But as he pumped her chest and blew into her lungs, a sharp fear sliced his heart in half. Tears burned his eyes and threatened to fall. He blinked them back and tapped her cheek as if he could simply wake her.
He became aware of people gathering on the hill above him, but he didn’t care. He needed Chelsea. She was the only person who made this life worth living. If he couldn’t spend it with her, he would dump his own ass back into the lake and become the monster everyone wanted him to be.
He pressed his cheek to hers and whispered, begging and pleading with her soul.
Moments away from an ear-splitting roar, she lurched upright and began coughing. Water spilled from her lips. The cough grated on his ears, a reminder that he failed. She would hurt for days and her fear of the lake might never go away now.
She continued to cough. When he pulled back to give her space, she grabbed him and pulled him closer.
“I got you back,” she croaked, a slight smile on her lips. It was probably the best she could muster after all she went through.
He held his hand over her heart and felt it beat. She covered his hand with her own, nearly bringing a sob from him.
His joy was cut short. Clapping shattered the moment. Zane lifted his head to see Alistair walking toward them. He wore nothing but a pair of sweatpants, like he had shifted and flown to get to them so fast. His chest was devoid of scars. He bore no evidence of the battle ten years ago.
This enraged Zane for some reason. His whole clan had suffered because of Alistair’s dreams of domination. Yet, here was the mastermind returned. He stalked in as if he had the upper hand. As if he were the strongest of them all.
At the top of the hill, Jude lunged, but Cole held her back. Zane could see the flash of gold in her eyes. She didn’t want this beast on her territory. It was hers now. Just like the lake was his. Zane kissed his mate, she told him she would be fine, and he stood to join his brethren.
A clammy sensation tickled the back of his neck, but Chelsea fumbled onto her feet and slowly stalked toward the castle of a house, her brow flat and a menacing gleam in her eyes. He opened his mouth and reached to stop her, but she put out a reassuring hand and kept moving.
“Quit messing with them,” she snapped at Sybil.
Zane hadn’t seen the witch in a decade, but the past ten years had not been kind to her. That was the price she paid for helping Alistair. The dark magic he must have asked of her had shaved away her beauty and her soul until she was a husk of a woman.
“No magic while I’m around,” Chelsea growled when she slammed her hand onto Sybil’s shoulder.
Sybil jerked upright like someone slapped her. Zane watched with confused pride. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew it had something to do with how she broke the spell on him. Perhaps that was how she broke the curse on him in the first place. It wasn’t just that the love of his mate could free him, but that his mate could shatter curses.
He turned his attention to Alistair. Cold fury burned in his chest. It turned his heart to ice. When he stepped forward, the whole clan advanced with him. They moved as one, circling Alistair.
“It’s been a long time,” Asher said with a snarl in his voice that raked like claws through the air.
“We aren’t the boys you left behind,” Cole warned Alistair.
Alistair tried to hide his fear behind a charming smile. Just when he was about to say something, Jude broke through the circle. The sound of her fist connecting with his jaw echoed through the trees.
“Get off my territory, you ass!”
Once again, Cole gently tugged his mate away from Alistair. Heat radiated off Jude and made her seem larger than life, but the small bulge of her belly had Cole in protective overdrive. That was fine. The clan would protect her territory for her.
There was no escaping this time. Alistair would not be offered a second chance. The witch that helped him escape was negated by Zane’s mate. Alistair was subject to them. When he tried to shift and escape into the air, they knocked him to the ground.
Two shifters peeled away to stand by Chelsea. The purple-haired woman and the shifter who could only be Alistair’s son turned their faces away. They would not partake, but they knew what had to be done. The whole clan was in agreement.
And, in the end, it was obvious that Alistair made a mistake. He shouldn’t have waited so long. Ten years had turned boys into men. The clan had grown stronger in more ways than just that. Together, nothing could break them.
The past couldn’t stand in their way when their future was bright.
In the privacy of Asher’s property, seven dragons made sure one would never be a problem again.
16
Chelsea clutched the folder to her chest. A leopard print sweater hung from her shoulders, loose and classy, obscuring the tight fit of the black bodycon dress underneath. She’d used most of the morning trying to do something with her hair. For now, it was wound into a braid that crowned her head.
Zane said it made her look like a golden queen. She didn’t feel like it. Not when her stomach fluttered. How was it that she could take home unfamiliar men, but she couldn’t walk into the office of her dream job?
A small, wooden sign in the yard boasted the silhouette of a heron. The non-profit lake conservation organization sat on the edge of the great lake, where all those who worked inside its walls could see exactly what they were protecting.
Behind her, Zane flashed two thumbs up. The nervous wings flapping in her stomach calmed a little. His smile brought one to her own lips.
I can do this, she told herself like a mantra, even though she’d spent the last few years believing her future was out of her own hands. Chelsea went from wanting to be taken care of to wanting to take care of something. Not just herself, but the lake.
Sucking in a deep breath, she charged forward. An hour later, she walked out with a big grin on her face. Her heart pattered happily in her chest, anticipation swelling until she could barely control the tremble of her fingers. Just like she hoped, Zane was still out there. He looked like he never moved, still leaning against the truck he’d bought from a clanmate.
Chelsea ran up to him, threw herself into his arms, and let out an excited squeal.
“I take it that means you got the job?”
Chelsea could barely contain her excitement. She squirmed in his arms before letting out a victory cry.
“Maybe we should get you somewhere else so you can celebrate without your new coworkers seeing you.” Zane held her tightly as he turned around and opened the truck door. “Where do you want to go to celebrate? The bar?”
She shook her head. “I’m done with the bars. Let’s do something fun instead. Like bowling and wings?”
“I cannot tell you how bad of an idea it is to take a clan of dragons to a bowling alley. Let’s do it.”
Chelsea cackled with glee. On Monday, she would start her new job at Save our Lake. She wouldn’t be doing much more than shuffling papers around and ordering coffee or lunch for the office, but it was a step in the right direction. It was part of a life she could not only be happy with, but proud of.
Zane set her down on the passenger seat before running around to the other side of the truck. Once he got inside with her, she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down for a kiss. It was long and lingering as his tongue explored her mouth.
“You made me want to be more than I was,” she whispered when they broke apart.
Zane leaned back and studied her. “I’m not sure that was my doing. You’re amazing without me. You can do something no one else here can do. Disrupting spells is a huge feat.”
But everything she had become was his doing, even if he didn’t want to take credit for it. Finding someone who wasn’t going to get bored with her or leave her because of her dumb laugh had resurrected a long dead part of her soul that actually dreamed. Zane made sure she knew she was loved, from the way his fingers grazed hers every time he passed her to the surprise humps when sh
e wasn’t looking. The surprise humps always made her cackle.
It might have been a crude gesture, where he grabbed her hips, humped her twice, and ran away, but it was a reminder that he wasn’t disinterested. Especially when she hunted him down and took advantage of the erection it always caused. Zane wasn’t going to leave her. He was clearly still infatuated with every bit of her.
“Still,” she pressed. “Thank you. For just about everything you do. I would be lost without you.”
He shrugged it off, clearly uncomfortable with her honest praise. Zane had gone from a stranger she invited into her home to the most important person in her life. What could have ended horribly worked out. It was probably the only time it would ever happen in the history of the universe, but she was thankful for her stupidity just this once.
Chelsea chatted away about her new job and Zane nodded at all the right points, still grinning every time he took his eyes off the road. When they got back to the apartment, Alec was wiping his hands on a towel as he descended the steps. He gave them a silent salute before digging through the back of his truck for something.
Charlie leapt up from where she’d been sitting on the steps and threw her arms around both Zane and Chelsea. Chelsea waited for the tinge of jealousy to bubble up inside of her, but it never came. Zane had been clear about his past with Charlie. They’d been close friends, so close that even during his nightmares, his beast responded to Charlie’s requests.
In any other relationship, Chelsea might have worried. Her ex-husband had cheated on her with women he barely knew. Zane and Charlotte had history going back decades. But when Chelsea saw them together, it was like they were siblings that had been reunited. She didn’t feel the sting of jealousy or the cold tendrils of fear.
Alec patted her on the head as he walked by, the height of affection from him. He was the quietest of the group, and Chelsea had worried that he hated Zane until Alec offered to fix the holes in her walls.
“I stole leftover paint from Jude and Cole’s nursery,” Charlie said.
Chelsea cringed. She didn’t want her living room to look like a baby’s room. When she was about to decline the offer, Charlie tugged her inside to show her that the wall had already been painted. Chelsea didn’t hate it, either.
The butter yellow wall at the end of the room was bright and framed her television well. She also noticed some new things. A blanket tossed onto her couch, a side table she’d never seen before, and a new table in the kitchen.
“The others stopped by,” Charlie said. “They brought some things you might want. Your paychecks won’t come in for a while, and Zane doesn’t have a job lined up yet, so they wanted to help.”
Zane watched his mate marvel at everything the clan had accomplished while they were out. He had forgotten how nice it was to belong to a group that cared. They took care of one another. This wasn’t just a friendship, but a support group.
“I’m not going to have to babysit a dragon in exchange for all this, am I? Because I should warn you, I am horrible with children and I don’t think my spellbreaker ability will stop fire breathing.”
Everyone laughed, but Chelsea looked truly concerned. They had to assure her that there were plenty of people already begging for the chance to babysit. Chelsea didn’t have a chance in hell of getting a turn with Jude and Cole’s baby, even if she wanted to. Besides, she didn’t have to worry just yet.
There were still months until the baby came. And any other children that came after would be at least nine months away. Zane knew that Link and Kiera were talking about it already. Buffy was also freaking out over every small baby item she came across, which carved worry lines into Heath’s already sour face.
Alistair’s kids were nothing like him.
Zane couldn’t believe the difference. The moment he saw Link, he’d assumed Alistair had infiltrated the group again. Nothing could have convinced him otherwise. Zane still sometimes had heart palpitations when Link caught him off guard. Link did his best not to sneak up on him anymore.
It was only when Zane saw Link with his small and quiet mate that Zane began to see the differences. Link and Alistair couldn’t have been more different. Link towered over Kiera like Hades with Persephone, daring anyone who stepped too close to touch her just so he could break some fingers. When Kiera commanded his attention, he softened into a big puppy instead of a dragon.
Buffy, on the other hand, was an enigma that Zane couldn’t figure out. There wasn’t a trace of her father in her. She wore cropped feminist tees, dyed her hair lavender to match her scales, and twerked to embarrass her mate. She would embarrass her future children someday, too.
His clan had grown into adults. Zane remembered them all as goofy and awkward teens. Alec was stalwart and nearly silent. Cole moved like a brooding shadow. The only man that made any loud noises was Asher. In the days after they defeated Alistair and Sybil, Zane spent his days watching some of Asher’s televised fights.
On the screen was a man Zane didn’t know. Asher moved like he was propelled by a primal force that lusted for blood. Time had done no one favors. While Zane suffered under the lake, the others had suffered in their own way. The cost of what they’d done changed them. It stole from them every day until Jude burst in.
She was a kind of catalyst. This new clan leader was absolutely nothing like Alistair. She made sure her family was happy, that her territory was safe. Zane had knelt before her and bowed his head. He would happily work for her. He thought that things would be tense, even after pledging himself to her, but the clan welcomed him back with open arms.
The only one with any apprehension had been Buffy. Not because she sided with her father, but because she absolutely hated the lake—a fact Jude had whispered in his ear later that day. He did his best to respect her space the way Link was respecting his.
No one was perfect, least of all him, but they were all trying. The clan was giving it their all to move on and be normal, at least as normal as dragon shifters could be.
He gathered his mate as the sun was setting and informed the clan that they had to meet up at the local bowling alley. No one argued, though there were a few complaints that it was last minute.
The bowling alley was decked out in Halloween décor, all of it grinning malevolently under the blacklights. Techno horror music pumped from the speakers. Zara cackled like she had walked into her realm of power. Here, she was queen. Chelsea glowed in the blacklight, the sun to Zara’s moon.
It was the sun that beckoned Zane. The light and warmth that he had so desperately missed under the water. She pushed him into a seat and climbed onto his lap, where he hugged her tight. They ordered spicy mustard wings, and she attempted to feed them to him but ended up making a mess of his beard.
The clan laughed at him, but it wasn’t mocking. He felt like he was a part of something larger. A brotherhood, a family. For the first time in ten long years, he wasn’t cold with rage. His fury had died down and his beast was sleeping peacefully. Where the chill had taken up home was the warmth of hope.
They were all moving on and building lives. Zane still had to figure out what he wanted to do, but he had time. While Chelsea worked, he would keep the house clean and keep dinner on the table. The internet was so chock full of recipes that he knew he would never run out of ideas. He considered perhaps starting his own restaurant or a little hole-in-the-wall diner, but now wasn’t the time. It cost too much and tourism just wasn’t what it could be.
When he mentioned that, Chelsea’s face lit up. She told him there was something they could do in the morning. He cocked a brow but didn’t have time to ask when Heath tossed a bowling ball and it went through a wall.
Heath glared at the hole and Alec let out a sigh that could be heard over the thumping music.
“Are you kidding me?” Jude howled. “I’ll never be able to put my kid through college if we keep coming here.”
Zane leaned forward. “I told you this would be good.”
17
&n
bsp; Chelsea helped Zane out of his clothes in the early morning. They stood on the edge of the lake, a cool mist rolling off the water as the golden sun rose in the distance. The sun kissed his body in all the right places and sparkled in his eye, momentarily distracting her from her mission. It was all too easy to push the hem of her skirt up, around her waist. Zane found her wet and wanting.
They finished in unison, each breathing a satisfied sigh into the air. Warmth filled Chelsea’s chest. Her limbs were languid as she pulled the hem of her skirt back down over her hips. She had to be to work in an hour. There wouldn’t be enough time to fix her hair and grab a new pair of pantyhose. She would just have to grab leggings from the truck.
Besides, sex wasn’t the reason they came to the lake at this hour. Chelsea grabbed the camera from the truck seat. By the time she turned around, Zane was gone and there was only a ripple on the surface of the water. In the future, she might ask the clan for help. They had a boat that would make taking photos much easier.
For now, the grainier the photo, the better.
She smiled to herself as a head breached the surface of the water. With the rising sun behind him, Zane’s beast was a dark shape, one that certainly wasn’t human. Chelsea snapped several photos as Zane swam. Later, she would send them to the local newspaper and claim she had been out to get photos for the non-profit when she came across the local lake monster.
The photos would garner a good price and if the newspaper printed them, then there would be an influx of off-season tourism as people rushed to catch a glimpse of the lake monster for themselves. She hoped people would flock to the clan’s fishing tours as a way to get onto the water.
Zane stepped out of the water, already back in his human form. He tossed his head and water sprayed everywhere. She narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn’t stay mad when he reached for his clothes behind her and put his own jacket over her shoulders.
Zane (Keepers Of The Lake Book 6) Page 13