Charred Tears (#2, Heart of Fire) (10 page)

Skylar drove fast towards the highway only to slam on the brakes when she saw the two tigers loping down the road. She considered them briefly then put the truck in park and hopped out.

“C’mon, guys!” she shouted to them. Skylar opened the back of the SUV and waited.

The tigers trotted towards her and hopped in back, scuffling over who got to climb from the trunk space into the back seat first.

She slammed the doors closed and looked around quickly, relieved not to see anyone – or anything – chasing them. Climbing back into the driver’s seat, she glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Y’all are gonna blend in better if you’re human,” she told the tigers.

One replied with a yowl she didn’t know how to interpret.

The Pegasus had pulled the knot in her t-shirt loose and was dumping the figurines out on the seat, snuffling and sorting through them with its muzzle.

“I’m starting to wish I really was a slayer,” Skylar said, grating her teeth. With the three creatures in the car, she didn’t have time to think about Chace or what happened to Mason or what was going on with Dillon.

Skylar got onto the highway and went south, towards the hotel where she’d lost Mason.

“Find your mama in there,” she told the Pegasus. “I’m so not babysitting tonight.”

The foal nudged another figurine off the seat to the floor into a pile that had formed below. A glance at those she’d let stay on the seat revealed a handful of other winged horses, while the rest of the figurines were sentenced to dwell on the floor.

Shifters are so weird.
Skylar began to think she wasn’t cut out for whatever it was she was supposed to do or that she’d ever get any real answers about her past or family.

She didn’t even know if Chace was alive. Dillon’s words shouldn’t have had the impact they did. What she’d had with Chace was a fling, one that ended badly, with him betraying her.

First Gavin and now Dillon claimed he was dead. Of the two, she believed Dillon’s story more, because he was convinced it was the truth.

“He can’t be dead,” she said under her breath. “I don’t want anything to do with him, but he can’t be dead.”

The Pegasus nudged her arm and dropped something into the cup holder.

“Is this who you want me to wake up first?” Skylar asked.

There was a soft nicker in response.

“Okay. But not in the car. I’ve had enough issues for tonight.” She tested her injured shoulder. She needed to go to the doctor, if Mason wasn’t back to help her bandage her shoulder.

She signaled to leave the highway and started down the access road leading to the hotel. For a split second, she thought she saw something flicker in front of the windshield. She blinked, hoping it was just exhaustion or shock setting in.

A moment later, the sound of nails on chalkboard made her jerk and look up towards the closed moon roof of the vehicle. The sounds came again, and the SUV lurched to the left, into the lane of oncoming traffic. It was too late for cars to be out, and she yanked the steering wheel to the right.

The SUV returned to its lane … then kept going. It didn’t hit the low curb running along side the road but went up and over it.

Skylar slammed on the brakes several times before realizing the SUV was in the air. Something very large was lifting it off the road and carrying it away.

“Shit, shit, shit!” She slammed her hand into the steering wheel, mind racing.

How did she escape a flying vehicle with two tigers and a Pegasus on board, not to mention the figurines waiting to be woken?

With a sound of frustration, she shoved back the covering from the moon roof, then opened it, trying to make out what kind of creature had them. The window slid open, and she wasn’t able to see more than the belly side of some great creature.

Skylar leaned over to open the glove compartment and snatched a knife and a lasso, securing them in her pockets. She grimaced as she pulled herself through the moon roof.

They were a good ten feet off the ground. Any higher, and no one in the car was going to survive, if dropped.

Hefting herself onto the roof of the SUV, she considered her options then crawled unsteadily across the roof. Unsheathing the knife, she buried it to the hilt into one leg.

The creature gave a familiar squawk-roar, one that warned her she hadn’t escaped the mysterious creature from Caleb’s house.

Skylar yanked the knife free and was getting ready to stab it again when something wrapped around her neck. She was pulled out from under the creature by its whip-like tail. Flailing helplessly, she clawed at her neck.

Movement from the corner of her eye drew her focus down. The creature had released the SUV, and it plunged twenty feet downward, landing with a crunch of bending metal and the crash of breaking glass.

She stabbed at the tail strangling her, gasping for air. The edges of her mind started to grow dark. Desperately, she stabbed downward and felt her knife strike flesh and sink into muscle. The squawk came again, and she was whipped around like a rag doll. Skylar swung one leg up until it caught on the thicker part of the creature’s tail. She hauled herself up and wrapped both legs around it, preventing it from flinging her around by her neck anymore.

Near unconsciousness, she stabbed its tail again and again, until her hand was slick with blood.

The monster screamed this time, and dropped towards the ground, releasing her when they’d reached the desert.

Skylar sucked in air, disoriented and nauseous from the jarring trip and quick descent. Her vision cleared long before she was able to move or breathe right, and she made out what creature had grabbed her.

Griffin.
It was larger than any depiction she’d ever seen, with a razor sharp beak, muscular cat’s body and the whip-like tail that nearly broke her neck.

She started to get up, but one large talon shoved her back down, gripping her chest tight enough to cause pain. Her head hit a rock with an explosion of tiny stars, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Chapter Nine

Chace scanned the hotel room with his gaze, Gunner at his side. There were no signs of fighting or distress, but he frowned. Aside from being empty, there was one bed for the two people Hala claimed were in the room when she was awoken.

Skylar has every right not to be with me,
he reminded himself.

“Interesting,” Gunner said, eyes on the bed.

“No shit.” He had no claim to Skylar, but he wasn’t able to stop the anger boiling inside him at the sight of the single bed.

“The good news is it’s still made,” Gunner said, following his gaze.

“What she does is her business.”

“Whatever you say.”

Her faint scent was in the air, but she was gone, and there was no way to know where she went. He wasn’t able to track her or protect her or talk to her without his dragon senses and ability to fly.

Was her absence a blessing in disguise? Because he had no idea what he’d say when they met.
Sorry
wasn’t going to be enough.

“Did you hear that?” Gunner asked, head tilted to the side.

“Hear what?”

“Some sort of animal cry.”

“I have none of my shifter senses.”

“I do. C’mon.” Gunner led him out of the room and through the hotel, exiting through the lobby into the cool desert night. He paused, and Chace waited impatiently. “This way.”

Gunner headed towards the access road running between the strip the hotels were on and the highway.

Chace looked up, expecting to see the dragons hanging around. Two had given them lifts, Hala and a green dragon. They were gone, but there was something else in the sky.

“Whoa, Gun, what the hell is that?” he asked, grabbing his friend’s arm. He pointed.

“Flying SUV?”

Chace squinted, willing his human eyes to adjust more quickly to the night. An SUV was suspended in the air, headed away from the highway into the desert. As interesting as it was to see a car fly, the creature carrying it was what alarmed him more.

“Griffin. That’s got to be Dillon,” he said. “Which means the person in the car is probably Sky.” He took off running before finishing the sentence, Gunner at his heels. He ignored his body’s objections after all he’d put it through the past few days and pushed hard.

Suddenly, the SUV dropped out of the sky, landing with a crash a few dozen feet away. Chace looked from it upward and saw the form of someone caught in the grip of the griffin’s tail.

“Check the car,” he instructed Gunner. “I have a feeling that’s her.”

“Got it.” Gunner leapt over a barrel cactus and raced towards the car.

Dillon’s cry was one of pain, and he whipped the person trailing him around.

Chace did his best to judge where they might come down and alternately jogged, adjusted course then sprinted forward. Dillon was incensed, flying in circles, darting this way and that. Finally, after another few cries, the griffin plunged towards the ground, stopping a few feet above the desert sand to lower itself.

Chace ran, closing the distance as fast as he could. The griffin limped as it turned to face Skylar. It shoved her into the ground with one thick talon.

Skylar went down hard. She didn’t get up or move.

Urgency gripped Chace, along with a fury too deep for him to control. He stooped to snatch fist-sized rocks off the ground.

Dillon unhinged his jaws, getting ready to snap off Skylar’s head.

Chace threw the first stone. It landed squarely in the side of Dillon’s head. The griffin bleated and shook his head, stunned.

Chace threw the second. It hit the same spot, and Dillon staggered away a couple of steps. Chace tried to shove him, but the creature weighed a ton. It slammed a leg into him, sending him flying several feet back.

Dillon refocused on an unconscious Skylar. His tail wrapped around her neck and hauled her off the ground, so his beak was better able to snap her head off.

In that moment Chace hated what he’d let himself become. He was helpless, his human body too weak to stand between Sky and her danger, his magic trapped somewhere deep within him. A lifetime of bad decisions led up to now, and someone else was about to pay the price for his mistakes.

Not just someone else. My Sky.

He wasn’t able to shift or protect Skylar the way he should, but he wasn’t going to stand by and let someone hurt her either, especially knowing what he did about her helping awaken the other dragons.

With nothing more than a prayer he’d help her survive, Chace took a deep breath and charged the griffin getting ready to hurt the woman who held other half of his heart.

I must save her.

A trickle of fire escaped from the prison deep within him, a flare of heat that coursed through his body like a sudden fever.

The next few minutes were a blur of fire and griffin feathers, of heat that threatened to tear him a part from the inside out and the sense of not quite being in control of himself. Chace knew he attacked Dillon but didn’t feel the fight or see the flailing of beak and wings. He was stuck in surreal stage, the world moving too fast around him for him to understand exactly what was happening.

Only when the griffin was flying away was he able to register his world again: the chilly desert night rustling his hair, the scent of fire in the air, and the sense he’d done something he wasn’t able to remember. Dazed, he realized his body was shaking from emotion and exertion.

One minute, he’d been unable to think of a world without Sky. The next, Dillon was fleeing. What happened in that blink of time?

He looked around for Skylar and saw her crumpled on the ground. One of her arms was bloodied, and bruises were already darkening her neck from where Dillon had grabbed her. She was pale, her dark hair tossed around in the desert breeze.

Chace knelt beside her, afraid to touch her for fear of disturbing her then
needing
to know she was okay.

He gently gathered her warm body in his arms. Her hair fell away from her face, and he studied her gorgeous, feminine features. He’d never seen her in a state like this, and it frightened him not to know what to do to help.

Chace sat for a moment and gathered his strength, unable to look away from the woman clutched in his arms or dismiss the fear swirling within him. His body was hurting again, but he forced himself to stand, cradling her against him. Chace walked with what speed he had left towards the wrecked SUV, where Gunner was kneeling beside someone.

“Gun! Need your help,” he said when he was close enough.

“Almost done here,” Gunner reported, twisting to see Chace. “She bleeding?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what to do.”

I don’t want to fuck up.
Chace didn’t say the words, unwilling to admit out loud his insides were trembling at the idea of hurting Skylar worse because he fucked up again.

He set her down and brushed wispy strands of hair out of her face then knelt beside her injured arm. He had no idea what caused the gash along her shoulder and grimaced. There was sand and dirt in it already.

Chace peeled off his sweater and then his T-shirt. He tugged on the sweater before using his t-shirt to wipe away excess blood. He carefully but tightly bound her injured shoulder and shifted to prop up her upper body up, maneuvering his thigh beneath her shoulders.

Gunner had lectured him about first aid for three days in the cabin, and Chace was once again overwhelmed with gratitude for his wise friend. 

Skylar’s body was warm, her breathing steady and deep. She seemed so … fragile lying against him, a state he’d never seen her in. Chace didn’t like it – not at all. He ached to hear her odd sense of humor and see her blue eyes sparkle again.

In all their nights together, he’d never feared touching her. He did now, because he didn’t know what else was wrong. Her limp body was bad enough; he couldn’t bear the thought of causing her more pain than she was in. The bruising around her neck wasn’t something he knew how to fix, and he wasn’t able to tell if the blood splattered all over her body was from her shoulder or Dillon’s wounds or something worse – an injury that might be killing her before his eyes.