“I asked him to come get me,” Carla said softly.
They sat on a large, flat boulder in the shade away from the clearing, watching the men silently working to bury Kaden beneath a large shade tree.
“Why not quit your job first or find some other way for people not to notice your absence? Running like that created so much drama that could have been avoided.” Senora stopped, taking a deep breath and trying to rein herself in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so short. It’s not your fault that other people were worried about you, and you didn’t ask to be searched for. I just get so frustrated when resources are wasted on people that don’t want to be found. I know that’s still not your fault, and I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Carla said, her voice so sweet and gentle that Senora felt instantly soothed. “I was going to leave a note and quit when the other worker came in the morning. We had it all planned, and we were going to wait until the other employee showed up at eleven, sleep a little, then leave at one or so. But the other employee never showed up, and then Kaden showed up, looking for Ethan. When I wouldn’t give him the information, he tried to enchant me, but it didn’t work.”
“Enchant you?”
Carla smile.
“Dragons have a few talents, and enchantment is one of them. It’s almost like hypnotizing, but it’s a little different. It works on most humans, but it doesn’t work on other dragons.”
“Are you human?”
“I am.”
“Then why didn’t it work on you?”
Carla chuckled softly.
“Because I am carrying Ethan’s child, and a dragon cannot enchant someone who is carrying a dragon’s child. It’s to protect the baby.”
“It seems like everything dragons do is to protect the next generation,” Senora mused.
“That’s all shifters. They’re dwindling, and more and more of them are hiding who they are from the world. They’re safer if no one believes in them.”
Senora shook her head and chuckled.
“I was safer when I didn’t believe in them. So you’re staying here with Ethan?”
“I am.”
“I thought Guardians weren’t supposed to raise their own?”
“They’re not, but the kidnappings have made that a thing of the past. Ethan won’t let this baby or Emma out of his sight again. He told me that you were the one that found Emma and that you were the best. That’s why we kept flying the last night, even though it was daylight. He didn’t want you to catch up with him before he was ready. He only wanted to protect me and Emma.”
“How did he know it was me?”
“You’d be surprised at how fast information travels through the shifter grapevine. Your name is on a lot of lips. You have quite a reputation.”
“All good, I hope,” Senora said.
“A lot of people are hoping that you’ll be the one to figure out what’s going on with all the missing shifters.”
“The dragon changelings?”
“Them and the rest. It isn’t just dragons going missing, you know. It’s other shifters, hybrids, sentinels and-”
“What is a sentinel?”
“It depends on the shifter, but basically, it’s a group of humans that lived and fought side by side with shifters in the past and their descendants. I’m a sentinel, and as a descendant of a long line of dragon riders, Ethan said he was drawn to me the instant that he saw me. It was almost as if I enchanted him.”
Carla smiled at the memory.
“How many missing are there?”
“A lot. Dozens just in the past few years.” She leaned over and reached into her pocket, surprisingly limber despite her growing belly. “I have a list for you.”
Senora took the list she held out, but she was focused on Carla.
“Why didn’t they tell us you were pregnant?”
“The owners of the hotel?” she scoffed. “I’m surprised that they knew my name. They’re okay people, but they aren’t the most observant. The employee that no-showed is lucky that they didn’t come looking for her instead. The whole thing was such a mess, but I really didn’t think that the owners would send someone looking for me. Like I said, people go missing from the hotel all the time, and no one does anything. Not that they need to, but this is the first time that they’ve filed a report.”
“I would imagine that they were reporting the damage, and one of the officers asked to speak with the employee who was in the hotel when it happened.”
“I guess you’re right. I didn’t see anything. As soon as Kaden walked away from the glass window we use for night check-in, I ran up to Ethan’s room to tell him. We heard the truck engine revving the instant before it crashed, and Ethan was already dragging me out the window and tossing me onto his back. It all happened so fast. The whole thing was crazy.”
Senora nodded.
“I guess that makes sense. If nothing else, I got to see Emma, and it’s nice to know that she’s happy, safe and healthy. I rarely get updates on the cases that end well, so that was worth it.”
“And you got to spend time with Ty,” Carla offered.
Senora rolled her eyes.
“Ty is something else. I’m not sure what, but don’t think that it’s all sunshine and flowers with him. He drives me batty.”
“At least he’s easy on the eyes.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Senora laughed. “Do you need this back?” she asked, then pocketed the list when Carla shook her head “no.”
“You aren’t going to look at it now?”
“Not now. Right now, I’m going to help my friends bury someone who lost a child, then I’m going to head back to the hotel and rest for a few hours. I learned early on that you can’t spend every waking minute doing the job. I have to work one case at a time, no matter how hard it is not to run after every case that pops up in the meantime.”
“That’s understandable. I’m sure it’s hard to avoid the temptation though.”
“It is, but I can’t help everyone at once, so I have to help them one at a time. I struggle with it, but it’s the best way to do my job.”
“I don’t know how you do this job at all. I can’t imagine the heartache and the times that things didn’t go well. I know that the cases don’t all turn out like Emma’s.”
Senora’s heart sank at the thought of all the cases that hadn’t ended happily, and the weight of all the cases that hadn’t had an ending at all.
“I’m sorry,” Carla said. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Senora said, shaking her head. “There’s just so much sadness and so few happy endings. It takes its toll on you after a while.”
“But you’re doing good work, and the world needs you. We need you.”
“I don’t know why. When you have people like Ty and so many others that just exist alongside humans without a word, I don’t know why one human woman makes a difference. How could I make a difference?”
“I don’t know, but I know that you do.”
“I wish I could see it that way. People seem to have high expectations for me, and I don’t even understand this world that they live in. I don’t know how my ignorance adds anything to the table.”
“It does, trust me.”
Senora let out a soft sigh.
“So now what?” Senora asked. “Are you going to stay here or do you have to move the nest?”
“We won’t move.”
“But Kaden found the place.”
“That’s not an issue anymore. And even if he told others and they could find it, this place is so much easier to protect than anywhere else. We’ll stay here, and the rangers will continue to protect us and make sure that people don’t stumble upon this place by accident. You came in on foot; you know how hard it is to get here.”
“It was nearly impossible, and without Ty, there’s no way I would have come this way.”
“Exactly. We’re safer here than anywhere else.”
“And what about the dragon that helped kidnap Kaden’s daughter?”
Carla was silent for a moment, then shrugged, but her expression was anything but dismissive.
“There’s nothing we can do about that right now. We don’t even know when Kaden’s daughter went missing or how old she was and is now. Kaden has been hunting dragons for years, so I’m sure that his daughter was one of the first. Maybe the dragon didn’t know. Or maybe they were forced. Whatever happened, the changelings that are being taken now are not being taken by dragons as far as we know. No one has seen them fly away.”
“But how many parents watch?”
“I don’t think any of them do. There’s so much secrecy surrounding the process that many parents don’t even know what the people who show up to pick up the children look like. They pass a paper through the open door, and the parents send their child out.”
“I don’t think I could do that.”
“The alternative is having their child start changing at the worst possible moment and exposing the entire species. Which is worse? And if this is the way that it happened when you were a child, and when your parents were children, it would be so commonplace for you. I think that from the outside looking in, it seems barbaric. But this has worked for generations, and it’s what people are used to.”
“Except, it’s not working now.”
“I know. And Ethan and I have been trying to find a different way to do it so we can bring the change to the council and make it harder to kidnap our children. But with all the safety nets that are already in place, you would think it would already be impossible.”
“Unless there was a dragon or more that were helping kidnap their own kind,” Senora said, cringing at the horrible implications.
“There is that issue, too. Which is why we haven’t suggested a change yet. There’s really nothing we can do to protect our children until we know who is taking them and why.”
“You could stop gathering them up, and let their parents keep them home until they complete the change.”
Carla was already shaking her head.
“So many states have rules about school and delinquency; there’s no way to do that without drawing attention. We’ve been going over all these options, and bringing them to the nests is still the best way. Most of the children make it to the nests safe and sound.”
“But when your child is the one that didn’t, what happens to most of the children doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Exactly.”
“Hopefully, you and Ethan can figure out what to do.”
“We were hoping you could help?”
Senora shook her head.
“I have a job that I’m committed to. If I knew how to prevent kidnappings one hundred percent, I would do that instead. But I don’t. I just know how to find them. You guys need to focus on keeping your kids safe, and I’ll focus on finding them.”
“But if you have your own cases, how will you work in ours?”
“I’ll just have to work on it when I’m not working a case. As many cases as there are, I only receive a handful each month. I spend most of my time working cold cases or cataloging the evidence from them and updating the system. That way, if something pops up in another case with another agent or even local police that are using the sharing software, it will flag my cold case, and I’ll be notified. I have a lot of time where I can choose what cases I work on. I don’t think it will be hard to get permission to work these cases. It’s not much, but it’s what I can do for now. I’m not sure how to bring these to the lead agent without letting the shifter secret get out.”
“No, it’s good enough. It’s more help than we’ve been getting. No one has been looking for our kids except us, and we need all the help we can get.”
Senora shifted her weight and cringed when the bandage pulled on her wound.
“I hope that heals quickly. I didn’t want to look at it, but I did, and it’s pretty bad.”
“The salve the ranger put on it will help.”
“That’s good to know.”
Senora looked up and caught Ty’s eye across the field as he turned away from the grave that was now finished and smiled reassuringly at her.
“The rocks they laid on it will keep the scavengers away. Eventually, the grass will grow and overtake the rocks, and it will be like he was never there.”
“I wish he would have told someone about Ava.”
“Who would he tell? If he had come to your office and told you a dragon flew off with his child, would you have believed him, Senora?”
“No. I would have committed him. Or charged him with her murder.”
“And then he wouldn’t be around to help her. He did the right thing.”
“What about the person who put the bounty on Ethan’s head? What is going to happen with that?”
“It was dead or alive,” Carla began, lowering her voice when Ethan started walking their way. “I took a picture of him on the ground before he lost his shape. They have no way of knowing who the dragon was.”
“So you’re going to collect the money, and that picture will be enough to take the pressure off Ethan?”
“It will.”
“I never would have thought to do that.”
Carla shrugged.
“We have to take care of our people, and if we don’t collect the money, it will look suspicious. I just wish we could get into Kaden’s computer and see who was on the hit list before another bounty hunter comes after us in his place.”
“I can help with that,” Senora said. “I have his password.”
“Really? How?”
“He gave it to me right before he died. I’m hoping that he has any leads that he followed regarding Ava’s disappearance, but I would be willing to bet that you can also access any files that are sent to him. And it might make it easier to collect the money. Who knows? He might even have an account you can pull from to help.”
“I wouldn’t feel right doing that. That’s Ava’s money.”
“I agree, and I’m glad you feel that way.”
“We might never find her, but I hope that no one gives up. Her father gave his life looking for her. The least we can do is carry on his search.”
“How is your leg?” Ty called out from a few feet away, signaling the end of their conversation unless they wanted to include him.
Senora didn’t think that Carla was ready to trust anyone else right now.
“It hurts. A lot.” She lowered her voice so that the others couldn’t hear her across the clearing. “I’m not going to turn into a dragon, am I?”
Ty threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing off the peaks and dancing along the valley. It took him a few moments to collect himself, but when he looked back at her, his eyes were still dancing, and she could tell he was trying not to laugh again.
“The only way for that to happen is to get bitten, and even then, it’s not that simple. You have to be dying before you’re bitten. There’s more to it than that, but just suffice it to say that unless you’re dying and someone bites you, you’re still going to be human. And if the bite doesn’t take or you’re not on the brink in the instant that you’re bitten, you will still die a human. It’s a delicate process that rarely works and is only tried in desperate situations.”
“It doesn’t sound very delicate. Not to change the subject, but we need to leave. I have to check in with J, and there’s all our stuff we left at the hotel to deal with.”
“Ethan is going to take us to the car.”
“I’m not riding a dragon.”
Ty laughed.
“I promise it will be better than last time.”
“Last time, I was hanging by my leg and got my head slapped against a stone wall. The bar is set pretty low, but I still don’t want to ride a dragon out of here.”
“It will take ten or fifteen minutes by dragon. You can’t walk out of here, and if you ride me, it’s going to take a few hours. As much as I enjoy it when you ride me, the best option is for us to let Ethan take us.”
Senora felt her skin burn as she blushed, but she refused to respond to his innuendo. She knew what he was talking about, and she had made her feelings clear. As long as they were working together, they weren’t going to be sleeping together. Period.
“Fine,” Senora muttered. “But once we get a look in Kaden’s truck and figure out what to do with it, I want to go back to the hotel and sleep. Alone.”
“Best two out of three?” Ty joked.
“Don’t push your luck. I’ve been hung upside down, beaten, bruised and nearly caught on fire. My patience is wearing thin.”
“So don’t poke the bear?” Ty laughed.
“I wouldn’t advise it. I’m still armed, you know.”
Ty was laughing when he scooped her up and began carrying her to the meadow in the pink light of the setting sun. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his chest, but the pain of her leg and the grave a few yards away kept her from enjoying the moment. Technically, today had gone well enough, and they had done what they had to in order to protect Carla and Ethan from Kaden and the people that hired him. But it hadn’t ended well, and although Senora knew that talking to Kaden hadn’t once been an option, she wished she’d been able to get through to him before he’d tried to kill her and Ethan. It hadn’t worked out that way, and no one was to blame. In the end, they’d managed to find and save the people who they were meant to save, and that meant today was a win. Somehow, that didn’t make Senora feel any better about Kaden and all he’d endured.
And this definitely didn’t feel like winning.