by Abby Blake
“So would that work for our child, too?” she asked hopefully. Nathan glanced at Brody and realized that neither of them wanted to explain the circumstances that made her situation unique. Unfortunately there wasn’t really any way to avoid the question. Sooner or later it was going to come up.
“Maybe with your new identity,” Nathan said, hoping that the background they’d created for her was solid. “But we have to be very careful. The Ruling Body has no interest in humans—other than keeping the secrets of the paranormal communities out of human hands. It’s against our laws to kill humans, but it’s more to keep the existence of paranormals out of human knowledge, rather than any real concern for your species.”
“But am I still human? I mean, I have the whole ‘knowing’ thing going on, and the telekinesis. Wouldn’t that make me some sort of paranormal?”
Nathan shook his head. Ronan and Alex had already explored the possibilities with Kali. Whatever was going on with their women, they were both still definitely human.
Ava bit her lip for a moment, apparently trying to keep control of her emotions, before a look of determination crossed her features and she sat up decisively. “Whatever comes, we will be ready for it,” she said in her usual quiet voice. But the thread of steel was unmistakable. “If your mother wants to be difficult, then she will learn just how dangerous humans can be.”
Nathan grinned, relieved to see Ava wouldn’t be cowed by threats against her. Brody still looked worried, but Nathan knew he wouldn’t let them down.
“What about your mother?” Ava asked Nathan matter-of-factly. “Is she going to cause any problems?”
Truth be told she’d be confused by his triad relationship, but she’d support him no matter what. “She’ll be thrilled to have a daughter-in-law and a grandchild. My family won’t cause us any trouble.”
Brody nodded in agreement. He’d spent enough time around Nathan’s family to know it was true.
“So now what?” Ava asked, glancing out the window at the gathering crowd of people.
“Unfortunately, now we get to wait.”
* * * *
Brody ground his teeth in frustration. They’d been on high alert for three days now. Ronan and Benjamin had thrown the full support of both Deeks Security and PUP Squad Alpha behind them, but there was obviously a limit to how long they could help. Ronan’s company was already losing money tracking down the human women under threat because of the Oracle’s actions twenty-seven years ago. Sooner or later he’d have to send his team back to security work so he could pay their wages.
Benjamin was actually working under the guidelines of their current mission, sort of. In the official reports both Kali and Ava were listed as dead, and since they’d all agreed to keep the women’s unusual skills a secret, it was only a matter of time before someone started asking questions. It didn’t help that Brody’s family had managed to avoid justice for their attempt on Becca’s life. Like-minded dragon-shifters had closed ranks around them, and it had come down to Nathan, Brody, and Becca’s testimonies against practically the entire dragon-shifter community.
It wasn’t that the Ruling Body didn’t believe Brody, but rather that the paranormal legal system was set up to protect the innocent. Just like in human justice, some criminals managed to slip through the cracks. It had actually been the first and only time that Brody had considered stepping outside the rules he’d sworn to uphold. Yet it had been the realization that by taking the law into his own hands he’d be no better than the arrogant bigots who’d raised him that had cooled his temper and stopped his reaction.
If he’d known that Ava would bring love, hope, and a sense of completion to his life not long after, he might have followed through on his original plan to make certain his niece was safe. Instead, he’d done the right thing, and now he got to wait and worry for the safety of the woman he loved and the child he’d never thought possible.
It was almost with relief that he felt a jump vortex open less than twenty feet away. Whatever was going to happen, whatever the outcome, at least he got to face the issue head-on.
But of course, just like everything else in the past few weeks, nothing went as he expected.
His sister stepped through the vortex, her hands held up in supplication, her demeanor worried, frightened. “Brody,” she said quietly, lowering her eyes as she greeted him. It wasn’t right. His sister had always been as arrogant and abusive as his mother. In a society where the males outnumbered the females four to one, his sister had taken full advantage of her ability to manipulate every man around her.
“What do you want, Tatyana?”
Irritation flared in her eyes, but she tamped it down quickly.
“I came to warn you.” Her eyes darted around, perhaps for the first time noticing that she was surrounded by many, many dangerous people. Even if she shifted to her full-grown dragon shape, Tatyana stood very little chance against the arsenal currently surrounding her. “Mother knows about your offspring. She’s gathering an army as we speak.”
“Then it looks like we’re going to war,” Brody managed to say while grinding his back teeth. He grinned at the sounds of approval he heard from the people around him. He knew all of them would lay down their lives to protect his child. He just hoped it wasn’t necessary.
“Be reasonable,” Tatyana said as her demeanor changed. “A lot of people are going to be killed. Just hand over the little whore and nobody else has to die.”
“Can you not see how wrong you are, Tatyana?” Brody asked as sorrow welled in his heart. It hurt that his family could be so narrow-minded. “A child should be celebrated. A new life is a miracle. Surely even you can see that the dragon-shifters’ bigotry is the reason our species is dying out.”
“We are not dying out!” she said angrily. “We are maintaining the integrity of our species.”
It was obvious that she had no intention of changing her opinion, but it wasn’t until he saw her surreptitious glance to the sky that he realized her true purpose.
“She’s the distraction,” he called over his shoulder. “The attack is coming from above.”
Fortunately it seemed that the experienced soldiers and operatives around him had figured that out much faster than he had. Even before Tatyana could open a vortex to escape, Alex used slip travel to come up behind her, and then drag her to parts unknown. Hopefully into the middle of the fire demon headquarters where Brody’s entire family—with the exception of Brody himself—were wanted for attempted murder. If Tatyana was lucky, she’d be handed over to the Ruling Body for judgment and punishment. If she wasn’t, then it was quite possible she faced an angry mob of Becca’s family. He should probably feel something for his sister, but considering that she wanted to kill innocent children for no other reason than they weren’t of pure dragon blood, it was hard to feel anything other than rage.
The angry roar of his father’s dragon voice filled the air, and he glanced up to see him flying toward them. Brody didn’t give his dad a chance to attack first, just called forth his dragon and leapt into the air.
* * * *
Ava watched from the bedroom window as her lover changed into a dragon. He’d always refused to show this side of him, perhaps ashamed at what his form represented. But he was beautiful. A deep charcoal grey, his dark scales glinting in the sun as his powerful wings lifted him high into the air. His tail was long, longer than she’d ever expected, the end almost whiplike in its movement.
“His dragon form is rather impressive,” Nathan said with a smile in his voice. “The few times I’ve seen it have always been in the midst of battle. This is probably the first time I’ve gotten a good look.”
“Will he be okay?”
“Of course,” Nathan said in a voice that rang with absolute conviction.
She lost sight of Brody as he flew higher into the sky, unable to see from her angle at the window. Nathan held her, seeming to understand her need to watch, but protecting her while she did it. As soon as Brody moved
out of sight, Nathan pulled her back into the middle of the room.
“Can they see him?” she whispered. Nathan wore an earpiece and lip mic so he was in constant communication with everyone in the teams—except, of course, for those operatives who changed forms the way Brody had just done.
“Brody has been part of PUP Squad Alpha for over fifty years. He’s a seasoned fighter. Even with six dragons attacking him he has the advantage.”
“Six?” she whispered with her heart lodged firmly in her throat.
“Only two now,” Nathan said with a confident wink. “Damn,” he growled and then touched something near his ear to activate his lip mic. “Roger that. We’re on our way out.”
She wanted to ask, but had a feeling anything she said at this moment would come out as hysterical.
“We need to move, baby,” he said even as he maneuvered her toward the front door. “They’ve set the back of the house on fire.”
She heard frantic barking a moment before the front door burst inward and a large brown wolf tumbled inside. Flame exploded onto the front veranda as the wretched stench of burned hair filled the room. The wolf changed into a human as he pushed them back from the flames.
“Thanks, Thomas,” Nathan said as he cradled Ava closer, shielding her with his body. “You okay?”
“Never better,” Thomas said with a cocky grin. “Just scorched a bit of fur.” He looked Ava up and down and winked. “I take it this beautiful woman is Ava?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Time to get you out of here, sweet thing.” Ava felt her fear ease just a little. If the man could flirt in the middle of this, surely he expected them all to get out alive.
He led them upstairs, grinning widely as he opened the bedroom window, and climbed onto the roof. He disappeared a moment before he came back to them. “Come on, sweetness, your ride is here.”
Nathan helped her climb out the window, steadying her when she wobbled. She’d never been good with heights. Hell, she even hated stepladders, but judging by the familiar-looking dragon perched on the rooftop, she was about to get one hell of a lesson in flying.
“Hold on tight,” Nathan yelled as he lifted her onto Brody’s back and climbed on behind her. She curled her arms around Brody’s neck and held on for dear life as he lifted into the air. Pressing a kiss to the scale beneath her face, she then rested her cheek against the surprisingly hard surface. She wasn’t sure if he could feel her touch, but she was very glad to be pressed between her men once more—even if it was several hundred feet in the air.
Nathan held her securely, his arms and legs bracketing her in such a way that even if she wasn’t holding on she wouldn’t fall. But curiosity won over fear and she opened her eyes to see what was happening below. The safe house was well and truly alight. A few minutes more, and she and Nathan may not have made it out alive. Without Thomas’s timely interference they may even have been on the front porch when it had exploded into flames. She shuddered at the memory of just how close she’d come to dying.
“Take us down,” Nathan yelled to Brody as they circled once more over the area where the fighting had been. “Benjamin has six dragons in custody,” he told Ava in a quieter voice. “Trying to kill a PUP squad member carries a rather hefty punishment. Hopefully that will be the end of it—at least for the next thirty or forty years.”
Brody slowly circled to the ground and landed a safe distance from the burning safe house. Thomas sauntered over to them casually, acting somehow as if they were having a grand adventure rather than a fight for their lives, and handed her a pair of Brody’s jeans. The dragon behind her huffed a sound that she figured was a thank-you, and then changed back into one of the men she loved. She handed Brody his jeans, and he somehow managed to drag them on and pull her into his embrace at the same time.
“Are you all right, sweetheart? Is the baby okay?” he asked as he hugged her almost too tightly.
“I’m fine,” she said as she tried not to shake with reaction. It wasn’t really working, but she tried anyway. She took a steadying breath and concentrated on the life growing inside her. The emotions she felt were of only warmth and security. She smiled. “I’m pretty sure the baby is fine, too.”
“Thank the goddess.” Brody held her close as Nathan and the rest of the teams cleaned up the area, brought the fire under control, and dragged the unconscious dragons now in human form through something that looked like invisible doorways. “Slip travel,” Brody said when he noticed the direction of her gaze. “Kind of like a vortex jump, but apparently more nauseating for humans.”
“More nauseating?” She couldn’t imagine feeling worse than she did after a “jump” with Brody and fervently hoped she could avoid both forms of travel whenever possible. Although, considering how little the last one had affected her, maybe they wouldn’t be so bad while she was pregnant.
But as two of the soldiers lifted an unconscious, handcuffed woman onto a stretcher, the woman woke up and started shouting abuse. Brody sighed, kissed Ava’s forehead, and signaled for Nathan to take over. Once she was safely ensconced in Nathan’s embrace, Brody headed over to the injured woman.
Ava wasn’t all that surprised to hear him address the woman as “mother.”
“The handcuffs work in a similar way to the protection wards in the house,” Nathan whispered when he felt her tense up. “Brody’s mother can’t change into her dragon form. Too bad it doesn’t muzzle the hate-filled words as well.”
A stream of curses, threats, and angry ranting filled the air as Brody’s mother threatened every vile, horrible kind of death to him, his whore, and his offspring. Brody calmly spoke to the woman who’d given birth to him and then nodded to a man holding what looked like a video camera, spoke a few words to his commanding officer, and then turned away from his mother.
“Will it be enough?” Nathan asked as Brody reached them.
He nodded. “Benjamin is going to push it through the Ruling Body as a matter of urgency. Thank the goddess we thought to add a paranormal ancestor to Ava’s new identity.”
“Paranormal ancestor?” Ava asked, feeling even more confused now than ever.
Brody seemed to realize then that she had no idea what they were talking about. “Sorry, sweetheart. The Ruling Body has a way of blocking my mother’s ability to sense her progeny. She won’t know where I am, and she won’t be able to locate any of her children or grandchildren.”
Nathan filled in the rest. “The paranormal ancestor—your new identity is part fire demon by the way—is a way of explaining how you could be pregnant to Brody without telling them about your unusual skills. A human becoming pregnant to a dragon-shifter is not something we can explain without putting you and the baby in danger again.”
She wanted to ask more, but Alex called to Brody as he approached them. “We’ve found a young female dragon at the edge of the clearing. She’s doesn’t even seem old enough to shift, so she wasn’t involved in the fighting, but she’s broken and bleeding. We think they brought her to watch, but she fell out of the tree when she tried to climb down.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “She says she’s your niece, Keira.”
“Shit, Keira is only fourteen years old. Even in human terms she’s just a child.”
“That’s what we thought,” Alex said as he led them over to where a young woman was lying on the ground as someone with a first-aid kit checked her over. Brody moved Ava into Nathan’s arms, gave him a look that she interpreted as “keep her here,” and knelt beside the young woman. He spoke quietly to both the young girl and the medic attending her before returning to Ava and Nathan.
“She’s too young to shift, so she won’t be able to heal that way. Jason used his magic to assess her injuries and says most aren’t serious—broken leg, broken wrist, and lots of bruising, but no internal injuries. He wants to take her to the nearest hospital for paranormals so they can monitor her recovery.”
Nathan must have felt her curiosity because he added, “They’re in a different dimension. Th
e only way in is by jump, slip, or bounce travel.”
“Bounce?” She’d heard them use the term before but had never realized it was actually a form of travel.
“Favored by warlocks, less nauseating for humans, but the landing can be very painful,” Nathan quickly explained.
Brody smiled, and leaned over to press a kiss to her mouth. “Jump vortex is most comfortable for dragons. I’ll be back in a few moments.”
Chapter Seven
Nathan stood back and admired his handiwork. It wasn’t perfect, but the old veranda on the home Ronan had assigned them in Sugarvale had rotted with age so Nathan had taken the opportunity to build a far larger deck. He’d finished it much faster than he’d originally planned, but he still hadn’t been able to shake the adrenaline reaction to the attack two nights ago.
Angus had been able to quickly bring the fires under control—ice demons were quite handy that way—and they’d managed to salvage most of the safe house and its contents. Almost all of the damage had been to the front and back verandas—in other words, both exits. Brody’s family had obviously been very determined to kill Ava, despite knowing she was well protected. Unfortunately, their reckless, poorly planned, and badly executed attack raised more questions in his mind than he could answer. Hell, a fourth grader would have known that the risk outweighed the reward, so why had the dragons attacked at all? Were they so fanatical that they’d risked almost certain capture just to kill a human and her half-dragon child?