by Lizzy Ford
Sky’s five! It read and was surrounded with stickers, paper cut outs and other scrapping embellishments in bright shades of pumpkin and yellow.
Her heart pounding, Skylar flipped to the first pages. An image of her at the age of five – grinning with icing smeared across one cheek – seated in front of a cake and wrapped in her mother’s arms was on one side. She studied her mother, a beautiful woman with chiseled cheekbones and a brilliant smile. They shared the same shade of brunette hair and cerulean eyes.
The picture on the opposite page was of her sitting on one of the wings of the blue dragon, apparently having a tea party while he dozed. She was bundled up, and the skies in the distance were grey.
She almost laughed at the bizarre sight, not understanding how she’d been so calm around the massive, otherworldly creature when so young.
Turning the page, she saw all three of them: the stoic shifter with his almost-smile, her mother grinning and herself. Gavin’s arms were around the petite Ginger while Ginger’s were around her.
She turned the pages, taking in the photos, the pre-school graduation certificate and tassel, and her mother’s cute, quirky commentary with growing alarm.
Skylar’s heart was soaring. She didn’t recall any of this old life, and she was almost glad. She didn’t want to imagine what she should be feeling by rediscovering everything she’d lost.
She closed the scrapbook then opened the next. Her mother had made a new one for each year of her life, so she opened all the boxes and put them in order then started flipping through them from the beginning. She saw her as a newborn in her exhausted mother’s arms in the hospital and one of Gavin, who seemed uncertain holding her but was smiling. The pictures were numerous in the first book, her mother’s scrapping clearly that of a beginner. But Ginger’s joy was clear in every page and comment, and the pages were cluttered with pictures and stickers.
Skylar finished and went to the next book, then the next. It was almost like learning about someone else’s life. She knew the girl in the pictures was her, but she didn’t remember any of it.
The more scrapbooks she flipped through, the more she realized that she wasn’t able to recall anything from her youth, aside from the memories that appeared in her dreams. There weren’t even any false memories to replace the real ones. There was just … nothing. As if she’d been born when she was seventeen. The first memories she recalled were of being trained by Caleb, meeting Mason, Dillon and the rest of the staff at the Field two years before, and learning everything she knew about dragons and shifters.
The pictures in the thirteenth scrapbook stopped less than a quarter of the way through. The rest of the pages were blank. The last was of Skylar on the front porch of the farmhouse from her dream.
She closed the book, a sense of loss making her ache. She didn’t recall her first thirteen years, but there was at least proof of who she was and what she’d gone through.
There was nothing for the four years after the final picture in the last scrapbook. Like she had fallen off the face of the earth.
Or spent four years being brainwashed.
She opened the last scrapbook again, looking for some sign of what happened to the girl whose life she’d followed for the first thirteen years. She flipped through the empty pages, hoping there was a picture or something she’d missed, one last piece of her mother and the life she didn’t remember.
Tucked between the last pages of the scrapbook was a piece of notebook paper folded into thirds. It was well preserved, though the ink had sunk through the paper and left marks on the pages of the scrapbook. She unfolded it, recognizing her mother’s loopy, cheerful handwriting.
Gavin,
I hope you’re doing well. I know you’re alive, and that’s enough for me to sleep at night. Sky and I talk about you all the time. She misses you as much as I do.
I think they’re getting closer. I’ve noticed people following me again. I wish I knew how to give our daughter the life she deserves. I can find out nothing from the other protectors except that more of them are disappearing. It’s too much of a risk to keep talking to them, but that makes for a really lonely life right now. Hopefully, it changes soon.
Sometimes, I get so tired of running. I’m praying you can find the shifter you’re looking for, and we can build the island getaway we talked about. Then Sky will be safe, and we’ll be together again.
Until then … know I’ll do whatever I can to protect our baby girl.
Keep safe, my love.
Ginger
Something splashed onto the letter, and Sky wiped it away quickly to keep from destroying what might’ve been the last written letter from her mother. She swiped tears from her eyes next, not expecting the short letter to affect her as it did. It left her with many questions but also the knowledge that her mother and father had loved each other deeply.
“Not sure how,” she murmured, thoughts on the cold, distant Gavin. She re-read the letter, touched by her mother’s hope and also her despair, a poignant combination Skylar was beginning to experience as well.
She started to put it away then stopped and closed the book. The letter wasn’t addressed to her, but she felt more connected to the two people within it than she did with any of the pictures.
Skylar tucked it into her pocket and straightened. After not moving for hours, she grunted at her stiff body. Stretching lightly, she replaced the scrapbooks in their containers and gently pushed them under the bed.
Her head was hurting, maybe from spending the day hunched over the scrapbooks. A wave of dizziness hit her, and she felt suddenly weak, off balance. The episode passed. Attributing it to her insane day, she pushed herself away from the wall that caught her when she almost fell.
She found the bathroom next then made her way through the house, stopping to stare when she reached the kitchen.
The rounded wing of the house lined by windows held almost a 360-degree view of the ocean. The sunset was brilliant, coloring the white floors, walls and grey furniture in bright fuchsia, oranges, and purples. The red-orange sun was perched on the distant horizon, about to sink into the depths of the sea.
She searched for Gavin with her gaze and found him standing on the beach facing east, where night had begun to claim the sky.
She slid open the door to the beach and approached him, uncertain what he was doing. He seemed to be listening or maybe, using his dragon senses.
“I think I know the answer to this question, but is this your secret island sanctuary?” she asked, once again uncertain how to fill the awkward silence.
“It is.” He glanced at her and shook out his arms, frame relaxing. “Took me a long time to build. It’s off the radar of everyone: humans, shifters, protectors, slayers.”
“I take it you were too late to save Ginger.” And me. But she couldn’t say it out loud yet, wasn’t quite able to accept the surreal world she’d witnessed within the pages of the scrapbooks.
Gavin said nothing.
She sensed it was a sore point.
“Why couldn’t you find the people chasing her?” she asked.
There was a silence. She didn’t think he was going to answer.
“My generation of shifters is nocturnal. The people after you and your mother knew this. They moved around during daylight and hid too well after dark. There wasn’t much I could do,” he replied slowly. “Chace made more progress in his few days of scouting around than I could in six years.”
She winced at the dragon shifters name. As if rediscovering her history wasn’t enough to confuse her …
“You were working together?” she ventured.
“I wouldn’t say it like that. He had something I needed and I had something he wanted. We made a couple of deals, until everyone was happy.”
“He had me, and you had … what?”
“Magic he doesn’t have. The old generation of dragons were more powerful, which was why we were limited to night activity.”
“I thought he hated magic.�
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“He does. He needed mine to become human again.”
She absorbed the information. It was plausible, given the trouble Chace seemed to have controlling his power and the story behind him being made into a shifter.
“Could be worse,” she reasoned. “Did he know who you were when he traded me?”
“That I’m a dragon or your father?”
“Father.”
“No.”
“Ouch.” She frowned, stung by the idea Chace had traded her for something as selfish as being made human again. Wasn’t there some part of him that cared for her? How did he just turn her over to the creature that fried her coworkers?
“Can’t trust the new generation,” Gavin said.
“Guess not.”
“He mentioned you’re marked by one of the shifters.”
“Yeah. And?”
“If it’s in a decent spot, I’d like to see it.” Gavin faced her.
“That sounded dad-like,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Will you tell me what it means?”
He nodded.
She turned her back to him, looked at the sand and lifted her hair to reveal the tattoo. She waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she turned to face him once more.
Her father was gone. The blue dragon was back, his long wings propelling him silently into the darkening sky.
“Damn, moody dragon shifters,” she grumbled. “What is wrong with you people?” It came out as a strangled shout, the words burning their way through her tight throat.
So much for learning more terrifying truth tonight. Clearly stuck on an island, Skylar went inside.
She stood in the cool interior, facing the way her father had flown off. The sky grew darker as she watched, and she couldn’t help the sense of concern that made her stomach churn.
“Why the hell is it so cold in here?” She shivered, an odd feeling sinking into her. She didn’t feel right, but she didn’t know why.
Skylar sat on the couch and picked up the glass of water her father had left on the stand beside the couch. She took a deep swig then coughed, swallowing hard enough to make her eyes water.
“Vodka!” she managed. “Maybe we are related.”
Whether it was the alcohol or the stress of her day, she suddenly felt drowsy. Skylar stretched out on the couch.
“Let’s not kill the shifter your little girl thinks she might really like,” she whispered to her father before drifting into an unnatural sleep.
Chapter Twenty One
When the sun set on the day Skylar disappeared, Chace felt no different than he had when he parked his cabin permanently on the southern Oregon coast. The small beach he’d selected as his home was private, hedged by massive pine trees. Pines and the sea filled the air with a mix of scents he found soothing.
He sat on the beach, watching the sun sink beneath the line of the horizon. With the soothing sounds of the beach and the cool, fresh air, he should’ve been calm.
But he wasn’t. He’d been troubled all day, at first by the permanency of what he’d done to himself and then by the knowledge that he’d sold out the one woman who made him feel whole.
“What goes around …” he murmured, aware that long ago, someone else had condemned him, too, without a second thought about how he might feel.
He dreaded stepping into the cabin that had been his home for hundreds of years. While he felt no affects of Mr. Nothing’s magic, the cabin seemed drained of life. He didn’t notice the gentle hum of magic or how warm and welcome the magic always was until all those things were gone.
The cabin had turned chilly soon after he moved it one last time, the colors of its interior muted, the coziness replaced by the sense that it was just … small.
By becoming human once more, he thought he’d be regaining what he lost, not mourning the loss of so much more.
I feel sick.
He had to move on. Forget Skylar. After all, the chances of him seeing her again were close to none. If she survived Mr. Nothing, she’d hate him forever. He deserved it, to die old and alone, without ever hearing her attempts at ill-timed jokes or experiencing her sweet body again.
“You’re a hard man to find.”
Chace twisted, startled by the reminder he was no longer able to sense others approaching. He recognized the slayer behind him without understanding whether or not he was a threat.
“I’m not a shifter anymore,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Who told you that?” Dillon asked.
“Long story.” Chace shifted to face him. The slayer war armed, his gaze was sharp.
Dillon considered him for a moment.
Chace didn’t explain, more interested in why a slayer was tracking him down now, when he was no longer a dragon.
“All right. Then I’m assuming you don’t know. There’s no such thing as turning someone into or back from a shifter. It’s in your blood. I don’t know what anyone told you to the contrary,” Dillon said. “Some people’s gift manifests early while others just never have that catalyst that makes them turn the first time. Their power is buried. A lot of people are born shifters and die without ever knowing that. Their magic just stays … hidden. In any case, you were born a shifter and will die one. The magic is just caged inside you.”
“Whatever. It’s over now.”
“Wrong again.” Dillon frowned. “You shouldn’t be so flippant about this, Chace. I mean, yes, you had a chance to live as a normal human, assuming your gift never awoke. But the potential was always there anyway. You mouthed off to someone who provoked it, and then you made a deal with Gavin to silence it. These were not well thought out moves, like dragging Sky into all this.”
“Gavin. So he has a name.” Chace rose. He carefully avoided talking about Skylar, unable to keep his emotions out of it if she came up. Unease fluttered through him, more so knowing that the slayer had tracked him down for a reason. “What do you want, Dillon?”
“What I did want …” Dillon sighed. “You were supposed to take down Gavin, not turn Skylar over to him and walk away.”
“What?” Chace’s mind raced as another thought emerged.
Someone close to Skylar, Mr. Nothing had said.
Dillon scrubbed his face with both hands.
“You’re behind all this,” Chace said in a hushed voice. “Not Caleb.” A new emotion shot through him, one he hadn’t felt in hundreds of years. “You have a vendetta against Mr. Noth … Gavin.”
“You had to give him Skylar.” Dillon paced. “A plan a few thousand years in the making and you manage to destroy it in a few days. But. Maybe I can fix this.”
“Hel-lo,” Chace snapped. “You gonna talk to yourself or you wanna let me in on what’s going on? Is he going to kill her?”
“Kill? No. He’s hidden her away somewhere I can’t find her.” Dillon blew out a breath.
“What do you want with Skylar?” Chace bristled despite wanting to pretend his torrid affair with her never happened.
“It’s her father I’m after.”
“Which is …”
“Gavin.”
“You’re shittin’ me.” Chace laughed loudly. Mr. Nothing’s strange insistence that Skylar be handed over to him suddenly made sense. “That’s why he wanted her? Because you brainwashed her, and he was trying to get her back?”
“She’s a particularly nifty pawn to have,” Dillon admitted. “You’re of no use to me like this.”
“Human?”
“With your gift caged.”
“Not buying that.”
“You don’t have to,” Dillon replied. “I’ll prove it to you. Either your magic will reawaken and you’ll survive this trial or you’ll just die.”
Chace eyed him, not liking the sound of it. Dillon took a few steps back. Seconds later, the familiar crackling of breaking bone and soft tearing of muscles filled the air. Chace found himself reaching for his magic, only to find an empty hole inside him.
He started around the shifter, t
owards the cabin, where he had a few knives and a gun.
Dillon’s transformation was complete before Chace reached the top of the beach, and he stopped, transfixed by the creature before him.
Dillon was a griffin, a creature with a wingspan as wide as Chace’s and talons just as big. From there, all similarities ended. His horned beak was large enough to snap a man’s leg in two, and the powerful lion’s body was the size of a truck. Eagle eyes were as sharp as the clawed feet.
As a dragon shifter, Chace understood that magical creatures existed. But he never expected this particular animal of legend to be real.
Dillon leapt into the air and charged him. Chace’s human reflexes were too slow to react; he had little more time than to shield his face before he felt the claws wrap around him tight enough to hurt. One sharpened talon tore into his arm, and he stared in surprise at the wound.
It didn’t heal automatically, and the pain was so much more than he recalled. Blood ran down his arm and over the clawed foot, dripping downward into the forest that was quickly growing distant.
Chace watched with a mix of horror and fascination. Flying was very different as a human, and helplessness tore through him as he realized what exactly it was to be human again.
If Dillon dropped him, if he went too high or too fast …
Chace closed his eyes and calmed himself. The peace and solitude he was accustomed to finding in the skies was gone, replaced by fear. A part of him acknowledged that he deserved whatever happened after turning over Skylar, no matter what Dillon told him about Skylar not being in danger.
The air grew cold enough for him to start to shiver and then colder. His nose became numb, followed by his ears and toes. Tiny particles of moisture pelted his face. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t able to see beyond the white clouds into which Dillon had flown.
Clutched in the talons of the otherworldly creature, Chace thought again of Skylar. He’d done the same to her and couldn’t helping thinking that he’d find a different way to carry her next time, one far less uncomfortable.
Like there will be a next time. I’ll never see her again.