Then again… if that was indeed the case, why stop now?
Chapter 6 - Seth
Seth didnotlike flying.
He quickly lost all feeling in his hands, so tightly was he hanging onto the spines on the neck of the dragon who was carrying him. This all felt like some kind of bizarre dream. He’d spent his whole life so far rarely even glimpsing a dragon from a thousand feet away… and now, in the space of so many minutes, he wasridingone? It was this woman, he thought faintly as the ground dropped away below him, and he did everything in his power not to look as utterly terrified as he felt. From the moment he’d met Lana, it had been nothing but chaos. He could hear his packmates shouting their unease as the dragons winged their way through the thick cloud cover, but there was little he could do to reassure them—not when he had plenty of his own fear to be getting on with. Ahead of him, he could see the Prince, flying with Lana perched astride his neck. The wind was whipping her dark hair behind her and her expression was full of absolute delight… and for a moment, Seth forgot his own fear, entranced by the light shining from her.
At least they weren’t hostages. He could be grateful to Lana for overseeing the upgrade from ‘hostage’ to ‘guest’—though he was a little unclear on what the relationship was between her and the Prince. When Conrad had first set eyes on Lana, Seth had guessed from the look of devotion in his eyes that they were mates. Dragons had soulmates, just like wolves—it was one of the few things they actually had in common. And he’d greeted her as his Queen. But then they’d exchanged names. Yet again, Seth couldn’t get a handle on Lana. How had Conrad known she was royalty without knowing her name? More to the point—how was it possible that there was a dragon in the valley that Conrad hadn’t met? It wasn’t exactly a big place.
The air was getting thin, and Seth worked his jaw as his ears popped, uncomfortable with the altitude. How much farther did they have to go? There—up above them, the peak of the mountain loomed, capped with snow and oddly square at the top. He’d always imagined it narrowing to a point. But where was the palace? If the dragons lived up here, where were their homes?
Beneath him, the dragon kept up a steady rhythm with her wingbeats, powering up and up, beyond the mountain’s peak. And then, before he could so much as open his mouth to query what was going on, she tucked her wings against her side and dove. A yelp of fear ripped itself out of him as he imagined them crashing headlong into the rocks—but there was no impact. Only darkness, just briefly, before light surrounded him again… and then Seth’s breath froze in his chest as he realized what he was looking at.
The dragons didn’t live on the mountain. They livedinit.
A weak beam of sunlight filtered through from above, through the fairly narrow passageway that had been hollowed out at the mountain’s precipice. And here, illuminated by some glow that was somehow as bright as sunlight, lay the secret home of the dragons. The mountain itself had somehow been hollowed out, an enormous cavern excavated—it must have gone all the way down to ground level, if not deeper. Seth stared wildly around the cavern, struggling to get a sense of the size of it. The whole mountain must be hollow—there was enough room for dozens if not hundreds of dragons to fly back and forth here without the risk of collision. He could see smaller caves carved out of the distant walls, many with open ledges in front of them where the flash of scales showed countless dragons lounging.
Reminding himself to breathe, he hung on tightly to the neck of the dragon he was riding as she circled her way down, down past countless levels of caves and caverns, hollowed out of the rock. Losing track of all the questions he wanted to ask about this place, Seth simply took in as much as he could. The floor of the cavern was obscured by darkness—the dragon landed instead on a ledge, flaring her wings as she brought them to a neat landing before lowering herself to the rock, an unspoken instruction to dismount. Hoping his legs would still support him, Seth slid down from her side and regained his balance. But before he could so much as thank her, the dragon was gone, winging her way up into the enormous cavern and quickly disappearing among the dozens of shimmering, opalescent dragons who were flying back and forth across its vast expanse.
Shaking like a leaf, Seth took a few deep, steadying breaths, trying to catch up with what had just happened. His pack. He needed his pack at his side. A wolf alone was a wolf in trouble, that was the old saying… and he felt acute relief wash through him as a familiar voice called his name from behind him. His pack had beaten him here, it seemed. He was intensely relieved that they’d all been brought to the same place.
The ledge the dragon had landed him on, torn and lacerated by talons just like the plateau, was fairly narrow—and beyond it was a stone door, set in the rock face. The wall of the mountain, he thought faintly. How many times had he walked over the soil above this cavern, with no idea of the world that lay beneath his paws? There were even stone windows carved in the wall, letting the light in … though he still couldn’t figure out where that light was coming from. A mystery for another time. Right now, what he cared about were the faces in that window. Victor, Josef, Elza.—and Xanthe. There was a rueful grin on her face as he half-shouted her name, barreling through the stone door and into their midst.
“Gave you a fright there, didn’t I?” Xanthe shook her head once he’d released her from a tight embrace. “I was pretty worried myself. They had me captive in the trees,” she explained. “I saw the whole fight out there, but I couldn’t come to help, not with a talon at my throat. Who the hellisthis woman, Seth?”
“I have no idea,” he said honestly, shaking his head. “Everything I learn about her just confuses me more.”
“She’s royalty, right?” That was Victor, who looked deeply unnerved by the whole situation. “The way she was bossing the Prince around, and he called her Queen… why didn’t she tell us?”
“Worried we’d hold her hostage if we knew she was important, probably,” Elza grumbled.
“There’s food and water if you want it,” Josef put in, gesturing behind them. Ever the pragmatist, Seth thought with a warm rush of affection for the young man. Sure enough, there was a platter of food on the rough stone table that stood in the middle of the room—bread and cheese, and an assortment of cured meats.
“If you trust it,” Elza said darkly.
“If they wanted us dead, they’ve had ample opportunity,” Seth pointed out drily. It had been a long day of traveling, and he wasn’t in the habit of turning down food when it was available. Still, she wasn’t alone in her uneasiness, and though the squad gathered around to eat hungrily, he could sense their worry.
After a long silence, it was Victor who spoke first. “At least Danya’s not stuck here with us,” he said softly. “She’ll have reached home by now. The pack will know what happened to us.”
“You make it sound like we’re dead wolves walking,” Josef objected. “We’re alive, we’re fed, we’re fine.”
“For now,” Elza said darkly. She hadn’t touched the food, Seth had noticed, and now she was pacing back and forth by the table, clearly restless. “I don’t trust them. I don’t trust any of this. And I definitely don’t trust Queen Lana.”
“Queen in absentia,” Seth said, frowning a little. “That’s the phrase the Prince used. How long had she been absent?”
“Does it matter? She lied to us. She didn’t tell us who she was, she let us walk into an ambush, and instead of making her subjects set us free, she had us dragged in here as hostages.”
“Guests,” Josef corrected her, but she shook her head.
“If we can’t leave, we’re hostages, I don’t care how nice our rooms are. We have to get out of here.” Elza looked up at Seth, and he could sense that she was worried she’d overstepped. Maybe she had… but right now, he couldn’t bring himself to lay down the law. Alpha or not, he was as worried as they were, as uncomfortable in this bizarre new environment as his packmates. So he nodded.
“Elza’s right. Our first priority is getting out of here. But the easiest road there might be diplomacy… unless any of you have learned how to sprout wings recently.” That won a soft chuckle from a couple of wolves. That was reassuring. As long as they could still joke around, they were okay. “I think we play along, for now. Eat our fill, get some rest, see what they want to talk with us about. We let them know that the pack knows where we are, we make it clear we want to get this sorted out quickly then get home.”
“And if they don’t let us?” Elza’s eyes were dark with foreboding, and Seth sighed.
“We’ll deal with that when we get there.Ifwe get there,” he added pointedly. She nodded in agreement, but he could tell from her expression that she wasn’t going to hold her breath for a diplomatic solution.
And if he was honest, neither was he. It felt wrong, being underground like this, so far from the rest of their pack. And Elza had been right… as pleasant as their quarters were, it was hard not to think of themselves as hostages. They explored the rooms they’d been allocated, finding five individual bedrooms, clearly designed for single occupancy. Seth left the pack to squabble over who was taking which room and clicked his door shut behind him, trying to lead by example in getting some rest while the opportunity presented itself.