Kidnapped

Kidnapped
Oakley

“Rejection?” Mom’s voice is muffled by the door. It’s a hazy outline through my fogged vision while I lie back on my pillows. Blinking takes a tremendous amount of effort and makes me feel on the verge of collapse, but I keep my eyes open to slits, my gaze glued to the golden highlight surrounding my door. “But… that can’t be right. They were–Prince Ian, he was…. They seemed so happy.”

I don’t recognize the other woman’s voice. It’s softer, lower, more of a rumble compared to my mother’s pitched whines while they argue back and forth. 

At least, I think they're arguing. My mind is a blank slate, fueled by a fever that hasn't let up in several days. 

My arm tingles, then begins to burn, the only sensation I can truly feel beside the ebb and flow of the fever. A sweeping, rolling feeling flows over from the tips of my toes to my head. I'm nearly dragged under into the absolute depths, unsure when I'll wake up again. 

“We've confirmed my cousin's story to the best of our abilities. Princess Naomi was there, with them, when it happened.”

Princess Naomi. Her name bounces through my mind. Fractured memories curl but never form into full focus, and then my mind slips away again. 

The conversation outside my door continues in muted whispers.

“I know my son. He wouldn't have done this to her unless he felt it was absolutely necessary for her safety.”

“You believe they did this together? Rejected each other?”

Ian. His name filters through my mind like music. Memories cloaked in golden sunlight fill my mind, but they're blurred by smoke. 

“He wanted to marry her. He told us he'd made his choice, but then he disappeared. I know him, and he wouldn't have changed his mind.”

We didn't have a choice. I remember that clearly. I feel that pain in my bones, seared there like a scar. My body aches so sharply, I curl into myself, but my bedroom door opens, and light floods the room, spilling from the hallway where two shadows lurk just beyond the doorframe. 

The taller shadow steps into view, and I nearly pass out just from the shock of it. 

Luna Lexa of New Glade stares down at me. She’s pale, but beautiful, and extraordinarily tall, just like her son. Seeing her face is absolutely heartbreaking because they look so much alike. Those deep blue eyes are especially identical. 

Mom steps into the room behind her but hesitates. “A healer from Endova is on her way. We’re expecting her in a few hours.”

Lexa comes to kneel at my bedside. I hate that I’m too ill to bow, let alone fix myself into an expression that somehow showcases my submissiveness to her status, but I can’t. 

“What has happened to you?” Lexa whispers, stricken. She slowly touches my face, her nails gently pushing my hair away from my eyes. “Did he do this to you?”

“Who?” I breathe, unsure if she’s truly here or if I’m hallucinating because I believe that’s been happening often. Naomi visited me and left three days ago. Tomorrow is the dawn of the full moon. The scars on my arm now nearly reach my shoulder, burning and throbbing with every passing second. “Ian?”

She nods, but it’s pained. I want to reach up and touch her. I want to run my fingertips over her sculpted, high cheekbones, and just for a moment, imagine it’s him. 

But I can’t. 

I can only shake my head in answer to her question, but then, the room starts fading at a rapid rate of speed. 

“My parents, your Alpha and Luna, are returning from Moonrise by tomorrow morning, and they are bringing my Aunt Kenna with them. She’s an impeccable healer and will be able to help her, I swear,” Luna Lexa says, but her voice is so far away now. Something cool to the touch weighs against my chest, and it’s the last thing I feel before slipping into the ridiculously deep void. 

Everything fades away, trapping me in darkness. Someone’s screaming in the shadows, but I can’t see them. Maybe it’s me. 

I didn’t take the priceless potion Naomi left for me. It’s in my bedside drawer, rolling around beside a letter I wrote before my finger became so stiff and useless I could no longer pick up a pen, let alone my knitting needles. It’s a letter about everything. Every feeling. Every hope and dream I ever had. Dreams of a quiet, slightly repetitive life. Dreams of my own home and children leaving fingerprints on every window. Dreams of rolling over in the morning and snuggling deeper against the warm body who’d chosen me and who I chose back. 

I think I wrote the letter to myself to try to remember who I was as these last nights chip away at me. I don’t regret any of this, which is the crazy part. A few months ago, I was scared of spiders. A few weeks ago, I was scared of missing rungs and messing up lines on my loom. A few days ago, none of that mattered and seemed so trivial. Look at what I survived, and for what? 

A slow, astonishing death?

“She didn’t take it.”

“That’s honestly in our favor. She can take it now. It’ll help with the jump.”

“Goddess, she looks so ill,” Naomi’s voice is somewhere in my head. “Are we certain?”

“Are we? This was your idea.” A bright, hot sensation soars through my chest. I think I am the one who has been screaming because the scream is so near now that it makes my ears sing with pain. 

A hand claps over my mouth. 

“Stop, give her the tears first!” An unfamiliar woman’s voice dips in and out of earshot. It’s less pitched and far more steady than Naomi’s manner of talking. “Hand it to me. Plug her nose. She’ll choke on it.”

“I’m trying to save her, not kill her!”

“She won’t swallow it otherwise.”

A tasteless liquid rolls down my tongue and settles in my throat. I gag on it, but someone is, in fact, pinching my nose and forcing my jaw back into position. My body reacts on its own accord–every synapse firing at the threat of mortal danger. My eyesight begins to come into focus, but the room all around me is pitch black, and the two people hovering over me are nothing but shadows. 

“Swallow, for Goddess’ sake, Oakley. You must!” Naomi’s shimmering blue-green eyes are the only color I see. She presses sharply on my chin, forcing my mouth closed. I jerk, unable to breathe. “Swallow it!”

“Someone’s awake and coming up the stairs,” her companion warns. “If we’re doing this, it needs to be now.”

“Did you sense anything in her? Anything your weird, three-dimensional printing powers of healing can repair?”

“Three-dimensional printing? You know what? No, we’re not doing this. I’m risking my neck for you, Naomi. We need to move. If I’m caught using my gifts, I’ll have hell to pay with not only my father but the mystics at large.”

“They’re the ones who got Ian into this mess in the first place!”

“Are you talking about his prophecy? Now? We need to get her out of here.”

I swallow. My back arches as a rolling, thundering warmth blooms through my chest. 

“Good girl,” Naomi breathes. “Hold on tight.”

My room has just begun to come back into startling clarity. A woman with bright, violet eyes is straddling me while Naomi forces my flailing arms to my sides. They look at each other, and the entire world falls in on itself. 

“You first,” Naomi says as the room pulls apart piece by piece. A roaring echo fills my ears, shattering Naomi’s next words. “I’ll take over when we reach the base of the mountains. I can get us–”

Pain. So much pain. Then, I’m falling through a dreamworld. Stars zoom past me, bouncing off my shoulders in little sparks, but now I don’t feel a thing. 

The world comes back into focus in an instant, but my body doesn’t register my new surroundings. I’ve done this once before, haven’t I? I remember it, but not clearly. I remember… Fennec, yes. He carried me through.

“Okay?” Naomi says through gritted teeth. Starlight erupts above her head, and large, spindling, guttingly familiar trees fan out all around us, trembling in a brisk, cool autumn breeze. 

“Is she–”

“She’s alive. Look, she’s looking up at us. Hello, Oakley. We’re kidnapping you for a moment. I’m so sorry,” Naomi says hurriedly. Then she snaps her gaze up at her companion. “My turn. Ready?”

“Do it.”

“Wait–” My voice disappears into the aether, but this time, the roaring is less loud, and the starlight is muted, and when we arrive, however and wherever we are, I feel it all. The weight of my body re-entering our realm. The cold rock beneath my back. Naomi’s hands still pinning my arms to my side. Her hair drifting over my cheeks when she bends her neck, teeth bared, and struggles to come out of the same odd sensation threatening to drown me entirely. 

“You’re fine, but please tell me we’re here,” her purple-eyed companion begs. 

Naomi slowly straightens, panting, and falls back on her ass, but the movement gives me a full view of the gaping maw of a very familiar cave. 

“No,” I rush out, feeling suddenly so aware, free of the fever and delirium that’s been plaguing me since my return to the Deadlands. “No, you can’t–”

Naomi rises on unsteady legs, swaying. She digs into a bag slung over her shoulder and pulls out what looks like a book with glossy edges. 

“Did you steal that from my house?” The purple-eyed woman barks. “Alex has a conference coming up. He spent hours signing those copies!”

Naomi waves the book around with a grunt, and then tosses it unceremoniously into the cave mouth, where it falls with an echoing thud. “Fraser is just as much of a nerd as he is, trust me. Alex will thank me later. He’ll have a new biggest fan by the end of this.”

“What is happening?” My voice sounds so odd. Scratchy and wet, like I’m still choking on the healing draft that has made every pain in my body simmer to a dull ache instead of a raging, festering fever. 

“FRASER!” Naomi shrieks into the darkness. “I SUMMON YOU AT ONCE!”

The purple-eyed woman bows her head and winces at the strength and volume of Naomi’s voice. 

“FRASER!” she screams again, then again, or perhaps her voice is just echoing repeatedly, like a drum. Like a heartbeat. 

“Where is this from? I’ve seen it before.” The purple-eyed stranger lifts a necklace from my chest, staring at a pendant I don’t recognize. It’s not mine. The smooth, pale blue scale set in a gold hoop does not belong to me, yet I’m wearing it, and it’s warm against my skin when she sets it down. 

“He’ll come, I swear.”

“Can we not just go in?”

“He’s a fucking dragon, Skye. Didn’t you see that when you dug your talons through my head without permission?”

Heavy, unmistakable footsteps sound within the cave. 

Two sets. 

My heart falls into my stomach as Fraser rushes into what little light there is to be had. Clouds block the nearly full moon. 

It’s here. Tomorrow morning, when the moon sets, will count as the last day of Ian’s transformation. It’s almost over. 

I let my head lull to the side as the second set of footsteps stop just within the shadow of the cave mouth. 

“What have you done, witch?” Fraser chokes out, frustration choking every syllable. His gaze snaps to Skye–which I believe is the purple-eyed woman’s name. “A fucking mystic? By the gods, history truly does repeat itself,” he sneers, and Skye bristles at his tone. “Did you put her up to this? Some fake ass prophecy that only benefits the teller if it comes to fruition?”

“Fraser, shut up,” Naomi snaps, shoving the dragon back a step. She points a finger into his chest and begins to rain profanities so prolifically inappropriate it would make the town drunk blush, but I’m not listening. 

Ian steps out of the shadows. 

He’s… himself. 

No beast form. No fae form. 

Him. Just him. 

His gaze scans my face, bold and bright with concern so deep it cuts me like a heated blade. 

“No,” he chokes out, shoving Fraser and Naomi to the side and dropping to his knees beside me. Skye rises, and then I’m in Ian’s lap, and he’s standing, turning into the shadows with me in his arms. 

He’s so warm. 

“Stop, Ian,” Fraser warns, but I close my eyes and bury my face against his chest. 

Ian’s grip is tight enough to bruise. I let it.