“Good.” She returned to attaching his shoes, but then looked up and narrowed her eyes. “Oh, ha, ha, ha.”
His grin grew so wide it split his face. He stood up and experimented with the flat attachments. They allowed him to walk over the banks of snow, but slowed down his each stride. It was a bit like walking through water. A moment later, Alara was similarly shod. She moved toward him in great strides.
“Let’s head back, dragon.” Alara swept past him, not meeting his eyes.
“Of course, my love.”
She swatted at him, but couldn’t reach given the width of his shoes.
“Dearest heart?”
She attempted another blow, which tilted her off balance. He caught her and pulled her into a kiss before she could utter a retort. Her jackets and sweaters filled his arms, but her breath steamed hot against his neck. “My beloved mate?”
She pushed off from him. His smile fell as he recognized her serious tone. “So you’re going to give up your job, your people and live in a tiny mere habitat with me?”
His mind whirled. “You could come live in Underwater City.” The moment the words left his lips, he realized his mistake.
“I have to dethrone my brother and take over a country, you dumb-ass! I can’t go running off to live with the dragons—who, by the way, would look down their noses at me!”
He bowed his head to her, unsure what to say in answer but resolving to think on it later. “You are correct, Alara. I apologize for not seeing clearly your position.”
Alara chewed the side of her lip, and her eyes darted to the side. But then she turned and set off for the Glass House.
* * * *
Alara expected gasps and embarrassed glances when she returned. However, as she marched down the hall with the human-form dragon in her wake figures streaked by, barely sparing her a look. Excited shouts echoed through the corridors. A young male passed, and Alara grabbed his arm. “What’s going on?”
“It’s the children. They’ve been released.”
Her heart sped up. “Are they okay? Were they hurt?”
The boy scanned the hallway, clearly hoping to get away quickly. “No. From what I heard, they’re fine. The triton is giving an interview for the paper about it right now.
Alara’s mind reeled.
The triton?
Then she realized the boy spoke of her brother, not her father. She took a deep breath and gestured that he could leave. He ran off without another word.
Alara turned to Kai. “Well, talking to Florian is certainly out for a while. He’ll be busy using this to bolster his reputation. I wonder if he’s even trying to capture the perpetrators.”
Kai looked thoughtful. “They must have released the mere nearby, correct? What range can fry swim?”
Excitement shot through Alara’s veins. “The youngest couldn’t make it more than ten or fifteen miles. Damn, whoever dropped them can’t be far away.”
“Especially if you’re travelling at my speed. Alara, do you think you can get the relevant information from the children in the next hour?”
She turned and ran down the hallway, headed towards the walk-out, where no doubt a crowd of townspeople were questioning the kids. “I’m certainly going to try.”
* * * *
Islanders packed the walk-out. Somewhere near the front, the children and their parents huddled, answering questions and holding each other. Alara cursed her sorry-ass brother for not sending more troops down to protect these peoples’ privacy. Hans, Sven, and a few others stood at the edges, attempting to keep order. She shouldered her way through the crowd, snatching a megaphone from one of the guys. When she reached the front of the crowd she turned and raised it to her lips.
“Oi!”
The crowd settled a little, so that her next announcement carried further. “I want everyone who is not a soldier with the Murrough Army out of here. Now!” Some of the crowd backed away, muttering, but a few eager news-reporter types near the front looked mutinous. One stepped forward to speak with her, and she shouted through the megaphone. “NOW!”
The seven kids and their parents stood in a huddle, looking overwhelmed by the whole experience. Alara approached them cautiously. “I know you just want to go home. But I need you kids to tell me where they dropped you off. I’m going to go find the men who took you.”
“He’s dead.” The largest one stepped forward. “The evil one died. I saw him lying there when the other guy took us off the boat.”
The girl spoke with utter lack of emotion. Alara vowed to make sure these strong little mere recovered fully, once she punished those responsible. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah.” The girl said it in a whisper, as if she had resisted sharing that information with her captors.
“Well, Sarah, even if the ringleader is dead I need to find out who was involved and how they located our island. So please, where did they release you?”
Sarah pointed directly south. The others nodded. “And do you have any sense how far you swam? Or maybe how long?”
The girl scrunched her face and rolled her eyes up and to the side, like she was searching for the answer on the inside of her skull. “Maybe an hour.”
Alara’s stomach leapt. They’d been released right outside the boundary. Holy shit! The perps couldn’t be more than seven miles away. “Thank you so much, all of you. I…I’ll contact you tomorrow.”
She turned away from the families and aimed her megaphone at the handful of mere soldiers still standing around the far edges of the walk-out. “I’m going to head out and find those bastards. Who’s with me?”
* * * *
Kai pressed through the doors to Florian’s offices. Mere and dragon alike crowded the rooms, talking and creating a loud din. His eyes landed on the dragon he sought. “Laird, you must accompany me.” When the human-form dragon lifted his white-blond eyebrows, Kai added, “Now!”
His second-in-command followed at a clip down the hallway. “What is it you need from me, General?”
Kai ducked into a small conference room and trained his eyes on his friend. “Alara and I are going to apprehend the kidnappers.” He watched for Laird’s reaction.
Laird betrayed no emotion, but leaned towards Kai and sniffed. “You smell of her.”
He had not showered since their time in the cabin, and in all honesty he liked the scent of her on his skin. “Perhaps.” His lips pressed together, and his jaw clenched. He should have gone with Alara alone. Having this much knowledge gave Laird far too much power.
The pale dragon surprised him. “I will help you in your search. And I will be silent regarding your relationship with the princess. However I will not lie to the Council Chair on your behalf.”
Kai nodded in agreement. “It is not my aim to make enemies in the Dragon Council. I simply believe that now is the time to search.”
Laird’s pale blue eyes narrowed, but if he questioned Kai’s reasoning, he didn’t say so. Kai checked his cell phone and saw the text from Alara.
Get yr butt down here. 7-8 miles away—max.
* * * *
Alara noticed her men hunch their shoulders as the dragons approached. Whatever happened during her days of mourning had clearly not healed the rift between the groups. When Kai came to stand before her, she spoke loudly, so her men knew they were being addressed as much as the dragon.
“Hello, General Nasu. Thanks for coming to help.”
The dragon caught her meaning quickly, and a little smirk crossed his face. “It is my pleasure to serve in whatever capacity most helps you and your people.” He gave her a low bow, which in her opinion might have been overdoing it.
Her men seemed to appreciate the effort, however, and nods and muttered hellos passed between Laird and the soldiers. She’d always gotten a good vibe from that pale one.
“All-righty. We’re going to need two things—speed and sonar. For the first, we’ll use the dragons, and for the second, we’ll use mere-song. The kids were dropped off by a small zodiac. I doubt their carrying blocking equipment aboard.” Dragons and mere alike nodded their agreement.
“Laird, can you take Hans and those two?” The pale dragon nodded.
“Okay, me and Sven will go with Kai.”
Kai spoke up. “But mere-song only works underwater. If you ride our backs you’ll have to shift in and out of human form.”
The group walked over to the changing hut as they spoke. “Yes. We’ll ride to the approximate location given by the girls, then we’ll dive and sing to locate the boat.”
Kai touched her arm as they entered the hut. “You’ll freeze. It’s too far a ride. You should allow us to pull you.”
The search party all changed in silence, and she could tell each one listened to find out who would win the argument. “What would you pull us with,
dragon
?”
Kai’s eyebrows rose at her challenge. “A rope. We could pass it through our jaws, or tie it around our necks and swim.”
Alara took a deep breath and willed herself not to tell him off. Combat was her default setting, but she needed to learn more diplomacy. “While that is a good idea, and I appreciate your concern, I believe that the drag created in pulling us through the water would slow you down. The whole point of your assistance is speed.”
He nodded once then proceeded to strip his clothes off. Once he stood naked before her, he looked like he would resume his arguing. Alara felt that this tactic was distinctly unfair.
He surprised her, though. “As you wish, my princess. I was just concerned for your wellbeing.”
She barely had time to internally crow about her victory before the deep caress of his last words touched her.
* * * *
Despite the neoprene shirt she wore, the frigid air chilled Alara to the marrow as she rode the sea serpent to the location given by the children. Sven pressed against her back in order to maintain body heat despite the wind. The only male body she felt was the dragon’s moving deftly between her legs.
The powerful thrust of Kai’s tail set her every nerve ending to tingling. She wanted to travel with him south, to a sunny beach where she could ride him naked through warm water.
As they travelled closer to where the kids had been left, Alara and the other mere slipped into the water with a great sigh of relief. Adrenaline exploded through her veins, shooting blood to her extremities. Like the men, she swam a large circle quickly, to warm up.
The black dragon turned his head her way and bellowed a roar of concern. She sent him a glare. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” She swam by the other dragon, singing to him that everyone made it without developing hypothermia. They removed their wetsuit tops, storing them in a rocky alcove to retrieve later. The pale dragon’s huge blue eyes trained on the bite marks on her shoulder. Then Laird’s look darted to Kai and back to her again.
Oh, fucking hell.
If word got out about this she’d never live it down.
“Okay. Let’s get in positions, we’ll sing out one at a time, then rotate ten degrees and sing again.
She and the other mere moved into a circle, their backs facing center, and sang out in turn. It only took one round of song for their mere hearing to pick up the echo coming from just a mile south.
The dragon general roared, and Alara knew that he asked if the mere should ride again. She shook her head no. The distance was too close to risk the cold again. Besides, mere might be slower than dragons, but they could easily outrun a boat.
* * * *
Kai observed Alara dart through the water, her gray-blue tail pumping furiously. He plunged through the water after the mere, eager to keep the enticing view of his mate. A sharp sweep of tail met the back of his head and he turned to find Laird rolling his enormous eyes in their equally enormous sockets. Kai showed his teeth. He could have sworn Laird grinned.