Page 17 of Cold Foot Sentry (Wreck’s Mountains #6)

So, humans did have survival instincts after all.

Tawk was to her in one leap. The asphalt buckled under his landing and split the road. He didn’t feel his wings rip from his back this time. Not like when he’d fucked her. This time was painless.

“What the hell?” Misty uttered softly.

Tawk placed himself between Tammy and Conner and said it again. “Go inside and lock the damn door.”

Tammy slid an angry glare to him, and then back to Connor. “Whatever you say, neighbor ,” she gritted out, and then left without looking back.

“That’s new,” Connor said, twitching his chin toward his wings. “Jess must be feeding you well.”

Tawk wasn’t about to explain that he’d also eaten the damn cursed locket and all of its dark power, so he said simply, “Whatever you say.”

“Hey, Connor,” Misty called. “Maybe we should just go.”

Connor cast his attention to the house where Tammy had disappeared inside. There was an ache inside of Tawk’s chest still from hurting her, and he just wanted these assholes to leave so he could explain.

Chk-chk . The sound of a shotgun being cocked echoed through the quiet of the night.

Tammy came from the shadows of her dark house holding a shotgun steady and aimed right at Connor.

He took it back. She didn’t have survival instincts at all.

“You sure you want to do that?” There was a strange hunger in Connor’s tone.

“I know who you are,” Tammy ground out, her eyes locked intensely on Connor. “I know who ate your hand. I heard the stories.”

“Mmm, not just a human neighbor then, are you? You know the Cold Foot Crew.”

“Wreck will be here in about thirty fuckin’ seconds, so I would suggest you make like a cow, and mooove along.”

A laugh escaped Tawk before he could stop himself. Okay, Tammy looked hot holding a shotgun but that cow joke was going to have him randomly laughing for the next few days.

Connor’s eyes narrowed on Tammy, and they were glowing the light blue of his animal. He wanted to kill her. Tawk could feel his aggression.

“Steady, Connor,” Tawk warned.

“Or what?” Connor asked. “You think your human will be able to pull the trigger? I don’t think so.”

“Well, that’s why they don’t pay you for thinking,” Tammy said, then jutted her chin at Connor’s face.

“That’s a nasty cut you got there, but it’s already healing.

That shifter healing is something else.” She gripped the butt of the gun firmer to her shoulder.

“I wonder if you could re-grow your face.” Her finger dropped down to rest on the trigger.

Tawk was stuck. He should be getting between Connor and Tammy, but first of all this was hot as hell watching her do her thing, and second of all he didn’t really feel like Tammy needed his help in this moment.

Connor could Change and charge her all he wanted, but the way she was comfortable holding that weapon, she’d probably have two shots in his hide before he could reach her.

Did he want Tammy to announce that she was a part of any of this to the Sister’s Edge cast-offs?

Hell no. Did he find it highly attractive that she had ignored his order to stay inside, and called the Cold Foot Crew for back-up, and came out here toting a weapon like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to do? Yup.

He didn’t need the back-up, and someday she was going to figure that out, but he did like that she wasn’t scared of Connor even a little. Tawk scented the air, and nope. No scent of fear.

Tammy was definitely crazy.

In this moment, Tawk realized he liked crazy.

A whoosh of power blasted through the night sky above them, shaking the ground under their feet, and bending the branches of the neighborhood trees. Heat blistered his skin, and this part, he didn’t want Tammy feeling.

Wreck was here.

Tammy gasped at the heat, but Tawk was already there, yanking the weapon from her hands, pulling her to his chest and wrapping his wings around her to protect her skin from whatever Wreck intended.

The ground shook beneath his feet and he knew Wreck had landed.

He could hear Connor and the others retreating. They were cussing up a storm as they went, and there it was—there was the scent of fear.

Samuel’s stupid, “I’m not afraid of Wreck,” comment flittered across Tawk’s mind as he turned to watch Jess’s brother scramble into the SUV.

Everyone should be afraid of Wreck.

“Shit,” he murmured as a wave of flames blasted down the road right for the SUV. A figure engulfed in flames was walking, hand out, fire and lava pouring from his palm.

Whatever was happening was filling Tawk up, feeding him, and the scent of magic filled the air. His blood boiled and he hugged Tammy tighter to him, trying to use her as an anchor to this world.

The SUV tried to run right through Wreck, but the flaming figure pushed both hands out and lifted the car and slammed it into the side of a tree. It buckled in half.

Holy fuck,” Tammy whispered in horror.

There were no survivors from what Wreck had just done.

There was no movement from the SUV.

A rumble escaped Tawk as he released Tammy and made his way toward the rubble. It burst into flames.

“What are you doing?” Tammy screamed.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t have an answer.

All he knew was he needed to…needed to…keep Jess safe.

Keep Jess safe?

The scent of magic filled his head, filled his soul.

The dragon ripped from him suddenly, and he was sky-bound, beating his wings against the air currents as they stretched and grew.

The pain of the Change didn’t even exist in this moment.

He was in his mostly-human form one moment, and a dragon the next.

No pain, no shattering of bones, or stretching of muscle, or ripping of skin.

He circled back to the wreckage. God, the wind felt good against his scales.

No one was coming out of their houses yet.

They would be pouring into the street at any moment, their cell phones up, capturing video for the nightly news.

They would catch the phoenix and the dragon killing.

Wreck’s Mountains would be finished after tonight.

For some reason, that realization didn’t stop his trajectory toward the wreckage. He blew fire across the already engulfed SUV and then dipped down to devour the ashes of the burning grass around it. He needed another minute for the SUV to melt down.

Tammy was screaming something, but he couldn’t understand her words. Something hit him across the face once, twice.

Ignoring the sting, he scooped ashes and twitched his head skyward as he swallowed the magic-laced ashes down his long throat, headed for the stars once more.

“Tawk! Stop!” Tammy screamed.

He could hear her. He could understand her words, and something about the desperation in them did something awful to him. He fell from the sky. He fell fast. Too fast. He catapulted to earth and slammed back into…himself.

Tawk opened his eyes and was shocked to his bones to find his hands around Connor’s polar bear’s throat. The massive bear was on the ground, in the middle of the road, eyes rolled back in his head, his air passage completely cut off by Tawk’s steel grip on him.

What the hell?

He forced himself to release the bear and Tammy yanked him back and slapped him. “Come back to me, Tawk!” she shrieked, and he could see it—the fear in her eyes. The confusion.

“What…” He staggered a few feet away from the still bear and stared down at his hands, then glanced up into the sky. He was just flying though. He was devouring ashes. But his mouth didn’t taste like ashes. The tree that had destroyed the SUV was still standing strong and tall, and the SUV…the SUV…

It was angled in the middle of the road fifty yards away. Misty and Samuel were standing beside the open driver’s side door and were looking at something behind him with such horror in their eyes.

The delicious scent of magic was thicker than he’d ever felt it, and the air was electric with something he had only felt once in his lifetime—the night he’d devoured the cursed necklace.

He turned slowly to find Jess standing leaning against his truck in the street. Her eyes were glowing strangely, and there was an intensity there that he’d never seen before.

Connor’s animal retreated from his body, and as he Changed to his human form, he gasped desperately for air. He scrambled unsteadily toward the battered SUV where Samuel and Misty were yelling for him to run.

Wreck and all of his fire were nowhere to be seen. Only Jess.

“Tawk,” Tammy whispered shakily.

“Tammy broke it,” Jess said easily, lifting her chin. “Interesting.”

“Broke what?” Tawk gritted out.

A slow smile stretched across Jess’s face. “She broke the illusion.”

With a frown, he looked at where Connor was sprinting toward the SUV, then back to Jess. Slowly, Tawk moved Tammy behind him. Jess was different now. She was filling the entire neighborhood with dark and unfamiliar magic.

“You’ve been practicing things you should not,” he said carefully.

Jess’s emotionless smile grew wider. “You like it?”

“No.” He shook his head and said it again, softer. “No. You used my dragon. That was a long way from putting my animal to sleep, Jess. You made my body do something I didn’t fucking sign up for! I would’ve killed him.”

Jess shrugged up a shoulder. “The world would be better without Connor Edge.”

Part of him understood. Part of him could see where she was coming from. Connor had forced their pairing, and then hunted her down here. He knew Connor’s intentions included revenge on Jess. But still…If Tawk was to protect anyone in that way, he didn’t want to be pushed into it.

“My dragon is mine,” he said.

Jess shook her head slowly, and the smile faded from her lips. “No Tawk. If you stay here and pledge fealty to Wreck’s Mountains, your dragon belongs to the mountains. He belongs to Wreck. He belongs to Damon, and he belongs to the food source.”

Tawk huffed a dark laugh and shook his head, pissed. “You mean my dragon belongs to you.”

“And my powers will benefit you.”

“This is fucked up, Jess.”

“This is the reality of Sentry Dragon and Witch relationships. You’ll do what the mountains need.”

“I called Wreck,” Tammy said from behind him.

“Wreck sent me,” Jess said. “Kade is on his way too.”

“How did you get here so fast?” Tawk asked, needing to know how far she had stretched and warped her powers.

The smile was back. Jess disappeared into a poof of orange smoke. Her whispered words surrounded them. “Who says I’m here at all?”

Chills rippled up Tawk’s spine as the whisper disappeared and the scent of magic faded to nothing.

“What the hell just happened?” Tammy murmured.

His wings had retracted sometime during Jess’s mind control. He hadn’t Changed, but right now, his dragon was clawing at his skin to escape. “I need to Change,” he rumbled. Even his voice couldn’t pass as human.

“Tawk,” Tammy said, breath rushed. “What just happened?”

He cracked his knuckles and made his way to the broken car door, still sitting in the road. He grabbed it and strode for his rental house, pushed open the door and set it inside.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Garret wouldn’t like you going in his house!”

“It’s mine for now,” he gritted out. He grabbed a broom from the garage and a bucket and strode past her, mind racing. That was so fucking disturbing that Jess could control him like that.

“Okay, so you…you…moved in here?” she asked, following him to the street.

In a rush, he swept at the broken glass. His skin was on fire right now. “I need to Change.”

“Okay…okay! Let me do this. You do the dragon thing.”

She sounded angry, and he rounded on her. “Tammy—”

“No, it’s fine. This is shifter shit right? Don’t tell the human. Don’t worry, I’m not offended, Tawk. I’m just your neighbor.” She spat the last part out at him, and yanked the broom from his hand, then angrily began sweeping up broken glass. “I can clean up the mess.”

He couldn’t see straight, couldn’t think straight.

Wreck was scary enough, and so were the shifters under him.

He knew what they were…but Jess? Jess had the power to make him believe Connor and Samuel and Misty were burning and he’d prepared to eat their ashes without any control over his own dragon.

He was disturbed down to his bones right now.

Tammy’s shotgun was lying in the middle of her yard, the street was littered in sparkling broken glass, Tammy still smelled faintly of fear.

She broke the illusion.

He needed to thank Tammy for whatever she’d done to bring him back to himself, but right now, he just needed to be in the air with the wind against his scales so he could bring all of his racing thoughts into focus.

“I’ll come back,” he promised, backing toward the trees.

“Do whatever you want,” she murmured, but he could hear it—the hurt in her voice. He could see it in the rim of moisture that sat in her eyes that she was trying to hide from him.

Fuck. His chest was aching with every step he backed away from her, but he had to go. He had to get himself together and the only way to do that was to stop fighting the dragon.

He’d just fed.

It was a huge feed. Perhaps the biggest he’d ever had, and he was tingling with power.

In this moment as he turned around and shook his head, regretting so much, for the first time in his life, he wished he wasn’t this. He wished he wasn’t a Sentry Dragon. He wished he didn’t have this power. Wished he didn’t need to be tethered to a witch for purpose and for food.

He wished he didn’t have to leave the woman who was dragging at his heart right in this moment, when she was confused and scared and cleaning up his fucking mess.

He wished he was normal.

She broke the illusion. Jess had said that with surprise in her voice.

Yeah. Tammy was breaking the illusion he had of himself too.