Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
W ind rushes in my ears as Draven flies us across the unforgiving mountainside on the east side of the Ice Palace. Just like last night, he carries me in his arms while his massive wings boom around us. My arms around his neck are less tight than last night, but my stomach still lurches when he banks sharply and then sweeps down towards the ground.
“You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?” I mutter.
He casts a sideways glance at me, and the smirk on his mouth is answer enough.
“Bastard,” I huff.
A thud sounds as Draven’s boots connect with the rocky ground. He flares his wings and rustles them once before tucking them in tighter by his back. Then he carefully sets me down on the ground as well.
My heart still patters against my ribs after the sharp dive through the air, so I draw in a deep breath to remind my body that I’m on solid ground again while I rake my fingers through my windblown hair to smooth it down.
But right before I can take a step back, Draven’s hand shoots out and wraps around my throat. I start, blinking at him in surprise. And for one insane second, I think he’s going to pull me close and kiss me. But he does something even more surprising.
The feeling of cold ice around my throat disappears, and magic and strength floods back into my body, as Draven removes the iron collar from around my throat. A sigh of relief escapes my mouth.
Lost for words, I just raise my eyebrows at him in silent question while running a hand over my throat to rub off the last of the coldness.
Draven just slips the collar into one of his belt pouches while giving me a look that I can’t read. “Wearing an iron collar that drains your energy right after you’ve had a panic attack is… not ideal.” He casts a glance over his shoulder towards the Ice Palace in the distance before returning his gaze to me. “You had to wear it when we left. But out here, no one can see it.” He nods towards my throat. “Especially not underneath the cloak.”
I pull the black cloak tighter around me and adjust the clasp at the front so that it truly covers the parts of my throat where the collar is supposed to be.
“Just don’t… wander off,” Draven finishes, and gives me a pointed look.
“Wander off?” Spreading my arms, I shoot him an exasperated look back. “How am I supposed to manage that? The only ones who can wander anywhere out here are mountain goats.”
As if they actually heard me talking about them, two mountain goats let out a smug bleat and then practically skip away across the uneven mountain slope. Gray clouds cover the heavens, painting the sharp rocks and steep inclines in bleak hues, and strong winds rush over the almost barren landscape. How the goats can be so happy in this kind of environment is beyond me.
I’m exaggerating about the inability to wander, but not by much. As I sweep a glance over the mountain side around us, I realize that the only way to get here without flying requires quite a bit of climbing. The human rebels have climbing gear, but it’s still going to be dangerous and time consuming for them to get to the entrance out here. If I can find it, that is.
“You’re the one who tried to escape literally last night ,” Draven replies while arching an eyebrow at me.
I return my gaze to him and tilt my head to the side before nodding, conceding the point.
“Well, would you look at that?” A smirk full of mischief and challenge blows across Draven’s lips as he reaches out and draws two fingers along my jaw before giving my chin a little push upwards. “You really are learning to obey my commands without question.”
With a huff, I shove his hand away and mutter, “Arrogant asshole.”
His smirk only widens.
Then he takes a step back and motions at the mountainside around us while a serious expression descends on his features. “There are a few parts I need to check out. Stay here.”
His wings rustle as he spreads them wide again, as if preparing to take off.
“Do you really think he’s here?” I blurt out before he can fly off. “The Red Hand, I mean.”
“No.” Draven lets out something between an annoyed huff and a chuckle. “But I need to check it anyway.”
Before I can ask why, he launches into the air. Tilting my head back, I watch him as he flies towards a spot a little higher up on the slope. In his black armor and with his massive black wings, he truly looks like the Shadow of Death as he flies over the gray landscape.
Narrowing my eyes, I study him as he examines something up there.
Part of me had hoped that he would fly so far that I would be out of sight, because then I could begin searching for the entrance to the emergency tunnel without him seeing it. But the other part of me has already come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t have mattered. There is no way that I would have been able to find a hidden door out here before he came back anyway. I can barely move over this terrain, and I have no idea where to even start searching.
My mind churns as I sweep my gaze over the unforgiving landscape. How in Mabona’s name am I supposed to find the door?
Another cold wind whirls around the mountain, making the branches on the few brittle and barren bushes rattle over the rocks. A short distance below, a group of mountain goats skip past while bleating happily. I shake my head at them before sliding my gaze back to Draven.
A sudden idea hits me.
There are a few parts I need to check out . That’s what he said. A few parts.
My heart starts beating excitedly. What are the chances that one of those locations, that he no doubt needs to check to make sure that they haven’t been compromised, is actually the hidden door?
Draven straightens and spreads his wings.
A sense of panicked urgency pulses through me as I quickly try to memorize his exact location. Mabona’s tits, I wish I could have brought some paper so that I could draw the map out here. But there was no way for me to do that without tipping Draven off.
While he flies to another spot a short distance away from the first one, I whip my head from side to side, desperately trying to mark any specific rock formations or patterns of bushes that will help guide the humans to the right spot.
Relief flickers through me when I notice a cluster of strangely shaped boulders a short distance to my left. Using that as the deciding landmark, I try to estimate the distance between this location and both the city and the castle. Once I’m confident that I will be able to draw a fairly accurate map for the human resistance later, I shift my gaze back to Draven.
While I watch him check out another location a short distance from the first, my mind starts processing all the revelations that I have been hit with lately.
Now that I’ve had some time to adjust and I’m no longer drowning in the sea of lies that used to be my worldview, I can see it more clearly. Almost from a distance. And as much as I hate Bane and Jessina with all my heart and soul, I do understand how they have managed to keep this system running for so long.
They set it up perfectly.
They isolated us completely. Not only did they physically trap us in a city that we can’t leave, they also controlled the entire flow of information. They killed all the adults and burned all the history books. And then they taught us what they wanted us to know.
They controlled our birthrates so that our population wouldn’t outgrow the city, and so that our magical bloodlines would be stronger and provide more magic for them to drain. And they taught us that only having one child was how our biology worked so that we wouldn’t riot. All the doctors are dragon shifters, so there was no way for us to know.
And all the teachers were shifters too. Those teachers taught us about our history and our culture and race in the way that they wanted us to learn it. Taught us that we are inherently evil. That we are backstabbing deceivers who broke a peace treaty and enslaved all the dragon shifters. That we need to spend the rest of our life atoning for that. And because we had no one else to ask about our history, what they told us became the truth.
They kept us weak and distracted by not allowing us enough food. And drunk and distracted by allowing us as much alcohol as we wanted. Who is going to worry about whether our schoolteachers are lying to us when our stomachs are constantly aching with hunger and our minds are fuzzy with alcohol?
Shaking my head, I let out something between a huff and a sigh. Goddess damn it, if I hadn’t suffered all of my life because of it, I would almost be a little impressed.
If you want to control people, isolating them is really the smartest move you can make. As long as you control their food supply, their healthcare, their education, and, most of all, their access to information and the outside world, it will be almost impossible for them to fight back.
And Jessina and Bane figured all of that out, which means one thing that I must never forget. They are incredibly intelligent. I need to be very careful not to underestimate them.
“Why have you never used your magic against me?”
I nearly leap out of my skin.
While I was busy contemplating Jessina and Bane’s strategic genius, Draven must have walked back from the final location he checked. When he flies, I can hear his wings booming through the air. But apparently, the infuriating dragon shifter can walk much more quietly than a man his size should be able to.
Turning to face him, I draw in a breath and try to get my heart rate to slow again.
“What?” I ask, my mind still trying to catch up.
Draven is standing only a step away, and there is a considering look on his handsome face as he watches me.
“It’s been weeks,” he begins, his voice as serious as his eyes as he holds my gaze. “And I’ve been taking off your collar every evening when we get back to our rooms. But you have never, not even once, used your magic to try to manipulate my emotions so that you can escape.”
My heart suddenly starts pounding in my chest.
“Why?” Draven presses.
The answer to his question is twofold. The first reason is of course that I am not actually trying to escape. But I can’t tell him that. Obviously.
But the problem is that the second, much bigger, reason is also something that I would prefer not to tell him. Especially now. However, between the two, it’s the least incriminating one, so I have no other choice than to share that one.
My pulse thrums as I hold his gaze and lick my lips nervously. “Because…” I drag in a deep breath and then force out the sentence all at once. “Because you’re the only thing that’s real.”
He blinks, genuine shock pulsing across his face. Then his brows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean?”
After everything that has happened between us, I don’t know why admitting this is making me feel so nervous and vulnerable. I say it anyway. “All my life, I’ve been desperately trying to get people to accept me and trust me and like me. I have only ever spoken and behaved in a way that they would approve of. But not with you. With you, I have only ever been me. But if I start manipulating your emotions, our interactions won’t be real.” A small and bitter sigh escapes my lips as I shrug. “But I suppose that’s ruined now anyway.”
For a few seconds, he only watches me with confusion swirling in his eyes. Then realization dawns, and he actually flinches when he understands what I meant. The mate bond. The mate bond has already ruined everything.
I lift my shoulders in another shrug. “So that’s why I never?—”
A yelp rips from my lips and cuts off my sentence as Draven grabs my arm and yanks me to the side.
A fraction of a second later, an arrow shoots past in the space where my head used to be. It grazes the outside of Draven’s arm since he also leaned to the side when he pulled me out of the way, and it produces a faint scraping sound as it skids off his dragon scale armor. Wooden cracking follows it as the arrow smacks into the boulder a short distance behind us.
I whirl around to face our attackers while dread pulses through me. By Mabona, don’t tell me that Kath and the others spread that rumor in order to lure Draven here so that they could try to kill him.
But to my shock, it’s not humans I’m faced with when I spin around.
It’s six dragon shifters in purple armor.
Panic clangs inside my skull as I stare at them. And more importantly, at the six drawn bows that are pointed straight at us.
I gasp as six arrows shoot through the air.