by Riley Storm
Could it be, he wondered to himself. Have I finally found her? The one? Everything inside him cried out that yes, this was his mate. After so many long years of searching, of loneliness and heartbreak—though he didn’t talk about that last to anyone—he’d finally found her.
Jax wasn’t about to let her get away. He had to keep her, to show her the truth of their connection. Yes, he decided, that was just what he was going to do. Prove to her that it was fate that had brought her to Plymouth Falls. That she was meant to find him. That they were to be together. As mates.
She would understand, he knew. If anyone would get it, it would be Sarah.
Getting out of the shower, he dried off quickly. “Get dressed,” he said, beaming from ear to ear as he handed her a set of standard gray sweatpants and shirt outfit that every member of Draconis had on hand in large numbers.
Shifting wasn’t very gentle on the clothing. So, they wore loose-fitting things around the Keep, things that would easily slide off, or that would not be missed if ripped to shreds.
“Okay?” she said humorously. “That’s the opposite of what you wanted before.”
“I know, but I want to show you something, and we have to go outside for it,” he said with a helpless shrug. “Come on! Come on!” he said, voice rising with excitement.
“I’m going,” she protested with a laugh, dressing swiftly, her wet hair still dripping onto the material. “Do you have a small towel I can wrap this up in?” she asked. “I don’t want to catch a chill.”
Despite his desire to get a move on, Jax didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. He darted back into the oversized washroom and rummaged through his towel drawer until he found one, waiting impatiently as she whipped her hair up into that thing women did with a towel.
“Now where?” she asked, taking his outstretched hand and following him out into the hallways of the Keep.
Jax took side routes, avoiding anywhere he might run into the other dragons or their mates. He wasn’t ready for that yet.
“You live here?” Sarah asked, her voice echoing down the hallway. “This place is huge.”
“The family house,” he said sheepishly. “Built back when we had many more of us than are around today.”
He knew she would take that as they were all dead, but until the dragons figured out a way to awaken the rest of their comrades, it was as good as the same.
Pausing at the door, Jax frowned as he realized there was a problem in his plans. “It’s raining,” he said unhappily, wondering when that change in weather had occurred.
A brief memory of his windshield having some moisture on it came to him. Yes, on the drive back he’d had to flick the wipers on briefly toward the end, though it wasn’t coming down very hard yet.
Now, though, he could see through the window off to his left; it was raining much more heavily. He couldn’t expose Sarah to that. Another place would be needed. One that was open, with space for him to stretch out.
“I’ve got it!” he said, grabbing her by the hand and moving quickly back through the house.
Sarah laughed and followed along. “What is this all about, Jax? You’re being so mysterious!”
“You’ll see,” he reassured her. “You’ll see.”
They took the elevator down to the parking garage. Sarah paused to look at all the cars, but he just shrugged, pointing at a box on the wall. “There’s the keys, take any one you want. But later. Not now.”
She gaped at his words, her eyes glued to the box for a moment, but his insistent tugging had her coming along until they came to an open spot.
With only the four of them awake, much of the garage was completely empty. It provided him all the space he would need, provided he didn’t stretch out too much.
“Okay, stay here,” he said eagerly. “And don’t get any ideas.”
“Ideas about what?” she wanted to know, but the last word trailed off as he started to strip.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m showing you the real me. The side I can’t show anyone else, but that I can show you. This is my secret, Sarah. The one I don’t tell anyone.” He smiled, elated to finally be revealing himself to his mate.
“Jax?” she asked, sounding confused now.
“Just watch. Watch and be amazed,” he said, giddy at the prospect of being united with the one, with showing her who he was and beginning their journey to happily ever after.
Now he understood, understood how the others felt. Why they were always happy, and what that meant to them to have a mate. He got it now, after four centuries of living alone, Jax had found his one. The one who would get him, who would understand him.
He backed away until he was far enough from Sarah it wouldn’t matter, and then he let go of his control, releasing his dragon. It too was eager to be free, and the giant lizard rushed out from him in an explosion of copper scales as he grew, changed shape and solidified into his dragon.
Brass streaks ran through his scales, darkening to an earthen brown over his wings, the membranes a very different color than his body. He represented all the parts of earth, his element. His power.
“This is me, Sarah,” he said in the melodious, musical voice of dragons. “This is my secret, and I—”
He stopped talking when he realized she was no longer standing in front of him.
“Sarah?” he called, lifting his head to look around.
The horns on top of his head smashed into the concrete ceiling painfully. Bellowing at the hurt, he ripped them free, forced to close his eyes as concrete and concrete dust rained down around him.
“Sarah!” he called, moving his head away from the downpour, looking around again as his eyes opened. “Where are you?”
Jax’s ears picked up the sound of a car engine. Was one of the others down there now, preparing to leave? He didn’t understand what was going on. Where was Sarah? Why wasn’t she staring with wide-eyed awe and amazement at him? She was supposed to be there. To understand him.
Where was she?
A vehicle appeared around one of the thick columns supporting the underground garage. A wild-eyed Sarah, still dressed in gray sweats and with a bright red towel wrapped around her head was at the wheel, staring fearfully at him as she whipped by, headed for the entrance.
“Sarah?” he said, the question floating out into the empty air as her car disappeared up the ramp.
Jax returned to his human form, staring after her. “What did I do wrong?” he asked weakly, running a hand through his hair.
This hadn’t gone at all how he’d imagined it. For years he’d pictured this moment, the reveal to his mate, to show her who he truly was, what he truly was. He would shift in front of her and say This is me.
His mate would stare in awe, hand clapped over her mouth, eyes wide. She would begin to shake and then say something like I don’t believe it. He would tell her it’s real, and in return, she would ask to touch him. To come up and rest a palm on one of his scales. Then he would offer to take her for a flight. She would, of course, be nervous then, but in the end would come around. That was how it would go. He’d planned it out, dreamt of it, a thousand-thousand times before.
This, though. This he hadn’t foreseen.
She had run from him.
She had run, and she had his secret.
Jax’s heart sank as he realized he had to go after her. He had to catch up with her and prevent her from doing anything that might give away his secret. There was one thing that was more paramount to his kind, to all shifters, than love, and that was keeping themselves secret from humans.
“Fuck.”
Chapter 24
“It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.”
Sarah repeated the phrase over and over again, hoping that one time she would say it, and actually believe it.
Humans were creatures whose lives were primarily based around the visual, around being able to see. To ‘see the truth’ of something. So, when someone was shown something tha
t they didn’t believe, like, oh, say, a human changing into a dragon, it didn’t mesh very well with their psyches.
Repeating words, trying to convince herself of something when she knew her eyes had seen something entirely different, with a realism too great to be faked, had snapped something deep inside Sarah. A fear that she’d never known she possessed before.
A fear that she was going crazy.
She’d never had issues with hallucinations or anything similar, but it was a deep-seated fear that had long lingered in the back of her mind. Now it was coming full-on to the forefront and had decided to manifest itself with Jax.
Why a dragon though? That was part of what she couldn’t understand. Why had she imagined him turning into a dragon?
“Am I truly crazy if I think I’m having hallucinations?” she wondered out loud, the big overpowered SUV hurtling around another turn, the heavy V8 engine responding to her lightest touch on the pedal.
She mulled that question over as well, trying to stop her hands from shaking on the steering wheel as she went.
Could one suffer from hallucinations, yet somehow know that they weren’t real? Sarah was no expert on the subject, not even an armchair one. But something ate at her, told her that, if she knew they were fake, then she had a higher likelihood of not being out of her mind.
But by that logic, if I’m not out of my mind, then I shouldn’t be having hallucinations. Which means what I saw was real. Which of course, isn’t possible, because people can’t magically transform into dragons. Oh.
Maybe this was how people ended up cracking, going ‘crazy’ and needing lots of mental health support. They went around and around in a circle of logic, trying to figure out what was real, what wasn’t until they no longer knew.
“Yeah. I can buy that. I’ve been living it for five minutes and I’m already on the edge. Dragons,” she snorted, focusing on the road, trying to keep the scene from stealing her vision.
It had been a huge dragon, its scales a brilliant copper. Like his eyes. Had her subconscious designed the imaginary dragon to look like that because of Jax’s unusual eyes? That seemed like a detail too minute for it to transfer over, but she didn’t have much of an idea about anything just then, so what did it matter?
She raced over the next hill, desperate to get away. Just in case. Just in case it had been real. Because what if Jax really could turn into a dragon, and had been just about to eat her? She certainly didn’t want that creature catching up to her! She needed to get home, and soon!
Sarah slammed on the brakes abruptly. Tires screeched, rubber burned and the car slid to a shaking halt, throwing her forward against the seatbelt.
“I can’t go home!” she half-wailed to herself as reality started to sink in. “Not if it was real.”
Jax knew where she lived. Which meant the dragon knew where she lived. It knew that would be the first place she would run to, seeking sanctuary. But what sort of protection could her house offer against a creature of that size, and likely power? Couldn’t he breathe fire too?
She had to go somewhere else. Somewhere that she would be safe, where Jax could never find her. Could never hurt her.
“Grandma,” she breathed, seeing the flaw in her plan. Just as Sarah couldn’t go home, she couldn’t just leave her grandmother there either. She had to bring her. They would have to flee Plymouth Falls together.
“Fuck.” She paused, slamming her hands off the steering wheel. “Fuck!”
Her foot stomped down on the gas. The engine roared, tires squealed, and then she was off, the big bulky SUV rumbling back up to speed.
She arrived home, pulling up into the driveway with another screech of the poor tires and threw the car in park, not bothering to shut it off.
“Grandma!” she called, jumping out of the car, running toward the door.
A figure stepped out of the darkness. One hand clamped over her mouth with shocking strength, while the other slipped behind one arm, around her back and then grabbed the other, hoisting her from her feet with casual ease.
“Easy,” a deep voice rumbled in her ear as she kicked and struggled, trying to scream through the makeshift gag of his palm. “I’m not here to hurt you. Relax. Relax.”
Sarah twisted, turned, kicked, flailed and even tried to bite. Yet every which way she moved, Jax moved with her or stopped her from doing anything.
“Enough,” he rumbled in her ear, and muscles made of steel squeezed just a little bit tighter.
Sarah went still with a squeak, hating herself for not being strong enough to break free of his grasp, even as she knew it wasn’t actually her fault. Jax was unnaturally strong, and now she knew why.
“I don’t like doing this,” Jax said, still talking into her ear.
He was very good, she decided. Very good, because she could hear the pain in his voice, the self-loathing at his actions, at the way he was being forced to treat her.
She tried to talk again, to call him out, but his hand was still clamped over her mouth.
“If I let go of you, do you promise not to scream, or try to run?” he asked warily.
Sarah thought about lying, about pretending to agree with him, then making a run for it, but the logical side of her brain kicked in, presenting her with a fact she hadn’t yet quite processed.
Jax had beaten her here. Despite her head start, and the crazed way with which she had driven, somehow, he had managed to not only get here first but also with plenty of time to get set up and ambush her out of the dark.
Whoever he was, whatever he was, she was outclassed. He possessed supernatural speed, it seemed, along with his insane strength. What could she hope to do against something like that?
She nodded slowly. He hadn’t killed her or eaten her yet and was in his human form. That, combined with the way he seemed regretful for his actions…
“I’m not letting you go completely yet,” he said, but his grip did slacken. “I can still tell you’re panicked. Which is understandable. But I can’t have you screaming out and drawing attention to us. We’re already risking enough.”
“What? Risking enough how?” she asked as his hand pulled back from her mouth. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s not safe out here,” Jax said, keeping his voice quiet. “Not anymore. We need to go.”
“This is my house,” she protested. “It’s completely safe.”
“Not anymore,” Jax said ominously. “Not now that you’ve been with me.”
“With you?” she asked reflexively.
“Intimately.”
“Oh great, thanks for shouting that to the entire neighborhood,” she snapped, though he wasn’t speaking loud enough for anyone to hear anyway. “And why am I even talking to you anyway! Let me go!”
“Keep your voice down,” he growled, a new emotion entering his voice.
He was nervous, Sarah realized abruptly.
“Jax, what the hell is going on?” she asked. “Who are you? What are you? Why are you…why,” her voice trailed off. “I’m so confused. Am I going crazy?”
“No,” Jax said. “Though I can understand why you think that. I…I did not do that properly. Now, if you will just come with me, we can go back, and I’ll explain everything.”
“Absolutely not. I am not going anywhere with you. Not until I get some answers!” Her voice was rising again, the fear of what she’d seen overriding Jax’s demands that she be quiet now.
“Quiet!” Jax hissed. “We don’t have time for this Sarah. We have to. Now. Before it’s—”
She turned to look at him. “Before what, Jax?”
“I think he was about to say, before it’s too late,” a calm voice said from the bottom of the driveway.
Sarah spun to see a trio of figures arrayed in a line facing them, hands spread out to the sides.
“Sarah,” Jax said calmly, moving in front of her, blocking her view of the new members. “You’re not about to like what happens. But for that, I’m sorry. It’s the only way t
o keep you safe.”
“Wha—at?!”
Sarah’s voice was cut in half as the ground opened up below her and swallowed her whole.
Chapter 25
Sarah’s panicked yelp cut off sharply as the ground flowed like water over her head and turned solid once more.
Jax hated what he’d done, but he’d seen the shadows flowing around the vampires. Shadows that Sarah would not have recognized or known the significance of. But he did. They were not newly converted, and there were three of them, to just him.
Keeping her safe would allow Jax to fight to the fullest of his abilities, and judging by the opponents arrayed against him, he was going to need it. The vampires had tracked him faster than he’d anticipated they would.
“We almost had you earlier,” one of them said, and the trio chuckled, spreading out wide, cutting off his avenue of escape.
“I saw,” he snarled, calling upon his powers, feeling the cool slickness of his metal armor descend over his body. It would protect him from their blows for a time, but Jax knew he had to change the odds against him as soon as possible.
“A shame, really, that we’ll have to let your human suffocate after we kill you.” This was the middle one speaking. Taller than the others, the shadows moved about him slightly faster than the others, and darker too.
This, then, was their leader.
It took all Jax had to focus his thoughts on the vampires and not Sarah. She was safe in the ground for some time. Her air would last long enough for him to dispatch the trio, and even if he couldn’t finish things quickly enough, he had a backup plan in place.
She’s safe, he reassured himself once again.
This time, however, she had seen the danger, had been aware of it. On the way back from their dinner date earlier, Jax had seen the vampire car following them. It had almost been a close thing. The sun had still been shining the last rays over the horizon until he was nearly at the gates to Drakon Keep. Only that had kept the vamps at bay, unable to use their powers to the fullest until darkness came on in full.