Caleb didn’t reply. Instead, he walked straight up to her, coming too close, invading her space. She found herself trembling, her heart pounding in confusion, as he took her hands in his and squeezed them tight. What was he doing? Desperately, she attempted to clear her mind, force it into blankness so he couldn’t discover what she was hiding just beyond the curtain.
“What you do want?” she demanded angrily. “I don’t have time to—”
She stopped short as her eyes met his own—eyes as clear blue as the sky on a cloudless day. Eyes she’d recognize anywhere.
Her face clouded with confusion. “You’re not Caleb,” she gasped. “You’re—”
Connor clamped his mouth over hers, silencing her with a hard, long kiss just as the guard stepped back into the room. She struggled to free herself, but his hands closed around her forearms. As his lips moved against hers, she felt a voice sweep through her consciousness.
Look under your bed. I left you something.
Then he released her, pushing her away. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the guard giving them an amused look before continuing his rounds. She stared at the Dragon Hunter, unable to speak, unable to move. What was he doing here? Had he come to rescue her?
Or finish her once and for all?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Trinity ran to her room, Emmy flying high above her. When she got there, she dismissed her maid and shut the door, locking it behind her. Dropping to her knees, she peered under the bed, pulse beating erratically as she wondered what Connor could have left for her there. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she pulled out a small laptop accompanied by a pair of headphones.
“What the…?” she trailed off, walking the computer over to her desk and setting it down. With shaking hands, she lifted the cover, bringing it to life. She gasped as her eyes fell upon the sole program sitting on the desktop.
Fields of Fantasy. With the expansion pack already installed.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, glancing up at Emmy. Of all the possible things she could have imagined, this was definitely not it. The dragon looked down at the game with mild curiosity, her eyes narrowing at the splash screen depicting a knight slaying a dragon. She gave a disapproving snort.
“Sorry, this game does have its share of dragoncide,” Trin admitted with a rueful grin. “But it’s pretty awesome all the same.” She stared at the screen, elated yet confused as hell. Why had Connor left this for her? Surely it was more than a late Christmas present.
“Guess there’s only one way to find out.” She looked up at Emmy. “Wait for me outside,” she said. “Sound the alarm if someone comes.” She wasn’t sure what the Dracken would do if they found her with an unauthorized laptop, but she didn’t want to find out.
The dragon tossed her head in agreement and Trinity opened the door to allow her to exit. Then she returned to the laptop. It had been rigged, she noticed, to some kind of wireless hot-spot device, giving her Internet access even in this dead zone of a mall. Very clever. With trembling fingers, she somehow managed to log in with her character and waited for the game to load. The expansion pack had a spanking new intro scene that she was desperate to watch, but she forced herself to click through it, not wanting to waste any time.
A moment later, her Elven mage StarrLight appeared on the screen, exactly where she’d left her: dancing on the table in the middle of the town tavern, scantily dressed and double-fisting two large mugs of beer. Trin couldn’t help but laugh. The last time she’d played was with Caitlin, who passionately believed the game’s only redeeming quality was its hook-up potential. Trin had never had the heart to tell her that the majority of the strapping elves she flirted shamelessly with were probably actually forty-year-old men living in their mothers’ basements.
Quickly, she did a search for her friend.
>>HotElfChick69 is not online.
She sighed. That would have been too easy.
She turned her attention back to the situation at hand, directing her character to jump off the table and walk out of the tavern. Now what? she wondered. What did Connor want her to do?
>> Stegosaurus65 has come online.
Wait, what? Trinity scrolled back up the dialog box at the bottom of the screen to make sure she’d read that right. At the same moment, a big, burly, and very familiar-looking level one barbarian walked out of the tavern. Stegosaurus65—she’d recognize him anywhere.
“But that’s impossible,” she whispered. Stegosaurus65 was the character she’d helped her grandpa create last year when he’d been curious to see for himself the game that took up so much of his granddaughter’s time. He’d lasted all of ten minutes before declaring that all the colors and sounds were making him dizzy and he’d never logged on again.
>>Stegosaurus65 invites you to join his party.
She swallowed hard, then hit accept, grabbing the headphones off the desk and shoving them over her ears.
“Um, hello?” she said through the microphone. “Who is this?”
She waited, breath lodged in her throat, for his reply. As the moment stretched on, she tried to prepare herself for inevitable disappointment and—
“Is this thing on?” There was a rapping on the microphone. “Goddamn futuristic technology…”
“Grandpa!” she screeched, then clamped a hand over her mouth, glancing worriedly at her closed door. The last thing she needed was to get caught now. “Is that you?”
“Trinity?” His voice was so loud she had to turn down the volume. “Speak up, girl! I can’t hear you over this blasted thing.”
She laughed even as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s me, Grandpa,” she told him as loud as she dared, while she watched the barbarian on the screen stumble into a tree and get stuck in its branches. What a noob, she thought, her heart soaring with affection. What a total noob.
“Where are you?” she asked. “They told me you were dead.” Her hands fell to the keyboard and she instructed StarrLight to give Stegosaurus a hug. It wasn’t the same as a real-life one, but at the moment she’d take what she could get. The whole thing was just so surreal—she could barely believe it was happening.
“Please. You think I’d go off and croak, and let you have all the fun raising the world’s last dragon?” he retorted gruffly, his voice cracking at the edges. On the screen, his barbarian broke out into a jig. She laughed and joined him, feeling totally silly yet totally happy too. Seriously—best game ever.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, then repeated herself louder so he could hear her. “I should have believed you from the beginning.”
Her grandpa’s voice was firm. “You believe now. That’s all that matters.”
He was right, she thought, as she looked around the colorful town square, drinking in all the familiar sights and sounds. It was funny—though the Dracken had created real-life accommodations made of her wildest fantasies, this simple video game felt a thousand times more luxurious.
>>ConnorTheDragonHunter has joined the party.
“Pretty clever, huh?” Connor’s voice broke in through her headphones, just as a dashing blond warrior wielding a two-handed sword walked onto the screen. Trinity’s heart melted a little at the sight of him. Talk about a knight in shining armor…