Chapter 27
Two hours later, Flynn was with Kira and Sloan, concealed in a belt of trees at the edge of a valley like a large bowl. The moon was out, giving enough light for their shifter vision.
To their left the ground sloped gently up to the castle. It was built directly up against a soaring cliff, the dark stone building looking like it had been carved out of the cliff face itself. It was big enough to house hundreds of people, but there was no one to be seen.
The cliff extended past the castle, curving around to cup the valley in which they stood.
To the right, the land sloped down into the valley, which was covered in lush green grass dotted with little flowers. Here and there groups of sheep huddled together drowsily. It reminded Flynn of Montana.
Flynn fucking hated Montana.
The valley flattened out at the bottom for maybe half a mile, then sloped steeply up to a high, rocky ridge. And beyond that, according to Caitlyn’s flyover reconnaissance, was nothing but wilderness.
Kira’s internal interdimensional GPS had confirmed that this paradise of sheep shit was in some weird bubble between the Dragonlands, the spirit world, and Earth. Which made it hard to stumble on randomly.
Thus the apparent lack of guards. Either that, or it was a trap.
That possibility didn’t change anything; Flynn treated everything like a trap. What he hated was that they didn’t have a lot of time for recon or planning.
Right now, Caitlyn was flying recon around the castle. It was making Sloan antsy, having her out on her own with no backup. Hell, it was making Flynn antsy—if this place didn’t have any owls in it, she’d stand out like a worm in a nice juicy apple. But it was safer than breaking in blind, which was fucking stupid if you had another choice.
Even as he watched, Caitlyn dove out of the night sky and opened her wings, gliding in between the trees as silently as a ghost. She landed on a tree branch, then fluttered to the ground and Changed.
Sloan handed her some clothes, his hand lingering on hers. She squeezed it and gave him a small smile before turning to Flynn and Kira.
“He’s still got the prisoners in his lab at the top of the castle,” she said, hauling on her pants.
“At the top? Seems like it ought to be in a dungeon,” Sloan said.
Kira snorted. “Have you ever tried to fit a full-grown dragon into a dungeon?”
“Good point.”
“It looks more like an observatory,” Caitlyn said. “With a retractable dome roof. I’m assuming so dragons can fly in and out?”
“Sounds like he converted a Great Hall or a Council Chamber,” Flynn said to Kira. Draken castles were always built with the main ceremonial rooms at the top, for easy access by air.
She nodded. “It would make sense. It would be one of the only rooms large enough to hold a caged draken and still have room for a lab.” He saw her face tighten. Her brother. Kept caged, in torment—for how long? The entire twenty years he’d been missing?
Flynn had been in captivity for less than a year, and he still had fucking nightmares. He couldn’t imagine what twenty years of torture would do to someone.
Caitlyn had pulled out a pad and pencil from Sloan’s pack and was doing a sketch. “Lab here,” she said. “There’s at least four or five levels below that, not counting anything underground. It looks like he only has a skeleton crew manning the place. I saw soldier barracks inside the courtyard, but they looked deserted. Two men on the parapets at the top level. That’s it for the outer defenses.”
“That’s the first piece of good news,” Flynn said. “He’s got to have more guards inside, but at least we won’t be tripping over people everywhere we go. There’s probably some staff—I doubt this asshole is doing his own cooking and cleaning—but with any luck they’ll be asleep. And there might be people from Gen-X, too.”
“I wonder how they get here,” Sloan said.
“Gateways,” Kira said. “To Earth, to the Dragonlands—maybe even into the spirit world. There are probably permanent gates built into the castle, even though the wards prevent us from creating new ones.”
That had been the bad news. As Kira suspected, they not only couldn’t create gateways inside the castle, they couldn’t do it anywhere in the valley. Which meant that after they freed the prisoners, they’d have to get clear of the valley before they could gate out.
“There’s another piece of bad news,” Caitlyn said. “Hellhounds.”
“Fuck,” Flynn said. “How many?”
“I only saw two,” Caitlyn said. “But if this is the place where they’re making them…”
There could be a hell of a lot more than that.
“That’s why we brought the grenades,” Sloan said, trying to sound cheerful.
Not to mention the C-4. Bullets didn’t take those things down, but even a Hellhound couldn’t run when its legs were ten feet away from its body.
“Any signs of other dragons?”
“I didn’t see any.”
“But?”
Caitlyn looked unhappy. “If there aren’t any, what are all the sheep for? He’s not running a wool factory here.”
“Hopefully they’re for feeding the hellhounds.” Which wasn’t all that comforting. If they needed that many sheep to feed them, there were definitely more than two.
Caitlyn finished her sketch—everything she’d managed to see on the outside of the castle, as well as through the windows. When she was done, Flynn outlined their plan.
Despite what he’d told the crew, this was the craziest thing he’d ever done—breaking into a sorcerer’s castle on a hostage retrieval with only four people, against an unknown number of hellhounds. If they succeeded, it was going to be fucking epic.
And if it didn’t, they were so, so dead.
They waited until the moon dropped behind the cliff, eating cold food from their packs and not saying much. Sloan and Caitlyn sat side by side, hands resting on each other’s thighs, seeming to draw strength from their closeness.
Flynn longed to reach out for Kira, to feel the warmth of her touch.
And yet he didn’t. He still wasn’t used to the rush of tenderness that shot through him when he watched her, when he touched her. He needed to see her as he’d seen her the first night they met. Tough. Badass. Invincible. And he couldn’t do that if he was snuggling with her.
Fuck. He rose to his feet, pacing. He was a berserker, a crazy-ass lion. He flung himself into battle whenever he had to, and he was never afraid. But he was afraid now.
Before this, he’d never had anything to live for.
Kira came up behind him, a ghost in the dark. “It’s a good plan,” she said.
“It’s a fucking fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants nightmare,” he said flatly.
“There isn’t time to do better,” she reminded him.
“Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
Her eyes narrowed, and he let out a sigh. He brushed his hand over her cheek in apology. “Can you hear them?” he asked. “Their voices.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“But they’re still alive?”
She held out a hand, capturing his eyes with hers. Fuck it all, he was such an asshole. She was fighting off screaming nightmares, maybe fighting off seizures. Strong and beautiful and brave. And he was dithering about his fucking feelings.
He took her hand.
He could hear them now, too. They weren’t screaming so loud. More like whimpering, for the girl. And the dragon was just growling like it had lost its mind.
It probably had. Even if they managed to get it out of there, he didn’t know what the fuck they were going to do with it.
The pain of their misery lanced through Kira into him. He pulled on it, leaned into it, trying to take some of the burden from her. Blue flame rippled across his hand, and Kira relaxed a fraction.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I should have done that before. You shouldn’t have to carry it alone.”
She shook her head. “You need your strength to fight.”
“And you don’t?” She just rested her head on his shoulder, her hand still clasped in his. And this time, having her there did make him feel stronger.