CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Wess
Nightshade Bear Territory
I was almost too slow to save Mori. I was stuck on the walkway up to the house, trying to soothe Baby Andy as he cried big, wet tears because the world had lost its ever-loving mind.
Barry arrived more quickly than I expected, having picked up bits of information over the group link.
He charged past me and into the house. A second later fire shot out the front door.
Not sure what else to do, I froze the blazing flames out of reflex and when it hit the ground it sounded like a bomb going off.
The ground shook and shards flew in every direction.
I hit the ground before it did, covering the baby with my body as he wailed and yelled “Mo! Mo! Mo!” over and over again.
Mori didn’t feel injured over the group link but I wasn’t the best at navigating links yet.
“Wess?!” Barry’s voice reached my ears from the porch. The air was thick with cold fog and icy bits. His plan hit me over the group link. He had intended to chase the fire not only out of the house but into the snow itself using elven magic that didn’t quite make sense to me.
“Fine! We’re fine! He’s just scared!” I said, unwilling to move yet. What if the bag hid another explosion inside of it? What if Sharon was blasting her way through the house as we spoke? My cold magic spread out over my limbs ready for another strike.
“ANDY!??” Preston’s voice broke through the chaos and a second later my mate was rolling me over – shoving me onto my back really – and snatching up his crying baby as if I tried to blow him up.
Baby Andy clung to his carrier, and I breathed in deep breaths as I counted people.
Everyone was there. Colton and Mori stood on the porch not looking any worse for wear even if Mori was a bit wobbly.
“What the fuck happened in there?” Preston demanded, dropping the f-bomb in front of the baby and breaking one of his biggest rules. No one was brave enough to point that breech out to him.
“It blew up,” Mori said, coming down the pathway.
“The bag just had a book in it. I thought Sharon was having one of her oddly sweet moments. So I pulled out the book and when I opened it – it just blew up and—” Mori trembled.
Was he in shock? His life had flashed before his eyes.
Only he wasn’t going to die any time soon.
He’d meet his mate. I knew he would. I felt it in my knowing.
He wasn’t close to it yet but it would happen.
“I kicked the fire outside and your mate froze it. I was going to put it out in the snow but he had his own plans. Then that exploded too. That was the explosion everyone heard. Super cooling dragon fire has that effect and if he would’ve waited two seconds, I would’ve told h---” Barry went on, explaining some elven magic in rapid fire succession but I couldn’t pay attention because Preston was on top of me, still holding onto Baby Andy with one arm.
He buried his face in the crook of my neck, and I held onto them both.
The breeze shifted and the scent of a dragoness came in.
Everyone else moved into action except Mori standing frozen not far from us.
“Annila?” Mori called out and a woman came into view. I couldn’t see her face clearly, but she was tall like most dragonesses I’d got a glimpse of throughout the years.
“I’ve lost her scent, Mori,” the dragoness panted, her hands on her hips, slightly bent over for air. “I tracked her this far but then it’s like she disappeared.”
“I know her! That’s Annila!” Mori shouted as everyone turned on the dragoness. “She’s a friend! She wants to carve out Sharon’s heart!”
“Well, don’t tell the world my business,” she sighed. “I’m just passing through. I gotta try to pick up her scent again. I never imagined she’d leave a bomb! I was almost to the Other World gateway by the time I heard the explosion.”
I left the others to attend to the dragoness who was not a threat and if she was, Barry and the others could fight her.
I managed to get to my feet, taking Preston and the baby with me and led them both inside.
I walked through the slightly scorched living room into the bedroom and tucked them both in.
Only stopping to take off their shoes. It was too cold for them to endure all this nonsense.
I closed the door and checked that the window was locked.
Then I dragged the armchair in front of the door and sat down in it.
“What the hell just happened out there?” Preston asked me.
“I don’t know anything more than I told you. I did freeze the fire, but it was coming straight for us, and I didn’t know what else to do. Do you want to go to the mountain?”
“No!” Preston shook his head. “That crazy woman isn’t going to chase me out of my home! We’re just going to have to be more careful!”
“Preston! This is serious—this is---”
Someone knocked on the door and tried to push it forward before either of us even had a chance to ask who was there.
“Preston,” Barry’s voice came through the door. “Let me in. We need to check every nook and cranny of the house.”
I almost asked him to prove that he was who he said he was but the family link shook with his anger. He was in charge of it but he meant business.
“Give me a minute! There’s a chair in front of the door because of all this bullshit,” I said, standing up and pushing the chair out of the way.
There wasn’t an enemy in the room. My senses told me that much but I’d let Barry do whatever he needed to do to feel better. Besides more eyes made for safer caves.
“Pa!” Baby Andy sniffled on the bed and Barry stopped long enough to smile at him. It was genuine despite the tension pulling his shoulders tight.
“You all can go to the house if you want to,” Barry offered, looking from his son to me. “I have Colton and the others searching the house high and low. Mori’s done bounded off to see that d-a-m-n dead wolf like he knows something the rest of us don’t.’
“He might,” Preston said, reaching out for my hand and pulling me down on the bed with him and out of Barry’s way. “Dern might’ve wanted to warn us but couldn’t because he has an amulet that stops people from summoning him.”
Barry rolled his eyes, but Preston didn’t seem to notice. He patted Baby Andy’s back, trying to keep the little guy calm.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Preston said again. “Not to your house, Dad. Not to your mountain,” he looked at me. “This is my home. I’m done running. If she wants a showdown, she can bring her fluffy psycho a-s-s here.”
It was sort of hot how wound up Preston was but made a mental note to never find myself on the receiving end of his wrath.
“I’m just sorry she’s trying to ruin everyone’s holiday,” Preston frowned.
“She probably thinks that Venal has shacked up with you,” Barry said. “Since he hasn’t come back to her yet it’s probably her best guess.”
“Well, f-u-c-k her with the whole tree,” Preston growled and Baby Andy laughed and growled back before biting his nose and shifting into his little bear cub form.
A few hours later, the house was declared a Sharon-free zone and Venal was carried into a hall closet by Barry and Colton.
I would’ve helped but couldn’t imagine leaving Preston and our baby alone while I was running around like a headless chicken with the others.
Mori still wasn’t back and Preston was starting to worry.
“I don’t know why he thinks the Other World has all the answers!” he grumbled after Baby Andy had fallen asleep.
I had gone into the kitchen and happily found that the leftovers had made their way into the fridge despite all the chaos. I brought back a tray of fudge and a couple cans of soda for us to snack on while the baby got some much-needed rest.
“I don’t know. I don’t really mess with the Other World,” I shrugged. “I don’t know Mori all that well either. I’m sure he has his reasons. Maybe he’s afraid. He did almost get blown up, mate.”
“I’m going to kill her. You know that, right? That I’m going to be the one to rip out her heart and I just might eat it,” he said, picking up a piece of fudge.
“If that dragoness doesn’t beat you to it?” I teased and he shot me a look that said now wasn’t the time for jokes. I almost offered to help him relax but knew better. He wasn’t letting the baby out of his sight any time soon. “Do you want me to see what I can salvage of the tree?”
“They fixed it all back. Somehow that tree survived fire and ice. It’s going to start walking around and singing Yuletide carols if we don’t stop tossing magic at it,” Preston said.
We fell quiet for a long moment, eating the fudge and both thinking about how we might handle the next few weeks.
Preston was right. We couldn’t let her mess up Baby Andy’s first Yuletide.
Sure, he probably wouldn’t remember it, but we would and that was enough for me.
For a moment, I daydreamed about calling out to other snow demons to hunt her down and bring her to me frozen on a bed of snow.
I’d carve out her icy heart and feed it to Preston while…
. I stopped my thoughts before they went too far down the ‘adult’ path.
“Today when everything happened you protected my baby,” Preston said, pulling my attention back to the present.
“Yes,” I nodded. “As best as I could. Running may have been smarter but outrunning ice is hit or miss. If I were on my own, I probably would’ve but the more certain thing was just covering him.”
“I wasn’t insulting how you did it,” Preston flashed me a half-smile. “With all hell breaking loose you still protected him.”