“When you kill your father, I want to take his place,” Tyler said. “You don’t want his pack. I can tell that you and your clan are happy out here. If you give me leadership, you won’t have to come back and claim everyone.”
Gavin tried to fight back his suspicion, but it had been ingrained into him after the many years of living beside his father.
“I don’t have time for this,” Gavin snapped. “Get out of my way.”
Tyler threw up his hands and backed away. He jerked his chin toward the road. “She started walking back toward town.”
A breath rushed out of Gavin. He wasn’t used to being read that easily. If Tyler knew what Nellie meant to Gavin, then he could report back to Zander. She would be in trouble from here on out.
Tyler seemed to read Gavin’s concern, too. “I’m not going to tell that asshole a thing. I meant it when I said I want to help.”
Gavin didn’t have time to question Tyler. He gunned it out of the driveway, kicking dirt up at Tyler as he sped away. There would be time for questions later. Gavin had to make sure Nellie was safe first.
He tried calling her, but she didn’t respond. His beast’s fire filled his throat, ready to hurt whoever was keeping her from answering. Then he saw her alone on the side of the road. She still wore his clothes, though he shouldn’t have been surprised since she’d had no time to change. The sight of it made something deep inside him clench tight.
He rolled down the passenger window as he pulled up beside her. She gave him a sidelong glance filled with cold derision. The look stabbed him in the heart. He wanted to go back to their flirtation in the bathroom, to the sparks they’d conjured the night before. If he could make one woman in this world happy, he wanted it to be her.
She deserved a life free of fear. If he survived this fight, he could give it to her once and for all. That meant he needed to keep her from running until then.
“Fuck off. I’m mad at you.”
A laugh spilled out of him. Her boldness surprised him every time. “What can I do to fix it?”
“You can go bug someone else. Tiffany, for example.”
“I don’t want to make my relationship with her work,” he said out the window.
Nellie stopped dead in her tracks. Gavin had to hit the brakes and put the Jeep into reverse to see her again. Nellie stared at the ground, seemingly lost.
“What did I do? Did I say the wrong thing again?” Of course, he had. Gavin would never be able to make anyone happy. He would always cause friction in the lives of those who mattered to him.
Nellie didn’t have time to answer. The jeep rocked. The sound of crunching metal filled the air. The Jeep lifted up onto two wheels while Nellie screamed. Gavin’s teeth rattled as the Jeep fell back onto all four wheels.
Gavin leapt out of the Jeep. He didn’t care about the hunk of metal. If the attacker swooped again, they would tip the vehicle onto Nellie. She couldn’t protect herself right now.
He darted around the car and swept her into his arms. She reached around him to throw out her hand, but a strangled sound left her. He didn’t have time to tell her that everything would be okay even if she didn’t have her magic. He set her down, away from the Jeep, and faced his attacker.
He’d worried that Tyler had followed him after seeing that Gavin wouldn’t be so trusting. The dragon in the air wasn’t Tyler, though. The beast tossed its head, flames dripping from its maw. Burnished silver scales glinted in the light. Gavin knew that beast anywhere.
He cursed under his breath. Zander had made his first move.
Why was his father here? Gavin had thought the old man would wait for Tiffany to tear Gavin down to nothing. She’d barely been in town a couple of days. Unless Zander had come to monitor Tiffany’s work and saw an opening when Gavin left the cabin.
Gavin wasn’t ready to fight. He wouldn’t be able to focus with Nellie nearby. Had she still been able to access her magic, this could have gone differently. She would have ended this fight before it even began. But Gavin and his relentless pursuit had forced her to give it all up. Because of him, she had no way to defend herself.
The beast prepared itself for a fight. Fire filled Gavin. He could almost feel the creature’s wings stretching already. His skin grew tight as he looked up at his father in the sky. Gavin didn’t want to fight yet, but he wasn’t going to leave Nellie vulnerable.
She would have time to run, maybe even get backup before Zander could kill him.
Her hand closed around Gavin’s. He looked over his shoulder and found pleading eyes watching him. She’d pulled her lower lip between her teeth, a look that told him everything.
“Run back to the cabin,” he told her.
Her expression twitched, a snarl trying to take up residence before she shut it down. She wanted to fight. He could tell that much. Because he’d forced her hand, she had no magic to help. He could imagine she wasn’t comfortable with being so vulnerable.
“Run,” he commanded.
She leaned forward. For a split second, he thought she might kiss him. Then she lurched away from him and took off in a breakneck sprint. He let out a sigh of relief even though he yearned for the kiss that didn’t happen.
With Nellie on her way back to the cabin, Gavin turned his attention to the sky. Zander twisted and dove. Gavin’s heart leapt into his throat. He leapt into the air and let his beast rip out of him. His red-scaled beast collided with Zander only ten feet above Nellie’s head.
She yelped and stumbled. Gavin twisted around his father’s form and forced his wings closed. They plummeted to the ground together. Zander would escape his grapple any moment and resume the hunt for Nellie. Gavin couldn’t allow that. He had to hold on. He had to protect her.
The silver dragon bit down on the back of Gavin’s neck. He hissed, but his scales didn’t give way. Claws slid between Gavin’s scales and pierced his flesh. Tossing his head back, his horns hit the silver beast.
While the silver beast recoiled, Gavin tried to pin it to the ground. He hesitated when he reached for the beast’s right arm and met something solid. His father had lost his right hand not long ago. He should not have grown it back. No amount of magic allowed a shifter to reclaim lost parts.
72
Nellie slowed and looked back. Her pulse raced as her lungs heaved. The Jeep sat empty in the middle of the road. Two dragons fought nearby, twisting like a nest of snakes. Their grunts and groans made her head ache. The sound of scales snapping filled her with dread.
The silver dragon would kill Gavin if she didn’t do something to help. Nellie wasn’t sure what she could do, though. Her usual arsenal was empty. The only thing she had left was desperation and a flicker of something unexpected.
Fear, though it wasn’t for herself. Gavin had become a part of her life. He meant more to her than he should, and there was no going back now. She pulled on that flicker and conjured a bright light within herself. This wasn’t her usual magic. It glowed warm in her palms, as if she’d cupped her hands around a candle flame.
She held out a hand and closed her eyes. With the silver dragon clear in her mind’s eye, she tried the sleep spell. Gavin’s pained cry reached her, hitting her like a physical slap in the face. She recoiled. Anger surged through her and added to the heat in her palms. It would not conjure a peaceful spell.
Nellie braced herself. She pushed her heels into the earth and sucked in a deep breath. The magic that spilled from her snaked along the ground toward the fighting beasts. It wrapped around Zander’s limbs like shackles. His roar told her that it was working. She held on tight to this scrap of magic.
The sounds of fighting quieted. She cracked open an eye. The silver dragon had stopped moving altogether. Gavin disengaged. He cast her a wary glance before slamming a clawed hand down onto the beast’s neck.
Was this Zander, the man responsible for this war? As Nellie slowly closed the distance between them, she took in the beast caught beneath Gavin’s hand. The creature was not nearly as large
as she had expected. Smears of bright silver covered the creature’s body, as if it had rolled around in soot before the fight and the tussle had wiped some of it away.
The heat in her palms slowly faded until she had nothing left. Whatever magic she’d tapped into no longer existed. The beast broke free of her shackles, but it couldn’t do much more than thrash. This couldn’t be Zander. Gavin’s clan wasn’t afraid of this dragon, were they?
The way Gavin stared down at the beast in question made Nellie suspect something was wrong. He tossed a glance back at her. She could tell that he was annoyed she hadn’t run back to the cabin, but a flicker of intelligence also passed over those golden eyes. He knew she’d used magic to help.
Before anyone could say anything, the beast under Gavin’s claw shrank back into a human form. A strange man lay face down in the dirt. He said something, but the dust and gravel muffled the sound.
Nellie flexed her hands, hoping that power would come pouring back into them, but nothing happened. Once again, she was without magic. The thought made her chest tight. She didn’t dare step forward without a way to protect herself.
Gavin didn’t look at her. He scanned the sky above, like a new danger might descend upon them at any moment. When nothing happened, he shifted back to human. The man on the ground got to his hands and knees once Gavin’s hold disappeared. The man sat back on his haunches, his hands on his thighs.
When the man’s gaze slid to Nellie and she saw the fire in it, she stumbled back. Gavin inserted himself between her and the unnamed man before anything happened. Still, Nellie knew. That had been a look of hatred. He’d figured out what she was and in a single look had promised her death.
She should have run back to the cabin when Gavin told her to. The thought of leaving him alone had terrified her. They’d both thought the dragon was Zander. Nellie couldn’t leave Gavin alone in a fight like that.
“When did you hire a witch?” the unnamed man asked, venom in his eerily steady voice.
She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to find that source of magic again. Her well was still empty. No amount of grasping would allow her to find something that wasn’t there.
Gavin issued a warning growl. The sound slipped up her spine but didn’t fill her with fear. If anything, she realized she was safe.
“What are you doing on my territory, and why were you disguised as my father?”
The man rolled his gaze up to Gavin. “You didn’t answer my question? You know we burn witches, right?”
She thought Gavin would strike the man. Instead, Gavin crouched and took the man’s face in his hand, as if the man were a frail child.
“If you ever come near her again, your arm will match my father’s. This is my territory and I protect all who live on it. If you have a problem with that, then you can crawl back to my father and tell him that you’re a spineless failure.” Gavin released the man’s chin and stood.
Nellie told herself the warmth travelling from her chest to her core wasn’t lust or even affection. It was nothing more than adrenaline, a lie she easily served to herself. She wasn’t in love with Gavin or anything wild like that.
“Fine,” the man said. “Keep her. She’ll turn on you and destroy your clan from the inside out. Then Zander will not have to worry about his worthless, wayward son.”
Gavin jerked. She waited for him to strike. His shoulder tightened and his fists trembled at his sides. Still, Gavin didn’t move. He did the unexpected and stepped around the man on the ground. Both Nellie and the man stared at each other in shock.
“If you think this is an opening to hurt her, there won’t be enough of you left to send back to my father,” Gavin growled.
He surveyed the damage on the roof of his Jeep, as if he didn’t need to keep an eye on the man on the ground. Nellie held herself upright to keep the illusion that she still had magic to defend herself when she knew the well would produce nothing if the man came for her. Her safety was entirely reliant on Gavin.
Her heart began to melt until she reminded herself why there were dragons in her small town at all. Gavin had brought them here when he chose to defect from a powerful clan leader. This war sat squarely on Gavin’s shoulders. She wouldn’t be caught in the middle of it had Gavin not taken up residence here.
Like he caught the hint of doubt in Nellie’s eyes, the man shot to his feet. He got half a step forward before Gavin knocked him to the ground again. Gavin put his foot on the man’s spine and leaned forward to growl:
“I gave you a warning already.”
Nellie cringed, not wanting to watch Gavin rip the man limb from limb. Yet, no pained cries reached her. When she cracked open an eye, she saw Gavin push the man away. He fumbled back, eyes wide with shock.
“My father sent you to die so we would think the war had ended,” Gavin explained. “I hope you understand that you were nothing but a decoy, a bad one at that.”
The man’s lips flapped. Had Gavin killed the man, there was a chance he and the clan would have let themselves believe that Zander was dead once and for all. The chance was slim, but perhaps Zander was running out of options and had turned to relying on weak ploys. This man’s scales happened to be similar to Zander’s. That was the only reason he’d been thrown at Gavin.
Gavin turned to Nellie and held out his hand. “I’ll give you a ride home, if you’ll let me.”
She took his hand. The warmth of it was eerily similar to the magic she’d harnessed moments ago. She tried not to think about it as he led her to the car.
The tears in the roof sent chills through her. She stared at them, unable to take her eyes away from the damage. Had Evangeline felt like this the night of the fire? Had she witnessed how easily dragons could destroy and felt her insides quake?
Nellie hated this vulnerability. She’d never felt so weak in her life. One moment, magic came to her. The next, it vanished like it’d never existed at all. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work. Her magic belonged to her. It should have bent to her will. This new power obeyed no one. It did what it wanted, when it wanted.
She’d witnessed Gavin in trouble and the magic had practically poured out of her.
Nope. She wasn’t going to take that apart. The thought was going into a little lock box that she could chuck into the dark recesses of her mind. Only, those shadows were starting to fill up with those little lock boxes. She’d had far too many thoughts of Gavin that she’d refused to unpack.
They left the naked shifter in the dust while the wind outside whistled through the impromptu sunroof. Gavin ground his teeth in the driver seat beside her.
“I had magic,” she whispered. “For two minutes, I had magic.”
“I noticed,” he said, finally.
Why? What was it about this man that brought strange powers out of her? Why did she feel the need to protect him? None of it made any sense.
That wasn’t completely true. If she dared to think about it long enough, this would begin to make sense. Nellie wasn’t sure she was ready to face the truth of what was going on. She wanted to remain blind to it a little longer because that meant she wouldn’t have to wade into a world of danger just yet.
“Are you hungry? Because I’m hungry.” Gavin turned off the path to her house and headed toward the center of town.
“You are buck ass naked,” she reminded him.
She wasn’t sure if she was grateful or worried that he’d ignored the subject of her magic. They couldn’t talk about it in a café or restaurant, so it wasn’t like he wanted to go somewhere to discuss it. He’d simply acknowledged what happened and let it go.
“You think I don’t bring three extra sets of clothing everywhere I go? I’m not a complete fool. My clan likes to pick out the ugliest shit when they bring me clothes. I’ve learned to make sure I have something better on hand.” He shook his head. “Evangeline has brought me a shirt with rainbow dicks on it more than once.”
Nellie couldn’t help but laugh. The idea of her best friend
bringing one of the most frightening men a very gay shirt was so like Evangeline.
“Did you wear it?”
“Pfft, of course I did. Do you really think I’m not going to man up to every challenge?” He grinned as he gave her a sidelong glance.
Her stomach flipped. She’d expected him to say no, that he would never wear such a thing. As troubled as he was, he seemed comfortable in his sexuality. She shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d seen him naked. Gavin had more to offer than any other man she’d ever met.
“About earlier…” he began. “I didn’t mean to drag you into a fake relationship. I can tell Tiffany the truth if you want me to.”
Nellie hadn’t expected him to bring that up. The interaction with Tiffany felt a hundred years ago now. She’d forgotten all about it, actually.
“No. If that helps you deal with her, we can keep the lie up.”
He slowed and turned into a parking lot. “What if…”
Silence spilled into the space between them. She held her breath, waiting for what he would say next.
Then he shook his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I don’t want to trouble you.”
He got out and left her alone in the Jeep. She tried to catch up and read between the lines, but she couldn’t translate what had just happened. She suspected a proposition had been in there somewhere, but what he’d wanted, she couldn’t tell. He could have asked her to make the fake relationship a little more convincing, or he could have been about to ask if they could make it a real relationship.
The back hatch opened. Gavin rummaged around for clothes. She peered out the window and kept an eye out for anyone who might see him in all his naked glory. If she’d had her magic, she would have hidden him from prying eyes. Not because she wanted to keep all that to herself…
Rogue Dragons Series: Box Set Books 1-5 Page 61
