Page 53 of Serving my Dragon
“I’d rather that than see you captured.” Kayleigh meant it too. She’d sacrifice herself for me, the rarest of gifts. I could do no less.
With my head held high, I marched into the cage and managed not to wince as the door slammed shut.
“You have me contained. Let my servant go,” I said.
“I don’t think so. Seems like Kayleigh here might be a useful tool for keeping you in line.”
The perfidy shouldn’t have surprised, yet I found myself disappointed after having met several humans with honor. “You will pay for your actions,” I promised.
A low, nasty chuckle emerged from Blake. “Threats when I’m the one holding all the cards? You’d better learn to obey or pay the price. Tie her hands,” he ordered his men.
Kayleigh tried to fight, flailing futilely and ineffectually at the bulky males who grabbed hold of her arms to yank them behind her back where they tied them in place.
A sobbing Kayleigh dropped to her knees by the cage and leaned her forehead against the bars. “Oh, Polly, why didn’t you escape?”
I wasn’t about to admit my weakness for her and instead whispered, “To wipe out my enemies I must enter the bowels of their perfidious lair.”
A brave thing to say, now if only I had the size and power to actually do something about the situation. With flame I could have roasted them. With water, drowned them. Wind, blow them into the chasm. Electricity to fry. Alas, my ability hadn’t manifested.
Yet.
Perhaps by the time the villain brought us to his lair, it would emerge.
If not, we were, as the humans would say, screwed.
Chapter Seventeen
Juan raced us back to the waterfall cave, cursing himself the entire way for being an idiot. For not realizing we’d been set up. He was not the only one who’d been fooled, but then again, even I would have never guessed how far these gringos would go to get their hands on Kayleigh.
They intentionally injured my mother to lure me from our hideout so they could sneak in and nab Kayleigh. Did she live? Were we already too late? My heart insisted she’d not been killed and yet, as we searched the citadel finding no sign of Kayleigh or Polly, a cold dread settled within.
They were gone because I’d failed to protect them and dios only knew what would happen to them at the hands of their kidnappers.
The only good thing? I found no blood, but there were other ways to kill, which led me to standing at the edge of the chasm, praying Kayleigh’s body didn’t lie broken at the bottom.
Juan put a hand on my arm and drew me away from the gash in the stone. “They’re not down there.”
“You can’t know that for sure. Pollita can fly now.”
“But Kayleigh can’t, and we both know the dragon isn’t strong enough to carry her. I think they took her.”
“What makes you think that?”
My uncle held up a plastic tie, the kind that looped like manacles. “I found this on the ground.”
“Why would they take Kayleigh?”
“Are you suddenly dumb? Use your head.”
“They’re going to use Kayleigh to get Polly to cooperate,” I replied slowly. While my dragon might talk big and call us her servants, she did like us. Liked us enough she might not want to see us injured.
“Now you’re thinking.”
“I’d rather not because then I wouldn’t have to realize how I failed to protect them.”
“Bah. As if you could have predicted something like this. I didn’t and we both know I am much smarter than you.”
I snorted. “If you’re so smart, then why not tell me where they are?” Because I had to find them.
