Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset
Page 13
“I expect so.”
Not quite up to resuming his work, Jude nonetheless spent his day dozing on the couch in Natalie’s office as she spoke to people on the phone, typed on the computer, and wrote checks to pay invoices. The lodge was quiet as the tour buses had left hours before, and the next wouldn’t arrive until late in the afternoon. Natalie had given the staff a welcomed break, thus there was no one around the place
He was asleep when the office door was kicked in, slamming back to strike the wall and rebound. Before he had a chance to move or for Natalie to pick up the phone, two men pounced on him where he lay, the business end of a gun pointed at his face.
“One move and you’re dead,” Peterson snarled, spittle slicking his lips. “Turn into that beast, and I can shoot you dead before you get halfway.”
Jude froze, understanding that for once, Peterson was right. He could shift, and possibly throw them off his body, but Peterson had a great deal of pressure on the trigger. It would not take much for the gun to blow his head off.
“Tie his hands behind his back,” Peterson barked. “Natalie, you move or yell and this boy is dead. Not a sound, bitch. Got it?”
From beyond Peterson, Jude heard Natalie’s steady voice. “I got it.”
From the man’s scent, Austen was terrified. Jude smelled the fear oozing from his pores, along with the noxious sweat. Obviously, he believed what Peterson must have told him—that Jude could shapeshift. But his terror didn’t stop him from binding Jude’s hands behind him with duct tape.
After that, he was tossed unceremoniously into a chair, Austen standing over him with a gun, and Peterson pointed his weapon at Natalie. “Where’s the money, bitch?” he growled. “Hand it over and we’ll leave you and this beast alone. We’ll let you live.”
Jude met her calm eyes. Don’t, Natalie. His not knowing where the money is is all that is keeping us alive. Something flickered in her eyes, and Jude didn’t know if she just tried to communicate with him. Still oddly peaceful, Natalie turned her attention to Peterson.
“We didn’t find it, asshole,” she snapped. “I told you before. There is no money.”
“Bullshit,” he yelled, stepping toward her. “There is a fortune, and I know you found it. Tell me, or I’ll start carving your pet.”
Though he held a gun in his right hand, Peterson pulled from his pocket a switchblade and flicked it open. “Talk. Where is it?”
With Austen standing over him, ready to shoot, Jude pondered and discarded potential plans in his mind as being too risky for Natalie’s safety. These guys are too willing to shoot her. Her utter calmness baffled him, and again he met her eyes, seeing again that flicker. She still sat behind her desk, but oddly, only her left hand rested on the desk’s top.
Natalie, what are you doing?
“There is no money,” she screamed at him. “Go away and leave us alone.”
Peterson backed away from her toward Jude, and Jude immediately knew what was to come. Deal with it. Don’t give him the satisfaction of yelling. Bracing himself, he was ready when Peterson cut him swiftly across the cheek with the sharp blade. “Where, bitch?”
Natalie cried out at the damage, the blood flowing down from Jude’s lacerated cheek. “Leave him alone, you asshole!”
Peterson cut him again, just above the previous slice. “Tell me, and the torture stops,” he bellowed, then for good measure, or because he was coming unhinged, Peterson cut Jude above his eye. “Next time, I’ll cut his eyes out. Is that what you want? A boyfriend without his eyes?”
Bleeding profusely, filling his right eye and stinging, Jude croaked, “Say nothing.”
For his trouble, Peterson swung his fist, the one with the knife in it, and belted Jude across his other cheekbone. Seeing stars, his head ringing, Jude fought to not pass out. Natalie screamed again, pleading for Peterson to stop.
“Then tell me where it is?”
“All right,” she cried, sobbing, “all right. Just stop hurting him. I’ll tell you.”
“Where is it?”
Jude heard the greed in Peterson’s voice and knew that the minute he had his hands on it, they were both dead. Oh, Natalie.
“I—in that closet there.”
His gun lowered, Peterson clicked the blade back into the knife and pocketed it. “If you’re lying, bitch,” he snapped, “I kill him.”
“I’m not lying. It’s in there.”
Through the red in his eyes, Jude watched as Peterson backed toward the closet. Natalie didn’t watch him go; her eyes were on Jude. He tensed at the odd expression on her face, her thinned lips, and how she flicked her gaze from himself, to Austen, and back again. Oh, shit.
Peterson turned away, his hand on the closet knob. “It’s locked.”
The instant Natalie moved, Jude threw himself to the floor. The gun in her hand barked, once, twice, three times. Austen grunted with each bullet that struck him, yet no answering bullets struck Jude. Before he fell, Natalie turned her gun toward Peterson.
In the same moment Austen collapsed at Jude’s side, Peterson fired. Not at Jude, but at Natalie. Her gun went off, and Jude knew the bullet missed and plowed into the wall to Peterson’s left. He fired again, and this time Natalie fell backward.
“No!” Jude roared.
Peterson bolted for the door, once again fleeing when the odds turned against him. Not this time, you filth. Jude caught a brief glimpse of Natalie struggling to get up even as he rolled to his feet, his hands still bound behind him. “Kill him, Jude,” Natalie screamed.
“You good?”
“I’m fine. Kill him!”
Running awkwardly, Jude saw Peterson duck down the rear hallway that led to either Natalie’s house or the rear of the lodge. He caught a rapid glimpse of Jane, Rick, and a few other employees walking in through the front and knew Natalie would be cared for. Setting his mind, and his rage, on Peterson, he followed on Peterson’s heels, lunged through the back door, and shifted.
Not even duct tape would withstand the dragon’s might. It shredded the instant he changed. Jude soared up and over the trees, scanning the ground for Peterson. The man wasn’t difficult to spot as he ran through the forest toward the clearing, occasionally pausing to turn and fire uselessly up at Jude.
Flaming, Jude roared, forcing the man into greater panic, making him run faster to make bad decisions. Not caring that he flew in his dragon form in broad daylight, Jude soared over the trees, waiting, watching as Peterson emptied his gun of bullets in a vain attempt to shoot Jude down. In his wild panic, Peterson didn’t take the time to properly aim.
Almost leisurely, Jude soared and banked over Peterson’s fleeing form, watching, enjoying the hunt for the first time since he left his clan. He made sure his shadow fell over Peterson, adding to his terror. He flew slowly, keeping pace with him as he leaped over dead logs, ran on, ducking under low branches, pleading for mercy.
Your mercy is a quick death.
Peterson found the small meadow, deer bolting from both the human and the circling dragon overhead. Perhaps thinking he was safer by running faster, Peterson charged across the grassy clearing, hardly looking back, making for the protection of the trees on the far side. Jude dove, his jaws wide as he flamed.
Peterson tried to scream. Instead, he sucked superheated flames into his lungs, crisping his ability to breathe as well as effectively halting his death’s cry. He hovered over the man who burned, dancing, waving his arms as he lit up like a man dunked in napalm. The skin covering him melted, running with his clothes, merging, his eyeballs exploding, his brain boiling.
Jude flamed again, flying in a low circle, blasting everything he had at Lloyd Peterson, not just burning him, but erasing his very existence. The man was dead, Jude knew, but he kept flaming until not even his ashes blew upon the breeze. Only when all that remained of Lloyd Peterson was a burned spot on the long grass did Jude finally bank away.
Hurting, blood still seeping from his cheeks, the tatters of the duct tape
clinging to his wrists, Jude stumbled into the lodge. Where once it had been quiet, it now thrummed with county police, state police, firemen, paramedics, guests, and employees. Blinking, Jude stared at the mayhem and wondered how he might find Natalie amidst them.
“There he is.”
Someone’s voice, he didn’t recognize whose, lifted over the babble, and instantly, Sheriff Rob Hutton, no fewer than four paramedics, and three state cops surrounded him. Jude, weaker than he liked, slumped into the sheriff’s arms. “Natalie.”
“She’s gonna be all right, boy. She’s in that ambulance yonder.”
She’s going to be all right. Just when he needed his dragon strength, it abandoned him. Jude slid to the floor. “Natalie.”
“She was shot, but she’s gonna be okay.”
Hutton’s face swam into his view. “Where’s Peterson, Jude? Where is he?”
Drifting on the wind. Jude choked and coughed, laughing and crying. “Don’t know,” he muttered. “Gone.”
“You don’t know?” Hutton stared down at him, his eyes fierce. “He got away?”
As the paramedics gently wrapped his lacerated cheek in gauze, Jude dropped his chin once in a nod. “Gone,” he repeated. Gone has many possible meanings. He stifled his wild bray of laughter.
“Get an APB out on Lloyd Peterson,” Hutton ordered. “Armed and dangerous.”
Not any more. You’ll never find him where he is.
The EMTs took his blood pressure and loaded him onto a gurney, and Jude wondered about the wisdom of letting them take him to the hospital. Unable to bring enough energy up to protest, Jude let them wheel him out under the fascinated stares of the staff and guests. Natalie.
He didn’t see her until much later.
Epilogue
A helpful nurse steered him in his wheelchair down the white hospital corridor to where Natalie lay, recovering from her surgery. Peterson’s bullet struck her in the stomach, but with the emergency first aid she’d received, and the speed with which the paramedics had gotten to her, she would live.
For himself, it took nearly thirty staples to put his face back together. Bye-bye handsome looks, he told himself as he gazed into the mirror. Hope Natalie still loves me even if I’m not pretty anymore. He knew he did her an injustice by thinking she would reject him because of a scarred face.
The door hissed open and the nurse wheeled him toward Natalie. With her was Hutton, Dave, and a man in a shirt and tie, whom Jude recognized immediately as a cop. “How is she?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Natalie answered from the bed. “How’re you?”
Jude tried to grin as the nurse took him to her bedside. “Ugly.”
He took her hand as she looked at him and lifted her lips in a small smile. “Ooh, a scarred warrior. I love it.”
He buffed his nails on his hospital johnny and tried to grin, though it hurt something awful. “I’m good.”
Natalie gazed at Hutton. “Rob, I need to tell you something.”
“We’ll find Peterson,” he assured her. “He’s long gone, but our pals at the FBI will find him.”
His gesture indicated the man in the suit coat.
“No.”
Natalie gazed at Jude. Without taking her eyes from his face, she said, “We found Bart’s money, Rob.”
At that, the three cops froze, yet their eyes glanced at once another. Natalie, is this wise?
“What do you mean?” Hutton asked, his tone cautious.
“The money Peterson was after,” she said, her hand gripping Jude’s. “It was in the attic, tons of it. I have it. I know it’s illegal money, but if it’s okay, can I keep it?”
Hutton eyed the fellow from the FBI, who shrugged. The man turned to Natalie and Jude. “The bootlegging money your grandfather gathered?” he asked.
“Great grandfather,” Natalie replied.
“I’m not certain about the laws in such cases,” he said. “I will check them out, however. It was gotten illegally, yes, but without harming others, so there is no restitution needed. I don’t know. You might be allowed to keep it.”
Jude squeezed her hand, meeting her eyes. He supposed he should have known her innate sense of honor and integrity would have forced her to speak up about the sums of cash still hidden in her closet. But he would have her no other way.
“Where was Peterson headed, the last you saw him?”
Jude glanced away from Natalie’s eyes to find the FBI man staring at him. “Uh, he ran into the woods,” he said. “Gone.”
“He’ll turn up eventually,” Hutton said. “We found his car smashed to smithereens, so he’ll have to find a new ride.”
The cops wished them both speedy healing, leaving them alone. The nurse had long departed. Jude gazed at the number of machines Natalie was attached to and wondered how they could possibly be beneficial. She saw his glance, and her tired lips smiled.
“I’ll be all right.”
Bending, Jude kissed her knuckles. “I know.”
“What really happened to Peterson?”
“He’s dead. They won’t find even a bone, a tooth. Nothing except an odd burn spot, if they happen to go into the clearing.”
“Good. We’re finally free of him.”
Jude eyed her. “You killed Austen. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes,” she replied, her tone dreamy. “They would have killed us both. I defended myself, and you. The one I love. I have no qualms about it at all.”
“Then we are free of them, Natalie. Even if you can’t keep Bart’s money, we’re free.”
She chuckled, then winced, her hand moving across her blankets. “We are.”
“Will you be my mate?” Jude asked, his eyes on her face. “Bear my offspring, spend the rest of your life with me?”
Natalie lifted her head from her pillow. “Yeah, Jude, I will. Marry, mate, I don’t care. As long as we are together.”
Resting his injured face on the bed beside her, Jude grinned. “We will be together, my love. Forever.”
Trusting My Dragon Hero
Book II
By
Serena Meadows
Chapter One
Stars glittered in the inky sky, visible through the windshield of her truck. The crescent moon barely illuminated the Absaroka Mountains, whose rugged peaks still lay buried in snow. Her stomach in knots despite what the lawyer had said, Jordan glanced sidelong at Caitlyn, sound asleep in her safety seat.
He cannot get custody, Jordan. No court will permit it. He’s a convicted felon, for assault with a deadly weapon of all things. Still, Jordan knew Knox would not give up. Where once they had shared love and laughter, now only bitter words and dead emotions lay between them. Knox loved Caitlin with a fierce possessiveness that overruled his better judgment.
“But then, so do I,” Jordan muttered, angry with herself for letting her ex-husband intimidate her.
The truck’s headlights pierced the black night, allowing her to see the empty blacktop and its dividing white lines, but not much else. Outside the small town of Livingston, Montana, there was not much to see. Vast cattle ranches, like her own, occupied the land, and the few houses there strung out along this county road were set far back.
“At least he’s not trying to take the ranch, too,” Jordan groused. “Not that he can.”
Being a city boy, Knox had little interest in the ranch, never learned to ride a horse, and worked in Livingston as a foreman on a construction crew. Despite having a decent job and earning a good wage, Knox refused to pay Jordan child support. She had complained to her attorney about that as well.
“I will get the courts to order him to pay,” her lawyer assured her.
Yet, Jordan knew that Knox had little respect for the law.
Turning her eyes from the road to glance again at her sleeping daughter, Jordan could not help but worry over what Knox might do to get Caitlin. He could be as ruthless as he was passionate and had committed more violence than he had been arrested for.
And instinctively slammed her foot on the brake.
The truck skidded, its rear end fishtailing, and she spun the wheel in a panicked attempt to not hit the man who had stepped into her headlights. A heavy thud informed her she had not succeeded in avoiding him, and she cried out. Both she and Caitlin were thrown forward at the truck’s sharp halt, but her seat belt and Caitlin’s safety seat kept them from hitting the dash.
Caitlin woke immediately. “Mommy?”
Jordan, terror pulsing through her veins, put the truck in park and reached for the glove box. “Stay here, baby.”
“Why did we stop?”
“It’s all right. Stay here.”
Her trembling hands took several tries before she could grasp the flashlight inside the compartment. Then she forgot she was still belted in and fumbled for the catch before she could get loose from it. Opening her door, Jordan stumbled out of the truck and clicked the light. Running around the rear of it, the flashlight’s ray picked out the form of the man on the ground, lying motionless.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” Jordan prayed, her heart hammering in her chest, her mouth dry.
Kneeling beside him, she felt for a pulse at his neck, praying she hadn’t killed him. She saw no blood on the part of his face she could see, yet his clothes were tattered from rolling across the pavement. Still searching for a pulse, Jordan saw his eyelids flutter. “You’re alive,” she gasped. “Thank God.”
Her fingers found his heartbeat, racing nearly as fast as her own. The man groaned and muttered something that sounded like a foreign language. Yet it was guttural and did not seem like any language she had ever heard before. He lifted his head and moved his hands under his shoulders to push himself up.
“Lie still,” Jordan told him. “You might be hurt.”
“Huh?”
In the light, blinking, his eyes appeared a very light brown and she saw his pupils contract. That’s a good thing. I think. His shaggy reddish-blond hair fell across his forehead and trailed down his cheek, and that’s when she saw his face had been scraped. “Lie still,” she repeated. “You may have broken bones.”