The demon had never been wrong before. It always knew where Cora was. He could find her. He only needed to try harder. But when he turned, the room changed. He stood at the entry way again. His heart beat frantically. A second ago, he’d been at the back of the store. Now he faced the shelves, with the front door behind him.
None of this made sense.
He took a slow step forward, testing the floor for traps as he gently pressed his toe against it. Nothing happened, so he took another step. The shelves seemed to stretch infinitely.
Wake up! Cora’s voice boomed through his head.
Confused, he looked around. Everything felt real. The sound of the tools, the glow of the ATM. Yet, when he reached, the world caved, and his fingers passed through the nearest wrench. His stomach flipped. The demon’s snarl came from outside his body. When he looked up, the gold dragon was outside his body.
They locked eyes, and the dragon huffed in annoyance. Jasper didn’t spare another moment.
“Where can I find you when I wake up?”
Silence answered him. He worried he was too late, that he wouldn’t reach her in time. This might have been a dream, but it had been created by Cora’s fear. She was still in trouble. Her fears had leaked into his mind. He looked around, searching for clues.
I’m not here. I’m in a sandwich shop. The stockroom. With Cal and one of his shifters.
Jasper came to, gasping only to inhale smoke. He was inside the burning building. The air was thick with ash and steam. He coughed and staggered to his feet. A beam laid on the floor beside him. Had it hit him? It must have fallen, hitting his head just right.
He shook it off. The demon shoved against his mind. It wanted to be free, wanted to go find Cora. If he shifted inside, it would destroy the building. He looked around. It was more wreckage than shop now. He didn’t think it could be salvaged.
The demon huffed as it filled reality. Claws pierced the charred and bloated floor. His great form cracked the wet walls, bursting the windows. He launched himself out of the building and into the air. People cried out below, but they were all a safe distance from the building.
From above, the demon scanned the street. Cora said she was in a sandwich shop. Jasper could not recall any such shop. He hadn’t spent enough time in his own town to know what shops there were. The demon tossed its head, taking in the scents of Grove.
It smelled of exhaust and motor oil, but beneath that it could pick out the different odors of each shop on the street. It caught hints of vanilla and coffee from the cafes. A car part shop smelled heavily of rubber from the stack of tires behind the building. They’d been too close to the fire, making the air acrid. But as it flew away from the fire, the air became laden with yeast and processed meat.
There. That had to be it.
But the demon couldn’t bust through the wall to rescue Cora. As much as it wanted to, Jasper was cautious of causing any more damage to the town. Grove had put up with enough from its king. He wouldn’t allow this war to infringe on his home any longer. He was responsible for his fair share of the damage and that had to end.
He dropped to the ground, wings tight to his body. Before claws could reach the asphalt of the road, booted feet touched down. Jasper marveled at the fact that he had clothing, a magic his beast had never bothered to reveal before. The demon sank deep into him with only a lingering laugh.
It had many more secrets to share, but now was not the time. Jasper spared a moment to wonder that the creature could grant him jeans, flannel, and boots, but not a new eye. He shook his head before racing into the building.
There was no Aurum ATM here. It was dark, but through it he heard voices again. This time, the voices didn’t retreat. They remained where they were, growing more familiar with each step.
Cal’s brusque smugness. The heavy breathing of a familiar shifter. Cora’s thudding heartbeat.
Jasper clenched his fists before shoving the storeroom door open. Cora sidestepped the swinging door without looking. There was a hint of a smile on her lips, like she knew he was right behind her. They were one, after all.
“I think you’re finished here, Cal.”
Cal’s face dropped. The cockiness he’d worn when Cora was alone was replaced by fear until he caught sight of Jasper’s eye. The man laughed and leaned in to stage whisper.
“I took something from you, at least. What happens when I take both?”
“Like you’ll get the chance,” Jasper growled. He wanted to take the man by his throat and pin him to the wall, but there were too many shelves in the way. He didn’t want to wreck someone shop over this worm of a man.
Cora touched his arm. Her eyes flicked to Cal and the thin shifter. Jasper sniffed again. This was the shifter who’d attacked Mila, who’d changed Lilah. Who’d punched a hole in his roof. He had the face of a rat, nothing more than a cretin who wanted to cause as much damage as possible.
Jasper wasn’t going to let either win tonight. It was late and he wanted more sleep. The fire was out. He would speak to local construction companies in the morning about rebuilding. He placed a hand on Cora’s shoulder, signaling that they should leave.
She nodded and turned her back to Cal. The man growled, but it was a weak sound. Pathetic. His offense did nothing to stop Jasper and Cora from leaving.
Only when she was far away from the shop did she stop, gripping Jasper’s sleeves to keep from falling. He noticed the way her knees shook. She pressed her face to his chest and tamed her breathing while Jasper rubbed her back, wishing he could do more.
“You did enough,” she said, voice muffled by flannel. “You arrived when I needed you. They planned on kidnapping me, but Cal wanted time to gloat, obviously. If he wanted time, I was more than happy to give it to him. What happened to you?”
He wasn’t sure. The beam could have knocked him out, but Jasper thought he was more durable than that. He tried not to show his confusion, but Cora was quick to catch on to his feelings. Her hands slid up his chest to cup his face. She peered at him for a long moment, one that stretched into a very specific ache.
All he wanted was to take her home and bury himself deep inside her. Cora was still here, with him. She’d chosen to stay. Most importantly, she’d decided to trust him.
Cora would not be satisfied until she figured out what rendered him unconscious. He could feel the determination radiating off her.
“Let’s go home,” he whispered.
A glanced down the street revealed that the others had followed them. Ryker glared at the shop, as if he could smell Cal and the other shifter. Jasper thought he would hunt them down, but his steel dragon didn’t enter the shop. Jasper gave an appreciative nod.
“Why can’t we just smash his face in and call it a night?” Ryker groaned.
While it was a tempting thought, hurting Cal wouldn’t make him stop. Jasper needed to devise a plan that would put an end to all of this. One that didn’t end with the man’s death. He didn’t want to have Cal’s blood on his hands, no matter how irritating the shifter was.
“We could take his eyes,” Ashton offered. “An eye for an eye, and all that.”
“Can we not take that literally?” Cora said with obvious disgust. She still clung to Jasper’s shirt, as if she couldn’t’ stand to be away from him.
He wondered if she feared stepping into another trap, or worried about what was going on with him. He tried not to think about his own problems. Whatever was wrong, it would resolve itself. His clan didn’t need to know. The court would only bother the crap out of him with their concern and not solve the issue.
Chapter Fifteen
Cora groggily made her way around the kitchen. It was unfamiliar. Every cabinet held a new surprise, and not what she was looking for. All she wanted was a mug for her morning coffee. Why was it so hard to find a mug?
Her irritation had her slamming the cabinet doors, the resounding bang filling the kitchen and echoing into the living room. Jasper was still asleep. He’d slept throug
h the night after the incident in Grove. Cora had crept into his dreams just to keep an eye on him. When he’d stepped into the burning building, she’d set aside her fears. It was beginning to look like she never should have looked away.
Guilt that his missing eye was to explain for the collapse ate at her. His body might not be responding well to the loss. She worried that it was pouring too many resources into healing, trying to replace what could never be gotten back in a futile attempt to protect itself. If that was the case, it was only making Jasper weaker.
And she’d brought that on him. If she’d moved out of Cal’s way. If she hadn’t chosen to stay. There were so many ifs that could have kept them away from that moment. She didn’t know if she was worthy of what Jasper offered her. She could be his queen, but she didn’t know if she was worthy.
If anything, Cora felt like a failure weighing him down. The longer she stayed, the worse she would make things. If it weren’t for the mate bond tying them together, she might have left. Her love for him was enough. She would do anything to keep Jasper safe, but the mate bond meant that he wouldn’t rest until he chased her down. The last thing Cora wanted was to steal the king from his people.
They needed him.
Without Jasper, Cal would find a way to stake his claim on these mountains. No one wanted that. Cal needed to be stopped. She knew Jasper was trying not to use force, but there had to be a way to keep Cal from crawling back. She was done with him. She was done with running and hiding from him.
No one here in Jasper’s mountains saw her for just her scales or the prestige it would bring the clan. She wasn’t a broodmare to make more little crystal dragons. Eventually, she would have to produce an heir for Jasper because his family ruled these mountains, but the thought didn’t fill her with dread.
If anything, the thought was a ray of hope in her life. It was a little piece of happiness that the future promised her. Her days would be spent by Jasper’s side, in the heart of this family.
Cora wasn’t sure when she’d given herself over to Jasper, but it hadn’t left her empty. He’d given just as much of himself to her, too.
“Is that coffee I smell?” Jasper’s voice carried into the living room and into the kitchen.
Cora turned to find her mate groggily making his way toward her. Once again, he wore nothing but a pair of boxers, and it made her feel like the luckiest woman in the world. Jasper was a sight to behold, a god that walked among men. She couldn’t help but feel a little plain until he took her face in his hands and beamed down at her like she was his world. The way his eye swept over her face, over the line of her lips, and flared with his demon’s hunger, warmed her through and through.
He kissed her gently, lingering like he might push for more. She basked in his presence until he moved to reach for a cup of coffee.
“How are you feeling?” She couldn’t hide her nervousness. They didn’t know what caused his blackout. She didn’t even know where to begin looking.
Jasper arched a brow. “I feel like I need to call a meeting.”
That’s not what Cora expected. Was he ignoring his blackout? She wanted to press the issue and get to the bottom of it, but he found his phone and began tapping away at the screen. Cora didn’t understand why he wasn’t more worried about himself.
But as he retreated to the living room and slowly sank into the couch, she realized he was purposefully ignoring it. Jasper was the king of these mountains, mountains that were under attack. Any sign of weakness would be taken advantage of. If he refused to show that weakness, then Cal would have no way to abuse it.
Cora blazed at the thought. Her skin heated, like a fire in her core was going to explode. Jasper could do nothing for his clan if he didn’t address his problems. What if another blackout took him while they were dealing with Cal again? Then there would be no way to hide the weakness.
Everything is alright. The demon’s voice slipped into her mind, soft and soothing.
She wanted to tell it there was no way to be sure, that it couldn’t know everything. But it was just as much a part of Jasper as Jasper was a part of the beast. She gritted her teeth and waited for an explanation. She deserved one. Or else she would go on worrying.
I have found the culprit and taken care of it.
His assurances told her nothing. As much as Cora knew she should trust her mate, she didn’t want to be blind either. Trust had to go both ways. Jasper and his demon could not expect her to stay silent, to play the part of the perfect wife. He’d said himself that was not what he wanted from her. If he truly trusted her, he would tell her.
You’re not going to like what caused the blackout. I do not want to weigh you down with inconsequential matters.
“Like hell was that inconsequential,” Cora blurted out loud.
“I’m going to assume you’re having a conversation with the demon and not losing your mind back there.”
“He’s absolutely insufferable,” Cora admitted. She stepped around the couch and dropped onto the seat beside her mate.
Jasper’s arm went around her instinctually. Tucked in his warmth, she relaxed a little. It was then that she noticed the buzzing in the air. It was not a real sound, but a vibration of energy. Tension and fear filled every inch of space, quivering in the shadows. The end of this war was quickly approaching and all of Grove could feel it. Cora only wished she could tell how it would end.
She had hope that they would win, that Cal would leave. There was no absolute way to tell the future, though. She was left with the indefinite, the undetermined. And it made her weary.
“I need you to communicate with me,” Cora told her mate. “You said yourself that you don’t want me to be a dragon wife. I can tell you’re more interested in a queen. Well, a queen helps. She knows everything so she can advise her king.”
Jasper set aside his phone. She glimpsed charts and a chat button, realizing he’d been working. Even when the world felt like it would fall on their heads, Jasper was trying to take care of his clan’s finances. Before speaking, he downed the last of his coffee like the caffeine would give him the little bit of life he needed to endure this conversation.
Cora scowled at him, growing impatient.
“I’ll warn you once more. What the demon and I discovered will make you uncomfortable. Are you prepared to deal with that? Or do you trust me to save you the pain?”
Fighting back the urge to gulp, she nodded before realizing that wasn’t an answer at all. “I need you to tell me. No one should be in the dark right now, least of all me.”
He nodded, sagely. “Alright. If you insist, the demon found a curse clinging to me.”
“A curse? Who had time to put a curse on you? None of Cal’s dragons have even touched you lately.” She paused, thinking of the dragons they’d invited from Cal’s clan. Any one of them could have been a spy meant to infiltrate Jasper’s clan.
“It came from you.”
She stopped breathing. The world stopped turning. At least that was the way it felt when her body jerked to a halt. “I didn’t…I never…I wouldn’t.”
Why would Jasper accuse her of such a thing? Cora didn’t hate him. She didn’t want to see Grove destroyed. If anything, she realized she was starting to fall for him. Who was she kidding? Cora loved him. There was no way around it.
Jasper saw the flurry of emotions that must have crossed over her face because he added, “The curse crossed over to me after we made love. It had been placed on you, but when we were that close, the demon had the opportunity to swap it over to me. That way, you wouldn’t have to endure it’s influence anymore.”
“So, you’re saying someone cursed…me?”
His lips pressed into a grim line. She could see regret etched into every line of his face. Guilt tried to sink into her bones, but she shook herself. Someone had cursed her. And Jasper had taken it, borne the weight of it for her.
The missing eye, the blackout. It made more sense now. The curse twisted his fate, made everything that
happened to him that much worse. What could have only ended as a single scar when Cal attacked ended as the loss of an eye. In the burning building, a fallen beam hit harder than it should have.
The fire, she realized. The one she’d accidentally started when wildfires should have been nigh impossible.
“Cal had me cursed, but why?” the words were barely more than a slip of air between her lips. She didn’t know how to lend them her voice. She feared what that would mean.
“Perhaps he cursed you in the hopes that you would be so inconvenienced that you would come back to him. If the world outside of his clan was horrible and filled with mishap after mishap, then maybe life with him would seem great by comparison. Witches often sell their spells for profit. He might have found one willing to step into the darker arts to produce a curse for him.”
“I’m going to rip his tongue out,” Cora growled.
“Hold up there, killer.” Jasper laughed, lightening the mood. “Don’t go running into a fight just yet.”
Adrenaline hit her heart. Her head snapped up and she looked to her mate. “Your demon said it was taken care of. What does that mean? Are you just going to endure my curse?”
“First of all,” Jasper said, placing a hand over hers. “It is not your curse. It’s just a curse. Plain and simple. Second, the curse is gone. There’s no need to worry about it anymore.”
She pulled back, confused.
Jasper’s demon filled his eye. The molten gold swirled in it as his face turned stern. “I burned it away,” the demon said.
“I didn’t know that was possible…”
“Anything is possible if I say it is.”
The creature that once inspired fear in her now offered a sense of safety. It was a strange sense, like having a guard dog. There was a wall between her and anything that would seek to harm her. Nothing would get past the demon.
Before she could say anything else, the front door burst open. She wondered why he didn’t bother locking it, but the metallic dragons would probably just break the lock and later buy a new one to replace it. That was probably a lesson Jasper learned firsthand.
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