She gave a little snort and turned her head away. Gently, he turned it back so he could look in her eyes.
“I’m not saying I’ll be a good mate. I’ll probably suck at it. But now I understand what Zane is talking about, the things he feels about Blaze.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “You feel like a part of me now,” he said. “I can’t imagine losing you.”
He gathered her in his arms and held her close, and he felt tears on her face. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “I don’t want to make you cry.”
“You make me feel things too, Lizard,” she said. “It scares the hell out of me.”
“Why?”
“Because it never lasts. The people always go away.”
They did. They died, and then the hole in your heart just got bigger.
“I know. It scares me too.” He paused. “But maybe that’s how we know it’s real.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe, after all this is over, we should try to find out?”
He gathered her to him. “I’d like that,” he said.
The next morning they woke up and made love again—several times. Thorne loved being able to make Rebel lose control, just let go and let him pleasure her. They were lying together, too relaxed to move, when there was a knock at the door.
Tyr called out, “Thorne! Open up!”
“No,” he answered. “Go away.” Rebel giggled faintly.
“You need to stop fucking right now,” Tyr said. “And you need to get your dragon back, so I can call you shit the normal way instead of trekking all the way up here from the Batcave. It’s a long way.”
“There’s an elevator,” Thorne said unsympathetically.
Rebel added, “Why didn’t you text him?”
“I did! No answer.”
Oh. His phone had been in the pocket of his pants when he conjured them away. It would reappear in whatever he chose to wear next, but that didn’t help.
“Sorry. What the fuck do you want?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Tyr said. “Only that we got a ping on our search. You know, saving the world? But don’t disturb yourselves. I’m sure it will wait.”
Rebel sighed. “Why is it always you who interrupts our special moments with work?” she yelled to Tyr.
“I volunteer. Because Thorne is cute when he’s grumpy.”
“He is, isn’t he?” She kissed his shoulder.
“Shut up, both of you.” Thorne was already throwing back the covers and conjuring clean clothes. He slapped his pockets to make sure his phone was in the new pair.
Yep. There it was. If only he could figure out how to charge it while it was in the mysterious netherworld where dragon clothes came from.
Rebel was pulling on her sequined bowling shirt, that being all she had here in his room. Thorne walked over, put his hands on her shoulders, kissed her, and she was dressed in a black t-shirt and her favorite faded jeans.
“How do you do that?” she muttered.
He kissed her again. “Magic. Now let’s go see what our search has turned up.”
Rebel opened the bedroom door and yelled to Tyr, who was jogging down the hall. “There better be coffee in the Batcave!”
He waved, and disappeared into the elevator.
Chapter 31
There was coffee in the Batcave, much to Rebel’s relief. There was also breakfast, courtesy of the zefirs. Rebel was beginning to think she might be starting to get used to this whole ‘being surrounded by magic’ thing.
As long as nobody expected her to start doing spells.
Tyr was at the computer screen, speaking indistinctly around a huge bite of sticky bun. Thorne winced when he saw the sugar icing on his keyboard. Rebel smiled to herself.
She looked around for Tempest, and spotted her sitting in a corner, looking pale and a little sick, her notebook and pen in her lap. She wasn’t writing, though.
“Hey, you okay?” Rebel asked, carrying her plate over and sitting down next to her.
“I think so,” Tempest said. She tried to smile, but it really didn’t work out too well. “I think I had too many of those pink umbrella drinks last night.”
“You and me both,” Rebel said. In fact, she’d been expecting to feel worse than she did this morning. Must be dragon healing sex mojo or something.
“Okay,” Tyr said, “Listen up.” Everyone went quiet. “The story we found was one that was reported on several newswires. It was about a biker gang attacking a meth lab in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. The whole thing exploded, killing the couple that was running the meth lab, along with their two children.”
Rebel ran her hand through her hair, her stomach feeling unsettled. Maybe the dragon healing mojo wasn’t as good as she thought.
“Um, fail,” she said. “A) That was no biker gang that attacked us. No motorcycles—robes and spells. And B) my parents sure as hell weren’t running a meth lab. And C) as you can see—Tempest. Me. Still alive.”
Not by much, though. She and Tempest could so easily have been caught in the explosion—it was only sheer dumb luck that they hadn’t been.
Luck and Tempest. Losing her doll in the woods, and going out to look for it in the dark, forcing Rebel to go after her.
A damn lost doll had saved their lives.
“That’s what most of the news stories said, yes,” Tyr said, swallowing the last of his sticky bun. “But it happened near a little town named Milldale, and this is what their local paper said.”
He tapped the screen, leaving more sugar icing in his wake. Thorne winced.
“It says a trailer exploded somewhere outside of town. But it doesn’t say anything about a meth lab. It says that squatters lived there.”
“Squatters,” Thorne said. “Damn. It could be them. That would explain why we never found any property in their name—the false name, I mean—and no rental agreements. They found a place where they could set up and there would be no paper trail.”
“Exactly,” Zane chimed in. “But not just that. This first story, before the others in the larger papers, said that only two people were killed—a couple that lived in the trailer. The cause of the explosion was unknown. Then, the following week the paper published an amendment, saying that everyone in the family was killed.”
Rebel put her plate down, her appetite suddenly gone. “It was changed to match the newswire stories.”
Tyr nodded. “But—” He raised one finger, then tapped a button to flip the screen to another page. “Here’s the kicker. In the same paper was another story, just a paragraph. It said that two children had been found at the side of the road, seemingly abandoned. They wouldn’t say where they’d come from, and they were being held until the state could come and take them, or their parents could be found.”
He looked at Rebel. “Two little girls, ages eleven and five.”
Holy hell, he’d found it. Rebel felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Memories rushed back to her, like a key unlocking a door or someone throwing a window wide open.
Running through the woods with Tempest, looking behind them the whole way, wondering if the bad people were going to find them.
Somehow believing that if she could just get Tempest to a safe place, their parents would come for them.
They were out all night and it was cold, even though it was summer, but she made Tempest keep walking until she couldn’t go any further, and then she’d carried her on her back while she slept.
And then a police car stopped at the side of the road, and she was too tired to run. Too tired to do anything but get in the car, and the hard vinyl seats smelled of cigarette smoke and vomit but they felt like a velvet cushion in a palace because she was so tired.
They were taken to the sheriff’s office. He was an older man with kind eyes, and he’d asked them questions but Rebel just kept shaking her head. All she would tell him was that her name was Rebel and she was eleven years old, and Sissy was five.
And that part was a lie. A lie th
at was printed in the papers. “That’s what I told them,” she said numbly. “My parents had always told me not to tell anybody anything, that it was important because it would put me and Tempe in danger.”
Bad people would come. Bad things would happen.
And the bad people had already been there. They’d hurt Mom and Dad, and now there was nobody left to watch out for Sissy except Rebel. She had to keep the bad people from coming for Tempe, so she told the sheriff the wrong names and the wrong ages. That she didn’t know where she lived.
“Rebel?” Thorne touched her on the arm, and she jumped. She hadn’t even seen him come over; she’d been lost in the past. “Do you remember something?”
She shook her head. “Nothing besides that,” she said. “Lying about our ages. And telling them I was Rebel, not Rebecca, and Tempest was Sissy.”
Thorne said, “We need to get out to Milldale and find the site of the trailer. Today, if possible. Are you okay to go?”
Rebel stared at him. She wasn’t okay. She didn’t want to ever, ever go back to that place. And she didn’t want Tempest to go either.
But what choice did she have?
But when they went to leave, Tempest wouldn’t come out of her room. She said she was too sick to go.
Rebel went in, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “You look like hell,” she said.
Tempest was even paler than she’d been at breakfast, and there were deep shadows under her eyes. “This isn’t just a hangover,” Rebel said.
“I don’t know what it is,” Tempest said. “But I don’t want to go.”
Rebel looked over at the night table. Tempest’s notebook and her sketch pad were both there, along with a whole pack of colored pens. “Did you see something?” she asked.
Tempest shook her head. “I haven’t drawn or written anything. I haven’t seen any stories. It’s just a feeling. A bad feeling, and it tells me I should stay here.”
Rebel brushed her sister’s hair back. Her forehead was clammy, but there was no fever. “Maybe it’s time we told the others about your stories.”
Tempest pressed her lips together in a way Rebel was very familiar with. “No! We can’t tell anyone.”
“Okay,” Rebel said, not wanting to upset her any more. “We’ll talk about it later.”
She left the room and went out into the hall, where the others were waiting. Tyr, in fact, was practically plastered against the door. “Is she okay?”
“I think so. Just hungover.”
“I’m staying here with her,” he said immediately.
Rebel eyed him. He would take care of Tempest better than anyone except her—if he didn’t drive her crazy with his hovering.
“You’ll let her rest, right? And you won’t let anything happen to her? And if Corwyn or the hellhounds come, you’ll throw your body between her and them, right?”
Tyr rolled his eyes. “Yes, no, and yes.” He paused, and his face grew serious. “I’m her mate, you know,” he said. “You have to learn to trust me sometime.”
“No, I don’t,” Rebel said. “And you’re not her mate until she says you’re her mate.”
Tyr sighed.
Chapter 32
Rebel slept through most of the three-hour drive to Milldale. Thorne kept an eye on her as he drove, guilt an worry gnawing at him.
He loved her, and he didn’t know what to do for her. The intimacy and closeness of last night and this morning had vanished like mist. Talking about her parents’ death had slammed her walls right back into place.
She’d always seemed to roll with the punches, to not take anything seriously, except maybe her job. And Tempest. Other than that, she acted like nothing could get to her.
He was beginning to realize just how much of an act that really was. She had a million thoughts and experiences and fears churning around inside her. She’d learned to mask it, stuff it down, ignore it.
She lived in the here and now, always moving forward, trying to leave the past behind because it was the only way she’d managed to survive all these years.
And now he was making her go back. She was going to have to dredge up all the things she’d buried—all the things the fucker who blurred her memories had buried.
He could tell himself how they needed the Seal to keep Vyrkos in the tomb, and how many people’s lives were at stake if they didn’t find it. Hers and Tempest’s included.
It didn’t make him suck any less for making her do this. He was supposed to be protecting her, not driving her into a world of pain.
When they reached Milldale, he reached over and laid his hand on her thigh to wake her. She came awake instantly, like someone who was used to being on the alert at all times.
As they drove down the main street of the tiny town, she leaned forward slightly, taking in everything.
“Anything looking familiar?” Zane asked from the back seat.
“I’m not sure…” she said slowly. Then, as they passed a side street, she said suddenly, “Turn down there.” Thorne did a quick right turn, annoying the person behind him, who honked irritably.
“Pull over,” Rebel said.
They were in front of a white clapboard house with black shutters, and she was staring up at a second-floor window.
“Do you recognize this place?” Blaze asked.
Rebel said, “It used to have green shutters.” Her voice was full of memories. “When the sheriff’s deputy picked up Tempest and me off the roadside, he took us to the station. But when they couldn’t find our parents, they had to put us someplace until the state could take charge of us.”
She was still staring at the upstairs window. “This is where. It was sheriff’s parents or something. We stayed in that bedroom up there. It had a window seat, and all my time sitting there looking out.” She pointed towards Main Street. “That storefront across from the end of the street was a different color, too. But the ice-cream parlor is the same. I’ll never forget that view. I stared at it for hours, waiting for…”
Her voice trailed off, but Thorne could hear the end of the sentence as if she’d spoken in his mind. Waiting for her parents to come and get her.
Waiting for her nightmare not to be real; waiting for a miracle that never came.
It took some asking around before they found out where the site of the ‘meth lab’ had been. The crude map drawn by the gas-station attendant led them down a winding country road with tall trees on either side, their branches arching over the road so it was like driving through a tunnel of leaves.
Zane and Blaze were talking quietly in the back seat, but Rebel couldn’t seem to hear them clearly. Her chest had been getting tighter and tighter ever since they left town, and she couldn’t seem to get enough air.
The light around them was green and dappled with bits of sunlight through the leaves, but somehow all Rebel could see was darkness. Darkness, and flashing lights of police cars.
She felt numb all over. She knew that feeling—she’d felt it the last time she’d ridden on this road, in the back seat of the deputy’s cruiser. Like the only way to keep all the horrors she was seeing and feeling from drowning her was to just not feel anything at all.
One tiny piece of her stood back and observed what was happening. Seeing the sunlit day, and the dark night. Back and forth, one after the other, over and over.
They slowed next to a field of green cornstalks, rustling in the breeze. She could hear them through the open window, and it brought back more memories.
Hippies, who lived in a commune where the kids ran around naked, and half the adults too. They grew fruits and vegetables, selling them from a roadside stand. There was a woman named Sunshine who worked at the stand and when they walked over from the trailer to buy fruit sometimes, Rebel’s dad would sometimes stay and talk to Sunshine and her husband about crops.
Tempest would play with a little girl who had a mermaid doll with long black hair. She could see Tempest brushing the doll’s hair and talking to the girl. Rainbow, her name wa
s.
She could see all the mounds of shiny, colorful fruits and vegetables, still wet with dew. She could smell the fruit and the sunwarmed dirt.
She could see Tempest and her dad, happy with their friends. Mom was back at the trailer hanging laundry on the clothesline, and when they got back Rebel would sit in the cool shade between the bedsheets hanging on the line, and look up at the clouds and think…
“Rebel?”
Someone was calling her name, but it was faint.
“Rebel!” There was a touch on her shoulder, and she started and whipped her head around, hand on the hidden knife in her sleeve.
She was in the SUV with Thorne and Zane and Blaze, and Thorne had his hand on her arm. His forehead was creased, and he looked worried. “Are you okay? Do you feel something?”
Rebel slammed the door in her mind. “No, I don’t feel anything. I was just looking at the fruit stand and remembering…”
Blaze said, “Fruit stand?”
“Yeah. It’s just the same…” she broke off as she looked out the window. The field was full ove corn, but there were no people. The remains of the fruit stand stood forlorn and empty, part of the roof collapsed. There was no one there.
Anxiety stabbed at her stomach. She’d seen it. Just like it was…
Rebel shook her head. Just memories. “There was some kind of hippie commune that had a farm here, and they used to run a fruit stand. We’d walk over sometimes and buy fruit.”
She could feel the excitement vibrating through the SUV. “This is the place,” Zane breathed. “Can you remember anything else? Which way did you come from?”
Rebel pointed immediately to the far side of the field. “There was a path through the woods,” she said. “But the road goes around. It makes a big curve a bit further on, and then there’s a dirt road. There was.”
Zane leaned forward and pointed at the SUV’s GPS. “The map shows the road curving around, like she says. The dirt road isn’t marked.”
Dragon's Rebel (Wild Dragons Book 2) Page 14