by Paula Quinn
Garion, he reached out as the house came into view. He sensed River inside the house with her father and Helena. Anything on Red?
No. You didn’t find Ivy.
No.
Jacob landed a few feet from his brother-in-law, who was standing by the door and wearing a long, red, hooded fleece robe. He held another one in his hand and tossed it to Jacob when he altered.
“We’ll look like a cult.”
“It’s better than tearing your favorite pair of jeans to shreds,” Garion pointed out with a crook of his mouth. “Helena was right about the size.”
Jacob felt the insane urge to laugh…or cry. He’d never cried a day in his life. Not once.
But then the front door opened and his eyes filled with liquid as River slipped out into the light.
She took a hesitant step toward him, as if he pulled her with invisible tethers and she didn’t want to move.
“Where’s Ivy?” she asked on the barest breath. The anguish in her eyes would haunt him forever.
It took every ounce of strength he possessed to speak and not toss off his robe and fly away…away from the pain in his chest, in his belly. Away from the need to take her in his arms and beg her forgiveness. “I couldn’t find her.”
Somewhere behind Jacob, Garion left. They both knew what not finding her meant.
River stepped closer. Her eyes misted with tears, glistening like twin turbulent seas that threatened to drown him. Her lips parted but, for an instant, nothing but a hollow breath came out. “What…does that mean?”
He would do anything to avoid admitting her worst fear. “It means just that and nothing more. Nothing more.”
She reached out her finger and caught the tear coming down his cheek. “Then what is this?” Before he could answer and before she could stop her own tears from falling, she pressed her palm to his chest. “Is she dead, Jacob? Please tell me the truth.”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t spoken to me since…” Since she was screaming for his help. “Since I left. I searched for her, River. I couldn’t pick up a scent or a sound—”
“She could be hiding somewhere,” she insisted, trying to find hope. “Maybe she got hurt and is unconscious. Did you find Graham?”
“No,” he answered softly.
“Maybe they’re together!”
He nodded. “Yes, you’re probably right.”
“I’m going to the Munroes’.” She wiped her eyes and turned to start walking. “Noah should be getting back from Tarbert. We need to tell him. He’ll help us search for them.”
Jacob wished he’d never met her. He regretted staying with her and bringing Drakkon into her life. He clasped her arm to stop her. “River, there was blood. Noah’s blood.” The sight of her terror-stricken face, her shaking hands reaching for her mouth, was too much for Jacob to bear. He looked away. “I searched for him as well.”
“Blood,” she echoed, staring at him. “So the Red had been there.”
“Yes.”
“And…” She paused, waited a moment, and then continued without another tear. “Ivy hasn’t communicated with you though you’ve reached out.”
Attention everyone!
Red’s voice tore through Jacob’s head and set him spinning on his feet, looking around. Helena, having exited the house at some point prior, stood with Garion. Both were armed with pistols and ready to start shooting.
They saw no one on land or in the sky.
Garion reached into the pocket of his robe and produced another gun. He gave it to Jacob without taking his eyes off the hills. “We shoot him if he’s still walking. It will give us a minute or two to reach him with our claws. There’s a sword by the door, as well.”
“How did you get all that through customs?” Jacob asked, not really wanting to know.
“Is it Red?” River pulled on his sleeve.
Jacob nodded and stepped in front of her. Red! he demanded, Where’s the girl?
Which one? Red laughed.
You know which one, Jacob told him scathingly. The girl from the house west of here.
“I want to listen!” River pulled on his robe again. “Jacob, let me hear what he’s saying!”
No, Jacob shook his head. Not after the question he had just asked Red.
She grabbed fistfuls of the collar of his robe and pulled him down, just enough to level her gaze with his. The strength in her eyes warned him that she would have her way. Her command compelled him to open the connection. “Stop protecting me and let me listen.”
Oh right, the girl, Red answered after thinking about it for a second or two. She was delicious.
Jacob hadn’t let River listen in because he didn’t want her hearing anything like this. But he couldn’t stop his reaction. Or her from seeing it. Rage and horror drained the color from his skin. Red had eaten Ivy. No. Jacob’s eyes fell on River. No, he couldn’t have.
River took one look at him and nearly fell apart. She knew he was hearing something terrible about her sister. Her face mirrored his—horror and anguish vying with fury for dominance. “Let. Me. In,” she gave him one last warning.
He did.
…and the older of the two males was sour going down, Red was saying. He was in love with your life mate. I did you a favor, White.
Jeremy Redmond.
Jacob wasn’t surprised to hear River. He didn’t stop her from saying what she wanted to say, and he wouldn’t let anyone else stop her. He ached to pull her into his embrace, to offer her his strength. But she didn’t need it.
I’m going to kill you, she told Red without any trace of emotion in her tone.
You can’t kill me, human. Red chuckled in all their heads.
Garion raised his palm to her, cautioning her against saying too much.
River didn’t spare him a glance. She did slip her hardened gaze to Jacob, though, as if something just crossed her mind, adding to her anger. Yes, I can, Red, she said slowly, fearlessly, but not foolishly. And I’m going to do it.
Jacob looked into her eyes, wanting to promise her his help in killing Red, wanting to promise her anything.
She turned from him and walked backed to the house. He let her go.
You’ve got yourself a fiery one there, White, Red sneered in their heads. I might have to take her from you.
Jacob answered on a low growl. Come try it, Red. Please.
I’ll see you all soon enough, Red told them and then turned his attention to Garion. I hope you understand now what I’m capable of. Still, for the sake of our longtime friendship, and because I’m not like the Elders, I won’t kill you for what I want.
You’re just as bad as the Elders, Jeremy, Garion corrected him. You killed innocents, just like they did fourteen years ago.
You were always soft, Garion, Red drawled. It makes you easier to control. You forget I know your weaknesses. He laughed and sounded a little out of breath as if he were swimming or climbing. I want ten vials of your blood. Refuse and I’ll follow you wherever you go and kill people in your life until I get it.
Garion put his gun in his pocket and untied his robe. “I’m tired of doing nothing. I think he might try to make it to the ferry. He can disappear in Skye and be back here in an hour. I’m going to look for him. Jacob stay here with your life mate and keep her the hell away from Red.”
Jacob nodded. River would no doubt try to kill Red herself. He wasn’t about to let her get hurt. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
He backed up when Garion shrugged the robe off his shoulders and became Drakkon. Wide, elongated, yellow eyes swept over his wife. Helena’s robe fell to the ground and Jacob looked away as his sister moved out of her flesh and into her scales.
Red, Garion sent out lifting himself high on great, twenty-nine foot wide, gold wings. You’re not getting shit. The more people you kill, the more I’m convinced that Drakkon should never again rule the sky.
Walking back to the house, Jacob agreed.
Chapter Twenty
River
looked in on her father first. He was napping soundly with Carina, Garion’s cat, close by on his pillow. How could it be that Drakkon was once again responsible for a cataclysmic event in their lives? First her mother and now Ivy. Ivy. She wanted to collapse, fall to her knees and bury her face in her hands. They shared birth. How could she be dead? How would she tell her father? What if he blamed her? And why shouldn’t he? She’d brought them here.
What did any of it matter anymore? Ivy was gone. Only one thing mattered now—killing the Red.
She blinked back her tears as she shut the door to her father’s room. Jacob was waiting for her on the other side. She walked around him and didn’t stop on her way toward the kitchen. She didn’t want to see him. Not now. She didn’t want to be talked out of her decisions. She didn’t want to be reminded that he was the same as the thing that had…the thing that had eaten Noah. Had it eaten Ivy, too? And Graham? She thought for certain this would drive her insane for months…years to come.
She hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t even known Ivy had gone. She’d been too busy fawning over Jacob and let her sister slip away.
She pulled in a breath. It was getting more difficult to inhale with each moment. She felt a little lightheaded. She cursed the thought of fainting and stormed into the kitchen. She went directly to the drawer where she kept her knives, opened it, and chose the longest blades.
She heard Jacob enter the kitchen but she didn’t acknowledge him while she set six knives on the table. She snatched up a kitchen cloth and tore off six strips.
“What are you doing?” he finally asked her.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” She didn’t look up while she kicked off her boots and lifted her foot to the chair to tie the first knife to her denim-clad calf. “I’m getting ready.”
He didn’t come closer but rested his hip against the counter. “I don’t want you to try to fight him, River.”
“I don’t care what you want.” She secured the knife to her calf and went on to her other leg. “The monster killed my sister, my friends. If you think I’m going to sit around here and wait until IT decides to show up, you’re wrong!”
The more she had to explain herself, the angrier she became. Though somewhere deep inside she knew Ivy’s death wasn’t Jacob’s fault, she trod upon her logic on feet made of stone and rage. She hated Drakkon for doing this. All Drakkon.
“How do you intend to find him?” he asked in his deep, sensual voice that had become as familiar to her as her own. Disguised slightly as Drakkon, it was the same voice that had first spoken to her in her head. I don’t eat people.
But there was one that did eat people. She tied two more knives to her thighs and then shoved the last two under the belt around her waist. “I’m going to make a deal with it. One it will be too tempted to refuse. Please don’t get in my way.” She stepped around the table on her way out.
He moved to stand in her path, blocking the door. His long hair fell around his face, casting shadows in his eyes. “Don’t get in your way?”
She tried to move around him. He moved with her.
River.
“No,” she said, backing up. “Don’t read my thoughts, Jacob. You won’t like them.”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. Her eyes stung but she fought back any emotion she felt for him, or for anything else. How could she feel when there was an aching, gaping hole where her heart used to be?
“River, listen to me—”
“Why, Jacob, did you forget to tell me something?” she challenged, folding her hands across her chest. “Like how if the Red is practically immortal, so are you? I was too lost in you to get it until today. Life mates, huh?” She laughed. She’d believed it all. She’d believed they were safe. She’d let him in and believed they were forever. “Until I die and you don’t. Helena told me I’m not a descendant. All this life mate stuff sort of loses its significance now.”
“Not for me.” He looked and sounded as broken as she felt.
She wanted to touch him, to remember laughing with him, flying with him. But Ivy was dead and there was no place for joy or peace in her. “I think it’s best if…when this is all over…you—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
She couldn’t look at him and remain steadfast to her decision. His heavy voice made it difficult enough. “That’s not your choice,” she told him on a tight breath.
“Yes it is,” he said, stepping away. “I know I let you down. I know I brought Red here. There’s nothing I can do to make up for it. But I love you and I’m not leaving you.”
He couldn’t be doing this to her now—tempting her with everything she’d ever wanted since she was eight. But everything was different now. She wanted to go find Red and kill him. She didn’t want to go soft and be distracted from her purpose. She didn’t want to think about all she’d lost in one day. And she didn’t want a Drakkon in her life. They brought nothing but sorrow. “Jacob, this isn’t going to work with us after Ivy.”
“River,” he whispered.
“I don’t blame you for her death,” she assured him, biting down hard on her teeth to keep herself from falling apart at the sight of his tormented expression. “I blame myself. Please,” she begged him on a strangled sob, “don’t fight me on this. Just do as I ask.”
“I will,” he said, moving aside to let her pass. “Just don’t ask me to go.”
Part of her was glad he didn’t give in and leave. He wouldn’t leave. It tempted her to wish she was Drakkon so she could stay with Jacob forever. But there was too much sorrow between them now. Her sister was dead…her Ivy was gone because of the three Drakkons she had let into her home. The Red was their enemy. Not her family’s. Not until now. It wasn’t Jacob’s fault that Red had tracked him. It was her fault for knowing it and letting her sister out of her sight the morning after the Red had tried to eat her.
She would regret it for the rest of her life. Immortality? No, thank you.
She would let Jacob stay until Red was dead, and then she’d take her savings and leave Harris. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She could do it now. She’d changed. Jacob had called her brave. And she was.
She didn’t want to think about leaving him, the one true love of her life. She didn’t need the stars to tell her he was. But this had become too real. “Fine. Let’s go then.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, following her out of the house.
“To the banks of the loch. I don’t want it swooping in behind the cliffs and surprising us again.”
She felt his eyes on her while they walked. She loved walking with him, the feeling of being covered by him, feeling his heat, looking up at the chiseled cut of his jaw. She’d been blinded by him, dazzled by his soft smiles, held captive by the mystery and magic of him.
It had cost Ivy, and Noah, and Graham their lives.
She tried to concentrate on the sounds around her. Twice now, the hum of nature had changed when a Drakkon was near. She didn’t need Garion’s seeing stone. She had her instincts to rely on.
And right now, her instincts were telling her not to look at Jacob.
“You’re making a point to call the Red ‘it’.”
His voice reverberated with unspoken questions, dreaded anticipation. It seeped through her and into her veins, compelling her to just look up. She didn’t.
“That’s what it is,” she said through tight lips, keeping her eyes on the road. “A thing. A monster.”
Silence, imbued with hurt and offense, settled between them, making River regret her words.
“Am I a monster, too?” he finally asked, barely breaking the silence.
His breath along her ear sent a thread of warmth through her. She didn’t want to hurt him. She wanted to scream and cry and kill, but she didn’t want to hurt Jacob.
She shook her head. “No, you aren’t a monster. But it doesn’t change anything, Jacob.”
Thankfully, he didn’t push.
“What deal are you going to off
er?” he asked instead.
“The Red wants Garion’s blood,” she told him. “I’m going to tell him that I have something better.”
He laughed but there was no mirth in the sound. “He won’t believe it. There’s nothing better than Garion’s blood.”
She finally turned to look at him walking beside her. It was easier when she was thinking about Red. “Sure there is. There’s your blood. There’s Helena’s. And there’s the Red’s. I’m surprised one of you hasn’t already figured it out.”
He looked a bit pale. “Figured what out, River?”
“While you and Garion were searching for Ivy, Helena mentioned some things. One of them being that she thinks you and she are becoming Golds. You have his blood now.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, thoughtfully, and lifted his fingers to his hair.
She should look away, but watching his expressive face as he came to grips with a very possible, very terrible truth, tempted her to never look away again. He understood the magnitude of what this could mean. The Red, with the power in his blood to alter people, would be cataclysmic for the human race.
“You can’t tell him,” he said on a deep, trembling whisper.
“I don’t intend to. But when I make the offer, he must believe that I’m telling the truth.”
“If you’re right, and he discovers it—”
“He won’t,” she assured him. “Then you agree he needs to die.”
“I never disagreed.” He took her arm and stopped to turn to her. “Do you think I could after what he did? I know what needs to be done, but I don’t want you to do it. You’re not immortal. Look at me, River! Red can kill you. What do I do then? How do I live after that?”
“The same way I’m supposed to live now,” she shouted. “I lost my sister and I…” She stopped. She didn’t want to say anything more. Her eyes were burning. Her chest felt like someone had dropped two more boulders on it. She didn’t want to cry, to lose control.
“I know.”
He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. But suddenly, it didn’t matter. He was here. He hadn’t left her since he’d learned of Red. He promised not to leave. Could he stand her guilt, her heavy burden? When they were alone, Helena had told her that Jacob had never been in love with anyone before. In fact, he’d never stayed in a relationship longer than a week or two. River had worried that Jacob wouldn’t stay with her either, but his sister reassured her that things were different with him this time and the stars had confirmed it.
