What he didn’t say, but Aven sensed loud and clear, was he also planned on talking some sense into his little sister.
* * *
Dakota ended her hours-long drive on the round side of Lightning Rock, parking as close as she could and walking around to the sunflower field.
A stalk at the edge of the field hung bent, its heavy flowerhead almost brushing the ground. Dakota twisted the stalk until it broke free. She carried it into the field, aiming for the side opposite Lightning Rock.
When she reached the center, she stopped. A small, flat boulder blocked her path. Guess the sun goddess missed one.
She sat down on the boulder, wondering what Aven and Dallas were talking about.
She held the sunflower head in her lap and pulled the golden petals off, one by one. I’m an idiot; I’m an idiot, not. I’m a fucking idiot; I’m a fucking idiot, not.
She wanted Aven. She couldn’t have him. She wanted in The Cause, but she couldn’t have that yet either. Thoughts crowded on top of each other, jumbling and twisting until she pressed her hands to her temple.
Nantahala was her home. Dakota felt it. Did she dare “scratch that itch” with Aven? Her brother thinking she shouldn’t made her want to do it more, and she’d already wanted to do it plenty. But if she had a fling with a shifter who was Dallas’ best friend? Could either of them get over that?
Dakota plucked the last petal off the sunflower, then gazed at the sky, thinking of the story Aven had told her. She imagined herself as that warrior, digging and digging without rest for what she knew was hers.
She stood, knowing what she wanted. Aven. She had to give him a chance.
Decision made.
* * *
Dallas hit the weight machines while Aven knocked out five miles on the treadmill. The Sparring space was filling up now that it was evening, small groups milling around the equipment or seeking out Jameson to talk to.
Aven met his friend back at the chairs. Dallas was eyeing Shiloh. Dallas gave a low whistle, for only Aven to hear. “Never met a female predator before. Besides Dakota, I mean. Sisters don’t count.”
Aven felt an edge under Dallas' words. There was something else he wasn’t telling Aven. He and his sister, both.
“I know why they are rare,” Aven said. “It’s a leftover from when switches and vampires were everywhere. The switches needed a lot of shifters, so shifters had to have some females to keep the population up. But the male shifters were all about the switches, mostly, so having too many female shifters around led to fights. So most shifter babies are male.”
Dallas was still looking at Shiloh. “She doesn’t glow,” he muttered darkly.
Aven looked sideways at Dallas. “Why would she?” But even he had to admit it was confusing until you’d lived it for a while. Vampires, covens, switches; Dallas would sort it all out.
Dallas nodded, but not like he meant it, his eyes still on Shiloh. Aven could feel his friend still had questions, so he went on. “On the flip side, though, Carick said the switches mostly gave birth to girls, and any boys they had were always shifters unless they were, like, the seventh son of a seventh son.”
Dallas shifted his hands into black jaguar paws and back, his knuckles clear of the abrasions and cuts from their fight. “Then what were they?”
“He didn’t say.” Aven stood up, ready for a shower. He saw Jameson coming their way, eyes on Dallas. Weariness filled Aven. He didn’t want to hear whatever Jameson was going to say. All Aven wanted to do was get cleaned up and go home to his cabin, where he hoped Dakota would be waiting.
He headed for the locker rooms. Jameson didn’t call him back. As Aven turned the corner he looked back to see Dallas and Jameson with their heads together, deep in conversation. Perfect.
He needed to talk to Dakota.
Chapter 23 - Broken Wings
Aven flew toward his cabin in the fading light, riding high on a last burst of warm air, scanning the roads between the evergreens for Dakota’s cherry red convertible. No headlights broke the landscape below him. The peaks of the mountains eased closer, until finally his cabin came into view.
He circled the cabin and was relieved as hell to see Luxe parked out front. He landed at the end of the driveway, checked his clothes, and walked toward the cabin. Dakota sat on the front porch, in one of the rocking chairs. She smiled at him as he approached. Aven felt his insides heat with some deep emotion.
He wanted this female. Only her. He wanted her way more than he should.
Aven dropped into the other chair. An intimate mood rolled off Dakota. She wanted to share… something. Hopefully she’d say what soon. His body had some ideas.
Her voice was light. “You and Dallas work it out?”
Aven didn’t show evidence of their bout on his face and body anymore, but he got the sense that Dakota wouldn’t have been surprised. “Did you know about his leg?”
Dakota threw him a look that said, duh, I’m his sister. “He doesn’t like for me to tell people. Makes it harder to know how they really feel.”
Aven nodded. That made sense, given how Dallas had approached him at Sparring.
Beside him Dakota was quiet. Aven could feel her building up to something, so he stayed quiet, too. The words burst out of her, as if she’d tried to hold them back, but failed. “What happened when he got shot? Dallas doesn’t remember much, and I know there’s stuff you can’t say, but…”
Her voice trailed off as Aven leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. He had to decide what to share now that he knew vampires had been there, tell not just Dakota; Jameson, too.
He wanted to tell her. He sat back. Steeled himself. Called it up in his memory.
He told her what he could, what she didn’t need a security clearance to know, his words almost lost to him as he re-lived it.
Aven and his team swam the last few miles into the quiet Mediterranean bay, ringed by a neighborhood of wealthy citizens with towering mansions and private docks along the tree-ringed beach. The residents of those houses didn’t know, or maybe care, that one of the homes in their peaceful neighborhood was run by the government’s secret police, where they hid and tortured hostages they suspected of betraying the state.
The SEALs shed their gear at the landing point. Aven did a raptor-style sweep of the beach before they went any farther.
It was late so most of the houses were quiet, except the one a hundred yards east. That one was lit up with energy, festive and pure, the type he’d come to expect from families on Christmas morning, or when a new baby was born. He chalked it up to life-as-usual and moved on with the mission.
They hit the tree line just before the beach with their rescues and no reason to think that anyone from the house would be following them. Ever. All that was left was to get to the boats, where Dallas and the other SWCCs waited to get them out.
Dallas had done his sweep by then, scented pine and bitter herbs, and gotten snake-bit. But even if Aven had known all that, or what it meant, it wouldn’t have helped. He and Dallas were so connected that Aven could feel his best friend’s pained worry, but underneath it Dallas was giving the all-clear. The double-blink of a flashlight was just cover for the humans around them. Aven motioned to his team to move.
The second they got into open ground, the enemy opened fire. Aven’s team hit the deck with the rescued hostages, some SEALs returning fire while the others got the hostages to the waiting boats. Aven saw gunfire coming from where the boats were, aimed at the enemy. Dallas and his crew backing them up.
Aven brought up the rear, keeping everyone ahead of him. His heart thudded louder than the gunfire in his ears. His shoulder ached from the kickback of his rifle sending round after round into the darkness. When his gun clicked empty, he lay as flat as he could. Sand erupted around him as he shoved another magazine in, went back to laying cover fire for his team.
Finally the sand changed texture under Aven’s body from fluffy to packed. He saw the silhou
ettes of his team against the far-off harbor lights, men pulling themselves and each other over the sides of the black, rubber-sided boats. One of the bodies was limp.
He heard Dallas close by, on the beach with him, grunting as he fired into the ambush and pushed the second boat into the water. They were the last ones on the beach. Aven pushed to his feet and ran for the boat.
A shout went up beside him and Aven saw Dallas collapse in the shallows, his weapon forgotten, sinking into saltwater.
The whole world stopped. Aven grabbed his friend, his only thought to keep Dallas’ head above the water. Another SEAL grabbed Dallas, lifted him into the boat. Hard hands pulled at Aven’s vest and arms as the motor cranked and the boat started to move. Water dragged at his pants, fought to hold onto him. He pushed with his legs and flopped over the rubber side of the boat to safety.
Gunfire intensified. The enemy rushed the shore, aiming for the boats and the people in them. Aven took a last look as they sped away, trying to block out Dallas' pain, take in the details.
All he could see was darkness and muzzle flash. All he could smell was gunpowder and blood.
Dakota’s shaky voice broke in. “You saved him. He said you did, but I never-”
Aven looked at Dakota and was startled to see tears running down her face. He wiped one away with his thumb, not stopping to think if it was a good idea or not. He needed to touch her.
She met his eye the moment his thumb grazed her cheek. “That must have been horrible for you.”
She seemed to care for him almost as much as for her brother. It touched him, but he couldn’t stop his story.
Aven spent the boat ride across the tiny corner of sea trying to ignore the pain and grief surrounding him. There would be time for that later. He had to compartmentalize his own feelings and work out what had gone wrong, who could have known about the op and where they’d be extracting from. If Aven didn’t know where the threat was, he couldn’t protect his team. Unacceptable.
He turned it over and over, and finally came down to Cage. Aven’s buddy had been acting squirrely leading up to the op. Secretive, and not only the usual kind of secretive that everyone in the CIA was, even with people serving on the same side. Cage had been hiding something important, something that meant everything to him. It was a punch to the gut to think his friend could be involved, but Aven couldn’t see any other way in.
He’d been so wrong. He didn’t know that Dallas had scented vampires on that beach. No matter what Cage was hiding - and up until the op he thought it was a woman, that’s why he hadn’t pushed it - vampires being involved changed everything.
He got Dallas into the medics’ hands as the sun was coming up. Then Aven broke protocol, walking out of the military hospital, going straight to Cage’s apartment instead of back to HQ for his debriefing.
Fuck that. He’d debrief after he got the story from his friend. Aven would beat it out of Cage, if it came to that. One of his rescues had died, Dallas was shot to hell, and someone was going to answer for it.
Coming up on Cage’s apartment building, one of hundreds shoved into the close quarters of the oldest part of town with its narrow cobblestone streets, Aven slowed. He didn’t look at Cage’s building. He looked for anyone watching it, or him, or simply loitering nearby, looking too perfectly at home.
Nothing. Aven stepped into the lobby.
Up six flights of stairs, through the chatter of early morning, scenting the perfume of local foods cooking, scanning for anyone who might be waiting to kill him. All seemed normal to Aven. Until he got to Cage’s apartment. An unnatural quiet descended as he approached the door and tested it.
Locked. He had it unlocked in twenty seconds, thanks to some fancy feather work. He turned the knob slowly, ready for anything except what he saw.
Blood was everywhere. Cage’s blood, Aven could tell from the scorched-feather scent that hung in the room like fog. The furniture was turned upside down, a leg broken off of Cage’s favorite reading chair, books of poetry strewn across the floor. Every drawer was open, ransacked, even the ones in the kitchen and bathroom. The mattress was slashed in three places.
No body, though. No drag marks, either.
But there was no way that Cage could have lost the amount of blood that bathed the apartment and survived, shifter or not. What had happened to his friend’s body was incidental to the choice that Aven had to make: report what he suspected about Cage to his superiors, or assume it had nothing to do with their op and let his friend’s good name stand.
Before he could get far with the debate, Aven heard sirens. Local police. The last thing Aven needed when he was breaking rank was to be found at the scene of a crime. He booked it out the door and down the stairs, emerging from the building and slowing his breath as police cars turned the corner.
Aven was so distracted, he didn’t understand what the blinding white light in the corner of his eye meant. It was only when his Instinct shouted a warning that Aven’s brain caught up and his training kicked in. The light was the glint off a sniper’s scope, and he was the target.
Aven pushed into a desperate side-lunge for the second time in as many hours, throwing himself at the ground as if he had a weapon to fire back. It was the only thing that saved him.
The bullet tore into his shoulder, spinning Aven to his back in mid-air. He crawled behind the corner of a building. His mind knew what had happened but the pain hadn’t caught up. Aven was grateful. Sirens screamed up next to him, shouting voices and faces getting closer, their foreign words too hurried for Aven to make out. He looked to where the bullet must have come from, but all he saw was the pink flash of the sunrise off high windows.
Buzzing filled his head as the pain landed, worse than Aven could have imagined. He didn’t want to look at the wound. Blood ran down his side and hand. He could feel his hand. That was good. If he could just shift it…
Aven considered doing that. Shifting into his eagle and flying away, leaving the locals to sort it out. But the pain kept him from thinking it through, and in his hesitation the option was lost.
“Before I knew it I was in surgery. When I woke up my superior officer was there to give me the news.” He looked over at Dakota, at her eyes full of genuine compassion. “My shoulder was destroyed. I was out of the SEALs. They wouldn’t even wait around to see if I recovered or not, I was just out.”
The sorrow in Dakota’s eyes mirrored how Aven had felt once the anger had died down. The most important thing in his life, his purpose and pride, and he’d lost it when he didn’t even have to. One shift and he would have been able to keep going for another ten years. But that wasn’t how things had worked out.
“I thought I had blown the op somehow, missed something on my sweep. I think the vampires scrambled the signal, made whoever was in that house think they were there for a party. But why would they do that unless they knew a raptor was going to be there…” Aven let his voice trail off.
He could examine the memories later. Even saying it all out loud hadn’t hurt as much as he expected it to. Maybe because of the time between then and now. Or maybe because, sitting here with Dakota, Aven couldn’t find it in him to regret it anymore. He’d walk every inch of that busted road again if it brought him to a chance with her.
Chapter 24 - Cat Got Your Tongue
The intimate mood wrapped around Dakota, stoked by Aven’s confession. Her stomach fluttered with nerves. She reminded herself of the decision she’d made in the sunflower field, to tell Aven everything.
“You were right,” she blurted. Aven turned his golden brown eyes on Dakota and the flutters got stronger, but she pushed ahead. “This morning, when you said that we distract each other and…” Dakota’s voice stuck in her throat. The look in his eyes stole it.
Dakota forced her eyes away from his. Down to his chest… Worse! Back to the eyes. “What I said about wanting kids, I meant that. And you’re a great guy. I don’t want to jerk you around. So if we do this, I need you to know that it wo
n’t be… you know… forever.”
Her body reacted to the thought of him agreeing. Was it really what she wanted?
Aven reached toward Dakota and her heart shook. His calloused thumb stroked her cheek, her lips, his fingers cradling her jaw. His voice was gruff, sending tingles all through her body. “I don’t need forever.”
She felt his words, his touch like lightning on her skin, making her need him. A shiver rushed her spine and Dakota sucked in a breath. Aven’s thumb caressed her lower lip. He leaned closer.
Dakota braced herself. He was going to kiss her and it was going to rock her like it had before. He might ruin her for anybody else. But right here, right now, she could still walk away … couldn’t she?
She trembled. She willed herself to stop and didn’t quite manage.
Aven stopped. Pulled back. The warm caress of his thumb left her lip and his hand took hers. He stood up, tugging gently. “Come on.”
He led her inside the cabin, dark because Dakota had left the lights off while she was outside waiting. Aven didn’t take his eyes off her. She saw them sparkle in the darkness and didn’t want to look away.
He guided her to his bedroom, to the center of the room, facing each other. Dakota looked up to meet Aven’s eyes, so hard with desire. He wanted her. Wanted them, tangled in the dark. It was the most seductive moment of Dakota’s life. Aven didn’t just want to have sex with her; he wanted to know her.
Still he didn’t kiss her.
He unbuttoned and opened her blouse, bringing the lacy cups of Dakota’s bra into view. Aven’s breath shuddered. His calloused fingertips skimmed her shoulders as he pushed the shirt to the floor.
Dakota’s hands itched to touch him. She yanked his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor next to her blouse. She couldn’t hold out anymore. Dakota raised her hands to Aven’s chest and hovered them for the barest moment over his skin, absorbing the heat he gave off. He inhaled, his chest rising to touch her fingers.
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