Willing his heart to slow, Adrian started to shove his phone into his pocket when it vibrated in his hand. That couldn’t be Haru. There was no way he’d responded already.
He had. But not with what Adrian was expecting.
Where are you?
That…what the fuck did it matter where he was?
Stormbreak, Adrian typed. Why would it matter to Haru where he was? Unless the dragon was worried that he was in the middle of some fight. But that was ridiculous. Why would Adrian be emailing him if his life was currently in danger?
I guessed that much. Your city is too big. I can’t find you. Give me your phone number.
Adrian’s heart stopped and he choked when it suddenly kicked in again only to race out of his chest. He read that message three times, but the meaning never changed. In fact, it kept getting stuck on the same four words.
I can’t find you.
Haru was here. Haru was in Stormbreak, and he was searching for Adrian.
Holy shit! The dragon was loose in Stormbreak.
Adrian replied with his phone number and started for the elevator. He needed to find Haru before chaos consumed Stormbreak. This was what he wanted, right? Haru in Erya.
Of course, now that it was happening, he was panicking. He should have had more time to prepare, to think about. To fucking regret it.
As he reached the elevators, his phone rang. He answered it, his heart in his throat. “Haru?”
“Hello, Adrian,” the dragon purred, his low, deep voice sending a cold shiver down his spine.
“Whose phone is this?” Adrian demanded. It might have been an utterly unimportant question, but his brain wasn’t prioritizing things correctly. It was mostly screaming in panic about a reckless, impulsive dragon being on the loose in Stormbreak.
“A lovely lady is helping me. She’s letting me borrow her phone for a moment since mine won’t connect to your strange system.”
Adrian clenched his teeth and shoved away the image of all the women in the capital who would be so very happy to help the sexy man with the midnight-blue eyes and long black hair.
“Where are you, my Adrian? I asked where you kept your king, but they only said he wasn’t in town. So, I asked where you kept your government, and the answers weren’t helpful,” Haru continued.
Okay, he was starting to see why Caelan was far more cautious about inviting the dragons to join this fight. Or at least, why he was limiting his conversations to Omari Nori.
“The Towers. The Royal Towers. They’re the tallest buildings in the city. But tell me where you are. I can come to you. I—”
“Oh. I see the towers you mean. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“What?” Adrian screeched. “Wait! Don’t shift!” But he could already hear the beep from the call being ended.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Adrian jammed the Down button hard and called the number back, hoping to catch the dragon. A confused woman answered to say that the man she’d spoken to had already run off toward the Royal Towers.
As the doors to the elevators slid open, Adrian threw himself inside the car and hit the button for the first floor. He needed to get to Haru before the dragon encountered any of the heavy security that protected the Royal Towers. Haru didn’t seem to be the type to stop just because an authority figure asked him to.
Mentally cursing the slowness of the elevator as it slid steadily to the ground, Adrian scrolled through the contact list on his phone, trying to figure out who to call and even what to tell them. It wasn’t like he could announce that the king’s cousin had stopped by for a surprise visit.
When he reached the ground floor, several members of the Royal Guard were rushing for the doors with their weapons drawn.
“Intruder was spotted climbing over the East Wall,” one of the guards shouted at him.
Adrian swore under his breath and raced to get out the door with them. “Lower your weapons! Lower your weapons! He’s not an intruder!” he shouted the second he stepped outside. A bitterly cold wind smacked him in the face, trying to steal his breath away.
“What’s going on, Lieutenant?” one of the other guards demanded. “Who is it?”
“He-he’s a friend. He’s a friend of the king’s, but he’s not from Erya,” Adrian stammered. He jogged ahead of the guards that were gathered in front of the building. Their guns were still tightly gripped in their hands, but at least they weren’t raised. His feet slid in the new snow that had yet to be cleared, and the cold wind cut through his long-sleeved cotton shirt as though he were wearing nothing at all.
“What? Why didn’t—”
“I can’t explain right now. Just…just trust me, okay? He’s not a threat.”
Yeah, that was something of a lie. Haru wasn’t a threat so long as you didn’t do anything to piss him off, such as point a gun at either of them. And then Haru had the power to be an enormous threat.