Chapter 28
United Front
Dodger
“Ow! Get off me!”
“Shut up and move.”
Rowan shoves me roughly into the living room, his fingers digging into my arm hard enough to bruise.
I stumble over a tipped armchair, almost faceplanting before regaining my balance.
The place looks like a tornado hit, furniture shoved against walls, a coffee table on its side, and a large clearing in the center of the room where an expensive Persian rug has been rolled back.
“You’re going to open a gateway to the underworld. Right here, right now.”
I laugh, the sound harsh even to my own ears. “No, I’m not.”
His expression darkens. “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that you have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” I say. “And I choose not to help you.” Jonathan died protecting people from Rowan’s schemes. I won’t undo his sacrifice.
“I thought you were smarter than this,” Rowan growls, stepping closer. “If you disobey, your little doggie suffers. Even in her ghost form, there are ways to hurt her.”
My hands clench into fists at my sides. “Screw you.”
The slap comes so fast I don’t see it coming—just feel the explosion of pain across my cheek and taste blood where my teeth cut the inside of my mouth.
“I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” The voice—deep, commanding, and unmistakably Harper’s—he’s here? I whip my head around, hardly daring to believe my ears.
But there he is. Tall, golden-eyed, and furious, with Melody’s translucent form at his side.
He’s holding himself carefully, one arm braced against his injured side and using my guitar as a crutch, but his eyes are burning with such ferocity that I wonder if the chief is starting to regret pissing off an Alpha wolf.
“Touch him again and you’re losing a hand,” Harper warns.
Even injured, the shifter is formidable enough that Rowan clutches his pocket watch protectively and retreats farther back into the apartment.
He recovers his insufferable attitude too quickly for my taste, his mouth curving into an insufferable smirk.
“Detective Harper. You’re looking... unwell. That wound still bothering you?”
Harper ignores him as he reaches me. He’s pale with a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. The magical wound in his side that Rowan gave him is healing too slowly, and he’s in pain, but he’s here anyway.
“You okay?” he asks me quietly.
“Better now,” I admit. “What about you? How did you even—”
“Jonathan appeared to me at the hospital. Said you needed help and that I shouldn’t let you face this alone.” His eyes lock with mine, intense and unwavering. “Hurt or not, I’ll always be there when you need me, Dodger.”
Wow, if the moment were more appropriate, I’d swoon.
Melody nudges against my leg. She’s here to help too.
“I freed Mel and found something that belongs to you.” He hands me the guitar, and I heft it over my shoulder.
Seeing him here, hurt but still standing and absolutely sure there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, my heart feels like it will burst. I love him.
How could I have thought keeping him away was best?
With him next to me, I feel complete. The odds stacked against us don’t matter.
No one will ever be able to tear us apart, especially not a flunkie witch who has to buy all his magical firepower.
“I’m sorry,” I confess. “I’m sorry I left you at the hospital. I thought I needed to handle this alone, but I was wrong. We should have faced him together from the start.”
Harper’s grim expression softens slightly. “Yes, we should have. But we’re together now.”
“How touching,” Rowan interrupts. “This little reunion is heartwarming, truly. But none of you are leaving this apartment.”
The asshole has no appreciation for heartfelt reunions and strikes quickly, pulling a remote control from his pocket and pressing a button.
The effect is immediate—all sound in the room vanishes.
Damn it. Someone really needs to take that toy away from him.
I can see Harper’s lips moving, but it’s like watching television on mute.
Now Melody and me are silenced with our primary powers turned off, and it also prevents me from talking to Harper and getting a plan together.
I don’t know whether it’s the wolf or the detective in him but Harper rolls with what’s happening and starts planning an attack based on our new circumstances without batting an eye.
I’ll have to remember to tell him how attractive that quality is later.
For now, he angles his body enough to hide a few gestures as he holds up three fingers, then one, and outlines a crude but potentially effective plan. Three of us vs. one asshole. He can’t stop us all with his magical watch of cheating.
Harper nods and pushes away from me. I trust Melody to follow our lead and then we charge like some kind of invading army.
If only I could hear Rowan gasp in surprise because I bet that’s the sweetest sound in the world. I think it’s a curse word he’s muttering, and he only has a second to pull out his pocket watch and aim his disorientation ray at Harper, judging him the biggest threat.
Harper doesn’t make it the whole distance as the confusion sets in.
I force myself to keep going forward and then there’s no more time to think.
Melody reaches Rowan first, and my heart clenches painfully as he pulls out the knife he used on Harper, but I was so very wise to befriend a ghost dog, and the blade passes right through her harmlessly as she goes incorporeal.
I throw myself at Rowan and go for his stupid knife, trying to yank it free before he realizes what’s happening.
Melody helps, becoming solid and sinking her teeth in somewhere around Rowan’s right ankle.
The knife comes free as he thrashes and backs up to get away from her teeth with a soundless shout I would have paid money to hear, his face contorted in pain.
It gives me enough time to check on Harper.
He shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear fog from his brain.
I wave my hands and motion frantically at Rowan, pointing at a place on his chest, and even though Harper’s still blinking and off-balance, his instincts carry him through in protective mode.
Guess we don’t need words to communicate verbally at all.
Harper pushes me away and stands in front of his chief.
His fist rears back and he slams it into Rowan’s chest. The amulet under his shirt shatters from the blow, it’s obvious from the shockwave that knocks all of us apart.
Ow. I was so close to falling on the couch cushions but instead I hit the side of the couch and go skidding back across the floor.
“No! Piece of crap. No!”
I’m slowly picking myself up and staggering to my feet as my ears ring. Rowan’s on his knees, holding pieces of the remote in his hands, clumsily trying to force it back together. The shockwave got it.
Harper and Melody advance on Rowan, my two canines working together like a dream team. Rowan barely has enough time to stand and aim his pocket watch at Harper, who leaps out of the way. Melody keeps charging, going solid right as she reaches Rowan and knocking him back down.
Mel growls and Harper joins the fray. Rowan shouts as Harper kicks him and then the pocket watch goes soaring over my head after Harper yanks it free and throws Rowan’s last toy away.
“Get off of me, you stupid mutts!” Rowan yells
“I liked it better when you couldn’t talk,” I tell him as I swing my guitar forward and get ready to play.
I advance on Rowan while Harper and Melody part and let me through.
He’s on the floor, sprawled there with blood streaking his face and his nice clothes torn from claws.
No more tricks up his sleeve. Even now, with his body battered and his schemes unraveling around him, he glares venomously and refuses to yield.
I’d almost respect that, if he hadn’t tried to make me his puppet and ruin my life.
Melody’s with me when I start playing, my song calling out to her and she invites it in, letting me pull her power into me. I need to do this myself.
“You ever wonder what it feels like to have your brain scrambled by that stupid watch of yours?” I ask.
“That’s no concern of mine.” Rowan freezes, eyeing me warily. “Why?”
I let loose as I strum the chords, dissonant and jagged, an angry sound that smacks him between the eyes and delivers karma. The music disorients him and I watch Rowan’s eyes go glassy and unsteady. He tries to move and can’t. Good. That’s what it feels like. Sucks, doesn’t it?
While he’s still reeling, I swing the guitar down and crack him over the head. Rowan collapses onto the floor, knocked out.
Staring down at the unconscious man on the floor, I take a breath and try to let it sink in. It’s over.
We won.
“Are you both okay?” Harper asks from somewhere behind me.
“Fine, what about you?” When I look, he’s limping over toward me.
“I’ll be alright,” he promises.
“Much as I appreciate the moral support, maybe you should have just watched from the sidelines instead of participating.”
Harper’s hands cup my face, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “No way. I’ll always fight for you,” he says simply. “Hurt or not. That’s what mates do.”
The word ‘mates’ sends a shiver through me. It’s still new, this connection between us, but it feels right in a way nothing else in my life ever has.
Harper’s already looking for a phone to call the Concordian authorities so they can take Rowan away and put him with the other bad guys.
Harper and I are free to... I don’t know, live happily ever after or something. I have no idea experience with happy endings but I’m open to figuring it out.