Charred Tears (#2, Heart of Fire) (21 page)

“Yeah. We don’t know anything about these slayers except that Gavin torched their headquarters and pissed them off. They aren’t going to turn us into cute little statues this time,” Luke agreed.

“I just have this feeling that these slayers aren’t like Skylar,” Chace said. He leaned back, fingers wrapped around a glass of wheat colored autumn beer. “The more I learn, the more I think this is a disagreement between two shifter factions that’s turned into a war. The key to winning seems to be who has her, but I don’t understand why.”

“You really think that?” Gunner asked. “That the slayers aren’t children of other shifters?”

“Something strikes me as very wrong. I know a lot of the folks at The Field were brainwashed. But I don’t think it’s possible that they’re all children of shifters. I mean, wouldn’t we know if mass amounts of shifter kids were being kidnapped?” he puzzled. “Wouldn’t we hear rumors or notice the people here talking about it?”

“Unless the shifters and their kids disappeared at the same time,” Gunner pointed out. “I’m not ruling it out, but I agree. Something is really off here.”

“Something to do with your girl,” Wyle added. “Everything seems to center around her.”

“Yeah,” Chace said.

They fell into a thoughtful quiet.

Chace woke up the last three wingless shifters, marveling at the ability to help them. He’d once thought himself cursed for being what he was. Now, he realized he had the power to help others. It started when he met Skylar, when his heart began to beat, and he was only growing stronger.

Even so, he didn’t see himself taking over the position of Gavin. The ancient dragon commanded respect wherever he went. Many younger shifters didn’t know who he was, but they sensed
what
he was – their leader. The creature who would show up at their doors if they brought unwanted attention from the human population upon the shifters or if they quarreled among themselves and threatened the peaceful existence of the shifters.

People moved out of his path, and when he sat at the bar, those near him got up and left.

For a moment, Chace was almost able to pity the man who had lost the other half of his heart. Chace had a second chance, much like the shifters he was bringing back to life, but Gavin didn’t.

We both have Sky.

“Chace,” Gavin’s voice pulled him from his mind.

Chace glanced up at the shifter king’s arrival.

“You have a moment?” Though phrased as a question, the words were as far from a request as could be.

“Sure.” Chace rose. He trailed Gavin out back. Gavin went a short distance away, as if to be certain no one was following or within hearing distance.

Chace pushed his hands in his pockets, doing his best not to tense up around the shifter who had been too eager to help him ruin his life. Gavin faced him, and uneasiness swept through Chace at his predatory gaze.

“If anything happens to Sky, I’ll kill you,” Gavin started calmly.

“I think you’re starting to warm up to me,” Chace said.

“You fail to see how serious this is.”

“No, I get it,” Chace growled. “Serious enough that you bind my magic so I can’t protect your daughter.”

“At your request.”

“Undo it!”

“I can’t. Our magic is not fully ours to control. If so, she wouldn’t be able to use it against our wishes.”

“So … I take it you told your lair not to let her go and it did,” Chace guessed. “She’s going to do what she thinks is right.”

“At the cost of her life.” Gavin‘s gaze went to the heavens. “Like her mother. Erred on the side of helping others.”

“I thought you didn’t know what happened to her.” Chace frowned.

“I have an idea. In my time, there was only one golden lasso, and the dragon belonging to the Protector safeguarded it. Skylar says there are two?”

“According to what Caleb told me during my unpleasant trip to The Field, there are two real ones. The rest are fake.”

 Gavin nodded. “Then I know what happened to her mother.”

Chace shifted, mind going to what Caleb had told him about the lasso when he was at The Field.

“Caleb said its core is the hair of a shifter,” he said. “What does that have to do with Sky’s mother?”

“That’s only part of it. They take the hair of the strongest shifter they can find and braid it together to form a rope. But it takes the magic of a Protector – the only person shifter or otherwise whose blood runs with the magic of every shifter alive – to create the crippling effect of putting a shifter into permanent sleep. Only the Protector can do it, and only the Protector can wake them up. One lasso was created long, long ago to give to the dragon charged with safeguarding the Protector. A sort of fail safe, in case the Protector was ever endangered. Or killed.”

“You think the second lasso came from your wife.”

“It has to be sealed with her blood,” Gavin said softly. “With the amount of magic they’d need to do it, there’d be nothing left to keep her alive.”

Chace shivered as much from the chilly evening air as the story. He didn’t want to imagine what Skylar’s mother had gone through in order for the second lasso to be created.

He studied Gavin. The older shifter showed no sign of his pain or anger, but it sizzled in the air around him.

“This is why they wanted Skylar, I think. To create a third lasso and to get rid of the one person who is able to stop the internal shifter struggle. Her magic only awakened when she met you, when your heart began to beat,” Gavin said. “They probably planned on keeping her until that happened, to be sure, then doing to her what they did to her mother.”

“She can’t go back to them.”

“No. Never. Her magic has manifested itself, if she’s able to bring back the figurines.”

The gravity of Skylar’s danger sank into Chace. Whoever was behind this had been carefully working on trapping her since she hit puberty, just waiting for the moment she became the Protector, so her magic and blood could be harvested.

It infuriated him, more so to know he wasn’t able to do anything about it, without his magic.

Chace began pacing. “Give me my magic back, Gavin!”

“I cannot, even if I wanted to,” replied the dragon. “If you are truly worthy of her, you will be able to save her, no matter what.”

“And if I’m the piece of shit you think I am?” Chace snapped. “What then? Our egos get in the way and she dies?”

“Your magic is inside you. As I said, it has a mind of its own. You wished it gone, and it went. Now you must earn it back.”

“Don’t twist this around! You sent it away!”

“I used my magic to encourage yours to do as you wished. Nothing more.”

“Bullshit.” Chace paused in his pacing. He tested himself to see if his magic responded.

It didn’t. He wasn’t able to feel it at all.

“It’s there,” Gavin said. “You weren’t able to control it when you had it. What makes you think you can control it at all, especially if you view it as a curse rather than the gift it is?”

“You’re saying my magic is as moody as my cabin?”

“More or less.”

Chace didn’t like how truthful the words felt. His magic was tied to his emotions; he’d always known this. If he felt too strongly about something, it turned him into a dragon, whether or not he wanted to be one, with no control of what size he’d become.

“It works sometimes,” he voiced.

“When?”

“I had a magic fridge in my lair. I healed Skylar.” He thought hard. “Every time it’s worked, it’s been because I was thinking of her.”

“There’s the key, Chace. You gave up more than your magic in our deal. She’s your heart. She’s belonged to you since the day you met. You surrendered her, too, along with your magic,” Gavin said.

Chace listened. Gavin was right on all accounts, and Chace resented him for it.

“I may have encouraged your magic to retreat. Or maybe this has been all you the whole time.” Gavin shrugged. “Sky wasn’t taken from you the way her mother was from me. You gave her up and with her, your magic.”

“My cabin always did like her more than me,” Chace mused. “How do I get it back?”

“That’s on you. But if I’d have to guess, it probably has something to do with winning over your heart again.”

Shit. We don’t have as long as that could take.
Skylar had shown a freeze in her resolve towards him, responding to him in bed with the same lack of inhibition she always had.

But she was too wary of him outside of the bedroom.

“My point in bringing you out here” Gavin continued, unconcerned with Chace’s internal war “was to warn you. This plan is going to go bad.”

Chace’s gaze dropped from the sky to Gavin.

“Dillon isn’t going to make his move until it’s advantageous for him. Not because he has any sort of brainpower for strategy but because whoever is pulling the strings will know what our plan is,” Gavin said. “The shifter divide is deep. My wife wasn’t the first Protector to disappear soon after her power manifested. This has been a quiet struggle at the highest levels for thousands of years.”

“You think someone in the bar is going to tip off Dillon or already has.” Chace’s jaw clenched. “They were able to track us at one point, before I connected with Skylar. You think someone on the inside tagged me?”

“I do. And I think at dawn, we’ll have our answer about whether or not the slayers can be saved.”

“Sky isn’t going to like it.”

Gavin said nothing.

“She’s thinking with her heart. It’s why she rescued me from The Field without understanding who or what she was.”

“Chace, whatever happens at dawn, I need you to keep a few things in mind.” Gavin’s tone was grave. “One, her life is more important than mine, than yours or anyone else’s. Two, she cannot – under any circumstances – leave with the slayers. They are not what she believes them to be, even though she refuses to consider it. Some may very well be the children of shifters like her, but most are not. Three, keep her away from Dillon. No matter what.”

“Easy,” Chace said. “I don’t question any of those things. We’ll stay close to her and ensure she doesn’t do anything stupid like try to run away with Mason.”

Gavin didn’t appear convinced.

“And I’ll get my magic back.”
No matter what it takes.

“You’ll have to. She’s not going to survive without you. I won’t be around forever, Chace.”

The dark note in the ancient dragon’s voice warned Chace that Mr. Nothing was back to keeping his secrets once more.

A large creature took off from the side of the bar, drawing both of their gazes. Chace knew Skylar was there without looking, able to sense her. Another creature took flight a moment later.

“You’re not going to tell her the fate of her mother, either,” Gavin directed.

“She needs to know.”

“In time. She has enough to deal with, and it’s about to get worse.”

Assuming Gavin referenced the slayers not being what Skylar thought, Chace understood the wisdom behind not overwhelming her with the truth about her mother.

I don’t need a dragon guard dog!
Skylar had insisted the day before.

Chace debated internally, uncertain whose wishes he should respect more. Gavin made sense, but Skylar deserved to know. She’d been seeking answers to her past since they met. She already mistrusted him. How hard was it going to be to keep her safe, if she believed him incapable of the truth?

“All right,” he said at last. “But after we capture Dillon, one of us is going to tell her about her mother.”

Gavin said nothing, gave no indication he was even listening.

Chace knew he was purposely ignoring the statement.

A third creature took flight from the side of the bar, turning west.

In the east, a thin bar of light rested on the horizon, a sign Gavin was right about Dillon not attacking at night, even though the bar had been sitting out in the open for a good nine hours.

“It’s almost time,” Gavin said. “Once the sun is up fully, I lose my magic. I’ll be able to transform into a dragon and use brute strength against anyone who attacks, but that’s it.”

“What about Dillon? Nocturnal or no?”

“Not from what I’ve seen. The griffins have mastered the ability to evade me.”

The foreboding that had been following Chace around since leaving Skylar’s apartment grew heavier around his shoulders. He began to understand Gavin’s grim mood.

If what Gavin said was true, and Chace was the reason his magic was gone, what would it take to regain it? Winning over Skylar’s heart? Or merely her trust?

He didn’t have the time to do either by the time Dillon showed up.

A flash of silver caught his attention. Chace stared at the dragon soaring into the night sky.

“Is that …” he trailed off.

Gavin followed his gaze.

“Better not be Freyja. If so, we’re in trouble,” Gavin said. “Rule four. Don’t let Skylar near her, and keep away from her as well.”

Chace didn’t know what to think about the warning. Freyja had awoken his dragon magic then disappeared. Hala claimed she was asleep, so it was possible she was among the dragon figurines from Caleb’s house. But why would Gavin fear any dragon, let alone one who also tried to teach Chace a lesson?

“Don’t fuck this up,” Gavin said and started away into the desert. The muscles and bones beneath his skin were rippling, a sign he was starting to change.

“Yeah,” Chace said and then silently cursed. Life wasn’t about to get any easier. Gavin was preparing for a fight, and Chace once again experienced a sense of helplessness he hated.

Within seconds, Gavin’s powerful wings were taking him high into the sky. Chace watched him enviously. The massive dragon was the kind of creature he wanted on his side, even if Gavin’s personal feelings towards him were far from warm.

“Where’s he going?” Skylar’s quiet voice asked from behind him.

“Keeping watch, I imagine,” Chace replied. He faced her.

Her gaze fell to him. She was troubled and tense, her blue eyes almost silver in the indirect light of the setting moon. Her direct look lit his blood on fire. As always, the need for their bodies to be in contact was stronger than his desire to keep his distance.