“Easy,” Lars warned. “I told you to drink it slow.” He snorted. “But since when do you listen to me?”
There it is. Let the lecture begin.
Sven held up his hand. He needed just another minute of peace and took another sip of water, much smaller this time. He glanced at his bloody hands and torn shirt that had been ripped away and hung crookedly from his shoulders. The wound itself was almost healed, but not quite.
“What is going on? My dragon should have healed me already.”
He searched his memory for any pieces that might be missing. Staring at the woman. Getting out of the car. Looking back at her and making eye contact that shot right through him. Then the sickening punch in his chest and falling to hisknees. But where most had run, she had run straight to him. He remembered just before darkness threatened to swallow him, her tenderness and scared voice urging him.I’ve got you.Stay with me.
Sven blinked, fighting through the fog. “I’m lucky I didn’t shift when I was hit.” He wondered what the woman would have done if he had suddenly turned into a dragon while she comforted him. It would have been a nightmare if he had. Stagholt had no idea they were ruled by dragon kings and queens, and the repercussions could have been great.
“They dipped the arrow in that new toxin that prevents shifting.” Sven’s royal medical team had been working on a vaccine that would make the toxin ineffective. “Luckily, even though our doctors haven’t figured out exactly what it is, they know enough about it that they were able to reverse some of the effects so you could heal.”
“I should have listened to you.” Might as well meet the wrath head on.
“No shit.” Lars leaned forward in his chair. “You have no idea how close you came. The archer had to be on the roof, straight on to you, and how he missed your heart is beyond me. It was an easy shot.”
“It was her.” The words slipped out before he thought.
“Her? Her, who?”
“The woman who helped me.” There was no hiding anything now. “She had walked behind the car and I turned to see where she went.” His breath hitched. “If I hadn’t turned to look at her…”
“You’d be dead.”
The words hung in the air.
Sven suddenly remembered his brother. “Did you say you have no idea where Erik is?”
“He never came out of the airport as far as we know. He was still on the passenger manifest, but we can’t confirm if he was on the flight or not.”
“You think this was Skelvarns? Magnus?”
Lars shrugged. “Could be. Arrows are their weapon of choice.” He cleared his throat. “Could have been Erik.”
Sven’s head snapped up and he instantly regretted the quick movement. “How dare you.”
“How dare I?” Lars stood up so fast the chair skidded backwards. “You insisted on going alone to see a brother who has been missing for two years doing who the hell knows what. Someone whoknewyou would be at that airport. Nothing from the Skelvarns in months and suddenly they choose today to pull off an assassination attempt?”
“Erik had nothing to do with it.” Sven refused to even contemplate the option. He snapped his fingers. “What if they took Erik?”
He could read the doubt on his friend’s face. Lars shook his head. “We’d have known by now. There would be demands.”
“Not if they think I’m dead.”
“Pretty sure they know you’re not dead. If that woman is working for them, she would have told them that you were alive when she last saw you.”
“That woman was not involved. She helped me.”
“Pretty convenient, don’t you think? She just happened to be there to distract you?”
Anger rose. Sven slapped the bed. “If she hadn’t distracted me, I’d be dead, remember?”
“Mistake on her part.”
Sven almost growled. “She had nothing to do with it. I’m sure Coben has talked to her.”
Lars’s shoulders dropped a bit of the tension. “He did. He cleared her. Everything she said was true, and he checked withthe family that she claimed to be her new employers. Other than they were surprised she was a couple days early, they confirmed her story. They were expecting her to start working for them on Monday. She was on the same flight as Erik but we have no idea if they knew each other, although their seat numbers were close together.”
