15. Maple #2
"Maple." His voice cut through her greeting like a blade, high and tight with panic. "I'm in trouble."
Her blood turned to ice. Ben never panicked. Ben was the steady one, the voice of reason who talked her down from dangerous ledges and reminded her to eat when she got lost in research.
"What happened?" She shot to her feet as adrenaline flooded her system. "Where are Zarik and Caius?"
"I don't know!" The words came out in a rush, punctuated by the sound of running footsteps echoing through what sounded like an urban environment.
"I was following Serena today like we planned, staying back, keeping it casual.
But she spotted me—I don't know how, I was being careful—and suddenly there were men everywhere. "
Maple's heart hammered. "Men? What men?"
"I think they work for that Elias guy. They came out of nowhere, started chasing me through downtown. Zarik and Caius tried to intervene but there was this whole scuffle, and I couldn't see what happened to them. So I just ran."
The raw terror in her best friend's voice made her stomach clench. Ben had been in dangerous situations before—unstable dig sites, territorial disputes with local authorities, that memorable incident with armed tomb raiders in Egypt—but she'd never heard him sound like this. Desperate. Hunted.
"Where are you now?" she demanded, already moving toward the library door.
"Heading for our lab. It's the only place I could think of with decent security." His breathing was ragged, like he was running full-out. "Maple, these guys aren't playing around. They were asking about you specifically. They want to know where you're hiding."
Her blood ran cold. This wasn't just about Ben stumbling into the wrong place at the wrong time. This was about her, about the claim marker, about the dangerous web she'd unknowingly walked into when she'd followed those dragon rumors.
"Get to the lab and lock the doors," she ordered, her mind already racing through possibilities. "I'm coming to get you."
"Hurry," Ben gasped, and the line went dead.
Maple stared at the phone for exactly three seconds before her protective instincts overrode every ounce of common sense. Ben was in danger because of her choices, because she'd dragged him into this dragon world where humans were collateral damage in ancient power games.
She ran through the corridors toward the living area, her footsteps echoing off stone walls lined with centuries of dragon history. Kade looked up from his newspaper as she burst into the room, his green eyes immediately sharpening at her expression.
"We need to leave now," she announced without preamble.
He folded the paper with deliberate precision, his posture shifting into something more alert. "Rune wants you to stay here."
"My best friend Ben is in trouble and he needs us now."
Kade studied her face, and she could practically see him weighing options—loyalty to Rune's direct orders versus the reality of a life hanging in the balance. His jaw worked silently as some internal battle played out behind his disciplined exterior.
"Fine," he said, rising from the sofa with fluid grace. "But you follow my lead, and don't get yourself killed. Rune will have my head if anything happens to you."
Fifteen minutes later, they were racing through desert highways in Kade's black SUV, the speedometer pushing dangerous numbers as Phoenix's skyline grew larger ahead of them.
Maple gripped the door handle, her knuckles white as she watched the landscape blur past. Every minute felt like an hour, and every mile stretched like a marathon.
Please let us be in time, she prayed to whatever gods watched over reckless archaeologists.
The lab building soon came into view, but something was wrong. The front door hung at an odd angle, and through the windows she could see overturned furniture and scattered papers.
"That door's been forced," Kade observed grimly, bringing the SUV to a sharp stop.
Before he could protest, Maple was out of the vehicle and running toward the building. Behind her, she heard Kade curse creatively. But more concerning sounds hit her as soon as she crossed the threshold—grunts of effort, the meaty impact of fists on flesh, Ben's voice raised in defiant refusal.
"I'll never tell you where she is, you bastards!"
Maple's vision went red. Without thinking, without planning, without any regard for the size difference between herself and the two men currently using her best friend as a punching bag, she launched herself into the fray.
The smaller of the two attackers had Ben pinned against an overturned lab bench, his fist drawn back for another blow. Maple threw herself between them with a feral snarl, her archaeological training in hand-to-hand combat from years of working in dangerous locations finally proving useful.
Her first punch caught the man in the kidney, making him grunt and stumble. Her second aimed for his solar plexus but he recovered faster than expected, his own fist connecting with her ribs in a burst of white-hot pain.
The impact sent her stumbling backward into the lab bench, her side colliding with the metal edge hard enough to make her gasp. Something in her wrist twisted wrong as she tried to catch herself, sending sharp pain shooting up her arm.
But Ben was already moving, his battered face set in grim determination as he grabbed a heavy ceramic vase from the scattered artifacts and brought it down on the man's head with a satisfying crack. The attacker crumpled to the floor, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Across the room, Kade was making short work of the larger man with the efficient brutality of someone trained in combat for centuries. One moment the thug was throwing punches, the next he was unconscious on the floor, Kade standing over him without a hair out of place.
"We need to go," Kade said curtly, already pulling out his phone. "Before reinforcements arrive."
He made a quick call—something about a break-in that would bring human authorities to clean up the mess—while Maple helped Ben.
Her ribs screamed in protest, and her wrist was already beginning to swell, but Ben looked far worse.
His face was a map of bruises, one eye swollen nearly shut, and he was holding his ribs like breathing hurt.
"You need a hospital," she said firmly, slipping her arm around his waist to support his weight.
Minutes later, the drive to the hospital passed in a blur of worried conversation and careful planning. Ben would call his girlfriend Jackie once he was safely in the ER, then have her bring him to the hidden dragon town once he was released. The city clearly wasn't safe for any of them anymore.
When Kade finally pulled away from the hospital, leaving Ben in the capable hands of medical professionals, Maple finally allowed herself to acknowledge the throbbing pain in her ribs and the sharp ache in her wrist. Yet all she could think about was getting back to Rune, back to the safety of his arms and the sanctuary of his territory.
Exactly twenty minutes later, the mansion appeared ahead of them, its ancient stones glowing warm and golden in the sunlight. But as Kade's SUV pulled into the circular drive, Maple saw a familiar figure standing on the front steps.
Rune.
Even from a distance, she could see the tension in every line of his powerful frame, and the barely leashed energy that suggested his dragon was very close to the surface.
When he saw her emerge from the passenger seat, one hand pressed protectively to her ribs while the other cradled her injured wrist, something shifted in his expression.
The controlled mask he wore for the world cracked, revealing raw concern and a fury that made the air around him seem to shimmer with heat.
Before she could take more than a few steps, he was there, sweeping her up into his arms with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the dangerous energy radiating from him.
"We need to treat these injuries," Rune said, his voice roughened with emotion he wasn't quite managing to contain.
As he carried her toward the mansion's entrance, she caught sight of his face—and the look he shot Kade promised a very serious conversation in their immediate future. But for now, his entire focus was on her, on getting her safe and cared for.
This, she thought as his familiar scent wrapped around her, this is what love feels like.