A Mate to Embrace

by Riley Storm

  And gamble on Grace’s life? Don’t be an idiot.

  “Now is no time to be a hero,” Wilson growled. “Maybe you do stop me. But what about them?”

  Braz stiffened as two other men emerged from the depths of the cabin, having hidden themselves behind an alcove of some sort, out of sight of Braz.

  He’d been played.

  “This isn’t going to end well for you,” he said icily, stepping away as Wilson had said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Ensuring that I’m protected,” Wilson said, without a trace of hatred or anger in his voice. “I don’t know what you guys are, but I’m tired of being in the middle of it. If I get there first, which I will, then I can use whatever I find as leverage to keep you all away from me. I just want freedom, I want to not be involved!”

  Braz could see the whites of his eyes now. The man was terrified. He wasn’t acting out of greed or anger, not a betrayal for money. Wilson simply was doing this out of fear. Fear that once Braz dealt with the mysterious third party, he would want to get rid of Wilson as well.

  It’s tempting, I have to admit. But I guess he doesn’t understand that most of us don’t kill humans.

  Nor was he likely to buy that excuse from Braz right then.

  “You were going to go free,” Braz said. “Right until you pulled that gun. That’s basically eliminated any chance of that. I was working on your side.”

  “Nobody works on my side,” Wilson said shakily, showing just how tightly wound he was.

  Wilson’s associates moved into the center of the room. Braz noticed one of them was the taller, older male he’d chased on foot at the start of all of this. He didn’t recognize the other, who scooped up the laptop and headed for the door.

  “This won’t work,” Braz said tiredly.

  “Oh, I think it will,” Wilson countered, the last one in line for the door. “You see, we’re almost there.”

  “No, what you are, is on the other side of me from Grace,” Braz pointed out as he took a quick step to the side, putting his body between the drawn weapons and his mate.

  Now that she was safe, he snarled loudly.

  The door burst inward, catching the unknown thug in the shoulder and spinning him to the ground. His gun went off, a line of bullets stitching their way through the ceiling as he went down.

  Asher stormed in through the door that Pace had just kicked inward. The older hired thug raised his hand to try and attack one of them. Asher moved faster than any human, grabbed the arm, grabbed the man’s crotch and in one smooth move hoisted him above his head and threw him straight through the interior wall.

  Faced with three men, all of whom had demonstrated to Wilson that they weren’t quite human, even if he didn’t know what, the crook dropped his gun and waited for the inevitable.

  “Wait,” Braz said as Pace closed in on Wilson himself. “He doesn’t want to harm us. He’s just afraid of our mysterious third party, whoever it is.”

  “He should be afraid of us,” Asher snarled.

  “Oh, I think it’s safe to say I’m also terrified of you now,” Wilson said. “Very safe to say that.”

  “And yet you still tried to double-cross me,” Braz growled, stepping forward. “This is your final chance Wilson. Learn from your mistakes, or the next time one of us pays a visit to you, you won’t emerge unscathed.”

  The criminal, stunned at the apparent lack of penalty, looked around at the three hulking men and nodded, trying to shrink away from all of them at once. “You got it,” he said. “I’ll stay away from you, you stay away from me. It’ll work for everyone.”

  “Exactly. Now leave,” Braz snarled, stepping forward.

  Wilson took off.

  “Follow him,” Braz said to Asher. “If he goes anywhere but to another hideaway, give him something to remember us by. A broken leg maybe.”

  Asher smiled grimly and was gone.

  “Now,” Braz said as Grace came up to his side and held onto his arm. “Let’s get you back to the Aterna compound where you’ll be safe. I want to bring Logan along on this, I want him there when we find out whatever this is leading us to.”

  Grace nodded. “Sounds good to me. That’s enough excitement for one day.”

  Braz smiled. “Okay, off we go. Time to find out what all the fuss is about.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Braz

  “Any ideas?” Braz asked, watching the overgrown dirt road come to an end nearby.

  He had a suspicion as to what they might find up ahead, but only insomuch as the mountains around Five Peaks were littered with them. After that, it was anybody’s guess, as far as Braz was concerned. His passenger was older, wiser, and possibly more learned, so it was logical to assume that he might have other suspicions.

  “Someone’s vault,” Logan, the head of Clan Aterna, said from his seat. “After that though, I think your guess is as good as mine Braz. I’m going to assume that what we want is inside the vault. As to that, I can’t begin to guess. Treasure itself simply can’t be the answer. This computer hacker must have known it was far more important than that. Right?”

  Logan’s doubts were the same as those Braz was harboring. “To a human, this amount of treasure could be worthwhile, thinking that it’s huge.”

  “Maybe,” Logan said quietly. “But that just doesn’t feel right. I just wish I knew who this third party going after Wilson was.”

  The bumpy, uneven road came to a halt at a line of trees running from left to right that clearly were not natural in their orientation. Beyond them the path continued, though it was too small for a vehicle.

  Braz shared a look with Logan and the pair got out as one.

  “After you,” Logan said with a wave, but the pair walked along the path together, scanning ahead, to the sides, and behind them as they went. It wasn’t common for dragons to set traps for the unwary who approached their vaults, but whatever was here, it was extra important. So they took the approach slowly.

  It was a good thing they did.

  “Wire,” Braz said, spotting the line strung across the path several feet in front of them. He’d spied a disturbed cluster of debris on the tree to his left, following it back across the trail to the wire. They eased their way over it, both marking the location so as not to trip it on the way back.

  Twice more they crossed over tripwires as they approached a darkened outcropping of rock. Grass and a few scraggly trees topped the ripple in the ground, effectively concealing it from above. The ground curled and sloped inward at the base, revealing a metal door set far out of sight unless you were right above it.

  “Very sneaky,” Logan said, almost approving of how well concealed it was.

  The simple fact that the door was there, however, meant they were likely right with their guess. This was a treasure vault. It belonged to one of the clans. However, the vaults weren’t marked, they never were, and there was no known listing of the various locations. Dragons were very secretive about their treasures.

  “But who?” Braz muttered while they examined the area around the ramp, looking very carefully for any further traps.

  Logan marched off into the forest without a word. Braz watched him go twenty or thirty feet, pause, and then lift something large and heavy from the ground.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as Logan came back, casually carrying the two-hundred-pound rock.

  “Clearing the way,” Logan said, placing the rock at the top of the ramp and then letting it go.

  It rolled down to the base of the door, but nothing happened.

  “What a rip,” Braz said under his breath, though in reality he was happy that the way seemed clear. “Now to open the door.”

  Logan grinned. “I’ve got an idea, come help me.”

  Braz followed him back into the forest. Logan’s head was swinging around left and right, until he spied what he was looking for.

  “Here we go,” he said, pointing to a fairly fresh downed tree. The trunk was over a foot in diame
ter.

  Logan’s hand blazed to life with fire, and he began trimming the excessive branches off it by the simple expedient of using the fire like a chainsaw.

  “Well don’t just stand there,” he growled. “Help.”

  Braz shook his head and went to work on the other end. Together they sheared off all the branches, and the rest of the trunk, until they had a solid ten-foot section between them. Braz carved his end of the trunk into a slight point, to better focus the force.

  The pair of shifters picked up the trunk, marched back to the metal door, and, working in unison, slammed the smaller end of the trunk into it, right near the handle. The door shook and reverberated, but it didn’t cave.

  So they hit it again. And again.

  “It’s starting to loosen,” Braz said, having a better vantage point from where he stood at the front.

  Another dozen swings, with all the might they could impart into the trunk, and something broke. The door angled inward a bit.

  “Again,” Logan said, and they hauled back, and thrust it forward with every last bit of energy.

  The door burst open. A rush of cold air billowed out.

  “It’s insulated,” Braz observed as the chilly air continued to emerge. “I wonder why.”

  “Ice dragons are weird,” Logan said with a shrug. “That’s my guess. Let’s go see what we’ve got.”

  The pair moved inside, holding their left arms up and calling upon flames to burn at the ends of their fists like torches. They splayed them around the interior of the cavern. It wasn’t large, perhaps twenty feet by twenty feet. Fairly small for a dragon treasure vault, but the chests of precious gems and stacked bars of gold on the one wall made it fairly obvious that’s what it was.

  “I don’t get it,” Braz said. “All that for a bit of wealth? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Keep looking,” Logan said. “I’m sure there’s a clue somewhere.

  Braz ventured to the very back of the chilled room. Some other trunks lay there, but they were filled with cloth and clothing. Nothing worthwhile he decided, while working his way along the wall.

  “That’s odd,” he said, lifting the top of the largest chest along the wall only to find a slab of white metal less than an inch down.

  “Find something?” Logan asked from where he was searching the opposite corner.

  “I don’t—” Braz’s fingers slipped between the chest and the metal slab and he found a lip. Gently he pulled it open. It was a freezer, he realized. A deep freezer disguised as an old chest to hold—

  “Braz?” Logan asked when the other didn’t respond. “What is it?”

  “Come over here,” Braz said quietly. “I think I understand what all the commotion is about. And why Jack thought this was bigger than anything else.”

  Logan dropped what he was doing and came over on the double.

  “Shit,” he cursed, staring down at the contents of the freezer.

  Looking back up at them was the contorted, angry face of one Victor Atrox, the leader of Clan Atrox.

  Well, former leader now, Braz thought to himself.

  “Something’s not right,” Logan said as they stared down at the frozen corpse.

  “What?” Braz looked at his clan leader. Of course something wasn’t right. The bloody corpse of a fellow clan leader was stuffed into a freezer in a cave in the middle of nowhere! How much more not right did it have to get?

  “Think about it Braz,” Logan said, closing the freezer door and stepping back. “The timeline, it’s all off.”

  Braz frowned. What was Logan—then he got it.

  “How did Jack know?” he whispered quietly.

  “If Jack knew what was here,” Logan said. “If he knew about it when he first did all this. Then that means…”

  “That Victor’s body has been here for weeks. If not longer,” Braz finished.

  “And I have interacted with Victor since then,” Logan said, the pair of them slowly working out all the details.

  “Someone is faking Victor?” Braz asked, having a difficult time believing it.

  “And doing a heck of a good job while he’s at it,” Logan said. “None of us ever suspected a thing!”

  “But…why?” Braz wanted to know. “Nothing different has happened, has it? Fake-Victor isn’t doing anything wild or crazy?”

  “No,” Logan said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Unless…”

  Braz waited for his clan leader to finish.

  “When Kal was fighting with Viko... this isn’t well known, but I think you need to know. When they were fighting, Viko bragged to Kal that even if he was killed, the most important piece would still be in place.”

  Braz swore. “And what’s more important than the head of an entire Clan?”

  “Right.”

  “This imposter could be the source of all the bad things happening lately. If he’s using his position as a clan head to convince others that what they’re doing is in the name of all the clans…”

  “Then the others would be far more willing to follow him into darkness,” Logan finished.

  “We need to find him,” Braz snarled. “And now. Before he can cause any more damage!”

  He turned to go, but a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

  “Not so fast,” Logan said.

  Braz tensed, but Logan wasn’t threatening him. He was lost in thought.

  “We need to do this right,” Logan said at last. “Well thought out and planned. I’ve got an idea, but it’s going to take a bit of time to put together.”

  “Okay,” Braz said. “I’ll wait.”

  “Remember, this imposter might not be operating alone. We need to ensure that we get all of them in one go. Wipe them out and be done with it. Then we can figure out who the imposter really is, why they’re doing it, and more importantly, just how they’ve managed to do it.” Logan was stroking his jaw.

  “What do you want me to do then?” Braz asked quietly.

  “All eyes, if they have any, are going to be on you,” Logan said. “Word must have gotten back by now. So we need you to stay visible, and stay calm. Go back to the Aterna compound. Spend time with your mate.”

  “How did you know that she’s my…?” Braz trailed off. “You know what, not gonna ask.”

  “Smart boy,” Logan said with a smile. “I’ll get this figured out today, and arrange the pieces. Tomorrow you and I will very publicly depart from the Aterna compound to meet with some of the other clan reps. Ideally, nobody will suspect a thing.”

  Braz shrugged. “You’re the boss, boss. It sounds like a good plan to me.”

  Logan’s eyes burned into Braz. “Don’t waste this time Braz. Things could get hairy out there.”

  He nodded, understanding just what Logan was getting at.

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Grace

  “Are they always like this?” she said, scratching at her head, the still wet hair air-drying in the warm sunlight.

  “Like what?” Clarice asked from where she too was lounging, enjoying the momentary quiet. The boys were all off playing video games and thoroughly occupied.

  “Um, arrogant, haughty, however you want to put it?” Grace growled, scratching harder as the itch came back with a vengeance.

  She’d taken the time after Braz had departed to have a nice long shower, and now she was relaxing on the main balcony with Clarice, Emma, and Anne, the bartender from the Dragons Eye that she had met.

  The trio had already been out there when Grace had arrived, but she’d been welcomed with open arms.

  “Yes,” Anne said with a smile. “They are. It’s just their way. When it works in your favor, it’s great, but when it doesn’t…”

  “It sucks,” Emma finished, laughing.

  “Don’t any of you wish that, I don’t know, you could go with them?” Grace said, looking around the misshapen square. “Help out, be of assistance?”

  “Yes,” Clarice said. �
��Even now, fifteen years later, I still think about that. About being able to shift and go with Logan any time danger rears its head. It’s always there, and I don’t think it ever goes away. Not completely. You care for them, it’s only natural to want to help.”

  The others nodded in agreement, each of them looking distant for a moment. Likely thinking about their mates, Grace knew.

  “But if we did, then we would also have the responsibility that comes with it. The secret that we have to keep, the fear of being discovered. We often forget, since we know it, that they spend every day paranoid that someone will discover what they really are, and that word will get out. Yet they know they have powers that none of us have, that they can do things none of us can do, and that they should be using those abilities, in any way they can. It’s a constant back and forth, between secrecy and aiding those around them. I do not envy them that at all,” Clarice finished somberly. “Not one bit.”

  “I’d never thought about it that way,” Grace admitted. “I just feel useless here. Sitting on a chair, getting a tan, while they’re off doing who knows what!”

  “It can feel like a bit of a struggle at first,” Emma said. “You think that you’re reverting back to a more sexist sort of role. The woman, staying at home, etc.”

  The others snorted.

  “I’d like to see Logan manage two ten-year olds day-in-day-out,” Clarice said. “He’s a wonderful father, don’t get me wrong, but I think he would drown under the constant weight of doing what I do.”

  “Exactly,” Emma chimed in. “Asher is an excellent person, but he would drive the museum into the ground if he was in charge of it in any way shape or form. The man has no business sense whatsoever. He could never do what I do.”

  Anne chuckled. It became a higher-pitched giggle, and then not long after full-blown laughter.

  The other three women all turned to look at her.

  “What’s so funny?” Grace asked, confused.

  “I’m just trying to imagine Kal, as a bartender. Wearing a skirt, low cut top, having his ass grabbed as he walked around serving beer and how he would deal with all the creeps,” she said, barely in control.