Keeper of the Golden Dragon's Heart (The Cedar River Series) (2 page)

Bowie stepped outside and swept me up in a hug. “Good morning, kitten,” he said, as he kissed my cheek. “Can you be ready to go after breakfast?” He set me back on my feet.

“I am ready to go, if Mama will let me. She’s upset that I’m going back to school so early.” He draped his arm around my shoulders, “She’ll get over it. She wants you back here permanently, kitten. You know that.”

I nodded. “Let’s go eat.” Mama had made me a special breakfast complete with gooey, rich, and delectable cinnamon buns.

“Morning, Ana,” Papa said as he folded the paper and laid it beside his plate. I kissed his stubbly cheek before taking my seat at the table.

“Be sure you eat some eggs, too, Anastasia,” Mama warned as I grabbed two cinnamon rolls.

“Yes, Mama,” I said with a grin at Bowie who sat across the table from me.

He slid his plate across the table to me and I slid my eggs onto his plate before Mama could catch us.

Colin and Callum sounded like a herd of elephants as they raced down the stairs and slid across the kitchen floor. Brady was the last one to arrive. “See anything good out there this morning?” he asked as he sat down beside me.

“A few deer, and a cow with a calf. Seems a little late for a moose to have a baby, but it looked healthy. They took off when they smelled me though.”

Brady laughed, “I can’t imagine why?”

I licked the maple syrup from my fingers with relish. “Anastasia! We do have napkins,” Mama said as she sat down.

“I know, Mama, but my tongue works so much better than a napkin.”

Papa snorted and I caught a smirk cross Mama’s face. “Some things never change,” she whispered as she sipped her coffee.

Brady’s truck was already loaded with whatever else Mama and Papa thought I needed. I had brought home my laundry and a box of books. I was taking back way too much stuff. “Mama, what am I supposed to do with all of this food? We do have restaurants and a campus cafeteria.”

“I know, but I know how you eat, too. You need to eat more than the average student does. That’s the shifter side of you.” Crackers, peanut butter, my favorite candy, popcorn, bread, and lunchmeat. Luckily, I had my own frig.

“Thank you, Mama,” I said as I embraced the woman who had raised me to be the woman I was.

Papa slipped something into my shirt pocket as I hugged him goodbye. “Papa, no one needs this much money. We eat pizza and burgers, cheap ones,” I scolded while I tried to hand it back to him. He scowled at me and refused to take it back.

“Then, you can afford to eat better. Go out for steak every now and again.” It’s hard to argue with that logic. I’d slip it into my bank account before we left town, just like I did every other time Bowie and Brady were taking me back to school. Colin and Callum were along for the ride, though I teased them that they were just going to flirt with the girls. Of course, neither of them denied it.

Chapter Three – Ana

The university was quiet when we arrived on campus. Most students had gone home for the summer. However, there were a few people like me who were busting their butts to get their education done. The boys were always quite a hit in my dorm when they carried my boxes up to my room. Of course, tanned and muscled, they usually got a lot of attention from women wherever we went. Callum was a little disturbed when a couple of guys hit on him. Bowie was ready to pack my stuff back in the truck when he discovered it was a co-ed dorm, but I was able to calm him down. This was the first time I’d been in a co-ed dorm.

“Dad and Mama don’t know about this, do they?” he asked.

“No, otherwise Papa would have kept me at home. Bowie, please don’t say anything,” I begged. Brady simply shrugged it off as just another day in Ana’s life. I walked them back down to the truck and hugged each of them in turn.

“We can turn around and come back for you. All it takes is a phone call,” Brady said.

“I’m going to use this dorm issue for all kinds of fun things,” Colin promised with a grin.

Callum was still a little stunned over the whole being hit on by guys as he hugged me tight. Bowie was the last one. “Don’t forget to shift a couple of times a month. Otherwise, you get very cranky. The last thing anybody needs is a cranky puma on the loose. If you want, one of us will come up and hunt with you. All you have to do is call.”

I smiled, “I know, Bowie. I’ll call if I need you.” Bowie hugged me to him tightly, “You will always need us. And we will always need you.” I felt something a little different this time when Bowie hugged me than when the others had hugged me, but I thought it might be because he was the last one to tell me good-bye.

“I love you, babe,” he said as he kissed my cheek.

“I love you, too.”

My life at college has always been interesting. Studying ancient religions was an easy way for me to incorporate my mother’s heritage into my life in a more permanent way. I learned a lot about what I was and how to control my powers through these classes. There were Wiccan groups all over campus, but I steered clear of them. The psychos seemed to hang out in those groups. Personally, I found that it was an excuse for the freaks and geeks to have orgies. With so much forest around this area, I was able to find my own special spot for my esbats, sabbats, or any other rituals I needed to perform. It was also the spot where I could shift and hunt. Sometimes at night, I would look out my window and see a couple of shadows overhead. I’m sure it was the boys, but they denied it when I asked them about it.

I was able to date at college. With four imposing looking adoptive brothers and a father who could look just as daunting, boys in Cedar River weren’t exactly clambering at our door, asking for a night out with Anastasia. Here though, I was just Ana. Boys noticed me and it felt nice. Tommy was my first date. We went to a nearby club to hear a band. We danced and had a lot of fun. Then he walked me back to the dorm and kissed me goodnight. Something felt wrong when he pressed his lips to mine, but I went with it. My cat tolerated most of the boys I dated, but they all ranked higher on the “friend” scale than the “boyfriend” scale. I was able to put a lot of dates with different boys under my belt since I’d left home. I’m just glad the boys didn’t know what I was up to while I was at school. My motto had become “If the dragons are away, the cat will play.”

Chapter Four – Bowie

With Ana back at school, the excitement level of our little town dropped tremendously. I remember when Annie first came to live with us. I was almost eighteen and she seemed so helpless. Those huge green eyes were filled with so much sadness. Every time she would look at me, my heart hurt. She was a lot tougher than we’d all thought, but looking back it was understandable with everything she’d been through. She had lost both of her parents and her home all within the first twelve years of her life. She hadn’t gone through her first change and her powers hadn’t developed at the time.

Brady guided her through that first shift and hunt. She was such a clumsy kid, tripping over her own feet. None of us could believe she was a graceful cat shifter. Brady told us how amazing it was to watch her in cat form. He was the first one to call her “kitten” and the rest of us just picked up on it. At the time, it had irked her to no end, but it stuck and it didn’t seem to bother her now.

Her witch powers came in fast and hard. With no one to guide her, she stirred up a lot of trouble. She was forced to learn by trial and error. When she hexed Lance Smythe, boy, did she piss off Dad! When Mama called me to tell me what had happened, I laughed. That little asshole deserved it! Nevertheless, I could see Dad’s point. He had had a hard time convincing the Council that Annie wasn’t a threat to the nest. That little stunt came close to getting her punished, dragon-style. The whole family stood up at the Council and told of the different tricks the Smythe boys had pulled on Annie throughout her time with us. That was what saved her. My being the sheriff didn’t hurt things either.

I tried to keep the peace in our little town, but with Anastasia around, my job was difficult. The older Annie got,, the more trouble she caused. She was a cute thing and the boys of Cedar River all noticed. It took all of us Golden boys to run interference. We probably shouldn’t have pushed all the boys away from our kitten, but she was ours to take care of. When she reached seventeen, I caught her down by the lake in an older Mustang with one of the boys from the puma clan. The windows were steamed up and I could see some movement in the backseat. At that moment, I realized that my feelings for our kitten may not be of the brotherly sort. I wanted to kill that kid. Especially when Connor cracked the window and I could see Annie buttoning up her jeans with her hair mussed. I pulled that little shit out of the car and put the fear of all he held holy into him. I forced Annie to get into the sheriff’s truck and took her home myself, lecturing the whole way. I can still remember the green fire that flashed in her eyes that night.

“Just because you can’t get laid, Bowie, doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t,” she’d spewed at me. Our little kitten had grown claws and she sunk them in deep, drawing blood. As far as I know that was her last date, but her rebellion didn’t end there. She took it upon herself to become the town hell-raiser, usually pulling Colin and Callum into her schemes. From painting the water tower to stealing our rival school’s mascot to “borrowing” my sheriff’s vehicle, she pulled them all. Her most infamous “crime” was dancing naked in the town fountain after a night of underage drinking on the beach. She was punished for each of her “crimes” but she still kept at them. Of course, I will admit Brady, the twins and I didn’t help there. Every time she was punished, we’d break her out. We would take her out for night flights when she wasn’t supposed to leave her room. Brady helped her and the twins paint the water tower. I paid off her debt to the mechanic when he had to pound out some of the dents she’d managed to put in my truck.

Taking her to college almost killed me. Late at night when I was sure she was in bed, I’d shift and fly over her dorm. Sometimes my brothers would go with me. We all missed her desperately when she was gone. She’d call the next day and ask if we’d gone up for a flight the night before. We’d lie to her, but she knew. Brady worried about her getting a chance to hunt enough. Mama and Dad were just as bad. I was more worried that she’d meet some random guy, fall in love, bring him home to meet the family where I’d be forced to kill him and hide the body at the bottom of Lake Superior. It hadn’t happened in the three years she’d been gone, but I was anticipating it. Okay, more like dreading it, but you get my point.

She hadn’t been back at school but a couple of months when I went into the station one morning to find my answering machine was filled with several messages from a buddy of mine up at Pine Bluff, near where Ana went to school. The last one was pretty frantic. Poachers had hit the small town with a vengeance. A family of bobcat shifters was missing, and a teenage wolf was found in pretty bad shape. I called him back and offered any resources I had to help.  

“Bowie, I don’t know where to begin. They hit hard and fast. And this isn’t the first shifter town that has been hit. There’s one in Wisconsin that was torn apart about two weeks ago.” I was stunned. Nothing had come through about that. “I only just found out from one of my deputies. He was on his way home from visiting his pack in North Dakota. He drives through the town on his way home to pick up jerky and chocolate for his wife. He said the town was burned to the ground and the people were scattered all over. A few of them have come to Pine Bluff seeking refuge.”

I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I can see if I can get together some volunteers from here to come help with the search, if you want me to.”

“I would appreciate it, Bowie. I know you have a friend who goes to school up here. You may want to let her know what’s going on before she comes back for the fall semester. These people mean business and I’d hate to have something happen to her on my territory. I’m encouraging my shifter families to visit their extended families.”

I didn’t let him know that I’d personally taken Ana back to school already. I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. “Let me make some phone calls and I’ll call you back when I know something more.”

I didn’t even bother to set the phone down. I started dialing anyone I could think of. Dad, Brady, the twins and I were on the list. I got a few men from the McIntyre and Macintosh packs to help. The Pierce Pride was sending about fifteen men to help out. I called Pine Bluff sheriff’s department back and let him know that we had about thirty to forty men arriving tomorrow morning. We would start the search at dawn. Hopefully, we could find this family and the poachers who were terrorizing these communities. For now I had to see to my town’s needs. My deputies could handle the day to day operations of Cedar River.

Now, there were some personal issues to handle, just in case the worst happened. I opened my office safe and began going over the papers I had there. Once everything was updated, I got busy packing up the necessary things to take with us, guns, ammunition, food and water. Tonight, I would tell Ana what was happening. She was going to be pissed if I told her she had to come home. I’d take Brady with me. He could always make her see reason.

Chapter Five-Ana

My roommate, Vivian, and I were getting ready for a girl’s night out when my cell phone began playing the theme song from “Halloween”…Colin’s ringtone.

“What’s up?” I answered.

“Bowie and Brady are on their way up to take you hunting. They wanted to surprise you, but I wanted to give you a heads up just in case you’ve got a hot date tonight,” Colin joked.

“Tonight? Shit, Col, I just made plans with Viv. Fuck it! I’m going out tonight. If they wanted to visit, they should have called first.” I said, furious with those two.

Colin got very solemn, “We worry about you, Ana. You need to be safe. There are poachers invading the area and we’re scared about the things that can happen to you when you’re in the woods alone. The Council has put out a notice that no dragon flies alone. The packs and prides won’t allow the kids out without adults. They’re sending out a search party for a missing bobcat family in Pine Bluff. We’re all headed up there tomorrow to help with the search. Sheriff up there thinks the poachers have them. Bowie has his deputies working around the clock trying to find these idiots, but until then, please, Ana, don’t do anything stupid. Can’t you and Viv go out tomorrow night?”