The Dragon's Gem (20 page)

“Let me through,” a female voice commanded from the hallway. The men moved out of the way to reveal a small woman with long brown hair and eyes so green I knew immediately who she was. “Rosalinda,” she cried out, dropping to the housekeeper’s side.

The housekeeper
’s eyes opened and she grabbed the woman’s hand. “I tried to stop them,” she choked out.

“I know
, my darling, do not fret so. We will locate her after I see you settled.” She looked to me. “Will you place her on the bed for me please?”

“I’m afraid to move her,” I told her honestly.

“She will be fine. Years ago I had one of my scales placed under her skin, it will ensure she heals very quickly,” she assured me.

I
nodded and lifted the woman in my arms and carried her to Aurora’s bed laying her down before taking a step back to allow the woman to tend to her wounds.

“I’m sorry,” the woman whispered
repeatedly.

“Nonsense, you have done more for my daughter than I ever could,” she murmured reassuringly. “Rest Rosalinda
, I will take care of my daughter now.” She ran her hand over the woman’s eyes and they closed sending her into a deep sleep before she turned to face those of us assembled in the room. “You must be Draco,” she said, extending her hand.

I took her hand and shook it warily. “And you are Aurora’s mother,” I said evenly.

“I am,” she answered softly, her voice so like Aurora’s it sent chills through me. “Now, what trouble have you gotten my daughter into?”

My father reacted quickly to her words and stepped between us glaring at her with deadly intent. “
I don’t know who you are, but my son would never place Aurora in danger.”

“Yet he has,” she said
, not fazed in the least by his size and power.

“Kristen,” Aurora’s father said from the doorway
, where he stood looking at the room with horror.

“
Ben,” she said, looking scared for the first time.

“What is going on?” he asked walking towards us his hands trembling, his body qui
vering as he took in Belynda, who was just waking and the housekeeper on the bed with blood all over her clothes.

“Someone has taken Aurora,” my father told him placing his hand on his shoulder to keep him steady.

“What?” he looked to his wife accusingly. “What have you brought upon our child.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she brushed then away impatiently. “I never lied to you, Ben. I told you some bad people were after me, that was why I left after Aurora was born.”

“And that was why I agreed to let you go, but obviously that hasn’t made any difference,” he replied.

“How much does he know?” m
y father asked her.

“Enough to know I am different, but not enough to know exactly what we are,” she answered
, looking pained.

“What is going on?” Ben said
, looking to my father with disbelief.

“Ben… I should have told you but I was so afraid…I knew the only chance Aurora had at happiness was if I left and no one ever knew that I was her mother.”

“How’s that working out!” he screamed his face red with rage.

“
Ben, now is not the time for this discussion. We need to regroup and find Aurora,” my father said trying to diffuse the situation.

I saw fire in Ben’s eyes and for a moment worried he was going to explode but then he nodded and ran his hand through his hair. “You’re right
. Everything else can wait until Aurora is home.”

“Draco,” Ryan said
, walking unsteadily into the room. “Melinda is downstairs and she is mighty upset.” He rubbed his head and leaned against the wall for support.

“I got this,” I told him. “Go and lay down somewhere before you fall down.” I moved swiftly out of the room and down the stairs to the front porch where Melinda stood yelling at Nate, demanding he get out of her way. The moment she saw me her eyes filled with rage and she shoved Nate aside
, turning her anger on me.

“You son of a….”

“Melinda, stop being a shrew and calm down,” I told her in my most commanding voice.

“Calm down!” she screamed. “
I don’t even know what is happening anymore.”

I c
ould see she was losing it and took her hand, sitting her down on the porch steps. “Melinda you need to remain calm and tell me what you know.”

She bit her lip and rubbed her hands nervously on her lap. “It’
s Hershel. He tried to take me from my house tonight. My father’s men scared him off, but he kept screaming that he was coming back for me, that you were as good as dead for trifling with me again.”

I felt bad for her. S
he was obviously terrified and upset, but she was alive and Aurora had been kidnapped. I needed her to talk. “Melinda, did he say where he was going, or who else was with him?”

“I don’t know,” she cried out. “He was just talking, saying he
would make you suffer the way he has suffered for years. He said he has friends, friends who would give anything to have your mate in their hands.”

“The Wyvern
s,” I whispered looking to Nate, who nodded in agreement. It would explain the blood we found at Soran’s accident site. “I need you to tell me what happened with Soran the night he disappeared,” I said, gripping her hand.

“Nothing happened,” she mumbled.

“Melinda, I don’t have time for games. Soran’s life was put in danger because of something that happened that night and I need to know what that is.” It took all I had not to shake the truth out of her, but I knew that would only make the situation worse.

Tears filled her eyes and she nodded. “I watched you go into the restaura
nt that night and break up their date. Until that moment I had had held out hope that you would forget about her and come back to me, but when I saw how you were with her, how much you cared for her, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. I was walking down the street towards my car, but Soran saw me walking alone and saw how upset I was and offered to take me home so I wouldn’t drive. We walked around the garden at my house talking for a while. He offered me the ear of a friend and comfort to ease my sadness.” She looked embarrassed, but I squeezed her hand urging her on. “Look, I don’t want to go into it, but let’s just say things got heated and Hershel found us together. He was out of control, threatening to kill Soran if he ever touched me again.”

I glared at her. “Why didn’t you share this information sooner?”

“Because Hershel never left the house the night Soran disappeared. He dragged me before my father and they grilled me until the early hours of the morning about my inappropriate behavior.”

That puzzled me until I remembered the housekeeper saying she couldn’t stop
them,
as in more than one. “He told you tonight he had friends helping him. It is entirely possible they are the ones that took Soran that night while Hershel kept himself in clear view so he wouldn’t be blamed.” I looked to Nate. “It has to be Wyverns that took Soran and Aurora. Hershel wanted me to suffer like he has and the only way for that to happen was for me to know someone else had the woman I loved.”

Fresh tears welled in Melinda’s eyes, m
ascara ran down her face, and her lips were pursed as it dawned on her what was happening. “You were never going to let Aurora go, were you?”

“I can’t, she is my life now, the only female I will ever love,” I told her honestly.

“How could you want someone who doesn’t believe in you?”

I didn’t want to get into it with her and knew I had to let that discussion go for another day. “I don’t have time to explain
all of that, but I promise when this all over, I will. Now did Hershel say anything that might help us find Aurora and Soran?”

“I don’t know
. He was hard to understand, he just kept yelling that I was his and no one was going take me away from him.” She rubbed her arms nervously and met my gaze. “When we were kids he used to tell me all the time we would be together forever, but I always thought he meant as friends, I didn’t know he wanted more than that.”

“Did he ever mention any place to you he might go if he needed to hide away?
” I prodded, hoping since he was so in love with her he might have let something slip.

S
he stilled for a moment as if thinking back and then jumped to her feet. “There was this cave we used to play in when we were young. It was a good fly from my father’s estate, but I never paid much attention to where we were going. I haven’t been there since I was twelve and he kissed me…” she gasped and met my gaze. “Oh my God! How could I have not known? He was always telling me how beautiful I was, and trying to get me to go out with him. I was never interested, which seemed okay with him, until I started seeing you. He was so angry then and he would wait until I got home and berate me for being with someone who wasn’t good enough for me.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I assured her
, looking to Nate, who was already on his phone searching for any likely caves in the area.

“The cave
, Melinda, what did it look like? Was there anything remarkable about it?”

She closed her eyes
for a moment. “It was a huge chain of mountains. I remember him telling me the property had been in his family for centuries.”

“That’s it,” I shouted to Nate. “Find out what property he owns and we will search them all until we find her.” I turned to go
, but Melinda grabbed my arm.

“I hope you find her,” she told me
, looking more sincere than I had ever seen her.

“We’ll find her,” Nate said next to me.

“We have to,” I said, walking towards the house to share what we had learned with everyone.

***
Aurora
***

I woke up thrown over the shoulders of my kidnapper. The air around me smelled of evergreen and fresh rain and I shivered against the chill of the cool night air on my exposed skin. Fleetingly I wished for the soft chenille robe I had been wearing just before I was kidnapped, but I had the feeling being cold was going to be the least of my worries.

I tried to focus, to get a bearing on where we were
, but my head hurt from where someone had pounded their fist into it to knock me out. My leg, that I was sure had been broken in my efforts to get free, was in mind-numbing agony and horrible pain tore across my torso, from where I had been tackled to the ground when I tried to escape my bedroom.

The man carrying me
grunted as he lifted his leg high, jostling me and my battered body, making it plain to me he was climbing. I feared I might never be found if he was taking me into the mountains so as he walked I pulled the hairclips I had used to keep my hair out of my face as I washed it before bed and dropped them every few feet, hoping if someone was searching for me, they might find them. It wasn’t much, but helped to keep me from feeling completely useless and gave me some hope I might be found before I was killed.

With that morose idea in my
head, my thoughts turned to Belynda, who had been checking in on me when my kidnappers had appeared. From what I had heard of the battle she had been engaged in, she had fought hard to save me. I hadn’t been able to see what ended her brave attempts but the sudden silence that filled the room after she had let out a strangled cry made me believe she might be dead. I bit my lip to keep from crying out at the idea. I had only known Belynda for a short time, but I couldn’t imagine life without her, if I even managed to survive, of course.

My captor
stopped suddenly and lifted me off his shoulder dropping me unceremoniously on the ground. I landed with a loud cry as immense pain tore through my body and curled into a ball, gasping for air. I heard him walk away and I reached out to try to find something to pull myself upright with. Instead of my hand finding a wall or piece of furniture though, it met with the soft fleshy feeling that could only be someone’s body. “Is someone there?” I whispered, moving my hand slowly up the appendage, praying there was more to the body next to me.

“Aurora,” a
disoriented male voice I recognized immediately as Soran’s whispered.

“
Oh my God, you’re alive,” I murmured, keeping my voice low so my captor wouldn’t come back.

“Barely,” he
gasped, sounding like even that one word was an extreme effort.

I
pulled myself up, which was a monumental task given the pain it caused, and sat back against the cold hard wall of what I assumed was a cave by the cool and sharp feeling against my back. “Are you hurt?” I asked, running my hand over him looking for injury. I hit pay-dirt when my hand fell on his chest and he let out a strangled cry. The flesh there was warm and sticky with his blood and I knew by the many crusty edges it had healed and reopened many times.
Crap, crap, crap,
I thought. Neither one of us was in any shape to take on our captors. “How can I help you?” I asked.

“Blood,” he murmured.

“What,” I said unsure I had heard him correctly.

“I ne
ed dragon blood. They have drained me to keep me weak. Has Draco exchanged his blood with you yet?”

“Not exactly, but
he injected me with some of his blood so I could see, but it has been a few days since I last had any.”

“Doesn’t matter…
” he murmured tiredly. “Once given…our blood…stays in the body forever.”

It couldn’t be true,
I mean I couldn’t see and if Draco’s blood stayed in my body forever, I should be able to, I reasoned. “No, the blood only worked for a short time,” I explained.

“Always, it will be inside of you.”
He gripped my hand and I felt his nail dig into my palm gouging my flesh. I bit my lip to keep from crying out afraid our kidnapper would reappear. Pain and horror washed over me as he lifted my hand and his mouth moved over the wound he had caused, sucking deeply. I tried to pull away, punching him with my free hand, but his grip was like a vise and he threw himself over me, holding me still as he continued drinking, gulping greedily as I laid under him, unable to get him off of me. After what seemed like an hour, he let go of my hand and let it drop to my side. I felt shaky and weak from the sheer amount of blood he had taken and could barely keep my eyes open.

“I’m sorry
,” he murmured next to me, as my eyes closed and I sank into welcome oblivion.

***
Draco
***

There is a certain horror in knowing that you were useless when the one you loved was in danger. I understood that only too well as I leaned back against the wall of my father’s study listening to everyone give detailed reports on the caves they had scoured looking for Soran and Aurora. I too had searched until my wings could no longer support my weight and my legs when I transformed back to my human form could no longer carry me. We had checked every nook and cranny of the local cave system within a twenty-mile radius of Melinda’s home and found nothing. There was also no sign of Hershel anywhere, which prevented us from grilling him for their whereabouts. I clenched my fists at my side, wanting nothing more than to find Hershel and kill him for putting my mate into the hands of those who sought to destroy me by harming her.

“It’s late and we are all tired, let us take a few hours and regain our str
ength then set out again. They have to be somewhere close by; we just have to keep searching.”

I
felt every eye in the room turn to me and nodded, hating to take a break, but knowing it made sense. Everyone was exhausted, and tired eyes could miss clues that might lead us to Soran and my mate.

“It’s just for a few hours,” my father said at my side.

“Every minute that she is gone is like a lifetime,” I said, before turning away and walking out of the room. With little option left to me, I climbed the stairs to my room and dropped down on my bed, my eyes closing immediately from exhaustion.

I wasn’t sure how long I slept before a soft hand brushed my cheek and warm lips moved over mine. “Aurora,” I murmured wrapping my arm
s around her and pulling her to me. I had to be dreaming I knew, but in my dream she tasted different and smelled like flowers, not warm vanilla.

“Draco,” a familiar feminine voice sighed as her hands moved under my shirt.

My eyes flew open. “Melinda!” I yelled, shoving her off me.

She had the grace to look apologetic as she got up off the floor. “Your father sent me to wake you. Everyone is downstairs getting ready to go.”

I ran my hand though my hair in frustration and rose from the bed. “You could have told me it was you,” I said angrily.

“And miss out on that kiss,” she shook her head. “Not likely.” Her lips pursed and she looked hurt. “You never kissed me like that
, Draco.”

“I never loved you
, Melinda,” I said shortly, brushing past her and leaving the room. I had had enough of her shenanigans and wasn’t inclined to play her games.

I ran
down the stairs and joined everyone in the library, taking the offered cup of coffee from Nate then walking to my father’s desk where he had laid out some old maps of the area. I could see he had circled some areas that we had not explored the night before and committed them to memory for later use. A hand on my shoulder had me turning quickly towards its owner, almost spilling the coffee all over her and me. I met the gaze of Aurora’s mother with an apologetic smile and sat the offending cup down.

“We haven’t had the chance to talk, I’m Kristen, A
urora’s mother.” She held out her tiny hand to me and I took it uncertainly.

“It’s nice t
o meet you,” I murmured, unsure how to act. I mean she was my mate’s mother, but at the same time, she had chosen to abandon her child at the neediest part of her life.

“My daughter is most precious to me, it is why I left all those years ago,” she said as if hearing my thoughts. “If I had stayed the Wyvern
s would have known what she was and they would have killed her, or worse, used her to breed their hybrid monsters.” She shivered and pulled her shawl tighter around her. “My husband never understood the danger they presented until they tried to kill me and forced her early birth.” Her expression became remorseful. “I often wondered if the trauma of that night is the reason she is blind.”

“I don’t understand, I thought you left after you found out she was blind.”

She blanched. “I love my child. Whether she was blind or not was not an issue, but her safety was. We made sure the Wyvern found what they thought was my dead body and they assumed she had died too, which allowed her to live her life without being threatened.” She looked to her husband and tears filled her eyes. “The day I had to leave them was the worst day of my life and I have missed them with every fiber of my being since.”

“We will find her,” I assured
her.

“I know you will, but will you be able to protect her
when then try and take her again, or the time after that?”

“I will do whatever it takes
to keep her safe,” I bit out, hating that she apparently found me lacking.

“I hope so:
trust me, I know that having to leave someone you love for their own safety is truly the greatest sacrifice one can make.” She patted my hand and walked away, leaving me alone to ponder her words.

“That was rough,” Nate said next to me.

“She is right, though. Aurora needed me to keep her safe and the Wyverna swept right in and took her from under our noses.” Guilt ate at me and doubt that I could keep her safe began to surface. If it came down to it, I wasn’t sure I could ever leave Aurora and I began to see just how much of a sacrifice her mother had made out of love.

“Dude, don’t doubt yourself.
We were there that night and they got past us all,” Nate told me. “Come on, let’s go find your mate and give Hershel and his friends a little payback.”

“It’s
going to be a lot more than a little,” I said, taking a last sip of coffee before joining everyone at the door.

*****

The sun was high in the sky, the heat of the day searing my scales as I dove to scan the caves below me. We had been searching since early morning and I was frustrated that still we had no clue as to Aurora’s whereabouts. A flash of something shiny caught my eye and I landed on a cliff, reaching down to find a small flower-shaped hair clip like one I had seen Aurora wear in the past. I waved to my father and Nate, who circled overhead and they flew down, shifting to their human forms as they landed next to me.

“What is it?” m
y father asked.

“A hair clip,” I said
, turning it over in my hand. “It looks like one that I have seen Aurora wear.”

“Nate, call to
the others, we will search here,” my father said coming to my side and patting my shoulder. “We will find her, son.”

“But will it be too late?” I asked
, closing my fist over the hair clip, holding tightly to the only thing of Aurora’s I had in my possession.

***
Aurora
***

I wasn’t sure how long I was out of it but when I woke, I realized two things very quickly. One, I wanted nothing more than to throttle Soran and two, the pain I was in didn’t seem to be subsiding. In fact, it had grown so severe it hurt just to breathe. With much effort, I readjusted myself so I was leaning back against the wall grinding my teeth with every sharp pain that ripped through my side.

“Are you alright?” Soran asked next to me.

“Like you care,” I snapped, still angry he had forcibly taken my blood.

“I care greatly
, and once we are free you will come to understand why I did what I did.”

I d
oubted it, but for the moment, he was my only chance at getting out of there alive so I kept my mouth shut. “Where are we,” I asked, grinding my teeth to keep from crying out from the pain just speaking caused me.

“We’re in some sort of cave system
, but where exactly I don’t know. There are two Wyverns keeping watch over us.”

“Wyverns
, they are bad, right?” I asked.

“They are not good,” he said with a sigh.

Even as he said that, raised voices began to fill the air and move towards us.

“Close your eyes, act like you’re out of it,” Soran whispered to me.

I did as he asked without question and just as I closed my eyes.

“Ah, Hershel, come to finish me off?” Soran asked smartly.

“I told you that I wanted the Blue dragon dead, why is he still here?” Hershel demanded.

“We agreed to help you, but you don’t order us around
, dragon,” another male voice argued.

“Yeah,” another male agreed. “Now th
at we got the Gold dragon’s Gem we can ransom old Soran here back to his old man and make a fortune.