Chapter 6
Flynn quickly scanned the room, trying to read what had happened, keeping one ear open for the sound of sirens. There was no way they were lucky enough that someone hadn’t called the cops.
There was a smeared trail of blood across the floor, ending abruptly right in the middle of the room. He rubbed his fingers in the blood and sniffed it, his stomach clenched. Not Kira’s. He was shocked at the relief that surged through him.
Why the hell should he care what happened to her? She was a fucking impostor, trying to scam him.
She might even have set him up.
He quickly checked the rest of the room. He could hear sirens approaching—they couldn’t be more than a couple of blocks away.
Everything of Kira’s was gone—there was nothing in the closet or the drawers. The med kit had been packed up, and there wasn’t even anything in the garbage.
She was gone for good. And she’d taken all his things, too. Bloody clothes, knives, both guns—damn. He was going to miss that Colt.
But it was his own fucking fault, following his dick and his feelings. He should have known better. He did know better.
But what the hell had she done with the hellhound? Had it escaped? Taken her? But why take her things, and Flynn’s? That wasn’t the way they operated.
He looked again at the trail of blood. Like a bleeding body had been dragged—but then why did it stop? It as almost as if…
As if she’d shoved it through a rift between the worlds, the way he had?
Dragons could do that.
No. She was not Princess Kiraset.
The sirens were right under the windows, and he could see the blue and red flashing lights.
He had to get the hell out of here. He told himself it was good that Kira had disappeared. He sure as hell didn’t need her fucking up his life. His crew had been through enough.
So had he.
His lion growled inside him. Find her. Protect her.
Fuck you. She doesn’t need protecting. In fact, he’d never met a woman who needed protecting less than she did. We have a crew to take care of now.
His lion just growled.
There were cops coming up the fire escape, cops in the hallway. He should have been gone ten minutes ago. What was it about that damn woman that made him forget all his survival skills?
He activated the bracelets again, ripping a hole in space and stepping through, sealing the rift from the other side just before the cops burst in.
He was in the spirit world. People didn’t usually go there in the flesh; it was for…well, spirits. If someone did venture in, and they made it out again, they usually either ended up insane, or someplace they really didn’t want to be. Only a few could navigate their way through it and come out where they wanted.
With the bracelets, Flynn was one of them. It made a decent escape hatch, if you didn’t mind drawing all the wrong attention.
And, if you were desperate, it was a good place to hide a body.
This time, though, he wasn’t on the grassy plain, and there were no signs of hellhounds. He was in a rough rock tunnel, damp and dark and dripping with water.
He hated it in here—he always felt like there was a mountain crushing him. But he didn’t have to go far, and this was the quickest way.
He focused on the rock wall beside him, brushing his fingers along it. Gradually, it grew transparent. He could see streets, the buildings—all condensed, going by at rapid speed.
The city of Nashville as seen from the spirit world.
There. It was an alley near the club—abandoned at this time of night. He did a quick check to make sure there was no one there—no one catching a smoke or a joint, no homeless person huddled behind a dumpster.
It was empty.
Flynn reached out, ripped a hole in space, and stepped through into the muggy night. The smell of garbage and piss assaulted his nose.
He made his way to the front of the alley. His truck was parked only half a block away. At least he still had his…he patted down his pants pockets.
No keys. Fuck on a stick, they’d been in his vest pocket. Muttering curses, Flynn headed for the truck. He was going to have to break into it, which sucked—both for the truck, and the chance of someone calling the cops when they saw a shirtless man with a blood all over his back breaking into a vehicle.
He couldn’t even call his crew—he’d dropped his cell when the hellhounds broke down the door, and Kira had taken it with everything else. Muttering curses, he jogged across the street and down the sidewalk. He was almost at the truck before he realized there was someone inside.
Flynn crouched and drew his last boot knife, making his way around the back of the truck, staying low. He crept up to the passenger side and wrenched open the door with his right hand, whipping his knife around with his left and holding it to the throat of the person inside.
Kira.
She was slouched in the passenger seat, one booted foot up on the dashboard. She turned her head, her heart rate not even accelerating.
“Took you long enough,” she said. “I was starting to be afraid I’d have to break you out of jail.”
Flynn was really pissed, Kira realized. That she hadn’t waited for him? Or that she was here at all?
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled.
That would be option number two, then.
She carefully pushed the knife away from her jugular. “Waiting for you.”
There was a short silence. Then Flynn slammed the passenger door and went around to get in the driver’s side, slamming that door too.
His presence seemed to fill the entire truck. She’d never met another shifter that dominant. All her nerve endings tingled with heat.
Shit. She didn’t want hot. She didn’t want a man she was attracted to, and she really didn’t want a man she cared about. She wanted the last surviving member of the Elite Lion Guard of the House of Al-Maddeiri: Proud. Hard. Caring about nothing but their duty.
The ones who joined with their chosen mates and then went back to their own business.
This one was angry. And unhappy, she realized. She didn’t know how she could tell that, but she could.
“A) thanks for abandoning me,” he said. “And B) get the fuck out of my truck.”
Okay, so he was pissed about everything. She supposed he had the right.
“A) I didn’t abandon you. The cops were on the way, and I had to clean out the room. I could see you were okay.”
“So you left me for the cops, then.”
“Come on,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t get caught. You’re Flynn.”
He didn’t smile. “Damn straight. Now get out of my truck.”
“And B,” she added, “I can’t get out of the truck. I’m your mate, and we need to talk.” She handed him his keys and his cell phone.
“You,” he said through this teeth, “are not my mate. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I repeat: the entire House of Al-Maddeiri were massacred over twenty years ago in a war that I’ve spent all that time trying to forget. Princess Kiraset was killed with the rest of her family. She was only five years old,” he added.
His voice was a deep growl, and his face didn’t change. But she could hear a world of pain in that last sentence—pain that he didn’t show to anyone. The death of a little girl he’d only seen once.
It stabbed her in the heart.
“She didn’t die,” she said quietly. “I didn’t die. One of the Lion Guard saved me. He brought me here, to this world, and raised me in secret. And now I need your help.”
Silence. Deep, brooding, terrifying silence.
“What for?” he said finally.
She glanced out the window. There was no one around, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being hunted. “We can’t talk about it here. Your territory has protections, doesn’t it?”
He snorted with brutal laughter. “You really think I’m just going to take you back to my territory, like a fucking Trojan Horse? You could be anybody. And my crew has been through enough. Whatever trouble you’re dragging around with you, I’m not bringing it down on them.”
She bit her lips. He didn’t believe her. She hadn’t really expected him to. He was everything they said, and more. Paranoid, dangerous. Wicked smart.
“If I can prove who I am, will you take me back to your territory?”
“You can’t prove it.”
“Give me your hand.”
He turned his head and looked at her. She could see him in the dark, his face partially illuminated by a streetlight. Across the street, a neon sign flashed, sending alternating bars of yellow and blue across his face.
She could feel the emotions warring in him. Anger, frustration, loneliness, pain, curiosity. And a tiny flicker of hope.
Slowly, he slid his hand over to her.
It was strong and warm—and battered, the knuckles scraped from the fight. She turned it over gently.
He shivered. The scent of him filled the truck cab—wild and beautiful. Suddenly she just wanted to get out of the truck and run and run, leaving him to the life he’d made.
Because he was right. She was dragging trouble around with her. But the only hope of beating it was with his help.
A surge of need and loneliness welled up inside her, and she closed her eyes against it.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This was supposed to be all business and duty. It wasn’t supposed to feel like a wild adventure and coming home, all at the same time.
Flynn’s hand closed around hers. A soft growling purr came from deep inside his chest.
He pulled back, his eyes searching her face. “Who are you?” he whispered.
She flicked her wrist, and a knife handle slipped soundlessly into her palm. She could see him register the movement, but he didn’t pull away.
She moved his hand so she could get at the bracelet around his wrist. The leather coverings he’d wrapped it in had been damaged in the fight, and were torn partially away. She slit them with the tip of the knife and peeled them back.
The bracelet shone in the dim light. Pure gold, it was an inch and a half wide, with magical runes and pictographs engraved on it. To her dragon sight, they shone faintly with the magic that lay within them. She ran her finger over them, one by one, until she found the one she wanted on the inside of the wrist, just below his thumb. A spreading oak tree.
She let go of his hand and slid the knife blade over the pad of her left index finger. A bead of blood welled up.
She pressed her finger to the engraved tree. When the symbol began to glow, she pulled her hand back.
The smudge of blood seeped into the gold like it was being sucked up into a sponge. A beam of light shot out from the bracelet and turned into a holographic display about eighteen inches in diameter, in the shape of a stylized tree with rows and rows of leaves, branching out in every direction. They were too small to see clearly, but she knew each leaf had a pictograph—a dragon or a lion—and a name.
The family tree of the Draken House of Al-Maddeiri.
One leaf at the edge of the tree glowed brighter than the rest. Slowly, that section of the holograph enlarged, until all the names were clear. The last Draken king and queen of the House of Al Maddeiri. Their three children. The first of the siblings, the eldest, was the brightly glowing leaf. Hers. Kiraset Lael, crown princess of the House of Al-Maddeiri.
She felt Flynn suck in his breath. The bracelets had been created for the Elite Lion Guard of the House of Al-Maddeiri, and one of the things they did was provide a way for the Guards to identify any member of the House—the ones they had been born to protect.
It was a magical DNA test, and there was no way to fake it. But she wasn’t done.
Kira took a deep breath. What happened in the next moment—and how Flynn reacted to it—was going to chart the path of both of their futures.
The tiny cuts from Flynn going through the window of her room were almost healed, but his shoulder wound wasn’t. It had opened up again when he fought the hellhound, and it was still stick with drying blood.
She reached over and dipped her finger in Flynn’s blood. Then she smeared it on the bracelet, right where she’d put hers.
Once more, the blood sank into the gold and disappeared. Another leaf on the tree glowed and enlarged—this one with a lion pictograph. She knew what it said without looking: Arflyn Dali of the House of Al-Maddeiri. Lion Guard, but descended from the dragons of Al-Maddeiri themselves.
As they watched, that leaf floated upward. It settled on the branch next to hers, their stems twined together.
Mates. Destined from birth.
He stared at the tree for a long moment. Kira held her breath. This was the moment she’d waited almost twenty years for. Flynn opened his mouth, and one single word came out.
“Fuck.”