Highland Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Unknown

  I wanted to call out to him again, wanted to know if he was okay, but I stayed silent. That kind of heat could kill me. Hopefully, with Alec being a dragon, the spontaneous combustion was a good sign.

  Gathering my wits somewhat, I sought out the voice, giving it a mental jab. What’s going on?

  The voice was there, I could sense its presence, but it refused to respond. I turned to the energy around me, scoping out the vibe. It wasn’t as accurate as the voice, but the ability remained wholly within my control. The air within the stone circle had grown hot enough to glimmer, but I sensed no malice or danger. While the heat brought sweat to my brow, I could still breathe and I wasn’t on fire myself.

  Alec was still burning, but also growing up and up until he loomed over me. His shadow grew so long, it swallowed me and then the circle. Flames licked at the edges of his body, snapping and crackling, but burning what I couldn’t tell.

  His neck lengthened, thick as an overfed anaconda, while his head completely changed shape. A snout had blossomed on his face, and his coppery eyes were set apart on his wide head. As for the rest of him, his arms had retracted into small reptilian claws, his legs and feet became haunches. Dark scales erupted over his skin in a wave of blue fire.

  With one last crackle, the fire died and before me stood a dragon.

  We stared at each other for a long moment. I didn’t disbelieve the transformation, but I was hesitant to touch him lest he burn me. As for Alec, he appeared to be in shock. After two hundred years, he must’ve wondered if this moment would ever come. He kept leaning over and looking at his feet or twisting around to catch a glimpse of his wings, which he flapped experimentally.

  They stretched out longer than he was tall and scraped the top of the stones around us as he flexed them back and forth. He stepped outside of the circle, his movement heavy and lumbering. With one swift movement of his wings, he left the earth behind.

  In awe of his sheer size and enormous grace, I watched him ascend. The sun gave him the glint of a new copper penny. He moved in the air like a dancer commands the stage. His wings arced in graceful lines over his shoulders and his body was sleek as a spear. Spiraling, higher and higher, I feared he might try to make like Icarus and touch the sun, but instead he spun around so his head was aimed at the earth. Folding his wings along his back, he hurtled downward with increasing speed.

  “No!” I couldn’t keep myself from crying out, afraid he would crash.

  I didn’t understand dragons, as it turned out. They have the capabilities of a jet fighter. As a kid, I’d seen them fly at an air show. They did the same dive as Alec, even pulling up short right at the tree line. Alec had the same fine tuned control. When it seemed too late to prevent a collision, he threw out his wings and caught the air rushing around him.

  Then he soared up again, followed by another dive. He did this several times before gently landing outside the stone circle. The air around him shimmered like a mirage in the Sahara and the dragon collapsed, replaced by Alec in the blink of an eye.

  He gave me a broad grin and I ran to him, throwing my arms around his shoulders. “You’re free. The curse is broken.” I said.

  Alec swung me around. “Aye, that it is.” Setting me back on the ground, he said, “You’ll be next, just as soon as Malcolm is back.”

  My lips split in a grin almost as big as his. The idea of not being burdened with the voice made me giddy. I could settle down. I could love Alec. I froze, my smile fading as a thought struck me: Maybe that vision of me with Alec in the future was one in which the voice and I had parted ways?

  “What is it?” Alec asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Just hoping you’re right.” I squeezed him tight. My very own dragon. I couldn’t believe it. “Now what do we do?”

  “Go get Malcolm. You remember the address?” He handed me my clothes and then pulled on his.

  “Yeah, but aren’t we going to fly?” I frowned at him, confused.

  “Aye, lass, but not as a dragon. We need to go faster than that.”

  From the stone circle, we went to the castle where Alec briefly conferred with his brothers. Both Gavin and Niall were disappointed to be left behind, but the curse gave them no choice. From the castle, we hopped on Alec’s bike and drove into town where he withdrew some cash from the bank. The last stop was the airport and we booked the first flight to London.

  For once, I wasn’t running, I was chasing. Now the bad guys had to be afraid of me. The witches better watch out because dragons had my back.

  Chapter Six

  Alec’s face went white as the plane took off from Heathrow, the aircraft angling East toward New York. I slipped my hand under his, breaking his death grip on the arm rest. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of flying?”

  “Not when I’m the one flying.” He attempted a smile, but a muscle in his jaw twitched, giving away his anxiety.

  “Don’t think about it,” I advised.

  “What should I think about then?” Alec leaned in and gave me a lingering kiss. “Mayhap we should busy ourselves with more pleasant pastimes?”

  I pushed him back into his seat. “Well, as enticing as that offer is, we should probably come up with a plan.”

  He frowned. “A plan? We find Malcolm, I burn everything down. It’s that simple.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Alec. New York is a compact city. Any fire you start might hurt more than the witches.”

  Alec’s eyes narrowed as he considered my words. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  I pulled out my phone and brought up the map of Manhattan I’d downloaded earlier. “They’re somewhere over here.” I pulled up the street view and pointed to a warehouse district on the fringes of the city.

  Alec squinted at the screen. “Looks unguarded. There’s no people about.”

  “Don’t forget they have magic that didn’t even blink at your curse. They probably don’t need guards. We should be careful.”

  He shrugged, unimpressed. “They have magic, but I have dragon fire. I will do what needs doing to save my brother.”

  I squeezed his hand. “You’re a loyal man.”

  “It’s the dragon in me. I can’t be anything less.” He blanched as the plane hit turbulence and shuddered around us.

  I tugged on his hand, drawing his attention back to me. “I’ve been wondering something.”

  “What? Ask quick before this metal death trap crashes into the ocean.” He spoke loud enough for the people around us to shoot questioning looks our way.

  I smiled at everyone as nicely as I could. “It’s his first time on a plane,” I said.

  A frail woman with hair white as snow and wrinkles carving deep folds on her face, passed a little bottle of Scotch across the aisle. “This will do him good, lass. Give it to him.”

  “Thank you,” I said, accepting the booze and passing it over to Alec.

  Alec leaned forward and saluted the woman. “You’re a right bonny lass, m’am.”

  Her pale skin flushed pink at Alec’s compliment and she waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “No trouble at all, lad.” She produced another bottle from her purse and raised it up high. “To courage.”

  “Courage,” Alec echoed along with a few other people who, apparently, had their own stash of booze handy.

  We settled back in our seats then, and while Alec twisted open the Scotch, I returned to the question I’d intended to ask before we’d been interrupted. The booze would help, but I also thought it wise to keep Alec distracted and too busy to worry about crashing. The buzz from that little bottle wouldn’t last more than twenty minutes. “Why don’t you wear plaid kilts like other Scotsmen?”

  Alec paused, Scotch halfway to his mouth. “When the curse was cast over us, we were disavowed. We’d shamed the dragon race, you see. Until we break the bonds of magic that imprison us, we wear the black of mourning. We donna want to take lightly all that was lost, for both ourselves and those who died for no reason.”

&n
bsp; “They really kicked you out?” I asked, shocked. “So much for dragon loyalty, eh?”

  Alec took a sip of Scotch and said, “Nay, dragons are loyal to the end, but if they’d still claimed us as clan after what happened, the Fairy Queen might have thought them complicit in the trap that caught my brothers and me. You see, for a long time, the fair folk refused to believe we’d been tricked. They accused us, all the dragons, of attempting a coup.”

  “So the other dragons had to cut you off for the sake of appearances.”

  “Aye. It was politics.”

  “Some things never change.” I crossed my arms and gave a disapproving ‘harrumph.’

  He nodded in agreement as he tipped more booze down his throat.

  “What happened to the other dragons?”

  Alec lifted one shoulder in a shrug as he finished the last of the Scotch. “I donna know. I havna seen any in a verra long time.”

  “Did they leave?”

  “Mayhap, but I suspect they probably died.”

  My eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

  “Och, aye, lass. I wouldna jest with you. Dragons live a long time, but not forever. For a time, we saw our brethren cross the sky at least once a week. Then it was once month. Then we were lucky to see one in a year, and now, we have seen none in several decades.”

  “Are you the last dragons?”

  His expression grew somber. “Tis a possibility.”

  I worried my bottom lip, trying to puzzle out the math. “But how have you lived so long?”

  He thumped his chest. “Apparently curses such as mine are good for your health. I told you, lass, we are frozen in time and place until our maidens come.”

  The flight smoothed out after that and Alec relaxed, his earlier anxiety dissipating. We leaned against each other, stealing kisses and passing the time with small talk. If I hadn’t known better, we could have been on our honeymoon. Alec was tender and sweet with me, covering me with a blanket, making sure I was warm and offering me his shoulder to rest my head on. The voice remained silent, and for a little while, I pretended we were a regular couple without any magic meddling in our lives. For that small amount of time, I let my heart run free, knowing sooner or later I would have to cage it again.

  Chapter Seven

  In New York, we wended our way through customs and the airport to a taxi that delivered us to our destination. With an empty parking lot cratered with deep potholes and weeds growing all over the place, the warehouse had an abandoned air, but it was the address the voice had shown me.

  “What do you think?” Alec asked as we crept closer to the chain link fence ringing the property.

  I opened myself to the energy around me and gasped as it swarmed over me. “Evil,” I said. “We can’t see them, but they’re here.”

  “Do they know we’re out here?”

  “Not yet.” I concentrated, prodding the voice to do its job. A quick vision flashed. “They’re headed underground in a little bit. They have some kind of underground lair. We can get Malcolm then. He’s on the first floor.”

  Alec drew me back into the shadows of a thin, but tall bush. “Let’s wait here then. When the time comes, we’ll go right in the front door. I’ll lead and knock out anyone who might be there, okay?” He flexed his fingers and then contracted his hands into fists.

  “Sure,” I said, feeling sorry for whoever was going to meet Alec’s knuckles with their face.

  When it was time to go, Alec broke the chain lock on the fence with a deft twist of his wrist. At my shocked expression he said, “Dragons are really strong.”

  “Good to know. Thanks.”

  He opened the fence. “Follow me.”

  We crept forward, staying in the shadows. The door to the warehouse wasn’t locked. Alec gripped the handled and said, “On three, we go in. Hang back just in case.”

  At my nod, he mouthed ‘one, two, three’ and yanked the door open. There was a brief scuffle that I couldn’t see, but I heard the shuffle of feet and the grunt of someone taking a hit. Breathing heavily, Alec came back for me. “All clear.”

  I followed him inside where I took the lead as I was the only one who knew where Malcolm was being held. Other than a small lamp on a desk at the entrance, there were no lights inside.

  “I can’t see,” I whispered.

  “Here.” A fireball flashed into existence, levitating over Alec’s palm. “Will this do?”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  We walked to the other end of the building, the wide, open floor plan raising the hair on the back of my neck. Someone could be in a dark corner and we would never know. Still, when I reigned in my paranoia and took a second to actually feel the vibe of the place, it registered as empty. Any energy I sensed came from me and Alec or pinged faintly from under my feet. Odd that I didn’t catch Malcolm’s presence. He should have registered somewhere ahead of us. I focused on where I knew he was, searching for him, but it was like trying to catch wind.

  “I think he might be warded or something,” I whispered to Alec. “I can’t really feel him even though I know where he is. Something’s not right.”

  “We’ll find a way,” rumbled Alec, his Scottish accent rough with determination.

  When we arrived at the row of offices at the back of the building, I sought out the one I’d seen in my vision. It was the fourth door. I counted them off silently and then put my hand on the doorknob. This was it, the moment of truth. I expected to be shocked or zapped if there was magic locking the room down, but nothing happened and the doorknob turned easily.

  The real menace became apparent once we stepped inside the room. Malcolm was there. My vision had been correct, but incomplete. It hadn’t shown me the witches. There were three of them, eyes glittering full of magic and little triumphant smiles on their pinched faces. They’d known we were coming and somehow hidden from me.

  I immediately tried to reverse my direction, but it was too late. Not only did I run smack into Alec, the door slammed shut behind us. My intuition told me I wouldn’t be able to open it again anytime soon.

  It had been a trap and the voice had told me nothing. Alec brushed past me, moving in front to shield me from the witches. I searched for the voice and found it silent.

  “What’s going on?” I muttered to myself. The voice had spent years saving me, why not now?

  “I’ve come for my brother,” Alec said, his voice ringing with authority.

  “You can have him, just leave the girl,” said one of the witches. She was tall and thin as a reed with an angular face. Her dark eyes flashed at us, full of victory.

  Alec ignored her and crossed over to where Malcolm lay on a small cot. He groaned when Alec shook his shoulder.

  While everyone was watching Alec, I took a moment to try the door, but it wasn’t budging and the witches had known it. One of them, a short, chubby blonde, shook their head and rolled her eyes as if disappointed to find I was so dumb as to think they wouldn’t have the door covered.

  Ignoring her, I focused inward with increasing desperation. All I’d ever wanted was for the voice to leave me alone, but if I was truly free of it, the timing really sucked.

  I strained and caught the faintest echo of the voice in my mind. There, but not there. Like something was between us, keeping us apart. I looked back at Malcolm. I’d had a tough time feeling him, too. And I hadn’t sensed the witches at all.

  Which meant, they’d blocked me somehow. Probably with magic I would kill to have. I narrowed my eyes at the witches wondering if I could beat the spell out of them. I’d never really believed in magic until it took over my life. I’d also been a proponent of pacifism, abhorring war and other violence. Thanks to the voice, though, I’d changed. I was all about the hocus-pocus and fists-of-fury these days. Anything to survive.

  While I was messing with the door, Alec had managed to rouse Malcolm to the point of sitting up. He was groggy, but his eyes were open. He recognized me. “Sara.”

  “You okay, Malco
lm?”

  “You shouldna be here. Tis a trap.”

  “I noticed,” I said.

  Alec helped Malcolm stand, supporting most of his brother’s weight with one shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Where? You’re locked in here until we say otherwise.” The tall, thin witch gave a smug smile. To me she said, “You’re finally ours and we’re not letting you go so easily.”

  Now Alec was the one rolling his eyes at his opponent’s stupidity. The only problem? I didn’t follow what mistake they’d made. I’d tried the door, it wasn’t going to open. As far as I could tell, the witches were right and we were all at their mercy, with me being the prize catch.

  I’d forgotten about Alec’s fire, though. And I’d underestimated him.

  He threw back his head and opened his mouth wide. A line of flame raced for the door. It hit the wood and ignited in a crackle of red. I stepped further into the room, not wanting to catch fire myself. The air became hot and heavy as the fire used up oxygen, but the door held.

  I shot Alec a worried look, but he didn’t seem concerned. Sucking in a deep breath, he blew out more fire, this time going for the wall. It was ablaze within seconds and whatever spell was on the door didn’t extend to the rest of the room. The dry wall crumbled and fell away in chunks, revealing the wooden studs underneath.

  The witches began to chant. What I didn’t know, but it probably wasn’t good news for us.

  “Come on,” I yelled, stepping between the studs to escape the room. The room was still very much ablaze, but I would rather stop-drop-and-roll than become property of some deranged witch coven.

  Alec dragged Malcolm forward, pausing only to break the studs to make room for their combined bulk to pass. The witches made to follow us, but Alec turned back and lobbed fireballs at them with his free hand. Whatever spells they’d cast, they hadn’t thought to fireproof anything, including themselves. Their robes started to burn, which kept them too busy trying not to die to bother with us.