I felt someone’s palm on my shoulder and Blaize knelt beside me. “I’ll hold your hair. It’s going to be a while before I can get you to a shower.”
How humiliating.
But I let her hold my hair anyway.
11. Blaize
I watched MaddieAnne heave up whatever she’d eaten last, shaking my head, patting her back, and holding her hair out of the way. I’d been there. I knew how bad it was.
The train conductor in the doorway, the one who’d watched the ghoul self-combust without blinking an eye, leaned out.
“We’re pulling out soon, Miss.”
I nodded, but MaddieAnne paused in her retching long enough to wave her hand and whisper, “My valise. I need my valise.”
“Can you get it for her?” I asked.
He nodded and dashed into the train. Seconds later, he was out again, carrying the leather bag, now looking worse for wear.
Beating up ghouls with fine luggage will do that.
“Maybe I could...” She didn’t get any more out than that before she was retching over the platform side again, though she had puked up the last of what was in her stomach long before.
“Just wait,” I said. “It’ll pass as soon as the train leaves.”
I hoped I was right about what was causing this, anyway.
When the train wheels screeched against the tracks and began rolling, the dry-heaves slowed. By the time the train was out of sight, MaddieAnne was sitting on the platform with her knees drawn up to her chest.
“What the hell was that?” she asked, her voice shaking.
I sat down next to her. “That’s what happens when we try to buck the curse.”
“I still don’t believe there’s a curse.”
I waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. Call it a destiny. Or a calling. Or whatever you want to. We have to fight monsters in the Southwest. And if you try to get out of it in any way, you end up vomiting your guts up on the train tracks beside the smoking remains of a ghoul.”
“That seems awfully specific.” Her voice held a touch of humor for the first time since I’d met her.
“Or something equally miserable.”
She frowned. “So let’s just assume for the moment that you’re telling the truth. What am I supposed to do?”
“I wasn’t just deflecting your hips comment earlier, you know. You really do need training.”
“Who trained you?”
“My father.”
She eyed me up and down. “Oh, dear God in Heaven. Absolutely not.”
I looked at her expensive boots, her fancy luggage, her nice clothes. “No. You’re probably right. That’s a terrible idea.”
We both burst out laughing.
After she’d wiped tears from her eyes, she said, “If I accept this as my destiny—or whatever—how will I even know what I’m supposed to be doing? Surely it’s not all vomiting when I go the wrong way.”
I laughed again. “No. You’ll feel the Call. I suggest you get some hand-to-hand lessons, maybe learn to shoot a gun, hold a knife. That sort of thing.”
“Sugar, I grew up in North Carolina. I have been shooting since I was five years old.”
“That’s a good start, then. If you get stuck, you could always reach out to me. I can give you my number.”
She nodded and pulled out her phone. After we’d traded contact information, she began gathering up her belongings. “Do you think you could possibly take me somewhere with a real train station? Or maybe an airport? I’m not missing my stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Assuming you think I’ll be able to go now that I have accepted my fate?”
“If not, you’ll know it when you try to leave. And you can call me back to come get you.”
IT TURNED OUT YUMA had an airport. I offered to let MaddieAnne stay in the van until the sun rose, but she declined. The last I saw was the determined set of her shoulders as she strode into the building.
I assumed I’d hear back from MaddieAnne after she had some more experience under her belt. Assuming she didn’t get herself killed first.
But I could just about guarantee that MaddieAnne assumed she’d never have to see me again.
I couldn’t help but snicker just a little.
Wolf glanced up at me in the closest thing I’d ever seen to a wolfy side-eye.
“I know, I know. And I really don’t want her to get hurt. But she’s so damn snooty.”
Still, I grinned as I drove away.
In that last fight, I’d seen more than a hint of Gracie in MaddieAnne. They were definitely related. And though I wouldn’t admit it to MaddieAnne, it had felt good to once again tag-team a monster while fighting beside a cousin.
That hadn’t happened in far too long.
I hoped she could come to truly, fully accept her destiny.
Her curse.
Our curse.
12. MaddieAnne
It took everything I had to trust Blaize.
As I watched the Sunset Express pull of out Yuma, Arizona on its way to cultured California, my heart sank. The last week had been the hardest of my life, and now I’d just learned that my destiny might involve breaking more than a few nails in hand-to-hand combat.
Just when you think you know yourself.
I waved good-bye to Blaize, Wolf, and the van at the departures terminal of the Yuma airport. I was sure I wouldn’t miss the van. At all.
It would be morning before I could get a flight to LA, but the airport was small, and the gate agent promised she’d wake me when my flight started boarding. I fell asleep at the gate, paperback open on my chest.
I paid careful attention to my belly as I boarded. No nausea, thank goodness.
I was in LA by nine the next morning and settling in my suite just in time for lunch.
My room was plush and luxurious and a balm to my soul.
After ordering room service, I took a shower, washed the grime of the desert and the ghouls out of my hair, and wrapped it in a towel. I ate my chicken salad croissant in my robe and then snuggled into bed for a well-deserved nap.
When I woke, it was late afternoon judging by the slant of the sunlight streaming through my windows.
I needed a manicure, and a pedicure, and a new Louis Vuitton valise. All those would be easy to procure in Beverly Hills.
But when I thought of those things, things that used to make me happy, I felt a little empty inside.
Killing not one, but two, ghouls with the help of Blaize and Wolf had awakened something in me, a satisfaction I’d never felt before El Paso.
Maybe I was more than just a Southern girl who knew Lenox flatware patterns better than anyone who didn’t work at Macy’s had any right to. Maybe I was a little bit of a monster-hunting badass.
If I was, I wasn’t going to do it like Blaize. I was going to do it my own way, with grace and style and my trademark panache.
I picked up the remote, ready to escape into the world of reality television, but before I clicked the power button, I called downstairs.
“Concierge,” a man answered.
“I’d like for you to arrange karate lessons for me. Beginning tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am. What time works best for you?”
“Anytime. Just let me know.”
“Of course, Miss Honeycutt.”
I hung up the phone and smiled.
It was better to be prepared. Just in case.
THE END
About the Authors
Margo Bond Collins
USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.
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The Shifter Shield Series
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Blaire Edens
Blaire Edens lives in the mountains of North Carolina. She grew up on a farm that's been in her family since 1790. She's held a myriad of jobs including television reporter, GPS map creator, and personal assistant to a fellow who was rich enough to pay someone to pick up the dry cleaning. When she's not plotting, she's busy knitting, running, or listening to the Blues.
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CAPTURED BY THE DRAGON
A Their Shifter Princess/Their Shifter Academy Story
May Dawson
About Captured by the Dragon
Mel has always been the good girl: first the alpha’s daughter, then the alpha’s sister. Now she’s in college, and she’s ready to be a little bad.
Being a little bad turns into a one night stand with the sexiest man she’s ever met.
That one night stand turns into stealing from him to save a friend.
But he’s more than she realizes.
And once the dragon has decided she’s his real treasure, he’ll never let her go.
Chapter One
Mel
Somewhere beyond the streetlamps, the stars must shine in the black sky and the moon must be almost full. But the city lights seemed so much brighter than the stars. As the last heat of a San Diego fall day faded, a pleasant cool breeze off the ocean caressed the city.
I hugged myself, rubbing away the sudden goosebumps that pebbled my skin. As I headed down the sidewalk, men kept glancing at me, their gazes lingering too long for comfort. I was keenly aware that my waist-length caramel hair and exposed tan, lean body in a leather halter top and tight jeans drew their gazes.
I didn’t give a damn. Unless I ran into rival shifters, my friends and I were the most dangerous things out here tonight.
As I glimpsed Carrie and Jaime up ahead, I raised my hand in an excited wave. Moving to San Diego was the craziest thing I’d ever done in my life, but I wasn’t alone. The university where I’d enrolled had one off-campus house that was secretly occupied entirely by wolf shifters, so I had an instant pack to run with.
Even if tonight’s run in the moonlight involved hunting tequila shots, not rabbits.
“Ready for your first big night of freedom?” Carrie hugged me so tightly that I grinned, since we’d just seen each other that afternoon before I went to work. I’d had to catch the bus to meet them, thanks to a crappy job that had just come to a rather abrupt end.
I didn’t need to think about that yet. “Absolutely!”
“Let’s go do something your alpha would not approve of,” Carrie squeezed my shoulders as we headed toward Jaime and the entrance to Bliss.
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not go overboard with the alpha business. He’s my brother.”
Penn hated everything about me moving halfway across the country. I’d spent my whole life playing by someone else’s rules, being the good girl—first the alpha’s daughter, now the alpha’s sister.
I was ready to be a little bit bad.
“Hey Jay,” I said, smiling at Jaime, who gave me a slow, chilly smile.
Carrie said she just took a while to warm up to people. I hoped that was true, because so far, Jaime seemed like someone who peaked while she was in middle school, bullying other girls in the bathroom.
Carrie didn’t seem to pick up on any tension. She headed for the velvet ropes in front of Bliss, letting out a whoop. “Let’s go get plastered!”
“Bliss is supposed to be classy,” Jaime scolded her.
“You’re right.” Carrie stared at her, trying to school her face to look serious, although her lips kept twitching up rebelliously. She cleared her throat. “Let us go become grievously intoxicated.”
Jaime gave up and smiled, pushing her shoulder. “Dork.”
The three of us joined the line waiting to get in. Jaime glanced at the two dozen people standing in front of us, then ran her hands over her hips to smooth her already-perfectly-fitted silver dress.
“I can’t believe we have to wait to get into a human club,” she murmured. “You’d think at least subconsciously, they’d recognize our superiority.”
Carrie pushed her wild red curls back with one hand, the better to level a look at Jaime. Then she turned to me. “She’s not usually like this. She’s in a mood.”
“Oh please,” Jaime rolled her eyes.
“You’d think I’d be the one in a mood,” I said, before realizing I should keep my recent firing to myself until I had Carrie alone. “I just lost my job.”
“Oh man, you won’t be slinging overpriced milkshakes at the Tasty Hop anymore? What a setback,” Jaime said.
Carrie was making sympathetic noises, ignoring Jaime, when the bouncer came back to us in the line.
“You girls can go ahead,” he said, lifting the rope.
Jaime raised her eyebrows at the two of us as she slipped past the boundaries of the rope, as if she’d known that would happen.
“She’s really very sweet,” Carrie promised me, bumping her shoulder with mine as we headed down the sidewalk. “You just have to crack open the icy veneer.”
“Mm? How do I break into the ice? Kick her in the head?”
“I heard that,” Jaime said without looking back.
“I’m just saying, it’s on the table,” I shot back.
Carrie let out a peel of laughter. She leaned close to confide, “Well, now maybe we’ll both end up selling our souls.”
Carrie’s parents had cut her off financially because they wanted her to come home, and she didn’t know how she was going to keep paying for school. They wouldn’t sign off on her loans. I wished I could fly to her home in Ohio and make them see sense.
My heart hurt when I thought about her leaving college. She was already late to pay for the next semester.
“We’ll figure something out,” I promised her. “Wolf girls are plucky.”
“Tomorrow, wolf girls are plucky. Tonight, wolf girls are forgetting their troubles,” she retorted.
When I walked through the doors of Bliss, I stopped dead. Music pulsed underfoot, and the dark space was full of beautiful people dancing. A balcony hung overhead, and I glimpsed people leaning against the railing with their cocktails, with deep, lushly cushioned booths behind them. Everything was dark and elegant. I’d never been in a club before, but I had a feeling they weren’t all like this.
Jaime reached the bar and turned back to us. “Since I’m a total B, and B is for buying, what do you want?”
When I frowned at her sudden self-awareness, she shrugged, her dark hair draped over her slender shoulders.
“Told you,” Carrie said to me.
We ordered a round of drinks and then stood clustered together around a little cocktail table near the bar. I watched the dancers undulate under the lights. The music was mesmerizing, and I found myself swaying, longing to dance, but I took another sip of the delicious pink drink that Jaime had handed me.
When Carrie slipped away to the bathroom, Jaime asked me abruptly, “Can’t you just call home for money, anyway?”
I had a feeling she was worried about Carrie, too, despite her bristly demeanor.
“I want to make it on my own as much as I can,” I said. The pack was paying my tu
ition and my room-and-board; all I had to cover was money to waste on stuff like this minimalist shirt and my drinks. Suddenly feeling guilty, I said, “I don’t have enough saved up to pay Carrie’s tuition. But maybe...”
She scoffed. “That’s sweet, but you can’t do that for a girl you just met in September.”
“Maybe I can,” I said.
Carrie wound her way through the bodies to our table, but her gaze was fixed past us. I followed her gaze.
A tall god of a man towered over two girls who hung all over him, their bright smiles fixed on him as if he were the most important person in the club. He seemed to listen intently to everything they had to say.
He was unusually tall for a human, six-foot-six, but it was his commanding presence that made it hard not to stare. From his dark hair to his vivid green eyes, his broad shoulders and the lean taper of his waist in a suit, he was the most delicious looking man I’d ever seen.
“Pretty cute for a human,” Jaime admitted.
Carrie rounded on her with a roll of her eyes, and the spell was broken. “He’s gorgeous for anybody.”
“Carrie’s staking a claim?” Jaime asked, smiling over her glass.
Carrie shook her head. “I’m just looking. I’d never date a human man. I’d hate to break him by accident.”
“I don’t think you could break him,” I disagreed, looking back at him.
This time, though, he was looking at us. Across the bar, the two of us locked eyes. His piercing green eyes bore into mine.He wasn’t smiling anymore. His eyes were intense, bright, and a flutter rose in my chest.
I couldn’t pull my gaze away from his.
Carrie whistled. “Maybe you can’t break him, Mel, but I think you should try.”
I forced my gaze back to my friends with effort.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I’d never marry a human. How would that work?”
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 4