by Zoe Chant
"It's in a pocket of the—"
"Watch the turn!"
Tessa hastily looked forward, yelped in dismay, and slammed on the brakes, cranking the steering wheel through a tight turn an instant before they went off the road into the woods. There was a series of thumps from the backseat as various items, including kittens, tumbled into the rear footwell. The kitten on Tessa's lap tumbled across her knees and fell on her feet.
Her feet ... which were currently driving the car.
"No!" she said, trying to keep her right foot on the gas while using her left foot to fend off the kitten. "No, get out of there! Bad kitten! Ben! Help!"
"Kinda busy right now!"
"Me too!" Tessa wailed.
The car was on a straight stretch, so she risked bending down and groping under her feet until she got a hand on the kitten and was able to fling it (gently as possible) out of the footwell in the general direction of the passenger seat. Ben grabbed for it, missed, and made a startled noise as the kitten scrabbled up his bare back and jumped onto the dashboard.
"Get off there!" Tessa freed a hand from the steering wheel to swipe at the kitten, trying to get it out of her field of vision.
The kitten's foot slipped down onto the radio controls. Suddenly AC/DC blared deafeningly into the car.
I definitely feel like I'm on a highway to hell, Tessa thought grimly. She got a hand on the kitten, plucked it off the dashboard, and tossed it over Ben's head into the backseat.
Ben shouted something.
"What?" Tessa yelled over the blaring electric guitars. She slapped wildly at the radio, trying to turn it off. It didn't help that she was driving an unfamiliar car and had no idea where the controls for anything were.
"I said I can't see the dragon anymore!"
"Is that good?"
She got her answer an instant later when she whipped around another turn and something huge blocked the road in front of her. Tessa shrieked and stomped on the brake pedal. The car fishtailed wildly, kittens and other loose items went tumbling across the backseat, and Ben's naked body squashed her against the window. Somehow she managed to keep hold of the steering wheel and stopped them about ten feet from the dragon standing in the middle of the road, head up and wings raised, one eye half-closed with bloody claw marks around it. If dragons could look annoyed, this one definitely did.
"I think he's pissed about the motorcycle," Tessa murmured. "Um, not that this isn't nice, but—"
"Yeah. Sorry." Ben struggled off her, back into his own seat. As he did so, a kitten plopped into her lap. She caught it reflexively and tossed it to Ben, who tossed it hot-potato-style into the backseat and then bent down to reach into the footwell in front of his seat.
"What are you doing?" Tessa hissed. The dragon hadn't made a move in their direction yet. She had a feeling Reive was still figuring out what to do. Or possibly just deciding between the many different possible ways to kill them.
"Gun," Ben said. He sat up with it, grimacing in pain. Holding the gun in his bare lap, he popped out the magazine and then slapped it back in.
"How many bullets do you have?"
"Three."
Tessa couldn't tear her eyes away from the enormous predator in the road. "That doesn't seem like enough to me."
Ben let out a short, choked laugh. "Yeah, this caliber isn't too effective on something that size either, so it might not matter how many we have."
"You mean he's bulletproof?"
"Not entirely, but it'd have to be a one-in-a-million shot."
"Maybe I can drive around him," Tessa suggested.
Ben shook his head. "All he has to do is stomp on the car and he'd crush it flat, and us along with it." He took a deep breath. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'll get out and distract him—"
"I hate this plan already. No splitting up."
"If I can give you a chance to escape—"
"No!" Tessa said. "Look, it's me he's after, right? If anyone should distract him so the other can get away, it ought to be me."
Ben gave her a horrified look. "I'm not going to run off and leave you."
"Right, so don't expect me to do the same thing."
He huffed a soft laugh and gave her a small smile. "Fine, I get it. We're in this together."
"Exactly." Tessa removed a kitten from the steering wheel and tossed it into the backseat. "Any plans that don't involve heroic sacrifices?"
"I hate to say it, but I think shooting him in the face and driving as fast as we can looks like our best bet." He turned as the dragon took a step forward. "And I guess we better do it quick, while we still have a choice."
"Ready," Tessa said. She shifted the car into gear, foot pressed down on the brake, and blocked another kitten with her elbow.
Ben was just reaching for the controls to roll down the window when a silver streak dived out of the sky, seemingly out of nowhere, and slammed into the dragon.
Reive staggered off the road, knocking over a few small trees. As the silver creature stumbled to a stop, narrowly missing the car, Tessa realized it was another dragon. This one was much smaller and more slender than the huge copper dragon, though "small" by dragon standards was still larger than the car.
"Is that one on our side?" Tessa asked, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
"Yes," Ben said. He was grinning. "Oh, yes."
Reive picked himself up, growling, and Ben stopped smiling. The silver dragon was clearly outmatched. As Reive stalked toward the smaller dragon, Tessa couldn't help thinking of a small dog picking a fight with a larger one.
The silver dragon curled its head over its shoulder, neck bending in a graceful loop. "Go!" it shouted. Its voice was higher-pitched than the other dragon's, and beautifully musical, like the harmonies of a pipe organ.
Tessa didn't need to be told twice; she slammed her foot on the accelerator. Reive started to spread his wings to pursue them, but the silver dragon lunged at him, dragging him back to earth with gleaming steel-colored claws.
Ben kept staring back as they tore off down the road. Slowly he lowered his gun, and absently caught a kitten trying to crawl into the front seat.
"Do you know that other dragon?" Tessa asked—words she never thought she'd hear come out of her mouth.
"Yeah," Ben said softly. He plucked a stray kitten off the back of her seat. "You do, too."
"I don't know any dragons!"
"You do," Ben said. "Melody."
"Wait, what? Melody's a dragon?"
"Didn't you recognize her voice?"
"No!" Tessa said, but even as she said it, she realized that there had been a familiar cadence to the dragon's pipe-organ tones.
"I can't believe she did that." Ben was looking back again. "Dragons aren't allowed to interfere in other dragons' business—not like that. They might cast her out, or worse."
"What? She saved our lives!"
"There's no room for sympathy or mercy in dragons' honor," Ben said. "Or for family either." He sounded sad.
Tessa glanced back. The site of the battling dragons was hidden by twists of the road; all she could see were trees. "From what I can see, it looks like Melody chose family over honor today."
Chapter Ten
They stopped very briefly just outside Autumn Grove to resolve their urgent kitten issue. Ben—after glancing around for witnesses—jumped out of the car, naked, and opened the trunk. "Here," he said, popping the lid off a Rubbermaid tote. It was full of winter gear and emergency supplies, which Ben dumped unceremoniously into the bottom of the trunk. "This ought to hold them."
"Do you have anything to make air holes?"
Ben got a screwdriver out of his toolbox. He took over driving, while Tessa sat in the backseat with the tote full of kittens and punched holes in the lid.
"Where are we going?" she asked. They'd passed through downtown Autumn Grove and turned onto the highway.
"We need to find a motel, preferably one off the road. As soon as we find somewhere to stop, I
'll call my friend Derek and have him bring us some clothes."
"How bad are you hurt? Are you okay to drive?"
"I'm handling it," was all he said.
After the better part of a very tense hour, with both of them frequently checking the rear-view mirror, Ben turned off suddenly into a small town beside the highway. He drove around the tiny downtown until Tessa pointed out a motel.
"You're going to have to pay for it, I'm afraid," he admitted. "Unless you also grabbed my wallet when you got the gun."
"I didn't get your wallet, but I did get your phone. It's in the carrier, too."
Ben perked up a little, though he still looked weak and pale, as well as filthy and bloody. Tessa left him in the car, calling his friend Derek, while she went into the motel to arrange for a room.
The motel was a tiny family establishment that allowed her to pay with cash, to her surprise; she hadn't even known places like that existed anymore, though it took nearly all her cash. She gave their names as Bob and Tina Gunderson, and requested a room around at the back, "for privacy."
The entire time, she was very aware of the clerk nervously studying her scruffed-up hair, cat-scratched arms, and stained T-shirt. She'd rolled out of bed without so much as touching a brush to her hair, got chased by a dragon, and had a bloody naked man draped on her, and she was pretty sure all of it showed.
"Family vacations, huh?" she said with a weak attempt at a smile, hoping they didn't have a good enough view through the window of the motel to notice that the driver of the car was stark naked and covered in blood.
"Do you have pets with you?" the clerk asked, taking another look at her arms.
"A cat," she said. "A small cat. Very well-behaved. Small pets are okay, right?"
She ended up shoving another twenty across the counter as a pet deposit. That left just enough cash to buy a couple gallons of gas or dinner at McDonald's without having to dip into her credit cards, which were mostly maxed out and would leave a trail anyway.
What are we going to do? she wondered as she went back out to the car with the motel key. She'd had to leave all her spare clothes and even the cat food behind. They had nothing except the clothes on their backs ... and Ben didn't even have that much.
Oh, and five hyperactive kittens.
"Derek's on the way," Ben said, sliding over so she could get in the driver's seat and move the car to park outside their room. "He'll be here in an hour or so with the stuff we need."
"I hope that includes money, because I used just about the last of it getting this room."
"I'm sorry about—"
"Ben, stop apologizing. You remember I'm the reason why we're both in this mess in the first place, right? You could've just walked away and left me at the shelter."
His pain-tense face relaxed into a smile. "No, I couldn't have."
She had to help him out of the car. He leaned on her heavily as she unlocked their room door. "Are you sure I shouldn't be taking you to a hospital instead of a motel in the middle of nowhere?"
Ben shook his head with a pained grimace. "Shifters heal fast. I'll be fine. All I really need is sleep and food. I can get the first here, and Derek's bringing the second."
Tessa's stomach growled, reminding her that they'd been rousted out of the cabin without having a chance to stop for breakfast. "Lunch sounds great. What's he bringing, do you know?"
"I don't know. I just said 'food, and a lot of it'."
She helped him sit down on the bed, and went back for the kittens—keeping them in the tote-carrier for now—before locking the door and making sure the blinds were closed. The room was small and musty, with a pervasive smell of stale cigarette smoke despite the NO SMOKING sign on the door. The carpet was threadbare; the one bed barely looked big enough to accommodate two people.
But it was clean, and the bathroom had decent water pressure and very hot water. She washed her face and hands, then soaked a washcloth and picked up a towel. Ben was lying down when she came out of the bathroom, looking like he'd simply flopped down where he was sitting; he hadn't even bothered to pull a blanket over himself.
"Let me help you get some of that off. Unless you think you could manage a shower."
Ben cracked his eyes open. "Actually, a shower sounds pretty good."
"Do you ... want help?"
His faint smile warmed his gray eyes. "That'd be nice."
At least there were no clothes to try to get off him without hurting him. She shed her clothes on the bathroom floor and cranked the water all the way. Under the hot spray, she gently washed Ben with the cheap mini-bottle of shampoo from the back of the sink.
Despite the amount of blood, he wasn't hurt as badly as she'd feared. The dragon's claws had scored his shoulder and chest, and he was bruised from getting knocked around, as well as having hit his head hard enough to break the skin open and soak his dark hair with blood. But it was mostly superficial, and the gashes had already closed up. She tried to wash them gently so as not to start them bleeding again. Pinkish water swirled down the drain.
"Hold still," she murmured, working the last of the soap into his hair.
"Mmmm." If he was a cat, he'd be purring. He melted into her, and leaned against the side of the shower enclosure as she washed him thoroughly and followed it up with a kiss on his lips, wet from the shower spray.
Ben dragged her lip lightly through his bottom teeth, then pulled away and smiled at her through the shower's haze. "You're still the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, but don't get your hopes up too much. I don't know how much activity I have in me right now, after everything this morning."
"And you're the most gorgeous thing I've seen," she said, looping an arm carefully around him to turn off the shower. "I would love nothing more than to have you lay me gently down in bed and have your way with me, but right now I'm going to lay you gently down in bed so you can get some sleep."
"There's also the likelihood that Derek will interrupt us any minute," Ben said as she gently patted him dry with a scratchy motel towel.
"Yes, that too."
She didn't voice aloud the possibility of a different kind of interruption. But she noticed that when they got out of the shower, Ben took his gun from where she'd placed it on top of the cat tote, checked the remaining bullets, and put it under his pillow before crawling into bed.
Kittenish squalling and claw-scrabbling started up inside the tote. "Would it bother you if I let the kittens out?" Tessa asked. "I hate keeping them cooped up in there."
"Sure," Ben mumbled. "Go ahead."
Tessa popped the lid off, and the muffled chorus of distressed mewing escalated suddenly to full volume. She had put the carrier inside the tote so they had a soft place to curl up, but from the look of things, all they'd done was climb on it and flatten it. Small furry faces turned up to her and little sharp-toothed mouths opened in anxious mewls.
"Hi, little guys. It's okay." She lifted them out one by one. The most anxious ones instantly vanished under the bed, but the rest of them set off to explore, creeping cautiously around the baseboards and trying to climb the dangling bedcovers.
Tessa noticed that they'd used one corner of the tote as a litterbox, which reminded her that she'd had to leave behind all the kitten supplies. "Ben, I don't suppose your friend Derek would mind picking up some kitten food, too?"
Ben plucked a kitten off his face, sighed, and sat up. "May as well. I can talk to him when he gets here."
"I'm sorry," Tessa said contritely, retrieving the one from the bed, only to see another appear over the opposite side. "I was afraid they'd bother you."
"I don't think I'd sleep anyway. I'm too tense." He rubbed a hand across his face, and adjusted the pillows to prop himself against the head of the bed. The newly arrived kitten crawled into his lap. Tessa could hear it purring from where she was sitting on the floor beside the bed.
"We need a plan," she said, picking tiny kitten claws out of her shirt so she could set down the one she was holding. Not to be
deterred, it started climbing her leg. "How do we stop this guy from coming after us?"
"I ... can think of some people I could talk to about that," Ben said, his gaze distant.
"Melody?"
"Among others."
"You know more dragons, then." It wasn't a question. "Well, I guess you must. Because of Melody. But ... she's your sister." She had been trying not to think too much about that part, but it kept popping back up, like something submerged that kept floating to the surface. "Ben, you aren't a dragon, are you?"
"You've seen me shift," Ben pointed out.
"Yes, but I don't know anything about how dragons work. For all I know, maybe it's possible for someone to be a dragon and a panther at the same time."
"It's not," Ben said quietly. "Believe me, I'd know. And anyway ... I wouldn't lie to you."
"I know," she said, feeling stabbed. "I didn't mean to imply that I thought you were. So how did Melody come to be, then? Is she adopted?" This sent another stab through her chest. All these years, when she'd envied Melody her happy family—what if they'd had that in common all along, and Melody had never told her? "Or ... are you adopted?"
"No, she's not, and I'm not. We're half siblings. Same father, different mothers."
"Ohhhh," Tessa said. "So Melody's mother is a dragon."
"Both her parents are dragons. I'm the odd one out. My mother is a panther shifter."
"Your father is a dragon?"
Ben nodded. He looked slightly embarrassed.
"That must be ..." She hesitated. "Actually, I have no idea what that would be like. None at all. What is that like?"
"It's normal for me," Ben pointed out. "I grew up with it, so it was just regular life. Like anyone growing up with two divorced parents. My mom didn't have a whole lot to do with my dad, and my dad didn't want a whole lot to do with me, since I'm not a dragon."
Ben's earlier words about dragons came back hauntingly. Dragon families are very close-knit. Not very welcoming of anyone they don't consider part of the clan. He'd been speaking from experience. "You and your dad don't get along?"
