by Sky Winters
"The occasion is a yearly gathering of the elite dragon families of the city. There are five of us in total – the Dubois family, the Van Wauters clan, the Rochesters, the Graystones, and us, of course. Between five of us, we run the shifter societies in San Francisco. And once a year, we meet at the home of one of the heads of the families to discuss various boring municipal matters that you needn't trouble your pretty little head with."
"And why am I here?" asked Adie.
"As I've said, you're our liaison in Starwood. And my date for the night."
Adie said nothing, part of her certain that there was something more to Julio's motivation for bringing her than he was letting on.
"I'm going to make the rounds," said Emil. "You two have fun. But not too much fun."
He flashed a wink and was off.
Out of the corner of her eye, Adie spotted the front door open and a new group of guests arrive. Her heart skipped a beat as she caught sight of Hoxson's mane of red hair, which was styled into a neat ponytail. And to her shock, his face was shaved clean. The wild beard gone, Adie could see more clearly the face of the man she'd known since high school. A warm feeling spread throughout her body, which shocked her.
His striking blue eyes locked with hers, but he played it cool, not allowing any sign of recognition to appear on his face, not wanting to blow his cover. The group that he'd arrived with appeared to Adie to be one of the other top families of the city. They were an elegant group, all with the same fair skin and sun-bright blonde hair.
Adie watched as Hoxson took a quick look around him, as if to make sure that no eyes were on him other than Adie's. Then, he said something to one of the men in his group, who nodded in response. Then, Hoxson cut across the floor, approaching Adie.
Her heart raced as he came closer and closer. But his eyes were fixed off into the distance, and Adie realized that he was trying to make it look as though he wasn't approaching her.
"Meet me on the balcony in thirty," he whispered quickly into her ear as he passed, his voice hot on her ear and sending tingles down her spine.
Adie resisted the urge to nod, checking the time after Hoxson passed and making a mental note. She wanted to speak with him then and there, to feel safe at his side. But she knew she had to play it cool as not to wreck their cover.
"Come with me, pretty little thing," said Julio, taking her firmly by the hand and walking with Adie to a more secluded part of the room.
"What do you think of all of this?" he asked, sweeping his hand toward the party.
"It's…quite the party," said Adie, not sure of where this conversation was going.
"It is," he said. "A little different from what you’re used to in Starwood, I'm sure."
"To put it mildly," she said.
A moment passed.
"This could be all yours, you know," he said.
Adie raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
Julio took a slow sip of his champagne.
"There are…plans in the works for this evening. Plans that are going to shake up the shifter community in this city – hell, in this state. And you, my dear, have the chance to be at the center of them."
"I still don't know what you're talking about," said Adie.
"That's because all you know right now is what you need to know," said Julio. "And now I'm going to give you one more bit of need-to-know information: when the time is right, stay by my side."
"What?" she asked. "What ‘time’? Why are you being so cryptic?"
"All will be revealed before the evening is out," he said. "And you'll know when the time has come. Just don't leave my side when it does. But, until then, I want you to enjoy your evening, to get a taste of the life that you may soon be a part of."
Julio was being too mysterious for Adie's liking. It was the sort of coy that only a man who had complete control over a given situation would express. Then, with a smile, he strolled back into the party, mixing in with a small group of very wealthy-looking men and women.
A feeling of tight anxiety formed in Adie's gut. Something was going on – she just knew it. She took a glass of champagne and sipped it slowly, taking in the scene in front of her. After the thirty minutes passed, she hurried off to the balcony to meet Hoxson.
She stepped outside, the evening air chilly. The balcony was huge, and little groups were gathered here and there, chatting and sipping their wine. At first, Adie didn't see Hoxson. But after finding a hidden area where the balcony wrapped around the building, she spotted him.
"There you are," he said, laying his sapphire eyes on her.
"You look great without the beard," said Adie, placing her hand on Hoxson's face, and taking in the smoothness.
He shook his head.
"The shit we do for clients," he said.
He turned toward her, Hoxson's body seeming like he was at the ready for anything.
"What is this all about?" Adie asked.
"I've got a feeling," he said. "Something's going to go down tonight. There're just too many weird things lining up – the Mendozas moving into Starwood, the enlisting of the bears as their personal army, and now coming back to the city like nothing's going on. It stinks like shit."
"What do you think is going to ‘go down', exactly?" asked Adie. "Please, tell me something, anything! Between you and Julio, I feel like I'm wandering around blind!"
"That's the best I've got for you," he said. "But just know that I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you, that I'm going to be watching out for you, just like I said I would."
Before he could speak another word, a slight commotion sounded from around the corner of the balcony.
"Come here," he said, taking Adie by the wrist and leading her to the edge of the corner.
"…the Mendozas have requested that all guests come into the main room," spoke a party worker. "Please, come inside."
Adie and Hoxson peeked around the corner, watching as the guests on the balcony began to make their way back inside.
"I don't like this," said Hoxson. "Whatever that ‘something' that I thought was going down, it's happening right now."
"What should we do?"
"Just stay close."
Hoxson led Adie to one of the windows that looked out into the main room from their secluded position. After checking to make sure that no one had noticed them, Hoxson opened the window slightly. Adie took a quick look inside and saw that the Mendozas were standing on the stage where the band played, the music now silent and the guests gathered around.
"What a pleasure it's been to have you all here tonight," said Julio, his melodious voice carrying through the room. "And what a pleasure it's going to be to tell you about just what us Mendozas have in store for the future of the dragon societies here in San Francisco."
Then a moment passed.
"But you know what?" he said. "It'd be more fun just to show you."
Another moment passed, and Adie could spot confusion appearing on the faces of the guests.
"Oh, shit," said Hoxson quietly.
"It's been a pleasure knowing you all," said Julio, "but I think the time for us to share the power here in the city has come to an end. Emil? Lucia?"
The siblings stepped to Julio's side, and the trio shifted into their dragon forms.
"I hope you all have had a wonderful night," Julio said, a wild smirk on his lips as flames began to jet from his nose.
Then he lowered his head toward the now panicking crowd and covered it with that boiling flame.
CHAPTER 9
Hoxson watched in horror as the jets of flame from the Mendozas covered the crowd. Dozens of guests were incinerated instantly, and Hoxson watched as nearly all of the members of the other families were killed in the attack, all of them taken by surprise by the Mendozas' betrayal.
"Holy shit!" shouted Adie over the roar of the flames and the screaming of the crowd.
Hoxson saw that total panic was on Adie's face, and knew there was no time to stand around. H
e had to act, and now.
"Come on!" he shouted, grabbing Adie by the hand, and leading her around the balcony.
Guests crashed through the windows separating the balcony from the apartment. Many of them were on fire and in the process of some kind of desperate attempt to escape. Hoxson watched as some of them succumbed to the fire, and as some of them made a desperate, frenzied leap off the balcony, as though they could run from the flames. Hoxson took a quick look over the balcony, watching as their bodies thudded onto the balcony below.
"Down," he said.
"Now, where's my guest?" called out Julio, his ruby-red dragon form stepping through the heaps of burning bodies. "Where are you, little Adie?"
"That's no good," said Hoxson.
"What does he want with me?" called out Adie, her voice gripped with panic. "What is he doing?"
"I don't fucking know," said Hoxson as more enflamed guests rushed through the windows, all of them screaming. "But I bet it sure as shit isn't good."
Hoxson took one more look down.
"We gotta jump," he said.
"But that's over a dozen feet down!" Adie shouted.
"I can take it," he said. "Dragons can handle the pain. But you…"
Hoxson had a thought.
"Shift, now," he said. "And climb up on my shoulder."
Adie opened her mouth as though she wanted to protest, but she seemed to quickly see the sense of Hoxson's words. She closed her eyes and quickly shifted into her fox form, scrambling up Hoxson's body and wrapping her small, furry body around his neck.
"Hold on!" he shouted as he heaved himself over the railing.
The two of them plummeted down onto the balcony below, Hoxson landing with a hard thud that sent waves of pain through him. But he was still in one piece. More flaming bodies fell with crunching sounds onto the balcony around them.
"Okay, we gotta get out of here, now!" shouted Hoxson.
He knew that he shouldn't shift, that being spotted in his dragon form might attract attention. But Hoxson also knew that he had no other choice.
"Shift back and grab on!"
Adie shifted back to her human form, her green eyes wide with shock.
"What?" she demanded.
"Just do it!"
She nodded and threw her arms around Hoxson. He shifted into his silver dragon form and, with several bats of his wings, took off into the night air. Adie let out a shriek as he rose higher and higher. He knew that he had to get as much height as possible so as not to be spotted by anyone below. Looking down, he saw the chaos in the apartment from a bird's eye view, the trio of red dragons stomping here and there and finishing off any of the survivors.
A sick feeling spread in his gut. His clients were likely dead, and now he was in the middle of a power play by one of the most powerful dragon families in the country. He put these thoughts out of his head as he turned toward the direction of Starwood and flew as fast as he could, Adie's little fingers digging into him to hang on.
He landed just outside of town. Hoxson let Adie off of him as he shifted back to human form.
"What the…what the hell just happened?" said Adie, her hands shaking with fear.
"Looks like we know what the Mendozas were planning," said Hoxson. "Consolidate their power here in Starwood, then launch a decapitation attack on the rest of the families all at the same time. And now they're the only game in town."
"This is all too much," said Adie, sitting down on the grass around them. "I almost...if it wasn't for you…I would've been…"
"No," said Hoxson. "Julio had his eye on you. He hired you to work for him and brought you as his date for a reason."
"And what reason would that be?" asked Adie.
"He wants to be the shifter king of the city. And every king needs a queen."
"Fuck," said Adie.
"Anyway, no time for standing around. We've got to get you to New York. Once we're there, I can keep you safe."
"And then what?"
"And then what?" asked Hoxson. "Then I tell my boss, Thorne, that the mission was a failure and ask him what my next job is."
Adie's eyes went wide.
"Are you serious? Are you just going to abandon us here? But this is your hometown!"
"Not what I'm getting paid for," said Hoxson. "I was hired by the Van de Wauters to figure out what the Mendozas were up to. And I think that question got answered tonight. Problem is, there's no one left to pay me."
A tinge of regret flowed through Hoxson. The Van de Wauters might've been pompous pricks, but they seemed genuinely concerned with keeping a stable peace in the region. But now that the Mendozas were on top, Hoxson could only imagine the shitstorm that was about to happen as the power vacuum filled.
"So that's all you care about, huh?" asked Adie. "Just getting paid?"
"Hey," said Hoxson, raising a finger to Adie's face. "I told you I'd keep you safe, and I meant it. I'm going to bring you back to New York, like I said, and I'll be able to keep a close eye on you. Nothing bad's going to happen to you, I swear it."
"What if I don't want to just leave my home behind?" she asked, her hands on her hips. "I know that leaving without saying a word and abandoning everyone you know works just fucking fine for you, but I don't do things that way."
"You can't be serious," said Hoxson. "If you stay here, it's only a matter of time before the Mendozas find you. And when they do, who the fuck knows what they'll do with you."
"Then I'll do it on my own terms," she said. "I'm not leaving my hometown behind just to save my own ass. Not when it needs me."
Hoxson shook his head, remembering just how stubborn Adie could be when she wanted to.
"Fine," he said. "Fine. You want to be the hero and save your town, then I guess that's how this shit's gonna go. But we can't do any good here in Starwood. We need to get someplace safe and wait for the chaos to die down. If Mendoza has those bears on his payroll, they're gonna be like an invading army in this town."
"Then where should we go?"
"Back to San Francisco. We can connect with some of the local shifters and keep an eye on things. Then, when the time is right, we can make a move. But you've got to agree to not do anything stupid, to let me do my job. Got it?"
Adie nodded, her expression still one of shock.
"Then let's go."
Hoxson shifted back to his dragon form and let Adie climb on board. As he rose up over the city, he heard the roar of motorcycles. Looking down, he spotted a long line of lights heading down the main street of the town. He knew instantly that it was the biker bears. They'd likely received the news that the Mendozas had staged their coup, and now they knew that the town was theirs. Hoxson could only imagine what those bears had in mind for the city.
After a brief flight, Hoxson landed on the outskirts of the city. After taking the train into downtown, Hoxson quickly found an apartment in one of the city's skyscrapers that he could rent for the month. Once they reached the place, Hoxson found that it was a little nicer than they needed, but it'd do the job.
Now, he had to contact Thorne and let him know just what the hell had been going on. He winced as he considered just what his boss would have to say about how Hoxson had handled the mission so far.
Adie walked into the bedroom and took a seat on the side of the bed, her eyes downcast. Hoxson entered and sat next to her.
"I know this is all fucked up," he said. "But don't doubt for a second that I'm serious as it fucking gets about keeping you safe."
She nodded her head, understanding that he was being sincere.
"I just don't get it," she said. "You're so quick to leave, so quick to abandon everything just to save your own ass."
"You're still sore about that, huh?" he asked. "Even on a night like tonight?"
"Of course, I'm fucking sore about it!" she said, standing up and pacing back and forth across the luxurious bedroom. "You left me ten years ago, and you were just about to leave again tonight. Whatever made you act the way you did bac
k then, well, it clearly is still a part of you."
She closed her eyes, a single tear trickling down her cheek.
"I just want to know why you did it, why you threw away what we had, what you promised to me.”
Hoxson took a deep breath. He knew that it was time to come clean.
"It was because I loved you. That's why I left."
Adie looked up, surprise on her face.
"What?" she asked.
"Back then, I was just a stupid kid, chasing girls and getting into trouble and all that shit. Then, when I met you, I realized that there was more to life. I could actually give a damn about something other than myself, I could actually care about another person more than I cared about my own life. And it fucking scared me."
Hoxson made his way over to the bedroom window, the view looking out over the sweep of the city.
"And when you and I made that pact, that agreement that said that no matter what, you and I would be together…I just didn't know what to do. I was happier than I'd ever been, but more terrified."
Hoxson couldn't believe that he was pouring all of this out. But as he spoke, he knew that it'd been tearing him up inside for years. It was only a matter of time before it had to be released.
"So, I did what any stupid kid would do in a situation like that: I ran. I left everything that I'd cared about behind, and everyone that I loved. Even you."
Adie said nothing, her mouth a slight frown.
"And now that I'm back, I'm dealing with shit that I thought I'd moved past. Seeing you was one thing. But seeing you in danger is something else. It's fucking overwhelming, like I'm feeling the shit that I wanted to avoid all at once, with interest."
"You can't run anymore,” said Adie. "You have to know that now."
Hoxson nodded and turned toward Adie. He stepped closer to her until he could feel the heat from her skin on his.
"I know. And I know that I still love you. And I know that I'll do anything to keep you safe."
Hoxson couldn't hold it back any longer. Standing so close to Adie, he couldn't help but give in to the feelings boiling inside of him. He put his hands on Adie's shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her hard.