by Eva Chase
Okay, that line of thinking wasn’t going to help her either. Someone was out to sabotage our journey here—to kill us if they could. They’d literally torn the ground out from under us. I had to stay focused on the present, on defending Ren from our enemies. How could I be worthy of our mate-bond if I didn’t?
If I’d waited all this time only to lose her now... I couldn’t stand that thought. It made me feel sicker than the poison had.
Marco shot one last glance down the chasm and sauntered over. “I say we send bear boy ahead from here on,” he said in his annoyingly jaunty tone. “If the floor holds under all that bulk, the rest of us won’t need to worry.”
West snorted. I glowered at Marco. “I’m happy to take the lead if you’re a scaredy cat.”
“Ooh,” he said, grinning. “The bear got in a burn. Not bad, Nate.”
Ren rolled her eyes. “Come on, guys. I’ll take the lead if the rest of you are going to stand around debating it.”
She moved to set off, and I strode ahead of her. For the first few steps, I wasn’t aware of much except the need to assert my intentions and Marco’s mocking chuckle. Then a faint scent reached my nose that didn’t fit the cold rock around us.
I stopped, holding out my arm. “Stay back. Something’s not right.”
West came up beside me as I inhaled again. His wolf’s nose was the strongest out of all of us, but I could hold my own in that area when I concentrated. A faintly musky smell lingered in the air—something living. Something animal.
And we hadn’t seen a single animal since we’d descended into this cave, other than our glimpse of that weasel the fae had taken care of.
“You’re right,” West said with a frown. He stalked a little farther ahead, scanning the cave around us. I wasn’t going to be left behind. I followed him, testing the air myself. If anything, the scent got fainter. I turned and paced back the way we’d come. Ren watched me, her brow knit with concern. My stomach twisted tighter, seeing her worry.
“It’s strange,” I said. “It’s strongest right around here. Whatever animal left that smell, it must have stopped here for a while. But then where did it go? We didn’t pass anything on our way here.”
“There’s nothing I can pick up farther this way,” West said from the spot where I’d left him. “It’s so faint I can’t get a clear read on it. Maybe it’s old.”
He sounded doubtful, probably because it didn’t smell stale to him any more than it did to me. The faintness was more as if it’d been washed over somehow to try to remove the scent, with just a few lingering traces remaining. And that would mean someone had tried to cover their scent trail on purpose, so we wouldn’t catch on. My shoulders tensed. You couldn’t get much more suspicious than that.
“Can you tell what kind of animal it was?” Aaron asked.
I shook my head. It didn’t really matter. If even a little weasel could pose a threat, we couldn’t trust anything.
“We should walk close together,” I said, motioning the other alphas over. “All of us around Ren, so there’s no way anyone can get at her without going through us. If the rogues are planning another ambush, we have to be ready.”
“I don’t need a human shield,” Ren protested. “Why don’t we just—”
With a snarl, a blur of fur shot through the air toward her from the wall above. A bellow of warning broke from my throat. I leapt in front of my mate, pushing her backward and bracing myself to shift to meet the threat.
Ren
The force of Nate’s shove sent me stumbling back toward the wall. I gritted my teeth, feeling my dragon wake up with a scrabble of claws in my chest. No one got to push me around, not even my mates.
What the hell was even happening? The flashlight had fallen after the snarl I’d heard. Its light rotated around the cave as it spun. It caught on Nate, already shifted into his grizzly bear form. He was trying to pin down a spotted wildcat that had come out of nowhere. It kept squirming out from under his paws. Aaron’s eagle dove down to add his talons to the mix.
Across from them, West’s wolf and Marco’s jaguar were facing off with a big, black weasel-like creature my mind vaguely registered as a wolverine. It hissed and snapped at them with razor-sharp fangs.
Nate gave the wildcat a smack as it clawed at him. The impact sent it careening over the edge of the chasm. The last I heard was a feline shriek as it plummeted into the depths.
A harsh pant of breath behind me made me spin around. Not a second too soon. A coyote lunged at me, teeth snapping at my throat. I barely managed to dodge out of the way before it took a chunk out of me.
The coyote’s lashing paws scraped across my arm, drawing blood through the sleeve of my jacket. It landed and whipped around with a gnash of its teeth. The flare of anger inside me grew hotter, and not just for myself. Back in the shifter village, two coyotes had savaged Kylie while their wolfish leader had attacked me. I had no doubt at all that this asshole was one of them.
I clasped hold of that fiery fury and wrenched it free. My body burst from its clothes, expanding into dragon form.
The coyote flinched back with a startled whine as I loomed over it. Fire bubbled up my throat. I opened my mouth to fry the attempted murderer back to kingdom come—
—and Nate charged between me and the coyote. The grizzly was only half as tall as my dragon’s body, but he managed to block my aim completely.
I swung my sinewy neck, determined to take a snap at my attacker. Nate growled from deep in his chest and tackled the coyote first. They rolled, biting and swiping. I clenched my jaw, knowing I couldn’t bring out the flames without roasting my bear alpha too.
Damn it. Why couldn’t he let me handle one thing by myself?
I swung around to check on the other guys, my scaled shoulders brushing the cave wall. There wasn’t much room for me to maneuver in here.
The wolverine was just making a dash between West and Marco. Marco cut it off at the last second, battering its eyes with both paws and heaving it onto its side. West leapt over with a snap of his teeth.
Aaron dove down, placing a threatening set of talons over the wolverine’s neck. He meant to trap it in the hopes it would shift back into human state so they could question it, I had to guess. But the wolverine wasn’t willing to face that consequence.
With a grunt, it wrenched its head up, stabbing the eagle’s claws through its neck. Blood gushed out. Its furred body slumped. Aaron gave a cry and flapped away.
Nate pounded the coyote’s head against the ground with one thick paw. The nimbler animal shuddered and scrambled away. I lunged toward it, smoke curling through my mouth.
My dragon’s gaze locked with the coyote’s. A totally human panic flashed through its eyes. I hesitated, wondering if there was some way I could restrain it without killing it. Before I could think of one, the coyote hurled itself over the edge of the chasm. It plummeted out of sight after its ally.
I stared at the gap, hot breath rasping in my throat. My hold over my dragon form trembled. I let myself collapse back into my human body.
The frigid air closed in around me again with a prickling ache. I scrambled for my jacket, the only thing I’d managed to cast off before I’d gotten far into the shift. The rest of the clothes I’d been wearing were shredded. I tugged the jacket around me, wincing as it brushed over the scratches on my arm. My shifter body would heal them quickly, but not that fast.
The guys were all shifting back too. My eyes caught on a blotch like a scar on West’s leanly muscled chest that glowed with a faint reddish light. Then my gaze dropped to the limp body of a middle-aged man with a wiry beard that lay where the wolverine had died. Blood pooled around his head and shoulders.
Marco nudged the corpse’s leg with his foot and grimaced. “So much for getting some answers out of these assholes.”
My mind leapt back to the coyote flinging itself to its death. My stomach clenched. “They decided it was better to die than be caught. The rogues are pretty dedicated to thei
r cause, aren’t they?” Their cause, which was seeing me and any other dragon shifters that might be left dead.
Another thought struck me with a deeper horror. “They must have something to protect, then, right? There must be other rogues out there with other plans. Why else would it matter if we questioned them?”
“They could have been too ashamed of what they’ve gotten themselves involved with to want to face the consequences,” Aaron said. “But you’re probably right. We can’t assume the rogue threat is finished.” He glanced around. “I hope that’s the last we see of them on this mountain, though.”
“There weren’t very many that survived the ambush,” West said, already pulling his shirt over the strange scar I’d noticed. “What I want to know is where they came from. It looked like they practically fell from the ceiling.”
I stepped closer to the wall, peering up at it. Aaron picked up the fallen flashlight and pointed it where I was staring. A slice of deeper shadow cut into the rock just below the ceiling.
“There’s a ledge up there,” I said. “They got up there somehow. Trying to stage another last ditch ambush.” I guessed we were just lucky I’d melted all the guns this group had during their first attack.
“Somehow,” West repeated. “Yeah, I wonder about that. Maybe the same ‘somehow’ that created the trap in the floor?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Nate said firmly. “What matters is getting to the power Ren’s mother pointed us to, and then getting Ren out of here before anyone else comes after us.”
He strode over to me, his head high as if he saw himself as some kind of knight in shining armor. The anger I’d felt earlier flickered back up.
“Getting us all out,” I said. “I don’t need special treatment. And I really don’t need to be treated like a weakling.”
Nate blinked “What are you talking about?”
I waved my hand toward the chasm. “You were so busy trying to ‘protect’ me a few minutes ago that you got in my way when I was about to blast that coyote to bits.”
His expression tensed. “It’s our job as your mates to—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. There was no room for argument here. Either he accepted my point or he didn’t. “From what I’ve heard, it’s your job to stand beside me. Not in front of me, like I’m some wimp who needs to be sheltered. I can shift now. I can shift into a freaking dragon.” I pointed to the bite mark on his arm. “If you hadn’t run in there, you wouldn’t have had to get hurt. I could have handled it better than you did.”
The stiffness left Nate’s face, leaving only a stunned blankness. “Ren,” he said, his voice quieting. “I didn’t mean— Of course I know how strong you are.”
My anger eased off. I knew he hadn’t meant to offend me. “Okay,” I said. “Then treat me like you know it. I’m not a china doll. Go ahead and look out for me—but let me look out for you too. That’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?”
He inclined his head, a faint flush of shame coloring his cheeks. Marco cleared his throat. “If we’re done with the dressing down, deserved as it might be, can we get moving? I’m liking this vacation less and less with every new development.”
“No kidding.” I turned toward the passage ahead. A glimmer caught my eye, there and then gone. My heart leapt. “I think it’s almost over.”
Chapter 10
Ren
As much as I wanted to run through the cave toward the beckoning glimmer, I held my legs in check this time. I didn’t want to be caught unprepared by another booby trap. But the tug dragged at my chest and that hint of light called to me, propelling me onward as fast as I’d let myself walk.
The light brightened as we got closer, but it didn’t expand. I realized why soon enough. The passage ahead of us narrowed into a slit so thin Nate was going to have to walk sideways to squeeze through it. The light was emanating from beyond it.
As I stepped through the opening, the light flared so bright that my vision filled with white. It didn’t sting my eyes, though, only filled them with a faintly tingle.
I blinked the brilliance away. I’d come into a large, round room where the stone walls and floor were completely smooth. A pedestal stood in the center of the room. A clear crystal nearly the size of my head rested in its rocky hold. The light and a faint warmth glowed from within the crystal. The glimmer danced like a flame as I stared at it.
The tug inside me had fallen away. This was where it’d been leading me to. This was where I was meant to be.
I eased forward with a few careful steps. Shapes were carved into the pedestal’s base. I bent down to examine them, holding my breath in awe.
The etchings showed the forms of dragons and other figures that looked almost human. But not quite. They were a little too tall and a little too slim to look exactly right. Like the fae woman we’d met below in the caves—like the fae man I’d seen my mother talking to.
The dragons and the fae stood side by side, sometimes touching, sometimes facing one another. In one depiction, a fae figure sat astride on a dragon’s back. There was little detail to the faces, but all of the pictures gave me a friendly vibe.
I brushed my fingers over the fine grooves in the stone. “I think this must be something the dragon shifters and the fae created together,” I said. “And that must have been a very long time ago, if there’s no record of them spending time together.”
Aaron nodded, coming up behind me. I circled the pedestal to give him room, and my gaze fell on not just pictures but words carved into the other side.
Between fae and draco, a power we birth, to give the clearest sight. To be taken in a time when no other power can set the world right.
A shiver ran through me, reading the words. Above them, the images showed a figure lifting the crystal, then dropping it. In the last etching, a jagged flare exploded up from it over the figure.
That was what I had to do? Smash that crystal? I wasn’t even sure what this power was. And the thought of even touching the glowing crystal made me nervous.
It had been waiting here for centuries. Was it really meant for me?
Mom had thought so. She’d made it almost this far. From what she’d said in her vision, she must have intended to bring the crystal back for me to take its power. All those trips away from home, I had to assume she’d been checking up on the shifter community. Seeing how they were getting by without us. What she’d seen, the disarray the alphas had told me about, had driven her here. To this desperate measure.
Maybe in a time when all the supernatural communities were in conflict, when rogue shifters had succeeded in nearly eliminating dragon-kind, we did need to turn to something greater.
It didn’t matter what I was getting into. We’d come this far. I had to take this final step, or the whole journey had been for nothing.
West stalked around the room warily, but he didn’t make any comment. Marco ambled over beside me to read the words for himself. Nate stayed by the door as if standing guard—and maybe also keeping a little distance from me after my outburst. I didn’t regret anything I’d said, but I could feel his unhappiness from across the room. It pained me.
As soon as I got this over with, we could move on. And no one would be able to claim I wasn’t powerful enough to hold my own.
I felt all of my alpha’s eyes on me as I lifted the crystal from the pedestal. The faceted surface was glossy and hard as glass, but even warmer than the air around it. I gave in to the urge to hug it to my chest. The flickering heat licked over me, beckoning. Wanting to reach all the way into me.
My heart thumped. I raised the crystal to the level of my forehead. The light inside sparkled with a rainbow of colors. My chest tightened. I braced myself and dashed the crystal on the stone floor by my feet.
Light exploded up over me with an even sharper rush of heat. A searing energy rippled through my skin and into my bones. My pulse stuttered, and my mouth went dry. Hell, that was intense.
The energy flared right ov
er my eyes from the inside out. The room around me faded into a gleaming haze. Through that haze, a silhouetted figure emerged.
“Greetings, worthy one,” she said as the thrumming energy wrapped tighter and tighter around me. “The flame of truth is yours. Burn to destroy or burn away lies to get at what is real: The choice will be yours. Now go forward!”
She vanished into the light. The energy contracted into me with a jolt. Its burning ran all the way through my chest, prickling but not outright painful.
The haze in my eyes started to clear—but I couldn’t see the guys standing around me. Within the fading light, another vision appeared.
My mother strode into the room. My heart leapt, but then I noticed that she looked just as she had in my other vision of her from seven years ago. The same clothes, the same age. This was the past, not the present.
Her hair was rumpled and her cheeks smudged, but her eyes gleamed with determination. Her gaze settled on the crystal—the image of it that had reappeared as part of this vision.
“There,” she whispered, as if hesitant to disturb the peace of this space. She stepped toward the pedestal—toward the spot where I stood beyond it. I swallowed hard, clenching my hand against the impulse to reach out to her.
She couldn’t see me. This had all already happened. But she seemed so close.
Mom extended her hands toward the crystal. Her fingers were just about to close around it when something made her head jerk around. I hadn’t heard anything, but the vision didn’t seem to contain any sound at all. Just the rush of energy pulsing past my ears.
All at once, a crowd of other figures poured into the room as if straight out of the walls. At least a dozen slim, shimmering fae. One of them rushed between Mom and the pedestal. He shoved her backward with a spark of magic. His lips moved, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Mom said something back—something angry, from the flash in her eyes. One of the other fae shook his head. A fae woman stepped forward with a sweep of her arm toward the doorway.