To Hell and Back by L.B. Gilbert

Chapter Eighteen

Spending all morning in bed was more than enough for Valeria’s batteries to recharge. Aggie had bought her a tray and had shown her how to raise the television hidden in the console slash clothing chest set at the foot at the bed.

It was startling to see daytime talk shows on the screen, as if everything was normal, the earth spinning as it always had. As if dragons didn’t exist. But here she was, sitting in a dragon’s home, having delivered a dragon baby during a life-threatening emergency.

And pulling out a year-old talent from her arsenal—she hadn’t known she could do that so effectively. Nor had she been aware of the true cost.

The healing talent was the only one she had actively cultivated, and it hadn’t hit her the same way, perhaps because the healing ability had self-corrected any damage.

A few years ago, she had cut herself on a jagged piece of metal after climbing a fence to get into an abandoned warehouse where she wanted to sleep for the night. She’d used the healing ability then. Her nose hadn’t bled, and there had been no headache. She didn’t understand why it had been different with the teleportation. Yes, the latter could be classified as an offensive talent. The witch she’d copied it from had used it with vicious effectiveness, she remembered with a shudder. But last night, she’d used it to help someone. Apparently, the intent—to help or to hurt—didn’t matter.

She lay in bed, trying to recall the other instances where she’d used a talent after the source was long gone. It had only happened a handful of times, but most of those had been painful enough to discourage her from trying again.

What if it was the source that mattered? The healer had been a gentle woman, her purity of soul so painfully obvious she’d almost glowed to Valeria’s naked eye.

Valeria couldn’t see auras, but, during that visit, it almost hadn’t mattered. She didn’t consort with good people all that often. Every other person she’d copied was almost universally bad—hunters and black witches who dealt in death and wanted her power.

So, what would happen if she recalled Rhys’ fire without him close at hand?

Burying her face in her hands, she decided not to find out—not that she could. She’d knew without asking that Rhys wouldn’t allow her to distance herself from him enough to test her theory.

I do like my theory. Valeria and her mother had lived on the fringe for so long, dancing on the edge of the black without quite going over. She’d felt her mirroring power inside her all her life. It was always ready to take, even without her conscious effort. That was one of many reasons she had feared it for so long.

But it wasn’t the main one. No, Valeria had been inspired to fear her own abilities because of the way people watched her. Even as a child, she’d be in the street going somewhere with her mother and she’d feel someone’s eyes on her. Nine times out of ten, it would be an old man or woman, watching her with fear or outright malevolence. Many had worn crosses, too. Come to think of it, those instances had always been higher around a church, or in very religious communities.

It was why, deep down, she had always believed she deserved to be hunted…because she was evil.

But if she could only recall the talent mirrored from good people without a harsh backlash, then maybe she didn’t have to be as frightened of her ability as much as she believed?

What if, despite all evidence to the contrary, she might be…good? Or at least neutral?

That was something she had never considered.

Pursing her lips, she sighed. No, her power was too bright and brash, something that could blind her if she let it. The best she could do was to control it and not allow any more accidental lapses the way she had in her teens.

As for trying to recall past powers, she needed her brains in her head, thank you very much. Especially if she had to pit her will against a dragon.

She glanced down at her arms and legs. It was almost as if she could feel Rhys holding her arm, supporting her. He’d carried her all the way upstairs last night, setting her on her feet at the threshold of her bedroom.

Blush suffusing her cheeks, she was glad he was so old-fashioned. If he wasn’t so proper, so governed by such a strict code of conduct, he would have come inside. And it wouldn’t have been to tuck her in.

That’s because he thinks you’re someone else.

Spirits dampened, she dressed, sneaking out of the house to avoid Rhys.

It was a little immature, avoiding the man she was growing infatuated with, but she needed time to regroup.

Valeria had been alone so long, struggling to get by and just live. Now she was living in a mansion with an unreasonably handsome dragon who was not only protective, but also kind and considerate. Could she blame herself for these feelings?

It was tempting, so very tempting, to see home in her dragon’s eyes. But that dark gaze didn’t see her. When Rhys looked at her, he was seeing someone else entirely.

Annoyed and disgruntled, she started to walk outside, hiking down the hill. She was a quarter of the way down when she realized Sanaa and Thomas’ home was too far to reach on foot. She turned around, taking a small footpath just off the main road. The narrow trail wound up through the pines, but it didn’t look man, or, in this case, dragon-made.

It’s too soon to visit Sanaa, she thought remembering the dirty look Thomas had given her when she’d handed him the baby.

Relax. For all his grumpiness, the bear had to know it had been accidental, and, under the circumstances, necessary. He’d get over it. Or at least she hoped he would.

She’d focus on the problem at hand, and it was a doozy—a mountain of a man called Rhys.

All those quiet nights reading by the library fire, the way he kept stuffing food in her face, and the clothes he’d provided… Who the hell was the woman Eliana had been talking about? If Valeria asked outright, would Rhys tell her or would he lie?

Frustrated, Valeria kicked the nearest pine tree, laughing when an unexpected shower of pine needles fell on her. Snoop first, ask questions later, she decided, resuming her walk.

She soon came to a small bluff with a view of the valley below. It was both gorgeous and brutal, the green hills dipping and rising in jagged peaks lightly dusted with snow, even now in April.

Why wasn’t there more snow on this peak? Was it chance or had Rhys done something to get rid of it?

A mental picture of him in dragon form breathing fire on the ground to melt the snow flashed through her mind. The silly image made her smile before she scowled. You are still mad at him, she reminded herself.

But she wasn’t going to find the answers she needed out here, beautiful as this mountain was. She turned back to the house, but quickly realized she’d lost the trail. That was all right, though. It wasn’t possible to get lost. She just had to keep heading up to the summit. The house would be hard to miss.

Except, somehow, I did. That thought came an hour later. Valeria was surrounded by a thick copse of pines, with no idea if she was up or down.

It’s because you were distracted, she scolded herself. She’d been too intent on the mystery of Rhys, too consumed by her desire to unravel his secrets. Well, look at where that had gotten her now. She was completely lost.

Blowing out a sharply annoyed breath, she picked her way through the trees carefully. Despite this part of the mountain being almost level, she couldn’t be sure of her footing. This patch was more unforgiving, with more stones and boulders jutting out of the earth like jagged teeth.

To add insult to injury, the wind was picking up. It wound through the closely set trees and stones, the bite in it dropping the temperature by double-digit degrees.

She peered up, dismayed to find that the sun was much lower than she’d believed. It wouldn’t set for another hour, but she was no longer certain she’d make it back to the house before dark.

Determined to try before Rhys sent out a search party, she kept going, stopping in another small clearing to catch her breath.

Her neck prickled. Valeria whirled, expecting to find Rhys or one of the other dragons at her back. But it wasn’t one of the clan. She was at the mouth of the cave. A faint light came from it, but it was distant as if its source were far away.

She began to step away only to turn back around. Compelled by something she couldn’t explain, Valeria walked into the cave.

The darkness inside was smothering. Her heart picked up, but she kept going, heading toward the source of the light. Unlike the area outside, the cave interior was clear of all obstructions.

This is dragon-made, she thought, feeling the walls. The same technology that let Rhys slice giant redwoods in two had made this passageway.

Leave or go on?Her chest was tight, the incipient panic making itself known, but her gut told her there was only one choice. She went on.

Well hell, how medieval. The light at the end of the tunnel was actually at the halfway point. There she found a large brazier—a disk as big as a child’s sled, the round kind they used to fly down snowy hills. It was suspended from the ceiling from three chains high over her head. Three hundred yards down, there was a second brazier, then a final one before the passageway suddenly opened.

Valeria came to a stop at the top of a staircase carved into the rock face. She couldn’t see what was down below, but there was a sense of space licking at her skin. There was a large chamber in front of her. She just couldn’t see it.

Her stomach roiled, memories coated in blood, and the sharp metallic taste of fear rising to sap her will. But she’d come this far. Whatever Rhys was hiding, it had to be here.

Hyperaware there was no railing, Valeria put her hand against the wall, letting it guide her down. But she hadn’t gone more than a few steps down when the world exploded in a wave of fire.

* * *

Sir, we have an intruder in the sanctuary, Kyrin informed him, his voice strong in Rhys’ mind.

Freezing outside of Sanaa’s home, he began to shout back across the mental link, telepathy being the sole means of communication of his people when they were in their winged form.

The punishment for violation of their sanctuary was death. Immediate death.

No! Do nothing. I am on my way.

He shifted in a blink and was slicing through the air, flying harder and faster than he’d thought possible, even for him—the fastest member of his wing.

Kyrin’s voice returned. Understood.

Rhys could have fallen out of the sky right then—his relief was so great. But he kept pumping his wings, arriving at the entrance of the sanctuary in another minute before shifting back. Then he ran.

He found Valeria huddled a few feet from the mouth of the inner sanctum. The smell of brimstone and sulfur tinged the air.

His second youngest warrior stood over Valeria, his face like granite. His blond hair gleamed in the dim light as if the strands absorbed and reflected it. It tended to do that, even in the weakest moonlight, which was the reason Rhys made him blacken it whenever the young warrior ventured outside their territory.

Straightening to attention, Kyrin turned to face him.

“I found this intruder on the steps to the inner sanctum.” His tone was cold, a flawless diamond in the snow. But while Rhys appreciated his man’s control over his emotion and his aim—the scorch marks marking the cavern wall would have been well above Valeria’s head when she was standing—he would have strongly preferred Naveen or Jerik on duty here during this particular intrusion.

The past had damaged his people in innumerable ways, but Kyrin’s particular demons lived in this room.

Rhys put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “You are dismissed.”

“But—”

“I will take care of this.”

A wash of heat flared from the young man, but he was too disciplined to argue further. He nodded.

“I give you leave to go see Sanaa,” Rhys said, trying to mollify his most troubled warrior. “I’ve blessed the babes, but I’m sure you will want to welcome them yourself.”

Kyrin knew what he was doing. “I thought Thomas forbade visits for the first week,” he said, raising a blond eyebrow.

Rhys shrugged. “Yes, but Sanaa disagrees.”

Their second-youngest clan mate wanted everyone to admire her brilliant children.

Kyrin continued to frown, aware he was being handled, but he had always been close to his cousin. He and Sanaa were related along the maternal line.

Aware that Valeria had lifted her head, Rhys gave Kyrin a small nudge to move along. Then he looked down at their intruder.

* * *

Valeria’s muscleswere rigid after that panic-fueled flight. There had been darkness, and then, in the next blink, an explosion right out of an action movie.

Only this one hadn’t been a fantasy because she’d been face to face with a dragon. It had been flapping its massive wings inside the chamber in front of her—the eyes glowing bright enough for her to see it after the brazier had been knocked down the stairs in the scuffle.

The dragon had stayed back as she scrambled into the tunnel even as the braziers’ embers died on the stone steps. Expecting to be blasted into ash at any second, she hadn’t run. In the movies that just brought the fire faster. Instead, she’d curled up into a ball, trying to protect as much of herself as she could, dragging up a shield made of pure magic.

Then the dragon had changed into a man. It had been too dark for her to see the transformation, but she’d known the blond warrior suddenly standing over her was the same shifter from the way he kept trying to eviscerate her with his gaze.

But she might have preferred that one to stay than face Rhys.

You promised not to endanger or betray his people. Well, it seemed by being in this cave, she had broken that promise. And she was about to pay the price.