Chapter 11
Lisa crept down one of the narrow tunnels hewn out of the rock, wishing she had Verrian here to muffle any sound she made. Where were all the dragons? There had to be at least fifty of them in here, and yet she’d seen none of them since she left her room.
Not that it mattered. The tunnels were a maze, and she wasn’t sure she was going to find anything. Even if Verrian could tell her exactly where the entrance was, she despaired of finding it from her end.
It was hard not to just sit down and give up. They’d been through so much in the last few days that she was exhausted. She hadn’t even slept since she and Verrian had run from her apartment. The idea of giving up, even if just for a little while, was tempting.
But Verrian was out there somewhere, waiting for her, and that gave her the energy to pick one of the paths running off the main one she was on, and peer down it. It appeared empty, so she slipped into it, just as she heard footsteps up ahead.
Two sets of footsteps, coming in her direction. Lisa pressed herself against the wall.
Latrima had said she wasn’t a prisoner, but she wasn’t convinced that the Trima dragons wouldn’t have issues with her wandering around their base. Better if she wasn’t seen.
“Obviously, given the current situation, we will have to postpone your visit to Sarian’s Mesmer chamber.”
Lisa’s heart skipped a beat.
Sarian, wasn’t that Verrian’s sister? His eldest sister.
The one Ultrima was obsessed with.
If it was, and she was pretty sure it was, what were they talking about?
Wasn’t there some sort of magic that prevented the Trima dragons from entering the Mesmer chambers? If there wasn’t, wouldn’t Ultrima have already woken the princess, like he seemed to want to do?
Had they found some way around the magic? If so, the Rian clan needed to know.
She froze, straining her ears to hear what was said next.
“Of course, Latrima. I’m ready whenever I can serve Ultrima,” a man’s voice replied. “I am honoured to be chosen to wake the princess. I never dreamed I would have a chance like this in my life, and I’m grateful for Ultrima for taking me in when I had nowhere else to go. I’d do anything for him. Waiting is not a problem.”
“Good,” Latrima said approvingly.
Lisa’s head was spinning. What was going on? Who was this, and why was he saying Ultrima had taken him in? Was he a dragon from the Rian clan who had left for some reason?
Somehow, Lisa didn’t think so. And the other possibility made her blood run cold, but made a lot more sense.
Ultrima was recruiting a human to wake the princess.
In reality, it was a wonder he hadn’t done it earlier. Probably it hadn’t occurred to him until the Rian clan had sent Karla to wake Taurian. They’d literally shown him how to do it.
Lisa felt sick.
If she hadn’t ended up here, they never would have known, and Ultrima would have woken the princess and stolen her away. It sounded like he’d been about to, but the police had arrived first and interrupted his plans.
But who knew how long that would keep him. As Latrima had pointed out, he would only stay as long as he wanted to. When he decided to leave, no one was going to stop him.
She needed to get out of here and tell Taurian and Karla. They needed to do something to stop him, to wake the princess as quickly as possible so that she wasn’t there for Ultrima to find.
They needed to wake all of them. Because if Ultrima found the princess missing, she suspected there would be no limit to what he’d be prepared to do in revenge.
The trouble was, they couldn’t do it fast enough.
Ultrima could be back tonight. He could be back in an hour.
He could be back any moment.
That thought made her stomach clench.
“Verrian?”
“Yes?”
Lisa hesitated, but there was no hiding it. “I think Ultrima is planning on using a human to wake your sister.”
“What?” Verrian demanded. “What makes you think that?”
Lisa explained the conversation she’d just heard. Verrian didn’t say a word until she was finished.
“We need to get you out of there so we can get back and tell Taurian. We need to wake Sarian immediately,” he said, as soon as she was finished.
That was exactly what Lisa had been thinking. Except for one thing. “We don’t have time for you to hang around here and get me out,” she told him. “You need to go now.”
Verrian was silent for a long moment. “I won’t leave you,” he said eventually.
Lisa’s heart swelled with love. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said stoutly. “I’ll keep searching for the secret entrance you talked about, and keep my ears open in case I hear something else…”
“There’s someone here,” Latrima said sharply.
How had the life dragon known she was there? She hadn’t spoken a word out loud, or even so much as moved.
Lisa pressed back against the wall, but even as she did so, she knew it was hopeless. Life dragons had powers far beyond any other dragons. It probably sensed her presence magically.
“You need to go,” she told Verrian urgently. “Now, before it’s too late. Warn Taurian. Save your sister before Ultrima gets to her.”
“Is something wrong?” Verrian asked, his dragon speech sounding concerned.
Lisa hesitated. If Verrian knew she’d been discovered, he'd probably rush in here to save her. There wasn’t time for that. “Everything’s fine,” she lied. “But Latrima is back, and I can’t talk now. Go,” she urged.
Verrian hesitated, then said, “I’ll be back for you.”
Then his dragon voice disappeared.
Lisa tried not to feel like she was suddenly alone. She forced herself not to call out and tell Verrian to come back. She could do this.
Latrima came around the corner, her mouth a thin line and her forehead furrowed. “Lisa. Why am I not surprised to find you poking around? I’m sorry that you had to hear all that.”
Lisa couldn’t help frowning. Anger, she’d expected. But sorry?
“What do you mean?” she blurted out.
“Ultrima’s plan had been to release you as soon as he returned, but now that you are aware of our plans, I’m afraid that will not be possible. You’ll have to remain a little longer.” Then she suddenly smiled. “Actually, that’s perfect. You’ll be able to go back to Rian clan and tell everyone there how happy Princess Sarian is to be with Ultrima, and then we can stop this stupid feud.”
Lisa stared at her.
Princess Sarian happy? Just what had Ultrima told his clan? Obviously they all believed the princess was as obsessed with Ultrima as he was with her.
Lisa wondered what they were going to think when they found out she wasn’t? Would they keep hiding the truth? Would they keep denying it?
“And if she’s not happy?” Lisa challenged. “What then?”
Latrima looked at her for a few moments in stunned silence, then she laughed. “Not happy? Of course she’s going to be happy.”
The man, who rounded the corner behind her, laughed just as readily. “You don’t get it, do you? All of the Rian dragons want you to believe that Princess Sarian wants nothing to do with Ultrima, but it’s not true. She loves him just as he loves her.”
Despite not wavering in her own belief, Lisa was starting to feel rather stupid. Why had she thought she could convince the Trima dragons their leader wasn’t the lovelorn dragon they seemed to think him?
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” she said stubbornly.
“Of course they’re not going to tell you the truth,” Latrima said gently. “Rian clan are not big believers in mating for love. They’re too busy trying to engineer a life dragon.” She gave a tinkling laugh. “Which is going sooo well for them.”
The man smiled at her, a little too fondly. Lisa noted the expression. She was pretty sure, by now, that he was a human. His hair was dark, like Taurian, but his skin was too pale, and his face too rounded. The glasses he wore were a dead giveaway. She was pretty sure a dragon was never going to need glasses.
The story Latrima was telling had a concerning ring of truth to it. Ostrian had been so set on Wayrian mating Taurian because he was sure that would get them a life dragon.
Was there any truth to what Latrima was saying?
Could there be?
But Wayrian hadn’t married Taurian. Taurian had married the woman he loved.
Because Ultrima had made a deal with him.
This was crazy. She knew the Rian clan dragons. She’d lived with them. She was mated to one of them. She knew neither Taurian nor Verrian would choose a life dragon over love.
Unless it would save their clan.
That was the rub, wasn’t it? There were two kinds of love—romantic love, and love of their clan. And she’d seen them war in the dragon prince’s hearts.
None of that made them bad dragons. It was a logical thing to struggle with.
The question was, was it enough to indicate that Latrima’s story might be true?
Was it possible that Princess Sarian was in love with Ultrima, and had rejected him in favour of supporting her clan?
No matter how she looked at it, Lisa couldn’t be sure.
The truth was, there was only one way to find out—ask Princess Sarian.
“Not so sure you’re in the right clan, are you now?” Latrima taunted.
“I’m in the same clan as my mate,” Lisa said firmly. “That will always be right to me. And it’s also clear that this issue could be on either side. The only way to know for sure is to ask the princess.”
“Which is what we plan to do, isn’t it, Altrima,” Latrima said firmly, smiling at the man beside her.
He inclined his head.
“No it isn’t,” Lisa argued. “What you plan to do is wake her and bring her to Ultrima. Are you really sure he’s going to ask her what she wants first?”
“Of course he is,” the man said. “Don’t you get it? Ultrima helps people. Everything I’ve seen him do is to help others.”
“Sure, that’s why he’s constantly attacked Rian clan, and prevented them waking the princes and princesses all these years,” Lisa challenged. “And why he… he… made Verrian promise not to see me again.” Her voice broke, and no matter how hard she tried to stop it, her eyes filled with tears.
She was exhausted, alone, and confused. Why did this all have to be so hard?
She’d finally realised she was in love, and that Verrian loved her too, and they couldn’t be together.
It was all too unfair.
“Don’t you get it,” Latrima said softly. “Ultrima did that on purpose. He wasn’t trying to pull the two of you apart, he wanted to make you both realise you love each other, and that you’d do anything, even break a deal, to be together.”
She was the one who didn’t get it. And Ultrima never could. “Verrian honouring Ultrima’s ‘deal’ isn’t an indication that he doesn’t love me,” she said flatly. “It’s an indication of who he is as a person, and how much he cares for his clan. Both of those things are important to him, and they define him. Him breaking them damages who he is, and I won’t let him do that.”
Her heart sank as she heard the words coming out of her mouth, but they were true.
She couldn’t ask Verrian to break his deal with Ultrima.
Suddenly, none of the rest of it mattered.
She was tired of caring about clans and what was right, she wanted something to work out right for her for a change.