She nodded. She focused on regulating her breathing as her gaze clung to his.
“Here’s what you’re not going to do,” he whispered, looking deep into her eyes. “Do not draw any attention to yourself whatsoever. Do not give them a reason to believe you’re anything but incidental. Do not look them in the eyes. To a Goblin, that’s a sign of aggression. Do not speak to them. Do not struggle. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” she whispered back. That galloping horse was back in her chest. The way things had gone this last week, she’d lost ten years off her life from stress.
“Here’s what I think is going to happen. They’re going to separate us. They might hurt you.” His grip tightened to the point of pain. “They won’t kill you. They’ll have seen I was tending to you in some way, so they’ll want to use you as leverage to control me. Goblins have no interest in human women. They won’t rape you.”
A spasm of trembling hit her, and then it was gone again and she was calm. “It’s all right,” she told him. “I’m all right. I’m glad you’re telling me this.”
“That’s my good brave girl.” He let go of her shoulder and brushed his knuckles against her cheek.
“That’s pretty patronizing,” she said, refusing to acknowledge how her idiotic heart had swelled at his words. It seemed pretty clear by now she had no sense or good taste.
He gave her an impatient shrug. “So?”
Just like that she cracked up. His raptor’s gaze narrowed. She clapped both hands over her mouth to muffle the noise and sobered fast. “This is still about that penny, isn’t it?” she said into her palms.
“This is about the fucking penny,” he agreed. “I think it was used to put a tracking spell on me, much like the one we used on you. I don’t sense any real Power here yet, but I bet our orchestrator of events is on his way. It’s all the more reason you must not draw attention to yourself.”
“I won’t.”
He looked out. “Almost there now. If they’re thinking what I hope they are, they don’t know I could have gotten out. From their point of view, it must have looked like I’ve been trying to get free. I’m hoping they have underestimated me.”
Another wave of adrenaline hit. Her system was so overloaded it was starting to make her feel high. She thought back over what had happened and nodded.
“That’s it. You keep your head down, keep quiet and survive.” His gaze was fierce. “I will come after you.”
They started to slow. She couldn’t bring herself to look out. “How close do you think you are to throwing off the last of the poison?” She forced the question out of throat muscles that had locked up.
“It might take a day, maybe two. It helps we crossed over and the land magic is so abundant here.”
A day or two. In some ways not long at all. In other ways, a lifetime.
All of this was about her. She stole the penny, she was the one he came after, and she was the one who got him shot by the Elves. He held himself back from escaping from the wreckage to help her. He still wasn’t going to fight when they stopped, because she was around.
He has to wait until I’m out of the way. It’s so I don’t get killed. Maybe now we’ve come so far he’s got to wait until he’s healed. It’s going to be a race, between how fast he can get free and how fast the Power that arranged his capture can get here.
The emotion that welled at that was indescribable.
“I think you’re my hero,” she said. Only half kidding.
He stared at her, the picture of incredulity. “Most people,” he said, “think I am a very bad man.”
She studied his eyes to try to find out if that bothered him. He didn’t seem bothered by it. He seemed discomfited by her. “Well,” she said at last, “maybe you’re a very good dragon.”
The flatbed stopped. Showtime.
She kept crouched down as she peered out the wreckage. A Goblin had stepped out of a black metal gate. She had seen pictures of Goblins before but the drawings and sketches hadn’t managed to capture their robust vigor. The real ones were not only hideous but powerfully built. The language they spoke to one another was choppy, guttural and harsh. As a few came closer, she realized how bad they stank.
Still, there was something different about this Goblin, an air of authority. He held ropes of black chains with manacles. He strode closer to them but stopped a prudent distance away. He stank too.
They were altogether repulsive, and somehow she was supposed to let them put their hands on her. Another convulsive shiver hit. In a move unseen by the Goblins, below their line of sight, Dragos put a hand on her knee. She covered it with hers.
“Buck up,” she whispered to him. “Don’t be such a wuss.”
His hand clenched and his shoulders shuddered. She hoped she made him laugh again.