by Amelia Jade
The toast was unexpected and she felt her throat tighten at the words. Welcome to the family. Victoria had never had a family before. She’d been allowed places before, but never before had she been accepted into one. Not the way the others had just opened themselves up to her.
It was such a small thing, and yet to her it meant more than she could likely ever tell them. But she had to know…
“Thanks guys,” she said, her voice a little unsteady. “But I mean, don’t you think it’s a little premature? You barely know me.”
Matthew looked at the others, but they all seemed to defer to him to speak, so he nodded and met her gaze once more. “Perhaps, but what we have seen meets our approval. And on top of that, Evan says you’re good people. We trust him and his judgment. Besides, he has a crush on you and if he annoys us, we can just say we’re going to tell you what he did, and he’ll stop!”
Victoria’s jaw dropped open at the last line, and she felt laughter well up inside of her, consuming her as her stomach shook. Tears formed in her eyes as the group all joined her, the humor helping to make them feel even more united. For Victoria, not all of the tears that ran down her face were from laughter. Some of them were emotional tears at the idea of being welcomed with open arms and trusting hearts.
She didn’t feel she deserved it. Hell, she knew she didn’t deserve it, not after some of the decisions she’d made in her life. But with this group, this crew, she vowed to try harder, to do better, and most of all, to not disappoint them. Each of them deserved that after the trust they were already willing to place in her. Matthew, Jared, Josh, William.
The door opened behind them.
And Evan.
Friendly greetings were exchanged all around as the Alpha walked in, but everyone could sense that the tension in the room had just rocketed to a new level. There were glances back and forth between her and Evan, as if they expected one or the other to erupt right away. It was no secret that there had been a bit of a blowout between them earlier, even if none of the others actually knew what it was all about.
“We need to talk,” he said solemnly.
For a minute Victoria couldn’t believe he was telling her that in front of everyone. Of course they needed to talk, but couldn’t they do it in private? Why did he have to announce it?
Then his tone hit her, and she realized that he had something he needed to say to all of them. As this realization hit the others, the mood in the room darkened as well. Whatever it was, he wasn’t overly happy about it, and it didn’t sound good.
“It’s not good news, is it?” Josh said, breaking the silence at last.
“Not in any normal ways,” Evan confirmed, pulling up a chair.
Jared handed him a beer.
“Okay,” he said after taking a sip. “I don’t want to drag this out, so I’m just going to lay it on the table without a lead-in. So there’ll be information missing, which I will give, but don’t all start asking questions at once. Let me finish, okay?”
The assembled group nodded.
Evan took a deep breath, and began to speak. “Most of you know that something was going on in Genesis Valley before we got locked up. That someone was trying to hurt us here. Well, ever since we went away, things have escalated. It’s gotten to the point where we can now reasonably expect the next best thing to a fucking military invasion of shifters in the next twenty-four hours or so.”
He held up a hand to keep any questions at bay, reminding them that he had promised to explain.
Victoria didn’t need the hand, because she couldn’t speak. The sudden revelation about what she had gotten herself into by coming to the Valley was so stunning, she had no words.
“The force is composed primarily of the shifters who have been trying to come to the Valley. Apparently they’ve been getting waylaid along the way and subverted into this ‘army.’ An army being led by a dragon. Luthor,” he finished heavily.
Shouts of alarm and outrage erupted from the group as the bears flew from their seats.
“We need to leave!” she said, her instincts taking over. “Pack the trucks and get out of dodge, right now!”
“We can’t,” Evan said, and the others immediately quieted down as they sensed the resolution in his voice.
Victoria heard it, and she didn’t care.
“Yes, we absolutely can,” she said firmly. “It’s actually quite simple, unless we’ve got an army of our own and a few dragons as well. Do we have that?” she asked sarcastically.
“No, we don’t,” Evan answered quietly, but there was no give in his voice. “But that doesn’t mean we can run.”
“Why the hell not?” she asked in surprise. It made no sense! A fucking dragon? They were the oldest shifters on the planet. How were they supposed to stop one?
“Because this is our home,” he told her, his eyes blazing with fierce determination. “And I will not simply abandon our home.”
She rolled her eyes. “So we make a new home! Trust me, it can be done!”
Evan pursed his lips together. “Maybe, for a time. But it won’t last. The dragon, one of the First dragons I should add, isn’t going to be content with just the Valley.”
“A First dragon?” she roared. “Oh this just keeps getting better and better! Not just any old dragon, no, you had to go and scare up one of the oldest, strongest dragons that exists! Perfect!”
She knew her reaction was a little much, that she was getting overly worked up, but it was just too much to bear. She could only handle so much, and the past few days had stretched her beyond her limits.
“He intends to take the Dragon Stones in the Valley and use them for himself. To create an army of dragons.” Evan paused, his arms flexing as he struggled to control himself. “Think about it. There are only a hundred, maybe two hundred dragons on the entire planet. If he were to raise thousands of dragons in his image, the damage would be unimaginable. He has literally promised to erase other species of shifters from the face of the planet.” His voice rose until it was a full-blown roar. “And we are the only ones who can stop him! So yes, I told them we will fight, and I meant it!”
“You told them WHAT?!”
She was furious. Livid.
“I told them we will fight,” he said, his voice almost a challenge.
“How dare you volunteer us like that? What gives you the right to do that? I would fight alongside you if some other bears were ganging up on you, or something where it wouldn’t automatically end in death. I’m not afraid of fighting. But you signed us up for this without our permission. Who said you could do that?”
“You did,” he said angrily, “when you made me your Alpha, your leader. That gives me the right to make this decision. In addition to the fact that this is the right decision means that it was a no-brainer.”
She snarled and walked to the other side of the room. How dare he volunteer them like that? Alpha or not, he didn’t have the right to put their lives on the line like that. This was no ordinary fight where she might get torn up and injured. Those fights were okay, because wounds like that, or broken bones, were things she could heal from.
But going up against a dragon?
“You know, I never expected things to be…easy,” she said, not sure if that was entirely the word she was looking for. “But this?”
She rubbed her eyes, brushing several loose strands of hair out of her face at the same time. The stress of the past two days was piling up.
First there was the way she had just been thrown in jail upon her arrival in Genesis Valley. That made more sense now in light of the fact that this Luthor character, a powerful dragon shifter, had been waylaying all new arrivals and subverting them into his growing army. All of that made it rather conspicuous when she showed up out of nowhere, claiming to have just waltzed into town, the first shifter they had seen in months. Victoria was prepared to forgive Garrett and Gabriel for that, even if her pride was still a little sore.
Then there was the sudden revelation that sh
e had quite literally walked into the middle of a fucking warzone! That part was hard to swallow, even if Evan had spent the better part of the last hour explaining to her everything he had just learned, and what he had experienced before winding up in jail. She understood that the odds were stacked horrifically against them, to the point where it almost felt like suicide.
“This is a suicide stand,” she said, vocalizing just that thought.
“Not necessarily. The Kedyns are working on getting us some help to even the odds.”
“Right,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “The Kedyns, a pair of gryphons, the type of shifter that is most notorious for not sticking themselves in harm’s way.”
“They were trying to play along, to see if they could perhaps become trusted enough to be privy to inside information. Information that might have helped us fight. Unfortunately it didn’t work, but Valen has intervened twice now.”
She nodded, accepting the polite reprimand and acknowledging that perhaps Marcus and Valen were in fact willing to fight alongside them.
Them?
Oh no. No no no. She was absolutely, positively, not going along with the harebrained scheme that had been hatched. Wasn’t she?
Shit.
“I can’t do this right now,” she said, putting her hoodie on and heading for the door. She knew that the two of them had much to talk about as well, but she needed to sort out this sudden revelation first.
Then she could get down to the third and final point of her stress.
Evan himself.
Chapter Eight
Evan
“Fuck,” he said, swearing aloud as she walked out of the room.
He turned back to the rest of them. “We got played,” he said, and launched into a quick version of everything that had happened since he was gone, including the most startling revelation, that Luthor was the First dragon. He had been playing them all from the beginning, listening in on so many important conversations that had happened in the Tongue & Flame, a bar they had thought secure.
“Evan,” Matthew said, holding up his hand to stall his Alpha.
“What?” he asked.
“Go.”
Evan looked at him blankly, not understanding.
“Go get her,” Matthew urged, pointing at the door. “We get the gist of it. You can explain the rest of it to us later. With Victoria.”
His eyes darted toward the door. He desperately wanted to go after her. He had wanted to run after her the moment she left, but he couldn’t. The rest of the crew needed to know what was going on, to be aware of everything. That was a duty he couldn’t shy away from, no matter how badly his soul called out for him to chase after Victoria.
“Call me if something comes up,” he said, darting toward the door.
He ran out in the hallway, calling to his bear, bringing it to the surface so that he could make use of its sense of smell. Approving of the idea of going after her and claiming her for his own, his bear readily helped. Her scent fresh in his mind, he tested the air before immediately taking off for the stairs.
His first thought was that she had gone to her room, but as he entered the stairway he realized she had gone down.
“Fuck,” he said softly, jumping as swiftly from landing to landing as he could, ignoring the stairs.
In moments he was at the bottom, the door almost blowing out under his shoulder as he slammed through it, stumbling into the parking lot. Once again he needed a moment to find her trail, then set off after her.
He realized a few minutes later she was headed toward the eastern edge of town. It was the same way she would have entered the Valley. The apartment complex they were in was already close by. A ten-minute run had him at the edge of the town’s limits as he followed her scent, hoping to catch up with her.
“Damn, she can run,” he muttered, stopping for a moment to catch his breath. Despite the greater endurance of a shifter, he had run almost flat out in an effort to catch her.
Then, all of a sudden, he saw her. It was dark out, but the moonlight showed him the outline of her figure up ahead. She was stopped, looking at something as the road curved to the left, dipping down into a small valley at the same time. In front of her was forest.
“Victoria,” he said softly, not wanting to startle her, though his approach must have been plenty loud enough.
She didn’t respond.
“Victoria,” he repeated, drawing closer.
Her shoulders were shaking. As he came around her, he saw tears glistening in the pale white light as they created streaks down her face.
“Is it this tough for everyone?” she asked, shaking her head, blinking furiously in an effort to chase the tears away.
“Is what this tough?” he asked.
“Life,” she replied with a shaky laugh.
He smiled, stepping close to her, but not touching her just yet. “Yes. Although I’m kind of surprised to hear you ask that. From what you’ve told me, your life hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park up until now.”
“Perhaps it hasn’t,” she agreed. “But then again, I haven’t been around people like you and the others before,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “People willing to accept me. It makes it so much harder to say no to things like going up against a dragon with them, despite the inherent stupidity of such an idea.”
He chuckled. “I know, it sounds insane. But think about it. There’s no one else to stop him, and if he succeeds, we’re going to die anyway. Isn’t it better to die trying?” He tried to keep his voice light, but failed.
“I’m scared too,” he admitted, putting his arm around her at last.
She snorted. “No you aren’t. This is your home, and it’s being invaded. That’s a worthy cause to fight for. But I just arrived here,” she said, not moving away under his touch, but not leaning in closely either.
“Just because it’s a worthy cause doesn’t mean I’m not scared to do it,” he said.
“What are you scared about?” she asked.
“Besides dying?”
She nodded.
“Well, for starters, not figuring out what’s meant to be between us.”
She went rigid under his arm.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” he asked when she didn’t reply. He hadn’t expected her to suddenly proclaim her love for him, but he didn’t think that talking aloud about their connection, their bond, would freak her out.
“Look,” she said, pointing into the forest.
“What?” he asked, now thoroughly confused.
“Over there!” she hissed, her finger pointing into the trees.
He glanced over in the direction she was indicating. There was a line of trees.
“It’s the forest,” he began to say, until he realized what she saw. “What the hell?”
The two of them ran forward, their initial conversation pushed to the side, though certainly not forgotten.
The stretch of forest straight ahead wasn’t actually very thick at all. The road appeared to dip down and to the left, and then turned back to the right and went up an incline, almost lining up exactly with where they were, except for the small line of trees. If the trees weren’t there, someone standing where the two of them were would be looking directly at the road as it rose. The trees blocked most of their vision, and if it were daytime, he doubted they would have noticed it.
But at night, the constant stream of lights coming down the road was almost impossible to miss once spotted.
The two of them ran forward to the edge of the trees, relying on their excellent vision to identify the source of the lights.
“Holy shit,” she cursed from next to him.
“They’re already here,” he said.
The lights belonged to vehicles. A lot of vehicles, all of which were piled high with large, grim-looking men that screamed shifter to their senses.
“We need to go,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her back. “Now!”
She lingered for just a moment
longer, then turned and followed him. They were on foot, without the benefit of a truck. Although the invasion force wasn’t moving fast, they still moved faster than the pair on foot. Evan knew it was about a fifteen-minute drive from where they had seen their enemies cresting the hill in the distance.
It had taken him ten minutes to get there.
“This is going to be close,” he muttered, pouring on more speed, hoping that Victoria could keep up.
***
The thick wooden door leading into the common room simply came apart as he used his strength to barrel right through it without slowing down.
His crew were still sitting around in a circle sipping on their beers. As the door disintegrated they came to their feet, automatically spreading out to deal with the unknown intruder. When they saw it was Evan, they relaxed, though his body language told them something bad was up.
“They’re here already,” he said, gasping for breath. “We have two minutes, get your shit and let’s go.”
Without waiting for more of an explanation, the others disappeared from the room, heading up the stairs to grab essential things like cell phones, wallets, and keys for the trucks. He had already sent Victoria up to grab those things from her room. He had his on him, never liking to be far from them.
He gulped down a huge lungful of air and lumbered back down the stairs, listening for the sounds of his crew above him. The elevators had been disabled while the building was unoccupied, and they had yet to get them turned back on. He was at the bottom of the stairs when the door several floors above opened and his crew began to stream down the stairs, catching up with him swiftly.
“Where are we going?” Matthew asked as the two trucks they had roared to life.
“Ridgeback Lodge!” he shouted. “They’re coming from east of town. Start making phone calls as you go! Warn anyone in town, any shifter, miner or not!”
The others shouted their acknowledgment and doors slammed. Victoria heavily closed the door on her side as Jared piled into the back seat. Jared, William, and Matthew occupied the other truck.
Tires screeched and Matthew’s truck shot from the parking lot with Evan right on his tail. He was the last one out, making sure his entire crew were accounted for first.