“And go where?”
“Anywhere. I’ve got wings, remember?” He gave her a faint smile, clearly trying to cheer her up… but it didn’t do much to soothe the panic bubbling in her stomach.
“You can’t fly in broad daylight. You’ll be shot down by a fighter jet in ten seconds flat,” she muttered, using the English words for the plane—something told her that dragons hadn’t gotten around to coming up with vocabulary for airplanes. He nodded, the expression on his face making it clear that he had no idea what she was talking about but had decided to trust her regardless. Somehow, that made her feel even worse. He trusted her to get them away from those men, those men who seemed just as set on hurting him as they did on hurting her, and she was going to let him down…
But before the panic could really take hold of her, she felt a buzzing in her pocket. Frowning, she pulled her phone out. She had it set to ‘do not disturb’ for all but close family, and the only people on that list only ever called in dire emergencies… which sent a chill running down her spine when she saw it was her aunt calling. “Sorry, I have to answer this,” she said to Conrad, gesturing to the phone. Part of their long conversation last night had involved a quick crash course on the mechanics of mobile phones—he’d been utterly mystified by the device, but thoroughly impressed. He nodded, stepping away to give her privacy.
“Hey, Heather. Everything okay?”
“No, it isn’t.” Her aunt’s voice was always calm and steady, no matter the situation… but she certainly didn’t mince words. “I’m afraid something’s happened. How quickly can you get here?”
Mira felt her heart sink into her toes. She was standing in a gas station, miles from a home that wasn’t safe to return to even if she’d had the means, with a gang of armed men in hot pursuit and a shapeshifting traveler from another world in tow. How quickly could she get to her aunt’s place in the hills, a three-hour drive away?
“I have no idea,” she said, fighting the urge to cry. “But I’ll figure it out. I promise.”
Chapter 16 - Conrad
Conrad kept his gaze fixed on the strange display of mugs he was studying, half-listening to Mira speaking on the phone. She sounded upset, though he couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying. He’d have to trust that she’d tell him what was wrong once she’d finished her conversation. Right now, he found his attention being drawn elsewhere. Over by the window of what Mira had called a gas station, two hunched figures were wolfing down two enormous plates of unidentifiable food they’d seemingly ordered from the kitchen here. But it wasn’t the food that was holding Conrad’s attention. It was the bright silver eyes that kept darting his way whenever the two thought he wasn’t looking at them.
He’d been shocked to recognize them as wolves, truth be told. They were wearing such strange clothing compared to the wolves he was used to … not that he was especially used to wolves, of course. The relationship between the dragons and wolves back home was only new one of cooperation and community, and though relations were warming, it was slow going. But these wolves, he reminded himself, knew nothing of that place. What they knew, based on the looks they were shooting him, was that he was a dragon… and that he was a stranger. Was he on their territory, perhaps? Was that why they kept looking at him like that? Or had the stress of the last few days just taken such a toll on him that he was jumping at shadows? Hard to say.
Mira rejoined him, her face pale and her hands trembling a little as she put her phone back into her pocket. With one last look at the wolves, who were both studiously pretending not to know that he was there, he drew her to a table on the far side of the gas station’s dining area, well out of earshot.
“It’s my aunt,” she explained once they were seated, her eyes full of worry. “She said something’s happened, something bad—she didn’t want to talk about it on the phone, but she’d never call me out of the blue like that unless it was something serious. It’s the men. It has to be, right?” She took a shuddering breath, and Conrad reached out to take her hand in his, wishing he could do more to comfort her. “It has to be them, there’s no way it’s a coincidence that she calls up like that the same day as—”
“Easy,” Conrad said softly, squeezing her hands. “We’ll go to her. Make sure she’s okay.”
Mira looked up at him. “How? She lives hours away, and it’s not like we can just run back home and grab my car.”
“We could wait until nightfall and fly,” he suggested. “I understand the ride will be a lot more comfortable if you sit on my back. And if I stay above the clouds, nobody on the ground will be able to see me.”
A faint smile on that lovely face… but her eyes were still worried. “It’s not that simple these days,” she said softly. “There’s all kinds of scanners and radar and… I don’t even know what.” She rubbed her head tiredly. “At least, I think there are. I don’t know. I don’t know the first blasted thing about technology. I barely even know how this works, and I own the blasted thing. Also, you need to teach me a stronger swearword than ‘blasted.’”
He smiled a little at that. “That was one of Lana’s early requests, too.”
“The dragon from this world, huh?” The Queen had come up in their conversation last night. Mira smiled faintly. “She sounds like someone I’d get along with.” Conrad nodded in agreement… but Mira’s smile didn’t last long. “I don’t know how to get there,” she said dully. “My aunt told me to turn off my phone and take out the battery. She said that was probably how the guys were tracking us. Which reminds me—we need to get out of here.”
He wasn’t going to pretend to understand what any of that meant, but he knew a suggestion when he heard one. He offered her his hand as he rose to his feet, and she took it with a tired smile that still lit up his heart.
“Thanks, Conrad. Having you here is… I mean, I’ve been through some next-level disasters on my own, but I have to say it’s a lot better having someone by my side.”
They set off walking, and despite the lump of worry in his throat, the feeling of Mira’s hand in his was enough to keep his spirits surprisingly high. The sunshine helped, too, as did the feeling of being in motion. Every step took them farther and farther away from the men who’d wanted to hurt Mira.
And then there was a shout from behind them. Conrad couldn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear—stop. He felt adrenaline surge through him as Mira’s hand tightened around his, and he was already scanning the area as he turned to meet their attacker. Broad daylight, dozens of cars driving by—he couldn’t shift here if he didn’t want to make a huge scene.
But to his surprise, there were no men in dark clothing behind them. Instead, there were two scrappy young people, barely out of adolescence, with matching bright silver eyes—the wolves from the diner. He felt his battle-readiness drop a few notches, but he didn’t lower his guard much. Mira was looking at the wolves, and the expression on her face told him she had no idea who they were. But their body language was apologetic as they moved forwards, their hands raised to demonstrate their lack of weapons.
Conrad stood by, bristling and feeling a little superfluous as Mira began to speak with the wolves. He studied what he could of the conversation—the body language, the tone of voice, the way these young wolves held themselves. They weren’t in good shape, that much was clear. Their baggy clothing did little to hide how gaunt they were, and at one point the young woman of the pair pulled back the sleeve of her jumper to reveal a badly injured wrist, covered in barely-healed burn marks. Both wolves kept glancing up at Conrad, and finally Mira looked at him too, her eyes full of shock.
“So,” she said hesitantly. “This is Vee, and her brother Ren.” She nodded to each of the wolves in turn—Vee was the young woman, whose white-blonde hair barely peeked out from beneath the woolen hat she wore pulled down over her ears. Ren was a little taller, a serious-looking boy barely out of adolescence with an unruly mop of black hair that fell unevenly, given that much of his head was shaved right to the skin. “They say that they arewolves, Conrad.”
He nodded, giving the wolves his own name, which they repeated with brief smiles that did little to ease his worry. “They don’t understand us?” All the wolves he knew spoke the same language he did… though he assumed they didn’t refer to it as Draconic. There hadn’t been a need to name the language at all until very recently. Mira shook her head. “What do they want?”
“They overheard me on the phone to my aunt,” she explained. He hid a grimace, annoyed with himself for not realizing what had been going on. The wolves hadn’t been looking at him—they’d been looking past him, to where Mira had been on the phone with her aunt. Wolves were known for their sharp hearing. “When I was telling her about the men who came to my house. They say they know them.”
That caught his attention. Conrad’s eyes shot to the wolves. Vee returned his gaze firmly, though Ren had folded his arms across his chest and turned his gaze to the highway. He was clearly worried about being out in the open like this, and Conrad didn’t blame him. “How do they know them?”
“Vee says their whole pack was attacked by the same kinds of guys,” Mira explained quickly, stumbling a little over the words in her haste to explain. “That they jumped on them, overpowered them all, and took them prisoner. She says the men used silver,” she added, gesturing to Vee’s arm. The young woman pulled back her sleeve again as she sensed which part of the story Mira was up to, lifting the injured arm up for Conrad’s inspection. “Stopped most of them from shifting.”