Scorched [Pain & Love 3] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Ashlei D. Hawley

  Leigh waited. She needed a moment to herself before he offered reassurance. He felt Luke watching him, and turned to catch his eye.

  “Not going to go to her?” Luke asked.

  “She doesn’t need me yet.”

  “How do you know?” Luke was curious. He wondered whether this creature could have become so attuned to Mallory’s flesh and blood in such a short time to know her ways of sorrow.

  “She does fairly well letting me know when she needs me. And I’m always willing to accommodate.”

  “She does, doesn’t she?” Luke said with a faint smile. “She can be stubborn, but she reaches out when there’s something she needs to grab.”

  “She may be a room away, but she can hear you talking about her,” Mallory said. Her voice echoed strangely back into her face. She lifted her head and Leigh was there. She couldn’t help the smile she offered him.

  He took her hand and held it. “There’s my girl.”

  “There’s our girl,” Luke corrected.

  Mallory’s heart warmed to hear her dad claim her as his once more.

  “Junior will be fine, sugar. He will.”

  She wanted to believe him. Something powerful and innate, a voice that had never steered her wrong, said otherwise. She nodded anyway. “When do they go?”

  Luke stared at the clock long enough to think Mallory believe he wanted it to answer for him. “Late morning tomorrow. Not too far away.”

  “Keep him here, Dad.” She wasn’t begging, but Mallory thought it sounded that way.

  “Mal,” Luke started. He sat in the chair across from her and took her hands. “None of us is safe right now. One of those things could find us here. One of the Hunters could make our location and decide if we aren’t helping, we’re hindering. Junior goes with them and we might be able to stop hiding and start helping.”

  “Helping the Hunters?” she asked. She almost jerked her hands away from him, aghast at the concept.

  “No, sugar. Helping the people. If we can get out of here, we can start spreading the word. Until this mess is done and over with, people need to leave the city faster than they have been. The cops, SWAT, and National Guard who aren’t working with the Hunters are helping with the evacuations. We need to be helping, too.”

  “Dad, we’re a small town. There are fewer than eight thousand residents. Our standing force is four guys, and that includes Junior. We only have help from the outside coming in now because we need them.”

  “And the Hunters outnumber us like crazy,” he said in agreement. “So we need every one of our guys we have working with them on this.”

  “They caused the problem,” Mallory said. Her mouth twisted in disgust, and she shook her head. “This is all part of their plan. How can our guys be helping if they’re walking into a setup?”

  “That’s even more of a reason not to worry so much, then,” Luke told her.

  He patted her hands and then pulled his back from hers. Leigh claimed them, wrapping her arms up in his as he leaned over the back of her chair.

  “The Hunters won’t let the brave human souls perish,” Leigh said, adding his support to Luke’s line of reasoning. “They’re trying to bring out this image of themselves as saviors. How will that work if the men they take into the den with them are lost?”

  A frigid tear slipped down Mallory’s cheek. It hovered on her chin and then dripped off. She heard it hit Leigh’s arm and soak into his skin. Even his logic couldn’t battle the insistent voice of her power. Junior’s life path would be altered or ended if he participated in the raid. She knew it with the certainty of sunrise.

  Leigh squeezed her and backed away. He knew she wasn’t reassured, but he could offer no more than what he had, unless he physically restrained her brother. But her psychic power urged the necessity of Junior’s involvement. Leigh couldn’t bring himself to interfere with a prophecy. He couldn’t. He’d seen such an arrogant move punished in the past.

  They sat in silence, each nursing his or her own thoughts. The night would be long, and the coming day would bring no relief of the stress they felt. Leigh sat to Mallory’s side and took her hand again. No matter what happened, he would stay with her.

  * * * *

  Junior entered his gran’s home while shaking his head. She’d left the door unlocked. Sure, her power had probably announced his visit, but there were vampires and Hunters roaming the night as of late.

  “Of course, a locked door isn’t going to keep them out,” Junior reminded himself aloud. He locked the door when he closed it, anyway. “Gran, I’m here to see you,” he announced, making sure he spoke loud enough for his word to carry.

  “Living room, Junior.” Her voice was pleasant and warm as ever. It could have been the beginning of a Saturday at the beach if one gauged the situation by Heddy’s tone.

  Junior removed his shoes at the door and slipped his jacket onto the hook he’d glued to the wall for his grandmother himself. He made his way through the darkened house, having no problem navigating the shadowed rooms.

  Heddy looked up over the rims of her reading glasses when Junior entered the living room. She placed her romance novel on the small table that held her rose-colored glass lamp and a short stack of similar titles. No other light in the home had been turned on.

  “You’re going to go blind reading by the light of that lonely little lamp,” Junior warned as he plopped down on the couch next to her reading chair.

  Heddy gave him a wry look. “Boy, if I haven’t gone blind by now, I’m damn sure not going to.”

  Junior laughed and shook his head at his gran’s proclamation. “Mal said you needed to see me, Gran.”

  Heddy hummed in response to Junior’s words. He knew well enough not to rush the old woman. She did things on her own time, and that included speaking.

  “You remember my dear friend Nicolette?” Gran asked.

  Junior nodded. He’d met the lady a few times over the years. He knew how much her death had affected his Gran. “She was a sweet lady,” Junior said to be polite.

  “She was a big part of this town,” Gran confided to him. “You know of the Dragon sisters by now. Nicolette, their mother, was the matron of their clutch. Her magic was ancient, powerful, and focused here.”

  “Here, you mean the town?”

  Gran smiled. “A bit closer than that, boy. Her power filled the lake. Her elemental focus was in that water. And some of it still resides, though she’s gone. The little one, Daria, she’ll be able to tap into that power. She’s the only water Dragon left now.”

  “That’s interesting stuff, Gran, but I don’t really see why I needed to come all this way to hear it.”

  She arched one brow and sent a disapproving frown his way. “You think I talk to hear myself, eh? The Dragon magic is why you’re here, Junior. I wasn’t gabbing for the pleasure of it.”

  She stood and moved to the display case that held her collection of glass bowls and silver spoons. From the bottom drawer, she drew out a cloth-covered bundle and presented it to him. Junior lifted the cloth covering curiously. A smooth, round stone tumbled into his palm. The blue was so dark it seemed black ink had been captured in a perfectly round drop of river water.

  “What is this, Gran?” Junior turned the stone over and over. It looked the same from every angle, yet he couldn’t help but think he was missing minute alterations in the stone’s core while he looked at it.

  “The last thing we did together, she and I,” Gran said, covering the stone with her hand. “I knew something was coming and she wouldn’t be here to fight. This is a weapon we made together. The Dragon magic is often more about purification than power. The stone taps into that energy.”

  “So what do I do with it?” Junior asked.

  “Well, we didn’t really go into that,” Gran admitted. “But I think you’re supposed to eat it.”

  Junior barked out a laugh. When Heddy didn’t join in, he scoffed at her. “Gran, you’re kidding me. I’m not going to eat that thing.�
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  “Oh, Lord,” she said in a huff. “Just be a baby about it, why don’t you?”

  After snatching the stone from Junior, Heddy tottered off into the kitchen. Stretching up on her tiptoes, she took a stout glass cup from the second shelf of her cabinet. She filled it with water from the tap, dropped the stone within, and watched as the blue and inky black swirled about, as though stirred by an unseen hand. After only a few seconds, the water returned to clear.

  Heddy reentered the living room and thrust the cup into her grandson’s hands. “Drink.”

  Junior eyed the cup with a suspicious frown. “Gran, I don’t know…” he began, but she gave him her sternest look. It had enforced other rulings he’d at the time thought were crazy and was no less effective when it came to the contents of the cup.

  Junior drank, tasting nothing out of the ordinary. When he ingested all the liquid, Heddy took the cup with a satisfied expression and returned to the kitchen to clean it. Junior rolled his eyes, chastising himself for being a man whose gran could still make him do whatever she said as long as she gave him the look. Sighing, he settled himself back against the old, worn couch cushion and waited for Gran to come back into the living room.

  “You can go home now, boy,” she announced after the cup had been cleaned and she’d found her comfortable spot in her reading chair again. “That’s all that was needed of you.”

  “You’re not going to tell me not to go with the others?” he asked as he stood.

  Heddy slipped her reading glasses on and studied her grandson over the silver rims. She knew what the future held for him in the coming morning and fought the words she knew she needed to speak. The smile felt like it was carved into her flesh with a knife when she let it spread across her face.

  “Why would I tell you not to do something you must?” she asked. Her tone chided, but her heart broke. Seeing Junior encouraged by her words made the pain even worse.

  He bent down to kiss her soft, weathered cheek before standing with a smile. Heddy squeezed his hand when he offered it, but she could no longer smile back. Silence was the best thing she could offer him as he made his way back through the kitchen to grab his coat and leave her home. Because it was something her power hadn’t told her, she wondered if she’d ever see him again.

  Chapter Ten

  Dan hoped that Lydia had gotten enough sleep since she’d left the discussion to spend some time by herself. He didn’t want to wake her, but he felt there were more pressing matters than sleep happening in the town while night claimed the streets. He wanted to take her out and show her all the Hunter hideouts he knew, because they had something he knew she wanted.

  Dan knocked on her door, barely sweeping his knuckles across the wood. The almost unnoticeable sound would have been easily detected by one of the vampires, but he didn’t know how sophisticated Dragon hearing was compared to a human’s. He didn’t know if there was a difference at all.

  “Come in if you feel it’s absolutely necessary,” Lydia growled from within the room.

  So she did have moderately better hearing than a human, Dan thought.

  “I don’t want to feel you standing out there any longer than I have to.”

  With a frown, Dan turned the handle and entered the room. What did she mean by ‘feeling’' him? “I thought you might want to do something productive,” Dan announced without preamble. He didn’t comment on how her eyes glowed like molten gold, ringed with red and puffy from tears shed. The paleness of her skin was exaggerated by the tearstains on her pink cheeks. She looked miserable, and yet still so beautiful.

  “What did you have in mind?” Though she’d asked the question, she didn’t particularly care to hear the answer. She was pissed at Dan and was ready to be fully done with him. If the situation didn’t call for their continued contact, she’d have already seen how well a Fallen would burn on her furious pyre.

  “The Hunters have safe locations all over the city. If you want to go check some of them out, we might be able to figure out if they have alternative plans, assess the threat level for the numbers that are coming in, whatever you want.”

  “What I want is to punch you until your face isn’t pretty anymore,” she retorted.

  He smiled at her sulky expression. “That wouldn’t take much,” he told her. “Why don’t you channel that energy into something more productive, eh?”

  Swinging her long legs over the side of the bed, Lydia did what her mother had often advised. She shook the sad off. She started with her hands, then rolled her shoulders and shook her mane of fiery hair around. The time had come to shove everything down to where it wouldn’t interfere with what had to be done. “Why do you want me to go with you?”

  He shrugged. “Well, you said I needed to be under twenty-four-hour supervision, right? The numbers of Hunters coming in would be pretty useful information for us to have.” And because of what they had. He didn’t want to tell her about it in case they destroyed it, but he thought they had a good chance of recovering what he knew she would want. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Lydia stood and slipped into a pair of black leggings. She threw a loose-fitting green T-shirt over her white tank top, fluffed her hair, and flipped it behind her shoulders. She didn’t bother with makeup. Because she wanted to wear her running shoes, she worked her feet into a pair of black socks. “Where to first?”

  Dan drove, and they made their way down Main Street. He knew of an abandoned warehouse that the Hunters had bought and started to use the previous month. Down Birch Street, an old church served the same purpose. There were three other nearby locations that he knew, and he figured he’d be able to sniff others out if he felt the presence of his kin while he drove.

  Lydia stared out the passenger window while Dan drove. He wanted her to speak to him, or listen to his apologies, but he didn’t know how to begin. He tried anyway. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

  “I guess I should have told you we had vampires with us so you could lie a little longer,” she retorted.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  She shook his head at the protest and rolled her eyes.

  “Seriously,” he insisted. “I just wanted a calm moment to explain it thoroughly. It isn’t that I didn’t trust you with the information.”

  “No, you just knew you’d have a hard time sticking your dick in someone when you work with the same people who killed her mother.” Her voice rose with each word, and by the end of the sentence, she screamed at him.

  “You worked with the same people who killed your mother,” he snapped back. Wanting to reclaim the words into his mouth as soon as they left, he sighed and smacked a hand against the steering wheel.

  He made a left turn into the parking lot of their first stop. “I didn’t…That was uncalled for. I know you didn’t have a choice. Please, Lydia. I’m trying to explain.”

  “Explain what?” she shouted. “Explain how you’re a lying asshole? Explain how you knew what I was from the first time you met me, and yet you let me stress over how to keep my truest self from you? How you screwed us out of any chance of emotional intimacy by being a complete douche the whole time we were together? And why should I trust anything you say to try to explain, anyway? You’ve lied about so much so far, why would I believe anything that comes out of your mouth is the truth?”

  Dan switched the car into park and pulled his keys from the ignition, but Lydia had already tumbled out of the vehicle and slammed the door. Moderately grateful that she’d lost her Dragon strength by being stuck in human form for so long, he quickly checked to make sure she hadn’t cracked the glass, anyway. An angry woman could be capable of some pretty impressive things, Dragon or not.

  “Lydia, wait up!” he snapped. Though he didn’t feel the presence of any nearby Hunters, he kept his voice low to avoid discovery.

  Lydia stalked away, heedless of his warning.

  Dan grumbled to himself as he watched her storm toward the front doors of the warehouse. Sh
e intended to kick them down, he thought. The building had no lights burning. No Hunters patrolled the outer areas. No movement caught his attention. The stronghold was empty. He knew they would have to check anyway, just to be sure.

  “No one’s here,” Lydia said, echoing his thoughts aloud.

  “Seems that way.”

  Lydia looked at the sturdy door and contemplated kicking it. Knowing she would only injure herself and the door would remain unopened, she cocked her head toward Dan and shrugged. “How do you want to get in?”

  “Window?” he suggested as he pointed to a low-level square of glass. He guessed it opened into an office or similar kind of room.

  “After you,” Lydia offered with a wave. She didn’t want to risk cutting herself on the glass.

  After slipping out of his running shoes one at a time, Dan worked one foot out of its sock before replacing it, bare, within the shoe. He repeated the process and loosely fitted the socks over his left hand. Nondominant hand, Lydia noted, in case the two socks weren’t an effective enough barrier when he broke the glass.

  Bracing himself, Dan smashed his hand through the glass. He winced as the shards littered the ground and tinkled almost inaudibly. Though he halfway expected one to, no alarm sounded their presence. The Hunters were certainly gone.

  “When Mallory and Leigh tried going in the previous hideout to rescue some of the humans, the Hunters left the place mined,” Lydia warned him. “Do you think it’ll be the same with every place they’ve abandoned?”

  Dan hesitated. It sounded like a Hunter tactic. He didn’t want to take Lydia inside if there was the slightest chance it could be dangerous to her, especially when they stood to gain nothing from it beyond what they already knew.

  “We’ll check the next place. They’re gone from here.”

  “You would know,” Lydia muttered darkly. She turned to walk back to the car without waiting for him to respond. Sighing, he followed.