by Kimber White
My mother stepped in front of me. “We have friends. Take La Plante Road. It runs parallel to the beach. Head about five hundred yards northeast through those woods. When you get to Bennet Harbor, head into town, and find Mavis Malone. There’s a junkyard right off the old highway. Stop there.”
God. She hadn’t seen. She didn’t know.
“Mama,” I said, pulling her aside. “Bennet Harbor isn’t there anymore.”
She froze. It took a beat for her mind to catch up with what I’d said. When it did, she knew. Her eyes glistened with fresh tears. Then, a slow smile spread across her face.
“Then there’s still time,” she whispered. “Thank God.”
“What?”
“Go!” she shouted to Lin. We heard shouting in other parts of the hotel.
Lin set her jaw, grabbed one of the other women by the arm. Then they ran.
“Come on,” my mother said. She started to run in the opposite direction, away from the entrance to the courtyard. She stopped when I didn’t move.
“Cassia,” she said.
“I’m not leaving without him,” I said.
She lifted her chin. Once again, understanding came into her eyes.
“Well,” she said. “Shit.”
“Exactly,” I said. Then I was on the move.
“You should go with Lin,” I said. “Run and you can catch up.”
“I’m not leaving your side,” she said. “Let’s go. He’d better be worth it.”
Glass shattered. The guards must have breached the banquet hall. They’d see the dead guards.
When we got to the double doors leading to the pool deck, they were gone. Melted.
“Cassia,” my mother gasped. “Your fire…”
“I know,” I said. I brushed past her. “Stay behind me.”
She did. I jumped through the open doorway. Ash lay nearly an inch thick on the ground. There was nothing left of the deck. Everything had burned.
Dotson, the six bears, their charred remains lay where I’d left them. But Colm was gone.
I saw wolf tracks leading away and around the side of the building.
“This way,” I said, my heart lifting. I wasn’t too late.
I smelled blood. Colm’s blood. There was so much of it. I could feel his strength leaching from him. My heart raced as I pulled my mother along. We rounded the remains of the pit. Ash still fell like snow all around us.
Then Colm’s tracks disappeared. He was nowhere.
“Colm!” I shouted.
“Cassia,” my mother said. “Be careful. They’ll hear.”
Then, the darkest shadow along the side of the building came to life. Colm’s golden eyes pierced through me. I ran to him, skidding to my knees in front of him.
He went still as I threaded my fingers through his fur. The wounds along his back were deep. Blood poured freely from his side.
Without flinching, I held out my arm, wrist up.
“Drink!” I said. “Take it.”
Colm bared his teeth. He was half-crazed from his pain. It poured into me. But, at the center of it, I felt Colm’s hunger. His soul.
My mother cried out as Colm sank his fangs into my wrist. It was quick. Brutal. I gasped from the initial pain. Then, I felt Colm’s blood join with mine. His strength returned and my own rose right along with it.
A different kind of need poured through me. Even here. Even now.
Colm shifted, then rose to his feet. His wounds began to heal.
“Are you hurt?” he gasped.
“No,” I said.
“They’re coming!” my mother cried out.
Colm put a protective arm around me. The corners of his mouth lifted into a sly smile.
“Mrs. Brandhart, I presume,” he said.
Her eyes darted from Colm to me. “Cassia…”
“I know,” I said. “We’ll sort it all out later. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I linked my hand with Colm’s, drawing strength from him. With each beat of his heart, I felt my own power building. Something happened to me when I was with him, when our blood joined. I found control. I found myself. I felt ready to conquer the world.
We raced through the courtyard together, heading straight for the beach. Colm led the way. My mother struggled to keep up at first. Then Colm shifted back into his wolf and beckoned to her.
“Do it!” I shouted to her. My mother climbed on Colm’s back. She fit easily, lacing her fingers through his thick fur. Then we ran side by side, matching each other’s stride.
I could have run forever. I could have run to the ends of the earth.
For a moment, a beat, I thought we were free. I could sense shifters and men gathering, pouring out from the Lodge. But they felt so far away. So insignificant against Colm and me.
Dawn broke and a golden sun peeked above the water as if to fuel my power even more. It did. For a moment.
Then the sky turned black.
Headlights pierced the sky, bearing straight down on us. They came from both directions. The whirring blades of a combat helicopter churned the water next to us. If I tried to use my wings, they’d be ready.
I wasn’t afraid. Not even of that. Then, a thunderous screech filled the air.
He was here. He was everywhere. He let out a column of flame that made the water churn and boil beside us.
My mother screamed. She let go, tumbling off Colm’s back. She went to her knees.
Colm shifted. He grabbed my hand and shoved me behind him, ready to shield me from what was to come.
“What. The. Hell. Is. That?” he shouted.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.
“It’s… It’s my father,” I shouted.
Colm struggled between wolf and man. His fangs dropped. His eyes turned red with bloodlust. He held me in a death grip, ready to die for me yet again.
My father’s dragon rose above the water, filling the sky. His scales glowed iridescent. His wingspan blotted out the sun. He drew a breath which seemed to suck up all the air in the world.
Colm threw himself over me.
“No,” I whispered, knowing he would hear me, even through the chaos.
“He’s feral,” Colm shouted.
“Mama!” I yelled, my hair flying around my face. “He can’t see us. He can’t feel us. What the hell did they do to him?”
Tears fell down her face. “It’s what he thinks they did to me.”
“Can you do something?” Colm said. “Can you still break through?”
My mother shook her head. She had her hand over her mouth.
I heard a command ring out. “Fire!”
My father reared back. Colm was right. He couldn’t see or feel us. They’d turned him into a weapon of mass destruction. I was no longer sure if his fire wouldn’t burn me. He’d never unleashed it like this on me or my mother in a rage.
Colm pushed me away from him. Something changed in him. It happened so fast; I didn’t have a chance to stop him. Later, I’d realized he’d counted on that.
He shifted, letting his wolf out. He arced through the air and drove my mother backward. She screamed in pure terror as Colm lowered his fangs to her neck.
The world seemed to split in two. My father let out a deafening screech. Then he froze. It was as if he’d been encased in stone. In that one instant. That one moment as my mother cried out in primal fear, the stone around his heart shattered.
My father’s red eyes faded to pure blue. The Ring guard kept closing in, weapons raised.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
“Oh, shit!” Colm shifted in an instant and he and I shouted it together. I grabbed his arm and ran.
We rolled away just as my father’s fireball hit the ground, incinerating the Ring’s advancing vanguard.
Chapter 21
Colm
“Fire at will!”
I threw my body in front of Cassia’s. Her father’s blast took out the Ring’s front line, but there were more coming, pouring in from
the woods. Reinforcements would come from the water soon enough.
“He needs help!” Cassia shouted. At first, I couldn’t think of a single thing her fire-breathing father could need from the air. Then the helicopters started shooting.
Xander Brandhart’s dragon deftly rolled, flicking one of the choppers with his massive wing. Four more air units came in over the hill.
“Stay with my mother,” she said. Shae Brandhart stood at the water’s edge, shielding her eyes from the bright blasts of gunfire.
Instinct drove me to Cassia’s side. But my mate had powers of her own. She shot upward, joining her father on the tip of his right wing.
The vision of her nearly stunned me. His dragon dwarfed her in size, but a spectral light emanated from Cassia as she returned fire on the helicopters.
Four bear shifters advanced, streaking through the darkness, their eyes blood red. I growled to Shae. She gave me a knowing nod and leapt on my back. I ran further down the beach, getting her out of harm’s way.
Cassia’s fire rained down, cutting the bears off from giving chase.
Shae climbed off and I turned back toward the danger. The Ring had brought wolves out to play. It sickened me to see the bloodlust in their eyes. These men had been turned by a Tyrannous Alpha. Inside, they may have been screaming no, but their will was not their own. Their minds were controlled by their Alpha. It was an abomination. Every wolf’s worst nightmare. There was only one thing I could do.
I saw their Alpha hanging back in the shadows. Six of his pack advanced on me. I’d have to get through them to get to him.
Cassia knew my mind. As her father took on another combat helicopter, she blasted a line of fire, sending the six wolves reeling away from it.
I made my move. Cassia’s flame couldn’t hurt me. My body tingled as the pink and blue tongues of her fire lapped at me. I drew strength from them. She made my job easy. The Alpha stood mesmerized by the light show in front of him. I went in for the kill, catching his exposed neck and ripping into him. He let out one last howl as his eyes went dead.
His six wolves faltered. They writhed on the ground as they felt their leader’s pain. Then each of them rose.
I could have claimed them. I could have forced them all to Subjugate. It was my right. Instead, I let them go. In that instant, I believe the bond between us formed stronger than if I’d become their Alpha. I gave them their freedom. To a man, they turned their fight against the Ring.
A single bear shifter can take down a single wolf. But facing a pack is something else altogether.
Those six wolves took on the bear shifters one by one. I jumped into the fray, decimating the bear line.
The air charged with electricity. I knew the wolves wouldn’t last long out here. But they were willing to give their lives rather than risk being reclaimed by another Tyrannous if the Ring brought it.
When I’d dispatched with the last of the bears, the ground battle was won. I shifted and held my hand out to Shae. Breathless, she took it.
We climbed to safer ground up on the hill. From there, we watched as Xander and Cassia took down the last of the helicopters. Cassia couldn’t navigate the air like her father. She could glide. Xander in flight was like watching some brutal, deadly ballet. He spun and rolled, banking hard right. He swooped beneath the last helicopter and flicked his massive tail. The helicopter lost control and plummeted in a death spiral. When it splashed down into the lake, it sent a wall of water and fire up.
The sky lit up, nearly blinding me. The concussion felt like an earthquake. I grabbed onto Shae to keep her from losing her balance and tumbling down the hill.
Then, slowly, the smoke cleared. I watched as Cassia glided gracefully to the beach. Her eyes shone like twin opals. She looked for me.
“Go to her,” Shae said, her voice thick with emotion.
No power on this earth would have stopped me. I made sure Shae was safe, then charged down the hill to find my soul.
Cassia still sparked with her rainbow-colored fire as I met her on that beach. Even in all the chaos, need burned through me.
She was mine, but I was hers.
Cassia threw her arms around me and let out a strangled cry.
“Are you all right?” I asked. I ran my hands over her shoulders, down her arms, convincing myself that she was here with me. That she was alive. That she was whole.
She did the same with me.
“Are you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. I would have died for you a thousand times.”
She smiled. “Well, twice is enough, my love.”
My heart soared. I didn’t care where we were. I didn’t care who watched us or what destruction lay around us. I just…wanted. I scooped Cassia up into a kiss that felt like it could stop the world.
Cassia gasped as she tried to catch her breath. Her lips were swollen from the kiss. Blushing, she took my hand.
“Colm,” she said. “I think it’s time for me to introduce you to my father.”
Xander’s dragon landed behind her. He tucked his enormous wings behind him as Shae ran past us to him.
Xander’s eyes glittered as he registered her presence. They had burned red when I first saw him. Now, they had melted into a brilliant, sapphire blue.
I’ve been around shifters my whole life. Wolves. Bears. Tigers. Lions. Panthers. Even badgers. There is a certain kind of elemental magic that fills the air when we shift. No two shifters are alike, not even among the same species. But, when Xander called upon the man inside of him, his magic sent a shudder through me. It changed the way I saw the world for that brief instant. As though I’d just witnessed the creation of the universe. I knew in my heart that dragon magic was nearly that old.
Xander the man was my size. Broad-shouldered. Handsome, I guess. He had a thick mass of dark hair, peppered with just a bit of silver. He looked like he might only be ten or at most twenty years older than me. Instinct told me the lines around his eyes were recent. Perhaps the gray in his hair too.
But all that melted away as Shae ran into her husband’s arms. He peppered her with kisses. A moment ago, the world stopped as I took Cassia in my arms. Now, it stopped for Xander and Shae Brandhart.
Cassia took my hand. We walked up to her parents.
“Dad,” she said, her voice thick.
He tucked Shae under his arm. Xander’s eyes were wet with tears as he gazed upon his daughter.
She ran to him. Throwing herself into his arms, my own heart twisted. They were a family. A unit. Their love unconditional and absolute.
I had that once. I’d thrown it away.
“Dad,” Cassia said, wiping away her own tears. “This is Colm. He’s… He’s mine.”
Xander let his wife and daughter go. His eyes turned hard. I felt a little of his dragon magic churning. It was a threat, perhaps.
I stood my ground. Xander came to me. He might have been a dragon, but I recognized him in an instant as another Alpha. The growl that emanated from me was as old as time too.
“Xander,” Shae said. “He’s put his life before Cassia’s.”
“Twice,” she said.
Xander’s nostrils flared. My wolf boiled just below the surface. The urge to shift, to defend, to attack, burned through me as powerful as any fire he could lay down.
Then Xander’s posture changed. It wasn’t so much a smile that curved his mouth, but his face became neutral. He let out a breath and extended his hand.
“Then,” he said. “It’s good to meet you.”
Cassia came to my side. I put an arm around her.
“Colm Devane,” Xander said. “I believe I’ve heard your name. I can’t say that it’s all been good.”
I jutted my chin out. “That’s a matter of perspective,” I said. I wouldn’t justify my life to this man. I would not beg for his understanding. Instead, I said the one thing that came to mind. The truth.
“I’ve survived,” I said.
Xander narrowed his e
yes, then nodded. “I suppose you have. You love her?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. It goes beyond it.”
“They’re fated,” Shae said, giving me a ready smile.
Xander rolled his eyes. “Well…shit.”
Cassia laughed. “That about sums it up.”
Xander turned, surveying the damage. There wasn’t much left of the Ring guard but ash. Up on the beach, the Lodge was still smoldering.
“Are you all right?” I asked Xander. He looked at me, knowing what I meant. The Ring had done something to him. Was he well and truly back?
“Yes,” he said.
“Dad,” Cassia said. “Bennet Harbor…”
Xander cast his eyes downward. “There’s a lot I have to answer for.”
Shae stepped in front of him. “Your father and I have been working something. Cassia, we couldn’t tell you. It would have put you at risk. We never meant to be gone this long.”
“You got too ambitious,” I said. “Trying to smuggle out a twenty-person transport is…”
“There was no transport,” Xander said. “That was a false rumor we planted. Bait. The Ring bit.”
“The Ring brought in everyone from Luna Point,” I said. “They were told of mass executions.”
“They lied,” Xander said. “We planted the rumor about the transport. So they’d know where to find me. As far as the propaganda they put out later, it was all a lie. A way for them to save face in case anyone got bold in the wake of it.”
“What a minute,” Cassia said. “You meant to get captured?”
Shae and Xander exchanged a look. “It was the only way to get behind enemy lines,” Xander said.
“What were you looking for?” I asked.
“We had credible intel that the Ring has developed a weapon. Something strong enough to control dragons.”
“So what?” I said. “You were planning on sacrificing yourself to see if it worked?”
“It went sideways,” Xander said. “There is a weapon. It just isn’t what I thought it was. I was looking for a special bullet. A spell. It wasn’t that. Instead…”
