Eternal (Dragon Wars, #2) (13 page)

“Let’s see how much you two make my head hurt, shall we?”

D
ougal’s chance had finally come. The dragons woke him with blows, then dragged him from his cell. He was hungry, thirsty, so dirty he could barely stand the stench of himself, and more done with any situation than he’d ever been before in his life. How had Devon lived five years in a dragon prison? His brother’s fortitude never ceased to amaze him.

Of course his brother had never had his hand chopped off. So maybe they were even. Robbie and Auggie had been killed in an explosion. Hard, fast, and then over. Lucky bastards.

He was a three-legged Wolf. Who knew if he could actually take a dragon? Gods, he’d die trying.

For Caitlyn. They’d presumably not found her yet or he’d have heard about it. The Queen paced back and forth in her room. Dougal watched her from the doorway. She was agitated, screaming in her language. He couldn’t understand her. He knew panic, however, when he saw it.

The woman didn’t like something that was happening.

“You.” She rounded on him like he’d had something to do with her angst. “How did this happen?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea to what you refer.”

“My eggs are on fire.”

For the first time in months he could feel it. Such a strange emotion to come over him in these circumstances. Pure, unadulterated, joy.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He grinned from ear-to-ear. “She did it. She figured out how to burn your fucking supply of endless soldiers. Ha. That’s the best news ever. I guess you don’t have her, do you? Still haven’t found my brilliant mate.”

The Queen dragon roared rushing at him. “Those are my babies.”

His body itched to shift. Almost. The time had come. “Yes. You seem really maternal about them too. Slaughtering the one who liked Caitlyn. I’m truly sorry for your losses.”

She roared and he called his shift onto himself. In a room filled with dragons, it was insanity to shift. He’d never make it out alive. But neither would the Queen.

He’d no sooner gotten into his hobbled form when the room went black. It took him a moment to acknowledge he hadn’t passed out. He was awake. Sounds filled the room. Flapping wings, roars. Then nothing.

Dougal limped forward. Unless his nose had seriously failed him, the dragons, including the Queen, had fled the room.

Well. He knew it wasn’t because he was so terrifying they had to run. What had happened?

He limped his way out of the room, sniffing the air as he entered the hall. Not one live scent greeted his nose. He called his shift back to return to his human form. The dragons had left? This had to be some kind of trick.

He supposed it didn’t matter. Whatever their reasons, this was an ample opportunity to get out of there before they came back. Only he couldn’t leave. Not yet. There were other Werewolves in the building. He could smell the acrid, almost paint-like, scent of their pain and terror. He’d get them out before he made his way from wherever this turned out to be.

Why had the Queen turned and ran? Where had she gone?

****

“D
o you know where we are, commander?” Dougal eyed the youngest survivor of their prison camp. They stood together on a hill overlooking a countryside he’d never seen before.

Dougal looked at the sky. Homer had asked a question, he deserved an answer. “No. When the sun sets, I’ll be able to navigate us a bit by the stars.”

He hoped. It had been a very long time since he’d been asked to do so. If it turned out star navigation was one of those use it or lose it skills, he’d be seriously screwed.

A thought dawned on him. “Unless any of you know where we are?”

Not one of the six Werewolves he rescued answered in the affirmative. At least he wasn’t alone in his being completely lost.

The six Males shared nothing in common as far as he could tell. They’d all come from different packs initially, different units in the military after things fell apart. Yet, somehow they’d all come to be captive by the dragons.

“Gentlemen.” They’d all differed to him since he’d freed them and since he was used to leading at this point he might as well continue to so. “I think we’re going to have lots of time to get to know one another while we figure out how to get home. I personally would like to know why each of you were stuck in there.”

“Sir.” Chevy spoke. “Can you see them all?”

Dougal turned in the direction Chevy spoke and it took him a minute to realize what he saw. There were hundreds of Werewolves. Some of them in groups, some of them alone. All of them standing still and waiting.

“I see.” Dougal took a steadying breath. “I think we’d better make sure the dragons aren’t actually here. With so many of us out here, it’s not likely we can sneak away, is it? I’d personally rather not be ambushed out here. Wherever here turns out to be.”

“Good call.’ Chevy nodded. “Why don’t we spread out?”

As the minutes passed, plans were made and he thought he’d given pretty good directions. Only he wasn’t sure. His arm ached, throbbed really, and he knew it couldn’t be a good sign. It really would be something to make it all this way and die from infection. What would Caitlyn say if she knew? He’d shifted and his body hadn’t cleaned the wounds?

His heart panged. One way or another he would see her again before he died. He just had to see her once more.

****

S
even months. It had been so long since the dragons Caitlyn had been managing had gone poof. One second they’d been there, the next gone. What did it mean? She stared at her sleeping son and tried to consider things.

Every Werewolf she’d encountered lived in an extended period of shock. Devon had burned one set of eggs and every monster on the planet had disappeared.

“What do you think, Rick?” She kissed the top of his nose and he squirmed in his sleep. “Are they gone?”

Lena poked her head in the room. “All well?”

For the last month, since she’d awoken in the middle of the night to find her son was coming fast into the world, her baby sister had asked her the same question. Lena was a caregiver. She wanted everyone around her well and happy.

“Sure.” She tried to smile and pushed away the sadness always threatening to push through around her happiness. Rick looked exactly like Dougal. She’d named him after Dougal’s father’s father. He’d apparently been a great inventor and helped protect the pack from invaders. It seemed like a good name to choose. In her pack, they never named after the living. To call him Dougal would have been to acknowledge something she couldn’t bring her heart to do.

“Hungry?” Lena raised her eyebrows.

“If I don’t let you feed me, you’re going to fuss, is am I right?”

Her sister stepped quietly into the room. She stared at the baby for a moment. “He needs his mama to eat.”

“Then please by all means, feed me.” When Lena moved to leave, Caitlyn grabbed her arm. “It’s too long, isn’t it?”

Her sister did her the courtesy of not pretending to not understand. “I guess there are two ways to look at it.”

“Tell me.” Caitlyn would hear anything to finally be able to express the pain radiating from her heart. If she could earn currency based on the things she stopped herself from saying aloud, she’d feed the whole town for a year.

“It’s been a long time. Seven months since the Dragons vanished. We still don’t know what his absence means or why it happened. Hell, sis, we don’t understand why you could make them do what you did. Sometimes I don’t believe I saw you do it.” Lena shook her head. “Most of the men who were caught on the coast, in the prison there, they’ve come home.”

And Dougal hadn’t, which meant he wouldn’t be. Caitlyn could feel the tears starting in her eyes. Rick needed her to be strong. Still, she wanted to scream and cry from the unfairness of it all. Although why she would have ever expected any differently was beyond her.

“Hold on.” Lena kissed the top of her head. “Dragons fly.”

“Yes.” She sniffed. “Do you have a point?”

“They could have taken him anywhere in the world. So I guess it comes to this. How much do you want to hold on to believing? For sixteen years you let yourself imagine he was your mate, I know what holding on feels like, I did the same thing. Is it too much to continue for a little while longer? I can’t help thinking, if dragons can vanish, maybe Dougal can still come home.”

Caitlyn stared at her beautiful baby sister. “When did you get some smart?”

“Oh come on.” She shrugged. “I’ve always been the brains of the family.”

****

D
ougal examined his reflection in the lake. He hardly recognized himself. Skinner than he’d ever been and with a dark beard which made him look frightening especially to himself.

“A razor.” Homer laughed. “I’d kill for a razor.”

“Don’t even joke.” Dougal coughed. The fevers were coming more readily and he didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to keep the others from knowing. Soon, they would start to smell the death on him.

“I know. Chevy had to take out the lunatic who tried to take his shoes.”

Dougal looked at his own warn pair of boots. He’d taken them off a dead Male and if he didn’t make it home, someone would remove them from him. The travelling shoes...

They weren’t far from home. Soon, the three left of their original group, would have to part ways. Chevy to travel east, Homer west and Dougal onwards south.

Homer nudged him forward. Sometimes, it seemed, his feet didn’t want to work anymore. “So what will you do when you get to the cabin where Caitlyn hid? What will you do after you find her hint?”

They’d had this conversation a million times. It was their ongoing discourse, something to keep the hope alive. What else were they supposed to talk about after tall this time? Homer must have cued in to how dire things had gotten for him.

At this point, he’d go on to talk about rushing to her side. Only maybe it had gotten to the point where he needed to tell the truth.

“Realistically, I’m not getting farther than my parents. If she had the baby the dragons claimed she was having, hopefully she’s been back in touch. Maybe my folks can get her a message.”

Chevy stared at him. “Getting bad?”

“I can’t feel my arm anymore”

“I’m going south with you.” Homer stated. “I’ll head home after.”

“No, you aren’t.” He patted Homer on the back. “Your mate waits for you and before you start, Chevy, I won’t be responsible for keeping you from your parents even for a day. I’m getting where I’m going. I can promise you I will.”

Homer swatted him on his good arm. “You’re so hard headed.”

The days of rank and propriety had long left them. “It’s one of my best qualities.”

****

C
aitlyn left Rick in his crib. He slept soundly and, if Dougal’s mother was to believed, it was possible to hold a pup too long. Rick would get dependent on needing to be held and would refuse to sleep separately if he wasn’t forced to sleep in his crib from an early age. Not that she had anything she should be doing except holding him. Devon wouldn’t hear of her moving out, which she supposed she could understand. If their situations were reversed, she couldn’t imagine Dougal letting Lena leave.

Her mate’s parents were too old to take her in and her own parents were gone, living in their decline somewhere in the woods, if they still lived at all. Life as a Wolf until death. She had no means to support herself anymore. Things had become simple. Farm, hunt, clean, survive. Do the same the next day. In the larger towns crime waves had spread like infestations. The dragon drugs were scarce. They cost a fortune and the addicts were withdrawing, dying, or doing unspeakable things to try to get more.

Yet, things remained pretty calm in her small hometown. Thanks mostly to Devon. He and the other Males, but mostly he, had taken on the role of protectors. Unwanted elements didn’t get past their boundaries.

She supposed that made Devon their Alpha. The days of pack were bound to return and she’d noticed some neighbors dropping their eyes when they spoke to him. She supposed she soon would too.

A scent caught her nose. It was all male. Woodsy. Fierce. She stood, still not knowing exactly what aroma she’d caught. Her nose had her running before her brain caught up. Dougal. She smelled him. So either she had lost her mind or he was somewhere nearby.

The smell of infection wafted towards her next. She didn’t care. Whatever was wrong, they’d deal with it.

She could see him finally. Dougal, a dark figure on the horizon, slightly hunched over, standing still. And yet there. Alive.

Tears spilled down her face as she cried out his name. His head shot up and she saw the second he spotted her. Seconds later she was in his arms.

“Caitlyn.” He whispered against her. “Are you here? Are you real?”

“Are you?” She held him and, she realized, propped him from falling too.

“Such that I am.” He laughed, a rough sound. “You came home. I hoped you would after the dragons disappeared.”

“I was here before then.” She kissed his bearded face, his shoulder, any part of his skin she could see, not caring how she wept like a lunatic.

“You’re so beautiful.” With those words spoken, her strong, somehow alive mate, collapsed in her arms.

She caught her breath. He couldn’t be dead. Quickly, she felt for a pulse and found one. When she saw he lived, her heart beat again having stopped for a moment. Her hands shook and a million thoughts travelled through her mind at the same time.

That’s when she saw it. How had she not noticed when he held her? What did it matter? Her mate had only one hand left. She shuddered, not from revolution but from utter horror of what he must have endured. He needed help and he required it fast.

“Devon.” She shouted as loud as she could. Dougal was home. They had to save him.

****

D
ougal drifted in a haze. He’d come home, that much he knew. Caitlyn was there. Periodically, in his haze, he could smell her. He wanted to reach out but since he only had one hand it didn’t seem like a good idea. What if he lifted the wrong one?

“Dougal, can you hear me?” His mate spoke in his ear and somewhere in the distance a baby cried. Baby! Yes, she’d been pregnant. Was his child he heard crying out? Why wouldn’t his eyes open or his mouth work?