by Riley Storm
The body language was giving it away as being real, but Gayle had to ask, to throw out that last ditch attempt life preserver in the hope of saving everything that she’d known up until a few minutes ago. Neither of them took it, of course, and miraculously even Karen looked momentarily uncomfortable. It faded, however, her face softening as she looked Gayle right in the eye.
“Gayle, please, don’t make this any harder than it is for us already,” Karen said. “I told you, we don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want this to come between us.”
Sputtering, trying to formulate a reply to such an audacious and monumentally blind comment, Gayle just shook her head. How on earth could Karen not think this would come between them? How could she not know that it would end their friendship?
Permanently.
There was no more Gayle & Karen.
There’s also no more Gayle & Mikey either.
She looked down at herself, suddenly feeling stupid in her fancy black dress, the weight of her extra makeup weighing her down, making her feel more like a clown than beautiful.
It was over. Everything was over.
“How did it come to this?” she whispered, sinking back into herself, ignoring the other two people in her house.
An hour ago, Gayle had been convinced that tonight was going to be the night. That Mikey was finally going to get down on one knee and propose so that they could start the rest of their lives together. It would be a perfect fairytale that they could tell their children at some point. She’d had everything worked out.
Now, it was gone. In the span of an hour and change, she’d been dumped. No, not just dumped, she’d been exchanged for her best friend, of all people. That’s what it was. Karen was acting like the switch could just happen and they could all still be friends.
“So, the two of you have been going behind my back?” she said, trying to grapple with the news, to understand it.
Karen’s shoulders sagged, and she looked sad. “Gayle, it wasn’t like we were trying to hurt you, girl. We didn’t want to, but we just couldn’t ignore what we have either. It’s too special. It burns too bright for us to just push it aside. We had to see what was there. Can’t you understand that?”
Gayle’s nostrils flared with renewed anger, the fire burning hotter as it seared its way through her self-control. “Can’t I understand it?” she repeated dangerously.
“Yeah. Feelings are feelings, girl, and they can’t be denied. The two of us,” Karen said, looking over fondly at Mikey, who was looking anywhere but at either of the two women, “we’re crazy about one another. We couldn’t hold it back for any longer. We care strongly about one another. We love each other, don’t we dear?”
Gayle watched in open-mouthed astonishment as Gayle leaned in to nuzzle Mikey’s shoulder affectionately.
The big plumber shifted his weight around, nodded, and mumbled something unintelligible that might have been ‘yes dear’, but otherwise, he still refused to enter the conversation.
Coward, she thought.
“Unbelievable,” she said out loud. “How long as this been going on?”
How long had her life been a lie? How long had they been going around behind her back without Gayle have any idea about it?
How long was I blind? she asked herself dejectedly. How had she managed to miss spotting the clues, the signs, that the two of them were preparing to go off together, leaving her behind?
Karen sighed. “We wanted to tell you Gayle, we really did, but you have to understand, the moment just wasn’t right. It had to be right when we let this finally bloom, so we didn’t say anything until we were sure. But it’s not because of you! It’s because of us.”
“How. Long,” Gayle repeated in a harsher tone.
Frowning, her best friend—ex-best friend, she corrected angrily, still struggling to accept this new normal—thought it over. “Maybe six months?”
Gayle choked on her own breath. “Six months?” she gasped. “Six months and you couldn’t tell me?”
How many times, she wondered, had she kissed Mikey after Karen had? How many times had he been thinking of her while the two of them were in bed together? How many times—
It doesn’t matter, she thought to herself angrily. You don’t need to dwell on that.
“I know,” Karen said. “It’s a long time, but we had to make sure, like I said. The moment just wasn’t right for us to share this with anyone. That’s all it was, I swear! But the time is now, and we don’t want to hide our love anymore.”
Gayle wanted to vomit.
“We still love you,” Karen said, smiling brightly. “I want you to know that. We do, we really do, but this bond, these feelings, this connection Mikey and I share, it needs to be free now, to blossom and strengthen on its own.”
What about my feelings?
Neither of them gave a damn about her, that much was for sure. Oh sure, Karen was saying that she still loved Gayle, but the truth of it was, Karen didn’t love anyone but herself. Gayle could see that now.
Self-centered bitch.
Both of them. They were so wrapped up in themselves and one another, they had absolutely no idea what their actions had done to her. The damage and pain that they’d inflicted upon her. What was worse though, was that they didn’t seem to care. Gayle had become nothing to them, not a real person with real feelings and emotions. She was just a ‘thing’ that they thought they could manipulate with sweet words.
“Please leave,” she said tightly, keeping her emotions in check as best she could.
“Gayle…”
“Now,” she said more firmly. “Please just leave.”
Karen looked ready to come over and console her, and Gayle feared her reaction if the other woman tried that. Her arms were nearly shaking, and she wasn’t mad. Mad was a distant, vaguely remembered state that she’d gone through already in what felt like a different lifetime.
Gayle wasn’t mad. She was furious, and the anger was swiftly welling up even higher, building into a towering inferno that was threatening to bust loose, to sweep over the two of them, and all it would take to make her erupt was for Karen to try and hug her.
“Okay,” Karen said, biting her lip.
Don’t do it, Gayle urged inwardly, trying mentally to restrain Karen, even as she worked to restrain herself from lashing out.
She could take Karen. The other woman had two inches on her—everyone had height on her, it wasn’t hard when you’re only 5’1—but Gayle had a solid twenty or thirty pounds. If she lost control, the blonde bitch was going down.
For a moment, Gayle wanted it to come to that. After all, if ten years of friendship wasn’t enough to stop Karen from stealing her boyfriend, then why should it be enough to stop Gayle from teaching her a lesson she’d never forget?
Because that’s not who you are. It’s just spur of the moment anger.
Sometimes Gayle hated her rational, logical side. It abandoned her at some moments, and at others it intervened. Like right now.
She watched as Karen tugged on Mikey’s hand and propelled him back toward the door, while Karen paused, and Gayle knew she was about to say something ridiculous.
When Karen spoke, her tone was soft, almost pleading. “We’re still friends, right? I don’t want this to come between us, Gayle.”
The question was so outlandish, so preposterous, that Gayle couldn’t formulate a true angry response, so dumbfounded was she by her ex-best friend’s lack of intelligence.
“Yes, Karen,” she said, the words dripping with sarcasm. “We’re still friends.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Karen gushed, rushing forward to wrap Gayle up in a hug.
It was a close thing. A very close thing. Gayle’s temper erupted like a volcano blowing its top. She could feel the steam coming from her ears as Karen squeezed her tight. The explosion should follow. It wouldn’t be hard. Take Karen to the ground and use her weight to overpower the taller woman.
Images of just that sort of situation ran t
hrough her head but, in reality, nothing happened. Gayle stood rooted to the spot, letting herself be hugged.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Karen said, pulling back with a smile. “We’ve got reservations at Climbers anyway, and we don’t want to take up more of your time.”
Gayle stared daggers at their backs as they bustled out of her house, hand in hand, talking excitedly to one another.
“Unbelievable,” she said as the door closed. “I haven’t been dumped. I’ve been fucking exchanged.”
Karen was literally just taking Gayle’s spot in Mikey’s life. Going out to Climbers on a Friday night had been their thing, and now the two of them were doing it, as if nothing had changed?
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gayle said.
She almost fell back into the couch—at what point had she stood up? She couldn’t remember—but another thought came over her first.
“I need a drink.”
Chapter Four
Rann
The smell of singed hair and scales was stuck in his nose.
It would be there until at least the next day. A shower and new clothes wouldn’t fix it, not right away at least.
A beer, on the other hand, tasted good regardless of the smell lodged in his sinuses. Which is why Rann, along with the rest of the team, was gathered at the Dragon’s Eye Pub, the dragon bar in Five Peaks.
Not that anyone but a select few locals knew that the majority of the male patrons were actual dragon shifters. Despite the announcement several weeks back that had revealed dragons to the public, many of them still preferred to keep a low profile, hiding away from the public spotlight.
Rann was one of those. Perhaps it was a lifetime of having secrecy ingrained into him, being terrified of what would happen if someone discovered what he truly was. Or perhaps it was the desire to avoid being mobbed by quite literally thousands of people if they found out.
He’d been out to the tent cities that had arisen on the outskirts of Five Peaks, where the eager lovers—and haters—of the dragon shifters had come in hopes of seeing a glimpse of a dragon in the sky. The little mountain town had done well to keep the people outside its borders—except during the daytime when they could come patronize the various stores and shops—because nobody wanted those endless rows of tents taking up all the space in town.
Instead, several farmers had leased their fields to the town temporarily, and the masses had descended on Five Peaks.
Rann hunched lower over his beer. He liked living out of the spotlight, and the Dragon’s Eye was the perfect place to relax, and simply de-stress after the evening’s events. The bar owner was mated to a dragon from another clan, and thus would stay open as late as necessary while the strike team recovered their wits and also their pride.
It was mostly the latter which was still in low availability. None of them had died in the explosion—a fiery ball of heat wasn’t really much of a worry for the dragons, especially the fire dragons on the team. It had burnt clothing, singed eyebrows, even taken a piece of Rann’s long shaggy hair and curled it up in blackened ends, but nobody had been harmed.
They just smelled of smoke, even after a quick shower. They were also dejected.
“I still can’t believe it,” Jacen said, downing half his beer in one gulp.
“We walked into that one hook, line, and sinker,” Kladd agreed.
There was a rustling at the table as several of the others squirmed in their seats. They didn’t quite look at Rann, but he knew what they were thinking. It had been his informant, the information provided to him, that had led the team into the building in the first place.
“He’s been reliable enough until now,” Rann said, addressing the unspoken question. “But I will find him and figure out just how much my informant knew about tonight’s activities.”
Kladd eyed him for a long moment then nodded, but Rann didn’t feel like that was enough. Kladd may be their leader, but they were a team, and Rann wanted them to know that he was just as pissed as they were.
“Given that we saw no signs of suspicious activity anywhere in the building or near it, I think it’s safe to say that we were set up. This wasn’t an emergency torching of their base once we discovered it. They wanted us in that building to try and take us out.”
Kladd’s eyes narrowed. He’d been thinking the same thing. “A few seconds later and they might have seriously hurt us.”
Hurt. Not killed.
Rann glanced at the team leader. “You think it was a warning, not an attempt to kill us.”
“That explosion wouldn’t have killed any dragon shifter. You know that. Hurt, sure. We all could have been in some serious pain if we hadn’t been on our way out of there by the time it went up. But kill us? No chance. So yes, I think it was a warning.”
“For what?”
“If I had to make a guess?” Kladd said, spinning his beer mug idly. “I’d say to let us know that they’ve penetrated our security to a degree. They know we have contacts in Five Peaks, people who work with us on the ground, and they’re showing that they can turn those people to their side. Maybe they’re trying to show us that they can turn everyone against us. I don’t know.”
Rann grimaced. “That would be bad. The Church crazies are bad enough.”
Everyone at the table growled their agreement. The Church of the Anti-Wyrm had arisen among those who had come to Five Peaks after the dragons were revealed. Unlike most, however, they were not supporters. In fact, they were the staunchest anti-dragon advocates yet to come forward. They claimed that the shifters were spiky-horned demons sent forth by the ultimate lord Satan to cleanse the earth of the loyal.
It was ridiculous, but their numbers continued to swell. Cults were like that sometimes.
“Still no sign of their former preacher, is there?” Trent asked tightly.
Rann knew that Trent and the preacher had a bit of a history, the former head of the Church having tried to kidnap his now-mate to turn her against him. Beside Trent, Pietro bared his teeth in a silent snarl, his eyes gleaming with fury.
Whereas the preacher had rather bungled his attempts with Trent’s mate, he’d nearly succeeded with Claire, Pietro’s mate. That was because he’d had the help of the vampires that had come through the Gate. The same vampires that Rann and his team were trying to track down.
The entire team was more than looking forward to paying the preacher back for his troubles. They usually had a rule about not killing humans, but Rann suspected that rule would be ignored once they finally caught up with him.
Nobody messes with one of us alone. We’re a team.
“No,” Kladd said. “And as much as I want to get him as well, we need to focus our efforts on the vampires. Before they get stronger. Too strong.”
“Vampire king,” Rann said quietly. “That’s what you’re worried about. A king emerging.”
Ever since the Gate to the Otherworld had been breached and the Vampire Hunters—an elite breed of vampires—had come through, the dragon clans had been researching everything they had on vampire lore.
There wasn’t much, but there had been one mention of a vampire king, and Rann knew they all wanted to avoid that. If a king rose up to command a coven, the world would be bathed in darkness like it had never known before.
“That would be bad,” Kladd agreed. “Which is why we’re going to stop them before they get there. Got it?”
There were nods of support around the table. The sound of rumbled agreement echoed around the pub. Rann glanced around. It was emptier than normal for a Friday night.
With the danger of the vampires still strong, many of the dragons were moving themselves and their mates back up into the mountains to the clan strongholds where the vampires couldn’t get them. It left their usual hangouts, like the Dragon’s Eye, looking particularly unpopulated.
“Slim pickings for you tonight,” Pietro joked, reaching over to punch Rann on the shoulder.
Rann rolled his eyes as those gathered
at the table chuckled with laughter, everyone seemingly glad for the reprieve. “You know, I’m not always on the lookout for someone new. Sometimes I’m just looking around.”
“Uh-huh,” Trent said, grinning at him. “Somehow I don’t believe that. You’re always looking for someone new.”
Everyone laughed, the sound taut and unsure after the serious conversations they’d been having.
They need a break. To think about something else.
“It’s not my fault that women find me irresistible,” he said, preening dramatically over himself.
Everyone laughed again, and it was much more relaxed this time as they fell back into their usual routines: everyone picking on Rann for being a shameless flirt while Trent and Pietro tried to convince him of the joys of being mated. Kladd would observe his team, while Jacen and Iro would snicker and lean their heads together, talking about something else entirely. It was routine, and it was relaxing.
“One of these days, you’ll find a mate,” Trent said, clapping him on the shoulder across the table. “And you’ll realize then that that’s all you’ve truly been looking for. One person who gets you on a level so deep, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.”
Rann looked around the table with a knowing grin, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Usually it’s them who get me on a deeper level than they’ve experienced before, if you know what I mean.”
Even Trent couldn’t help but roar with laughter at the ridiculous comment, even as he shook his head in disagreement.
“Everything is better with a mate,” Pietro said as the laughter died. “You’ll see eventually.”
“Mate-schmate,” Rann said, blowing them off. “I don’t need a mate. I just like mat-ing.”
More laughter, interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.
Rann turned to see who it was, a sly grin still on his face.
He took in the short redhead peering nervously through the partially opened door, and his entire world came to a screeching halt, searing that first image of her into his mind forever.
