by Sophie Stern
Now it’s been three months.
Three months of washing dishes, baking muffins, sweeping floors. Three months of menial labor and being the person everyone loves to hate. I’m not stupid. I know none of these dragons can stand me. Not only did I shoot Lawrence, one of the best dragons ever, with a tranquilizer dart, but I almost kept him and his mate from finding each other.
His human mate, Julie,doesn’t seem to blame me for anything that happened. She’s probably the closest thing I have to a friend, but right now, she’s caught up in her new romance.
And she deserves to be.
She doesn’t need to be worrying that I’m having a hard time adjusting to life in the clan.
She doesn’t need to be worrying that something bad will happen to me.
Who could have predicted that after all I’ve been through, this would be the way I die?
A random man in the bakery.
He’s definitely not letting me leave here alive.
“Can I help you?” I ask again. The man is still staring at me. He’s not saying a word. He’s tall, as most shifters are, but he doesn’t have the brightness in his eyes that most of them do. This man seems sad, almost. He seems broken.
And then he blinks.
Twice.
His tongue slips out and slides over his lips very slowly. He’s tasting himself, and it reminds me of a predator.
Then I realize what he is.
He must be a lion.
Or a tiger.
A cougar.
He’s some kind of cat.
Suddenly, I’m quite certain of it.
And the only cats who live in Fablestone are the ones who were rescued from a Lucky facility. They’re the ones who were infected and later saved by some of the dragons and humans who live here. People love to hate me, but I’ve been here long enough that they’ve loosened their tongues around me, too. The citizens aren’t quite as close-lipped as they used to be and besides, the clan leaders have grilled me enough during my time here asking questions about Lucky and the infrastructure of the organization that it doesn’t take much to piece it all together.
This man is one of the people whose lives were stolen.
And he’s out for blood.
He’s here to kill me, and it’s all because I was hired by a company that happens to be evil. It has nothing to do with me as a person. I wasn’t the one who caught those dragons. I’m not the one who tortured them. None of that matters, though. When you’re hurting, you just need someone to blame, and right now, that person happens to be me. I’m the one he wants to blame for everything that went wrong.
“What is it that you want?” I whisper. I’m not shaking. I’m not scared. My heart is pounding because I can’t believe this is actually going to happen. He’s going to do it. He’s going to take me. He’s going to take me and hurt me and there won’t be a thing I can do about it. Or maybe he’ll do it here.
Quickly.
Painlessly.
Maybe it won’t even hurt.
Maybe I won’t realize what’s happened until it’s too late.
“I want my life back,” he whispers.
“I didn’t take it,” I tell him quietly. It’s the truth. I worked at Lucky a total of one week before I was snatched up by Fablestone and brought to the clan. One week of experience. That’s all I have to offer. That’s all of the information I have. I don’t know where the Lucky facilities are all located. I didn’t know they were hurting dragons or other shifters. I didn’t know they were performing experiments on them.
I thought it was a good company.
A safe company.
I thought it was a place I could do a little bit of good in the world.
My entire career has been about helping other people. I’ve always dreamed of saving the world and I thought I finally had a chance at doing just that.
Now I know better.
Each night, I fall asleep curled in a ball. I try not to cry, but I can’t help myself. I’ve been staying with Cameron’s mother, Henrietta. She was kind enough to take me in and when I’m not at the bakery, I’m helping her with anything she needs. I don’t want her to know I’m still crying myself to sleep at night. I don’t want her to notice I can barely eat.
I can barely handle the pain I caused.
And now I’m staring into the eyes of someone who looks like me.
He looks lost.
He looks hurt.
He looks like he’ll do anything he can to get his world back, but it’s not coming back. He’s going to kill me, but it won’t make him feel better. He’s going to hurt me, but he’s still going to have pain. I don’t know what he walked away from. Maybe it was a family. Maybe it was a great job. Maybe he had a girlfriend. Whatever Lucky stole from him, it’s long gone now. It’s not really safe for him to go back. Not now.
“You worked for the people who did,” the man says.
I didn’t know they were bad.
I don’t say this.
I should, but I don’t.
“I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
It’s all I can muster right now.
Somehow, I know my words are going to do nothing to ease his pain. Besides, since when has denial ever worked? It might be true. In fact, it is. I didn’t know it was an evil corporation.
Just like I didn’t know Micah was married.
In the end, none of that mattered.
People still got hurt.
And I’m tired of being the one to do the hurting.
Maybe this is it, then. Maybe this is my penance.
The man walks further into the bakery. He lets the door close behind him, albeit gently. The bell jingles ever-so-slightly, but that’s it. He just looks at me. So many things fill his eyes: rage, sadness, pain. He has a world of hurt in his eyes and I can’t imagine what was done to him. Apparently Dragon-X isn’t a miracle drug like I was led to believe. It was tested on people – shifters – like this man, and he’s out for blood.
He’s out for me.
He opens his mouth and roars. Loudly. I close my eyes and cover my ears. I don’t want to, but it’s an automatic reflex. I drop to the floor behind the cash register and scurry into the corner. Instantly, I’m crying from the pain of his roar, but I don’t run away. If he wants to kill me, running will only tire me out. I can’t beat a shifter.
Not an angry one.
“I want my life back!” He screams again, and I cover my ears, shaking my head. I should look at him, but I can’t handle the noise, the pain, the sadness.
I want mine back, too.
“They took everything from me!” He says. “Everything! Do you know what that’s like? Do you?”
I shake my head, crying as he continues to yell.
“I’m sorry,” I cry loudly. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say to him, what I’m supposed to do. I don’t beg him to spare my life. I know I don’t deserve that. I just cry as he yells again and again.
He starts yelling and shouting words I don’t understand, phrases that mean nothing to me. He says things I don’t understand and things I’ll never forget, but then I hear his clothes ripping and I know, even without looking, that he’s shifting. He’s shifting into a monster and I am the prey.
“I’m sorry!” I scream.
I didn’t do this to you.
I didn’t really want to die this way.
I didn’t really want to die today.
Then again, is anyone ever ready?
Is anyone ever up for it?
Who wakes up and thinks, “Today is the day. I’m going to die, but that’s fine. I’ve lived a good life.”
Me?
Mine is full of regret and pain and sadness. I was hoping to get some of that out of my system before my end, but it’s just not meant to be.
Then he growls, and I open my eyes to see two bright orange-and-black eyes piercing my own. His paws are thick and heavy against the counter. He opens his jaw and I see nothing but beautiful, shining t
eeth, and I know this is the end.
I close my eyes once more, but the end doesn’t come.
Chapter Two
Lee
I’ve known there wasn’t something right about Reece for awhile now, but everyone ignored my instincts. Now I regret not doing something about the tiger shifter sooner. I pass him as I’m leaving the bakery and as much as I want to be alone with my feelings or, you know, go punch something, there’s no fucking way I’m letting him lay a finger on Nicole. If that bastard so much as makes her cry, he’s going to wish he’d never come here.
Quietly, I circle back around so he doesn’t notice me. Not that Reece would. He’s so caught up in his own pain that he barely notices anyone around him. In fact, he and Nicole have a lot in common. They’re both lost in their own ways. She thinks people don’t notice that she doesn’t really eat anymore, that she doesn’t sleep. Cameron’s mother has been quietly going crazy trying to keep Nicole from losing weight, but the little human is so beyond the point of stress that she can’t deal with anything.
I probably should have stepped in weeks ago and intervened, tried to make her eat, tried to reason with her, but the idea of talking with her about anything at all just brings back so many memories of our time together. Usually, I’m all about avoiding pain from the past, but right now, I’m concerned about pain in the present.
Why is Reece going toward the bakery?
Surely he doesn’t have a craving for chocolate chip cookies.
No, something tells me that right now, he’s out for blood, and he’ll be more than happy to take that from Nicole if he can get it.
As I loop back to the bakery, I keep Reece within eyesight. I don’t want to admit that seeing Nicole surprised me today. Oh, I knew she was here. I’ve known for awhile. I just didn’t know she was in the fucking bakery. Fuck me for having a muffin craving today. Of all the days, why did I have to wander into the shop at a time when she was working?
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to push thoughts of our time together away. She always was fucking gorgeous and sexy as hell. She might be a little thinner now,but the truth is that she hasn’t aged a fucking day. She’s still just as lovely now as she was back then. She’s still just as sweet, just as soft.
She’s still just as wonderful.
Stop.
I pull myself from my reverie and I think about her.
Really think about her.
She’s not the woman I loved. I have to remind myself. That woman, the woman who made me laugh until my sides ached, she’s gone. That woman wasn’t ready. That woman wasn’t prepared for me. She didn’t want me. Not really. Not when she knew the real me. The woman I loved, all those years ago, is not the same woman I saw this morning standing behind the counter. The woman with the drop of flour on her nose isn’t the same girl I used to stay up all night talking with.
They are two very different people, and I would do well to remember that.
I try to remind myself that she was the one who left me. I proposed to her and she said she wasn’t ready yet. Oh, she pretended there was a deeper reason. Some philosophical reason, I know, that she couldn’t be with me, but I know the truth.
I knew it then and I knew it now.
She wanted someone else.
There must have been someone else.
Either that, or she didn’t like dragons, but Nicole was such an open-minded person back then. I didn’t think she was so shallow that she couldn’t accept me for being a shifter. Not when I didn’t tell her until that day. It wasn’t until I confessed that she was my mate, that I knew we were destined to be together, that she became scared. I asked her to marry me and like the naïve, 19-year-old kid that I was, I thought she’d definitely say yes. I thought there was no way she could turn down my wonderful offer of marriage, or of living with my clan, or of exploring the world together.
I would have given Nicole anything she wanted, but she didn’t want me.
She said no.
And we walked away.
And now we’re here.
Ten years later and I’m sneaking down the road like some sort of teenage comic book villain, trying not to be seen until the time is right. Despite the way I still hurt after all of this time, I can’t let Reece do anything stupid. Not when emotions are running high around the clan these days. We’re all tired. We’re all stressed. We all need some sort of reprieve.
We all need something that makes us feel a little less alone.
We all need some safety.
Nicole?
Nicole isn’t safe.
She never has been.
She’s always been wild.
Vibrant.
Beautiful.
She’s like the colors of the rainbow all mixed together: swirled in a beautiful, chaotic piece of art.
And I miss her.
I shouldn’t miss her, or her smile, or the way she made me laugh. I shouldn’t have been filled with so many different emotions today when I saw her standing behind the counter. My heart shouldn’t have soared when I saw her eyes light up, only for a moment, when she saw me. None of those feelings are productive, I remind myself.
Reece disappears from my sight and I scurry around the side of a building and up behind the bakery, as I make my way around the little building, I approach the bakery quietly and cautiously.
He’s arrived and he’s made his presence to Nicole known.
Dammit, Reece.
Why today?
Of all the days to seek vengeance, why did it have to be today?
I listen quietly from my spot. Neither one of them can see or hear me, but I can smell the emotions wafting from the building: anger and pain from him. And from her? It’s not fear. It’s more like...resignation.
What the fuck?
Nicole smells sad, but she’s not sending out signals of being afraid. That’s very strange, especially in a moment when I think it’s really, really obvious that Reece doesn’t exactly have her best interests in mind.
I can hear their voices: his, mostly. He’s being louder than he should. He’s angry. Nicole might not be able to scent his emotions, but being a dragon has its perks, and I sure as hell can.
Angry.
He’s fucking angry.
She does seem to have that effect on people.
Still, I know that Nicole isn’t the one at fault here. Did she work for a terrible and evil organization? Yes. Apparently, though, she was unaware of just how bad Lucky really is. Apparently she didn’t know. There’s a part of me that wants to believe that’s true. Either way, whether she’s being honest or not, Reece isn’t the one who gets to punish her.
Who does?
Sometimes I wish my inner-dragon would just shut the hell up because right now, I want to be the one to see justice brought to Nicole. I want to pull her over my knee and rip those too-tight jeans right off her body. I want to slide a claw over her soft skin, scratching her softly, and then I want her to beg me to spank her.
I want to be the one to punish her.
I want to make her forget everything: why she left, where she went, what happened next. I want her to forget everything except my fucking name, and part of me hates just how much I still need her in that way. My body has never stopped craving hers. That’s just one of the problems with finding your mate. You need them. They’re irreplaceable. Nicole might be disliked by the clan, and she might be disliked by me, but that doesn’t make my inner dragon want her or need her any less.
I’m brought back to reality when I hear an ear-deafening scream. This doesn’t sound like sadness. This just sounds like pain, like absolute devastation. This roar is from someone who has nothing else to lose.
It’s from someone who has nothing left at all.
“I want my life back!” I hear Reece scream, and then he roars. Just like that, I’m brought from my fantasy dropped hard into reality. I shift before I think about it and throw my body at the bakery. At a time like this, I don’t bother taking the time to open the fro
nt door. I just go barreling directly through the side of the building.
It’s just a building.
There will be plenty of time to fix things later.
The thing I can’t fix, though, is her. If he breaks her, I don’t know if I can keep going. I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive. Nicole might be my ex. She might have torn my heart out and ripped it to shreds. But if he hurts her...
I push the thought away and dive into the building, attacking Reece as he prepares to launch his tiger-self at Nicole. We land beside Nicole and I turn my head to her. Everything seems to stop for just a second. Time pauses. Our eyes lock. The world goes silent.
And then she moves.
Smart girl.
She scoots away and runs out through the back. I hear her screaming, and I know she’s trying to get someone to come stop Reece. Not that I can’t stop him on my own. He might be one of the biggest tigers here, but at the end of the day, he’s still a damn tiger. He’s no match for me. He could never be a match for me.
Not with my wings.
Not with my size.
Not with my damn weight.
He cries out when our bodies collide, when we hit the floor. I don’t care. I don’t feel any remorse for my actions. He was going to hurt the woman I loved. There’s no excuse for that. Although Nicole and I are long over, the idea of him hurting her makes me sick. I growl, pinning him easily to the floor.
The fight is over before it ever began.
Reece groans, but his eyes are squeezed shut. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t want to see me. I understand why. I get it. He’s been through hell. He’s been tortured, hurt. Reece was captured by Lucky and experiments were performed on him. When he was “rescued” and brought back to Fablestone, he unwittingly carried a virus that infected almost the entire clan. Thanks to the quick thinking and bravery of one of the human residents, Fablestone was saved, but even being rescued comes at a price.
Reece is the one paying that price.
He can’t leave.
He can’t go back.
The scientists at Lucky know his name. They know where he worked. They know everything about him. He can’t return to his old life. No matter how much he might want to, he can’t go back. It’s simply not safe. He knows too much for them to leave him alone. If anyone from Lucky finds him, they’ll hurt him again.
