by Layla Silver
Shock pulsed through me.
Was he serious? He couldn’t be. I stared disbelievingly. Around me, others gasped. Doubt moved restlessly inside me. My brothers had been talking about finding the killers for so long that I’d long since stopped believing they’d ever really do it. What new rocks could they possibly have found to crawl under or turn over to finally get the truth?
“We couldn’t possibly have done it at a better time, either,” Ford added, ominously from his place at Stone’s shoulder. “Because their treachery runs even deeper than we imagined.” Fury soaked his words, and the smell of it permeated the room with a sickly, cloying fog. “It wasn’t enough that they took Aunt Lorna and Uncle Joe, but they had to put their hooks in the next generation, too.”
My stomach rolled as I thought of my sweet nieces and nephews. Someone was planning to hurt them? How? Why? Who?
Lea asked exactly what I was thinking, her voice high and warbling in fear. “Who is it? Who did you find?”
“Neils and Chelsea Kent.” Stone made the pronouncement with the gravity of a judge condemning the damned, his face dark with rage.
My blood ran cold, and my body seemed to go leaden with the sick weight of the names. Kent. Will was a Kent. My brothers had traced the murders back to Will’s family.
How was that even possible? I’d met Will’s parents. They were a little distant, but I’d always thought it was in an ethereal way—just part of being ancient dragons. Not killers. Could I have been wrong? Had I been like those women you always saw on true crime shows who insisted their lovers were just misunderstood right up until the moment they were murdered, dismembered with chainsaws, and shoved in a freezer somewhere? Surely, I couldn’t have been this wrong about … about everything. I couldn’t possibly be in love with—have let myself become the lover of—a murderer!
“Kent?” Birch’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, far away. “I don’t know anybody named Kent. Who have they got their hooks in?”
“Maia!” My vision swam as I looked at my mother. She was staring at me, her hands pressed against her chest, her eyes wide with horror. “Oh, sweetheart!”
“What?” Ash asked, jumping to his feet. “Maia, who do you know in that family?”
I gripped the arms of the rocking chair with numb fingers, fighting not to pass out as nausea rolled over me so hard my vision blurred. My babies, I thought on the verge of hysteria. My babies are Kents. I was carrying the babies of a man whose family had murdered my kin.
“That Will you hang out with, he’s a Kent, isn’t he?” my father demanded. His voice was rough against my ears; it felt loud. Too loud. I could smell his anger, a sharper tang than my brothers’. Alarm started pounding through my veins.
“He’s been hanging around you for years. Monopolizing you,” my father accused.
“No,” I croaked, my throat tight and raw. It wasn’t like that. It had never been like that. We monopolized each other, because we were friends. Lovers, now, I thought, reeling. Friends and lovers and parents together … and his family had slaughtered mine. “No.”
“You mean Maia was the next target?” Azalea squeaked, her face ashen. “Oh, Mai! Has he—did he pressure you? Has he threatened you?”
“She probably doesn’t even know,” Dune snapped, furiously, jumping to his feet. “Sneaky lying bastard probably made her think the whole relationship was her idea. I bet he groomed her! Snuck right in and made her dependent so he could play with her until he was ready to kill her, too!”
No. No, Will would never …
“Whatever his plan, we’re not going to stand by and let it happen!” Ford asserted strongly. “We’re not going to let anyone in his clan get away with it.”
Dragons don’t have clans, I thought, distractedly. They have thunders.
“What’s the plan?” Dune demanded. “Whatever it is, count me in! Those bastards need to pay for what they did. All of them!”
All of them. The words echoed in my head, and the room started to spin. If they wanted to kill them all, they’d have to kill my babies, too. My babies, who’d done nothing! My babies, who were guilty of nothing but carrying the same genes. Genes they didn’t choose and couldn’t help!
Just like Will. And Elton.
Cold calm began to seep in around the edges of my mind. Will and Elton hadn’t asked to be born into the Kent thunder any more than I’d asked to be born a coyote into the same pack as Uncle Joe and Aunt Lorna. They were no more responsible for their relatives’ choices than I was for whatever shady dealings Joe and Lorna had been involved with.
Whatever genes they carried, Will and Elton and their parents had never been anything but kind to me, nothing but friends. I knew Will—I loved him. Loved him enough that I wanted his babies even if we could never be anything more than friends. I knew he wasn’t a killer. I knew his brother and his parents weren’t killers. Whoever Neils and Chelsea Kent were to them, their crimes were their own. Will and his family weren’t evil and didn’t deserve my family’s hate. They didn’t deserve to have their lives ruined in some vicious cycle started by greedy, stupid relatives neither of us got to choose.
“It’s not just him.” Ford’s voice broke through my thoughts. “He’s got a brother, too. And parents. They all have to pay. They’re hard to get to, but we’ve started plans. We can take them all out. Make them all pay with their lives for what they did.”
That … that was murder. My stomach cramped, and I tasted bile. My family was seriously planning a murder. Several murders. In my mother’s living room, like it was a completely reasonable thing to do. My brothers fully intended to murder the man I loved. My babies’ father.
Nausea rolled through me again, and this time, I knew I was going to be sick. Lurching out of my chair, I clamped a hand over my mouth. My mother reached for me, her arms outstretched, but I shoved her away and bolted for the stairs. Staggering up them, I slammed the bathroom door shut behind me and fumbled with the lock, gagging. My knees slammed into the floor hard enough to send darts of pain up my legs, and then I was bent over the toilet, my eyes tearing as I violently emptied my stomach.
I had no idea how long I stayed there, hunched and miserable. Hot and cold washed through me in waves, and my throat and eyes burned. At some point, Lea knocked on the door, asking if I was all right, but I ignored her. Finally, my stomach empty and the dry heaves subsiding, I leaned back against the wall. I curled one arm around my stomach, feeling exhausted and disgusting.
How could this be happening? How could we have let this happen? How had we let my parents’ grief metastasize into absolute madness in my brothers? How could they even talk about killing an entire family in retribution for some offense decades old? That wasn’t justice!
I’m not raising my children among this, I thought resolutely, my head clearing a little. They deserved better. My nieces and nephews deserved better, too. Levering myself up off the floor, I rinsed out my mouth and spat in the sink. Drying my face and hands, I glanced in the mirror, gathering myself to go down and put a stop to this mess. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement.
Turning, I took a step toward the window. There was a flash of silver as a familiar Audi pulled into my driveway. Fear shot through me, flooding my system with adrenaline. Will.
I dove for the door, shoving the lock aside and yanking it open. I had to get to him before the others noticed. I had to warn him, get him out of here. Pounding down the stairs, I heard shouts.
My heart jumped into my throat. They’d seen him.
“No! No!” At the bottom of the stairs, I slammed into my father, who caught me and wrapped his arms around me.
“Let them be, Maia,” he ordered gruffly. “Your brothers will take care of it.”
“The hell they will! Let me go!” I shoved him off and ducked out of reach when he grabbed for me again. Free, I ran for the door, praying I wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter 12 – Will
Maia’s car was in the driveway when I pulled in, but I wa
sn’t sure that was a good sign. It meant she made it home, but it was no guarantee that she was okay. She could have gotten home and collapsed. She could be curled up on the floor or her couch, in too much pain and disorientation to move. I didn’t know what forms pregnancy complications could take, or if that was even what had happened. The unknown kept fear thrumming through my veins.
Clutching the flowers too tightly in one hand, I stalked up the sidewalk toward her porch. Only the awareness that her parents’ house was next door and had clear sightlines kept me from running. If someone was watching and saw me run, it was certain to bring them over with questions. Drawing undue attention if it was nothing would only make everything worse. The last thing I needed was to rile up Maia’s family before she was ready to tell them about the pregnancy. Still, forcing myself not to run was agony. If she was hurt, I’d curse myself for every second I’d lost getting to her and getting her help.
I made it as far as the door when shouts snagged my attention. Shooting a glance to the side, I felt a surge of warning and adrenaline as men poured out of Maia’s parents’ house. They were running, their clothing shredding as they shifted on the move, their shouts turning to baying snarls and howls as they bounded directly toward me.
Instinct took over, and I dropped the bouquet. With just enough presence of mind not to shift on Maia’s porch, I grabbed the railing. Vaulting over it into the yard, I started to shift before my feet hit the ground. The sound of ripping fabric was loud in my ears as my clothes gave way, falling to the ground around me in shreds. Heat poured through me, and my vision warped then sharpened as the change happened.
Unlike most shifters, though, my change was not accompanied by the snapping and grinding of bone. Instead, it was like riding out the riotous waves of a stormy beach, everything surging and expanding. My body swelled, and new layers of muscle and hard-scaled skin broke through my human shell in expanding waves. My human heart melted into a pool of molten fire inside my chest as my face elongated into a fanged snout and a tail armored with bony spikes erupted from the base of my spine.
The world turned crystalline, and for a split second, I was stunned by the aggression saturating the air. The coyotes bolting across the lawn were baying for blood.
Immediately, my thoughts turned to Maia and our babies. If Maia was inside her house, I couldn’t let them get to her. If she was at her parents’, I couldn’t let them turn around and go back there. Whatever happened, I had to hold the line here. Whatever grievance these coyotes thought they had with me or mine, they were about to find out they’d crossed a line they’d soon regret.
Even as I thought it, teeth sank into my shoulder. With my change not quite complete yet, the armored scales there were thin. Fangs dugs into muscle, and pain arced across my back and up my neck. Rage shot through me, and I bellowed. Thrashing, I threw the coyote off of me, flinging toward the ground. My not-quite-fully-formed claws raked a shallow gouge in its side as I did. Only a second in, the first blood had been drawn on both sides.
Three more coyotes cleared the remaining distance and lunged at me. Lifting my claw to swipe at them, I got a snout-full of their scent in the blood on my claws, and horror set in.
They smelled like Maia.
Fury and frustration spread like competing ice and fire through my muscles. My attackers could only be Maia’s brothers. Shit. Shit. Shit. That meant I couldn’t fight with abandon—I couldn’t risk killing them. I’d be wholly justified in doing it, but I refused to hurt Maia that way.
The coyotes took advantage of my breath of hesitation. One dug his claws under my scales, and I swore internally. Maia’s brothers weren’t regular scavengers in for a scrappy fight. They’d hated dragons for years, and they’d clearly researched how to take one down. They were far more dangerous than the average attacker.
Fresh pain stabbed through me as teeth clamped down on a scale and wrenched, trying to rip it out of my skin at the root. Fury and frustration consumed me, and I twisted. My roar made the ground shake in every direction, the wind chimes on Maia’s parents’ porch clanging together in a raucously discordant clash as the structure trembled. Snapped my jaws shut, I closed them over the hindquarters of the coyote on my back. Not killing them didn’t mean I’d play nice when ambushed. The coyote howled in agony, his brothers snarling and digging in deeper as I wrenched the one in my jaws off of me and shook him hard enough to make his brain rattle in his skull. Tossing my head, I spat him out halfway across the yard beside his dazed brother.
Smoke started curling from my nostrils as I turned my head back to the remaining three gnawing and scrabbling at my hide. I could feel hot blood trickling beneath my scales from multiple points, and it made my insides churn. Fire built in my belly, and I fought the urge to turn and incinerate them all.
“Maia! Maia, no! Get back here!”
Shouts wrenched my attention around. Maia was running across the space between the two houses, her father behind her. She can’t shift, I thought, my anger doubling. She was pregnant, and she couldn’t shift, which made her twice as vulnerable in a fight between shifters. Damn her brothers for putting her at risk!
“Stop!” Maia shrieked, her arms pumping as she ran. Her face was flushed, and even from here, I could smell her fear and wrath. “Stop! Stone! Ford! Leave him alone!”
She was coming for me. Putting herself in danger to protect me. Love swelled inside me, but so did a fierce determination. If she got involved, she could get hurt. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her or our babies. I could take care of myself.
Lowering my head, I roared, a wave of heat distorting the air as I bellowed. Stay away! I couldn’t speak actual words in this form, but I willed her to understand. To stay out of this fight for the safety of our babies.
“Maia!” Her father caught her, his hands closing tight on her arms and wrenching her back. She stumbled and cried out as he hauled her backward.
Rage exploded through me. Unable to hold it back this time, I unhinged my jaw, opened my mouth, and poured flame into the space between us. The dry ground exploded into a raging blaze. Maia’s father staggered back and then fell, taking her with him. They rolled, and when they came up, I could see through the billowing waves of heat distortion and smoke that he’d lost his hold on her. I watched long enough to see him take off away from her, and then my attention was wrenched back by blinding pain.
One of Maia’s brothers had ripped a scale from my side. The wound gaped and bled, and he viciously dug his claws into it, ripping it wider. With my attention redirected off of Maia and back onto myself, I was aware of the agony thrumming through me. The three coyotes still attacking had taken advantage of my distraction, and if I didn’t do something about them, they’d keep going until I was a smoldering corpse.
Darting my head back, I closed my teeth around the scruff of the coyote clawing at my side. I felt my own muscle tear as I yanked his claws free of me. Every inch of him was covered in my blood, and I bit down. The urge to snap him in half was raw and fierce. It took everything I had to spit him out just shy of the inferno on the ground still alive. He hit the ground with a broken yelp and rolled. The other two there were already shifting back to their human forms, their naked bodies a mess of blood, open wounds, and bruising.
I ignored them, turning back to the two who remained, still trying to eat me alive with single-minded determination. I snapped at one, trying to dislodge him. With the angle he was at, attacking him with my jaws promised to break his neck. He clung fast, and I lashed at him with my tail. The blow connected, and he staggered, dazed. I darted forward, knocking him off with my snout.
The fast movement made my head spin, and my stomach sank. I must have lost far more blood than I’d realized. I needed to finish this. To shift and heal before I lost the ability.
The sound of a gun going off made my head jerk up, the world swimming around me again. Maia stood just inside the line of fire with her feet planted, the butt of a long rifle tucked against her sh
oulder. On the other side of the flames, her father was wielding a hose, trying to put out the flames to get to his sons. He shouted at Maia, his face red and scrunched with fury, but she ignored him, advancing on me. As I watched, trying to process what I was seeing, she adjusted her aim.
The sound of the gun going off came again, and this time the coyote still on me yelped and let go. It fell off of me and joined its brother on the ground, both of them shaking themselves and turning their snarls on Maia.
“Ash!” she screamed. “Ford! Get away from him!”
Enraged, they launched into movement, headed directly toward Maia. Protectiveness surged, and I swung my tail violently. It connected with a solid thwack, knocking the coyotes sideways, sending them hurtling away from my mate.
Maia ran forward, planting herself between me and where her brothers lay in a soot-covered knot. One of them was already human, two others halfway through the change. The two I’d just sent flying—Ash and Ford—lolled insensibly on the ground.
Maia ratcheted another pellet into the chamber of the shotgun and aimed it at her brothers. “Get off my property!” Her voice was hoarse from the smoke and tears, her face flushed and streaked with smoke, dirt, and tears.
“Maia!” Stone demanded, limping forward. “Maia—”
Seeing him advance, I gave a low warning rumble and belched fresh flame into the space between him and Maia.
Maia’s father shouted something, and Stone glanced over his shoulder at him. Shooting us a final glare, he retreated, stooping to reach for his brothers.
Maia dropped the gun and threw herself at me. She pressed herself against my scaled chest, pressing in tightly. “Will! Will, you’re bleeding!”
I tried to rumble reassuringly, but the sound came out as a low groan. My vision started to turn gray at the edges. Every inch of me ached and throbbed from my injuries, and I felt myself slide toward the ground, my draconic form giving way to my human body.
Briefly, I registered being on my knees, naked and bloody in the middle of Maia’s yard. Everything wreaked of smoke and blood. Blearily, I looked up from the ground. Maia was there, her hands cupping my face. Her beautiful eyes were huge and terrified, and her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out the words.