by Jill Haven
Greyson shrugged. “I don’t think it was suicide. But clansmen are wont to gossip, and the family is having a difficult time mourning the death, so please keep all of this to yourselves if you speak to any of them. A tattoo could make people think he was on a drunken bender.”
“Understood.” I glanced at Ace who kept rubbing the spot on his neck. “And there’s no three-leaf clover symbolism in your clan?”
Greyson shook his head and held the door for us. “No. But there is an old legend about a group of St George’s warriors who wore a three-leaf clover as their banner, whose descendants emigrated here. Ancient legend, though. I’d pay it no heed.”
“Calling card,” Ace mumbled to me as we pushed through the doors out of the police station where Ten was waiting for us, doubled over and breathing through his mouth. Ace gave him a slap on the back and rubbed his shoulders in support. “Never seen you look so green.”
“The smell…” Ten groaned.
A group of uniformed officers sauntered past and stared us down. I grunted at my men and made for the Jeep. “Let’s go. Cops make me ill at ease.”
Ace scoffed. “Ill at ease? You? Sounds like you’ve been picking up lingo from Evan.”
My breath snagged on the edges of the gaping wound deep in my chest. I bit down on my jaw and kept walking. I focused on the job. It would be less raw in time, I told myself. It would have to be.
We split up into our two vehicles, me in my Jeep and the two of them in the van, and drove a grid of the city with an eye out for any glimpse of three-leaf clover signs, insignias, or flags. It was dark and I was almost going to call off the search a second before I saw it. A bar with a flashing three-leaf clover. The St George Hotel.
“Fuck.”
I called Ten on our burner phones and the three of us met up to stake out the bar for the night. Most of the clientele were immediately scratched off our suspects list by appearance alone—portly, ruddy from too much drink, and clearly too unfit to fight a dragon let alone kill one. Sleep had taken Ten in the back seat of the van and I was tempted to call it a night when Ace gasped and nudged me. A pair of men in motorcycle jackets exited the bar. Muscled, with burn scars on their cheeks and hands. They scanned the area as though they knew they were being watched and hurried down the street in a zigzag pattern with practiced precision. How had we missed them on their way into the bar? Perhaps there was a back entrance.
“You go.” I tossed my keys to Ace and he scurried to the Jeep to track them.
The rest of the night went by with no other suspects and the bar shut down before sunrise. I was slightly relieved—my imagination had created a den inside the bar that was full of dragon hunters, a city overrun with them. But we’d only found two. So far.
My burner phone blared with a startling ringtone and Ten grumbled as he woke. It was Ace. “I traced them to a high-end hotel in the city. Very fancy. High security.”
“Any holes in that security?”
“None. It’s tight.”
“Sit on them. We’re coming to you.”
The stake-out at the hotel took all day. Fatigue itched at my eyelids but Ace and Ten took shifts—when they weren’t napping, they kept me company and stocked in convenience store coffee and doughnuts. Worse than the fatigue was the boredom. The suspected dragon hunters didn’t move from the hotel all day; which left us with nothing to do but sit and think. My mind wandered to Evan every chance it had. Was he safe? Would I ever see him again? Perhaps Vince would cool down and I could see him by the time we made it back to West Virginia in, what, a year? Maybe two? How long would this mission take? But he’d probably have Evan married to another alpha by then, maybe a clan leader. It’d be good for Evan, I told myself. He deserved the finer things, and a life of peace and stability. Things that I couldn’t give him.
Being away from him hurt like a scorching brand in the center of my chest, but I could handle the pain. I could keep him safe from a distance, and that would have to be good enough.
Ace grabbed my arm. “They’re moving. Shit, they’re leaving.”
The pair of hunters each carried an oversized backpack and two duffle bags toward an unmarked van, much the same make as ours. No windows, and a large side-door. Good for storing weapons in. Or a body.
It was dark, and presumably they’d slept all day and were well-rested. That might even the fight a little; our reflexes would be somewhat more sluggish than normal. We left the Jeep and followed them in the less ostentatious vehicle and hoped that they’d lead us out of town. Once we were in a more rural area, we could hijack them or lure them out into the woods where we could shift and make quick work of the job. Maybe use some persuasion techniques to get information out of them about other hunters.
But they led us deeper into the guts of Portland and pulled up outside the St George Hotel. We parked a good distance away and watched as they sauntered up the steps to the bar, lit by the glowing three-leaf clover.
“One last beer for the road, huh?” Ten said, and then let out a loud yawn.
“Do we just wait for them to come out?” Ace said.
“That could take all night. We need to get them out. I have a bad feeling about this, and I don’t want to wait any longer.” I reached into the back and grabbed a machete.
“What, you’re just going to go in there and start hacking up hunters?” Ace raised his eyebrows and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“No, we’re going to lure them out.”
“How?”
“You know what kind of bait to lay for dragon hunters.”
“Right. A dragon.”
Ten and I turned to Ace, whose smile dropped, and his hands shot up defensively. “Hey! Why me?”
“You’re the most delicious looking.”
He grumbled and threatened to scar himself for the sake of his own personal safety but shrugged off his Kevlar jacket that made him look like a mercenary, disarmed himself of most of his weapons save for a knife in his boot, and shook out his hair.
“How’s that?”
Ten untucked Ace’s shirt and slapped his cheek affectionately. “Delicious.”
Civilianized, we sent Ace into the bar and sat in the van, waiting. More waiting. Less than an hour later, the handsome blond stumbled out, convincingly drunk-like, and swaggered up an alleyway a block from the bar. Ten’s brow furrowed, and I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. Sure enough, the two men in motorcycle jackets who looked no older than thirty in human years, trotted down the steps of the bar and followed Ace’s trail without looking the other way.
“They knew he went that way…” I didn’t like it.
“Lucky guess?”
“You believe in luck?” I grabbed my machete and Ten bolted a silencer onto the
end of his pistol with a chuckle.
We let them get swallowed up by the darkness of the alleyway before we left the van and ran, crouched low, past the bar and its near-deafening music, and down the empty block to the alleyway that stank of urine. It was unfortunate that we wouldn’t be able to shift into even our smallest dragons, given that we were in a densely populated human area. It only occurred to me how much of a disadvantage that might give us in the fight, rather than if we’d had the patience to follow them out of the city. A chilling thought occurred to me. Had we really lured them out with Ace? Or had they been baiting us since we’d first spotted them at the bar?
There was no time to wonder. Ace waved to us from the far end of the alleyway and shrugged.
“What’s up? They didn’t bite?” he called.
Shit. A sudden thawk knocked out the backs of my knees and I stumbled forward, barely held my balance, and spun around just in time for one hunter to land a brass-knuckled punch to my jaw, while the other smacked my machete out of my hand. The crunch of brass on bone stunned me, but not as much as being ambushed had. It had been decades, or even a good century, since I’d been taken unawares, and that had been thanks to a Silver Dragon. How the fuck had these humans snuck up on us?
Ace shouted and raced forward while Ten scrambled for my weapon, but the dragon hunter with scarred hands got to it first.
“Smells like smoke!” The hunter with burn marks on his face squealed, and landed a blow to my side, but I wasn’t going down that easily. Ten jumped back from a machete swing and raised his gun while I spun and landed a heavy punch to the one closest to me. Suddenly, a knife blade cut across my cheek and the scratch stung like a wasp sting. They were nimble, faster than any humans I’d ever known. As fast as dragons.
Ten shot off a muffled bullet that whizzed past me, left a pungent streak of gunpowder scent in the air behind it, and barely clipped the shoulder of the hunter closest to me. He hissed and I took the opportunity to smash his belly with my fists and knees, while the other hunter smashed the gun out of Ten’s hand and threatened him with the machete. Ace growled with ferocious dragon power and took out the human’s knees from behind. I landed a kick to the middle of his back, sending him toppling forward and the machete skidding out of the alleyway and into the street.
We skirmished hand-to-hand with the hunters in the darkness, while our dragons itched at the surface. Scales swelled at my neck and my claws sprung up and retracted as adrenaline blasted through my body. My mind reeled at how two humans were holding their own against the three of us; even without shifting, our strength and speed should have overpowered them in minutes. In a terrifying flash, I thought I caught the sight of scales under the collar of one of the Hunter’s jackets, but it was gone when I blinked.
Suddenly, the hunter with the bullet wound set his knife at Ace’s throat, while the other pinned his limbs, rendering him immobile.
They’re taking his head.
Rage and fear shot through me and I dove, and so did Ten. We knocked the three of them over with a scraping thud against the concrete. But they were strong and fast. The hunter kept his grip on Ace and the knife soon found its way back to his throat and I roared with protective instinct. It drew on the pain I’d been holding within my body, my dragon’s urges to be with Evan, the injustice I’d faced. It was unwise, dangerous even, to make such a sound in the city but I wasn’t going to suffer another misfortune; I wasn’t going to lose my friend and brother-in-arms. The sound of my roar cut through the alleyway and stunned the hunter with his knife still pressed against Ace’s throbbing jugular. The other scuttled backward and made for the street as quickly as he could while the three of us surged on his friend.
We finished off the hunter with a swift twist of his neck and some cursory stab wounds to his belly, then rifled through his pockets for loot. I trusted the details would lead the police to believe it was gang-related or a mugging. No claw marks, and no bite wounds… as much as I longed to rip him into shreds, we wouldn’t leave any trace of what had really happened.
The other hunter was long gone by the time we were done. No trace of their van. We considered asking for details at the hotel, possibly posing as cops, but we were in no state to even attempt to set foot in a five-star establishment. Our wounds were healing but we were covered in alleyway grime, human blood, and we stank like piss. We were out of leads and had no idea where to look for the one that got away. At least we’d taken care of one of them.
“We’ll catch up with him again,” I assured my men as we sat around a small fire built in the middle of our campsite. We’d set up a small camp in the woods just outside of town, but close enough that we could pick up the Portland PD radio and keep an ear out for any talk of the hunter’s body being found; or the other man, perhaps sighted or pulled over on the highway as he sped away. So far, nothing. Silent, we watched the flames burn down into embers and simmered in our disappointment that we’d let one get away.
“I saw something on the body,” Ace said quietly, lit by the campfire.
“The body? The cadaver in the morgue?”
“No, the hunter we killed. His shoulder, where you shot him, Ten.” Ace touched his own shoulder and frowned into the glow of the embers.
“What about it?”
“The wound was healed.”
“Huh?” Ten scooted forwards.
“The bullet wound. It had stopped bleeding and it was like… stitching itself together. It looked almost healed already.”
“Like, uh…”
I shot Ten a look to tell him to keep his mouth shut. We all knew what that kind of self-healing was like. It was like us. But the hunters weren’t dragons—they smelled human and apart from their speed, they moved like them too. I was sinking into a meditation about what might have been going on, when we heard a rumble of a motor in the distance that quickly grew closer.
“The hunter?”
Up like a flash of bolt lightning, we stood our ground as tires grumbled over the dirt track approaching the campsite and headlights washed over us. My dragon was at the surface as my blood felt thick and boiling. The air around us grew hot and dense, as we stood together on the edge of our shift. Showing his face here would have been a bold move and a terrible mistake; there was nothing holding us back from at least a partial shift now we were outside of the city. Headlights blinded me for a moment, before the car came to a stop and I blinked when a door opened, and a surge of smoke-scent and brimstone filled the air.
Carlisle stepped out and held his hand up in warm greeting.
“What are you doing here?” I growled, suddenly furious that the Princeps Draco was in the same state as a known dragon hunter, and now here on my campsite. I was exhausted and the prospect of defending him was too much to bear.
But when he laid eyes on me, held his chest in relief and smiled, I started to panic. What had happened at home? Evan… I hurried over to Carlisle and he held me at arm’s length, then brushed down my jacket with caring hands. “Here? I’m doing nothing here. I’ll cut to the chase, Bishop. Evan needs you.”
“What happened? What the fuck happened?” I snarled and shook him by the shoulders, but Carlisle laughed. Confused, I let him go and he beamed at me proudly.
“You’re going to be a dad.”
Like a sledgehammer to the head, and a shock to the heart. I stumbled backward and landed flat on my ass, to the uproarious laughter of Ten and Ace.
“What the hell! I’ve never seen that happen!” Ace howled.
“A good fight can’t knock you down, but a baby is all it takes?” Ten chuckled and offered me a hand.
Back on my feet, I gaped at Carlisle who simply shrugged. “I’m the messenger.”
“He’s pregnant? You’re sure?”
“He’s very pregnant with your baby. Huge belly. And Vince is aware.”
“Shit. Is he coming for me?”
“No. As a matter of fact, he’s accepting of your mating. Insistent, even.”
“What?” The world spun and I steadied myself on Ten’s shoulder. I blinked hard. Was this a fever dream? Had I been knocked out in the fight?
“Evan needs you, though.” Carlisle’s voice grew quiet and there was a hint of urgency behind his cordial tone. My heart surged like a shock had restarted it, but the situation wasn’t simple.
I paced and let the happiness wash through me like an elixir that soothed all of the ragged, torn up parts of my heart. My mate! He could be mine after all, and with a child too. But now I was in a predicament that I hadn’t anticipated. The Enforcement Council were not the kind of dragons one could simply let down. I could finish this part of the mission and get back to West Virginia in time for the birth, could I not?
Carlisle watched me carefully, and I turned to him for guidance. “I’m not sure what to do. The Council…”
“Yes. Well, I’m afraid you simply have to come back right now.”
“What do you mean? I can’t, we’re in the middle of a mission, we need to follow the map—”
His face fell and he braced himself, or perhaps me, with a tight grip on my arm. “Bishop… Evan’s very sick. It’s dire.”
I inhaled sharply and slapped his hand away. “What the fuck, Carlisle? Why didn’
t you say that to begin with?”
We were packed up in less than ten minutes, and I followed Carlisle and Mason back to Charleston while Ace and Ten agreed to do more recon at the home base in Pittsburg. The happiness that bubbled in my stomach was only tempered by the dread of leaving our mission, and an anxious tugging to get back to Evan as soon as I could. The mission would have to wait, but I would have to return to it, and soon. It wasn’t going anywhere. I just hoped that my detour back to Evan wouldn’t leave more dragons dead in the meantime.
18
Evan
The call from Carlisle came in after midnight, but I was already awake. Mabel, Haiden, Seth, and an older woman, Agatha, were crowded around my bed, mumbling to each other in low tones, as though I couldn’t hear them talking about what to do. I hadn’t eaten and could barely keep down the water they gave me. Everything ached and all I could do was rest in some awfully vague state between waking and unconsciousness. They were right to be worried; to put it simply, I was dying. And I knew it. The emptiness that had billowed up in my chest when I’d first been separated from Bishop had now begun to totally consume me. I was drained of all vitality.
But so be it. What they were discussing was a fate worse than death.
“I’d rather die than mate with another alpha,” I groaned dramatically—but quite honestly. “If things take a turn, just do what you can to save the baby.”
“Shit, don’t talk like that. You’re giving me the heebie-jeebies.” Seth shook from head to toe and scrunched up his nose at me. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll make sure of it.”
I wasn’t so sure. But then the call came—Haiden’s phone lit up and suddenly Carlisle’s voice filled the room. They’d followed Seth’s intel and they’d found Bishop! A convoy of vehicles, cutting directly southwest, and they’d deliver him to us; thirteen hours or less, they promised. Despite the joy dancing through my heart and the whoops of success from the group, I could barely smile. Agatha and Haiden shared a look that told me everything I needed to know. They didn’t think I had thirteen hours left in me.