by Ava Mason
Lizzy and I were wolf shifters, and she was my Alpha. We were from the same pack and had grown closer since she’d gotten pregnant, especially from all the problems that had arisen since then.
The knowledge of the dragon-wolf-goddess hybrid in her belly, the first of its kind, had spread quickly and sent the supernatural world into a frenzy. The first people to show up on their doorsteps, literally, was the Supernatural Protection Agency, aka, the SPA, and my favorite person, Nasal-Nose Harry, represented them. There were others too, not quite as obvious as the SPA. They sent letters and had come around to spy in the bushes. I even caught someone following behind me at the grocery store.
Some of them were curious, some too interested for our liking, while others were even angry about it.
Times were changing. Dragons were officially out and mating with wolves now, and the supernatural world was polarizing on the issue. It became obvious very quickly that Lizzy needed magical protection that only a queen of a supernatural country could offer us.
We spent the next several hours trying to pass the time on the plane. I dozed in and out, then pulled some books out of my bag, reading through them. After a while, my wolf was getting a bit antsy from being in a plane for so long.
The seatbelt lights came on, and the pilot’s voice sounded over the loudspeaker.
“We are starting our descent to Aerwyna. Please stay seated, buckle your seatbelts and brace yourself. We’re entering the barrier.”
As soon as his words were out, the plane trembled and bumped, and dropped downward, towards the sea below us.
My wolf immediately responded. I clutched the edges of my chair, my wolf growling as we dipped lower and lower. This magic was too foreign for her. Lizzy gasped, and Hunter and Easton both looked at her, concerned.
“Oh, I don’t feel so good,” Lizzy squeaked out, clutching her belly.
The plane slowly righted itself, the pilot coming back over the loudspeaker to apologize for the problems but I wasn’t listening. Lizzy’s mouth slowly dropped open, as if in pain, a look of dismay on her face.
“Are you okay?” My stomach churned, instinct telling me that something wasn’t right. This pregnancy wasn’t what I would call a smooth one. The baby had already caused a small earthquake in Tennessee and made everyone sick when her power leaked into the rest of her clan.
Lizzy nodded, but she squeezed her lips together so harshly she had a white ring around her mouth. “I just feel sick.”
I knew it wasn’t morning sickness or motion sickness; the baby was causing havoc. The plane shook again, this time more violently than the last and fear gripped me. Not for the first time, I wished my mamá was here. She was the birthing witch in charge of Lizzy’s pregnancy. She should have been on the flight with us, but Nasal-Nose Harry had decided that my mamá needed to fly ahead. Something about witch protocol.
I had a feeling we were about to get screwed because of some stupid, shitty rule.
The magic in the cabin slowly grew, and the power beckoned to my wolf, calling it out. I grit my teeth, clutching the chair as my wolf threatened to burst from me. Sometimes the baby did this – sometimes it drew our animal out when we didn’t want it, and it terrified me.
Another wave of magic, different magic, came from the two dragons opposite us. It suffocated my wolf, making it easier to breathe. I sucked in a deep breath, giving Easton and Hunter a grateful look but they were too busy watching Lizzy to notice.
“It feels like she is reaching out to touch the magic around here.” Lizzy was out of breath, her face red with her exertion. Even though my wolf was in check, her power was getting stronger, and I hoped to God it wouldn’t get out of control. I didn’t know what would happen if it did, but we were in a small plane high above the ground. The baby had caused ripples already, ripples that only my mamá had been able to manage.
I said it before and I would say it again: if something went wrong up here, we were screwed.
“Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to let Marisol travel ahead,” Lizzy groaned, talking about my mamá.
In two seconds, Hunter had unbuckled his seatbelt, and he kneeled in front of Lizzy. He ran his fingers through her hair. “It’s okay, Princess. We will get through this together.” He put one hand on Lizzy’s head and muttered something I didn’t understand.
“I must urge you to return to your seat,” Harry said from his seat in the corner. I had completely forgotten about the man — he had been so quiet during all this, but when I glanced at him, I knew he felt the magic as well. In fact, he wasn’t handling it as well as the rest of us. He was unusually pale but he was ignoring it for the sake of rules.
“Shut up, Harry,” Hunter growled.
Easton growled from his seat, a low guttural sound, a warning.
“I wouldn’t tell him what to do,” I turned to Harry, looking past Lizzy. “Mated shifters don’t take orders from those lower in the hierarchy.”
Harry glanced at me. I dared him with my eyes to argue with me, to tell me that he wasn’t lower in the hierarchy. But he bit his tongue. Smart man — it looked like he had survival instincts, after all. Instead, he snapped his mouth shut without even lecturing Hunter for telling him to shut up. Everyone knew that you didn’t come between a shifter and his mates.
The plane shook, and I got up, ignoring Harry’s frustrated glare, and took Hunter’s seat. I could see the baby’s magic flowing around the cabin, a swirling of blue and orange, even though it looked like no one else could see it. It grew stronger as the tension between us grew, bumping against the cabin walls as if it was trying to get out of the airplane. It was going to break the plane in half if someone didn’t stop it.
Seizing control of my fear, I took Lizzy’s hand, my voice firm. “Lizzy, look at me.” She turned to me, her eyes wide. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Remember, your stress worries the baby.”
She nodded, closing her eyes but her hand on mine was squeezing it tight.
“Hold your breath for two seconds, then breathe out slowly,” I instructed her. I’d seen my mamá do this a bunch of times.
She took in a breath and I put my hand on her belly, whispering the words my mamá had said a million times. “Cálmese, baby. Cálmese.” My fingers burned, as magic flowed through the ring my mamá gave me to her stomach. I closed my own eyes, focusing on it. I could feel the magic growing calmer as I continued my chant, gently guiding it back into her.
I stroked her belly gently while Easton stroked her hair.
“This is almost over.” I nodded, feeling the pressure in my chest lightening up. Suddenly Lizzy took in a breath, and I felt her relax. I opened my eyes to see her grinning at me.
“I knew you could do it,” she said.
I blanched, feeling myself jerk forward as the plane suddenly landed. Hunter grabbed onto the legs of the chair as Easton clung to him, keeping him from sliding across the cabin floor. Lizzy’s protective instincts flared, and she threw her arm across me, keeping me from tipping over. A laugh caught in my throat as I imagined Harry’s satisfied smirk. I was certain I was going to get a lecture about seat belt rules later on.
The plane quickly stuttered to a stop and with it, the baby’s magical outburst. The magic was sucked out of the cabin immediately as if it had never been here in the first place.
Hunter jumped up and held out a hand for me while Easton helped Lizzy to her feet. I grabbed his hand, hoping he didn’t notice that mine was shaking.
“The car is waiting for us,” Harry unbuckled his seatbelt and stood, surprisingly saying nothing about seat belts and instead ushered us out of the plane. Hunter and Easton were at Lizzy’s side guarding her. I followed them, and Harry brought up the rear.
We piled into two black cars that were waiting for us while Harry arranged for our luggage to be unloaded. Hunter and Easton weren’t going to leave Lizzy’s side, and I had a feeling the three of them wanted to be alone, so I ended up stuck in the second car with Harry.
It was a
little tense on the way to wherever we were going to stay. He scooted to the far end of the seat, concentrating on an iPad on his lap, typing down things now and then. No doubt ticking off a to-do list.
Harry wasn’t my type, at all. Even though I looked pretty innocent, I was attracted to bad boys.
I’d even gone through a rash of them when I was younger, and that’s exactly what they were — a rash.
Sure, their wicked eyes made my heart pound, and their tattoos made me want to run my hands all over their branded biceps. Their dirty mouths were made for caressing my lips, and other parts of my body, making my panties so wet I’d taken to bringing extras when I went on dates with certain individuals.
But they were also self-centered, arrogant, bitter, attention-seeking, and in general, bastards.
In fact, I had developed a particular allergy to assholes in general. And what do you know? They hadn’t found a cure yet.
“You know what they say about all work and no play, Harry.” I glanced at his fingers; he didn’t have a wedding ring on. So I winked at him, scooting closer, and traced a circle on the black leather between us. “Makes Jack a dull boy, doesn’t it?”
He glanced up at me, irritation flashing across his face for a split second. When he saw how close I was, his heart rate picked up.
“This is a business trip on my end,” Harry stuttered out.
“So, no mixing business with pleasure?” I scooted closer, almost touching him. He watched as my teeth caught on my lower lip, shifting uncomfortably.
“No,” he said, but his head bobbed a yes.
I laughed, squeezing his arm, deciding I would leave the poor man alone. “It’s okay, Harry. I’m just teasing.” I looked into his eyes, noting the way his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Thanks for coming along. Helping us out. I really appreciate it.” Not that we’d had a choice, as the SPA insisted, but he seemed to want to do his job without getting in the way too much. As long as we were doing what he thought was appropriate. And as much as I hated people who were sticklers for the rules, they could be very helpful. Besides, you never wanted on their bad side, that was for sure.
His eyes narrowed, studying me. I kept an earnest look on my face, dropping the seductive act.
“I mean it.” And I did.
“You’re welcome.” He nodded, looking away from me to study the scenery out window.
I put some space between us to make him more comfortable. “So, good flight, huh?”
Harry sighed. “I suppose. A little unpredictable, wasn’t it?”
I chuckled. “Definitely.”
“You were good back there.”
I turned back towards him again; it was my turn to study him, to see if he really meant it. I’d always been self-conscious about my powers. My dad was a wolf shifter, and my mamá was the witch of the family. I was a hybrid of the two, but definitely more comfortable with the wolf side of me.
And, to be honest, I wasn’t even sure why I was here. My mamá had all the power, and Lizzy had her men to protect her. I was basically a tagalong, and his words had brought all those insecurities to the surface.
I twisted my ring around my finger — the one I used to channel my magic — considering him. I couldn’t read him as well as I would like, but he seemed genuine.
“Thanks.” He gave me a small smile. “When are we meeting with the Queen?” Another thing I was nervous about — meeting royalty.
“We’ll see.” He’d already turned back to his iPad.
“What does that mean?”
“Queen Aria decides when she’s ready to see someone.”
I nodded. I guessed royalty had the right to do whatever they wanted.
Queen Aria was the queen of the dragons. Now that they were officially out of hiding, she was going to write an unofficial alliance between the wolves and the dragons — and had invited Lizzy to help form it. When that alliance was formed, it was going to change everything.
Once the alliance was written, it would become the foundation of what was proposed to the supernatural world. And then everything else would follow. Mating, children, all of the good stuff. But it was also going to prevent wars from happening and make things easier for generations to come.
We were quiet the rest of the way there, and I distracted myself by looking out of the window at the city sliding by.
From the air, the city had a dreamlike quality to it, like a fairytale. The mountains towered large and majestic above the city, capped with snow and small rivers that ran like fingers through thick forests.
Up close, I could see that the city itself was the strange mixture of the past and future, mixing glittering high-rises with ancient castles, the old and the new merging together.
Even though the sun was beginning to set, I could tell that it was even more spectacular than I’d imagined from the air. The buildings were sleek and modern, the people in the street efficient, hurrying towards their destination without wasting time. Everything was clean and neat, and it wasn’t difficult to see that the dragons took pride in their home.
“Here we are,” Harry said when the car pulled to a stop, and opened the door, getting out first. I followed him out, looking up at the building that I was going to call home for the foreseeable future.
It was a large block of a building, with modern touches. The windows were all mirrored so that I couldn’t see into them. The gardens surrounding the place had immaculate lawns and a minimalistic design, a modern variation of the English garden, with neat hedges and trimmed trees that somehow worked perfectly.
The palace I had seen from a distance looming in the background was larger than life now.
“Are we on the palace grounds?” I asked when Lizzy, Hunter, and Easton joined me.
“Yeah, Queen Aria set us up in her private guest house,” Lizzy said. “Nice of her, huh?”
I nodded. Very nice. But the modern guest house was a stark contrast against the almost medieval looking palace that rested at the foot of the mountain, two different eras coming together.
Just like Lizzy’s baby. The symbolism was beautiful, and it gave me shivers.
“This way,” Harry said, gesturing with his hand. He was back to his antsy self, eager for us to do the next thing on his little list. Men dressed in white and black uniforms, like formal bellhops, marched from the guest house and unloaded our bags from the two cars while we followed Harry without a single thing to carry ourselves.
We walked through a lobby with a marble floor and double volume ceilings with paintings against the walls. My eyes bulged. Is that a real Monet in a guest house? I tried to study it as we passed, trying not to be too obvious how enchanted I was about it. We passed a formal sitting room, a casual living room, and a large dining room with dark oak furniture and a wooden chandelier with hanging crystals that glistened in the sunlight that fell through large, full-length windows.
Finally, we were escorted down a carpeted corridor that led to our rooms.
Mine was right next door to the suite Lizzy, Easton, and Hunter shared. We were in the lap of luxury; everything was fitted with the most expensive furniture and decorations. Everything matched – light gray walls with darker grey curtains and carpet. The bedspread was white, but there were splashes of color in all the accents. The throw pillows, rugs, and runner looked like they were from India, with bunches of beautiful flowers everywhere.
It was beautiful.
I picked up a remote control from my bedside table and slid my fingers over the screen. It had controls for lights, curtains, the shower, and everything else I could imagine. This was going to be fun. I couldn’t wait to try out the shower.
I didn’t take the time to settle in and play with my new toys. As soon as I was done unpacking, I hurried to Lizzy’s room and knocked on her door, entering when I was invited.
Hunter sat on a black armchair with one leg thrown over the armrest. His large frame looked almost comical in a chair that was much daintier than he was. Easton sat on top of a desk in the corner
, legs dangling, fingers curled around the edge. He was staring at his phone, his thumb typing furiously.
Their room was decorated in the same monochrome-and-color combination as mine, except it was much bigger. And had a lot more flowers — they were everywhere, several I didn’t even know existed, and it made the whole room smell like a garden. I glimpsed a big bed in the attached room, one big enough to fit several people. I swallowed, averting my eyes. I wasn’t going to think about that right now.
Instead, I flopped next to her on the couch. Lizzy leaned back lazily, one hand protectively on her belly and one pressed against her forehead.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her. It was weird how exhausting traveling could be, even though you didn’t really do that much.
Lizzy smiled at me. “I’m tired, but it’s great to be back in Aerwyna.”
“I guess I can see why you like it. I haven’t seen much of the city, obviously, but I like the feeling, here.”
Lizzy smiled. “I was just telling the guys that I wished I could take you out tonight, show you the city, point out all my favorite spots. But I’m exhausted, and I think the baby needs a rest, too.”
Easton stood up, putting his phone in his back pocket. “That’s why I took care of it for you. You just relax babe; maybe take a bath.” He walked over to Lizzy, kissing her softly. I didn’t look away; I was used to their PDA by now. He turned to me, a mischievous look on his face. “But you need to get up. You’re going out.”
“What?” I turned to him.
He gave me a ferocious grin, his eyes gleaming. “What Lizzy wants, she gets. You’re going out.”
2
Carrie
A chick with skinny jeans and a leather jacket, sleeves pushed halfway up her arms, leaned against the wall a foot up against it. Tattoos peeked out from underneath the top of her shirt, climbing up her neck. She was chewing gum, blowing a bubble and popping it.
I’d stepped outside of my room after refreshing my makeup and brushing my hair. Despite my protests, Lizzy, Hunter, and Easton all insisted I go out. Lizzy was especially worried that she was holding me back from enjoying the city, and Easton knew just the person to take me out.
