by Zoe Chant
Athena squinted, and got ready to shift, just in case it really was Jeremiah, or even Shiloh, come to drag her back home, or challenge Santos to a fight.
But no. As he drew closer, it was more and more apparent who it had to be. The shape of his crest, the length of his tail, the size of his body, the tint of his scales—
Santos had come up next to her, crouching, his body tensing.
“Not yet,” she told him. She didn’t want a fight to start, not if she was right, and if Santos shifted and went to meet their visitor, who knew what would happen.
“Athena, who—” he started to say, but in that moment, the red dragon appeared in the air above them, circling as they had, and came down to land in a rush of wings and claws. There was a moment where she knew Santos was a hair’s breadth from shifting, ready to defend her—
And then the dragon shifted to human, and a tall man with red hair and green eyes was standing in the street, starting forward as soon as he had reliable human legs again.
“Athena,” Alaric demanded, “what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Chapter 17: Santos
“Santos,” Athena said, even as Santos was moving to put himself between his mate and this large, aggressive-looking man, “this is my brother, Alaric.”
That brought him up short.
Looking at the man more carefully, though, he could see the resemblance almost immediately. Their coloring was the same, of course, but Alaric also had the same clean, classic lines in his face. What was striking in Athena was almost movie-star handsome in her brother. Together with his height and build, it all made him look like he should be standing dramatically against a Shakespearean castle or something.
Santos tried not to dislike him immediately, but he was finding it a little difficult.
“Alaric,” Athena said, more slowly, “this is Santos. My mate.”
That brought Alaric up short.
“Your mate?” he asked, his eyes on Santos’ face even as he spoke to his sister. “Are you joking?”
There was a resounding silence in response. Santos wasn’t looking at Athena, who had come up to stand next to him, but he could imagine the withering look that she was giving her brother.
After all, Santos had only just gotten to know her, and he could’ve told Alaric that Athena wasn’t the joking type. Hell, Santos had only barely gotten her to smile so far.
“How long have you known this?” Alaric said, after the silence had gone on long enough to be a clear answer. “Did you come here to run away to him?”
“No,” Athena said quickly. “No. I learned yesterday. I had no idea until I met him.”
“Where’s Olivia?”
“She’s with a friend,” Santos said, getting tired of this guy talking about him while looking straight at him. “She’s safe. Why are you here?”
Alaric glared. “I came to get my sister.”
Santos raised his eyebrows. “Athena doesn’t need getting. She can decide where she wants to go for herself.”
“Sure can,” Athena put in, sounding irritated. “If you two could stop doing that dumb macho posturing thing, maybe we can have a conversation about what to do next.”
She was right, of course, but Santos also did not want to take his eyes off Alaric’s. Some buried defensive instinct was sure that the second he did, Alaric might attack.
Protect our mate, his dragon hissed.
She doesn’t need protecting from her own brother, Santos thought back.
But before he could break the impasse between his human side and his dragon side, there was the sound of wings.
All three of them looked up. Another dragon had appeared in the sky. Red scales, brighter than Athena and Alaric’s deep crimson, almost fire-engine red, with a gold crest.
“Shiloh,” Athena said, in a shocked voice.
Alaric was staring up, looking stunned. “He must have followed me. I wasn’t expecting—he didn’t have any reason to be suspicious—”
“Shiloh doesn’t need a reason,” Athena said.
Santos was already shifting.
When they’d said Shiloh, he’d already known that this was going to end in a fight. Jeremiah’s son wouldn’t listen to reason, by all accounts, and so they were going to need to send him off with a show of force. And there was no time to wait for Malachi or Flynn to come help.
What Santos didn’t know was whether Alaric would be joining Shiloh’s attack or not. If he had to fight his mate’s brother—
“Santos!” Athena’s voice echoed below him as he took off, ready for battle.
Shiloh met him with a clash of teeth and claws.
He was big, almost as big as Santos, and he had the altitude advantage. It was a struggle to stay in the air. Santos focused instead on locking them together, making sure that if he went down, he'd bring Shiloh with him. He slashed at any red scales he saw, with his fore and hind legs, digging in hard when he made contact, ignoring the answering burst of pain from where Shiloh was doing the same.
He got purchase in Shiloh's shoulder, claws catching the edges between the scales and sinking deep into the flesh. Shiloh roared and disengaged, and Santos was able to spread his wings and gain some altitude.
Wide wings were vulnerable, though, and it was just a minute later that Shiloh came hurtling back in, claws outstretched to try and open up his left wing. Santos banked hard, circling around to come back with teeth bared. His wings weren't the only ones that were vulnerable.
He caught the barest edge of a red-and-gold wing before Shiloh dove down hard, coming up just as quickly to aim at Santos' scaleless underbelly. He caught a lucky shot, and Santos roared involuntarily with pain.
Kill him, his dragon growled. Bite him, claw him, show him that no one attacks us, no one attacks our mate!
Gritting his teeth, Santos rolled in midair and came around, catching a gust of wind to propel him with extra momentum into a full-on clash. He caught a wing joint in his teeth and bit down hard. Shiloh howled, and a thrill of victory raced through Santos' blood—
But then he felt another deep stab of pain in his belly, right where Shiloh had caught him a moment ago, opening up the wound deeper, shocking him into opening his jaws. Blood gushed, and he could already feel himself starting to weaken.
Then a third set of wingbeats echoed through the air. He saw crimson scales out of the corner of his eye.
Alaric, Santos thought, despair starting to rise in him. If he had to fight two dragons of this size and skill, his only hope would be to break free and race for the sheriff’s office, and hope that Malachi and Flynn were there—but if they were that close, they probably would have shown up to help already. Santos had to assume he was on his own for now.
But then Shiloh made a high-pitched noise of pain and broke away, and Santos saw who was in the air with him—that graceful, sinuous form, long and powerful but more streamlined than Alaric’s huge body—at the same time as a rush of energy filled his body.
Athena.
She’d bitten Shiloh hard on the same wing joint Santos had hit, and now he was limping a bit in the air, losing altitude. Athena hovered in the air next to Santos, staring Shiloh down, and Santos could almost hear her voice, terse and unafraid: Well? You think you can fight both of us?
Slowly, Shiloh lost height, until Santos realized that it wasn’t just his injured wing: he was landing in the street, next to Alaric’s still-human form.
Athena followed, and after a quick scan of the horizon, making sure that there weren’t any more red dragons waiting to come attack them, Santos followed.
Shiloh shifted to human, bloody and holding one arm stiffly against his size. Athena followed suit, coming to stand next to Alaric, facing him.
Santos landed, but he didn’t shift. He wasn’t about to trust Shiloh not to try something else. He wanted to be ready to snatch Athena up in his arms and fly away at a moment’s notice.
When he landed, Athena moved just a bit closer to him. Just a couple of s
teps, but so that it was clear that she was standing with him, and not with the men from her own clan.
Settling into place, the pain from his injuries hardly noticeable in the face of what was happening, Santos waited to hear what they said.
Chapter 18: Athena
Athena almost couldn’t believe that she’d done it.
She’d joined forces with an enemy town against her own people. She’d attacked the son of their clan leader.
She’d made herself a traitor.
But beneath all of that, the sinking realization of the consequences of what she’d done, the horrified look on Alaric’s face, the fury on Shiloh’s—under all of that was the bone-deep knowledge that it had been the right thing.
She’d spent long minutes frozen on the ground, watching Santos and Shiloh fight. Terrified that one of them would be killed. Not sure what she could possibly do.
And then Shiloh had ripped open Santos’ stomach with his claws, and she’d felt the pain echoing down the mate-bond, and she’d known what she had to do.
She had to defend her mate. She had to stand with him. She had to stand for him, and for this town, this place where people were kind to each other, where everyone was safe, and where she could leave her baby with another person without having to worry about what would happen to her.
So she’d shifted and leapt into the air, going straight for Shiloh’s weak wing, and ended the fight.
And now, here came the consequences. But she had Santos’ strong bronze dragon form behind her, and the entire town of Oak Ridge on her side. She glared brazenly at Shiloh, waiting for whatever he wanted to say.
He was too furious to speak at first, his fist clenched, his face red. When he finally managed it, it was more of a yell. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you a traitor, Athena?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m leaving home, Shiloh. I’ve found my mate, here in Oak Ridge, and I’m going to stay here.”
He stared at her, shocked out of his rage. “You can’t do that,” he said blankly. As though he was just stating a bare fact, and Athena thought that from his perspective, he was.
Well, it was time for his perspective to expand a little bit. “I can and I will. What are you going to do about it?”
“My father will—”
“Your father was going to attack this place anyway,” she said. “Well, now they’ve got one more fighting dragon on their side, and you have one less. Not that you ever valued women as fighters, anyway.”
Shiloh’s fury was coming back. “You think my father was going to attack before? Just imagine what he’s going to do now that you’ve defected, with a clan baby. He’s going to bring every resource at his disposal to destroy this place.”
“Oh?” Athena interrupted, as Shiloh was drawing breath to continue. “How many of those does he have, exactly?”
Shiloh let out a growl that was almost draconic, despite his human shape. “You don’t know everything about his plans.”
“And you do?” she shot back. “He doesn’t trust you with a lot. I’ve heard him telling you how much he expects you to screw up.”
Shiloh took a couple of steps forward, teeth bared, before Santos’ rumble of warning behind her brought him up short.
He took a slow, deliberate breath. “I’m outgunned right now,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I’ll be back. And my father will be with me.” He shot a furious look in Alaric’s direction. “And I’ll be talking to you later.”
With one final glare around the street, Shiloh turned and stalked off into the woods. A few minutes later, there was the distant sound of displaced air as he took off, and then a slow, limping shape headed towards the horizon.
Athena let out her breath and turned to Santos. “Are you all right?”
Santos shifted back to human immediately, wincing. His shirt was bloody. “Fine. Probably.”
Athena was about to debate that, when Alaric spoke up from behind them. “Excuse me,” he said, “but what did just happen? Athena, are you serious? You aren’t coming home?”
Athena turned around to look at him. Her heart ached to see him staring at her, his mouth set in an unhappy line.
“No,” she said heavily. “I can’t, Alaric. Not with my mate here—and not now that I know what it’s like. Did you know that shifters can just live like humans do? With laws, and—and stores, and restaurants?”
“You mean soft,” Alaric said. “Complacent.”
She pointed over her shoulder at Santos. “Did he look soft, up in the air just now? They can fight. They just don’t, unless they have to. Doesn’t that sound better?” She bit her lip. “Wouldn’t it have been nice to have two parents, alive, to take care of us growing up? Don’t you think Olivia deserves that?”
“She has us,” Alaric argued. “We’re her family.”
“How many diapers have you changed since she was born?” Athena asked. “And how often do you risk your life because Jeremiah tells you to? How long until that catches up with you?”
Alaric was silent.
“I can’t go back,” she said, her heart aching. “I can’t.”
He closed his eyes, and she waited for a long, painful moment to see what he was going to do.
“All right,” he said finally, opening his eyes and letting out his breath. “I can’t convince you, I know. I can never convince you of anything. But I can’t stay with you. I can’t betray the clan.”
“I know,” she said. Alaric was too honorable. He could never turn traitor, never betray a loyalty like that.
“But I’ll do my best to keep Jeremiah from coming after you,” he said. “And keep Shiloh in check.”
“Don’t put yourself in danger,” she said. She knew how much success he was likely to have at either of those tasks.
He smiled, and there was a tinge of the usual Alaric in his expression. “When have I ever shied away from that?”
“Never,” she admitted, and smiling back, stepping forward.
Alaric embraced her, holding her tightly, for a long, long moment. She inhaled his scent, the smell that meant home, and family.
“We’re going to figure this out,” she said fiercely. “Don’t worry. We will.”
He stepped back and nodded firmly. “We will.”
Then he moved a little distance away and shifted. She watched his dragon form leap into the air, effortlessly winging away in the same direction that Shiloh had gone.
She turned back to Santos. “Well.”
“Well,” he said, his face somber. “Are you all right?”
“Why are you asking me? You’re the one with the stomach wound.”
He broke into a smile. “Athena, I hope you never change.”
“What do you mean?” she asked blankly. “You are.”
He laughed, and then winced again, and then there was the sound of wingbeats.
Athena spun around immediately, ready to shift and defend Santos again—but the approaching figures weren’t red. One was an enormous dragon, black as coal, and the other was—half-eagle, half-lion. A griffin. She’d never seen one before.
“That’s Malachi and Flynn,” Santos said. She could hear the pain in his voice.
“I’m going to go get Olivia,” she said, as the dragon and the griffin got closer. She slipped into the coffee shop—which seemed empty. “Hello?”
Katie stood up from behind the counter, clutching Olivia to her chest. “Athena! Are you okay? Is it over?”
Athena reached for her daughter with a rush of relief, and Katie handed the baby over. Olivia seemed perfectly content, reaching for Athena with a happy noise. Athena buried her nose in Olivia’s hair and inhaled her clean baby scent, some of her tension starting to relax.
“It’s over,” she said. “But I need you to call the doctor for Santos. He’s hurt.”
“Oh, of course!” Katie had her cell phone clutched in her hand, and she started dialing immediately. “I called Malachi right away, but he was way out driving through t
he woods east of town—he and Flynn had had a call, and so he couldn’t—hello? Reid?”
Athena stepped back outside to see Malachi and Flynn talking to Santos, who was still standing and didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, although he had one arm pressed to his side, which was stained bright red.
Before she could talk to him, though, other people started appearing. Civilians, she realized—people who had seen the fight but been afraid to come out. And then more dragons, in the sky—people who’d heard something was happening, and were only just now arriving at the scene, ready to fight if necessary.
She went to Santos’ side, ready to support him if he needed it. “Reid is on his way,” she told him.
He looked at her. “I really am fine.”
“You look fine,” she said. “Especially the bloody part. Extremely fine.”
“Is Olivia okay?” he asked, leaning over to check on the baby. “I wasn’t sure about leaving her with Katie, but I figured it was better to be out here between her and danger...”
“She’s fine. I’m fine. Everyone’s fine except for you.”
She looked over at a quiet noise, and realized that Malachi was laughing softly. “Athena, we’re very grateful to have you here,” he said when he saw her looking.
Athena wasn’t really sure how to respond to that, but fortunately Reid appeared before she had to, hurrying up the street in human form.
“What did you do?” He jogged over to Santos, scanning him with a professional eye.
“Fight,” Santos said briefly.
Reid looked up at the sky.
“All taken care of now,” said Athena. “He’s the only one who was hurt.”
Reid made an unhappy noise. “Of course he was. All right, everyone out of the way, we’re getting him inside.”
Reid had a thoughtless, casual authority; he spoke with the assumption that everyone would listen to him, and he was right. The small crowd parted, and Reid led Santos slowly and carefully away from the scene of the fight. Athena hesitated, looking back at Malachi.