by Joyce, T. S.
She was going to burn, and Damon would be blamed for her death. This is why they’d cleaned the bad marks off her file. She was the perfect target. An upstanding human citizen who had devoted her life to cleaning up the streets, burned alive by an evil dragon shifter. Her picture would be splashed across the news, deeming her the face of the war.
She retched and shook her head hard to clear it because now there was the scent of something much more familiar in the air. Finn must’ve turned up the gas on the kitchen stove.
She’d been so desperate to get off that desk job. Of course she would be the perfect candidate. She’d marched into this job with too little information and been fine with it. And who would miss her? Her mother was serving another ten years. Her father didn’t know she existed, and the only friends she had in the world were the shifters who would be destroyed by IESA.
Finn pulled a red plastic lighter from his back pocket and waved it between his forefinger and thumb, taunting her with her death. “I can’t be putting bullet holes in you. Forensics, you understand. I didn’t want it to be like this, but maybe I would feel worse if you hadn’t fucked that shifter. They know. About the claiming mark, they know. They’ll arrest Kirk. Cage him with real monsters, or maybe he’ll be the first subject of the new shifter testing facility. Maybe he’ll be the beginning of the new Menagerie. You should know how completely you ruined his life before you take your last breath.”
“Why, Finn? Why are you a part of this?”
His lips twitched into a snarl. “Because my brother was part of the task force that came up here after the Ashe Crew. My brother!”
“Your brother is IESA?”
“Was,” he said, emphasizing the word by jamming the gun closer to her. “Was IESA. Now he’s in the belly of the dragon. Now he’s nothing but ash.”
“Because he was trying to annihilate an entire species, Finn. You can see that, right? They were defending themselves!”
“It’s you who doesn’t see, Holman. They’re just animals.” He shook his head, his eyes pooling with insanity as he backed out of the room. “We’re gods.”
She charged him, because what else could she do? He had a gun on her, sure, but it was that or death by fire and she couldn’t just stand here and watch him light her up.
Time slowed as she watched Finn lift his weapon higher, training it on her forehead. “Stop,” he screamed. Oh, he didn’t want to shoot her. This had to look real. It had to look like an attack from above. There was no room for bullets in IESA’s plan.
She tackled him and shoved him backward until they smashed against the wall. And she fought him like an injured animal. Clawing, hitting, kicking, fighting for her life, because that damned lighter in Finn’s grasp meant she would never see Kirk again. It meant she would never see her friends or Damon’s mountains again. It meant the elusive happiness she’d finally found here would be nothing more but a wisp of fresh breath at the end of a dark life. And more importantly than all of that, Kirk wouldn’t know the hell that was hunting him. IESA was rebuilding and was targeting Damon’s mountains again.
Her life would mean nothing, and her death would hurt the people she cared about the most. She wouldn’t be used like that. Not by Finn or anyone else.
Finn wrapped one hand around her throat, closing off her windpipe. He slammed her backward, and stars danced at the edges of Alison’s vision as she struggled and gasped for air.
The sound of shattering glass was deafening, and the moment slowed, frame by frame. Finn’s veins protruding from his red neck, his blue eyes bloodshot and psychotic, his teeth gritted as he strangled her, the red lighter held up in his other hand, tinkling glass blasting through the air, shining like razor-edged diamonds.
And then Finn was gone. He wasn’t there choking her anymore. He was flying sideways against the wall. The splintering of wood sounded as she dragged sweet oxygen into her burning lungs. A massive silverback was on Finn now, wailing on him, but Kirk didn’t know the danger. Couldn’t see it. Finn was trying desperately to light the fire. She scrambled toward them, but that damned flame flickered to life.
“Kirk!”
The silverback froze, powerful arm lifted mid-deathblow as the flame expanded on the gas tainted air.
Finn chuckled out a bone-chilling sound. “Worth it!” he yelled as Kirk rounded on Alison.
In an instant, the flame rolled outward with horrifying speed, and Alison grunted as Kirk’s body collided with hers. With one arm, he scooped her up so fast, her stomach dipped, and a few more jerky, powerful steps and he was diving for the shattered window he’d come through. When he landed on the grass, his giant clenched hand made a sickening splat in the soaked yard. Out here, the smell of lighter fluid was overwhelming, and she gripped harder around his neck as he bolted for the woods on three arms. An earth-shattering explosion blasted heat against her face, and she watched in horror as the cabin shot rolling flames toward them. It was coming too fast, would engulf them. She screamed as the fire licked at Kirk’s back, but he bunched his muscles and launched them upward. Something massive encircled her and Kirk, and they were sucked upward so hard, her breath was pushed straight out of her lungs with the force.
A deafening, prehistoric roar sounded as a massive blue dragon flapped his wings and clutched her and Kirk tighter in his claw as he aimed for the clouds. Below them, the explosion expanded and the heat from it stung her skin, but the flames didn’t touch them.
Struggling to pull in air, she looked up at the belly of the dragon that had saved her and Kirk. Damon.
She was being crushed against Kirk, and just as she thought she would pass out from their speed, Damon crested the low-lying clouds, arched his back against the forward motion and coasted on the wind. The relief at the lessened pressure was so intense, Alison rested her head against Kirk’s chest. She dragged in a deep, desperate breath and let off a sob on the exhale.
Too close. That was too damned close—not only for her, but for Kirk, too. If anything had happened to him…
Alison clutched the thick black fur of his arms as her chest heaved for breath and her eyes burned with emotion. She couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t exist.
“You came,” she murmured, over and over again. She punched the words through her crying as she tried to convince herself she was still alive. That she was still here with him.
Kirk’s blazing eyes pooled with worry as he searched her face and ran his knuckle along the stinging cuts the glass had made.
“I’ll be okay,” she promised thickly.
And it was true. The words weren’t just a balm to her mate’s worry.
Because of Kirk and Damon, she was going to be okay.
Chapter Twenty-One
In the last streaks of sunset light, Damon lowered them carefully to the clearing at Boarland Mobile Park. The wind from his wings kicked up tornadoes of dirt, but the chaos at the trailer park didn’t stop to watch. Harrison and the others were loading the bed of his truck with shovels and barrels of water, yelling and pointing, ordering each other about with panic on their faces. Even Clinton blasted by on a bobcat, complete focus in his eyes.
When Damon released them too high up, she yelped, but Kirk had her, and he landed them on the gravel with grace and an easy impact. Kirk’s Change back to his human form happened before Damon had flown away, and he instantly folded her in his arms and bolted for his trailer.
“Tell me you’re okay,” he rushed out, eyes wild as he set her on the bed inside. “Tell me now, Ally, or I can’t leave.”
“Where are you going?”
“Those assholes set an uncontrolled fire with fire accelerant.” He shoved his legs into a pair of jeans and whipped his hair from his face as he pulled on a shirt. “There’s a reason we don’t have logging season in the summer. Too hot, too dry, and any heat from our machinery could spark a forest fire. If we don’t keep this contained, Damon’s mountains, our homes, everything goes up in flames. Tell me you’re okay, Ally.”
“I’m okay, I swear.”
He checked her bruised neck, lifted her shirt and examined her aching ribs, then lingered at the bottom of her foot. She still didn’t want to look. Especially not after he gritted out a sigh and muttered, “Fuckin’ IESA.” Kirk kissed her hard and quick, and when he pulled away, he said, “I’m hitching a ride with Harrison and the boys. If we don’t contain the fire and it heads for the river, you and the girls go deeper into the mountains. Up to the Gray Backs, then to the Ashe Crew territory. Gather the women and kids we’re leaving behind and make sure they all get up to Damon’s house safe. If it reaches you there, you take everyone into the cave under the falls beside Damon’s house. We’ll find you. Do you understand? Harrison will have called the smoke jumpers and the rangers outside of Damon’s land. I don’t want to leave you. Not now.”
“Go Kirk. Help them save the park. You have to help them save the mountains.”
Kirk leaned forward and kissed her hard, let his lips linger a moment, then pulled back and strode for the doorway.
“Kirk!”
He turned. “Yeah, Ally Cat?”
“Thank you for coming for me.”
He smiled a sad smile as he flicked his gaze to her foot, then back to her face. “Always. I love you.”
And damn it all if that didn’t sound like a goodbye. He’d been careful with those words, and as he bolted from the trailer, she doubled over the pain in her chest. That was his second I love you, and she hoped with everything she had that it wasn’t his last.
She hobbled her aching body to the front of his trailer and onto the porch just as the trucks were speeding out of the park. Kirk was in the front seat of Harrison’s jacked-up red pickup with a map in his hands, talking, but when they passed, he looked up and watched her as she lifted her fingers in a wave.
Mason was in the back of the truck and called out, “I’ll get him back home to you.” His eyes were blazing the bright blue of his boar people as the truck sped away and disappeared into the Boarland woods.
Audrey stood quietly by Emerson, just below Kirk’s porch, watching them leave.
“They’re trained for fire,” Emerson said, cradling her stomach with one hand and holding a small camera in the other. She lifted her attention to Alison. She looked so scared. “Fire is always a risk up here, but they know what to do. They’ll be back.”
In the distance, against the darkening sky, was a plume of black smoke, wide and ominous. She could smell it from here. Too close for comfort, and she knew what the heat of those flames had felt like licking at her skin. The shifters of Damon’s mountains were charging the fire to save what they’d built here.
And for what? Because IESA didn’t like them? Because they were scared that they weren’t the top predator on earth? IESA was smoke. Dark, dangerous, able to fit in any space. Choking, poisonous, blinding.
“What are you taping?” Alison asked.
Emerson let off a trembling breath and tried to smile, but failed. “Everything. Cora said to catch what I can. I don’t know much about videotaping, though. I’ve just been trying to document life around here for my baby to watch later. And now Bash and the boys are headed down there to that fire, and I’m here doing nothing. Ally, they’re everything and we’re stuck here doing nothing!”
Audrey was shaking her head, her eyes rimmed with tears, swallowing over and over like she was trying not to retch.
Hissing at the pain in her foot, Alison scrambled down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing. “Do you want to do something big instead?”
Emerson turned, the wind whipping her black curls. She dragged her wide-eyed attention down Alison’s body like she hadn’t seen her before now. Her clothes were singed, and her face probably had a dozen cuts from the glass. “Ally, you look awful.”
Alison snorted. “Thank you. So…what do you say?”
“To what?”
“Do you want to do something big? Something that will make a difference for our people.” Our people. Alison would do anything for them.
“What did you have in mind?” Audrey asked.
“An interview. You can ask me questions about tonight.” Alison jerked her chin toward the smoke. “IESA thinks I’m dead. I can blow their operation wide open with what I know.”
“But Ally,” Emerson said, her cheeks pale in the dim evening light. “If they think you’re dead, you could escape. Go underground, change your appearance. Live. You can’t go on television. You’re the Ghost.”
Alison stared at the billowing black that was polluting the sky. Something irreplaceable was being taken from these people, and the world should see what was really happening. They should know why the shifters were having their rights stripped, why she’d been sent here. She had never been a peacekeeper as she’d thought. She’d been a war machine.
The country had revolted about IESA when Cora Keller had exposed them the first time, proof that there was more good than bad in this world. They would rally again if they had the facts. If they knew IESA was rebuilding.
Here was where Alison was going to make her stand. These people deserved to stop taking blows at the whim of a scared government.
She would stop running for Kirk. For the people here. For herself.
With fire in her soul, Alison locked eyes on Emerson and murmured, “I’m not a ghost anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Today had been the most hellish day of his life, and that was saying something. Kirk tossed an exhausted glance to the back seat where Bash was stretched out and dozing in and out with his face against the window. He was covered in soot, just like Mason and Clinton, who sat in the bed of Harrison’s truck, staring off into the woods with haunted looks in their eyes.
“You want to talk about it?” Harrison asked in a hoarse voice. Yelling orders and breathing thick smoke all night did that.
“Talk about what?”
“About what happened to Ally.”
Kirk winced against the vision of her being choked by that asshole partner of hers. He’d barely resisted the urge to rip that fucker limb from limb. “Won’t help.”
Bash stirred and gripped Kirk’s shoulder too rough. “Talking always helps. Harrison and me both learned that.”
Kirk sighed an irritated sound and said, “Fine. She called me when I was up on the landing. You saw that.”
“Saw you blur out of there in Clinton’s new truck,” Harrison muttered. “I thought he was going to bleed us all he was so pissed. And you screamed for us to call Damon, but I didn’t know what to tell him. I just knew Ally was in trouble.”
“I could hear her,” Kirk whispered, shaking his head just to get a grip on the pain in his middle the memory caused. “I had my phone sitting on the seat, and I could hear her fighting for her life, trying to give me hints about what was happening, and I thought I wasn’t going to get to her in time.” He ripped his attention away from the road illuminated in soft, early dawn light. “I thought I was going to lose her. And she fought, Harrison. She was still fighting when I got to her.”
“You got yourself a badass mate,” Bash murmured. “That Ally girl, she’s a fighter.”
Kirk swallowed hard and nodded. “Brackeen had turned the gas on in the house, and someone had dumped fire accelerant in a straight line over the cabins, like they were trying to make it look like a scorch mark from dragon’s fire. It was all a setup, and Ally was the one supposed to take the fall.” Kirk clenched his hands and closed his eyes tightly against the urge to Change and rip up the forest just to quell the red rage inside of him. “Finn had an IESA kill switch for her, and when she fought that off, they were gonna burn her alive, Harrison. Imagine how you would feel if someone tried to do that to Audrey.” He gave Bash a glance over his shoulder. “Imagine if they tried to do it to Emerson and your baby. You are my crew. Ally is my family group. I want to kill all those mother fuckers.”
Harrison’s cell phone rang. He answered it and put it on speaker phone as he pulled under the Boarl
and Mobile Park sign. “Cora, you’re on speaker.”
“Hey boys.”
“Hey Cora,” they all said in unison, even Clinton and Mason in the back. Shifter hearing didn’t suck.
“Are you guys around a television?”
“About to be,” Harrison said. “Why?”
“Because Kirk’s mate has a massive set of lady balls, and she’s about to shake up the damned world.”
Kirk frowned and leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see. Just get in front of a television and turn on the news.”
“Local?”
“No, Harrison. National. Ally sent me something to put on the air. Something big.” There was a smile in her voice when she said, “You call me after and tell me how you like my editing. And Kirk?”
“Yeah, Cora?”
“You done good, boy.” Her voice was teasing, light, and didn’t make any damned sense, but before he could ask, the line went dead.
Harrison gave him a what-the-hell look and pulled straight through the trailer park to 1010 where the front door was standing wide open.
Every instinct in Kirk’s body told him to get to his mate. To touch her and hold her and convince his gorilla she was all right, but he smelled like smoke, and his boots were muddy from where the ash had mixed with the water and turned to thick, pungent glop.
On the porch of 1010, he peeled off his ruined shirt and kicked out of his boots, then stumbled through the front door into the soft glow of the living room lamp.
Emerson, Audrey, and Ally were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the couch. They twisted around with expectant looks on their faces. Audrey and Emerson got up and bolted for their mates, but Ally looked exhausted and winced when she tried. Had to be her foot hurting. It had a bad chemical burn all across her sole. He hoped she didn’t carry the limp forever, but she might.
Ally’s eyes had dimmed to a stormy blue and were hollow, and though someone had cleaned the cuts on her face, her skin was pale as a phantom. Kirk was haunted by the vision of her being hurt, sure, but she’d actually lived through Finn’s attack and betrayal. His chest rattled with a helpless noise as he strode around the couch and sank down beside her.