I locked in on the witch. “What do you mean?”
“It was just a story my gran told me.” Grace’s large, very dark – almost obsidian-black eyes – were scanning the environment below. “When the dragon king was alive, he was the worst kind of dictator. If you didn’t join him, you died. Some of the races banded together, witches and fey mostly, and they decided to pool their magic and create an oasis, a sanctuary for those who needed to escape but were not powerful enough to fight.”
My gaze was drawn back to the scene below. This place certainly fit the “sanctuary oasis” brief. It looked to be divided into territories. Lands of ice, oceans of blue, forests of green, and deserts of red. Basically something to suit each and every one of the supernatural races, even those from the demi-fey.
But one thing was bothering me. “Why was I the only one who could enter the golden barrier?” Sure it had strung me up, but the others couldn’t even get in at all. “I had to show the mark. This seems to be something to do with dragon marked.”
From the side, a voice said, “You are both right and wrong. This is the created oasis, and over time it has become a dragon marked haven.” Cloaked fey was standing on a small ledge which looked to lead into a crisscrossing path down into the valley. “Now is not the time for the long history of the sanctuary. Follow me, there are dangers here for those uninitiated. Do not be tempted from this path, for now you must shadow my steps.”
“Are we near Krakov?” asked Braxton.
“No,” was all the answer we received.
I wasn’t sure about everyone else, but I was relieved to know we weren’t courting the criminals of Romania. I’d heard they held the worst of our kind. Their prison was supposedly a veritable stronghold.
Cloaked dude turned and was off again. Braxton reached out then and linked our hands together. I narrowed my eyes and he leveled his stoic expression on me before he said, “I knew the moment he said ‘Don’t be tempted off the path,’ that you’d need some help.”
A few rumbling growls rocked my chest, and my eyes got even squintier. “Are you trying to say I have a short attention span? That I can’t walk into this valley without suddenly being distracted by, say, a squirrel, and scampering my ass off the road?”
Jacob and Tyson both snorted. I whipped my head around to them. At the sight of my expression, they stemmed their laughter before clearing their throats and staring off into the sky.
About freaking time. I was on edge, the need to be in control, dominant, was slamming into me. Braxton had stepped up his possessiveness more than a notch since we’d escaped the relative safety of our hometown. Maybe it was that I’d never been outside Stratford before, or simply everything from the past few weeks, but now seemed to be the time to nip this bullshit in the bud.
My finger flicked around to rest of them. “Listen up and listen well, Compasses. I’m not a delicate human, or a damsel in distress. I’m a wolf, an alpha and a supernatural. If you all try to bubble-wrap me up, I’m going to rip your faces off.”
Mischa and Grace seemed impressed and shocked by the attitude I was throwing at my boys, but the five of us fought all the time. It was how we related, we loved and fought hard. It was part of our pack dynamics.
Unfortunately, my five-feet-four of spitting mad shifter didn’t instill even an ounce of fear in my moronic quads. They exchanged amused glances, before Maximus snatched me up and threw me over his shoulder. Braxton seemed reluctant to let my hand go, as it stretched out between us, but eventually he was forced to release it.
“It’s damned cute the way you boss us around, Jessa babe,” Maximus said. He sounded amused. I sighed and resigned myself to not winning any domination contests today.
I could hear Jacob and Tyson chuckling as they followed their vampire brother. Over Maximus’ shoulder I saw Braxton ushering Mischa and Grace onto the path ahead of him, as he took the rear of our group.
“Are you planning on carrying me the entire way down?” I deadpanned, hugging myself into the broad, muscled back of Maximus. “I might just have a nap.”
His laughter rumbled the hard body under me. “Yep … and by the way, you’re starting to feel a little light. We need to get you some food.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled.
I could hear Mischa murmuring to Grace. “Why does Jessa even have feet? The Compasses can’t seem to stop themselves from carrying her around.”