Chosen Mate

by Juniper Hart

  “I don’t need saving,” Bryn hissed, jumping from the bed. “But I do need to figure out what to do with those two.”

  “All right,” Keppler said with a shrug, smiling. “I can help you with that.”

  10

  Keppler waited upstairs, listening as Bryn dealt with her former co-workers.

  “So,” she said conversationally. “What am I going to do with you two?” He heard their muffled protests and the sound of the chair scraping. “I’m not going to ask you again why you felt the need to betray me,” Bryn continued, her tone equally casual, and Keppler admitted he was impressed by her stoicism.

  How does she manage to stay so cool when she’s obviously upset about what’s happening? he wondered. She was a girl on a mission, and she got screwed royally by the people she trusted.

  Or at least that was what Keppler gleaned. Otherwise, he’d be forced to admit that he had literally gotten in bed with a crazy person who got off tying up unsuspecting people.

  In all fairness, he thought, she did think I was going to kill her and these guys seem to have had it coming too. I can’t really judge her until I know all the facts.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Bryn went on. Keppler leaned against the wall, a smirk on his face. “I’m going to let you two go, and you are going to bring me all the loot you’ve acquired from our heists in the past two years.”

  There was a mumble of indignation, and then the muffled noises became actual words of protest. Bryn had undone their gags.

  “That stuff is gone!” the male choked, his voice hoarse. “We spent it!”

  “Yeah!” the woman conceded. “We don’t have it!”

  “It’s all gone?” Bryn repeated. “You don’t have a nest egg?”

  Keppler wondered how people could be so stupid. He was sure that it wasn’t money Bryn was after, but rather she was trying to root out their honesty. It was clear they were failing miserably in her books.

  “Oh, well,” Bryn said. “I guess you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip, can you?” Upstairs, Keppler heard her shuffle forward, and he waited, listening for her to finish what she had to say. “You’re going back to the police station, right now,” she told her prisoners. “I’ll drive you there myself. You’re both going to march through the front doors and turn yourselves in. You will not mention me or Damon. Got it?”

  “What?” the woman spat. “These jobs—they were all you!”

  “Wow! Nice to have the recognition now when you were ready to rob me of my hard work yesterday,” Bryn snapped. “Those are my terms. You, Chester, will tell them you lied about the sketch to throw them off your track. Alma, you’ll provide them with the security hacks you used to access the Colliers, the Corrigans, and the Ferdinands. You won’t mention Hollyfield.”

  “We won’t—” the man, Chester, started to say, but Alma, clearly the more intelligent of the two, cut him off midsentence.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “We’ll do it. Of course, Bryn, anything you want!”

  There was a pause, and Keppler readied himself, approaching the basement door. His cue was coming.

  “Alma!” Chester growled. “We can’t—”

  “I’m not feeling a lot of confidence on your part, Chester,” Bryn cut him off, “so I’ve got something to motivate you both.”

  Keppler snickered to himself and opened the door to the basement, feeling a surge of power rush through his body. His clothes tore away as scales replaced his golden skin, his face elongating into a lizard-like face of midnight blue. He started down the steps, baring a hundred gleaming fangs, and his claws scraped at the wooden stairs.

  Alma screamed as he poked his massive head around the beams to look at them. Chester tried to mimic the sound, but nothing escaped his lips. He was frozen in shock.

  Keppler moved closer, his amber eyes glowing like hot coals as he neared the stunned duo, a forked tongue snaking out to leer terrifyingly at them. The basement was far too cramped to let his wings fully expand, but he let his tail wrap around Chester’s legs, watching as their eyes fixated on the club-like resemblance of the appendage.

  “W-w-what the hell is that?” Chester finally managed to squeal.

  “It’s a dragon, jackass,” Bryn replied, a note of condescension in her voice. “Haven’t you even read a fairy tale? I mean, I know it’s a book—”

  “No!” Chester gasped, and Keppler thought the man might have a heart attack on the spot. “No! They aren’t real!”

  “Oh, honey, they’re real, and they’re among us every day,” Bryn told him softly. “They are everywhere. And not just dragons; Lycans, vampires, sprites, Valkyries—”

  “STOP IT!” the pair howled in unison.

  “She drugged us!” Chester mumbled. “We’re high on acid!”

  “No!” Alma sobbed, tears streaming down her face. “No, I think this is real. This is real! She’s one of them!”

  As if Alma had said a magic word, Bryn also began to shift, her frame much smaller than Keppler’s but unbelievable all the same. Her head shifted into an iridescent and shimmering purple-green, her teeth the same shade of brilliant argentite.

  They peered at each other, wondering if the duo could feel their amusement. Keppler was certainly entertained, and it was difficult to imagine that Bryn wasn’t. Bryn remained half-shifted, breathing out her words in small puffs.

  “I am one of them,” she agreed, her tone remaining conversational. “And I will hunt you down with my last breath if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

  Keppler waited for her prisoners to consent to her terms before falling back into his mortal form in less than a blink, leaving them to wonder if they hadn’t imagined what they’d seen after all.

  “Wha—how—?” Chester sputtered, but there was no way to explain it to him. He was lucky he’d seen anything. Mortals rarely got the chance to see their immortal counterparts.

  They had lived obliviously atop the Hollows for years, before the Lycan and vampires had broken the seal. It was strictly against the Hollows’ unspoken code to perform any acts of magic or shifting in the Sunside by punishment of purgatory. The rules applied to the dragons too, but they did not adhere to them as strictly as the other creatures. Still, they did abide by the utmost discretion when they shifted, ensuring that witnesses were never left behind.

  “Come on,” Bryn said brightly, having returned to her own lithe frame. “I’ll take you to the police station.”

  “No!” Alma and Chester moaned. Bryn lost the bemused smirk on her face, her eyes flashing with malice.

  “We don’t have a deal then?” she growled.

  “Yes!” Alma yelled.

  “No! Yes!” Chester babbled. “I—we’ll get there on our own! I have my car here! I have my car here!” He was tripping over his words as he stared at Bryn beseechingly. Keppler wondered if he was having a stroke.

  “Ah, yes,” Bryn said, nodding. “I wouldn’t want the cops coming here looking for your vehicle. Good thinking.” She cocked her chin toward the staircase. “Go. Now. Don’t you dare stop anywhere or call anyone. If you don’t go, you’re dead. If you mention me or Damon, you’re dead. Got it?”

  “Yes!” they chorused. “Yes!”

  Keppler had never seen two people move so fast in their haste to escape, and he watched them scramble up the stairs. It wasn’t until he heard the front door open and close with a thud that he turned back to Bryn.

  “Do you think they’ll do it?” he asked, and she nodded with conviction.

  “They’ll do it. It’s not the first time I’ve had to use this tactic to get what I want. It’s a lot easier than killing.” Keppler blinked at her.

  “I don’t get you, Bryn,” he mumbled. “If you don’t want to kill, what are you doing here?”

  “Just because I don’t want to kill,” Bryn told him, “doesn’t mean I don’t want justice for my family, Keppler. You ruined our lives. My brothers—” She cut her sentence short and inhaled a shaking breath. “You ru
ined us. All of us.”

  Keppler was filled with shame, although he knew he’d personally had nothing to do with the slaughter of her parents and the exile.

  “Where are your brothers?” he asked gently. “Are they still alive?”

  Bryn scoffed and gave him a disdainful look. “Don’t act like you give a damn what happened to them,” she snapped.

  “I had nothing to do with what happened,” Keppler swore, feeling defensive. “Your parents…”

  He didn’t even quite know how to finish the sentence. It was gut-wrenching to think of how young Bryn had been back then. In fact, she had been so young, he hadn’t even recognized her as the same girl who had lived in the palace with him and his brothers for hundreds of years. Dragons aged, but not at a mortal pace. At the time, Bryn had been a girl of maybe ten or eleven.

  “I didn’t think it was you.” The confession made Keppler look up, and he read the begrudging acceptance in Bryn’s face.

  “I wouldn’t be sleeping with my parents’ killer,” she added, as if it needed clarification. “But I won’t leave until I know who is responsible and they are put to justice.”

  A knot formed in Keppler’s gut as he thought about the situation he was in. One of his brothers was undoubtedly responsible for what had occurred. If he investigated and told Bryn the truth, he would be exiled or killed himself.

  “What are you pouting about?” Bryn demanded.

  “Lots of things,” Keppler answered truthfully. “It’s a lot to process for one day.” Bryn’s mouth formed a thin line, and she darted her eyes away.

  “I never asked you for your help,” she told him shortly. “But at least you know you’re off the hook.” Keppler held back a frown. She had taken his words to mean something they hadn’t.

  “With all due respect, Bryn, how were you going to kill one of us? You are fearsome, undoubtedly, and if I was a mortal, I’d steer clear out of your path. But there are five of us.” Four, if she took Keppler out of the equation.

  “I enjoy being underestimated,” Bryn told him earnestly. “It gives me the advantage of being unseen.”

  A fission of alarm coursed through Keppler, and he eyed her warily.

  “Do you even have a plan, Bryn?” he finally asked, almost afraid of her response to his question.

  “Do you think I’m going to disclose my plans to you?” she shot back, fire in her eyes. Keppler felt a familiar wave of warmth slither through him at the passion in her gaze.

  “I’m not your enemy, Bryn.” His tone was gentle and filled with an emotion he was sure he’d never experienced in the past. “So much has changed since you’ve been in the Hollows—”

  “I’ve been back to the Hollows,” she interrupted him. Keppler tensed. Wilder had been right about her.

  “What I mean to say,” he went on, “is that no one is the same, not here nor there. We have all come a long way, and maybe it’s time to let the past go.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Bryn chuckled mirthlessly. “If this had happened to one of your brothers, if you had spent five millennia in Greenland, watching them waste away as the ice chipped away at their fire, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, I assure you.”

  But Keppler wasn’t so sure she was right. Would I have stewed on it for five thousand years? He had no way of knowing.

  “You should probably go now, Keppler,” Bryn said. “You got what you came for.” Keppler’s mouth popped open in indignation, and Bryn laughed, quickly correcting herself. “I meant information. You got the information you came for.”

  “I got more than that,” he murmured, stepping toward her. When she looked at him, she suddenly seemed vulnerable and scared. She’s all alone, he realized, his heart beginning to thud. She has no one and nothing but an old vendetta to fulfill.

  He gathered her in his arms, pulling her close, and at first, Bryn tried to fight him off. Eventually, when she saw he would not release her, she succumbed to his embrace.

  “You don’t have to pity me,” she mumbled, her words muffled against his chest as she spoke.

  “I don’t.”

  “What are you doing then?” He released her slightly to glance down into her face.

  “I’m trying to show you that I will help you,” he told her.

  “Help me what?” Bryn demanded, gawking at him. “I’m talking about going after your family.”

  “No,” Keppler disagreed. “You are going after the being who unfairly murdered your parents. I will not help you bring any of my brothers down, but I will help you learn which one was responsible for what happened.”

  Her lips remained parted, and Keppler could see the wheels turning behind her eyes.

  “Why?” she finally gasped. “Why would you even do that?”

  A wry smile touched his lips. “Isn’t it obvious, Bryn? You’re my mate.”

  11

  It was an unlikely alliance, and one which Bryn knew she should question, but it felt so right; so… proper. They retreated upstairs, Bryn offering to make breakfast for them. She had planned a jog before Keppler had shown up at her door and spun her life off-cycle again.

  “You’re a great cook!” Keppler said appreciatively, taking a bite of his chocolate waffles. “Where did you learn to make food like this?”

  “Well, when you’re in exile for five millennia, there’s not much to do but learn how to entertain yourself,” Bryn said. “I’m a master of all domestic chores. I can quilt, sew, cook, and even build a house from the ground up.”

  “Really?” Keppler asked, seemingly impressed with her range of talents.

  Bryn shrugged her shoulders. “At the end of our exile, the boys were growing melancholy and sickly. Gregor and Artemis went first, and I had to help Jace with all their chores. We lived in a barracks, just the four of us. I didn’t even know about electricity until I came back here. Imagine my surprise to see that the Europeans had flooded the continent.”

  “Yeah, that was a real shit show,” Keppler remembered, shuddering slightly. “They destroyed everything and continue to do it.”

  “I don’t think I’ve seen one native of the continent since I’ve been here.”

  Keppler’s shoulders tensed, and his hands tightened on his fork. “I’ll get you some books on the matter,” he stammered. “The immortals are cruel, but only when necessary. The mortals… they kill themselves for financial gain. They pit themselves against each other…”

  He seemed genuinely tormented by the memory, and Bryn was sorry she’d said anything when he put the fork down, a faraway look in his eyes.

  “Oh, come on!” she said lightly, trying to change the subject. “I slaved over those waffles. You’ve gotta eat.”

  Keppler cast her a sly grin and retrieved his utensil before digging back in. He remained silent, though, as if his mind was still elsewhere.

  “What’s on your mind?” Bryn asked. “You having second thoughts about your offer?” She was only half-teasing, but it wouldn’t have surprised her if he said yes.

  Keppler’s brow creased, and he shook his head, his eyes shadowing.

  “No,” he answered. “Of course not. I was just…” He cleared his throat and raised his head to stare straight into his eyes. “I was just thinking how difficult it has been for you. I’m sorry.”

  Bryn was taken aback by the words, her pulse quickening unexpectedly. Everything that was happening was so foreign and yet somehow strangely comforting.

  “It’s not your fault,” she mumbled, embarrassed by the sudden flood of emotion. She didn’t know how to handle this level of closeness. She’d never experienced it before. Sure, she’d had friends in the gangs she’d developed over the past decade, but they would sooner sell her out like Chester and Alma. Damon had been the exception to the rule, but he was just as desperately lonely as she was. The difference was that Bryn had grown accustomed to the permeating loneliness that had filled her for centuries, made worse by the weakening state of her brothers.

  They had been forc
ed to care for one another under ridiculous circumstances, and the bond they shared had been unlike any other she had known of siblings. Of course, she had not had much to compare it to. As her brothers diminished, so had Bryn’s hope. And her hope had been replaced by the drive for revenge.

  Now, Keppler was sending her compartmentalized mind into a thousand different directions.

  “Who is Damon?”

  The question sprung Bryn back into the kitchen, and she looked at Keppler with huge eyes.

  Shit! Damon! I have to get in touch with him and make sure he’s okay.

  “He’s one of my partners,” she replied evasively. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell Keppler about Damon, her protectiveness toward him fierce.

  In some ways, he reminded Bryn of her brother, Jace. Perhaps that was why she had clung to him so quickly after finding him. It had been slightly disheartening to learn that he was merely a mortal. She had hoped that he was like her in some small way.

  “You take care of him,” Keppler said.

  Bryn quirked an eyebrow at him. He couldn’t possibly have gathered that from only her words. Did he know more about her than he was letting on? But as much as she wanted to be skeptical of him, she couldn’t bring herself to see anything except warmth in his eyes.

  Could he be right? she wondered. Are we really mated? If so, destiny has played a weird joke on us. We can never be together, not when our families are at odds and will never recover from this.

  “I try to,” she replied. “He’s schizophrenic. He was homeless when we met.”

  “So you used the robberies as a way to enhance his life without drawing attention to what you were doing,” Keppler offered slowly, his eyes lighting up with understanding. “You knew if you exposed yourself, we would get wind of you being around and come looking. So you used the home invasions as a cover to pay the people who helped you.”

  Bryn shrugged, feeling slightly foolish now that she’d been discovered. It was a lot of work only to be found out in the end.