Alec
Keepers of the Lake
Emilia Hartley
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.
Emilia Hartley © Copyright 2021
Contents
Emilia’s Heartlies
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Coming Soon!
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1
Charlotte Arnold directed her car into a pull-off on the side of the road. When she got out, the smell of evergreens and fresh water welcomed her home. It’d been fifteen years since she’d been in Michigan. She missed it with every ounce of her being.
This lake-side town was where she’d grown up. Her early years as a kid were spent climbing waterfalls with her best friends. This was where she’d been given her dragon.
It was an accident, but Charlie liked to think of it as her destiny. Things were rough, at first. As soon as her parents found out what happened, they packed up and moved the family across the country. Her Dad took a job in the Pacific Northwest. It was nothing like this place.
Nothing like the land that called to her beast. No one could make her leave now.
She bent and pried the cover off the dashboard to reveal a bundle of wires and fuses. If the video she watched was right, the wire she disconnected would keep the car from starting. Charlie shut the car door, pulled her purse high on her shoulder, and started down the familiar road. Already, her lie was in place.
“You’re all just overreacting,” Alec La Sala said as he set down a six pack of his favorite beer. With an affable grin pasted on his face, he looked up at his brethren. He’d missed them. None had ever answered any of his messages.
Perhaps they’d all changed numbers. Maybe they’d gotten busy with their own lives. But now, they were panicking over the lake and who might be trapped there. Alec had been with them when they bound Alistair to his lake prison.
He had seen it with his own eyes.
Alistair was locked up. He wasn’t going to bother anyone in that lake. When they called him and said that Zane was the one actually trapped in the lake, Alec came rushing back. Not because he believed them, but because he wanted to quell their panic. There was no reason to be so nervous. His friends needed to move on.
They could have if they’d all left this lake behind. Instead, it seemed they were all returning one by one. Being so close to Alistair and the magic binding him was making them all paranoid.
Everyone scowled at him. They looked at one another, brows all lowered, and lips set in thin grimaces. Alec sighed and fought to keep from rolling his eyes.
“If the witch told you Zane was in the lake and then took off, how can you know she was telling the truth? It sounds like she was stirring trouble to me.” Alec popped the cap off a beer. It was early in the morning, but no hour was too early for a beer. Especially when his clan was looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
They would eventually see that he was right. Their plan hadn’t failed. Ten years had passed, and Alistair hadn’t caused any commotion because he was trapped right where they put him. How else could they explain the silence? Alistair wasn’t the kind of guy to lay low. He would have put together another team, would have fought for the power he wanted back then.
“Come on,” he tried.
The woman that led the clan now, Jude, shook her head. There was a moment where she opened her mouth to argue, then shook her head and left.
“What does she know?” Alec muttered over his beer bottle.
“You can’t be serious,” Asher said. “Do you really think you can stroll up in here and blow off all our concerns?”
Alec lowered his beer bottle. “Do you really think you could avoid my messages for ten years? You’re not one to talk.”
He’d missed his friends. Sticking around the lake hadn’t been an option back then. Alec had needed fresh air, at least until his nightmares stopped. When he finally stopped seeing Marnie die and hearing Cole’s screams in his sleep, then Alec tried to reach out to his clanmates. No one had responded. He’d expected as much from Heath, but Cole, Asher, and Zane had left him hanging.
They’d all been close. The best of friends. Alistair had destroyed that. Alec was glad that he was rotting in his underwater prison.
All Alec wanted was to shake the dour mood that had descended on the room. He turned to Heath and clapped his shoulder. “Congratulations on the mate! It’s amazing what life can give you!”
Heath’s lips curled back in a snarl. “You weren’t always a fool. What happened?”
Without waiting for an answer, Heath stormed out of the room. Soon after, Asher followed. Only Cole lingered, his eyes darkened. Alec wanted to say something else, but the moment he started, Cole pushed off the wall and left.
Alec was alone. Like always.
His dragon squirmed. It wanted to follow his old clanmates, but they didn’t feel like his clanmates anymore. Not to Alec. He wanted to fall back into old patterns. They should have agreed with him. His words should have cleared the haze of confusion so that they could all laugh and share a beer.
Instead, they abandoned him just like they had ten years ago. That was a long time. People change. The clanmates he remembered probably no longer existed. He was a fool for thinking that the war with Alistair hadn’t changed them all. Alec felt like the only one who was somewhat unscathed.
Asher looked fine on the surface, but Alec had watched his fights. Asher was a glutton for punishment. Like maybe he bore some kind of guilt over what happened and was hoping he could get it beat out of him. It never worked because Asher was always back on his feet, back in the ring.
Unable to sit still, Alec grabbed his six pack and walked down to the lake. He wanted to drink over Alistair’s prison, mock the man who ruined their lives when they were so young. Alec had lost his youth. He tried to hold onto it, onto optimism and hope, but it felt like a farce most days.
Even with his clanmates, his hope felt like a mask. They had seen through it and held tight to their panic.
Near the shore, the lake was a shade of blue that was nearly green. He could see algae covered rocks, a lost boot, and plenty of fishing lures that needed to be picked up. Fish swam in and out. Not much had really changed. The lake was still the same. Not this ominous entity that his clanmates claimed it had become.
He was about to turn back when something caught his eye. He paused, beer bottle halfway to his lips.
Did you come to gloat over me while I suffer?
No.
It was an illusion. A magic trick. A hallucination.
Alec stared at the water and saw Zane’s unforgiving face looking back at him. His voice buzzed in
the air around Alec. It was as real as it would have been had Zane stood right next to him. Zane’s lips curled back in a snarl before the image suddenly vanished. In its place was a fish that quickly darted away.
Alec was seeing things. There was no way that Zane was in the lake. Even if he was, he wouldn’t be able to reach the surface like that. The spell locked the dragon deep beneath the water. Unless…
Unless his clanmates were right. The magic used to seal the dragon away had changed. Time had corroded it until it blended with the beast it trapped, creating a whole new monster. And that monster was his friend. His closest friend. Alec glanced over his shoulder.
Jude sat on the back porch of Cole’s cabin, her arms crossed over her chest. Another female shifter sat on the steps, looking back up at her friend. Jude’s eyes found his across the distance. She sat forward in her seat. Somehow, she picked up on the fact that Alec had seen the truth.
It wasn’t an illusion. It wasn’t a lie.
They were right.
Alec hadn’t wanted to believe it. He didn’t want to think that their work had been for nothing. That their friend had suffered because they’d all been fools that put their faith in a witch.
He should have fallen to his knees. He should have roared in rage. He didn’t have time to do either. A voice called out from the gravel driveway on the other side of the cabins. His heart stuttered. The beast inside him perked up, nearly yanking him toward the source of the sound.
Not now, he wanted to say. This wasn’t the time. If Jude and Cole were right about everything that was happening, now wasn’t the time for her to return.
Alec climbed the small hill toward the cabins. He caught a glimpse of her as he stepped between the buildings. She’d changed, but her scent was still the same. It tugged at him, grasping something low and tight in his gut. For years, he’d wondered what it would be like to find her again. He imagined what she would look like as a woman.
She was nothing like his dreams. The real thing was so much better.
And it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Alec glanced at the back of Asher’s old cabin. The wall was a wreck. Demolished by dragons made of water, if Cole was right. Why did she have to come back to him, now of all times? The lake was dangerous and if…
If he lost her then everything would be lost.
2
Charlie forced a smile as people stepped toward her. The beast inside her bristled at the sight of so many unfamiliar dragons. It was only two. One dominant female and a submissive female. Charlie shouldn’t have felt so threatened.
This wasn’t who she thought she would find here. It had been fifteen years. The cabins could have changed hands since then. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Charlie should have anticipated this. She hadn’t, though. She’d been so wrapped up in meeting Alec La Sala again that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Now she was a dragon shifter trespassing on a dominant shifter’s territory. Smooth move, she thought to herself.
Before either woman could say anything, a man appeared from between the buildings. The shade obscured his features, but the scent that wafted from him tightened things in her body that she never knew existed. Her breath caught in her throat and she swayed for a moment. The heady scent was intoxicating.
And familiar.
The man stepped out of the shadows. His reddish-brown hair glowed like strands of molten copper in the light. Where his face had been clean shaven and unmarred, he now bore a short, copper beard and a scar through his right eyebrow. No matter the small changes, she would know him anywhere.
He had changed her. It was because of Alec La Sala that she had her beast, her best friend. It was Alec La Sala that she had to thank for the life she had now.
“Can we help you?” he grunted.
Her heart sank. It hit the ground with a deafening thud.
Only when she swallowed could she speak. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “My car broke down…oh, about a mile up the road. This is the first place I came across. Do you think you could help me?”
Why didn’t he recognize her? He should know her by scent alone. Charlie knew she could find Alec anywhere in the world. Her gut told her he would be here, and he was. They were connected, his soul bound to hers. Why couldn’t he sense the same of her?
Charlie kept her face an unreadable mask while her heart yearned to be recognized. Alec said nothing. He only bent his head and went to his truck. When she didn’t move, he asked her if she was coming along.
She had to jog to catch up. When she got into the passenger seat and closed the door, making the space small and personal, she thought he would say something. Instead, the ride back to her car was long and quiet. Alec didn’t say a word.
Giving up wasn’t an option, though. Charlie had dreamt of this day for most of her life. Ever since that day her parents announced that they were moving the family across the country. Even when she was sitting in the principal’s office as a teen. When she was getting lectures from cops that she would become nothing. Her mind was always on Alec.
Back then, she’d hoped that he would fly after her and rescue her from her life apart. It’d taken a few years for her to realize that she needed to get her life in order. She would never be able to find him if she wasted her life away making trouble.
Now, she had tattoos and a streak of pink in her hair that reminded her of her wilder days. Days when she was constantly in trouble with one disappointed adult or another. Her parents. The principal. The clan leader. She wasn’t that rowdy teen anymore. She was a woman. One with the intentions of finding her destined mate.
Her car, parked just off the road, appeared. Her heart thumped, reminding her that this was an intricate lie that she’d set up. It bought her time. If Alec didn’t recognize her immediately, then she would need to stick around a bit longer. So long as her car remained broken, then she could stay.
Charlie went to get out of the truck, forgot that it was higher off the ground than her car, and began to tumble toward the pavement below. Before she could fall, Alec appeared. He caught her in his arms. Flames licked up her skin. When she looked up at him, she hoped that some flicker of recognition would pass over his face.
Instead, he helped her back onto her feet and immediately spun toward her car. Her shoulders slumped. She watched him yank open her car door and find the hood latch. After twenty minutes of grumbling to himself, he finally stood upright.
“What the hell is wrong with this car?” he nearly roared the words.
He swatted the metal rod holding the hood up. It fell, but he caught the hood with his other hand before it could slam too hard. With another growl, he let the hood fall the rest of the way. Instead of turning to address her, he leaned forward with both hands splayed on the car.
Charlie wanted to step forward. She wanted to ease the tension between his shoulders. She couldn’t get herself to approach him, though. This wasn’t the boy she knew. He looked right through her, like they never knew each other at all. It was like she never existed.
No, she refused to believe that he couldn’t remember her. The boy she knew was in there. They were meant for one another. Why else would he have made her? There was no other possible explanation to her. Fate wanted them to be together. Charlie wouldn’t let fate down.
Not unless Alec told her that he didn’t want her the way she wanted him. Only those words could stop her. Though, in her heart, she believed she would never hear them. There was no way that the man who made her would turn her away.
“I was just driving through town and I lost power. The car started to slow down. I had to coast to this pull-off.” Charlie tried to keep her voice light and innocent.
Alec looked back, one of his brows raised. She fought back her smile at the sight of him. He rushed back to the driver’s seat and bent to stick his head inside. She heard him tap the dashboard a few times.
“The gauge says you have a quarter tank of gas. Maybe you ran out and the gauge isn’t reading pr
operly.” Alec stood straight, still scowling at the dashboard.
This must have been driving him crazy.
“We could get you some gas and probably get you on your way. You must be dying to get to your destination.”
This was her destination. Right here, beside him. Couldn’t he see that?
“You’ll want to get this checked at some point. It could cause further issues down the road. I know you’re a dragon shifter, but flying during the day isn’t really an option for us. Is it?”
He could tell that she was a dragon shifter, but couldn’t remember her face? Yeah, she’d grown up, but Charlie refused to believe that she’d changed all that much.
“Get back into the truck,” Alec told her. “I’ll take you back to the cabins, then go out and get gas. If that works, I’ll come back for you. You’ll be on your way in no time.”
“Alright.” Charlie wanted more, but she would have to settle for this.
If he couldn’t recognize her, then was he even her mate? She chewed on her lower lip while she pondered the possibility. There was only one way to find out. She would have to keep from telling him who she was. If he still couldn’t remember her, then she’d spent her years yearning for the wrong man.
Charlie didn’t want to believe that was possible, but…well, only time would tell.
Jude eyed Alec. He didn’t like the way she sized him up, unafraid of him. Heath’s new mate averted her gaze, but Jude stared him down. Alec looked to Cole to silently ask him to pull his mate back, but Cole just shrugged and backed away.
Alec (Keepers Of The Lake Book 3) Page 1
