Chapter 285: He Was Not Finished Being Her Husband

EDRIK’S POV

Edrik dragged the radio closer with two fingers and kept his eyes on the doorway.

One man lay against the folded stretcher, making a wet sound whenever he breathed. Another had backed into the yard after the stun wore off. The little bastard with the black device had slipped out of sight near the truck. Edrik remembered his face. Remembering was easy. Getting far enough to do something about it was the problem.

His legs refused him.

He had asked them once, then again, and the second attempt had left him flat on his side with his teeth clenched hard enough to ache. Dove had seen the first attempt. She had seen him reach and fail.

He pressed the transmit button.

"Workshop south of the crossing. Woman taken. Transport skill. I’m still here."

His voice sounded normal enough. Good. If Dove heard him somewhere, she didn’t need to hear anything else.

The man by the stretcher tried to move. Edrik reached for a loose steel rod beneath the bench, closed his hand around it, and felt the familiar reinforcement take while his skin stayed against the metal.

"Stay where you are."

The man looked at the rod, then at Edrik’s legs. He made the mistake of smiling.

Edrik struck him across the reaching hand. The smile vanished. He kept the rod against the floor afterward, saving strength instead of showing off.

Dove would have called him a show-off if she were here. Then she would have touched the side of his face and ruined whatever threatening thing he had planned to say next.

He needed her here so badly that the want felt stupid. She needed him moving. She needed him angry somewhere useful. He could give her angry. The moving would have to wait.

"Where’d they take her?" he asked.

The man held his injured hand against his chest. "I don’t know."

Edrik raised the rod an inch.

"I drive," the man said quickly. "I don’t do the jumping."

"Then tell me where you drive."

Outside, gravel crunched beneath a boot. Edrik turned his head without turning his body. The man in the yard stopped at the doorway, looking past him toward the gun beneath the bench.

Edrik had already seen it. He couldn’t reach it without leaving the radio and dragging himself into the open. The man knew that too.

"Walk away," Edrik told him. "This is the only time I’m offering."

The man hesitated. That was enough to tell Edrik he wasn’t particularly brave. He wanted an easy kill, not a fight with something that still had teeth.

Edrik shifted the rod toward the doorway. The other man stepped back, swore, then ran for the truck. A door slammed. An engine caught.

He could let one go. He had one who couldn’t leave, and Dove needed information more than she needed a neat pile of bodies.

"Road yard," the injured man said. "Old county place. Alden’s there."

"Which road?"

"They change where the boards are. I don’t know which one he used today."

Edrik watched his face. Fear made people talk, but it also made them invent. He had no patience for a man sending them ten miles in the wrong direction to buy himself another minute.

"What did you see?"

"Orange truck. County truck. North of the feed store, when we picked up the boards. That’s all."

Edrik repeated it into the radio. He added the yellow clothespin beside the departure board, the transport man’s face, and the fact that Dove was fighting when they took her. Someone answered with a broken string of words. He caught workshop and coming, not enough to trust an arrival time.

He laid the radio beside his shoulder rather than wasting strength holding it. The empty jug touched his elbow. Dove had emptied it over him before they grabbed her. Every drop she had brought for them, spent trying to keep him alive.

His throat tightened. He swallowed it down.

"You hear me, wifey?" he said, too quietly for the man beside the stretcher. "I’m not finished."

The bond pulled beneath his ribs. It didn’t tell him a direction. It didn’t give him her words. It was simply there, and he held to that while the workshop floor pressed hard against his back.

He used the shirt from the ready bag to keep pressure where the dressing had shifted, following the last instructions he remembered from the earlier aid stop. It was clumsy work with one hand. He did it anyway. Looking dangerous would not keep him alive long enough to hold her again, and dying to avoid looking helpless would be a particularly stupid gift to leave his wife.

The truck outside lurched forward, then stopped so violently that something crashed in the cab.

Edrik looked toward the door.

A shadow covered the yard. The man beside the stretcher made a frightened, choking sound. Beyond the broken van, enormous claws struck the gravel in front of the truck.

Ash had found him.

Edrik let his head rest against the floor for half a second. Not relief exactly. More like someone had finally handed him a loaded weapon that could walk.

The truck driver shouted. Metal screamed. Edrik couldn’t see the whole thing from the floor, only the front of the truck lifting and the dragon’s head turning toward the cab.

"Alive!" Edrik shouted.

His voice tore across the yard. The dragon went still.

"I need one alive, you overgrown fucking lizard!"

Ash’s eye turned toward the workshop. Even from here, the look could have emptied a room.

Edrik bared his teeth back at him. "She isn’t here. If you kill the driver before I ask him something, I’m going to be very difficult about it."

For a second he thought Ash might ignore him. Then the truck dropped onto its wheels with a hard bounce, and the passenger threw himself out of the far side, trying to run.

The dragon moved.

Edrik couldn’t follow what happened beyond the van. He heard a shout, a thud, then silence. The driver’s door remained shut.

Ash had listened. That was new.

Edrik tightened his hand around the radio and watched the shadow move toward his doorway. He wanted to get up before Ash saw him like this. He wanted a great many useless things.

Instead, he held out the radio.

"You’re going to help me get my wife back."