“Finally.” Katherine looked at her phone again. The little red flag showed next to all her texts still. Nothing had gone through. There wasn’t a signal to be found. She’d walked the whole place trying to find a single bar. They were too deep, and the walls were too solid.
It was good. They were alive.
But it was starting to feel a little isolated and claustrophobic. Even though Naomi insisted she could get them out. That poor mama was exhausted. The babies had each eaten and were finally asleep and quiet. She and Ava, Tara, and Dawn rotated who held the babies to give Naomi a few minutes to sleep.
“They knew we weren’t dead,” Ava said, pacing gracefully back and forth across the room with her little bundle.
“She’s right,” Penny said. “I can feel that Kann is safe.”
“Still, no one knows the bunker is down here. I mean most of the really old people in town know, because they were alive when it was being built. It’s not going to be the first conclusion.” Katherine said, keeping her voice soft. She walked across the bunker and sat down next to her mate, Knox.
Ryder was still sitting next to him and he was looking better. The wound was sealed over and not bleeding any more, but it would take a day or so to completely heal and be gone.
“How are you feeling, Ryder?”
“Like someone ran me through with a hot poker,” he said, a teasing smile curved his mouth.
Ava chuckled and came to sit next to him. She handed him Naomi’s baby and laughed at his look of shock.
“I’m wounded and you hand me a baby?”
“Babies make everything better.”
“I’ll drop it.”
“No, you won’t.”
Katherine made eye contact with Knox and he paled but nodded. She handed him her little bundle too and watched both men proceed to coo and nuzzle the little newborns like naturals. It was a beautiful thing and it brought tears to her eyes. Made her feel better about the news she was going to drop on Knox pretty soon.
Ava’s phone made the snapping picture sound and Katherine chuckled. “Good idea.” Katherine took a quick picture of Knox too. He and Ryder both held up the babies proudly and posed for a second picture.
“Y’all are gonna be great dads when the time comes,” Tara said from across the room.
Both men smiled. “It’s not so hard to hold one. They are very light,” Knox said.
“They aren’t crying right now either. That makes a huge difference,” Naomi said, rolling to her side on the cot so she could see the men holding her babies.
“Hey, mama,” Penny said, walking to her side. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Col is moving away from the MCC,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
Katherine got up and walked over to check her dad’s temperature and then moved to stand next to Katherine as well. “Where do you think they are going?”
“Hunting,” Naomi said, her tone was flat, but her eyes blazed with her dragon’s fire. “Hunting for the men who dared to hurt us. He knows I’m safe. Kann, I’m sure he can feel you are too, Penny. And Owen, you.” She glanced up.
Tara nodded.
“That just leaves me as a question mark, doesn’t it?” Dawn said, pausing her lap around the room with her sleeping bundle.
“Yes,” Naomi said. “Unless you’ve been claimed, Tor can’t feel you through a Reylean soul connection.”
“A soul connection. That’s what you’re talking about?” Dawn walked closer. “How is that even a thing.”
Ava moved closer. “The world we come from had a special kind of magick. We called her Fate. The magick-benders understood it better, but people in our world can recognize their mates at first sight. They glow.”
“Glow?” Dawn said it, her voice full of disbelief.
Katherine couldn’t blame her. She’d thought it was all a bunch of boloney at first too. Even after Knox had shifted that first time on the porch right in front of her. It’d been a lot to take in. The idea that magick existed. That people could turn into animals. Huge animals. That dragons were real. That had been a big one too.
“Yes,” Ava said. “When Tor looks at you, your skin shines with a light similar to moonlight. We call it a soul call.”
“Wait. World? What world?”
“The silver portals brought them here. The ones that everyone was talking about in January. Remember,” Katherine said.
“That was a hoax. All the videos are gone. The government said it was an elaborate hologram.”
“It wasn’t a hoax,” Knox said. “We came through that portal from our world before it was destroyed.”
“But those opened all over the world. They were everywhere,” Dawn said. “I remember when it first hit the news, and everything was showing videos. YouTube. TikTok. Snapchat. Instagram. They were filled with nothing but those things. Then it was all just gone.”
Katherine walked away from Naomi and went back to sit on the floor next to Knox. She took the infant back from him and snuggled the warm ball of amazingness against her chest. The baby boy’s eyes were shut tightly. His little mouth was so tiny. She just wanted to kiss all over him.
A soft wail sounded from Penny’s arms. Naomi took the little guy immediately and put him on her breast to eat.
The suckling sounds were soothing to all the adults, Katherine included, and the tension that’d been building quickly dissipated as everyone focused again on just making sure the babies were happy. Knox put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side.
“Are you well, my love?” He swiped a thumb across her cheek to wipe away a stray tear.
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just been a busy day, you know,” she said, trying to make light of the situation.
“I know Naomi’s dragon could dig us out of here,” Penny said. “But with as many explosions as we felt…” she shook her head.
“The building collapsed on top of us, didn’t it?” Tara said.
“That is the most likely scenario,” Penny answered. “We will need to just hang tight until the guys come back and dig us out.”
“There’s food and water in the room just past that door,” Katherine said, pointing at the door at the far end of the room. And there’s bathrooms and showers. Everything should be good. We check it every three months to make sure the electricity works. Plumbing. Etc.”
“You and what army?” Ava piped up. “This place is huge. I walked some of it. It’s way bigger than the building above us.”
“I only check the utilities. They are right here close to the entrance in these first few rooms.”
“Next baby,” Naomi said, handing off a satisfied little bundle and holding her arms out for another. “I’m pretty sure I’m having a flash of what my life is going to look like for the next year.”
Dawn handed one off and then went to sit next to Ava on the floor.
Katherine peered up at the ceiling, toward the hatch. Nothing had happened in a while. No more explosions. The fire had probably burned through the whole place by now. Tears welled in her eyes and snuck down her cheeks in hot trails of grief.
Her whole purpose in the town had gone up in smoke. Her dad had burned down her home when she was a girl. Almost killed her. And now lunatics had destroyed her life’s work. The town’s heart was the community center. She’d worked hard to bring the town together and the miners and everyone with meals and games and hobby meetings and youth groups.
What was she going to do now that it was gone?
“Hey,” Knox said, squeezing her shoulders. He leaned over and kissed her temple. “It’s going to be okay, shuarra. The town can rebuild.”
Katherine shook her head. “But they can’t. Mystery doesn’t have money for something like this. When it was built the first time, one person in town paid for it. It was dedicated to Robert and Laura Hogue. They paid for all of it. Even the bunker. I saw it on the original paperwork.”
“Don’t you have insurance on the building, Kather
ine?” Penny asked.
“Oh, well, yes. There should be. I’d forgotten that,” Katherine said, a little bit of the weight lifting from her chest.
“Knox is right, Katherine. It’s going to be fine. It will be even better once we are all out of this metal box. I’m starting to feel a little…” Penny glanced toward the hatch in the ceiling.
“Buried?” Tara added in.
“I wasn’t going to say it that way, but yeah.”
Katherine stood up, holding her bundled infant carefully. “Knox, let’s go see if we can find some food for everyone and maybe some chairs or something so we can stop sitting on this cold concrete floor.”
“Oh, good idea.” Ryder said, handing the baby he’d been holding back to Tara. “I’ll help.”
Tor
They’d tracked Hollister’s men to an abandoned hunting cabin on the edge of town. No wonder they hadn’t been able to find them before. This place didn’t even have running water. No one used it. The roof had a huge hole in it.
But it was summer in Alaska, not winter, so they were making do.
Four black SUVs were parked on the side of the cabin. A large campfire was burning in the front. Men were standing around the flames.
Tor recognized the man who’d attacked Dawn in the parking lot.
All four men turned to focus on Col. The dragon was studying the group of men, completely focused and oblivious to the three of them crouched behind him.
They sat like that as the minutes stretched on. The men around the campfire got louder. Someone was yelling that some of their people were missing. Another man yelled back that he didn’t care.
Tor assumed that particular male was Hollister’s son. He spoke to the others with assumed authority. He was a short man. Thick build. Deep set angry eyes. Tor’s claws lengthened from his fingers. The thought of him with his meaty ugly hands on his Dawn.
Col turned and face Tor. “They will all die, right now,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I will take our vengeance on all of them.”
Tor closed his eyes and dipped his chin. He didn’t want to stay back and watch. But he would obey. They would all obey if it was what Col wished.
Col stepped out of the trees. “You will die for what you have done,” he shouted.
“This town is mine, and you can’t do anything about it. I burned your other people to the ground. Heard their screams.” The short, thick man left the group and walked toward Col with an arrogance that made Tor want to lunge forward.
“He’s lying,” Kann said, grabbing his arm.
“This. Town. Is. Mine.” Col roared each word and turned into his dragon. He was on two legs, wings spread wide. He roared into the night sky, sending a chill running down Tor’s spine.
The human had sealed his fate the moment he’d spoken a threat to Col on their property.
Hollister froze, staring up Col in disbelief.
A couple of the men got a shot off before Col bathed them all in fire, Hollister included. The screams were short-lived as the super-heated flames consumed them. A few men on the edge of the clearing escaped the first swath of flames but didn’t escape Col’s snapping jaws.
The giant dragon moved with grace and speed no one could imagine. He broke them and tossed them into the center of the burning cabin and then bathed the clearing with more fire.
Col’s breath wasn’t just flame. His fiery breath had a special oil inside it that made it stick like glue to anything it touched. It burned so hot, it turned bones to ash. Melted metal.
Nothing escaped.
Not a man.
Not a single blade of grass.
The dragon stomped through the fire, smashing the SUVs until they were burning bits of metal melting into something unrecognizable. He tore through the cabin, pulverizing every plank of wood until it was no more than burning splinters quickly turning to ash.
Tor stood on the edge of the clearing. Kann, Saul, and Owen stood at his side.
Silent.
Slightly terrified.
Col like this was a force of nature.
Minutes ticked by. The smell of burning flesh and rubber was bitter in the air.
After a while, the fire died out and the darkness of the night descended on the them once again. The smoke was pushed away on the breeze and the air cleared of the terrible smell of death and destruction.
Col used his huge claws to tear up the earth and his tail to sweep the freshly turned earth over the ashes. In the end, there was nothing showing but freshly turned soil. The wilderness would reclaim it within a few weeks.
Hollister and his men would be forgotten.
Hopefully.
Col shifted back to into a man and walked back to the line of trees where he’d left Tor and the others.
“Let’s go get our mates.”
19
Dawn
Dawn put a couple jars of pickles on the folding table they’d found. “If you’re hungry, I think these look pretty good. There’s some other pickled stuff back there, but a lot of the supplies are dried and packed like MRE rations. Going to require some reconstituting.”
“Naomi, you want a pickle?” Katherine popped the jar open and took a whiff. Then held the jar out toward the new mother.
Naomi chuckled and shook her head. “I’ll pass. Water would be great though,” she said, waving a hand at Ryder carrying a big case of bottled water.
“One moment.” Ryder put the case down on the floor next to the table, ripped it open, and pulled out several bottles. He put them on the table next to the pickles and then brought one over to Naomi.
Dawn bounced one of the triplets in her arms, one of the girls. Two girls and a little boy. All with dark hair and curls like their mama. Ava had the little boy right now and Penny was carrying the other little girl. They didn’t have names yet. Naomi said she didn’t feel right making the final choices without Col.
Something thumped really loudly near the hatch. Everyone in the room froze. Dawn felt her heart stop and cling to her ribs in anticipation like a prisoner pressing its face against the bars of a cell.
Who was on the other side?
Would they be able to get it?
“It’s never sounded that close to the hatch,” Ava said, handing off the baby she’d been carrying. She and Ryder moved to stand directly below the hatch door.
Another loud thunk made Dawn jump inside her skin. The baby in her arms squirmed, clearly put off that the arms in charge of holding her weren’t very relaxed.
“It’s okay, honey,” Dawn said, keeping her voice soft. She patted the baby girl’s bottom in a soothing fashion, though it was as much for her as it was the baby.
Please don’t let it be Hollister or his goons.
“Should we go to one of the other rooms and bar the door?” Dawn said, backing up a few steps with her precious bundle. “Just in case.”
“Col is close again. Everything is going to be fine, Dawn. Just hang in there.” Naomi pushed herself up in the cot so that she was sitting instead of reclining. “One of you guys come over here and help me get up. We are going to be out of here in a few minutes.”
Metal screeched and bent and then it stopped. A rush of fresh air flooded the big room and a fresh wave of dragon heat. Dawn recognized it right way.
“Naomi!” Col’s voice boomed through the opening.
“I’m here, I’m safe. Everyone is fine. All eleven of us. Though Harrison really could use a hospital.”
“Eleven?” Col said, his voice carrying a baffled tone. “Who else is down here? Was someone in the center with you when we left?”
The metal ladder groaned as he climbed down faster than Dawn thought a human should be able to move, especially a human male Col’s size. But then. He wasn’t human, was he?
He rushed to Naomi’s side without sparing anyone else a second glance.
“My shuarra—”
One of the babies gurgled and mewled. The one Penny currently had. One of the little girls. Dawn had a gi
rl and Tara had the little boy.
More people were coming down the ladder. Swinging down the ladder and landing on the concrete floor with heavy thumps. They couldn’t be bothered to actually climb down the ladder, they just leapt down and ran to their respective mate as if jumping down into a military-grade bomb shelter from a two-story ladder was completely normal.
“Are you? Did you? Are those—”
“My love,” Naomi said, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you speechless.”
The big man harumphed and rushed from his mate to Penny. Took the baby and then moved to Tara. Took the little boy from her and then his gaze lasered in on Dawn and the bundle she was patting gently.
Dawn saw Tor out of the corner of her eye.
Col had both the newborns tucked into his left arm and he held out his right.
Dawn carefully placed the little girl between her father’s chest and arm. He was enormous right up next to her. Scary. Big hair. Enormous chest. Handsome with that dangerous look that warned people they would pay the price if they crossed this guy.
“They’re perfect,” she whispered.
A warm smile curved the corners of his mouth, changing his face drastically. Dawn could see the man behind the leader that Naomi was in love with. The man that would be an amazing and protective father.
“Thank you for protecting my mate and children.” He pressed a soft kiss to the top of Dawn’s head and then turned to the rest of the group who were standing in silent awe of the command that exuded from Col like a siren’s song. “Thank you all.” He made a point to look at each person, especially the two men—Ryder and Knox.
“I wish to make something right that my shuarra and Mahadhri has been on me about for quite some time. It is not good for us to be at odds with each other any longer. I was betrayed by people I considered family and lost everyone before I came here. Changing traditions and customs has been difficult for me, as I’m sure Kann and the others can attest to. But this new world is difficult enough for us to navigate on our own. I would ask that each of you, Ryder and Knox, consider officially joining with our Tribe. We will be stronger as one unit and safer.”
All's Were That Ends Were: Soulmate Shifters World (Soulmate Shifters in Mystery, Alaska Book 6) Page 16