Chapter Seven
The news, when it came, shook Lian to the core. "What do you mean he's disappeared?"
Milot's detective shifted nervously on his feet, his gaze skittering across the room, desperate to look anywhere but into Lian's eyes.
"No one's seen him since he entered the cathedral and the cathedral staff say he never showed up for his sermon," the detective announced.
"Who saw him last?" Lian asked, leaning forward and barely resisting the urge to choke the messenger.
The man took a cautious step back, obviously reading the intent in Lian's eyes. Scanning his compad the detective answered. "Trestair Dragonwing met his holiness at the steps according to eyewitnesses, but no one inside verified seeing him afterwards."
Lian's heart plunged somewhere around his ankles. "Shit."
"Calm down, Lian. What about the water company," Milot asked.
The man's chocolate brown eyes jumped between Lian and Milot. "The company board lists both Dr Bourne and Trestair Dragonwing as primary owners."
"What?" Milot asked.
"Why would they work together?" Lian asked.
On the surface neither man should have a connection. If Tres cared for Nevair why would he want him to be poisoned?
"That I don't know," the detective replied.
"You're dismissed, Barth. Go get some food in the kitchen," Milot ordered.
"Thank you, sir," Barth bowed and quickly left.
Lian leaned back in his seat, trying to figure out the puzzle pieces. "Why would a dragonkin want to poison his own kind?"
"Tres isn't dragonkin," Milot said.
"What do you mean?" Lian had thought Tres must be dragonkin the way he reacted to Lian's lack of a dragon.
"I mean he was adopted. You don't know the story because you're new but his parents adopted him after his mother turned out to be sterile. They gave him a dragonkin last name. It was quite the scandal at the time," Milot remarked.
"The adoption?" Lian tried to figure out how an adoption would be scandalous.
Milot shook his head. "No, the naming. No one has ever given a non-dragonkin a dragon name unless they are direct offspring or bonded. Some people ostracized his parents over it."
"What happened to them?" Lian wondered if Tres had killed his parents too.
Milo got a faraway look in his eyes. "If my memory serves me they died about six years ago in a space ship collision."
It still didn't make sense. "Huh. I can see why Bourne would be in on the act because for some reason he hates dragonkin. But why Tres?"
"I guess they'll have to ask him at the police station," Milot said.
Lian raised a brow. "You think they'll arrest him on such a flimsy case?"
Milot shrugged. "They can at least take him in for questioning."
"True. I think it would be best if you called it in. I'm not a citizen and they might not believe me." Not to mention Lian had enough problems with the number of issues he already caused with Bourne.
"Yeah, the police know me well," Milot said with a wry grin. "They'll get a kick out of me reporting someone for a crime."
Lian didn't comment on Milot's amusement. He didn't want to know Milot's business. The man had been a good friend and Lian had no plans to upset their delicate balance.
"I'm going to go to the cathedral. I need to know what happened to Nevair." He didn't care what it took but he'd find out where his mate went if he had to tear apart the cathedral.
"I'll send a couple of my guys to go with you," Milot offered.
Lian would've objected, but since he didn't know what he might be walking into, he nodded his agreement.
After dinner, Lian headed out with two human bodyguards who towered over Lian like giants. They both had dark hair, dark eyes, and massive shoulders. Lian watched dubiously to see if they could make it through the door.
He accepted Milot's offer of his driver and hovercar and headed to the cathedral.
"Are we expecting trouble?" one of the guards asked.
Lian shrugged. "I don't know."
Inside, he felt like a hollowed out shell. After several hours of not hearing from Nevair, Lian was officially beginning to panic.
He fidgeted nervously as the car raced down the busy streets. Milot's driver must've been a combat star fighter in a previous job from the way he whipped in and out of the smallest amount of space. Lian's nerves trembled at the speed they traveled, but the sooner they reached the cathedral the sooner they could find Nevair.
As soon as the hovercar reached its destination, Lian opened the door and rushed out.
"Sir, wait for us," one of the guards called out.
Lian gave that request the attention it deserved, absolutely none. Fear had him yanking open the door and marching in. At the astonished look of the worshippers praying on their mats, Lian tried to soften his step. Ignoring the man speaking from the pulpit, Lian walked right past and straight to the staircase behind it.
The preacher or priest or whatever his title stumbled across his words as Lian pretended he wasn't there. Following the path he remembered from a few days before, Lian reached Nevair's bedroom and yanked open the door.
A quick search of Nevair's space revealed nothing. With a frustrated growl, Lian spun on his heel, intent on searching every inch of the castle if it would net him his lover.
"Can I help you sir?" A tiny woman in a white service uniform hovered in the hall.
"I'm looking for Nevair, my mate," Lian stated.
"Oh!" The woman's face clouded over. "Mr Dragonwing told me not to let anyone else inside the room."
"What room?" Lian asked.
"I'm not supposed to say," the woman replied.
One of the guards stepped forward. "If you don't say, you'll be arrested for interfering with a mating bond."
The maid gasped, her hand rising to cover her open mouth. "I had no idea. Mr Dragonwing told me it was for his holiness's best interests that we tell no one."
"You could show me instead of tell me," Lian offered.
She thought it over, taking longer than Lian was comfortable with before answering. "Come with me."
Lian followed her as they walked down a flight of steps and a twisty hallway.
She finally stopped at a large wooden door and took out a key. Giving Lian an apologetic look, she unlocked the door. Lian barely resisted the urge to shove her aside. Marching into the room, he came to a screeching halt. It was empty. Nothing. A bed, a small side table and a wardrobe filled the space, all good quality but nothing else.
"Where is he?" Lian shouted.
The maid's mouth dropped open. "I don't know, sir. He was here a few hours ago."
Lian ran his fingers through his hair, yanking at it in frustration.
"Where would he go?" Lian asked.
The maid shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
Lian resisted the urge to throttle the woman. She couldn't give him information she didn't have and he couldn't blame her for that. "Can you think of any place in the building you can hide someone? Some place secret?"
The maid gave Lian and apologetic look. "It's an old building sir, there are tons of places you can hide someone."
Failure tasted bitter in Lian's mouth. His one chance to have the perfect mate and he couldn't even keep track of him. Would Tres kill Nevair? Did Tres even have him? Would he have passed Nevair over to Bourne? Questions and possibilities spun in his head? Tears dripped down Lian's cheeks. He'd not felt this helpless since his parents' deaths.
Lian sat on the bed and put his face in his hands. He couldn't give up but he had no idea what to do now.
"I'd like to report the kidnapping of Pontifex Nevair Dragonfang." Lian heard the guard rambling on but little of it stuck in his head. How could he have lost the man when he'd barely had him?
* * * *
Nevair snapped awake in a single jolt. Blinking, he looked around trying to figure out his location. The smell of sand and oak filled his nose and he struggled to focus his gaze.
The wine cellars.
Built hundreds of years ago, the cathedral had several levels below ground that few people remembered. The first Pontifex had considered himself an expert on wine and had used his position to force his parishioners to work as his personal slaves to create a dessert wine from cacti. It wasn't until after his death that his behavior had been discovered. Behavior the council had worked hard to cover up to protect the religious order.
Still, why was he here? Nevair tried to move his hands. The shock of cold metal wrapped around his wrists and ankles made his stomach sink with dread. Glancing up, a red sheen struck fear into his heart. The shackles were coated with dragon glaze. Originally invented to brush on jewelry for adolescent dragonkin who had difficulty controlling their transforming powers, it had since been outlawed due to illegal use by slavers. Searching his mind, Nevair tried to figure out how he'd come to this point. In his last memory he'd run into Tres outside the cathedral.
Tres!
Why would his best friend kidnap him?
"Goddess help me," he whispered.
"I'm afraid I can't interfere, beloved Nevair," a woman's voice echoed in the cave.
Nevair had only seen the goddess twice in his life. To see her now only increased his fear. The Pontifex generally only saw the goddess three times in their lives: At birth, at their naming as Pontifex, and at their death.
"I can't leave him," Nevair shouted.
He didn't care about being rude. He couldn't abandon Lian not when he finally got the man to agree to be his. It might have only been a few days but damn it had felt like a century.
The female form shimmered before him. "I can't free you. It would be too much interference."
"Then show him where I am. Whisper my location in his ear. Something!" Nevair screamed.
"Your man is different. He has a pure heart," the goddess mused.
"Yes, he does." He didn't know Lian well, but the way he interacted with others, how he healed with no thought of his own recompense, spoke well of the man.
"I know what I'll do." With a gleeful laugh the goddess vanished.
"Crap," Nevair muttered, thunking his head against the cave walls. The sharp pain added to his misery.
Dangling in the manacles time ceased to have any meaning. Nevair fell in and out of consciousness, more out of boredom than anything else. His wrists ached and his spine, twisted in an unnatural angle, would never be the same. To top off his misery, a painful cramp came and went in his left foot. He tried to keep his breaths shallow because the cave smelled of mold and fungus. Enough damp had seeped into the room to keep the floor wet. A few puddles dotted the area. Nevair could almost make them out in the dim light.
"Find me, babe, please," he whispered. Even his whisper sounded loud in the echoing cavern.
The screech of the cave's metal door snapped him out of his semi-sleep. The person who appeared through the opening made joy shoot through Nevair's heart.
"Lian," he choked.
"Nevair!" Lian pushed enough to widen his opening and slipped through. Rushing over, Lian yanked futilely at the cuffs. "I need help!" he shouted.
"I've got a cutter!" One of the people accompanying Lian rushed forward with a key chain.
Nevair watched, bemused, when the man removed a small red laser and quickly severed the cuffs from the wall, then neatly from around Nevair's wrist.
"Thanks," Nevair rubbed the raw marks on his arms.
"Gimme," Lian took Nevair's hands in his own as the guard took care of the leg shackles.
"How did you find me?" Nevair asked.
Lian frowned. "It was really strange. I called the cops and when they were on their way, I suddenly knew where to find you."
Nevair smiled. "The goddess showed you the way."
Lian gave him an odd look. "Um, okay. Sure."
"You don't believe me." He shouldn't be surprised. Lian had told him he wasn't a believer.
Lian shrugged. "I don't have a lot of experience with goddesses. The one time a goddess spoke to me she appeared in person. I don't know about the more subtle influence of a goddess."
His mate's easy disregard of the goddess's intervention unnerved him. "You know I am the speaker for the goddess." It might not be the time or place, but the compulsion to straighten things out between them rode him hard after his imprisonment.
" I know," Lian assured him.
A wave of energy slammed through him, before his eyes his wrists and ankles healed from his mate's magic.
"Thanks," Nevair said.
Lian cupped Nevair's face. "You don't need to thank me, I'm your mate."
Nevair shrugged. "Doesn't mean I can't show my appreciation."
"I can think of a lot of better ways to show appreciation," Lian's wicked smile made Nevair wish they were alone.
A policeman entered the cavern, his face serious. "We captured your assistant. He's insisting to talk to you before they take him in."
"Milot's detective has information that points to Tres being at least partly responsible for poisoning the dragonkin," Lian said.
"Really." Nevair wondered if he'd really known Tres after all. The boy he'd grown up with had turned into a man he couldn't recognize. "Let's see what he has to say."
Acid boiled in Nevair's stomach as his dragon growled. Neither of them appreciated betrayal in any form. The sight of Tres in handcuffs, not that different from Nevair's shackles, made his inner beast give a happy snort.
"You think you're so important, Nevair, but you're not. The goddess doesn't love you above all others. She should've chosen me!"
"What are you talking about?" Nevair asked, truly puzzled.
"All you dragonkin think you're so special, but the goddess doesn't care about you. You only think so. Everyone always thought I had a crush on you but I kept hoping you'd find a mate so I could kill him and destroy you once and for all. All you dragonkin are so smug thinking you're superior because you can turn into a beast. The kids at school used to mock me because I had a dragon name. No more!" Tres turned a venomous glare towards Lian. "I call for the goddess rite!"
Everyone in the room gasped, everyone except for Lian. Nevair knew his mate had no idea how much trouble he was in.
"What's he talking about?" Lian hissed.
Nevair had to swallow back the bile rising in his throat before he answered. "If a person finds the mate of the Pontifex less than ideal, they can call for the goddess rite. It hasn't been used in over six hundred years. It means the goddess has to approve of my mate, personally."
"What does it entail?" Lian asked.
Nevair licked his lips, working hard to push the words out of his chest. "They set you on fire and hope the goddess will save you."
"Forget it!" Lian shouted. The horror on his face twisted the pain in Nevair's chest. Lian grabbed Nevair's shirt. "Nevair, I can't heal myself. I-I can only heal others."
Fear froze Nevair like an icicle.
Tres laughed, a loud maniacal sound. "Once it's called, you can't refuse. You will be tested, heathen!"
The police gave Nevair a pitying look as they hauled Tres away. At least his former best friend wouldn't get to see the horror he had brought upon Nevair's life. Unfortunately, even if accused of a heinous crime, it didn't take away from the fact Tres called for the goddess rite.
Nevair wondered if he could get Lian out of town before anyone thought to grab him.
It'll be fine. A female voice whispered in Nevair's head. He hoped the goddess was speaking to him because otherwise he had finally lost his mind. Considering the past few weeks, anything was possible.
Lian pulled out his communicator and Nevair saw him pulling up flight schedules. He didn't blame him.
"Come with us sir," one of the policemen said in polite tones while wrapping a hand around Lian's upper arm.
"It'll be all right, sweet. The goddess will provide," Nevair promised.
Lian's terrified expression didn't ease. "They're going to set me on fire, Nevair!" he screamed.
The fear in his mate's eyes cut Nevair to the core. "You have to believe." Nevair put his hands on either side of Lian's face. "Trust me."
He could feel Lian's throat move as he swallowed back his words. Closing his eyes as if to block out Nevair's face he pulled out of Nevair's grasp and allowed the police to lead him away.
Nevair dropped to his knees and prayed as he'd never prayed before that he'd made the right decision.