Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 3, Portal Guardians (15 page)

I snorted.
 
"More than you, apparently.
 
I don't sell my friends out, but that's just basic common sense.
 
Anyone as old as you ought to have learned that by now."

"Friendship is a commodity," he snarled.

"Ha!
 
Friendship is
not
a commodity.
 
Friendship is a gift!
 
A precious gift that you don't deserve since you treat it so casually and carelessly."
 
I saluted to the dragons.
 
"I'm outta here.
 
Dragons, I agree to your terms.
 
I'll deliver your companion and the tooth at the portal in two weeks' time."
 
I hoped that would give me enough time to get from here, to the Underworld, and back home.
 
I had no idea where the portal even was, but I knew that someone in the compound did, and we had an airplane.
 
I could get there if the safety of the world was at stake.

"You have no right to negotiate my agreement to this plan!" Ben yelled, furious with me now.

"I guess you'd better find that dragon a companion then and hand over that fang, because I'm pretty sure the world doesn't have that much time left without her at that door; and your stupid plan to get the humans all riled up has already backfired.
 
There are friggin demons in the Overworld now, thanks to you."

"It wasn't just me," he said in a quieter voice.

"Yeah, I know.
 
You had Torrie and Maggie and Céline and all of them messing around with scryings and mimickers and who the hell knows what else.
 
You've gone too far, Ben, and now it's time for you to make it right."

The two dragons turned in unison, their wings unfolding from their backs as they walked away from me and towards an area of the cavern that had been behind me.
 
I watched as their tails disappeared and then seemed to go up into the air.
 
A gust of wind pushed me back, making me run over to see what had happened.

When I rounded the corner, I stopped suddenly, my heart instantly picking up from its already accelerated pace.
 
I was staring out of the opening of a cave high at the top of this mountain, the edge of a sheer cliff just one foot in front of me.
 
One more step, and I'd be airborne.

Ben came up behind me, standing at my back.
 
My hand gripped the rock next to me, my nails digging into its surface.
 
I had no idea what he was going to do, but the thought crossed my mind that this would be the perfect opportunity to off me, if that was what he had planned for me.
 
There were no witnesses to see it go down, and I didn't have wings.
 
I'd be a goner for sure.

"Please don't kill me," I whispered, vibing Tony as hard as I could.
 
Help, help, help, he's going to push me!

"What did you just say?" asked Ben from behind me.
 
I could feel his breath on my neck.

"I said please don't kill me."
 
I was afraid to turn around, he was so close to me we'd be nose to nose if I did.

The sounds of running feet broke into our conversation from behind.

"Ben!" came Spike's voice.
 
"Get away from her!"

Ben grabbed me by the upper arms, wrenching me to the side a little.

I screamed, my foot slipping in the loose gravel at the edge of the ledge, causing me to lose my grip on the ground.

Ben was seized from behind by someone, which, because he hadn't let go of me, threw me to the ground on my side, my lower legs now dangling over the edge of the cliff.

Ben fell down right after me, landing partially on top of me, pushing all the air out of my lungs in one big groaning
whoosh
.
 
He rolled to the side to get off, but must not have realized how close he was to the edge, because he just kept going, not enough ground there to hold him up.

I felt his arms sliding down my legs and heard him yell, just as the realization hit me.
 
He's going over the edge!
 
And he's using me to stop his fall!

The weight of him hanging onto my legs and pulling me down from over the edge was too much to be able stop the momentum with the complete lack of handholds that I had in the ground under me.
 
I was going over too.
 
I screamed bloody murder, not ready to die, not ready to be squashed into a flat bloody pancake or battered by granite for a thousand feet or more.
 
The fear rose up from my stomach, ready to announce itself as a stream of vomit.

Strong arms grabbed onto mine, halting my downward progress and my plans to spew my last meal.
 
I looked up, tears streaking my face, my expression frozen into one of desperate horror, to see Spike holding onto one arm and Jared holding the other.
 
I'd never been so happy to see my two friends as I was in that moment.

"We've gotcha, Jayne!
 
Just hold on!" yelled Jared.
 
Spike just grunted with the effort of holding me and keeping me from dying a painful death at the bottom of this cliff.

Tony was standing at the opening.
 
"Ben's down there too!
 
He has her legs!"

The guys were grunting, their feet unable to grab hold enough with the loose pebbles there.
 
They were slowly losing ground.

Finn got behind Spike and reached over him to grab my arm farther down.
 
Samantha got behind Jared and took him by the waist, hauling back as hard as she could.
 
Niles did the same behind Spike.
 
Sam's face turned beet red within seconds, veins popping out in her neck.
 
My body moved up with their combined effort, but I felt Ben's hands slipping from my legs.

"Aaargh!" Ben yelled.
 
"I'm ... fall ... ahhhhh!"

I flew upwards as Ben's weight disappeared from my legs and my friends kept pulling with all their might.
 
I shrieked at the knowledge that Ben was falling from the cliff and I couldn't stop it.

"Oh my god!!
 
He's
gone!"
I screamed, scrambling around on the stones, now out of harm's way and on top of a pile of my friends' legs.
 
"Oh my god, oh my god! He's gonna die!"

I was still on my stomach, but I spun around and slid off my friends, the rocks digging into my belly.
 
I had to see him.
 
Maybe there was a tree sticking out or something he could grab.
 
Maybe he hadn't really fallen.
 
I leaned over as far as I could, but I saw nothing but a few wispy clouds.
 
His screams had stopped, and the only thing I could hear now was the wind whistling past my ears, blowing my loose hair all around my face, sticking it to my cheeks now wet with tears.

We remained completely silent, the only sounds to be heard once I'd scooted back away from the edge, the sniffling from most of us crying.
 
The only one who wasn't bawling was Niles, but I looked up in time to see him wiping his eyes.

"What happened?" asked Tony in a choked voice.

Before I could answer, I heard yelling again.
 
And it was coming from below us.
 
Down below the clouds.

"Is that ... ?" I asked, crawling on my hands and knees to look back over the edge and then over my shoulder at my friends.
 
"Did you guys hear that?" I whispered, afraid I'd imagined it.

Jared looked at me and then Finn.
 
"It sounded like ... Ben."

Spike nodded.
 
"Yeah, I heard it too.
 
Definitely Ben.
 
And not sounding dead or unhappy, actually."

I turned my head to the side, aiming my ear to the space over the edge, hoping to hear him again.
 
At first there was nothing, but then there was another yell.
 
This time it was more like a shout of happiness, though.

I frowned.
 
"What the hell?"

And then a figure burst out from the clouds just below us, and I scrambled to get away from the edge of the cavern, as far away from the illusion I was seeing as I could.

I mowed over Spike and Finn in my urgency and complete lack of finesse, causing a minor pile up at the entrance, making it really difficult for the purple dragon and its elemental rider to enter the dragon's lair.

"Get back!" shouted Ben, sounding more commanding than he ever had prior to falling off a cliff.
 
"We need to come in," he yelled from the back of the purple dragon, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear.

CHAPTER TEN

WE WAITED FOR BEN OUTSIDE the mountain, Willy sound asleep in a little sling I'd made for him around my neck.
 
After he ate one of the strawberries I found for him, he was fat and happy, his yawns so big they nearly swallowed his face.
 
By the time we made it out of the mountain, he was snoring lightly under my chin, reminding me painfully of his father who had probably destroyed his hairdo completely by now with his worry over his son.

We had to take the long way down out of the mountain, through twisting damp and dark tunnels.
 
We hid behind outcroppings and inside crevices in the walls to avoid coming into contact with the dwarves who still hadn't figured out we weren't being held captive anymore.

We stood in a copse of trees near a clearing not far from the exit we'd found, all of us watching in awe as Ben was delivered in style, coming in for a landing on the back of the purple dragon again.

I noticed as he got off that he didn't have the dragon fang weapon strapped to his leg anymore.
 
The holster was there, but it was empty.
 
"Where's your weapon?" I asked as he walked towards us, his swagger impossible to ignore.

"You should know.
 
You're the one who struck the bargain."
 
He smiled patiently at me.
 
Arrogantly.

I rolled my eyes.
 
As if his head wasn't big enough already.
 
This whole dragonrider business was definitely going to be a problem.

Ben turned to the dragon and stared into one of her eyes for a few seconds before backing away, giving her room to take off.
 
She leaped up and beat her wings hard, pushing herself up high enough to catch a current of air that lifted her up into the clouds above us.
 
We quickly lost sight of her.

Niles turned and began walking into the trees, and all of us followed.
 
Ben was last, still looking back from time to time at the spot where he'd gotten off his fancy ride.

"What did Ben mean by that, Jayne?" asked Tony, the first one to speak since the dragon had made her majestic entrance and then exit.

"Yeah, what was the bargain?" added Jared.

Niles just grumbled, but I couldn't tell if he was actually saying anything.

There hadn't been time for me to explain everything as we made our way out of our prison, but now that we were trudging through the woods back to the Elysian Fields, I no longer worried so much about being overheard.
 
"The dragon wanted two things to be the portal guardian again.
 
She called the shots.
 
She wanted her mate's tooth back and a companion for herself."

"A companion?
 
Like another mate?" asked Finn.
 
He looked back at Ben, trying not to snicker.

"No, not like a mate, you dork," I said.
 
"More like just someone to keep her company at the gate, maybe.
 
I'm not exactly sure, actually."

"I can tell you," said Ben, his voice full of self-importance as he caught up to us.
 
"My job will be to keep her company from time to time, visit different places with her, and talk about the realms and what's happening as the years go by."

"Sounds ... interesting," said Spike, walking backwards.
 
"Does that mean you're stuck there at the portal all the time?"

"No.
 
But it does mean that I have free reign over both realms, though - the Overworld and the Here and Now.
 
And I might have some influence over who leaves the Overworld too."

"How do you know all this?" asked Niles, not sounding very happy over the prospect.

"She told me.
 
It's the role she used to play for the former guardian.
 
He can't do that for her since he was killed, so she needs a substitute."

"Another mate," said Finn, now not bothering to hold back the snickering.

"No, not a mate.
 
Don't be ridiculous.
 
Just someone to keep her company.
 
That's it."

"Well, I think it's cooler than cool that you got to ride a dragon,
and
that she saved your sorry ass from getting smashed on the rocks below that cliff," I said.

Ben grinned at me.
 
"It
was
cooler than cool.
 
You've got that exactly right.
 
I've never felt anything like that, not even when I rode the wind.
 
It's completely different."

"How'd you hang on without a saddle or reins or a mane or whatever?" asked Finn.

"She has several small, curved horn kinda things coming out of her back near her neck that I held onto, and a couple on her sides that I could hook my feet under to keep from falling off when she went sideways.
 
But a lot of the time I didn't need to hang onto anything.
 
The way her head is designed, it makes most of the air move up over not only her head but over any dragonrider on her back.
 
It was a surprisingly smooth and quiet ride, and her back was warm too even in the high altitude."