“Turn around and find out.”
Slowly, a head lifted off the pillowless mattress, green eyes glinting in the dark, face illuminated only by a small strip of dim lighting at the foot of each cell door.
“Rune?” the whisper was hardly a sound, but in such a silent room, after sneaking through the mountain, it might as well have been a scream.
Rune lifted his finger to his lips. “Hadyn sent me.”
The other man silently rose from the bed and padded to face him through the dragonsteel bars. “Thank the gods. Is she safe?”
He didn’t answer that. “Where’s Qara?”
“Three cells down. But there are more of us. Can you get us all out?”
“How many?”
“Nine. Four are unmated women who can’t shift.”
Fuck. The word echoed off the walls of his mind. Because getting two out unnoticed was difficult but possible. But nine?
Was there a way to do this without involving the teams waiting outside and get Hadyn away from those two dickheads? Hell if he was leaving anyone behind. One life lost would be too many.
Snap decision time. If they got caught, he’d call in the reinforcements.
“We have to try,” he said to Chaghan, who nodded his agreement.
“What’s the plan?”
“Can you rouse the others without them making noise?”
“Yes.”
“Do it. I’ve changed the code to the cells. If we all input at once, it makes noise only once. We’ll have to get to the flying tunnel.”
The plan had been to go by the skybridge—the same way Lyndi had managed to escape when she’d broken in last year to help a friend. With four unable to shift, that was out. The dragons would have to jump in human form and shift in the hall. They wouldn’t have time to both shift and safely catch a human who couldn’t. The tunnel was farther away, with a higher chance of discovery before they got to it. Chaghan was going to have to take the lead getting them out. Rune wasn’t waiting any longer to go for Hadyn.
Impatience was an itch he couldn’t scratch as he waited. One by one, each person in each cell was roused and, thankfully quietly, stood and moved to their cell doors, the closest watching him with a wary kind of hope. One—a kid who couldn’t be much more than sixteen—reminding him of a dog he’d found once. Left behind by a human who’d clearly been abusing it, caged and starved and so beaten down the poor thing hadn’t been sure it could even have hope anymore.
“They’re ready,” Chaghan’s voice finally sounded in his head. “I gave them the code.”
“On three,” Rune sent the thought to each consciousness in the room. “One. Two. Three.”
In remarkable sync, each person input the code on the panel to their cell, and with a soft snick, the locks shot back. Slowly, each opened the cell doors, luckily well oiled and blessedly not squeaky.
Rune locked eyes with Chaghan. “You know the way out?”
The older green dragon nodded, determination glinting in his gaze.
“You’re going to have to take them. Finn is waiting outside with several other Huracáns, ready to get you away or step in if you get in trouble.”
Chaghan frowned. “What about you?”
“I have something else to take care of,” Rune thought back.
Deliberately he didn’t say who. Hadyn would never forgive him if he didn’t get her parents out first, but he wasn’t stupid. No way would Chaghan leave his daughter behind if he knew.
After a studied stare, the other man stepped away, beckoning the others.
“One guard asleep in the hall,” Rune warned him.
Then waited as the others passed him, one pausing to shake his hand, red eyes glowing with appreciation.
“Bringing out nine. We have to use the dragon exit,” he informed Finn and the rest outside. Hadyn, too.
“I’m coming for you, love. Sit tight,” he sent to Hadyn alone.
Now that he was so close to being able to go for her, each tick of the metaphorical clock was like razors to the skin. He needed to get to her. Now.
Instead, he forced a calm he was far from feeling and brought up the tail of their little group, ears tuned for the scuffle ahead of him that indicated Chaghan got to the guard. Short-lived and relatively quiet, they kept moving up a series of stairs that led out of the dungeons. The path led them to the skybridge where the light of the partial moon illuminated the pristine beauty of the Rocky Mountains all around them.
They managed to maneuver the twists and turns of the smaller corridors beyond until the sweet smell of fresh air filtered to him on a breeze. The dragon-sized tunnel leading out the main entrance of the mountain was close.
“Almost there,” he thought at Hadyn.
Gods he wished he could hear her answer him, know she was okay. Not knowing was twisting the metaphorical knife, threatening to bleed him out.
Those in front of him slowed, then stopped, and up ahead Chaghan held up a hand. Rune closed his eyes and reached out with his other senses. Which was when he caught the faintest trace of licorice-tinted smoke in the air.
Swallowing a growl, he spun and faced a deserted hallway. He methodically cast his gaze from shadow to shadow, searching for the presence he was sure was there, though he couldn’t entirely pinpoint where.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” a dark voice sounded from farther down the hallway, hidden in the darkness. One he recognized.
Mathai, the head of the Alliance.
“Run,” he shot the thought at Chaghan.
“Too late,” came the grim return.
A quick check over his shoulder showed more eyes glinting with fire in the darkness.
“Finn,” he sent the thought out, hoping like hell those hiding in the mountainside beyond hadn’t been ambushed, too. “Plan B.”
…
Hadyn sat on the edge of the bed where Blue Eyes had basically plunked her down, telling her to “sit and stay” like a lap dog.
She’d crossed her arms, trying to keep up the wide-eyed and wary thing. Not difficult to do given that they’d brought her to a freaking bedroom. Hopefully, this didn’t trigger one of her attacks. She couldn’t handle that right now.
For the first fifteen minutes, she’d sat ramrod straight, flinching anytime they moved, waiting for them to pounce and try to force fire into her. Force a mating.
They didn’t. Instead, they’d taken up positions, one outside the door and one inside, and had remained stoically silent ever since.