4. Isaiah

The sun is setting, and we’re parked up on the side of a dusty road.

It’s been nearly two hours since the guards chased us away from the collector’s compound. If the guards survived, so must have the collector, and if the collector survived, he will want Jade.

But none of us know where Jade is.

Probably somewhere in Wilkerson with the dragon who abducted her.

Or elsewhere.

The town’s lights are barely visible in the distance, and despite roundabout conversations about where to go, we’re no closer to working out what to do next.

The time on the car dashboard says it’s nearly 6.p.m. and I think Brennan is dying in the back seat of my Audi.

“He needs a hospital,” I say.

I need to stop looking at Brennan. My gaze keeps landing on his pulse and sticking. Each time it happens, my stomach cramps and my mouth waters.

“No. We need to find Jade.” Patten leans against the side of the car, scowling at the mountains. The guards who survived Brennan’s fire are probably busy sweeping the area.

“Going back there is dangerous,” Shep warns. He’s in a pair of black sweats he pulled from the trunk of my car. He knew he would need to shift when we went to rescue Dominik, so he brought a change of clothes.

As he peers into the distance, my gaze lands on his throat.

When I realize how long I’ve been staring at his pulse, I look away.

“And if Jade is there?” Patten asks. “What then?”

Shep turns from the mountain, raking a hand through his hair. “A dragon literally flew over the town, and I don’t see even one police siren flashing. Why is no one driving into the mountain to find out what is going on?”

None of us has a response.

Shep finally says, “We need info. It’s too risky to go back into town without it. And we can’t leave Wilkerson if Jade is there.”

“We get this info how, exactly?” Patten uncrosses his arms and moves to climb into the driver’s seat.

Shep nods to his left, to a dusty gas station farther down the road. “They must have a TV. Maybe someone saw what happened in Wilkerson and stopped in for gas. We might not learn much, but it’s better than standing around here.”

We climb back in the car.

Patten drives, Shep is in the passenger seat, and I’m beside Brennan, trying not to notice the dried blood on his chest and how slow his heart is beating.

As Patten pulls into the tiny gas station, we’re the only ones in the forecourt.

We leave Brennan in the back seat with a blanket thrown over him. He’s cool to the touch, and his skin is getting paler minute by minute. If we don’t get him medical attention, he won’t survive the night.

“Hey.” Shep grabs a bar of candy on the way to the counter where a man in a pair of navy mechanic overalls and a cap pulled down low is paging through a car magazine. “Just this.”

The gas station clerk turns another page as Shep places the bar on the counter. He’d worried entering the store with no T-shirt, bare feet, and just a pair of black sweats would cause a scene. He needn’t have worried. The guy never looks up as he speaks out of the side of his mouth. “Two dollars.”

“So, heard anything about any dragons?” Patten asks.

I raise my brow. He shrugs as if to say, what’s wrong with my question?

The man turns another page, disinterested.

Spotting a TV on the right side of the counter, I wander over to see if I can learn anything on the news. There’s no mention of a dragon spotted flying over a tiny Oklahoma town. A female reporter with a fixed smile runs through the day’s shocking city crimes, worries about the economy, and the result of a big football game. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“So, no dragons around these parts, then?” Patten tries again. “Or any strange old men wearing khaki who like to collect supernatural beings?”

I turn from the TV, shaking my head at Patten’s nerve.

The clerk looks at Patten. With a blank expression, he turns to Shep. “Two dollars for the candy. Was there anything else before you take your crazy friend out of my store?”

We get the message.

Shep pays for his candy with a crumpled bill he pulls from his pocket and we walk out, letting the door slam shut with a jingle as we return to the car.

“If Jade is there, we can’t leave,” Patten says, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Wilkerson is small,” I remind him. “It won’t take Atticus long to track us down if he wants to. He might not want us, but if he thinks Jade is with us…”

“We’re going to have to risk it. Taking Brennan to a hospital is going to be useless. No doctor is going to be able to fix what’s wrong with him, and if he dies, Jade will be devastated.” Shep reaches for his seatbelt, buckling it.

“Maybe not that devastated given he left her locked in an attic for years,” Patten mutters, starting the engine.

“She loves him. Yes, he abandoned her, but she doesn’t want him dead. If we can help him, we have to try, and we’ll keep all our eyes open. Any sign of trouble and we leave,” Shep says.

“And Jade?” I ask.

Shep’s eyes find mine in the rearview mirror. “We’ll deal with that issue as and when needed.” His gaze darts to Brennan. “We have enough to worry about now.”

I’d expected people would have lined the streets to gossip about dragons flying in the sky, but the streets are quiet. Only a handful of people around. They move with purpose from the bar, the grocery store, or from their homes to their vehicles.

They couldn’t have missed Brennan breathe fire over the collector’s compound.

So why is everyone acting like today is like any other day?

Back at our rented townhouse, down one of Wilkerson’s quiet suburban streets, Patten parks at the doors of the garage, and Shep carries Brennan up the short townhouse steps.

I fish the front door keys out of my pocket, unlock the door, and hold it open. There’s no sign anyone has been in the apartment in our absence. It’s the same beige apartment, devoid of personality.

My bag is still where I left it.

Thankfully.

I need to change out of this ruined suit.

After someone stole my cooler of bagged blood from our motel room, they must not have had any interest in our clothing.

Shep puts Brennan down on one of the apartment’s spare beds and draws a blue patterned comforter over him.

His skin is white, lips turning blue, and his breathing is dangerously shallow.

“He’s worse than before,” I say.

“Whatever poison that bolt contained is potent,” Patten mutters. “Those silver veins are spreading.”

They’re creeping up his neck, almost to his shoulders. The poison must be in his bloodstream to be spreading that fast.

“You think it’s gonna kill him?” Patten asks.

Yes.

Shep, who briefly left the room, returns wearing a black T-shirt, though his feet are still bare. He rests his palm on Brennan’s brow for a couple of seconds before pulling it away, frowning. “He’s cold. That doesn’t seem like a good thing for a guy who was breathing fire not that long ago.”

We fall silent as Shep retreats to where Patten and I are standing at the foot of the bed.

I don’t like the man for what he did. He took Jade from Chicago, tried to make her fear us, and if she’d believed him, we would have never seen her again.

I don’t know what we would have done in Chicago, if we’d have accepted she’d gone forever, or reached a point where we went after her.

Considering in mere days Shep was insistent we go after her and Patten had been determined to drink his bodyweight in whisky, I can’t imagine we’d have done nothing.

I missed her, and it was clear Shep and Patten missed her too.

But Shep is right. Jade loves him. They spoke for several minutes in my car before we went into Atticus’s compound to save Dominik. If he dies, it will devastate Jade.

“Did he say anything to you back at the compound?” Shep asks, folding his arms as we stand at the foot of the bed, studying the dying man.

We split up before Dominik’s rescue. I regret it now. Maybe if we’d all been together, Dominik wouldn’t have had a chance to grab Jade and Brennen wouldn’t be being poisoned to death.

But at the time, it made sense. Shep, Jade, and Patten had gone to look for Dominik. I went with Brennan to find Atticus and kill him.

“Yes.” I recall Brennan’s terse order as we entered the silent compound. “This is what I do. Stay behind me and we’ll both walk away from this.”

Patten snorts. “He actually said that? Guy sounds like Rambo.”

“I reminded him I had skills of my own.” Severely lacking from my refusal to drink from the vein, but he hadn’t known that.

“Then what?” Shep prompts.

“He looked at me, said he wasn’t sure if he trusted me or the rest of you, but Jade did, so he would do his best to keep me alive for her,” I say.

For a long moment, no one says a word.

Patten whistles. “I really thought he would try to kill us the first chance he got.”

“So did I,” I admit. “We didn’t find Atticus. Then every alarm went off and shutters went down everywhere. I turned to tell Brennan we should get out, but a red dragon was busy smashing through the ceiling.”

Patten and Shep look at me.

“He transformed that fast, huh?” Shep asks.

I nod. “The next thing you were pulling me from the rubble and Brennan had ruined my suit with his refusal to warn me what was coming so I could avoid the falling ceiling. “

It’s still ruined, and I need to change.

Patten snorts. “I bet the first thing you looked for when we came back was your bag, didn’t you?”

“What do we do about him?” I nod toward Brennan, ignoring Patten’s question.

“Who says we have to do anything? Our priority is tracking down the arrogant prick who stole Jade so we can steal her back,” Patten says.

Shep frowns at him. “We can’t let him die, Patten.”

Patten waves his hand. “Then by all means, use whatever knowledge you have to fix a dragon from whatever poison is turning him silver, because I got nothing.”

“I pulled the bolt out. That should have stopped it from spreading.” Shep shifts his frown from Patten to the unconscious Brennan.

“Well, it’s not working,” Patten says.

“Whatever we do, we had better decide it soon,” I say.

Patten and Shep swing to face me.

I gesture to the window, at the darkening sky and the mountains in the distance. “Atticus held off on coming after Jade when she escaped because he must have known she would go back to rescue Dominik. He has no reason not to send his guards after us now. We need to fix him and we need to find somewhere else to stay.”

Wilkerson is small. Everyone would have seen the dragon in the sky, even if they’re pretending like they didn’t. And everyone, in a town as small as this one, is probably aware of any recent visitors to the town and where they are staying.

There are only two places to stay. The motel. Or here.

Atticus Chira will come looking to reclaim Jade soon enough.

Into the silence, someone knocks briskly on the front door.

We freeze.

“Isaiah?” Patten whispers.

“One heartbeat. Female, I think,” I respond. “I don’t believe Atticus would send one female guard after us.”

Shep strides toward the front door.

“Dude, you’re not about to just…” Patten’s voice trails off as the fingers on Shep’s right hand lengthen and sharpen to form claws. Wolf claws.

Patten and I are a couple of steps behind Shep when he swings the door open.

Standing on the porch is a petite woman whose throat I find myself staring at until I force my gaze away. Behind her is a gray Volkswagen Beetle.

It takes one quick sweep to discount her as a threat.

About five feet tall, short curly bright blonde hair, blue eyes, and probably in her mid-thirties. Sweet features. Probably a schoolteacher who likes to garden from her calf-length green floral dress and her earthy scent. She also looks familiar.

She smiles, flashing dimpled cheeks. “Hello.”

Shep holds his clawed right hand out of sight. Could this woman have gotten lost? Be looking for directions? Here to raise money for some church event?

“Can I help you?” Shep asks.

Before she can respond, Patten nudges Shep out of the way. “You were in the bar.”

Yes.

When Patten went to confront his father, I followed. This woman approached us as we were leaving.

Her gaze sharpens. “Yes, I was trying to?—”

“Pick me up.” Patten starts to close the door. “Well, if you followed me back here thinking?—”

“No.” The woman steps forward and the door bounces off her brown sandaled foot. “My name is Meliah, and I came to see Brennan. I knocked before, but you weren’t here. I’d hoped you would come back, and you did.”

Patten scratches his hair. “Yeah, well, now is not really a good time, lady. He’s not up to seeing anyone right now.”

No. He’s too busy dying.

“I know. Brennan transformed, and I watched him fall out of the sky, which could only have happened if he’s hurt. I’m here to help him.”

“I appreciate your offer. But I don’t think you can,” Shep says.

“I’m a witch, so yes, I believe I can,” Meliah says firmly.

Patten ducks behind me.

“What are you doing?” I bite out.

“You can get hit by the spell first this time,” Patten says. “One curse is one time too many. Not again.”

“I’m not here to harm. Brennan helped me once before. Please, let me help him,” Meliah says.

I look at Shep. He looks back, then he sighs.

She must take it as a sign she’s won this fight because she steps forward and I feel Patten inch back. “Can I see him?”

Meliah pushes the door closed, her eyes roving the room.

“He’s in the bedroom,” Shep says.

Patten’s hands tighten in the back of my shirt. “This is a bad idea,” he mutters.

“You’re creasing my shirt,” I angle my head to tell him.

“Yes, worry about your shirt and not about the witch in our midst,” he says, unclenching his fingers. “And I repeat, this is a bad fucking idea.”

“He’s dying, Patten,” Shep says. “We have to try something.”

“What was the thing that hurt him made of?” Meliah asks.

“We don’t know. Just looked like a small metal crossbow bolt to me. He’s this way.” Shep leads the way to the bedroom, and the entire way, Patten keeps himself tucked behind me, back to causing untold damage to the back of my silk shirt.

I’d tell him to stop, but I know Patten.

“Do you have the bolt?” she asks, heading straight for Brennan’s side.

“Tossed it after I pulled it out of him. Thought it would help, but he’s still in a bad way,” Shep explains.

We all watch from the doorway as Meliah examines the wound on Brennan’s side and the spreading silver in his veins. Suddenly, she no longer resembles the teacher I’d believed her before. She seems older. More serious.

My eyes settle on her pulse as I envision all the blood gushing through her veins.

Then she sighs, and I wrench my gaze from her throat. “This will not be easy.”

“Because you bitches prefer to curse people?” Patten asks.

Meliah’s expression turns blank.

“Sorry, witches. I meant to say witches,” Patten says.

Shep steps between them. “Can you help him?”

Meliah focuses on Shep. “I can, but I will need supplies.”

“And will it take long? We have another priority,” Patten says.

Yes. Finding Jade.

I want her back as much as Patten and Shep. But if I’m having this much difficulty with my hunger, the thought of what I might do to Jade makes me glad she isn’t here. I need to feed, and I’ve tasted Jade before. The thought of tasting her again would overwhelm me before too long.

The witch looks like she’s struggling to believe anything could be more important than saving Brennan. “I don’t know. The poisoning is extensive.”

Shep turns to me. “I’ll go with Meliah to gather supplies while you and Patten find a map so we can work out a plan to search the town for Jade. Maybe she’s closer than we think.”

“Jade is missing?” Meliah blinks.

“Nothing to do with you.” Patten glares at her. “So whatever witchy woo woo trouble you’re after, you’d better not try it. None of us has any patience to deal with it or you.”

“You can trust me,” Meliah says, glancing at Shep. “You don’t need to come with me. I won’t be long.”

“Trust a witch?” Patten snorts. “Yeah, fucking right. Watch your back, Shep. And if I were you, I’d watch your front as well.”