Fire and Fantasy: a Limited Edition Collection of Epic and Urban Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  “I think we should hear them out,” Tristan told me.

  I was outnumbered. My mouth hung open, but all the fight drained out of me. Not to mention that I really was eager for all the answers I could get.

  “Fine,” I agreed in a small voice.

  I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as I crossed back over to the shack. My father reached out for me again when I passed him, but I jerked away. Just because I was agreeing to cooperate didn’t mean I’d forgiven him. In the shack, I scooped up my backpack. I left Liana’s sleeping bag, figuring she could come and pick it up later. Before I left the shack, I reached into my bag and ripped a piece of notebook paper out of it and scribbled a message for her. At least then she’d have some idea about why we’d abandoned the shack.

  I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes low so I wouldn’t have to look at anyone, but I could feel their gazes on me. I hurried past them all, leading the way back to my dad’s car. I slid into the back so I wouldn’t have to sit by him. I was thankful when Noah took the passenger seat, leaving Tristan to sit by me.

  No one said a word as we drove into town, but as we neared City Hall, Tristan slid his hand into mine and squeezed it. I shot him a half-hearted smile as a thank you, but I wasn’t sure how much it actually helped. I felt like I was being driven to my own execution. Again.

  Confusion quickly replaced my fury when Tristan leaned into me. His voice was so quiet in my ear that I barely heard him.

  “Get ready to run,” he whispered with a squeeze of my hand.

  I furrowed my brow at him, wondering if I heard him right. The car slowed, pulling my attention to the front of the vehicle.

  We pulled into the parking lot at City Hall, and my stomach sank. Carson Ray stood at the top of the stairs leading to the front doors, his hands neatly folded in front of him like he was waiting to welcome us into his palace. It reminded me of one of the first nightmares I had when I left Sea Haven. Except this time, he didn’t have ahold of my magic. He couldn’t take that back if I didn’t let him.

  My father pulled the car to a stop. Before he shifted the car into gear, Tristan had clicked his door open.

  “Now, Bree,” Tristan urged. “Run!”

  Thirty-Seven

  Tristan tugged at my hand. I slid across the seat and out the door with him, nearly stumbling over my backpack at my feet in the process. My legs moved under me as Tristan pulled me along behind him, but my feet were faster than my brain. We were nearly to the end of the parking lot before I could really think about what was happening. My moment to process the scene passed in a mere second. As soon as I heard the shouting voices behind me, the instinct to race faster took over and clouded my mind. The sound of our feet on the pavement and the wind rushing by us drowned out the sound of approaching footsteps. I couldn’t tell if we were distancing ourselves from them or if they were getting closer.

  Tristan and I didn’t weave through the city streets like we had the other night. Instead, we headed straight toward the beach. Even if I didn’t know Sea Haven by heart, I would have known we were getting closer by the feeling in my veins.

  “Tristan,” I managed between ragged breaths. The farther we ran, the more my mind cleared. I wanted to ask him what we were doing, but I couldn’t get anything but his name out.

  Suddenly, Tristan shifted course and pulled me down another street. We skirted around someone’s house and then wove our way between three others until Tristan pulled me behind someone’s garage, pressing my back against it.

  “Shh,” he warned.

  His body was so close to mine that I couldn’t comply to his demands. Even if I hadn’t just been running, his proximity would have sent my heart racing and made my breaths shallow. I tried my best to take deep breaths to keep quiet, but it didn’t work.

  Tristan glanced around the side of the garage then turned back to me. “I think we lost them for now.”

  Relief flooded through me, but I didn’t know why. Hadn’t Tristan agreed to meeting up with them? So why were we running? Or was his plan to get closer to the ocean and make a run for it? That must have been it.

  “Tristan,” I stated, letting myself fall into his eyes again. For a moment, I almost forgot what I was going to say, but I quickly snapped myself out of it. “I don’t think this is going to work. I can’t—”

  Before I could finish my thought, Tristan leaned down to press his lips firmly against mine. The world spun around me, making me forget everything for a moment—everything but his lips. A fire rose to my chest, sending my heart hammering against the inside of my rib cage. For a moment, it all felt too good to be true. It made me believe—if only briefly—that I might actually be able to run away with him. Then the cool ocean air brushed past us and sent a strand of my hair to tickle my eyelashes. The sensation quickly pulled me out of the moment.

  I wedged my arms between my chest and his and pushed against him. Tristan resisted at first, but when I clamped my lips closed and stopped kissing him back, he seemed to get the message. He inhaled a deep breath as he pulled away.

  “Tristan, we can’t.” Though my knees wobbled with uncertainty below me, my words came out strong. “We can’t do this. We can’t run from this. Maybe if I never restored my magic…but now…”

  Racing footsteps on the sidewalk distracted Tristan. He glanced around the side of the garage again. His eyes widened at whatever he saw, and he grabbed my hand.

  “We have to go,” he said urgently, pulling me along behind him.

  I stumbled but then pulled my body weight against his. It didn’t slow him down. The only thing I could do was keep my feet moving under me so I wouldn’t trip. Tristan raced so fast away from behind the garage that I wasn’t sure I could actually keep up.

  “Tristan,” I protested, but he ignored me, instead continuing toward the ocean.

  I wanted to join him so badly. I wanted to jump into the salt water with him and swim away. I didn’t want to be here any more than the people of Sea Haven wanted me here. But this wasn’t the solution. I jerked my arm from Tristan’s grasp and planted my feet firmly on the pavement. By now, we had a clear shot to the ocean, but I resisted the urge to continue running toward it. Tristan looked back at me after a few steps and then hurried to grab my hand again. I dodged his grip and crossed my arms over my chest.

  Tristan glanced behind me. “We have to go, Bree.”

  I opened my mouth, intending to put my thoughts into words. Tristan was being ridiculous. I couldn’t follow him. The truth was, there was no way out of this. The only solution was to give up and give in no matter how much I didn’t trust Carson Ray or my father. There was only so far I could run in Sea Haven, and I was out of options. Giving up was the only choice we had.

  Before I could get a single word out, though, something hard smacked into my back, knocking the breath out of me. My body slammed to the pavement. I felt the blow of the ground cracking against my skull before everything went dark.

  Thirty-Eight

  “Why does she have to make everything so difficult?”

  “She’s always been stubborn. She must get it from her mother’s side of the family.”

  I couldn’t place the deep voices as they swam in and out of focus.

  “Just give her some time,” the second voice said. “She’ll come around once we explain it all to her.”

  “I can’t say I blame her for how she acted,” a third voice said. “Not with the way we treated her.”

  The voices became clearer, and I finally registered light behind my eyelids. I forced my lids open and blinked the world back into focus. Hues of brown hit me, and a sickening sensation formed in my gut. The trickling of the fountain on the window sill reminded me of the last time I was in this room. If I was in Carson Ray’s office, that only meant bad news, right?

  Someone shoved an ice pack in front of me before I could fully process what was going on. I gladly took it and placed it on the throbbing lump on the right side of my forehead.

  “How are you
feeling?”

  I knew now that was Carson Ray’s voice. I turned my eyes to fall on the four figures in the room: Noah, my father, Carson, and Dr. Sloan. Dr. Sloan had been the one to hand me the ice pack. I sat in one of Carson’s brown leather chairs and straightened myself up as soon as I found the strength.

  “Sorry about your head,” Carson said, taking a small step toward me.

  Of course he was the one to bring me down, I thought. If the guy would have just waited another second, I would have gladly come back to City Hall with him. It almost made me regret for a moment deciding to turn myself in. But it didn’t matter now. Whether I’d given in or he took me down, I’d still be sitting here in his office awaiting my sentence.

  “I feel like crap, thanks,” I said, shooting him the fakest smile I could.

  “Good.” Carson rounded his desk and adjusted his tie before he sat. “You’re back to your old self.” He smiled like we were best friends taking jabs at each other. Then he turned to the other three men and gestured to the chairs around the room. “Please, take a seat.”

  My father stepped forward cautiously to sit in the matching chair beside me. Noah and Dr. Sloan sat in two chairs against the wall to the right of Carson’s desk.

  “Is anyone going to fill me in?” I asked with a sharp edge to my tone. “Where’s Tristan?” I swallowed hard, but the lump rising in my throat remained. I only hoped he was okay.

  “One question at a time, please, Ms. Waters,” Carson said calmly.

  “Okay,” I bit. “Where’s Tristan?” Alarm rose within my body. Was Carson dodging the question? Had they locked Tristan back up?

  “Please calm down,” Carson said. “We don’t want to cause any more trouble.”

  I scoffed. “Yeah. You’ve caused enough trouble already.” I shouldn’t have been so disrespectful, but the pounding in my head left me more irritable than normal, and that was saying something.

  Carson’s white eyebrows shot up. “I wasn’t referring to myself.”

  I instinctively glanced to my dad beside me as if he could answer my unspoken questions.

  My father cleared his throat and ducked his head. “He meant you, Bree.”

  “Me?” I straightened even taller in my chair and let the ice pack fall to my lap. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t left me in the dark to begin with and sent me away.”

  “Bree,” Noah’s voice came from across the room. “You know they couldn’t have told you anything.”

  “They could have given me some hint as to what was going on,” I argued.

  “I tried.” My father’s voice came out so small that I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “I asked you to trust me. I told you I couldn’t say anything.”

  My father’s soft tone made me actually pause for a second. The anger and alarm coursing through my veins subsided just enough to make me consider his words. He really had been trying to give me a clue. I breathed a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, a sign that I was finally ready to listen.

  Carson cleared his throat. “As Noah said, we couldn’t tell you what was happening, and you know why. We knew that if you started asking questions, you’d only ask more, and we couldn’t reveal those secrets to you. It was easier to pretend it never happened. The less we told you, the safer we thought you’d be.”

  “Safe from what?” I couldn’t help it when the words tumbled out of me, but I tried to keep my tone calm. “From telling people about Tristan?”

  Everyone around the room seemed to shake their heads in unison.

  “No, Ms. Waters,” Carson said. “We sent you away because we thought it was the best option for keeping you safe from Tristan.”

  Thirty-Nine

  “Safe from Tristan?” My voice wavered. They couldn’t be serious. Tristan wasn’t a danger to me. He was trying to help me.

  Noah interjected before anyone else could. “Why do you think he didn’t say anything to us the night we restored our magic?”

  I furrowed my brow at him. What was he getting at?

  “Why’d he just let us go along with it if he claimed he wanted to help us get out of here?” Noah continued. He looked at me like he expected a real answer.

  “I—I don’t know. No one was thinking straight. We were happy to have our magic back, and Tristan was happy to be out of that room. I’m sure he just—”

  “Then he asked you to run away with him?” Noah raised an eyebrow.

  “Plain English, please? What are you getting at, Noah?” I asked.

  Noah gave a subtle eye roll like it was obvious. “Tristan wanted himself to be your only option.”

  “Bree.” Carson’s address surprised me, pulling my full attention away from Noah and to him. “Tristan came here for you.”

  “That’s impossible,” I asserted.

  “He doesn’t mean you specifically,” my dad cut in.

  “Right,” Carson continued. “Tristan came here in search of someone like you. When you found him washed up on the beach after his storm—”

  “Sorry,” I interrupted. “I have to ask. ‘His storm?’”

  Carson nodded like he couldn’t believe I hadn’t caught on sooner. “Since when do we see storms like that? Of course Tristan caused the storm that night. It was a manifestation of his anger.”

  The information left me speechless. I knew our ancestors were capable of amazing things, but I hadn’t ever thought to connect Tristan with the storm. I thought the storm was the reason he was here, that he was washed ashore because of it, not that the storm came because of him.

  Carson resituated himself in his chair as if settling in for a long story. “These days, there are so very few merpeople left. Polluted oceans have killed most of them off. Their children rarely make it to adulthood these days. Tristan is of a group who believe that the only way to pass on their genes is through crossbreeding.”

  I couldn’t believe I was sitting here so silently engrossed in the story. “But if the oceans are killing them, can’t they just come ashore? I mean, they do grow legs.”

  Carson sighed. “It’s a different culture, a different way of life. It’s not just about moving from one place to another. That’d be giving up who they are completely.”

  Somehow, I understood the reasoning behind staying even if it hurt you.

  “Most of Tristan’s people are against this kind of change. Tristan left his people in search of Sea Haven. We are their closest cousins, so it makes sense that he’d want to mate with a woman here.”

  “Mate?” The word came out of my mouth so fast that I had no hope of shoving it back where it came from. “Are you saying Tristian…like…had a crush on me?”

  “If you want to put it that way,” Carson agreed. “When you found him on the beach, he set his sights on you. We hoped to send you away long enough to prevent anything from happening to you.”

  I forced myself to hold in the words, Clearly that didn’t work out for you. Instead, I just shook my head. “You weren’t protecting me. You were punishing me.”

  “That’s not true,” my dad said. “We did what we had to do—”

  “You held me down and forcefully removed my magic!” My grip on the arms of the chair tightened.

  “We never intended to terrorize you,” my dad insisted. “Besides, you’re so stubborn that even if we could have given you answers, you never would have agreed to it. We were doing what we thought was best.” He dropped his eyes to his feet and spoke softly. “I’m so sorry, Bree. We never meant to hurt you.”

  The sincerity in his voice left me considering his words. Still, I couldn’t seem to make sense of it all. I averted my gaze and shook my head again. “I don’t believe any of this. Tristan was so nice to me.”

  “He was charming you,” Noah informed me.

  No, that couldn’t be right. I actually felt safe and comforted next to Tristan. Every time I looked into his eyes, it was like…

  Damn. I resisted saying the word aloud. His damn mesmerizing eyes. Of course he was u
sing some of his merman magic on me. How hadn’t I caught on to that? Suddenly, all my anger turned inward. How could I have been so stupid? Still, questions raced through my mind as pieces of the puzzle still hadn’t fallen into place.

  “Why’d you lock him up, though?” I asked. “Like, why not just send him home?”

  Carson sighed once again like I was too dumb to understand. “He came all this way. You really think he would have gone willingly? We had to keep him somewhere until we could get in contact with Tristan’s people and get them to come and take him home. Obviously, next time we need to put some more security measures in place. We’ve never needed much security for any reason.”

  “If you don’t have security cameras or guards, who was that guy who chased us out that night?” I asked curiously.

  “Michael? He happened to be in the right place at the right time. He was working late and fell asleep in his office. You two—” he gestured between Noah and me “—made enough noise that he woke and decided to investigate.”

  Silence fell over the room, and I couldn’t help but break it. “So, what happens to Tristan now?” The words didn’t feel like my own. I still couldn’t believe they’d been trying to protect me from Tristan this whole time.

  “He will answer for himself with his own people.” Carson checked his watch. “In fact, they’re scheduled to arrive within the hour.”

  “And me?” I asked, almost in desperation. Would they strip me of my magic and send me away again?

  “You’ll be able to return home later tonight, Ms. Waters. As always, we are concerned about your safety.”

  Confusion settled on my face. “So, I’m not in trouble?”

  Carson sat up even straighter in his chair. “I’ll admit you acted a bit irrationally at times, and we do not condone much of your behavior.”

  I blushed as I thought about my little breaking-and-entering adventure.