by Jada Cox
The seconds felt like hours before someone finally got to the door.
A bleary-eyed, closely shaven guy opened the door. He looked a little younger than Malcolm.
“You have to help him,” I panted. I pointed to the car. “I don’t know what’s happened, but you have to help him. Please.”
“Fuck,” the guy said before he shouted back into the house. “Guys! Malcolm’s hurt!”
A thunder of footsteps came from somewhere inside the house as four more men came out in their underwear or in their sweatpants, all shirtless.
I stepped aside and let them maneuver Malcolm out of the back of his car, none of them seeming to question why he was naked and unconscious back there, but all seeming to know what to do. Between two of them, they carried him into the elevator just inside the doorway. I didn’t wait to be invited. I followed the two others as they went inside to the staircase, up the two flights to the third floor, and into Malcolm’s room where the first two had already arrived, laying Malcolm on an air mattress.
Two of them came in with a jug of water and a glass, another one with a plate of cold meat in cellophane wrap.
“Cold cuts?” I asked quietly. “He’s bleeding to death!”
“I think you should come with us,” one of the guys said, a taller, slenderer guy with longer hair that fell over the front of his face. “Don’t worry about him. We’ll take care of him. He’ll get through this, I promise.”
I didn’t believe them, but I didn’t know what else to do. I let them guide me into the large living room filled with plush white, gray, black, and royal blue couches and chairs, and a large, square coffee table that encased replicas of local native artifacts on a goat skin.
They guided me to one of the couches and sat me down. Someone handed me a glass of water.
“I’m Julian,” the slender guy said. He gestured to the one who had opened the door. “This is Cory. Dain and Wyatt are upstairs with Malcolm, and Quin is in the kitchen.”
“Violet,” I said weakly. “Your neighbor.” I glanced back toward the stairs, wanting to go up there and be next to Malcolm. I couldn’t stand the idea of him being left up there. I wanted to see his chest rise and fall, to make sure he was still breathing.
“Nice to officially meet you,” Julian said solemnly. “I’m sorry it was like this.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I was terrified, but all that came out was a squeak as tears released themselves, cascading down my face.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Julian asked.
The guy from the kitchen emerged. Quin, I thought his name was. He handed me a warm mug filled with hot chocolate. “The sugar and warmth will help with your shock. And you need to stay hydrated, so drink that water as well.”
“I don’t know,” I said aimlessly. “I don’t know what will help. I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know what happened. I just …” my body gave way to convulsive sobs, the warm chocolate sloshing over the sides onto my lap, but I didn’t care.
“There, there,” Quin said, sitting next to me on the couch. He put his hand on my back. “Just take deep breaths. Take all the time you need.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I said as I collected myself. “I know what I think happened, but it’s crazy. Tell me it’s crazy.”
Julian and Quin exchanged looks before Julian said, “The chances are it’s not as crazy as you might think. Why don’t you tell us?”
Suddenly, it was all so absurd. How was I in a mansion being handed cocoa by these guys? How was it that Malcolm was unconscious upstairs? How was it that I was about to confess to seeing not one, but two dragons and a bear where three men had been standing a second before? This had to be a dream.
There was something comforting in the thought that maybe I was dreaming. In fact, in light of everything that happened, it seemed very likely that none of this was real, that I was still fainted on the ground in that parking lot. Maybe I was even still asleep the night before, and none of this was real. If it wasn’t real, then it had no consequences.
I chuckled before I said anything and wiped my face with the back of my sleeve. “I saw a dragon,” I said finally. “Two of them, actually. And a bear.”
Suddenly, I burst out laughing. This was some ridiculous dream. And I had taken it so seriously!
Except neither Julian nor Quin were laughing.
“Come on, guys, it’s funny,” I said. “You’re figments of my imagination, and I’m asleep somewhere dreaming all this. You have to laugh with me, otherwise I’m going to think this is real.”
“This is real, Violet,” Quin said. “I’m sorry, but it is. You did see two Dragons and a Bear.”
I almost laughed some more, thinking this was all part of the dream, but there was something very grounding in his tone. I wasn’t dreaming. Oh god, I was actually awake.
“Then I’m crazy,” I said slowly.
“You’re not crazy,” Julian said. “You did, in your sane and right mind, see two Dragons and a Bear.”
Fear weas sweeping over me again. “I don’t understand any of this,” I breathed as the tears began filling my eyes.
“We are shifters,” Julian said. “Every one of us in this household is a Dragon. We can shift at will.”
Everything came flooding to me. The conversation with Malcolm in the car when he was so offended that I wouldn’t want anything to do with a werewolf, his belief in the paranoia—this was why. How could any of this even be real?
I opened my mouth to argue with them, to tell them they weren’t going to fool me with some ridiculous fairytale about man-dragons, but something in me stirred. I recognized the truth in it. They weren’t lying. This truly was reality.
I touched my fingertips to my open mouth, unable to find any words to respond.
“Malcolm will be alright,” Cory said as he came down the stairs. “He’s healing, but he lost a lot of blood. It’ll just take a little while for him to make more.”
“Make more?” I gasped. “Just like that?”
“It’s part of being a shifter,” Quin said quietly. “We heal fast, very fast. Sometimes we can’t, but most of the time we can. And Malcolm is healing.”
It clicked. “That’s why he told me not to take him to the hospital,” I said.
Julian nodded. “This isn’t a widely known thing,” he said. “In fact, we don’t tell anyone who isn’t already a shifter. Humans can’t know. They can get a little crazy with beings like us. You have to keep this to yourself, do you understand? This isn’t a secret that needs to be kept to save face. This could mean life or death for us.”
I nodded, sniffling. “I understand. I mean, I don’t. Everything I thought was true has now got me questioning it. But I understand not to tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”
I drank the water, finishing the glass. I hadn’t realized how dry my mouth was. They were right, of course. Water was life. I did need it, and I would need the hot chocolate. But my heart was still pounding too hard in my chest, and more than anything, I needed to see Malcolm.
“Can I see him?” I asked Cory.
“You can,” he said. “I’ll bring a chair up for you.”
“Thank you,” I said as I stood slowly. My legs felt shaky, but damnit, I was going to make them carry me up the stairs.
Chapter 15 - Malcolm
“Hey there,” Violet said as she slowly opened the door, poking her head in first. “You’re awake.”
“I am,” I said, pushing myself up in bed. It had been a day or two since the fight. I didn’t quite feel back to my normal self, and I tired easily when I went to the bathroom or tried to go downstairs to hang out with the guys (I was eternally grateful we had an elevator during this time), but I was making improvements. I spent a lot of time sleeping and trying to remind myself that it was alright to recover. I had far more time than most.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she pulled over a chair. She’d brought a white plastic bag tied closed, which she put ge
ntly down on the nightstand, unworking the knot. “I brought you some pho.”
“You are too good,” I said. Vietnamese noodle soup was one of my favorites, and something we had indulged in several times during our lunches. I took the tall Styrofoam container and carefully opened the lid, slurping the beef broth. “And you already put the spicy in,” I said, smiling.
“I already put the spicy in, you weirdo,” she said, returning the smile. “How you handle that stuff, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”
“Well, you know why I do spicy,” I said. “It’s that whole Dragon thing. I breathe fire. I have virtually no taste buds.”
She giggled, rolling her eyes. I knew she was trying to be calm about it all, but she was still adjusting to this new reality in which not only shifters were real, but Dragons were, too. I thought I could understand. It changed a lot of what she understood growing up, had been taught in school about science and biology. It was a lot for her to get her head around.
“I went down into the office today, talked to some of my old colleagues from the force,” she said. “And as it turns out, the equipment managed to get everything that happened before we got there.”
“That’s great,” I said, slurping up a noodle.
“And they got Rowe and Carson Peters, one of the mules for one Mental Murphy.”
“Mental Murphy? Who’s that?”
That excited glint came into her eyes as she smiled. “He is one of the biggest drug dealers in Georgia. He mostly deals in the dirty stuff like meth and heroin. So, we are now just that much closer to getting him.”
“We?” I asked.
“Well, the police. But since it was the police who came to me to help them, I feel like I’m kind of unofficially a part of it.”
I loved the look of joy on her face. This case really had opened things up for her.
“So they caught the guys then?” I asked, fishing in the bag for the fork and spoon now that I had drained the majority of the broth from the soup.
“They did. They found them unconscious somewhere behind one of the cabins. Whatever you did to them was a number.”
“Just returning the favor,” I said. An unsettling thought crossed my mind, and I realized that our secret might be out. “So, the audio and video … did it …?”
Violet shook her head, knowing what I was asking. “Don’t worry. I don’t know what happened, but something shorted the recordings. It didn’t pick up anything related to—um—to—the—um—”
“Our shifting?” I supplied.
“Right,” she replied. “None of that was recorded. So you’re totally safe there. I wonder what caused it, though. One of the guys I talked to said that it sometimes happens when there are electrical storms, but there wasn’t a storm, was there? I mean, I know I fainted, but I saw you shift, which would have been after the electronics cut out.”
I smiled. “Must have been all the magic in the air,” I said, raising my eyebrows a couple of times with the word “magic.”
She giggled, uneasily. This was hard for her, I understood it. But she was still here, and that meant something to me.
“I don’t know how the police force is going to handle the idea that there are shifters. I’m sorry your secret got out,” she said.
“What do you mean? Have you told anyone?” I asked.
“Not a soul,” Violet assured. “I wouldn’t. The guys made it very clean that I couldn’t.”
“As long as you haven’t said anything and no one else saw anything, then I think we’re safe,” I said.
“But Rowe and the other guy …”
“They’re not going to say anything. It doesn’t matter how much of a piece of muck a shifter is, they’re never going to rat out on their species. That’s just not the way we work. It’s more than us as individuals. There are far more humans than there are shifters, and it would be easy enough for the human race to drive us into extinction, as history has shown.”
“I hadn’t really thought of it like that,” she said. “Then, I suppose, there wouldn’t really be a concern that they might shift to get out of restraint?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them. Shifters really don’t like being caged. We have a pretty hard time when we are. There aren’t many shifters who live in cities or like normal, metropolitan life. It means they don’t have enough space to be wild, to let their Animal out. So, yeah, they might try to make a break for it. But if they did, it would likely be at a time when no one was around. Though, when that might be, I couldn’t say.”
Violet was in thought for a while before she nodded slowly. “Is that why you were a nomad for so long?” she asked. “Because you wanted to be free?”
I nodded. “That was then, though. Now, I’m experiencing a different kind of freedom.” My eyes met hers as I felt warmth spread through me. Violet made me feel free. “I’m sorry about the fight, and that you had to find out about … well, me, like that. I wanted to tell you sooner. Then we had that conversation about the paranormal, and I was so afraid that you wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I told you.”
“No,” she cooed. “No, don’t be sorry. I wouldn’t have understood. I think the only way that I would have been able to grasp it was if it came out the way it did. I’m so sorry you’re hurt, but I am so glad I got to see the real you, the one who would do anything to protect me. You showed me that you had control over it, that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of.”
She took my soup container and put it on the nightstand before taking my hand. “There’s something I should tell you, too.”
I readjusted myself, rolling onto my side and cupping my free hand around hers that held mine.
“Over the last few weeks, though I’ve tried very hard not to, I’ve developed feelings for you. And when I saw you lying there that night, and the whole drive back here, all I could think was how much I cared about you.”
I smiled, breathing relief and joy. “Really?”
Violet looked down and nodded. “I waited a couple of days. I didn’t know if it was just the situation, or if it was real, but yeah. I do care about you, and more than as someone I work with. More than as a friend.”
I kissed her hand held within mine.
“I care about you too,” I said. “In kind of a big way.”
Her eyelashes fluttered as she raised her green eyes to meet mine, a radiant compliment to her red curly hair.
“The thing about shifters is that we partner for life. But it’s more than what humans call love. It’s more than just marriage. It’s a fated thing, something that is predestined. When we find a person, they are it. We know it, and there’s no changing it. We call them our mate.
“I’ve never actually believed in such things. It wasn’t something we really ever talked about in my house growing up. I thought it was just one of those romantic ideas like the human soul mate. But, when we were looking at this house, I was drawn to your house. I knew there was something special there, and that something special turned out to be someone special: you. When I met you, I knew you were more than just someone I was interested in casually. As time went on, everything became clear. I knew that you were my mate.”
“That is kind of a big way,” she said quietly. “That sounds like more than the L-word.”
“The M-word definitely runs deeper than the L-word,” I agreed. “But I don’t expect you to feel the same way right now. We can take our time. Do what you need to do to come around. And I know you will. No pressure or anything,” I laughed awkwardly. “I know you will because fate has tied me to you. I’ll go with whatever you feel is right, but just know, I am always here for you. You are my mate.”
Chapter 16 - Violet
I heard the knock on my door just as I was fiddling with the clasp of my golden necklace with the small ruby pendant. I took a look at myself in the mirror. Malcolm had said not to get too dolled up, so I’d gone with a simple dark green, flowy summer dress. I held my curls out of my face with a headband that matc
hed my dress, painted my lips to match my necklace, and lined my eyes just enough to make the green in them pop.
I hurried to the front door, grabbing my purse on the counter on the way, and opened it.
I didn’t think I was ever going to get used to Malcolm standing on my front porch. He just about filled the doorway and always had that smile on his face while his dark eyes looked over me. I was beginning to wonder if his beard actually grew at all, as it always seemed to be perfectly trimmed to the five o’ clock shadow line.
In his hand was a basket.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Nice to see you too,” he said, leaning forward and giving me a kiss.
“No, but seriously, what’s that?”
He laughed. “You’ll see. Are you ready to go?”
I nodded, getting the keys from my purse and ushering him out the door so I could lock it.
“You don’t need your purse,” he said. “You can stick your keys in my pocket if you want.”
“I need my wallet, though,” I said. “ID and all that.”
“You won’t,” Malcolm said, a sly smile on his face. I wasn’t sure if I trusted that smile. “I promise.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Alright,” I said, opening the door enough to toss my purse inside. I locked the door and passed him the keys. “That’s my only set, though.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “If I lose them, I’ll pay for a new set. Besides, Quin is an excellent lock pick.”
“I don’t want to know,” I said, rolling my eyes. I knew they had gotten into some stuff during their lives, but I didn’t want to know about any potentially illegal stuff.