CHAPTER 11
Jakob
Jakob was already on edge when his guards informed him that the Onyxheim police wished to speak to him.
He met them in his war room and eyed them as they entered.
Their uniforms were stiff and spotless, so much so that he wondered if they had donned brand new garments before they approached their king.
Two officers. Polite. Careful with their greetings but curious in the way that made his dragon bare its teeth.
“King Jakob Volker?” one of them asked even as he automatically bowed as expected when in the company of royals.
“Yes.”
“We’re looking into a report filed by friends of Mallory MacDougal. She’d been missing from her hotel for the last couple of days and no one had been able to reach her. They suspected that Ms. MacDougal had been with you.”
The way the officer’s face turned red at the insinuations almost made the situation humorous. Jakob knew his reputation played into the words.
“I suspect,” Jakob began and kept his voice neutral and his posture relaxed even though every instinct screamed to drive them away, “that if you check her hotel, she is safely resting in her room.”
The officer nodded and jotted something down. “Understood. However, there is concern because Ms. MacDougal was injured during her absence. We need to figure out what happened and who treated her.”
Jakob’s pulse spiked.
“I took her to a trusted facility,” he said carefully. Not a lie. Just not the truth they meant.
The officers exchanged a glance.
“We’ll need a formal statement,” the second officer said. “Timeline. Locations. Anyone else who had contact with her.”
Jakob inclined his head. “Of course.” He would have to call in some trusted acquaintances to cover the discrepancies. “Whatever you need.”
They nodded and he could almost feel their relief that he cooperated. Obviously they had expected some pushback. As they walked away, his dragon surged, hot and furious beneath his skin.
This is spreading, it warned. This is no longer contained.
Jakob stood there long after the officers disappeared down the hallway while the realization settled heavy in his chest.
Mallory’s absence had been noticed and her friends had gone further than he had expected. Anger at himself flooded through him. He should have anticipated this possibility, but his mind was so tangled up in Mallory that he had totally missed the opportunity to contain the fallout.
And the answers that were sought brushed dangerously close to truths that could never be spoken.
By the time the elders summoned him at dawn, Jakob already knew how deep his trouble ran.
It always did when the guardians were involved.
The mountain cat had watched him from the high rocks the times he showed Mallory places not meant for human eyes.
Its silver eyes saw all while its tail flicked in silent judgment.
Guardian of thresholds. Keeper of balance.
It had not stopped him. Guardians rarely did.
It had only shown itself because Mallory tried to access a forbidden area on her own.
They chose to remember instead.
The council ring smelled of incense and condemnation. The stones warm beneath his boots The mountain cat sat at the edge of the circle with its tufted ears angled toward him. Its presence alone told Jakob how deeply he had erred.
“You broke the dragon laws,” the head elder began. “And you were witnessed.”
Jakob’s jaw clenched.
“The guardian spoke,” another elder continued. “It saw you lead the human beyond the marked paths. It saw you bring her into the sacred places.”
Places that should never have known her presence.
“You had no right to take her injuries to our healers.”
That cut deeper than the rest.
“I was protecting her,” Jakob said. “She was injured.”
A ripple of disapproval moved through the ring.
Jakob saw it again in his mind. Mallory pale in his arms, blood soaking into his shirt, her pain vibrating through him like a second heartbeat. He had not thought. He had reacted.
“I would not let her die,” Jakob said, voice low. “Like it or not, she is my mate. I don’t understand it myself, but it is what it is.”
“Regardless, the healers touched her,” the elder continued. “Dragon magic brushed her skin. Her body remembers that now. You exposed her to us when she should never have known we existed.”
“She doesn’t remember,” Jakob snapped.
“She remembers enough,” came the response. “And memory is not only what the mind keeps.”
The mountain cat’s tail lashed once. Judgment rendered.
“You invited her into our world,” a distant elder cut in. “You showed her places where even young dragons are forbidden until they master instinct over desire.”
Jakob said nothing because it was true.
He had wanted her to see the mountains the way he saw them. He had wanted to see her wonder at the sights and earn her trust.
“She did not know what she was seeing,” Jakob said finally.
“That does not absolve you. Ignorance does not undo consequence.”
The punishment was swift.
He was stripped of escort privileges. Confined to the village perimeter. Forbidden from contacting the human again.
“For her safety,” they said.
“For the secrecy of our kind,” they said.
The head elder rose. “She is leaving Onyxheim today. We can only hope that the damage done is not permanent.”
Jakob froze. “She’s leaving?”
He was met with disdain. “She never intended to stay, and you are forbidden from attempting otherwise. Let her leave, Jakob, or you will no longer need to worry about your crown.”
The mountain cat rose, silent as the snowfall, and padded away. It did not look back. Jakob bowed as the elders left the room because that was what dragons did when they had already lost.
Instead of going straight back to the castle, he went to a ridge that overlooked the town. His heart beat painfully in his chest. He had been unaware of Mallory’s travel arrangements. Yet another detail he would have been abreast of had his mind not been so tangled by fate.
Could he let her go?
He stood at the edge with his hands fisted at his sides when a small vehicle wound its way down the narrow mountain road headed toward the airport. He knew without a doubt that Mallory was in the car. He could feel in his soul that she was leaving. r.
Every instinct screamed for him to stop her. To tell her everything. To pull her into his arms and swear she would never be alone again.
Instead, he stayed still.
This is how you protect her, he told himself grimly.
His dragon did not agree.
It prowled beneath his skin, furious and grieving, and slammed against his control like a caged beast. The moment the vehicle disappeared around the bend, the howl started, deep, raw, and wordless.
Jakob turned away before he did something catastrophic.
He stalked toward the training grounds, shedding his coat as he went. Guards scattered at the look on his face. He grabbed the nearest practice dummy and struck it. Hard.
Once. Twice. The wood splintered.
Claws tore through his fingers, white and gleaming, until he forced them back before the guards who hovered nearby noticed. He roared and felt the sound rip out of his chest.
“Why did you come into my life,” he snarled, “little human…”
He pressed his forehead against the shattered dummy and breathed hard.
She had smiled at him like he was something good. She had trusted him without knowing what he was capable of. Without knowing that loving her meant breaking laws older than stone.
Jakob straightened slowly.
“I will stay away,” he vowed to the cold wind that swirled around him. “Even if it kills me.”
The dragon rumbled, unconvinced.
It didn’t kill him but it came close.
Two hours later, the dragon shattered his resolve with a single, brutal truth:
She is leaving our skies forever.
Jakob didn’t think. He ran.
He tore through the village. His boots pounded the stone as he ignored shouted warnings. He took the steep path and sent rocks skittering into the ravine below. When it was safe, he took to the sky for the short flight. His dragon soared straight and true.
By the time he regained two legs and reached the airport, his heart ached and his hands shook.
He burst through the doors just in time to see it. The plane, her plane, lifting from the runway.
“No,” Jakob breathed.
He skidded to a stop behind the barrier as the aircraft rose and sunlight flashed off its wings. For a heartbeat, he let himself imagine she might feel him watching. That she might touch the ache in her chest and wonder why it hurt.
The dragon surged, screaming to follow, to shift, to chase the metal bird into the clouds.
Jakob locked his knees and watched until the plane became a speck.
Until it vanished.
Only then did he bend forward with his hands braced on his thighs. The sound that tore from him was low and broken.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the mountains, to the guardian that had seen too much,and to the woman already beyond his reach.
The mountains stayed silent.
And somewhere deep beneath his skin, the dragon mourned.