Charred Hope (#3, Heart of Fire)

by Lizzy Ford

  Skylar frowned. No part of her believed for a moment that Freyja was willing to spare the shifters, not after all the dragon shifter had done to manipulate her way to where she wanted to be.

  “You hear that, Dillon? You’re not allowed to hurt anyone,” Skylar prodded. “Kinda sucks taking orders after you’ve been running things the past thirteen years or so.”

  “Look, girl, whatever you’re doing, it’s not –” Freyja started.

  “No, she’s right,” Dillon responded. “Why should I listen to you, Freyja? The griffins are mine. We’ve done all your grunt work. What do you bring to the table?”

  Tension between the two allies ratcheted up another notch. Skylar didn’t know what was holding the two together. Dillon and Freyja were mismatched in every way she could imagine, and both were selfish beyond imagination. If she took their common enemy out of the equation, would their tenuous relationship fall to pieces?

  “The master plan, maybe?” Freyja shot back. “This isn’t about us, Dillon. We both need her.”

  “Whoever wants to control the shifters needs me,” Skylar noted. “So then whoever has me, does he or she win by default?”

  “Stop it, girl,” Freyja snapped. “We’ve agreed to your deal. I assume that means you’ll leave quietly with us.”

  “Sure,” Skylar said cheerfully. She hopped forward. The jolting movement renewed the pain in her leg. “Shit.”

  Mason shifted towards her, supporting more of her body weight as she sagged. A wave of dizziness washed over her.

  “Give me a minute,” she said. She looked upward into the inky blackness again. If she were having trouble standing on two feet, would she be as hindered on four? “Are we going up or out a different way?”

  “Different way,” Dillon replied. “Back way, where anything can happen.”

  Skylar smiled to herself. “Thank god you both need me alive or I might be worried. Wonder if it’s the same for the two of you?” She was shivering. Shock was setting in, which meant, if she planned on escaping, she was short on time.

  Mason hadn’t stopped rumbling from deep within his chest since the first one of them spoke. Skylar rested against him for a moment.

  “I need to shift,” she whispered. “Dragon, griffin or cat?”

  He tossed his mane.

  “Sky, come on,” Dillon said impatiently.

  “I’m having a small problem walking.”

  “How bad?”

  She tested her leg and quickly took the weight off it. Pain shot through her. “Bad,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Give her a hand, Dillon,” Freyja snapped. “Mason, you go your own way with no incident and I’ll respect my promise to Skylar.”

  Mason roared in response.

  “Do it,” Skylar said, burying both her hands in his thick mane. She leaned closer. “Bring Chace back with you.”

  The great lion growled loudly.

  “Come get me, Dillon,” Skylar said.

  She heard his step on the shale around her. A moment later, his arm wrapped around her. She released Mason, praying her tiny semblance of a plan worked.

  “Hurry up, Dillon,” Freyja called. Without hearing her leave, Skylar was able to determine the woman was a good twenty meters away just by her voice.

  “She doesn’t cut you any slack, does she?” Skylar murmured to Dillon, grimacing when they took their first step.

  “Shut up, Sky.”

  “No, really, Dillon. I’ve never known you to –”

  “Listen.” He whirled her and gripped both arms hard. “Whatever you’re doing, it won’t work. You fucked up if you think I’m gonna let her keep me from doing what I need to with the community! You turned yourself in and will get a front row seat to what I’m planning!”

  You’re a real dick, Dillon. Skylar struggled to keep her balance.

  “What exactly do you want to do with me?” she asked. “What good is a Protector to you?”

  “We’ll find out when we know what your gift is,” he replied. He started forward again, this time yanking her by the arm. “It’s gotta be more than you being able to turn into a stupid cat.”

  Her injured leg exploded into pain the moment she put pressure on the ball of her foot. “Oh, god!” she gasped. The lights reappeared in her mind, driving her towards unconsciousness.

  Dillon muttered a curse then stopped, slinging her over his shoulder.

  Skylar fell into the in-between place for a long moment before biting her lip hard. The sudden burst of pain pulled her back.

  “So …” She tried hard to focus on her words. “If you take Protectors to use their magic … what did you want from my mother?”

  “Her gift. She had the ability to hide things. Compounds, shifters, whatever.”

  The claim startled her. Suddenly, the slayers operations – and the shifters’ inability to sense or escape them – crystalized. “And that’s why Gavin didn’t know about the slayers. No one did,” she said in surprise. She tried to maneuver her injured leg into not bobbing against his chest with every step he took. “Brilliant.”

  “We built an operation under the noses of every shifter in existence,” he replied. “They never saw us coming.”

  Wow. Her mother was a badass, if she could hide so much activity, even from those who were caught in the middle of it. “So how did that work? You took her magic?” she asked.

  “Not exactly. Magic is in the blood. We took her blood. Used it to shield the compounds and even to brainwash you.”

  His words made Skylar even more nauseated. They’d drained her mother of blood! How sick was that? Was that what they planned to do to her, too?

  “But how could you do that for so long if …” she wasn’t alive? She stopped, stunned by her own realization. “She was alive the whole time, wasn’t she?”

  “Was, yeah.” Dillon sounded smug. “Didn’t need her after you blew the lid off our operation.”

  Guilt flooded her. Skylar’s eyes watered as much from the pain in her leg as the feeling of her heart breaking. If she had known the cost of bucking the system … if she’d had some small clue that her mother’s life was at risk …

  “You’re a bastard, Dillon,” she whispered.

  “We’re even now.”

  “I didn’t kill Caleb!” She all but shouted. “And you killed two of my parents!”

  “Freyja killed your mother this morning. I had nothing to do with it.”

  Skylar’s breath caught, and her chest seized so quickly, she couldn’t breathe.

  This morning. She’d been searching for her mother for years, only to miss saving her by a few hours? It was beyond her ability to imagine how close she’d been and how badly she’d failed.

  “That shut you up. Now, listen to me, Sky,” Dillon said, his voice growing hushed. “Freyja killed your mother in cold blood. Your father died in battle. You’ve got no chance, if you take her side. You know what I’m capable of if you cross me. Why don’t we make our own deal now?”

  Skylar listened, barely registering the words. After the blow Dillon just gave her, she wasn’t certain what to think or even if she could believe him. But the idea her mother had been alive until only a few hours ago …

  “Come with me, and I won’t fuck you up.”

  “Is that the best you’ve got?” she asked with a strangled laugh.

  “It’s all you’re getting,” he retorted. He stopped walking. “Right now, I can do unspeakable things to you, Sky. We’re twenty meters underground. There’s no one to save you.”

  Except for me. She said nothing, not about to let her little secret slip. Even if she did shift, she’d be too clumsy to know how to defeat him. She might be able to fight him off long enough to escape, though, which made her secret even more valuable.

  He was doing what she wanted – severing from Freyja. If the two of them ever went into battle, she doubted either would survive.

  Especially not once Chace got there. And he would. This time, she wouldn’t doubt h
im. He’d leapt off a cliff to prove himself, and she believed in him.

  “Sure, why not?” she mumbled. She was feeling hot, starting to overheat. Her skin was clammy, and her leg was fluctuating between numbness and agony. “Not to alarm you, but I’m about to get sick.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Dillon snarled. He began walking again, this time faster.

  How was I ever half in love with this jackass? Skylar swallowed hard, lightheaded.

  “What can you do as a Protector?” he asked tersely. “Or do I have to figure it out?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “So you do know?”

  “Yeah. But right now …” she drifted off and coughed.

  “Fuck, Sky, if you throw up on me …” Dillon set her down none too gently.

  Skylar sucked in a deep breath, willing herself not to throw up. The urge subsided, and she wiped the tears off her face.

  “My leg is broken,” she groaned. “How far are we going?”

  Dillon said nothing. He rested a hand on her forehead then shifted away.

  “Where did Freyja go?”

  “None of your business.”

  “If you don’t know, do you really think you should trust her out of your sight? I mean, she could be meeting with the dragons to take you out. It’s almost dark.”

  “Stop it, Sky!”

  She sagged, a chill running through her.

  Dillon was silent.

  Skylar stretched down to touch her injured leg and cursed when she felt the shinbone nearly protruding through her skin.

  “If you need to go … handle something … I’m not going anywhere,” she told him.

  There was another pause, then a reluctant, “Stay here. If you move a fucking inch, I will kill all your precious shifters.”

  Skylar said nothing. She didn’t hear him leave and waited.

  “Dillon?” she whispered into the darkness.

  The sound of a heavy metal door closing a short distance away was the only response.

  “Oh, god.” She breathed out hard, her body hurting. Using her upper body strength, Skylar lifted herself on top of an uncomfortable boulder.

  Try to make it on two legs or shift into something else and see if four legs worked better?

  She peeled off her shirt and tossed it then decided saving her clothing wasn’t worth the pain of moving her hurt leg. Instead she steadied her breathing, closed her eyes, and pulled in the magic of the closest shifter she could.

  Damn griffin. It was Dillon’s signature with Freyja’s being the next closest.

  Skylar focused on Dillon and drawing his magic into her body. She was almost too fevered and numb to notice the pain of her body being torn a part and rebuilt. When the transformation was finished, she tested herself.

  Her right back leg was useless, but she had the use of her others, which stabilized her body. She didn’t feel the overwhelming need to vomit or lie down, as if one bad leg wasn’t as cumbersome to a creature with four as it was to one with two. She was still, growing accustomed to the senses of a griffin. She was able to see shapes and a pathway in the darkness that had befuddled her before, along with the ability to hear the sounds coming from the door through which Dillon had gone as well as from the spot where she fell into the cavern in the first place. The trickling stream came off as a roar now, and she was able to smell moss growing on the walls and the chalky scent of rocks.

  The section of the cavern where she stood now was too narrow to spread her wings. She turned and hobbled on three legs back to the expansive cabin, now able to see what she couldn’t before. The gaping underground cave was large enough for her and Chace to stand wing-to-wing without reaching each side. Her sharp vision was able to see the lines of sky between the heavy metal sheets lying over top of the cavern.

  Waiting for Dillon to return and finish her off wasn’t an option.

  Skylar spread her wings, judging their weight and what it’d take to balance once she was in the air. She lifted and lowered once, pulling herself off the ground. While her head hurt from the injured leg, she almost roared in relief at easing the pressure by being off the ground. She moved her wings carefully and hovered awkwardly.

  The griffins wings were half the size of a dragon’s – but sturdier, thicker. They felt more like what she expected them to, not like the translucent, delicate wings of a dragon.

  When confident she was able to balance in the air, she propelled herself upward, using her animal senses to gauge her distance from the top. When she was close, she lowered her head and neck and attempted to slam her shoulder into it.

  Her first strike was off, and she toppled backwards. Catching her large body with her wings, she evaluated briefly then tried again.

  Why can’t I just know how to be whatever shifter I am? She groaned internally. Each beast was like learning her body over again. While she was acclimating faster, she didn’t yet feel comfortable flying or walking on four legs. There was a level of instinctive coordination the other shifters appeared to have naturally, whereas she struggled to adapt.

  Skylar smashed into the metal ceiling twice more until managing to push aside two sheets of metal to reveal a crack about a foot wide. It wasn’t large enough for her to push through. She glanced towards her tail, recalling how Dillon had used his to wrap around her neck and fling her around.

  With more patience than she thought possible, she ordered the tail to push through the crack and widen it. If wings were a challenge, a tail was like trying to order around a body part that belonged to someone else.

  Her keen senses picked up on the metal door opening deep within the cavern. It didn’t take seeing who was there for her to guess Dillon was on his way back for her.

  Come on, tail! Skylar growled aloud and pushed at the metal. One gave with a grating sound she knew was going to be audible to a griffin like Dillon. Panicking at the thought of facing him in the confines of the cavern, she pushed harder, finally managing to shove open a large enough space for her to ram through.

  Skylar heard the sounds of breaking bones that indicated Dillon was rapidly transforming into his griffin form and squawked more loudly than she intended. She rocketed upward, smashing through the metal sheets. One flipped over while the other grated against stone as it moved.

  She drew a deep breath and vaulted into the sky. With some surprise, she smacked into another body in the air above the desert and tumbled back towards the ground. Skylar flailed, her wings ballooning out to catch her. Steadying herself, she took a moment to look around.

  Dragons. They were everywhere, their different colored scales glowing faintly in the starlight. Unable to tap into her Protector GPS when she was in flight, she spun to see who was there, looking for Chace.

  A squawking roar from below drew her focus. She saw the furious ball of feathers and fur barreling towards her, out of the cavern.

  Shit. Skylar flew upwards, ignoring the dragons, until one of them lunged at her. It dawned on her they thought she was the enemy. Skirting away from the dragon taking too keen of an interest in her, she found her path on a collision course with Dillon, whose mastery of flight and hunting his prey far outweighed her ability to escape.

  She turned tail and soared away, not caring where she went. The other dragons began circling, and she sensed them change directions to attack the two massive griffins in their midst.

  Cursing Dillon and everyone under the sun, Skylar pulled at the nearest thread of magic, that of the dragon chasing her, and ordered her body to shift.

  Pain rippled through her. It wasn’t the pain of shifting but of a dragon trying to sear off one wing. The feathers burst into flame, and she plummeted towards the earth.

  Shift, shift, shift! She closed her eyes and fell. Her body tore itself a part and transformed mid-flight into that of a dragon.

  The pain in her wing extinguished as her body absorbed the flames. Fire blazed through her, and she heard the roars of those pursuing.

  Skylar unleashed the longer,
more delicate wings of a dragon and caught herself a few feet from the ground. Her senses picked up those near here, the dragons that had stopped pursuing in confusion, while Dillon fought free of two to charge after her.

  The griffin smashed into her, his talons shredding one wing and clawing a chunk out of her side. Skylar’s scream came out as a furious bellow. She and Dillon hit the ground and rolled, his beak and talons tearing into her. She coughed flames at him and shoved him with her good legs, digging her claws into his body to help her balance.

  They rolled to a stop. Skylar’s breathing was labored, pain in her side and down one leg. Her injured wing hurt too, and vaguely, she wondered what part of her human body would reflect the damage once she transformed. No longer distracted by the need to concentrate on flying, she watched Dillon recover with one eye while seeking out any other animal she was able to find. Her wings were useless, and she wasn’t going to be able to hide easily when she was the size of an SUV and weighed a metric ton.

  Dragons and griffins. They were the closest. Farther away, she sensed feline shifters and at least one wolf. Skylar considered her options. She needed the ability to run fast and maneuver.

  Dillon staggered to his feet and shook out his short, thick mane.

  Skylar stretched for the magic of a mountain cat, the smallest of the felines she found within a few kilometers of the cavern. Holding her breath, she willed herself to shift. Her bones cracked in response to her silent commands. Her muscles and skin tightened, her body imploding to create a creature whose shoulders were no more than half a meter off the ground.

  She tested her body. Her leg was still injured but the pain from the wounds in her sides had dulled, as if shifting made her heal some of her injuries. Her right front shoulder felt as if it had been bruised, and she guessed that was the remains of Dillon shredding her wing.

  Without waiting for Dillon to figure out what was going on, she bounded away, darting quickly into the darkness. Skirting boulders and cacti, she used the feline’s night vision to guide her. She’d caught a glimpse of a gaggle of shifters – including Chace – about two kilometers away, behind a few hills.

  Dragons attacked Dillon, distracting him, while one of the great beasts hovered over her, as if trying to figure out what was going on with the creature that shifted from griffin to dragon to feline within minutes.