The diner was packed to the gills. Imelda raced around, bringing food until it got to the point where people began helping themselves. Duncan retreated from their group to help her keep people in line, much to the little woman’s relief.
Maggie was tucked against his side as they sat at the same booth they had all those years ago, only this time there wasn’t a milkshake in front of her and they weren’t celebrating her birthday. It amazed him how much had changed since then, but there was a comfort in knowing she was there with him and would always be. It was as he always knew it would be.
A sharp whistle pierced his ears. “Vehicles incoming,” someone said.
Jonah looked outside the window to see six unknown cars pulling up outside the diner, led by a red Jeep.
“Lila,” Maggie said, scooting out of the seat followed closely by Heidi.
The bulking man who stepped out of the driver’s side had to be Gabriel Azarov, complete with a little blond woman. Now Jonah knew why Gabriel had been so agreeable to help them. It was a question that had bothered him from the first moment Maggie had handed him the phone and there was his answer, bouncing out of the passenger side of the Jeep and racing toward his own mate.
From the looks of it, Liam wasn’t going to be the only one in trouble for mating a human.
Maggie raced out the door before Jonah could stop her. Heidi wasn’t far behind her, either, judging by the huffing and puffing she heard on her tail. Excitement coursed through her veins. Never, except for Heidi the other night had seen been so excited to see one of her friends before.
“Maggie!” Lila cried as they crashed into each other, arms wrapping each other in a tight embrace. Heidi launched herself at them a second later.
“I’m so happy you’re here!” Maggie said, pulling back and looking at her. Lila looked different.
She noticed the red marks peeking out of her collar as soon as Heidi said it. “You mated the werewolf.”
Maggie pulled Lila’s shirt to the side, so she could see. They were mating marks alright, but they looked different from the marks Jonah had left on her. They were less…humane. Wilder.
“You mated Gabriel?” Maggie asked, letting her collar drop.
“Sure did.”
Maggie wasn’t prepared when Lila grabbed ahold of her own shirt and jerked it to the side. “And you’ve mated a shifter. Which one?” she asked, looking around “The one talking to Gabriel?”
Sure enough, Jonah had met Gabriel at the back of the Jeep. Other were climbing out of their own vehicles and began forming a group around the talking men. Travis, Liam, and Rick had joined them outside. She looked for her father but assumed he must have remained inside to help Imelda. “Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
She smiled, unable to help herself. “Jonah.”
“Jonah. The Jonah?” Lila knew about their history. It had come up after one night of hanging out and talking about their first times. She’d just left the shifter bit out when they’d had that conversation.
“There’s only one Jonah,” Maggie said with a smile. She grabbed Heidi by the shoulders and thrust her in front of Lila, pulling down her shirt collar to expose the gold patterns. “Guess what this one mated?”
Heidi slapped at her, feigning annoyance. “Stop that!”
“Holy shit! What is that?” Lila asked, pulling up the back of Heidi’s shirt.
Liam cleared his throat, displeasure plastered on his face as he watched from a few feet away. He didn’t like them messing with his mate, he made that clear enough. He took possessive to the next level, but Heidi didn’t seem to mind it. Maggie thought it must be a dragon thing. They were infamously known for their tightfisted behavior. The stories about hoarding treasure weren’t wholly make-believe. Nor was gold the only thing they deemed worthy of keeping.
Seeing Liam, Lila asked Maggie, her voice low, “What is he? He’s not a shifter, is he?”
“Dragon,” Maggie whispered.
“Wow…Heidi, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Heidi laughed and turned around. “I had it in me all right.”
Maggie caught sight of Liam rolling his eyes before seemingly deciding the new woman was no threat to his mate and moved closer to join the conversation between Jonah and Gabriel.
“I want to meet Jonah,” Lila said a minute later. “I want to meet Liam, too, but I’ve heard about Jonah for years. Besides, Gabriel is giving me that look.”
“What look?”
The big dark-haired werewolf was indeed looking at Lila, but his face almost seemed impassive.
“The look that says, ‘I told you to stay in my sight, Lila’,” she said, mimicking his voice.
Maggie laughed. “Oh, that look.”
“He gets testy when he’s worried, even if there’s no need for him to worry. I pretend it’s annoying, but I find it rather endearing. Don’t tell him that, though.” Lila grabbed her hand and Heidi’s and pulled them over to the men.
The men stopped talking when they approached, but not before she heard Gabriel say there were a total of twenty-six werewolves he was able to bring with him. Not a huge number, but it was more than what they had to start with and she felt better knowing they at least had a few more people on their side when the fae decided to roll into town.
“Jonah, this is Lila,” Maggie said as Lila dropped Maggie’s hand and thrust hers out to him.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, taking her hand.
Lila batted her eyelashes. “I’ve heard sooo much about you.”
“Is that so?” Jonah glanced at Maggie, his brow raised.
“Sure is. And I see you’ve already met my mate.” Lila nodded to Gabriel.
“I have.”
Liam slapped Gabriel on the arm, sending the werewolf staggering back a few steps. “At least I’m not the only one getting strung up for mating a human around here.”
By the mid-afternoon, they were back at the house. Heidi went to lay down for a little bit, but Maggie didn’t have it in her. Instead, she made a pot of coffee and began cooking. According to the scouts, the fae were on the same path, meaning that their time of arrival was still pegged to be just after the sun had set. Al had been able to get close enough to hear some of the talking about plans before scurrying off into the woods and calling back in.
There wasn’t much new to learn except confirming their initial suspicions. Apparently, the fae weren’t coming for a war, they were coming for an extermination. To be rid of the shifters once and for all. The declaration when she heard it come in through the radio, made Maggie want to vomit. What had happened that made the fae want to do something as desperate as this? Where had the hatred come from? It had to be more than a simple land dispute. Unfortunately, she wasn’t privileged to the information.
Her father came back to Jonah’s not long after they did. She sat outside with him on the porch for some time while Penny bustled around inside the house cleaning up from the recent meal. Maggie took the opportunity to have some quiet time with her father.
They stared out into the woods as the sun slowly began to sink in the sky. It wouldn’t be long now before they had to make their way toward the town center. The silence stretched between them, but it still relieved her to know he was with her. As much as he’d hurt her where Jonah was concerned, he was still staying in New Freedom.
“He’s stronger than I gave him credit for,” Duncan said, cutting the silence finally.
Maggie leaned her head against the railing and regarding her father. He seemed older now than he had in all the years of her growing up. His dark hair was thinning and streaked with gray. “You never really gave him credit for anything.”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I didn’t and I was wrong to do that. He’s done well here, though. The people respect him and that’s important.”
“Do you?”
“Respect him?” Duncan seemed to consider this for a long moment. He looked out into the driveway as if counting the n
umber of cars would help him make that decision. “Yes, I do although it’s hard to think of him as anything other than the man trying to take my daughter away from me.”
“Oh, Dad,” Maggie said with a sad smile. “I’ll always be your daughter. I’m not going anywhere.”
Duncan put his arm around her shoulder. “You’ll always be my little girl, Maggie. After your mother died, you were the only thing I had. The only light in my life and you still are, but I see how you two are together. You’re happy and that’s all I ever wanted for you.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder.
“Now that dragon in there is another matter altogether,” he said with a chuckle. “Marie is going to have her hands full with him as a son-in-law.”
Maggie laughed softly when she thought about Heidi’s mother. “I hear she just adores him.”
“That’s because she doesn’t know any better. Poor woman,” he said with a laugh. “I can’t believe your friend mated a damn dragon.”
“Heidi never does anything half-assed.”
“No kidding.”
“Maggie,” Jonah said, his voice soft as he interrupted her conversation with her father. She knew from the sound of his voice that it was time. Kissing her dad on the cheek, she left him on the porch and followed her mate back into the house and into their bedroom.
He closed the door and turned to face her.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded once. “I think so.”
“Let me see your gun,” he said and she unholstered the semi-automatic and handed it to him, safety on. He checked it before giving it back to her.
“You have eighteen rounds in the gun. Another eighteen in your extra clip. Where is that?” he asked.
She patted her pocket.
“Good.” He removed the knife from his own belt and strapped it to her hip. She lifted her arms to help, watching as he fastened the lethal blade to her side.
“They’ll use poisoned arrows, won’t they?” she asked him, remembering how he was after he took the arrow to the thigh.
Jonah nodded. “Pecora is already set up in the basement of the church,” he said and she felt herself relax. At least they were prepared to deal with the fae’s poisons this time. “Don’t be frightened, Maggie. We’ll be together the entire time.”
“Easier said than done, mate,” she said, leaning up and wrapping her arms around his neck. This may be the last moments they had in privacy and she didn’t want to waste them. “I love you, Jonah.”
“I know,” he said before kissing her forehead. “It’s time to go.”
17
After hugging Heidi, the group split up. Travis, Rick, and Penny went in one direction after many kisses from Penny. Duncan retreated to the diner with Imelda after shaking Jonah’s hand and kissing Maggie goodbye with the promise of meeting back at the church after the fight was over. Heidi and Liam went their own way, their role more critical than perhaps anyone else’s.
Lila and Gabriel stayed with her and Jonah as they made their way through the town, weaving their way in between buildings until they reached the sheriff’s office. They went inside the building and waited, eyes peering out the window searching for any sign of the fae.
There they hunkered down until the bells in the church chimed right on schedule. When the rain started coming down in droves a few minutes later, Maggie looked to Jonah.
“Elemental magic,” he supplied, confirming her suspicions. “They can control weather patterns among other things.”
“How can you tell it’s them?” Lila asked from where she crouched next to Maggie. She glanced toward the back door where Gabriel stood, keeping a lookout.
“There’s a shimmer to it,” Jonah explained. “See it?”
Maggie squinted her eyes. At first, she thought the odd luminescence was from light, but the more she looked at it the more she realized that wasn’t what was causing it to look different.
“I see it,” Lila said.
“Shhh!” Gabriel insisted from the back of the office. “Get down!”
All four of them hit the floor. The lights were off inside the building and they used the desk and filing cabinets to hide their bodies. Maggie’s eyes were wide as she watched the changes in the shadows across the floor.
She held her breath as the fae moved passed them, making their way toward the town center. They were following the sounds of the church bells and Maggie sent up a silent prayer that their plan would work as they hoped.
When someone tried the locked door, Maggie froze. Lila’s eyes were wide, her body a statue. If they forced their way into what should appear to be abandoned buildings before making it to the church, they were screwed.
Whoever tried the door seemed to give up when it wouldn’t immediately open. Hushed voices spoke on the other side of the plated glass and she realized a second later that they had already given up on the sheriff’s office. With a thankful sigh, Maggie grabbed Lila’s hand. Her friend gave her a squeeze, signaling her own relief.
Jonah peered around the filing cabinet just enough to glimpse the forms outside the window. Daring to do the same, Maggie glanced from underneath the desk where she hid with Lila and immediately wished she hadn’t.
There were so many of them. Some were flying in the rain, their wings unaffected by the weight of the water. Others sprinted from one area of cover to another, their arrows at the ready as they hunted. Going outside now would be a death sentence. They wouldn’t be able to take two steps out the door before they would be dead on the ground.
She worried about her father and Imelda, both hunkered down inside the diner with a few other families. She thought about Rick, Penny, and Travis, the three of them sequestered inside Mr. Martin’s abandoned store with Clyde, Ronnie, and his family. They all had to be seeing the same things she was seeing, the same fear gnawing their insides as they watched the fae sneak into New Freedom bent on total annihilation.
The rain lessened as the minutes dragged on. The sky was near total dark now and still, they waited. Not much longer now, Maggie thought. Only a matter of minutes…
Just as she had the thought, the sky lit up with flames, giving the signal. She and Lila were on their feet just as Jonah jumped out from behind the cabinet. They raced to join Gabriel at the back door.
The screams were deafening as they emerged from the back of the office, using the strategically parked cars as cover. Liam soared overhead, fire rained down on the clustered fae, eradicating more than half their forces in a matter of seconds. The sky filled with smoke, the scent of charred flesh made Maggie sick.
Lila vomited on the ground next to her, the stench overpowering. Liam circled in the sky and came back around. This time his scales were pummeled with arrows that easily deflected off his body. Maggie held her breath, worried for Heidi who sat upon his back, but then she reminded herself that her friend would be fine as she had her mate’s body as her own armor.
The remaining fae ran from the fire and were met with gunfire. The ground shook as the four of them remained crouched behind the vehicles, their bodies protected from the rifle shots coming from the second floors of the buildings as well as the church steeple.
Several fae ran past them without even seeing them, one of whose wings were still smoking. The rain started again a second later, this time nearly drowning Maggie when she glanced up at the sky.
The rain didn’t stop Liam from diving in between the buildings when the gunfire stopped, his spiked tail impaling fae warriors before shaking them off hundreds of feet into the air. Bodies dropped from the sky and hit the ground, sending blood spattering.
Jonah grasped her hand, lunging from their hiding spot. They cut off two more fae warriors who no longer held their bows. Arrows were still strapped to their backs as Jonah moved, striking the one before turning on the other, his knife in hand.
Maggie withdrew her weapon and fired, ending the life of one at close range while Jonah dispatched the other. They mov
ed together, Lila and Gabriel covering their backs as they pushed toward the church.
She followed behind Jonah, her hand firmly planted in his as he bolted across the street in the direction of the church. They ran behind buildings, half hiding beneath the overhang of the trees. If it weren’t for the splashing footsteps behind them, Maggie was sure they’d have lost Gabriel and Lila in the rain and now the fog. As it rolled in, the fog became more and more stifling with a sticky warmth that felt unnatural.
Maggie panted, but it was becoming impossible to breathe in the smothering magical cloud. She refused to panic, but her lungs were burning as she gasped. Rain soaked through her clothes and pelted her face. They paused behind one of the buildings, but the fog was so thick, she wasn’t sure where they were exactly. Gabriel and Lila were there a second later. Lila was gasping just as she was, no doubt also feeling the suffocating effects.
Jonah turned to her and leaned down, his face pressed against her cheek as he said, “Deep breaths. You’re okay. We’ll be out of this in a minute.”
Jonah squeezed her hand once before they were sprinting again. The farther they ran from the end of Main Street, the thinner the fog became until she could finally catch her breath again. The pain in her lungs eased. When Jonah stopped dead, Maggie crashed into his back. She glanced around him to see a group of perhaps a dozen fae behind him, battling it out in the street with what appeared to be a leopard, a gorilla, and two werewolves.
An arrow struck the pavement next to her and Maggie leaped to the side, narrowly avoiding the next shot as she screamed for Jonah. A loud growl was the only warning she had before an enormous werewolf dove onto the back of a truck and sprung into the air, his claws hooking the fae’s legs and slamming him down to the ground.
With a bloodcurdling scream, the fae died on the pavement. Lila inched closer to Maggie’s side and it was only then that she realized the werewolf who had just saved her life was Gabriel. He was gigantic, nearing seven-feet-tall, his fangs and snout dripping with the fae’s blood. Ripped material hung from his sharp, lethal claws as he snarled, still eyeing the sky.
When Sparks Fly (Netherworld Series Book 3) Page 23
