“Yip-yip! Roo-roo! Yaroooo!” Mona barked as she took off at a high rate of speed.
Looking up just in time to see Maisie appear in the drive-up window and toss me the keys, I caught them by the huge, punk, rubber Dragon keychain. Turning towards my bright red 1980 Ford Bronco, I ignored Zelda’s dejected groan and called over my shoulder, “Come on, boys, Let’s saddle up.”
“What about Mona?” Arthur asked.
“We’ll get her on the way.”
Opening the big back door for the dogs to pile in, I blew out an exasperated breath. “Hang on, Kai.”
Slamming the door shut, I went to the driver’s side and climbed in as I kept talking to my Mate both mentally and aloud. “I'm coming, Fairy Man.”
Shoving the key into the ignition, I looked at Zelda when she patted the back of my hand. “If that man has gotten himself kidnapped two weeks before our Mating Ceremony…”
Putting the SUV in reverse, I backed onto Huff-N-Puff Road while continuing, “I swear on coffee, chocolate, and every pair of bedazzled tennis shoes I own...” Pushing the gearshift to D, I pushed the accelerator to the floor and added, “I'm gonna kill him myself.”
4
With the pedal to the metal, as my dad used to say, I hoped, prayed, and made promises to every deity I knew. I promised to be good from this day forward. I even pleaded with the Powers That Be, especially the crazy, rainbow-haired deity Omnipotent Being, Fate, for my Mate to be okay.
I had to find Kai. There was just no other option.
Lips curled inward, my jaw clenched tight, and my tongue stuck out the side of my mouth, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that I knew my palms bore the indentations of the stitches of my faux dragon scale cover. Jerking the wheel to the left, then to the right while speeding up instead of slowing down, my beautiful SVU, known as Fancy, and I took a right onto Elephant Trunk Drive on two wheels.
“Are you tryin’ to kill us?” Maeve screeched all the way from the third seat.
“No.”
“Slow the hell do….ahhhhhhhhhh!”
Taking the next turn like I was riding the rails and hitting the straightaways like greased lightning, I just knew my foot, right along with the gas pedal, was going to go through Fancy’s floorboard. The thought of having to ‘Fred Flintstone’ it all the way to Hoopingarner House was not an option, but neither was slowing down.
Tires squealing as I whipped us to the left to avoid running over Rhonda Rhino and her four girls picking blackberries on the side of the road, I jerked the steering wheel in the opposite direction to avoid what was left of a hundred-year-old concrete embankment. One more quick turn of the wheel, and we went down one side of the drainage ditch, back up the other, hit the lip of sand, dirt, and weeds, and went airborne for three-point-two seconds.
“What the helllllllll?” Maeve screamed.
“Aroooooooo!” Otis howled. “Slow down!”
Ignoring them all, I stuck my head out the window and yelled, “Sorry, Rhonda! Got an emergency! Free coffee for a month if you keep this between us.”
I didn’t know if she was giving me a thumbs up or the middle finger; however, she did show up at the shop every day for the next thirty days without fail.
Eyes sliding to the side, I caught sight of my dear friend, Zelda, and for the briefest of moments thought about slowing down just a tad. Then visions, more like nightmares, flashed to life in my brain. I saw my gorgeous Mate hanging from a ceiling, shackled with iron, and being tortured. Just the thought had me grinding out through gritted teeth, “Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down!”
“Let her down! Let her down!” Zelda replied with a shriek, white-knuckling the grab bar.
“No can do, my… OH SHIT! There’s Mona!”
Taking my left hand off the wheel to point at the long gray tail running like a bat out of hell right in front of us, Fancy lurched to the left, then back to the right when I overcorrected. Hitting yet another ditch, Fancy dipped and swerved and weaved on and off the road while all the unfurry people in the vehicle screamed in horror.
“Oh, shut up!” I snarled. “I’m not gonna kill you. I just don’t have time.”
Catching up to the female Wolfhound, I rolled down my window and the one behind me for Arthur to translate, just as Zelda got her hysteria under control. “You are aware the speed limit is thirty-five, right?”
“And you’re aware that my fiancé is missing, right?”
“That wasn't an answer,” she sassed. “And it’s impolite to answer a question with a question.”
“It was the only answer you're getting, Miss Manners,” I grumbled.
