by Kimber White
“You’re sure?” Finn said. “I mean...this isn’t just some trick of your mind? We know how hard you’ve been struggling. Avelina doesn’t want to admit it. Hell, I don’t either. But it’s getting so hard to deny. We’re looking at months. Not years. One by one, we’ll be nothing but dragon. Even Avelina won’t be able to protect us when that happens. She won’t say it, but she’s preparing herself for what she’ll have to do.”
I dropped my head. I knew he was right.
“To hell with that!” Kian shouted. “I’ll throw myself into the damn volcano before I put Avelina in the position of having to kill me.”
“We all would,” Loch said. “Except you know that won’t work. There’s only one true way to kill a dragon instantly. Dragonstone. Straight through the heart.”
“Enough,” Gideon said. “This isn’t over yet. If we find that damn stone before it’s too late. Maybe her Plan A will work. Maybe she can use it to buy us time. Hell. I don’t know. She’s been right about a lot.”
“She’s been lying about a lot,” Kian said. “She doesn’t want us to worry or lose hope. Don’t you think that’s what’s really going on between you and this Shae, Xander? It’s your mind playing tricks on you. You’re so desperate for a mate, you’ve just latched on to the first…”
I don’t remember moving, but I crossed the distance between us in the span of a heartbeat and threw my brother against the rock. To his credit, he didn’t shift. He just pushed me off and straightened his back. I felt like an asshole.
“No,” I said. “That’s not what’s going on. I’m not losing my mind. I’m just losing my heart. She’s mine. This is different. It’s something I feel in the marrow of my bones. I can’t breathe without her. When she touches me...it’s like...God. And when she’s far away like now, it’s agony. It’s her.”
“It makes no sense at all,” Gideon said. “But, I believe you. God help you and God help her, but I believe you. That’s how it’s supposed to be with fated mates.”
“Unbelievable,” Loch said. “I just can’t even…”
“So let me get this straight,” Kian said. “If Shae’s your fated mate, then there’s a chance for you to stop the sickness and save yourself. But she’s human. So if you do mate with her, she’ll never survive it, much less giving birth to a dragonling. So the only way you live is if she basically has to agree to die.”
“No!” I said. “It’ll never happen. I will never sacrifice her. Never. It’s no choice at all.”
“So what the hell are we supposed to do?” Finn asked. I had no more answers. My heart thundered inside me as my longing for Shae took over. As much as the air of Knoydart regenerated me, my absence from Shae pulled me apart.
“We do what we’ve always done,” Gideon said. “If Shae belongs to Xander, then we protect her like she’s one of us.”
He met my eyes and I knew he understood what that meant. When the time came, and we knew it all would, my brothers would have to kill me to keep her safe. I looked at each one of them in turn. Finn’s color went gray, but he slowly nodded along with the others.
“Then what are we waiting for?” I said. I wasn’t selfish though. I knew my brothers needed the healing waters of the river below. So, I waited. As the evening gave way to night, I looked out across the canyon. When it was time to go, we would take to the air together. Brothers. Side by side.
Chapter Eight
Shae
Over the next few days, I had every amenity. Marie and the rest of the staff at the Brandhart Building catered to my needs. So much so it made me uncomfortable. I more or less had my run of the building. Marie gave me a grand tour.
Each of Xander’s brothers had his own set of apartments covering the top floors of the building. They kept their corporate offices on the third through the tenth floors. The bottom three floors were those used for more public events. There were the two main conference rooms and a banquet hall and ballroom. On occasion, they would rent the space out for parties.
One entire floor held an Olympic-sized swimming pool and state-of-the-art gym and track. I spent a few hours a day doing laps. The monotony of it soothed me. It gave me a chance to clear my head a little. Though I still felt the pain of Marvin’s loss, I knew in my heart he would have wanted it this way. He’d been spared the agony of wasting away, ravaged by tumors. In the solitude of the pool, I could almost hear Marvin whispering in my ear.
“It wasn’t so bad a life, Shae. I lived it how I wanted. Saw things most don’t get to. Then, I got to leave knowing someone was there to look after you.”
I dove to the bottom of the pool, letting the pressure build in my ears, then kicked off, breaking through the surface with a splash. I did a backstroke, rocketing through the water. God, that was what Marvin would say if he were here. Someone to look after me. I’d only known Xander for such a short time, but he’d dominated my thoughts, my dreams, even the growing ache inside my body.
Could I trust him the way he wanted me to? He still hadn’t fully answered me about what he was doing in the bookstore that day.
Fate.
The word floated in the air around me as if it had its own magic.
“Are you still out there, Marvin?” I whispered. I knew he wasn’t. As far as I knew, his magic died with him. God, I’d felt it leave him. It had hit me like an electric charge as he drew his last breath in my lap.
I reached the end of the lane and rested my arms on the deck of the pool. The door to the locker room closed and heels clicked across the pool deck. I swiped my hand over my face to clear some of the water dripping down my forehead.
Avelina approached. She wore a tailored black pantsuit, fitted through the waist to show off her tiny waist. I worried she’d slip on the slick surface of the deck, but her steps were sure. She smiled down at me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her thick white hair hung in a solid sheath to almost her waist. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“It’s all right,” I said, hoisting myself out of the water. I’d laid a towel on one of the benches near the diving board. Avelina reached for it and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said, drying my face. Then, I twirled the towel around my shoulders.
She’d kept her distance from me over the last couple of days. Still, I knew she was there. Avelina Brandhart had a palpable presence about her. Not malicious at all, but powerful, ancient, awe-inspiring.
“Have you heard from your sons?” I asked. She inspected her perfectly manicured nails, painted blood red.
“They’ll be back soon,” she said, not really answering my question.
“Do they do that a lot?”
She arched a brow. Avelina had a catlike expression with cool, appraising eyes, her mouth turned up at one corner. She might have been the most striking woman I’d ever seen. Her smooth skin looked carved from ivory. Her eyes could go from cold steel to warm blue fire in no more than a beat.
“They’re brothers,” she said. “They’re men. They’ll rip each other apart a hundred times, but they’ll always have each other’s backs.”
“I suppose it’s complicated,” I offered.
She cocked her head to the side. “No. Actually, it’s the most simple thing there is.”
“Of course.” I wrapped my towel around my waist.
“I can’t imagine how hard things have been for you,” she said, changing the subject so quickly it took me a moment to follow her.
“It could have been worse,” I said, not entirely sure we were talking about the same thing. “If Xander hadn’t been there…”
Avelina put up a hand. “Yes. Of course, but I meant before. To have no people. No family of your own. No one to want to rip apart and yet who has your back no matter what. That’s what families are for, really. I just can’t imagine anyone could bring a child into the world and not be there for her. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
My back went up. I didn’t know this woman well. Instinct told me she was trying to show empat
hy. Still, it felt a little like judgment. But, I don’t know who I was supposed to defend. I couldn’t help what happened to me when I was a baby. She was right, of course.
“I survived,” I said.
“Indeed you have.” She turned. I’d left a pile of my belongings on the other end of the bench. God. That wasn’t true. Nothing was mine. Everything I had now, Xander had given me. Except for the locket I always wore around my neck. It rested on top of the t-shirt, gym shorts, and flip-flops I’d worn down to the pool.
I stepped around her and went to the bench. I slid on the shorts and shirt, then slipped the locket back around my neck. It hung heavy, the medallion swinging between my breasts.
“You know, you don’t have to stay here,” she said.
My breath went out of me. “I...what…”
“That came out impolite,” Avelina said. “What I mean to say is...if there are things...affairs you need to attend to, you’re not a prisoner here. You’ve not been back home since…”
Was she kicking me out? My heart felt pulled in two. On the one side, I wanted to argue with her. I wanted to be here when Xander came back. I ached to see him again. The pull nearly drove me to my knees thinking about it. We had things to resolve. Once and for all, I needed to know what this was between us. There was so much he wasn’t telling me. I felt it in my bones.
But, on the other side of my heart, I thought again about Marvin and the life I’d left behind. It had been ripped from me that night.
“Keepsakes, mementos,” Avelina said. It almost felt like she was in my head.
“I’m sorry?”
“You can go back,” she said. “To the shop. Or anywhere else you’d like. I can send a driver. Maybe there are some things you’d like to pack up?”
“Professor Marvin,” I said, choking back tears. “He wasn’t very sentimental. With my upbringing, I never have been either. But, yes. There are a few books I’d like to keep. And there’s a picture. It’s the only one I have of Marvin and me together. If those shifters haven’t destroyed everything in the shop…”
“Of course.” Avelina came to me. She smiled and took my hands in hers. Her eyes twinkled. “We should have helped you do that first thing. And if there are arrangements to be made. A service perhaps? For Mr. Marvin’s family?”
I shook my head. “I’m all there was. He hadn’t spoken to his family or anyone from his coven in fifty years. And he didn’t want anything. He was pretty clear about that.”
“Still,” Avelina sighed. “Maybe there’s something you want. I’ve been on this planet a very long time. I’ve had to say goodbye to everyone I’ve ever cared about except for my boys. It’s a new word, but it’s a good way to put it. You need closure.”
“Thank you,” I said, my heart thumping with new purpose. She was right. I had felt in a kind of limbo since Xander brought me here. I needed to go back to the shop and put things right. I had to say goodbye.
“It’s settled then,” she said. “I’ll have a car waiting for you downstairs in an hour. You can be back before Xander and the others.
Then, Avelina Brandhart, nine hundred-year-old mother of dragons, pulled me into an embrace.
* * *
True to her word, Avelina had a limo waiting for me outside the main entrance to the Brandhart Building. The receptionist in the lobby pointed me to it. Marie stood off to the side, a worried expression on her face.
“I’m not sure Mr. Brandhart will like…”
“Nonsense,” Avelina rounded the corner. “Mr. Brandhart will just have to deal with it.”
Avelina brushed past me. I cast a glance at Marie over my shoulder and followed her outside. For a moment, I thought Avelina was about to jump in the limo first. She just nodded to the driver. He stepped out and opened the door to the back seat for me. Avelina put a hand on his arm and said something to him. His smile broadened and he gave me a little bow.
“Thank you,” I said. “I won’t be long.”
“Take as long as you need, honey,” Avelina said. “The Brandhart Building isn’t going anywhere and neither are the Brandharts. This is Henry. He’s been instructed to help you in any way he can.”
She squeezed Henry’s bicep and shot him a wink. Henry was almost as tall as she was. He was broad and muscular. A bodybuilder for sure. He had kind eyes and an unusually flat nose as if maybe he’d had all the cartilage removed. A boxer too, perhaps. Whatever he was, Henry looked more than capable of handling himself.
I slid into the limo and waved goodbye. Henry shut the door and got behind the wheel. He pulled away from the curb leaving Avelina smiling back at me.
Four miles. It was just four short miles from Xander’s building to the bookstore I’d called home for the last eight years. My heart hammered in my throat as Henry made the turn down Belmont.
God. I realized I didn’t even know what day it was. Tuesday? Wednesday? Had it really been only a week since the last time I’d been down this street. Somehow, everything felt so different. The neighborhood felt empty and hollow, even though pedestrians hurried past the shops to catch the crosswalk lights.
Henry pulled in front of Professor Marvin’s Books & Baubles. The windows had been boarded up and a “For Rent” sign hung in the door. Could I even get inside?
“Are you ready, ma’am?” Henry asked. I waved him off when he tried to slide out from behind the wheel.
“It’s okay,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to do this alone.”
“Of course,” he said. “Just poke your head out of if you need me.”
Nodding, I stepped out of the car and shut the door. The limo drew a few looks from passers-by, but no one stopped. I waved back to Henry and went to the alley behind the store. We had a keypad lock. I just hoped the landlord hadn’t changed the combination yet.
With trembling fingers, I punched in my code. At the same time I pushed open the door, I tried to push past the flashes in my mind of my last moments here.
The hot stench of the wolf’s breath as he closed in on me. The sticky, warm feeling of Marvin’s blood as it soaked my shirt. I’d heard nothing. No warning. No sound. The wolves had just been there.
I tried to remember what I’d been doing just before the attack. Marvin was late coming down to open. That wasn’t unusual. I’d been just about to turn the sign in the front window when I heard glass breaking in the back. Marvin had already been on his back when I got to him, two wolves standing over him.
It had happened in the hallway, just next to the storeroom. I stood there now. Oddly, there was no trace of the carnage that had happened here just days ago. Someone had cleaned the blood off the walls. The glass from the broken window had been swept up, the window itself replaced.
“What were you looking for?” I whispered to no one.
Xander had asked me that more than once. Did Marvin have something the wolves wanted? Something he’d refused to give up?
No. It didn’t feel like that. It just felt like they wanted to kill. The moment Marvin was too far gone, they’d turned their attention to me.
That’s when I felt the blast of heat and magic coming from the front of the store. Xander was just there. The wolves never seemed to notice. How could they not? It was as if the sun itself had come into the store. Heat. Light. Safety. And yet, those wolves had kept their focus on me.
Xander said his magic let him cloak himself from other shifters. Maybe that was true. Still, I had this feeling that even if the wolves had seen him, it wouldn’t have distracted them from their purpose. They’d spilled Marvin’s blood. They were after mine.
I walked to the front of the store and my heart fell. Gone. It was all gone. Every shelf, every book. There was nothing left behind but dust marks where the stacks had been. The landlord had taken everything. I didn’t even know if that was legal. But, Marvin was dead and he’d been months behind on the rent. Maybe the landlord figured he’d cut his losses.
Dreading what I’d find, I ran to the back of the store and boun
ded up the steps to the apartments. It was just one short hallway with a door on either side. Marvin lived in one. I lived in the other. He’d given me the bigger room with a master suite, if you could call it that.
Relief flooded through me as I opened the door. All of my things were still there. I didn’t own much. Just my clothes, some pots and pans and a flat screen television that I’d bought on consignment. Every dime I had, I’d put in savings. In another year, I figured I’d have enough to buy a semester of college courses. Now, that dream seemed so far away.
I pulled my one suitcase down from the closet shelf and packed my clothes inside. There was only one other thing I wanted. It was a picture of Marvin and me on the Navy Pier Ferris wheel. We’d had it taken last year to celebrate my twentieth birthday. I folded clothes around it to protect it, zipped up my suitcase, then went across the hall.
I hesitated, afraid to open Marvin’s door. I pressed my forehead against the wood and tried to catch my breath. A wave of grief washed over me. I took a deep breath and pushed it aside. Finally, I found the courage to open the door.
What I saw behind it drove me to my knees. I let out a muffled cry behind my hand. The room had been gutted, destroyed. Marvin’s two small loveseats lay upside down, the stuffing spilled all over the floor like snow. His television had been smashed in. The cupboard doors in his kitchenette had been ripped off the hinges, their contents thrown all over the room. Broken glass, shattered plates. Even the fridge had been emptied. Spoiled food left a stench so pungent my eyes would have watered if I weren’t already crying.
Holes had been punched in the walls. Claw marks ravaged the studs behind the drywall. What in God’s name had they been looking for?
I took gingerly steps through the room, careful not to step on one of the thousands of shards of glass. None of this made any sense. The shop downstairs had been repaired and left pristine. My apartment didn’t look like it had been touched. Why was Marvin’s like this?