7. Jalen
JALEN
Malachi drives with the radio off and both hands on the wheel, checking his mirrors more than the empty road calls for.
I ride in the back of his SUV with Zuri asleep across my lap and her tote on the seat beside us.
We cross into Shadow Wolf Creek territory at the old wooden sign, and my shoulders finally come down.
This is treaty land. On this side of the line, anyone who wants her has to come through every pack and clan in the valley first.
I’ve spent the whole drive on her face. Her bun lost the fight somewhere back in that alley, and her curls have come loose all around her face.
There’s dried blood at the corner of her mouth.
The bruise on her cheek has gone dark at its center, and my fire climbs every time I cross it, so I try not to cross it. I keep failing.
She is so damn beautiful. I clocked it in that lobby with a whole investigation on my mind. Asleep on my lap, she has my full attention.
My nose has been quiet since I picked her up. I file that with everything else I can’t explain.
I can’t help myself. I ease a loose curl back from her face with one finger and stare at her while the town slides past the windows.
We pass the shopping center, and the road bends up the mountain. The closer we get to the Caves, the quieter my dragon sits. I can’t remember him ever sitting this calm.
“You’ll have to put her in the guest room,” Malachi says from the front. “No way is she staying in that trashy room of yours.”
I scowl at the back of his head. He smirks at me in the rearview mirror.
A phone starts ringing inside her tote.
Zuri stirs against me. Malachi turns off the road onto the Caves’ drive, and the phone quits, then starts again, buzzing this time.
She moans low and brings her hand up to her bruised cheek. Her eyes open a little at a time.
She registers me. Then she registers whose lap she’s in. She snaps upright too fast, and she winces and sways where she sits.
I put both hands up between us. “Whoa, whoa. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
She lunges across me for the door handle while the SUV is still rolling.
“Shit—“ I get an arm around her waist and my hand flat on the door, and I haul it shut just as it swings open. The door thuds back into its frame under my hand.
“What the hell is going on?” She twists against my arm to face me. “What are you doing with me?”
“Calm down, sister,” Malachi says, easing the SUV to a stop.
She is furious in my arms, and I’m fighting the stupidest smile of my life. It’s the wrong moment for it, and my body doesn’t care. My mate is awake and yelling at me from a foot away, and the heat in my chest takes it as good news.
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” She shoves at my arm. “Why am I not at a police station? Or a hospital?”
“Because it’s not safe.” I ease my arm off her waist. “You’re in a lot of danger, Zuri, and I don’t know why yet.”
She turns to the window as Malachi noses the SUV into the mountain itself. A carved tunnel takes us down, smooth walls, warm lights coming on ahead of us.
“Why are we going into a cave?” she asks.
“You know the stigma that dragons dwell in caves?” I flash her a grin. “Well, we do.”
She frowns at me.
“It gets better once you see your new home,” I say.
“New home?” She pulls all the way back to stare at me. “I’m not staying here.”
Malachi snorts from the front seat.
She’s not leaving. Both dragons in this car know it, and neither of us is fool enough to say it to her face yet.
The tunnel opens into the garage.
Malachi parks the SUV and cuts the engine, and he’s out of his door while the echo still runs the walls. Zuri pops her own door and jumps down. She takes in the garage corner to corner, counting the doors.
I grab her tote off the seat and follow her out.
“Take me back to Millbrook,” she says, backing a step toward the tunnel.
“I can’t do that.” I keep her tote against my side.
“You can’t keep me here.” She puts the SUV between us.
“Do you know why those men were chasing you?” Malachi asks over the hood.
She snaps her mouth shut.
I can’t help smiling. My mate has a secret. Malachi eyes me over the hood, and I look right back.
Then he stuffs his hands in his pockets and frowns at her. My brother doesn’t take being told no well. As far as he’s concerned, she came home with us as clan, and that means his word covers her now.
He comes around the hood toward her. The air near him has gone warm.
Everything in me sits up. If he makes my mate cry in this garage, there’s no version of me that handles it well.
I step between them before he clears the bumper.
“Hey, hey.” I plant myself in front of her. “Mal. Breakfast first. Interrogations after.” I glance back at her over my shoulder. “You hungry? Dorian cooks.”
“Who’s Dorian?” she asks.
“Our brother,” Malachi says.
His hands come out of his pockets. Then he gentles his whole bearing and gives her a different face than the one he brought around the hood. “This morning went wrong in every direction, and I’m sorry for our part in it. But you’re part of this family now.”
“Huh?” She looks between the two of us. “What?”
“You’re fated to Jalen.” Malachi nods at me. “His dragon caught your scent.”
She locks eyes with me. She gives me nothing friendly. Her scent stays warm through it, though, no sour anywhere in it, and I’ll take what I can get.
“That company you work for,” Malachi goes on. “Stillwater. It appears to be running shady business at Shadow Wolf Creek’s expense. And apparently they’re targeting you, for whatever reason.”
His phone chimes. He pulls it out and reads the screen. When he looks back up at her, his scent picks up a note I know well: recognition. Of what, I can’t tell. I stay planted where I am, between my mate and everything else.
He slides the phone back into his pocket. “Whether you like it or not, you’re part of this family. You’ll stay here until we figure out what’s going on and how to keep you safe.”
She crosses her arms. “So I’m your prisoner.”
Malachi rolls his eyes. “If that’s how you want to put it.”
She winces and presses two fingers to her bruised cheek, and my fire climbs all over again.
“Get her settled and fed,” he tells me. “Then come find me in my office.” He crosses the garage and takes the wide steps into the Caves, leaving me alone with her.
“Please,” I say. “Let me take care of you.”
She stares at me for a long stretch. Then her shoulders slump.
Her phone starts buzzing again inside the tote. I unzip it, pull the phone out, and hand it across to her, and I make sure she sees me not checking the screen first.
She takes it. Then she powers it down and hands it back to me.
“It’s just my friend Renee,” she says. “She’s probably worried about me.”
“You don’t want to answer her?” I ask.
“I don’t know what to tell her yet.” She wraps her arms around herself. “I’m trapped in a massive cave with a dragon shifter clan, and one of them believes I’m his fated mate.”
“You are my mate.” I hold her gaze. “My dragon knows.”
Then I sneeze, and smoke rolls out of my nose and both ears. I shake it off, and when I lift my head, whatever is on my face gets a smile out of her. It’s small and gone fast. I start planning how to make my body do that again.
“Apologies.” I press the back of my wrist to my nose. “I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Shifters catch colds?” she asks.
“Rarely.” What this actually is, I don’t know, and today is not the day to chase it.
I cross to the far side of the garage and open the door that leads into the house, and I hold it for her.
“Follow me,” I say. “Let me show you inside. I promise it’s not the cave you’re picturing.”
She follows me with her arms still wrapped around herself.
Welcome home, Zuri.