“You weren’t bonded before,” Cara said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“What makes you think he’ll listen to us?” Lucas sounded as though someone had him by the throat.
Cara fixed first him, and then Aria, with her vivid-blue gaze. “Liberis have always believed in the power of love,” she said. “Its positive energy will bind you to each other, just as it does you to the surrounding life.”
A frozen silence fell over the group. Finally, Tyrez shifted his feet and sighed.
“Perfect. We’re in the hands of a sharding Jedi.”
Dani choked on her tea, and Ash rubbed her back, unhelpfully, before commenting, “At least I now know what that is.”
42
Lucas heard what Cara was saying, but something inside him locked right up. Control Nikolai? Did Cara really believe that Aria and he could do that?
But he was now so linked to Nikolai that all he had to do was reach for him, and he was in the big guy’s mind.
So. Maybe Cara wasn’t nuts. But it still seemed like a pretty fanciful idea. Like something he’d expect a Unicorn to come up with.
His attention focused on the new Dragon shifter in the group. The chair barely held the big man. Another damned handsome Dragon, and this one not tied into a mating bond.
He told himself it didn’t matter. He wasn’t suited for Aria, either. But he could barely keep himself from glaring at Razir, for no reason other than the fact the big Dragon could take Aria as high as she could ever wish to go.
He squelched the thought. Enough. There were more important things to worry about. Like Nikolai taking them, along with all the realms, down with him.
As the Dragon shifters rose and filed toward the door, Lucas glared at Razir’s broad back. Razir and Tyrez shifted and left right after one another, while Ash turned to Cara.
“They will probably come for you. Most timelines confirm it. Sometimes, to recruit your help. But I have also seen them arrest you for collaboration. No proof, of course, but they may not need it to take you away.”
Cara crossed her arms. “Any idea as to timing?”
Ash frowned. “Not sooner than two days. Beyond that, I cannot guarantee anything. I will try to keep on top of it and give you as much warning as I can.”
Lucas stared. Two days. How much damage could Galeran and Nikolai do in two days?
Dani shifted to her furred Dragon form. “Ash ands I wills stays ats the cave. Ifs someone gates ins, we’ll comes fors you.”
Cara’s mouth pulled straight. “I might not run. It depends on whether our efforts bear fruit or not.”
Ash finished his own transformation and stretched his wings. “I ams nots going to helps them.”
“If we can’t free Nikolai, that might have to change,” Cara noted.
“Ifs yous can’t frees Nikolai, there wills be nowheres that is safe,” Ash shook his sleek head and regarded them with one gleaming eye.
Perfect. No pressure at all, then. Lucas swallowed.
“Cans we helps?” Dani sounded frustrated. “Maybe yous cans taps into ours energy, to disable the runes?”
Cara sighed. “Nikolai is so locked down, he can only access from Aria and Lucas. That may change as we disable more runes. If we can use you, I will let you know.”
“Okays,” Dani replied.
Dani and Ash leaped into the air and disappeared over the tall jungle trees. Cara turned and clapped her hands together. “Okay,” she said. “Time to visit Nikolai.”
As Lucas followed Cara and Aria down the hall, his mind spun. Two days. How could they disable all those runes in that time? They’d done like, what, two in the first session? And it had drained Aria and himself pretty thoroughly. No way they’d get all of them done in two days. Unless...
The idea flitted through him, circled back around, and took root. It wasn’t as though it hadn’t already occurred to him about a million times, even before the disastrous Dragon flight.
