Questions everywhere and I felt as though I just kept finding more. I wanted answers, but how was I going to dig them up?
We arrived on the third floor and there they were.
Five crates, all of them still packed from the dig site. I walked to them and ran my hand over the top of the black one I'd been holding when all of this had started. It felt warm beneath my fingers as if the wood were keeping the heat in from that scorching day.
"If we each carry one, and someone picks a second, we can get them out of here all at once," I suggested.
Nariti nodded at the bay windows on the far side of the floor. "Do those open? It may be easier for one of us to go out, shapeshift, and carry the entire load down at once."
"No, they're permanent windows. Insurance was too much if we allowed them to be reeled open. You know, suicide divers and stuff like that," I explained. "Though I guess you could cut one of them if you had to? They aren't any thicker than they have to be to meet building codes."
"Then carry it is," Eskal said, opening one of the crates.
He pulled out a green egg and cradled it in in his arms. Bit by bit, we opened each crate and placed the eggs together in a group, the way that they had been before the museum had gathered them. Even in the low light, I had an appreciation for just how pretty they were. No wonder most of my co-workers through they were some kind of gemstone. I'd been the one to suggest that they were opals, hoping that they actually were and that I was losing my mind.
But I hadn't been. I was surrounded by dragons in the shape of men, holding their future in my hands. I lifted the black egg and held it to my chest. I wasn't a soft-hearted type, but it was hard to be cold to them when there were tiny lives inside of those shells.
Iyadre was left carrying two while the rest of us got one each. Everything was going so smoothly that relief washed over me like a rainstorm. "I didn't really want to do this, but at least it's straight-forward and it's going well."
"You're going to jinx us," Iyadre whispered, shaking his head as we walked back downstairs.
I flashed him a grin; he was easy to talk to, and continued on my way. The eggs were heavy, but not so much that they left me huffing. When you dug in the dirt all day, you got some pretty serious muscles pretty fast. People didn't really understand how rough the work really was.
Ditch diggers, for example, were another one who spent all day moving soil. The stuff is heavy, no matter whether it's wet or dry. It's hard. It's surprisingly sharp. I had so many scars all up and down my arms from slipping or slicing myself on a random rock or pointy part of dirt that I hadn't noticed, I looked like a road map.
And because I was all caught up in myself, I didn't see the flashlights coming our way until it was too late. Eskal threw his arm across my chest to stop me from walking directly into the security guard. I stared at him.
He stared at us.
Then everything went to hell. He screamed and pulled out his radio. The four of us ran back up the stairs, me drawing up the rear as they headed for the elevator. We couldn't get down from the top floor any other way and everything was fucked. We were so fucked. Panic flooded me as we ran and I tried to control it.
The museum would press charges. We would be apprehended. We were going to fucking jail for this.
Nariti hammered the down button, his egg resting on the ground. The stairs echoed with steps behind us, at least a few peoples' worth from what I could guess. Maybe there were already cops on the property; and if that was true, we were triple-fucked.
The elevator swept open to three more security guards and I screamed, backing away from them. The dragons put themselves between me and the security team until I saw Eskal's head turn and look at the mirrored bay windows across the room.
"At the count of three, I want you to run," he said, just loud enough for us to hear.
While the others were happy to agree with him, I shook my head. "You're crazy. If we run, they'll find us. If we just beg for mercy-"
"You run or you go to prison."
It was hard to argue with that. He glanced at the windows again, then back at me. He twitched his head in that direction, as if I hadn't taken a wild guess what he wanted. Maybe he was going to pull the fire alarm. Was there a fire escape outside? I couldn't remember if there was, my mind racing a mile a minute.
"Three," he said with no warning whatsoever.
Had I been fully in control of myself, I may have debated obeying. As it was, my terror had me a full leap and bound ahead of the others. I ran for all I was worth, the glass drawing closer. Whatever Eskal was going to do, he had better-
A deafening roar thundered through a room that was too small for it. I slowed to a stop and stared as a creature from millions of years ago walked across the carpet and stooped to get his head near the window. The dragon was as black as night, with silvery-white spots picked out across his hide. A smiling crescent moon sat upon his brow and his wings, which had to be the span of an 18-wheeler, were tucked close to his sides.
He looked at me and I recognized those amber eyes. They'd winked at me once before.
Iyadre and Nariti threw themselves on his back. Four eggs sat in a ridge between protruding scales along his back. The men reached for me and I offered the last egg, but they grabbed me by the wrists and dragged me out, too.
As I mounted the dragon, I spun around to watch the guards, their mouths open in shock.
The glass shattered with another roar and out the window we went.
Chapter 11
Olivia
Flying was wonderful.
I grabbed the scales around me for any purchase I could manage. Holding low to the enormous body, I clung to him and breathed the fresh, clean air of a couple hundred feet in the sky.
The truck was likely a loss. Though there had been another vehicle or two nearby, I doubted that the local authorities would allow it to remain until it was safe to head back to the museum and retrieve it. But the five eggs, all clustered together and held tightly by Iyadre, were worth it.
Below us, the city slept without knowing that a dragon flew over it for the first time in probably hundreds of years. I watched as the lights twinkled past, sometimes a blur right after Eskal flapped his wings. If I'd had any doubts left, they were gone in a glorious rush of flight.
Nariti and Iyadre were close enough together that they could whisper to one another. I tried to lean in but nearly lost my balance when I did so. They could inform me of what was going on when I was on the ground. I was a nervous flier to begin with, but this was incredible.
Storm clouds hid the moon once again, misting us as we flew through a few low-lying ones. I shivered and pressed myself against the inferno beneath me. Eskal's skin wasn't just warm; it was hotter than I'd expected, sitting just on the edge of comfort for someone like me.
But it was all over too fast. Far too fast, for my taste. We descended toward the earth, slicing through clouds that would be fog in a few hours. All of them were drenching, completely soaking my clothing, but at least the cold shower woke me up.
We landed on the dig site, probably one of the few private areas available for an animal the size of Eskal to manage the landing. He jogged a few steps to slow down once his paws were on the ground, then crouched and lowered a wing to let us slide off. Iyadre went first, then me. Nariti slid the eggs down to us one by one, careful not to tip them too much. Together, we piled those precious eggs with one another.
And Eskal transformed back to his human self, for all he was naked. I coughed and looked away, the blush creeping up my neck. I tried to think of anything but the strong, hung man making his way toward me, but a life of romantic movie subplots wormed its way into my mind and wouldn't let me think of anything else.
God, how embarrassing. It wasn't like I'd never seen a naked guy before; who hadn't by my age? I mean, everyone had the internet these days. Even if you weren't lucky enough to get with a hot man, or whatever your preference was, you'd probably still seen sexy pinups. You know
?
"You decide to take the human for a flight in the middle of the city and you have the gall to think that we're not going to call you on it?"
The voice came from the open door of the trailer. Lights popped on inside it and people emerged, one by one. I recognized the Fontaines immediately, though not the woman who was with them. She smiled at me and came down the stairs, walking around the men. "Sadie Fontaine. You must be the witch that Eskal's been so interested in. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Uh, Olivia," I answered, as suave and cool as anyone could be when they were half frozen.
She frowned and ran her hand up my arm. Her palms were rough enough that I assumed she'd done some hard work in her life, but not enough that they'd been calloused to the point of no return. She clucked a moment later. "Gabe, can you get her a coat? The poor thing's frozen to the bone."
"I'm not a thing," I said, drawing away from her. "And you're the lady on the commercials for that dog sanctuary."
Sadie beamed at me. "Guilty as charged."
Gabriel Fontaine, one of the owners of the company, brought a blanket to me. It smelled faintly of horses, but the apologetic smile he gave me said he wasn't trying to be rude. I'd been wrapped in worse over the past few years and it was warmer than I'd imagined.
But it was Hudson that worried me. Eskal, still stark naked, was in a heated conversation with him. I started toward them, but Sadie grabbed my arm again and towed me off away from the boys. "There's no reason to try to deal with them when they're like this. They'll growl at each other but one of them will eventually fold. They'll make a deal, settle down, and stop trying to tear each other apart. It's just how businessmen are."
"It's how dragons are," I told her, my voice low. "You know they're dragons, right? All of those guys. I guess your guys are, too."
She laughed and shook her head. "We're werewolves."
"We're?" I choked, pulling my arm away from her.
Werewolves were bad news. They bit people, turned them, sometimes ripped them apart. I took a step back and wished I'd had the wolfsbane my mother had made me keep on hand when I was a teenager. Maybe Mom was right about more than I'd given her credit for. The world really was a fucked-up place.
Sadie held her hands up. "Hey, easy. I'm not going to get weird with you. I've got the sanctuary to run. If I went around biting everyone the wolf felt like biting, I'd never do anything else. You get used to it. You kind of tell it to buzz off, or you help it relax and... it's kind of like having anxiety. You learn werewolf coping methods."
I watched as she shrugged, as if the explanation was a good as any. I chewed the inside of my cheek and looked back at the guys, who seemed to be debating all the more enthusiastically. "Are they always like this?"
"They're a competitive group. But after you've been around them a little while, it's hard not to love them."
I wrenched my attention back to her. "I'm here to get rid of a whelp and my bills. That's it. I don't need a relationship."
"Someone sounds like they're in denial," Sadie grinned. "Besides, why have one when you can have them all? You hatch those eggs for them and they'll be on their knees for you. They aren't my type, and I have my pack, but they could use someone around that puts them in line."
"And it won't be me," I told her, walking away and heading back toward the pair of Eskal and Hudson before a fight broke out.
"Like I said," Hudson snarled, his voice low. "You dragged us when it was clear that I was in love. All I wanted was a mate; it was all any of us wanted, and you were determined to turn it into something for the Meet. You want me to call it? I will. I don't mind. But aren't your lot judged by the griffins? Because they're fucking mad at you, too."
Eskal wrinkled his lip at the... hell, apparently the werewolf pack leader. Really, what the hell. "You do what you think is necessary. The mortal authorities were on our tails and we were saving our young. Anyone would understand what we would do to protect eggs."
"My son was up for a punishment as bad as death, or possibly including it, when he was just a baby because he wanted to have a mother."
The dragon growled, "And I allowed him to live. I returned Lillian when she was wished to be brought home. I have cooperated with every moronic scheme present in that pathetic wolf brain of yours, Fontaine. Everything. You can forget you saw us here. You can give me one bloody break."
A hint of English crept into his voice when he said bloody. I wondered if he'd been in Europe at some point. Were dragons native to the Americas? There were so many stories about knights slaying dragons and other fearsome beasts. As the guys fought, I wondered if these shapeshifters had come to the new world like the rest of the settlers.
But the image of a dragon shapeshifter walking up and buying passage on a boat startled a laugh from me. It bubbled up from my belly and burst from my throat until I had to put my hands on my knees to hold myself up. Both dragon and werewolf stared at me, but I didn't care. The night had been so rough and just, imagining a dragon trying to keep itself hidden on a sailing ship for months at a time; a sailing ship covered with all that tar and filled with gunpowder.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and shook my head. "You don't know how ridiculous you look."
"Be that as it may," Eskal said, straightening. He looked at Hudson and scowled. "We require transport and request it of the Fontaine pack, per the laws-"
"I know what the laws are," Hudson grumbled. The man threw his keys at Eskal's chest. "Take the Hummer. We've got Sadie's car here. I'll send Leo to come pick it up in the morning."
Eskal gave him a look of pure loathing, but Iyadre picked up the keys and nodded his thanks. Within minutes, we were piling into the oversized Jeep. Sadie waved at me and I paused, then gave her a hesitant little wave. Had she been a normal person once? Or had she always been a werewolf?
"She seems nice enough," I said as we rolled out of the parking lot.
Iyadre drove, Eskal sitting in the front passenger seat with his arms folded over his chest; but it was Eskal who answered. "Sadie is well enough, but she runs the pack more than her alphas do. You would never see me allowing an omega to run roughshod over me in such a way."
"Yeah? You just have to show everyone how big and tough you are all the time, right?"
His head turned to look back at me. "I have no interest in showing anyone how 'big and tough' I am when I can become a creature that could bring cities to their knees in an instant."
"Assuming the military didn't nuke you, that is."
What happened next wasn't something I was expecting. His hands tightened on the seatbelt. He stiffened and looked away from me, staring back out into the windshield. "Yes. Assuming the military didn't come for us."
The rest of the drive back to their house was in absolute silence. What had I done? What had I said? Were they upset because I'd... fought back a little bit? Because I was taunting Eskal?
I didn't really understand the power struggle in their flight, but I had a decent idea of the prospects of alphas and omegas. It was like a ranking structure, with omegas on the bottom and alphas on the top. Betas fell somewhere in the middle of all of it and, depending on the supernatural species, may not exist at all.
That, of course, was what the books said. I wasn't certain if any of it was true. People published all sorts of things that were fictional but pretended they were speaking the truth. It wasn't as if anyone was out there enforcing fact on new-age religions or those who preferred the term spiritual for their path in life.
Well, no one but me.
I watched the streets go by and wished I was still on the back of a dragon, not bouncing around in a box that was made to be a snow plow.
The house was brightly lit when we arrived, standing out among the other darkened homes on the block. We unloaded the eggs with ease, and Eskal didn't seem to mind prancing around naked in front of the neighbors. Whatever, that was up to him. He hadn't been too impressed about breaking into the damn museum, either.
I could
only hope whatever spell craft they'd used to screw with the cameras had worked on all of them. If I was seen on any of the recordings, my life was over. I didn't know if it would be enough to convict me in a court of law, but it damn sure would be enough to ruin my chances of advancing in my career.
It might even put an end to it.
But I'd made my choice and I was going to stand by it. I walked into the dragon's den and sat my egg down with the others. Eskal was kind enough to go and put on a robe, probably for my benefit. I assumed that, if they dropped their clothes every time they shifted, they were probably all pretty used to seeing each other naked.
"I guess I'm spending the night here?" I asked.
Vadriq tilted his head at me. "Doubtlessly. You'll be exhausted after we perform the ritual."
On Wings: A Reverse Harem Dragon Shifter Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 2) Page 10