by Abby Blake
They’d waited for her to fall asleep, and then Brody had carried Ava and Nathan through the dimensional jump to get here. He’d left them in a room across the hall. Nathan hadn’t been in very good condition, and he suspected that Ava wouldn’t fare much better if she woke before the effects of jump travel wore off, but Brody had no doubt Nathan would defend the woman with his life if the need arose—nauseated or not. Fortunately, in this secure location, he shouldn’t need to.
“We’ve had a break in the case,” Ronan said as soon as he walked in the door.
“Well sort of,” the unfamiliar man beside him said with a worried expression. Brody was pretty sure he was human. “It’s not exactly the type of information I’m going to share with my bosses, but Ronan and Alex were able to capture the pixie assassin. It seems she was working alone.” He let out a deep breath, his worry leaking through even as he tried to hide it. “That’s where the good news ends though. My sister, Kali—she’s the one Ronan and Alex have been protecting—has started showing signs of paranormal abilities.”
“Like telekinesis?” Brody asked quickly.
“How did you know?” the man asked, sounding both aggressive and very worried for his sister’s welfare.
“Because Ava seems to have it, too. We don’t think she’s even noticed, but we suspect it’s how she survived that first encounter with the pixie.”
“I’m kind of glad to hear that. If they’re going to be targets of assassins, the least fate can do is give them a fighting chance,” Samuel said with a nod of approval.
“True,” Brody agreed with the vampire. He turned his attention back to the human. “So is the threat neutralized?”
“For the moment,” he said. The man rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Ronan will fill you in on the details. It seems the assassin was working alone, but it’s only a matter of time before someone notices she’s missing. If they start poking around into what she was doing, it’ll lead them straight to the same conclusions. This time I doubt they’ll only send one.”
“What’s your plan, Ronan?” Brody knew the man well. Ronan always had a plan or two or six.
“We’re setting up new identities for all of the identified targets,” Ronan said, sounding his usual controlled self.
“We haven’t been able to locate them all, but when we do we need to turn their lives upside down and inside out in an effort to keep them alive.” The human took a deep breath in an obvious attempt to be more optimistic. “But we think we can offer them at least some sort of normal life.”
Ronan smiled and leaned against the table behind him. “A few years ago I purchased a town called Sugarvale. It’s fairly isolated, and at the moment is little more than a ghost town, but I think it’ll work well as secure home for these women. Alex and I have already set up a home for our wife.” Ronan grinned at the obvious surprise on the faces of the men in the room, but he didn’t explain his sudden change in marital status. “We plan to do the same for anyone else we can locate. If they’re all showing extrasensory skills, then it’s doubly important to get them to a safe location.”
The human nodded in agreement, but it was Brody’s werewolf squadmate, Thomas, who asked the next question. “So are the human women all the Oracle’s receptacle?”
“We still don’t know anything for sure. We have no way of knowing exactly what the Oracle did, or why she planned to do it, but we do know it was why she was killed. If she somehow passed her information on to humans, there had to be a reason for it.”
They spent the next couple of hours discussing the case, pooling their information in the hopes that it might lead them to the missing women. As the meeting broke up, Ronan called Brody over.
“How’s Ava doing?”
“Considering what she’s been through, she’s coping pretty well. Spends a lot of time reading.”
Ronan nodded. “Does she understand what’s going on?”
“We haven’t explained anything to her.” He hesitated, wondering if the next words to come out of his mouth would make him sound like a fool. “The thing is…sometimes I get the feeling she knows more than she lets on.”
Ronan’s grin was unexpected. “Kali has the same skill. She describes it as ‘knowing’ stuff she shouldn’t know. She can’t explain where the information comes from, only that she knows it’s true.”
“So Ava…”
“Is very likely to understand more about the paranormal world than we do.”
Brody raised an eyebrow—he was a paranormal after all—but Ronan just gave him a look that suggested he had a lot to learn. Hell, maybe he did when it came to human women with extrasensory skills.
“I’ve got a couple of trusted friends helping rebuild the town of Sugarvale. There’s a house ready to go if you don’t mind living without a kitchen for a day or two.”
Brody smiled. “As long as we have somewhere to plug in the coffee machine, we should be okay.”
Chapter Two
They’d moved to a new safe house three weeks ago. This one was also in the middle of nowhere, but at least she had neighbors. She’d only met Kali, Ronan, and Alex a few times, but it had been very obvious that the men weren’t just protecting Kali. They were very much in love with her.
Of course that had led Ava’s rather fertile imagination into forbidden territory, which had resulted in her downloading even more erotic romance stories in an effort to distract herself. She realized that to an outsider that action might seem self-defeating under the circumstances, but she somehow hoped that by reading about perfect men in a perfect fictional world that it would somehow highlight the failings of the men protecting her. So far it hadn’t worked—Nathan and Brody still seemed flawless—yet she’d blown her entire monthly book budget on erotic romance stories. It was either read the books or talk to the two men currently starring in her nightly dreams and her daytime imaginings. She’d already spent far too much time enjoying their company. At this stage, reading seemed less dangerous for her heart.
Ava tried to control her breathing as she read through a rather passionate encounter between the lead characters in the story she was currently devouring. Again she questioned her choice of reading material, but after everything that had happened in the past few weeks, she felt the need for happy endings.
Even though both men seemed to be trying to protect her from it, she knew that she faced more than a crazed serial killer. The child who’d attacked her in her own home had apparently appeared out of nowhere. Ava hadn’t seen nor heard a door or window open and had later found them still locked. If that hadn’t been ample proof, the officer’s startled exclamation when the child had seemed to disappear by walking through an invisible doorway had been enough to convince her.
She’d actually worried for Nathan and Brody’s safety until she’d seen Brody light the burner on the stove with a flame from his mouth. He hadn’t realized she was in the room at the time, and she’d been careful not to give away what she saw, but it gave her a modicum of peace that it seemed the two men watching over her were equipped in ways ordinary police officers were not.
Ava squirmed again as she got to the part in her book where the hero was thrusting hard and deep inside the heroine’s body, his mind filled with the need to claim his beautiful mate. He bit her, burying his canines in her shoulder as they both exploded into orgasm.
Of course, the erotic paranormal tale did have her wondering if she’d somehow fallen into a wild fantasy of her own. She hadn’t thrown out the idea that she was completely delusional and lying in a hospital in a catatonic state. It was probably the most obvious explanation.
She heard Brody breathe deeply and wondered if it was her overactive imagination or if the man could really smell her arousal. Figuring that if she was delusional, the question wouldn’t matter, and if she wasn’t delusional, she’d finally know the answer, Ava set the e-reader aside and looked directly at the man protecting her.
“Is your sense of smell better than a human’s?”
He smiled, laughed softly, and then confused the hell out of her by answering, “Yes.”
She sat there stunned for a few moments wondering what to say next. It didn’t quite seem possible that he would try to hide his identity for the last month or so and then suddenly admit it so easily. Her theory that she was strapped down in a psych ward was starting to look very likely to be the truth.
“Um…” She peeked at him through her lashes, not trying to be coy, but wondering if it was wise to ask the man—or whatever he was—such direct questions. “So…um…what…who are you?”
He smiled, came to sit on the sofa beside her, and touched her face reverently. “I’m Brody Carmichael—still the same guy who’s been protecting you these last few weeks.” She raised one eyebrow, waiting for more. He laughed again and added, “And well, I’m a dragon-shifter.”
“A dragon? As in a big freaking lizard with wings?” She bit her lips closed as soon as the startled question left her mouth. Hell, what must the man be thinking? He’d been nothing but kind, and she thanked him by suddenly being frightened of him. That didn’t seem very fair. Of course the fact that the whole conversation seemed surreal might explain, but certainly didn’t excuse, her rude behavior.
“Probably more like a small dinosaur than a big lizard,” he said with a kind smile. “It’s true. We have a bad reputation, but I assure you we’re not as bad as human culture suggests. It’s quite possible we’re not even the species humans refer to as dragons in their literature.”
“Oh,” Ava said, trying not to show how embarrassed she felt for her reaction. “I…um…”
Brody smiled and, figuratively speaking, let her off the hook. “It’s okay, Ava. I’ve spent a lot of time around humans these past few years. It’s a reaction I’ve come to expect.”
“Well I still apologize. We’ve been living together for nearly a month. You’ve been nothing but polite and friendly, and you certainly didn’t deserve such a knee-jerk response.”
He smiled that charming, genuine smile that made the hero in her current read seem rather dull by comparison. “Now that we have the awkwardness out of the way, is there anything you’d like to ask me?”
“Does it hurt when you light the burner with flames from your mouth?”
He laughed, the sound hearty and very appealing. “You saw that, huh? Bet you thought you were seeing things.”
She shrugged slightly. “After seeing that kid disappear into thin air, being able to breathe fire just seemed kind of normal.” She couldn’t quite explain it. It was as if she knew these things existed but had forgotten them somehow. It didn’t make any sense in her head, yet she couldn’t rationalize it away.
But then she remembered the answer to her first question. Heated embarrassment flooded her face, and she felt an intense need to apologize for her physical reaction to the e-books she’d been reading. Good grief, was this what it felt like for a man when he was caught with a raging hard-on?
“Ah, I see the information about my sense of smell finally sank in.” He leaned over, cupped her face in his incredibly warm hand, and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “No need to be embarrassed, sweetheart. Just tell me you’re not reading seventeenth-century poetry.”
She laughed, her embarrassment fleeing in the light of his humor. “No, rather more modern stories I’m afraid. The type I wouldn’t want my students to know I read.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling as if he knew the exact type of story she referred to. “Got any ménages in that reader-thingy?”
She almost swallowed her tongue at his bold question, and couldn’t help imagining herself between Brody and Nathan. Ava attempted to rationalize away the unexpected attraction to both of her protectors, but try as she may she couldn’t come up with replacements. Even knowing that Brody was a dragon-shifter hadn’t seemed to have lessened her attraction to the man.
He groaned and lifted her onto his lap. She snuggled into his embrace and tried not to moan out loud at the delicious feeling of his hard cock pressed against her bottom. Good grief. She’d been celibate since her last disastrous relationship had ended nearly two years ago, but it seemed her libido was roaring back to life thanks to a combination of proximity, boredom, and fear. She wasn’t silly enough to mistake it as love. Infatuation, most likely, but not love. Maybe she was also feeling the need to reaffirm life. She was being hunted by a serial killer after all.
But none of her rationalizing prepared her for Brody’s passionate kiss. He threaded his fingers into her hair, tilting her head to the angle he wanted, and then thrust his tongue into her mouth, exploring and caressing the dark recess as his other hand roamed over her spine and lower.
She was practically vibrating with need by the time he pulled away. He laughed softly, the sound not his usual hearty laugh, but this time almost mocking, almost insulting. She wanted to bristle with annoyance, but he pulled her head against his chest and wrapped her tightly in his embrace.
“The things you do to me, sweet Ava. I shouldn’t have done that, but I’m sitting here trying to talk myself out of doing it again.”
“Why shouldn‘t you do it again?” Ava blushed at her straightforward question. She’d swear that she used to own a modicum of tact, but it seemed to have fled. “I mean…I liked it, so I wouldn’t, you know, mind if you…um…did it again.” She wanted to roll her eyes at her poorly delivered words. For heaven’s sake, she was supposed to be an English teacher. If that was the best she could do, maybe she should reconsider her chosen vocation. She took a deep breath, shored up her wavering courage, and decided to be more direct. “Please kiss me again.”
He looked for a moment like he was going to refuse, but then he smiled and said, “How could I refuse such a lovely request from such a beautiful lady?”
Before she could answer—or chicken out—he lowered his head to hers once more. But this time, he kissed her slowly, nibbling at her lips until she whimpered softly and pressed herself closer. He groaned as his arms tightened around her.
“See, I miss all the fun.”
Ava almost leapt off Brody’s lap at Nathan’s voice, but Brody held her tight, refusing to let her leave. Nathan sauntered into the room, sat at the other end of the sofa, and reached for one of her hands. “There’s something we probably should have told you days ago, but we weren’t quite sure if you were ready to hear it.”
Ava sat quietly, trying to hold on to her composure, as she waited for Nathan to explain.
“We’ve managed to…ah…apprehend the person who was trying to kill you, but it would seem that she’s not the only one liable to come after you.”
“Me? Seriously?” Ava shook her head in confusion. “I’m a plain-old-ordinary-everyday-dime-a-dozen kind of woman. One disturbed mind wanting me dead because I was born on a certain day is understandable in a twisted kind of way, but to say there’s more than one killer after me…What did I do? Piss off some sort of cult?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Nathan said slowly. He glanced over her shoulder at Brody, and it seemed he was looking for help to explain to the poor little human what the hell was going on. Annoyingly, her eyes filled with tears, and she closed them against the urge to cry. Despite her little speech, she knew she was no longer an ordinary human. It didn’t make much sense, but somehow, someway, something had changed the day that kid had appeared in her kitchen.
“I can’t go back home, can I?”
“We don’t think it would be safe. It’s inevitable that someone will eventually look into what the ah…assassin was doing and pick up where she left off.”
“What was she?” Ava asked, tired of living with half truths. If she were honest with herself, she’d admit to hiding in her e-reader while trying to ignore the world as it fell apart around her.
“A pixie,” Brody answered, his hand running soothingly up and down her arm.
Nathan looked like he was going to swallow his tongue, and for a moment Ava could see the humor in the situation.
“Are you a dra
gon-shifter, too?” she asked with a half smile.
“Nope, plain old ordinary human.”
“Who just happens to be one of the best bodyguards available—human or otherwise,” Brody added.
Ava wasn’t sure how to react to that. There was no doubting they were good at their jobs. She hadn’t really felt frightened at all once they’d arrived at her home and moved her to a safe house. The policeman who’d been with her that day and his partner had stayed until Brody and Nathan had arrived, but it wasn’t until they’d taken over her protection that she’d actually felt safe.
“So…what happens now?” she asked worriedly. If there was a never-ending line of assassins waiting for their chance to kill her, how would she ever be safe? They couldn’t protect her for the rest of her life. Surely they had their own lives to get back to.
Brody glanced worriedly at her and grimaced as he said the words. “Ava Seeton is going to die in a horrific car accident tonight. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“You’re going to keep me safe by killing me?”
“Of course,” Nathan said with a grin that told her she was seriously missing the point here.
Maybe it was the stress of the past week, but it took another three seconds for it to finally sink in what they meant. “You’re going to fake my death?”
“Shit,” Brody said as he wrapped his arms more tightly around her and rocked slightly. “Sorry, sweetheart. We explained that badly.” He glanced at Nathan’s worried expression. “She’s shaking like a leaf. She thought we meant to kill her for real.”
“No I didn’t,” she denied quickly. She hadn’t, not really. She just hadn’t understood exactly what they’d meant straight away. “I just…um…it’s been a long couple of weeks.” They both gave her a look that said they didn’t quite believe her lame excuse, but Nathan leaned in and kissed her cheek as Brody ran his hand slowly up and down her arm.