Page 60 of Tempt the Dragon
“Then he knows to be afraid of them?”
“Yeah.”
Neither of them spoke on whether or not they were afraid of the covenof witches. Time would tell soon enough.
They were on the boat in the next hour and dropped off at the edge of the village two hours after that. Now they were walking again, booted feet sloshing through mud and matted grass. The bottle of potion was in Mel’s backpack. The plan was to get as close to the Scheneks’ village as possible. The daily delivery truck would come along at one o’clock.It always stopped while one of the Schenek lowered the barrier to allow it in. Mel was going to cloak herself on the truck somewhere and ride right onto the burial ground. All she had to do was pour the potion over one of the headstones. Ravyn said it would spread to form an underground perimeter of all the buried bodies and lock them down permanently. None of them were sure exactly how that wouldhappen. Then again, none of them were witches.
Before any of that could happen, they needed the communicator to tell them when they were close to the village because the Schenek had also draped their huts in an invisibility spell so they wouldn’t be seen from above. Shola had programmed the exact coordinates into the communicator. This mission gave a new meaning to flying blind and for thebillionth time today Aiken wondered why he’d agreed to let Mel come.
“It should be right up here,” she yelled back to him.
He’d been so deep in thought going over the plan in his head once again, he hadn’t been staring at his communicator like she now was.
“Yeah, straight a few more feet and then to the left. Here’s the road the truck will travel along. We can hide in the brush overthere.”
She nodded and they picked up their pace since it was now twelve forty-seven. When they made it to the brush, they both knelt so they wouldn’t be seen. For what felt like endless moments there was nothing but the sound of the rain splashing onto the ground. Eventually, they heard an engine growing closer. He reached for her hand then, holding it tight in his. She gripped his hand justas tightly even though neither of them spoke. It was as if they were silently wishing each other luck. But more, he was telling her to stay safe and to hurry back to him, all silently, hopefully.
The truck came to a stop just a few feet in front of them and Aiken turned to her. She tilted her head back to see him and he pushed the hood back far enough so he could see her whole face clearly.“In and out, Mel.”
She nodded. “In and out.”
“If you need to get out of there in a hurry, shift. Don’t hesitate, just do it.” His heart was beating so hard and fast he wondered if she could hear it. “I’ll be right here.”
“I know.” She nodded again, blinking rapidly. “I know.”
When the driver got out to stand near a rock on the other side of the road, Mel let go of his hand andran to the truck. She turned to him, pushing her hood off and for endless moments they only stared at each other. The love he felt for her was overwhelming, and words would not come. Eventually, when it seemed like too much time had ticked by, he was the one to nod this time. She did the same and then climbed into the back of the truck, where she quickly disappeared.
His gaze remained gluedto that truck until three minutes later when it began to move again. The driver drove much slower now, seeming to ease over the road. The altered pace gave the impression that the vehicle was being pulled along, instead of the driver actually putting his foot on the gas pedal. Aiken didn’t move from his spot. He remained in that squatting position, staring toward the invisible village until thetruck was about fifty yards away. Then he glanced down at his communicator. The others were here but he didn’t know where or when they would show up near the village. It didn’t matter. His beast was on full alert and the moment he thought she was in trouble he was shifting and going in to get her. The witches’ magick couldn’t compare to that of a Drakon in full dragon form. If it did, he didn’t givea damn, he was still getting in there to get her. Setting his stopwatch he gave her the agreed-upon five minutes to find the headstone, pour the potion and get back on that truck to get out of there.
In the meantime, the beast inside struggled to push the man’s fearful thoughts out of its mind. Fists clenched as he acknowledged that the trepidation he’d been building since that evening they’dflown together had morphed into a gigantic hole in the center of his gut. It wasn’t good, he knew that, and yet he hadn’t said anything to anyone. He couldn’t. This mission was important, it would save the lives of so many, all he had to do was get through it with her.
Never before had he thought about losing her in this way, not during any of their hunts. She was an excellent fighter, a quickthinker and a chameleon. Together, those traits made her a lethal weapon, one he’d seen in action more times than he could remember. He trusted those traits and he wanted to believe that the dragon she’d finally opened herself to would bring her through this safely. But Aiken’s gut never lied.
He looked down at the stop clock, she had three more minutes. “You can do this, baby. We can do thistogether.” The words were mumbled against the loud patter of rain and a warm breeze that blew even more water in his direction.
That didn’t stop the beast from rising up within him, pressing so urgently against his body that his claws poked through. He knew what that meant, and he pushed the poncho up on one side so he could reach for his gun, but it was too late for that, the first hit cameto the back of his head. The second came to his side as he immediately turned using his power to toss the one who’d hit him first into the trees behind them. He heard the hissing sound of a vamp baring its teeth before he saw it, but was already in attack mode, fighting off every one of the vamps that came barreling at him, all the while thinking about Mel’s words about this possibly being a setup,and the fact that she was inside the village, alone.
Mel came out of the cloak seconds after the truck stopped. She’d kept her nervousness about being able to pull off that part of the plan to herself. It was the first time she’d attempted a cloak since that night back in Burgess when her power had failed her and Aiken had tossed her onto his back to save her from the fire. She could hearvoices and presumed them to be the witches greeting the driver. They’d come to the back of the truck momentarily, so she had to move quickly.
Easing her legs out and down to the ground, she stayed low as she looked around. There was no place else for her to hide, no other buildings that she could see. The huts the Schenek lived in were invisible. That thought slammed into her brain the secondanother huge drop of rain slapped her in the face.
Look for the headstones.
She didn’t see any to the immediate left or right and the chatter at the front of the truck had begun to move toward the back.
Think, Mel, think.
How the hell was she supposed to get away from this truck without being seen? As if in answer to her question, she glimpsed a huge tree through the sheets ofrain. It was about fifty feet from where she was squatting behind the truck. If she could get to that tree without anyone seeing her... She couldn’t think on that any longer, she had to move. Tapping into all the Drakon powers she’d recently learned to use, she took off running, praying nobody noticed the bright red poncho, or if they did she’d be moving fast enough it would appear only as a blurof color they might pass off as something blowing in the wind.
In what felt like seconds her back slammed against the tree and she immediately sank into another cloak, just in case. Being buried against the bark of the tree gave her more opportunity to look around, to try and spot a headstone anywhere on what looked like nothing but straw covered land. There was no grass or even dirt hillsthat might be spotted in a normal cemetery. This place looked barren but for the trees placed in what she could see were measured intervals. They weren’t lined in a neat row, but she spotted the pattern after a few seconds of looking in all directions. It was a circle, or more likely, because they were dealing with witches and spells, a pentagram.
The bodies must be buried within this sphere.With that thought she zeroed in on the ground. Flipping to her Drakon eyes took only a second but her vision was immediately enhanced, the blades of straw appearing closer and more pronounced. There had to be a headstone somewhere in here, some type of sign that marked one grave from another.
Clenching her fingers, she silently cursed because she couldn’t see what she knew had to be here.Shola and Ravyn had instructed her to look for a headstone, but neither of them had actually seen the burial ground up close. What if they only presumed there’d be headstones marking each grave? The vampires could’ve been in underground vaults, one on top of each other, and since they were never supposed to come aboveground again, why mark them? Were there some vampire families allowed to come andvisit them? Because that was generally the reason for marking graves at cemeteries, so that anyone looking would be able to find who they were looking for.
Well, dammit, she wasn’t looking for any particular vamp, all she needed was one.
The breeze picked up. It was warm but moving fast, almost like the wind during a hurricane or before a tornado. She lifted an arm to do a quick checkof her time—three minutes left. She had to move, the truck was going to be leaving soon.
