Chapter 13
Fate loved being in his shift with Jilly. The pride hunted on the full moon even though big cats weren’t tied to a moon cycle with their shifts. The tradition had started with Callie, because as a wolf, she was compelled to shift on the full moon. Panthers usually shifted whenever they felt the urge, but since they’d been in Ashland, they’d been shifting on the full moon, and he thought they might continue with the new tradition even when they traveled.
Although he liked Ashland, he was thankful that Jilly had wanted to join the clan. Panthers liked to roam, and he was no exception. He was excited to show Jilly the world of his people and how traveling kept them close together as a group. They had places they stayed for a few weeks at a time, and then they’d pick up and move when the time was right. He couldn’t wait to show her where he’d grown up on the road, staying at all the different RV parks and campgrounds in the south for the winter and spring.
Jilly darted to the side with a happy growl, and he and Wyked followed, allowing her to take the lead in chasing whatever game she’d heard. There were so many cats and other shifters in the woods, he was pretty sure the deer were long gone by this point. It would be hard for a deer to miss the sheer number of predators in the woods. But sometimes the best part of shifting was just communing with the group.
Jilly was swift in her shift, but he and Wyked had no trouble keeping pace with her. They’d hunted together before, so it wasn’t a new experience for any of them. But he and his brother had grown up learning how to hunt, and since Jilly left home at sixteen to live with the females, they’d never taught her anything about her shift. She’d been almost like a new shifter when they met, still learning to listen to her cat and trust her natural instincts.
As the night wore on and they reached the edge of the pride’s territory, they caught the scent of deer and split from the main group to chase them. It took a few minutes, but they finally saw the animals in the distance and raced toward them. The deer bellowed in alarm, crashing through the underbrush in an attempt to flee. Just as they reached them, something whizzed by Fate’s ear that sounded wholly out of place in the woods. There was another whizzing sound, and a sharp object imbedded in his shoulder.
Fate’s legs suddenly went numb, and he couldn’t feel his paws. He tumbled to the ground with a grunt as the odd numbing sensation cascaded over him, making his vision blur and his hearing fade. Pain shot through him as the numbing sensation disappeared in its wake. The pain radiated from the object in his shoulder. He let out a warning roar as he rolled to his back, unable to hold his shift.
Jilly and Wyked returned to him. Jilly shifted, her eyes wide with worry. “Fate? What’s wrong? What happened?”
Fate couldn’t answer. The pain that had exploded in him grew more intense by the second. He felt as though he were being burned from the inside out, as if someone had replaced his blood with acid.
Wyked shifted and touched whatever was in Fate’s shoulder. Fate grunted when it was removed, and through his pain-hazed vision, he could see a dart.
Jilly let out a cry. “It’s turning his skin black. Fate! Fate, can you hear me?” She pressed her hands to his cheeks and turned his head until he was looking at her, but he couldn’t answer. He could only feel the pain that ate him slowly alive.
“Help!” Jilly shouted, her voice tinged with fear. “Help! Dad! James! Somebody, please help!”
“I’ll go find them,” Wyked said. He moved, but then he grunted, and Jilly screamed.
“No!”
Fate turned his gaze to his brother and saw the same type of dart embedded in Wyked’s chest.
Wyked lifted his hand to pull out the dart, but he couldn’t close his fingers around it. He let out a painful wheeze and managed to say their mate’s name before he collapsed to the ground.
As the pain continued to pulse through him, rendering him unable to move or do anything, Fate knew that he was going to die. Someone had poisoned him and his brother, and Jilly was going to be sitting with them when they passed into the beyond. They were supposed to spend the rest of their lives together. Whoever had poisoned him and Wyked hadn’t harmed Jilly. He didn’t know why, but he was thankful that he was the one dying and not her.
He only wished they’d had more time together.
The sound of the pride joining them gave him some relief, to know that Jilly wouldn’t be alone.
“Daddy,” Jilly sobbed. “Please don’t let them die.”
Fate closed his eyes as his body jerked with a convulsion that was strong enough to make him feel like his bones were going to break from the force. There was a brief moment in the wake of the pain when he opened his mouth to say his sweetheart’s name, but nothing came out.
He tried to fight through the pain but failed.
“Damn it, I smell females,” John said, his voice a growl as he held up the dart.
“I’m here,” Ethan said. “Shit. We need to get them to a hospital. This is more than I can treat.”
“No, oh no, please,” Jilly sobbed. She leaned over Fate and looked into his eyes. “Don’t you leave me, Fate. Do you hear me? Please don’t leave me alone.”
He wanted to answer, but his voice wasn’t working. He wanted to hold her, but his arms were too heavy to lift. This was how he was going to die, naked in the woods, with his mate’s last image of him and his brother helpless, poisoned perhaps by the females who had returned to harm them.
Better him than Jilly.
He’d die a thousand times to see her safe.
If he could talk, he’d tell her that he loved her, that the last three years of his life had been the best. They could have been together for a hundred years, and it wouldn’t have been enough. There would never have been enough time for him to spend with her on this earth.
Love you, he wanted to say. Love you so much.
* * *
Treasure snorted out a trail of smoke as Brian and Kevin stood several feet from her. Her claws dug into the ground, the grass tearing as she made furrows in the dirt. Her tail swished behind her, and her gaze focused on the stick that Brian had in one hand.
“Ready?”
She let out another snort, and smoke puffed into the air. Her scales twitched as she grinned her most dragonish smile.
Kevin cocked his arm and threw the branch high into the air. She flapped her wings and lifted into the air. She aimed a stream of fire at the branch, turning it to ash mid-air. With a happy trill she blew another stream of fire and lowered herself to the ground. Folding her wings against her back, she nudged her mates.
“I can’t believe how good you’re getting with your fire,” Kevin said.
“When we’re able to shift, we can go hunting with the others,” Brian said, resting his hand on her head. “I can’t wait.”
She hadn’t known much about shifters before she came to Ashland. Most shifters couldn’t change forms until they reached sixteen. Kevin was two years away from shifting, and Brian was three.
The scales on the back of her neck tingled suddenly, and she sniffed the air. Something was wrong in the woods, but she didn’t know what or why she felt strange. Then she heard Jilly scream for help, her voice high with fright.
Someone had hurt Jilly?
Letting out a growl, she looked at her mates, and Brian said, “Treasure?”
She jerked her head toward the woods.
Kevin frowned.
Jilly screamed for help again, and Treasure took to the air.
“We’re with you. Be careful,” Kevin said.
She flew toward the woods, zeroing in on Jilly’s frantic sobs as her mates ran beneath her. They reached Jilly and the other pride members. The group had shifted back into their human forms. Wyked and Fate lay on the ground, their eyes glossy with pain. Treasure smelled blood and something bitter, and as she hovered over the group, she saw that both males had dark patches on their skin – Fate on his shoulder and Wyked on his chest – that expanded over their skin. Their bodies jerked, and they grunted in pain.
Something caught Treasure’s eye, and she peered through the trees. With her sharp dragon eyesight, she could make out four people hiding in the darkness. It wasn’t the people themselves that she was seeing; it was their auras. In the darkness, there were four auras that glowed the colors of muddy brown and dirty yellow, tinged with deep red. Her mother had been adept at reading auras, and Treasure knew that the dirty auras were a sign of murderous intent and evil, highlighted with rage.
She was certain they were to blame for Wyked’s and Fate’s injuries.
With a furious roar, she pushed forward toward the figures, weaving in between the trees, the branches slapping her body as she moved. The figures were females, all wearing black. They wore black caps and had streaked their faces with black makeup to blend into the shadows. One of them held a gun and wore goggles. The females screamed in fear as Treasure bore down on them. The bitter smell she’d scented over Wyked and Fate was heavy on the females, and she knew without a doubt that they’d harmed her friends.
Clicking her firestarter, she bellowed the closest thing to a war cry she knew and lit up the woods. Her fire was hotter than she’d ever blown before, building with her fury. The females screamed as they burned. Treasure roared in anger and blew another, hotter stream of fire. Their bodies turned to ash swiftly as the fire engulfed the trees around them.
“Treasure!” Kevin yelled. “Come back! We need your help.”
Treasure looked at the piles of ash in the fire. Four lives snuffed out. Inhaling deeply, she drew the fire from the trees back into her lungs, extinguishing it, and preventing the rest of the woods from catching fire. The fire dissipated in her lungs, and she exhaled the smoke, blowing the ashes into the air.
Wheeling around, she followed her mates back to Jilly and the others, hopeful she could help in some other way. She might have gotten revenge on the ones who had hurt Wyked and Fate, but that wouldn’t save their lives. If she could help, she would. For Jilly. For her mates.
For her pride.
* * *
Jilly couldn’t stop crying. Fear and anger twined inside her as she watched her mates. She could lie to herself and say they’d recover, but she didn’t believe it. Not really. They were dying before her eyes: the black patches that had spread from the darts in her mates’ skin grew larger with every minute, as if someone were pouring dark paint on them.
Hanai and the other panthers had shifted to human form. Hanai inspected the darts and the wounds. “I don’t know what it is, but it smells bitter. It’s working fast.”
“Can’t you do something?” Jilly asked.
“I’m sorry. If I knew what it was, maybe I could help, but whatever this is, it’s taking over their bodies swiftly and they could…be gone before I even figure out what it is.”
Tears streamed down Jilly’s face. She could think of nothing worse than watching her mates die.
Dionne sobbed in Dag’s arms. Jilly wanted to comfort her, but she couldn’t make herself move. She was rooted to the ground with her hands on her mates. She looked at their faces. Their eyes were shut and their mouths pulled into thin lines as the poison caused them pain.
She lifted her head at the sound of something exploding, and she saw a huge fireball in the distance. There were faint screams that stopped abruptly, and then there was only a strange silence that settled over them all. Wyked and Fate struggled with the pain that engulfed them.
“Let’s get them to the hospital,” Ethan said. “There isn’t anything we can do for them in the woods.”
Jilly choked on a sob and wiped at her tear-stained cheeks.
Jackson, who had changed into his human form, let out a growl. “There’s someone watching us.”
Holden, who was still in his mountain lion form, echoed Jackson’s growl, and the two raced into the woods.
“Please don’t leave me,” Jilly whispered to her mates. “I just got you. Three years isn’t long enough…you promised me a lifetime of happiness.”
She heard wings and Treasure’s roar, and her cousins, Kevin and Brian, ran to them. “Treasure can help,” Brian said.
“How?” Jilly asked. “She’s a dragon and a fairy, not a healer. Hanai can’t help them, and neither can I.”
Her fears were coming true. She’d always worried about losing her mates. They’d given her back her emotions and a second chance at a happy life, and the one thing she’d never wanted to think about was what would happen to her if they were gone. They were her whole world.
Treasure changed forms in the air, her fairy wings keeping her aloft and slowly lowering her to the ground.
“I’m a healer, too. It’s my family heritage,” Treasure said.
“We’re wasting time,” Ethan said.
Treasure knelt in between Wyked and Fate and looked steadily at Jilly. “Trust me to help. You saved my life. Let me return the favor.”
Jilly kissed her mates, stifling a sob, and nodded. “Please save my mates.”
Treasure’s wings stretched out behind her back, the iridescent blue and pink highlighted by the moonlight. She rested her hands on the dart wounds and spoke softly in a language that Jilly didn’t recognize. As she spoke, a golden light shimmered over her head. It reminded Jilly of a halo, as if Treasure were also part-angel and not just a dragon and a fairy.
The golden light covered Treasure’s head and moved down her slowly until every inch of her body glowed. She smiled at Jilly and leaned forward, pressing her glowing hands firmly against Wyked’s and Fate’s wounds. They grunted in pain, but then Jilly saw the golden light moving into their bodies. The glow lit their skin from within, following the black marks and somehow removing them.
“Treasure, stop!” Kevin said.
“I can’t, not yet,” she said, her voice ethereal.
A dark dot appeared on Treasure’s thigh. Jilly looked at it, not realizing what it was until another drop appeared, and she saw that Treasure’s nose was bleeding.
“Treasure, you’re going to get hurt,” Brian said.
“If it were one of you,” she murmured, “I’d want someone to help.”
“Damn it,” Kevin said. “Jilly, tell her to stop. It’s sapping her strength.”
Jilly opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the light within her mates glowed even more brightly, and their bodies convulsed. There was a brilliant flash of light, and Jilly shielded her eyes. When she peeked through her fingers, she found her mates in their panther forms. They both rose to their feet and moved to Jilly with happy purrs, and she released the tears she’d been holding back.
Capturing them around their necks, she drew them close.
“Oh, you’re okay! I thought I was going to lose you both.”
They yowled in answer.
“Thank you, Treasure,” Jilly said.
The young girl smiled, and Jilly saw that her nose was still bleeding.
“They probably need to be in their shifts to finish healing. That was some nasty poison. I found the females who did it. They smelled of mountain lion and poison,” Treasure said.
James and John looked into the woods. “Where are they?” James asked.
“Ash,” Brian said as he knelt next to Treasure and gave her his jacket. “She killed them.”
Treasure let out a sigh as she put on Brian’s coat. “I had to. They were evil all the way through.”
Rhett joined them, along with some of the other pride members.
“Treasure!”
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m…good.” Her head lolled to the side, and Rhett lifted her into his arms.
“What happened?” he asked. “I was on the other side of the territory when I saw the fire. We raced here.”
“She saved Wyked’s and Fate’s lives. Females shot them with poison darts.”
“What?” Rhett demanded.
“They’re dead,” Brian said.
“Yeah,” John said, “but Holden and Jackson said they felt like we were still being watched.”
“I’ll go find them,” Eryx offered.
“I’ll come with you,” James said.
Rue knelt next to Jilly and put her hand on Wyked’s head. “I’m so glad you’re all okay.”
“Me too,” Jilly said.
“I’m going to take Treasure home,” Rhett said. “Boys? You can spend the night on the couches while she rests.”
“Go pack a bag,” Grant said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”
“Thanks!” Brian said.
Jilly said, “Hey, wait!”
“Yeah?” Brian asked, turning around.
“Did you know that Treasure could heal like that?”
“She said it was part of her fae heritage. But it’s dangerous. She could get so caught up in healing someone that she could make herself very weak, or even die from the energy drain.”
“That’s why you told her to stop?”
He nodded. “The nosebleed is the first warning.”
“Tell her that I’m forever thankful for her.”
“I will. You saved her life. It’s only right that she was able to return the favor.”
Jilly watched the young males walk with Rhett as he carried Treasure back to the boarding house. “I think we need to name one of our daughters Treasure in thanks.”
“One of them?” John asked, his voice tinged with humor.
“Yeah,” she said with a chuckle. “I want to have a big family so you have lots of grandcubs to spoil.”
“I can’t wait.”
She couldn’t either.
Turning her attention to the woods, she said, “Since Treasure killed them, we don’t know why they came after my mates, or how they knew we’d be out here tonight.”
“It would have been nice to get answers,” John said. “But I think it’s pretty clear that they could have taken out more of us with these darts. That they only hit Wyked and Fate is pretty telling.”
She shivered. “Revenge on me.”
“That seems likely.”
“Those females are such shitty bitches,” Rue said. “They’re lucky they’re dead.”
Jilly wanted to find their ashes and stomp on them for good measure. Her mates purred, the vibrations in their chests tickling her.
“I almost lost you guys tonight,” she said. “I’m glad you’re still with me.”
They both pressed their noses to her throat, and she laughed as her skin prickled.
“Let’s go home,” she said.
Back in the yard, she found her clothes and dressed swiftly, as did the others. She rejoined her dad and Rue. “Have Treasure or one of the boys send me a text to let me know when she’s awake and ready for company. We’ll want to thank her personally for her help.”
“If we find out anything from Holden and the others, I’ll let you know.” John kissed her cheek, and Rue hugged her.
“See you tomorrow,” Jilly said, waving at Callie and Ethan.
“You bet. Sleep well,” Callie said.
Jilly, her mates, and the clan members who had been hunting with them parted ways with the pride and headed to their territory. Jilly opened the door to their RV and said, “This was an emotional and crazy night.”
Dionne nodded. “I’m thankful for that little dragon. I almost lost my sons tonight.”
“She’s amazing. I’m thankful for her, too.”
“Rest well,” Dag said.
Jilly let her mates into the RV and joined them, shutting the door and dropping their clothes on the kitchen table. “I’m freaking exhausted. I guess sheer terror will do that to a person.”
They yowled in understanding, and she followed them as they padded back to the bedroom. She stripped and climbed into bed between her panthers, throwing an arm over Fate as Wyked moved close and pressed his muzzle to her shoulder.
“Love you both,” she said, and then yawned. “Love you so much.”