Page 6

Aurora

L aid back on the covers, staring up, I saw not the golden chandelier above the four-poster bed that was in my room at home, nor did I see the painted stone ceiling. Instead, I saw a pair of gray circles looking down on me.

Watching. Judging.

I pulled the ridiculously plush comforter a little higher as if the imaginary eyes could somehow see through the plain t-shirt I wore over my upper half to sleep in. Even as I did, warmth stiffened my cheeks at the thought of doing the opposite and pulling the covers down. Exposing myself to that otherworldly gaze. Letting him see what he could only imagine earlier.

Don’t kid yourself. He was just being a normal man. There was nothing special about the way he gave you a quick elevator stare. That was just you making it up because he was so hot you haven’t been able to stop thinking about him all day.

From the next room, the echo of loud snores droned out my inner monologue for a moment.

It had been hard not to daydream about Gray Eyes—or the magistrate, as my escort had called him. A man in a position of power, who commanded respect from others. That much I had put together.

Given the absolute bland, boring nature of my escort, Janus, my brain justified it as only natural to think about something, or some one , else.

Janus was polite and kind. He’d fed me. Given me a room to myself. Hadn’t made a single sexual comment, let alone an advance. I didn’t even think he’d checked me out fully. All day, he’d gone about his own business, leaving me to do the same. Then it was bedtime, and that was that.

More snores shattered the silence.

I bet Gray Eyes didn’t snore. He didn’t seem the like the snoring type. Every single thing about him screamed apex predator. A dragon at the top of the dragon food chain.

A dragon.

My mind wandered at that word. Just a little less than a year earlier, the creatures had been nothing but myth and legend, like King Arthur and Merlin. Tales to be told in books and around campfires. That was all.

Then the beasts had come pouring out from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and overrun most of the northern seaboard in less than eight months of absolutely one-sided warfare.

We hadn’t stood a chance. Bullets bounced off them. The heaviest tank rounds caused bruises, as best as we could determine. The biggest of bombs outside of nuclear weapons merely drove them back and at a huge cost to our infrastructure.

Then, just when it looked like Washington and the White House were going to fall, the dragons had stopped and offered a ceasefire in exchange for eight human woman as tribute.

Everyone with half a brain cell understood why they wanted women. Including my father.

Which meant the bastard knew he’d sold me off to become some rich dragon’s sex plaything.

More snores rattled the very bones in my body. If Janus viewed me as a concubine, he hadn’t shown it at all. Part of me had already begun to think he’d been forced into it as much as I had.

I brushed aside a stray thought about not fighting it if Gray Eyes had been my escort instead. Because I would have. That was who I was. I didn’t give up. I didn’t back down. There had to be a way out, a way to escape this place and the dragons. I just had to find it.

You won’t find it by lying in bed either.

My inner voice was right.

Sitting up, I slipped from the bed, grateful for the constant snoring. Not only did it mask the little noise I might make, but it would serve as the perfect warning if Janus stirred.

Out of bed, I dressed swiftly, putting on the same clothes I’d arrived in. Janus had been thoughtful enough to provide me with a few spare changes of the basics. Underwear, socks, some stretchy pants, and a mix of short- and long-sleeve shirts. I gathered them all up, stuffing them into the drawstring bag Janus had given me.

Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I tiptoed from the spare room, listening with every step I took to make sure the snoring didn’t stop or change pace. One thing I’d learned was that dragons had extremely good hearing.

Which made my next task all the more heart-pounding.

Racking my brain, I tried to recall if it had made a lot of noise when Janus had shown me into his quarters. I couldn’t remember. I’d still been in my addled phase after waking up in the cave with dragons.

If this thing squeaks loudly, this escape attempt won’t get me very far.

But what choice did I have? I couldn’t just stay put. I wasn’t the type to accept that sort of limitation. No, I would make my own future.

Taking three long, slow breaths in and then slowly out again, I worked to lower my heartbeat as best as I could. The calmer I was, the more deliberate my movements would be, and the less sound I was liable to produce.

I listened to Janus’ snoring pattern carefully, and as he started up another, I slowly eased the deadbolt across, timing it with the apex of his snore. It took three snores for me to fully slide it open, but I did. The click as it seated itself again was right next to my ear. The noise was deafening in the silence, although in reality, it was barely audible.

Then came the hard part. Opening the door.

Grasping the L-shaped knob, I slowly pushed the lever up . It was more effort, but by going upward, I also lifted the door ever so slightly on its hinges, reducing any squeakiness.

With the handle turned, I very, very gently pulled the door inward, lifting up the entire time. Inch by inch, in tune with Janus’ snoring, I neared my escape. I paused several times, listening to the corridor as well to ensure nobody came by at the worst opportunity.

Then, at last, it was open enough for me to sneak through. I lowered the handle, grabbed my shoes, and eased myself through the door.

But I’d forgotten one important thing. I had a bag over my shoulder. Which meant I needed more width.

The bag caught the corner of the door and pulled it after me.

I froze as the entire thing squeaked loudly.

Janus’ snores stopped.

Barely daring to breathe, I prayed urgently.

Go back to sleep. Just go back to sleep. It was nothing. You imagined it.

There was no way he would sleep through it, though. Between that and the absolutely thunderous roar of blood as it rushed through my veins, something would wake the dragon up. Then he would find me trying to leave and probably fry me on the spot.

I was halfway through the imaginary recipe for Humans Sunny-Side Up in my head when the snores returned.

Sagging against the doorjamb in relief, I eased myself through, this time being careful to avoid catching the bag. Then I closed it just as cautiously, waiting well over a minute after the latch had caught to ensure Janus’ snores were uninterrupted.

After that, I crept down the hall far enough where I could put my shoes on in peace. In all that time, nobody had come by, but I was pushing my luck, nighttime or not. A barefoot human in the middle of the night was bound to draw questions.

But now, I was out. I was dressed. And if politics had taught me one thing, it was how to fake it. So, I stood up tall, shoulders back, and walked right down the carpeted hallway like I owned the place. I knew what I was doing and where I was going, and I didn’t have time to be questioned about it.

That was the air I exuded. The attitude I let flow over me as I started my escape journey.

First step: Escape the room. Check.

Second step: Exit the building. In progress.

I recalled several things I’d seen during the day. First was that we were several floors up. The building, the palace as Janus had explained, was massive. Actual windows were few and far between, but we’d passed several. Judging from that, we were on the fourth, maybe the fifth, floor.

So, it was time to go down. I’d seen several sets of stairs, so I made a beeline for the ones closest to Janus’ room. With any luck, they would lead me straight down and out.

The stairs did indeed go down. And down. I passed three different levels, and they kept going. There were no signs, no labels, nothing to tell me where I was.

How the hell do these people keep track of where they are in this maze?

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I glanced up behind me. It had been more than five flights worth of stairs, hadn’t it?

I didn’t know. But there had to be an exit somewhere. After all, people had to go in and out of the palace somehow. Didn’t they?

My feet took me up one hallway and down another. The lights grew fewer and farther apart. There was no carpet underfoot either, only cold, hard stone.

A well-traveled path this was not. In fact, I hadn’t seen or heard a sign of anyone in nearly half an hour.

I was lost.

My confidence was fading. I hurried down the hallways, trying to recall if I’d seen them before. Was this intersection familiar?

“Shit,” I said to nobody in particular.

What the hell did I do now?

I needed to find a way to leave marks behind. To tell myself I’d already passed that way. But the question was how? What could I use?

Bending over, I rifled through the bag. Maybe there was a button or a zipper I could use to leave a trace on the walls.

My hand closed on the wait of one of the sets of pants, and with it, I felt the cold hardness of metal.

I had my way out!

The elation that rushed in like a freshly lit candle was just as quickly snuffed out when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder, spinning me around.

“What are you doing down here?”