Escaping El Dorado

  Escaping El Dorado

  Helen Scott

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Other works by Helen Scott

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Escaping El Dorado

  Four Worlds Book Three

  Copyright © 2019 by Helen Scott

  Cover Design © Natasha Snow

  Editing by Ms. Correct Alls

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the brief use of quotations in a book review.

  This book is intended for adults only. The sexual activities represented in this book are a work of fiction intended for adults. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously by the author. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  1

  Dresden

  When the rage subsided and I saw the destruction I'd wrought, I couldn't help but feel ashamed. Sure, they were my parents, my earliest memories included them, but I'd been alone for a long time since then. Long enough that I shouldn't be as upset as I was.

  The dust finally settled and I realized that there was only rubble left of my childhood home. Not only that, but no one was around. It made me wonder how long I'd let the anger that raged within me out. I wasn't the type of guy to swear vengeance, but someone would have to pay for this. They were killed by a coward, someone who wouldn't even face my father when he killed him.

  I paced out of the splintered wood and chunks of fallen thatched roof and set about looking for Finn, Griff, and Kai. I knew wherever they were Tessa would be with them. I just hoped that they got her out before my anger hurt her.

  In the distance I saw a figure bending over for a moment before they scooped something up off the ground. It was only as they straightened that I realized the limp form in the figure's arms must have been Tessa. I didn't know how she got all the way over there, but I took off running full tilt toward them.

  The soldier's armor glinted in the sun and dread pooled in my stomach. When he loosed his wings and took off, I roared in frustration letting my own wings loose. Tessa hadn't seen them yet, didn't even know about them for that matter, which was something I regretted slightly. It had never seemed to be the right moment to tell her. As the soldier soared away on powerful wing beats I realized how weak my wings had become.

  In the human realm I hadn't been able to use them at all, not without also substantially glamouring myself, which was more draining than the actual flying. As I the gap between the soldier carrying Tessa and myself grew, I knew I was outclassed and fell to the ground. I wasn't giving up, but I needed a different tactic.

  "Dres!" a voice yelled at me from across the field.

  I turned toward it and found Griff running toward me His blond hair shining like a beacon in the sunlight of my home realm was the only reason I knew it was him from so far away. The heat that radiated off him seemed to make the air around him tremble in waves. I knew that the individual realms could affect us differently, but I'd never seen it in person.

  Atlantis was the most neutral realm, so that was where we had met as children and trained. Now, seeing a warrior from El Dorado in Hyperborea, I couldn't help but wonder if there were greater reasons for that as well. Fire fed off air, and I'd never seen Griff looking so wild or so powerful. It made me doubt the sanity of my ancestors when they apparently decided that we needed to visit every realm.

  "Where is she?" Griff yelled as he jogged up to me, his eyes wild with panic.

  "I think a soldier just flew off with her," I admitted. Shame crawled in my belly at the thought of not being able to keep up with the soldier. "We need to find the others and track them down."

  "They were just behind me," Griff said, looking around. When he turned back to face me a frown creased his brow. "I feel weird here, like I'm hyper or pumped about something. We were running at the same pace, so I don't know where they are."

  "It shows. I think the whole fire and air thing is coming into play more than we ever thought it would or could." As I finished talking Kai and Finn crested the hill behind us, the one where Griff had been when he yelled my name.

  "Where's Tessa?" Finn asked once they were close enough. His voice held an edge I wasn't used to hearing from him, one he only ever used during a fight, one that made me think of the Atlantean warrior he was.

  "Some jackass fly-boy took her," Griff growled. "I can find her though, since she's got my blood in her. I just need a minute to focus and calm down."

  "Someone took her?" Kai whispered next to Finn, his voice held the promise of violence. In all honesty I was over this routine of his where he demonstrated how much he cared about Tessa to us, but then that compassion disappeared when Tessa was actually around.

  "Save it. I don't want to hear your pissy tirade, okay?" I sniped at him. As much as I cared about Tessa, and I did, I also couldn't help but grieve the loss of my parents. I hadn't seen them in just over twenty years, and now that I thought I would have a chance, it all went to shit.

  Kai didn't utter a word after that. While Griff wandered away to try to focus on his blood bond with Tessa, I went back to the house I had destroyed. I needed to burn my parents’ bodies before it was too late, and gather anything of importance, not that there would be much. I had been lucky in a way that my skill set had led me to being an origin world warrior because my parents had barely been able to feed themselves let alone a teenage boy.

  Out of the rubble I was able to make a funeral pyre, one that was big enough to take them both at the same time. I knew that Finn and Kai were trying to help by moving pieces of wood over, but I wished they would let me do this on my own. We didn't have time for that though, which was why I kept my mouth shut. Soon enough between the three of us the broad pyre was erected and my parents’ corpses lay atop the wood.

  I went back into the rubble and searched for anything I didn't want to lose. My mother's necklace and ring were hanging on the wall where she put them every night, which was amazing since that was one of three pieces of wall still standing. A small set of paintings and later photos were kept under their bed. I pocketed the jewelry and pulled everything I could find out from under there.

  As a kid their room had never interested me, so they'd never explicitly forbade me from being in there, but I had known instinctively that the bedroom was their one private place. I knew that the wood box I pulled out was where anything of value would be, but as I opened it up and sifted through the contents, I became more and more confused.

  There were two small paintings of my parents, which would have been expensive and probably some of their most prized possessions. They must have been created before we were able to adapt some of the origin world's technology for use in Hyperborea. Cameras were a sure favorite among my people, so painted portraits fell by the wayside after that. Just like in the box after the paintings there was only photos. What
caught my eye though, was a photo of myself and another child. We looked the same, but then most kids did, at least in my limited experience.

  It was strange because I'd never had any childhood friends; I'd never needed any. Living out here and working the land had made my mother my teacher and pushed me to develop my psychic abilities if I wanted to connect with other people, which was what led me to becoming an origin world warrior.

  Quickly I unzipped a pocket on my pack and stowed the photos and paintings, hunting around for anything else while I was still digesting my confusion about the image. The only other photo in there that I cared about was one of the three of us. I had been about six or seven at the time and they were both sitting with me on the ground, the camera carefully propped up on a nearby tree stump.

  I remembered the day clearly enough. My parents had put on their nicest clothes and I'd had a bath and worn my best as well, then after the photo was taken I expected to go back to work—we had a harvest that was almost ready—but I didn't have to. My parents took me into town and we bought some groceries and other trinkets. It was the same day my father got my mother the necklace.

  We never had days like that, not even on my birthday, but when I asked about it my parents just brushed me off or, seeing the memories with adult eyes, had distracted me from my questions. I never knew what it was about, and now worry coalesced in the pit of my stomach and I wondered what had actually been going on that day.

  "Dresden!" A voice broke through my thoughts making me blink rapidly as I realized tears had filled my eyes.

  When I turned I found Finn watching me with concern pinching his face. Griff was standing just behind him and Kai was off to one side, as usual.

  "What?" I asked as I stood, straightening my clothes that would have made my parents gasp with surprise.

  "Griff's got a lock, we should hit the road," Finn grunted as he rolled his shoulders. It was like he was trying to force the tension from his muscles and failing.

  "Give me a few minutes," I said with a growl before I turned to Griff. "Would you mind?"

  "Not at all, brother, just tell me what you want." His tone was somber and respectful which I appreciated more than I could express given that he was usually the joker of our quartet.

  "Burn it, hot and fast," I said quietly as I moved to stand by my parents’ pyre.

  Flames shot out of Griff's hands and the wood caught instantaneously. Smoke began to billow and I said a silent prayer that the gods of the winds and breezes would accept my parents into their loving arms and let them fly forever. With my own talents I pushed the smoke to disperse as quickly as possible. I didn't want to attract any attention.

  "Can it go hotter?" I asked even though sweat was beading on my temples and slipping down my spine.

  Griff nodded and the flames took on an almost purple tinge before turning blue. The heat coming off the funeral pyre doubled, and I was forced to take a step back. I continued my work with the smoke even though I knew it was dangerous to run my reserves too low. I hoped that being in Hyperborea would allow them to refill faster, but I wasn't sure. It had been so long since I'd been home.

  "I'm sorry for your loss, brother," Kai said, his hand landing heavily on my shoulder. "You know I would never normally rush you, but we need to move."

  "I know," I replied quietly.

  The stack of wood and my parents’ bodies had been turned to so much ash. I inhaled deeply and filled my lungs not only with the air of my realm but the magic of it as well. When I exhaled, the ash flew into the wind, rising up higher and higher until it looked like all the pieces were dancing in the blue sky.

  When I turned to Griff and nodded, the four of us set out. It was time to go and find our girl. Even if we hadn't bonded romantically, she was still part of our group, our weird little family, and I wasn't about to let anyone take her from me, not in that moment, and not in the future. Tessa was ours, plain and simple, and anyone who got in the way of that would find out exactly what it meant for nature to be punishing.

  2

  Griff

  I wasn't sure what the others had been doing since I had begun meditating, but the grief and rage that I could sense flowing around me had made it harder than necessary to focus on Tessa. Our bond was new, not more than a few days old, and it was already being stretched painfully thin. There was nothing I wouldn't do to get her back, and I hoped that fire would lick the heels of whoever had taken her.

  My own blood went searching throughout my body for our bond, trying to find the metaphysical rope that tied the two of us together. For a moment I couldn't find it at all and panic began to bubble in my belly. I dug my fingers into the ground, through the snow, and tried my hardest to breathe through it, to sense the molten core of the world that I was usually so connected to. It felt so far away in Hyperborea though, almost like there was something standing between this world and its core.

  Now wasn't the time for deep wonderings like that though. With no small amount of effort I pulled my mind back and searched for the bond once more, finding a whisper of it inside me. I grabbed hold and drew myself toward it mentally. All I could tell was that Tessa was still alive and that she was behind me somewhere.

  I pushed to my feet ready to get moving only to be hit by that wave of grief once more. The fact that Dres needed to deal with his parents didn't escape me, and I felt terrible for the guy, I really did, but I also felt the weakness of the bond between myself and Tessa. It was stretched so painfully thin that I wasn't sure how much more separation it would be able to stand.

  As I approached, Dres turned to me and asked me to light the pyre, which I was more than happy to do. What surprised me was his request for it to burn hot and fast. The beastly side of me was happy to see that even he could sense the urgency. I didn't like to acknowledge it, but sometimes my vampire was almost as strong as I was, and apparently, when it came to our mate, it wasn't happy about having to wait around.

  "Can it go hotter?" Dres's words filtered through the haze of my need to find Tessa.

  I nodded and let my emotions filter into my flames. I pushed the urgency and worry, the need, and the hunger all into the flames, making them burn as hot as I could. It was dangerous, something we were taught not to do as children because the fire could quickly get out of control, but I'd seen it enough, had manipulated my own fire enough, that I was confident in my ability to handle it.

  It seemed like only a second later when Kai was ushering us away from the well of emotions that Dresden's old home had become and toward my bond with my fated. I wasn't sure how he knew which way I'd sensed to go, but it was the right direction so I didn't question it too much.

  Now that I knew where to look, the more I focused the more I could feel Tessa, like she was a distant sound. Her heartbeat. That's what it was, slow and steady as though she was asleep, or maybe still unconscious like she had been when one of those fly-boys took her from the field. If only she hadn't been so close to Dres when he exploded!

  The better question was what had the guy been thinking who took her? Why had he taken her? How had he even seen her? It was like he'd been drawn to her or something. That was not okay. Whatever was going on I wanted to find out, and fast.

  "Easy, brother, are you trying to melt us?" Finn asked from next to me.

  "Who the fuck just takes a random woman from a field?" I blurted, not keeping myself as in check as I would have liked. Whatever was causing stress on the bond between me and Tessa was starting to wear on me.

  "He was a soldier, I could see his armor shining in the light." Dres's voice was monotone and while I thought he meant that to be soothing it only infuriated me even more.

  "Fine, why the fuck does a soldier take someone from a field?" I bit each word out trying not to let my temper get away from me even though I felt like I was failing.

  "My guess is that he was patrolling the area and saw her land, went to investigate, and upon finding an unconscious woman, took her back to camp," Dres replied very matter-of-
factly.

  I wanted to turn and rage at him, to let my own anger and violence out like he'd done a few moments ago, but that wouldn't do us any good and would probably just attract the wrong kind of attention. I took a deep breath in through my nose and slowly exhaled through my mouth, hoping my anger and worry went with it. There was one thing I knew for sure and that was that I didn't like this anxiety that was building in me with Tessa being somewhere unknown. I needed her back and fast or my vampire side was going to get too rowdy to control.

  To take my mind off my missing mate, I focused on the landscape. I'd only ever been to my home realm of El Dorado, the Origin world, and Atlantis before, which made Hyperborea a completely new experience. I had thought that Atlantis was cold in comparison to El Dorado, but it had nothing on Dresden's realm.

  The wind itself seemed to be made of minuscule icicles that stung the skin as they flew around. The small snowflakes that gusted with them gave everything the appearance of being covered in dust. The ground, trees, animals, it all seemed to be coated in the stuff.

  When I'd first met Dresden he'd told me that he and his family were farmers, but how anything was farmed in this weather I had no idea. Did they have seasons like the origin world, I wondered, or was it like permanent winter here. If it was then I couldn't wait to find the stone and get the hell out before my fire died out completely.

  Dresden had had a point about fire feeding from air, and the atmosphere in Hyperborea was more than a little rich with oxygen. It was even richer with magic though, and while my fire might have burned out because of the cold, I knew it never would because it was feeding too deeply off the excess oxygen and magic that was floating around.