“Emma’s a dragon? I don’t understand,” Senora said.
“She is,” Ethan confirmed. “Full-blooded from the longest living line of dragons. She’s next in line to take my place as the Supreme Guardian. But she’s only thirteen, and she’s still got a few years before she’s ready. Usually, we wouldn’t keep my sister with me, because we’re the end of the line, but considering all of our younglings that have gone missing over the past few years, I don’t want Emma out of my sight for long. It’s against the rules, and it’s not how things are normally done. But there’s nothing normal about this fight.”
“I still don’t understand. I found her in a human trafficking raid. I didn’t even know she was a shifter.”
“You didn’t even know what shifters were until this week,” Ty pointed out. “How would you know that Emma was one?”
“I don’t know,” Senora said. “But I should have known that there was something different about her. They must not have known that she was a WereDragon.”
“They knew,” Ethan said. “It’s customary for a WereDragon outside the family to pick up the future Supreme Guardian to bring to a secret nest.”
“I thought this was the nest,” Senora interrupted.
“It is, but the Supreme Guardian can’t raise his own descendant. There is one specialized nest, which is where the Supreme Guardian is raised with a few other dragon younglings, but even I don’t know where that nest is. It’s the only way to protect our species and keep us from being eradicated by one catastrophic incidence.”
“But how did they even get Emma?” Senora asked.
“The same way they’ve taken all the children they’ve taken from us: they showed up with the right documents and simply walked away.”
“But aren’t those kidnappers dragons, too?”
“We don’t know,” Ty interjected. “We don’t know if they’re traitors or if they’re incredibly bold humans. Or even another type of shifter. We know so little about them, which is why it continues to happen.”
“I just don’t understand how Emma ended up with the Gate Keeper’s ilk.”
“The same way Addie did,” Ty offered. “Addie isn’t the only shifter or shifter hybrid that has ended up like that. We’ve kept it quiet because we don’t want the investigation to expose our existence, but there have been a lot of our kind turning up dead, or at least missing, for an extended period of time. But it’s not like we can come out and say who and what they are.”
“Are many of them cases I’ve worked?”
“No. We’ve kept them under wraps. Emma was a fluke, and Addie’s mom didn’t know about Addie, so she didn’t know what she was doing when she called your office,” Ty said. “If she would have told me that she was planning on calling you in, I would have tried to change her mind.”
“Would you have been able to?” Senora asked, smiling. “I met that woman. I don’t think there is any way you could have stopped her once she got her mind made up.”
“How was I a fluke?” Emma asked quietly. “I don’t understand.”
Senora looked at her and smiled gently.
“Finding you was a fluke,” she said. “Since shifters aren’t reported in the missing person’s database, I wasn’t looking for you.”
“Then, how did you even know I was somewhere on the property?”
Senora closed her eyes, trying to remember everything from that day. If anyone deserved the full story, it was Emma. She’d been so brave even though Senora could tell she was terrified. Eyes still closed, she pictured every moment, then began describing the scene to Emma in great detail. It was so much a part of Senora that she could hear everything she’d heard that day, smell every smell, and feel the stifling, stagnant air as if she was really there.
Dust churned in the air, swirling around Senora as she took the first step into the dark barn with only a flashlight to guide her. The room was oddly silent, but something hung in the air, undetectable by the five senses. She knew what it was but had never found a word to describe the feeling. But despite the inability to explain the weight that teased the air, she still knew without a doubt that there were people in this building. Their presence displaced the air, and Senora could feel the desperation in their stiffened bodies, the hope that this time, it would be help coming and not whoever was charged with attending to their minimal needs.
Breaths were held and silent pleas sent up into the sky as the sound of Senora’s heavy combat style boots thudded on the hard dirt floor. The soft click of metal gave away their location as someone dared move and scraped a chain on a cold, hard concrete floor.
Senora sped up, dust motes dancing in the beam of her flashlight as she kicked them up. Muffled sobs echoed around her, and she fought the urge to call out. They had the scene contained, but human traffickers we a special type of evil, and there was no telling if any more of the Gate Keeper’s men lurked in the darkness.
When Senora finally shone her light on the group of metal dog kennels at the end of the aisle, she gasped at what she saw. Her knees threatened to buckle, but she held it together. She had to be strong. These women had to know that the person standing before them was safety and strength.
She could cry about the images that would be forever seared into her brain when she got home. Right now, these women needed a hero, and that’s what she was going to give them.
She surveyed each kennel run, explaining quietly that she had to photograph and catalogue the evidence that was in front of the cages before she could cut the bolts. Several of the women nodded, but others just stared at her, too emotionally broken to consider that this could really be the end of their suffering. Male agents hung back out of sight, letting Senora take the lead and interact with those being held prisoner.
One by one, Senora released them, and they were quickly whisked away by paramedics and taken to the ambulances that waited for them. Senora tried not to worry about the age of some of the captives, but it was hard. Most were in their late teens or early twenties, but the occasional twelve-year-old was almost more than she could handle. She felt herself fading, but she pushed through and focused on the details. The more evidence she got, the more likely she would be to send the leader of this sick enterprise to prison for the rest of his natural life and then some. It wouldn’t be easy, but Senora was committed to working through until she succeeded.
She was going to catch the Gate Keeper and put an end to the terror. No matter how long it took.
They were almost done, and even though she had to stop and photograph each cage, the work was going quickly, and Senora was at the last woman’s cage. The woman put her hand through the chain link, and Senora reached out to take her hand and squeeze it.
“We’re here now,” she said gently. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”
The woman nodded, then her eyes shot to the side and she glanced at the empty cage beside her, then looked away. Senora didn’t say a word, but noted the direction the woman had looked as she cut the lock and set the woman free. Battered, bruised, and long, tangled hair loose on her shoulders, the woman looked over her shoulder before she climbed onto the stretcher and allowed the EMTs to check her out.
Senora waited until the woman was wrapped up in what they were doing before she went to the empty cage that the woman had looked at. Kneeling in the dirt to get a better view, she swung back the partially opened gate and pulled out her flashlight. The beam struck a bowl of food and a bowl of water on the ground. She cringed, hating that these captives had been treated like dogs right down to the way that the food was distributed. It seemed like such a small piece of the puzzle, but Senora was struck by the indignity of it all.
The bowl was still warm to the touch, the food uneaten and the water filled to the top with clean liquid. It was the only cage with untouched food and water, which struck Senora as odd. She knew how these operations worked; they cut costs by feeding their captives the bare minimum that they needed to survive. It was rare that food lasted more than the few minutes it took to consume it. There was no way that there would be leftovers unless someone was removed before they got a chance to finish.
Senora turned and looked at the last captive as they wheeled her away on the gurney. They made eye contact, and the woman looked to her left, then back at Senora. Her message was clear; she was too afraid to say what she knew, but one of the captives had been taken in that direction, and it hadn’t been long before Senora and her team had shown up. There was another victim, and Senora had to find her before whoever had her got away.
Hand near her gun and the other holding a flashlight, she followed the wall in the direction that the woman had indicated with her eyes. There appeared to be nothing but the wall itself, and had Senora not been looking for something out of the ordinary, she would have missed it. But she saw it: a single slat of wood that looked slightly discolored compared to the rest. Even in daylight, the wood wouldn’t have been noticeable. But it was there, and once she saw it, it was obvious. There was an escape hatch in the side of the barn.
Indentations and scuffs had brushed away the dust in front of the hatch. Someone had knelt down and opened the door, and another someone had been pushed through, either by force or because they were unconscious. Cautiously, Senora opened the hatch and pushed through, and found herself at the back of the barn and outside in the night.
“Freeze!” someone shouted, instantly blinding her with the heat of the Maglite in the darkness.
“It’s me!” she yelled back, though her hands shot up in surrender instinctively. “There’s another captive.”
“We’ve searched the entire grounds,” the agent who had called out to her said. “There’s no one else here, and we’ve accounted for every woman and girl that was missing in this area. We don’t have any more open cases. Senora, we found everyone.”
His smile was huge. Even though one victim had passed away sometime the week before the agents had found the place and shown up, it was almost unheard of to rescue that many that were suspected of being sold into sex trafficking. This was a huge victory for her team and for the community at large. Of course the other agents were thrilled, but Senora knew that there was one more victim, and she was going to find her.
She ignored the agent’s insistence that there was no one else to save, and she followed the tracks that led into the woods beyond. When another agent attempted to step forward, she held her hand out to keep them away. The last thing she needed was for them to obscure the prints that the lone escapee had left in the dirt.
The agent nodded, and as if by some silent communication, all the agents standing there took their flashlights and trained them on the area that Senora was searching. The path was suddenly daylight bright, and Senora could see more of the foot prints than she could before. She snapped a quick picture, then pulled her pen from her pocket and stuck it into the footprint to get an approximate height, then stood and followed the prints as they quickly made their way out of the barn area, weaving through an area filled with sheds, cabins, and other small structures, and then out to the woods beyond.
The prints were lost in the shuffle of footprints near the small buildings, but Senora found them again just before the line of trees. Kneeling, she tested the depth of the print again and scowled while she thought.
“They were carrying something heavy and off-loaded it before they went into the woods,” she said. “Something at least eighty pounds.” She pointed at four of the agents and local officers milling about. “You four go after him. He couldn’t have gotten very far. Everyone else, pick a structure and search it. There’s another victim, and I’ll lay money that someone that small is a teenager. We have to find them.”
The once skeptical agent nodded, and just like that, everyone sprang into action. They searched every shed, lean-to, dog house, outhouse and hen house, yet after several minutes of searching, there was still no sign of the missing victim.
Senora took a deep breath, trying not to let the panic overwhelm her. They had no proof that there was another victim, but her gut told her otherwise. It was obvious that whoever had fled the barn had been carrying someone, then had put them down. She had to be here. But with no description and no idea who it could be, they were shooting in the dark.
“There’s no one here,” the senior agent said to her. “We’ve searched every one of these structures, and there’s no one here.”
“Search again,” she said. “She’s here.”
“How do you know?”
“There was food and water for another person. It was unfinished.”
“That could have been for the deceased,” he said, his tone cold and his focus on the facts rather than the weight of the loss. “There’s no way to know if it was another person.”
“It was warm.”
“It was one hundred degrees today.”
“Not that type of warm. I’m telling you, there was someone else. And the last woman out looked at me, then at the cage.”
“She looked at you, and that’s why you think there’s another victim?”
His tone was incredulous, but she ignored him. He shook his head, walking off and letting everyone know that they were moving out so that the crime scene team could take over. Looking over his shoulder, he made it clear that Senora was to follow him, but she didn’t budge. There was someone here, waiting to be saved, and Senora wasn’t going to let her down, whoever she was.
Her eyes scanned the buildings in the small area behind the barn. It had to be one of the buildings, but which one?
A small garden shed kept grabbing her attention, but it didn’t fit. They had already searched it, and even though there was a slight gap in the boards that made up part of the foundation, there was no way a teenager could fit in that opening. At only twelve or so inches wide and no more than eight inches tall, there was just no way. It was more than likely inhabited by a raccoon and her babies, or worse.
Senora wrinkled her nose. Wouldn’t that be a perfect way to ruin her day and send her home reeking if she disturbed a skunk with a den full of babies?
Even though it was all wrong, Senora kept going back to it. Sighing, she took her flashlight and went to it, hoping that she wouldn’t get sprayed in the face when she leaned down to shine the light into the opening.
The space was empty at first glance, the sandy dirt beneath the building flat and undisturbed, though the space under the shed was taller and deeper than the missing board. Senora swept the light back and forth, then along the edges from her right going left.
She almost missed the tiny heap to her left as she moved the light over it, but when the little body jerked in fear, Senora realized that she was looking at a child covered in the gray silt from the dirt beneath the shed.
She was tied up, her back facing the opening, her little body shoved through the opening without care for the scrapes and bruises the rough entry would give her on the way in.
“I won’t hurt you,” Senora said quietly. “We’re going to save you, but you’re going to have to be patient, alright?”
Dust-covered curls bounced as the girl nodded her understanding. She whimpered when Senora backed her head out of the space.
“Do you want the light?” Senora asked.
The girl nodded again. Senora moved the flashlight until it was illuminating most of the space, then left it in the dirt and pushed her way back from beneath the shed.
She stood, throwing her hand up in triumph to indicate that she had found one person. Shocked faces went blank for an instant, then the agents sprang into action. Within minutes, the garden shed was unloaded, and an agent with a crowbar carefully started ripping the wooden floor out after looking to see where the girl was.
When the last board was ripped away and Senora could finally get to the girl, she stepped in and scooped her up. She was so light and so still. Senora cradled her against her chest and carried her to the waiting gurney where she set her down and went to work untying her and removing the duct taped gag from her mouth carefully so that they didn’t hurt her.
“You’re safe,” Senora said, brushing the girl’s hair from her face.
When the tape was finally off her mouth, the little girl licked her lips and looked at her with shimmering eyes.
“I want to go home,” she said, somehow containing her tears.
“We’re going to find your family and get you home,” Senora promised. “What is your name?”
“Emma,” she said. “My name is Emma, and I’m eight years old.”
Senora opened her eyes, and the scene from so many years ago slipped away. Everyone was seated around her, listening with rapt attention to her story.
“I never knew how close we’d come to losing her,” Ethan said in horrified awe. “I can’t thank you enough for saving my sister.”
The familiar sound of a chopper overhead interrupted Senora before she could answer. She looked up, squinting at the chopper as it flew past in the harsh sunlight.
“That’s odd,” Ethan said.
“Maybe it’s a lost child,” Senora offered.
“There’s no way. The rangers don’t come this way.”
“Do they know you’re here?” Senora asked.
“Of course, they know we’re here; they’re shifters themselves. Something is wrong.”
Senora turned to watch the chopper with the others, and her heart sank when it started to lower itself just behind one of the ridges that helped isolate this spot from the outside world.
“That’s not good, is it?” Senora offered.
“Not at all,” Ethan said. “We have company, and I’d be willing to bet it’s Kaden.”
“What do we do?” Senora asked.
“We hide the kids and fight,” Ethan said with a shrug. “There really is nothing left to do.”
Senora nodded, then looked to Ty.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked him, but he only smiled.
“I’ve been wanting to get a piece of that shifter hating crook for years. I was born ready for this.”
*
Emma stood beside Senora in the tiny cottage built into the ground, the roof made of fake grass and surrounded by boulders to further camouflage its existence. Like many of the living areas, it was built into the landscape to avoid detection by the casual observer, and was accessible by a series of tunnels that exited from one of a handful of caves in the cluster of rocks that made up the mountain’s peak. It was cool inside, with strategically-placed windows that let the air and light in without giving away their location.
“Why do we need to stay in here again?” Emma fussed, pouting angrily over the perceived injustice as only a teenager could do. “I can fly now, which means that I can fight.”
“It’s not about your abilities,” Senora said. “It’s about what’s good for the whole of the species. You’re the only other Supreme Guardian in existence right now. Ethan can’t risk you dying when he is risking his own life.”
“Then, maybe he should stay back and let us fight.”
Senora chuckled under her breath.
“I’m not happy about it either, but we all have to play to our strengths and do what’s logically best. As a human, I’m nowhere near as equipped to fight as Ty is. As the younger of the two Supreme Guardians, your life is more valuable in the long run.”
“So my brother is expendable?”
“He’s not expendable, but you’re less expendable. It was a tough decision to have to make, but it was the right one.”
“Why all the fuss for one man? Why can’t Ty just take him out?”
“The world doesn’t work that way. And even though we know that he is wrong, he’s getting paid to bring in your brother on murder charges. If he turns up dead, that will just intensify the search for Ethan and for anyone who helped him kill the bounty hunter. We have to play this carefully and do everything right or we could all end up on the wrong side of the law.”
“I guess I didn’t think about all that.”
“A lot of people wouldn’t. It’s hard when it’s your family being attacked. The first impulse is to attack back, but we can’t let our emotions cloud our judgment. We have to take a step back and make the best decision, even if it doesn’t feel as good as the knee-jerk reaction. Acting rashly is never good in the long run.”
Emma stared at Senora, her young face filled with admiration, then she smiled.
“What?” Senora asked.
“Dragons have a reputation for being the most levelheaded and patient amongst the shifters, but you have more restraint than anyone I’ve ever met. Are you sure you’re not one of us?”
Senora chuckled.
“I didn’t even know what a shifter was until I started working with Ty.”
“Most people don’t know about us. It’s weird going to school with ‘normal’ kids, then looking down and seeing scales pop up on your arm when you get nervous, or feeling like your breath is hot suddenly. I didn’t even know until I was eight.”
“Right before you were kidnapped?”
“Yes. Ethan said that starting the change early is a sign of something special, but it just felt like a burden. I don’t want to be anyone’s guardian, but I was chosen by Fate, and I don’t have a choice.”
The sadness in her voice tugged at Senora’s heart. She couldn’t pretend to understand where Emma was coming from, but she could understand being stuck doing something that you didn’t believe in. It was how she’d felt when she first got thrown into the mix with Ty, but that feeling was evolving into something closer to contentment.
“Sometimes, when you think you don’t want to do something, it turns out to be the best part of your life,” she offered.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Emma said, still whispering even though there was no sign of the intruder. “You don’t have the burdens that I have. Burdens I was born with.”
“We all have something,” Senora said. “And if I’m honest, I didn’t want to work with a partner at all, let alone Ty. But now that I’ve worked with him some, it’s not all that bad. And if I hadn’t worked with him, I wouldn’t know what happened to you after you were rescued, and that’s an amazing development. I rarely get to see people I’ve helped save after they’ve gone home. If nothing else, seeing you was worth all this.”
“You didn’t help save me; you saved me. No one else would have followed the clues that you did. I wouldn’t be alive without you.”
Senora wanted to brush off the compliment, but she knew that Emma was right. No one else had looked at the empty cages and zeroed in on the one with food. And even after she’d told the others what she saw, she was brushed off as a rookie by the more experienced agents who didn’t think that her discovery was anything important. They’d been wrong, and it had almost cost Emma her life. Senora knew without a doubt that the escaped trafficker would have doubled back and picked up Emma. Now that Senora knew who and what Emma was, she was surer of this than she had been years before. Even now, Senora feared for Emma’s life, and having Kaden show up to settle the score with Ethan wasn’t helping. If Kaden was allowed to leave and spread the word about this place, would anyone ever be safe here?
She wasn’t about to voice those fears to Emma. No one knew what was going to happen in the next few minutes or hours, and if they were lucky, Senora would walk away without having to worry about Emma. But Senora wasn’t that naïve, and she knew that there was a very real possibility that this entire day was going to go down in flames, and she was mentally preparing herself for every eventuality.
Senora was about to reassure Emma that everything was going to be alright when they heard Kaden bellow in the distance, his location obscured by the tight vegetation that protected the nest from being viewed from the outside.
“Ethan!” he yelled. “I know you’re here. Come out like a man and answer for your crimes. I’m not just going to go away.”
Senora scanned the area around them, but she couldn’t see Kaden, nor could she see Ethan. Ty was close, ready to fight if he needed to, but for the most part, the group seemed to think that this was Ethan’s fight, and they were content to stand back and let it play out before anyone got involved. Senora wasn’t comfortable with that, but it wasn’t her place to tell them what to do. This was outside of her capacity as an agent, and she wasn’t here to deal with Kaden. She was there to find Carla, and everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had a chance to talk to anyone about Carla.
Ethan didn’t answer Kaden, but Senora knew he was close. Keeping her voice low in case anyone was nearby and to keep the smaller children that huddled in the back of the tiny room from hearing her, Senora moved closer to Emma and all but whispered in her ear.
“Where’s Carla?” she asked quietly. “I didn’t get a chance to ask your brother.”
Emma shrugged as if she didn’t know, but her facial expression told another story.
“I don’t know where Carla is,” she said.
“If you don’t know, then how would you know her name? Did Ethan bring her here?”
“I can’t tell you where she is,” Emma said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Why not?”
“I can’t really tell you that either.”
“Did Ethan kidnap her?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. She asked Ethan to get her. The only reason that anyone is looking for her is because Kaden showed up and destroyed the hotel.”
“You don’t think that the hotel owner would have been worried about Carla?”
“No. People disappear from that job all the time, and no one ever notice-”
She stopped suddenly, her mouth dropping open and her eyes going wide. Senora followed her gaze and pulled Emma back instinctually, even though she knew that Kaden couldn’t see the opening beneath the strategically placed boulder that served as a window to their hiding place.
“Where’s Ethan?” Emma whimpered.
Senora could hear the children behind them curl more tightly into their corner of the room, their fear and helplessness overwhelming them. This was supposed to be a safe place for them to grow and change. Yet there they were, alone and afraid for their young lives. The unfairness of it all set off a rage inside Senora that she’d never felt. This wasn’t any different than Kaden bringing the violence to a school. She had a feeling that Kaden knew that the children were up here, and his intentions weren’t centered on the man he claimed was a criminal. Kaden was after more than just money, and suddenly, Senora was sure that the children were in more danger than they’d originally thought.
“We need to move them into the caves,” Senora said quietly.
Emma shook her head.
“Once they’re in the caves, they’re sitting ducks. And we can’t see anyone coming.”
“That’s no different than here.”
“There’s an escape hatch here,” she said, pointing to a place at the opposite end of the room. “And we can block off the cave from here. We’re safer here.”
Her voice rose a little at the end, and as Senora watched Kaden well across the small clearing, he tilted his head as if listening. Emma started to speak, and Senora covered her mouth and nodded in Kaden’s direction.
Emma shook her head, a look of comfortable disbelief on her face. Kaden was human; there was no way he could hear them from where he was.
But Senora wasn’t buying it, and she wondered if the rocks or some other portion of the landscape could be carrying their voices further than they would normally go.
When Kaden turned his full attention in their direction and scanned the scenery, she was certain that he’d heard them talking. She backed into the shadows, then turned and put her finger to her lips to signal to the children that they should be quiet. They nodded.
Senora opened the door that led to the cave and sent them through it, putting the oldest in the front and having Emma bring up the rear. She whispered into the ear of the oldest, instructing him to go into the cave’s corridor a few feet, then wait. He nodded his understanding, then solemnly led the frightened children into the darkness. Emma scowled and shook her head, but Senora wasn’t having it. She could still see Kaden’s feet in the window, and though he hadn’t come closer, it was clear from his stance that he was looking their way.
She leaned in close and whispered in Emma’s ear.
“You’re not going all the way. I’m going to watch him, and if he comes this way, I’ll signal you, and I’ll keep him here so you can get away. If he goes another way, I’ll bring you back in and barricade the door. But it’s not safe to stay here.”
Emma nodded, but Senora could tell that she wasn’t onboard with the plan at all. Senora couldn’t force her to agree, but she hoped that the girl would trust her instincts. Senora had saved her life once before, and she hoped that she would trust Senora to do the same years later. Emma begrudgingly joined the other kids just outside the door, and Senora closed the door. The edges of the door melted into the rough rock walls, and from more than a few feet away, Senora couldn’t tell where the door had been. The tension left her body, and for the first time since they’d fled into the tiny little structure, Senora felt like the children were safe and not just cornered.
Now to deal with Kaden, Senora thought.
She turned her attention back to him, but he was heading toward the trees, his focus trained elsewhere. It only took her a moment to figure out that he had found Ethan, and that Ethan was coming out of the trees to meet him with his hands up, but his body somehow completely relaxed despite the obvious danger. Senora scanned the trees and found Ty almost immediately, cautiously making his way behind Kaden in the trees, ready to pounce if Ethan needed him to. Senora watched, heart pounding in her chest as the two men-the bounty hunter and the hunted-stepped out into the clearing and faced each other.
“I’m innocent,” Ethan said loudly across the hundreds of feet that separated them.
“I don’t care,” Kaden called out. “I’m just here to bring you in. The justice department will handle the rest.”
“Your reputation suggests otherwise,” Ethan said. His expression was smug, but the truth shone in his eyes, and Senora was certain that Ethan was innocent just like he claimed. “I can prove I’m innocent. I won’t be going with you.”
“You can plead your case in court. I’m not here to decide your guilt.”
Ethan laughed.
“You and I both know that there is no innocence when it comes to shifters. I was marked for the death penalty the instant my name came up as a suspect. They never looked for the real suspect, and they won’t try anyone for this crime. The real killer is out there, and you’re wasting your time.”
“What are you hiding here?” Kaden asked, his question shocking Ethan. “You’re protecting something or someone. What are you hiding?”
Ethan didn’t answer right away, and before he could make something up, Kaden laughed.
“I knew this was where you hid the changelings. Tell me, do their parents know why you bring them into the mountains? Do they know that you’re selling them when you’ve been charged with protecting them?”
“I don’t sell them,” Ethan said, his expression twisted in confusion. “That’s preposterous. Our changelings are our most valuable resource. I would lay down my life for them.”
“Yet you left them alone and vulnerable while you went to the hotel in Texas. Why? Why couldn’t someone else go there? Unless you’re hiding something.”
Senora wondered the same thing, and Ethan’s lack of reaction wasn’t sitting well with Senora. What was he hiding? Besides the children. There was something, and when this was all over, Senora was going to get to the bottom of it. His body language proved that Kaden was at least partially right about something, and Senora was worried about the truth. Was she unwittingly helping him do something that he shouldn’t? What did she know about any of these shifters? What if she had been duped by Ty and the other shifters, and she was fighting for the wrong team? Just because the Sheriff of Glen Rose had been bad didn’t mean that Ty was a good guy. There were levels of bad, and watching Ethan dance around the answers to reasonable questions, she found herself wondering.
“You need to leave,” Ethan said calmly. “I’ll send a lawyer in to deal with these charges, but I can’t leave this mountain. I have to stay here or other lives will be at risk.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kaden said.
“You don’t have to believe me. Your belief doesn’t change my reality. I have a job to do, and I have those that I’ve been sworn to protect counting on me. I’m not going to walk out of here with you, and I’m not going to take my chances with the court. They have already tried and convicted me without a shred of evidence. The only thing that’s left is to go through the motions and make it look like there’s any justice involved.”
“You have so little faith in the system,” Kaden said, mocking Ethan.
“I’m not immune to my own reality. I know that human lives are believed to be more important than shifter lives. That’s our burden, despite the fact that we’ve been protecting humans for generations. They’ll never see us as equals, and I’m not going to walk into the firing squad to prove my point. I’m not going with you. You need to leave now before you get hurt.”
“Before I get hurt?” Kaden scoffed, laughing without humor. “Now you’re worried about me getting hurt? That ship sailed years ago. Nothing can hurt me now, and your little sob story means nothing. Unless you want me to take the children down with you, I suggest you cooperate.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“I won’t leave without you.”
Ethan shrugged.
“Then, I guess you won’t leave.”
Kaden smiled at the implication.
“Do you think you stand a chance against me? I’ve been tracking you for days, and you couldn’t hide from me in your own mountain. What makes you think that you can beat me?”
“I have my reasons,” Ethan said, and his posture changed.
Gone was the relaxed stance and the look of complete calm. Ethan was gearing up for a fight, and he wasn’t bluffing with Kaden. He was prepared to take the man out if he had to, even though Senora knew that was likely to cause them problems in the end. But if Kaden gave them no choice, then Ethan had to do what needed to be done to save the next generation.
Kaden was still laughing when Ethan moved closer, his body growing as he walked.
“Is that how you fight, dragon?” Kaden shouted. “You’re not even coming into this fight on level ground. You’re trying to reason with me one minute, then the next, you’re shifting like that’s supposed to intimidate me. Don’t you know who I am?”
Ethan shook his head.
“We all know who you are. You’ve been lucky in the past, but no human can take down every shifter he encounters. You’re going down, hunter.”
Kaden laughed. The clear, thunderous sound echoed off the peaks and carried into the valleys. His laugh unsettled Senora and without knowing quite why, her hand slid down to the gun that Ty had left with her. Hidden where she was, she shouldn’t have to use it, but everything about this moment felt wrong, and she wasn’t sure that she was as safe as she had assumed.
There was movement on the other side of the room, and Senora jumped when a familiar figure stepped out of the cave. Senora gestured at Emma, but the girl stood her ground. Senora could see into the hall of the cave, but the children were around the bend. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear their muffled voices as they struggled to stay quiet in the dark, tight space.
“You need to go,” Senora said, nervously looking from Emma to Ethan to Kaden and back again. “This isn’t going to go well.”
“My brother will beat him,” Emma said. “He’s not going to-”
Emma stopped, her face went blank, and she gasped softly as if the tiny noise was all that could make its way out. Senora turned and looked out into the field.
“What the-” Senora started, but there were no words.
Ethan was already shifted and advancing on Kaden. But the laughing Kaden was glaring him down, his own body changing rapidly. Senora watched in horror as Kaden’s body grew and stretched, then a large tail materialized behind him.
“He’s a dragon?” Emma said in wonder, not really asking Senora.
“You didn’t know?”
“No one knew,” Emma said. “No one knew that he was one of us. He’s been killing us for years. Why does he hate us?”
The last bit was said loudly as the last of Kaden’s human form fell away and was replaced by a dragon. Kaden turned so fast that his tail swung and cut a tree in half mid-swoop. This time, Senora knew that he’d heard them. She turned, shoving Emma toward the door and calling out to the children in the cave.
“Run!” she said, looking over her shoulder and pulling the gun out as the dragon advanced on them at frightening speed. “Run and don’t look back.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Emma said. She clawed at Senora, trying to pull her away from the window as Senora put the gun in the opening and aimed. “I can’t leave you here.”
“Go!” she yelled, ignoring the stricken look on Emma’s face. “You’re what we need to protect. You and the other children. Do what I say, now!”
Emma turned, her face angry as she yelled to a straggling child to hurry up. Senora watched her until she was at the door, then she turned back, and her heart dropped when she saw how close Kaden was to the hut. He knew they were there, and if Ethan wasn’t going to come willingly, then Kaden was going to hit him where it hurt.
Senora opened fire, but the small space and the running dragon made it nearly impossible to hit her target. When he opened his mouth and let the flames fly, she ducked and rolled onto the stone floor. The top of the hut was immediately engulfed in flames, and she knew she was in trouble.
A large piece of roof on fire fell into the hut just a few inches from her head. She rolled, then got onto her hands and knees and felt her way around in the dark smoke. Where was the door? When she’d rolled, she had lost track of where she was. With the roof on fire and the smoke already filling the small space, she couldn’t find her way out. She knew Kaden was still coming. She had to find her way out.
She crawled around on her belly, sliding her hand on the rock face and screaming out in frustration. It was there somewhere. It had to be there. But she was turned around and didn’t know which wall she was on. The door could be under her hand, or it could be across the room; she couldn’t know for sure. What she did know was that she was going to die in this hut, probably inches from the exit. She didn’t want to die this way.
She didn’t want to die.
*
Senora felt a hand around her ankle and kicked out instinctively. The dragon Kaden might be bigger than her, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. If he wanted to drag her out of that hut and through the fiery roof, he was going to have to try harder than that.
The hand grabbed her again, but this time, a second hand wrapped around her before she could react, holding on as Senora bucked and coughed.
“Senora!” a familiar voice called out through the already thickening smoke that clung to her nose and mouth.
Emma? Senora was shocked to hear the young teen’s voice, but she knew it was her. She stopped mid-kick and turned toward Emma, grabbing the girl’s ankle as they army crawled along the floor beneath the smoke and letting Emma lead her away from the spot she’d been in.
The stone floor was cold against her belly, a stark contrast to the heat of the flames that licked and danced along the wood beams of what was left of the ceiling.
She could hear Kaden roaring behind them, but she didn’t look over her shoulder. It would only slow her down, and seconds counted.
There was another roar so close that Senora’s body all but shook from the power of it. Leathery, scaly bodies slammed into each other and fell to the ground. The hut shook, and part of the roof collapsed in front of them. Emma froze, her body rigid as she scanned the room for another way out. Senora coughed and choked, still holding onto Emma and sending up a silent prayer that Emma could see better than Senora could through the dark smoke and the eerie glow of the flames above them.
The fight continued as they worked their way around this new obstacle. The tiny hut was getting hotter by the second, and Senora was starting to really panic. Would the kids get out of the caves safely? Did Kaden know that they would be forced to flee the caves and out into the open? Was flushing them out of their hiding place his plan all along?
There was an inhuman shriek that made Senora’s heart stop, then she felt a cold, scaly hand around her ankle. When she was yanked backward painfully, she cried out, then immediately regretted it. Now, Emma knew she wasn’t right behind her, and the girl wouldn’t just walk away without trying to help. If Senora had remained silent, Emma would have been too far away to react by the time she realized that Senora was gone.
“Senora!” Emma shouted, turning in the darkness and coming for Senora.
“Run, Emma! Don’t look back.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Run!” she yelled again.
Her bare stomach scraped against the concrete floor, the rough action pulling her shirt up. She grabbed at the floor, the wall, anything to slow the dragon down, but she knew it was hopeless. The dragon had her, and she knew in her heart that there was no chance it was Ethan just trying to save them.
Emma’s hands were on her now, trying to pull her out of the dragon’s grasp. Claws dug into the skin around her ankles. She felt her skin break and the blood dripping down her leg. The pain was intense, but the fear overrode that. She tried to push Emma away, but Emma wouldn’t let go.
“Let me go.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Run!”
“Never.”
Before she knew what Emma had planned, the girl launched herself over Senora, climbing up Senora and grabbing onto the dragon’s clawed foot. Emma clamored up the length of Kaden’s leg and up his body until she was near the base of his wing. The dragon tried to shake her off, inadvertently shaking Senora and slapping her against the wall of the hut right before he pulled her out of the ground and into the sky. Her head ached, and the ground beneath her spun and tilted. She could hear Emma screaming, not out of fear but anger. Still suspended upside down, Senora looked up, trying to wrap her head around what was happening, but the hit she’d taken was too hard, and her mind struggled to understand.
Emma’s legs were wrapped around Kaden’s arm now, and she was pummeling him with her fists, yelling in anger and pulling at the wing joint. Senora watched with eyes wide as the girl sprouted her own wings, but much of the rest of her remained human. Emma spread her wings and took off, going at the head of the dragon without fear. Kaden was soaring through the air now, and when Senora looked at the ground below, the children that were piling out of the cave’s opening looked like tiny bugs huddled together. Senora’s stomach twisted, and she fought the panic that welled up.
She was going to die.
Senora tried to pull herself up, to grab onto anything that she could hold onto when the dragon inevitably let her go, but she couldn’t. He was holding her with his clawed foot by one ankle like a child holding a ragdoll, and she couldn’t fight gravity and the force of the wind against her as Kaden flew on. She watched helplessly as Emma fought with every ounce of her strength. She was flying behind him now, kicking the back of his head and dancing out of range when he turned to spray fire on her, then going back in and leveling another shot at his head. She looked like a contemporary artist’s idea of an angel, her body still the thin, graceful portrait of youth, the dark leathery wings a stark contrast to Emma’s soft beauty. The child was doing everything she could to take Kaden down, but it was useless. Minutes passed, and Senora found herself scanning the air and what she could see of the ground for Ethan and Ty.
Where were they?
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she gave up looking around and let her eyes settle on the sky behind her. They were there, just a few feet away and beneath them, taking advantage of Emma’s distraction. Ethan was almost to her, and Ty was riding on his back, arms outstretched, an enormous hunting knife in his hand.
I’m going to die, she thought, bracing herself for whatever they had in mind.
Ty’s eyes were focused, his body rigid and ready to strike. As they got closer, he stood up and balanced on Ethan’s back as if they weren’t hundreds of feet in the air. Did he think wolves could fly? Or could a shifter just turn into anything they wanted to?
She didn’t have to wait long for her answer.
Ethan was directly beneath her now, and Ty’s hand was on her arm.
“We’ve got you,” he said over Kaden roaring in frustration at Emma.
“Emma?”
“She saw us. She knows what she’s doing. I need you to wrap your arms around Ethan’s neck and hold on, got it?”
She nodded, doing as she was told. She had to arch her back to get her arms around him, her face pressed against the back of his head and her arms around the narrowest part of his neck. She didn’t know what Ty had planned, but she was scared.
In one smooth move, Ty jumped onto the other leg and stabbed upward, catching Kaden in his soft underbelly. The dragon shrieked and let go of Senora’s leg. She hung suspended in the air for one terrifying second before her body started falling. She held onto Ethan’s neck, and her legs fell hard onto the back of his neck. The force of it almost threw her beneath him, but she managed to wrap her legs around him in time to keep herself righted. She slowly worked her way down toward his back as the air filled with the deafening roars of an injured dragon, and Ethan began making his descent.
Senora watched in horror as the dragon bucked and twisted, trying to take out Ty. Ty held onto his back, not even a hint of fear on his face. Senora cried out to Ethan to help Ty, but Ethan ignored her and headed for the ground. She held on, closing her eyes against it all, her arms and legs still wrapped tightly around his neck.
Their descent only took a few seconds, and Senora knew the instant they were on the ground. Ethan lowered himself quickly so that Senora was touching the ground, and she rolled off, too weak to do much more than that. Ethan leapt into the air and went back to Ty and Emma, joining the fight that still raged above her.
A man came out of nowhere and raced to her, his face covered with concern.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“You must be one of them,” she said, struggling to stay conscious.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” the man said, ignoring her.
“Why are you in the middle of the forest?”
“I’m looking for a missing park ranger,” the man said. She felt his hands go to her ankle and squeeze hard. “I have to stop the bleeding, then I’ll wrap you up.”
“Are you one of them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said a little too calmly.
“I know,” she said. “I know everything.”
He stopped, looking at her with an expression that was bemused.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said.
He went to work on her ankle, bandaging it up after washing and dressing it with some things out of his backpack. The instant it was wrapped and the blood stopped flowing, Senora felt a little better, and a lot less woozy. She was about to ask him again if he was one of them when she heard two dragons collide in the air above them.
There was another roar and a sound Senora couldn’t quite place. She followed the sound and watched in horror at the tangle of bodies falling toward the ground. The ranger grabbed her, pulling her onto her feet, then into his arms as he ran from the clearing and into the trees just before something hit the ground. The earth beneath them shook, the trees swayed in response, and then, there was silence.
Senora pulled away from the ranger, but he held fast and shook his head.
“He’s not dead.”
“Ethan?”
“That’s not Ethan.”
“Then it’s Kaden. Let me go.”
“You shouldn’t walk on that leg,” the ranger called out, but Senora was already hobbling toward Kaden.
His body seemed to be melting, his human features returning in smooth transitions as the last of his dragon features slipped away for the last time. The pained look on his face said everything Senora needed to know. Kaden was dying, and nothing any of them could do would save him.
She went to his side, sitting down just out of his reach. He looked at her, his eyes sad rather than angry.
“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Why are you trying to hurt your own kind?”
“I have to find Ava. Is she here?”
His voice was weak, and Senora could tell he was struggling.
“There’s no one here by that name,” Ethan said from behind her.
“Ava is here,” Kaden ground out. “They took her, before the change. They were bringing her here.”
Senora’s heart sank.
“Who is Ava?” Ethan asked.
Senora felt Ty’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her back, but she didn’t move. She knew that look, and suddenly, everything made sense.
“Ava is his daughter,” Senora said.
Kaden nodded.
“Who took your daughter?” Ethan asked, his previous anger turning to concern as they gathered around the dying dragon.
The ranger was there too, and Emma stood a short distance away, her wings hanging from her sides.
Senora shook her head. This was all too much, and the ranger didn’t seem to be even slightly shocked by it all. He had to be a shifter, but he still hadn’t said as much.
“They didn’t give their names. They’re not supposed to give their names. They had the right papers, so we assumed that they were the right people. We didn’t know it was the wrong people until the real Guardians showed up to get Ava the next week. By then, it was too late.”
“Why go after dragons?” Ethan asked. “If it wasn’t Guardians, then why not focus your efforts elsewhere? Someone is taking our children. That’s not our fault, right?”
Kaden looked at Ethan and opened his mouth, but only blood bubbled out. He spat and turned his head then tried again, but he began coughing, and Senora was afraid that he would never get the answer out. The ranger, Ty, and Ethan sat around him, intently waiting for his answer. So little was known about the people behind the kidnapping of the dragon changelings that any new information could be the key to unlocking the case. But he was choking now, and Senora knew that it was hopeless. He was dying, and there was nothing they could do.
His eyes closed, and his head drooped to the side, though he was still breathing. Ethan shook him, his face frantic, but it was no use.
“He’s gone,” Ty said.
“He’s not dead, and he knows something,” Ethan said. “What if he knows the one thing that will blow this wide open? We can’t let him take this to his grave. He knows something, and he’s spent his life secretly destroying his own kind for what? There has to be a reason.”
“…the flu,” Kaden croaked out without opening his eyes.
“What?” Senora said, looking down and realizing that at some point, she’d taken his hand in hers and squeezed him reassuringly by instinct as he lay dying.
She squeezed him again, and he squeezed back. He opened his eyes then, holding her gaze and smiling softly at her. He licked his lips and took a deep breath through his nose. She leaned forward and put her ear close to his mouth so that she could hear him better as the rest of the group stood there waiting.
“The password is ‘Lilith’,” he said weakly.
“What about the ones who came to get Ava?” she asked, filing away the password for when they might need it.
He obviously figured that they would encounter something of his with a password, and Lilith was easy enough to remember.
“They flew,” he said, just a little louder this time, but clear as day.
She gasped and sat up, certain of what she’d heard but shocked none the less. He groaned, and his head fell back. Eyes wide open, his head tilted, and the rest of the blood drained from his mouth and splashed loudly on the hard ground.
His hand went limp in hers, and she knew that he was gone. She stared down at him, her emotions raw and so mixed up that she didn’t know how to feel. Here was a man who had spent his life’s work hunting dragons, but in the end, he’d only being trying to find his own daughter. Could she blame him for the things he’d done to accomplish that? Would anyone really blame him?
A look around the circle that surrounded him said what she believed. They all hurt for him and his fight, even though he’d hurt so many in his bid to find his daughter. Maybe they wouldn’t do the same thing, but they could understand his pain and how it drove him to do things he might not normally do.
All eyes were on her as she reached out and gently closed his eyes with her fingertips.
“What did he say?” Ethan pressed, and she realized that no one had heard him except her.
“He said when they left with his child, they flew.”
The others sucked in a quick breath as one, and she knew that they all had the same thought. Whoever had taken Ava was a dragon, which meant that whatever was going on went deep. It still didn’t explain how Emma ended up in the hands of human men working for the Gate Keeper, but Senora knew that each piece of the puzzle would bring them closer to the full picture. For now, she was more confused than ever, but at least Kaden’s part in all this was solved. He was a victim who had let his anger drive him to do horrible things. Senora wouldn’t go so far as to say he was innocent, but she had seen parents do things they would never consider when the life of their child was involved.
Senora stood, then grimaced as her leg twisted beneath her and the pain shot through her body. Before she could sit back down, Ty was at her side, his arm around her to steady her.
“You need to stay off that leg,” Ty said, but Senora shook her head.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” she lied.
“Please,” Ty scoffed. “You looked like you were going to pass out when you put weight on it. How bad is it?”
“She’s not going to need stitches, but you’ll have to keep it bandaged for a while,” the ranger offered.
“We need to leave,” Ty said. “Maybe we can have one of the dragons fly us out after dark.”
“I’ll take you,” Ethan said.
“We can’t leave yet,” Senora said.
“Why not?” Ty asked.
Senora looked at Ethan, trying to avoid looking at Kaden laying there on the ground.
“We can’t go yet because we don’t know where Carla is.”
“Carla is safe,” Ethan said.
“That’s not good enough,” Senora said. “We need to see her and make sure she’s okay. I can’t just take your word for it.”
“What’s going on with Carla isn’t my story to tell,” Ethan insisted, his voice pinched and defensive.
“She was reported missing, and I can’t just walk away without finding out if she’s here of her own volition. I hope you understand that.”
“I hope you understand that as a Guardian, I take secrets to my grave. It’s part of what I do.”
“Ethan, it’s alright,” a voice behind them said.
Senora turned, not sure what she was expecting to see. But there Carla was, standing a few feet away looking healthy and happy.
And very pregnant.