by Riley Storm
She longed for more of it now, but she couldn’t let Claire be alone. Her friend had suffered just the same and had nobody to provide that comfort to her. Nobody but Lilly. So she and Claire walked arm in arm while Trent moved along behind them, the trio not talking for the first few minutes.
“So the two of you hung out earlier?” Trent asked casually, breaking the silence.
Thankful for the distraction, Lilly latched on to it, telling Trent about how she’d not seen Claire in far too long.
“Had some drinks, did you?” he chuckled.
“Yeah, this one needs it,” Claire said. “She’s probably going to have to be drunk to give you an opening. Though apparently you don’t need it.”
Lilly blushed furiously at the sly tone of her friend’s voice. “Shhhh,” she said. “Don’t.”
Claire laughed. “What, do you think I missed the way he burst through the door and the first thing he does is kiss you? Or the way you were very into it, to the point you forgot all about me?”
Lilly just shook her head, dying of embarrassment, unable to speak.
“So tell me,” Claire asked. “Do you like my friend here? ‘Cause if you do, you should tell her. ‘Cause she likes you.”
“Claire!” Lilly yelped.
“Now might not be the best time to talk about that,” Trent said, though there was a humorous tone to it.
Lilly suspected that if she had the guts to look back, she’d find Trent looking at her, a smile on his face. She wussed out.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Claire said thoughtfully as they walked on in silence.
It didn’t take them long to reach Claire’s parents’ place. Her folks lived closer to the ‘downtown’ part of Five Peaks than even Lilly, in a giant tree-covered property that probably dated back to the founding of Five Peaks.
Trent followed them right up to the door, standing around while Claire opened it and gestured for Lilly to go through.
“Thanks,” she said, going inside to the tiny landing where a pair of shoe racks and coat hooks stood waiting before heading down to the basement apartment.
Almost immediately, she had to make room for a gigantic figure as Trent followed her.
“Um, what are you doing?” she asked, staring at him. Lilly hadn’t expected him to accompany her inside.
“I’m going to protect you,” he said in blunt, simple words, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Chapter Fifteen
Trent
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Claire said as Lilly started down the stairs ahead of him.
Trent shuffled to the side to let Claire in so she could lock the door.
“I’m glad,” he rumbled, removing his shoes without bending over, careful not to brace his wounded shoulder on anything.
“Yeah. I know I’ll sleep better this way,” Claire all but chortled.
Lilly paused to glare back up the stairs at her friend. Trent snorted.
“You know I can see that, right?” he said.
Lilly blushed in the yellow stair light, her face darkening before she hurried down the rest of the way. Trent slowly followed her, trying his hardest not to clomp noisily.
“Besides, you’ll be safer with a dragon around,” he continued. “I don’t think those guys or any of their friends will be back tonight, but better safe than sorry. They are definitely the type to have fragile egos and feel the need to seek revenge.”
“Do you really think that?” Lilly asked as Trent reached the bottom of the stairs.
He grabbed her shoulder with his good arm and gave it a gentle squeeze, his eyes boring into hers, letting her see the confidence in his gaze.
“No.” He paused for emphasis. “The odds are very low. Plus, nobody followed us here. I was watching our trail. On top of that, they would have to deal with me first. I went easy on them back there. Nobody is getting to you Lilly, I promise.”
Claire came down the stairs.
“Either of you,” he added, straightening, dropping his hand at the pointed look from Claire, who just rolled her eyes and continued on.
Lilly seemed to relax, and Trent breathed easier. He didn’t need her to know how much he was actually worried. Not about the men coming back, but about himself.
My track record of spotting danger in time is…not the best.
For Lilly, however, he vowed to do better. To be perfect.
Now I just have to follow through…
“Okay, you two make yourselves at home,” Claire said, gesturing around. “I’m going to get some towels and stuff so you can shower. Especially you, big guy. You need to get clean. Do you think you can handle it alone?”
“Claire,” Lilly hissed.
Claire giggled and disappeared into what Trent figured to be the bedroom. It was located directly across from the bottom of the stairs. To the right was a full kitchen and to the left a living area with couches and television. A second door in the back right corner he figured to be the bathroom.
“She certainly does seem to be pushing us together, doesn’t she?” Trent remarked once they were alone.
“Can we just not?” Lilly pleaded. “Not tonight.”
“Of course,” he said, flashing her a smile, watching delightedly as her face tinged again with red.
He really did enjoy that.
“I need to deal with this,” he said, tugging at his shirt with his free hand.
Instantly, Lilly was there, helping him ease the blood-stained garment over his head and down off his wounded shoulder. Trent hissed in pain only once and then he was free.
“Damn, that was more awkward than I would have thought,” he muttered, taking the fabric from Lilly and balling it up between both hands, fighting down the pain in his right arm as he used the muscles.
“What are you doing?” Lilly asked as he walked over to the sink.
“We dragons have a thing about our blood just being around,” he said, thinking of all that the Agency had been able to do with samples forcefully taken from a Clan Valen shifter.
The Agency was gone now of course, but the damage had been done. Trent wasn’t about to add to it.
He cupped the shirt together and focused. Power flowed down his arms and little bolts of lightning flickered between his two hands. He pushed more power into it, and the lightning began to flow faster and faster. The shirt caught on fire briefly, but the near-constant lightning vaporized it so fast there was little left.
Dumping the blackened remains in the sink, Trent turned on the tap and the clump disintegrated as water hit it, disappearing down the drain.
“Well, that was interesting to watch,” Claire said, having reappeared in the doorway, holding a pair of towels. “But what are you going to do about the bullet? I assume that’s still in you since there’s no exit hole.”
“I’ll handle that,” he rumbled.
“How?” Lilly asked.
“By manipulating the magnetic energy around the bullet and pulling it out,” he explained. “It’s how I create lightning, just…a different application of the energy.”
“You can do that? Create lightning?” she gaped.
Claire was less restrained. “That’s so cool!”
“We can do more than just destroy things,” Trent told them levelly. “Our earth dragons have reshaped the ground of many of our homes, working with the earth. Our fire dragons routinely put out forest fires that threaten to get out of control. Our frost dragons prevent dangerous avalanches.”
The two women looked at him in amazement.
“Why is none of this stuff out there?” Lilly asked softly. “The public would certainly appreciate you more if this was the case.”
“There’s other things we do as well,” Trent said, thinking of the Gate and all the evil creatures that lurked beyond. “Things we do to help that it would be better if the general populace doesn’t know. We don’t want to pick and choose. Honestly, we don’t want to brag either.”
“Then why tell us?” Lilly wanted to
know.
“Because I want you to know that we’re not what that church says we are,” he said hotly. “That we’re still part human. Most of us are good. We have our bad apples too, but we handle them. We’re not evil.”
“I don’t think you’re evil,” Claire said with a shrug. “If that means anything.”
“It does,” Trent said, nodding thankfully at her.
“Neither do I,” Lilly said, coming close, resting a hand on his bare stomach.
Trent flinched at the unexpected touch, the motion flexing his stomach, muscles standing out in relief as Lilly’s fingers skidded over them from the movement.
“Hey, be careful,” she said as he hissed. “You’re bleeding again.”
“Yeah, felt that one,” he muttered, angry at himself for the jerking movement that had torn open the wound again.
“Well, get in the shower then,” Claire said. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
Trent paused, looking at Lilly. “Ummm.”
“Oh, relax,” Claire said, interpreting the look. “Your shower is over there. Mine’s in here. We’re not showering together. Although…”
“Claire!” Lilly said.
Claire grinned. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re both in denial. See you later.”
She winked—Trent wasn’t sure at whom—and then closed the door to her room. A few moments later, the sound of running water could be heard.
“Go get cleaned up,” Lilly said, shaking her head, the ghost of a smile on her face as she glared at the closed door. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Positive,” he said, looking over at the secondary bathroom. He started turning in that direction to take a step then paused, reversed course, took the step to his left and kissed Lilly’s forehead. “I’m okay, I swear.”
Then, he headed for the shower, trying his best not to think about what would happen after that.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. She’ll probably be asleep by the time you’re done. Even if she isn’t, you’re in her friend’s house…
Chapter Sixteen
Lilly
Her legs were starting to hurt from pacing back and forth by the time the water finally shut off in the shower.
What was going on in there? Why had he been taking so long? Her worry was thick and cloying, surrounding her with a near panic-level desire just to see Trent’s face again. She needed to assure herself he was okay, that nothing had happened while he was in the shower.
You can hear him moving about. Stop fretting.
But she continued to walk in a line, the motion burning off at least a fraction of the nervous energy if nothing else. With Claire off in her own room now, and Trent showering, she’d been left alone. It was far from the first time Lilly had spent the night on the pull-out couch in the basement. She should be sprawled out, television on, just waiting for Trent to be done.
Instead she was acting like an overbearing worrywart of a—
Of a what? What is it you think you are to him?
The door opened, and her thoughts evaporated as Trent emerged from the bathroom wrapped in only a towel. His upper body gleamed with dampness, not fully dried off. The soft curls of hair were plastered to his skull, not fully dried either, and light from the bathroom itself bounced off his skin and made it glow.
Lilly just stopped and stared, taking in the sight. It would have been a thing out of a frisky daydream if it weren’t for the big red gaping hole in his shoulder. Though the wound no longer bled, the entire area around it was swollen and discolored. Lilly winced as she looked at it, stepping closer without realizing she was moving.
“That looks so painful,” she said. “Did you get it out?”
Trent held up his hand, the mangled bullet pinched between index finger and thumb. “Of course. Did you doubt me?” he teased.
“No, it’s not that,” she said, flashing him a sad smile.
“What is it?” he asked, concern crinkling the corners of his face.
“It’s just…I don’t know,” she said quietly. “You were so brave back there, Trent. Fighting them off. Taking a bullet for us. For me.”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know how to thank you for something like that,” she said. “You saved us.”
Trent tucked the bullet in the towel at his waist and reached out to take both her hands in his, pushing them together and holding them tight. “You already have, Lilly.”
“I know, but you’re hurt,” she insisted. “Because of us.”
To her surprise, Trent snorted dismissively. “No. I’m hurt because of myself. I should have anticipated this scenario.”
“What scenario?”
“The church crazies—”
“CAWs,” she said.
He smiled, nodding. “The CAWs, yes.” Trent paused thoughtfully. “You know, it’s a shame they didn’t name themselves the Brotherhood Against Wyrm Knowledge, or something like that.”
“The BAWKs?” Lilly said, confused.
“Yeah. Then I could have called them chickens,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
“Really?” she said, frowning unhappily. “You had a bullet in your shoulder, and you’re making jokes like that about them?”
“It’s easier than pacing constantly, worrying about something you have no control over,” he chided.
Lilly stuck her tongue out at him but remained silent.
“If I’d been thinking more thoroughly, I would have expected that the men tonight would be armed with Agency castoffs,” he said, returning to the original line of thought.
“What? Agency castoffs?” Lilly shook her head. “I don’t get it. What do they have to do with it?”
“The Agency developed weapons. Weapons that could kill dragons. A regular human bullet would have just left a big bruise on me,” he said. “Our skin is incredibly tough, even if it looks normal. But these bullets…these are tipped with dragon scale.”
He took the bullet back out of the towel, giving Lilly a tantalizing glimpse past his waist, though not enough to reveal any details, and held it up.
“See the red bits? Synthetic dragon scale. These bullets are specific for hurting dragons. And why wouldn’t a group of crazies who hate dragons have guns that can actually hurt us? It makes too much sense. I should have suspected it the moment I realized who they were. But I didn’t.”
“The Agency did that?” she gasped.
Lilly, like most people, had seen the news broadcast where one of the dragons had revealed himself on live TV to the public, calling out the Agency for going rogue, for trying to hunt down his people. But she hadn’t…
“Is that what was meant by the woman on the TV who said that they stripped you of scales and blood?”
Trent nodded solemnly. “Yes. The blood was used to give normal humans a fraction of our abilities. To be better able to fight us. Thankfully, we’re pretty sure we’ve shut down that avenue. But when the Agency just sort of fell apart, thousands of weapons and who knows how many rounds of ammunition were simply lost. They had storage caches all over town.”
“You make it sound like a military.”
“It was,” he said. “They had hundreds of men here in town, armed and ready to strike. Many have just left now that their money source has dried up. Some stayed. We’ve been hunting them and the missing weapons down in secret, destroying them as we go.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s why I was near your shop that first night. My team was hitting a group of thugs who had dragon-killing weapons and were operating above the convenience store next door.”
“Your team?” she asked. “You run a team?”
Trent looked away. “No. I was just a part of it.”
She noted the way he talked about it in past tense, but by his reaction Lilly knew it wasn’t a subject that Trent wanted to talk about. Something had happened though. Something that meant he was no longer a part of it.
“There’s no way
you could have anticipated that men like that would come after me,” she said, trying to assuage his misplaced guilt. She didn’t want him getting down on himself, not after his heroic actions.
“I should have known they would follow me,” he said, shaking his head.
Lilly blinked. “Follow you? No, Trent, those men were after me. It’s not the first time. I had church graffiti spray painted earlier this week. The second day after I put the store name up, someone broke the window with a rock. Not to mention a few other places that have vocally supported the dragons have suffered damage. This had nothing to do with you, I guarantee it.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug.
The motion served to loosen the towel around his waist enough that it slid lower, revealing the bottom line of his abs, much to her brain’s delight.
Stop it, Lilly said to herself, forcing her gaze upward where it came to a rest on the bullet wound.
“That looks so painful,” she said, reaching up to lay her hand on the skin below it.
“Not really,” Trent said bluntly. “Not now that the bullet’s out. Besides, I’ve been hurt worse. I’ll heal.”
“Yes, but…” Lilly whispered, her fingers dragging softly against his skin, at a loss for any more words.
What else was she meaning to say? What did she want to say?
Trent’s hand came up, clasping her fingers gently, holding them there. His gaze fell on her, and she was sucked up into the heavens of his eyes, the rich blues pulling her in and not letting go. Just like his hands.
Is he going to kiss me? I think he’s going to kiss me.
They swayed closer to each other, neither committing, but neither pulling away. The space between them was filled with warmth and also a tension. If she wanted to get closer to him, to get right up against him, Lilly was going to have to push through it, to forcefully allow herself to get closer.
