She had no doubt that Dragos had saved her life in more ways than one. She was grateful he had been able to stop her bleeding by sealing her cuts. He told her it was a form of cauterization except he was able to keep her from feeling the pain. It was too bad that was the extent of his healing skills, because her body ached all over.
She peeked out now and then, staring around in awe at the landscape that was so like and yet unlike the part of Earth she knew. The fluid roll of hills, burgeoning blue-green foliage, shards of sunlight sparking off crystal veins in granite boulders, the scenes they passed veiled some invisible truth that was so essential, so palpable, she could swear she could almost scoop it out of the air with both hands. Some long-denied, starved part of her soul unfurled and wailed with the need to drink from it.
Was it the magic of the Other land that called to her? Was it the ancient canny wildness of forest that had seen no woodsman’s axe, no farmer’s plow, that reminded her of her deepest self, the wild creature that lived trapped within the inadequate cage of her weak, half-breed flesh?
She wanted to cut at herself to let the poor creature out. The upsurge of desperate emotion was so violent, so uncontained, the part of her that was civilized with language and culture shrank away from it. An impulse ghosted through her to try to tell Dragos about the frenzy teeming inside, but civilization and language failed her in the end. She did not understand what she felt and so she remained silent.
As powerfully as the land called to her, the Goblins freaked her out, so she didn’t look outside too often. She chose instead to lie back in her broken seat and stare in thought at the mangled roof as she tried to explore the mysterious landscape she found inside herself. She became convinced the Goblins were the source of the dread that clung to her. The feeling crawled along her skin like baby spiders.
There were other layers to the mélange of contradicting, complicated emotions. Shock from the crash lingered. Fear clung, along with anxiety about what would happen next. Excitement welled that she was actually in an Other place.
Dragos existed at the center of all of it. He was her one point of stable reference, her compass point, true north.
His dark bronze skin seemed more intense, his inky hair more glossy, the gold of his eyes more burnished than it had been before. She wondered if it was an effect of the magic-saturated land, or if it was a side effect of the Elven poison working its way out of his system. Perhaps both.
She studied his dangerous face as he reclined on one shoulder and watched what happened outside. His gold eyes were calculating, and he kept the Goblin sword he had captured ready against his side.
She weighed the odds. On one hand, thirty or forty armed Goblins, give or take. On the other hand, one seriously pissed-off dragon. She thought of the enormous strength in those hands as he reshaped the metal near her legs. Maybe she was biased, but those Goblins were toast.
The trick would be how and when he was going to toast them.
“The problem is me,” she said, pitching her voice low like he’d told her to.
“What are you talking about,” he said in a soft voice, only half paying attention to her.
“Just like it was when the Elves had you surrounded. You wouldn’t fight them because I was in the way.” That got his full attention. She felt calm and clear. “I bet you could have gotten yourself out of the wreck probably well before we crossed over.”
“Speculation like that is useless,” he told her, frowning.
“Maybe you could have gotten free of the wreck before the Goblins even got the car onto the flatbed, right?” she persisted. “You didn’t, though, because of me. I’m holding you back.”
“Let’s be clear on something,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell you are. We’re adding that to a growing list of things for that conversation we’re going have when we get out of here. But one thing you’re not is a problem. Let’s say you are a tactical consideration.”
“Tactical consideration,” she huffed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you factor into the decisions I make. Stop fretting.” He flicked her nose with a forefinger. “Looks like we’re coming to our destination.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked out. They had been traveling for a long time. She wasn’t sure how long, because she had heard time moved at a different pace in Other lands. The sun had lowered until it looked like late afternoon or early evening, but if she went with what her body clock was telling her, it felt like they had been trapped into that awful wreck for an entire day.
The land had gotten rockier and wilder since she’d last peered out. Ahead against the bottom of a bluff was a grim-looking stone . . . fortress? Wow, she’d never seen a fortress before. A couple Goblins broke off and jogged ahead of the main group. Anxiety got the upper hand of all the other emotions in her mélange. Her stomach clenched.
Dragos’s hand settled on her shoulder in a firm, steady grip. “You listen to me,” he whispered. “You are going to do as I say. Do you understand? Now is not the time to argue or disobey me. I am the expert here. Got it?”