“Let go of me.” I struggled.
He just held me tighter and pushed the vehicle door closed with his foot. His grip was like steel, a shifter’s strength. “I’ve got you. Relax, sweetheart.”
“No, what have you done with my dad? Where are we?”
Worry creased his brow, but he made his way up a set of steps to some kind of wooden shed locked with a deadbolt. Forest surrounded the place.
“This is the place you told me about. Your father’s containment cabin.”
“I’m not a monster. I don’t belong here. Take me to my father.” I recognized the face above mine, but from where?
A memory of returning to a motel my father and I had been staying at—of finding our suite upended and my father gone—cut across my thoughts. He’d been taken. By who?
The man put me down without answering. Holding me against him with one arm, he unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open, then carried me inside.
“This is Dad’s cabin, how do you have a key?” When he put me down, I twisted out of his arms. It took all my strength to get free. I spun and kicked him in the groin. He groaned and went down to his knees, bent over.
“Christ, you’re strong,” he wheezed.
I raced for the still open-door, or I tried. Dizziness threatened to send me sprawling across the dusty, cheap wood flooring. I got halfway to the Blazer before arms closed around me and pulled me back in. Whoever this guy was, his arms felt familiar, strong and warm. The primal smell pounding off him fired my blood.
“Let me go! You can’t be here when I change. Have to get away!”
“Come on.” He sounded sad for some reason as he shut us inside the cabin. “Don’t make this difficult for either of us.”
Head swimming, blood still on fire, I collapsed against him, or maybe he pulled me to him. He pushed my head back against his shoulder and ran his hand over my forehead. Smoothing my sweat-soaked hair back.
Damn it, if he hadn’t been a shifter, I would have gotten away easily.
Again, memories of my father’s kidnapping washed over me. “Daddy. I have to get him away from them.” Grief made my eyes sting, my chest shaking with sobs.
“I need you to cooperate with me, Helena. Gotta keep you safe. Make this easy for both of us, now.”
The implication of familiarity—and something more intimate—filtered through my confusion. Intimacy, with a wolf shifter? I stilled, and he turned me in his arms. Something hard pressed into my chest, and I pulled back, jerking his leather jacket aside. He wore a shoulder holster, the handgrip of a semi-automatic visible.
“You’re a cop.” That was worse than his being a shifter. My head pounded, making it impossible to think. I swayed. “I wouldn’t be with a cop.” I grabbed for his pistol, meaning to neutralize him and make him tell me what the hell was going on.
“Helena, stop.” He grabbed my wrists. “It’s me, Hunter.”
“Fat chance.” I pulled one hand free and swung at him. Any other time, my fist would have connected, and he’d have been lucky if he got off with a broken jaw or broken nose. I must have been sicker than I thought, because my fist missed wildly, striking air. My balance gave out, and then I was slumped in his arms.
He carried me across the room to a large cage. A metal cot was pushed to one side, an old, stained mattress on top. Beside the bed, a small nightstand stood. On one wall, shackles for wrists and feet were mounted. Shelves on another wall had more sets of shackles. A single, dusty window let in sallow daylight above the bed. Light that would flood in on a vampire, should one be contained there, and burn it to ash.
Straps lay across the cot, bringing to mind an incident with a child who’d been possessed by Shandar, a kid my father had helped to contain while a priest performed an exorcism. Dad had restrained the child on a bed like that, with straps similar to those.
Once he had the cage open, the cop carried me inside and started cuffing my hands into the shackles there.
Again, I imagined myself becoming a Demon Wolf, escaping this place and mauling some poor family in the small town not far from here. Except, I wouldn’t be escaping.
As soon as he locked the shackles closed, the feel of my magic cut off. I panicked, glancing to either side of me, where he’d locked my wrists into thick reddish manacles. Each was made of solid dragonsteel, which my dad had said was four times stronger than any metal humans used. Dad refused to tell me how he’d gotten hold of the cuffs Dragonwatch Guardsmen used, not only to arrest humans, but to block a witch from her magic.
My dad. My dad who probably sat in a Dragonlord’s cell somewhere, beaten and broken. I was the only one who could save him.
My captor bent to cuff my ankles. “What are you doing, stop!” I kicked at him.
“Fuck.” He avoided my legs with an officer’s trained skill in arresting suspects, finally managing to cuff my ankles to the wall.
“Let me go! I have to get to my father. They have him!”
“I’m so sorry.” He wouldn’t look me in the eye. Did that make it easier for him to hold me prisoner like some rabid dog?
“Why are you doing this to me! I’m not a monster!” I wouldn’t become a monster.
He said nothing, looking under the padding he’d buckled to my shoulder. My shoulder, which should have been killing me right then. “The wound is almost completely healed. Amazing.”
“Get off me!” I thrashed.
He smoothed my hair back and kissed my forehead.
“Asshole! Let me go!”
Pain sparked in his eyes.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I love you,” he whispered.
He loved me? None of this made sense. Never mind that he was a shifter. Not only did my father have a strict rule about police, that we avoided them at all costs and trusted them about as much as a Dragonlord, but I was sure I remembered Dad grounding me when I was a teenager for going on a date with a hot would-be cop. A cop who looked a lot like this one…
“Hunter?” I squinted at him as he became two of himself, then swam back into one. “Hunter? Did I hurt you? Did I hurt anyone?”
“Yeah, it’s me, sweetheart. And I’m going to make sure you don’t.”
“Please, don’t let me hurt anyone.” Terror at what I might become clawed at me. My eyes stung.
“I won’t. It’s going to be okay. I promise.” He turned and crossed the cage, stepped out, and locked the door closed with my father’s keys. Then he turned and went to the light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room and pulled the string. Dim, yellowish light filled the space. I thrashed and twisted, but the bindings on my wrists and feet held fast.
I would have to get kidnapped by a cop who knew his way around Suvia Kyan cuffs.
If we were together… No. We couldn’t have been. I wouldn’t have made the same mistake again. Would I?
I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t clear the confusion.
Truth be told, if Hunter and I were together, this wouldn’t be the first time I’d fallen for the wrong guy.
Springfield, Massachusetts, November 2008
Dad and I were arguing again.
Four months since I’d turned sixteen, and arguments like the one we were having now had become more frequent, not to mention more volatile. It would be ten years before I finally understood why I grew more aggressive, my magic stronger with every teenage year. Ten years before I’d realize it wasn’t just normal hormones or teen angst.
“Dad, just listen to me.” I put my fork down on my plate. “This place is the perfect job for me.”
He set down his beer and scowled at the pamphlet I’d given him, the expression causing the faint, pale scar that creased his cheek to pucker. He read the name of the business. “Ink and Skin Tattoos? I don’t want you coming home with a ring in your nose and covered in ink. Out of the question.”
“Ugh. If I wanted to work anywhere else, would you let me?”
“Probably not.”
&
nbsp; Well, at least he was honest.
“You have a tattoo.” I nodded to his upper left arm, where he had a black and red anchor, the chain wrapping around his bicep. The tat partially disappeared under the short sleeve of the gray tee that clung to his powerful chest and arms.
“I’m your father, and a forty-five year old man, not a sixteen-year-old girl looking for a way to rebel against her dad.”
“This isn’t about getting a tattoo. I just want to do something other than watch you fight monsters and watch everyone else around me live a normal life.”
He didn’t need to know I’d been dropping into Ink and Skin on my weekly visits into town and had my eye on a gorgeous butterfly tattoo. I even had the perfect place for it, on my shoulder blade, easily hidden with the right clothing. Legally, I couldn’t get a tattoo without his consent until I was eighteen, but there were ways around that.
“Helena, we talked about this last year, when you wanted to help out at that mechanic’s shop in Florida.” He pushed up from the dinner table with his empty takeout container and nodded to mine. “Are you finished?”
I put the last piece of stir-fried steak in my mouth and pushed the cardboard container toward him.
“So, what am I supposed to do when I get older? Live with you forever? You want me to grow up never having worked a day in my life?”
“Nice try, Mittens. You have a few years to go before we have to worry about that. And put the container in the garbage yourself, I’m not a housemaid.”
I huffed and grabbed the container, got up and tossed it into the trash can in the corner of the motel suite’s cooking area. “God, I wish you wouldn’t call me that. It’s dumb.”
“You used to love it.”
Did he sound hurt? He looked like he’d lost something dear to him. Guilt stabbed at me.
“Yeah, well, I’m not twelve anymore. You have to let me grow up.”
“Helena, don’t make me sound like the bad guy here. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You mean overprotect.”
“Enough.”
I dropped my arms. “Come on! Every other kid my age is hanging out at the mall with friends, working, going on dates—”
“You are not dating.” He pointed the top end of a beer bottle at me and then popped the cap and took a swig.
“I have to eventually.”
“Yeah, when you’re age never.”
“Dad! I’m not asking to move across the country. It’s a job. Money. Responsibility.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“Most parents have to push their kids to get a job, not keep them from getting one.”
“Sorry, kiddo.”
“You won’t teach me to fight. If I can’t work, let me hunt monsters with you.”
“Uh, no.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You’d get yourself killed the first day.”
That one stung. Sometimes it seriously felt like he didn’t trust me, and worse, didn’t think I could handle anything. He’d taught me to shoot a crossbow when I was five, I could hold my own.
I drew a breath, waiting for the explosion. “Well, it’s also too late now.”
He froze with the beer at his lips and slowly lowered it. “What?” His voice was low and dark.
“I…already filled out the form?” I said in an exaggeratedly small voice.
My father dropped his chin to his chest. His chest rose slow, then fell just as gradually as he set the beer bottle down. Hands tightened on the countertop to either side of him. I had the impression of him carefully controlling rising anger.
“Why did you do that?” he said softly. Then he raised his hand. “No, never mind. I know why.”
One deep breath. His head rolled back. Another breath.
“All right. Tomorrow, I will take you into town, and you’ll pull the application. Get them to rip it up, make sure you see them destroy it, however you have to.”
“No.” I crossed my arms. Okay, so I was pushing him, but for sixteen years, I’d towed the line, following all his stupid rules, isolating myself from others. I’d had enough.
Dad closed his good eye. “Don’t do that. Don’t test me.” He turned and flicked on the water, washing his hands in the sink. “You’re not working at that place, and that’s final.”
“You can’t stop me.”
His big shoulders bulged. “You really want to go there?” He was starting to sound pissed. “I have no problem locking you in a room and keeping you there until you see sense.”
“Go ahead. That’s what windows are for.”
He rounded on me. “God damn it, Helena, quit being a fucking brat!”
I crossed my arms tighter.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What have I told you about keeping us safe? About never leaving a paper trail?”
“I didn’t give my real name!” My fists clenched.
The chair I’d been sitting on rattled on the floor. Magic pulsed along my arms, bolts of hot power that went all the way to my fingertips. My father glanced at the chair, then at the lightening I knew pulsed along my arms, his jaw tightening.
“Stop. Calm down,” he ordered slowly.
“I did it right, like you would have. I gave nothing anyone can use to figure out who I am.”
“It doesn’t matter! Fake names can be traced. Anytime you give information to anyone, you risk someone tracing it back. You know what’s hunting us, what’s at stake.”
“I don’t care! I want a normal life! I don’t have any friends. You can’t control my whole life forever.”
“I’m not—” His fists were tight now. “This is for your own good.”
“Bull shit.”
“Don’t curse at me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Now you’re just being difficult.”
I was. I totally was. Much later, I’d realize I was not only painfully lonely, but seeing the kids hanging out downtown every day was killing me, a constant reminder of what I’d never have.
“If anyone discovered your secret, we could lose everything. We could both be killed. You don’t know what the Dragonwatch did to your mother.”
Alarmed curiosity spiked in me, the same thing I’d always felt whenever he mentioned her, which wasn’t often. “No, because you won’t tell me.”
“Because you don’t need to know those kinds of things.”
The ominous sound of that sent a chill through me. All he’d ever told me about Mom’s death was that Dragonlords had murdered her when I was a baby. He’d never given details. I quashed the questions swirling through my thoughts, refusing to let them distract me from the issue at hand.
“Maybe I’d understand more if you told me,” I said.
“Not about that.” He wouldn’t look at me. Secrecy clouded his face, widening the chasm between us.
“I hate you.” I did. I hated him because I wanted to do so much more with my life. College, a good job, perhaps protecting others like he did. I hated him because of his secrets. Because he made it look easy to keep me from the world. Most of all, I hated him because he was right.
“Tough. For fuck sake, Helena, do you have any idea what will happen to you if the Dragonwatch caught you?”
Inwardly I shuddered, remembering what I’d seen online. When my father had told me what they did to witches, I’d looked it up on the internet. Women tortured until they confessed to witchcraft, left in cells to rot, often naked and beaten or worse, then marched out into a public square where they were burned alive. Apparently, the ritual death Dragonlords submitted witches to bore a horrifying similarity to our medieval witch trials. I always wondered if similar things happened to my mother, because of her magic. Unwilling to let him see my fear, I looked away.
“Sometimes they burn witches. Sometimes they do worse,” Dad murmured.
What could be worse than a burning? “You know something? You know what bothers me most?”
He dropped his arms.
“You don’t trust me. You’re afraid
I’ll make a mistake and get us killed.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.” He reached for me.
His half-finished bottle of beer on the counter shattered, breaking apart with a violent smash. Glass and imported beer flew everywhere. My face drained of blood, especially when my father leaped aside and swore. He lifted his arm, looking at a slash of blood there where the glass had cut him.
“Dad.” My eyes watered, horror and guilt burning in my chest. That sort of thing had been happening more often lately.
He shook his head and reached for me again, but I flung up my hand, pushing a wall of air at him. He stumbled. The water in the sink boiled and whirled until it frothed.
“Fuck. Helena, stop, right now.”
I turned and stomped to my room. On my way there, the fire in the fireplace roared high and frightening. I slammed the door with a whoosh of my hand.
“Damn it, girl.” Footsteps thumped down the hall. “Open this door now.”
“No.” I kept it closed with air. He growled.
“All right. I hoped I’d never have to tell you this, Helena, but if it will make you understand. Do you know what else Dragonlords do to witches? They take them as slaves. Witch weapons, men and women forced to use their magic to kill on command.”
“You’re lying. Just trying to scare me.” Except, hadn’t that one Suvia Kyan, Cron said something about that when I was twelve? That I’d make a good witch weapon for the Dragonwatch? My blood chilled.
“I wish I was. If they caught you and didn’t kill you, they’d lock you in a cage so small you can’t stand upright. You’d spend your days crouched in the dark, naked, head shaved, tongue cut out so you can’t speak or scream. You’d be taken out on a leash only when they want you to kill. Then they force you to lay waste to whole towns if it served their purposes. When you don’t, they’ll beat you, just severely enough to make you cooperate.”
“Stop.” I covered my ears. “I don’t need to hear this.” My stomach roiled at the images his words brought to mind, images of humans reduced to killing machines, broken and without voice.
Dragonsteel_Shadowsword's Harem_Book One Page 7
