Chapter 14
Liz
The truck’s interior felt too small as we pulled away from my dead car. Lucan’s hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white under the glow of the dashboard lights. The silence magnified every bump in the road, every subtle shift of his body.
I stared out the windshield. “So, the truth. What was that sound you made?”
“A warning.” There was no trace of defensiveness or deception in his voice.
“A human warning?”
“No.”
I turned to face him, studying his profile. His jaw was set, and his eyes were fixed on the road. He looked completely calm, as if he hadn’t claimed to be something other than human.
“Your eyes,” I continued, my voice quieter. “I saw them in the mirror. They weren’t right.”
“They weren’t. At least, not to you.”
I waited for him to elaborate. To tell me it was a trick of the light or an optical illusion. Something I could hold onto and believe. He didn’t, and the silence stretched between us.
My pulse hammered as I pressed my palms against my thighs, frustration building. “Are you seriously going to make me drag every word out of you?”
He shrugged. “No, but I’m not sure what you want me to tell you that won’t freak you out.”
My skin prickled with unease. “What are you?”
Lucan’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. He took a breath, seeming to weigh his words. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and matter of fact.
“I’m a dragon shifter.”
I stared at him, waiting for the laugh that would tell me this was some joke I wasn’t getting. His expression never changed.
“A dragon.” My voice came out flat. “Like... wings and scales and breathing fire.”
“Yes.”
A sharp laugh burst free. “That’s your explanation? That you’re a mythological creature?”
“It rarely makes sense when it contradicts everything you’ve been taught to believe.”
I shook my head, anger flaring. “This is ridiculous. Do you honestly expect me to believe this? Dragons don’t exist.”
“And yet here I am.”
His certainty sent a chill down my spine. He wasn’t joking. He believed what he was saying, which meant either he was completely delusional or I was sitting in a truck with something I couldn’t understand.
“Prove it.” The challenge escaped before I could stop it.
“No.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not going to shift in front of you when you’re already overwhelmed. You’re processing a lot right now. Pushing you further would be cruel.”
“That’s convenient.”
“You saw my eyes change. You heard me make a sound no human could make.”
“There are rational explanations for both of those things.”
“Such as?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. My mind went absolutely blank.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean dragons are real.”
He glanced at me briefly before returning his attention to the road. “I’m not going to lie to you anymore, even if the truth is difficult. When you saw me in the woods, I had just shifted.”
That made more sense than I could process. Maybe he was right that my brain might not be able to handle seeing him shift into a dragon right then and there.
The truck’s headlights swept across the wooden sign marking Wings End’s entrance. Lucan turned onto the gravel road, the tires crunching beneath us. My trailer came into view moments later, a small island of normalcy in an evening that had gone completely sideways.
He pulled up beside the trailer and shifted into park. The engine idled quietly between us.
“Tomorrow, you’ll show me. First thing.” I reached for the door handle, my mind still spinning.
“We’ll need to go somewhere secluded. I can have Reese and Kade join us so you’re more comfortable.” He touched my forearm tentatively, and I felt the heat of his hand through my sweater.
I paused and looked down at his hand. There was a battle going on inside me; my brain wanted to run, but something in my chest told me to stay.
My throat worked hard to swallow the lump that had formed there. “Thank you.”
Although I was currently pissed at Reese for sending Lucan to pick me up, having two other people there would ease my anxiety about this whole thing. Lucan thinking about that made me soften toward him slightly—and I mean very slightly.
I wouldn’t let myself consider that they were all part of an organized serial killer group who lured victims to the middle of nowhere under the guise of seeing a real-life dragon.
“Will eight work? Or is that too early?”
It’s not like I was going to be able to sleep anyway. “That will work.”
It took everything in me to push the door open and climb out of the truck.
The morning light crept through the blinds and roused me from sleep. I blinked at the ceiling, disoriented by the realization that I had actually slept. Not just slept, but deeply, my body finally giving in to exhaustion after the chaos of the previous night.
My dreams had been strange. I remembered heat beneath me, scales that gleamed deep purple, and the impossible thrill of soaring through the sky on the back of a dragon. The details evaporated the moment I opened my eyes.
I lay there for a moment, cataloging my thoughts. Fifty percent of me insisted Lucan had manufactured the entire dragon story to explain away whatever he really was. A con artist, a liar, someone playing an elaborate game with unclear stakes.
The other fifty percent remembered the sound he had made, the way his eyes had flashed in the mirror, and the calm dominance he had projected while facing down a mother bear.
What did he want? He’d left me thoughtful gifts, tried to give me twenty thousand dollars for a knife that was his, and showed up at Split Pine but never approached me.
A man who wanted something usually pushed. He hadn’t.
After getting dressed, I was debating whether I needed coffee when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Reese, her hand raised to knock again.
“Good morning. Sorry, I’m a little early.” She held up a six-pack of Diet Pepsi. “I brought a peace offering.”
I stepped aside to let her in, but I didn’t soften. “You could have sent anyone. Anyone at all.”
She set the bottles on the counter. “I know. And I’m sorry. When you called, the guys were at our place, and Lucan was out the door before any of us could stop him.”
“He just happened to be at your place at eleven at night?”
“They were discussing patrols. The guys are together a lot too since they’re a quad.” Reese’s shoulders dropped. “I should have warned you. That was poor judgment on my part.”
A quad? They did not look like brothers in the slightest.
I crossed my arms, holding onto my anger because it was easier than unpacking the complicated knot of emotions underneath. “Are you in on it? The whole dragon story? Are you a dragon shifter too?”
I watched her face carefully, searching for any hint of the tells people give when they’re constructing a lie. Not that I was good at it, but maybe because I’d never paid enough attention.
Reese laughed. “No. Definitely not. I’m one hundred percent human.” I waited for her to explain what that meant for the others, but she glanced over her shoulder at the door. “We should go. We can talk on the way.”
I grabbed my sweater and purse and followed Reese to her truck parked by the office. “Where are we headed exactly?”
“Into the mountains, a little ways from Wings End.” Reese opened the driver’s door and climbed in, waiting for me before continuing. “The guys have multiple spots where they shift.”
I froze at the casualness in her voice, fumbling with the seatbelt latch. “How many are there? Dragons?” I couldn’t believe I was actually entertaining the idea that this might be reality.
Or had my car stalling actually been a crash, and now I was in a coma?
“Four. At least here in this area. They are territorial.” Reese started the engine, giving me a sympathetic look. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
I clicked my seatbelt into place, my brain struggling to catch up. We headed toward the back section of the property I’d never explored since it was marked as private.
We drove past Kade’s house and what must have been one of the other guys’ cabins. The road narrowed, becoming little more than a dirt track winding through dense forest.
“How did you find out?” I asked finally. “About Kade.”
Reese sighed. “He shifted in front of me. It was pretty dramatic.”
“Dramatic how?”
“I thought I’d developed some new perimenopause hallucination symptom no one had bothered to warn me about.” She shot me a wry smile. “Spoiler alert: it wasn’t a hallucination.”
I wanted to laugh at that, but the sound died in my throat. My own perimenopausal symptoms had been wreaking havoc on my life for months, if not years. What if I was hallucinating all of this?
“This is real, right?” The question barely made it past my lips. “I’m not losing my mind?”
“You’re not losing your mind. I promise.” Reese navigated a sharp turn, branches scraping against the truck’s sides. “Although I suppose if you were, that would be something your mind would tell you.”
The road climbed steeper, the trees closing in until sunlight barely penetrated the canopy above. My stomach twisted with each switchback, though whether from the winding road or anticipation, I couldn’t say.
Ten minutes of increasingly narrow roads later, Reese slowed the truck. The trees opened up ahead, revealing a clearing. Two ATVs were parked at the edge, and my breath caught.
Lucan stood talking to Kade. He wore only shorts, no shirt or shoes, and the sunshine played across his bare chest and shoulders. My body responded, heat flooding through me that had nothing to do with hot flashes.
I stared, confused by my reaction. My libido had been nonexistent for months, another casualty of hormonal chaos.
Yet looking at Lucan now, I felt my body waking up.
There was also a strange pull in my chest, like it wanted me to go to him.
I’d experienced it before, but it was much stronger this time.
“Are you okay?” Reese had parked and was watching me with concern.
“Fine.” I unbuckled my seatbelt, my hands surprisingly steady. “Let’s get this over with.”
I climbed out of the truck but turned back to grab the bear spray out of my purse. I might not have been able to find it the night before, but I’d since moved it to a pocket that wasn’t a black hole.
Lucan’s gaze locked with mine as I shut the door. The pull in my chest intensified, and I pressed my hand to my chest. His eyes dropped to my other hand, and a smile broke out across his face.
It was the first time I’d seen him smile like that. There was something disarming about it that made the surrounding forest seem brighter. I hadn’t even realized his other smiles had been guarded and tamped down.
This was happening, and whatever the hell this was, I was going to face it.
I was ready.