Nathan talked with her for a few more minutes and said that he was tired. He got off the phone and hoped that he had done enough damage control. The last thing he needed was for Nancy to pop up. She had never done it before, but it was like some kind of women's intuition or something. She knew something was afoot and different and she was trying to figure it out. Only problem was, if she figured it out, there would be hell to pay, and it wouldn't only be him that had to pay it. Him and Laurel.
He went to bed, hoping he made the right decision to invite Laurel to stay with him. He knew it was risky in more ways than one, but he hadn't been able to stop himself from offering. She needed it, just as much as he did. Nathan didn’t like to imagine that he had put Laurel in danger, but the conversation with Nancy told him that it was the truth. She was dangerous, and he never should have brought Laurel there.
Chapter 9
“Who the hell are you!?” That was the question screamed at Laurel to get her to wake up. It did its job, too. She bolted out of bed and squinted her eyes to get them to adjust faster to the woman that was standing over her bed with a bright red face. It took a minute for her to realize that it was Nancy. Laurel had no idea what she was doing there. It was quite clear that she wasn't happy to see Laurel there, though. When she yelled the same question at her again, Laurel tried to explain.
Instead of listening to her, though, she hauled off and hit her when the answer was not given quick enough. Laurel saw stars and her head moved back with the impact. She’d never been hit like that before, ever.
“You heard me, human! I asked you a damn question! What are you doing here staying at my husband's house?”
Laurel was not used to violence. She had seen a lot of it the last couple of years, especially in the shifter community, but she had never really had it purported against her, and she didn't know what to do. In actuality, she was pretty well shocked about it. It was far easier to handle the stinging of her face than the harsh words coming out of Nancy’s mouth. Not just that, not only she was yelling at her and smacking her across the face, but she was lying as well. Laurel knew damn well that Nancy wasn't married to Nathan, not yet.
“You are destined to be together and all that, but you don't have him yet.” For some reason, Laurel felt like that was the best thing to say in the situation.
Laurel was just mad at the cruel woman who had just hit her, and she knew that she would be no match for her physically, but Laurel had learned long ago that words could bite just as badly, sometimes even worse.
“Oh, you think you know what's going on between me and Nathan, do you?”
“Yes, I know that you guys were set up before you even met and he’s not yours yet.”
“That's because he was always to be mine, fate has made up her mind. A man has one true mate and that is me. So, what the hell are you doing here?”
Again, she asked the question, but didn't really wait for the answer. She started to attack Laurel again, and Laurel felt a surge of anger of which she had never felt before. It was so strong, that it actually took her breath away. She didn't know how to respond, looking at Nancy for only a moment before something happened.
Her vision and senses, her hearing, all suddenly became sharper. She felt the blow from Nancy, like it was now child’s play. She saw the woman's shocked look on her face, right before she started to change and grow.
Laurel was scared to death and while she wanted to retreat, she didn't want to turn her back on such an enemy, either. Instead of waiting to be attacked again, she backed into the wall and started to put her hands up, like they were somehow going to ward off the fire that was about to come out of the woman's mouth. Laurel had been around dragons enough to know what was going to happen next. She also knew that she probably wasn't going to live through it. What a hell of a thing to realize, Laurel thought to herself.
It was only when she looked at the hands in front of her that she had thrown up to save herself, that she got the surprise of a lifetime. She also started to understand why Nancy was looking at her the way she was. Something was different about her. Her hands were gone. They had become talons, instead. She was also growing at a rapid pace, which she only realized as the ground got further and further away. After a moment, Laura didn't know how, but she knew what was happening. She had seen it many times before. She was shifting into a dragon!
All of this was going through her head, being figured out and being worked through, the whole time that Nancy came toward her. She braced herself for impact, but then it didn't come. She had opened her own mouth, not sure what she was going to do, but convinced that she was going to stop the woman from killing her. It had just been pure instinct from that point on.
*
(Nathan)
“Huh? What the hell is going on in here!”
Nathan looked at Laurel, and he had the same confused look on his face that his mate did. Maybe at first he didn't realize who she was, but then he did, and he was just as shocked as Laurel herself.
“You're a…?” He couldn't finish the sentence. Nancy came toward Laurel again and he stopped her. Nancy was being just as violent as he knew she would be. Guilt washed over him, but something else.Curiosity?
He didn’t know what was going on in front of him. How was this possible?
While he was holding his mate back, he asked Laurel if she could shift back into her human form. She was too big for the inside, they both were, and stuff was getting knocked off and broken as the two moved.
*
(Laurel)
Laurel shook her dragon head. She realized rather quickly that she couldn't talk in her current form, remembering she had heard it was the same for Nathan. Why did she want her voice back so badly?
“Nathan, forget about that bitch! You need to tell me what the hell is going on here! Now!”
Finally, he looked over at Nancy and he asked her blandly what she was doing there. She had turned back into her human form, dying to tell him off no doubt, but like always, he didn’t really want to hear from her.
“What am I doing here?! The real question is what isshedoing here?”
