by Roxie Ray
Something became more and more obvious the further down the highway I went. I was being tailed. He stayed a couple of car lengths back no matter how I slowed or sped up.
Not that speeding up was much of an option in this jalopy.
Pulling out my phone, I realized the battery was nearly dead. It had charged for hours. Abby had said she’d plugged it up before she lay down with me. That had been before dark. I distinctly remembered sunshine streaming through the apartment’s only window when I’d arrived.
Well, it was enough for now. I pressed the button to connect me to Maverick.
“Hey, where are you?”
“Coming down the highway that runs in front of the hotel,” I said. “But I’m at least an hour out, if my memory serves.”
Maverick cussed. “We’re heading that way in the van, but it’s only been a half hour since we left the hotel. It took a while to get Rico stable, and given the situation, we didn’t want to leave anyone behind.”
“I don’t blame you. I’ve got a tail, but I’m glad. It gets them away from Abby.”
My phone beeped, and I checked the screen. “My battery is dying,” I said. “I’ll keep going until we meet up.” Abby had charged it, but it was dying already. Must’ve been a faulty cord.
That was all I was able to get out before the screen went black. I tossed the phone in the passenger seat in frustration. I didn’t want to confront these guys without my family as backup if I could help it.
They had other plans, though. Without warning, the car behind me sped up and crossed into the oncoming traffic lane. In the middle of the night there was little traffic and the bright moon helped illuminate the road. I focused on driving and pushed the car as hard as it would go.
They were in a sedan, but it was the kind the police used, which meant it had a powerful engine. My brothers drove the same type of car.
Without warning, the brown car veered sharply toward me, causing me to yank the wheel to the right. As soon as I did, I realized why. They wanted me to turn down a side road. I jerked the wheel wildly, bouncing through a rough field that needed a good mowing. It was a good thing this car was already so beat up. I couldn’t go far in those weeds. I had to go the way they wanted me to and get onto the dirt road.
The only good thing was that the road was narrow with the overgrown field on either side. They couldn’t get beside me again.
But they stayed on my bumper. My headlights shot up and down as I drove too fast over the rough dirt road, but then I slammed on the brakes. The road opened up in a clearing that went nowhere…except an enormous field of corn.
I tried pulling on the wheel again, in hopes of being able to go around them and back onto the dirt road back to the main, but they’d known where we were going and had stopped in time.
My only choice was to fly. It was dark enough to cover me as long as I kept to the corn fields and forests.
Throwing the car in park, I shoved the door open and prepared to shift and let my clothes shred off of me.
But I couldn’t. I froze, my heart froze, and my blood froze in my veins.
I smelled Abby. Not a lingering reminder from my clothes being washed at her house. Strong. Potent.
She was in their car and the windows must have been down. It was the only explanation.
Turning on my heel, I faced the car. Their headlights were on and made it difficult to see in, even for my sensitive eyes.
“What do you want?” I yelled. I’d known there would likely come a day when my gift would put me in danger.
I’d never expected to have a mate to protect. I wanted to run but would’ve been willing to fight to the death for my freedom, but when Abby screamed inside the car, the ice in my veins turned to blazing lava. I’d rip their heads from their bodies one by one.
They couldn’t have known she was my fated mate, or they would’ve thought twice about using her as bait. I felt the call of the berserker coming over me.
When a dragon’s mate was in danger, he became more threatening, more powerful than normally possible.
The doors on the car opened and the lights went out. Four men wearing business suits in all black slid out of the doors, and one of them held Abby by her perfect hair and dragged her out behind him.
Nyx roared in my head, ready to shift and destroy each of them.
I tried to calm him with the reassurance that Maverick and our clan were on their way. We weren’t that far from the main road. If he continued trying to contact their dragons when they passed by, they’d hear him. Dragons could communicate over a fairly long distance, and we hadn’t driven down the short dirt road for more than a few seconds.
“It’s okay, Abby. I’ll get you out of this,” I called. Then I looked at the four men and tried to judge who the leader was. I picked the driver to focus on. “You’ve got me. You don’t need her.”
“Actually, we do,” he said. “We have a certain set of jobs for you. If you refuse to do them, we hurt her. If you refuse again, we kill her.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
The driver, a blond with broad shoulders, grinned. “Track things. What else?”
My gaze drifted to Abby. Her hands were in her hair, and her face was terrified and in pain. “I won’t let them hurt you, Abby. Don’t worry.” I moved my attention back to the talker. “What took you so long to take me? Why didn’t you do it as soon as I broke away from my family?”
He shook his head. “You tripped us up by taking a different car. It reeks of wolf shifter and we aren’t trackers. It masked your scent for a while. Then we remembered how you’d had a fit over that girl in the bar and decided to see if we could pick up your scent there.”
The one in the back with his hands in Abby’s hair grinned. I realized it was the same man that had been trying to get Abby into the bathroom that night. Maddox had beaten the shit out of him for me.
That didn’t bode well for how he might treat Abby. “You better not have hurt her,” I growled. My fists clenched, and fighting the shift became an active effort. Nyx wanted out in the worst way.
“We didn’t,” the blond said. He held his hands up. “If you do as we ask and find what we want, nobody will be hurt, and you can go on your merry way.”
I scoffed. “Sure, until you need something else found.”
He shrugged. “It’s the nature of the business. Always something to look for.”
They’re coming.
Nyx gave me a heads-up, and once again, fate was on our side. The wind whispered past my cheek, and it was headed away from us. Our scent would be carried toward the road instead of my family’s scent coming this way.
I didn’t know how far away they still were, but I had to stall. “Why didn’t you try asking?” I narrowed my eyes at them. “I might’ve been willing to make a few bucks.”
“Now you’re just messing with us,” one of the others, the one who had been in the passenger seat, said. “The Kingstons are extraordinarily wealthy. Everyone knows that. What need would you have of money?”
“My family doesn’t let us have our money until we’re thirty,” I lied. “You went to all this trouble.”
“We didn’t know who you were until you came for Rico.” The blond man turned and glared at Abby. “Finding her was a lucky coincidence.” I had to keep them talking for a few more minutes to give Maverick time to get them here and help us.
I didn’t have to stall any more. They heard my family sneaking up behind them at the same time I spotted them. They were creeping through the field, using the tall grass for camouflage. Gramps and Axel were already shifted, and Maverick and Perry still in their skin. When they whirled to see what the noise was, I yelled. “Now, Abby!”
I had no idea if she knew any self-defense, but I hoped her father, as a shifter, would’ve had sense enough to teach her something.
Nyx took over then, and seconds later when we opened our eyes, we saw Abby fighting the fat fuck with his hands in her hair.
Gramp
s and Axel had rushed the men in their fancy suits as I shifted, and all their attention was on them. Nyx used his powerful hind legs and wings to propel toward the man holding Abby and she had him so distracted that by the time he realized we were coming for him, we were already on him.
Nyx used our momentum to sink his front claws in the man’s chest. He didn’t stand a chance or have a moment to shift. Nyx pushed his claws deeper in and curled them around the man’s heart, then closed them and ripped it from his chest.
With a mighty roar, Nyx lost himself in the fight. He’d gone berserker.
Run! I yelled at Abby the only way I could. She heard me, because she darted toward the car. Don’t go in the car! She heard me again and shifted direction, darting toward the corn. Stay there until I come for you.
“I will!” she called out loud.
Nyx had already moved on, stalking the remaining dragon. The other two had shifted, as well as Maverick and Perry. I assumed Maddox had stayed back with Rico at the van.
Nyx really didn’t need a lot of input from me, so I worried about Abby as he stalked the third dragon, the only one who hadn’t said anything. He’d run into the tall grass. In the dark we wouldn’t be able to see him until he was fairly close.
For such large beasts, we were able to crouch low and hide in places like these weeds with surprising ease.
The other dragon lunged at us out of nowhere. He was a dark green, I thought. It was hard to tell in the moonlight.
Nyx darted to the side in time to avoid his claws. Not that they would’ve done much damage. Hurting a dragon was always easier said than done. From the roars behind me, someone was being hurt, but I had no way of knowing if it was one of my family or one of the rogues. We’d gotten a little way away from the clearing, so it was one-on-one.
But the rogue obviously hadn’t had the good fortune of a lifetime of wrestling with my brothers as a human, and then years of it as a dragon. Nyx outmaneuvered him in seconds, clamping his jaw around the rogue’s neck and biting down hard. His neck was covered in scales, but Nyx’s long, sharp teeth slid between them and sank into the soft flesh underneath.
The rogue roared in pain and slashed at Nyx’s underside urgently, but Nyx was no stranger to those tactics. When we sparred with the clan, we tried to injure and incapacitate.
How else would we get good enough for a moment like this? Rogue dragons were always a threat, as well as the possibility of a fight or war with another clan.
We had to be ready.
And this night we were. Nyx shifted and twisted and kept his jaw clamped on the rogue’s neck until he slowed and weakened. With a final shake, he collapsed and began to change. We knew his death was inevitable then, and Nyx let go.
Dragons reverted back to humans when they died, and if the shift happened like that, there was no saving him. His time had come.
It was the first time I’d ever killed someone, yet I felt no guilt. Maybe because technically it had been Nyx that did the deed. Maybe because the guy had it coming.
Either way, it was done, and all I wanted was Abby.
Find her. Nyx didn’t need telling twice. He caught onto her scent immediately and took to the air. The rest of my family had the remaining dragon surrounded. As we flew toward Abby’s scent, I pushed Nyx to look down so I could take stock.
Everyone accounted for. I couldn’t tell if they were injured, but they were alive.
When we landed in the corn near Abby, in the only spot clear enough to fit us, Nyx called to her and she ran right for us. As she climbed on Nyx’s back, a pain-filled roar filled the air, then cut off abruptly.
The pack of rogue shifters was no more.
I flew Abby to my family, then past them. We went straight to the van, where I shifted back to human in the tall grass. Abby went straight into the vehicle, and Maddox came out with a pair of boxers. By the time I got them on, everyone had returned.
We weren’t too gross, thankfully. Somehow when the shift happened back to our skin, the blood, dirt, and grime from the fight disappeared. If we’d done it all as human, shifted to dragon, then shifted back, it still would’ve been on our skin.
So not fair.
“Is it over?” Abby asked in a small voice once everyone—in varying states of dress, but all covered to spare her the sight of the Kingston Clan and their little Kingstons—piled into the van. We were nearly over capacity, but I pulled Abby onto my lap.
“It’s over,” Gramps said. “For good this time.”
I pressed my forehead into Abby’s shoulder. A little rest while Gramps and Mav handled everything would be great. I had Abby with me. “I’m not letting you go again,” I whispered.
She twisted and put her hands on my cheeks, but it was just too hard to open my eyes. I’d been near collapse before this and hadn’t slept nearly enough. Now, after that fight, the same feeling of overwhelming exhaustion swamped me.
“It’s okay,” Maddox whispered. His words filtered through to my brain, but I couldn’t respond. Not asleep, yet not awake. “He’s done something similar after a strenuous training session. Not this bad, but I think intense tracking drains him somehow.”
I was pretty sure he was right. I meant to nod my head but couldn’t tell if dream-me did it or the actual me.
Instead of speaking out loud, I thought the words. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to put distance between us.
Abby’s sweet voice filled my mind. I know. Now rest. I’m here. I’ll be here when you wake up.
With a grateful sigh, I did exactly as she asked.
21
Abby
“He’s still asleep,” I whispered into the phone.
Jury’s mom, Carla, had called me four times in the last twenty-four hours, and texted another six. Not that I blamed her. I had to convince her not to come down.
They’d brought Jury back to my apartment, and Maddox had stayed as well. I’d made up the couch for him, and he slept nearly twelve hours. Then, he’d gone to explore the complex’s workout facility for a while. That only took a couple of hours, in which I puttered around the apartment as quietly as I could. I put a small roast in the crock pot with some veggies that were going to go bad if I didn’t cook them. Then I cleaned without using anything electronic like the vacuum.
Then I took a nap beside Jury. Maddox woke me up when he came back from the gym, but not Jury. I got Madd all set up for a shower, then decided to make brownies. I didn’t want Jury to wake up too soon, but him being out so long was freaking me out.
Madd kept reassuring me it was fine. He put on a sitcom and played on his phone while we waited. I tried to read, except for the times Carla called.
“Are you sure I can’t come down?” she asked. “I could be on a plane and be there by morning.”
“No, really. As soon as he’s awake, I’m sending both of them back to you, I promise.” I didn’t tell her the rest. I had every intention of going with them. As soon as we hung up, I gathered my nerve and decided to get it over with.
While Maddox vegged out in front of the TV, I grabbed my phone and slipped on some flip-flops. “I’ll be right back. I need to make a phone call,” I whispered. With Maddox and Jury both in the small studio apartment at the same time, I felt claustrophobic. I could’ve gone into the bathroom to call my boss but didn’t want to have to whisper.
Strolling down the stairs, I pushed the button and the phone rang. Sarah picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Abby, what’s up? Are you okay?” I’d called out sick for the day, which I’d never done before. She hadn’t minded because she knew if I called out, there was a good reason.
“Sarah, I’ve got some news that I really hate to tell you. It’s good news for me, but I feel horrible about it.”
“Uh-oh. I’ve been managing long enough to know what’s coming. You’re quitting with no notice, aren’t you?”
I moaned. “I’m so sorry. I know it sounds insane, but I’m moving away, suddenly and unexpectedly. When we spoke last, I genuinel
y thought I had all the time in the world to dawdle and wait and let you pick out a replacement. But things happened in my personal life and I have to go now. I’ll be coming back soon for my things.”
She laughed. “Don’t stress, Abby. I know you’d never leave me in a lurch if you had any other options. Are you okay? Is it the sort of trouble you need a friend’s help with?”
She was the best boss. What other boss would read between the lines? “No, but I love you for offering. It just worked out this way that I need to go to Colorado today or tomorrow.”
“Well, don’t feel bad. I already found a replacement and will just have to spend some time training her and we will be fine. You go enjoy your life and since you said this is a good thing for you, congratulations.”
I thanked her profusely. I’d been strolling as I talked and found myself on the small playground. Nobody was around at the moment, so I sat on one of the swings and called Harley.
“Hey, sis. Baby yet?”
She sighed. “I am two weeks overdue today. My doctor is screaming for me to come in and be induced, but Carla says that dragon babies often go more like forty-three weeks.”
Geez. That sucked. “I’m sorry, sister. I wish I could help. Well, maybe I can. I have news.”
I sucked in a deep breath, so I didn’t squeal with excitement. “I’m moving to Black Claw.”
“What?” she shouted.
Stefan’s worried voice came over the line. “What’s wrong?”
She laughed and shushed him. “Nothing, it’s good news.” Then she spoke to me again. “Tell me more!”
“I’ve been planning it since I found out about the money. It’s enough to help me get a place there, rent a moving company to deal with the move, and everything. It’ll even buy me time to find a job.”
Harley let out a tiny high-pitched squeal. “I’m trying to be quiet because we have to surprise Nana!”
I agreed, so we made plans to do just that. I wasn’t sure if we’d be heading up there today or tomorrow, but whenever it was, we couldn’t wait to see the look on Nana’s face.