Not that she planned to relax, but maybe these guys were nice. Like Rune, and his team, and most of the people helping. Except that one Gold Clan guy. He came across wonky to her, even after he agreed to help.
“What are we waiting for?” She’d asked the question at least ten times now.
“You’ll see,” Blue Eyes said. Which was more than he’d said in a solid half hour.
Nothing to do with Rune, she silently assured herself. His regular thought messages had been keeping her up to date. Though that small segue into making her his still had her buzzing from the shock and wonder of the words.
Of course Rune would decide that was the best time to get chatty…and romantic. Because that had been romantic for him.
Then he’d been right back to business. The last message he’d sent was that they were almost out, then he’d come for her. So what were her self-appointed guards waiting on?
“Can I at least make a phone call? I have people probably worried about me?” she tried.
Silence as he stared through her. She might as well be asking the mountain itself.
If this was how they treated all incoming mates, no wonder Rune had been suspicious. Hadyn could hardly imagine being a human woman, yanked out of her life, told she was supposed to be a dragon, then getting stuck with assholes like these. Terror, wariness, and many other horrible, panic-inducing emotions were what she’d be going through right now if her story about how she had got here had been true.
This was wrong. All of it.
“Finn,” Rune’s voice in her head was so loud she flinched. “Plan B.”
Oh gods. Her first reaction was to go stone still, a chill of fear spreading down her spine like ice freezing a shallow pond.
Plan B meant one of them, or both, had been caught and Finn needed to invade the mountain with all his forces.
Rune’s in trouble.
Otherwise he would have gone to Plan B the second she’d been put in the bedroom. That thought galvanized her, shooting fire through her veins. Before thinking it through, she was on her feet. “You need to let me out.”
Blue Eyes smirked. “Not yet. You’re safe here.”
“The hell I am. This is kidnapping,” she snapped.
That smirk widening even as the hardness in his gaze made her push a mental pause button. Something was seriously not right here.
“This was the plan, little dragon mate,” he said. “Ever since we scented you in the mountain.”
Trying to stay in character, Hadyn offered him a frightened grimace. “Scented me? In what mountain? You’re not making any sense.”
“You can stop the charade. We’ve been waiting for you to return for weeks.”
Return? Weeks?
Realization hit hard, making her dizzy. They’d been waiting ever since she’d left to find Rune. This was a trap. Her heart dropped to the soles of her feet like a lead ball, taking all the blood with it.
I did this. She’d messed up and led Rune and all the others into a waiting ambush.
“We tied your scent to the rogue couple from the Green Clan that we brought in a few months ago, and let you get away to see what you would do.”
Each word was a lashing of shame and horror, sharp and cutting.
“We hoped you’d bring us another traitor or two to dispose of. We didn’t expect Rune Abaddon, though.” His expression turned positively smug, and the burn of bile in the back of her throat left a sour taste in her mouth.
Rune. What did I do?
She’d been so sure—cocky even—that she’d gotten in and out of this place clean. After all, she only smelled like human, and no one had sussed her out that she could tell. She’d been wrong. This had been set up for a long time coming.
Had they followed her to South America, too? Had she been the one to bring those bounty hunters down on his head?
Bigger question…what was happening to him now? Shouldn’t she be hearing booms or fighting?
A knock sounded at the door, and she jumped. Blue Eyes stepped aside as it swung open. Green Eyes, positioned outside in the hall, had been joined by another green dragon, one with eyes so pale the irises bled into the whites, leaving only the pinpoint of his pupil at the centers. His upper lip twitched like a rat sniffing out garbage.
For a long beat he regarded her. Blue Eyes might be a douche, but this guy…instinct told her to keep well away. Hell, practically screamed at her to run. Only she had nowhere to go. Faster, stronger, these men would trap her in a heartbeat. Better to use her brain and try to outthink them or surprise them.
“I’ll take it from here,” Pale Green Eyes said.
She never—or in the last hour at least—never ever would have thought she’d want to keep that blue-eyed asshat near, but the last thing she wanted was to be left alone with the rat.
“Wait,” she said. But he slipped out the door.
Hadyn kept her wary gaze on the man now assigned as her keeper, while at the same time listening for any sign of rescue or fighting outside. The silence, so important to getting into this place, mocked her.
“So…what clan of dragon are you supposed to be?” Rat-face crooned, more to himself than her.
Hadyn kept her mouth shut.
“Come now, little mate. Don’t be shy.”
She didn’t have to pretend to fear anymore, because something terrible lurked in the way he was watching her, his gaze slowly skating over her body as though taking inventory, a greedy gleam in those creepy eyes that made her want to squirm, made her feel icky, like she was covered in filth.
“Let’s see, shall we?” he said.
Hadyn had no place to go. Nowhere to run that he couldn’t catch her. Before she could even open her mouth to scream, he was across the room. He tangled a hand in her hair and yanked her head down so sharply tears sprang to her eyes. The rat had exposed her neck and now blew fire over the skin at her nape.
Only this time, instead of pleasure, the sensation of heat came with shards of pain. Like he wasn’t entirely careful not to scorch her. The sick fuck held her there longer than needed even. Rather than give him the satisfaction of screaming, Hadyn held the agony inside, sucking in harshly through her nose and picturing Rune’s face. Like a solid rock to hold on to in the middle of a conflagration that threatened to reduce her to ash.
Rune was going to fuck this guy up when he found out, and she’d help.
Finally, the fire cut off, though the shifter held her there for a long time, studying her marking.
“Green Clan,” he said, satisfaction dripping from those two words.
Her stomach tossed sickeningly at the tone in his voice. A slippery kind of speculation. What was he wondering? If it would be worth losing a part of his soul to try to turn her? He would assume the chances it’d work were higher with him being a green dragon himself. But with her fated mate dead…