The sirens were getting closer. “Yeah, I’ll make it.”
“Good.” She grabbed his hand and took him to the other end of the alley, which led to another street. They got away just in time because the blue and red lights of the police car filled the darkened alleyway as they turned the corner.
He followed her, thankful for the darkness of night to cover their presence, not to mention his nakedness. Finally, they reached a non-descript apartment building four streets over from where they had started. They went around to the back, and Christina pulled a key ring from inside a hollowed-out brick beside the door. It swung open with a loud creak and they entered, going up two flights. When they reached the second floor, she led him to the first door on the left.
“Go in there,” she said, pointing toward the bedroom. He limped inside then sat down on the lone futon in the room. Christina came in shortly with a first aid kit in hand and knelt in front of him. “This is going to hurt.”
“Do it,” he said through gritted teeth. He gripped the edge of the futon, waiting for the pain as she dug into the wound with a pair of tweezers. Finally, he let out his breath when he felt the bullet dislodge from his thigh.
She finished cleaning his wound, then turned back to grab something from the first-aid kit. It was a small bottle of clear liquid.
“I don’t need that,” he said. “My shifter healing will fight off any infection.”
“I know,” she said in a quiet voice. Something glinted in her hand. A long, silver needle. “This isn’t for infection.” Before he could ask her anything, she jabbed the needle into his thigh.
“What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at him. “I’m so sorry.”
The last thing he remembered before the world went black was her beautiful face and the two tears that streaked down her cheeks.
Chapter 18
The pounding at the door woke her. Christina quickly sat up, looked around, then let out a breath. She was safe. At least for now. She got up from the couch, dashed to the door and checked the keyhole.
“Kostas,” she said as she opened the door and let him in. “Thank God you’re here.” She had used the laptop in the safe house to send an SOS back to HQ.
“Have you seen the news?” he said, after giving her a quick hug. “Someone got some grainy footage of a dragon stomping around Chelsea. We’re working to get it off the Internet and control the story, but Father and Xander are going insane. Now tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Then start at the beginning.”
“Jason and I were attacked on the way home from dinner last night. They tried to kill us and so he didn’t have a choice.”
“Jason? Lennox?” Kostas raised a dark brow at her. “What was he doing there?”
“Does it matter?” she countered. “Anyway, that’s not important. Those men—”
“Christina.”
Coldness swept over her when she heard the raspy voice. Her head turned slowly toward the bedroom door.
Jason stood there, hand braced on the jamb, wearing the spare set of clothes she had laid out for him. His face was drawn into a fierce scowl, his silvery eyes glowing inhumanly. “You drugged me.”
“I had no choice.” He wasn’t supposed to wake up now. She had timed it so she would be gone by the time he came to. That tranquilizer was formulated to knock out a shifter for a full twelve hours. Obviously, it wasn’t enough for a dragon.
“No choice?” he staggered into the living room. When he tried to grab her, Kostas stood between them.
“Don’t you dare, dragon,” Kostas warned. His eyes flickered with power and the air in the room began to feel thin. “Do you know what you’ve done? How much trouble you caused?”
“Was I supposed to let those men take her?” he countered. “Who were they?” He looked at Christina. “Who are you?”
Christina’s shoulders sagged. “Kostas,” she said. “Can you give us some privacy?”
“I’m not leaving,” her brother said.
“Please,” she begged. “I’ll be right out. I need to talk to Jason alone.
“Are you going to tell him—”
“He’s already seen too much.” Her eyes flickered back to Jason. “Please.”
Kostas’ jaw hardened. “Fine. But I won’t be far away.” With a last warning look at Jason, Kostas left, slamming the door behind him.
She looked back at Jason, who was pinning her to the spot with his gaze.
“Well?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “I don’t work for Stavros International’s marketing department. I’m part of a secret agency my father established to protect shifters. We call ourselves the Shifter Protection Agency. It’s not an official organization or anything. We don’t exist. Stavros funds us through a dozen shell companies.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“Like I said, we protect shifters. We stop people like that man from last night.”
“So you trained to fight?” he asked.
She nodded. “My brothers have been teaching me to defend myself since I was young. But, I only joined The Agency a year ago.”
“Those men, they were after you because you worked for this agency?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. We got away. You’re safe. Why did you drug me?”
She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. It had been an impulse move. After what had happened, she panicked. She reasoned that she was doing it to protect The Agency, and to protect him. But, when she searched his eyes and saw the glimmer of anger there, it was obvious he knew why. Her silence said it all.
“You were going to run away from me again,” he said, his voice like hard shards of glass piercing into her chest. “You were going to leave me and disappear. Without any explanation. Without letting me say what I came here to say.”
“No,” she denied, but the lie rang hollow in her own ears. “I … I can’t do this!” Hands fisted at her sides. “Please, I have to go. The trail will be running cold and I have to get to work.”
“Christina.” He closed the distance between them in two steps. He pushed her back against the wall. “You’re mine. You’re my mate and you know it. My dragon knows it. And there’s this legend—”
She pushed against him. “Who cares about your stupid family legend?”
Shock registered on his face. “You knew.”
“So did you,” she countered. “From the beginning, you knew I could tell you apart from Matthew and you said nothing. Did nothing.”
“Don’t put this on me,” he said. “You could have told me all this time.”
“What does it matter? And what do you want from me?”
“I want you to be my mate. Be with me forever.”
She scoffed. “Live with you back in Blackstone? And then what? Wait until you get tired of me and you go back to Jessica or whoever catches your fancy next?”
He slammed his hands on the wall behind her, the force so hard his palms left dents in the drywall. “Stop it! You know what mating means. I’ll only want you from now on. My dragon and I will be devoted to you for the rest of our lives. I couldn’t go after anyone else, not even if I wanted to. Please, come back with me.”
God, she wanted nothing more than to say yes, but it was all too much. His presence, her emotions, everything was threatening to take her over. “I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” His eyes blazed with fury, and the air became choking cold. “You feel the same way, I know it.”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I can’t go back to Blackstone with you. Not after yesterday.”
“I’ll protect you,” he said. “I’ll never let anyone harm you.”
She hardened her heart. “Those murderers are still out there. After searching for them for sixteen years, we finally know where they are. I can’t stop now, not when I can avenge Mama.”
“But—�
�
“I can’t, Jason.” She turned her head, refusing to look at him. Because the pain in his eyes was too much and she might give in.
“Please, Christina. Don’t do this.”
“I have to.” She ducked under his arms. Her legs felt like lead, and it was difficult, but she used every ounce of her strength to walk away from him. She thought he would go after her, but he didn’t move. Didn’t even make a sound when she left.
When she closed the door behind her, Kostas was waiting there, a puzzled look on his face. Before he could say anything, she put up her hand. “Don’t. We have to go back to Lykos. We have work to do.”
Though he looked like he had a million questions to ask her, Kostas simply nodded. “The jet is waiting.”
* * *
The ride to the airstrip was silent, and Christina was glad Kostas didn’t ask any questions about last night or about Jason. When they reached the private airstrip outside London, Kostas drove the car right up to the tarmac. The jet waiting was emblazoned with Stavros International’s white and blue logo.
Christina walked up the stairs and with a heavy sigh, walked into the cabin. The heaviness in her chest seemed to grow with each step. Stop it. She was doing the right thing. She had to avenge Mama and protect Cordy. She didn’t have time for a mate or for love.
The word struck her like lightning. Love? Had she fallen in love with Jason? Did he love her? He kept saying she was his and they were mates, yet she never heard that word from his lips.
Someone clearing his throat jolted her out of her thoughts. “Papa? Xander?” She had been so consumed by her thoughts that she didn’t see the two men sitting on the white leather seats inside the cabin. Kostas walked up beside her, and she flashed him a dirty look. “You didn’t tell me they were here, too.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Sit down, Christina,” Ari Stavros said to his stepdaughter, pointing to the seat next to him. “We’re about to take off.”
She took her seat beside him and buckled the seatbelt, as did Kostas. The plane took off and Christina sat in tense silence, waiting for the hammer to fall. When the jet arrived at cruising altitude and the fasten seatbelt lights turned off, the flight steward appeared from the rear cabin to take their drink orders. Ari dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
“Now,” Ari began when they were finally alone. “Explain what happened.”
Three pairs of eyes looked at her. “It was them, Papa. They did it,” she managed to choke out.
“Who?” Ari asked. “And what did they do?”
Christina rigidly held her tears in check and took a long, deep breath and began to relay what happened and what the man had said. “He confessed to killing Mama and hurting Cordy,” she said at the end of her story.
Ari’s eyes glowed with dazzling fury and he shot to his feet. “Who were they? DARSA? SPHK? Humans First?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “He didn’t say.”
Ari turned to his sons and they looked at each other. He sat down and ran a hand through his hair.
“What?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
The three men remained silent. Then, Xander spoke. “We’ve made some headway into the investigation surrounding the incidents in Blackstone.”
“None of the usual anti-shifter groups are connected,” Kostas continued. “Well, not directly. Someone’s covering their tracks, and they hid it well.”
“Is it a new group?” she asked.
Ari shook his head. “We don’t know, but … this is big.”
Kostas cleared his throat. “Using the report from Blackstone P.D., Intelligence followed a trail that led to an underground TOR network. First they only found the usual anti-shifter hate speech and propaganda. But, after digging deeper, we uncovered something else.”
“A bigger group, possibly bigger than all the known anti-shifter organizations combined,” Xander added.
“Larger than us, that’s for sure,” Ari said. “The amount of resources they have, the manpower, the cash … We don’t know how we can take them on.”
She gasped. “No.” A group more powerful than Stavros and The Agency? “But Mama…”
“We’ll get them,” Ari vowed. “For what they did to her and Cordelia, and all our kind they hurt.”
“They’re definitely on to us,” Xander said. “We’ll have to be even more careful.”
“We have to expand,” Kostas said. “Bring in more recruits. Get more allies on our side. Our pack can’t be the only one in this fight.”
“No,” Xander countered. “We can’t work in secret if too many people know about us. We’d be putting everyone in Lykos in danger.”
“But we’ll never find them on our own!”
“We’ll find a way, we always have. We don’t need help.”
Kostas shot to his feet. “Father, make him listen, please.”
“Father agrees with me,” Xander said.
“Stop!” Ari ordered. The Alpa of the Lykos pack stood up, towering over his sons. “Stop this now.”
Christina couldn’t stand it anymore. Her family in danger. Mama’s killers on the loose. And now her brothers fighting. She stood up and without a word, ran back to the rear of the cabin and straight to her father’s private quarters.
She sank down on the bed, trying desperately to hold back the tears stuck in her throat.
“Christina?”
She looked up and saw her father standing by the door. “Papa?”
Ari padded to the bed and sat down beside her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I…” She couldn’t. The tears were choking her and she couldn’t breathe.
“Tell me why you ran from your mate.”
“Papa…” Great sobs racked her body as the emotions broke through, like water rushing through a dam. Ari’s arms wound around her and she pressed her face to his chest, her hot tears soaking his shirt. “Papa, I couldn’t … I can’t. Mama … ”
Ari stroked her back with soothing motions, letting her cry until the sobs slowed down and she could breathe again. He kissed the top of her head. “Christina, I loved your mother more than anything in the world. She was my mate and the light died in me when your mother did.” He stared into her eyes, his eyes wet. “For a while, I let the darkness consume me. The need for revenge was taking over every inch of me. But it didn’t. There was the small bit of light left in me. Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“Because of you. Because of Catherine, and Cordy, and your brothers. For years, I was destroying myself with hatred and taking you all with me. It wasn’t until Catherine left…” He paused and wiped the tears from his eyes. “I realized that there was still goodness, still a bit of your mother left in this world.”
“Papa…” She had never resented him for what he did, for keeping them on the island like prisoners in his driving need to protect them. When Mama died, she too had been consumed with the need for revenge. When Mama married Ari, they were finally a family. She was safe and loved, and those men had taken all of that away from her.
“Do you love him?”
“I…” She swallowed. “I think so. Yes.” She did. She loved Jason.
“Then tell him. Don’t let the darkness consume you.”
“But it’s too late, Papa. He hates me. I drugged him and I planned to run away. I told him I didn’t want to be with him.”
“It’s not too late,” he said. “Not if he really is your mate.”
She stood up. “We have to go back, Papa. Turn the plane around. I have to go to him.”
“We can go back,” he said. “But I think I have a better idea.”
Chapter 19
Jason wasn’t sure how long he stood there, unable to move or make a sound. The coldness that had swept over him took over his body, freezing him to the spot. When he heard the door slamming behind him, he realized that she truly was gone.
Was this what it felt like to have a mate reject you? Because it fu
cking sucked. He whipped around, kicking the first thing he could—the couch—his foot nearly breaking it in half.
Anger seeped inside him, and his dragon roared in pain. But he couldn’t explain to his inner animal why she had rejected them. She was obsessed with finding her mother’s killers and he couldn’t even blame her. If it had been his mother or father or any of his siblings, he’d stop at nothing to bring them justice. He realized that even with all his power and money, he couldn’t offer Christina the one thing she wanted above all else – the peace that justice would bring.
Now what? He sank down on what was left of the couch. Go home, probably. He couldn’t keep chasing after her, not when she didn’t want him. It would drive him mad. But not having her was bound to also. Was this what it was going to be like the rest of his life? Feeling that empty hole in his heart and never being able to fill it?
When he finally composed himself, Jason left the safe house and made his way back to his hotel. As soon as he finished packing, he found and booked the first flight out of Heathrow, which was leaving late that evening. Good. He was glad to be getting out of this place.
* * *
The small regional plane landed on the tarmac with a bump, waking Jason up with a jolt. The captain announced their arrival in Colorado and as soon as the plane stopped at the gate, he unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed his bag from the overhead compartment.
He hadn’t brought any check-in luggage, so he went straight to Arrivals. He didn’t call anyone for a ride, not really wanting to deal with having to explain what had happened. It would be just as easy take a cab or rent a car at the airport to get back to his apartment. All he wanted was to collapse into bed.
As he exited Arrivals, he searched for the taxi stand when something caught his eye.
A black truck was parked right by the door. It looked familiar. In fact, it wasn’t just any truck. It was his truck. And, leaning on the side, arms crossed casually over her chest, was Christina.
At first he thought he was hallucinating, the lack of sleep and food playing with his head. Or maybe it was Catherine. But no. His dragon knew it, even before he did. It knew all this time.
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