Dragos Takes A Holiday

Chapter Nine

In the morning, Liam enjoyed a long, lovely cuddle in bed with Mommy and Daddy. Then he grew excited because Mommy and Daddy started getting ready to go somewhere. Often that meant he got to go somewhere too, and he liked exploring this new, sunny place.

They said things to each other like, “Do you have our sat phone?” And: “They’re bringing the boat to the pier on the beach.”

He would have preferred to fly, but a boat sounded promising. In fact everything sounded promising, but then Mommy started saying things like, “You get to have fun with Aunt Eva and Uncle Hugh this morning.”

He tried to ignore her, because sometimes she changed her mind, but soon it became clear that Mommy and Daddy were leaving, while he had to stay. When they kissed him and left, he turned exceedingly cranky. But it was hard to stay mad for long, because Aunt Eva and Uncle Hugh were fun.

He was determined to stay awake until Mommy and Daddy got home, but despite his best efforts his eyes grew heavy. Hugh carried him to the bedroom and tucked him in the crib. He watched with sleepy interest while Hugh checked the room. Hugh tugged at the handle of the closed window as he looked outside, then he pulled the curtains shut and left.

Liam yawned, fell asleep and woke some time later.

Fresh air sounded nice—fresh air and wind, and flying.

Daddy had said No, but that had happened quite a while ago. Surely by now No had turned into a Yes.

In fact, he was all but certain of it.

He was a very helpful peanut. Mommy and Daddy were busy on a boat, so he would take himself out to practice flying.

He shapeshifted, crawled out of the crib and climbed the curtains to the closed window. He tugged at the handle.

Over his head, the latch clicked and the window slid open.

Pleased, he climbed onto the sill. Each day his balance got better. He looked out happily at the hot, sunny day. Aunt Eva walked by underneath. He watched her curiously, then she went around the corner of the house, and he forgot about her.

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and his head snapped around. A bright green lizard wandered down the road on the other side of the hedge.

Hm, hungry now. That lizard looked tasty.

He spread his wings and leaped into the air. Flapping as hard as he could, he half-flew, half-coasted to the other side of the hedge and landed in a tumble on the gravel shoulder beside the road. It startled the lizard into running alongside a row of parked cars.

Instinct kicked in. Liam rolled onto his feet and ran after the lizard. When he flapped his wings again, he rose into the air and flew several yards. Excited, he ran some more, jumped and flew several more yards. They ran down the road like that until, in a final lunge, he managed to grab the lizard’s tail.

The lizard struggled as he dragged it toward him. To his immense surprise, it pulled away from its tail and ran away again. Confused, he looked down at the tail he still held in one forepaw. Then he ate it. Um, delicious.

Now he really wanted the rest of that lizard. Where had it gone? He walked, looking around and peering under cars, but the lizard was nowhere in sight.

A car door opened a few feet away, and a man stepped out to walk toward him. He was a human with a long, dark ponytail, and he stank like cigarette smoke.

“Well, well, well,” said the man in a friendly voice. He shrugged out of a jean jacket and held it in front of him as he drew closer. “What have we got here? Why, you look just like a baby dragon.”

Liam sat back on his haunches and smiled at him.

The man recoiled. “Christos!”

The man threw the jacket at Liam. Darkness descended as it settled over his head. He struggled to get free of the heavy material, but the man scooped him up in his arms and held on tight. Then they were bouncing—the man was running.

Liam growled. He didn’t like this game.

“Shut up.” The man no longer sounded friendly.

A car door opened. The world shifted and swayed, and the man held him on his lap. The car door shut again. They were in a car. It accelerated.

“What have you got wrapped in your jacket?” It was another man’s voice.

“It looks like a small dragon,” said his captor. “I think it’s his kid.”

Pia and Dragos decided to take the boat out for a couple of hours, so they didn’t bother to pack any food, just plenty of drinking water. While Pia watched the changing landscape, Dragos piloted the boat skillfully between all the other traffic on the water. It didn’t take them long to leave land behind altogether.

The boat was a much slower method of transportation than Dragos in flight, but he knew where he was going so he could take them directly to the spot.

When they reached the area, Dragos killed the motor, and Pia turned in a circle, marveling in the sight of water all around her without any sight of land. He told her, “The anchor won’t do any good out here. You’re going to drift, but don’t worry about it. You won’t go far.”

“Okay.” She grinned at him. “Go on, don’t worry about me.”

He nodded. “See you soon.”

They had brought one of their emptied suitcases along. He tossed it into the water, leaped overboard and swam far enough away so that he could shapeshift without capsizing the boat. Then the dragon appeared and gave her a huge wink as it hooked the handle of the suitcase in one talon. With a great splash, he dove.

How long would it take him to find the wreck? She had no way to know, so she relaxed in one of the seats and watched the waves.

The endless vista of sparkling ocean was remarkably hypnotic, and the sight had lulled her half asleep when she heard a great splash. She jerked upright and swiveled around to see the dragon swimming toward her with the suitcase clutched in one paw.

As he drew near, he shimmered into a change and became the man. The boat rocked as he grabbed the short ladder toward the rear on the port side. He held on, gasping. She hovered nearby. “Can I help?”

He shook his head. “It’s really heavy. Watch out.”

She stepped back, and he climbed up the ladder with the suitcase dangling from one hand. He heaved it into the boat, and it landed with spray of cold water and a solid thud. Then he knelt beside the case, unzipped it and flipped the lid back.

Gold winked at them. There were also blackened objects that Pia couldn’t identify, possibly tarnished silver items. There were coins, and a small chest, and something that looked mechanical and felt magical.

“Wow. Just, wow.” She pointed to it. “Is that a sextant?”

He nodded, still breathing hard. He fingered a coin as he said, “This stuff was half buried and in leather bags that deteriorated when I tried to pick them up. There’s probably enough to fill two more suitcases down below. Tatiana wanted to find a new land badly, and she was willing to pay for it.”

“What do you want to do?” Pia asked. “You can dump out what’s in the suitcase, go back down and collect the rest of it now, if you want.”

He shook his head. “It’s not going anywhere. We can go back, and I’ll buy some containers to haul it all in.”

“Well, if you’re sure—” she began. The sat phone rang. She reached for it and clicked it on. “Hello?”

“It’s Eva.” Eva didn’t sound like herself, her voice harsh and ragged. “Liam’s gone.”

“What?” The words were perfectly audible, but they came out of nowhere, and they made no sense. Pia shook her head. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Liam is missing,” Eva said, enunciating carefully. “He’s missing, Pia. We put him down for a nap, and now he’s gone. The house was locked tight. Hugh stayed inside, and I walked the yard outside, but the window in his bedroom is wide open and he is fucking gone—”

“Oh my God.” Pia’s world bottomed out. The sat phone fell from her nerveless fingers.

Dragos didn’t need to ask what had been said; he had already heard it. His bronze skin turned ashen, his eyes stark.

Eva was still talking. The words sounded far away and small coming from the phone. As Pia reached for the phone, Dragos crouched and sprang into the air, leaping so hard the boat rocked wildly and knocked her back against the side. He shapeshifted in midair and snatched her up in one claw. He tore through the sky, his huge body straining as they arrowed back to the islands.

Pia went numb. She couldn’t feel her feet, or her lips. “The phone!”

Dragos said tensely, “I’m talking to her. They found Liam’s scent outside and followed it. It disappeared down the road. The man from the bar—not Merrous, the other one—his scent was at the spot where Liam’s stopped.”

“Oh God, oh God.” This reality was outrageous, nightmarish beyond belief. She screamed, “Are you telling me those bastards have my baby?”

The dragon growled and flew harder.

A hollow, roaring silence filled her mind. Time stopped and started in fitful spurts.

They reached the island and slammed to earth. Dragos shapeshifted again, but only partially. He was gigantic, monstrous, his face and muscles contorted, his hands long with lethally sharp talons.

Occasionally Wyr went into a partial shapeshift in times of extremity. At other times, some could even shapeshift small changes like bringing out their talons, but Pia had only seen Dragos caught in the monstrous half-shift once, when they had mated last year. In spite of her shock over Liam and how much she loved him, she almost recoiled from the sight.

But he was her mate, and she had never needed a monster more than she did right now. He snatched her hand, and they raced up the path.

As they neared the house, the dragon let go of Pia’s hand and lunged ahead, his long legs eating up the distance. He slammed through the door so hard it tore off its hinges, and he bounded up the stairs to his son’s bedroom. It looked serene, with nothing displaced. He scented everything carefully. Nobody had been in Liam’s room except for him, Pia, Eva and Hugh.

The window was wide open, and Liam’s scent was on the sill. He looked outside. Pia had run around the house and was talking to Eva and Hugh. The bodyguards’ bodies were tense, their eyes heartsick.

He leaped down the stairs and tore out of the house to join the others. Eva pointed to a spot in the road. “Liam’s scent starts here.”

He reached the spot and looked back at the house. He could see Liam’s open window. He raced to follow Liam’s scent to the place where it stopped, and he caught the human’s scent and followed that to where it stopped.

After that there was nowhere else to go. Feeling a rare sense of impotence and terror, he stood with his taloned fists clenched. They had gotten into a car. By now they could be on a boat.

And while Liam could understand a great deal, his verbal skills had not caught up with his comprehension. Dragos might be able to reach him telepathically, but he couldn’t reply.

Dragos could telepathize with someone else, though.

Merrous, said the dragon in a calm, quiet voice.

After a moment, Merrous gave a telepathic chuckle. Well, this is uncomfortable and unexpected, but surprisingly useful. I was going to send you a burner phone, but this works even better. I have something of yours.

He said, Prove it.

What do you want, a picture or a body part? Merrous laughed.

He had quite a sense of humor for a dead man. The dragon flexed his talons, and nearby, Eva and Hugh blanched. His voice grew gentler. Do you want the Sebille? Because you will never have it without me.

Merrous’s laughter vanished. He said venomously, Yes, I want the Sebille, and I want everything that went down with it. I presume you want this rug rat back. We’ll do an exchange.

When? he asked. Where?

I’ll let you know when I work something out. Now, stop talking to me, or someone is liable to get hurt.

Rage filled his body like burning acid. Dragos looked at Pia and the other two. They had been watching his face closely. “I just talked to Merrous. He says he wants an exchange, and he’ll get back to me once he decides when and where.” He paused as a sliver of rational thought sliced through the lava running through his mind. “He sounds too confident.”

Pia grabbed his arm, her fingers biting into his skin. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head as he thought it through. Instinct settled into certainty. “He knows we’re Wyr, so he has to have some idea of our tracking skills. Right now he thinks he can’t be tracked, which means he’s on a boat.”

Pia’s voice shook. “He can’t have gone too far, but there are a lot of boats out there.”

“There’s only one boat that will have their scents, so we cloak ourselves and go hunting.” He looked at Hugh. “I need you to fly out and check every vessel headed away from shore. If he’s thought this through at all, he will be expecting us to do that. I think he’s acting like someone fishing or on vacation. He’ll either be moored somewhere or he’s moving very slowly. He’ll be hiding in plain sight. We’ve got to move fast.”

“Right.” Hugh shapeshifted and launched.

“I need a gun,” Pia said. Eva shoved hers into Pia’s hands then drew a backup gun from an ankle holster.

“Let’s go.” Dragos shapeshifted, and the two women climbed on his back. Then he launched into the air too.