Submerge (Apalala Clan Book 3)

by Dzintra Sullivan

  “But I didn’t miss.” Grinning, she sat closer to the trio.

  “I think I love you,” Kylee said to Doug, grinning as she landed a punch hard enough that Jo actually felt it.

  Doug looked over to the third person sitting there. “Why are you so quiet? You certainly have a lot more smack to talk when in Warcraft.” Flicking her head with a silent challenge, she went on by saying, “Are you just another keyboard warrior?”

  Ladon’s spine straightened as he took the challenge personally. “I’ll have you know I am one of the best warriors you’ll ever see. Game or no game.”

  Doug chuckled. “You’re a sensitive one, ain’t you? I see you didn’t take my advice on the cologne, though.” She pulled a face. “It’s too sweet, sickly sweet. You smell like a walking cheesecake shop.”

  Kylee and Jo looked at each other and shared a chuckle. Poor Ladon, not only did he have his work cut out for him with Elyse, but she thought the smell, which was supposed to attract her, was too sweet and caused her to repel instead.

  Ladon’s eyes dropped along with the curve of his back.

  Kylee jumped in, “Ladon’s hoping the right lady might just have a sweet tooth. He’s single, you know? Maybe you two should go out on a date?” Her excitement grew along with the horror on both of their faces. “Yeah? You both love gaming, that’s common ground and more than enough to last for a meal’s conversation.”

  Doug coughed uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, maybe.” She coughed again. “Right now, I’m going home to get some sleep.”

  “I wish I could,” Kylee mumbled.

  “You could,” Ladon replied quickly.

  “No, not again. I won’t live under his abusive nature anymore.”

  “You have nowhere to go?” Doug asked.

  Kylee shook her head. “Nope, just got my marching orders. I’ll have to book into a hotel somewhere. Jo and I can share a room that way we can keep it cheap.” Jo nodded in agreeance.

  Doug thought for a few moments, maybe some company might be a good thing. “You can stay with me if it’s just for a few nights. Maybe your stuff at home will cool down enough to return. If not, Bill might help out with the room above the pub. I can ask,” she offered her help, and it felt good.

  “Both of us?” Jo asked, surprised.

  Doug shrugged. “Don’t expect anything flashy, I don’t have a spare room or bed. I’m only offering the sofa and a blow-up mattress. That’s it. I live a very simple life. I just might get some sleep if someone else is there, too.” The thought of the phoenix had her spooked, and if truth be told, she didn’t really want to be alone right now.

  Jo looked at the horror that was presently flashing over his face at the thought of his womanizing brother being in the inner sanctum of his mate’s home. “It’s okay, I got this, bro.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t got nothing about this.” A feeling of fierce protection began to rise quickly up his spine. His fingers began to curl into fists as his mind went straight past go, and it sure as shit didn’t stop to collect two hundred dollars.

  Kylee’s hand on his arm made him stop and look at her. “Ladon, calm down. It’s okay. This might be the perfect way for things to smooth over. If you understand where I’m coming from?”

  “I don’t like it,” his voice was so low it dragged along the gravel at his feet.

  “We need somewhere to stay,”

  “I know. I still don’t like it.”

  Doug’s eyes flicked from the two guys and Kylee. She had no idea what was going on and right there and then she had bigger things to worry about than some weird family dispute. “Make up your mind, I’m going home. Either come with or don’t. I don’t care.” Doug started to walk off down the pathway.

  Kylee squeezed Ladon’s arm and smiled. “I’m coming,” she said. “Meet me here tomorrow morning?” she whispered to Ladon.

  He nodded as she ran off to catch up with Doug and Jo.

  “I don’t know where Charlie has gone, but I’m beginning to worry,” Doug said as she curled into the far end of her sofa. Kylee sat on the other, and Jo sat on the floor leaning against the wall. Quil was presently sitting on Jo’s lap purring loudly enough for them all to hear.

  “He hasn’t disappeared before?” Jo asked, his hand casually rubbing the beast that laid over his legs.

  Doug grinned. “He’s such an attention whore that cat. Look at him, a stranger comes in, does he protect me? Nope.” She snickered. “He lays there and demands you rub him till he’s had his fill.”

  “Jo, he’s a pussy magnet,” Kylee quipped.

  “You had to go there, didn’t you?” Jo laughed. “That dirty mind is what gets us into all the trouble, Kyls.”

  “Oh yeah, it’s my mind that gets us in trouble. Not your mouth?” She shook her head. “Face it, Jo, we are both in trouble.”

  He nodded and rubbed the beast a little harder.

  “You look wrecked, Doug,” Kylee said.

  “Wow, Kyls, that’s harsh,” Jo scoffed.

  “It’s true, look at her. It is obvious she’s been crying.” She picked up a small pillow and threw it at him. “Learn to pay attention to the ladies around you, and you might find a better class of ladies wanting to hang around you.”

  “You calling my ladies trashy?”

  “Hey…” her hands went up innocently, “… I didn’t say anything, but if I saw them sitting out on the curb wearing black plastic, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I’m not used to this. Do you two always do this?” Doug asked.

  “Do what?” Jo asked.

  “Smack talk each other.”

  “Fuck yes, it’s my favorite pastime.” Kylee mocked. “Now, tell me what’s up? Why the tears?”

  Doug yawned loudly. “It was a crazy morning that’s all. First, the nightmare that held me down, then this woman who claimed to know my parents wanted to meet with me. She was all ‘you look just like your mom. You have to follow her footsteps.’ Oh, and get this…” She sat forward to look at them both. “She claims my parents were hunters, not like poachers… dragon hunters!” Flopping back into the sofa, she sighed. “She said the phoenix that killed them and mistakenly left me alive would be coming for me now that I know about them. I don’t understand why all of a sudden, all this craziness is coming to me. What on earth did I do? Eat something that effected my brain?” She shook her head and yawned again. “I’m sorry, guys. I know it’s only the middle of the afternoon, but I’m beat. I want to sleep for like a thousand years.” She got up, not noticing the silence that had descended upon her visitors. “Anything you want, help yourself. I don’t have a lot, but what I do have is yours. She walked to her room, pausing at the door. “See you in a couple of hours,” she said, shutting the door behind her.

  “Did she say…” Kylee’s voice was barely audible.

  “Yes, she did,” Jo replied.

  “Fuuuck.”

  “That’s about right.”

  Elyse walked out her bedroom into a room filled with a smell she couldn’t identify instantly but reminded her of a time in her childhood. A clang from her kitchen made her look up to see Kylee and Jo busying themselves around the stove. Quil was sitting on the stool overseeing like the self-proclaimed site manager he was.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “Oh, hey, Doug,” Kylee said as she turned around and paused to look at her. “If I thought you looked tired before, now you look completely smashed. I thought you were supposed to be resting?”

  “How long did I sleep? And what’s that smell?” she repeated the question as she walked to the kitchen counter. Scooting Quil off the chair, much to his loud disapproval, she sat down with what looked like the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  Jo took a few steps toward her, leaning his arm on the countertop. “It’s a family recipe. You have some mince, tomatoes, and onions, so I made a kinda stew thing my mother used to make me. It’s basic but tastes great.” He looked at her surprised expression. “Don�
��t look so shocked, my brothers and I were taught to cook and clean.”

  “Unusual for men these days.”

  “Our mom said no woman should serve us. That, if anything, we serve her.” Jo shrugged “Was just the way she brought us up.”

  Kylee stirred the big pot of mouth-watering food as she asked, “Yeah, they are great guys… now about you.” She needed to know more.

  Elyse rubbed her head, only then realizing her messy bun had half come undone and was now hanging in a weird, decrepit bees’ nest of chaos. “Oops,” she chuckled as she pulled it out, giving her head a shake, letting the flame-colored curls cascade down to almost touch her waist.

  “Shit, Doug, your hair is divine,” Kylee commented. “If I had hair that glorious, I wouldn’t be putting it up.”

  “Thanks.” She blushed slightly, bending over as she ran her fingers through the long, loose curls then straightened up, letting it sit in a lion’s mane of curls. “It’s too much for work. How long was I asleep for?”

  “Couple of hours. Not long. I’m not sure you slept by the look of your eyes.”

  “I did. But it was the dream…” her voice trailed off.

  Kylee and Jo passed a look between them. While she was asleep, they had discussed what she had said and decided to stick around to get some more information before going to V with it. Despite the king being a giant twatburger right now, this was a matter of clan safety and would need to have all disputes sidelined until it was sorted out, especially considering if this were true, one of the dragon brothers had been mated with a hunter. They had decided Kylee would be the best to instigate the conversation, and if she needed to bend the clan’s rules, so be it. Jo took over the pot stirring while Kylee went and stood on the opposite side of the counter to Doug.

  “Dream or nightmare?” Kylee asked.

  “Is there a difference? I don’t seem to have any variance. They start out nice and go downhill fast.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kylee asked directly. Seemed silly to dance around the subject when they all knew it was why they had stayed.

  Doug looked at her directness and paused slightly before relaxing into the conversation. “It started like normal… I was with my parents, holding my mother’s hand. We had traveled to a conference like we so often did. There were a thousand hands greeting my parents, an ocean of faces that came in waves to greet them. I can remember not knowing why they were so important but liking the fact they were…” She paused as a dark cloud hazed over her face. “Then it changes like curtains lifting and the people I see are hunters clad in leather armor of different colors. Weapons strapped to their backs, some that glistened of sharpened metal and others that were of pointed wooden sticks.” Doug looks up to Jo and Kylee who are hanging on every single word before her eyes lower to continue, “Somehow, I know the colors mean something… tribes or hunting parties. Not all of them hunt the same. They know who hunts what by their markings.”

  “Where are the markings?” Kylee spoke with a soft voice so not to break her concentration from the dream.

  “Behind the ear,” Doug said. “It appears when they come of age and their destiny is decided. They don’t get to choose, it just appears. I’m still holding my mother’s hand when they ask her to show them. I can see her shying away, saying it’s not needed, that they are all as important as each other. The begging continues until she relents, lets go of my hand, and reaches inside her shirt pulling out her necklace with a large golden tooth on it. The tooth is easily six inches long. The cheer that erupts amongst the people is loud enough to make me cover my ears. She’s a hero, and they worship her.” Doug looks to Kylee. “It’s a dragon’s tooth they say, her first kill. She had it dipped in gold.”

  “Fuck,” Jo growled.

  “What?” Doug asked Jo.

  “Oh, I said stuck… it’s stuck to the bottom of the pan.” Jo grimaces as he flashed a look to Kylee. “I’ve got it under control now, it’s okay.”

  Kylee nodded. “Good. Keep it under control.” She looked back to Doug. “Go on.”

  “That’s when the terror starts. I’m being thrown to the wall by my mother as she draws a long sword I hadn’t ever seen her carry. A roar rattles the very walls around me. I can’t see the beast, but I can feel the heat from a fire.” She looked at Kylee. “Then, I woke up.”

  The silence that hangs in the room is thick enough to choke on should you let it into your lungs.

  “Jo’s special, ready to eat.” Jo slid two bowls of delicious smelling food in front of the two ladies. He hoped some food would be exactly what they needed to give a reason for the silence and not about what was spoken.

  He’d heard stories of the fabled hunter who held the golden tooth. As a young dragon, his father told them about the hunters. They were not unlike the beasts they hunted since they had extended life spans, and some lucky ones had extra gifts. His father spoke of them being a part of a delicate balance the goddess maintained. Without any clear dominance, each species, hunters included, kept each other viable and strong. The hunter with the golden tooth, however, held special stories. Her skills were recorded as unmatched by any beast to date. She possessed more than humans and used her gifts to kill silently without any ripples in the stretched fabric of the human’s conscience. Jo didn’t know there were active hunters in this area—he hadn’t ever actually met one—until this night, which found him sitting at a small wooden table eating a bowl of food that he’d made for a hunter’s child, making her a hunter by gene declaration.

  “You said they had a marking behind the ear,” Jo commented, trying his best to sound casual.

  Doug nodded as she put some of the food into her mouth. Her eyes rolled immediately as she moaned, “Ohhh, man, this is sooo good.” With her mouth full as she talked, she covered her lips with her fingertips. “Sorry. But wow! You can actually cook.”

  Jo laughed. “Told you I could.”

  “I know, but not like this.” Doug shoveled more into her mouth. She was suddenly famished and couldn’t eat fast enough to fill the hole in her stomach.

  “You’ll make a great wife one day, Jo.” Kylee chuckled loudly.

  “Not in this lifetime,” Jo snorted as he ate some of his creation. “Look, I’m not saying I’m Martha-fucking-Stewart, but I can lay down flavors to make your mouth water.”

  “The markings?” Kylee prodded gently.

  “Oh yeah,” Doug said. “Was weird, they all looked behind the ears of the greenhorns.”

  “Greenhorns?”

  Jo knew this term as his father had spoken of them. They were at their most dangerous when they came into their age—full of untapped energy they had no idea how to control. Combine that with an uncontrollable urge to prove themselves to their tribes—simply put, they were deadly. He wasn’t saying anything, the last thing Jo wanted to do was in any way indicate he knew more about her situation than she did.

  “Greenhorns.” Doug nodded as she pushed away her empty bowl. “That’s what they called the new arrivals. They looked young, so maybe something to do with an induction? I don’t know, that’s just how it felt. When they arrived, the older hunters checked behind their ears for a marking.”

  Kylee and Jo both sat staring at her. Doug suddenly caught up, her eyebrows raised in both fear and curiosity. “You don’t think?”

  Kylee shrugged as Doug turned her body side-on, scooping her hair to the side and showing her left ear to Kylee. “See anything?”

  Kylee leaned in and sure enough, there was a marking hidden behind her earlobe, directly printed on her skin. It was a small circle with a black dragon shadow.

  Jo’s sharp intake of air indicated he had seen it too.

  “Is it there?” Panic hit Doug’s voice as she jumped up and ran for her bathroom.

  Kylee looked at Jo. “V has to be told immediately.” Jo nodded, still in shock. He was not only sitting in a dragon hunter’s living room but cooked for her and shared a meal.

  Doug suddenly came running back int
o the room. “Look,” her voice was so sharp it made Kylee flinch. “Flipping her hair over, she pulled back her other ear. “There’s more, what does this mean?”

  Kylee and Jo got up so as to have a look at the back of Doug’s right ear. “Fuck me,” Kylee exclaimed. “That looks like a phoenix.” She looked to Jo and asked, “Does it look like a fucking phoenix to you?”

  Jo nodded. “Yes, and that’s a bear.” Nodding to the third marking. “That’s three beasts you’re marked with. Dragons, phoenix, and bears.” Jo had never heard of such a thing. The stories spoke of hunters being assigned to only one beast.

  He needed to talk to his brothers.

  Now.

  “Three? How can there be three? I don’t even want one! I don’t even believe there are beasts. This is seriously insane and can’t be happening.” Tears welled in Doug’s eyes.

  Kylee looked at Jo. “How about you go… you know, you have that meeting to get to. I’ll stay if Doug wants me to?” She looked at Doug, who nodded as her body hitched with a panic she was struggling to control. “I’ll stay here and keep Doug safe. You head out to that meeting. It’s imperative you attend.”

  Jo nodded. “If you’re sure.”

  Kylee looked at the mess that currently was running back to the bathroom to check out her newfound markings. She whispered, “I don’t fully understand what this is all about, but even I know this is some serious shit. Phone me with news, okay?”

  “You got it. Don’t let her out of your sight,” Jo said and left the apartment quickly. He had no time to lose. The clan and his brothers’ lives hung in the balance as to how this played out.

  “Jo left?” Doug asked as she came back out with numbness plastered on her face.

  “He’ll be back. Duty calls, that’s all. Until then… want to show me how to play that game you like?” Kylee thought the best attack would be a distraction.

  “Sure.” Her head tilted with a calmness of knowing what to expect when she was there. “Let’s see if Ladon’s there, you can kill him, too, if you want.”