by Jacki James
“If we have to stay with him while this Barrett guy makes contact, it could be days.” He only had four more days until he was scheduled to go back to Maine, and we hadn’t made any plans yet.
“Az, I’ll be here when you get back. No matter how long it takes.” He looked me in my eyes and I saw the truth there. I saw forever, and I knew he’d made up his mind and chosen me. He was staying.
“Thank god,” I said, crushing him to me. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“Eeli and I will be fine; you guys take care of yourselves.”
I kissed him goodbye, and we left. Other than my brothers, I’d never had a reason to come home. Toby changed everything. Now, while the mission was important, coming home to him was my priority. I had to be careful and make sure I didn’t let that make me overly cautious. I was a dragon rider, and I had a job to do.
Our contact had given us directions to Barrett’s cabin, and it didn’t take us long to find it. We landed in a nearby clearing, and as we’d planned, our dragons returned to their tattooed forms. We trekked the short distance to the cabin. It sat tucked back in the woods, but as I would’ve expected from a former Seal, someone had cleared the area around the cabin. No trees or debris to hide behind for a sneak attack. We got within shouting distance, and I called out to him, “Paul Barrett. I’m supposed to tell you Inferno sent us.”
A curtain moved to the side, just enough to allow someone to see out. “Step out so I can see you,” he called back.
The guys all looked to me to see what I wanted to do. I nodded at them to move forward. “Okay, Paul, we’re coming out. There are three of us.” I saw the gun trained in the direction of my voice, and I hoped our contact was right and he was one of the good guys. If not, this was going to be bad. We slowly walked out of the woods into the clearing. The curtain moved farther to the side giving him a better look at us.
“Well, hell. Things must be fucking serious if they sent me the dragon squad,” he said, and the door jerked open. A stocky, muscular man in his mid to late forties stepped out on the porch. “I’m Paul Barrett, nice to meet you.”
We introduced ourselves and shook hands. “Come on in, guys,” he said. “I have Nick stashed in a safe room until I found out who was out here. I’ll go let him out. You make yourself at home. I have drinks in the fridge if you’re thirsty.” He turned and went down a hallway, and we grabbed bottles of water and sat at the bar.
Before long, he came back with a young man who looked tired and very wary of a bunch of strangers. Considering the fact one of the cops sent to guard him had turned on him, I didn’t blame him. “Nick, these men are friends. An old buddy of mine sent them here to give us an update. You can trust them or I wouldn’t have let them in.” Nick nodded, but I could tell he didn’t let his guard down.
We delivered the message and told him we’d stay while he did as directed. “No need,” he said. “I have a communication system in place. It’s just disabled at the moment. Let me get it set up and make contact. Then we’ll get you boys some food. I’d be mighty grateful if you stayed tonight. By morning, reinforcements should be here, and then you don’t have to stay.” He turned to Nick and said: “Boy, you got yourself in some deep shit if they’re authorizing me to contact Inferno,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m heading down to the basement to make the call if you guys will keep watch up here.”
“What’s Inferno?” the young man asked as Barrett left the room.
“No idea, but he seems to have a lot of faith in them whoever they are.”
It didn’t take long before he came back up the stairs. “Okay, backup is on their way. They’ll be here tomorrow morning. Thanks for coming, guys. I wasn’t sure who to trust. This whole thing’s one big cluster fuck, and Nick here has been one hell of a trooper. It takes guts to turn your life upside down like this.”
“I did the right thing, is all. I just hope I live through it,” Nick said.
“You will. The guys who’re coming are top of the line. They’ll get you somewhere safe and make sure nothing happens to you.”
We took turns patrolling the grounds to be on the safe side, but spent most of the day reading and playing video games. By early afternoon, I’d had all I could handle of being inside, so I took my drink out on the back deck and sat. The door opened and Zale came out. He sat in the chair next to me.
“We should get some of these Adirondack chairs for the porch,” he said. “They aren’t half bad.”
“No, they aren’t,” I agreed. We sat there in silence for a few minutes. He had something on his mind but with Zale, the best thing to do was wait him out.
“So,” he finally said. “Toby is your mate.”
“Yeah, it seems so.”
“What is that going to mean for the rest of us?”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“Well, I mean technically the house is yours. Are you going to want us to leave so you can start a family and all that jazz?”
“Okay,” I said calmly. “First of all, that house is ours. The only reason I’m the one who inherited the money is because the only will mom and dad had was from right after I was born. Every single thing, and every penny from their estate, was split equally between us. That house belongs to all of us. Next, of all things, why would I want you to leave? You guys are my family. When we made the downstairs bedrooms like apartments, we did that so we could all have our own space. I did that so none of you ever have to leave.”
“As we each find our mates, it might get a little crowded.”
“Then we’ll build a bigger house, or expand that one. It’s us against the world, Zale. Finding mates doesn’t change that. It only adds to our family; it doesn’t separate us.”
“Okay,” he said, looking much more relaxed. “Good. I like that. Adding to our family, I mean.”
A little later Paul came out and joined us. “I’ve had all the video games I can handle for the time being. Your brother and Nick are having a ball, though.”
“So tell me how you came to know about dragons, and why they told us if we needed to reveal ourselves we didn’t have to wipe your memory.”
“Years ago, on a mission in one of the stans—I’m still not at liberty to say which one—I got in a really tight spot, and a group of men swooped in on dragons and saved me. Unfortunately, the rescue mission involved sensitive information about our enemy that I needed to retain. The only way for the riders to erase my memory would be to erase the sensitive data I’d acquired after they appeared. It was decided that me having the information was more important since I posed little risk of exposing the guys who saved me. So I was able to stop a major terrorist attack and keep the memories of what it’s like to fly on the back of a seven-ton lizard.”
“They don’t really like to be called lizards,” Zale pointed out.
“I know,” he said laughing. “I remember.”
I felt Sindri squirming on my arm, and I heard her, wraiths are coming, just as Malachite came rushing out the back door looking to the sky. Zale was immediately on his feet doing the same.
“Paul, I’m afraid some trouble that has nothing to do with you guys followed us here. Take Nick into the safe room and don’t come out till one of us comes to get you.”
He ran inside, grabbing Nick and taking him to the safe room as we ran off the porch. “I don’t see them. Hopefully, the dragons sensed them before they got too close. Let’s go.”
Aroko we called, and we climbed onto our dragons’ backs as they materialized and launched into the air. The wind whipped at my face, and my hair flew behind me as we soared through the clouds. Even going into battle, riding on Sindri was exhilarating.
“Incoming!” Malachite shouted. “Six at three o’clock.”
“Shit,” I said, banking left around a grove of trees.
The two of them moved into position, flanking me on each side. We moved in tandem up the trees and back to the right, closing in on the wraiths. Just as we got within range, th
e wraiths split off, two cutting to the left and two to the right, leaving the other two right in front of me.
“Break off,” I called. If we didn’t go one to two, they’d box us in and that wouldn’t be good. Both Malachite and Zale did as I ordered and broke off in pursuit of the wraiths. I wanted to end this before we got on the ground, if possible. My two split up and I had to choose left or right. I went to the right and sensed the other circle back behind me. I shook my head at the predictability. Who did these guys think they were playing with, amateurs? Any minute, the front would twist and flip to face me, and they would both take a shot at me. Good luck with that, boys. We held our course waiting for it, and as soon as he began to turn, I nosedived. The flames he shot at me caught his partner right in the chest, and he screamed in agony. Sindri roared as red flames burst from her mouth incinerating both the wraith and his rider. The other was in a downward spiral toward the ground, his buddy having taken his wings out for me.
I circled back around to find Zale being chased by one of his two. The other one already down. I headed that direction to help him. He did a flip in midair worthy of a ten had we been scoring it, and as he came back up, blue flames shot from Itsaso’s mouth. The wraith screamed in pain as his wings froze and broke apart. The rider fell from his back as he plummeted to the ground like a lodestone. Sindri roared again and sped toward the rider as he fell through the sky. She lit him up until there was nothing left but ash floating to the ground. We came around to find Malachite waiting for us patiently on the ground, having already disposed of his two.
We landed next to him. “How did they know where we were?” Malachite asked.
“I have no idea. The only person I told was Uncle Kazimir. We need to warn him. Someone has to be working for The Order of Amsel. Let’s go check on Paul and Nick. I don’t think this had anything to do with them, but I’ll feel better once we see they’re safe.”
We flew back to the house and went inside. If Paul hadn’t shown us where to find the door to the safe room, we never would’ve known it was there. I knocked three times, waited a few seconds and knocked four more. The door opened and Paul and Nick came out.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Just a little something we had to take care of.”
Chapter Fourteen
Toby
I spent the first day Azaran was gone checking to see what I had to do to transfer my medical license to Washington. It wasn’t as hard as I expected because unlike Maine, Washington had reciprocity. I ordered all my test results and credentialing information and had it sent to the appropriate people. Once they received all my information and could verify it, I would be good to go. I needed to get into town to see if Doctor Evans was back, and if so, find out if he was open to taking on a part-time partner.
When that was all done, I wandered down into the cave system below the house. It was pretty elaborate, and I thought I could explore down there for days. There was one chamber just off the landing zone that’d be perfect for a first aid clinic area. I’d have to talk to Azaran about setting it up so I’d have a place to treat the guys when they came home wounded. I walked out to the cave entrance the guys used to fly in and looked out over the water. The view was amazing from here, and if I looked far enough down the shore, I could see where the tidepools that’d brought me here were. I debated walking down there, but Eeli would be home from school soon, and I didn’t want him to worry if he came home and I was gone. I knew I wasn’t taking off again, but he had no way of knowing that.
I went into my room and grabbed my ereader. I’d seen a hammock out back and this afternoon would be the perfect time to get some reading done. I’d loaded up my reader before I left, thinking I’d take advantage of my time off to do some pleasure reading, but with everything that had happened, I hadn’t had time. But this afternoon was looking perfect. I grabbed a cool drink and walked out to the hammock. It sat under a grove of trees, and while it was too high up to see the beach, I could hear the waves crashing against the shore. I got comfortable and chose a book. Reading had always been an escape for me, and I was looking forward to losing myself in a good story. That ended up being easier said than done. My mind kept drifting back to my current situation. The old adage truth was stranger than fiction was holding true in this case. Even the Urban Fantasy novel I’d selected had nothing on my real life.
Now that it was quiet and everyone was gone, I had to admit it was good timing for them to be called away on assignment. I couldn’t think when Azaran was around. He’d been mildly distracting from the beginning, but from the second we’d touched, it was like a switch had been flipped and he was all I could think about. But distance brought clarity, and I needed to use this time to figure out what I wanted. Me. Not me, Azaran’s mate. Plain me. A part of me had known the day I walked out of the clinic almost two weeks ago that I’d never go back, but I didn’t want to stop practicing medicine. I just wanted to do it my way. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the water down below. I heard birds in the trees above me, and the rustle of leaves and some small creature ran across the ground. I opened my eyes slowly to see what it was and to my delight, it was a rabbit.
“It’ll be cold here soon, Mr. Rabbit. I hope you have a warm burrow for the winter,” I told him. I thought it was interesting that even with the dragons here there was still wildlife around. I would’ve thought other creatures would stay clear of a dragon's territory. Speaking of it almost being winter, the leaves would change soon. I wondered if they were as pretty here as they were in the northeast. I bet they were stunning from the back of a dragon. On the back of a dragon. I laughed. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I was rearranging my entire life for a man who rode a dragon. No, I thought shaking my head, I was rearranging my entire life for Azaran. A good man. A man who loved his family and wanted to make the world a better place. An honorable man who could be trusted to always put the lives of those he loved before himself. A man worth rearranging my life for.
I used my foot to rock the hammock and just relax as it swung back and forth. It was too soon for me to say I loved Azaran; although, I was sure some part of me did. I was drawn to him, though, and I didn’t want to leave him. I was sure we could build a life together if that was what we decided to do. He’d been so hesitant in the beginning. So sure that a mate was the last thing he needed. I understood where he was coming from. Because of his parents’ deaths and him having to care for the boys at such a young age, he equated love with responsibility. He spent all his time taking care of everyone else: making sure the boys were trained; making sure they had everything they needed; making sure they were ready for whatever life threw at them. But in all this time, who took care of Azaran? I don’t even think Azaran took care of Azaran. His sense of responsibility and his dedication to his brothers was one of his better qualities, but he gave so much of himself to others, there was nothing left for himself.
I was half-asleep out under the trees when Eeli came home. “Hey, Toby, want to go into town with me?” he asked as his little purple beastie jumped up on me making the hammock swing.
“Hey there, Bo. How are you, girl?” I gave her some scritches, and she stretched her long neck. “Really, do you think it’s okay with Azaran if I go to town now?”
“I think so. He didn’t say you couldn’t. You’re part of the family now, so I don’t think he’d mind.”
“Okay, what’re we going for?” I asked.
“I need to go grocery shopping before the guys get back to make sure there’s plenty of food in the house, and I thought you might want to get the rest of your stuff out of your room. You could also check out and return your rental car if you want. We have a few cars here you can drive until you get yours from Maine,” he said.
“My rental car will have to wait. I have to return it to the airport in Seattle, and I may not bring mine. I think I want something less practical and more fun. Maybe a Jeep,” I said, imagining driving around with the top down, enj
oying the sun.
“It rains a lot here, though, so you better get a hardtop,” Eeli said. “But either way, I don’t see any reason for you to keep the room. I can drive you in and we can get something to eat at the diner, and then come back here.”
“That all sounds like a solid plan. Let’s do it.”
We got in Eeli’s little purple car, which suited him perfectly, and headed into town. “So what’s first? Your stuff or the diner?”
“Let’s go ahead and get my stuff taken care of first, then food.” We went to the inn, and I checked out. There wasn’t much left there since Azaran had brought me most of it the other day. I turned in my key and we went to the diner. I was thrilled to see Elsie working. I’d missed seeing her each day. We took a couple of counter seats and waited for her to make it over to us.
“Toby!” she said. “It’s good to see you. I thought you’d gone and left for Maine without saying goodbye.”
“Not a chance, Elsie. Actually, I’m thinking I won’t go back to Maine at all.”
“I told you Dargum’s Cove was special, didn’t I? So what made you decide to hang around?”
“My brother,” Eeli said, rolling his eyes in true teenage fashion. “You should see them together. It’s so sweet it’s nauseating.”
Elsie laughed, and then with a smile, she said, “So which of the Ormarr brothers charmed you? Not Zale, he’s not your type. So it’s either Malachite or Azaran.” She tilted her head to one side and studied me. “No, not Malachite, either. I just can’t see it. So must be Azaran, then. He’s a handsome devil, so I’d say you have good taste. I’m glad, though. I was hoping you’d find what you were looking for. Now, what can I get you and Eeli to eat today?”
We spent the rest of the afternoon grocery shopping and just looking around town. Eeli was a great kid, and we actually had a lot of fun.
“So,” I asked him as we walked down the sidewalk. “Did you ever remember how you ended up on that cliff?” He blushed and ducked his head.