by Kallysten
Folding his wings to gain speed as he flew down, he let out an all-mighty roar that would be sure to draw everybody’s eyes to the sky. When he swooped down straight to the main square, he could already see hands rising to point in his direction, and people running away in fear. He didn’t spot any uniformed men… Time to up the ante, then.
The earth shook as he landed in the center of the square. The workers who were still setting up for that night’s ‘festival’ ran off as they saw him, which suited him just fine. With another screeching roar, he breathed out long jets of fire first toward the stage and then toward the large bonfire that was only waiting to be lit up. Flames engulfed it all, black smoke immediately rising all around him.
Maybe because of said smoke, or maybe because the officer’s hand shook too much to shoot straight, the first gunshot missed Petro entirely and shattered a piece of the marble statue on his left. He didn’t wait for a second shot to turn out more accurate and took to the air again. He’d need to stay in plain sight, enough so to attract authorities, but give himself enough room to avoid bullets. Dragons were immune to fire, but not to firearms, unfortunately.
He could see more police officers or sheriff deputies, whatever the case may be, converging toward the square with their weapons drawn. Perfect. With any luck, the way was now clear for Hazel and Paris to get Paul out.
*
Soon after Petro had left under the pretext of getting them rooms at that motel the waitress had recommended, Paris paid the check and left the diner with Hazel. He started reaching for her hand, but she crossed her arms as though she were a little chilly and said from the corner of her mouth, “You’re my cousin, remember?”
Out in the street, they walked side by side, strolling back toward the town square.
“Still mad at me, then?” he asked her softly.
“Do I have a reason to be?” she shot back, sharply enough to answer his question with her tone only.
Paris sighed, pushed his fists deep inside his pockets, and remained silent as they walked toward the main square. He’d thought when she’d let him soothe her inside that they were okay, but maybe she’d only wanted to avoid a scene.
Although part of the main square was inaccessible while preparations for the festival were underway, they found a bench to sit on near the edge. From there, they could see the time on the awning of a nearby bank as well as the entrance to the sheriff’s office.
“I’m sorry,” Hazel muttered after a moment, smoothing her hands over her thighs. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Like Paris, she wore an old pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt—clothes they wouldn’t mind losing when they shifted. They’d both discreetly handed their wallets to Petro to stash in the car, Paris keeping only enough cash to cover the check and tip. They were ready for action, or at least as ready as a novice like Paris could be, but even if he was a novice he realized that distractions right now couldn’t possibly be good.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” he assured her. “Let’s just focus on the plan. Should we go over it again?”
Before answering, she turned to him piercing eyes in which he could swear he could see the dragon part of her: sure of its power and unwilling to yield.
“Oh, now you don’t want to talk about it anymore? How come? You were fine talking about it to anyone who would listen yesterday. I thought you’d tell Paul about your ‘blessing’ as soon as we find him.”
According to the clock on the other side of the street, they had another twenty minutes before they had to be in position. Fine, then. If she insisted on having this talk right now…
“I do plan to tell him,” he admitted. “Probably not today, but soon. Because it’s clear you won’t, even if I don’t understand why not.”
“Why would I?” She shook her head, tiredness filling her eyes. “Whether with your permission, or blessing, or whatever you want to call it, I can’t… I just can’t. It doesn’t matter what my tattoo says. It’s not right.”
They’d danced around the issue last night already. Maybe this time they could get to the core of it.
“Not right in what way?” he asked, hoping she’d see his question was truly sincere.
Maybe she did, because she looked taken aback that he even asked.
“Not right in any way!” she protested. “It’s cheating, plain and simple. I don’t want to hurt anyone—”
“And yet you did hurt Petro when you broke things off with him,” Paris cut in as gently as he could. He took her hand and held it between both of his like a frightened bird. “You could have stayed with him, and kept away from me before you and I knew each other well enough to hurt. You could have begged off this mission once you realized who you’d be helping. But here you are. With me, but keeping Petro close, and getting ready to bring Paul into your life if not in your bed. So don’t tell me you don’t want to hurt anyone. And don’t tell me it’s cheating, either. Cheating means lying, and going behind someone’s back. If the four of us are okay with it…”
He let the end of that thought hang between them, holding her gaze as well as her hand as he waited for her reaction. He didn’t have to wait long.
“But it’s not about just the four of us, is it? People would know. People Petro and I work with. Our friends. Our families.”
From the way her voice cracked on that last word, Paris thought that maybe they’d arrived to the exact issue here. Not ‘our families,’ but ‘my family.’ He’d never met her parents, and she didn’t talk much about them, but he remembered making a crack once about how his own parents would be relieved his mate could shift into a lion, and how he fully intended to keep her dragon-shifting abilities quiet. She’d smiled, but it had seemed a little forced. He hadn’t thought anything of it then, but now…
“Let me ask you a question,” he said softly. “Did your parents ever tell you, growing up, that they hoped your mate would be a lion shifter like them?”
In his experience, many lion shifters thought that way. Wolves did, too. The pride or clan mentality thrived in some shifters. But for others, it didn’t seem to be as important.
Hazel nodded, just barely. He thought of asking her if that was why she’d chosen him over Petro, but he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, and in the end it didn’t matter.
“And they’ve also told you that you’d have to make a choice between your three tattoo mates, is that it?”
“Not exactly,” she murmured, blinking twice very fast. “They said… They said maybe each one would be my mate at a different time in my life.”
Which in the end, was the same as telling her she’d need to choose. What a horrible thing to tell a child who barely understood mate tattoos and what they signified. Until he actually met them and discovered otherwise, Paris was willing to accept that they’d meant well, but all they’d done was complicate their daughter’s life by making her doubt her mate tattoo.
“All right,” Paris went on, trying to keep his voice even. “Then here’s another question. If there had been only Petro’s name on your wrist. A dragon shifter. Do you think your parents would have accepted him?”
She frowned ever so slightly, but she nodded.
“Why? He wouldn’t be what they hoped for.”
Her frown deepened. “True, but they want me to be happy. To find my mate and be happy.”
“And you think they wouldn’t accept your happiness if it was brought on by three mates? They’ve known there was something special about you since you were born. They’ve had time to come to grips with it, don’t you think?”
She opened her mouth… and closed it again without a word, turning her head away. Paris kept her hand between his, refusing to let her withdraw completely. He’d have given anything to know what she was thinking right now. Had his words made any sort of impression on her? Would they be enough to have her rethink her stance?
When she stood abruptly, fear seized him. Had he pushed too hard? Would she reject him now, like she’d rej
ected Petro? His insides turned to ice and he held her hand a little tighter still, trying to find the words to say—
“It’s almost time,” she said in a business-like tone, indicating the clock on the other side of the street with a tilt of her head. “Petro won’t be long now, we should get closer.”
The topic was closed for now, it seemed. As they walked out of the square hand in hand, crossing the street to get closer to the sheriff’s office, Paris could only wonder what the outcome would be when they talked about it again… and they would, he had no doubt about that.
A couple of hundred yards away from where the sheriff cruisers were parked on the street, Hazel suddenly gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Paris said at once, alarmed.
Had she somehow found a flaw in Petro’s plan… or had someone spotted them?
She pulled him into the alley between two buildings until they were hidden behind a van parked there.
“I just had an idea. Do you have something flammable?” she asked. “How about that receipt from the diner?”
He pulled said receipt from his pocket and held it out to her, wondering what she was up to. She took the receipt and crumpled it in her hand before bringing it close to her face. She drew in a deep breath and, for a moment, Paris thought his mind was playing a trick on him. Her face looked like it was elongating, those high cheekbones he liked so much to caress with his fingers elongating toward the back of her head while her eyes grew larger, her skin darkening until it looked like blacks scales and—
Startled, Paris shivered. He’d known from the start that Hazel was a dragon shifter, but he’d never actually seen her shift to her dragon form, and he hadn’t expected her to do so here and now. That definitely wasn’t part of the plan Petro had laid out for them…
Holding his breath, he watched her exhale a plume of fire toward the crumpled paper in her hand—her distorted hand, now also covered in scales, her fingers shorter and tipped with wicked-looking talons.
It was over in the time of a heartbeat or two, Hazel returning to her human self, the paper still burning in her hand.
“Holy crap,” Paris breathed, still stunned. “How do you do that? I didn’t even know it was possible to…”
His words trailed off when he realized she wasn’t listening to him. Instead, she was peering into the flames in her hand, murmuring, “Paul? Can you hear me?”
Paris didn’t hear any reply, but a relieved smile bloomed on Hazel’s lips.
“Oh, good! It’s the first time I’ve done this, I wasn’t sure it’d work.”
A short pause, and she went on.
“Thanks. I just wanted you to know, we’re out there, we’ll get to you soon. Petro is going to provide a distraction, and we’ll come in to free you. Do you know how many guards or officers are in there right now?”
She paused again, listening. Paris wished he could have heard him the way she did. And he wished he knew how that small piece of paper could still be burning in her hand when it should have been ashes already.
“All right,” she said next. “If you can, it’ll be helpful, but try not to get yourself shot again.”
She chuckled at whatever Paul said, then, with a quiet, “See you soon,” she closed her hand over the flames. When she opened it again, nothing remained but ashes on her unblemished skin. Paris could do no more than stare.
“Now he knows we’re coming,” she told him, sounding satisfied. “He says he’ll try to break out of his cell if he can, but otherwise he told me where it is. It shouldn’t be too hard to—”
The urge to kiss her overwhelmed Paris, and he didn’t try to fight it back. Cupping her face in his hands, he pressed his mouth hard against hers, stealing her breath in a brief but deep kiss before he pulled back. As she blinked several times, he could only offer a sheepish shrug.
“Sorry. I thought I loved you as much as I possibly could, and then you go ahead and do something so amazing, all I can think is how lucky I am to be your mate.”
When she smiled, her eyes gleamed with that fire he loved so much. She started saying something, but a deafening roar suddenly filled the alley. A deep silence followed, but for no more than a couple of seconds. Shouts and screams erupted from the square behind them. Petro had made his appearance.
Hazel flashed him a look filled with determination.
“Time to go,” she said.
They ran out of the alley together, hurrying toward the sheriff’s office as though they wanted to take refuge there from the dragon now wreaking havoc in the square. Before they reached the building, several officers ran out, revolvers and shotguns already in hand. Could they be so lucky that they’d find the building empty?
No such luck.
When they walked in, a young man in uniform was behind a desk and looking out through a window. His skin was ashen, his body shaking. Scared of the dragon in the square, no doubt. But that was nothing compared to the look of deep terror that crossed his eyes when Hazel, all but leaping to the other side of the desk, approached him with the nail of her index finger extended to the length of a knife. Even from where he stood on the other side of the room, Paris could see its metallic glint. He could imagine just how it felt when she pressed it against the officer’s throat.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, her voice colder than Paris had ever heard it before. “So please don’t make me. We’re going to the cells. Now. Let’s go.”
She wasn’t following the plan Petro had laid out for them. Still, as the young officer, shaking with Hazel’s talon at his throat, walked out from behind the desk and fumbled with the keys at his belt, Paris couldn’t deny things were going more smoothly than he had anticipated. He certainly wasn’t going to complain now that the gate between them and the cells was opening with the flick of a trembling hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They were coming.
They were actually coming for him.
Even with Hazel contacting him through fire just minutes ago—and hadn’t it been weird to hear her like this when he didn’t even have any open fire near him—the tiniest of doubts had still nagged Paul. What if something went wrong? Or what if Petro changed his mind after all? In his feverish mind, it didn’t seem just possible, but also logical. Why would his brother want him to meet Hazel?
But then he’d heard the screeching, somewhere outside—he’d heard that sound before, and he knew it was a dragon. Shouting had followed, the officer at the desk across from the cells running out with the others. And now… now that he stood by the bars of his cell, doing his best to see down the corridor, he could see people coming closer. And only one of them wore a uniform.
Soon they were right outside his cell, and it felt almost like a dream to finally see her there. His mate. She was there. With the same tiny braids he’d seen in the fire framing her lovely features, with fire in her eyes and a knife at the officer’s throat—no, not a knife he suddenly realized, but her own nail. His mate was there and she was speaking to him.
And he was too stunned to even know what she was saying.
“I’m sorry, what?”
He hated that he was making her frown the very first time he stood in front of her.
“I said, you don’t look so good. Are you feeling all right?”
“Just a bit hot,” he said, keeping the pain in his leg and his pounding headache quiet. “I’ll be fine. I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Let’s keep the small talk for later,” the man standing next to her said, causing Paul to notice he was there at all. “You, open the cell.”
The officer shook his head. “I can’t! I mean, I don’t have a key. I swear I don’t, it’s only the sheriff and whoever’s on guard duty, I swear—”
“All right, I believe you,” Hazel said sharply, shutting him up.
“If you can get me a paper clip,” Paul suggested, “I can pick the lock. It’ll just take a moment.”
Or at least, it should only take a moment. With his palms being
so moist and his vision a little bit blurry, it might be more difficult than it ought to be.
“No time for that,” the man said with something like a growl in his words.
What was his name again? Paul couldn’t quite remember. Something to do with an old story.
But whatever his name was, he now grabbed two of the bars with his bare hands and pulled, bracing one foot against the bottom of the bars where they met the floor, his biceps bulging under his close-fitting t-shirt.
He couldn’t really believe he’d manage to do this, could he? If it were that easy…
When the metal yielded under his hands, it screeched much like the dragon outside had earlier.
“Holy crap,” Paul breathed, staring at the opening the man had created. It wasn’t exactly wide, but it was enough for Paul to slide through.
“Show off,” Hazel said, but she sounded amused.
The man—damn it, what was his name?—chuckled. “Says the woman with the ten inch knife at the tip of her finger.” His expression turned somber as he addressed the officer. “You. Is there a roof access in here?”
He had to repeat his question before the officer stopped staring at the distorted bars.
“Roof? I… Yes. That door. Over there. The key…” He fumbled with the key ring attached by a coiled lanyard to his belt, unhooking the lanyard to thrust the keys at the man. No doubt he was imagining what the arms that had mangled solid steel might do to his flesh and bones.
“Get in there,” Hazel said, her tone demanding immediate compliance.
She removed her fingertip from the officer’s throat, and he almost tripped over the bars in his haste to obey. Once he was in, Hazel’s friend—her other mate, wasn’t he?—pulled at the bars once more, narrowing the opening so the officer wouldn’t be able to come out.
“All right, let’s go,” Hazel said, leading the way toward the back and the door the officer had indicated.
Paul followed her, doing his best to hide his limp, with the other man behind him, and it was the latter who asked, “What about this guy? Should we spring him?”