by Kallysten
This time, she was the one to lean just a little closer. She’d missed his warmth. She’d missed his arms around her, and his mouth upon hers. She’d missed every last bit of him, body and soul, and at this very second she couldn’t quite remember why she’d ever told him things were over between the two of them.
“Hazel,” he breathed, and they were so close now that she felt his words like a caress on her lips. “Please—”
Whatever he was about to ask for was lost in the whisper of a door opening behind them. Paris didn’t say a word, and he closed the door again before Hazel could even glance at him, but the interruption slammed some sense back into her.
What was wrong with her? She couldn’t do this. Never mind ‘blessings’ or permissions, she just couldn’t, and it wasn’t fair for her to lead Petro on.
“I’m sorry,” she said, drawing back. “I’d better go catch some sleep or I’ll be useless tomorrow.”
She escaped back to the room she shared with Paris before Petro could try to stop her. Paris was just getting back in bed and looked at her with some surprise.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, I just wasn’t sure where—”
“I’m tired,” she said over him as she climbed into her side of the bed. “Good night.”
With that, she hugged her pillow and closed her eyes. Paris knew her well enough to see it was useless to talk to her now, and soon after offering a quiet, “Good night, love,” he was back to that gentle half-purr, half-snore that somehow Hazel had always found soothing.
Tonight, it did nothing to help her fall asleep. When, a little after sunrise, Petro knocked on their door to get going, she had yet to get even a minute of sleep, and she was beginning to wonder why she’d insisted on coming on this trip. Did she really have to torture herself—and Petro—like this?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As the three of them got back on the road right after sunrise, the car seemed somehow even smaller than it had the previous day. Paris couldn’t think of ever going on a road trip like this one before, even as a child, and if he had any say in it he wouldn’t go on another one any time soon. Being strapped in his seat, not even able to direct the car, made him feel as though he were in a cage. Hours passed in silence, and it was late in the morning when Petro finally spoke, sotto voce.
“Is she asleep?”
Paris twisted in his seat to get a good look at Hazel behind them. She’d laid herself across the backseat, her backpack under her head like a pillow, her knees pulled up close to her chest so that Paris’ jacket covered just about all of her. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and regular.
“Looks like,” he replied, just as quietly. “I don’t think she got much sleep at all last night.”
Petro made a sound, almost a grunt, that could have been an acknowledgment or him clearing his throat.
“Right,” he said, “about last night… nothing happened. Really. I’m not a poacher.”
As low as he kept his words, Paris still thought he could hear an accusation in them. ‘I’m not a poacher, unlike you.’ It might be time to clear that up once and for all.
“I believe you. And neither am I.”
When Petro snorted, Paris went on.
“I didn’t court her while you two were together. I even made sure to stay away from places where I might see her. She’s the one who came looking for me, and only after you two had broken up.”
Petro threw him a dark look. Paris shook his head and sighed.
“Think for a moment. I told you she’s got my blessing to be with you. She’s had it from the moment the two of us became a couple. And she won’t do it, because she doesn’t want to cheat. Do you really think she’d have cheated behind your back? Seriously? I know she would never lie like that to someone she loves, and I’ve known her for only a few months. You’ve known her for how long again?”
The leather covering the steering wheel creaked lightly as Petro clenched his hands over it repeatedly. As he kept his eyes on the road, a muscle in his cheek twitched.
“She wouldn’t do that to someone she loves,” he finally agreed after a long moment. “But she doesn’t love me anymore.”
Laughter erupted from Paris’ throat before he could stifle it. He quickly glanced back to check whether he’d disturbed Hazel’s rest, but she still looked fast asleep.
“Bullshit,” he said under his breath. “If you believe that, you’re a freaking idiot and you don’t deserve her.”
“Call me an idiot again and you’ll get what you deserve, I promise you that much.”
Petro was still staring at the road, but it only made the growled threat that much more believable. If it ever came to that, there couldn’t be much doubt about the outcome of a contest between a dragon and a lion. But the point was that Paris didn’t want it to come to that, not on any level. Why couldn’t Petro see it?
“There are three names on her wrist,” he continued in the same calm, quiet voice. “Ever wonder why that is?”
“Why does anyone have anything written on their skin?” Petro countered, still angry. “Nobody knows. Or do you pretend you do?”
“I don’t pretend anything. I’ve just given it some thought, that’s all. She’s not unique, you know. There are other people whose mate tattoos are considered ‘anomalies.’ People with more than one name. People whose mate wears the name of a third person, and that third person has the first person’s name, like a circle. Other odd things like that.”
Petro scoffed. “I’ve never heard of any such thing.”
“Because no one wants to talk about it,” Paris said. “It ends up in medical journals, like it’s some sort of condition or whatnot. But the two constants, across every mate tattoo ever studied, are that one, the tattoo never changes, and two, if people resist being with their mate, they’re miserable. And it holds true for people with anomalous tattoos.”
He stopped there and waited to see whether Petro would understand. It took him a while… or maybe he did understand, but he didn’t want to voice it aloud.
“So what you’re saying is, you think she needs all three of us in her life to be happy. That’s why you gave her your blessing to be with me. Are you going to do the same for Paul?”
Was that derision in his voice? It certainly sounded like it. Irritation grated Paris’ nerves, but he tried to keep it out of his voice.
“Wouldn’t you?” he challenged. “Wouldn’t you do anything in your power to make your mate happy, even if it meant having to share her with someone else? Or even two someones?”
Again, Petro didn’t reply at once, and Paris wondered if he was finally starting to get it. It was about Hazel, about giving her what she needed to be truly happy. How could any of them call themselves her mate if they weren’t ready to do anything for her happiness? In the end, though, Petro shook his head and spoke in a dry, bitter voice.
“You’ve never met my brother. We’ll see if you still think the same way after you do.” Louder, he added, “Wake up, sunshine. We’re there.”
Focused as he was on the frustrating conversation, Paris hadn’t been paying attention to what was going on outside the car. He now could see that they were entering a small town, a wooden sign proclaiming it boasted close to three thousand inhabitants.
Sitting up behind them, Hazel yawned.
“Whatever our plan is,” she said sleepily, “I’m gonna need coffee before we get to it. Lots of coffee.”
“Seconded,” Paris said, throwing her a quick smile.
She answered it in kind, though after a pause just long enough to make Paris’ heart ache.
“That’s fine,” Petro said absently, slowing down in accordance to the signs. “We’re just going to drive to the center of town, find that square and the sheriff’s office to know where they are, and then we’ll find a coffee shop nearby. I don’t want to wait until nighttime to get him out, but I do think we need to get a feel for this place first.”
Paris didn’t have a s
hred of experience doing this kind of things, but it sounded like a good idea to him, and Hazel didn’t seem to have any objection either.
They found the main square easily enough, a space about a hundred yards wide in any direction, with a marble statue of some kind in the center. City workers were busy assembling a wooden stage near it, with flags, banners and other decorations already installed. There also seemed to be a place for a bonfire. Paris didn’t say anything, but he was sure it was on all of their minds: humans killed paras in any way they could, but burning them, whether alive or already dead, seemed to be their favorite way to get rid of them.
They found the sheriff’s office just as easily. The two cars parked in front of it were a dead giveaway. Even as they drove by, a man in uniform walked up the three steps to the front door, which was propped open.
“There doesn’t seem to be any security door to get in the building,” Petro noted. “That’s good.”
Paris wasn’t too sure how that’d help them, because surely there’d be locked doors beyond that first entry point, but this was Petro’s domain. Certainly he knew what he was talking about, and he’d explain in due time.
They finally found a diner a mere block away from the square, and went in for that promised coffee, and a breakfast to go with it. A young woman took them to a booth and recited the daily specials with a slight drawl and a too-wide smile. Something about her was off-putting to Paris. They ordered quickly and she was off, talking to customers on her way as though she knew them all by name.
“Sometimes I miss the big city,” Paris said with a half-smile, just to get some conversation going and not appear suspiciously quiet among the chatty patrons. “These small places where everyone knows everybody, that’s just weird.”
Across from him, Hazel shook her head and smiled back, though she didn’t reply. In the back of the booth, on Paris’ right, Petro snorted.
“Why come to our town, then?” he asked, and if his features remained polite, the steely edge in his words was unmistakable. “Why not stay in that big city of yours?”
“Pretty much the same reason why we’ll be taking your brother there. The same reason why just about all of us are there, I’d say. Seeing what your job is, I wouldn’t think I’d need to explain it to you.”
Petro’s eyes gleamed with anger, although they remained their natural, human color. In a place like this, flashing dragon eyes would bring the world to a screeching halt around them, especially since the waitress was already coming back. She set a white mug in front of each of them before filling each with a steaming coffee pot, indicating the sugar and creamer in the center of the table as she did. Before she could walk away, Hazel asked her, “Excuse me, we were wondering… we passed by the town square and we saw something’s going on there. Are you having a celebration of some sort?”
The young woman’s face brightened at the question.
“We are! Tonight, as a matter of fact. It’s this big festival we’ve got in town. Been happening for almost a century, now. Bonfires, music, carnival food and all that fun stuff. You folks should stay the night for it.”
There was something in the way she said ‘folks’ that set the hair at the nape of Paris’ neck upright. Did she suspect they were paras? How could she? They hadn’t done or said anything to give themselves away, had they? Or maybe he was turning paranoid. Did Hazel or Petro get bad vibes from the girl like he did?
“Maybe we will,” Petro said in a more pleasant voice than Paris had ever heard him use. “What do you think, guys?”
“Sounds lovely,” Hazel said with a slight drawl. “We still have a long way to go to get home so it’d be a nice break from the road.”
“Oh? Where are you folks from, then?”
As Hazel wove a story about the west coast and how she, her mate and her cousin had traveled to see an ailing aunt back east, Paris could only be awed at how easily the words seemed to come to her. If he’d tried to lie like this on the fly, no doubt he’d have contradicted himself every few words until he was tangled in his own story. Had he not been so sure she wouldn’t lie to him, her skill and aplomb at doing so might have been unnerving.
When the waitress finally left to help other customers, she’d given Hazel the name of a motel on the outskirts of town—and she seemed more relaxed. Had this interaction with Hazel tempered her suspicions about what they might be? It seemed Petro thought so as well.
“Nicely done,” he said under his breath. “She was wondering about us. Not anymore.”
“As though she could tell from one look what we are,” Hazel replied, and if her words were just loud enough for the two men close to her to hear, the disgust in them was all too apparent.
“Or maybe she just wondered about a beautiful woman accompanied by two men,” Paris offered with another small smile.
Hazel’s eyes turned fiery, something that could be dangerous in this kind of environment. He reached over the table and rested his hand on top of hers, squeezing gently. After a second or two, she blinked, and her eyes returned to their normal color. Paris sat back, relaxing a little, and noticed the strange look Petro was casting in his direction. It wasn’t jealousy, Paris was fairly certain of it. Emotions had different smells to his sensitive nose, and this was more complicated than the bitterness of jealousy. Pain, maybe? Wistfulness? The bitterness that he’d once been as close to Hazel as Paris was… and that he might never be again?
Paris cleared his throat and took a gulp of coffee. When he lowered his mug again and assured himself no one was close enough to hear, he said, “So. How do we get him out before tonight, then?”
Petro’s expression and scent, this time, were much easier to read: both screamed his determination.
“We hit hard and with all we’ve got,” he said with a smile that bared his teeth. “In and out again before they can even figure out what’s going on.”
He held his mug aloft. Both Paris and Hazel raised their own in a toast. The three of them might butt heads on certain topics, but on this, at least, they were in complete agreement. The good people of this town would have to find other ways to entertain themselves than with a public execution.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Petro glanced at the rear view mirror one last time before driving away from the restaurant. He could just see Hazel’s silhouette in the window, looking in his direction. He was uneasy about leaving her and Paris behind, especially when the locals were so clearly hostile toward paras, but it was, after all, his plan. Hard to argue with it now.
He drove the car out of town, stopping only once to fill up at a gas station, then continued onto small roads until he’d found a suitable parking spot in a wooded area, out of the way of traffic. In an ideal world, he, Hazel and Paris would have scouted the area together and agreed on a rendezvous point so they’d all know where to go if things went south, but they didn’t have time for that. The sooner they got Paul out of there, the better.
He undressed before getting out of the car, locking the doors before leaving the keys behind the front right wheel. He didn’t want to risk leaving his clothes out in the open where a random hiker or animals might get to them. Wearing nothing but his own skin, he stepped deeper into the woods until he found an area devoid of trees and wide enough for him to shift.
The change happened almost instantly, his six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound body all but bursting outward to become a beast almost twenty-foot long from snout to tail end and with a wingspan half again as wide. He’d never actually been weighed while in this form, but his best guess put him somewhere between six and seven hundred pounds.
Ever since paras had been outed and the general public had become aware of them, scientists all around the world had been baffled by shifter transformations. That the human body might not only rearrange its organs into a whole new configuration, but also grow wings, feathers or fur, and change drastically in both size and weight remained inconceivable for most people who had complete and utter faith in the laws of conserv
ation of energy and mass. To this day, some still claimed that it was all an elaborate hoax and couldn’t possibly be anything different. Others still intended to understand the shifting process… and they had few qualms, if any at all, about experimenting on jailed paras. Marigold and her unfortunate jail mates were proof of that.
With one strong push of his wings Petro soared into the air. He lost no time in climbing up past the low, fluffy clouds that made this day overcast. He was used to flying above the cover of clouds. Dragons were among the most conspicuous of shifters, as no winged animal approached their size. There were stories of dragons that had been shot down from the sky by either civilians with military-style weapons, or even the military itself. Petro had always been very careful not to let anyone see him when he shifted outside of Sanctuary, and to know that today he’d deliberately allow himself to be spotted felt very strange indeed.
Although ‘spotted’ was a very mild way to describe what he intended to do. Most shifters had an animal form of a beast that existed in nature. Wolves were the most common, but hardly the only ones: from lions to eagles to dolphins, many different species existed. But dragons… as far as humans were concerned, dragons were something entirely different. Those beasts abounded in folk tales all over the world, but there were no dragons outside of dragon shifters, and those, out of necessity, kept largely out of sight. Petro wasn’t sure if it would be awe or fear that dominated once he flew down to that sleepy little town’s main square, but he was ready to bet on a healthy mix of both. It should bring the town to a standstill long enough for Hazel and Paris to act. And if his mere appearance wasn’t quite enough, there was always fire.
He’d timed things to get back to town as close to noon as possible so Hazel and Paris would be ready. Just as he peeked under the clouds to check on his position, he could hear church bells ringing midday. Perfect timing.