Page 68 of Dragon Compelled

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“You mean how do I know you’ve tussled with this guy before?” Oliver asks, grinning smugly from behind Paige. “Because it was my basement you found him in the first time.”

“Your....” Mag trails off, and I put the pieces together at the same time as he does.

Once again, I meet Paige’s eyes and see the realization reflected there too.

“Hoc was in your basement,” I say.

Oliver glances at me. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I was grateful when Paige brought him here. He was really starting to smell.”

Snarling, I take a step forward, ignoring the giant who raises his mace menacingly in my direction. But the distraction is apparently what Paige was waiting for. I watch as she slams her elbow into Oliver’s gut then wrenches from his grasp. The knife slides along her throat, drawing blood. Even though I know it’s not deep enough to worry about, I roar at the sight of her lifeforce draining from her flesh and launch myself at the asshole who dared to hurt my mate.

The giant intercepts me, and I gladly rain down blows against him. His mace swings, but I duck, and he narrowly misses my head.

“Bring out the rest of the keepers,” Constantine yells.

More monsters pour from the portal, and I realize he plans to have a lot more keepers in this place than Hoc ever did. This is why he’s been stealing books, I realize grimly. Collecting an army to use against us.

At the sight of so many threats, the gnomes scream out a battle cry, but it’s Paige who grabs my wrist and yanks me away from the fight.

“We have to go,” she says.

“I will kill them for hurting you,” I growl, a darkness settling over my soul as I watch the thin line of blood drip down her throat.

“There’s no time,” she says, tugging me again. She glances past me to where I know Constantine is ordering his army of keepers to attack us. “We have to get everyone else out.”

Constantine utters some kind of incantation, and the portal he used earlier vanishes as a new one appears. This one is swirling black, and from the other side, all I hear are screams that sound like endless suffering.

“Time for all former employees to exit the building,” Constantine calls.

Paige stares at the portal with mounting horror. “Where does that lead exactly?”

Back on his feet, Oliver says simply, “The end of your story.”

Paige’s fear slams into me then, and I know I can’t let her be sent through that portal. No matter what it takes, I will save her from that fate. The gnomes appear, pressing in close to my legs as they too stare at the portal with trepidation.

“Don’t worry,” Oliver tells them, “By the time you get there, you won’t remember a thing.”

“We’re not going in there,” Paige vows, a fire burning in her desperate gaze.

“Oh, quite right,” Constantine tells her, eyes gleaming as a second portal swirls to life behind Oliver. “You’re far too powerful to waste on an ending like that, my dear. You’re coming with me.”

I see it coming but seconds too late. I’m not fast enough to reach Paige before Oliver yanks her backward, straight into the swirling darkness of a portal that swallows the three of them up and vanishes before I can ever hope to follow her through.

In a second, she’s gone, leaving us alone with Constantine’s monstrous keepers and no trace of where my mate has gone.

Chapter21

Paige

Imanage to yank free of Oliver’s grasp but not before I stumble backward through a portal to a foreign world. With a wash of colors swirling in my vision, my foot catches on something, and I stumble hard, grunting as the ground comes up to meet me and knocks the air from my lungs.

Disoriented, I suck in oxygen with rasping gasps, clawing at the dirt beneath my hands as I hurry to shove to my feet. Before I can get far, the portal I just came through winks out, and fear slams into me in a way I’ve never known before.

I’m trapped—with the two men I hate most—in a world I have no understanding or knowledge about. And no way to get home now that my tattoo is gone. My heart pounds with the cold reality of my situation, and my breath comes in short gasps that have nothing to do with how hard I fell.

I’ve never felt more alone and exposed in my life.

Bracing for the worst, I eye the two men warily from where I stand. Oliver and Constantine stand back, though, clearly content to take things slow now that they have me isolated.