Tegan threw himself into its path and held up his hands, dropping the contract. The net landed on him and a horrible cry escaped his lips as his body convulsed. He dropped to his knees and fell forward. The net faded and I could see it was made of some sort of thin metal wire.
A group of cloaked figures hurried toward us from that direction. Two of them were Whalen and his Key, and another pair followed behind them. Those two held the nets in their hand.
The leader Key stopped them a few yards from where we stood and the light from their lamps cast much of his face in shadows. “I’m sorry we had to do that, but the dragon left us with no choice.”
I dropped to my knees beside Tegan as I felt a strange pull tug on my body. The contract beside him gave off a soft blackish glow and my signature especially shone. I grasped Tegan’s shoulders and shook him hard.
“Wake up!” I shouted as tears sprang into my eyes. “You have to wake up and sign it!”
Whalen’s Key nodded at two guards behind him. They hurried forward and their rough hands grabbed my arms. I thrashed in their hold as they pulled me away.
“No!” I screamed as I kicked and bit at them. I stuck my heels in the ground but the hard-packed earth meant they still dragged me away from Tegan. “Let me go!”
A strange light began to flow out of me. It wasn’t the familiar white light from earlier, but one as black as the night overhead. The men froze and one of them whipped their head to the Key. “Sir! She’s a night witch!”
The Key frowned and shook his head. “That’s impossible.”
Their distraction gave me the courage to fight harder and the dark light around me grew brighter.
The Key whipped his head around to the sparking people behind him. “Ready your net!”
The pair hurried to the front and grasped their nets tightly in their hands. The metal sizzled with electricity as they drew them back to toss over me. I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth as I tried to focus on the strange energy flowing out of me.
The power burst outward, throwing my captors off me and into their sparking companions. The men screamed as they were electrocuted by the nets before the magic users could shut off their power.
I felt light-headed as I dropped to my knees. The contract came into my fuzzy view. I snatched it up and crawled over to Tegan as the pull inside me grew stronger.
“Wake up!” I shouted as more sounds came from the other end of the tunnel.
Tegan’s eyes flickered open and his unfocused gaze fell on me. I used his clawed hand to prick a finger his finger and shoved the contract into his face. “Sign!”
He weakly raised his hand and drew a few scribbles across the bottom. A brilliant red light burst out of the contract and the document floated upward out of my grasp. The light shot downward and cast us in a circle of its brilliance that grew brighter and brighter. The tunnel around us began to fade.
The Key’s eyes widened. “Stop! Don’t move!”
I looked up at him and waved. “Bye.”
The Key raced toward us but the light blocked him out as I felt a strange tugging all over my body. The next moment we were transported away.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, and that fire proved to be really hard. My legs weren’t prepared for the short drop on the other side. We fell maybe a foot and a half dozen splinters jabbed themselves into my knees.
“Ow. . .” I mumbled as I drew my legs out from underneath me.
I was just in the process of rubbing my bruised knee when I found myself staring at a familiar, and very pale, face. Mrs. Brogan.
I yelped and fell back into Tegan. He looked almost as pale as Brogan as he sat up and rubbed the back of his head.
“What in the world is going on?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
Mrs. Brogan wagged one of her pale fingers at us, and in the dim light of night, her eyes gave off a very creepy reddish glow. “You were going to back out of our contract!”
Tegan eased himself onto his feet and helped me do likewise. “We’ve been a little busy.”
“No excuses!” she snapped as she stabbed her finger at a pile of two new pairs of jeans. “There is my part of the bargain!”
I pinched my arm to see if some of this wasn’t a dream. Nope, it was all real. Real and confusing. And tense. That wasn’t the atmosphere but the sensation inside me. The pull I had felt in the tunnel was ten times worse here and I couldn’t help but feel there was something wrong.
I turned to Tegan. “Is this really where Domini wanted us to be?”
He shrugged. “I’m as new at this job as you, but if I had to guess, I would say we’re expected elsewhere.”
Mrs. Brogan lifted her nose. “So that explains the scent of sulfur on you. You’re working for that foul creature, are you? And just signed the contract?”
Tegan nodded. “That’s right, but how do you know about that?”
“Never you mind, but that’s why you’re here. My contract is stronger than anything he’s ever mixed up, especially since he dilutes that magic to no end with all the people he’s got running around doing his dirty work.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t plan on doing anything dirty, especially housecleaning.”
Tegan folded his arms over his chest and cupped his chin in one hand. “Then my payment to you-”
“Constituted a contract, and I pay a higher price for my magic than what he doles out to his underlings,” Mrs. Brogan finished for him. “Now take your pants and you’ll be snapped back into his contract, and mind you don’t go fooling around with his lap dog.”
My heart skipped a beat at the prospect of travel to the unknown and my anxiety caused a bit of dark power to flow out of me. I gasped and wrapped my arms around me to stifle the magic.
Tegan’s eyes widened as he watched me. “Is. . .is that you?”
I shrank back from his shock. “I shouldn’t be able to do this, right? I’m a day witch. Why is this coming out of me?”
“Hmm.” The sound came from Brogan as she scooted up to me. She eyed me with a sharp look and her cold fingers danced up my arm. “I haven’t seen one of you for more than five centuries.”
I blinked at her. “One of me?”
“You’ve seen this before?” Tegan questioned the old vampire.
She cast a sneer at him over her shoulder. “Of course. I haven’t always been a gifted tailor. I once traveled as you do and I witnessed such a gift as this woman holds.”
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked her.
Brogan scoffed. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re merely a twilight witch.”
The phrase meant nothing to me and so I looked to Tegan for guidance. He shook his head. “I’ve never heard that term.”
“Of course not,” Brogan replied as she glided over to the jeans and picked them up. She walked over to us and looked between Tegan and me. “But I have, and so has the Blood Wizard. You need to search him out in the caves to the northwest of Brunnen.”
“Where?” I asked her.
“Enough free chatter,” she scolded me as she plopped a pair of jeans into each of our arms. “He’ll know what to do.”
The tug I’d felt since signing the contract really pulled on me now. The familiar red glow of the contract surrounded us and drew us into its brilliance. The next moment my feet met uneven ground. I would have fallen if Tegan hadn’t caught me with his free hand.
I blinked and the world came into focus. The shop had vanished and we found ourselves in the middle of a long wide road with a familiar shoulder. “Is this the High Road?”
Tegan swept his eyes over the area and nodded. “It looks like it, and if I’m not mistaken we’re on the far western side of the capital.”
A wave of exhaustion and fear swept over me. I clutched the jeans against my chest and shut my eyes.
Tegan’s hands settled on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
A bitter snort escaped me. “Am I okay? I was just chased down by a bunch of magic users and have just been told that I need to go see some guy in some far-off vampire kingdom so I can find out what the hell is wrong with me.”
Tegan turned me around and wrapped his arms around me. He drew me against his chest and his warmth spread over me. “But they didn’t catch us, did they? We’re still together and we know where we need to go.”
I tried to recall the word Mrs. Brogan had used. “Brunnen?”
“It’s the capital city of the vampires,” Tegan told me as he drew me to arm’s length. A small smile slipped onto his lips as he looked into my eyes. “That is, if you want to keep traveling with an outlaw.”
I choked on a laugh. “From one outlaw to the next, I think I can live with that.”
Tegan lifted his eyes upward and frowned. I followed his gaze and beheld a small piece of paper that floated down to us like a feather. Tegan snatched the parchment from the air and read the contents.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“A letter from our new ‘employer,’” he told me as he handed me the note.
I read the brief contents aloud. “You are weak after your ordeal and I have no use for dead employees, so take a week to rest. I will call upon you after that time.” I yelped and started back as the paper exploded into a tiny cloud of smoke. The pants in my hands dropped to the ground.
Tegan reached down and plucked them off the dirt where he brushed them off. “Already trying to make them travel-worn?” he teased as he held both pairs out to me.
I took them and glanced down both ends of the road. There was nothing but trees and forest as far as the eye could see. “I don’t think they’re going to need any help.”
Tegan offered me his hand and jerked his head over his shoulder to the west. “It’s this way.”
I accepted his hand and together we set off on our journey of discovery. It would be a long and strange road, but with Tegan by my side, I felt I could face just about anything.
Even bloodsucking vampires.
* * *
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Romance finds a way to cross worlds. For Caitlin Miller that couldn't be more true when fate drops her into the world of her dreams. A devilishly handsome dragon by the name of Asher welcomes her with open arms, and an open bed. Sparks and magic fly as together they try to make sense of life, and love. Check out the FREE first book in the series, Perchance to Dream, and live their world and adventures!