“You should run,” Jensen said.
She was tired of running. She didn’t want to take the weight on her shoulders with her every time she had to escape. It was exhausting.
“Who was that woman this morning?” River asked, the sharpness returning to her voice again.
“You never let me explain or you would have known sooner.” There was a frustrated growl in Jensen’s voice. “Get away from here before a fight breaks out, and I’ll tell you everything. Meet me at my place.”
River stood her ground. “No. Tell me why you were with another woman the morning after we had sex.”
“My mom does matchmaking.”
“Oh, so that’s who she’s chosen for you to marry?” River could feel fire in her throat. She wanted to let it spill but held it back.
“If my mother matched me with that hellish bitch, that would prove to me that she loves Baylee more than she loves me.”
“So, if she’s not your match…” Regret started to sour River’s stomach.
Quincy roared. On the other side of the house, Logan responded. The blue dragon rose over the house. This would get ugly if they didn’t run soon.
“Mom is trying to set Elise up with Adrien, but I have a feeling that it’s going to end horribly.” Jensen never took his eyes off Quincy.
Logan descended upon Quincy. While Logan was far larger than his younger cousin, Quincy had years and years of trickery on his side. Quincy slithered out from under Logan’s blow. Logan caught Quincy’s tail, but the Old Lizard spun and slashed at the tip of his own tail to break free.
Quincy had been dubbed the Old Lizard for a reason. He was far older than Alice. He’d held onto power for longer than any living Montoya could imagine. Save for, perhaps, Logan. Logan was older, but he’d spent most of his life in hibernation after his mate died.
This quarrel was a long time coming, and it was brutal. Jensen spun and scooped River into his arms just as a clawed hand came crashing down where they stood. Dirt rained over their heads.
Jensen landed fifty feet away. River clung to the front of his shirt. Her eyes were wide. There was no way he couldn’t hear her frantic heartbeat. Her uncle likely knew that she was there. His attack meant that he didn’t care if she got caught in the fray.
Though she’d known that to be true on some level, experiencing it firsthand changed how she understood it. The amorphous thought solidified. She thought it would feel like a rock, plummeting in her stomach. Instead, it hardened her. She motioned for Jensen to put her down.
He gave her a questioning look. She figured he was all for running, but River wanted payback. When Jensen didn’t set her down, she wriggled out of his grasp. She landed on her feet, turned to face her uncle. Logan had Quincy pinned to the ground. Quincy saw an opening, though.
She watched his tail flick. It had begun to grow back. Sharp spines began to protrude from it. Without hesitation, she threw herself forward. Her dragon flowed out of her. She landed on Quincy’s tail before he could hit Logan with it.
Quincy roared. The sound drowned out Jensen, who shouted at her.
River was done with being meek. She was done with her weaknesses. Beside these two massive dragons, she realized she wasn’t as small as she’d thought. They were larger than she was, but not by much. Her mother hadn’t birthed weak women. River would cower before no one.
15
Jensen watched her shift, watched the red scales unfold over her freckles. River leapt into the fray without flinching. He was all at once proud and terrified. Quincy’s tail surged into the air. Sharp bone spines grew out of the new tail. Jensen let out a warning shout, but River pounced on the tail and forced it back down to the ground before Quincy could hit anyone.
He’d heard of dragons regrowing body parts, but not until they’d shifted several times. Quincy had done not only the impossible right before their eyes, but he’d also unveiled a hidden weapon at the same time. Quincy’s sickly yellow scales made Jensen wonder if those barbs were poisonous, too.
Instead of waiting around to find out, Jensen ripped his shirt over his head. His beast was more than ready to join the fight. It chomped at the bit, needing to get to River’s side. If he waited much longer, the dragon would have fought its way out of him. Instead, Jensen gave it what it wanted.
Logan snarled at River, but she didn’t move from her position. The clan leader wasn’t all there when he shifted. Quincy was his quarry. Anyone else in this fight was only in his way. Jensen had tried to stay out of this clan’s business for weeks. Logan wasn’t the savior they all thought him to be.
He was just another broken dragon learning how to be whole. This was the man who had lost his mate and gone to ground so he could sleep away the rest of his life. It should have surprised no one that he had come back with problems. Logan had a lot to work through before he could kill Quincy on his own.
Because, like it or not, this small clan could not prevail so long as Quincy lived. The Old Lizard would keep coming back. Logan’s existence was a threat to Quincy, one that the Montoya family patriarch would not allow to live.
Jensen didn’t want to get involved. He wanted to grab River and get her out of the fray. But this was her family. These dragons were her flesh and blood. Her future depended on the outcome of this fight. So, Jensen’s feet moved before his mind had even been made up. His beast knew what to do.
Beyond Logan, two more dragons rose into the air. Gale and Cash had come to Logan’s aid. This fight should have been in Logan’s favor, but Logan still couldn’t see his family as allies. He hissed at the two dragons approaching behind him.
This wasn’t going to end well.
But, did any fight end well?
Okay, there was that one time that Gale had nearly knocked Jensen out, and then the two of them had stormed the house to save Baylee. That was one time.
Logan slammed his tail against River. She dug her claws into the earth and held her ground, but the sound she made conjured fury in Jensen. He leapt over Logan’s head and landed on the narrow strip of ground between Logan and River. With Jensen’s flank against hers, his wrath cooled.
Meanwhile, Quincy saw his opening and took it. He scrambled out from beneath Logan. The barbs in Quincy’s tail scraped against River’s scales. The scraping sound grated on Jensen’s mind. River whimpered but didn’t fall back. She put her weight on Jensen.
They should have run. The thought turned over and over in his mind. If she had listened, then they wouldn’t have been in this position. But when River pulled away from him, he looked back and found her standing on her own feet. She raised a defiant glare at Logan and Quincy.
She’d been meek and afraid when they’d first met. Now, River was the kind of woman who leapt into battles. She had changed since meeting him. He didn’t want to take all the credit for it, because she’d had the strength to do anything all along.
Jensen had simply brought it out of her.
He wished he could make her understand the mix-up, though. It pained him to see her so bound to her own misinterpretation of what she’d seen. It was as if she held a dagger over herself and wanted to feel the pain of it. Nothing he’d said had changed her mind.
Could he love her from afar? Could he live his life knowing that his mate would never want him again? So long as she was happy, he thought maybe he could.
Now was not the time. There were dragons fighting around him. Logan growled at them for a moment, then turned and leapt on Quincy. Gale and Cash touched down but didn’t enter the fray. They stood guard on either side of Jensen and River, as if they knew their leader would not want their help unless this fight took a turn for the worst.
River sagged against Jensen. Looking back, he found her eyes drooping. She slipped and almost hit the ground. He managed to get his head beneath her chin right before she collapsed. His heart raced.
The barbs had been poisoned after all.
Since when did Quincy have access to a weapon like that? It seemed Quincy was capab
le of all sorts of marvels inaccessible to other dragons. What else would Quincy throw at them before this war was over?
Jensen had to ask because he was a part of it now. He’d tried to stay out of it for his mother’s sake, but his heart belonged to River, too. He had to help her and ensure her clan’s safety.
Her dragon form shrank. Afraid that the poison had killed her, Jensen shakily got to his feet with River’s body draped over his head. He could feel her faint heartbeat, though. She wasn’t gone. Not yet.
Baylee, who’d been standing on the back porch, swore under her breath and leapt down the stairs. She caught River when Jensen tilted his head and poured his mate into Baylee’s arms. He watched Baylee carry River inside. At first, his beast didn’t want to give up control. It was strong in this form. Strength could protect River.
But physical strength wasn’t what she needed right now. He glanced back at the fight. Logan and Quincy quarreled with one another while Cash and Gale stood as the last line of defense. Knowing that they had his back right now, Jensen was able to pull his beast back into himself.
He jumped up the stairs and rushed inside. Breathless, he found River upstairs in the guest bed. Baylee had pulled a blanket over her. A fine sheen of sweat had gathered on River’s brow. Baylee shoved past him. She had a wet washcloth in her hand that she placed over River’s brow.
“Will she be okay?” he asked, his voice cracking because his world would break if the answer was no.
Baylee said nothing, which was answer enough.
Jensen prepared himself to do the very last thing he ever wanted to do. There was no one else he could think to call. The sounds of the fight continued outside. Perhaps she could do nothing about them, but Jensen knew that Alice would know what to do about River.
River awoke to the familiar sound of her mother’s screaming. But when River blinked, it wasn’t her own ceiling that she saw. The room around her was unfamiliar at first. Slowly, the shape and smell of it sank in, and she realized that this had been Cash’s bedroom before he moved out.
River barely had time to question why she’d been asleep in Cash’s old bedroom before she heard the thunder of her mother’s footsteps coming up the stairs. The sound was all too familiar. She would know it anywhere.
In the moments between the thunder of footsteps and her mother’s appearance in the doorway, River recalled what had taken place. She’d intervened in Logan and Quincy’s fight. Her uncle Quincy had been careless. She should have known that he wouldn’t care if she got hurt.
“That son of a bitch,” River breathed just as her mother burst into the room.
Alice rushed to her daughter’s side. River clutched the blanket to her chest and leaned away from her mother.
Jensen stood in the doorway. Lines etched his face, as if all the life had been sucked out of him in the past…however long River had been unconscious. She was pissed that she’d passed out yet again. For all the strength she’d been discovering lately, it was constantly undermined by these events.
River couldn’t convince anyone that she could be more than a weakling if she kept falling over every time she made a stand.
“Who called you?” River asked her mother with more than a fair amount of venom in her voice.
Alice snapped back, alarmed.
Jensen sighed. “I did. I panicked. Your mother can rip off my head for all I care. I needed you to be okay.”
Alice stood and spun on him. “She would have been perfectly fine had you not tricked her into coming out here. You know that she’s fra—”
“Mom. Shut up.” River ran a hand through her hair. She didn’t feel anything when she tugged.
Quincy’s poison still coursed through her body, though not as strong. It had shut down her beast somehow. The creature had dropped and kept River asleep as it processed the poison. She couldn’t feel her skin or her dragon. One bothered her more than the other.
“I’m not frail. Uncle Quincy is a piece of shit.” River couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. Had the poison lowered her inhibitions, too? “First of all, I came here of my own volition. Second of all, Uncle Quincy arrived unannounced and nearly hit me when he landed. Because he showed so little regard for my safety, I joined the fight and kept him from hurting Logan—who is also a blood relative, if you don’t recall.”
Alice sputtered. Her cheeks flushed, becoming mottled with rage. River found that she didn’t care. Her mother had to face the truth at some point. This was, perhaps, a bit of a jumbled truth, but River wanted her mother to understand their circumstances right now.
River didn’t think that her mother was on Quincy’s side. She knew that Alice was laying in wait for one dragon to weaken the other. While Alice stood on the sidelines, people were getting hurt. River wasn’t going to let that keep happening.
Tossing her feet out of bed, River went to stand. Everyone turned into a blur as the floor immediately greeted her. Four hands moved to help her, but got tangled in the process. Though her impact with the floor was loud, she heard Jensen and her mother yelling at one another over it.
Apparently, Uncle Quincy’s poison had some long-lasting side effects. She was grateful that he hadn’t been able to hit Logan with it, or that fight would have ended faster. She believed the small clan would have stepped in to keep Quincy from killing Logan, but it would have been an ugly battle.
16
Jensen looked on helplessly as his mate struggled on the floor. She pushed herself up into a sitting position while trying to keep the blanket wrapped around her body. Alice stood between him and River like a ruthless guard dog.
He wasn’t sure Alice’s presence mattered. Would River let him help her? Or would she keep shoving him away?
This wasn’t a matter he could solve with his fists. No amount of fighting could set this matter straight, but without his brawn, Jensen was at a loss. He wasn’t smart or clever. He had a little wit in his arsenal, but that only worked on people who liked him.
He wasn’t convinced that River still liked him. He should have tried to contact her after they’d been caught. There were a hundred different things he could have done to show her that he still cared. Yet, he’d stayed silent as if that would have appeased the tempest that was Alice Montoya.
Unable to reach River, Jensen fixed his attention on Alice. “Do you know how to help her?”
Alice, seeming confident, opened her mouth. She quickly shut it as that confidence wavered. Her gaze dropped and turned toward River. When she spoke, her voice was low, almost regretful. “No. I don’t know how to help. I wasn’t aware Quincy had access to such abilities.”
Beyond her, River gaped. Her eyes went distant. He imagined she was trying to grapple with what that could mean. Her life could change irrevocably if they couldn’t figure out how to reverse this.
Jensen knew what he had to do. He locked gazes with River. Realization dawned on her, though she couldn’t get up to stop him. He stayed long enough to press a quick kiss to the top of her head, then turned and left the two women alone.
He called for his sister, who had dealt with this man before. Baylee appeared, already bouncing on the balls of her feet as if she could tell what Jensen wanted to do. She told him to call their mother first. Not to let Marjorie know what her children were walking into, but to make sure she wasn’t worried about them.
They couldn’t have Marjorie trying to call them in the middle of this fight. He didn’t want his mother getting mixed up in this because her kids couldn’t answer their phones.
The call was short and sweet. Jensen was impressed that he was able to keep the tremble out of his voice. He’d tried to stay out of this fight for so long, but for all the wrong reasons. He’d never seen this war as his. To him, it had nothing to do with him. But as he watched his sister prepare to enter the enemy’s domain, he realized it had always involved him.
Every day brought him closer to these other dragons. Gale had become his brother in law. Cash was a friend. Logan
was…a pain in his ass, but with good intentions.
They weren’t his clan, but they were good people who deserved to live peacefully. If Jensen could help keep threats from breathing down the back of their necks, then he needed to do so.
Logan stood in the driveway outside. He had his hands on his hips, his attention on the trees ahead. As Jensen’s thoughts swirled with concern for River, he wondered if there was someone that kept Logan from being able to give everything to his clan. Of course, Eliana had died years ago.
Could it be that Logan had another mate out there, waiting for him? Or was it a cruel twist of fate that had roused him from his sleep and forced him to live without her?
Jensen knew he wasn’t about to accept the same. He was going to fix this. His failure wasn’t going to haunt him.
River didn’t know what Jensen thought he was doing. She tried to pull her legs underneath her. She could move them, but they were so weak that they refused to hold her weight. Her mother had to help her get back onto the bed, which irked River more than usual.
River had never been weak. She’d had the strength to survive on her own all along. Now, when she realized it, that strength had been taken away from her. And by a relative, no less.
Her chest ached, not from sorrow. Rage consumed her. She wished she could fight the world. She wanted to scream and throw all sorts of obscenities in every direction. That wouldn’t help, though. Venting her anger would only serve as a balm for a short while. Then she would be left with the cruel reality that she was trapped like this until they could find a solution.
Putting her feet beneath her again, she tested how much they could hold. If she kept trying, would she eventually be able to stand? That wouldn’t stop her. She would roll down those stairs and crawl to Jensen to keep him from doing whatever stupid thing he had planned.
“Darling, if you keep trying to fight it, you’re going to run out of energy.”
A Fate Forbidden (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 3) Page 11