Dragon's Challenge

by Jasmine Wylder

  Such as the tears starting to flood down Maura’s face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Stephen reached for her again, ignoring the pain that flashed through his back. He didn’t find he had enough strength to leave his bed, but he could at least hold her hand. “Sorry for what?”

  “They have it. The flash drive. They got it.”

  His stomach rebelled at the knowledge of how they’d gotten it. They had sliced her open without any regard for her life, and she was apologizing to him? He knew she would have made them fight for every inch they took. It had nearly cost her her life, though, outnumbered as she was.

  “That doesn’t matter,” he said soothingly. There were all sorts of things that could go wrong now that Carter and Cooper had that sort of information, but they’d deal with that later. Maura had other flash drives hidden, she’d said that before. So they could just figure out how to stop Cooper once they were healed.

  “It does matter,” Maura whimpered.

  “No—”

  “Yes. Because Cooper… he’s the one who got all of us arrested in the first place.”

  “We were both fooled—”

  “No.” Maura shook her head. “You don’t understand. Now he has all the information he needs to completely destroy the Blaze Ops once and for all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Maura hated the look in Stephen’s eyes. The betrayal. His hand left hers, withdrawing to his side. She wished he would look away, or that she could. Something to stop staring into the hurt and understanding in his eyes.

  This was her fault. If she had just deleted the information he wanted her to get rid of, then Cooper wouldn’t have this extra weapon to use against the Blaze Ops. She couldn’t have known that Cooper was a traitor—she’d never even suspected him, and as far as she knew, nobody else had either. But she had known that this information could be used against the Blaze Ops.

  Passwords could be guessed. Encryptions broken. Why had she been so arrogant as to think her measures would be enough?

  “How?” Stephen breathed.

  She flinched. “How what?”

  “How did they know?”

  “I… I told Cooper. He just looked so hopeless, I wanted to make him feel better. So I told what I had and where it was.” Her hand drifted to her stomach, where the raw, ugly line from where Carter had sliced her open still throbbed with pain. She had fought. God, she had fought as hard as she could. In the end, though, she just couldn’t hold them all off. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill me on the spot. Guess Cooper just wanted to see me in pain.”

  “No…” Stephen rolled back. “They were going to try to get your password to get into the flash drive. They knew that you would have it protected. They wanted to get you to tell them everything they needed… so we have a chance after all. ‘Cause they can’t get into it.”

  Maura tried to feel that optimism, but all she had was a hard weight on her shoulders. “The flash drive is opened with a thumbprint. They took a mold of mine.”

  “You still have passwords and encryptions.”

  “And they can probably break through them.” Maura closed her eyes tightly, trying not to look at Stephen. As much as she wanted to take his words and keep them as comfort for herself, she couldn’t. Too much had happened. “We have to assume that they’re already in. Better to overestimate than underestimate.”

  Stephen growled low in his throat. “And if they already have access to all that information, what are we going to do about it, Maura? We don’t even know what they want.”

  “Carter wants to rebuild the Pack.”

  “But why?” Stephen struggled up.

  Maura pushed herself up, about to tell him to stay still like Derek told him, but her muscles pulled in all the wrong ways. Pain shot through her and she went down again, crying out as waves of darkness washed over her vision. Stephen cursed and his warm hands pressed over hers.

  “Don’t move!” he snarled. “You were cut open; you have to let yourself heal.”

  “And so do you,” Maura snarled right back. She wasn’t going to let him chastise her for doing the exact same thing he was doing! That was some double-standard bullshit and she wouldn’t stand for that. “Get your ass back to bed before I have to shove you back.”

  Stephen snorted. He mumbled something that she couldn’t hear over the sound of her own pained panting, but he collapsed back and lay on the bed.

  “That’s better,” she murmured, uncurling herself as the pain slowly eased.

  Sweat dewed her brow. Had she gotten an infection? Normally her immune system would fight it off, but even a shifter would have a hard time bouncing back from having her insides hacked open with a hunting knife. Not to mention all the junk and dirt that had entered her.

  She shivered as she remembered just how close to death she’d been. If it wasn’t for Stephen arriving when he did… he might think that they were trying to keep her alive but the way they’d just held her down and cut her open like that? Carter was a doctor; he knew how to perform surgery. If he wanted her alive, he’d have taken her to a sterile location and used proper tools.

  She slowly swallowed as she looked at him once more. He glared up at the ceiling, a fierce expression on his face.

  “Stephen, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry,” he repeated. “I told you to delete that information. We wouldn’t be having this problem if you had just listened to me.”

  Maura flinched. “I… I know but if I had done that, I’d have to wipe the whole drive. And I told you, I have more hidden away in other locations. If they found any of those—”

  “I can’t keep talking about this.” Stephen’s hands clenched. “If I’m supposed to be trying to heal, then I can’t keep getting angrier with you. I’m sorry, I know they nearly killed you and it’s unfair for me to blame you. I just don’t know what the fuck we’re supposed to do now, and I am struggling not to blame you.”

  “I know you blame me. And I can’t blame you for that, either.” Maura’s chest pulled inward as she fought the urge to cry. It would only hurt and dehydrate her. The pudding Derek had given her had fallen to the floor. Not that she was hungry, but Derek was going to be upset with her for not eating. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t change the situation we’re in and it doesn’t change how I feel.”

  Maura struggled with her emotions. They hurt something terrible, almost as badly as her guts. But at least she could get painkillers to make a dent in that pain. She didn’t know of any cure for emotions. She sniffed back tears, trying to be silent so Stephen couldn’t hear. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to manipulate his emotions.

  “I never thought it could be used against us.”

  “You.”

  “Wh-what?”

  Stephen turned a glare on her, his lips curling back. “You didn’t think it could be used against you. You knew it could be used against me and the others in the Blaze Ops. That’s why you had it to begin with. So you could use it against us. So don’t start saying that you’re surprised that someone else can use it against us, too.”

  He was right. She slowly curled back in on herself. She had gathered that information against the Blaze Ops in order to take them down if they proved to be too difficult to control. If they’d gotten god complexes and started to act outside of justification. So of course, it could be used against them by someone who didn’t care that they were breaking the law—of course it could be used against them by their enemies.

  They could only hope that Carter and Cooper wouldn’t be able to break into the flash drive. With any luck, they would trip her safeguards and delete the whole thing. Cooper was smarter than that, though.

  Maura pulled her fingers through her hair. Apologizing again wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Like Stephen said, sorry did very little to change anything. If she could just figure out how they could get those two out of the way…

  Unless there was someone else tugging their strings.
<
br />   Unless someone would just pick up the torch the moment they dropped it and continue to come after them.

  Stephen sighed heavily. “They called you Alice. Derek and Carter. They both called you Alice.”

  Maura flinched. She didn’t remember when Carter called her Alice this time, but she had been so out of it she barely remembered anything.

  “Is your name Alice?” Stephen turned to her, skewering her with his gaze.

  “No.” Maura spat the word out. “No. I’m not Alice. I’ve never been Alice, no matter what people say.”

  Stephen’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth as though to ask but closed it again. He turned over, his back to her. Maura almost wished he would ask, but the thought of having to tell him hurt even worse than him hating her. So she stayed where she was and let the silence build between them. Better silence than shouting.

  ***

  A day later, Maura could walk, barely, and Derek brought two backpacks laden with food and water. Maura looked at them with dismay. As much as she was grateful to be given provisions, this meant they were being kicked out. The damage her body had gone through was still too much for her to shift or push herself. Stephen would be able to travel better than her. He figured he could even fly again by now. It’d be terribly painful, though.

  “A couple of people I don’t know stopped by to talk to the dean,” he told them as he helped Maura put on her pack. “They didn’t look right so I followed them. I’m pretty certain they were bounty hunters. They must have known you’d come back here.”

  “We did tell Cooper,” Stephen said reluctantly. “And he’d have told Carter. Easier for them to send bounty hunters after us and let them take care of us, rather than risking their necks again.”

  Maura nodded, hating this whole situation. “Is it safe to leave, though? If they know we’re here, they’re probably watching. If they see us—”

  “That’s why they’re not going to see you,” Derek interrupted. “I’m gonna wheel you out in the oil barrels from the cafeteria. You’ll smell like french fries, but you’ll get out. And I’ve got people I can trust getting you far away from here. You can’t stay any longer. Not with bounty hunters sniffing around. If they find out about us, there are certain vampires who’d kill them and bring a whole lot of hell down on our heads.”

  Maura nodded again. “I understand. Thank you, Derek, for helping as much as you have.”

  Derek smiled weakly. “I wish I could do more.”

  “You’ve done all you can.” She grasped his hand. “Your family comes first.”

  Stephen glared at their hands, as though they were doing something wrong. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

  Maura shivered at his tone but agreed with the sentiment. Derek hurriedly got them sealed in the stinking, dark barrels. Maura’s heart pounded as she was wheeled away, to where, she didn’t know. Voices sounded outside the barrel, muffled and indistinct. It occurred to her that if Derek wanted to sell them out, he was in a prime position to do so.

  No. Not everybody is in this for the money. Not everybody is Cooper.

  What did Cooper want, anyway?

  She closed her eyes, trying to meditate and clear her mind. The pain still throbbing in her side didn’t help. She couldn’t empty her thoughts. They crowded around her, pressing in tighter than this barrel seeping its french fry smell into her skin and clothes.

  How were they going to get out of this? Even if Cooper and Carter were unable to open her flash drive, that didn’t mean they couldn’t pretend to have gotten the information on it. At this point, with her and Carter both trying to blackmail the governor, he’d side with the person who seemed more powerful—and with how long she’d been forced to be silent, she certainly was not the powerful one here.

  She fought against the bleak thoughts that maybe it would be better just to call it quits. Go their separate ways, just as Adam and Sly had done. Maybe there was nothing they could do.

  And if there wasn’t? Then it was all her fault—because she was the one who’d made all of this possible in the first place.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Stephen grimaced as he wiped his hands off on his pants. His barrel hadn’t been cleaned out entirely and now he felt gross and oily. Didn’t smell any better, either. At least they’d been transferred to a truck where they could get out of the barrels and keep going for a while.

  Now, they’d ditched the route that Derek set up—every additional person in this mess only made it more dangerous—and Stephen had taken Maura far away. First, he’d bought an old junk car off somebody who didn’t mind making the transaction in cash. Then they’d drove down a logging road until it disappeared and kept going until the car got stuck. From there, they hoofed it the rest of the way to a place Stephen knew they’d be safe.

  “I found this place a few years back,” he told Maura as he lowered her into a slit in the earth that was more or less overgrown with bushes. “I was having a crisis and needed to get away from it all for a while.”

  He dropped in next to her. The cave was dark, with only a slit of light filtering in. It also stank something bad, although a different sort of bad than their french fry scent. A pool of hot springs water sat to one side of the cave, with only a small lip of shelter to keep dry on. At least it was warm down here. Maura wasn’t going to freeze.

  She hunkered down on the dry shelf, her arms wrapped around herself. He didn’t like the color of her skin as he hung their packs up, finding outcroppings of rock to tie the packs to to keep them up out of the water.

  “Is the water drinkable?”

  “It didn’t make me sick,” Stephen hedged. “But in your current state, it might be better to keep to the bottled water.”

  Maura sighed and nodded. “Yeah. That’s a good idea. How long do you suppose we’ll be safe here?”

  Stephen shook his head. If he had any idea, this wouldn’t be so hard. It was well hidden, and it’d take anybody hunting them some work to find, but he had just stumbled onto it. Anybody could find it; it wasn’t like they were completely safe down here. He sat next to her, sighing.

  “I’ve been thinking. Considering everything that’s happened, it might be worth it to throw in the towel. Give ourselves up. At least people aren’t going to be trying to kill us if we do that?”

  Maura turned her big eyes on him, looking defeated and exhausted. “Do you really believe that? Because I think if we tried that, we’d end up dead in jail and the news would call it suicide.”

  Stephen had to admit that sounded about right. If their enemies were really so determined to see them dead, then why not work through the corruption in the police to get at them? The system itself was broken; how could they put their trust in the people who worked within that broken system? He scowled as he leaned his head against the back of the cave.

  “Whatever,” he said as he started undoing the buttons on his shirt. “We can’t make any decisions right now, anyway. I’m going to wash up and try to clean these clothes. We can’t get anywhere smelling like french fries.”

  Maura averted her eyes as he stripped himself down to his underwear and waded into the hot water. He was glad that she did and gave her the same courtesy as she undressed and brought her clothes into the pool as well. They scrubbed at their clothes and Stephen brought them back to the ledge, where he found other places to hang them up so they’d dry.

  Maura stretched out in the water, all her curves on display. Did she even realize what she was doing? Stephen coughed as he turned away and dunked under. The hot water did nothing to cool the desire that flickered through his blood with his fires, nor the erection that was all too visible. He scowled as he worked his hands through his hair, hoping to rinse the oil out of it.

  When he surfaced again, Maura had her head to one side as she untangled her hair. Vivid red scars stood out on her abdomen and Stephen’s scowl increased. If he had only been a little faster, then she wouldn’t have been injured like that!

  “You a
sked me why people have been calling me Alice,” Maura said, a tremble to her voice. “I suppose I owe you an explanation about that.”

  Stephen paddled a little closer and found a place on the sloped walls to sit. “I have been wondering.”

  “Alice Bishop was the name I grew up with. I wasn’t exactly well-off, but I wasn’t poor, either. I loved my parents and I trusted them. Until I turned twelve and I found out they weren’t my parents at all. They were my kidnappers.”

  Stephen’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “They kidnapped me when I was three years old. My real parents were insanely rich. I had been kidnapped and they wanted a ransom for me. But my parents refused to pay. When it was discovered who I was, the people I knew and loved were thrown into jail, and I never saw them again. I tried to look them up once I was an adult, but they didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  Stephen was uncertain how to react to that. What did you say to a story like that? He silently found a smooth rock that he started rubbing on his arms, to try to clean his skin a little more.

  “The people whose child I was—well, only the woman was my biological mother.” Her face crumpled into a scowl, although there was pain in her eyes. Maura turned her head to the other side to work out the tangles there. “She’d had an affair with a shifter. She wasn’t one and neither was her husband. So when I started to show signs of shifting… well. You can imagine how that went over. My ‘mother’ would regularly hit me or lock me up. Even put me into therapy to try to get rid of my shifter side.”

  “That’s not possible,” Stephen protested.

  Maura shook her head. “It’s not. But that didn’t stop her. She’d have done anything to keep her infidelity from coming to light. And it was my fault I was a shifter because I wasn’t trying hard enough not to be.”

  Stephen’s hands curled into fists. What sort of cruel, ignorant people would put their child through something like that? And especially knowing that they hadn’t even wanted to ransom their toddler back? Those people didn’t deserve to be called parents.