t bother her that much, but the wind screaming in her ears was sheer torture. She buried her face as deeply as she could into the sweatshirt, inhaled deeply, and sought comfort in Jackson’s scent cocooning her. She couldn’t help but wonder where he was, what he was doing. Did he realize she was gone yet? Would he even care?

A single tear escaped but froze before it could complete its journey down her cheek. What was she doing here? The idea that she must be crazy danced fleetingly through her mind. She should turn around and head back to the castle. This fiasco bordered on insane. She had no business flitting through realms she had no knowledge of and didn’t understand.

She tightened her hold on Kalayah. So far, she’d simply held on tight and let the dragon decide where to go. Now it was time for Ryleigh to take control of her own fate. Ever since she’d met Jackson, she’d allowed everyone else to lead her, to talk her into following a path she was uncertain of. No more.

“Come on, girl. Let’s go ho—Huh?” The night shifted, darkened. The stars disappeared. “What the?” The wind whipped her words away even as she uttered them. She squinted into the darkness. “What happened to the stars?” She forced the words through chattering teeth. Although, whether they were chattering from cold or fear she didn’t know.

Blackness surrounded her, a physical weight pressing in on her from all sides. Heavy. Oppressive. The threat of suffocation loomed as the darkness crushed her. Pressure burned through her chest. There was no up or down, no right or left, nothing but the blackness of the void. A vacuum, sucking her in. She held on tighter, pressed her cheek against the dragon’s neck, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. The absolute entirety of the darkness too disorienting for her to bear. Millions of freezing needles pierced every inch of her exposed skin. Ice? She pulled her hands into the sweatshirt sleeves, used the hood to cover her face as best she could.

Kalayah faltered and tipped.

Ryleigh clutched the dragon’s neck in her arms and squeezed her legs tighter in a desperate attempt to hold on to the ice coated scales.

Kalayah tumbled.

Ryleigh’s grip slipped. Wind tore between her and Kalayah, ripping Ryleigh from the dragon’s back. Bile lurched into her throat, the dizzying effect turning her stomach. Nausea threatened. Then… Nothing. Weightlessness. She was floating in a sea of darkness. Pressure built against her closed eyes. She tried to force them open. Couldn’t. Oblivion encroached. Her tentative hold on reality slipped, and she lost the battle to hold onto consciousness.

Nightmares plagued her, visions of horrors too terrifying to contemplate. Monsters, torture, pain, fear, death. Her mind skipped from one image to the next, cringing before each new hallucination, desperate for escape. Her only hold on sanity the knowledge that the images were nothing more than horrendous dreams.

Fingers of mist crept into her mind. A slimy haze that felt…evil…and intelligent…but real. Different from the imagined evil that chased her across the landscape of her nightmares. The mist bored through her brain, sifted through her memories, crawled through her every thought.

She couldn’t fight it. Each time she tried to resist, tried to keep the mist from invading her mind, tried to force it away, it slipped from her grasp. Elusive. Insubstantial. She opened her eyes. Then prayed fervently for the blackness to reclaim her.

Black smoke enveloped her. It had no odor, and yet, something repulsive filled her. She struggled to sit up, pressed her back against something hard. The cold, solid surface against her back forced her back to reality.

“Well, hello, dear.”

Kai.

“So nice of you to join us.” The warrior’s black eyes gleamed with hatred.

Ryleigh clamped her mouth closed tight, still too ensnared in the foul black mist to deal with Kai. The smoke pulled away, took shape, solidifying into an opaque mass of…something. A rippling creature stood before her, concave eyes staring through her.

She cowered beneath its scrutiny.

“She doesn’t know where he is, sir. But I’m certain he’s not here.” The voice came from her right.

A portion of Ryleigh’s focus shifted to a smaller man standing beside Kai. A shrunken man, his skin shriveled and grey. Long, matted, white hair hung nearly to his waist. He gestured toward her, his pointed, yellow nails dried and cracked.

Kai pinned him with a hardened stare. “You’re certain Jackson is not here? Or you’re certain she doesn’t know he’s here?”

“Impossible to tell. I’d expect her to know if her mate was near, but…” A barely perceptible shrug lifted the frail shoulder beneath a clingy, black robe. “Who knows?”

Wait a minute. Mate?

The smoke monster shifted.

Ryleigh struggled to keep an eye on the monster, Kai, and the new stranger.

The shriveled man waved a hand, and the monster disappeared, simply vanished as if it had never existed.

Who knew? Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe her mind had finally cracked under the pressure of a reality she couldn’t comprehend.

“If you’ll excuse us now, Thaddeus. I’d like some time alone with my prisoner.”

Ryleigh stiffened.

“Of course, sir.” Thaddeus bowed his head and left the room. The soft click of the door falling shut knifed through Ryleigh’s heart.

She was alone with Kai, the man who’d already tried to kill Jackson and vowed to kill her. She needed to corral her erratic thoughts and make some sense of what was happening to her. She had to find a way out.

Kai paced the room. The soft brush of his sword against his chainmail echoed through her head, making it impossible for her to think.

The constant clanking tortured her. Fear held her paralyzed, her knees hugged to her chest, her back against a wall. Her body rocked with each beat of her heart, the constant motion nauseating. Or maybe it was stark terror turning her stomach. An eddy of blackness encroached in her peripheral vision. Ryleigh reached for it, welcomed it, prayed for it to overtake her. She didn’t dare close her eyes.

Kai reached beneath his chainmail, still pacing at that same steady rhythm.

A scream welled within her chest.

He pulled something from under the armor, then turned his back on her and paced toward the window. Arrogant bastard. He should know better than to turn his back on his enemy.

Too bad she lacked the courage to attack. She dropped her head against the wall. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she no longer had the strength to stop them. She covered her face with her hands.

Kai’s soft laughter mocked her.

It didn’t matter.

His hot breath washed over the backs of her hands.

Her eyes shot open. She dropped her hands to her sides, lifted her head, and found herself face to face with the warrior who was now squatting directly in front of her.

Evil filled his black eyes, leaving only bottomless twin pits of pure hatred.

He tilted his head. Contemplating her fate? “So, Ryleigh. What now?” He lifted a small knife, pressed the cold metal against her throat.

The need to swallow assailed her.

“Should I kill you and be done with it?” Maniacal excitement lit his features. “Or perhaps…” He drew the point of the knife slowly across her throat, dragging out the torture.

Pain sliced through her.

“I can find a better use for you.”

She squeezed her eyes closed and willed her mind to withdraw. It didn’t work.

“Don’t worry, my dear. I didn’t cut anything vital.” His laughter echoed through her mind. “Yet.”

Warmth trickled down her neck. Dots of light danced through the blackness.

Kai pressed the fist holding the knife against the wall behind her head. He gripped the back of her hair in the other hand and pulled her closer.

She struggled against his hold, tried to turn her head.

His grip on her hair tightened. He pulled her face closer, pressed his forehead against hers. Hot, fetid breath invaded her, assailed her.

She reached for her sword. It was gone.

“I would gain immense satisfaction from having Jackson Maynard witness your loyalty to me. I fantasize about the look on his face when he sees you kneeling at my feet, my faithful servant.” He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. “I will have you, Ryleigh. I may kill you once I’ve finished with you, but I will have my revenge against that pitiful excuse for a king. I will take everything that boy holds dear and torture him with it. And then I will kill him. Slowly. Painfully.”

Rage shredded the fear holding her immobilized. She pressed her hands against the floor, shifted her weight, and brought her shin up between his legs.

He jumped up and dropped the knife but didn’t release his hold on her hair.

She stood with him, holding her hair at the roots to keep him from ripping it out.

His fury burned. “You—”

She lashed out, plunging two fingers deep into his eyes.

He tossed her aside and covered his face with his hands.

She stumbled, regained her footing.

A scream tore from his lungs.

Rage? Pain? Both?

She wasn’t waiting around to find out. She bolted for the door. Please be open. Please be open. She rattled the knob. Locked. Nooo. She whirled and faced Kai, pressing her back against the door.

A blood red tear dripped from the corner of one eye. He held her stare. Pain and rage contorted his face into something grotesque.

Think, think, think.

He took a step toward her.

She searched for calm, for focus.

Another step.

All rational thought fled.

He grabbed her beneath the chin and lifted her from the floor.

She clutched his wrist with both hands.

His iron grip tightened.

Pain radiated through her face. She closed her eyes.

“Open your eyes, and look at me. Now.” He punctuated his words with a tighter hold.

Her eyes flew open.

“You will obey me.”

She held his stare, tried to harden her own features into a look of defiance. Probably failed.

“I will allow you this one moment of disobedience. The next time you cross me, I will kill you on the spot and toss your body at Jackson’s feet.”

She firmed the line of her mouth as best she could through the ache in her jaw.

“You are not the only one who is entitled to her place on the throne.”

A chill raised goose bumps down Ryleigh’s back.

“If you continue to defy me, I will simply take your sister as my queen.”

All hope died.

He threw her to the ground.

She cracked her head against the corner of a table. Blood ran down her face, obscuring the vision in her left eye. She covered the wound with her hand and used her sleeve to wipe the blood from her eye.

“Here, maybe this will help you decide.” Something clattered against the floor beside her.

Pressure built in her ears, and she lifted her head.

Kai was gone.

Hope flared. The portal. With no idea what realm she was in, she wasn’t sure she could call a portal. Her excitement dimmed. All right, with the immediate threat gone, maybe she could think straight. First things first. She had to figure out where she was being held. She wiped her bloody hand on her jeans, then pulled her sleeve over her hand and wiped her head and eye. Once her vision was clear, she struggled to her feet. The room faded in and out of focus. She gripped the edge of the table to steady herself as she stood.

A couch sat facing her in the center of a beautifully crafted rug. Heavy velvet drapes hung almost completely closed in front of the window. Walls of grey stone— Wait. The window. She started across the room, moved too quickly. Her vision blurred, and she waited for some of the fuzziness to recede. Then she moved across more slowly.

But even if she did find a way to escape, she couldn’t risk Kai going after Mia.

Indecision slowed her pace. What else could she do? She certainly couldn’t surrender to Kai’s demands. Could she? She needed time to think. Urgency demanded she act.

Pain pounded through her head, intruding on her thoughts. She reached the couch, turned around, and sat. Emotions battered her. A roller coaster of feelings all battling for a place at the forefront of her consciousness.

Her gaze played over the floor where she’d been sitting, caught on a small brownish spot. Blood. Her blood. A dim flicker of light from beneath the table stole her attention. What the…? She leaned closer. The stone! She dove for the Divination Stone.

Kai must have stolen it. This must be what had clattered beside her before he left. What had he said? Maybe this will help you decide. She sat on the floor where she was and lifted the stone. A milky, grey haze filled its center. She clutched the stone tighter, willed it to help her, to send her a vision of what path to follow. Nothing.

“Ugh. What do I do now?” Think.

Kai stole the stone, but how could he have known she’d go in search of it?

Jackson had been so certain there was another traitor. Someone from within his kingdom, someone he trusted, someone who would have known where the family tunnels were, someone who would have known about the stone, known she’d go look for it. Someone who would have sent her in search of it. Elijah. Elijah had said he’d take care of Mia until Ryleigh returned. How could she have been so stupid? She had to find Mia, had to get to Jackson, had to warn him.