Chapter 9 #2
“We may have a bigger issue than that.” Henry stated, walking into the kitchen fully dressed, “I can’t believe it slipped my fucking mind, but yesterday when we were leaving gym, those two asshole FBI agents showed up to talk to Maya.”
Marco froze as a low sound broke from my throat, “Bradley and Darren?” I had already looked them up after they’d stopped at school looking for her on Wednesday.
“Yep,” Henry nodded. Before Marco could say anything, I was out the door and shifting.
As a shadow dragon, my shift came far easier and more quietly than the others, allowing me to soar through the sky essentially invisible.
I could feel frustration through my bond with Marco but he didn’t issue a command to come back.
Which was a solid fucking idea considering I wasn't sure I would even follow it.
It felt like only minutes of gliding, my dragon was thrilled to be let out especially after having marked our mate last night, but he still had complaints.
Now he wanted her to see him, because for whatever fucking reasons our dragons really thought that was important. Cocky showoff bastards.
I landed silent in a forest outside a quiet highway motel that was about fifteen minutes from Maya’s school, glad that I could shift easily with clothes on.
Of course I knew exactly where the fuck they were staying.
I may not have had a chance to place a tracker on them yet, but as I rounded the motel I found their black SUV and ducked down to place one underneath it.
When I stood, I narrowed my eyes at the third motel door and walked right up to it, knocking because this wasn’t going to require much effort.
I nearly rolled my eyes when I heard the click of a gun safety and the door opened to reveal Bradley.
I reached forward, angled his gun up and crushed it.
Offered him a disinterested look as he paled and stumbled back.
Rookie. Darren on the other hand, who was damn well aware of the supernaturals in the area, sat on the edge of the bed and offered me a smile.
“Pack up your shit now, you're leaving.” I drawled, feeling annoyed I wasn’t back in bed with Maya or at least drinking coffee.
“What the hell?” Bradley muttered, as I shot my hand out, grabbing his shirt, to stop the lanky bean-string of a man from starting something he couldn’t finish. Darren muttered a curse at his partner and stood, crossing his arms.
“You know we can’t do that,” he stated evenly, “we have to look into this. Although after hearing Maya’s story and paired with the lot of you involved, it’s not very hard to figure out what happened.”
I growled and he threw his hands up. “Hey, you know I don’t get involved in that supes political bullshit. My wife is one of you.”
“So then you know you need to leave,” I offered, releasing Bradley. He gasped for breath, falling on the floor.
“We can’t until we have something,” he offered quietly.
I shook my head, inhaling, “You have exactly twelve fucking hours, understand?”
Darren’s jaw clenched as I looked down at Bradley. “You may also want to update him on how things go around here, because if I was anyone else, that gun wouldn’t have been the only thing crushed. Understand?”
Darren nodded as Bradley offered me a searing expression.
I left the motel room and pulled out my phone, seeing that I’d been able to easily connect to their two devices.
Now I would receive any texts or calls going in and out.
My shift back into my dragon was easy and I’d been confused on why he was so eager to get back until the back yard came into sight.
Maya stood on the stone porch in an oversized shirt and sweats, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she looked skyward.
Instead of shifting, I stayed in my dragon form, landing easily as a smile broke out onto her face.
She was instantly running across the yard as if she was approaching a fucking puppy not a god damn dragon.
I huffed at that thought because we really didn’t want her seeing us as cute and cuddly but it was better than her being scared of us.
“Atlas!” She chimed, I bent my head down as she came to stand right in front of my snout, her hand soft and small on my nose. “You are so beautiful.”
I wanted to laugh at that but my dragon produced a low rumble that had her running her hand gently across my scaled face, removing any of the frustration at being called beautiful.
I really didn’t mind, it was all him. After a moment, I managed to convince him to shift back as she made a surprised sound, my form dissolving and reforming into how I looked normally.
Her eyes flashed over me as a small pout formed her lips, I was confused until she said, “Why didn’t you shift back naked?” The laughter burst out of me.
“Sorry, angel.” I barked out a laugh and picked her up, my hands on her ass as she wrapped herself around me like a monkey. “Most dragons have the ability to shift easily with clothes on.”
And some, like Sai, chose not to just to show off to their fucking mate.
“That’s disappointing,” she mumbled, I smiled but groaned at how I started to get hard.
“I’ll make sure to shift without clothes on next time.” I winked as she wiggled against me causing me to let out a low rumble.
“Where did you go?” She asked, tilting her head. “You smell funny.”
I knew she was talking about the FBI agents and it thrilled me that she was becoming more in tune with her magic. “I went to go have a talk with those assholes that bothered you at school.”
“The FBI agents?” She wrinkled her nose as I nodded.
Some men would have probably shied away from telling her that they’d gone to scare them, but I didn’t.
I was totally okay with telling her and I never wanted to bullshit Maya.
Sure, there was a learning curve, but I didn’t think for a minute that she couldn’t handle it.
“Yep,” I confirmed as I set her down in the kitchen. Marco shook his head and pulled a blanket over her shoulders.
“You shouldn’t go outside without a jacket on,” he muttered as she smiled in a teasing way. I think Maya purposefully liked to mess with Marco and he was way too obsessed with her safety to realize she was teasing. I thought it was pretty fucking funny.
A meow had me snapping my head over to where Bella sat in the middle of the kitchen island, looking very alert and attentive.
She was a smart cat and currently very upset that she wasn’t being paid attention to.
Maya waltzed over there and lifted her into her arms, my eyes tracing the outline of her waist and hips in her loose clothing.
I inhaled, convincing myself that now was not a good time to drag her cute ass upstairs.
“The news channels have been talking about her all morning,” Sai noted, looking far more awake than normal, joining me in the family room after a few moments.
“Unsurprising,” I muttered as I turned on the system.
Instantly, I muted it because CNN had a large picture of Maya, clearly from the interview the other day, sitting sweetly on the stairs with a soft smile.
At least they were spinning it in her benefit, I scrolled through every station from Fox to MSNBC and found all the same.
Clearly, the humans could be fucking unified when it came to Maya.
I twisted my lips because with this kind of attention could only come more popularity.
“I need to up security for the event tonight.” I stated in passing, heading back to the kitchen as Sai nodded.
“She’s not going to school today,” Henry stated, “even if she wanted to. Apparently news trucks have been surrounding the damn place all morning.”
“Shit.” I groaned, realizing today was going to be a busy one. “Keep her in the house today, I don’t trust the news channels to not try to get onto our property.”
“I don’t care if they see me.” Maya looked amused as Marco shook his head, sitting at the island, Maya on the counter in front of him. I nearly laughed at how the bastard was practically purring with her hands running through his hair. I couldn’t even fucking blame him either.
“I care,” I mumbled under my breath. I did. There were a lot of creeps.
After a quick kiss to her forehead I made my way upstairs. I was on the phone in minutes.
“Yeah, Charles,” I yawned, “morning to you as well.
I need about seven teams in the area for a bit, if we need to bring more temporaries on for the other jobs that's fine but I need them here in order to vet any venue material coming through onto the property for tonight. The jet…” I looked down at my watch, “can be there in an hour.”
He answered and I hung up, calling one of our on call pilots and arranged for what needed to be done. I just needed to get through this shit today because as of late tonight, we wouldn’t even be in this damn country.
I smiled at that. Maya was going to love our surprise.