26. Jade

Istand on the staircase, frowning at Patten.

He denied something was wrong, but Shep looked concerned. If I’d come down the stairs two minutes sooner, I’d have heard what they were talking about instead of catching the tail end of their conversation.

I hadn’t expected to find them all standing at the kitchen island, talking. I don’t know what I’d expected to find, but it hadn’t been that.

When Patten continues to peer up at me, I sigh and make my way down the stairs. “I think we should leave.”

“Not dealing with Atticus and my da here and now means they can ambush us whenever they want,” Patten says.

I know that.

It was my biggest reason for staying, alongside wanting to be with Dad. But that was before people started shooting at Isaiah and Patten. Their lives are at stake, and that is too high a price for me to want to pay.

It’s time to go back to Chicago.

“But we haven’t been doing that,” I say, looking at them one by one. Not Dominik. Every time I look at him, I want to kick him. “You want to keep me safe, so no one wants to do the thing we should do, like venture into those mountains.”

Silence.

I knew it. I’d assumed it before, but I know it for sure now.

A car squeals to a stop outside the house.

Shep waves me back. “Stay behind me, Jade.”

He doesn’t sound surprised or even startled.

Shep and Patten are standing in front of me. Dominik is somewhere behind, and Isaiah beside me, when the door bursts open.

Almeth skids to a stop. “You have to leave. He’s right behind me,” he gasps.

No one moves.

“Who is behind you?” Shep’s voice never changes from calm and composed.

“Atticus and his men.” Almeth’s eyes slide to mine over Shep’s shoulder. He keeps his distance, which I guess is a direct result of the size of the dent in the wall beside him. “He knows about her. Knows she’s pregnant.”

Panic skitters down my spine, and I automatically lift a hand to my belly as I retreat.

He couldn’t have known. None of us told Almeth. We didn’t even mention the p word while he was here.

How the hell could he have known?

“You told him.” Dominik’s voice is a blast of frigid air.

Almeth’s shirt collar starts smoking, and he aims a nervous look at Dominik, blurting out, “I didn’t tell him anything. He had her for days. Did you think he didn’t take her blood? Apparently, one of those tests he had the doctor do came back positive.”

“We destroyed his compound,” a growl enters Shep’s voice.

“But not everything. Not the lab. He knows, and he’s coming for her,” Almeth says.

“He might be telling the truth. About that at least,” I admit. Atticus had a fertility doctor examine me. All in his quest to have another rarity to add to his collection of supernatural beings: a firedrake child.

Almeth’s gaze settles on me. “He held back on attacking the house because he thought I could get her for him.”

“And he knew that how?” Patten bites out.

Almeth blows out a breath. “Because I said I could. I’ve been living on borrowed time, and I just want out of this arrangement. The only way that’s going to happen is if he’s dead. If she came with me, I could hide her where he could never find her.”

Shep’s back tenses. “Do you honestly expect us to?—”

“Okay,” Isaiah interrupts.

I swing my head toward him. “Okay?”

“I’m saying okay to opportunities,” Isaiah adds, which makes no sense at all.

“What opportunities are you talking about?” I ask, frowning.

I can’t be the only one struggling to believe Isaiah is buying this. Almeth tried to feed on me—twice. And Isaiah is buying this? How?

Then Patten turns to look at me. “Isaiah is right.”

“What?” I splutter.

“Yes. An opportunity to deal with Atticus once and for all,” Dominik says.

Has everyone lost their minds?

Patten backs up and takes my hand. “Since I don’t trust my da as far as I can throw him. I’ll be coming with you.”

Almeth looks ready to argue.

“Or Jade is going nowhere,” Shep says with finality.

So I’m not the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea.

Almeth snaps his mouth shut, then nods. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Patten turns to me. “We’ll go out the?—”

Something slams into me, drives me to the ground, rips Patten’s hand from mine and turns my world black.

Pain comes next. An ocean of it.

And then I hear it.

Footsteps moving toward me.

A soft whoosh and faintly metallic air wafts over my face.

Someone is standing over me, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t force my eyes open.

Then a hated southern drawl. “The others?”

Atticus.

Terror grips me by the throat and refuses to let me go.

“Dead, sir,” an unfamiliar male voice responds.

What?

“Excellent. Let’s take my jewel to her new home.” A soft palm pats my cheek. “My collection is finally complete.”

Jade’s story concludes in Firedrake Emergence!

Coming Soon…