by Ladew, Lisa
She pulled it out by the chain and stared at it. The pendant. The pendant she remembered stealing from her mother’s home, then putting into her safe at her house, how many days ago? She stared at it. The angel with the raised hands on one side, the dragon, her dragon, on the other. A fierce knowing shot through her. This would do it. If she could put this around Graeme’s neck, he would realize what a mistake he had been making, see that they belonged together and he deserved to be happy. It is not for him, the voice whispered again. You may see it again, but it is for the children now.
Heather stared at it longer, then looked up as she heard someone gasp. Everyone was staring at it as it spun and twinkled in the sun on the end of the chain, the angel’s yellow eyes and the dragon’s purple ones catching the light.
She pressed her lips together, remembering the speech she had given Graeme about letting go. She held the pendant out to the boy. “Take it. It’s yours. Take it and lead your family through the grass away from here. Go. Quickly.”
Chapter 31
Heather watched the paths recede behind them and the family hurry through the grass until she couldn’t see them anymore and Graeme began to descend slowly at a gentle angle.
Her brain was threatening to shut down. She didn’t know how much more craziness she could take. Had she really just given away the pendant with the dragon on it?
They dropped lightly to the ground and Graeme lifted his head and turned in a circle, as if he was trying to find something.
“Are we lost?”
This spot is where the police station is in our world, but it seems empty. No one I know is left there to ask where I am to go. They told me the street names, but I dinnae ken Serenity, so where they correspond to in relation to the department is a mystery.
“What are they?”
Elm and Locust.
She slid to the ground. “Orient me.”
He did, showing her the layout of the police station in front of them.
She pointed to her left. “About seven miles that way.”
Graeme took a few steps in that direction, his head still up and moving strangely. At five steps, he dropped his head and tilted it to the left, looking like an overgrown, scaly dog. Troy, he said in her head.
“Troy?”
You’ll meet him soon. A good male. Come to me.
Heather did, pretending that he meant more by those words than she knew he did. He wrapped strong leathery wings around her and stepped to the side.
Pressure. Heat. Nothingness.
Then they emerged on the other side, into a crisp Illinois night that made her smile, it felt so much like home. It confused her, though. Where they had just come from it had been daytime, with the sun overhead. No matter. She would never go to that world again.
Graeme transformed next to her, still with no shirt on. She averted her eyes from his strong, solid form. Looking would make her want to touch, and he’d already made his feelings about that clear. Their short non-fling was over, according to him.
She focused on the street next to them, instead. Elm passed directly in front of them and she saw the red and blue lights of a police blockade in both directions. Directly across from them was a side road and that’s where Graeme headed.
In the ditch, a small white sign with writing on it stood, positioned so that cars driving by could read it.
Serenity is a town of LIES, it said, with a small, messy rendition of a wolf howling at a spray-painted moon in the left corner. She frowned at it.
Graeme ignored it, walking so fast she had to run to catch up, the emotional distance between them wider than ever. Ahead of them and to their left stood a driveway, with a farm house at the end of it and a large barn to one side. Graeme turned down the driveway, his boots crunching on the gravel. A black form, larger than any dog she’d ever seen, appeared from between two bushes.
Troy, she heard Graeme say in her mind. Good to see you, old wolf.
The wolf bared its teeth and Heather stopped walking, fear overtaking her.
But then she heard the wolf answer in her mind and she relaxed slightly. He sounded friendly enough, and happy to see Graeme.
Graeme, hell yeah, it is. They are waiting for you in the barn.
Graeme turned and motioned to her to come forward. Heather, meet Troy, a good friend of mine and a Serenity police officer. Troy, this is Heather… His words trailed off, like he wasn’t sure what to say about her.
Heather stared. She didn’t know how to greet a wolf.
The wolf smiled in her mind but didn’t show her his teeth. She was quite glad about that. Heather, so good to meet you.
Thank you, she squeaked out, glad when Graeme took her hand and pulled her up the path and the black wolf stayed where it was.
Graeme pushed open the door to the barn and Heather looked inside nervously. There were several men in there, some she’d seen before, each bigger than the last, all with guns at their hips, some with assault rifles slung over their backs. Every head turned to them as they entered.
Her eyes flitted to each face in turn, wondering if these were all wolves. Graeme had said all the cops were shiften, but were they different kinds of animals?
They stepped inside and one of the males, with a hard face and glittering eyes, called out to them. She recognized his voice from the woods. “Damnit, Sparky, cover that shit up. I’m tired of looking at your dragon titties.”
The men (men?) laughed and the tension was broken. Graeme pulled her inside and introduced her to each of them in turn. She tried to remember names. Mac. Trevor. Wade. Beckett. Harlan.
Mac introduced a lumberjack-looking guy at the back with a brownish-reddish beard and intense eyes. “This here’s Bruin.”
“Call me Scorpion,” Bruin said and Mac snorted.
Heather waved politely, glad when the males in the room said hi, then seemed to go back about their business.
Graeme pointed to the exact other side of the room, his voice kind enough that she could almost believe they were together again. “That’s Ella. I do believe she’s your half-sister.”
Half-sister! It was the woman she’d seen days earlier at the police station, the one she’d felt the connection with. Ella raised her hand and waved and Heather tried to smile and wave back.
Beckett chose that moment to walk across the room toward the map table, passing within a few feet of Heather. Graeme made a sound like a chainsaw starting up deep in his throat and grabbed Beckett by his shirt, tossing him across the room into a wall. Beckett hit the wall snarling and came down in a fighting stance. Heather screamed and backed up a step, having no idea what had come over Graeme. It was like back in the police department the last time.
Mac ran to get between the two as everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared. Mac squared off with Graeme. “Damnit, Pop Rocks, you didn’t mate her yet, did you? You were gone for two damn days. Why else would you disappear from the continent, if not to do some secret dragen ritual that would calm you the fuck down? Did you forget how it works? You need a fucking lesson? You need me to show you where everything goes?”
Graeme roared and launched himself at Mac. Heather backed up into the corner, as far away as she could get from everyone, as all the males in the room piled on Graeme’s back, trying to pull him away from Mac.
Ella ran around the melee and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her over to the spot where she’d been sitting, putting Heather in a chair. “Don’t move, whatever you do,” she told Heather, then ran back to the fray, careful not to get too close.
“Stop! Everyone stop and Graeme will stop, I know he will! Slowly, the males climbed off of Graeme, who stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving, his hands on Mac’s shoulders.
Mac shoved Graeme off him. “What the fuck, Wade, we can’t work with this lava lamp going off every two seconds. Get him out of here and bring in the heavy equipment from Chicago.”
Ella addressed Graeme. “Look, Graeme, she’s safe over here with me.
Can you calm down if she stays over here and no one gets near her?
Graeme shook his head as if to clear it. “Aye,” he finally said, looking at the ground. “Let’s get this done and then I swear we’ll never have this problem again.”
Wade and Trevor held out hands to Graeme, guiding him by the elbows to a large table with a map spread over it. Heather watched him, her eyes narrowed. That had been about her. All about her. He really was fighting his every instinct not to─ what had Mac said?─ not to mate her.
Ella returned to her and smiled gently, then flopped in the chair next to her. “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s really hard being the only female around all this testosterone. That happens more often than you’d think, and Wade says it’s only gonna get worse.”
Heather allowed herself to be pulled into a hug by her sister. Someone who was in this with her. She smiled into Ella’s shoulder, a sigh escaping her lips.
When Ella finally let her go, she stared at the other woman for a long time, trying to figure out which of her many questions she should ask first. Or should she tell Ella that Graeme had rejected her? No. Too hard. She looked around at the males, picked out the one she’d seen Ella with before, and pointed to him. “That’s your, ah…”
“My mate, yes. Trevor.” Ella smiled happily, watching Trevor’s back, her expression adoring.
Heather looked at her feet. She wanted what Ella had more than anything. That simple assurance that someone─ not just anyone, but Graeme─ was hers no matter what. That feeling of love and contentment that Ella was steeped in.
Heather swung her feet and stared at the floor. “He’s a… a what? Does he change into a wolf?”
Ella looked back at her, eyes wide. “Yes, a huge one. Black and silver and he has a mark on his shoulder that’s white and in the shape of a boomerang.” She grabbed Heather’s hands. “You can’t imagine how good it is to have someone to talk to about this. Have you seen Graeme as a…?” Her voice trailed off like she wasn’t sure if she should be saying anything.
Heather smiled and nodded. “Yes. As a dragon. He let me ride on his back and flew me to Scotland.”
Ella stared, her mouth a perfect O of astonishment. “Oh, wow, that must have been amazing! I would have been scared.”
Heather shrugged, then nodded, feeling like an imposter all of a sudden. Ella thought they were happy. Probably on their way to mating. She changed the subject. Something drastic had to happen between her and Graeme before she could talk any more about him. “What’s going on here, anyway?”
Ella shrugged. “Police officer stuff. Mostly it’s been one big snooze and a whole lot of waiting. But then I’m not a cop, so I don’t get to participate in that.” She waved her hand at all the males bent over the table. “They are planning some sort of attack on somebody who took a bunch of people hostage. I’d be nervous about it, but Wade already said Trevor doesn’t get to go on the raid when they do it, because someone has to stay with me, but I’m still a little nervous because his brothers will be going in. But mostly I’ve just been sitting here reading my book. I have a friend who writes stories about this kind of stuff.” She waved her hand again at the males in the center of the room. “You know, men who can turn into animals and the women who love them.” She laughed and Heather laughed, too, startled into it. She’d never heard of such a thing.
“Anyway, she’s writing this really good one right now and publishing a chapter at a time on her website about a woman who finds a stray bobcat kitten in the forest caught in a trap. She frees the kitten and takes it home to nurse it back to health and then all the bobcats come looking for her. I just finished the last chapter she wrote, where a certain male bobcat sneaks into her bedroom and steals the kitten away from her, but falls in love with her when he sees her sleeping. His love for her makes him able to turn into a human. He takes the kitten to its mother and then goes back into the house and that’s where it ended. I’m hooked. I hope she writes the next chapter soon.”
Chills ran up and down Heather’s spine and she shivered, thinking of Dahlia and the bobkitten. She opened her mouth to ask Ella her friend’s name, but Ella stood. “Stay here, ok, I really gotta pee.” She looked over at the group of males around the table, then back to Heather. “Seriously, stay here.”
Heather nodded. She took off her jacket and tucked it under the chair, then turned her attention to Graeme’s back. The older guy, Wade, was explaining something to him. “We can’t shut the gas down off-site, but our eyes in the sky say there is a manhole cover set in the ground twenty-five feet inside the first ring of fire that probably leads to whatever valves these two have fashioned. They have to have a way to turn it on and off. That’s what we need you to do. Get in there and shut it down.”
Graeme nodded thoughtfully. “I can get in there. Is there anyone who shouldn’t see me? Because I can sneak in there in human form or fly in as a dragon.”
“We don’t know what kind of surveillance they have, but if you stay on the ground, we don’t think you’ll get caught by any bullets. They are holed up in a separate area more than five hundred feet farther north. According to infrared, there are no warm bodies below the manhole cover guarding whatever is down there. They are counting on this fire to keep out everything smaller than a helicopter. They must not have heard we have a dragen working with us yet.”
Trevor cut in. “We have to move soon. Dawn is in fifteen minutes. Visibility is poorest then, and they won’t expect us to try any sort of attack till tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch them sleeping.”
Heather’s eye was caught by the twelve foot walls of fire dancing on the screen.
They looked drastic enough.
***
Ella washed up, glad the old barn had plumbing by some miracle, her mind on her new-found half-sister. Heather seemed normal enough, and sweet. Nothing like Shay. Guilt shot through her as she imagined Shay, still unconscious in the hospital bed, a baby, Ella’s niece or nephew, growing inside of her limp form. Ella dreamed about it every night, thought about it constantly, and still could not bring herself to tell Trevor.
Because she didn’t know who the father was.
Ella stared at her hands, suddenly more glad than ever that Heather had surfaced. She would ask Heather what she would do. Maybe not now, but tomorrow, or the next day. Heather wasn’t going anywhere.
She hurried back out into the open room to where she had left Heather, but the chair was empty. She looked around. Trevor and all the males were still gathered around the map, deep in discussion. She walked around the perimeter of the room, but knew there was nowhere Heather could be hiding. She would not have gone up in the loft with the felen, and the only other place in the old barn that was hidden was the bathroom. Which meant Heather had gotten past the males somehow and gone outside.
Ella’s eye was caught by movement on one of the video screens. A female form, running straight for the fire. A strangled cry escaped her throat. “Heather!”
Graeme was the first one out of the pack, looking hard at Ella. He followed her gaze and saw Heather leap into the wall of flame. Her clothes and boots blazed instantly, falling off her, but her hair and skin seemed to hold the fire, caress it lovingly. On her face was a wide smile. Her lips parted and Ella imagined her laughing, even though she couldn’t hear it.
Mac spoke first, as all the males stared, dumbstruck at the woman disappearing willingly into the fire. “Damn, Sparky, she really is the only female you could have sex with, isn’t she?”
Graeme grabbed him by the back of the shirt and heaved him across the room as he had done to Beckett earlier, then a screeching roar erupted out of him that broke every window in the place. He transformed as he ran to the front of the building, then flew out a window, after his female.
Trevor came up behind Mac and helped him to his feet. “Nice one, Mac, you really have a death wish.”
Wade shouted into the radio for everyone to get in position, ready to move on his mark.
Ma
c brushed himself off. “Totally worth it if it gets him to come to his senses and mate her as soon as possible. We can’t afford to play kiddie games around here.” He pulled his gun out of his holster and headed for the door. “Damn, why I gotta be the only adult around here, getting shit done?”
Chapter 32
Graeme flew as fast as he could into the dawn, swearing on his life that, if she survived, he would do anything she asked. She was right. He couldn’t live without her. He wanted to trust. He wanted to live, truly live, for the first time in his life. But he could not do that without her. If she died because he’d rejected her, he would take off his own head. The realizations sank into his bones, thrust there by fear and terror that he’d just ruined his life for the second time.
But no, he would not die today. There, he saw her light and lithe form bent over something in the grass, no longer on fire. He landed, shaking all over, but still with the presence of mind to look around, ensuring they were alone. The night was quiet on this side of the fire, only the sound of the gas hissing out of the ground and the clean, quiet flame it created marring the silence.
“Good,” she said. “Help me open this.”
He changed into his human form, and the shakes hit him hard when he did. He clamped down on his emotions. They were in enemy territory and she wasn’t safe yet. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and march out of there, but, if she made a commotion, it could draw attention to them. He had no doubt she would tear into him if he tried it.
He bent to see what she needed help with. The manhole cover. He dipped down and fit his fingers into a socket hole and lifted it easily, tossing it to the side, peering into the darkness below, while trying to hold her back from doing the same thing.
“We need a light,” she said, dropping her legs down the hole and descending the rusty ladder in bare feet. Bare everything. Graeme swore. Didn’t he say she would be the death of him? That had been a thousand years ago, right?
