by Lizzy Ford
Chapter Fourteen
Being around Skylar was too much of a distraction. Chace had never been so aware of someone that he noticed when even a single hair was out of place or felt the distress that clouded her blue eyes. The tension between them made it harder for him to think straight when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms the way he had previously.
She definitely didn’t want anything to do with him right now, which left him restless and turned on.
He torched the magic that had polluted her body then went to the only other place where he found solace. Landing behind the bar right as the sun began to set, his body morphed back into its human shape. He stood for a moment, gaze on the sky. He was tired and weak from whatever it was Caleb had used to try to kill him.
“Dragon shifter?” A woman’s voice came from a few feet away.
He turned. The statuesque blonde with large breasts and long hair didn’t seem comfortable. Her eyes darted around them, and she was clenching her hands together.
“Who’s asking?” he asked warily.
She held out a familiar appointment card, and he relaxed. Chace approached her and took it, pretending not to notice how she inched away. His magic was agitated; it made the air around him hot enough for a sauna.
“Thanks,” he said. “Stay out of the bar.”
She said nothing but took another step back then turned and hurried around front, where she was probably parked.
Chace read the card.
Five minutes. Same place as last time.
He shoved it in his pocket and took off at a trot towards the ocean, the sunset at his back. The dark blue sky stretched before him, sprinkled with stars. Twilight always reminded him of the Viking funerals he’d attended as a youth. They were frequent during the volatile period when he was born, the result of wars and a famine that had hit his village. Rather than disturb him, the connection to his past calmed him. At this time where day transitioned into night, he was able to pretend that the modern world didn’t exist, that he was still home a thousand years before.
Some things never change, he thought to himself, eyes on the darkening horizon while he jogged down the dirt road. The ocean air was cold, the way it was at home, and the flavorful scent of the sea worked into his senses.
By the time he reached the place where Mr. Nothing wanted to meet, he felt centered again, despite the frustrating woman and mystery he wasn’t able to figure out.
Mr. Nothing was there, leaning against a boulder, waiting.
It was one of the few times Chace had seen his features. They were bathed in the brilliant, orange-pink light of the dying sun. Mr. Nothing was a man in his prime with black hair peppered with silver and blue eyes, porcelain skin and chiseled features. He was slender but solid, built more like a runner than the thicker, weight lifting crew Chace ran with. He wore all black, as usual.
“You rang?” Mr. Nothing asked drily. His eyes were colder than the sea, his penetrating gaze too steady to be friendly.
“Got a few questions for you,” Chace replied.
“Did you find her?”
“I did.” Chace chose his words carefully, not at all certain why Mr. Nothing would want Skylar but certain it wasn’t a good reason. Mr. Nothing was too … cold, self-serving, to have good intentions. “There’s something not right at all about these slayers,” he started. “Or what they’re doing to the shifters. But you knew this, didn’t you?”
“I suspected.”
Chace regarded him closely. Mr. Nothing appeared genuinely interested, as if he really didn’t know what Chace would discover when sent on the mission to capture Skylar and find the location of the others.
“How did you know where to look for what was wrong?” Chace asked. “I didn’t. None of us did. We just knew the shifters were disappearing.”
Mr. Nothing crossed his arms.
“It’s only fair we share information,” Chace said, amused by the silent refusal. “Like you said, we’re both on the same team here in wanting to protect the shifters. The more you tell me, the more I can help.”
There was a stony silence, one Chace didn’t think was going to end the way he wanted, when Mr. Nothing’s arms dropped and he looked out towards the ocean.
“A … friend of mine was taken. I started digging into the disappearance but hit a brick wall. I’m from a much older caste of shifters than you, a nocturnal generation who cannot be exposed to full daylight,” Mr. Nothing said. “It limited my ability to investigate.”
“So your friend disappeared one day, and you stumbled on these slayers.”
“Yes. I tracked down Skylar and a few of the others, but what I was able to discern with my limited abilities made no sense.”
“Yeah, I was baffled at first, too,” Chace admitted. “Until I realized that they’ve been brainwashed.”
“Brainwashed?” Mr. Nothing looked at him with a frown. “By whom?”
“If you’re asking who’s behind the whole thing, I have no idea. If you want to know where it happens, that I know. But I don’t think the master puppeteer behind all of this is located there, just the worker-bees who are probably all brainwashed.” Chace paused, pensive. “Since you’ve been around much longer than me, who do you think has that ability and bears a grudge against shifters?”
“I don’t know. We are solitary creatures by nature.” Mr. Nothing’s response was too quick to convince Chace it was the truth. “You found Skylar?”
“Yeah. There are dozens of these slayers there. Why are you interested in just one?” It was Chace’s turn to cross his arms.
“My business,” Mr. Nothing replied. “She was brainwashed, too?”
“She seems to be coming out of it. Slowly. Or at least, sometimes she seems reasonable.” Chace shook his head. “From what I learned, they go in annually for their reprogramming, where I’m guessing their minds are wiped.”
“What about the shifters they’re collecting?”
Chace grunted and bent the arm where the IV to the drug Caleb said would kill him had been inserted. The wound caused by the catheter was healed, but the ghost-like sensations of liquid ice being pumped into his veins hadn’t left him yet.
“They’re killing them,” he said. “I don’t know why.”
“Straight out killing them? Not trying to take their powers or brainwash them?”
“Doesn’t seem that way. They were quick to incapacitate me and hook me up to some drug that was supposed to wipe me out.”
“You went there?” Mr. Nothing’s surprise and intrigue were short-lived before his shuddered façade returned. “You’ve been to this rehab facility?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Where is it?”
Chace cocked his head to the side, studying Mr. Nothing. Their deal had been for Skylar, who was in Chace’s cabin. Even if Mr. Nothing went to the facility, he wouldn’t find the girl he was looking for.
“Southern base of the Santa Rita Mountains in south Arizona,” he answered. “When you get Skylar -”
“Our deal is done. I’ll turn you human.”
“That’s not what I wanted to ask,” Chace replied. “What happens to the rest of the shifters?”
“You gave up the right to know about our kind when you decided you didn’t want to be one of us anymore,” Mr. Nothing replied sharply.
Unease rippled through Chace, a sense of both guilt in knowing Mr. Nothing was right and alarm that he was abandoning the adoptive family he’d known far longer than his own human family.
“And the other slayers who were brainwashed?” he asked.
“Also not your business,” Mr. Nothing said. “But if the person behind this is who I suspect it might be, he’ll be among the slayers or worker-bees to monitor and control what’s going on. My guess is that he’s someone Skylar knows.”
“Why her?”
“Again – ”
“None of my business.” Chace’s anger stirred and with it, the need to shift. “So bring her to you and this is o
ver for me.”
“Exactly. You’ll no longer be forced to exist among us.”
Chace bit his tongue. He bore the shifters no ill will, and if he was a normal one, he was certain he’d feel differently. He simply was sick of living under a curse that made him a freak among humans and shifters alike.
“Let me know when you have her,” Mr. Nothing said.
Chace gave a curt nod, unwilling to cut the strings to his shifter family as abruptly as Mr. Nothing wanted. He wanted out, but he wasn’t going to leave them in danger, and he didn’t dare risk giving Mr. Nothing what he wanted and then hoping the mysterious man took care of the shifters.
No, Chace wasn’t going to become human again with a conscience clouded by the knowledge he hadn’t helped those he cared about when he could. Likewise, he wasn’t certain he wanted to turn over Skylar or even if he dared ask Mr. Nothing any of the questions he had about her, the magic goo or her tattoo.
“Before I go,” he said slowly. “One more question. I’ve never known a non-shifter to bear a shifter mark. Is it possible, or was this done by those brainwashing the slayers?”
Mr. Nothing’s gaze sharpened. “What’re you talking about?”
“A human slayer, total non-shifter, has a tattoo like a shifter. Did those people do it to her?”
“Skylar?”
Chace didn’t understand the flare of fire in Mr. Nothing’s gaze or why he had the sudden urge to stop talking.
“Never mind,” he replied and began to turn to leave.
“Wait,” Mr. Nothing called. “Is it Skylar who’s marked?”
Chace hesitated and then nodded.
“What does the marking look like?”
“A shifter mark.”
“Yes, but whose?”
“Why?” Chace demanded. “What does it mean?”
Mr. Nothing was silent, though his teeth were clenched tightly enough for his jaw to tick.
“You tell me first this time.”
No response.
“See ya ‘round,” Chace said and started away.
“A shifter marks his heart with a like sign.”
Chace froze. “What do you mean?”
“We only have half a heart, and it cannot beat on its own. When it’s whole ...” By the thoughtful note in Mr. Nothing’s voice, he was remembering something far more pleasant than their current discussion.
“I don’t understand,” Chace said. His own heartbeat was distracting him once more, beating fast, as if he was being chased and not in mid-discussion with Mr. Nothing.
“It means, the shifter has found the other half of his heart.”
Chace said nothing. He forced himself to nod but didn’t dare dwell on the information too long. He’d attributed the beating of his heart to something Mr. Nothing had done when they made their deal, not to … this, whatever this was. The other half of his heart? Did that mean he had to kill her and claim it? Or was there something much more to Skylar’s arrival into his life, something that made his gut heavy and his chest tight.
The idea he’d met the woman he should’ve ended up with – at a time when he was calling it quits on life – made him a little ill. Yet hadn’t he suspected as much the moment he touched her in the bar?
You put it there.
For once, the brainwashed slayer stuck in his cabin was right about something.
“Now. Your turn,” Mr. Nothing said. “I need to know whose mark is on Skylar.” There was emotion in his voice. Chace wasn’t able to identify it. Anger or maybe disappointment and frustration.
“I’ll let you know,” he said casually. “Next time I run into her. I just got a glimpse.” He had no reason to trust Mr. Nothing, but he had no reason to lie either, except that his instincts were warning him not to reveal this secret.
“Very well.” Mr. Nothing was looking at him unhappily. “My patience is growing thin, Chace.”
“Then go get her yourself,” Chace snapped. “Oh, right. You can’t.”
“No, but I can get another shifter to bring her in.”
“Good luck.” Chace snorted and walked away, this time not giving Mr. Nothing the opportunity the chance to stop him. For once, Mr. Nothing had said more than Chace wanted to hear.
He stripped and shifted into his dragon form then leapt into the air, carrying himself far, far away from the mysterious, nocturnal shifter and his strange claims about Chace’s heart being whole again.
Why is it beating after a thousand years?
He didn’t feel ready to admit the truth: there was more to Skylar than someone he was physically attracted to.
It took a while for him to calm enough to want to shift and even then, his heart was still beating too fast. It left him concerned, even when he landed in a puff of snow in the isolated mountains of Alaska. It was dark, though the bright snow rendered the night brighter than it would have been otherwise. Fat flakes floated to land on his wings and body, soon covering him in a coat of white.
Momentarily intrigued by the sensation, he let the snow build up before tossing his head and flapping his wings to dispel it. He shifted quickly into his form and yanked on his clothes. His dragon form was well insulated, unaffected by the cold or snow. His human form was shaking and chilled by the time he shoved his feet into his boots. He hurried towards the cabin, whose warm light spilled out of wide windows onto the snowy landscape.
Not at all certain he was ready to talk to Skylar, he at least wanted a glimpse at her tattoo again. Maybe the people where she’d been brainwashed had commissioned it, and it hadn’t grown out of magic like Mr. Nothing claimed.
He carefully didn’t think about the fact that his heart started beating after he met a certain dragon slayer.
He stomped his feet on the porch to clear the snow from his boots then opened the door, not expecting to find his prisoner lying on his bed asleep once again. The cabin was toasty and cozy, the burning hearth keeping the small space warm
Chace pushed off his boots and went for socks, gaze on the woman asleep on her stomach on top of his bed. Something seemed off, but he didn’t understand what. More concerned about the chill that sank into his skin outside, he pulled on a sweater and made a pot of coffee before crossing to the bed.
None of his moving around woke her, and he didn’t bother trying to keep quiet.
She was out.
His gaze fell to the nightstand, where a familiar pill bottle sat. Years before, Gunner wrote him a prescription for sleeping pills. The panther shifter was a former physician, one of the many professions he’d picked up over a few hundred years. He’d forgotten about them until now.
Chace picked them up and realized the top was loose. By the mountain of white pills, it appeared as if most of them were still in the bottle, indicating she wasn’t trying to kill herself. And yet, she hadn’t bothered to take her shoes off or slide under the covers before she went to sleep, either.
There was no way to know how many she’d taken, and he read the expiration date grimly. They expired five years before.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chace asked the sleeping woman, perplexed. Concern he didn’t want to feel spun through him and for a moment, he didn’t know what exactly to do.
Kneeling on the bed, he pushed her hair aside and tugged down the back of her shirt to get a better look at her tattoo. If the brainwashers at the rehab center did it, they did a damned good job. From what he was able to see, it was identical to his.
Chace traced his fingers over the soft skin at the back of her neck, unable to subdue his growing worry.
She’d been upset when he left, but if she meant to kill herself, she’d have to take a bottle full of the pills. Then again, they were expired.
But if she was out, he didn’t have to deal with her.
This thought made him feel the guiltiest, and he rested a hand between her shoulder blades. Her body moved with her deep breathing, and the warmth of her skin through the shirt reassured him that she was at least alive. He removed his hand, gr
ateful to know she was asleep and not dead.
It did nothing to help him navigate his feelings, though.
… the shifter has found the other half of his heart.
He really, really hoped that didn’t mean what he suspected it did. It was why the attraction between the was so quick and intense, why he hadn’t been able to drop her over a cliff even knowing his people would be safer with her gone. It was why his chest was tight gazing down at her and hoping she hadn’t taken resorted to pills, because of something he said.
Agitation made his nails blacken and start to grow.
“Not now!” he grated.
He rested his hand on her back again, unable to understand what it was she did to him to help him calm. He felt no different, no telltale sign of foreign magic moving through him or burst of warmth. His body simply … calmed.
The urge to shift calmed then retreated, and he blew out a breath.
He didn’t remove his hand but sat, pensive. The tattoo meant they were connected somehow on a level he didn’t feel ready to explore. If she was able to control his magic, could his magic affect her, too? Taking a chance she wasn’t trying to hurt herself and hoping she woke up in the morning was going to drive him crazy with worry.
Chace closed his eyes and focused. She’d claimed all she did to get the cabin to obey her earlier was ask it to.
“Wake up, Skylar,” he whispered.
He felt no exchange of magic, no flush of heat the way he did when he shifted. Resting his other hand on her back, he concentrated harder.
“C’mon. Wake up for me, honey.”
He waited for a long moment and began to think it wasn’t going to work.
“Dammit!” Her groggy mutter startled him.
Chace rolled her onto her back quickly and touched her face then checked the pulse in her neck. He pulled down the skin beneath one of her eyes to get a look at her pupils. They were dilated, but she was awake and moving.
She swatted at his hand and blinked rapidly, planting the meat of her palms on her eyes.
“Why did you do that?” she groaned. Her saucy tone made him smile. Relief replaced his worry.
“Do what?” he asked, resting his hand on her stomach. The heat of her body stirred his blood, but he focused on her rather than the fact she was already in his bed.
