by Zoe Chant
This time is different, he thought, and then he glanced at Tara. Everything from now on will be different.
There wasn't much to Pulaski. With her phone, Tara guided him through the wide and mostly empty streets. There was a burger place, a hardware store, a bank, and a park. It was like thousands of other small towns scattered through the Midwest, but Reese thought he saw a hint of softness on Tara's face as they drove through.
“Did you have some good memories here?”
He kept his voice low and easy, and she smiled a little.
“Yeah, actually. It hasn't changed that much, but my mom was working steady here. We used to go get burgers sometimes, and split some fries. They had a promotion going on where if you scratched a ticket, you could win a second burger free...”
Reese warmed at the soft tone in her voice, and at the same time, he hated that winning a free burger was what passed as a good memory for her.
It's fine, I'm going to give her so many good memories. A whole lifetime of them if only she'll let me.
Reese realized abruptly that the sunstone, the entire point of this venture, had slipped from his mind. This wasn't even the first time it had happened. It was as if the moment that Tara had entered the scene, everything in his world had shifted, and now things were different.
It was a little alarming, but the truth was that he wasn't alarmed at all. It just felt right. She was his mate, and everything else in the world could figure itself out, sunstone included.
No reason I can't have both, he told himself. I'm good at getting my way, no reason I shouldn't have everything I want.
Reese realized that he was being fairly optimistic about things when they pulled off the main road and bumped their way down the rough strip of asphalt through the hills.
“Um, Tara?”
“No, I remember this,” she said. “We got this storage unit because it was so far out of town and really cheap. Remember though, the contents are probably long gone. The best we can hope for is probably some old bill of sale for whatever happened to it...”
“Better than nothing,” Reese said.
Then they turned off into a long drive that led up to a deserted construction site, and Reese pulled to a halt just short of the gate. When they got out and went to look, they could both see the burned-out concrete flats where the storage units had once stood. There was construction equipment set up that was obviously designed to replace the units, but right now, there was an unearthly kind of quiet to the whole place. They were entirely alone, and somewhere in the bare woods, a bird trilled to further emphasize the desolation.
“Okay, this is still better than nothing,” Reese said, looking around.
“How?”
“Well ... give me a minute. I'm working it out.”
Reese took a deep breath and then another one. He wanted to put a good face on it, but it was, after all another dead end, another length of time when his family would be without his protection, and who knew when the next break would come? What was he going to —
Reese jumped a little when Tara slid her hand into his, giving him a wry smile.
“Hey, deep breaths, all right?”
“Huh?”
“You're getting a little ... sparky.”
Reese abruptly realized that his lips were warmer than they should be and that the heat that lived inside him had started to circle angrily. He winced, shaking his head.
“I'm sorry, that can't have been — I have better control than that, I swear ...”
“Hey.”
He blinked, looking down at Tara, who hadn't let go of his hand. There was no fear in her eyes at all, though there was some sadness there that cut him straight to the heart. She squeezed his hand gently.
“You'll find it. It'll be okay. And don't worry. If you need to blow off a little fire, go ahead. It won't bother me at all.”
Reese hesitated, and then shook his head.
“No, it's fine. I'm fine, it's just ...” He trailed off. He had no urge to let go of her hand.
“I know,” she said, and somehow, he knew she did. “Let's get back to town and regroup, all right? Maybe they have a local office and we can get to some files with the right amount of fast talking.”
“I hope you mean bribes and threats. I'm not good at sweet talking.”
“I'm not bad.” She paused.
“There's nothing here for either of us,” she said finally. “Let's just go.”
Now it was his turn to squeeze her hand. It was a loss for her as well, even if it was one she had grown used to.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said. “I can't imagine it was easy for you.”
“It's...” Tara looked around as if searching for a word. “It's a thing.”
Reese laughed.
“All right. Yes. It's definitely a thing. Let's get out of here.”
She agreed, but as they moved towards the car, there was a rumble and a van came barreling down the country lane towards them. It was a large vehicle, and Reese saw two things at once. The first was that the van's windows were tinted dark, and the second was that the license plate was obscured. That spelled trouble right away, and that was before the van didn't show any sign of stopping.
“Back, get back,” Reese growled, and he took Tara by the arm as the van rammed into their car with a loud crunching sound.
Iron bumper, he thought furiously. Fuckers mean business..
“Tara,” Reese said, not taking his eyes off the van. “Run. Into the woods, and get back to the road.”
“No!”
“Run,” he growled, and he wanted more than anything to be able to look at her, to drink her in if this had to be the last time, but he didn't dare take his eyes off the men who were climbing out of the van, their faces obscured under gas-masks and what looked like hunting rifles in their hand.
He couldn't stop to watch, but something in him relaxed when he heard her footsteps receding into the background and hopefully into the woods.
Reese took a deep breath, taking cover behind the useless bulk of the car. There was a small voice in the back of his head telling him, no, it was too many, he wouldn't win this one no matter how hot his flame or how fast he was, but the only thing that was in his mind was the fact that he had to stop them from getting to Tara. If he could keep them off of Tara, that was all that mattered.
Tara needed to be kept safe, because she was his. It didn't matter in the least what happened to him.
Then everything was fire.
Chapter 23
Tara froze when the van crunched into the car, the sound loud enough to shock her to her very core.
No. Nonononono...
Reese was shouting, men were climbing out of the van, and oh God, but they had found her, her worst nightmare had found her, and now Reese ... Reese was...
In her darkest moments, she had always imagined Reese leaving her, walking away, disappearing. Now she knew that was nothing compared to the nightmare of being told to leave Reese, of being the one to run.
She wouldn't have run, even if she couldn't help, but then she heard the pleading note in Reese's voice, how every fiber of his body was tensed for the fight.
He can't fight if he's trying to defend me. He can't fight if he's trying to keep me out of danger...
Somehow, Tara managed to unfreeze enough to run, but she wasn't running for the woods. No. She was running for the construction site.
She heard a roar of fire, and screams. She didn't look back. She couldn't afford to. If she looked back and Reese was hurt, if he looked like he was in trouble, there was no way that she would be able to keep herself from running back to him, no matter what a terrible idea it might have been.
She had learned to hot wire from a fast-talking boy from Detroit. She had never used it for real, never when it mattered, and then she had gotten old enough that it would have been grand theft auto instead of a stint in juvie. How different could a skid-steer loader be? She had a factory job for two weeks, she could
do this, she could...
Tara clambered up on the skid-steer loader, and yanked on the door to the glassed and barred cab open. It was a tall piece of machinery, and she didn't hesitate before climbing in, looking for the wires —
Only to burst out into nearly hysteric giggles when she saw that there was a key shoved into the ignition.
Oh my god, small town, unlocked doors ... free construction equipment.
The cries from the fight got louder, and though some of them were cries of pain, she heard Reese above all of them, an enraged roar that she would recognize anywhere. He sounded furious. He sounded as if he might have been in pain.
She didn't dare look up. Right now, the thing that she needed to do, the only thing that she needed to do, was make this damned thing go.
Technically, you needed a certification to drive something like this, but the company she had worked for hadn't been so particular.
Y'hit that lever, release that clutch, make sure y'don't hit anyone, and off you go, the grizzled old man running the place had told her. Then he had gotten handsy, and she had moved on, but she remembered, and she reached for the control panel, turning the key in the ignition. At first, Tara thought that she had been wrong, that it took more than the key, but then the machine roared to life, and she was turning it towards the fight.
Through the grill of the cab, she saw that Reese had taken shelter behind the wreck of the car. He was still spitting fire, and there were four bodies lying prone around him, but there were eight more at least, and sooner or later, they were going to get lucky. They had already shot the car full of holes, and suddenly Tara's fear dissolved in the face of sheer, mind-obliterating rage.
They don't get to touch him, they don't...!
A loader wasn't fast, but it was impossible to ignore, and almost as one, the crowd turned to look as she crashed in slow motion into the van, toppling it almost on top of the men who had come after them. She saw with satisfaction that it pinned one and sent another sprawling to the ground, but then the controls locked up, and she couldn't urge it forward.
The shouting outside the cab turned furious, and she yanked at the lever. They felt as if they had been mired in cement, and she shrieked with anger and frustration as she slammed on the levers, throwing her whole weight against them. She could hear them grinding in the guts of the machine, but they would not budge, and now two of the cultists were clambering up the side of the machine to get at her.
“Tara! Get out of there!”
Reese's voice was painfully hoarse (burned out, something in her mind suggested), and it was the fear that made her move more than anything else.
Her fingers trembling, she spilled out the cab on the side opposite from the cultists who were coming after her. Tara scrambled down the side of the loader, moving unwisely fast. Her foot caught against the machine's step, and the next moment, she was tumbling towards the ground.
Oh this is going to hurt, she had time to think.
Tara gasped as she thumped into Reese so hard he fell to his knees, One moment, she was pinwheeling through the air, and the next she was in his arms, and all of the fear and reservations she had had, everything that had held her back from him, that made her afraid, was gone, like snow swept off the hood of a car.
It was gone, and there was a warmth in the center of her chest she had never felt before.
I love him, she thought.
Then she realized, that, while she did love him, the warmth from her chest had nothing to do with love, and neither did the strange ache that suffused her body or what the hell, the light, that was coming from her chest.
Reese swore, she shrieked, and the next moment, floating in the air between them was a smooth oval of stone, glittering gold and gorgeous...
What the ever-loving —
The sad part was that she was so exhausted and worn out that she couldn't even muster any wonder or shock. This was just one more thing that was happening to her today.
Reese on the other hand, wasted no time. His hand shot to the stone, closed over it, and then the air grew much hotter ... much, much hotter ...
Tara flinched, but the cultists who had been approaching them them shouted in pain and panic. She turned her head to stare at them, and then she realized that she had been set on the ground, Reese stepping back from her.
“Reese!”
Only it wasn't Reese any longer, not as she knew him. One moment, he was the man she loved, standing up with a triumphant look on his face, and the next, the air twisted, her eyes hurt, and growing straight up was a dragon.
Her heart beat fast in her chest, and she stumbled to her feet, unable to take her eyes away from the arching neck, the powerful almost cat-like limbs, and the long thrashing tail. The black scales gleamed dully in the light, bullets pinging harmlessly away from him, and Reese raised his head and roared, the sound of it shaking the world.
Now the cultists were trying to get away, scrambling for the road, one trying to get back in the van, but with another roar and a rush of heat, Reese dealt with them, and Tara felt a very old nightmare burn to ash.
Now he crouched down, putting his face next to hers, and she was struck by how foreign he was to her, this miraculous monster, and how familiar he was as well.
Without thinking, without sparing a thought for latent survival instincts or safety, Tara reached out to lay a hand on his snout.
“Your eyes are the same,” she found herself murmuring, and Reese made a chuffing sound that could only be a laugh.
One moment, she was on the ground and the next she had been snatched up in enormous and enormously gentle claws. The warmth of Reese's claws wrapped around her took her breath away, and then with one great flap of his wings, they were airborne.
Tara yelped at the shock, and then she was shouting with joy, all fear gone. She was in the safest place in the world she could be, and underneath her, the earth rolled out like it had been made just for her and Reese.
They wound up back to the brick bed and breakfast in Madison, minus a car, but apparently when you flew via dragon, it took less than an hour to traverse half the state. Fortunately his clothes shifted with his transformation, and they didn't have to go back for his wallet. If the bed and breakfast was startled to be dealing with two stunned and incredibly happy people unable to keep their hands off each other, they did not show it. Reese said he would tip them very well.
Tara felt as if every nerve in her body was awake and shaking, and then Reese took her to bed.
His hands on her body were hot, his mouth felt molten against hers, and at the core of it was something pure and longing and perfect.
“I love you,” he whispered over and over again. “I love you, I love you...”
She had laughed with joy at his words, and when she said it back, he buried his face in her throat, lost beyond words.
They stayed in bed until dusk, and then with reluctance, Reese sat up.
“I should call my family and let them know,” he said reluctantly, and she smiled, beyond sated for at least a few hours.
“Go ahead,” she said, and then she admired his naked form as he crossed the room to get his phone. All right, maybe she was only sated for another hour or so.
She watched as he dialed, one hand held over his chest as if to protect the relic that he now housed within him. She touched the same place on her own body. There was no soreness there, nothing that had told her that such a thing had lived hidden inside her for so long.
She turned her head towards Reese as he got through.
There were a few greetings in what she thought must be Cornish, and then he cleared his throat.
“I've found the sunstone. And I have found my mate. Yeah. Yes. Mm-hm. Yes. All right. Love you, and I'm hanging up now.”
Then he hung up with a satisfied look on his face, and Tara burst into laughter.
“Wait, that was it? Your family treasure that's been missing for almost a hundred years is returned, you have a mate, and mm-hm, yes, I'm hangi
ng up now? Seriously?”
Reese laughed, returning to the bed to stretch out by her side. He uttered a soft and satisfied sigh as he gathered her next to him. It occurred to her that he hadn't really been much out of arm's reach since the storage lot. She smiled at him.
“So is this going to be a permanent thing? The cuddling, I mean.”
He gave her a lazy look that made her heart beat faster.
“Is it a problem?”
She sighed, curling closer next to him.
“No.”
“Dragons love cuddling,” he told her solemnly. “It's hard-coded into the DNA. Find mate, share warmth, snuggle forever.”
“Not my DNA.”
“Yes, yours,” Reese said, and she propped herself up on her elbow to stare at him.
“Come again?”
“Has to be,” he said calmly. “Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to hold the sunstone as you did. And how you got out of the burning house when you were a teen, and why you didn't even have a scorch on you when I lost my mind at a discount store.”
“I'm a ...” It was ridiculous to even think about.
“The blood goes back a long way, and all of the clans have lost track of their descendants. It thins out through the ages, but sometimes you get a throwback, a human who can do things like withstand dragonfire, carry a sunstone...”
Tara felt as if the world were tilting out from underneath her.
“But ... my mom died in that fire ... and my dad...”
“We may never know the whys of it,” Reese said soberly. “Though I might guess you have the blood from both sides, and got a bigger dose than either of your parents. It might also explain a few things about why Theodore Walsh went right after the sunstone and ignored other, more obviously valuable things in my mother's horde. You have dragon ancestry in you, somewhere. I would bet money on it.”
“And that was enough to keep me alive while ...”
Reese held her for a long time, and when she calmed down, he rose to get her an ice-cold glass of water.
“There you go, just sip that slowly,” he said.
“It's ... a lot to take in,” she said finally. “Its going to be a while before I come to terms with it.”