Charred Hope (#3, Heart of Fire)

by Lizzy Ford

  Chace struggled to hang onto the griffin. It flung him over its head then pounced.

  Shit. Chace’s arms went over his head to protect himself from the razor sharp beak of the griffin. It slashed through his forearms, sending hot pain through him. He kicked at the bulky body hovering over his.

  The griffin retreated then snatched his arm with a clawed talon.

  Light poured into the hallway as Ginger reached the exit and opened the door. The smoke was too thick to see more than her dark shape in the doorway before the door closed behind her.

  The griffin lunged towards the door.

  Chace snatched the leg nearest him, dragging the creature down to the ground. He bounced to his feet and launched over it towards the door, arms pumping hard.

  The griffin slashed at him, its talons sinking into his back painfully. Chace stumbled and caught himself, dragon senses warning him about the creature’s next move. Chace dived to the ground and rolled, smashing a kick into the beast charging him. Another swipe of the talons went through his chest, and he cursed, all too aware of the blood running down his body.

  He bounded to his feet once more and forced his weakening body towards the door.

  He slammed into the door, not expecting it to be so close. The griffin collided with him, pressing him to the cold metal.

  Chace whirled and punched blindly then kicked. Both blows hit the creature, even if he wasn’t certain where. It was enough to get it off his back so he could wrench the door open.

  The moment he stepped foot into the brilliant midday outside, he began shifting. Chace threw his body weight against the door. It bucked open, and he shoved it closed.

  “Ginger!” he grunted, his body shifting too quickly for him to control.

  Ginger was a few feet away, scared gaze on the door. She darted forward at her name and braced herself against the door.

  Chace staggered a few feet away to keep from squashing her when he transformed into a dragon. Fire flew through him, spurred by adrenaline and pain. He closed his eyes and focused hard, aware there were mere seconds between him becoming a dragon and a stupid griffin eating Skylar’s mom.

  “Chace!” her cry was alarmed.

  Done. Chace whirled and saw Ginger on the ground, the bite-sized griffin getting ready to slash her.

  With a bellow that made the rocks around them leap off the ground, Chace snapped the foul-scented griffin up in his powerful jaws and crushed it. The creature didn’t have a chance to get a cry out before its body went limp and its blood filled his mouth.

  He tossed it to the side, furious such a beast had managed to slash him up. Blood ran down his legs, chest and back.

  The door leading into the mountain exploded outwards suddenly under the pressure of the explosion that caused the hallways to collapse. Chace flung up one wing, and the metal door deflected off him.

  Dust and smoke poured out of the mountain. The rumbling slowed then stopped.

  Relieved, Chace turned to make sure Skylar’s mother was okay.

  Ginger was trembling. Her bare feet were bloodied from the rocks. She shifted to pull her legs beneath her, gazing up at him in awe. She appeared younger than he expected, in her early thirties, not quite old enough to have a nineteen-year-old daughter. There were scars on her exposed limps, neck and down one side of her face, faded enough he hadn’t been able to see them in the weak light of the vault.

  It wasn’t just the latest attempt to kill him that left him infuriated almost to the point where he wasn’t able to think. The idea Ginger had been tortured, bled then frozen for six years dispelled any remaining inclination that Chace had about wanting to spare Freyja. He began to think everything she said was a lie, from blaming Dillon for killing hunters to turning over Ginger, once Chace succeeded in getting rid of her competition. Freyja had awoken his dragon magic a thousand years before but never told him what that meant or who he was supposed to be – the Protector’s guardian. He knew now that she had probably always known, probably always been planning to use or kill him, once she found Skylar.

  The next time he saw her, one of them wasn’t walking away.

  I did the right thing following her here, though. No part of him doubted it, even if Ginger was too taxed to go far. If he hadn’t, would Freyja have still dropped a mountain on Ginger? Rage filled him as he imagined what Ginger had gone through – what Freyja planned on putting Skylar through, if she caught her – and he almost felt relieved Gavin wasn’t there to see what happened to the other half of his heart.

  The rogue dragon would’ve gone crazy on sight.

  Chace took a step towards her – and collapsed. He was bleeding heavily.

  Ginger climbed to her feet with effort. “Others will come soon,” she said urgently. “Can you shift back? I can cloak us more easily.”

  Chace stood and shook his head, not about to endanger them by remaining. Testing his wings, he hovered for a moment then moved forward, picking her up gently. Flying never caused this level of strain, and he knew he wasn’t going far. Just far enough to find a safe place to hide.

  He forced himself into the sky above the mountain, eyes roving the area below him for a safe spot. He didn’t have the energy to fly for an hour and rendezvous with Skylar. All he needed was to find an area large enough for the cabin and then summon it.

  His energy waning quickly, he wobbled in mid-flight, darkness beginning to creep into his mind. He spotted a valley between two peaks and descended quickly, barely preventing a hard landing. Releasing Ginger, he dropped then knelt.

  Cabin! It was his last thought before his eyes closed, and unconsciousness claimed him.

  Chapter Ten

  “My god.” Skylar got out of the SUV and stood frozen. She’d seen the smoke from the distance indicating there was a fire somewhere. The closer she drove to The Field, the more she prayed it wasn’t what her instincts told her.

  The bar that had acted as the shifters refuge was burned to the ground. She sensed a couple dozen living shifters scattered within the vicinity and just as many dead.

  Her heart dropped to her feet at the sight of the damage.

  What made Dillon turn against his own community to the point that he hunted and killed other shifters? She knew he was moody and difficult, but still … she never would’ve known he was capable of this.

  Like I ever really knew any of them, she reminded herself. She’d had her own mind erased and foreign thoughts introduced, ones that told her it was okay to trust people like Dillon and Mason.

  With a sidelong glance at the dark-skinned lion shifter approaching her, she couldn’t dismiss the thought that he might still be lying to her.

  “I didn’t expect this,” Mason stated, gaze on the destruction. “The shifters are scattered to the four winds now, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, seems that way,” she murmured. “Harder to form a revolt or support the rightful leadership if they’re all over the world.”

  Skylar started forward, hoping to find Gunner. She sensed him nearby, along with a few more shifters. Was he, too, spooked? The man who stood up to Chace didn’t seem like the kind to run.

  She broke out into a jog, following her senses around the hill behind the ashes remaining of the bar.

  Gunner was treating three wounded shifters under a lean-to, accompanied by another man she recognized as his and Chace’s friend, a phoenix shifter named Luke.

  “Gunner!” she called as she approached.

  He stood and waited, hands on hips and features grim. His dark hair was pulled back, his muscular frame robed in clothing that appeared to have seen better days.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  He rubbed his mouth before responding. “First Freyja then the griffins. They were pretty determined to scare us all away.”

  Her eyes fell to the three wounded shifters. One was in animal form – a massive white ape – while the other two were in human forms but unconscious.

  “Is that Max?” she whispered, eyes on the snow-wh
ite ape whose hair was slashed with red.

  “Yeah. Finally got his fight.” Gunner eyed Mason. “Where’s Chace?”

  “We got separated,” Skylar said. “He flew off. I’m not sure where.” She did her best to keep her tone neutral and not to show any of her hurt or concern. She’d checked her phone a few times but not seen a text from him after the initial one where he said he was fine. “I should’ve stopped this.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Gunner replied, softening.

  “It is. My job is to protect you all. I just really … suck at it,” she said in frustration.

  “You’re nineteen,” Mason said in amusement. “Gunner here is close to seven hundred, and I’m fifteen hundred years old. If we weren’t able to prevent this shit, what chance did you have?”

  “You aren’t a Protector!” she retorted. “I just … ugh! I don’t know how to be all the different kinds of shifters I need to in order to stop this!”

  “Easy, Sky,” Gunner said. “Mason’s right. You’re learning. We all are. What we know: Freyja and Dillon need to be stopped before they hurt anyone else, and you can locate them so that we can do that.”

  She nodded, soothed by his simple wisdom. “I just wish Chace …” She clamped her mouth closed. “Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s doing something that needs to be done.” But I really need you here, Chace!

  “We need a small army to take out Dillon and his griffins.”

  “There were about a hundred shifters here before we got chased off. I think about a quarter of them are still in the area,” Gunner said. “We can round up those willing to help.”

  “And the dragons, when they wake up,” she added. “This time, I’m not waiting for them to come to us. I can track every shifter in the universe, apparently, which means we can hunt them down one by one.”

  “I like that plan.”

  “I have one lasso,” she said and pulled it from her pocket. “Even if it takes a week, we’re going to put them into hibernation and end this!”

  “Sounds like a plan. Will Chace be joining us soon?” Gunner asked a little too casually.

  She heard what he didn’t say, that it’d take more than the three of them to win this battle.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. “He went with Freyja somewhere.”

  Mason said nothing. Gunner frowned.

  “I trust him,” she said more confidently. “Whatever is going on, he’s got a good reason for doing it.”

  “You don’t want us to go after him?” Gunner asked.

  She hesitated. She’d thought a few times about whether or not he was in trouble. “If I don’t hear from him by tonight, then yes. Right now, I want to find Dillon and lasso the bastard.”

  “Dillon’s a big bird to face without a dragon,” Mason said, glancing at Gunner.

  “I don’t need backup,” she reminded them. “If I get close enough, I can become something bigger than him. What I need is a ride to his location.”

  “We need a ride to his location,” Mason corrected her. “Which means flying, right?”

  She nodded. Gunner grumbled and Mason didn’t appear pleased, but she knew they’d both be willing to go, despite their feline issues with flying.

  “I can carry one,” Luke said, stepping forward. With short blond hair and light eyes, he was tall and slender, lean in the way of a swimmer.

  “You don’t want to wait for Chace?” Mason asked again.

  “He’ll know where to find us.” She smiled. “I’ve never seen a phoenix, Luke.”

  “All fire, no bite,” Gunner replied.

  Skylar smiled. A few hours ago, when Chace randomly disappeared, she’d figured he would return soon. The longer he was gone, however, the more concerned she became. While it was true he should be able to take care of himself, what happened if either he couldn’t or wasn’t willing to kill someone he’d been intimate with at some point?

  What if he was in danger?

  He’d gone off her radar an hour before, but he was alive. She felt his magic burning in her blood. His location had been far from Dillon’s and no longer co-located with Freyja’s. Uncertain how to interpret his absence when he wasn’t close to either of the two people who posed a threat, she’d texted a few times then left it up to him.

  His lack of response was as troubling as his sudden disappearance.

  Trust him, Sky. It wasn’t the first time she’d told herself this. It shouldn’t be hard after their night together, but she was afraid of trusting anyone. People had a way of betraying or dying on her. Not my dragon.

  “We got trouble,” Mason growled, eyes on the sky. “Looks like the griffins are tracking you, Sky.”

  Her eyes flew up. She considered them. If one got close enough, she could turn into a griffin. But after her attempts at flying earlier, she knew how clumsy she was at it.

  I can’t be afraid to be who I am now, she told herself.

  Luke was transforming into a phoenix nearby, and she glanced at him. While large, roughly the size of a small car, he wasn’t anywhere near the size of a dragon. His head was the size of a human’s, his plume of feathers the color of fire while the long, elegant tail of a phoenix smoldered.

  “It’s got to be easier to fly when I’m that size,” she murmured and approached him.

  Luke was a good two heads taller than her. She stopped close to him, listening for the senses that would separate his unique shifter signature from the others nearby. She keyed in on it.

  “Mason, can you and Gunner find what army we can to face Dillon?” she asked, facing them. “I’m gonna give this flying thing a go again.”

  “You sure about that?” Mason asked.

  “Yeah.”

  The griffins above had doubled in number.

  “I’m tired of running,” she decided. “At some point, I have to stop, right?”

  “At the right time,” Gunner agreed.

  Ignoring him, she stripped out of her clothing, channeling the energy of a phoenix shifter.

  “We’ll see how this goes!” she said cheerfully. “I’m going after Dillon.”

  Gunner and Mason exchanged a look. She knew they were reluctant to act without Chace or the dragons, but she wasn’t going to wait any longer to find Dillon after seeing the damage he’d done.

  “We’ll follow on foot,” Gunner said finally. “Don’t fly too fast. We need to be able to keep up.”

  Nodding, she closed her eyes and let the shifter magic take her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chace awoke with a groan, hating how badly his head was pounding. He lay still for a long moment to assess his body. Fear raced through him at the idea he was back on the beach again, unable to heal, waiting to die.

  There was no pain, though, aside from his headache, only general body soreness and fatigue. He often felt this way after he’d healed. His body repaired itself automatically whenever he shifted but took time to replenish the blood loss, which was why his head throbbed.

  “Glad you’re awake,” a quiet voice said.

  It wasn’t Skylar’s, and it took him some thought to figure out whose it was. Chace opened one eye then the other. The sunlight streaming through the cabin’s windows was too bright for his delicate head. He squinted.

  “Pizza?” he asked, the scent tickling his nose.

  “Your lair doesn’t listen to me very well,” Ginger said in some amusement. “But it did make you some food.”

  He pushed his body into a sitting position and leaned back against the headboard of his bed in the cozy cabin that was his home.

  Ginger appeared a little healthier than before. There was color in her cheeks, and she wore clothing the cabin had probably found her. Her frame was too thin and frail for her slenderness to be natural, the circles under her eyes showing him how bad her experience had been.

  Seated in the living area, she smiled, a cup of tea in her hands. Her gaze was direct and confident, if tired, her warm air cheerful, like Skylar’s.

  “What did the
y do to you?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  She raised an eyebrow, another trait that reminded him of her daughter.

  “Not that you look bad but … well, you really do,” he said.

  “Just the usual. Interrogation, torture, shaved bald and bled near death.” Her response was chipper. “It’s all behind me, though.”

  “Why torture? I understand wanting your blood, but torture?”

  “They needed to find Gavin and to know what Sky’s gift was as well as mine,” she answered. “I wouldn’t tell them.”

  Chace didn’t want to imagine the lengths someone like Dillon or Freyja were willing to go to in order to break Skylar’s sweet mother. That Ginger had survived was nothing short of crazy.

  “Freyja was in on it, too?” he asked.

  “Of course. She’s the brains. Dillon is the muscle. I wouldn’t trust either of them for everything in the world. They argued a lot about how best to proceed with me and Skylar, but I don’t have any doubt that they were both responsible for what happened.”

  “What about Mason?” he pressed. “Or do these questions bother you?” He searched her face, aware of how much suffering she’d gone through and unwilling to put her through more.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said with a faint smile. “I remember Mason. Briefly.” She was pensive. “I met him when I first got there. I don’t recall much else about him.”

  Chace said nothing, his thoughts on Skylar again. He wasn’t able to shake the image of her ending up like Ginger. As powerful as Gavin was, he hadn’t been able to protect his family, and Chace began to wonder what it’d take to safeguard his Sky.

  Her skill was better suited to protecting her than Ginger’s, once she learned to harness her magic and the different abilities each shifter gave her. He didn’t want to think they’d always be in danger.

  Which means Freyja and Dillon need to die. He also understood Skylar’s view on killing, that it should only be done if necessary. She’d pleaded for the lives of those who helped brainwash her already.

  Would she reconsider once she saw her mother? Would she realize there were certain shifters that just couldn’t be allowed to live, if there was any hope for peace? It’d be different if Freyja hadn’t been able to manipulate others from her hibernation.