by Leela Ash
So, of course, she did.
The moment her finger brushed the rock’s cold surface, a fire-hose of memories slammed into her.
Michael. The way his beard tickled against her skin as he kissed her. The giddy power she felt, standing on that bike, surrounded by wind and thunder. Knowing that any twitch, any error he made would send her plummeting to the pavement. A stupid, pointless death. Yet she trusted him. With her life. With her love. Until…
Tess threw herself backwards, away from the last thoughts. Drugs, bought and sold. Another woman. And another, and another, until…
She sat in the grass, the taste of bile in her mouth.
Why did I touch that damned stone? I knew it was dangerous.
But she knew the answer to that. Because she made bad choices.
That’s my life in five words.
Struggling to her feet, she grimaced at the twelve stones. Apparently, she’d made a lot of bad choices.
In her mind, Michael was growing faint again. Feelings died with him. From a pain as sharp as staring at the sun to a vague ache. She still recalled the life they’d begun together, in a cold, distant way. Like the memories of some sad movie she’d watched once, long ago. A few moments later, even that was gone. Leaving her standing, alone, glaring at the stone.
“Okay. Point taken,” she said to nobody. “I don’t touch those things again.”
So what did she know? She ticked the facts off on her fingers and spoke aloud, just so she didn’t feel quite so alone. “I’m Tess Everlyn. I guess I’ve lived a long time.” She prayed that picture of a princess depicted a trip to Disneyland, not some medieval romance. “I have really bad taste in men. Apparently, I come here when it all gets too much and I dump their memories in little stones.” She frowned down at the rocks with their crude paintings of past loves. “I don’t draw very well.”
Now what?
A quick scan of the little island offered no advice. Except for a tree and rocks, it was empty.
Stay here? Nah, that was a daft idea. Her leather jacket and pants looked badass, but they weren’t all that warm. Besides, what was the point of sitting on a cold, grassy island, surrounded by your mistakes?
Might as well leave. Cross the worn bridge, see where that path leads. Start living again. Get back on that horse and…
…make more bad choices.
With a sigh, she headed out. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe she’d be smart.
Somehow, she doubted it.
Chapter 2
…Rage, soaring higher. Scales and fangs answering its deadly song as the fury swept over him, changing him. The fear on the robbers’ faces, their howls of terror… then a woman’s scream, an innocent’s terror. The squeal of tires and that thud. That terrible, horrible sound he could never forget…
Darian Morland opened his eyes and let the last traces of the dream leave him.
Pale sunlight streamed through the window, countless dust motes dancing in its rays. A more poetic soul might be enchanted by that. To him, however, it was just a reminder of yet another chore on his to-do list: air this place out. The stale, musty scent of his blankets added another prompt: clean the bedding. And the chill in the air hinted that maybe this ‘year-round camp’ wasn’t as well-winterized as the realtor implied.
Another thing to get to… later. For now, he burrowed deeper under his ragged quilt. Letting the dream fade completely. Enjoying the bed’s warmth and the silence of the Maine woods, so different from…
Wait. Silence?
He sat bolt upright, sheets and quilt spilling off onto the camp’s dirty floor.
“Ethan?”
No response. Was it early?
The wind-up clock beside his bed warned that it was 8:45 am. Far, far too late for this stillness!
Darian scrambled out of bed and snatched up yesterday’s pants. His stomach roiled at the first touch of adrenaline. Once upon a time, that would have summoned something… greater.
‘Greater?’ He snorted as he trotted into the cabin’s tiny living room. Try ‘darker.’ ‘More dangerous.’ I’m better off without it.
“Ethan?” The door to the second bedroom lay open, its bed empty. A handful of Cheerios lay scattered across the kitchen floor. Another stray “O” at the front door sent him trotting outside, heart hammering.
I told him to stay inside! Why can he never obey me? That’s the Hundred Mile Wilderness to our north. If he got lost there, if he wandered off. Or…
If he was honest, it was the ‘or’ that worried him the most. Trees, woods, even the odd black bear – none of that was as frightening as the ‘or.’
…or if someone followed us out here.
“Ethan!”
“Over here, Dad!”
Relief made his knees weak as he spotted the boy. At seven, he was tall for his age, hinting that someday he would equal his father’s height and strength. Try as he might, Darian couldn’t see any sign of the boy’s mother in his son. Maybe the roundness of the child’s face, the upturned tip of his nose. But his tousled, honey-blonde hair, his bright blue eyes, those he got from his father.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay inside?” he snapped. Lingering traces of worry made his tone sharper than he intended. Ethan noticed that and scowled. His small chin shot up in defiance.
He got that from me, too.
“I was hungry and you were asleep.”
“Nice try, sport.” He folded his arms across his chest, refusing to feel guilty. “The food’s inside.”
“There isn’t any food!”
“How about that cereal you spilled all over the floor?”
“It was gross!” the boy protested. “There wasn’t any milk!”
Now the guilt did come. Darian sighed and let his arms fall to his side. “I know. I’m stuck with black coffee this morning too. I’m sorry. I didn’t do a good job shopping, did I? Tell you what. We’ll drive into town after I shower and we’ll get groceries together. Okay?”
“Can we get Oreos?” Ethan’s face lit up at the prospect.
His heart immediately agreed. He wanted to shower the boy in toys, sweets, and whatever else his heart desired. The father in him, however, knew that ‘what the boy wanted’ was cookies, ice cream, and as much candy as he could carry. He’d probably still cave and let him have the cookies. Ah, hell, who was he trying to kid? He knew he’d cave. But he still had to pretend to be in charge. “I don’t know if you deserve cookies today. I told you to stay inside.”
“I did it for us!”
At this rate, the boy was going to grow up to be a lawyer. Darian frowned harder to keep from smiling. “You disobeyed me to help ‘us’? How exactly did that work?”
“Come see!” Without waiting, Ethan sprinted towards the edge of the dark woods that surrounded the camp. “See what I made?”
“A… pile of leaves?”
Ethan planted his hands on his hips and surveyed the small, leafy lump with pride. “Yup! I couldn’t find a lot because everything’s pine trees out here. But I’m gonna get more and then we’ll have a HUGE pile and we can jump in it! Like we used to do!”
Back when they summered in Tennesee. Guilt returned, stronger. His son loved their camp in the hills. Fresh air, walks in the forest, piles of leaves taller than he was. Darian had hoped that Maine could replace it. The sight of that tiny, sad leaf ‘pile’ gave him doubts, however.
Still, the boy was trying. “You’re right. Pine needles aren’t soft enough. Tell you what: I’ll help you collect them, okay?” Ethan cheered and started to turn, but his father caught his arm. “First, though, we need to discuss what you did. When I tell you to do something, you need to do it. Understand? When I woke up and didn’t know where you were, I was upset.”
“But I was bored! There’s no tv!”
“No, there isn’t. And there won’t be.”
“But why?” Frustration added a grating whine to the boy’s complaint. “Why did we have to come here? We had tv before. And leaves. R
eal leaves!”
And there it was. The question he couldn’t answer. The best he could do was, “It’s safer here.”
“Why?”
What could he say? The truth?
Because I’m a Dragon. There’s a war going on and Dragons are at the heart of it.
Ethan didn’t even believe in Santa Claus any more. Dragons? Not a chance. He had no idea that his father was more than human. He was a Shifter, a man linked to one of the great Dragons of the mysterious Other Side.
Once, he could have proven that Shifters existed. With a thought, he could have summoned his Dragon’s power to him, let its magic transform him into a winged drake. Hell, he could give Ethan a ride. How was that for a cure for boredom? To sail through the clouds on the back of a…
…A woman’s scream of horror. Brakes. That soft, terrible thud…
Darian gasped, closing his eyes tight to banish those horrible memories.
“Daddy?” A small hand touched his shoulder, squeezing. “Are you okay?”
No. I’m a monster.
Those days of flight and fire were gone, and he was better off without them.
He forced himself to open his eyes and smile. “I’m fine.”
Ethan would never see that side of him. He’d banished it. Closed the door to the Other Side and thrown away the key. It would break his heart to see his son stare at him in horror.
Like Charity did, right before she died.
As his son, Ethan had Shifter blood. That made him Kindred: touched by magic, with a soul strong enough to bear the sight of a Shifter. Normal people were usually overwhelmed by panic – even madness – when they saw a Shifter transformed.
…Her scream. Such shock, such horror. Because of him…
His son could handle watching him Shift. As well as anyone could handle the sight of their father changing into a thirty foot long Dragon.
No. Nothing good would come from this. If he told the boy about Dragons, he’d have to explain everything. Better to be just ‘Dad.’ A normal, slightly inept, single father. Trying desperately to keep his son safe.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No,” he whispered, as he pulled the boy into a hug. “Let’s make a deal. You can play here in the yard but you can’t go into the woods or down the road. Okay?”
“Why?”
In the years since Charity’s death, Darian had come to hate that word. He loved Ethan, and being unable to make the world make sense to his son broke his heart. But, as he always did, he turned away from the truth and offered a half-lie. “Those woods go on for a hundred miles. If you got lost in there, I’d never find you.”
Ethan’s eyes grew wide. Good. That meant he had his attention. “There are bears out there, and they’re not friendly to little boys. And while there isn’t a lot of traffic here, you could get hit by a car if you play in the road.”
Presuming that any car could go more than 5 mph on the rutted dirt track that passed for a “camp road.” Which he rather doubted. Still, better to say that than to try to explain that if his old enemies tracked them down, they’d come by road.
“You understand?”
“Yes, Daddy,” he sighed.
“Good.” Darian rose to his feet and stroked his son’s hair. “Give me your cereal bowl to clean and then I’ll come out and we can make that leaf pile, okay?”
“‘Kay!” A sudden thought froze the boy in his tracks and he puffed with excitement. “Then we go to Bangor, right? For groceries?”
“Maybe not all the way to Bangor, but we’ll go shopping.”
“Can we have lunch at that place?”
Kids remained a mystery to him, even after five years as a parent. “What place?”
“The one with the bear! Pleease?”
Oh, the “Black Bear Diner.” A beat-up shack about eight miles down the road. His son had been dazzled by their chainsaw ‘sculpture’ of a bear cub. “Sure. Why not?”
More cheers. Darian smiled as he scooped Ethan’s forgotten cereal bowl off the lawn.
Something yellow tumbled out as he rose.
Eggs. The remains of what looked like scrambled eggs.
Alarm flared, strong enough that, for one moment, Darian thought he could hear the distant roar of a Dragon.
He hadn’t bought any eggs.
“Ethan? What did you have for breakfast.”
“Cheerios and a emee-ar.”
“A what?”
“M. E. R.” the boy spelled.
An MRE? Army-abbreviation for a ‘Meal Ready to Eat’?
“Hey!” At his shout, Ethan froze. All of his childish petulance vanished when he realized that his father was truly, seriously upset. “Ethan Philip Morland, did you eat something you found in this camp?”
“No, Daddy.”
He held the dirty bowl up, glaring. “Where did you get the eggs?”
“The lady gave them to me.”
“What lady?” Somewhere deep within himself, his Dragon rumbled with suspicious anger. By nature, Dragons were guardians, protectors of the weak. The thought that someone – some stranger – had approached his son nearly drove him wild.
The boy pointed down their long dirt driveway. “The lady with the motorcycle. She lives in that house that’s all mossy. I told her I was hungry, and she gave me a emee-ar.”
Eyes narrowing, he glared at the bend in the road. No ‘lady’ would live in that abandoned shed. The realtor had promised him that they’d be completely alone.
No neighbors.
Which meant his enemies had found them.
“Ethan, go inside NOW. Lock the door and don’t open it again until I tell you.”
The camp’s flimsy door wouldn’t stop a Rat – much less any of the powerful Shifters that tracked them. But it was the best he could do.
For the first time, Darian bitterly regretted sending his Dragon away. He might not have its power, but he still had its enemies.
As his son fled to hide, he strode angrily down the road. He would protect his son, no matter who this ‘lady’ might be.
Chapter 3
Tess was duct-taping the leg of her lawn chair when, with a loud crash, the door of her cabin was kicked in.
Standing in her doorway was a hellishly hot – and highly annoyed – man. Tall, muscular, with broad shoulders tapering down to a powerful waist. Ruffled dirty-blonde hair, like he’d stormed in through a hurricane. Blue eyes, bright and fierce, in a square-jawed, strong-boned face straight out of an old 50s Western. His hands were balled into fists and the tail end of a tattoo, something long and sinuous by the looks, peeked out from under his sleeve.
Hello Mr. “Bad Choice” #13.
Damn, he was ticked off. Should she be worried? That seemed like a reasonable reaction when a stranger kicked in your front door; however, Tess didn’t feel even the faintest whisper of fear. She didn’t know who she was, but she was pretty sure she could defend herself. He must be the dad of that cute kid who mooched breakfast off her. Probably mad that she talked to his boy.
For a moment, the two of them stared across the tiny room. Him glaring, her bemused. “Uh, hello?” she said. “You know, in these parts, it’s traditional to knock before battering someone’s door in.”
“I know who you are,” he growled.
Oh, what a voice! Deep, bass honey-coated menace. Hell yeah, he had ‘mistake’ written all over him. The flash of heat that voice summoned almost made her burst out laughing. Wow, she fell for the Bad Boys hard. No wonder her life was such a mess. Or, well, she assumed it was a mess. Healthy people didn’t dump their past like last month’s garbage.
“If you know who I am, buddy, you’re one up on me.”
“What?” Her crazy answer made him pause, still scowling. Tess turned back to her repairs. “What are you doing?” he snapped.
“Fixing my bed.”
“That’s a lawn chair.”
“Yeah, well, apparently I didn’t leave a lot of furniture behind when I took off.”
> “You’ve been waiting for me, then?” He stepped forward, looming over her as she sat on the floor. For the first time, she started to wonder if she had a serious problem on her hands.
“Hell no. I don’t even know who you are. Are you pissed that I fed your kid? If so, I’m sorry. He said he was starving.”
“No games!” Try as she might, Tess couldn’t keep her eyes on the lawn chair. They crept back to him, drinking in his fierceness, the raw, masculine edge of his anger. And… something else. There was something about him that captivated her. An aura, an air of power and importance. His mere presence demanded attention and respect. She found her usual jokes beginning to dry up on her tongue.
“Tell me the truth,” he said. “You’re with the Fangs of Apophis, aren’t you?”
“No. Is that a gang?” Maybe that explained that ink of his.
With my luck, he’s a drug dealer. Great…
Those gorgeous blue eyes bore into hers, as if he could see her messed up soul. Then they clouded with confusion. “You’re not lying. But… what are you?”
What the hell kind of question was that? “Uh, a woman?”
“Obviously.” He waved dismissively, uncurling his fists as he did. “I meant, what kind of Shifter are you?”
“Shifter? What’s that?”
Now he took a step back, alarm spreading across his handsome face. “But you have to be… I mean, I can see your link to the Other Side.”
“Other side of what?”
“Oh hell,” he sighed. “You’re one of the Lost.”
Just what she needed to start the first morning of her new life: a completely psycho conversation. “Well, I’m lost now. I mean, I understand every word you’re saying – and they don’t make any sense. Look, let’s start over, okay? I’ll pretend that you knocked and I’ll say, ‘Hi. My name’s Tess Everlyn. What’s yours?’”
He stared at her, a picture of bafflement.
“That’s your cue, Big Guy.”
“Uh, Darian Morland.”
“Nice name. You rich? That sounds like a rich-guy name.”
“No. Well, yes, but… no. Not at the moment.”