11. Bonnie
BONNIE
W e walked down to the docks together. Our footsteps on the wooden planks gave us away before we were halfway there. The three figures near the truck turned at the sound.
Lawson saw me first. His face went white. He was holding a marine radio against his chest, halfway between one of the boats and the truck bed, and froze mid-step.
Cade straightened from where he’d been sorting equipment in the truck bed. His pale eyes flicked from me to Gray and back, and that lazy, bored expression he always wore tightened into something harder.
Darren didn’t move. He stood to the side with his arms crossed, and when he saw us, his mouth curved into that same cold smile I’d seen outside the Grill.
“Bonnie.” He said my name like we were running into each other at the grocery store. “Little late for a walk, isn’t it?”
“Lawson, put that down and come here,” I said, ignoring him entirely.
Lawson didn’t move. His eyes darted between Darren and me, and I could see him trying to decide whose side he was on.
“Deal with your sister, Lawson,” Cade said, not even looking at me. “Get her out of here.”
“Lawson.” I took another step forward. “Put it down. We’re leaving.”
“He’s not going anywhere.” Darren uncrossed his arms and slid his hands into his jacket pockets. The casual gesture somehow made him look more dangerous, not less. “Lawson’s here because he wants to be. Right, kid?”
Lawson swallowed. He looked at Darren, then me, and then at the ground.
“He’s fourteen,” I said. “And you’ve got him out here at two in the morning stealing from boats.”
“He’s helping us move some things. That’s all. Friends help each other.” Darren tilted his head and studied me with those pale, cold eyes. “You should’ve stayed away at college, Bonnie. Minded your own business. Life was simpler for everyone when you weren’t here trying to play mommy.”
The words landed exactly where he intended them to.
Straight to the gut.
“She’s not playing anything,” Gray said before I could respond.
Until that moment, he’d been the way he was at the library—present but in the background, taking everything in. When he spoke up, though, his voice dropped into a tone I’d never heard from him before. It was low and rough. There was nothing calm about it.
He sounded barely human.
Darren’s attention shifted to Gray, and for the first time, his expression changed. The smugness he wore flickered, and something passed behind his eyes—recognition, or maybe calculation.
“The librarian.” Darren snorted. “This is who you’re running to now? A guy who shelves books for a living?”
“Lawson,” Gray said, not looking at Darren. His eyes were fixed on my brother. “Put down the radio and step away from the truck. Come over here.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Lawson said, but his voice shook.
Cade stepped forward and put a hand on Lawson’s shoulder. “That’s right, don’t tell him what to do.”
“Get your hand off him,” I demanded.
Cade’s lip curled, but he didn’t remove his hand from Lawson’s shoulder.
Gray stepped forward, and something in the air changed. One second it was normal, the next the hair on my arms was standing up and my skin was prickling like a storm was rolling in.
“Get away from the boy,” Gray seethed.
Darren’s eyes narrowed. Then he laughed—short, ugly, and humorless.
“You want to do this?” he said. “Fine.”
What happened next didn’t make sense.
Darren’s body jerked. His neck arched at an angle that should have snapped it.
Bones cracked, and his skin rippled like something was trying to get out from underneath.
Feathers erupted from his arms—dark and greasy—spreading across his body as his whole frame contorted.
His face stretched, his nose and mouth fusing into something hooked and sharp.
A beak. His arms became wings that spread wide and blotted out the dock lights for a moment.
A massive vulture stood where Darren had been an instant later.
I stumbled backward, a scream caught in my throat.
Cade shifted next into another vulture. His was smaller and leaner, but just as wrong.
Lawson dropped the radio. It hit the dock with a crack, and he scrambled backward, tripping over a coil of copper wire and landing hard. His eyes were wide, and his face was drained of all color.
He hadn’t known.
Whatever he’d been doing for them, however deep he was in it—he hadn’t known what they were.
Gray took another step forward instead of retreating back.
I reached out for him, but before I could grab hold of his arm, the air charged again.
His shift happened so fast I almost missed it.
One moment he was standing in front of me—tall, lean, and human.
The next, his body was changing, morphing.
His clothes were falling away, and his form reshaped into something else.
Feathers appeared, but they weren’t the greasy, dark feathers of the vultures.
They were pale and golden across the back, fading to white on the chest. A heart-shaped face took form, ghostly white and striking, framed by soft feathers that made the dark eyes at its center look bottomless.
An owl.
Gray was a massive owl.
He placed himself between the vultures and me without hesitation.
Darren’s vulture let out a harsh, rattling cry and launched itself at him.
Gray met him in the air. The collision was brutal—wings beating, talons slashing, and multiple shrieks filling the night.
They hit the dock together and rolled across the planks.
Gray’s owl got on top, his talons pinning the vulture’s wings.
Cade’s vulture dove from above, talons extended, aiming for Gray’s back.
I didn’t think. My body moved before my brain caught up.
There was a boat oar propped against one of the dock posts.
I grabbed it with both hands and swung it like a baseball bat.
It connected with Cade’s vulture mid-dive with a crack that vibrated up my arms. The bird hit the dock hard, rolling sideways while releasing a screech that split the air.
He didn’t get back up.
Instead, he lay on the planks, his chest heaving.
I stood there gripping the oar, staring at him. My arms shook, and my heart thundered in my ears.
Sounds of a struggle had my attention finally shifting away from Cade’s vulture.
Gray’s owl was still fighting to keep Darren’s vulture pinned.
He was trying to get up, his wings beating against the dock, but Gray’s owl wouldn’t let him.
His talons squeezed tighter, and I heard what I swore were bones cracking under the pressure. Only then did Gray’s owl let go.
The whole thing was over in minutes, but it felt like hours.
The air charged again, and Gray’s feathers receded. His body grew, becoming human again. He stood on the dock, breathing hard, and completely naked.
“Give me a second,” he said. He walked up the dock toward the road, and when he came back a minute later, he was in jeans and a t-shirt.
He must have had some spare clothes in his truck.
His amber eyes locked on Darren, who was shifting back as well.
It was a slower, uglier process than his had been, though.
“Stay away from my mate,” Gray said, once Darren was fully human again. “And stay away from Lawson.”
Mate .
The word hit me right in the chest, and a warm sensation spread through me. I didn’t know what it meant, but the way he said it—with such fierce, absolute certainty—made something inside me soften.
There was power in that word.
I could feel it.
Darren staggered to his feet, clutching his side. Cade had shifted back too, and there was a huge lump on his forehead. He placed a hand over it while he unsteadily walked to his brother’s side.
Darren’s pale eyes skimmed over me and then shifted to Gray.
“Everyone pairing up with their damn mate is comical at this point,” he said, shaking his head. “Every time I turn around.”
He jerked his head at Cade, and they climbed into the truck. Neither of them looked back.
When the taillights disappeared, the only sounds left were the water lapping against the boats and my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
My gaze fell to the stolen equipment Lawson had dropped. There were a few sections of copper wire, some tools, and another electronic something or other off to the side. The rest of it was in the back of that truck they’d just taken off in.
Wait.
Lawson!
I spotted him still on the ground where he’d fallen, his back against a dock post. His eyes were huge and his face was the color of ash.
“Lawson,” I said, my voice shaking.
He looked at me. Then at Gray, who stood a few feet away in jeans and a t-shirt. Then back at me.
“What,” Lawson whispered. “The. Actual. Fuck.”
I didn’t have an answer.
I crossed the dock to my brother, and when I reached out to pull him up, he didn’t jerk away like I expected. Instead, he hugged me like he used to when he was small and the world felt too big. I wrapped my arms around him and held on right back.
Over his shoulder, I met Gray’s eyes.
Whatever had just happened—whatever he was, whatever that word mate meant to him—he’d put himself between us and danger without thinking twice.
I wasn’t afraid of him.
Not even a little.