by Rachel Jonas
But what didn’t take an hour to figure out, was that I awakened … but my dragon did not.
The second I opened my eyes, I sensed the emptiness swirling about with the initial confusion. It was a change that could be felt all over. I was marginally slower even with the small movements I’d attempted so far, less alert. My senses had dulled, too, and the feeling of my actions lagging behind my thoughts was disorienting.
Outside the window, water dripped from melting icicles onto the tin awning below. That coupled with sunlight beaming through the blind’s slats were signs of what I guessed to be a late-arriving spring. Evangeline said March had been the coldest month so far, but as soon as April arrived, the difference in the weather was like night and day.
Closing my eyes in the dead of winter, and then waking up on the cusp of spring, made me feel that much more disconnected.
At the thought, I pulled Evangeline closer. She felt like the only constant thing that followed me over from what felt like a past life, into this one. My palm was met with the warmth of smooth skin when I touched her arm, making my heart beat faster with the contact. It seemed I couldn’t get close enough, and from what I could tell, she felt the same.
“Thank you for coming back to me,” she breathed against my shoulder, lifting her gaze to meet mine.
I opened my mouth, and noted the unfamiliar rasp of it—a side-effect of being down for so long.
“I wish I could say it’d been a choice,” I admitted. “Feels like I’ve been out for a decade, dreaming,” I sighed. “My sense of time is … it’s all distorted. Things that happened centuries ago feel like just yesterday.”
I wondered if that was where my consciousness had been—visiting memories from the past, reveling in the comfort they brought while I was away.
“Don’t worry about any of that,” she insisted, moving her hand across my stomach, letting it rest there as I breathed deep. “You’ll catch up.”
I liked to think that was true, but ‘catching up’ meant more than being brought up to speed on events I missed.
My eyes drifted down to evaluate my body. No, I didn’t look any different, but inside? I had no idea who this person was.
“Looks like you took good care of me,” I smiled, forcing myself not to dwell on the bad. The inevitable.
She smiled back. “It was mostly Hilda. She cast charms to keep your muscle mass from deteriorating, to get rid of the scars, to keep you from needing much physical care. It made it so we didn’t need to disturb you,” she shared, adding, “All I really did was … sit here.”
She gave another smile after that, but this time it was a bit of a shy one. Like she didn’t think that’d been enough.
But to me, her presence, her devotion … it was everything.
I placed a kiss in the soft, coiled strands on top of her head.
“How are Elise and the others?”
I didn’t miss Evangeline’s lack of urgency to let the rest of the household know I was awake, but I had no problem with her selfishness. I preferred when it was just us.
“They’re all downstairs,” she answered, lifting from my shoulder to swing a leg over the edge of the mattress the next second. “I can get them.”
She’d mistaken the question for a request. Just before she stood, I stopped her, looping my fingers around her wrist before she could get too far.
“Slow down. Hang on a sec.”
She turned to find me smiling and did the same.
“You’re … okay?” I knew it was an incredibly broad question, one with so many answers, but I had to ask.
Very few understood what it was like to be tethered to someone, and then have them leave you. Painful didn’t even begin to describe it. It was like having your own soul ripped from your body. Even I felt the loss, the disconnection, but for her, it was different. She’d watched time pass, not knowing if I’d ever wake up.
That would be heavy for anyone. But it was especially heavy for someone who’d experienced as much loss and displacement as she had.
“I’m good,” she nodded, hiding so much.
A long stare passed between us as I studied her face and posture, looked her over with the scrutiny of a protector who knew his mate like the back of his hand.
“Evangeline …”
She dropped the act the instant it became obvious I wasn’t buying it. She wasn’t okay; no one would expect her to be. However, it was in her nature to be strong even when it wasn’t required.
Like now, when it was just us.
There were several things I was sure had to be on constant repeat inside her head. For starters, now that I was human, I was vulnerable to things like broken bones, illness … death.
No one was more aware of these things than me. Nor was it lost on me who was responsible. At the thought of Sebastian, his witches, his soldiers … my fists clenched. Their methods of torture hadn’t changed over the years; they were still just as barbaric as ever. Mostly they wanted information, wanted pieces of me to sell off, but they also just enjoyed causing pain.
I could only imagine the condition Evangeline must have found me in. Anger spiked and I pushed past it, refusing to let it take my focus off her.
She didn’t rush to share her feelings, the thoughts that made water begin to pool in her eyes, so I took that as a sign not to push.
“Have you hung out with Beth?” I asked instead.
It didn’t surprise me when she shook her head. “Haven’t really had time, but we text.”
That was a stupid question, knowing she’d been right here in this spot unless it was absolutely necessary to leave my side.
I was running out of things to say, things that weren’t off limits, uncomfortable.
“We haven’t talked much, but she was with me that day,” Evangeline said, breaking the silence that crept between us. “When I came for you.”
The incident was so foggy—a collage of images, faces, and sounds that didn’t quite fit together.
“If it hadn’t been for her and the others, I wouldn’t have made it.” Her voice quivered a bit, but she didn’t falter, didn’t succumb to the emotion I sensed just beneath her words.
“I owe you my life,” I breathed into her ear before placing a kiss there. “All of you.”
She was quiet again, but this time it was more reflective than anything.
“Do you … remember?” she asked. “Remember everyone who helped?”
I would have been lying if I said yes, when all that seemed to register was that I’d seen her during a brief, lucid moment, and then blacked out again.
When I shook my head, she didn’t offer any further explanation, which only made me curious.
“Who came?”
Big, brown eyes blinked up at me. “Dallas,” she began, “Beth, Chris, Luke,” she went on, adding the last names hesitantly. “There was also Nick and his brothers.”
My body went rigid, only now aware of the danger she put herself in.
Because of me.
The prevailing feeling within me, since opening my eyes, had been weakness, but now the word took on a whole new meaning. It had nothing to do with the bad blood that existed between Nick and I, but had everything to do with the sudden reminder of all Evangeline needed protecting from.
Starting with him.
“I went to the Elders, asked them to let him go free in exchange for his help,” she went on, adding to the mounting reasons for my pulse to race. It was hard to tell if she’d done all these things because she was too trusting, or … if me being captured had simply made her desperate.
“He almost died trying to help me,” she added. “Trying to help … you.”
There was such conviction in her tone. It was there whenever she spoke of Nick in the past, but it had faded last I remembered. With it’s return, I guessed it meant this ordeal had led to her forgiving him.
Which might also mean she’d let her guard down with him, trusting him again when he was just as much a threat today as he alw
ays was. She couldn’t afford to forget that. Especially now, with me in no position to protect her.
“I knew you wouldn’t like it, but I … there was no other way, and—”
“Don’t apologize,” I cut in as she stammered.
The last of what I needed to say was particularly hard to admit. Mostly because I didn’t want her thinking I condoned it.
“You did what you had to do.”
I wanted to add to that a reminder, something I told her once when she’d run into the woods when I’d been attacked by mutts—she was never to run toward danger. Definitely not for me. She’d broken so many rules to save me—mine, the Council’s. Although, if they handed Nick over to her, she must have done this all with their blessing. Which left me with the sense that no one but me was qualified to look out for her.
She leaned in, placing a soft kiss to my lips—one that, if I’d been stronger, might have turned into more.
“Be back,” she announced, standing from my bed with a dim smile. “I suppose it’s time to share you with everyone else now.”
*
It wasn’t a shock that, between Elise and Hilda, Hilda was the most frank with me. Elise, emotional and unable to form words for the first several minutes, sat holding my hand on the side Evangeline hadn’t taken.
“Things have mostly been calm here,” Hilda began, adding, “Almost too calm, if you ask me.”
Elise’s gaze lowered at the very moment my brow tensed.
“He’s fully aware of the Damascus facility,” Hilda continued, “and others like it, operating without his knowledge, fully aware that a member of the Bahir Dar royal family is alive and likely residing here, and yet … he has yet to do more in Seaton Falls territory than send in a handful of mutts. There’s even been talk of evacuating the town’s human population to minimize casualties.”
I focused on the wall while thinking.
“Has he called a meeting with the High Council?” I asked.
Hilda shook her head and the grave expression she wore said it all. “According to what we’ve been told, they haven’t heard a peep.”
She was right … this wasn’t good.
“He hasn’t been completely quiet, though,” she added. “Every day, the news reports a new animal sighting, a new name to add to the list of missing persons. All men. All athletic in build.”
Sebastian hadn’t changed his stripes. This—creating an army of mutts—when his back was against the wall wasn’t a new tactic. This was the exact move that enabled him to be the victor of the Lunar War.
This was how he slaughtered so many of my comrades, Elise’s sons, her husband.
I pushed the thought from my head.
“We haven’t been sitting idle either,” Hilda sighed. “You’ll find that Seaton Falls’ population has become a bit … shifter heavy,” she smiled.
“They brought in others?”
When she nodded, I breathed a sigh of relief. No, we weren’t out of the woods, but higher numbers was a step in the right direction.
“There were clans that refused, but most showed up without the Council even requesting their involvement,” Elise added.
That didn’t surprise me. The lycans were tired of being ruled by a tyrant.
“He has to know by now how deep this rebellion against him has spread,” Hilda stated. “And you know as well as I do, he has no tolerance for insubordination.”
The man had an ego that barely fit in the solar system, so yes, I had an idea of how something like this going on right under his nose might be frowned upon.
I glanced up at Dallas where he stood at the foot of my bed, reading the heavy concern on his face.
“What are your thoughts?” I asked, aiming the question at him.
A deep surge of air swelled his chest and, letting it out, he answered. “I believe we’re in the calm before the storm. And, historically speaking, that means any day now … all hell will break loose.”
As much as I wanted to argue with his logic, I’d seen enough war in my lifetime to know he was exactly right.
Chapter Six
Nick
This was the closest night I’d had to a normal one in so long I couldn’t even remember.
Just me, Chris, Lucas, a box of pizza, and Madden fired up on the Xbox.
Like old times.
Not so long ago, I didn’t think I’d ever lay eyes on them again—on anyone I cared about. Because I was always aware of how close I came to that being my reality, I learned not to take so many things for granted. First free night I got that Roz couldn’t break past her father’s coercion, I invited the guys over to the estate to hang out.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” Lucas yelled, feeling zero shame for getting emotional over an ugly loss, thanks to a well-timed, last-minute touchdown.
I tossed the controller to the floor, celebrating in his face just to piss him off.
“Now that’s how it’s done.”
He shoved me aside before reaching for another slice.
“Yeah, whatever. Just keep in mind that I’m the one who taught you to play,” was his comeback.
I shrugged, settling in my seat again with a brazen grin. “On Xbox … maybe, I’ll give you that. But I’m definitely the one who schooled you on the real field.”
“Are you serious?” Lucas protested over Chris’s laughter, sounding more like a howl. “Last I checked, our stats were nearly identical.”
“Then you must not have checked since sixth grade, because my stats own yours, boy!”
Chris was nearly on the floor, out of breath as he pointed at a very irritated, very red Lucas.
“Whatever, just run it back,” Lucas concluded, abandoning his food for another round.
I picked up my controller again, and happily obliged.
Beside me, my cell chirped, and Chris grabbed it before I had the chance, reading the incoming text aloud.
“I kinda miss you,” he recited, doing his best impression of Roz. “But have fun with the guys and call me later,” he added as I snatched the phone from his hand.
He and Lucas got a laugh out of it, of course. To them, it was still strange how Roz had gone from being my sworn enemy to … well … ‘kinda missing me’.
They didn’t have to understand it, though. To me, to us, it made perfect sense. In so many ways, we were compatible. She was calm and level-headed, while I had a tendency to take things too seriously. We were opposites, but that’s why we worked.
I took a sec to text back, letting her know I missed her, too, and then un-paused the game.
“Things with y’all are getting pretty serious, huh?” Lucas asked.
I shrugged, having an answer, but being very much aware of the fact that he was only asking to mock me.
“So, how’s she feel about your new job?” This time it was Chris who asked, and, unlike Lucas, he wasn’t aiming to get under my skin.
I shrugged and waited until completing my touchdown to answer. “I’m sure she hates it, but she hasn’t said much. In her opinion, I should’ve ghosted when we came back from the U.P.”
In my peripheral, Chris nodded. “With how things are going, she might be right,” he scoffed.
We all noticed the changes—how the streets, stores, and schools were more crowded than they’d ever been. All the newcomers, the shifters, were hard to miss in such a small town. The Council was readying Seaton Falls for attack. Our quaint town nestled beside a waterfall, was likely soon to be marked in history as the site of one of the supernatural world’s bloodiest battles.
And yet … I hadn’t run away.
Maybe I was crazier than I thought.
“Where do they have you posted?” Lucas asked, chiming in again as I intercepted another of his sloppy passes.
I laughed, giving the most accurate answer I could. “As far away from Evie as possible.”
They both chuckled, understanding.
In the Council’s eyes—maybe in mine, too—I was a ticking timebomb, set t
o detonate at some unknown hour. So, the smartest thing to do was position me far from Evie’s house, with a team of experienced guards who I had no doubt would shoot me on site if I started freaking out. In fact, one had all but told me so during training.
So, there’s that …
“They’ve got me near the old warehouse, deep in the woods,” I clarified.
“Seen any action?” Chris asked
“Not too much. We get the occasional mutt wandering in, but nothing too crazy. They’ve gotten to be a bit more frequent over the couple weeks they’ve had me out there. I’m guessing because the Sovereign is sending them in to scout, report back.”
Neither spoke right away, probably thinking the same thing I was—that, soon, things here would change forever, and there wasn’t much of a chance they’d ever go back to being like they were.
“I, for one, just wish we could get it all over with, take the fight to him,” was Lucas’ idea.
“You read my mind,” Chris concurred.
“Nah, they have to play it cool. The guy has some pretty powerful witches.” I’d seen as much with my own two eyes. “And who knows what else,” I added.
All our thoughts seemed to snag on that concept—that no one had any idea what the Sovereign had planned, what he had up his sleeve. All we could do was prepare ourselves for battle.
For war.
“And that’s game,” I gloated, patting Lucas on his head when I stood.
He pushed my hand away and I laughed, stepping over his outstretched legs as I passed between him and my grandfather’s old school TV set, which was even older than Richie, I guessed.
“Give yourself a pep talk while I’m in the bathroom,” I called back over my shoulder, rubbing in the fact that I beat him.
Again.
He mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t catch as I rounded the corner. Flipping the switch beside the door, I locked myself in.
… And that’s when the world around me fell away, plunging me into total darkness, all that awaited was emptiness
Emptiness like none I’d ever experienced.
*
Gasping for air, I bolted upright, fighting through a fog of confusion, unsure where I was, how I’d gotten there, how much time had passed.