Chapter Nine

The knowledge that her husband had come for her and that he was so near gave Gabriella a surge of strength and courage she had not thought possible, considering her circumstances. With renewed vigor, she looked Sorinah square in the eye and got to business.

“We need to find a way out of here. We need to find Santiago,” Gabriella said.

“It won’t be easy,” said Sorinah. “There is no way we could fight our way…not with a baby. We’ll have to sneak…and be very careful about it.”

“Whatever it takes,” Gabriella said.

She then started to make herself ready for whatever lay ahead. She bundled up Isidora as tightly as possible and gave her a binkie to keep her quiet. She then took a sheet from the bed in the room and fashioned a tight sling she could carry Isidora in…just in case she needed her hands free on this adventure. Once she was ready…they got down to it.

At first, they simply listened at the door. When they were sure no one waited outside, Sorinah picked the lock to gain their freedom. It took her a moment, as she had not practiced the skill in ages, but she managed to get the door open without attracting anyone’s attention and thus they slipped out of their cozy prison as quietly as possible. As Gabriella slipped out, she gently closed the door behind her. The longer it was assumed they were still inside…the better.

Making their way through the house was nerve-wracking. They had to watch every inch on all sides of themselves, keeping themselves silent and out of sight as they searched for Santiago and Costin. The house was massive. They lucked out, however, when they heard voices mentioning the captive Dragons downstairs. Gabriella thanked the Lord above for Sorinah’s knowledge of Italian as they changed course and started to make their way towards the cellar.

At one point, as they neared the stairs leading downward, they were nearly caught in their sneaking by a servant. Had it not been for the young girl’s shadow playing across the wooden floors, they would have been caught dead to rights.

Finally, they descended the cellar stairs to where Santiago and Costin had been taken. When Gabriella saw her husband, shackled and collared by chains, she nearly cried out in both anguish and joy. Had Sorinah not placed a hand on her shoulder, she would have given them all away right then.

They went to the chained men, Gabriella to her husband and Sorinah to her brother. At first, Gabriella worried how they would free them since no one had any keys…but as she began to look at the metal collar around her husband’s neck and the chains coming from it she realized there was no key. Instead…it looked like she had to fit her fingers into a number of holes and then shift a mechanism to release the collar. She was floored by it. It was like a Chinese finger trap….but in reverse and for the neck instead of the fingers. Leave it to the Italians to come up with something so ingenuitive and utterly unnecessary.

She explained it to Sorinah as she went through the motions with Santiago’s collar, exclaiming softly her excitement when the metal collar fell from his neck and took the rest of his chains with it. Immediately, they embraced…as if they had not seen one another in a lifetime. Gabriella felt her husband’s strong arms tighten around her as their daughter was curled sleeping against her chest. His warmth filled her with hope and happiness again and she never wanted to leave his side for an instant. She looked up at him…just taking in the beauty of him before pressing her lips against his in a long-overdue kiss hello.

She could have kissed him endlessly, but alas they would not be granted such a luxury in that moment. They were still deep in the fire with a long way yet to go if they wanted to find their freedom from this place.

“I hate to interrupt…” Costin muttered, breaking them from their kiss.

Santiago cleared his throat and Gabriella only smiled…but they agreed and got their heads back into the game. They knew that going out quietly was not an option but getting out of the cellar in their Dragon forms would be impossible without destroying half of the house. It was the perfect plan.

Santiago and his cousin stripped from their cloths and began to transform while Sorinah packed everything in the backpack the Visconti’s had never thought to take from her. Gabriella watched in awe, always transfixed by her husband’s transformations, and wondered about the future of her baby girl. She worried for her.

The plan was simple. The women would hide under the protection of Costin, who would curl around them as Santiago clawed and dug his way up from the cellar through the staircase. Considering their captors had never assumed one of their prisoners would manage such a thing, the cellar stairs and their surrounding structure were not reinforced to withstand the strength of a raging and fully-grown Dragon. In a matter of moments, Santiago had managed to rip a sizable hole up through the stairway and part of the ceiling surrounding it. As he crawled out, drywall and sheetrock falling all around him, Gabriella and Sorinah climbed up onto Costin’s back and clung tightly to him as he followed Santiago out.

By the cacophony of screams and shouts all around them, Gabriella was sure they had raised quite the alarm with their sudden breakout. Their brazen escape was not over yet, however, as Santiago unleashed a wash of fire down what remained of the large corridor that ran through the house. From somewhere not far off, the roar of another Dragon could be heard rattling through the timbers of the house. They all knew that such a sound was not good. Santiago took it as his cue and slammed his body hard against the ceiling, breaking through to the roof and then the open night sky after a few solid attempts. Clawing his way out, he ripped open a path for Costin to follow without putting the women in too much danger while still on his back.

When the cool night air hit her face, Gabriella gasped and held Isidora all the closer against her. She was baffled that the little girl hadn’t cried once throughout this entire ordeal, but instead remained nestled happily with her binkie in her mouth. Of course, she had her bright blue eyes wide open, taking it all in…but she issued not a peep.

Looking around, she caught sight of her husband rising high into the air not too far from them. What she did not see, was the dragon who had appeared in the skies behind her, Sorinah, and Costin. The look of confusion on her face as Santiago began to speed towards them was answered by the wave of searing heat and fire that blasted by them far too close for comfort.

Costin pumped his massive wings hard, lifting them higher and higher into the air to put distance between them and their foe. Gabriella and Sorinah watched as Santiago grappled with a menacing, dark green dragon above the flaming and smoking Visconti Estate below.

Her husband fought like a demon born straight from Hell itself. He tore at the green Dragon with both tooth and claw, sending the Visconti Dragon’s blood flying and his yelps of pain echoing into the night. The green Dragon managed to wrestle himself free from Santiago and retreated, barely surviving the fight for how savagely Santiago fought against him.

It would not be as simple as that, however, as the moment the green Dragon retreated, two more took his place. Santiago found himself confronted by two Dragons of dusky blue and sandstone coloring. They looked young and inexperienced…but the fire they unleashed on him was just as hot as any fully-grown dragon.

As he attempted to protect his eyes from their fire, they swooped in for the attack. Massive, deadly claws opened and outstretched to dig into his scaly flesh and tear at what they could. Santiago howled in pain, lashing out with his own tail like a whip to fend them off.

“Costin!” Gabriella cried against the wind and Costin’s wings. “Help him!”

Costin turned his massive, chocolatey-brown head in acknowledgment and moved in towards the battle. Knowing full well he carried precious cargo, he kept back enough to keep them from too much of harm’s way…but he was still close enough to unleash a fiery blast of his own. A careful blast was aimed at one of Santiago’s attackers, throwing the Dragon off enough to give Santiago the upper hand once more.

Gabriella watched, impressed, as her husband practically threw the other two Dragons from the sky in his rage and need to protect her and their daughter. When they finally limped away, barely able to fly, Santiago was bloody and beaten…but he was alive and had won their freedom. No other Dragons came after them and none followed as they began to make the long flight home.

It would take them hours, flying slowly through the quickly brightening sky, but that mattered little to any of them in this moment. They had succeeded in saving Gabriella…and just as importantly, the baby Isidora. None of them truly realized the impact the events of this night would have on the future, but the ripples that would affect their world later on down the line had already begun to flow.