by Sadie Sears
I shook my head, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that Saul wouldn’t hurt her only living family member because I didn’t know if that was the truth. Saul was unpredictable. Especially if he was angry—and if he’d found out Mae was still alive and I’d faked her death, he’d be furious and capable of almost anything.
His demon would demand it, and Saul would obey.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“No, I don’t.” I chose my words with care. “But I do know what I should do next, and that’s call a detective I know.”
Mae threw her hands up, her frustration evident. “So after I said all along we should go to the police, and you kept telling me how dangerous it was, now we get to go to the police because you said so?” She paced a little way across the room before turning back, her hands clenched into fists. “That is some shit, Draven.”
“I know this one. She doesn’t like my kind.” I crinkled my nose at using the same expression Jo had used. “There’s no way she’d be in Saul’s pocket.”
“Jo Orozco? The detective at Port Lair PD?” Mae relaxed a little.
“Yeah.” I hesitated. “You know her?”
Mae shrugged. “She gave me a call while I was with Grandma. Asked a bit about Saul’s party. But I didn’t tell her anything because I remembered what you said about the police.”
Warmth filled me. Even though Mae and I had been apart, and she’d been assessing her situation, she’d still protected me and listened to my advice regarding Saul.
“I didn’t know who I could trust,” she clarified.
“You can trust this one.” I patted my pockets. “I have her card somewhere. I’ll give her a call.” Damn. I’d had her card. What had I done with it?
“Call her on here.” Mae held out a new cell phone, a small twinkle in her eye. “Ironic the first number I add to my new phone after you wreck my old one is someone you might not want me to trust, though.”
“But it’s a good thing you did.” I took her phone, but pain blinded me for a moment, and I gasped. The prickling at my temple returned and spread down my cheek.
I turned from Mae so she wouldn’t see.
“I swear I didn’t tell her anything when she showed up at Grandma’s—not even that I’d stayed with you. I remembered everything you said about the police.”
I sighed. “And I still don’t want to bring the police in, but I promised this one I would if things with Saul got to be too much for me to handle, and they just have. The life of your grandma is too valuable for me to fuck with.” I sincerely hoped I wasn’t too late.
As I pressed the button to access Mae’s stored numbers and hit Jo’s name, the searing pain in my face spread farther again, and I drew my hair to hang over my face to hide the beast I was fast becoming.
19
Mae
Draven faced away from me and allowed his hair to hang in front of his face, but he wasn’t concealing anything from me. The physical change in his skin sent a rush of horror to tighten my throat.
But it wasn’t his appearance that was responsible for that cold dread. It was that he was changing because of me. Every act of kindness he did on my behalf changed him.
He glanced at me. “Don’t look,” he muttered. “I’m a monster.” Then he rearranged his hair again as he spoke briefly to Jo then hung up my phone.
“She’ll be here in a few minutes.” He shut the curtains, throwing the room into shadow, and stood in the darkest corner where I could no longer see him.
The urge to hug him overcame me. I’d always, always been the least attractive of my friends, the one most likely to be the token ugly kid in any photograph, and none of us had cared.
I didn’t care about the attentions of men because I’d never really found anyone I wanted the attention of. Yes, Charlie had hurt me, but being ghosted was never going to not sting. But my friends were all wrong—he hadn’t put me off men. And the abandonment wasn’t the issue. The idea I wasn’t good enough. That had hurt most.
He hadn’t been the right guy.
Draven was.
The man whose appearance was physically changing because he loved me so much he was literally endangering himself.
Where he saw ugliness, I saw only beauty because the purity of his love shone through. It was in every leather-like patch that marred his skin, in every blackened claw, in the row of pointed teeth that peeked from under his top lip.
No one had ever fought for me like this. And I wanted to fight for him, too. I just didn’t know what to do.
I stepped closer and took his hand. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t respond, either. I threaded my fingers between his and smoothed his down, forcing him to hold my hand. He still didn’t resist, but neither did he really reciprocate.
“Draven.”
He looked at me then quickly away again, pain glinting in his eyes.
“But you’ve seen what I’ve become.” His voice came out broken and quiet. “I’m not the man you need.”
But he was wrong—he was exactly the man I needed. And it looked like it was up to me to save him from himself—however I needed to do that. “I think you are.” I spoke confidently, like something had clicked into place inside me and I knew exactly what I wanted. “I’ve known for a while.”
And it was true. I couldn’t imagine my life without Draven in it.
“Maybe I’ve known since the very first moment I saw you.” The memory of our kiss seared across my skin. On some primal, instinctive level, I’d recognized Draven as mine.
I curled my fingers tighter around his, willing him back, willing him to keep fighting for us.
“Don’t push me away.” I could see it happening. The more he changed, the more he retreated. “We can save Grandma and then we can save ourselves.”
“It hurts,” he whispered.
Guilt brought tears to my eyes. I was asking too much of him. I wanted to take all of his pain away. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” I offered my reassurances with my whole heart. Perhaps I couldn’t remove his pain, but I could promise to stay at his side and love him. Maybe I needed to be here to keep reminding him to be strong enough, to keep fighting, to stay whole. “No matter what.”
His demon could do its worst. It could try everything it knew to push me away, but it wasn’t going to work.
“I can be stubborn as hell,” I added, and Draven rewarded me with the glimmer of a smile. “Stay perfectly still,” I commanded, and he froze.
I tucked his hair behind his ear and trailed my fingertips across the tough skin on his cheek, unsure whether he could feel my touch.
He closed his eyes and whimpered softly as a tear squeezed out of the corner of one and slid against his nose.
“I love you,” I reaffirmed. “I love you in spite of your demon. I want to save you, but I don’t know how.” I kept everything as raw and honest as I could before stretching up to press my lips against his, the gentle kiss sealing my promise and renewing my determination to do everything in my power to save this man.
He returned the pressure of my lips and leaned into me when I would have pulled away, chasing our connection. His fingers tightened around mine, and pleasure and gratification surged into my chest.
We could win this together.
As I finally drew back, he opened his mouth to speak, but a knock at the door interrupted him, and he disentangled his hand from mine before stepping back into the shadow, hidden from sight.
A frisson of fear rattled my thoughts, leaving my skin chilled. “Who do you think it is? Could it be Saul?”
“I think it’s Jo.” He sounded amused. “I mean, I’m not sure Saul knocks.”
Duh. “Of course. I knew that.”
The person knocked again, and I approached the door, pausing to look through the peephole. Even after I saw Jo standing in the corridor, I slipped the security latch on anyway, and spoke to her through the cracked open door before I let her in.
“Mae Turner?” She spoke immediately
when she saw me.
I nodded. “Are you alone?”
Draven had said Jo knew about dragon shifters, and maybe even the demon part, but I didn’t want to expose him to anyone else. Protection for him surged above any other instinct.
“Yes. Draven said the two of you needed to see me about something he’s been working on?”
I could imagine the Saul project wasn’t exactly mainstream police work. “I’ll let you in.” I pushed the door closed while I unfastened the latch then stepped back as she entered the room.
“It’s dark in here.” Immediately, she switched on the light, and Draven had nowhere to go.
He dropped his head, allowing his hair to fall forward, but his movement wasn’t quick enough to try to conceal his changes from Jo.
“Oh, I see,” she said, disgust clear in her tone. “I knew you were just like all the rest.”
Draven shook his head slightly. “This isn’t that. I’m trying to help.”
“Well, I don’t think you’ll be much good any longer, do you?” Jo stepped closer to the bed and leaned over, inspecting the blood smear. “How do I know you didn’t do this in the first place? I mean, look at you. You’re barely holding it together.” She looked at me. “I wouldn’t even advise you to be in the same room as him. We have no idea when he might snap. I need to try to get him contained with as little fuss as possible.” She slid her cellphone from her pocket.
“No. Stop. Wait.” I held my hands up. What was she doing?
“That’s Draven. He’d never do anything.” Without thought, I fluttered my fingers toward the scratch on my arm, and Jo narrowed her eyes, ever the perceptive cop.
“Then what’s that?”
“It’s nothing.” I bit out. “I stumbled into something when I discovered my grandma missing. Blind panic—the clue’s in the name, I guess.”
Jo nodded. “I see.”
She clearly didn’t believe me, but I jutted my chin out and offered no further explanation.
“I’m serious.” She walked back to me and stood so Draven couldn’t read her lips. She kept her voice down as she murmured to me. “Look, I’m serious. I’ve seen it before. A dragon killed my brother.”
“A dragon?” I pulled back as shock overtook me. “What? No? Aro would never—”
“Aro?” Her brow formed a crease. “I don’t know Aro.”
I bit my lip, unwilling to say anything else that might endanger Draven or Aro. It was clear Jo Orozco had an agenda. Maybe she wasn’t the person to help us.
“I just need to warn you,” she continued. “My brother got involved with one of these…” She broke off and gestured at Draven. “One of these things. They’re monsters. I know what Rhett’s boyfriend was because I saw him transform into a dragon. He looked so normal, too.” She grimaced then shuddered. “Oh, well. I guess all sorts of monsters look normal on the outside, these days. Anyway, a few days later, Rhett showed up dead—cause of death listed as nonsurvivable injuries as a result of as fall from height.” She tightened her jaw, her eyes fierce. “I saw his body. Trauma didn’t cut it. He was pasted on the ground. I think you’ll agree it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that was no fall. Rhett was dropped, and his murderer is still out there, still at large because I haven’t identified the right dragon yet. Don’t let the next dead body be you.” She finished with a particularly hard stare, and I glanced at Draven, his brokenness and dejection shining right out of his eyes as his shoulders slumped.
Well, I was prepared to be his strength. I stood straighter, willing Draven to do the same. “It won’t be me because that’s not Draven.” I didn’t mention Aro again because the less information I gave Jo, the better, at this point.
With her attitude, I wasn’t sure I could trust her, but there weren’t any better ideas at the moment, and Draven certainly needed the backup. He couldn’t go running around Port Lair with his demon taking over his face, body, and mind.
“Differences of opinion aside—” I still spoke strongly. I wanted her to see I was Draven’s, he was mine, and I believed in him completely. “This isn’t getting us any closer to finding and rescuing my grandma.”
She nodded slightly, hopefully conceding my point.
“Draven isn’t the dragon you’re looking for anyway.” I was warming to my subject, heating up in my defense of the man I loved. “So, we need your police expertise and police all-access pass to help find and stop a real psycho dragon before he does something to my grandma to get to me.” I finished strong but didn’t dare think too much about the words I’d just spoken because I couldn’t bear to believe Saul might hurt my grandma.
I pushed my thoughts aside and stared Jo down, unblinking.
She sighed. “Okay.” Then she looked at Draven, finally including him as an expert in this conversation. “So, what do we do?”
“We get Saul.” He growled the words but broke off and winced.
I moved toward him as Jo stepped away, but her hand on my arm restrained me from getting any closer.
“I still think he’s dangerous,” she murmured. “Working with him kills me, but he’s the best shot we’ve got to nail this fucker.” Then she raised her voice. “Are you sure it’s Saul?”
Draven scoffed. “Get real, lady. Who else could it be?”
I almost didn’t recognize him. His tone of voice, his dismissive attitude.
“And Saul will definitely like you. You smell…pretty.” For a moment, his eyes flashed red, and I shuddered.
Jo stood her ground, even though she didn’t release her grip on me. “Then let me at him. Because I can guarantee the feeling won’t be mutual.”
“I didn’t tell you the whole truth about the party.” I rushed my words out. “I mean, I didn’t know if I could trust you, but now you need to know how dangerous he is.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “I’m listening.”
I swallowed as I remembered. “He had a guy, one who kept following me around. I thought it was because I’d been invited as a reporter, and they were trying to make sure I wasn’t unhappy with anything. But then the same guy tried to kill me in the woods outside Draven’s house the next morning.”
Her eyebrows lifted as I jumped ahead in my story and revealed too much detail about where I’d spent the night after the party.
“Anyway, at the party…” I segued back in as effortlessly as I could. “Saul changed into something… Something…”
“A monster,” Jo supplied drily.
“Yes, but it’s not like you’re thinking. It wasn’t a dragon.”
Jo huffed. “I should think not. Those things are huge There’s no way he would have fit inside a room where he was holding a party.”
“He did a partial shift into his demon.” Draven spoke from the corner. “That is, he took on some of his demon attributes.”
I shuddered at the memory.
“I see.” Jo’s eyes widened like demon was the last word she’d expected to hear, but she recovered herself quickly, and her features returned to a typical cop neutral. “So…not unlike you now then?”
“Yes. Wait, no. Saul isn’t like Draven. Saul was unhinged, he created a blood bath. I don’t even know how I got away.” I jumped in quickly, defending Draven instinctive.
“You weren’t supposed to get away.” Draven winced and clutched his head.
“Yes.” I looked directly at Jo. “If it wasn’t for Draven finding me and hiding me, keeping me safe, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Very convenient, though. That Draven was suitably positioned to be your protector.” Jo spoke with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“He’s my mate.” I half shouted the words as Draven made his reply.
“Saul lined me up to capture her and bring her to him. I was perfectly positioned. I was able to bring him footage of me faking her death.”
“I see.” Jo spoke her favorite phrase again, the one that suggested she had a lot of thoughts whirling around inside her head and she was making connections we did
n’t necessarily want her to make.
“We need to push all of this aside. I’m not dead. Clearly, I’m not. And I’m not injured at Draven’s hand or by any other means.” I narrowed my eyes at Jo. “Our only focus right now is agreeing that Saul abducted my grandma. Then we can figure out a plan to get her back.”
“Okay.” Jo tapped her foot and folded her arms. “I can agree this is Saul’s work. Even if I didn’t, I’d agree because I want that bastard off the streets of Port Lair. If I can get inside his house, even if we don’t find your grandma—”
“She’ll be there,” Draven growled. “This is Saul’s work. He’s been here. The whole place stinks of him.”
Jo’s eyes widened. “Okaaaay. Okay, well, just say Mae’s grandma wasn’t there—” She shot me a sympathetic glance. “If on the tiny chance we don’t find her, I think I can pull together enough evidence to get charges to stick for other crimes we think were perpetrated by him. He’s slippery, though.”
Draven groaned and clutched his head. “We need to act, though.”
I finally wrestled my arm from Jo’s grasp. “This hurts him,” I explained. “We don’t have time to stand around discussing strategy.” I looked at Draven. “What should we do? Where will he be?”
“His place.” He answered immediately, not even needing to think about it. “It’s secure and deserted enough. I turn a blind eye. He’s safe there.”
“Not anymore,” Jo said grimly.
Jo had tried to get me to stay in the hotel room, but instead, I sat by her side as we sped too fast up the highway toward Draven’s bluff.
“I shouldn’t be bringing a citizen into such a dangerous situation.” She barely glanced at me before returning her eyes to the road ahead of us. “It’s worse than taking a knife to a gun fight because I need to keep you under my protection at all times.”
“Not exposing me.” I kept my words short and sharp. “I can’t be anywhere else.” I hesitated. “And why are you so happy to believe in all this dragon shifter stuff, anyway? I mean, I haven’t even seen you flinch.” I glanced quickly at her.