AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mason wouldn’t say.”
Oh shit. Damon had sent Mason, the Beast Boar, to pick her up? She hadn’t even realized he knew how to fly choppers.
“Here,” Kong said, shoving a half-melted candy bar into her hands. “Good luck!”
He jogged off as she stood there with her hands out, wondering what the heck was happening. Good gah, today was just getting weirder and weirder. She made her way to the chopper, hunched under the pressure of the wind. Kru was in the back already, face somber. Okaaay. Jenna climbed in beside him and took her seat, then put on the headset that Kru handed her. Before she could even ask what was happening, the chopper lurched upward.
She rushed to buckle.
Kru’s voice came over the headset. “Dude, if we crash, you can just fly away. You don’t need a seatbelt.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never been in one of these things. What is happening?”
Kru shrugged up his shoulders. “Hell if I know. If I had to guess? I would say we’re headed to the lair of the dragon.”
Holy shit. In all her years, she’d never been in Damon Daye’s mountainside mansion.
“You gonna eat that?” Kru asked, pointing to her candy bar.
“Umm, I guess not.” She handed it over. “Hi, Mason. Long time no see.”
“Three weeks, at least,” the pilot, and Damon’s right-hand man, said over the headset as he guided the chopper toward the mountains.
“How’s Air Ryder doing?”
“He and Lexi are expecting another baby.” The pride in Mason’s voice was thick, and drew a smile to her lips. “They’re coming in for the PR Barbecue next week. All of Harper’s Mountains will be here that whole week.”
“It’ll be like old times,” she murmured. Except for Lucas. She could see the running written all over his face this morning. She would be surrounded by the people she loved, but not the one she loved the most. “Stop,” she uttered, squeezing her eyes closed.
Kru’s hand squeezed her shoulder in a gesture that was shockingly caring. He gave her a lopsided, sympathetic smile. “Some of them leave,” was all he said.
Great. Did everyone in Smashland know what had happened?
Small towns worked like that—where everyone knew everyone else’s business. By tomorrow, the entirety of Damon’s Mountains would know about her rejection.
She blew out a slow breath and watched the woods below them. It was a familiar sight. She always flew this high when she was Changed.
The sheer cliff face Damon’s home was etched into looked like a postcard. A waterfall trailed down one side, and a huge notch was taken out of the top of the cliff from a war Damon had with a rival dragon years ago. The greenery in front of the entryway at the base of the cliff was perfectly landscaped, and they landed slowly on a helicopter pad a couple hundred yards away from the front door. As she and Kru got out, she could see someone waiting for them just outside the halo of wind generated from the helicopter blades.
Cadence stood there with her arms crossed over her chest. She waved, and Jenna reciprocated.
“Okay, so the dragon has brought in most of the Crew,” Kru said over the noise of the chopper.
Mason cut the engine and slid out, leaving his headset behind. “This way.”
He led them to Cadence and then in through the front door.
“What’s going on?” she asked Cadence, but all she answered was, “An ultimatum.”
Kru exchanged a hell-if-I-know glance with Jenna and then they went to work removing their shoes in the sprawling entryway. It was cavernous, and an enormous black chandelier hung from the rock ceiling. The home was an eclectic mix of bare stone wall and wood. The marble tile beneath their feet was pristine white and squeaky clean.
“Smells like grizzly in here,” Kru murmured under his breath.
“Clara is a grizzly.”
“Different bear,” Kru said.
And that’s when her falcon vision kicked in. Down a long, dark hallway, she saw a familiar pair of eyes reflecting oddly in the dim light. One was silver, and one was blue.
