“Are you, like, a vampire or something?” There was a teasing note in his voice.
She sighed. Why couldn’t people just let her wear black and not ask if she was a witch or a vampire? It was better than getting asked if she was a shifter. No one knew about her kind.
He dropped to sit next to her, too close once more. “Vampires don’t exist, but I can let you in on a secret. This town has other kinds of monsters. They change shapes. Like, turn into animals, I mean.”
So, this was that kind of town.
He shook his head. “Fucking monsters, man. I can’t believe we let them live with us. I heard there’s a bar outside of town where they hang out. The really lonely women go there because they think animal cock is better than no cock at all.”
Zara blinked at this guy. She couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth. Even if shifters hadn’t been real, even if he was making shit up, he was coming off as a real asshole. Zara was tempted to reveal her true nature just to watch him run away, but that might have stirred up trouble with her roommate that she didn’t need.
While Chelsea sat on the other side of her, she suspected her roommate wasn’t listening. Behind those reflective sunglasses, Chelsea was probably scouring the beach for Asher. He wouldn’t be here, though. While he said he lived near the lake, this wasn’t just any lake. It was one of the Great Lakes.
On the other side of this expanse of water was Canada, and she couldn’t even see a bit of it. The lake stretched on like the ocean. She wanted to swim out to the middle and float in blessed silence, far away from her GPA and her meddling roommate.
“Why isn’t he here?” Chelsea moaned.
Zara knew she shouldn’t ask. She already knew the answer, but if she didn’t say something, Chelsea would just keep on complaining.
But before Zara could say anything, a speed boat rushed the beach. It zoomed closer. Zara’s heart skipped a beat when she thought she saw a flash of white hair. She told herself it was probably just an old man on his boat. But the boat slowed as it came closer to the beach.
Chelsea sat upright, her hand slapping down on Zara’s thigh. She squeezed.
“Holy shit,” Chelsea muttered, holding her other hand over her eyes. “Is it just me or is that a boatload of hot men? Like, really hot men?”
The guys who’d driven them to the beach protested, but neither Zara nor Chelsea heard anything they had to say. Chelsea was practically drooling, but Zara’s heart had leapt into her throat.
Familiar faces appeared. The boat was full of dragon shifters. All the ones Zara had seen at the bar the night before.
Zara coughed to clear her throat. “Like you have a chance in hell with them. They’re all mated.”
Chelsea shot her a strange look. “What did you just say?”
Zara cursed herself. She’d let the M-word slip. Humans didn’t say shit like that.
“Those guys? They’re all married. Didn’t you see them at the bar yesterday? There were women with them.” Zara hoped her roommate would accept the diversion and not ask any questions.
Of course, Chelsea did. “Marriage isn’t forever. Do you think they’ll get off the boat? I don’t want to swim out to them. That’s coming on too strong.”
Zara cocked her head. “Did you apply to college with the hopes of finding someone rich to marry before you actually had to get your degree?”
Chelsea said nothing. If she heard Zara at all, she didn’t acknowledge it. Zara shrugged. Her beast turned her attention back to the boat. A man stood on the edge, waving his arm. Immediately, she knew who it was. She would know him anywhere. The answer sat in her chest, like a truth that she could never shake.
Asher.
He turned back to his clanmates for a moment then leapt over the side of the boat. Zara groaned. She was both excited and annoyed as she watched him swim to shore. He dove under the surface. She held her breath, waiting for him to come back up. Fear gripped her harder than she ever expected.
Asher expected Zane to reach out and grab him, but the trapped dragon didn’t make an appearance, allowing Asher to reach the beach. An invisible line tethered him to her, it reeled him in and made it impossible for Asher to move in any other direction.
The annoying blonde had been sitting by Zara’s side, but he could dodge her again if he needed to. Maybe he would run up and grab Zara, run off with her before anyone could stop him. Maybe he would plant himself right between the two women and ignore everything the blonde tried to do.
Asher walked ashore. Immediately, a growl rumbled like thunder in his chest. There was a human man sitting too close to Zara. The human man inched closer to her, like he was marking his territory as Asher approached.
Tossing his head to flick the water out of his hair, Asher met the man’s eyes and let the heat of his beast fill him. It didn’t take long for the human man to back down and lean away from Zara.
“How,” she began once he was close enough to hear, “did you know it was me on this beach?”
The blonde aggressively tried to get his attention, but Asher planted himself between the two women and put his back to the blonde. As he rested his head in his hand, he grinned up at Zara. She shook her head, but he could see the sparkle in her eye.
“When I saw someone absolutely miserable on the beach, I knew it could only be one person.”
She laughed. “I’m not miserable!”
“Anyone would be miserable in this cloud of cologne. Who the hell is wearing a bucket of spray-can cologne?” Asher waved his hand in front of his face. It was no joke. His eyes were starting to water.
The man on the other side of Zara glowered at him. Asher just waggled his fingers in a mocking greeting. No one at this party was as hot as he and Zara were. If Mr. Cologne thought he had a chance in hell, Asher was going to put him in his place.
“Wait,” the man said slowly. “You’re that MMA fighter. The undefeated heavyweight champion.”
“The one and only,” Asher growled.
Zara pursed her lips, clearly onto what he was trying to do. She said nothing, though, which made him think she didn’t want Mr. Cologne around either.
Mr. Cologne’s face twisted. He glanced at Zara, straightened his spine, and scooted closer to her. Asher couldn’t stop his beast’s roar. It vibrated his chest. The creature tried to claw its way out of him, wanting nothing more than to rip the human’s face off.
Zara got to her feet. She held the ridiculous hat on her head as she left the shade and the shrinking space between Asher and Mr. Cologne. Her silk shorts fluttered in the wind. He wanted to run his hands over her hips and feel the softness of her skin beneath those shorts. She ignored him, though.
“I’m going for a walk,” she muttered.
The blonde latched onto Asher’s shoulder. She was adamant, but Asher had no time for her. She wasn’t half as intriguing as the fox-girl who kept running away from him. Most women acted like the blonde. They clamored for his attention because of who he was on television. People recognized him as a fighter, as a celebrity.
Zara saw him as a dragon.
He got to his feet and gave chase. It didn’t take long to catch up to her. She hadn’t gotten far, like she was waiting for him to catch up. Hope surged like light in his chest, making him feel like a balloon about to leap into the sky.
“There’s nowhere to escape on this beach,” Zara grumbled.
The sandy stretch was closed in on all sides by dense trees. If Zara wanted to run away, she would have to slip into the woods and change shapes. Asher didn’t think she would do it. Not when she slowed to match his pace. Was she aware of what she was doing? Or did it come naturally?
He glanced down at her feet and caught sight of a jack-o-lantern on her skin. The tattoo grinned wickedly up at him, a set of bats flying out of the top.
“That is a sick tattoo,” he said.
“Huh? Oh, the pumpkin?” She licked her lips. “I like Halloween. That’s all. It’s much better than summer.”
&
nbsp; He let his gaze rove over the skin exposed by her black swimsuit and shorts. “I don’t know, summer has its benefits.”
She smacked him in the shoulder, an annoyed scowl on her face. “I get enough of that from stinky over there.”
Ah, so the human had been trying to get into Zara’s shorts. Asher turned a glare back to the humans. “Did he touch you?”
Asher would break his fingers. He would make sure the man never got the chance to touch anyone else ever again.
Zara grabbed his face, her grasp so sudden that it stung. “Don’t mess with them. They’re just dumb men. You said it yourself that all men are dumb.”
His breath was ragged. Her touch was too much. He wanted to lean into her, taste her gleaming lips, and pull her into his body so that he could feel all of her against him. The beast in him agreed and tried to shove him forward. Asher fought against the primal part of himself, afraid that he would scare Zara away.
She’d said it herself, she had enough of men looking at her body. If he was going to win her over, he needed to be better than the other men. The problem was, Asher wasn’t any better. He wasn’t the kind of man a girl could take home. He was just another animal, driven by the beast inside of him.
As much as Asher wanted to blame what happened with Alistair, he worried that this was just his true nature. It wasn’t some sort of old scar that made Asher’s beast crave pain. This bloodlust was all his own. And he knew it.
With a sigh, he drew back. Zara’s hands fell away. She glanced over his shoulder to the umbrella and the others before shoving her hands into her pockets.
“Fall. Halloween,” he said, shaking himself. “I agree. It is the best holiday. Do you realize how much candy people give away for free?”
“Seriously? You make thousands of dollars per fight, and you take free candy meant for kids? You could buy your own!”
He jerked back playfully. “I have to buy my own? Then what’s the whole point of Halloween?”
“The point of Halloween is staying up late watching horror movies and kicking piles of leaves on the sidewalk.”
His features contorted in confusion. “Aren’t you from California? You guys don’t even have fall leaves. Isn’t is all just palm trees out there?”
“Yes and no,” she said. “There are a lot of palm trees where I’m from, but some of the nice neighborhoods plant maple trees. Those are my favorite streets.”
He imagined relaxing on a plush couch with her, turned to face the massive windows in his lake house so that they could see the rich colors of the trees around the lake, the joy in her eyes as she took in the fiery orange and mustard yellow of the leaves. It was a vision of a future he wasn’t sure he could claim.
Not if his beast kept making crude demands. Zara deserved better than a ham-handed monster of a man. But he couldn’t leave her side, either. He wanted to linger in her presence for a while longer and listen to her go on about something she clearly loved. The misery he saw from across the water had vanished. In its place was enthusiasm and happiness.
He basked in it, letting both sink into his skin as if he could feel it for himself for a little bit. With everything that happened since he returned home, Asher wasn’t sure he could find happiness. Zane might have been trapped in that damn lake, but Asher was alone day in and day out.
His clanmates came home, but one after another they found mates. Their lives deviated from his. He turned to drink just to drown the empty ache in his chest. Sometimes, he struck fights with them to feel the stinging pain that could fill the hole in him. He needed to call his manager and schedule another fight, but he couldn’t leave Michigan until he fixed Zane’s problem.
Zara fell silent. She wasn’t the only one. Asher saw the horror in Zara’s eyes and turned to see a great wave rising over the beach. People scrambled to their feet. Screams started to fill the air. They were cut off when the water crashed down.
“Shit,” he hissed.
Both of them ran toward the receding water. Asher flung out his hand to stop Zara before she could reach the beach.
“Stay here,” he begged. “I’ve got this under control.”
She didn’t look convinced, but nodded.
5
Zara watched Asher rush into the face of danger. He didn’t hesitate before jumping into the water. Meanwhile, her heart thundered with fear. What was going on? This was something she would expect from the ocean, but not from a lake. Waves like this just didn’t happen.
Asher resurfaced with two people in his grasp. He dragged them toward the shore. Zara rushed forward and helped them away from the beach. Asher’s lips twisted into a frown, like he didn’t like her so close to the water. She couldn’t help it. He was alone when the situation called for more than two hands.
In the distance, Chelsea cried out. Asher tore himself away from the group on the beach and jumped back into the water. Dread slid down the back of Zara’s throat, heavy and unwelcome. It took up a place in her gut and grew heavier the longer she stared at the restless waters. She waited for Asher to reach the surface again. There was no hint of him among the waves.
Zara had come from the West Coast. She’d met a sea shifter. Lia never once told her that there would be dangerous things lurking in the waters. No one warned Zara that even a landlocked lake could hide such monsters. That was all it could be. The ominous feeling in the air wasn’t just Zara’s fear. It was more than that.
Whatever hid itself in the lake was watching her with malice. It was angry. She didn’t know how to explain quite how she knew. It had to do with the thickness of the air, the way her skin crawled like eyes were on her, and the utter lack of birds in the air.
The whole beach had become something out of an old horror novel, the kind written by a stuffy, frightened old man. Zara told herself to run away and find safety, but her feet moved toward the lake without her permission. Asher was still in there, and she hadn’t seen him come up for air. She needed to save him.
How? She didn’t know. All Zara was sure of was the fact that she had to do something. She couldn’t just stand around and do nothing. The beast in her might have been small, but it was daring. Zara lurched into the water.
It lapped at her ankles. Her breath caught in her throat. She stole a moment, whispering under her breath that she could do this. While she was trying to psych herself up, the water around her feet yanked her to the ground. She yelped. Sand grated against her back as the water dragged her deeper. As hard as she tried to scrabble to safety, the sand kept giving way beneath her grasp.
It felt like someone had grabbed her, like hands had appeared and tugged her under. If this was some sort of cruel joke, someone was going to pay. Zara didn’t scream. She was a shifter, raised by one of the most powerful bear alphas on the West Coast. Pride kept her lips sealed as the water slowly rose over her head.
Zara gasped right as the water lapped over her face. The dim light of day disappeared. She was surrounded by blue darkness, growing black as she was dragged deeper. Zara decided in that moment that she would forever more despise beaches. If she survived this, she was throwing out all of her swimsuits. She would never touch sand again.
Asher set the blonde on her feet. She staggered, and he reached out to steady her. For once, she had nothing to say. The incident had stolen all of her usual gumption. All that was left was a shaking girl. Asher felt bad leaving her alone, but he needed to find Zara.
The beast in him forced him to turn away from the shivering blonde. Asher’s stomach slapped the ground when he saw the beach was empty. There was no sign of anyone. He spun around, searching high and low for the black-haired woman. He was moments away from screaming her name.
She had to be somewhere around here. He’d told Zara to go to safety. He wanted to believe that’s what she’d done. For a moment, Asher thought of running up the small hill to the parking lot, where the other humans had gathered. Maybe she was hiding among them.
The beast in him knew where she was. A growl hummed al
ong his skeleton. Every bone in him vibrated with the fury trapped inside him. Asher spun back toward the water.
“If you touched her, I will make sure you stay in this lake for the rest of your undeserving life,” he snarled at Zane.
This was all Zane’s fault. His old friend, the one who Sybil had sacrificed, was trapped in the lake. While the clan had regrouped and were doing everything in their power to help Zane, the shifter kept acting out. His mind was warped. Vengeance was the only thing Zane thought about, with the strange exception of Charlotte, who was safe from all of Zane’s antics.
Asher rushed the water. He didn’t hesitate, leaping right back into the churning waves filled with Zane’s anger. The water tried to grab at him. It did its best to pull him down into the darkness, but Asher was strong. He’d fought against every kind of shifter over the past ten years. It made him resilient. Zara’s disappearance made him determined.
Zane’s roar of frustration made the lake tremble. It knocked Asher back. The shadowed form of Zane rushed past Asher. While Asher couldn’t see clearly, he thought he recognized the shape of Zara. She was sinking. Her hands reached toward the surface.
Asher would grab those hands. He wouldn’t leave her down here. An invisible thread drew them together. He wished he could grab it and reel her towards him. As it was, Zane’s fury threw Asher back. The waves were just too large. The current slammed into him over and over again.
Through it all, he could hear Zane’s laughter. No one was allowed to be happy so long as Zane suffered. That was all this was about. Asher was forced to suffer because Zane suffered. But there was no way in hell that Asher was going to allow Zara to be pulled into this. Zane could beat Asher down any day, but the moment Zara was dragged into this, all bets were off.
Annoyed, Asher unleashed his beast. The great white dragon spread its wings wide and beat at the water. He shot forward like a bullet, pushing past the currents trying to pull him back. Zara saw him. She knew his beast form and reached for him.
Asher (Keepers Of The Lake Book 4) Page 4
