Turning to the repentant teen, I punctuate each word, hoping it’ll stick with him. “It’s not. Your. Fault. Bad people do shitty things, and it’s nobody’s fault but their own. The rest of us are just doing the best we can.”
He hastily wipes at his cheeks, nodding, but doesn’t look up. It snaps Kodi out of his hostile rant, dragging a hand over his face. “She’s right. I’m pissed off at myself for fucking up, and blaming you.” Clapping the guy’s shoulder, he gives a reassuring squeeze. “You made the right call. Could’ve got yourself shot by the other while patting the first down.”
“Speaking of,” Raiden seethes, stroking my head a little more aggressively, “Why didn'tyoustop the bullets?”
Kodi clenches his jaw and grabs a plastic looking gun from his waistband, tossing it at Raiden’s feet. “Polymer. There wasn’t shit I could do.”
Interrupting their bickering is a groggy, “Amara?”
“Stone.” A massive weight is lifted off my chest as I leave the others to argue amongst themselves, helping Stone sit up. “What the hell happened?”
He doesn’t answer as we get him upright, his head lolling. Sluggishly, he presses his hand to my stomach and slurs, “How badly are you hurt?”
Glancing down, it’s the first time I’ve noticed that my shirt is covered in blood.Hisblood. Tears gather in my eyes as I shake my head, guilt threatening to suffocate me. “I’m fine. Not even a scratch.”
He releases a shaky exhale. "Good.”
I get my first good look at his face, and things start to make sense. His pupils are pinpricks, eyes glazed over like he's drugged off his ass. Speech slurred, he asks, “Others take care of it?” and tries to stand up, ignoring my protests.
Raiden catches his arm as he wavers on his feet. “Deep breaths, Stone. We’ve got them subdued, but I need you to focus for me. Can you still access your abilities? Or do you just feel drunk?”
Forehead scrunched up in concentration, chest heaving with panting breaths, he finally makes a claw. It may only last two seconds, but it’s enough to rule out one horrible scenario. They weren’t aiming to kill, just incapacitate.
Weird how that doesn’t make me feel better.
“Who were you planning to deliver her to?” Kodi demands, snapping his arm band into a slender dagger and pressing the tip to the throat of one of the humans bound at his feet.
The man swallows hard, a tendril of blood snaking out as his Adam's apple brushes the blade. “Her husband.” Another fearful swallow, his eyes wide as he realizes how massively over his head he’s in. “Raiden Garrison put a bounty out for his wife’s safe return.”
Raiden facepalms. “I'mRaiden Garrison, you incompetent buffoon.” He glowers at them. “Your idea of returning her safely was fuckingshooting herwith polymer tranqs? Look at the damage they did!”
They look over at Stone’s ravaged side, the bleeding barely more than a trickle now, but the damage is obvious. The man at Dominic’s feet pales. “We didn’t realize how much difference firing from close range would be, but I swear, we neverplanned to shoother. The plan was to knock out the guy holding her hostage, tag him, grab her, and run. Nobody gets hurt, we could give you your wifeandhis location without having to haul him around too, and everybody walks away happy. I swear.”
Raiden sighs, two fingers circling his temple as he turns to Dom. “May I borrow your phone again, please?”
“What the hell are they talking about, Raiden?”
Running a hand through his shoulder-length, dark hair, Raiden sheepishly explains, “I may have… roped the humans into our quest to find you.”
I blink, then blink again. “I’m sorry, youwhat?”
Phone in hand, Raiden types away. “I put a bounty on Malcolm’s head, and for my wife’s safe return. Come to think of it, I suppose that means you get the reward money; remind me when we get a chance to transfer it into your account.” He carries on releasing announcements on social media, spreading the news that I’ve been found and calling off the money-hungry dogs.
“So it wasn’t actually my fault the humans found out about dragons?”
The bounty hunters look like they’ve seen a ghost, eyeing the half-naked men around them in blatant fear. Eyes closed, Stone rubs his head with a low chuckle. “No, beautiful, that would be when Kodiak and I went on a mass murdering spree tearing through packs of Malcolm sympathizers searching for any sign of where he was keeping you.”
Kodiak nudges one of the humans with his foot in disgust. “I don’t think they’ve figured out the shifter aspect yet, but it’s only a matter of time; especially if we leave witnesses.”
They start struggling in earnest, but I barely spare them a second glance, rubbing my temples and making sense of this shit-show. “You’re telling me that it’s not only your enemies and Malcolms’ people that want to kill us now, but nearly every fucking shifter on earth because we broke theone ruleyou’ve held them all accountable for by punishment of death?Plusthe humans that’ll want to hunt us down like monsters and experiment on us?”
Raiden grimaces. “Well it sounds bad when you phrase it likethat.”
Dominic half-heartedly raises his hand. “We have no interest in killing ‘ya.” He nudges one of the bound humans with his foot. “And who’s going to believe these guys if they start blabbing? We’ve been fielding werewolf stories and the like for centuries; it’s actually easier now that technology has gotten better. Even if someone catches a shifter on video, people assume it’s movie magic or edited.”
Marginally, my shoulders relax. “Fair point. I’ve still got that favor from Evren we could cash in, too. I’m sure he could pull a few strings to spin the story and make the dragon sightings out to be a hoax or advertising trick to promote a new movie coming out.”
Dom whips his gaze to mine. “Hold the fuck up.Evrenowes you a favor? How the hell did you manage to con him into that?” Before I can respond, he looks over at Raiden, mouth parted in shock. “You can’t let her waste it on this, you know they’ll discredit the news themselves if you guys keep your heads down for a while.”
