by Chant, Zoe
And “doesn’t lose it when she focuses on the wrong things.” Like now.
He said, “It’s in the garage. Can you ride one?”
Not even a little. And the last thing she wanted was to avoid dying at Mullen’s hands only to end up a smear on the road. She’d go flying over the handlebars—
Lindsay smacked her forehead. “Boone. We’re dragons. I’ll just fly.”
Boone swore with a soldier’s fluency and then said, “Let’s not tell Henry and Ursula we forgot that was an option. Okay. I’ll meet you—” His next words got garbled, swept up in what sounded like a sudden gust of air.
“Boone?”
“Sorry.” His voice was louder now. “I’ll meet you at the boardwalk.”
“Got it.” She hung up and had just started to slip into invisibility when she remembered the bow. She’d left it in the bedroom. She turned to get it—
There was a sudden hard burst of sound behind her, and then bright sunshine hit her like a spotlight.
Someone had kicked down the door.
Lindsay’s whole world went still. Time slowed down around her.
Fight or flight. Time to choose.
Never mind. Both.
She wrapped herself in invisibility just in time to dodge Mullen’s barreling run towards her. Lindsay heard it hit the wall and come off it snarling, vicious like a wild animal.
Throwing herself to the side had maybe saved her life, but it had also trapped her in the bottleneck of the hallway, where there was no room for her to shift. That might even have been Mullen’s plan. The toothy smile the creature had on its face suggested that it was.
But she couldn’t be sure Lindsay had hurled herself in that direction, could she? Lindsay had been fully invisible before she had darted away from Mullen’s attack. Hadn’t she?
She tried to stay perfectly still.
Don’t let it hear you breathing. Don’t move and let it hear a floorboard creak. It won’t know where you are if you don’t give yourself away.
But then she had a mental image of herself stuck in that hallway forever, trying so hard to stay still that her muscles cramped up. If it came down to patience, Henry and Ursula had made it clear that she couldn’t beat the Unchangeable at their own game. Mullen could outlast her. If Lindsay made this a contest about who could stay still the longest, she’d lose, and by the time it came down to a fight, she’d be too stiff and drained to ever win.
She gave up on being cautious. She sprang into action, sprinting down the hallway as fast as she could and slamming the bedroom door open.
Mullen tore after her.
Lindsay hit the edge of the bed so hard she fell against it. She leaned into the movement, rolling across the mattress until she could reach the bow and single arrow.
Only one shot.
She didn’t have the spare seconds it would take to wait for the bow and arrow to go invisible in her hands. If she gave Mullen even a single moment of hesitation, the creature would rip her to pieces. She’d have to fire instantaneously, even knowing that picking up the bow would give her exact position away.
She let her hand hover just above the weapon.
Mullen had stopped in the bedroom doorway, trapping Lindsay inside, and having its prey pinned down had made it get just a tiny bit smug. Its nostrils flared as it sniffed the air.
It was standing still. This might be the perfect time for Lindsay to shoot.
You won’t kill it with an arrow, Lindsay’s dragon whispered.
I don’t have any other choice! There’s not enough room in here for me to fight it as a dragon!
No, the dragon agreed. But remember, its strength is staying in one place. It’s not about aim, it’s about opportunity. This is going to come down to how fast you can react. And how much you can make the Unchangeable move. You have to bring this battle onto your turf, and your turf is change.
Lindsay let her dragon-self fill her human body. It was like cold fire sinking down into her bones. She assessed Mullen like she would any other problem, searching for what her office called SWOT—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
Mullen’s disguise was different this time. It had long, lanky yellow hair and dull blue eyes that looked like a doll’s and looked alive only because of the furious hatred in them. That hatred seemed to be the same in every form. So did the wardrobe of boxy pantsuits.
“Why do you dress like that?” Lindsay said, feeling a little stab of delight at Mullen’s controlled flinch. “I’m genuinely curious.”
Mullen scanned the room slowly, trying to figure out exactly where the noise was coming from. It didn’t seem to be in the mood to answer any questions about its wardrobe.
“I know what you are.” Mullen’s voice was like rocks grinding together in its throat.
“What I am,” Lindsay said, “is hot enough to burn you down.”
One shot, her brain chanted. One shot, one shot, one shot.
Lindsay tried to think about what would get an emotional reaction out of Mullen. “We have friends, you know. The other dragons will come for you—”
Mullen actually laughed.
It said, “Who do you think helped me find you?”
No.
No, that couldn’t be true. That couldn’t possibly be true. Henry and Ursula had been Eleanor’s friends, her family. They’d been ready to run and take Boone and Lindsay with them. Why would they have spent time teaching them how to breathe fire if they’d only been setting them up to die? Why would they have given them any information at all? If all they’d wanted to do was gift-wrap Boone and Lindsay for Mullen, they could have just kept them at the club all night, feeding them drinks and dragon stories, being friendly and agreeable...
Asking us who we were. Asking us if we had a place to stay.
That hadn’t been Henry and Ursula.
But it had been someone.
Someone thoughtful and helpful, just like you’d expect a social secretary to be.
“Octavian,” Lindsay said. “He’s your spy.”
That was what her dragon had sensed, even if it hadn’t been able to put the suspicion into words. Octavian was a snake in the dragon clan’s grass.
Mullen smiled its joyless, predatory smile. “He’s a craven fool who sells out every shifter he can to buy more time for himself. When his day finally comes, I’ll kill him slowly. You won’t be there to take satisfaction in it, though.”
“I don’t really laugh maniacally over people graves anyway. I think that’s more your side than mine.”
“Yes,” Mullen said. “Because we will be there to see the graves. And you will never live to see ours, whether you would laugh at them or not. You’re an unnatural, foul thing.”
“Nothing’s more natural than change.”
Mullen almost hissed at her for that. “We. Were here. First!”
It turned to slam its hand against the door for emphasis.
Now, Lindsay’s dragon whispered.
She wasn’t even conscious of aiming. Her hand and eye took care of it all without her mind even entering into it. It was just like she had felt on the best days of archery class, and as the arrow flew, Lindsay had time to think only that this was what she knew being a dragon really meant. She was the most intense, most concentrated version of herself. She was Lindsay-squared.
The arrow struck home. It pinned Mullen’s raised hand firmly to the door.
Lindsay didn’t have time to find out how long it took an Unchangeable creature to rip an arrow out of its hand. Even as she ran, her subconscious registered that she hadn’t seen even a drop of blood. This wasn’t over, not remotely.
But she’d had her fight, and now she needed flight. She had to drop the bow, unable to afford even the few extra moments of visibility it would give her, and used what felt like all of her courage to run past Mullen back out through the bedroom door. She was so close for a second that she could feel the heat off Mullen’s body. The Unchangeable was grunting, pulling itself free, and wh
en it felt the rush of air as Lindsay passed by, it threw its whole body back to slam the door.
Too late. Too slow. Lindsay was already gone.
She burst out of the house into Boone’s yard and shifted, her skin changing so quickly that it felt like she was turning herself inside-out. She flapped her wings, rising up into the sky.
She was just in time to see Mullen follow her out. Her dragon ears could hear the creature’s ragged panting. Lindsay’s arrow was clutched in Mullen’s hand, which seemed to have no blood on it at all.
Mullen scanned the sky.
And, Lindsay knew, saw nothing.
She rose higher, spiraling up into the air, and flew to the boardwalk.
*
Lindsay’s heart was still pounding when she came to a soft landing on a partly hidden curve of the beach. Most of the shelter of the boardwalk was blocked off by people irritatingly out enjoying the good summer weather. This place had been the only spot isolated enough for a touchdown, and the boardwalk here was too close to the beach for her to fit her dragon-body beneath it.
If she stayed dragon-sized on the ground anywhere much longer, someone would smack right into her, no matter how carefully she’d chosen her landing strip. She was invisible, but she wasn’t untouchable.
She shifted back to her human form quickly and darted beneath the boardwalk. Even back in her usual shape, she had to stoop to fit underneath it. But at least it gave her the necessary shadows to hide that she was suddenly going to pop back into sight.
Which she was going to do. Just as soon as she could convince her racing heart that she wasn’t in danger any longer. Right now her subconscious was refusing to believe she didn’t need all the armor she could get.
She couldn’t believe what she’d just done.
I pinned a monster’s hand to a door with an arrow. I’m William Tell. I’m a dragon William Tell.
Scratch that. The Hunger Games reference sounded much more heroic and, for that matter, much more, well, female. She was a dragon Mockingjay.
She directed the thought at the tension that was keeping the invisibility cinched tightly around her. See? I can take care of myself. I don’t need any extra protection right now. We can drop it.
Lindsay could almost feel herself relaxing when a voice startled her.
“Look, Mommy.” It was a little girl in a red bathing suit who was tugging at her mom’s hand. “Those footprints start right here.”
Luckily for Lindsay, the mom had her hands full with a crying baby. She sounded distracted as she said, “What, honey?”
“Footprints. They come out of nowhere—” The girl gasped. “They come out of these big footprints!”
Shit. How had she forgotten to at least use her tail to wipe away the marks of her dragon-claws before she’d turned human again?
Because she’d been in a hurry, of course. If this were a project she was managing at work, she’d have her to-do lists and automatic reminders. Here she’d had a panicky couple of seconds to get out of everybody’s way.
The dragon footprints were enough to get even the harried mom’s attention. “Huh. Yeah, sweetie, they do, don’t they?”
“They go under the boardwalk! Can I follow them?”
“Absolutely not.”
Lindsay could hear a steely twang of fear in her voice now. The woman couldn’t know what was going on, but she knew it was weird, and she clearly—and understandably—didn’t want her daughter running headfirst into weird.
She saw the woman take a deep breath and then force a smile as she squeezed her little girl’s hand and shifted the still-howling baby, making a couple of cooing sounds. “It’s nothing, sweetheart. Some of the older kids must have just been wearing big flippers for swimming.”
“But they start right there—”
“Because there is where they put them on,” the mom said firmly. “Come on, honey. The sun’s going to go down soon, and I don’t want you swimming in the dark.”
That did it, at least. The kid was a Sherlock Holmes in the making, but she was still at the age where she was more interested in splashing around than tracking footprints. If she’d been just a little older—and hadn’t had her mom around—Lindsay might have just wound up giving away the existence of dragons to a little kid with duck floaties on her arms.
When the family was finally out of earshot, Lindsay’s sigh of relief alone would have given her presence away. She moved further into the darkness underneath the boardwalk, searching for that apparently elusive feeling of safety. When it finally kicked in, she stood stock-still for a couple of seconds, still nervous that she’d hear someone start yelling, “That woman just appeared out of nowhere!”
Nothing. Most people, thank God, weren’t as observant as the duck floaties girl.
Lindsay made her way out from underneath the boardwalk, trying to convey by her facial expression that emerging from the darkness was a totally normal thing for a person to do.
Still no reaction from anyone.
No wonder the existence of shifters went unnoticed. People could just be oblivious sometimes.
She climbed the stairs to the actual boardwalk, which was lively and bustling, nothing like it had been on the shuttered, rainy day when she’d last walked here with Boone.
She was safe. She was safe, and this looked like a normal, peaceful summer evening. Her nose was full of the fair weather smells of the San Marco beach—the cinnamon and sugar of the churros, the buttery scent of the popcorn, the coconut suntan lotion on everyone’s bare shoulders. It seemed like the air was full of colors, too. Everything was bright blue sky and flashing pinwheels and tropical swimsuits. After the terrified calm of going head-to-head with Mullen, she was probably in a mild kind of shock.
Well, tough. She didn’t have time to be overwhelmed. Boone needed her. Dammit, she needed herself.
She took another deep breath.
I’m a dragon. I’m a city planner. I am Boone Keller’s mate. I am my parents’ daughter and my sister’s sister and my niece’s aunt. I can handle this.
Yes, the dragon rumbled. We can.
She liked that there was no doubt in that calm voice. It wasn’t arrogance. It was just confidence.
She squared her shoulders. What was she doing looking around for Boone, anyway? Wasn’t it the twenty-first century? She pulled out her phone. Only one bar of signal, but if she had that here, then hopefully he did too.
She dialed.
He picked up right away. “Are you here? I’ve been looking for you.”
She closed her eyes against the overwhelming comfort of hearing his voice.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m by the churro vendor. The good one. And I used up that one arrow, by the way. I don’t think we’re getting it back anytime soon.”
“Wait,” Boone said. “What? What?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You shot it,” Boone said.
“We’ve been over this,” Lindsay said, but he could tell by the little smile on her face that she didn’t mind going over it again. She was flushed with excitement and adrenaline and what Boone had always thought of as the unnameable kind of awe, the what-the-hell-did-I-just-do confusion.
It was a battlefield emotion. He guessed she was blooded now in Henry and Ursula’s war. He wished it had never touched her at all—but then, she was a fighter. She wouldn’t give up any more than he would.
He was just lucky that she was such a badass with a bow and arrow that the first blood spilled had been Mullen’s and not hers.
Though according to Lindsay, Mullen didn’t have any blood. Its wound had been as dry as its soul.
And the fact that he knew that already meant that she was probably right and they really had gone over this as much as they possibly could. As much as he wanted to just shower praise on her—and sit there eating churros with her, even—they had to move on to much grimmer topics.
“We need to get in touch with Henry and Ursula,” he said.
Lindsay’s
face fell at once. He hated having made that happen. She bit at her thumbnail, thinking carefully. “I didn’t get a phone number for them, did you? Or an email address.”
He shook his head. “It’s hard to think about any of them having email. We’ll have to go there. They need to know about Octavian.”
“I can’t believe he’s been selling out his own people in order to just be killed last,” Lindsay said. There was visceral disgust in her voice. “He must have told Mullen how to find Eleanor, too. Ursula and Henry said the Unchangeable had been targeting their best and brightest.”
“I did find a silver lining. At least maybe this means the Unchangeable can’t do some kind of super-tracking the way Henry was thinking. Maybe they don’t have ESP. They just have a scumbag on their side.”
“If that’s true,” Lindsay said slowly, “then if we could take Octavian out of commission, we’d have the upper hand. The clan wouldn’t have to worry so much about hiding if they knew that the Unchangeable couldn’t just sense them.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
He looked her over. It was funny seeing her back in the same place they had met—and that stormy Saturday felt like it had been a hundred years ago. She had changed since then, and so had he. Lindsay didn’t just make him more passionate, she made him sharper, too; she pulled all his priorities in the right direction.
“Octavian gave Eleanor to Mullen,” he said, thinking it through out loud. “He can’t always give his people away one right after the other, or they’d have been wiped out a long time ago. We’re outsiders, and we were making trouble, stirring things up in a way that might have made trouble for him. Selling us out must have been a no-brainer, if you’re a coward and a traitor already. So he gave our names to Mullen. And Mullen won’t come back to him looking for more until—”
“Until it’s killed us,” Lindsay said. She tore off another bite of her churro and dipped it in the little container of chocolate sauce the food truck woman had given them.